Raised By Wolves 1 - Brethren (20 page)

“It sounds like they are business partners, and perhaps married,”

Dickey said with amusement.

“Precisely,” Theodore said.

“Ah,” I said. “Is that what you meant when you said they were different?”

He nodded. The others were regarding us with curiosity. I ignored them and continued the conversation.

“So this is not below-decks buggery or schoolboy loves amongst men with little alternative, or even the romances of pretty boys and old men who favor one another? This is men marrying other men, with or without other alternatives.”

Theodore nodded again. “Precisely, though with some of them, it is much the same as elsewhere for that sort of thing. If women are available, they will avail themselves of them; and on the other side of the coin, I am sure men become quite attached to other men elsewhere without sexual congress. But here, the one and the other are condoned within the Brethren, and by necessity by those who have dealings with them, because the last thing you want to face is an angry pack of buccaneers.”

I found myself chuckling yet again. Every place I had been, I had found sodomites, and every one of them had lived a life of discretion unless they were safely amongst the company of likeminded individuals.

“So you are saying the buccaneers are sodomites?” Dickey asked.

“Including those men we saw on that ship?”

I nodded.

He smiled and sighed deeply. “So I may have come to a place where I will not be accused of being a sodomite because I do not possess a manly nature.”

I had to laugh, and Theodore could not hold his amusement in any better than I. The other three looked aghast, but Dickey readily joined our mirth.

“So I take it that you do not favor men?” I asked, to confirm what I already guessed.

Dickey shook his head and stifled his laughter behind his fingertips.

“Nay, sir, I do not. Did you think otherwise?”

“Nay, in sincere truth, I did not leap to that conclusion. I have known a number of… less than manly men who did not favor men.

Whereas, some of the manliest men I have ever met did. Whether they were in harmony with their interests or not was another matter.”

“Do you favor men?” Tom asked me with equal parts challenge and curiosity, as if he were daring me to answer yet scared I would.

I threw caution to the wind and answered him sincerely. “Aye, and women. I fancy both, though I have a tendency to… love the men more, I would say. The women have been diversions over the years, and rarely engage my heart. On the other hand, I rarely meet men I wish to… That I am willing to trust in that fashion.” I did not care what their response would be, I felt as if a giant weight had been removed from my chest.

It did throw them all into a state of surprise and silent consternation, though – which was most evident in Fletcher, who looked as if he wanted crawl under the table or over his chair to get farther from me.

I addressed him directly, “And take no offense, Fletcher, but I have no interest in you.” This seemed to relieve him greatly, and so I added,

“Or the rest of you, for that matter.”

Theodore was regarding me as if he thought my admission ill-advised; and perhaps it was, but it was done now, and I felt the better for it. I rewarded him with an amiable shrug, and he returned one in kind.

“I favor women,” Tom said to no one in particular.

“You have proven that,” I said without rancor.

“Davey?” Fletcher blurted.

I was surprised, but recovered quickly as I grasped Fletcher’s reason for his mention. “Him, either. Though that does remind me…” I realized I might have come upon the means of Davey’s salvation, in the form of Bradley. I would have to find the man.

I was prevented from sounding out Theodore on the matter by the arrival of Tom’s uncle’s agent: one David Skinner. He was a portly, snobbish little man to whom I took instant dislike. He looked the boys over with annoyance, and then regarded me with even more distaste until Theodore made introductions. At which point, Skinner seemed ready to kiss more than my hand. I did not deign to let him touch me, and barely returned his formal bow. I wished the boys luck and reminded them they could always count on me if the need arose. I watched them walk away down the sandy street with an unexpected sense of loss.

It reinforced my need to rescue Davey as soon as feasible.

“I need to find Bradley tonight,” I told Theodore. The sun was already beginning to set. He was genuinely baffled by my request, as was Fletcher, who had not met Bradley. “I need to rescue a sailor from the vessel I sailed on.”

“Oh, God help us,” Theodore sighed. He led us inside and bade me give him the particulars.

“Not tonight,” he said after I finished. “Wait until they land the cargo. That will take several days, as we have to land the bondsmen. I have made arrangements with another plantation to house your men until the land grant is completed. Then Starling will have to arrange for return cargo and load it. So, you see, you have time, and later will be better than sooner.”

I took him at his word and surrendered to his logic.

“I will send for Donoughy, the man I hired to manage the plantation for you, if he meets your approval of course. Then we shall visit the land near Spanish Town, if you feel up to it after your voyage.”

I nodded. “I should. So has the land already been granted?”

“Nay, but Donoughy and I have chosen a likely parcel. The grant will be a formality. Governor Modyford has some of the neighboring acreage, and he will be delighted to have an Earl’s land near his.”

“So they will just grant me twelve hundred acres of land?”

“Well, aye, or more or less. It is true they offer thirty acres per servant, but in practice it is a bit different. The parcel we have chosen is a hundred and eighty acres. It will be difficult to get forty of that in cane this year. How many bondsmen did you arrive with? Forty as expected?

Or did more survive?”

“We sailed with forty-eight. It was my theory that if we fed the ones we had well enough, then they would be less likely to die. I cut a good deal of Starling’s bonus profit in the process, though, as I refused to allow pressed men.”

“That explains some of his grumbling,” Theodore smirked.

“We arrived with forty-one.” I decided it was safe to tell him of Fletcher. “Fletcher here was the forty-first. I bought his contract from Starling, and then released him from it.”

“We wish to draw up another contract so that I can repay Lord Marsdale,” Fletcher added quickly.

Theodore appeared bemused. “We can do that. Do you have skills for employment?”

“I am a miller,” Fletcher said.

“Ah, wonderful. So you plan to hire him and have him repay you from his earnings.”

I nodded. “So, Fletcher aside, I have arrived with forty bondsmen contracted to my father.”

“With forty men you may be able to plant thirty acres the first year.

A quarter of your men will die. You will need to acquire Negroes as soon as you can. With a hundred men, you should be able to keep eighty to a hundred acres in cane. You will use the bondsmen to build your mills, houses, and roads and the like, and then Negroes in the field when you get to that number. Eventually your bondsmen will either matriculate in their contracts or die, and you will have replaced them with Negro slaves.”

I was alarmed at his prognosis for the men I had come to know during the voyage. Reading that one out of four men died once coming here was one thing; knowing them would be another thing entirely.

“Most planters here have several plantations,” he continued. “As the land does not always cooperate with our attempts to subdivide it as we will. And much of the prime land of Jamaica will probably not be put to use for decades, because we cannot get into it except on foot. So you will receive this first parcel that you will plant, and then a number of other parcels that you will develop if the first does well, or hold in reserve, or pass on to your descendants.”

That had not been explained to me prior to now. I wondered how much of it my father understood. “So my father will have a hundred and eighty prime acres, and then a number of like sized parcels we may or may not see in the near future.”

“Aye, and,” he eyed me speculatively, “as you are not your father, you can apply for your own grants, and increase the total amount of land your family holds. As a free man, Fletcher can do likewise.”

I was well pleased with this, as was Fletcher. “It will not be a matter of combined family holdings, though,” I said. “So how many acres could I receive? Thirty, at least?”

He smirked. “Marsdale, you can have a thousand if you wish and you are willing to befriend Modyford.”

“Ah, so matters are handled here much as they are everywhere.”

“Precisely.”

“I will befriend who I must. Having land separate from my father is an unexpected gift.” I realized I could possibly gain enough to grant the surviving men their acres if no one else would.

Theodore eyed me speculatively. “Am I to understand you are not wedded to your father’s wants and ambitions?”

I smiled. “You are to understand that this is something of a test.

I had been away from my father’s estate for ten years and returned a mere month before I sailed. He had no one else to send that he did not wish to lose to disease, the Spanish, or worse.”

He appeared sympathetic. “I understand. We will maintain your interests separate from his.”

“Thank you.” I thought it likely I had made another friend.

The next day, we took a ferry across the bay to the Passage Fort to meet our manager. Theodore told me Kevin Donoughy had been a bondsman on Barbados, and once a free man he had stayed in the planting life, moving to Montserrat in 1660 to buy his own land. He had purchased forty acres, married a woman sight unseen from England, and brought her there. Illness and a run of misfortune had befallen him, and the wife had died along with most of his laborers. He had been unable to plant for a season, and thus he had ended up working for other planters. Now he was here to do the same.

He was waiting for us on the wharf. He proved to be a big, broad-shouldered man who looked as if he had done hard work for many a year.

He surveyed me as we approached, and I knew he thought I had never worked a day in my life. Since I have not, I do not bridle at that perception of my person when I encounter it from common men, unless the one beholding me in that manner thinks men who do not work are weak. Bradley had much the same look about him when we were introduced, until he learned I had traveled and had skills he could use. I had not seen a like perception in Siegfried’s eyes, though. He had looked me over and found me of interest without such prejudice. Yet neither of them, or Theodore, or this Donoughy, showed any respect or awe such as Belfry, Steins, Starling, or Fletcher had revealed at the mention of my title.

I found some amusement in this. Men were not judged here as they were in England, or the rest of Christendom. On Jamaica, titles and fine clothes seemed to mean little; whether or not a man could heft a blade seemed to mean much. Though it was true I had not met the local gentry yet. Still, no matter how the wealthy perceived the social order, the other men I was encountering did not seem to lay much store in social hierarchy. They appeared to want to know what a man could do before they granted him worth. I thought it likely I would be proving myself quite a bit. This was in contradiction to how I learned to present myself in my prior travels. In most places I went, I had not wanted any to know of my true skills. I had been happy if they perceived me as some useless court-reared bastard. That would not do here.

So I stood firm when Donoughy tried to grind the bones of my hand to powder and I returned his greeting in like measure with a hand strong from wielding a sword. This seemed to gain me some modicum of respect. I noticed he did not press so very hard with Fletcher, as he seemed to have more respect for my miller from the moment he saw him. They were two of a kind and recognized one another as such.

Donoughy ignored me and addressed Theodore. “So the ship arrived, sir. Did they send all that was asked for? And how many men?” He spoke clearly, with only a trace of a brogue he must have worked hard to overcome.

“All seems to be here,” Theodore replied. “There are forty men, in relative good health. And Mister Fletcher here is a miller that we will hire.”

This last delighted Donoughy. The smile he awarded Fletcher was warm indeed. “I’m pleased to meet you, then.” He returned to business.

“The bondsmen, were they pressed? Are any of them convicts?”

“Nay,” I answered. “They signed willingly. They are good men. Some of them are skilled.”

His look implied he did not think I was the best judge of that. “Men will say a great deal to stay out of the fields.”

“True,” I replied with a thin smile. “But it has been my experience that men will speak the truth if they do not fear censure and feel their words will be honored. I spent most of the voyage amongst them and I feel most if not all are what they say.”

Donoughy grimaced and quickly covered it with his own thin smile.

“Begging your pardon, sir, it has been my experience, that when men who are desperate or foolish enough to travel around the world to work find someone to curry favor with, they will say whatever they think will aid them.”

He watched for my reaction and I glanced to Fletcher and Theodore.

Fletcher was frowning and Theodore was studying the sky as if he might soon comment on the weather.

“Fletcher,” I said, “Do you feel the men dissembled with me as to their abilities?”

He looked relieved to be included. “Nay, sir.”

I turned back to Donoughy. “Perhaps you will adjust your opinion once you get to know them.”

“I don’t need to get to know them, sir. I need to make them work. I can’t be their friend. Men don’t work for friends. Men need to respect their leaders. They need discipline.” Seeing my brewing protest, he continued quickly, “No man wants to work here, sir. And here less than other places, as it is miserable and hot and there are all manner of insects and other forms of pestilence to plague a man. God did not mean for white men to live on these islands, and he makes it hard for us. We must be ever vigilant in order to wrest a living from this soil. And the men who come here are fools and not prone to work hard.”