P Cast - Lenobia's Vow

“Are you a slave?”

“No. I am Creole. Free man of color. I work for Rillieux.” When Lenobia just stared at him, trying to take in everything she was learning, he smiled and said, “Since you here you want to help me groom the grays, or you scurry back to your room like a proper lady.”

Lenobia lifted her chin. “Since I am here—I stay. And I will help you.”

The next hour sped by quickly. The Percherons were a lot of horse to groom, and Lenobia had been busy, working with Martin and talking about nothing more personal than horses and arguing the pros and cons of tail docking, even though the whole time she could not stop thinking about placage and marriages de la main gauche .

It was only as Lenobia began to leave that she was able to have the courage to ask Martin the question that had been circling around in her mind. “The placage —do the women get to choose, or do they have to be with whomever wants them?”

“There are many kinds of people, cherie, and many kinds of arrangements, but from what I see it is more about choice and love than not.”

“Good,” Lenobia said. “I am glad for them.”

“You had no choice, did you, cher ?” Martin asked, meeting her gaze.

“I did what my mother told me to do,” she said truthfully, and then she left the cargo hold and carried the scent of horses and the memory of olive eyes with her throughout the tedium of that long day.

What began as accident became habit, and something she rationalized as being just for the horses became her joy—what she needed to get through the never-ending voyage. Lenobia couldn’t wait to see Martin—to hear what he would say next—to talk with him about her dreams and even her fears. She didn’t mean to confide in him—to like him—to care for him at all, but she did. How could she not? Martin was funny and smart and beautiful—so very beautiful.

“You getting skinny, you,” he said to her on the fifth day.

“What are talking about? I have always been petite.” Lenobia paused as she combed through the tangled mane of one of the geldings and peeked around his arched neck at Martin. “I am not skinny,” she said firmly.

“Skinny, cher . That what you are.” He ducked under the gelding’s neck and was suddenly there, beside her, close and warm and solid. He took her wrist gently in his hand and circled it easily with his forefinger and thumb. “See there? You all bone.”

His touch shocked her. He was tall and muscular but gentle. His movements were slow, steady, almost hypnotic. It was as if his every motion was made deliberately, so as not to frighten her. Unexpectedly he reminded her of a Percheron. His thumb stroked the inside of her wrist, over her pulse point.

“I have to pretend not to want to eat,” she heard herself admitting.

“Why, cher ?”

“It is better for me if I stay away from everyone, and being sick gives me a reason to keep to myself.”

“Everyone? Why don’ you stay away from me?” he asked boldly.

Even though her heart felt as if it would pound from her chest, she pulled her wrist from his gentle grip and gave him a stern look. “I come for the horses and not for you.”

“Ah, les chevaux . Of course.” He stroked the neck of the gelding, but he didn’t smile as she expected, nor did he joke back with her. Instead he just looked at her, as if he could see through her tough façade to the softness of her heart. He said no more and instead handed her one of the thick curry brushes from a nearby bucket. “He likes this one best.”

“Thank you,” she said, and began working her way across the broad body of the gelding with the brush.

There was only a small, uncomfortable silence and then Martin’s voice carried from the other side of the gelding he was tending. “So, cherie, what story I tell you today? The one about how anything you plant in the black dirt of New France grows taller than these petite chevaux , or about the pearls in the tignons of the beautiful placage and how the women they stroll through the square?”

“Tell me about the women—about the placage, ” Lenobia said, and then she listened eagerly as Martin painted pictures in her imagination of gorgeous women who were free enough to choose whom they would love, though not free enough to make their unions legal.

Then next morning when she rushed into the cargo hold she found him already grooming the horses. A hunk of cheese and fragrant hot pork between two thick slices of fresh bread sat on a clean cloth near the barrels of oats. Without glancing at her, Martin said, “Eat, cherie . You don’ pretend around me.”

Perhaps that was the morning it changed for Lenobia and she began to think of it as seeing Martin at dawn rather than visiting the horses at dawn. Or, more precisely, perhaps that was when she began to admit the change to herself.

And once it changed for her, Lenobia began searching for signs from Martin that she was more than just his friend—more than ma cherie, the girl he brought food to and who pestered him for stories of New France. But all she found in his gaze was familiar kindness. All she heard in his voice was patience and humor. Once or twice she thought she caught a glimmer of more, especially when they laughed together and the olive green in his eyes seemed to sparkle with flecks of golden brown, but he always turned away if she met his gaze too long, and he always had a humorous story ready if the silences between them became too great.

Just before the small measure of peace and happiness she’d found shattered and her world exploded, Lenobia finally found the courage to ask the question that would not allow her to sleep. It was as she was brushing off her skirts and whispering to the nearest gelding an affectionate a bientôt that she took a deep breath and said, “Martin, I need to ask you a question.”

“What is it, cherie ?” he responded absently while he gathered up the curry brushes and linen rags they’d used to wipe down the geldings.

“You tell me stories of the women like your maman—women of color who become placage and live as wives to white men. But what of men of color being with white women? What of male placage ?”

From outside the stall his gaze went to hers and she saw his surprise and then amusement, and she knew he was going to humiliate her by laughing. Then he truly looked into her eyes, and his teasing response turned somber. He shook his head slowly from side to side. His voice sounded weary and his broad shoulders seemed to slump. “No, cherie . There are no male placage . Only way a man of color can be with a white woman is if he leave New France and pass as white.”

“Pass as white?” Lenobia felt breathless at her boldness. “You mean to pretend you are white?”

“ Oui, but not me, cherie .” Martin held out his arm. It was long and muscular and, in the postdawn light filtering from the deck above, it looked more bronze than brown. “This skin too brown to pass, and I think I am not one for being any more, or less, than I am. Nah, cherie . I be happy in my own skin.” Their gazes held and Lenobia tried to tell him with a look all that she was beginning to wish—all that she was beginning to want. “I see a storm in those gray eyes of yours, cherie . You leave that storm be. You strong, you. But not strong enough to change the way the world think—the way the world believe.”

Lenobia didn’t reply until she’d opened the little half door and exited the Percherons’ stall. She went to Martin, smoothed her skirt, and then looked up into his eyes. “Even the New World?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.