The midafternoon sun changed the shadows in the room. His mouth was dry. Trezvant had been questioning him for what felt like hours. But Peter Edwards could not offer him refreshments in front of Trezvant. Even the slightest courtesy would make Peter Edwards look like a sympathizer, a nigger-lover, and wealthy Edwards could not afford that.
Trezvant and Nat Turner seemed to be the only two people in the room. Parker and Peter Edwards had faded into the background. Even Benjamin Phipps seemed to have disappeared. But Nat Turner knew there were others watching. Normally stationed in the kitchen, at the front door as butler, or standing by as a boy to do the masters’ bidding, the captives were watching and listening. They were silent and invisible, hoping not to be noticed, but listening to each word. He imagined, because he had felt the same himself, that they were uncertain how to feel.
Were they silently cheering for him and praying for him as their hero? Were they angry because the revolt had caused them more trouble? Were they afraid to hope for freedom? Were they afraid to hope?
They were captive witnesses and no matter how they felt about him now, they would remember. They were captives, and he must do all he could to defend and deliver them. There was a family debt he owed.
Nat Turner looked at Trezvant. This was the trial that mattered. The play to come in the Jerusalem courtroom would be of little importance. The verdict there was already certain: Nat Turner would hang. But the fate of the captors was still uncertain. Today, the captors faced judgment. Trezvant held the fate of the nation in his hands—mercy and peace, or judgment and war. Trezvant did not seem to understand, and his questioning always came back to the same thing.
The congressman shook his head. “You niggers bite the hand that feeds you. We did you people a favor bringing you here from your dark continent to teach you about Jesus Christ.”
“How can you teach what you do not know?
“You do not believe. You do not love. How can you teach Christ when you think you are gods?”
Like earthly kings, they expected those they forced into slavery to serve gladly. Like evil gods, they felt it was their right to sacrifice the lives and dreams of others simply for their own profit and pleasure. God Himself does not force any man to be His slave. He is the Creator, but He gives each of us free will to choose if we will serve Him—as His friends and children. Those who choose to serve, serve with joy. God proves His greatness by giving all mankind freedom.
“But you force others to follow you at gunpoint. Whips and dogs and armies enforce your rule.
“So which of us is heathen and which is Christian, sir? The one who keeps men in chains, or the one who is kept? It is hard to know until harvesttime. God has judged.”
Trezvant’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Don’t press me, boy. You speak too boldly. I have been patient with you. Always a smart, crafty answer. No doubt that is why you wear that scar on your head.”
Nat Turner touched the scar on his temple while Trezvant shuffled his papers.
“Why? You still have not explained, to my satisfaction, why, Nat.”
“It will never be to your satisfaction; you do not want to understand. We are peaceful men forced to fight for our lives, our liberty, our birthright.”
“Men?” Trezvant laughed.
Nat Turner thought of Will, Hark, Sam, Dred, and the others, even young Davy. They had fought knowing the odds were against them. They had defended their families armed with little more than courage. “Yes, men. It is our solemn duty to defend our families, our women, and to obey God—both when He tells us to bow down and when He tells us to rise up!
“We are men—God’s men, God’s warriors, God’s sons!” This was the reason that he was here. He could not back down now; he had to speak the whole truth. It was no accident that they were in this place just beyond Bethlehem on the way that leads to Jerusalem.
God had spoken to Nat Turner in the Great Dismal Swamp. He did not want to return to Cross Keys. He did not want judgment to begin with the house of God, the house his father built, Turner’s Meeting Place. If he could have chosen where to begin war, it would have been with Giles Reese, who stole his family away.
But it was God’s command, God’s judgment. Here they were, and Nat Turner had to be obedient; he had to speak the whole truth. “You brought us here. You pay for your education, for your homes, for your wealth, by stealing our lives. We cut your roads through forests; we erect your buildings; we tend your children. In return for what we do, you give nothing. In return for our work, you steal our memories, our families, and you shame us, you humiliate us. You doom us to lives where our only worth is breeding more children for you to destroy.”
What would happen to the generations born of the people, God’s children, used for breeding, the generations forbidden to marry? Who would heal them, who would make them whole?
Trezvant’s face was flushed with fury. He put down his pen and crossed his arms. Parker looked troubled.
“When you are done with us—if we live to be old and you have no more use for us—then you abandon us and tell yourselves you owe nothing, it is over. You reassure yourselves that you are good men.”
No good fruit could grow from the seeds the captors planted. What would chained and beaten men, men forbidden to love, teach their children and their children’s children? How could sweet milk flow from women treated as animals?
The captors left behind a debt too great for their children to bear, an evil inheritance like the firstborn sons of Egypt. Cursing them, they left their children to defend their forefathers’ wrongs. “You poison us, you poison your own children, you poison the land. You poison the nation. You are Old Testament men, men without grace. How will you pay the debt for the trespasses you commit against the children, against the generations yet unborn?”
Trezvant’s mouth set in a line. “I don’t care how crazy you are, don’t think that I’m going to sit here and allow you to malign this great nation!” His face tightened. “We are the sons of liberty, and I will not tolerate your blasphemy.”
“It is a great nation. But it is also our nation. We are also sons of this nation we built together.” Every acre, every field, every sip of liquor was purchased with captive blood. “Ours is a great country—how much greater would it be if its bricks were not ground from broken hearts, if they were not patched with the mortar of broken dreams?
“You don’t want to share what God has given to all with your brothers. How much greater would our country be if you did not ask our Father to deny us?”
Trezvant’s fists, resting on the table, were taut, his knuckles white. “Don’t you dare presume to preach to me. I’m not one of you nigger field hands. What I want to know from you is why you did it. Why did you murder all those good white people?”
“We did not make war against all white people. You are the proof: You two gentlemen are white and alive. We did not murder; we executed God’s judgment.”
Trezvant leaned against the table. “The judgment of God? Over fifty white people are dead!”
“Judgment begins at the house of the Lord, but many more will die. You have judged others, now judgment comes to you.
“Millions of African men, women, and children are dead. Who will answer for the lives taken? Who will answer for the generations stolen—fathers, mothers, teachers, sons, daughters, farmers?”
The captors stole and murdered millions but claimed innocence and righteousness.
There were families left without fathers. There were villages left with no young men to farm and no men to protect them. Teachers and mothers, babies were stolen, mothers left with empty arms.
“If you demand justice, first you must pay the debt you owe. Who will pay Africa for her children? If you do not pay, you leave the debt at your children’s and your children’s children’s feet.”
Panting and blotched with rage, though Parker tried to restrain him, Trezvant blustered. “Fiend! Liar!”
Nat Turner was bound to the truth. All that had happened—his mother’s theft from Africa, Cherry’s beating, Hark’s death, even the death of his captor and friend Sallie—was for nothing if he did not speak the truth. “What happened the night of the sickle moon was not murder. It was revolt. First harvest. God’s judgment. Not against all white men, but against those who lie and say they are God’s people while rebelling against His will, against His love. They are evil, wolves in sheep’s clothing.
“God’s judgment began at the house of God—at Turner’s Meeting Place. My father bequeathed me trusteeship there—”
“A trustee?” Trezvant slapped the table then, wide-eyed and grinning ear to ear. He gaped as if, finally, the prize for which he had been waiting had come. “You are a clown! At last, comic relief! You? A trustee?” Trezvant looked at the other white men present and laughed. “A nigger trustee?”
Nat Turner felt his face warming, like that of a smaller boy begging his taller brother for what was his, jumping for what was just out of reach. “I am a free man forced into slavery. My property, my rights were stolen. Then they stole my wife and son from me.”
Trezvant was still laughing. “You are a high-minded fellow, aren’t you? Everyone’s stealing from you.”
“I am a trustee and have the right to set forth judgment. It is against God’s law to make your brother your slave, and the penalty for this disobedience, for centuries of arrogant disobedience, is death.” No mercy could be given to those who gave no mercy. “‘For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.’” There was no life or mercy for those who chose to live with cold, dead hearts.
The smile left Trezvant’s face. “You are a murderous wretch! You killed children!”
Nat Turner’s head and shoulders slumped. He heard Levi Waller’s family screaming. He saw their faces. If they had gotten to the still earlier, Waller’s family might still be alive. A tear stung his cheek. “I thank God that I feel this sorrow,” he whispered to himself.
Then their faces and screams were replaced by those of the captives he’d known. He saw his mother’s tears and her shame. He saw and heard the witnesses, and he saw Misha and her baby floating away on the water. He felt their heartbreak, their humiliation, their shame. Nat Turner lifted his head, righted his shoulders. “How many children have you killed?”
In one swift movement, Trezvant rose to his feet and struck him. Nat Turner tasted salty blood as he toppled from his stool to the floor. Trezvant’s boot moved in slow motion and Nat Turner felt bright, white pain across the bridge of his nose.