“He squatting under that tree yonder.”
“Now is the time, Fishy. Go to him, tell him I want to talk to him.”
“Oh, Miz Margaret, you sure he don't hurt me?”
“He'll think you're pretty.” Margaret touched her arm. “He'll think you're the most beautiful woman he's ever seen.”
“You joking now.”
“Not at all. You see, you're the first free Black woman he's known.”
“I not free.”
“He bought a slave once. Hoping to make her his wife. But she was so ashamed of being owned by a Black man that she threatened to expose his ability to read and write and tell the authorities that he's a free Black in Camelot.”
“What he do?”
“What do you think?”
“He kill her.”
“He tried. At the last moment he changed his mind. She's still his slave, but she's crippled. Mind and body.”
“You didn't have to tell me that story,” said Fishy. “I wasn't going to let him talk love to me. He scare me too bad.”
“I just thought you should know.”
“Well, you know what? It take away some of my scared, knowing that about him.”
It stabbed Margaret to the heart, watching the smiling girl change before she turned around and walked among the Whites promenading on the battery. The smile fled; her eyelids half closed; she bent her shoulders and looked down as she made her way, not directly toward Denmark, but off at an angle. After a short time she doubled back and came to him from another way. Very good, thought Margaret. I didn't think to tell her to do that, but it keeps it from being obvious to onlookers that I sent her to fetch Denmark.
Fishy handled it deftly. My mistress want a-talk to you. What about? My mistress want a-talk to you. No matter what he said, she answered like a parrot. Maybe he knew she was pretending or maybe he thought she was stupid and stubborn, but either way, it got him up and walking, following Fishy's roundabout course as she walked two paces ahead of him. They couldn't walk side by side, or it would seem to White folks that they were promenading, and it would be taken as outrageous mockery. Instead it was obvious she was leading him, which meant they were on an errand for their master, and all was well with the world.
“What you want to talk about?” Denmark asked her, keeping his head downcast. But in the tone of his voice she could hear his hostility toward her.
“You're looking for me,” she said.
“Am not,” he said.
“Oh, that's right. It's Calvin you're looking for.”
“That his name?”
“His name won't give you any power over him greater than what you already have.”
“I got no power over nobody.”
Margaret sighed. “Then why do you have a knife in your pocket? That's against the law, Denmark Vesey. You have other hidden powers. You're a free Black in Camelot, doing account books for– let's see, Dunn and Brown, Longer and Ford, Taggart's grocery–”
“I should have knowed you been spying on me.” There was fear in his voice, despite his best effort to sound unconcerned. “White ladies got nothing better to do.”
Margaret pressed on. “You found out where I lived because the valet at Calvin's former boardinghouse led you. And you have a woman at home whose name you never utter. You nearly drowned her in a sack in the river. You're a man with a conscience, and it causes you great pain.”
He almost staggered from the blow of knowing how much she knew about him. “They hang me, a Black man owning a slave.”
“You've made quite a life for yourself, being a free man in a city of slaves. It hasn't been as good for your wife, though, has it?”
“What you want from me?”
“This isn't extortion, except in the mildest sense. I'm telling you that I know what and who you are, so that you'll understand that you're dealing with powers that are far out of your reach.”
“Sneakiness ain't power.”
“What about the power to tell you that you have it in you to be a great man? Or to be a great fool. If you make the correct choice.”
“What choice?”
“When the time comes, I'll tell you what the choice is. Right now, you have no choice at all. You're going to take me and Calvin and Fishy to the place where you keep the name-strings.”
Denmark smiled. “So they still some things you don't know.”
“I didn't say I knew everything. The power that hides the names also hides from me your knowledge of where they are.”
“That be the truth, more than you know,” said Denmark. “I don't even know myself.”
Fishy scoffed aloud at that. “This ain't no White fool you can play games with.”
“No, Fishy,” said Margaret, “he's telling the truth. He really doesn't know. So I wonder how you find your way back?”
“When it time for me to go there, I just wander around and pretty soon I be there. I walk in the door and then I remember everything.”
“Remember what?”
“How do I know? I ain't through that door.”
“Powerful hexery,” said Margaret, “if hexery it be. Take me there.”
“I can't do that,” said Denmark.
“How about if I cut off your balls?” asked Fishy cheerfully.
Denmark looked at Fishy in wonder. He'd never heard a Black woman talk like that, right out in public, in front of a White.
“Let's hold off on the mutilation, Fishy,” said Margaret. “Again, I think Denmark Vesey may be telling me the truth. He really can't find the place unless he goes there alone.”
Denmark nodded.
“Well, then. I think we have no further business together,” said Margaret. “You can go now.”
“I want that man,” said Denmark. He glanced at Calvin.
“You'll never have him,” said Margaret. “He has more power than you can imagine.”
“Can't be that much,” said Denmark. “Look at him, he's empty.”
“Yes, he was taken by surprise,” said Margaret. “But you won't hold him for long.”
“Long enough,” said Denmark. “His body starting to rot. He be dying.”
“You have till the count of three to walk away from me and keep on walking,” said Margaret.
“Or what?”
“One. Or I'll call out for you to take your filthy paws off of my body.”
Denmark at once backed away. There could be no charge more sure of putting Denmark on the end of a rope without further discussion.
“Two,” said Margaret. And he was gone.
“Now we lost him again,” said Fishy.
“No, my friend, we've got him. He's going to lead us right where we want to go. He can't hide from me.” Margaret made a slow turn, taking in the view. “Today, I think it's worth it to splurge on a carriage ride.”
Margaret led Fishy and Calvin to the row of waiting carriages. It took Margaret lifting his foot and Fishy pulling him up to get Calvin's uncaring body into the coach. The moment Calvin was settled in his seat, Fishy started to get down.
“Please, stay inside with me,” said Margaret.
“I can't do that.”
As if he were part of their conversation, the White driver opened the sliding window between his seat and the interior of the carriage. “Ma'am,” he said, “you from the North, so you don't know, but around here we don't let no slaves ride in the carriage. She knows it, too– she's got to step out and walk along behind.”
“She has told me of this law and I will gladly obey it. However, my brother-in-law here is prone to get rather ill during carriage rides, and I hope you understand that if he vomits, I am not prepared to hold a bag to catch it.”
The driver considered this for a moment. “You keep that curtain closed, then. I don't want no trouble.”
Fishy looked at Margaret, incredulous. Then she leaned over and pulled the drapes closed on one side of the coach while Margaret closed them on the other. Once they were closed off from public view, Fishy sat on the padded bench beside Calvin and grinned like a three-year-old with a spoon full of molasses. She even bounced a little on the seat.
The window opened again. “Where to, ma'am?” asked the driver.