The Sot-Weed Factor (46 page)

Let me taste of thy Tears,

And the Wax of thine Ears;

Let me drink of thy Body's own Wine
--"

"Eh! 'Sheart! Have done ere you gag me!" Ebenezer cried.
"Thy body's own wine!
Ne'er have I heard such verses!"

"Thou'rt a stranger to Master Barnes, then, the sonneteer? He longed to be the sherry in his mistress's glass, that she might curl him in her tongue, warm her amorous blood with him, and piss him forth anon. . ."

"There is a certain truth in all of this you tell me," Ebenezer admitted. "I'll grant you farther that were I not resolved to chastity -- nay, do not laugh, sir, 'tis true, as I'll explain in time -- were I not resolved to chastity, I say, but had me a mistress like the lot of men, I should feel this urge you speak of, to know her in every wise, saving only her 'body's own wine' and such like liquors, that can stay in her distillery for all I'll quaff 'em! There's naught unnatural in this: 'tis but the lover's ancient wish that Plato speaks of, to be one body with his beloved; and with poets in especial 'tis not to be wondered at, forasmuch as
love
and
woman
are so oft the stuff of verse. Yet 'tis no mean leap from Petrarch's Laura, or even Barnes's thirsty wench, to your fat sow Portia here!"

"On the contrary, sir, 'tis no leap at all," Tim said. "You have already pled my case. Your Socrates had Xanthippe to warm his bed, but he took his sport with the young Greek lads as well, did he not? Ye say that women are oft the stuff o' poetry, but in fact 'tis the great wide world the poet sings of: God's whole creation is his mistress, and he hath for her this selfsame love and boundless curiosity. He loves the female body -- Heav'n knows! -- the little empty space between her thighs he loves, that meet to make sweet friction lower down; and the two small dimples in the small o' her back, that are no strangers to his kiss."

" 'Tis quite established," Ebenezer said, his blood roused up afresh, "the female form is wondrous to behold!"

"But shall it blind ye to the beauty of the male, sir? Not if ye've Plato's eyes, or Shakespeare's. How comely is a well-formed man! That handsome cage of ribs, and the blocky muscles of his calves and thighs; the definition of his hands, ridged and squared with veins and tendons, and more pleasing than a woman's to the eye; the hair of his chest, that the nicest sculptors cannot render; and noblest of all, his manhood in repose! What contrast to the sweet unclutteredness of women! The chiefest fault of the sculpting Greeks, methinks, is that their marble men have the parts of little boys: 'tis pederastic art, and I abhor it. How wondrous, had they carved the living truth, that folk in ancient times were wont to worship -- the very mace and orbs of power!"

"I too have admired men on occasion," Ebenezer said grudgingly, "but my flesh recoils at the thought of amorous connection!" His unseen partner's words, in fact, had recalled to him the indignities which he had suffered more than three months earlier in the
Poseidon
's fo'c'sle.

"Then more's the pity," Tim said lightly, "for there's much to be said of men in verse. Marry, sometimes I wish I had a gift with words, sir, or some poet had my soul: what lines I would make about the bodies of men and women! And the rest of creation as well!" Ebenezer heard him patting Portia. "Great rippling hounds, sleek mares, or golden cows -- how can men and women rest content with little pats for such handsome beasts? I, I love them from the last recesses of my soul; my heart aches with passion for their bodies!"

"Perversity,
Mr. Mitchell!" the Laureate scolded. "You've parted company now with Plato and Shakespeare, and with every other gentleman as well!"

"But not with mankind," Timothy declared. "Europa, Leda, and Pasiphae are my sisters; my offspring are the Minotaur, and the Gorgons, and the Centaurs, the beast-headed gods of the Egyptians, and all the handsome royalty of the fairy tales, that must be loved in the form of toads and geese and bears. I love the world, sir, and so make love to it! I have sown my seed in men and women, in a dozen sorts of beasts, in the barky boles of trees and the honeyed wombs of flowers; I have dallied on the black breast of the earth, and clipped her fast; I have wooed the waves of the sea, impregnated the four winds, and flung my passion skywards to the stars!"

So exalted was the voice in which this confession was delivered that Ebenezer shrank away, as discreetly as he could, some inches farther from its author, who he began to fear was mad.

" 'Tis a most -- interesting point of view," he said.

"I was sure 'twould please ye," Timothy said. " 'Tis the only way for a poet to look at the world."

"Ah, well, I did not say I share your catholic tastes!"

"Come now, sir!" Timothy laughed. " 'Twas not in your sleep ye came here calling
Susie!"

Ebenezer made a small mumble of protest; he did not, on the one hand, care to let Timothy believe that the Laureate of Maryland shared his vicious lust for livestock, but on the other hand he was not prepared to reveal the true reason for his presence in the barn.

"Thou'rt too much the gentleman to molest her now," Tim went on. Ebenezer heard him moving closer and retreated another step.

" 'Twas all an error of judgment!" he cried, tingling with shame. "I can explain it all!"

"Wherefore? D'ye think I mean to ruin your name, when ye have spared my Portia? Susan Warren told me all, and I bade her wait for ye; I'll lead ye straight to her, and ye may sport the night away." He caught up before Ebenezer could run and grasped his upper arm.

" 'Tis more than kind," the Laureate said apprehensively, "but I've no wish to go at all. I really am a virgin, I swear't, for all my ill designs on Susan Warren; 'twas some sudden monstrous passion overcame me, that I am most ashamed of now." Again, and bitterly, he remembered his own ill treatment on the
Poseidon.
"Thank Heav'n I was delayed till prudence cooled my ardor, else I'd done myself and her an equal wrong!"

"Then you really are a virgin yet?" Tim asked softly, tightening his grip on the poet's arm. "And ye still mean to remain one, come what may?"

He spoke in a voice altogether different from the one he'd used until then; it raised the Laureate's hackles, and so drained him with surprise that he could not speak.

" 'Twas not easy to believe," the new voice added. "That's why I said I'd take you to the swine-girl."

"I cannot believe my ears!" the poet gasped.

"Nor could I mine, when Mitchell told me of his dinner guest. Shall we trust our eyes any better?"

He removed the lantern shade completely: in the yellow flare, which drew the slow attention of the swine, Ebenezer saw not the bearded, black-haired "Peter Sayer" Burlingame of Plymouth -- though this had been incredible enough! -- but the well-dressed, smooth-shaven, periwigged tutor of St. Giles in the Fields and London.

No Ground Is Gained Towards the

Laureate's Ultimate Objective, but Neither

Is Any Lost

"Is't
once,
or twice, or thrice I am deceived?" the poet exclaimed. "Is't Burlingame that stands before me now, or was't Burlingame I left in Plymouth? Or are the twain of you impostors?"

"The world's a happy climate for imposture," Burlingame admitted with a smile.

"You were so much altered when I saw you last, and now you've altered back to what you were!"

" 'Tis but to say what of't I've said to you ere now, Eben: your true and constant Burlingame lives only in your fancy, as doth the pointed order of the world. In fact you see a Heraclitean flux: whether 'tis we who shift and alter and dissolve; or you whose lens changes color, field, and focus; or both together. The upshot is the same, and you may take it or reject it."

Ebenezer shook his head. "In sooth you are the man I knew in London. Yet I cannot believe Peter Sayer was a fraud!"

Burlingame shrugged, still holding the lantern. "Then say he hath shaved his hair and beard since then, as doth my version of the case,
and no longer affects a tone of voice like this."
He spoke these last words in the voice Ebenezer remembered from Plymouth. "If you'd live in the world, my friend, you must dance to some other fellow's tune or call your own and try to make the whole world step to't."

"That's why I'm loath to strike out on the floor" -- Ebenezer laughed -- "though I came very near to't this night."

Henry laid his hand on the poet's shoulder, "I know the story, friend, and the whore hath fleeced you for the nonce. But I'll get your two pounds from her by and by."

"No matter," the poet smiled ruefully. " 'Twas but a worthless ring I gave her, and I bless the hour she foiled my lecherous plan." The mention of it recalled his friend's recent discourse in the dark, and he blushed and laughed again. " 'Twas for a tease you feigned that passion for a pig, and the rest!"

"Not a bit of't," Henry declared. "That is to say, I have no
special
love for her, but she is in sooth a tasty flitch, despite her age, and many's the time --"

"Stay, you tease me yet!"

"Think what you will," said Burlingame. "The fact is, Eben, I share your views on innocence."

So surprised and pleased was Ebenezer to hear this confession that he embraced his friend with both arms; but Burlingame's response was a movement so meaningful that the poet cried out in alarm and retreated at once, shocked and hurt.

"What I mean to say," Henry continued pleasantly, "is that I too once clung to my virginity, and for the selfsame cause you speak of in your poem. Yet anon I lost it, and so committed me to the world; 'twas then I vowed, since I was fallen from grace, I would worship the Serpent that betrayed me, and ere I died would know the taste of every fruit the garden grows! How is't, d'you think, I made a conquest of a saint like Henry More? And splendid Newton, that I drove near mad with love? How did I get my post with Baltimore, and wrap good Francis Nicholson around my finger?"

" 'Sheart, you cannot mean they all are --"

"Nay," said Henry, anticipating the objection. "That is, they scarcely think so. But ere I was twenty I knew more of the world's passions than did Newton of its path in space. No end of
experimenta
lay behind me; I could have writ my own
Principia
of the flesh! When Newton set his weights and wires a-swing, did they know what forces moved them as he chose? No more than Newton knew, and Portia here -- to name no others -- what wires of nerve and amorous springs I triggered, to cause whate'er reaction I pleased."

The Laureate was sufficiently astonished by these revelations so that before he could assimilate them Henry changed the subject to one more apparently relevant: their separate crossings from Plymouth and their present positions. He had, he declared, successfully deceived Captains Slye and Scurry into believing that he was John Coode, and in that role had accompanied them to Maryland, confirming in the process Coode's leadership of a sizable two-way smuggling operation: under the rebel's direction, numerous shipmasters ran Maryland tobacco duty-free to New York, for example, whence Dutch confederates marketed it illegally in Curaç
ao, Surinam, or Newfoundland; or they would export it to the Barbados, where it was transferred from hogsheads to innocent-looking boxes and smuggled into England; or they would run it directly to Scotland. On return trips they imported cargoes from foreign ports directly into Maryland by the simpler device of bribing the local collectors with barrels of rum and crates of scarce manufactured goods.

" 'Tis in this wise," he said, "Coode earns a large part of the money for his grand seditious plots, though he doubtless hath other revenues as well." He went on to assert that from all indications the conspirator planned a
coup d'
é
tat,
perhaps within a year, various of Slye's and Scurry's remarks left little doubt of that, though they gave no hint of the agency through which the overthrow was to be effected.

"Then how is it thou'rt here and not on Nicholson's doorstep?" asked the Laureate. "We must inform him!"

Burlingame shook his head. "We are not that certain of his own fidelity, Eben, for all his apparent honesty. In any case 'twould scarcely make him more alert for trouble than he is already. But let me finish." He told how he had surreptitiously disembarked from Slye and Scurry's ship at Kecoughtan, in Virginia, lest the real Coode be present at their landing in St. Mary's, and had crossed to Maryland in his present disguise -- or guise, if Ebenezer preferred -- only a few weeks ago. Inquiring after the
Poseidon
in St. Mary's, he had learned, to his horror, of the Laureate's abduction by pirates.

" 'Sbody, how I did curse myself for not having sailed with you!" he exclaimed. "I could only presume the wretches had done you in, for one cause or another --"

"Prithee, Henry," Ebenezer interrupted, "was't you that posed as Laureate, somewhile after?"

Burlingame nodded. "You must forgive me. 'Twas but your name I used, on a petition: I thought me how you'd died ere you had the chance to serve your cause, and how old Coode would rejoice to hear't. Then Nicholson declared he meant to move the government from St. Mary's to Anne Arundel Town, to take the Papish taint off it, and some men in St. Mary's sent round a petition of protest. I saw Coode's name on't and so affixed yours as well, to confound him."

"Dear friend!" Tears came to Ebenezer's eyes. "That simple act was near the death of me!"

Astonished, Burlingame asked how, but Ebenezer bade him conclude his narration, after which he would tell the story of his own eventful passage from Plymouth to where they now sat in the straw.

'There's little more to tell," Henry said. "They had put your trunk away against the time when 'twill go up for lawful sale, but I contrived to gain possession of your notebook --"

"Thank Heav'n!"

"How many tears I shed upon your poems! I have't in the house this minute, but I little dreamed I'd ever see its owner again."

While still in St. Mary's, he said, he heard that Coode had learned of the grand deception and was so enraged that he had barred Slye and Scurry from the lucrative smuggling run to punish them. In fact, fearful of traps set by the unknown spy, Coode had been obliged to suspend virtually all smuggling operations in the province for a while: His Majesty's tobacco revenues had seldom been so high.

"I knew the blackguard must needs find some new income," Henry went on, "and so I followed him as close as e'er I could. In this wise I discovered Captain Mitchell: he is one of the chiefest agents of sedition, and his house is oft the rebels' meeting place."

"I'm not a whit surprised, from what I've heard," said Ebenezer, and then suddenly blanched. "But i'God, I gave him my name, and told him the entire story of my capture!"

Burlingame shook his head in awe. "So he told me when I came in, and thou'rt the luckiest wight in all of Maryland, I swear. He thought the twain of you mad and took you in for his dinner guests' amusement. Tomorrow he'd have turned you out, and if he dreamed for a minute you were really Eben Cooke, 'twould be the death of you both, I'm certain."

Returning to his story, he told of his investigation of Mitchell, which had produced two useful pieces of information: the man was instrumental in some sinister new scheme of Coode's, and he had one son, Timothy, whom he'd left behind in England four years previously to complete his education, and who was therefore unknown in Maryland.

"I resolved at once to pose as Mitchell's son: I had seen his portrait hanging in the house, and 'twas not so far unlike me that four years of studious drinking couldn't account for the difference. E'en so, for prudence's sake, I forged Coode's name on a letter to Mitchell, which said Son Tim was now in Coode's employ and was coming home to do a job of work for's father. 'Tis e'er Coode's wont to send a cryptic order, and de'il the bit you question what it means! I followed close on the letter and declared myself Tim Mitchell, come from London. It mattered not a fart then whether the Captain believed me to be his son or Coode's agent: when he questioned me I smiled and turned away, and he questioned me no more. Yet what the plot is, I've yet to learn."

"Mayhap it hath to do with opium," Ebenezer suggested, and to Burlingame's sharp look said in defense, " 'Twas what he ruined the swine-girl with, and murthered his wife as well." Briefly he recounted Susan Warren's tale, including the wondrous coincidence of Joan Toast's presence and Susan's noble sacrifice to save her. All through the little relation, however, Burlingame frowned and shook his head.

"Is't aught short of miraculous?" the poet demanded.

" 'Tis too much so," said Henry. "I've no wish to be o'er-skeptical, Eben, or to disappoint your hopes; the wench herself is ruined with opium, I grant, and it may be all she says is true as Scripture. But yonder by the river stands a pair of gravestones, side by side; the one's marked
Pauline Mitchell
and the other
Elizabeth Williams.
And I swear the name of Joan Toast hath not been mentioned in this house -- at least in my hearing. The only wench I've known him to woo is Susie Warren herself, that we all have had our sport with now and again. Nor have I seen a phial of opium hereabouts, albeit he may well feed her privily. Methinks she heard of Joan Toast from your valet -- his tongue is loose enough. As for the rest, 'twas but a tale to wring some silver from you; when it failed she feigned that sacrifice you spoke of, in hopes of doing better the second time. Didn't you say she was in the kitchen with your valet all through supper?"

"So she was," Ebenezer admitted. "But it seems to me she. . ."

"Ah well," laughed Henry, "thou'rt no more gulled than Susan, in the last account, and if Joan Toast's here we'll find her. But tell me now of your own adventures: i'faith, you've aged five years since last I saw you!"

"With cause enough," sighed Ebenezer, and though he was still preoccupied with thoughts of Joan Toast, he related as briefly as he could the tale of his encounter with Bertrand aboard the
Poseidon,
the loss of his money through the valet's gambling, his ill-treatment at the hands of the crew, and their capture by Thomas Pound. At every new disclosure Burlingame shook his head or murmured sympathy; at the mention of Pound he cried out in amazement -- not only at the coincidence, but also at the implication that Coode had enlisted the support of Governor Andros of Virginia, by whom Pound was employed to guard the coast.

"And yet 'tis not so strange, at that," he said on second thought. "There's no love lost 'twixt Andros and Nicholson any more. But fancy you in Pound's clutches! Was that great black knave Boabdil still in his crew?"

"First mate," the poet replied with a shudder. "Dear Heav'n, what horrors he wrought aboard the
Cyprian!
The very wench I spoke of, that I climbed to in the mizzen-rigging, he had near split like an oyster. How it pleased me that she gave the fiend a pox!"

"You had near got one yourself," Burlingame reminded him soberly. "And not just once, but twice. Did ye see the rash on Susan Warren's skin?"

"But you yourself --"

"Have had some sport with her," Henry finished. "But I know more sports than one to play with women." Awed, he rubbed his chin. "I have heard before of whore-ships, and thought 'twas a sailors' legend."

Ebenezer went on to tell of the collusion between Pound and Captain Meech of the
Poseidon,
postponing mention of John Smith's secret diary until later, and concluded with the story of their execution, survival, and discovery of Drakepecker and Quassapelagh, the Anacostin King.

"This is astounding!" Henry cried. "Your
Drakepecker
is an African slave, I doubt not, but this Quassapelagh -- D'you know who he is, Eben?"

"A king of the Piscataways, he said."

"Indeed so, and a disaffected one! Last June he murthered an English wight named Lysle and was placed in the charge of Colonel Warren, in Charles County, that was still a loyal friend of Coode's. This Warren set the salvage free one night, for some queer cause or other, and was demoted for't, but they never saw Quassapelagh after that. The story was that he's trying to inflame the Piscataways against Nicholson."

" 'Twere a dreadful thing, if true," the Laureate said, "but I must vouch for the man himself, Henry; I would our Maryland planters had half his nobility. Yet stay, tell me this ere I say another word: what have you learned of Sir Henry Burlingame, your ancestor?"

Burlingame sighed. "No more than I knew in Plymouth. Do you recall I said the Journal was parceled out to sundry Papist Smiths? Well, the first of these was Richard Smith, right here in Calvert County, that is Lord Baltimore's surveyor general. As soon as I was established here and had revealed myself to Nicholson, I set out to collect the various portions, so that Coode and all his cohorts could be prosecuted. But when I reached Dick Smith and gave him the Governor's password --"

"He told you Coode had long since got his portion by some ruse," Ebenezer laughed.