Starcatcher, page 39
His gaze returned to the twenty or more souls who stood on the wooden platform. The best of the group, he knew, had already been sold in Baltimore, leaving this sorry bunch to the buyers farther inland.
“Do any of them read and write?” he asked the man who seemed to be in charge. If the man was literate, perhaps Fancy wouldn’t be so opposed to the purchase.
The man shrugged and turned to the convicts. “Anyone ’ere know ’is letters?”
John saw one man, one of two in irons, look up, something flickering briefly in his eyes. But no one spoke. Then another convict nudged the man who had glanced up.
“’E’s a lord, ’e is,” the second man said derisively.
John took several steps closer. The “lord” was so thin he’d probably been passed over in Baltimore. Or it could have been the irons on his wrists and ankles. No one would want to buy a troublemaker. His eyes were a startling shade of green, and John saw no emotion there, only a studied blankness. His thick, dark hair had been recently cropped close to his head, and he was dressed in a rough canvas shirt and trousers.
But his shoulders were straight, though set as if against blows, and ill-fitting clothes couldn’t mask his instinctive pride. Then, for the briefest second, John saw something other than emptiness in the man’s eyes. He saw intelligence.
“Your name?” he asked.
The man’s gaze met his own, contempt blazing in those green eyes. Then he looked away.
One of the overseers aimed a club at the man’s stomach, and he doubled over in pain.
“You answer the gentleman,” the overseer said. “Give him yer name.”
The man straightened but was stubbornly silent.
The guard started to draw back the club again, but John stopped him. “His crime?”
“Treason. He’s one of ’em Scots that thought to rebel, then ran from the king’s army.” Arteries in the Scotsman’s neck throbbed, but he remained silent as the overseer continued. “His term’s fourteen years of work. And the price is only forty pounds.”
John drew back. The man was a far cry from the gentle schoolteacher he’d thought—no, hoped—to find. A Scot. He would be gone from the farm the next day unless John watched over him constantly.
John forced his gaze from the man’s face. He had watched a muscle move in the Scot’s cheek at the mention of his crime. Rebellion yet lived in that soul.
Moving down the line, John saw only dull, sullen eyes, slack jaws, and bodies ravaged by starvation and God only knew what diseases. His gaze went back to the Scot. The man was terribly thin, but there was strength in those wiry muscles. Two other potential buyers were looking at the Scot, one demanding that he open his mouth. In response, he only clenched his jaw tighter.
He met another blow with stoic silence. But the show of defiance didn’t deter one of the two men examining the Scot. John knew him: Caleb Byars, a man known for his cruelty.
Knowing he was a fool—but then, the other bondsmen were clearly worthless, and he had to purchase one of them, didn’t he?—John stepped over to the factor who was conducting the sale.
“I’ll give ye thirty pounds, no more for him,” Byars was saying.
“Thirty-five,” John said.
Byars looked at him with dark, malevolent eyes. “Ye’d be buying trouble. He needs taming.”
“I expect he knows the penalties for escaping,” John said, even as he wondered whether the Scot’s knowledge of penalties would keep him in check. Yet for some reason—he chose not think what it might be—he couldn’t let the Scot go to Byars. He turned back to the seller. “My offer is thirty-five pounds.”
“Forty,” the man insisted. “It’s twenty-five for a term of seven years, and ’is is fourteen. I’ll take ’im farther inland before I sell him for less than that. I’ll throw in the irons.”
John looked at the bondsman again. The Scot was several inches taller than he was, and he was considered a tall man. Their eyes met, and he felt, more than saw, the burst of fury suddenly revealed in the green gaze. Hate. Contempt. He knew he should withdraw from the bidding.
Yet this might be his last chance to ensure that his family survived the winter.
John nodded. “Forty pounds it is,” he conceded.
The bondsman’s lips tightened as he was pushed away from the others, and the seller motioned John over to a table, where another man sat with a pile of papers in front of him. John counted out forty pounds, five pounds less than the sum he’d received for Pretender, and took the convict’s papers. He wished he could read them but was grateful he could sign his name. Still, he looked over the papers, feigning comprehension; he often faked the ability to read to keep people from cheating him.
He turned to his bondsman. “Your name?”
The man hesitated, then answered in a deep, lyrical voice. “Ian Sutherland.”
John nodded. “I’m John Marsh. I have a small farm twenty miles from here.”
Sutherland didn’t acknowledge the words.
“I’ll have those irons removed if you swear you won’t try to run.”
“I willna promise that.”
Byars had approached, two of the other bondsmen behind him. “I warned you he would take taming,” he said with a malicious smile.
John felt his face redden. His breathing was more difficult suddenly, just as it was at the end of a day in the fields. For a moment he felt dizzy; then a pain seized his chest. He placed a hand on the table and steadied himself, then turned to the man who had sold the indenture.
“Take the chains off him.”
The seller took a key from his pocket. “I told you the chains go wi’ him.”
“Take them off.”
One of the guards unlocked the irons and John watched the Scot rub his wrists, which were raw and bleeding.
“Come with me,” John said. He was surprised when Ian Sutherland did so.
Ian clenched and unclenched his hands as he followed the man who had just purchased his body. His stomach still hurt from the blow he’d taken, but he had felt many such blows since his arrival in the colonies. When he was unchained to change clothes several days earlier, he’d vented his frustration on the guard who’d told him to remove his filthy plaid, obviously expecting to be obeyed immediately. When Ian didn’t move fast enough, the guard had taken aim at his ribs with a club, not anticipating any opposition from one of the sorry, sick victims of the long voyage.
Ian had stopped the swinging club with one fist; at the same time the other fist plowed into the man’s face. It had been pure pleasure after the beatings and starvation and abuse he’d endured, but his satisfaction hadn’t lasted. He was soon surrounded by burly guards with clubs, one of which had struck his head, plunging him into blackness.
When he regained consciousness, he saw that his body had been washed, his hair cropped, and his beard shaved. He was clothed in hot, itchy garments, and his wrists and ankles were chained again. He was lying alone in a small windowless room, an iron collar padlocked around his neck and attached to a ring on the wall. His ribs hurt, as did every part of his body.
He didn’t know how long he remained there before a large, squat man unlocked the door.
“Most of the lot with you were sold today,” he said. “I’m taking the remainder of you to Chestertown. They ain’t so choosy down there about their bondsmen. You give me any more trouble and I’ll kill you.”
Ian stared up at him, hatred boiling in his gut.
“Mebbe you think I won’t,” the man continued. “Mebbe you think I want the forty pounds I’m asking for you. But using a Scot traitor as a lesson to the others would suit me jest fine. You attack another of my men or try to escape, I have the right to have you whipped. Law don’t say how long. I’m yer master until someone pays good coin fer you.”
Ian stiffened, but the collar held him close to the wall.
“We sail tonight. My men will bring you to the ship in a few hours. You just sit there in all that jewelry, milord, and think about whether you want to live or not.”
The door closed behind him, and Ian knew what his answer would be: Katy. He would force himself to live for her.
The collar stayed on his neck for the next three days. It was taken off only when he and some twenty other prisoners were finally unloaded from the ship and escorted to the local jail. The next morning a man came in and shaved him again. He was told to wash and ordered to answer whatever questions were asked of him. If he was asked to open his mouth and show his teeth, he was to do so.
Ian knew the chains that bound him would hurt the chances of a sale, as would the T branded on his thumb. T for “treason.”
Marquis of Brinaire. He’d carried the title for only a few weeks before his lands were confiscated and the title voided. But he’d been called “my lord” all his life.
Ian thought about all of this as he followed Marsh docilely enough, but inside he was anything but docile. He’d been sold like a horse on an auction block. No longer was he Ian Sutherland, scion of a powerful clan. But he wasn’t going to make another mistake. He didn’t know this country, and his canvas clothes marked him as clearly as the brand. He had listened to Smythe, the seller, much more closely than the man imagined, and he didn’t intend to be easy prey.
It might take a week, a month, mayhap longer, but he would escape and find a ship back to Scotland. And he would find his sister.
Seething inwardly, he followed John Marsh down the street of a town he had heard called Chestertown. ’Twas little more than a village, new and raw but humming with energy. He marked its streets, the port with its merchantmen and small craft, and stored the information for future use.
The air smelled fresh, and at any other time he might have taken pleasure in the soft, pleasant breeze, particularly after months in the ship’s hold. But pleasure was only a distant memory now. Even so, his body did feel lighter, relieved of the heavy chains.
If only he could shed the chains on his soul. That weight, he knew, would never leave him. The sight of one brother falling at Culloden and the other swinging from an English rope would be with him always.
Marsh stopped at a brick building with a small sign on the door and told him to wait outside. For a moment Ian wondered at the man’s foolishness, but then he understood that misplaced trust had nothing to do with the order. Marsh knew he had no place to go.
His new “owner” was gone only a few minutes, and when he came back outside, Ian noticed that he no longer carried the indenture papers. Perhaps Marsh was not such a fool after all. He was not going to risk being attacked by his bond servant and having the papers stolen—a thought, along with a thousand others, that had indeed crossed Ian’s mind.
“Are you hungry?” Marsh asked, eyeing him worriedly.
“Feeling cheated?” Ian retorted, knowing how thin and weak he must appear.
Marsh shrugged off the hostility. “I need some rest and a bite myself before we start back. I don’t imagine they fed you overwell on the voyage.”
Ian didn’t reply. He had no idea what to make of John Marsh. He was English, and he was willing to buy another human being. Ian had only contempt for both of those traits. He remembered the collar, as well he was meant to remember it; it had been one of Smythe’s small lessons. Marsh could put him back in one, could have him whipped, could, Ian supposed, have him killed.
Still, his stomach rumbled at the thought of food. It had not been full since before Culloden.
He followed John Marsh into a dark tavern and sat opposite him, watching as the man seemed to slump into the chair. His face was an unhealthy gray, but his brown eyes were steady. Ian said nothing as Marsh ordered ale, stew, and bread for both of them, and he tried not to show his eagerness when a large dish wafting aromatic flavors was set in front of him.
Ian’s eyes seldom left Marsh as he ate carefully, slowly chewing each bite. He knew he couldn’t fill his stomach, not yet, or it would rebel at the sudden bounty. The ale was lighter than what he was used to, but he sipped that slowly, too.
Marsh ate very little before leaning against the back of his chair and simply watching him. He waited until Ian had finished, then sighed and leaned forward.
“I will make a bargain with you,” Marsh said slowly.
“What do I have to bargain with that you don’t already own?” Ian asked, allowing the bitterness to sharpen his voice.
“Your loyalty.”
“You canna buy loyalty.”
“No,” Marsh agreed wearily. Then he added, “But stay with me—with my family—five years, and I’ll give you your freedom. Five years instead of fourteen.”
Ian hid his surprise behind hostility. “You think you will be safe with me around? A treasonous criminal?”
“Will I?” Marsh asked softly. “And my wife and children?”
Ian only stared at him. He wasn’t going to answer the Englishman. Let him wonder.
“One of the men called you a lord. Is it true?”
Resentment and fury swirled inside Ian. This man, this … Englishman, had no right to question him, no right to expect a respectful answer. “Do I look like a lord?”
“You hold yourself like one.”
“Then I’ll ha’ to work on changing that, to be a proper slave,” Ian said caustically.
“I didn’t buy a slave.”
“Then wha’ did you buy?” Ian snorted. “I saw coin change hands. You ha’ papers claiming me as property. Wha’ else am I if not your slave?”
“I need … help, willing help.”
“You hire help. You purchased me,” Ian said, his burr deepening with the anger he felt. “But donna you think you can buy anything else. I willna ever trust an Englishman. So donna think you can persuade me to stay, with your kind offer.”
Marsh fell silent. After a moment he rose. “We have a long ride home.”
It felt extraordinarily good to be astride a horse again, and it was a fine horse. Under other circumstances, Ian thought, he would have enjoyed a ride through this lush green countryside.
But enjoyment, like pleasure, was something he didn’t ever expect to experience again. A year ago he’d had a family, a home, a country, a title. He had studied at the University of Edinburgh, and he spoke four languages fluently.
Now he had nothing.
But he had been surprised when he’d followed Marsh to a livery stable and two very fine horses were brought out. He’d seldom seen such horseflesh, even among his own horses in Scotland. They had been bred for endurance more than speed, and they had none of the stark beauty of these animals. One was a stallion, another a mare, small but exquisitely formed, and he couldn’t help but admire them both.
“The mare is gentle … and tractable,” Marsh had said, watching Ian’s reaction to the animals, “though I suspect you ride well.”
“I can ride,” Ian replied curtly.
Marsh gave a tired-sounding sigh. “Taking care of horses will be among your duties. I breed them for racing.”
Ian stiffened at the casual expectation of his services.
John Marsh’s face changed, the tentative smile disappearing. “You don’t have any reason to trust me, but you don’t have to. I don’t care what you did to get here or why you did it, but I need your labor, and I sold one of my horses to pay for it. You will be well treated. And I meant that offer: give me good service for five years and you go free.”
He paused, then added in a tone stronger than any he had yet used, “But I warn you, I will have you returned if you try to escape. Then I will sell your indenture. Another seven years could be added to your sentence, and I could easily recoup my money.” His voice hardened further. “I’m no fool, Ian Sutherland. Those indenture papers are safe with a friend, and should anything happen to me on this journey, or to my family, you will be hunted down and executed.”
Ian’s hands clenched at his side, but he remained silent.
“Do you understand?” Marsh persisted.
“Aye, I understand.”
“I have no wish to lock you up at night,” the older man added, “but I will if it is necessary.”
“You prefer a willing slave rather than an unwilling one,” Ian said bitterly. “You should have bought someone else, then.”
Marsh shook his head, then apparently decided to let the matter drop. “You take the mare.”
Ian didn’t say anything, but swung up into the saddle. Despite the mare’s small size, he could feel her sleek muscles beneath him. John Marsh obviously treated his animals well.
That’s all he was now. An animal. It was no comfort that he was to be well treated.
Chapter 3
Fancy waited anxiously. Every new sound sent her running to the door. John had been gone three days. He should have been home by now.
She had tended the vegetables, fed the horses with Fortune’s help, baked three loaves of bread, and started a stew using precious pieces of a ham she had been saving. Then she’d cleaned. And cleaned and cleaned.
Where was John? Had something terrible happened to him? She should never have allowed him to go alone.
After checking on a sleeping Amy, she returned to the porch in time to see two riders approaching. Shading her eyes against the noonday sun, she recognized John, and relief coursed through her. Her happiness at seeing him safely home was marred only slightly by seeing the second rider. Obviously John had been successful in his mission.
With trepidation, she watched the two men approach. The stranger, riding behind John, was lean—gaunt, really—but she gave him only a cursory glance, more interested in seeing how her husband had weathered the journey. When the two men pulled their mounts to a halt in front of the house, she watched John slowly dismount.
She started forward, then held back when Noel barreled past, eager to greet his father, with Lucky barking excitedly behind him. As John patted his son’s shoulder, she noted that, although it was only noon, he already looked tired. More than tired. Drained. The knot of worry tightened in her stomach. At least he’d found someone to help them.
