Lucia made herself pay attention to her surroundings as they walked along. She noted the buildings they passed and the turns they made away from the street that fronted the bay. She noted alleys and places where there were people who appeared to be poor, some of them white-skinned, others swarthy, a mixture of bloods. Such people might hide a runaway, just as in San Augustín such people would trade with Carlos for his stolen goods. But they might just as likely turn in a runaway to claim the reward. She would have to be careful, wait, take time to learn the place.
This town where she had been bought as a slave was not so very far from Creek country. Her hope of escape was strong. But she was in pain over Ana. Her heart dragged the ground because of that, and her mind was so distracted by it that she had to force herself to pay attention to where they were taking her, past wooden houses that were handsome and substantial compared to the poverty of San Augustín. And now they had come to a house made of brick, and they were turning her from the street and taking her through the yard of this place, around to the back where there was a kitchen separate from the house, and peach trees in bloom, and a garden green with spring vegetables, and a stable and sheds and chickens scratching in the yard. They led her to the kitchen. The Englishman who had brought her from Creek country and the tall Englishman with the big nose stood back while the stout Englishman with the cane took her just inside the door. They blocked the light as they stood there, and for a moment she could see nothing but the silhouette of someone across the room in front of the fire, a woman, who turned toward them, wiping her arm over her face. As Lucia’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, she could see that the woman was an Indian, Ana’s age or a little younger.
The man spoke to the woman in English, Lucia understanding nothing of what was being said. The woman looked at Lucia and nodded and again rubbed her arm across her face, wiping perspiration away. Now the Englishman spoke at length, the woman nodding, glancing now and then at Lucia. The woman said something, and the Englishman answered her and then turned and went out, leaving Lucia standing in the doorway.
The woman looked at her a moment. Then she said, “He says you are from Apalachee.” Lucia was surprised to hear words she could understand. The woman was speaking Spanish.
Lucia nodded. “From Ivitachuco.”
The woman shrugged. “I do not know that country. I am from Guale.”
“I have heard of Guale,” said Lucia. “The coastal land north of San Augustín.”
“The beautiful islands,” said the woman, shaking her head wistfully. “Still at night I dream of that place.”
“Were there priests in Guale?”
“When I was there, yes,” said the woman. “Now there are no priests, and no Indians either. The English emptied the land with their slaving. Some of my people went to San Augustín with the priests, but most came north to live near the English. Here they call us Yamasees and do not enslave us anymore.”
“But you are a slave,” said Lucia.
“Because I was taken before the peace. Just as you will always be a slave no matter what peace they make with other Apalachees.”
“No, that is not true for me. I will get away. I have a husband in the Creek country.”
The woman looked at her a moment and said nothing. Then she said, “Come sit. I will find something for you to eat.”
“I am not hungry.”
“Come inside anyway,” said the woman. “I have my work to do. There is to be an entertainment tonight. For two days I have been cooking for it and doing my other work besides, and now they give me you to look after.”
Lucia followed her across the room and sat down on the floor where the woman directed her to sit, leaning back against an open barrel of cornmeal. The kitchen smelled of wood smoke and baked bread and roasting meat.
“Master John says you are called Lucia,” said the woman. She had spread flour on a table beneath a small open window and was now turning bread dough onto it from a large wooden bowl. She scattered flour over the dough and began to knead it. “Here I am called Bella,” she said. “In Guale I was Isabel.”
“That is my grandmother’s name,” said Lucia. She closed her eyes for a moment, leaning her head against the barrel, her thoughts going back to Isabel. She wondered if she were still alive. But then it was Ana she was thinking of, Ana at the friary, Ana in the slave yard.
“I had a husband, too,” said Bella. “And a little girl. All I could think of when they first brought me here was how to get free, how to get back to them. I could not eat or do anything but sit in a corner and grieve. Finally they whipped me to try to make me eat. So I slipped away and ran, and for two days I was free. But it was horrible. I did not know where to go. The country was strange, and I could only travel at night. If I tried to go off the roads I got lost in the swamps. But on the roads there was danger of being seen, and I did not know which road to follow. Finally I came to an Indian house at the edge of some woods on a white man’s plantation. I thought, here was someone who could help me and tell me how to go. So I hid and watched that little house, and when daylight began to rise, an Indian woman came out to get firewood. I went up to her and told her I was hungry. She took me into her house and I ate with her and her husband. They were Cussoes. This country around here used to belong to the Cusso people. I did not tell them who I was. I was not sure I could trust them. But they knew. The word had been spread, you see, a runaway slave, a young Yamasee woman. They said nothing to me about it, but after we had eaten, the man went out, and in a little while he came back with a white man, and before I could get to my feet, I was a slave again. The white man paid the Cussoes some money and brought me back to Master John.” She paused and then added, “You can still see where he whipped me when he got me home again.” She brought her flour-covered fingers to the front of her soiled bodice and unfastened it, slipping it down from her shoulders as she turned her back to Lucia. The scars were plain to see, welts that covered her back entirely.
“I am sorry,” Lucia said quietly.
“They almost killed me,” Bella said matter-of-factly, dressing herself again.
“How long ago did this happen?” asked Lucia.
“I was no older than you are. If my daughter still lives, she is grown now. And my husband would be an old man, probably with another wife growing old beside him.”
“Did you never try again to run away? If you had known more, you might have made it.”
Bella shook her head. “I know more now. I know how hopeless it is. Even in the Creek country a runaway slave is not safe. English traders are everywhere, and always there is someone who will turn you over to the traders for a bottle of rum.”
“How do they know you are a runaway?”
“They know.”
“How?”
“By the way you act. And by scars like these.”
“I have nothing like that,” said Lucia.
“You will if you try to run away.”
“No, I will wait and plan it out. They will not catch me.”
“They catch everyone.”
“Not everyone. There were black people at San Augustín who had escaped from here.”
“How many?”
“I am not sure.”
“Ten?”
“More than that.”
“A hundred?”
“Not that many.”
“But which is closer, ten or a hundred?”
“Ten, I guess. But more.”
“The runaways they have caught are more than a hundred. Many more. It is hopeless to run away. You should listen to me when I tell you this. You must forget that husband of yours. For you, he is a dead man. You will never see him again.”
“You are wrong,” said Lucia, looking away toward the open doorway and the bright sunlight, blinking back tears that sprang into her eyes.
“They are taking you to Boston,” said Bella.
Lucia looked sharply at her. “Where?”
“To Boston.”
“Where is that?” Her heart began to pound, panic rising.
“I do not know. But it is far away. You have to go on a ship.”
“A ship?” Lucia stared at her. Not a ship. Not the sea. She could never get back.
“You belong to Miss Charity Hawkins,” said Bella. “She visits here, but she lives in Boston. It is for her they are having the company tonight. They will be giving you to her as a present in the middle of it all. They want me to see that you are well dressed. Master John said they would be sending out some clothes.”
Lucia was not listening. “I cannot go to Boston,” she said.
“You had better forget that husband of yours,” Bella warned.
“I will not!” Lucia said fiercely, her eyes filling with tears as she glared at Bella. “I will get back to him. They will not take me to Boston. I will run away before they can take me away from here.”
Putting out a floured hand to quiet her, Bella looked over toward the door where there now stood a slender black woman, younger than Bella but older than Lucia, her face hard and drawn. She carried a bundle in her arms, holding it to her chest with large-knuckled, bony hands. Coming into the kitchen, she dropped it in front of Lucia and then stood there without saying a word. Lucia looked at the fallen bundle—a red woolen blanket and several garments, unidentifiable in the heap they were in.
“This is Venus,” said Bella as she came over to inspect the pile, wiping her hands on her dress. “That is her slave name. Her basket name, her real name, is Beneba, because she was born on a Tuesday.”
Lucia nodded to the woman, but Venus made no acknowledgement.
“These are your things,” said Bella. She leaned down and picked up the blanket, refolded it, and put it on Lucia’s lap.
Lucia spread her hand on it and stared at the thick wool, remembering the red blanket Carlos had worn in Ivitachuco, how the wind would catch it and billow it out.
“Look here,” said Bella, reaching down to bring up a garment of white linen. “They are giving you a shift.” She spoke brightly, trying to lift Lucia’s spirits. “They mean to treat you well. Better than I am treated. Look, I have only this petticoat, no shift beneath.” She pulled up her skirt to show her bare legs. “Venus does not have one either.” She glanced at the black woman, but seeing the stoniness of her face, she let that go and turned back to the clothing. “Here, stand up,” she said to Lucia. “Let us see how it fits.”
Lucia looked at her but did not rise. It seemed more than she could do to go on with this, to let them dress her as they wished, drawing her ever more deeply into this place where she did not want to be. “I would rather stay dressed as I am,” she said. Venus scoffed bitterly, and Lucia glanced at her and then away.
“They are making you a lady’s maid,” said Bella. “They are taking you into the house tonight and presenting you to Miss Charity in front of all those people. Do you think you can go in there looking like a wild thing? Master John told me to dress you up. Now, I have enough to do without you making trouble for me.”
Lucia looked at her a moment longer, then stood up with resignation and began slipping off her deerskin skirt. “I want to keep this,” she said, laying the skirt carefully on the barrel of cornmeal.
“No need to do that,” said Bella. “You will not be wearing it again.”
“Yes, I will,” Lucia said firmly. “When I leave this place.”
“You should be careful how you talk,” Bella said quietly. Taking up a basin, she went over to a barrel by the door and dipped up some water and brought it back, giving it to Lucia with a rag. “Wash yourself,” she said.
Bella waited in silence while she bathed. Then she lifted the shift over Lucia’s head and smoothed it down for her. Bella leaned down and picked up the other two garments and held them up, looking at them with admiration. “Not just a petticoat for you. They have sent out a gown as well. And these are not old things. Miss Charity brought them from Boston to wear herself.” She gave Lucia the blue and white striped petticoat to put on and then helped her fasten the waist. “It is too short,” said Bella, stepping back to look. “I can see your ankles.”
Lucia said nothing, not caring.
“But it will have to do,” said Bella. Now she held open the bright blue gown for Lucia to put her arms through. It had a low square neckline and full, wide-cuffed sleeves that fell just below the elbow. Bella helped her fasten the gown snugly at the waist and lace up the bodice, and then she pulled back the open skirt, fastening it up into billows over either hip to reveal the striped petticoat beneath.
“Now,” Bella said, standing back to admire the effect. She looked at Venus. “Did you ever see such a change?”
Venus spoke sharply in English and turned around and left.
“What did she say?” asked Lucia.
“She’s jealous,” said Bella. “While Miss Charity has been here, Venus has been serving her. She thinks they would have given her these clothes if you had not come. But she is wrong. They are dressing you up to surprise Miss Charity. They never would have given these to Venus.”
“She can have them when I leave,” said Lucia.
Bella gave her a hard look. “Listen to me,” she said sternly. “Do not keep saying such things. Do you think you can trust these others just because they are slaves like you? A slave can trust no one—no one—do you hear? And she the least.” Bella jerked her head toward the door where Venus had gone out. “Already she has heard too much.”
“She does not speak Spanish,” said Lucia.
“But she understands a little of it, and so do some of the others around here. A single word repeated to the master can get you a whipping.” Bella went back to the bread dough, kneaded it halfheartedly for a moment, and then covered it with a cloth. She looked at Lucia. “Maybe I should not tell you this, but I will. It is possible you will not have to go to Boston.”
“What do you mean?” Lucia tried to step toward her, but the skirts were heavy around her legs. It was like walking in water.
“Master John and Master Abraham are trying to arrange a marriage. If they have their way, Miss Charity will be staying in Carolina.”
“I do not understand,” said Lucia.
“They want Miss Charity to marry Master Henry. He’s Master John’s son. If she marries him, she will go with him to live on his plantation.”
“Near this place?”
“West of here, toward Indian country.”
Lucia smiled, putting her hand against her heart as if to keep it from collapsing in relief. “Then let her marry him. Do you think she will?”
“No one knows. She seems not to care for him. But her father wants it very much.” Bella shook her head. “You yourself should not want it. I know your heart, how it beats for your husband, but I have already told you that you cannot get away. If Miss Charity weds Master Henry, then he becomes your master, and you do not want that man to own you. He is a bad one, worse than Master John and much worse than Master Abraham. There is not one of us here who would not tremble at the thought of being taken to his plantation. It is bad enough for us when he is here at his father’s house.”
“I understand what you are saying,” Lucia said soberly. “But I would rather be his slave than be taken away on a ship. I hope she marries him.”
“I knew you would feel that way,” said Bella. She stood for a moment looking thoughtfully at Lucia. Then she turned away and began kneading the bread again, and for a time there was silence in the room. At last Bella said quietly, “Did you meet anyone from Guale when you were at San Augustín?”
“No,” said Lucia. “It was a bad time. We did not know many people.”
Bella kept on with her work. “I often think about my people. My husband and my little child. My mother, my sister, my brothers. I do not know what happened to any of them.”
“Were you alone when you were captured?”
Bella nodded. “I was at the spring. It was daylight. It seemed safe. My mother was watching my daughter for me.”
“I was not alone,” said Lucia. “My aunt was with me. We were taken together. There was that comfort, at least, that we would have each other. But then today they left her there.” She spoke softly, her arms crossed tightly over her stomach. She had not squarely faced this yet, her sorrow for Ana. She wanted to sit down, but the dress was in her way. She could neither sit nor walk comfortably.
“Where did they leave her?” asked Bella.
“Wherever we were. I do not know. The Englishmen came, your Master John and the others. They looked me over and then took me away. She is still there, shut up in a dark room.” Lucia hunched over her folded arms. “What do you think they will do with her?”
“Sell her,” said Bella. She covered the dough again and brushed the flour from her hands. “We will see what we can learn. I will send Cajoe to ask after her.”
“Who is Cajoe?”
“Venus’ boy. He works at the waterfront sometimes, helps out at Master John’s storehouse. Maybe he will be able to find out what happens to her.”
“You have been very good to me,” Lucia said quietly.
“It is putting me behind in my work,” said Bella. “You have to learn to walk in that dress. Try to do it yourself. I have too much to do to stop and teach you.”
“Do not worry about me,” said Lucia. “I can manage. And I can help you with your work.”
“Not in that dress,” said Bella. “Just stay out of my way. That is how you can help me most.”
“I would rather be busy.”
Bella looked at her. “You are not the same as I was when they first made me a slave. You are not huddling in a corner, full of grief.”
“Because I know I will not be a slave for long.”
Bella put her hands to her ears. “Stop saying that! I do not want to hear it anymore!”
“Then you will not,” said Lucia. Turning away from her, she lifted her skirts a little and began to practice walking in a sea of cloth.