Shadowbrook (46 page)

His mother would die of grief if she knew. And Quent? Quent would probably kill him.

“Ten o’clock on a dark and frosty evening.” The watchman’s voice rang out from a few streets away and his bell grew louder. Any minute now John would be asked to account for himself.

Sweet Christ, he must find some relief. Something to make the knots in his belly go away and calm the dread in his soul. A whore, perhaps. Plenty of whores to be had in New York City. But truth to tell, he could ill afford the two shillings a good one—young and pretty, with a face not marked by the pox and privates not stinking with the French Disease—was bound to cost.

The watchman’s bell again. Closer. John thought a moment longer, then turned away from the Devrey gates and walked east on Wall Street, toward the slave market at the river’s edge.

There was a black man asleep in a shed near the long row of holding cages that ringed the area adjacent to the wharves known as Burnett’s Key. Most of the cages were empty now, the slaves they’d housed all bought and paid for and taken away by their new owners. John nudged the sleeping man with his toe. “You there, wake up. I’ve business with you.”

Robby, the auctioneer’s assistant, opened his eyes, and sprang to his feet. “What business might that be, master? Sales all be ended for the time. Don’t be no new sale until the
Susannah
docks, master. Going to be at least a week ’fore she’s here.”

“I bought those three slaves this morning.” John jerked his head in the direction of the cages. “You’re boarding them for me until I’m ready to return to Albany.”

Robby blinked the sleep from his eyes and nodded furiously. “Oh yes, master. I remember. I surely do. They be waitin’ on you, jus’ like you arranged.”

“Fine. I want you to bring the girl here to me. For a time.”

“The Ibo, master? Where you want me to bring her?”

“Yes, the Ibo. To the shed.” Built of raw planks, the structure was bare of any comfort except a cot with a corncob mattress and a primitive fire pit with a chimney hole above it, but it would do. The way he was feeling now, anything would do.

“Yes, master. Robby gonna do that right away.”

“Fine. But first throw a bit more fuel on that fire. Then bring me the girl and wait outside until I call you.”

Robby walked over to the fire and picked up a shovelful of the Newcastle coal that traveled as ballast in the holds of the merchantmen that plied the seas between New York and England, and tipped it onto the smoldering embers in the pit. There was a low chinking sound, then a puff of dirty black smoke, followed by the hiss of the coals giving up the last of their moisture. “You wait right here, master. I be bringing her, like you say.”

Her name was Taba and she spoke no English. “Not a word, eh?” John asked. “That’s the truth?” Taba stared at him, no sign of understanding even in the depths of her eyes. “Very well. I wasn’t planning on talking much to you, anyway. Take that thing off.” He mimed the motions of pulling her shift over her head. “Off.”

She didn’t move.

The guard’s bullwhip was coiled in the corner. John picked it up. Good heft and excellent length. He fancied himself a skilled hand with a bullwhip. There wasn’t a lot of headroom in the shed, but the leather lash uncoiled and released with a satisfying snap. He hadn’t meant to touch her with it, only to indicate that he meant business, but his control wasn’t perfect and the lash grazed her left forearm. The whip was tipped in lead and it laid open a cut that welled blood. The girl didn’t make a sound. “Off,” John said. “Or I’ll cut the damn thing off you with this.”

Taba pulled the shift over her head and dropped it on the dirt floor.

John nudged her with the handle of the bullwhip, turning her so she was full front to the glow of the fire. “Let’s see what I bought, shall we? Spread your legs.” He forced the whip between her thighs, prying them apart so she had to do what he wanted or fall on her face. “It appears I got you before the cutters did.” He’d had a few African-born blacks over the years; their cunts were usually mutilated in ways he found disgusting. “Excellent,” he said. “Full value for money. At least so far.”

He could feel himself swelling, and some of the knot in his belly relaxing. He put down the whip, removed his jacket and loosed the buttons of his breeches, then took a step doser to the girl. She stared straight ahead, her eyes dead and face expressionless. John smiled. We’ll see how long that lasts, little girl. He put both hands on her shoulders, forcing her to her knees. “We’ll teach you a few simple tricks first, shall we? Something easy.” He made broad signs to indicate the meaning of his words. “And I warn you, bite me even once and you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

Robby sat on the cold ground staring at the East River lapping at the wharves, and at the masts of vessels anchored a bit offshore, listening to the sounds from the shed. A fair amount of time went by during which he heard only the grunts and groans of the white master, and something he couldn’t quite place until he recognized it as the sound of retching. He grinned when he thought about what it likely was the little Ibo was choking on, but it was a long time after that before he heard Taba’s first moan of pain. Then a few little screams, followed by one long one. Not so bad, he told himself. Wimmins always screams the first time. Only thing is, why she be goin’ on screamin’ that way? Going to wake the tars as is drowned in this here river since the beginning of time, she is, the way she’s
screaming. Ain’t no fuck, first or fifteenth, is worth screams like that. Never mind. Ain’t Robby’s job to worry about a little Ibo is maybe getting more than she should the first time. Robby’s job is to keep the slaves in line while they’s in the pens and on the block. Long as Robby do that, the bullwhip stay in his hand not on his back. But those is some screams. Some screams.

There was no resistance when he finally threw her down on the corncob mattress and shoved himself inside her, and not a drop of blood in evidence a few moments later when he pulled out. “Little bitch,” he muttered. “You weren’t a virgin after all.”

He’d make her scream, by God. And bleed, too. He picked up the coal shovel and rammed the handle into her vagina. Three times, four, all his strength behind each thrust. When he staggered back, gasping for breath and breathing hard, sweat pouring off him, he saw a narrow rivulet of blood making its way down her thin little thigh. “What do you think of that, then? Better then a cock, is it? Want some more?” She was silent, her face wearing that look of total apartness, as if she were not present. “I’ll make you scream, you bitch slave.”

A pair of iron tongs hung on the wall beside the fire. John grabbed them, and snatched up a red-hot coal. For the first time Taba’s eyes betrayed her feelings. Not just fear but terror. She gasped and tried to roll off the cot, but he hurled himself on top of her pinning her in place with his knee. Then he pressed the live coal to her budding left breast and held it in place until the stench of roasting flesh filled his nostrils and Taba’s screams filled the night.

MONDAY, APRIL 26, 1755
QUÉBEC LOWER TOWN

THE ICY COLD
rain pelted down mixed with snow, and to Philippe Faucon it tasted of salt. New France. God grant he might see the real France again someday before he died. In Versailles in April the gardens were greening and spring flowers bloomed. The air of April was like a caress in Versailles, and the rain was sweet and full of summer promise.

He huddled deeper into the heavy black cloak. It had been given him by Monsieur le Provincial especially for this journey, but it had been made for a shorter man; the folds ended well above his knees and the lower half of his soutane was sodden. Philippe turned and glanced upward, shading his eyes with his hand to protect them from the slanted sheets of rain. The Upper Town was shrouded in cloud. He could not make out the steeples of the Collège des Jésuites, or the cathedral or seminary. Even the château of the bishop—much below the fortresses atop the hill—was obscured. The whole of Québec appeared to have disappeared and left nothing but these impoverished shacks clinging to the bank of the half-frozen St. Lawrence.

The river lapped noisily at the place the priest stood, a small wharf at the northern end of the harbor, upriver from the places where larger boats moored. The ice floes of winter were beginning to break up, enough so there was a passage over to Pointe-Lévis on the opposite bank, but the water was turbulent and angry and rough with whitecaps. The falling rain stabbed the surface like a hail of arrows. An hour he’d been standing here in the wet and cold and still no sign of the small craft Monsieur le Provincial had told him to expect. Blessed Mother of God, he was chilled to the bone.

The deerskin envelope with his sketchbooks crayons, and pens was clutched close to his heart beneath the cloak. A black leather satchel containing his clothes and his breviary, and a chalice and paten so that he might offer Holy Mass, was on the ground at his feet. A last look at the empty river, then Philippe hoisted the satchel and turned toward the town; there must be somewhere to wait out of the rain. The boatman knew he was collecting a Jesuit. He would come looking rather than incur the wrath of the powerful black robes.

A single cobbled street lined with fishermen’s cottages fronted on the river, but no fishwife opened her door to beckon the priest inside. The
habitants
of the Lower Town were caught between the temperamental St. Lawrence from which they must wrest a living and the demands of the priests up on the hill who claimed dominion over their souls. They might not love the diocesan priests, but they thought of the black robes as arrogant oppressors.

Philippe turned into a narrow alley at the end of the road. He looked for an innkeeper’s sign, hoping for a
petite bière.
He had not developed a real taste for the local brew, a powerful concoction of spruce, molasses, ginger, and Jamaica pepper, but it would warm him on a day like this. One door was marked with a rough cross that appeared to have been hacked into the raw wood with an axe.
Mère de Dieu!
Of course, the monastery of the Poor Clares. Philippe pushed and the door opened.

The public chapel was long and narrow, lit only by two small windows close to the ceiling, and largely empty except for a few battered prie-dieu scattered randomly about. It was only slightly warmer than the street outside, but at least he was out of the rain. Philippe blessed himself in thanksgiving and genuflected in the direction of the tabernacle. There was a strong smell of incense and burning candles. He heard the murmur of voices “Mystical Rose,
ora pro nobis.
Mother of Divine Providence,
ora pro nobis,
Mother of Mercy,
ora pro nobis.”
Philippe dropped to his knees on a prie-dieu and murmured the responses along with the unseen nuns. “Mother of all graces, ora pro nobis, Mother of Divine Hope, ora pro nobis. Mother of the Seraphic Order,
ora pro nobis.”

There were faint rustling sounds from behind the grille and the nuns began to chant. It sounded like the chirping of birds rather than a melodious monastic choir.
“Quinque prudentes virgines aptate lampades vestras …”
The five wise virgins took their lamps and went to meet the Bridegroom.