Serpents in the Garden (The Graham Saga)

by Anna Belfrage

  Kate shook her head. “A matter of weeks, no more; halfway through May, I think. But it’s been a difficult pregnancy, and I think she would have preferred it not to happen. But William so wants another son, little Willie is somewhat frail.”

  “It might be a daughter,” Alex said – or kill the mother.

  “Let’s hope for a boy,” Kate said, “a healthy, strong son.”

  They spent a couple of minutes on more small talk before Kate hurried off, saying she had a cargo of sugar to inspect.

  “I thought I’d made it very clear that Ruth isn’t marrying Henry Jones,” Alex said to Matthew once Kate was out of earshot.

  “And I told you we haven’t finished discussing it.” Matthew nodded in the direction of the barber’s. “He’s a good-looking lad.”

  Alex turned to look at the eldest Jones boy. Tall and big, with his mother’s honey-coloured hair, he was talking to Mr Farrell’s son. Yes, he was handsome, and his clothes were of excellent cut, his boots polished to a shine, and, as she watched, he threw his head back and laughed loudly, revealing a lot of teeth.

  “Do you really want to risk holding a grandchild that stares up at you with Dominic Jones’ piggy eyes? Because, let me tell you, I definitely don’t!”

  “It’s a good match,” Matthew said mulishly.

  “A match that won’t happen, okay?” Alex gripped the handle of her heavy basket and hurried away from him before she do something really stupid like slap him for being an inconsiderate idiot. How could he think she’d want their daughter to marry the son of his former lover?

  *

  Matthew watched her out of sight and hitched his shoulders. Ultimately, he’d do as he pleased in this matter, and Ruth would do well out of a marriage with Henry Jones – very well. He approached the two young men and shared some words with them, all the while sizing young Jones up. Very much like his mother, he noted with relief; nothing of his father in his eyes or face, except for a certain tightness of the mouth.

  Young Farrell was saying something with marked agitation, and Matthew forced himself back to the conversation, shaking his head in amazement as he listened to the tale that was spilling out of the younger man’s mouth. With a mumbled excuse, he hastened off to find his wife.

  “…and so the new slave ran away,” Matthew said, “taking with him a further ten or twelve of the Farrell slaves.”

  “How did he manage that?” Alex asked.

  “They just walked off the plantation back in February, him still in chains. They forced the local smith to strike the irons off them and disappeared into the woods.” He threw her a worried look. “They caught them three days ago, after nigh on two months of freedom. Half-starved they were, and some of them most grateful to be captured.”

  “What will happen to them?”

  “They’ve brought him into town. He’s going to be punished publicly tomorrow.”

  “And the others?”

  Matthew didn’t answer. He hadn’t enjoyed listening to young Farrell’s detailed description of the floggings.

  “You won’t be going,” was all he said.

  *

  Alex found the place they were holding him after hours of walking her way here and there through Providence. She should have thought of this immediately. Of course Farrell’s slave would be held in Farrell’s house, not in the makeshift holding cells belonging to the town buildings. She’d never been anywhere close to the impressive Farrell home before, had only exchanged nods with Mrs Farrell on her previous visits to town, and as she stood looking into the cobbled yard, she had no idea how to reach the poor man. All she knew was that she had to try and set him free, whatever the risk to herself.

  She shivered and moved closer to the fencing. She knew where he was, because she could hear him, continuous sounds of something that sounded like despair and fear. She eyed the heavy doors to the storage shed and gnawed her lip. Somehow, she suspected waltzing across the yard with a chirpy ‘hello’ wasn’t going to work very well.

  She strolled by the house, turned up the small dirt track that led up to the meetinghouse, and stood looking for some time at the narrow overgrown passage that bordered the back of the Farrell complex. After ascertaining no one was about, she ducked into it and made her way towards the buildings, cursing at the amount of offal and garbage that lay in heaps along the way.

  “Hello?” Alex heaved herself up as high as she could get, her feet scrabbling for purchase on the planks. The muted sounds from inside stopped briefly before resuming. Alex dropped down, hunted about, and found a discarded stool that she dragged back to stand on. Her nose cleared the lower sill of the small light gap, and she looked down at a man who was staring back at her with a mad glint in his eyes. He was in leg irons, the chain wound round a pole.

  “Are you okay?” Alex said.

  “Okay?” The man laughed weakly. “She asks if I’m okay…” His head snapped up. “Okay?”

  Alex nodded. “Yeah, one of those expressions as yet not invented.”

  “No way!” The man struggled to sit. He squinted at her. “Lucky you, you’re white.”

  “Yes, I suppose that helps. What have they done to you?” Her eyes rushed over a body that looked very much the worse for wear.

  “Done?” He coughed and dragged at his feet. “First, they stripped me, then they branded me on my butt, and then they dragged me out to work in the fields.” He held up large hands in her direction. “I’m a musician,” he said with irony. “I play the piano – Beethoven sonatas mostly. I never will again, will I?” Two fingers had been broken and inexpertly set. “Not that I’ll ever see a piano again.” He closed his eyes and emitted a low whimper. “I wanna go home. I hate this fucking place, and I’m still not sure what happened. All that thunder, and the ground kind of caved in, you know? So much light; bright, bright light.”

  Alex shivered, recalling with precision her own fall through time. Terrible, goddamn awful, and she’d been fortunate enough to end up at Matthew’s feet, not like this poor guy, landing in a time and place in which he was automatically taken for a slave.

  “You were on a crossroads, right?”

  He nodded. “Just outside of Salisbury.” He eyed her hopelessly. “There’s no way back, is there?”

  “Not as such.”

  He groaned and hid his face in his hands. “God, I hope they kill me tomorrow, because I sure don’t want to live like this.”

  Alex wanted very much to touch him or take his hand, but there was no way she could reach him, just as there was nothing she could say. “What’s your name?” she asked instead.

  “My name?” He coughed again. “Apparently my name is Noah. I’ve been forcibly christened, even if I tried to tell them I was already baptised.” He studied his hands in silence. “Leon, my name is Leon White. Ironic, huh?”

  A rough hand yanked Alex off her perch, and she fell heavily to her knees.

  *

  “Mistress Graham?” Mr Farrell looked her up and down when she was marched into his yard.

  “Master Farrell.” She curtsied, glaring at the man who was holding her arm.

  “She was conversing with the runaway slave,” the man informed Mr Farrell.

  “Now, why would you do that, Mistress Graham?” Mr Farrell nodded at the man, who unhanded her.

  “Curiosity, I suppose,” Alex replied, trying to look shamefaced. “My husband won’t allow me to witness the punishment tomorrow, and I’d heard it was a huge man, black as the night with red eyes.” She shrugged and tried out a discontented pout. “He looked rather ordinary to me.”

  Mr Farrell looked at her and burst out laughing. “Disappointed, my dear?” He shook his head and rearranged his features into a mask of severity. “I’ll have your husband sent for, to accompany you home. I dare say he’ll punish you as he sees fit.”

  *

  “I have a good mind to belt you,” Matthew hissed, a firm grip on her arm as he led her towards the inn. “The lasses have been so concerned for you
, fearing all kinds of things, and then I’m summoned to collect you as if you were a recalcitrant child! What were you thinking of?”

  “I was going to set him free, but that was kind of impossible to achieve, wasn’t it?”

  “I will belt you,” he promised and tightened his hold.

  “You try that, Matthew Graham, and let’s see in what shape your balls emerge,” she spat back.

  He stopped and shook her.

  “Ow!”

  “You’re my wife and you’ll do as I say.”

  “You didn’t tell me not to, did you?” she pointed out logically.

  Matthew groaned, but released his hold. “I didn’t think you’d attempt something that half-brained.” He took her hand instead. “Mr Farrell has decided not to punish him here, on account of it being too much for female sensibilities. Instead, he’ll take him down to the slave docks and there make an example of him.”

  “Will he die?” she quavered, imagining one torture worse than the other.

  “Die?” Matthew looked away. “Oh no, Alex. Yon Noah has assured himself a long and painful life of servitude.” Much, much worse than dying, his voice told her.

  “Leon,” Alex corrected, “his name is Leon.”

  Matthew sighed. “Leon then. But by the time he dies, he won’t remember.”

  *

  It was well after midnight when Alex gave up on sleep. Beside her, Matthew slept heavily, and on their pallets her girls were lost in dreamland, one sprawled on her back, the other curled into a ball. Alex rose and tiptoed through the room, collecting her clothes and shoes as she went. The door creaked. Alex held her breath and counted to fifty, but neither Matthew nor the girls as much as stirred. She opened the door wider and squeezed out onto the landing. Behind her, she heard Ruth cough.

  Five minutes later, Alex hurried through the darkened streets of Providence, clutching the chisel and mallet she’d lifted from the inn’s stables. Her stomach contracted into a hollow of fear, and every few paces she hesitated, thinking that maybe she should go back, because this little excursion could really backfire. But there was no choice, not if she wanted to be able to live with herself, and so she pushed on, nearly dying of fright when a male voice cut through the night. She shrank into a nearby bush. The voice was complemented by other voices, and a group of men walked by, leaving a stench of piss and beer and general grime in their wake.

  There was no moon, so she walked almost blind down the little passage that led to where Leon was being kept. She bumped into the shed, shoulder first. A few paces to the right, and she could make out the light gap she’d been peering through previously, now a dark rectangle in the stout wooden walls of the shed.

  “Leon?” she whispered, scratching at the wall. “Are you there?” No reply. Alex used the chisel to tap at the wall. “Leon?”

  “Uhh?” A hoarse cough, followed by the sound of chains scraping against the ground.

  Alex set the chisel to one of the planks, brought down the mallet, and winced at the loud splintering noise. There were no warning shouts, no barking dogs, and so she did it again, pleasantly surprised by how rotten the lower end of the planks were. In a matter of minutes, she’d created a hole, and after one last look round, she slithered through it.

  Leon was a dark shape a foot or so away from her.

  “Hi,” she said, and the big man laughed, a rather wheezy sound.

  “Hi,” he replied, “how’s things?”

  “Stressful,” she said, using her hands to inspect the chain that fettered him. The sound the chisel made on the iron links was like that of a loud gong.

  “Shit,” she said when a dog began barking.

  “Let me.” Leon took over mallet and chisel. He must have skinned himself at some point because she heard him suck in breath, but he drove the mallet down furiously several times. The dog was at the shed doors, barking excitedly. From somewhere in the yard came a curse; booted feet rang over the cobbles.

  “Hurry!” Alex hissed.

  “I’m trying,” Leon hissed back, and finally the chain gave.

  The hole seemed smaller this time. Alex’s skirts got stuck, she couldn’t move forward or backwards, and now she could hear someone unlocking the door to the shed. Oh God, oh God. Any moment now and they’d be inside the shed, and how was she to explain this? She bit back a surprised gasp when hands grabbed at her shoulders. With a tearing sound, she was pulled outside. Matthew? Yes, Matthew, in shirt and breeches only.

  Leon came crawling after, but whatever advantage he had was shrinking fast, because there were angry shouts in the shed, and here came the dog, poking his head through the hole. Matthew kicked the animal, hard. The dog howled and retreated.

  “Go, run, man!” Matthew shoved Leon in the direction of the nearby alley. “Up,” he said to Alex, motioning towards the roof.

  “Here?” To Alex, that seemed a very bad idea. They’d be like cornered rats.

  “There’s no time!” He helped her up, heaved himself after, and they lay as flat as they could.

  In a matter of minutes, the area round the shed was full of men and dogs. Lanterns threw weak beacons of light on trampled grass. Mr Farrell himself made an appearance in nightshirt and coat, and, after having inspected the hole, he shrilly told his men to find the accursed slave, find him and bring him back – alive. Dogs bayed, the men set off at a steady trot, and it didn’t require all that much intelligence to conclude that the odds for Leon getting away were ridiculously low.

  Matthew had them remain on the roof until the sounds had faded in the distance. Once they were back on the ground, he crawled into the shed, returning seconds later with the chisel and mallet.

  “Can’t leave them here, can we?” he said, leading them off in the direction of the inn. He didn’t take her hand, he didn’t talk to her, and in the returning light, Alex could see just how angry he was in the set of his shoulders.

  They were passing the graveyard when Matthew came to an abrupt halt.

  “What?” Alex whispered.

  Matthew pointed down the road before throwing the chisel and mallet over the low graveyard wall. Towards them came a triumphant procession, headed by Farrell’s eldest son. Four men were dragging a gagged and tied Leon behind them, and Alex bit back on a sob at the sight of him. Bring him back alive, Mr Farrell had said, and alive Leon most definitely was, no matter that he looked as if he’d been savaged by the dogs.

  “Mr Graham!” Young Farrell stopped, eyes flying over Matthew and Alex. For a long time, his gaze lingered on the tear in Alex’s skirts, on her hands that she suddenly realised looked rather the worse for wear after worrying at the wall planks. She retreated to stand behind Matthew, clasping her hands behind her back.

  “Edward.” Matthew bowed slightly.

  “Out and about this early?” Edward Farrell asked, eyes drifting yet again to Alex, who gave him a weak smile.

  “As you see,” Matthew said with a shrug.

  “Ah, and may I enquire why?”

  “Is it of your concern?”

  “It may be. This slave…” He broke off to point at Leon. “…attempted to escape a few hours back, and how he succeeded in breaking his chains is a right mystery.” Edward pursed his mouth. “We suspect an accomplice.”

  “Not me,” Matthew said.

  “No, no, of course not! But mayhap your wife? She did show inordinate interest in the man earlier, did she not?”

  “Not my wife either,” Matthew said, sounding very affronted.

  “So why is it she is looking so…well, pardon me…dishevelled?”

  “She sleepwalks.” Matthew sighed. “A right nuisance it is, aye?”

  “Sleepwalks?” Edward gave Alex a curious look. “But she is fully dressed.”

  “Aye, this time. At times, she wanders round in shift and nowt else.”

  “Ah,” Edward said, an interested gleam in his eyes, as if he was imagining what she might look like in her chemise and nothing more. The young man bowed and stepped aside t
o give them precedence down the street. Matthew bowed back, offered his arm to Alex, and off they went. When they passed Leon, Alex threw the unfortunate man a sidelong look. Two dark eyes met hers, and the anguish in them tore her heart to shreds.

  “Sleepwalking?” she said as they approached the inn. He had dropped her hand the moment they had left the Farrell party behind.

  “I had to think of something.” He wheeled, bringing eyes an unusually light green very close to hers. “You are a fool. How could you do such?”

  “I had to.”

  “And have you helped him, do you think?”

  Alex looked away. If possible, she’d made things worse for the poor man.

  “Well? Have you?”

  “If he had gotten away…”

  “Gotten away? Where to? The man is, however unjustly, a branded slave! Someone would always find him.”

  “I…” She wet her lips. “…I just had to try, I guess.”

  “Fool,” he repeated, “and what if I hadn’t woken, what then? What if they’d apprehended you there in the shed?”

  Alex hitched her shoulders; she hadn’t really considered that part. “I guess Mr Farrell would have yelled a bit.”

  “Yelled a bit?” Matthew’s voice soared into a falsetto. “Dearest Lord, spare me! They’d have hanged you, Alex; for theft.”

  “Oh,” she said, her hand fluttering against her neck.

  “Aye, oh, indeed.” Matthew spat to the side and entered the inn, clearly not caring if she followed or not.

  Chapter 20

  Alex snuck into the room well after him, and it sufficed with one look for Matthew to conclude she’d been weeping – for the unfortunate Leon, he assumed.

  Daylight was seeping through the shutters, patterning the interior of the room in elongated streaks of light, but Matthew was so drained after the recent events that he just had to stretch out on the bed. He covered his face with his arm, peeking at his wife as she hesitantly moved in his direction. Thank you, Merciful Father, he prayed, thank you for Ruth’s cough that woke me, because if not…