HF - 01 - Caribee (20 page)

'Have you no words?'
he demanded. 'You were on the be
ach, when the articles were read. For absconding the colony, four dozen lashes.
’

'No,' Rebecca cried.

'Be quiet, woman.'

He watched Susan's nostrils dilate as she breathed.
‘
Y
e'd find it easier to cut my th
roat,
' she said quietl
y. 'But not so enjoyable, maybe.'

She defied him. She had identified the desire in him. Perhaps she had always known it, in the way he had looked at her.

'Four dozen lashes were too much for a woman, Tom,' Ashton whispered. 'She'd not survive. And if she did, she'd be good for nothing.'

'You'd start sentencing on physical appearances, Hal?'

'You've no right to punish her at all, sir,' Edward said. 'She is no longer an indentured servant, as I have taken her as my wife.'

Tom stepped forward, whipped the back of his hand across the boy's face. Edward took the blow with a jerk of his head, but kept his feet.
‘I
'm Governor here, by God,' Tom said.
‘I
'm the King's Lieutenant. You'd do well to remember that.' He raised his voice. 'All of you. I act for the King, in his name. My son has reminded me that we suffer from serious omissions here, as regards law. I had hoped that such laws would not be necessary, but as they are, why, by God, we shall set to work this afternoon to draw up a code to manage our conduct. But the girl is a confessed absconder and for the servants there are laws enough. She'll receive four dozen lashes.'

'Tom,' Rebecca screamed. 'You cannot.'

'Get away, woman,' Tom shouted, freeing his arm
with a jerk. He moved so violentl
y that she staggered. Then she regained her balance, gazed at her husband for a moment, and went into their house. Sarah ran behind her, coughing and sneezing. Philip remained standing in the porch, staring at his fa
ther and broth
er with wide eyes.

Susan's mouth slowly opened, as if she would have spoken. Now she slowly closed it again. There were pink spots in her cheeks.

‘It
shall be done now,' Tom said, feeling the resolution seeping away from his mind. 'Mr Jarring, you'll see to it.'

"Yes, sir, Captain Warner,' Jarring cried in delight, and signalled two of his friends to follow him. 'We'll fetch stakes from the bush.'

'Four dozen lashes, Tom?" Berwicke whispered.

'She's a sturdy wench,' Tom said. 'You're bemused by her pre
tt
y face, Ralph. She's nothing but a whore from the bogs of Killarney. I doubt Jarring will mark her back.'

'By
God, sir,' Edward said.
‘You
harm this girl, and I'll... I
’
ll kill you.'

'Beware, boy,' Tom said. 'That is nothing less than treason, to threaten the King's Lieutenant. I'll have order here, by God. She'll be punished and you'll watch it, sir. We'll see if your belly has grown stronger with age.'

Colour flooded Edward's face. He had not suspected his father could enter so deep a mood. But now Jarring and his companions were back from the forest, equipped with two cut down saplings, each about six feet long. These they proceeded to embed in the sand, in front of the Governor's House, se
tt
ing them four feet apart, and testing them with their own weight to make sure they would not move. A nod to the Caribs, and the
Indian
s stood aside from their captives, yet remained in a cluster on the beach, watching the white people with great interest, no doubt wondering if they meant to eat the girl. Jarring slit the rope binding Susan's wrists, and she was marched forward, a man holding each of her arms, placed between the stakes, facing the house, and her arms extended on each side of her body, one wrist being secured to each of the uprights. Still she made no sound, but remained gazing at Tom Warner, her face composed, only her breathing a trifle laboured.

'By God, sir,' Jarring said. 'We have no whip.'

Tom found Iris mouth choked with saliva, as it had used to be when superintending an execution. He had to spit and swallow before he could speak. 'You've a belt, Mr Jarring. We all have belts.'

'A happy thought,' Jarring cried.

'No studs,' Berwicke said. 'No studs and no buckles, Mr Jarring.'

Jarring nodded. He secured five of the belts, and these he bound together at the buckles, to leave himself
with
five leather thongs. 'Shall I cut her hair?'

'No,' Susan cried.
‘I
beg of ye, Mr
Warner
.'

'Let one of the women bind it,' Tom said.

‘I’
ll do it,'
cried an I
rish girl, running forward to grin at Susan as she gathered the long red hair into two plaits, securing each one with a string, and then hanging them in front of the tensed shoulders. 'There ye are, sweetheart,' she said. 'They'll not harm a hair of your head.'

Which brought a gale of laughter from her companions.

'Then there's the shift,' Jarring said, speaking very deliberately.

'Remove it, man,' Tom shouted. 'And get on with it.'

Jarring hesitated, then seized the material and jerked; the straps parted and it came away without resistance, to fall in a cloud of linen about her ankles. Tom could hear the sucking of breaths around him. Never had he seen such a magnificent sight; the strength in thigh and arm, for she stood with legs spread and muscles tight, waiting for the first blow; the mark of the ribs, one after the other, as her breath was similarly drawn; the spread of pale forested belly, the composure of the firm-lipped face—Edward had known all this. By Christ, he thought
-
All this.

Jarring swung his arm, and the five fold crack spread across the beach and up into the trees. Susan's whole body shook, but she never moved her feet The second and the third blows followed in quick succession, and her eyes turned up, away from the watchers, to gaze at the sky. But now there were tears rolling down her cheeks.

The fifth blow brought her mouth open,
with
surprising suddenness. The sixth blow ha
d a moan escaping those parted li
ps,
and now her feet moved, constantl
y, as she shuddered and stamped. At the seventh blow the rope holding her left wrist began to slip and at the eighth blow the dam broke; as blood flew from her lacerated back she screamed, and again, and again, an endless, terrible and terrifying sound, which brought the morning alive and even had Jarring hesitating. But he was swinging again, the leather straps blood wet now in the sunlight, each blow causing a fresh cascade of red drops fly into the air, each crack bringing a fresh scream from the tortured lips. But the screams were losing their pitch, just as those so sturdy legs were losing their strength. Now she hung, her ankles and her knees flaccid, suspended by her wrists, and now the ropes holding the wrists were commencing to slide down the stakes, so that with every blow she sagged lower. She was actually being flogged into the ground. You should stop it, Tom's brain cried. Stop it now, or you will create an enemy for all the rest of your life. An enemy? He watched Edward out of the corner of his eye, watched the sweat standing out on the boy's face, the hard line into which his mouth had formed.

"You'll stop this madness, Tom Warner.'

The voice cut across the morning, a voice strange to them for upwards of a year, so unexpected they turned in horror, thinking to see a ghost, to stare at the tall, thin man, long beard a mass of curls to match the hair which tumbled about his shoulders, yet all the hair unable to conceal the tremendous gash of a mouth. He leaned on a staff, as tall as himself, and had a bow slung from his shoulders, and beside it, a quiver of arrows. Nothing else, yet the colonists gazed at him as if he were behind the touchhole of a cannon with a glowing match.

'Hilton?
’
Ashton asked. Tony Hilton?"

Hilton came forward, slowly, into the assembly. The Caribs were shouting and gesticulating. They were unused to having anyone creeping up on them in this fashion, but they had been too interested in the white man's sport.

'By God,' Tom said. 'We had thought you dead.'

‘I
am not so easily destroyed, Tom.' Hilton walked up to Jarring, still moving with great deliberation, took the bloodstained belts from his hand, and threw them on the sand. He knelt beside the girl, still now and perhaps fainted. From his belt he took his knife, gleaming sharp in the sunlight, and cut the ropes holding her wrists. She tumbled forward on to her face, without a sound, and he hastily rolled her on to her back.
‘I
deserted this colony, Tom,' Hilton said. 'Would you take the flesh from my bones as well?'

'We....' Tom licked his lips. He was conscious that Rebecca was in the doorway behind him. 'We had just realized that there was an omission in our laws.'

'Laws?
’
Hilton demanded.
‘I
remember your dream, Tom, of a land where laws were unnecessary, where men were free.' He looked down at the girl.
‘I
'll take this creature away from here.'

'You'll do what?" Jarring demanded, laying his hand on Hilton's shoulder.

A moment later he sca
tt
ered sand as he stretched his length on the beach. 'No man touches me, or this girl. By Christ, Tom, you'll have to commit a murder. And be sure I'll not go alone.'

Tom chewed his lip. But his rage was past, and with it the vicious hatred of the girl. The vicious lust to see so much una
tt
ainable beauty destroyed as well. Now he f
elt only the sickness, the self-
hatred, the certainty that
this
day would leave a scar across the face of the colony which time would not heal.

'She's an indentured servant, Tony,' Ashton observed mildly.

'The women are available as wives, as I understand it,' Hilton said. 'You've waved this carrot in front of as for too long. I worked and fought with you, Tom Warner, when this colony was but a dream, and you promised me something like this for my reward. Now I'm claiming my right.'

To skulk in the forest?" Tom asked.

Hilton gazed at the girl; her eyelids were starting to flu
tt
er, and even through her unconsciousness her face was beginning to twist with pain.
‘I
've made a home, on the north side, Tom. Tobacco growing was never my style. But I'll submit to the laws of the colony, play my part. You need someone on watch over there, and you could use my nets. You'll get a deal more fish on windward
than
ever over here. But I'll bow to your laws, and to you yourself, Tom, if you give me
this
girl.'

'Let him take her, Tom,' Berwicke whispered. ' Tis certain you'll have a rebel on your hands in her, forever more. And when there is one troubl
emaker, be sure you'll find oth
ers, soon enough.'

'And do I not have a say in this?' Edward demanded.

Hilton straightened, Susan in
his arms; her eyes were open, now, and she stared at him, frowning, while the pain tears still seeped away from her eyes. 'No, lad, you do not,' he said. 'She gave you her trust. You lost your right to her when you let them take you.' He walked up the sand.
‘I
'll be back, with my bride. When she's in a fit state to be married.'

Tom watched them disappear into the trees, gazed at the grinning Irish, the staring colonists, the bemused Caribs. 'So what do you gawk at?" he shouted. The girl commi
tt
ed a crime, and has been punished. Now a place has been found for her. The incident is closed.'

Slowly, hesitating, mu
tt
ering amongst
them
selves, the crowd broke up. Ashton glanced at Berwicke, and the two men left together, strolling down the beach deep in conversation. Only Edward remained staling at his father.

Tom picked up the sword, turned it over before raising his head.
‘I
'd best keep this. Hilton was right. You have played very
little
of the man this day, boy.'

'Had I done so I'd have killed someone, and perhaps been killed myself. I had no conception
that
you would play the savage.'

‘I
did what I had to do, as Governor of this colony,' Tom said. 'You'll not make these people work, and face disaster, perhaps, and rise again, by feeding them milk. As for you, boy, as you say, you would have been killed. Be
tt
er that, however much the grief to your mother and I. You'll not hold your head high amongst these people, or the
Indian
s, ever again.' He went inside. Rebecca lay in her hammock. Sarah had gone out the back. Tom threw the sword in the corner, took off his hat. 'There's not a scene I'd repeat every day of the week.'