The Triumph of Grace (7 page)

"Americans do not call their fellow men 'peasants,' " Jesse replied with disdain. "And should you speak the word 'colonies' there, you'd be fortunate to escape with naught but a sound flogging!"

"Jesse is right," said Ethan Preston. "In America, everyone who bears arms considers himself fully equal with his neighbor.This is no time for you to pursue an adventure, Oliver, however noble your motives."

"It is me that knows America," Jesse said.

"As that is so, you most assuredly must understand that in that country it is every
white
man who is considered equal, do you not?" responded Sir Thomas. "You may be a free man here in England, but on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, you would almost certainly find yourself a slave once again."

"And what of Grace?" Jesse demanded.

"I must go," Grace said, "whatever the cost."

"Charleston is indeed a most dangerous place for one such as you," said Sir Thomas. "Keep yourself to yourself . . . Ashok Iravan. Mister Preston and I will do everything we can to arrange for someone to meet you."

Heath Patterson called the others to join him in a circle, then he raised his voice in prayer: "Almighty God in Heaven, we beseech Thy mercies on behalf of our sister Grace. We entrust her into Thy bountiful protection on this perilous voyage. Mayest Thou look upon her with mercy, and mayest Thou grant her Thy safety and Thy protection."

One by one, the others joined in, each offering a prayer.

Sir Phillips's carriage rolled through the streets of London and out to the docks. Already a crowd of men and boys busily loaded boxes and barrels into boats for transport out to the merchant ship, the
Ocean Steed,
which lay at anchor beyond London Bridge. Grace's head pounded with all the advice her friends had thrown out to her:

"Accentuate your accent and insist it is Indian."

"Never, ever take off your clothes."

"If you cannot answer a question, pretend you don't understand the language."

"Speak no more than absolutely necessary."

"In all things, at all times, be a man."

But it was the final words from Joseph Winslow, called out as the carriage lurched forward, that pierced her heart most deeply: "God be gracious to ye, Daughter. I'll be prayin' fer ye ever' day of me life. That be me vow to ye."

A
shok Iravan! What kind'a name do that be?" Archie Rhodes sneered as he tossed a rolled-up hammock toward Grace.

"Indian, sir," Grace replied.
Accentuate your accent.
"I come from India."

"I know where Indians be from," Archie snapped. "Does you take me for a fool?"

"No, sir," said Grace.

Speak no more than absolutely necessary!

Archie carefully scrutinized the dark-skinned addition to the ship's crew. "What's that you be wearing? A court jester, is you, now?"

"A tunic, sir. The clothing of my people."

Insist it is Indian.

"Well, I don't like it. Take it off and throw it overboard," Archie ordered. He tossed a worn seaman's blouse to Grace."You dress in civilized clothes like ever'one else on this ship."

Never take off your clothes!

Panic rose up in Grace. The tight cloth that bound her chest felt as though it would smother her.

"Quick now!" Archie ordered. "Change outta that costume and do it right fast!"

Grace gasped for breath.

If you cannot answer a question, pretend you don't understand the language.

Grace forced the look of panic off her face and carefully replaced it with perplexed confusion. "
Degguna,"
she pronounced. Even as she said it, she breathed a prayer that Archie Rhodes would not recognize the difference between the African word for "I don't understand" and whatever the Indian word might be.

"Ach!" Archie spat. "Stupid nabob!"

Archie shoved Grace aside and turned his attention to the man behind her.

Quickly—gratefully—Grace followed the line of men along the deck—some fresh and curious, others weather-beaten and worn. One by one they hauled themselves down the ladder to the dark hold. Belowdecks, with the overhead so low Grace couldn't even stand upright, each man claimed a spot for himself by hanging his hammock from hooks attached overhead and stowing his small sea chest. Grace eased in between a young sandy-haired boy who looked as though he might burst into tears at any moment and a tall, pox-scarred fellow of fourteen or fifteen who greatly overdid his self-confident swagger.

The sandy-haired boy stared at Grace. "You be the bloke from India?"

"Yes," said Grace. "Ashok Iravan. I am . . . Ashok."

"I be Jackie Watson," the boy said with the trace of a sniffle."I never been on a ship before, and I wish I wasn't 'ere now."

"Yes," Grace murmured.

"Can we stick close by, you and me? 'Elp each other out a bit?"

Grace nodded. It would actually be good to have a friend . . . if she were very careful.

"Up to the main deck wi' ye, mates." A seasoned sailor barked the order down into the hold. "Now. Capt'n says so."

Grace followed the others to the ladder, but, mumbling an excuse about something forgotten, she hurried back to her hammock. Quickly she glanced around her. She saw no one, so she slipped the tunic off over her head. She pulled on the sailor blouse and stuffed the Indian shirt into her sea chest.But when she turned back toward the ladder, she ran headlong into Jackie, who gaped at her, his mouth open wide.

"Why is you bandaged up that way?" he blurted.

"I . . . it was . . . a beating," Grace stammered. She kept her eyes carefully averted from the boy's face. "My Indian master.He beat me."

" 'E got you somethin' good."

Too flustered to answer, Grace hurried past the boy and on up to the main deck.

May God be gracious to you.

Ashok Iravan might not have been the experienced sailor Sir Geoffrey Phillips had portrayed to Captain Hallam, but Grace did in fact know a good deal more about sailing ships and life at sea than many of the other crewmen. The midsized ship
Ocean Steed
was brig-rigged, same as the
Willow,
the ship that had brought her from Africa to London barely a year before. She immediately recognized the distinctive twomasted square-rigging. Already familiar with such a ship, she jumped to and tried her best to help the sailors who were setting sails.

" 'Tis an excitin' adventure wot awaits us," Jackie said to Grace afterward, his admiration bubbling over at his new friend's familiarity with a sailing ship.

Before Grace could answer, a sudden commotion echoed up from below. She gasped and shrank back.

"A'feared of horses, is you?" Jackie asked.

"Horses!" Grace exclaimed. "That isn't African slaves?"

Jackie laughed out loud. "There be no slaves on a English merchant ship, not African or any other kind!"

No slaves? From the moment Charlotte first whispered to Grace that she would sail on a ship headed for America, Grace had assumed it would be packed with slaves, just like the ship that had carried her Cabeto away. What other cargo would be carried to such a country?

Just about everything, as a matter of fact. For although American artisans were fine for repair work and one-of-a-kind items, even average men and women in the States preferred to buy most of their manufactured goods from England and Scotland. It was true that slave ships aplenty came into the harbor at South Carolina, but those ships arrived from Africa, not from England. No, the
Ocean Steed's
hold was filled with fine- tooled furniture and English-bred riding horses, all specially ordered by wealthy Carolina aristocrats.

That night, as Grace adjusted her exhausted body into her hammock, she did her best to remember again the details of Cabeto's face. So much had flooded her since she last traced his picture in her mind. . . .

"You be well enough to sleep?" Jackie whispered.

"What?" Grace asked with a start. "Oh, yes. Just weary, is all."

"I means, the beatin'. Is you well enough from that?"

"Oh! Yes, of course. I'm used to it."

In all things, at all times, be a man.

F
or a civilized country to continue as such, when a charge is rightly considered and a judgment properly passed, that judgment absolutely must be duly carried out," Lord Reginald Witherham stated through clenched teeth.

It was only with great effort that he managed to control his voice. Even so, the vein on his forehead throbbed, and he laced and unlaced his fingers obsessively.

Lady Charlotte made note of her husband's simmering fury. With measured calm, she replied, "In a civilized country, Husband, one's own handkerchief is not used against one to prove a preposterous charge of thievery in order to elicit a vengeful death sentence."

There was a time, not long past, when Lady Charlotte feared her husband. She no longer did.

"In all matters, a wife should support her husband," pronounced Lord Reginald.

"And your actions, Reginald?" responded Lady Charlotte."Do you truly believe they deserve my support?"

Suddenly overcome with exhaustion, Lady Charlotte waved off her husband's sputtering response. "I have no doubt but that I did the right thing," she said as she turned toward the stairs and the refuge of her private chambers.

Lord Reginald waited until Lady Charlotte was halfway up the stairs before he called out, "Do join me for tea, my love. A guest will also be in attendance."

Charlotte did not pause in her ascent.

"You will not want to miss him," Lord Reginald insisted."The guest brings word from your father."

Lady Charlotte stopped.

Lord Reginald smiled. He prided himself on his ability to use a well-timed statement to his advantage.

Lady Charlotte swung around to face her husband. "What of my father?" she demanded.

"Until tea, then?"

A flush of victory refreshed Lord Reginald's stressed features.As his wife hesitated, he turned his back on her and walked away.

The parlor clock rang out its fourth chime as Lady Charlotte stepped into the room. Tea had already been laid out on the tea table, and three chairs placed around it. Lord Reginald leaned back in his chair, a smile pasted on his face.

"Sit, my dear," he invited without standing to his feet. "Our guest should join us shortly."

"Who is it?" Lady Charlotte asked.

"Your tea," Lord Reginald said as he handed her a cup.

Fear gnawed at Lady Charlotte and crowded her mind with suspicions. "What have you done to Father, Reginald?" she demanded.

"Done to him? Why, whatever do you mean?" Lord Reginald replied in the cloyingly placid voice that drove his wife mad. "Now that your father is my employee, his success is my success."

Rustin, the butler, appeared at the door and announced, "Your guest has arrived, my lord."

"Excellent, excellent!" Lord Reginald exclaimed. This time he did stand up. "Show him in at once."

Jasper Hathaway stepped into the room.

"You!" Lady Charlotte hissed.

"Did I fail to tell you?" Lord Reginald said breezily. "Mister Hathaway has once again agreed to enter my employ. While he no longer wishes to make the arduous trips to and from the African coast himself, he is a perfect liaison between me and those who labor in so demanding and thankless a clime.As one who intimately knows both Africa and our people involved there, I can think of no one in a better position to keep me adequately informed than he."

Mr. Hathaway, plumped up with a new sense of selfimportance, bowed as low as his corpulence would allow. He kept one hand over his mouth, however, to make certain his artificial teeth stayed in place.

"You did well to report to me immediately after Joseph Winslow made contact with you," Lord Reginald said to Mister Hathaway. "Such a one as he must be made to pay for his actions, and because you so promptly—"

"What of my father?" Lady Charlotte demanded.

"Do forgive me, my dear," Lord Reginald said in his taunting voice. "Have my manners left me entirely?" To Hathaway he said, "Please, sir, the letters you received. I, too, am most eager to hear their contents."

With an air of great importance, Jasper Hathaway laid out his leather case, rummaging through it until he located a fistful of papers. These he pulled out and consulted at some length.

"A merchant ship that arrived in port late last week had fortuitously stopped some months ago on the Gold Coast of Africa to load cargo—fine African wood, I believe it was. The captain himself delivered these letters to me. One is from Princess Lingongo and the other from our man, Benjamin Stevens."

Lady Charlotte shifted impatiently in her chair. Mister Hathaway, however, was enjoying his place of attention far too much to hurry along.

"Princess Lingongo raised several items that concerned the renewed operation at Zulina fortress, and she had nothing but praise for Mister Stevens's eager participation in the work. Her exact words—" Hathaway scanned the page. "Yes, yes, here they are. She says, 'As a slaver, Mister Stevens is far superior to Joseph Winslow. He continues to improve with each day that passes.' "

"The words do encourage one, although such a statement cannot necessarily be considered a glowing compliment, can it? I mean, being compared to so run-down and desperate a man as Winslow," Lord Reginald said with a laugh.

"Quite right, my lord," Hathaway agreed. "I should say, almost anyone could do a better job than he."

"Does the princess elaborate?" Lord Reginald asked.

"She does comment on Stevens's increased aggressiveness against the villagers. She also discusses at some length his growing interest in his personal collection of gold jewelry and molded figures of gold—animals and such, I assume. It seems he sets great store by these artifacts."

"That cannot be true!" Lady Charlotte protested. "The person you describe is not my father!"

Ignoring her comments, Lord Reginald inquired of Mister Hathaway, "And what of the letter from Mister Stevens?"

"Facts and figures mostly," said Jasper Hathaway. "He was most eager to share the results of the slave parties he sent out.As a matter of fact, he expressed general pride over the various successes of his partnership with the princess Lingongo."

"What?" Lady Charlotte gasped. "He is in
partnership
with her?"

"His summation reads thusly: 'I am quite certain that your profits from this round of slaves will be the greatest in the history of Zulina slave fortress. I might add that my own wealth is such that I could return to England and live out my days in the most comfortable of circumstances, should I choose to do so. However, I must say, the thrill of success has proven heady indeed. Already I have begun construction on a new house here in Africa, and here I intend to live out my days.' "

Lady Charlotte burst into tears. She bolted from her chair and ran from the room.

With a calm and steady hand, Lord Reginald reached for another cup of tea. The anxiety had smoothed completely from his face. He balanced the teacup on his knee and leaned back in his chair, a satisfied smile on his face.