lord of the manor. Hadn’t a clue what was going on, because he didn’t give a damn about such things as farming and bookkeeping. And so he could not answer that question. He knew it, Elizabeth knew it. Damn her for doing this to him.
They were silent for a very long time, eyes locked. Two very stubborn people, two people who had learned from hard use never to yield an inch.
And in Marlowe’s mind, the heaving quarterdeck, the leap over the rail.
He knew that Elizabeth was right. He was bored. He had spent well over a decade as a pirate-an extraordinary amount of time for that profession-and half of it just to get himself to the place he was now.
He closed his eyes. Opened them again, gave her a weak smile. “You are right, my love. You are right.”
“Thomas, do not placate me…”
“I am not, truly I am not. I want to do this thing because…I want to do it. I do not know what more to say, what I can do to make it better.”
He saw her anger, her stubborn unwillingness to yield, melt away just as his own had done. She was across the room and in his arms, her head tucked under his chin.
“My love, my love, I am sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be, Thomas. I understand. You would not be the man you are if you could stay happy at home. I just… I… you must understand. Understand yourself why you have to go.”
They embraced, and after a minute Elizabeth spoke, her face buried in his chest, her voice muffled. “I am just selfish. I can’t stand seeing your joy at something besides me, and our home. I hate that ship because it is a part of your life that is not a part of mine. It will take you away from me.”
Marlowe did not know what to say to that, so he said nothing. They just stood there, in each other’s arms, rocking slowly, enjoying that heightened affection that follows an argument, like the bright blue skies that come on the heels of a cleansing storm.
And then a pounding from belowstairs, an insistent fist on the front door. They both looked up, ears cocked to the sound.
“What the devil…,” Marlowe muttered. It was well past midnight.
The pounding came again, and then quiet, and then again. Marlowe released Elizabeth, and stepped quickly for the door, Elizabeth just behind him. Out of the bedroom and down the hall, his slippered feet silent on the rug that covered most of the oak floors. At the top of the wide stairs that flowed down to the front entry Marlowe saw Caesar, the aging house servant, muttering and hurrying toward the door, dressed only in his nightshirt, a flickering candle in his hand.
Marlowe bounded down the stairs, Elizabeth still behind him, quite ignoring her immodest appearance. Caesar stopped on seeing him, glanced at the door, awaited orders. The pounding resumed.
“Pray, open it, Caesar,” Marlowe said.
Caesar grabbed the doorknob, twisted, swung the door back. In the light of his candle stood Sam.
His clothes were torn, his face and shirt smeared with blood and vomit, his eyes wild. And even before he spoke, Marlowe knew that everything had changed.
Chapter 5
Governor Nicholson huffed, cleared his throat, moved objects around on his desk. Squinted and frowned at something on the wide cuff of his coat, picked it off, flicked it away.
Nicholson generally came right to the point of a matter. When he did not care to, he engaged in the elaborate ritual he was now enacting.
Marlowe, seated before the governor’s desk, crossed his legs, adjusted his sword, gave a little cough. He looked at the swirling pattern in the flocked canvas covering the walls, ran his eyes up to the ceiling high above, the intricate walnut crown molding that ran around the juncture of wall and ceiling. A lovely room, he had always thought so.
Nicholson had insisted they meet in his office, the office of the governor, because this was a matter that required such formality.
The governor’s office was in the Wren Building of the College of William and Mary, a block of rooms that, to College President Blair’s dismay, Nicholson had commandeered until the Governor’s Palace was completed. It was only a few months earlier that Blair had managed to get the whole House of Burgesses out of the Wren Building and into the not-yet-finished Capitol.
Williamsburg, it seemed, was rising up from the earth, buildings growing between the stakes and strings that cut the open countryside into various lots and parcels, like a garden laid out and waiting only for things to sprout.
In an upright, slipcovered chair against the wall sat Frederick Dun-more, all but glowing in his white suit of clothes, all vestiges of his Boston Puritan heritage gone. A neat, trim man of no great size. Just the hint of a knowing smile on his face. No need for overt gloating, not when one has been proved so profoundly right.
His chair was in line with the end of the governor’s desk, not quite in front, not quite behind. A careful choice, Marlowe was certain. Made himself look like he was Nicholson’s right-hand man, without exposing himself to the possibility of the governor asking him what in hell he was doing, sitting beside him.
“Yes, well, Marlowe, a letter of marque…,” the governor began at last. “Don’t really see how we can do that now…”
“Governor, there has been a terrible incident, I am certainly aware,” Marlowe said in his most reasonable tone, “but I don’t see how that alters the situation. Slaver or no, there is still the war with Spain…”
“War with Spain?” Dunmore burst in. “We have troubles greater than that, sir, and in a good part thanks to you.”
Marlowe turned his head slowly, held Dunmore ’s eyes just long enough to make it clear that his comments were not welcome, and then turned back to Nicholson. “My men, the ones who returned with the sloop, told me of the horror they found on the slaver. I do not know what King James was thinking, but whatever it was I am in no doubt that he had ample reason for doing what he did.”
That was not true, of course. Marlowe had a damned good idea of what James was thinking, of the rage that led him to slay the white crew. But of course he could not say that.
“I am hard-pressed to imagine any situation that would justify killing half of a ship’s crew, particularly one in so weakened a state-,” Nicholas began, only to be interrupted by Dunmore.
“There is no circumstance, sir, that can justify a black man killing a white. It can never be justified. If we find excuses for this, then we undermine the whole structure of our society here in the tidewater.”
“Our” society? Marlowe thought. Who the hell are you, you bloody Yankee bastard? Marlowe had been in the tidewater three years, was a hero in Williamsburg, and he still felt like an outsider.
He turned to Nicholson. “What is this son of a bitch doing here?” Turned back to Dunmore, dared him with his eyes to demand satisfaction for that affront.
“Marlowe, I know you are not happy, but there is no call for that.” Nicholson pulled Dunmore from the fire. “Mr. Dunmore is here as a representative of the burgesses.”
Marlowe wondered how he had managed that, how he had got the more reasonable faction to let him be the representative at this meeting. Favors called in, debts written off. Dunmore would have done anything in exchange for this moment, the moment when he could sit there and watch Marlowe squirm because he had freed his slaves.
“There is another concern, Marlowe,” said Dunmore, smug in the governor’s protection. “This example you have set, it puts us all in great danger of our Negroes rising up against us, do you see? And again, there is the war with Spain, which you mentioned. The guns on your ship are property of the crown, and I do not see how under these circumstances we can allow you to keep them. We need them now just to protect ourselves from the danger to which you yourself have exposed us.”
Marlowe felt the hot flash of anger. Ten years before, Dunmore would not have made it through that speech, would have been begging for his life before he had uttered two sentences.
But Marlowe was a gentleman now, he reminded himself, and should not kill men but in affairs of honor, and
