Tom Warner smiled. 'Now, white man,' he said. 'Now, you are dead, in your mind. Or would you like to follow your slave, for the last time, before I take your manhood, and then your life?'
'Truly must you have suffered, friend, to have so far forgotten your true stature,' Kit said.
Tom Warner frowned at him. 'You are a man of some courage, white man. No doubt it takes courage, to bed with that she-viper. Your name?'
'Christopher Hilton.'
The frown deepened. 'Hilton?' A look of almost pain crossed his fea
tures. 'You are called Kit?'
'By my friends.'
The chieftain gazed at him for several seconds, and then spoke in Indian, without taking his eyes from Kit's face. One of the braves ran from the room. The others sliced through the rawhide ropes holding their prisoner.
'Susan's grandson?'
Kit rubbed his wrists. 'By Christ,' he said. 'You remember her?'
'In my life,' Tom Warner said. 'But three white people showed me kindness. My brother Edward, his wife Aline, and S
usan Hilton. Now all are
dead. I do not ask your forgiveness, Kit.' He looked at the couple on the floor, for George Frederick still lay there, perhaps afraid to release her, now that his passion was spent and he understood the enormity of his crime. 'But I would have you understand. She is my niece. Aye. Her father is my brother. Yet did he send my mother and me to the slave compound, and have us in the fields, my mother, who had cared for him
like
a mother when Rebecca died. And when we faltered, he himself used the whip. Only a Warner may flog a Warner, were his words.'
'You escaped,' Kit said.
'Aye,' Tom Warner said. 'And waited. For twenty years I waited. To deal with him, and his brood. He has escaped me this time. But she ..." he turned as feet clumped on the verandah. 'I have found your friend, Jean.'
Jean DuCasse hurried in, panting, sweat soaking his shirt. His head was bound in a bandanna, and he carried a cutlass. He had put on weight, and had allowed his moustache to grow and droop beside his mouth. 'Kit.' He frowned at his naked friend. 'Mon Dieu.'
'I discovered in time,' Tom Warner said.
'In time.' Kit seized George Frederick's shoulder, threw him away from Marguerite, dropped to his knees. She said not a word, and her fists were still clenched.
'Kit,' Jean said. 'Ill met, after too long. I knew you were a planter, but not the name of your estate. I should have guessed.'
'Aye.' Kit smoothed the hair from her forehead; it was matted with sweat, and there was sweat on her face as well. But no tears in her eyes.
A tablecloth fell on her shoulders. Hastily Kit wrapped it round her, and gazed across her at his friend.
'You'll take my hand, Kit. I would not have had it so.'
Kit hesitated, and then thrust out his hand. Jean squeezed it. 'And you, madam? Do you remember me?'
Marguerite's head turned. 'I remember you, Monsieur DuCasse. I shall, remember you.'
'I would not have had it so,' Jean said again. 'It is war, and a savage war. No doubt my time will come. But they shall not burn your house. This I swear. Nor will they take your blacks.'
'Leave me only that one.' Marguerite's voice was hardly more than a whisper, but George Frederick, crouching six feet away from her, jerked his head, and stared at them with wide eyes.
'You cannot, suh,' he screamed. 'You cannot leave me, suh.'
'Leave him,' Marguerite said. 'Or take my curse.'
Jean sighed. 'Then must I accept both, madam. You will murder him, for a crime he was forced to? Then are both Kit and I deserving of a far worse fate.'
'Leave him,' Marguerite said.
'No,' Tom Warner said. 'I leave you your life. I had not intended that. Be grateful, bitch.'
Kit stood up. 'Can there not be an end to hating, Mr Warner? You have done my wife a mortal injury. I understand, that her father ..." he hesitated, glancing at her. 'Her father did you and your mother nothing less. Can there not be satisfaction?'
Tom Warner pointed at the slight figure on the floor. 'She lives,' he said, 'because she is your wife. I pity you, Kit Hilton. You know not where you rest your head of a night. As she is Philip's blood, so does she reek with his venom. Had my braves sliced the skin from your bones, you could scarce have suffered more than you will suffer, tied to that reptilian creature. I shall not see you again, Kit. Will you take my hand?'
Kit looked down at the proffered fingers. Christ, to end emotion, to do what mattered. If one could tell, what mattered. 'Perhaps,' he said. 'When we meet ag
ain. If that should happen.'
Indian Warner looked into his eyes, then nodded, and gave his orders. And left the room, his braves at his heels.
Jean hesitated in the doorway. ' 'Tis your government you must blame for this, Kit,' he said. 'Benbow needs more ships in these waters. Then must DuCasse meet his end. Until then, why, DuCasse must injure the English wherever he can. But not Kit Hilton. Nor his wife.' He bowed to Marguerite. 'I am truly sorry, madam. Had I the power to accomplish one miracle, I would command time to turn back, for but a scant half hour. I would beg you to believe that.' He gazed at George Frederick. 'You'd best run behind me, fellow.'
Marguerite crawled across the floor to the door, the tablecloth forgotten. 'Bring him back,' she whispered. 'Bring him back, Kit. Take who you need, what you need. Bring that bastard back.'
'We are all bastards,' Kit said.
Her head started to turn, and then checked. The house echoed to shouted questions from the cellar.
'Our heroes,' she said. 'The Indians would have fired the house, Kit. Why do you not, and leave them to perish of suffocation?'
'Your own children are down there.'
She got to her feet. Slowly she inflated her lungs until her belly swelled and her breasts stood away from her chest, then she released it again, and her body sagged. 'Then no doubt you should release them,' she said, and climbed the stairs.
Kit knelt by the trap. 'Open up. It is done,' he said. They stared at him in amazement; he had forgotten he was naked. 'They have gone,' he said, and followed Marguerite up the stairs, closed the bedroom door behind him.
She lay on her belly across the bed. Perhaps now she wept. But he knew better than to expect that. 'I am in a unique position,' she said. How steady was her voice. 'For me. My situation is beyond my experience, or my comprehension. What does one do, Kit, with a woman, after she has been raped, by a slave?'
'One loves her the more. For her courage.'
'And could you bear to touch me?'
He crawled on to the bed beside her, kissed the nape of her
neck, parting the matted hair with his tongue. 'Should you wish it, I would enter you now.'
She rolled away from him, sat up at the foot of the bed, legs dangling, back held to him. 'No. No, no, no, no, no, no.'
'The stigma is in your mind.'
'Of course.' She got up, walked to the window, gazed at the smouldering fields, inhaled the crisp smell of the burned cane.
'It will rise again. Everything will rise again. Had they burned this house, it too would rise again,' Kit said. 'Had they slaughtered your slaves, they would have been replaced. Had they murdered your children, I would have given you others.'
'And had they torn the flesh from your bones, before my eyes?'
'Then would you have secured for yourself another, more able, more virile husband.'
At last she turned. How beautiful she was, through all the marks on her body, through all the agony on her face. Or did the agony itself, and the knowledge of how it was gained, add to her beauty? To her desirability? For how perverse is the mind of man.
'No, not more virile,' she whispered. 'Do you not fear that this may also have happened to Lilian?'
'It has not,' he said. 'They had no means of storming St John's. But had it happened, Meg, I would pray she would have borne it with as much fortitude.'
Marguerite crossed the room, looked out of the other window, at the slaves milling about in the village. 'Poor creatures,' she said. 'Had they but an ounce of vigour in their gut they would have used their temporary freedom to murder us all. And I have had one of their black tools inside my body. Christ, had I a knife.'
He held her shoulders, brought her back against him. 'You'll not give way now, Meg.'
She turned, in his arms. 'Then say you'll avenge me, Kit. Bring me back that slave. I want no more.' She smiled, and it was a terrible sight. 'No. I set my sights too low. Bring me back Tom Warner as well, Kit. Bring them back alive. With
men
at your back, that were not difficult, for Kit Hilton.'
He stared down into her eyes,
hardened facets of gleaming
green. 'To perpetuate this hatred, which may well rise up again and overwhelm my own children? That makes little sense to me. Your uncle claims to have been savagely mistreated by your father. No doubt this raid satisfies his sense of revenge. Yet he is not a savage, Meg. He would not take my life, or yours.'
'.My life?' she whispered. 'What is my life, when I have lain beneath a black man? How do I look at myself in the mirror, Kit Hilton? How do I touch myself, as I must, if I live? How do I accept your lust, if indeed you can ever feel such for me again? Tell me, Kit. Tell me.'
'Would you be easier in your mind with George Frederick at your mercy?'
'I would be easier in my mind,' she said. 'I would be easier, knowing that he will no longer dream, of that moment of glory, that he will no longer remember, how his belly pressed against mine, how his semen mingled with my own juice. By Christ, I would be easier.'
'Aye,' Kit said. 'I have no answer, to such a memory. Save to overlay it with others. With sweeter thoughts. Have no fear of my love, my darling Meg. Command it, and it belongs to you alone. Be my wife. That is all I ask. Say the word, and I will never go near Lilian Christianssen again.'
'And I almost believe you,' she said. 'Oh, God, to be alone with you, now and always, shipwrecked upon some lonely isle where we should have none but each other, and our love. I have sought only yours. I will ever seek, only yours. So perhaps you are right. Perhaps with your sweet aid I may overcome that memory. Then let it commence now. Quickly, I beg of you, Kit.'
Her eyes were shut. He swept her from the floor and laid her on the bed, and knelt above her, and looked up as the door opened.
'Papa,' Tony cried. 'We were so afraid, Papa, when you did not come.'
He led his sister by the hand, and she still cried. 'But we are here now,' Kit said. 'Safe and well. Eh, sweetheart?'
Marguerite also sat up, and smiled at her children. 'Come here,' she said.
They crossed the room, slowly and timidly. They were unused to their mother, naked and dishevelled. They found her a stranger, and Tony, at the least, was old enough to link her appearance with the whispered gossip which already seeped through the house.
Marguerite took a child in each arm, hugging them against her. 'We are all here now,' she said. 'Safe and well, as your father says.'
'And did you beat them, Papa?' Tony cried.
'No,' Kit said.
'There were too many,' Marguerite said. 'Too many even for your father. But he fought as no other man could have fought, for there is no other man of his stature. And when they finally overcame him, Tony, and would have killed him, they learned his name, and their anger turned to respect. Thus we live, and our plantation lives, and we will prosper.' They buried their heads in her shoulders, and she looked over them at her husband. Now at last, after so long, the tears came, rolling silently down her cheeks. The gates of hell had opened wide, and she had stumbled in, and then been dragged back to the light and air outside. So perhaps she would need to lie and cheat a little to remain above the ground, but she would do that. And surely, he thought, as he leaned forward to kiss her eyes, if I can but keep her this high for a short time, the gaping chasm which yawns before her mind will fill, and disappear.
Marguerite Hilton.
The crowd roared its anger. It stamped its feet, and dust eddied into the air. It whistled, and the noise pierced the very heavens. St John's was an ant-heap of outraged manhood. Their anger swelled up towards the dais on which their Governor, and his deputy, stood, and the redcoats grasped their firepieces tighter as they formed line before the steps, and stared at the people who were their brothers-in-law and fathers-in-law and drinking companions, in saner moments, and prayed that the explosion of hate would lead to no more than words.