Back in the water, he carried the food to his pile of clothes on shore then returned to the river. With silent, stealthy strokes he approached the naval vessels, circling the cutter then the brig, pausing often to study their construction and rigging. The cutter had sailed away Sunday afternoon and returned four days later, and Frazier had said that was its usual schedule, as if it were routinely carrying messages back and forth to a place two days away. It made no sense for the ships to spend so much time at Galilee. He might expect an occasional call of a naval ship attached to the Chesapeake squadron but these ships were like fixtures at the remote tobacco plantation.
He pushed himself out into the current, luxuriating in the cool water and the freedom it offered, letting himself float with the slow movement of the river, then swam upriver and drifted past the manor house. He studied the manor house compound and the wharf from afar. The only room showing light was what appeared to be the dining room. Figures moved by its windows, one lifting an arm as if in a toast. The breeze carried faint sounds of laughter.
Half an hour later he was back at the stable, dropping the bag of food and knives in the shadows before sprinting along the long drainage ditch across the fields, painfully aware of the consequences if he were caught by the night patrols. He lay in the ditch, watching as two men on horseback passed the African sheds, but did not rise for several more minutes. A whippoorwill called from the hills. Frogs sang in the swamp. When he heard the crickets renew their chorus he stole to the nearest of the sheds.
Inside, someone was chanting again. He began dropping the food into one of the window slits. After the first three onions, a strong hand reached out to take the food, then when he was finished, Duncan extended his own hand. The slave inside squeezed his hand tightly and spoke a few words in an unfamiliar tongue. They sounded not so much like an expression of gratitude but as a quiet vow.
The next afternoon Duncan was pulled out of the work line by Winters. “Go with Trent back to the stable. Wash up,” he ordered. “You’re going to the compound.”
Duncan received the news with a chill, and found himself clutching the still-painful burn on his arm. He had told himself he would not be sent to interrogation again so soon. With a stab of fear he realized he may have been seen the night before. Murdo and Tanaqua stared at him with worried expressions. Larkin handed him one of the little slats of hickory, riddled with teeth marks.
Trent gauged him with a disapproving eye when Duncan finished washing his hands and face at the water barrel, then motioned with his baton toward the perimeter road. Duncan tried to push away his fear by putting a label on each of the buildings as they approached the compound. The smithy, the carpenter’s shop, the cooperage, the laundry shed where aproned women now toiled at a soapy kettle, the root cellar, then with a chill he found himself staring at the squat brick building with the wide chimney. Why, he asked himself, would he need to be cleaned to go back into the smokehouse?
His relief at being led past the smokehouse was momentary, for he spied the servants waiting with impatient expressions on the back portico. As he climbed the steps, a young African woman filling buckets at a pump paused and watched him with sad eyes.
Trent led him past the servants through the kitchen door.
A rotund woman wearing a bright yellow apron pounced on them. “Not a step further!” she ordered, raising a rolling pin.
Trent backed away. “It’s him,” he muttered.
The woman’s eyes went round. “This?” she scoffed as she paced around Duncan, inspecting him.
“From the stable,” Trent reminded her. “The Judas slaves.”
The woman stroked her chin, rubbing flour into her cocoa-colored skin. “Titus!” she called.
A remarkably graceful man in black waistcoat, white linen shirt, and britches over white stockings appeared from a side door. He was long-boned and thin, with greying hair and a row of small, subtle decorative scars that ran from one ear into his collar. He was as tall as the big slave who had helped Murdo, but with much lighter bone structure and a narrow, refined face. Duncan was beginning to realize that Africans, like the American natives, had many different tribes.
Titus bowed his head to Duncan and led him back out onto the rear portico. With a few quick commands he launched the lingering servants into a frenzy of activity. The woman at the pump brought a bucket of water. A teenage girl dressed as a housemaid removed Duncan’s filthy waistcoat with a disapproving grimace and slammed it against the wall several times before roughly brushing it. He was shoved down onto an upturned keg, his head was jerked back, and with painful tugs another began using a comb to untangle his hair. The girl from the pump arrived and giggled as she pulled off his shoes and tattered leggings. He watched, confused and no less apprehensive, unable to shake the feeling that he was still bound for punishment, just one more refined than he had expected.
“Blessed Jehovah!” the plump cook exclaimed as his filthy shirt was peeled away. The Africans all paused, their levity gone, as they silently stared at the scars and scabs on Duncan’s back. She called for a clean cloth and began dabbing cold water on them, then paused as she saw the livid brand on his arm. “Poor boy,” she muttered, and stroked his arm with a motherly touch. “Poor, poor boy.”
A quarter hour later he was for all appearances a new man. Fresh stockings, shoes, and a shirt had been fetched for him. The pink, nearly raw flesh of his brand had been rubbed with witch hazel and powdered over before the clean shirt was pulled over his shoulders. His waistcoat had been cleaned, sprinkled with lavender water, and a tear in its fabric hastily patched. His hair was straightened for the first time in weeks and a blue ribbon bound it at the back.
“Better,” the woman in charge declared in a tone that made it clear she did not entirely approve. “Pity no time to shave you,” she said, then with a finger on his shoulder pushed him deeper into the great house.
Duncan followed her down a wood-paneled hallway lined with paintings onto an ornate staircase and up to the second floor. In a bedroom overlooking the river, a man lay with a compress on his head. On the bedpost hung the jacket of a British naval officer.
“It’s the malaria,” came a soft tight voice from the shadows behind him. Duncan turned. The cook was gone. Rising from a daybed, rubbing sleep from her eyes, was a woman in a simple green dress. A few years older than Duncan, with high cheekbones and hazel eyes, she had a quiet elegance about her despite her obvious fatigue.
“Came back with it from a Jamaica posting, he says.” She pushed back her curly brunette hair to see Duncan better. “Jamie . . . I mean Mr. Winters mentioned he had a Scottish doctor among his charges. Can it be true?”
“Edinburgh, aye,” Duncan replied uncertainly, and bent over the man. He had a raging fever.
“Peruvian bark,” Duncan said instantly. “He needs the bark.”
“We used it all, Dr.-”
“McCallum.”
“The brig. The surgeon on the brig would have some, Mrs.-”
“Alice Dawson. And Mr. Lloyd is the surgeon of the Ardent.”
Duncan looked up in surprise then contemplated his patient. “He must have a medicine chest. Where is it?”
“On board.”
“Some diaphoretin then. Antimony perhaps, or at least James’s Powder.”
“You speak beyond me, sir. We bled him yesterday. This is as bad as I have ever seen him. He passed the night shivering uncontrollably. He is unable to keep food down. Titus says we could find leeches in the swamp.”