Brethren

by W. A. Hoffman

  My aunt wafted into the room in a cloud of blue satin, and reminded me how regal my mother had been capable of appearing once upon a time. They were very similar in countenance. Thankfully there was no commonality between them in demeanor. My aunt embraced me and bid me welcome, before asking of my journey. There was no sincere emotion in it, but she was at least cheerful and polite in paying the courtesy due a guest. As I had often been a guest in gracious homes, I felt at ease in her presence. I knew how to deal with strangers I wished to get on well with. Thus I regaled her with trivial tales and complaints of my journey from Florence, rarely touching on the truth.

  My sisters arrived. They paused in the doorway, like two dogs unsure of an intruder’s intent. Was I to be barked at, or licked, or both? Elizabeth had grown into quite the beauty, with all the regal air my mother had once possessed and, once she made up her mind to enter, all of my aunt’s social talents. Her hair had darkened into a pleasant brown, like my mother’s. Her eyes were not my mother’s hazel, though, but the vivid blue of many of my father’s family, a color I shared with my uncle.

  Sarah was not as attractive as our sister. I assumed that, at seventeen, she had reached her full growth in both height and bosom. Both were short of Elizabeth’s measure in those areas by several inches. She still shared my blond hair, but she had my father’s misty grey-blue eyes. Unlike Elizabeth, she did not flow into the room in a rustle of satin to embrace me and welcome me home. She entered diffidently and kept her distance.

  I did not have time to approach her, as they had been closely followed by my cousin, the new Viscount Graeland, and his bride. He was still as sallow and knock-kneed as I remembered. Thankfully, the new Lady Graeland turned out to be a sweet, red-headed girl named Constance. I was immediately informed that she was with child. I complimented Graeland, as that seems to be what new fathers expect for accomplishing a thing they would dread with anyone but their wives. The Graelands three then pestered me for tales of my travels, and I mentioned cities I had visited and lived in. They, in turn, asked banal questions that made it apparent they had little understanding of geography or politics. Thankfully, they would never travel and embarrass England.

  Finally my father put in his appearance. I stood, and there was an awkward silence as we studied one another. He appeared much as I remembered; a little thicker about the middle, perhaps. I supposed his hair was a little thinner, but evidence of this was not available, as he was wigged. I had only seen him without a wig a half-dozen times, and his periwigs were as unchanging as the sheep pasture. There were dour lines about his eyes and mouth: not the crinkles of a man who laughs often, but the furrows of one who frowns a great deal. He finished perusing me and gave a small nod. “Lord Marsdale.”

  “Lord Dorshire.” I nodded and bowed in return.

  He nodded again, more to himself than anyone, and asked the butler to see to dinner being served quickly, since he had been so tardy and made us all wait.

  I wanted to scream. Here we were after all these years, and all I received was a mere acknowledgement. I supposed I should be grateful he still granted me the title he had bestowed upon me when he inherited his father’s.

  I followed the others into the dining hall, and took a seat at the middle of the table, with Elizabeth on one side, Lady Constance Graeland on the other, and Lord Graeland across from me. I quickly seized upon asking Elizabeth about her betrothed and her pending nuptials; and though it earned me the grimaces and glares of many at the table, I was left to eat in peace while she prattled on through three courses.

  At some point, my aunt smiled and said cheerily, “That is enough, dear,” and there was another awkward silence.

  “Will Shane be home for the holiday?” Lady Graeland asked. “I am sure he will want to see Lord Marsdale. You grew up together, did you not?”

  I was thankful I did not have food in my mouth, as I surely would have spat it onto her husband’s plate in surprise. I thought my father was going to choke; and only his brother’s pounding him on the back seemed to alleviate his duress. I studied everyone else. My aunt seemed ill-at-ease, but Lord Graeland appeared as confused as his wife over my father’s reaction. My mother was in a haze. Elizabeth looked unhappy. Sarah was the image of contained fury.

  “Nay,” my father gasped when he could breathe again.

  “Oh, well that is unfortunate,” Graeland said carefully, his eyes darting about, as if the truth of the matter were a fly he could possibly glimpse.

  “I am afraid I am to blame,” I said pleasantly. “It is best if Shane and I do not occupy the same building.”

  “Why?” Lady Graeland asked with startling naïveté.

  “One of us will kill the other,” I replied in the same pleasant tone of voice.

  “Do you think you are capable?” Sarah asked, as if she did not feel I would be.

  “Aye. How many men has Shane dueled?”

  She did not reply.

  “Killed?” I added.

  She blinked at that.

  “You?” she asked, as if I should not be questioning my betters.

  I counted, and remembered to add Vincente. “That I am sure of their death, and that were not merely wounded with the possibility of recovery, nineteen.”

  I studied her. She swallowed and would not return my gaze. I let my eyes drift to my father, and was amazed to see a smile twitch across his lips. He quickly masked it with a sip of wine. The rest were silent and appalled, except for my uncle, who was trying very hard not to laugh.

  “Were you involved in… well, military action?” Graeland asked hopefully.

  “Nay. Many were duels; most of the rest were cutthroats who had the appalling bad fortune to choose me as a victim.” I did not add that I had murdered several of the list.

  “And there have been no… repercussions?” my aunt asked.

  I shrugged. “There are several cities that it would be in my best interest not to return to.”

  “Give me a list sometime,” my father said, “so that in the event we have family business there, I do not make the mistake of sending you.”

  I was at a loss as to how to comprehend or respond to his words. They implied a great deal.

  My uncle changed the subject soon after, and managed to get us through dessert without further incident.

  After dinner, we retired to the hall, and my aunt played the piano while Elizabeth and Lady Graeland sang. They were not appallingly bad; in point of fact, my sister had a lovely voice. Still, it was not how I wished to spend the evening. My father kept his distance from me, and retired with my mother at an early hour.

  That night I went to my room and contemplated the bed. I lay upon it and discovered that it did engender memories I did not wish to experience. I slept in a chair by the fire, with a pistol in my lap.

  The next day, my father and sisters went to spread cheer to the peasants, by giving small coins to the children and gifts to the village families. My uncle informed me that my father was not quite ready to speak with me. I wondered how many weeks he would make me wait. That night, after a dinner in which I did not say anything untoward, we men retired to the study to drink and smoke, and left the women to needlework. As there were four of us, including Graeland, the situation would not be conducive to the kind of serious conversation I wished. I imagined it would devolve into talk of politics and business.

  I looked about my father’s study and found it to be much as it had been a decade before: filled with a great hearth, a great table, a great desk, and shelves of ledgers and scrolls and very few books. The only things I had ever found of interest were the ancient weapons my grandfather collected and my father’s maps. I had spent many a happy hour here in my childhood perusing those maps, under Rucker’s watchful eye of course.

  As a servant poured brandy and prepared pipes, I crossed the room to peruse one of my favorite maps. Most of my father’s maps were kept rolled, as he did not possess enough walls to display them. This one hung in an elegant frame suitable to t
he work of art it surely was. It was a Spanish creation, and showed the New World, or at least that portion of it the Spanish had interest in. I had marveled at it as a child, and recently struggled to remember it as I worked my way through Rucker’s treatises. It was seventy years old, and the cartographer had not bothered with anything as far north as the land where the Virginia colony now resided, or far enough south to show the Portuguese holdings on the Main. But it did seem to depict with some accuracy, in comparison to a number of other maps I had seen of the region since, the entirety of the Spanish Main, Terra Firma, and the Isles of the West Indies scattered about the Northern Sea between them.

  My eyes were immediately drawn to Panama: the little bridge of land connecting the Spanish Main, to the east and south, with New Spain, to the west and north. I wondered if Alonso were there yet.

  To my surprise, my father led the others over to join me. He awarded me a polite nod before stepping between me and the map. He pointed enthusiastically at an island nearly exactly in the middle of it, and told Graeland, “That is Jamaica.”

  “Ah,” Graeland said and sipped his brandy, while my uncle leaned around me to peruse the little oblong shape with interest.

  I was curious, not about Jamaica per se, but as to why my father found merit in mentioning it. Jamaica had become an English colony in 1655, when Cromwell’s men wrested it from the Spanish. Many thought little of it, as the Protector had sent his army to capture one of the island’s nearest neighbors, Cuba or Hispaniola. Jamaica had merely been the best they could do.

  However, it was many times the size of any other English holding in the West Indies. I glanced at the north-south chain of islands separating the Northern Sea from the ocean beyond. The Spanish cartographer had not assigned them names, and they were merely misshapen dots. I knew we now had five colonies there, the largest and most prosperous being Barbados. I could actually find it, as it sat the farthest east. The Spaniard had depicted Jamaica as being larger than all of the little islands put together.

  Jamaica was still much smaller than Cuba and Hispaniola, though. I would have wondered how we continued to hold it, if I had not learned that the Spanish really had little use for it. Of course, they could choose to descend upon us and drive us out of the West Indies altogether; but from what Rucker said, they really lacked the fleet to do such a thing these days. On the other side of that coin, we lacked the fleet to defend our colonies if they did muster a force against us.

  “So, sugarcane, is it?” Graeland asked and disturbed my reverie.

  “Aye, aye,” my father said. “They have found it to be a wonderful and lucrative crop on the islands.”

  “I thought they could grow little there,” my uncle remarked. “A man gave me some tobacco from Barbados and it was truly foul.”

  My father scoffed. “Tobacco does not grow in the tropics, at least not in our colonies. Sugarcane, however, is another matter. A single plantation can produce molasses, and the Devil’s drink, rum, and muscovado, the brown sugar that can be refined into true sugar here in England.”

  “And this is lucrative?” my uncle asked.

  “Very.” My father smiled. “And those of us with a like mind will keep it that way. It will not be taxed as tobacco is; there will be laws to prevent the colonies from refining the sugar, so that the prices can be controlled on English soil. And the King has interest in the matter, as these plantations require a great number of laborers. He has chartered an enterprise to provide Negro slaves for the islands, so that we do not have to rely on the damn Dutch.”

  “What about bondsmen?” my uncle asked.

  “The planters cannot get enough of them, either.” My father shrugged. “England has taken to shipping convicts. There are those who prefer the Negroes. They are truly slaves, thank God, and you can treat them as you will, and you need not release them. They are also easier to recover once they escape.”

  I found the topic sad, and retreated to sprawl in a chair and light a pipe.

  “So you plan to invest in one of these sugarcane plantations?” I asked.

  My father looked about, and frowned as if he were just noticing my presence. “Aye. The land is free on Jamaica. They will grant thirty acres to any man who wishes to work it, and thirty more for any family member or servant he brings with him.”

  I snorted. “One lord could easily be granted the entire island. But surely you do not intend to sail there.”

  He snorted in return. “Nay, of course not. I will send an agent to see to my interests with as many bondsmen as can be retained. I have already obtained the services of a purportedly trustworthy solicitor in Jamaica, and he has hired an experienced plantation manager from Barbados.” He turned back to Graeland and softened his tone somewhat. “All my agent need do is see to it that my interests are truly represented by these men, and sit about and sip rum.”

  Graeland eyed the map thoughtfully.

  I sighed and scoffed, “It is rife with pestilence. Some say that one out of four men dies within his first months in the West Indies. It takes over a month to reach the islands by sea, and just as long to return. Ships cannot even cross the ocean during the storm season, as the great storms, the ones the Indians call hurricanes, will send any craft foolish enough to dare their wrath to the bottom. And there is no peace beyond the Line; we are ever at war there with the Spanish and other nations. And then you have your usual rabble and pirates and freebooters. I would imagine a man lacking in experience with sword and pistol would be in imminent danger. It is not a place for the sane or timid.”

  The horror on Graeland’s face showed that he considered himself both sane and timid. I wondered what my father had been offering him in return. My father was ill-pleased with me; but as that was ever the way of it, I did not care.

  My uncle was attempting to hide his amusement. “A man familiar with sword and pistol might do well there indeed.”

  I chuckled. “Indeed.”

  I found my eyes on the map again, and my humor faded. I had no interest in plantations, sugar, or slaves, but there was appeal into going to such a place. And, ironically, it was very close to Panama, though with what I had recently learned, I knew I would never be able to pay Alonso a visit.

  I felt I was under scrutiny, and turned to find my father regarding me thoughtfully. His gaze quickly left, and he began to talk of other things.

  The following day was Christmas Eve. I chose to wake late and spend my day wandering about the house and grounds in some nostalgic quest. At length I found myself in the stable. Goliath’s old stall was occupied by a friendly cobb. Down the row, my bay mare seemed happy to see me. I considered riding, but the day was bitter; and I could not think of any place I wished to see, for I was beginning to feel that nostalgia was as overrated as love.

  There was a clatter of hooves outside, and horse ears perked all along the row of stalls. I stepped out, wondering who had been riding on such a day. One of the stable boys held the reins of a magnificent white hunter; and as I watched, the girth was loosened and the saddle removed. I peered at the diminutive boots and legs in riding breeches visible under the animal with interest. Sarah was handing the saddle to another stable boy as I came round the horse. Her wearing breeches had to be a side effect of my mother’s being on laudanum.

  “You have a fine mount,” I commented.

  Sarah awarded me a thin smile. “Thank you; I have had him since he was a colt.”

  “I had a black hunter when I lived here; he was only a little wider and deeper in the chest than your stallion there. I raised him from a colt.”

  “I remember him; Goliath.” Our mother’s disapproving look was settling across Sarah’s nose and mouth.

  I frowned. “Do you remember that he died?”

  “Aye, and I was told you shot him after Shane had ridden him.”

  My composure shattered, and I recoiled.

  “Oh, aye,” I snapped. “Well, he tried to ride him. Goliath threw him several times, I am told. Shane beat the animal
bloody with a whip and then slashed his legs until he could not stand and then ordered the stable hands not to touch him. I did not return from London for another day. It was a testament to Goliath’s strength of will that he lived as long as he did. And I curse the time I stood in front of his stall overcome by abject horror as minutes wasted in not finding the means to end his suffering!”

  This time she recoiled.

  “Shane would not do that,” she said, with a quavering voice, from behind her fingers.

  “You do not know Shane as I do,” I snarled.

  Her ire returned. “Nay, not like you do at all. I daresay I know him far better. You are a sodomite and a pervert, and you feel the need to sully his name simply because you could not have him.”

  I was stunned, but not beyond the capacity of my rage to feed words into my mouth. “Oh, but I did. He went to great lengths to make sure I had him. Sodomy was perpetrated, to be sure; but upon me, not by me. I would warn you, nay, I would fear for you, but I realize there is no reason to. Fucking women is permissible in Shane’s mind; he will not revile you for desiring you.”

  “How dare you speak of him in that manner? How dare you speak of me in that manner? I am to marry him!”

  I could not stop the bark of laughter. “So that is his plan. He will be my father’s son yet, will he not? When did he hatch this scheme? Did he wait until you had begun to bleed?”