Thomas Hoover - Caribbee

Then he faltered, mumbled something about the heat, and plopped back onto the sweat-soaked sheet.

Well, God damn him too.

She studied his face again, wondering why he seemed so distracted this trip. It wasn't like Hugh to let things get under his skin. Though admittedly affairs were going poorly for him now, mainly because of the damned Civil War in England. Since he didn't trouble about taxes, he'd always undersold English shippers. But after the war had disrupted things so much, the American settlements were wide open to the cut-rate Hollanders, who could sell and ship cheaper than anybody alive. These days the Butterboxes were everywhere; you could look out the window and see a dozen Dutch merchantmen anchored right in Carlisle Bay. Ever since that trip for the Council he'd been busy running whatever he could get between Virginia and some other place he hadn't said-yet he had scarcely a shilling to show for his time. Why else would he have paid that flock of shiftless runaways he called a crew with the last of his savings? She knew it was all he had, and he'd just handed it over for them to drink and whore away. When would he learn?

And if you're thinking you'll collect on the Council's sight bills, dear heart, you'd best think again. Master Benjamin Briggs and the rest of that shifty lot could hold school for learned scholars on the topic of stalling obligations.

He was doubtless too proud to own it straight out, but he needn't trouble. She already knew. Hugh Winston, her lover in times past and still the only friend she had worth the bother, was down to his last farthing.

She sighed, telling herself she knew full well what it was like. God's wounds, did she know what it was like. Back when Hugh Winston was still in his first and only term at Oxford, the son of one Lord Harold Winston, before he'd been apprenticed and then sent packing out to the Caribbees, Joan Fuller was already an orphan. The hardest place you could be one. On the cobblestone streets of Billingsgate, City of London.

That's where you think you're in luck to hire out in some household for a few pennies a week, with a hag of a mistress who despises you for no more cause than you're young and pretty. Of course you steal a little at first, not too much or she'd see, but then you remember the master, who idles about the place in his greasy nightshirt half the day, and who starts taking notice after you let the gouty old whoremaster know you'd be willing to earn something extra. Finally the mistress starts to suspect-the bloodhounds always do after a while-and soon enough you're back on the cobblestones.

But you know a lot more now. So if you're half clever you'll take what you've put by and have some proper dresses made up, bright colored with ruffled petticoats, and a few hats with silk ribands. Then you pay down on a furnished lodging in Covent Garden, the first floor even though it's more than all the rest of the house. Soon you've got lots of regulars, and then eventually you make acquaintance of a certain gentleman of means who wants a pert young thing all to himself, on alternate afternoons. It lasts for going on two years, till you decide you're weary to death of the kept life. So you count up what's set by-and realize it's enough to hire passage out to Barbados.

Which someone once told you was supposed to be paradise after London, and you, like a fool, believed it. But which you discover quick enough is just a damned sweltering version of hell. You're here now though, so you take what little money's left and find yourself some girls, Irish ones who've served out their time as indentures, despise having to work, and can't wait to take up the old life, same as before they came out.

And finally you can forget all about what it was like being a penniless orphan. Trouble is, you also realize you're not so young anymore.

"Would you fancy some Hollander cheese, love? The purser from the Zeelander lifted a tub for me and there's still a bit left. And I'll warrant there's cassava bread in back, still warm from morning." She knew Hugh always called for the local bread, the hard patties baked from the powdered cassava root, rather than that from the stale, weevily flour shipped out from London.

He ran a finger contemplatively across her breasts-now they at least were still round and firm as any strutting Irish wench half her age could boast-then dropped his legs off the side of the bed and began to search for his boots.

"I could do with a tankard of sack."

The very brass of him! When he'd come back half drunk in the middle of the night, ranting about floggings or some such and waving a bottle of kill-devil. He'd climbed into bed, had his way, and promptly passed out. So instead of acting like he owned the place, he could bloody well supply an explanation.

"So how did it go yesterday?" She held her voice even, a purr. "With that business on the Zeelander?"

That wasn't the point she actually had in mind. If it hadn't been so damned hot, she'd have nailed him straight out. Something along the lines of "And where in bloody hell were you till all hours?" Or maybe "Why is't you think you can have whatever you want, the minute you want it?" That was the enquiry the situation called for.

"You missed a fine entertainment." His tone of voice told her he probably meant just the opposite.

"You're sayin' the sale went well for the Dutchmen?" She watched him shrug, then readied herself to monitor him sharply. "And after that I expect you were off drinking with the Council." She flashed a look of mock disapproval. "Doubtless passing yourself for a fine gentleman, as always?"

"I am a gentleman." He laughed and swung at her with a muddy boot, just missing as she sprang from the bed. "I just rarely trouble to own it."

"Aye, you're a gentleman, to be sure. And by that thinking I'm a virgin still, since I was doubtless that once too."

"So I've heard you claim. But that was back well before my time."

"You had rare fortune, darlin'. You got the rewards of years of expertise." She reached to pull on her brown linen shift. "And I suppose you'll be telling me next that Master Briggs and the Council can scarcely wait to settle your sight bills."

"They'll settle them in a fortnight, one way or another, or damned to them." He reached for his breeches, not the fancy ones he wore once in a while around the Council, but the canvas ones he used aboard ship, and the tone of his voice changed. "I just hope things stay on an even keel till then."

"I don't catch your meaning." She studied him openly, wondering if that meant he was already planning to leave.

"The planters' new purchase." He'd finished with the trousers and was busy with his belt. "Half of them are Yoruba."

"And, pray, what's that?" She'd thought he was going to explain more on the bit about leaving.

"I think they're a people from somewhere down around the Niger River delta."

"The Africans, you mean?" She examined him, still puzzled. "The slaves?"

"You've hit on it. The slaves. Like a fool, I didn't see it coming, but it's here, all right. May God curse Ruyters. Now I realize this is what he planned all along, the bastard, when he started telling everybody how they could get rich with cane. Save none of these Puritans knows the first thing about working Africans. He's sold them a powder keg with these Yoruba." He rose and started for the door leading into the front room of the tavern. "And they're doing all they can to spark the fuse."

"What're you tryin' to say?" She was watching him walk, something that still pleased her after all the years. But she kept on seeming to listen. When Hugh took something in his head, you'd best let him carry on about it for a time.

"They're proud and I've got a feeling they're not going to take this treatment." He turned back to look at her, finally reading her confusion. "I've seen plenty of Yoruba over the years in Brazil, and I can tell you the Papists have learned to handle them differently. They're fast and they're smart. Some of them even come off the boat already knowing Portugee. I also found out that at least one of those Ruyters sold to Briggs can speak it."