Keturah Page 12

  And when she looked around again, she saw that Selah was no longer behind her. Nowhere about in the crowd …

  With alarm, she looked from Verity and around in a slow circle, telling herself not to panic. All about her, people spoke in Spanish, French, Dutch, and German, as well as English. There were women selling candy and cakes, fishmongers selling fat red snapper from trays strapped around burly necks. Another vendor was selling casks of wine, still another trading Spanish doubloons and pieces of eight for the island’s currency, stamped with the letter N.

  Where is she? How could she pick this moment to wander off? Ket wondered in indignant agitation.

  Ket’s heart sank when she finally glimpsed Selah’s blond curls. She was standing next to a slaver’s platform. Primus, dear Primus, was standing beside her, looking back to Ket with terror in his eyes, even as he did his best to keep watch over his youngest mistress.

  Above them, a man paraded a black female slave about, and the young woman was entirely nude. Heat washed up Keturah’s cheeks, and she thought about confronting the irreverent man atop the platform when she spied two other platforms nearby that were identical to the first. Men and women and children, each of them chained at the ankles, with only a few wearing the scantest of fabrics to cover themselves. The rest were naked and clearly miserable, half of them barely able to stand.

  Most haunting of all were the babies in their mothers’ arms. Not a one of them cried, though they had more than enough cause. They were eerily silent, stoically watching for whatever was to come next, as if nothing could further shock tears from their tender souls.

  The crack of a whip startled her, and she forced herself to move again, toward her sister. She’d just settled a hand on Selah’s shoulder when the slaver roughly lifted the slave woman’s jaw, wrenching her mouth open to show the buyers she still had a full set of teeth.

  The woman bit down on the slaver’s finger. He let out a shriek, trying to free himself, but the woman stubbornly held on. In that moment, Keturah thought she could feel the woman’s desperation as her own, somewhat like what she’d felt when she decided she was coming to Nevis regardless of what anyone said. Her action said, That is enough. ’Tis here I take my stand.

  The slaver rammed his fist into the woman’s nose, and blood spattered in an arc, showering Keturah, Selah, and Primus. The woman collapsed to the platform, sprawled out, arms stretched directly toward them. The slaver unfurled his whip and it arced in the air as if it had a life of its own—a snake about to attack—then came down across the naked woman’s back. Her mouth opened wide as her skin flayed open, but she only let loose a small gasp, then another as the whip struck again. Tears welled in her dark eyes, yet she remained quiet, staring at Ket. A Negro man surged from the lines, trying to get to her, but another slaver savagely clubbed him across the back. “Stay where you are!” he shouted.

  Keturah heard him, but her gaze remained locked with the young woman’s bloodshot eyes, taking in her hair, shorn tight, and hollow cheeks. The girl stared at her unseeingly. How many weeks had they been at sea sailing from Africa? How many of her kin and friends had been lost to disease or starvation, their bodies part of what made the harbor reek of death? How strange and dreadful would this place seem to her? What hope had she?

  The whip cracked in the air again. Keturah looked up and saw, with fresh horror, that Selah had climbed onto the platform.

  “Stop this!” Selah shouted, lifting her hands.

  The whip came down toward them both. “Stop!” Ket screamed, and the slaver lifted his whip at the last possible second, sparing Selah’s tender flesh.

  Her sister threw herself atop the woman, shielding her.

  “Selah!” Ket cried. “Selah, what are you doing?”

  Two men who had been bidding on the slave from the other side looked at each other in agitation and then climbed the steps too. One burly gentleman rushed over to Selah and looked down at her. “Get up, miss,” he said in a thick Creole accent, gesturing for her to stand. “This is no way for a lady to act. It is not how we conduct ourselves in the Indies.”

  “Not until I know she shall suffer no further harm!” Selah said, tears welling in her eyes.

  “Who are you? What is your name?” asked the man, and Ket saw the whip at his belt. He crossed his arms. “Where is your father?” He scanned the crowd behind them.

  Keturah froze. She couldn’t believe this was happening. There had been slavers in the ports of London and Liverpool, of course. This certainly wasn’t the first time she’d witnessed an auction. But her father had carefully shielded the girls from more than a glimpse and, judging from what she saw here, for good reason.

  “We shall take them!” Keturah called to the auctioneer, seeing only one way out of the situation. She well knew that if it got out that Selah was a slave lover, it would not bode well for them among the other planters. She was green to this particular saddle, but not so green that she couldn’t keep her seat. Or at least pretend to do so.

  “And you are … ?” said the slaver.

  She took a deep breath and climbed onto the platform and went to Selah. She looked up at the square-jawed man with the whip and then the auctioneer. “I am Lady Tomlinson of Tabletop Plantation.”

  “Tabletop!” said the man, incredulous. “Why, there—”

  Ket turned to the auctioneer. “I wish to purchase this girl,” she rushed on, with a quick nod to the woman still on the platform. She hissed to Selah, “Get up, Selah. Get up. Remember yourself.” Then to the slaver, “And we’ll take that man too.”

  The slaver considered her, chewing his lip as he rolled the whip up and settled it at his hip again. He followed her gaze to the man who had strained at his bonds when the girl was whipped. “That will cost you a pretty penny, Lady Tomlinson. This girl here is worth ninety pounds, and her man is a hundred and ten.”

  Keturah glared at him. “I’ll give you eighty for each of them.”

  “Ninety, and not a penny less.”

  “Done.”

  He began to reach for her hand and then thought better of it, clearly used to dealing with men.

  “Release them both from their shackles,” Selah said, wiping furious tears from her eyes.

  “Come now, miss. This here is Nevis,” said the man with the square jaw, turning to spit. “Take it from me,” he drawled, “a man born and raised here. I’m Angus Shubert, the overseer of Red Rock, which is at Tabletop’s northern border. Now, I recognize you’re new here, but I will tell you—if you let loose your slaves from their shackles before they’ve been acclimated to the island, they’re liable to run.” He swore, then turned to spit again. “Some have been known to fling themselves into the sea. If that happens to you, you’ll be the proud owner of two drowned slaves, and out your one hundred eighty pounds sterling. That will do no one any good. And ma’am,” he added, dropping his voice, “knowing what I do of Tabletop, buying slaves who turn around and drown themselves is the last thing you need.”

  Selah edged between the slave—now rising to her hands and knees—and Mr. Shubert. “We believe that human beings respond to kindness and respect.”

  Her words made Angus Shubert’s bushy brows rise. He barked a laugh, as did his companion and slaver too, though he had the good sense to try to hide his own laughter by turning partially away.

  Selah, her face burning in embarrassment, looked back to her sister.

  “Release them from their shackles,” Keturah said.

  The slaver turned back to her. “Don’t come crying to me when you find they’ve run off,” he said with a shrug, silently beckoning to another man and then catching a ring of keys that sailed through the air.

  He bent to unlock the woman’s shackles, and as they fell away, Ket grimaced. The metal bands had worn her skin raw, and the wounds were swollen with infection. Her man’s were no better, she soon saw.

  She turned to Primus at her side. “Find them some clothes,” she said and drew a shilling from her small purse. �
�A simple gown for the girl, breeches for the man.”

  “I’ll need payment before you take them,” said the slaver, tucking his thumbs in his belt and looking Keturah up and down, eying her purse that had just dropped back to her waist. The little purse didn’t carry the amount she needed in sterling.

  “We have only just arrived,” she said, lifting her chin as if she had not a care in the world. “Come to Tabletop in three days and I shall have your money.”

  He gave her a rueful smile and shook his head slowly. “Why, you are just off the boat, aren’t you, girl?”

  “Lady,” she corrected, recognizing she needed every edge she could find. “Lady Tomlinson.”

  “Pardon me, m’lady,” he drawled with no semblance of respect in his tone. “You see, if I continue on with my task, I will sell these two slaves to any of the fine gentlemen on the far side of the platform within minutes. Mr. Shubert, for one. Slaves are needed by the hundreds here on Nevis. You only caught my eye, given your companion’s—”

  “My sister’s,” Ket corrected.

  “Your sister’s misguided actions.” He let out a scoffing laugh. “’Tis common enough. Proper English ladies, paling in the face of what they see here. But you’ll grow accustomed to it in time. They all do.”

  Ket’s eyes ran across the line of miserable humans, torn from family and friends and all that was familiar. All her life she’d grown up with slaves. But they had been servants, an integral part of her family life—not merely a tool. Never had she known a slave fresh from the docks. Most of their servants had been born in England, the second or third generation, or purchased from others. They had proper British accents and sounded much like any white servant.

  These … these people, there was a wildness in them. Desperation. Anger. Fear. Confusion. It jarred her as nothing had before. And with one look at Selah, she knew she felt the same. But what were they to do? They had not even their cargo from the Restoration with which to barter. Keturah knew not in what state they’d find Tabletop. And her own funds? It might take months to secure a transfer from Britain.

  “Here, take this as security,” Selah said, wriggling off the emerald ring she inherited from their mother.

  “Selah,” gasped Verity, finally coming to their aid, still looking so green she might retch again.

  “I wish for it to be returned to me when we have your coin,” the girl said to the slaver. “It is worth more than two hundred pounds. If we do not have your funds in three days, then you may keep it.”

  The slaver grasped the ring between thumb and forefinger and lifted it to the light, then bit the gold. He pursed his lips, nodding, and slipped it into his vest pocket. “Very well, Miss Banning. I shall see you in three days’ time at Tabletop. Good luck with your two new runaways.” He moved past her then, taking hold of a young man of about fourteen, obviously ill, and wrenching him to his feet.

  Keturah set a hand on Primus’s forearm as he returned with the clothes. “You found wagons?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Gideon should be with them, up there by the road.”

  “Good. I shall send him to help you get the man and woman to our carriages.”

  “Yes, Lady Ket,” he replied with a nod. Sweat dripped down his head and neck, and she knew it wasn’t entirely from the heat of the midafternoon.

  No, there was a shadow in his eyes that she never remembered seeing before. A shadow of memory? How old had he been when he came to work for the Bannings? All her life, for certain. But he’d been a part of Father’s family before that. Had he not?

  The thought of it shamed her, that she did not know. How could she not know the history of every servant in her care? She felt foolish. How could she not have anticipated how being here, seeing slavery at its most vile, would not affect her own servants? And what were they to do with these two new arrivals, who most likely did not speak a word of English? How was she to figure out how to ease them into a life of service? One limb at a time, she told herself. But the thought rang hollow.

  This wasn’t a summer’s afternoon on Crabapple Hill, a contest to see if she could coax Gray higher up an oak tree.

  She spun in a slow circle, taking in the swarm of people, a contingent of British soldiers sweltering in their red uniforms, the volcanic stone buildings of Charlestown, the marketplace, the slavers, the twelve ships anchored in the harbor, the ketches and rowboats moving in and out on a bright blue-green sea. Higher up on the hill, she spied the fort and her big thirty-pounder cannons, ready to ward off the French or any other foe daring to invade.

  But it was Ket who already felt invaded by this place. Nearly eviscerated, as if her lungs had been pierced.

  And they had yet to reach the plantation.

  Four words rang through her mind as she glanced back to her sisters, as solemn as church bells tolling.

  What have I done?

  Chapter Eleven

  The plantation, Ket thought. If only we can reach the plantation, I shall be surrounded by the familiar again. Find my footing. It will feel like home there. At the very least, somewhere we can rest this night, eat, wash.

  That was the hope, anyway. She remembered well the ledgers and how dismal it had appeared. And that was before the last harvest. She found she was breathing fast and shallow, growing light-headed.

  Selah seemed to notice and gripped her hand. “Ket, are you going to be sick again?”

  “What? No, no,” she said, but her protests seemed weak, even to her own ears.

  Angus Shubert, the overseer of Red Rock Plantation, ambled near and took in Selah’s bewilderment and Ket’s wan complexion, considering them. “Now, I must insist,” he said to Selah, taking her hand and tucking it into the crook of his beefy arm. “Lord Reynolds, the owner of Red Rock and your new neighbor, would take me to task if he knew I’d come across the orphaned daughters of Richard Banning and let you find your own way to Tabletop. Come along now. I shall see you safely there.”

  “No. I mean, I truly thank you,” Ket tried, looking about for Primus but finding it hard to keep her vision from twisting in the heat. But Shubert was already pulling Selah along, who looked helplessly over her shoulder at her sisters.

  “Come, Lady Tomlinson,” Mr. Shubert said, giving her a frown. He turned to a slave at his side and hissed to him to fetch fresh water for the ladies. The boy set off running. “Take a seat, here in the shade of this tree,” Mr. Shubert said, his tone soothing. Placating. Like she’d heard Verity speak to agitated horses in the corral. But as much as it irked Ket, she could not find the will to resist. Obediently, she sat next to where he deposited Selah, and Verity followed behind, breathing fast as if to try to avoid another round of vomiting.

  Primus arrived at last. “The new slaves are in the wagon, Lady Ket,” he said, looking at the three sisters with some consternation.

  “Good work, boy,” Shubert said, setting a massive hand on the older man’s shoulder. “Where are they?”

  Primus hesitated, looking from him to Ket.

  Shubert grabbed Primus’s chin and forced the man to look back at him. “I said, where are they?”

  “Mr. Shubert!” Ket cried, rising. She reached for his arm, even as he still clenched Primus’s face in his hand. “Release him at once!”

  He did so, but continued to glare at Primus. “I don’t know how it was for you in England, boy, but here in the West Indies, when a white man asks you a question, you answer it. When a white man directs you to do something here, you do it. Without hesitation. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Mr. Shubert,” Primus said. “I beg your pardon if I offended you.”

  Shubert stared at the man, with his impeccable English and trembling hands, and laughed. Laughed and looked to his two companions who had rejoined him, as if they were watching a dancing bear rather than a man.

  “We can find our own way to Tabletop, Mr. Shubert,” Ket said firmly, finding her anger had steadied her vision and her stomach. All she knew was that she wanted to get as far away from t
his man as possible. “We do not wish to trouble you.” With that, she gestured for Primus to lead the way to their carriages.

  But Shubert fell into step beside Selah, who followed behind Ket and Verity. “As I said, it is no trouble at all, ma’am,” he said to Keturah with a tip of his tricorn hat when she glanced back at him in irritation. “After all, you are neighbors! And since you ladies are unaccompanied and the proud owners of these two green slaves,” he said and narrowed his eyes at the couple in the back of the wagon, “I feel I’d be remiss if I didn’t attend you.”

  There was no dissuading him. He resolutely waited with them until the rest of their cargo was loaded and their people assembled.

  Captain McKintrick approached them just as they were about to leave. “Lady Tomlinson!” he called, but she saw that his eyes were on Verity. Together they turned toward the captain. “Your cargo has all arrived in fine order?” he asked, his eyes running down the length of the three wagons. “Naught amiss?”

  “It appears so, yes,” Ket replied. “Thank you for getting it—and us—safely to Nevis, Captain. We have met some … neighbors,” she said, gesturing toward Shubert. “They have offered to escort us to Tabletop.”

  “Ach, that’s good.” He reached out to shake Shubert’s hand and introduced himself to all three before turning back to the ladies. “I shall be here for five, mayhap six days. May I come to call upon ye before I depart?”

  Keturah hesitated. She’d imagined that anything begun between the sea captain and her sister would end as soon as they disembarked. She had clearly miscalculated. But what could she say? He was so earnest, Verity so eager, that she could not find it in her heart to turn him away. At least not here, with so many to observe. No, she’d have to find a way in private to dissuade him.