No sooner had their carriage creaked to a halt at the edge of the crowd
than a tumult of cheers sounded through the humid morning air. With a
wry glance toward the man seated opposite, Katherine Bedford drew back
the faded curtains at the window and craned to see over the cluster of
planters at the water's edge, garbed in their usual ragged jerkins,
gray cotton breeches, and wide, sweat-stained hats. Across the bay,
edging into view just beyond the rocky cliff of Lookout Point, were the
tattered, patched sails of the _Zeelander_, a Dutch trader well known
to Barbados.
"It's just rounding the Point now." Her voice was hard, with more than
a trace of contempt. "From here you'd scarcely know what their cargo
was. It looks the same as always."
As she squinted into the light, a shaft of Caribbean sun candled her
deep-blue eyes. Her long ringlet curls were drawn back and secured with
a tiara of Spanish pearls, a halfhearted attempt at demureness spoiled
by the nonchalant strands dangling across her forehead. The dark tan on
her face betrayed her devotion to the sea and the sun; although twenty-
three years of life had ripened her body, her high cheeks had none of
the plump, anemic pallor so prized in English women.
"Aye, but this time she's very different, Katy, make no mistake.
Nothing in the Americas will ever be the same again. Not
after today." Governor Dalby Bedford was across from her in the close,
airless carriage, angrily gripping the silver knob of his cane. Finally
he bent forward to look too, and for a moment their faces were framed
side by side. The likeness could scarcely have been greater: not only
did they share the same intense eyes, there was a similar high forehead
and determined chin. "Damned to them. It's a shameful morning for us
all."
"Just the same, you've got to go down and be there." Though she
despised the thought as much as he did, she realized he had no choice.
The planters all knew Dalby Bedford had opposed the plan from the
beginning, had argued with the Council for weeks before arrangements
were finally made with the Dutch shippers. But the vote had gone
against him, and now he had to honor it accordingly.
While he sat watching the Zeelander make a starboard tack, coming about
to enter the bay, Katherine leaned across the seat and pulled aside the
opposite curtain. The hot wind that suddenly stirred past was a sultry
harbinger of the coastal breeze now sweeping up the hillside, where
field after identical field was lined with rows of tall, leafy stalks,
green and iridescent in the sun.
The new Barbados is already here, she thought gloomily. The best thing
now is to face it.
Without a word she straightened her tight, sweaty bodice, gathered her
wrinkled skirt, and opened the carriage door. She waved aside the straw
parasol that James, their Irish servant and footman, tried to urge on
her and stepped into the harsh midday sun. Dalby Bedford nodded at the
crowd, then climbed down after.
He was tall and, unlike his careless daughter, always groomed to
perfection. Today he wore a tan waistcoat trimmed with wide brown lace
and a white cravat that matched the heron-feather plume in his wide-
brimmed hat. Over the years, the name of Dalby Bedford had become a
byword for freedom in the Americas: under his hand Barbados had been
made a democracy, and virtually independent of England. First he had
convinced the king's proprietor to reduce rents on the island, then he
had created an elected Assembly of small freeholders to counter the
high-handed rule of the powerful Council. He had won every battle,
until this one.
Katherine moved through the crowd of black-hatted planters as it parted
before them. Through the shimmering glare of the sand she could just
make out the commanding form of Anthony Walrond farther down by the
shore, together with his younger brother Jeremy. Like hundreds of other
royalists, they had been deported to Barbados in the aftermath of
England's Civil War. Now Anthony spotted their carriage and started up
the incline toward them, and for an instant she found herself wishing
she'd thought to wear a more fashionable bodice.
"Your servant, sir." A gruff greeting, aimed toward Dalby Bedford,
disrupted her thoughts. She looked back to see a heavyset planter
riding his horse directly through the crowd, with the insistent air of
a man who demands deference. Swinging down from his wheezing mount, he
tossed the reins to the servant who had ridden with him and began to
shove his way forward, fanning his open gray doublet against the heat.
Close to fifty and owner of the largest plantation on the island,
Benjamin Briggs was head of the Council, that governing body of
original settlers appointed years before by the island's proprietor in
London. His sagging, leathery face was formidable testimony to twenty
years of hard work and even harder drink. The planters on the Council
had presided over Barbados' transformation from a tropical rain forest
to a patchwork of tobacco and cotton plantations, and now to what they
hoped would soon be a factory producing white gold.
Briggs pushed back his dusty hat and turned to squint approvingly as
the frigate began furling its mainsail in preparation to drop anchor.
"God be praised, we're almost there. The years of starvation are soon
to be over."
Katherine noted that she had not been included in his greeting. She
had once spoken her mind to Benjamin Briggs concerning his treatment
of his indentures more frankly than he
cared to hear. Even now, looking at him, she was still amazed that a
man once a small Bristol importer had risen to so much power in the
Americas. Part of that success, she knew, derived from his practice of
lending money to hard-pressed freeholders at generous rates but short
terms, then foreclosing on their lands the moment the sight bills came
due.
"It's an evil precedent for the English settlements, mark my word."
Bedford gazed back toward the ship. He and Benjamin Briggs had been
sworn enemies from the day he first proposed establishing the Assembly.
"I tell you again it'll open the way for fear and divisiveness
throughout the Americas."
"It's our last chance for prosperity, sir. All else has failed," Briggs
responded testily. "I know it and so do you."
Before the governor could reply, Anthony Walrond was joining them.
"Your servant, sir." He touched his plumed hat toward Dalby Bedford,
conspicuously ignoring Briggs as he merged into their circle, Jeremy at
his heel.
Anthony Walrond was thirty-five and the most accomplished, aristocratic
man Katherine had ever met, besides her father. His lean, elegant face
was punctuated by an eye-patch, worn with the pride of an epaulette,
that came from a sword wound in the bloody royalist defeat at Marston
Moor. After he had invested and lost a small fortune in support of the
king's failed cause, he had been exiled to Barbados, his ancestral
estate sequestrated by Parliament.
She still found herself incredulous that he had, only four weeks
earlier, offered marriage. Why, she puzzled, had he proposed the match?
He was landed, worldly, and had distinguished himself during the war.
She had none of his style and polish. . . .
"Katherine, your most obedient." He bowed lightly, then stood back to
examine her affectionately. She was a bit brash, it was true, and a
trifle--well, more than a trifle--forward for her sex. But underneath
her blunt, seemingly impulsive way he sensed a powerful will. She
wasn't afraid to act on her convictions, and the world be damned. So
let her ride her mare about the island daylong now if she chose; there
was breeding about her that merely wanted some refinement.
"Sir, your servant." Katherine curtsied lightly and repressed a smile.
No one knew she had quietly invited Anthony Walrond riding just two
weeks earlier. The destination she had picked was a deserted little
islet just off the windward coast, where they could be alone.
Propriety, she told herself, was all very well, but marrying a man for
life was no slight matter. Anthony Walrond, it turned out, had promise
of being all she could want.
He reflected on the memory of that afternoon for a moment himself,
delighted, then turned back to the governor with as solemn an air as he
could manage. "I suppose this island'll soon be more in debt than ever
to the Hollanders. I think it's time we started giving English shippers
a chance, now that it's likely to be worth their bother."
"Aye, doubtless you'd like that." Briggs flared. "I know you still own
a piece of a London trading company. You and that pack of English
merchants would be pleased to charge us double the shipping rates the
Hollanders do. Damn the lot of you. Those of us who've been here from
the start know we should all be on our knees, thankin' heaven for the
Dutchmen. The English settlements in the Americas would've starved
years ago if it hadn't been for them." He paused to spit onto the sand,
just beside Anthony's gleaming boots. "Let English bottoms compete with
the Dutchmen, not wave the flag."
"Your servant, Katherine." Jeremy Walrond had moved beside her,
touching his plumed hat as he nodded. A cloud of perfume hovered about
him, and his dark moustache was waxed to perfection. Though he had just
turned twenty, his handsome face was still boyish, with scarcely a hint
of sun.
"Your most obedient." She nodded lightly in return, trying to appear
formal. Over the past year she had come to adore Jeremy as though he
were a younger brother, even though she knew he despised the wildness
of Barbados as much as she gloried in it. He was used to pampering and
yearned to be back in England. He also longed to be thought a man;
longed, in truth, to be just like Anthony, save he didn't know quite
how.
They all stood awkwardly for a moment, each wondering what the ship
would signify for their own future and that of the island. Katherine
feared that for her it would mean the end of Barbados' few remaining
forests, hidden groves upland where she could ride alone and think.
Cultivated land was suddenly so valuable that all trees would soon
vanish. It was the last anyone would see of an island part untamed and
free.
Depressed once more by the prospect, she turned and stared down the
shore, toward the collection of clapboard taverns clustered around the
narrow bridge at the river mouth. Adjacent to the taverns was a
makeshift assemblage of tobacco sheds, open shops, and bawdy houses,
which taken together had become known as Bridgetown. The largest "town"
on Barbados, it was now all but empty. Everyone, even the tavern
keepers and Irish whores, had come out to watch.
Then, through the brilliant sunshine she spotted an unexpected pair,
ambling slowly along the water's edge. The woman was well known to the
island--Joan Fuller, the yellow-haired proprietor of its most
successful brothel. But the man? Whatever else, he was certainly no
freeholder. For one thing, no Puritan planter would be seen in public
with Mistress Fuller.
The stranger was gesturing at the ship and mumbling unhappily to her as
they walked. Abruptly she reached up to pinch his cheek, as though to
dispel his mood. He glanced down and fondly swiped at her tangled
yellow hair, then bade her farewell, turned, and began moving toward
them.
"God's life, don't tell me he's come back." Briggs first noticed the
stranger when he was already halfway through the crowd. He sucked in
his breath and whirled to survey the line of Dutch merchantmen anchored
in the shallows along the shore. Nothing. But farther down, near the
careenage at the river mouth, a battered frigate rode at anchor. The
ship bore no flag, but the word _Defiance _was crudely lettered across
the stern.
"Aye, word has it he put in this morning at first light."
Edward Bayes, a black-hatted Council member with ruddy jowls, was
squinting against the sun. "What're you thinking we'd best do?"
Briggs seemed to ignore the question as he began pushing his way
through the crowd. The newcomer was fully half a head taller than most
of the planters, and unlike everyone else he wore no hat, leaving his
rust-colored hair to blow in the wind. He was dressed in a worn leather
jerkin, dark canvas breeches, and sea boots weathered from long use. He
might have passed for an ordinary seaman had it not been for the two
Spanish flintlock pistols, freshly polished and gleaming, that
protruded from his wide belt.
"Your servant, Captain." Briggs' greeting was correct and formal, but
the man returned it with only a slight, distracted nod. "Back to see
what the Hollanders've brought?"
"I'm afraid I already know what they're shipping. I picked a hell of a
day to come back." The stranger rubbed absently at a long scar across
one cheek, then continued, as though to himself, "Damn me, I should
have guessed all along this would be the way."
The crowd had fallen silent to listen, and Katherine could make out
that his accent was that of a gentleman, even if his dress clearly was
not. His easy stride suggested he was little more than thirty, but the
squint that framed his brown eyes made his face years older. By his
looks and the uneasy shuffle of the Council members gathered around
them, she suddenly began to suspect who he might be.
"Katy, who the devil?" Jeremy had lowered his voice to a whisper.
"I'm not sure, but if I had to guess, I'd say that's probably the
smuggler you claim robbed you once." Scarce wonder Briggs is nervous,
she thought. Every planter on the shore knows exactly why he's come
back.
"Hugh Winston? Is that him?" Jeremy glared at the newcomer, his eyes
hardening. "You can't mean it. He'd not have the brass to show his face
on English soil."
"He's been here before. I've just never actually seen him. You always
seem to keep forgetting, Jeremy, Barbados isn't part of England." She
glanced back. "Surely you heard what he did. It happened just before
you came out." She gestured toward the green hillsides. "He's the one
we have to thank for all this. I fancy he's made Briggs and the rest of
them rich, for all the good it'll ever do him."
"What he's done, if you must know, is make a profession of stealing
from honest men. Damned to their cane. He's scarcely better than a
thief. Do you know exactly what he did?"
"You mean that business about your frigate?"
"The eighty-tonner of ours that grounded on the reefs up by Nevis
Island. He's the one who set our men ashore--then announced he was
taking the cargo in payment. Rolls of wool broadcloth worth almost
three thousand pounds sterling. And several crates of new flintlock
muskets. He smuggled the cloth into Virginia, sold it for nothing, and
ruined the market for months. He'd be hanged if he tried walking the
streets of London, I swear it. Doesn't anybody here know that?"
She tried to recall what she did know. The story heard most often was
that he'd begun his career at sea on a Dutch merchantman. Then, so word
had it, he'd gone out on his own. According to tales that went around
the Caribbees, he'd pulled together a band of some dozen runaway
indentures and one night somehow managed to sail a small shallop into
the harbor at Santo Domingo. He sailed out before dawn at the helm of a
two-hundred-ton Spanish square-rigger. After some heavy refitting, it
became the _Defiance_.
"They probably know he robbed you, Jeremy, but I truly doubt whether
they care all that much."
"What do you mean?"
"He's the one Benjamin Briggs and the others hired to take them down to
Brazil and back."
That voyage had later become a legend in the English Caribbees. Its
objective was a plantation just outside the city of Pemambuco--capital
of the new territory in Brazil the Dutch had just seized from the
Portuguese. There the Barbados' Council had deciphered the closely
guarded process Brazilian plantations used to refine sugar from cane
sap. Thanks to the friendly Dutch, and Hugh Winston, Englishmen had
finally cracked the centuries-old sugar monopoly of Portugal and Spain.
"You mean he's the same one who helped them get that load of cane for
planting, and the plans for Briggs' sugar mill?" Jeremy examined the
stranger again.
"Exactly. He also brought back something else for Briggs." She smiled.
"Can you guess?"
Jeremy flushed and carefully smoothed his new moustache. "I suppose
you're referring to that Portuguese mulatto wench he bought to be his
bed warmer."
Yes, she thought, Hugh Winston's dangerous voyage, outsailing several
Spanish patrols, had been an all-round success. And everybody on the
island knew the terms he had demanded. Sight bills from the Council,
all co-signed at his insistence by Benjamin Briggs, in the sum of two
thousand pounds sterling, payable in twenty-four months.
"Well, sir"--Briggs smiled at Winston as he thumbed toward the
approaching ship--"this is the cargo we'll be wanting now, if we're to
finish converting this place to sugar. You could be of help to us again
if you'd choose. This is where the future'll be, depend on it."
"I made one mistake, helping this island." Winston glanced at the ship
and his eyes were momentarily pained. "I don't plan to make another."
Then he turned and stared past the crowd, toward the green fields
patch-worked against the hillsides inland. "But I see your cane
prospered well enough. When do we talk?"
"Why any time you will, sir. We've not forgotten our debts." Briggs
forced another smile. "We'll have a tankard on it, right after the
auction." He turned and motioned toward a red-faced Irishman standing
behind him, wearing straw shoes and a long gray shirt. "Farrell, a
moment of your valuable time."
"Yor Worship." Timothy Farrell, one of Briggs' many indentured
servants, bowed sullenly as he came forward, then
doffed his straw hat, squinting against the sun. His voice still
carried the musical lilt of his native Kinsale, where he had been
offered the choice, not necessarily easy, between prison for debt and
indentured labor in sweltering Barbados. He had finally elected
Barbados when informed, falsely, that he would receive a grant of five
acres of land after his term of servitude expired--a practice long
since abandoned.
Katherine watched as Briggs flipped him a small brass coin. "Fetch a
flask of kill-devil from the tavern up by the bridge. And have it here
when I get back."
Kill-devil was bought from Dutch shippers, who procured it from
Brazilian plantations, where it was brewed using wastes from their
sugar-works. The Portuguese there employed it as a cheap tonic to rout
the "devil" thought to possess African slaves at the end of a long day
and render them sluggish. It retailed handily as a beverage in the
English settlements of the Americas, however, sometimes being marketed
under the more dignified name of "rumbullion," or "rum."
Briggs watched as Farrell sauntered off down the shore. "That's what
we'll soon hear the last of. A lazy Papist, like half the lot that's
being sent out nowadays." He turned to study the weathered Dutch
frigate as it eased into the sandy shallows and the anchor chain began
to rattle down the side. "But we've got good workers at last. By Jesus,
we've found the answer."
Katherine watched the planters secure their hats against a sudden
breeze and begin pushing toward the shore. Even Anthony and Jeremy went
with them. The only man who held back was Hugh Winston, still standing
there in his worn-out leather jerkin. He seemed reluctant to budge.
Maybe, she thought, he doesn't want to confront it.
As well he shouldn't. We've got him to thank for this.
After a moment he glanced back and began to examine her with open
curiosity, his eyes playing over her face, then her tight bodice.
Finally he shifted one of the pistols in his belt, turned, and began
strolling down the sloping sand toward the bay.
Well, damn his cheek.
All along she had planned to go down herself, to see firsthand what an
auction would be like, but at that instant the shifting breeze brought
a sudden stench from the direction of the ship. She hesitated, a rare
moment of indecision, before turning back toward the carriage. This,
she now realized, marked the start of something she wanted no part of.
Moving slowly toward the shore, Winston found himself puzzling over the
arch young woman who had been with Governor Bedford. Doubtless she was
the daughter you heard so much about, though from her dress you'd
scarcely guess it. But she had an open way about her you didn't see
much in a woman. Plenty of spirit there . . . and doubtless a handful
for the man who ever got her onto a mattress.
Forget it, he told himself, you've enough to think about today.
Starting with the _Zeelander_. And her cargo.
The sight of that three-masted fluyt brought back so many places and
times. Brazil, Rotterdam, Virginia, even Barbados. Her captain Johan
Ruyters had changed his life, that day the _Zeelander_ hailed his
bullet-riddled longboat adrift in the Windward Passage. Winston had
lost track of the time a bit now, but not of the term Ruyters had made
him serve in return for the rescue. Three years, three miserable years
of short rations, doubled watches, and no pay.
Back when he served on the _Zeelander_ her cargo had been mostly brown
muscavado sugar, ferried home to Rotterdam from Holland's newly captive
plantations in Brazil. But there had been a change in the world since
then. The Dutch had seized a string of Portuguese trading fortresses
along the coast of West Africa. Now, at last, they had access to a
commodity far more profitable than sugar.
He reflected on Ruyters' first axiom of successful trade: sell what's
in demand. And if there's no demand for what you've got, make it.