11

NATCHEZ
LATE JANUARY 1778

During the last four months, the world had folded in upon itself. The days passed in a colorless wash of hopelessness until Scarlet found herself wishing for one of Madame’s backhanded slaps just to break the monotony. Today was Sunday, but her new master did not believe in educating or baptizing slaves. So this morning, like every morning, she got up when the overseer rousted everybody out of the quarters with a snap of his whip against the side of the building. Rubbing her belly, grateful to be past the morning nausea that had made her first months in Natchez miserable, she followed the other slaves out to the privy. That chore accomplished, they all trooped over to the overseer’s back porch, where they were served a minimal breakfast of bacon fat and cold cornbread.

Shivering in the wind that blew in from the bluffs, she huddled next to the steps, ignoring the old woman’s persistent attempts to draw her into conversation. They called her Blackberry, and she spoke decent English, but at the least provocation she would launch into long, involved, and improbable stories of the African village she had been taken from as a child—which, judging by the depth and number of wrinkles upon her wizened face and her utter lack of teeth, must have been some fifty or sixty years ago.

Blackberry knew about the baby, of course, had guessed even before Scarlet’s belly began to swell. It was hard to ignore the old woman’s little kindnesses, but she was determined not to develop a fondness for anyone. Separation from Cain had been more painful than any whiplash, more prolonged and gnawing than the deepest physical hunger.

Even a glancing thought of her baby’s father brought weak tears to her eyes, and she angrily dashed them away, snarling at Blackberry as if she had caused them—which, in a way, she had.

Instead of hitting back, Blackberry narrowed her little raisin-colored eyes and pulled Scarlet’s resisting body close. “Little girl, little girl,” the old one crooned. “You think you abandoned? You think the Master don’t care? Well, you wrong, ’cause he got you right here in my arms.”

“The master don’t even know me,” Scarlet spat.

Blackberry’s raspy chuckle rumbled under Scarlet’s ear. “The Master that made you and your little one does.”

“Oh. You mean God,” Scarlet said flatly. “Well, he’s got a funny way of showing affection. I served him my whole life and I’m no more free today than I ever been. And now I got a baby to bring into this disaster. And look at you! Reckon you gonna die a slave?”

“I be God’s bondslave, true enough, child. But that makes me free to love, can’t nobody take that away. You a servant to hatred, and that’s the bitterest slavery of all.”

“See, this is why I don’t talk to you, ’cause you always turn my words inside out.”

Blackberry stroked Scarlet’s lice-infested head. “Somebody need to turn you inside out. All that poison gon’ make you sick and die.”

Scarlet turned her face into the bony ridge of the older woman’s shoulder. “Sometimes I think that’d be a good thing.”

“Now, now. You don’t want to cut off this little one’s chances before he ever gets started. What if you got the future king of America riding in your womb?”

Scarlet felt a laugh bubble from her throat, but it quickly turned to a wrenching sob. “Old woman, you just crazy.”

“That what they said about Jesus too.”

“Yeah, and look what happened to him.”

“He’s seated at the right hand of the Father.”

Scarlet sat quiet for a minute. Clearly arguing was getting her nowhere. Besides, it was nice to be held in somebody’s arms. Cain . . . She sat up. “Overseer’s walking back this way. We better get up.”

“You didn’t eat nothing, honey. You need to feed that babe.”

“I don’t feel like it. You eat my biscuit.”

Blackberry just looked at her until Scarlet took a bite of the biscuit.

“You just like my maman used to be.”

Blackberry nodded. “That’s what mamas for. You’ll see.”

Yes, she would see, whether she wanted to or not. This baby was coming, right in the heat of the summer, probably drop in the middle of a cotton field.

Future king of America. Smiling, she got to her feet and helped Blackberry to her feet. Nothing had changed, but maybe she should quit being so standoffish. Having somebody to talk to had somehow made the misery go away. Maybe God was looking out for her after all.

SPRING HILL
EARLY MARCH 1778

“How much further, Lyse? I’m so excited!”

Smiling, Lyse looked down at Genny dancing along beside her like a small fairy maid. “Almost there, cher.” Luc-Antoine and Denis had jumped the creek and run on ahead through the woods, and she could hear them shouting as the dogs barked in greeting.

Mardi Gras season of 1778 had come to Mobile. The first signs of azalea bushes flirted their lacy pink skirts along the old shell road which ran westward from the juncture of the three rivers that dumped into the bay. Through the trees Lyse could just see the red-tiled roof of Grandpére’s ancient two-story cottage.

It was a momentous occasion. Papa had finally relented and allowed her to bring the children to Grandpére’s annual Mardi Gras party. She and Simon used to come when Grandmére was still alive, but when she died soon after Uncle Guillaume was executed, the relationship between Papa and Grandpére had deteriorated beyond repair. It was too bad there wasn’t money for new clothes and shoes, but she had helped the children paint masks of papier-mâché they’d made at school, added a few shells and feathers picked up from the beach, and twisted up Genny’s hair and her own in fantastical braids, with knots of ribbon for a festive touch. Justine and baby Rémy would be along later with Papa.

At least, Lyse hoped they would come. One never knew with Papa.

Genny tugged on her hand. “Will there be a king’s cake? I hope I find the baby.”

Grandmére used to make the braided cinnamon sweetbread in the French tradition, twisted into a crown-shaped oval and glazed with sugar. A gilded fava bean tucked in from the bottom represented the baby Jesus, for whom the Wise Men had searched so diligently. Good luck was said to follow the child who found the trinket in his or her slice of cake. With Grandmére gone now, there might not be a king’s cake.

She shook her head. “I don’t know, Genny. Maybe we can make one.”

Genny twirled her mask on its bamboo stick. “That would be fun. I’ve missed you, Lysette.”

And Lyse had missed her family to a painful degree. Since the night Rafa had come and gone so abruptly, and Simon had inexplicably deserted Daisy, life had taken on a whitewashed dullness that even her responsibilities at the grammar school failed to color.

She swept her little sister into a bear hug. “Did you miss getting squished like a jellyfish?”

“Yes! But don’t mess up my hair!” Genny giggled, squirming. When Lyse let her go, laughing, Genny ran ahead, ribbon-festooned pigtails bouncing. “Don’t worry, I won’t get lost!”

Lyse followed at a pace more suitable for a young lady, stepping carefully over rain puddles left from yesterday’s storm. There was still a nip in the air, a brisk wind whipping through the trees, and she was glad she’d chosen her good woolen dress and the matching shawl Daisy had helped her knit.

The thought of her friend brought on a fresh wave of worry. The two of them had become even closer since the night she’d discovered Daisy’s secret. Lyse had at first struggled to understand how the gentle, biddable daughter of a British officer had come to sympathize with the American rebels. She remembered the night she and Daisy had first entertained Rafael for dinner, and Daisy’s indignation when he’d told them the colonies had dared to declare their independence from the Crown.

Long conversations, often late into the night, revealed that Daisy’s convictions were neither easily arrived at nor lightly held. She had first encountered the Locke treatise, oddly enough, while arguing with Simon about the intellectual capacity of women. After daring her to read Locke’s work, which someone had given him, Simon was stunned to discover that not only could she comprehend it, but she could discuss it with him in concise and cogent terms.

And ultimately she had been persuaded that all men were endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights. Locke’s arguments concerning liberty and moral philosophy had pierced her, based as they were upon truths in Scripture.

Once the door was opened, there was no shutting it again.

Daisy had listened as the men who visited her father debated—or, rather, sneered at—colonials foolish enough to propose government without a monarch. James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and the like, madmen all. On a later trip, Colonel Durnford had left behind a copy of the Thomas Paine papers, scornfully bidding Daisy consign them to the ash heap where they belonged. Instead, she had hidden them in her room, devoured the treacherous, compelling words, absorbed their implications.

With no inbred loyalty to any king, particularly his British majesty George III, Lyse too found herself hungry to learn. Because Daisy was a gifted teacher, had always been Lyse’s mentor, they eagerly discussed the exciting possibilities of living in freedom, with no person of any more value than another, regardless of birth or income.

One day Lyse hesitantly asked what Simon thought about Daisy’s political conversion.

“I haven’t admitted to him that I support the colonists’ cause. He would be horrified at the thought of me flouting my father’s authority. He understands the consequences of treason.” Compassion filled Daisy’s gentle features. “Your uncle Guillaume . . .”

That reminder was enough to give Lyse pause.

And all these months later, nothing much had changed. When Daisy questioned her father as to Simon’s whereabouts, the major impatiently said he had no idea and advised her not to concern herself with what she couldn’t change.

The major himself was, in fact, busier than ever. After news of the British defeat at Saratoga reached the West Florida command in Pensacola, Major Redmond received orders to initiate refurbishment of Fort Charlotte. With fewer than three hundred regular soldiers, plus a handful of Loyalist refugees, to do the work, he had neither time nor inclination to worry about his daughter’s disappointed romance or her political leanings.

When by the first of March no word had come from Rafael or Simon, both girls had descended into a state of drifting numbly from one day to the next. With school suspended for the Mardi Gras holiday, Lyse had invited Daisy to the party, but she had elected to stay at home and take care of some spring cleaning. So Lyse made the trip over to Bay Minette to collect the children by herself—and here they were.

She stepped out of the shelter of the trees into her grandfather’s flower-decked yard, where Genny and the two boys were romping with Grandpére’s hounds, Castor and Pollux. She paused for a moment to enjoy the picture.

The cottage itself, which Grandpére and his brother Thomas had come into possession of when their father moved to Biloxi with the Sieur de Bienville in 1720, was like a grand old lady dressed for a tea party. Rising gracefully in the midst of a copse of live oak, magnolia, and dogwood beside a spring-fed creek, it had been constructed of local timber, its chinks filled in with the ubiquitous wattle-and-daub mud cement, and roofed with pine shakes. But possessing a flair for architecture, Grandpére had borrowed the Spanish preference for adobe and tile, adding to the original structure until it was now hardly recognizable as his father’s Creole cottage. Eventually, wealthy British landowners had built summer homes around the property, giving the surrounding area the cachet of exclusivity. Here in this little clearing, though, was the Lanier family heritage. Safety and home.

With a sigh of contentment, Lyse crossed the yard to the porch, where her grandfather sat on a bench shucking oysters. She bent and kissed his cheek, then sat down on the steps. “Grandpére, what can I do to help you? Justine is bringing rice and bread pudding.”

Grandpére tipped his head to the big iron cauldron suspended over a fire pit out in the middle of the yard. “Everything’s good, cher. Let’s just throw these last few oysters in the gumbo and wait for company to come.” He winked at her. “Might not be as tasty as your Grandmére’s was, but nobody’ll go away hungry.”

“I’m so glad we could come.” She sighed and propped her chin in her hands, elbows on knees. “Something tells me it might be the last time for a while.”

“You’re mighty young to be showing signs of the second sight. What makes you say that?”

“Well . . . Simon’s gone, nobody knows when or if he’ll be back. Madame Dussouy almost refused to let Luc-Antoine off for the day. And me—if I marry Niall, there’s no telling where we’ll be next year. He could get sent anywhere.”

Grandpére gave her his patented inscrutable look. “Is he still courting? I notice you didn’t bring him with you.”

“He—he’s on duty later tonight. And he doesn’t celebrate Mardi Gras like we do. He thinks it’s heathen.”

“Hmph.” Grandpére clearly had thoughts about Niall’s thoughts, which he chose not to express. “Nobody wants a party-spoiler around anyway. Do you love the boy, cher?”

Lyse looked away. Not an easy question to answer. “I’ve always liked Niall, Grandpére. He’d make a good husband.”

“For someone else maybe. Not for you.”

“Grandpére!” Lyse rarely heard her grandfather, the master of oblique references, speak so bluntly about anything. She stared at him. “Why do you say that?”

“If you loved him enough to marry him, you’d have accepted him a long time ago. You’re dragging your feet, and I think you know why.”

Lyse felt her face flame. “I am not! Dragging my feet, I mean. I’m just . . . taking my time because—because, well, because Daisy needs me at the school.”

“If you say so.” Grandpére shucked another oyster and popped it into his mouth whole.

There was a long moment of silence, until Lyse finally blurted, “Why do you think I’m dragging my feet, as you put it?”

But she knew the answer, and she ought to be ashamed that she couldn’t get a dandified Spanish trader out of her dreams and daydreams. Even now she could close her eyes and feel his hands, warm and callused, cupped against her cheeks. The familiar sensation of a bird taking flight fluttered beneath her rib cage.

At Grandpére’s soft chuckle, she bent double, hands over her face. “Oh! I wish he would just go away!”

“Niall? So do I.”

“That’s not what I mean, Grandpére, and you know it,” she mumbled.

“And it would not be fair to wed Niall if your heart is given to someone else.”

She looked up at her grandfather, aggrieved. “But the someone else hasn’t spoken for me, and I’ll likely never even see him again! I can’t wait for him forever! Besides, my father married for love and made everybody miserable, even you!”

Setting aside his bowl and knife, Grandpére leaned down and took her hands. “Listen to me,” he said gently. “I was a fool, and I was wrong about that. Your mother and father had a difficult time, but they were happy together. Can you imagine Antoine married to Isabelle Dussouy? Pah! What a stupidity that would have been!”

“But Grandpére—”

“I say listen. I was wrong, and I have been trying for fifteen years to crawl out of the ditch I created between my son and myself. What I want for you is the joy I had with your grandmother. We were cousins and friends, yes, but we had a union of mind and spirit that the Bible calls holy. And that, my child, is worth waiting forever for.”

Lyse found herself without an answer. When she was still a little girl, her grandmother had told her something very similar. To hear it, unsolicited, from Grandpére seemed more than a coincidence.

She scooted close and laid her head upon his knee. “But what if he doesn’t want me?”

“How could he not, precious girl?” The strong, gnarled hand caressed her hair. “Wait and see what God will do.”

There was an odd note in his voice. “Grandpére,” she said, looking up, “clearly you know something I don’t. What happened that day Rafa came with you to Bay Minette?”

He hesitated. “Let me just say that young Don Rafael is a herald of changes coming to the world that my brother and I could never have foreseen when we were small boys in the Mobile Indian village. My mother married a Frenchman, and they divided Louisiana between the British and the Spanish—so who can predict the victors of this present tussle?” He tipped her chin. “There may come a time when you and the children will have to flee the city. Your Rafael will come for you, and you must go with him.”

Fear crawled along her spine. “Grandpére! What do you mean?”

“The less you know, the safer you will be.” His lips pressed together in a stubborn line, then he released her chin with a little push. “Our guests will be here within the hour. I’ve put out goods for the king’s cake in the kitchen, along with your grandmére’s receipt. Maybe you feel brave enough to put it together for me?”

“Yes, of course, but—”

“No more questions. Tomorrow brings the time for fasting and regret. Today we revel in God’s goodness.” He smiled. “And we need a cake!”

FORT CHARLOTTE, MOBILE

Daisy smiled up at the new adjutant on duty in the guardhouse at the wooden gates of the fort. “Would you please tell my father I’m here and have someone escort me to him? I’ve brought him something to eat.” She showed him the covered basket on her arm as proof of her intentions.

Gone were the days when she and Lyse could sashay in without prior permission. She had not seen her father for more than half an hour at a time in the past week. Colonel Durnford had come over from Pensacola to stay, this time without his family, and the two men had been closeted in Papa’s office at the fort for hours on end.

Indeed Daisy could hardly reconcile herself as the naive young girl who—less than two years ago—had been horrified at the thought of Englishmen shooting at Englishmen in rebellion against the king. She loved her father and certainly wished him no harm. But she was the daughter of a soldier. War had already come, and men of strong principles fought on both sides. The hard, cold truth was that George III had sent armed regulars to fire upon his own people, hardworking men who stood in protest of the fruit of their labor being wrested from them at the point of a bayonet.

Part of her indignation came from awareness that Papa, and men like him—including Simon—thought her too weak and too silly to understand the ramifications of the conflict. She was neither, and if that made her a rebel, then so be it.

Still, her father had to eat, and she was, if nothing else, a dutiful daughter.

She shifted the heavy basket to the other arm, impatiently looking around for anything interesting to pass the time while Ensign Whoever-He-Might-Be returned for her. There seemed to be significant improvements in the condition of the shoddy little fort since the last time she had occasion to enter. Some of the rotten wood of the fences had been replaced with new planking, and the crumbling mud wattle which stuck the bricks together had been newly cemented in critical places. Even the stone that formed the bastions had been newly shored up with a mixture of clay and dirt.

Frowning, she walked toward the east bastion, where a new cannon sat upon a wooden platform atop the earthworks. A couple of soldiers in ragged uniforms were cleaning and reloading the huge weapon. Eighty-pounder? What on earth? She knew that in January Papa had been ordered to begin refurbishing the fort, when news of the British loss at Saratoga reached the West Florida command in Pensacola. Had things gotten to such a point that, even in the relatively unimportant little port of Mobile, there was danger of an attack?

Now that she thought about it, she had noticed Indians from the surrounding villages pouring into the city, camping under their tents at the outskirts like animals seeking shelter from an approaching storm. She had thought they were coming in search of food, as they sometimes did when the harshness of winter struck. But this winter had been unusually mild, and yet there seemed to be thrice the normal numbers of savage children peeking into the schoolhouse windows and giggling at the sight of the white-skinned boys and girls stuck indoors in the middle of the day.

With a pang she thought of Simon, somewhere, possibly in danger from enemy guns. Please, God, keep him safe and bring him home to me.

“Miss Redmond? What are you doing?”

The deep voice behind her made her jump. She turned to find Papa’s administrative assistant, Corporal Tully, mustache bristling, watching her with his arms folded across his chest.

“Oh! You startled me!” She smiled to cover an odd feeling of guilt that heated her cheeks. “Can my papa see me now?”

Tully stared at her for another moment, then nodded. “Yes. Come with me.” He wheeled and stalked toward officers’ quarters.

Odder and odder. She clutched the basket to her stomach, skipping to keep pace with his long military stride. Tully looked suddenly older, his usually ramrod-straight back bent like a pine tree in a strong wind. His reddish brows came together above his nose in a permanent scowl.

“Corporal Tully, are you all right? You seem . . . worried.”

He gave her a sidelong look, a ghost of his dry smile appearing. “I work for your papa. Don’t I always look worried?”

She smiled. “I suppose so, now that you mention it. But everyone seems more sober than usual, and isn’t that—wasn’t that a new cannon?”

Now he definitely looked unhappy. “You’ve always been an observant little thing. More than your da gives you credit for.”

And he hadn’t exactly answered her question. “Why are so many Indians coming into the city? I’ve noticed them in the market, more every time I go. Is there some news about the war?”

Tully chewed the end of his mustache. “Now, miss, you know I don’t talk out of turn. You’ll have to ask your da.”

“Well, all right, I will. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Tully grunted.

A moment later they reached officers’ quarters, where the corporal rapped upon the door with his knuckles, then opened it without waiting for an answer. “Here she is, sir.” He nodded at Daisy, then disappeared.

Daisy found her father standing behind a table, poring over a map with Colonel Durnford. Both men had looked up at her entrance, expressions stern.

Papa glanced at the basket. “You could have left that with Tully,” he said on a note of admonishment. Then he saw her expression. “What’s the matter?”

She didn’t like speaking this way in front of another officer, but there was no help for it. She set the food on Papa’s desk and busied herself with emptying it and arranging the contents in a tempting display. “I’ve been worried about you, Papa. You’re eating little and hardly sleeping.” Her hands stilled, clutched around a cloth-wrapped cheese. “Is—is there anything you can tell me about the progress of the war?” She looked up and caught the colonel’s eye. “Forgive me, Colonel Durnford. I know I shouldn’t—”

But the colonel stopped her with a raised hand. “Never mind, my dear. You’re right to be concerned. I had to leave my own family in considerable distress.” Exchanging glances with Papa, he sighed. “The news is official anyway, and word will quickly spread. France has declared war and allied herself with the thirteen rebel colonies. This makes our ports here and at Pensacola critical—which is why your papa and I are working hard to keep you and the other ladies and children safe.”

She caught her breath. “Papa—!”

“Now, now, don’t worry overmuch,” Papa said. “As you can see, the situation is well under control. Our men are preparing for all eventualities. However, the time has come for you and me to make the move into officers’ quarters here in the fort. I need you to begin packing your belongings—only the most necessary items, of course—and be ready by tomorrow morning. I will send around a cart.”

Daisy stared at him openmouthed. “Papa, I cannot—What about Lyse?”

Papa looked uncomfortable. “There isn’t room for her here,” he said gruffly. “I know she has been as a sister to you, but none of her family have taken the oath of loyalty to the king. They must be treated with extreme caution, and I warn you above all not to confide in her further.” His voice hardened. “I’m afraid that from now on the connection must be completely severed.”

“But the school—”

“You may continue to teach any of the children who reside inside the walls of the fort.”

Daisy felt as if her limbs might no longer hold her up. She dropped the cheese and leaned heavily against the desk.

No more friendship with Lyse? How could she bear it on top of losing Simon?

And where was Lyse to go now? She could hardly stay in the Redmonds’ house alone. She could go back to her father’s crowded little place on Bay Minette, but that would mean giving up teaching the town children. Lyse would be crushed.

And perhaps most critical of all, how was Daisy to deal with her growing restlessness in the face of her duty to her father? Holding her tongue about her libertarian convictions might become an impossible task. If that happened, would her father reject her? Expel her from the fort? Arrest her?

Dear God, what was she to do?