Page 3 of Dawnlands

“Eh—I don’t care for him myself—but what choice is there?”

“The Duke of Monmouth, the king’s own son, a man who promises liberty, and freedom to choose your own religion.”

“Born a bastard. And we can’t send a Stuart king on his travels again. We’ve only just got them back.”

A rare smile crossed Ned’s stern face. “I don’t see why they can’t go again,” he said. “What has any Stuart ever done for a workingman?”

“We’ll know when we get there,” the captain summed up. “We sail with the tide, just after midday. There’s a noon gun.”

“Aye, I know Boston,” Ned said shortly.

“You’ve been here awhile?” The captain was curious about his quiet passenger, his deeply tanned skin, and his shock of gray hair. “It’s a great city for making a fortune, isn’t it?”

Ned shook his head. “I don’t care for a fortune, stolen from natives who gave all they had at first. I make a small living, gathering herbs. But now it’s time for me to go home. I’ll be aboard before noon.”

He turned from the quayside to go back to the inn to settle his slate. Coming from the opposite direction, tied in a line with tarry ropes, were a score of prisoners trailing their way to a ship for the plantations. Ned could tell at once that they were the people of several different Indian nations: the high topknots and shaven heads of some, and others had a sleek bob. Each face showed different tattoos: some high on the cheekbones or some marked straight across the forehead. There were even one or two wearing the proud all-black stain of “warpaint”: the sign that a man was sworn to fight to the death. They were roped in a line, dressed in a muddle of ragged English clothes, shivering in the cold wind, alike in their shuffling pace—hobbled by tight ropes—and in the defeated stoop of their shoulders.

“Netop,” Ned whispered in Pokanoket, as they went past him. “Netop.”

Those who were closest heard the greeting—“friend” in their forbidden language—but they did not look up.

“Where they going?” Ned asked the red-faced man who was herding them, his hands in his pockets, a finely carved pipe clamped in the corner of his mouth.

“Sugar Islands.” He turned his head and barked: “Wait!”

Obediently, the line shuddered to a halt.

“God help them,” Ned said.

“He won’t. They’re all pagans.”

Dourly, Ned turned away, spitting out the bitter taste in his mouth, when he half heard a whisper, as quiet as a leaf falling in the forest:

“Nippe Sannup!”

He turned at the familiar sound of his name in Pokanoket: “Waterman.”

“Who calls me?”

“Webe, pohquotwussinnan wutch matchitut.” A steady black gaze met Ned’s. A youth, beardless and slight. There was no pleading in his face, but his lips formed the words: “Nippe Sannup.”

“I need a boy, a servant,” Ned lied. “I’m going to England. I need a lad to serve me on the ship.”

“You don’t have to buy one of these,” the man advised him. “Just shout in the inn yard and half a dozen little white rats will pop up their heads, desperate to get home.”

“No, I want a savage,” Ned improvised rapidly. “I collect Indian herbs, and pagan carvings. Things like your pipe—that’s savage work, isn’t it? My goods’ll sell better with a savage lad to carry them around. I’ll buy one of ’em off you now,” Ned said. He pointed to the youth. “That one.”

“Oh, I couldn’t let that one go,” the man said at once. “He’s going to grow like a weed, that one: thicken up, broaden out, going to be strong. I’ll get good money for him.”

“He won’t last three seconds in the fields,” Ned contradicted. “The voyage alone’ll kill him. There’s nowt on him, and he’s got that look in his eyes.”

“They die just to disoblige me!” the jailer said irritably. “They don’t take to slavery. Nobody’d buy one, if you could get an African. Buta slave’s a slave. You’ve got it for life—however long it lasts. What’ll you give me?”

“Fifty dollars, Spanish dollars,” Ned said, naming a price at random.

“Done,” the man said so quickly that Ned knew it was too much. “Sure you want that one? Another pound buys you this one, he’s bigger.”

“No,” Ned said. “I want a young one, easier to train.”