"Be so good as to line out the word 'absconder' and initial the change, if you please. It prejudges a case not yet heard. Hayes snorted but did as he was bid. Douglas dipped his head in acknowledgment. After taking up the money, Hayes said, "Come along, Master Gillen. If Alfred wants to play this game, we shal settle it in court, never fear. Oh, yes, don't forget the copy of the Digest your nigger was kind enough to find for you." With that parting shot, he and, Caleb swept out of the office.
Jeremiah stared miserably at the floor. Douglas said, "I suppose it's no good asking for a miracle. You don't happen to be a free nigger named Jeremiah who just coincidentally Iooks exactly like that lad's father's nigger Jeremiah?" –
"No, sir,"Jeremiah muttered, stil not looking up.
"Wel , we'll have to try a different tack, then," Douglas said.
He did not sound put out; if anything, he sounded eager.
More than anything else, that made Jeremiah lift his head.
"You purely crazy, Mr. Douglas, sir? They'll have me in irons and hauled away fast as the judge can bang his gavel. "
"Maybe, maybe not." Douglas remained ponderously unruffled.
"Shit!" Jeremiah burst out. "And why did you give your bond on me? I could've broke out of jail maybe, gone somewheres else. How can I run off now?"
Douglas chuckled. "Caleb Gil en's right: you are honest enough, even if a runaway. If that were me in your shoes, I'd've been out the door like a shot, no matter what promises I made. But I gambled you wouldn't, because I think we just might get you really free yet."
"You're crazy, Mr. Douglas," Jeremiah repeated. A few seconds later, he asked in a small voice, "Do you really think so?"
"We just might."
"I'd give anything! I'll pay you. I've got I50 denaires saved up, almost. You can have 'em. If I'm free, I can make more." Jeremiah knew he was babbling, but couldn't help it.
"You'll stay, knowing that if we lose you'll be re-enslaved?"
That was a poser. At last, Jeremiah said, "Even if I run, someone'll always be after me to drag me back. If we win, I won't have to look over my shoulder every time I sit with my back to the door. That's worth something."
"Al right, then. I'll take your money. Not only do I need it after going bond for you, but having it in my pocket will give you an incentive to stay in town." Douglas looked knowingly at Jeremiah.
The black felt his cheeks go hot. Maybe he really was honest; once Douglas had given Hayes the money, it had not occurred to him that he could still run away. Once admitted, however, the idea was in his head for good. If things looked grim enough in court, he told himself, he might yet disappear.
For the life of him, he could not see how the upcoming hearing could do anything but send him back to Charles Gil en. After all, he was an escaped slave. He did not doubt his master could prove it.
So why was Douglas willing to take the case before the judges?
When Jeremiah got up the nerve to ask, Douglas did not answer right away. He heaved his bulk up out of his chair, walked over to pick up the volume of Pepys the black had tripped on when he tried to escape. He examined it careful y to make sure it had not been damaged.
Then he came over and slapped Jeremiah on the shoulder. "Be a man," he said. "Be a man, and we'll do all right."
True spring sweetened the air as Jeremiah and Douglas made their way to the Portsmouth courthouse. Jeremiah pointed up at the inscription over the entrance, the one that had baffled him when he arrived in the city.
"What does that mean?" he asked Douglas.
"Fiat iustitia et ruant caeli?" The lawyer seemed surprised for a moment at his ignorance, then laughed. "Well no reason to blame you for knowing even less Latin than Caleb Gillen, is there? It means, 'Let there be justice though the heavens fall."
Jeremiah admired the sentiment without much expecting to find it practiced. If there were justice, he would not be a slave, but he had a fatalistic certainty he soon was going to be one again. Douglas's optimism did little to lighten his gloom.
Douglas was always an optimist. Why not, Jeremiah thought bitterly. He was free.
A sim with a broom scurried out of the way to let Jeremiah pass.
His spirits lifted a little. Even as a slave, he had known there was more to him than to any of the subhumans. His shoulders straightened.
He needed that small encouragement, for he felt how hostile the atmosphere was as soon as he fol owed Douglas into the courtroom.
Hayes had made sure the case was tried in the newspapers constantly during the month since it began. Prosperous-looking white men filled most of the seats: slave owners themselves, Jeremiah guessed from the way they glared at him. Free blacks had only a few chairs; more stood behind the last row of seats.
Hayes, Charles and Caleb Gillen, and Harry Stowe were already in their places in front of the judges' tribunal. Jeremiah tried to read the elder Gillen's face. The man who had owned him for so long sent him a civil nod. He thought about pretending he did not recognize him, decided it would do no good, and nodded back. Hayes, who missed very little, noticed. He smiled a cold smile. Jeremiah grimaced.
"Rise for the honorable judges," the bailiff intoned as the three-man panel filed in from their chambers. In the black robes and powdered wigs, the judges al seemed to Jeremiah to be cut from the same bolt of cloth.
To Douglas, who had argued cases in front of them for years, they were individuals. As the judges and the rest of the people in the courtroom sat, he whispered to Jeremiah, "Hardesty there on the left has an open mind; I'm glad to see him, especially with Scott as the other junior judge. As for Kemble in the middle, only he knows what he'll do on any given day. He has a habit of changing his mind from case to case.
That's not good in a judge, but it can't be helped."
A second look was plenty to warn Jeremiah to beware of Judge Scott. The man had a long, narrow, unsmiling face, a nose sharp and thin as a sword blade, and eyes like black ice. Even when young, he would not have changed his mind often, and he had not been young for many years.
Hardesty's features were nondescript but rather thoughtful. High Judge Kemble looked like a fox. He had a sly mouth, a sharp nose, and wide blue eyes too innocent to be altogether convincing. Jeremiah would have bet he was rich.
"What case, bailiff?" he asked in a mel ifluous tenor.
The bailiff shuffled papers, though both he and the judges knew perfectly well what case it was. He read, "An action brought by Charles Gil en, a citizen of the Commonwealth of Virginia, to regain the services of his absconded black slave Jeremiah, the said Jeremiah stating himself to be a freeman and so not liable to provide said services."
Kemble nodded, Hardesty scribbled something, Scott looked bored.
The High Judge glanced toward Hayes. "The plaintiff may present his opening remarks."
The lawyer rose, bowed to Kemble and to each of the junior judges in turn. "May it please the honorable judges, we propose to prove that the nigger seated at the defendant's bench is and has been the slave of our client Charles Gillen, that he did willfully run away from the estate of Charles Gillen, and that he has received no manumission or other liberation to entitle him in law to so depart."
"What evidence will you produce to demonstrate this claim, sir?"
Kemble intoned.
"I have beside me here the owner of, "
"I protest the word, your excel encies," Douglas broke in. "For al that he borrows books from me, Mr. Hayes is surely too learned to assume what he wishes to prove."
"The claimed owner," Hayes amended before the judges could comment. "The claimed owner of this claimed slave" (Douglas winced at the sarcasm)
"and his son and his overseer, al of whom can identify the individual in question. I shal also produce a bill of sale demonstrating the chattel status of that individual." He sat down, looking as smug as a scrawny man can.