recipe nearly as good.
By now I understood that the herbs were irrelevant, however. This would not have occurred to me if, during my childhood, Midnight and I had not read together on dozens of occasions Strabo’s account of the victory of King Mithradates of Pontus over the Romans.
What
I questioned Crow and Lily further the next day. Each was hesitant to speak to me, but through the accumulation of small details I was able to bring the dark treasure I sought to the surface.
Crow told me that Big Master Henry’s spells had started before Midnight’s arrival at River Bend, but he also dated that to 1809, which — from what Morri had told me — I knew to be a lie. He confirmed that only Mistress Holly and the Master had had keys to the bedroom in which his body had been found.
I questioned Crow at the door to his small room, just off the study. To change the subject, he showed me some of his knick-knacks, including two molds he had made by pressing scallop shells into riverbed clay. He said he’d once had many others, some of which had been fired in an oven by his recently deceased younger brother, who’d been a blacksmith over at Limerick Plantation. And not just shells — he’d made molds of coins and Samuel’s flowers as well.
Later, Lily told me that when Big Master Henry was under the power of the spells, it was as though he were soused to his eyeballs. Little Master Henry had been just the same, she said.
She also assured me that Samuel’s medical knowledge and care had always returned Big and Little Master Henry to health. She started when I asked if the particular lemonade she made during their spells was in any way different from her daily brew. She denied any difference.
I knew I would also hide the truth if I were in her position. To alleviate her fears, I said that I was quite certain she had never done anything wrong to either of her masters. Then it was my turn to lie. In a confessional voice, I said that one of my daughters back in England was subject to similar spells. I explained that I was merely hoping to learn the secret of her recipe so I might alleviate my child’s suffering.
Thinking of my girls in faraway London, it was all too easy to let my eyes fill with tears. Softening, Lily whispered that when the Master was feeling a bit under the weather Midnight would sometimes ask her to secretly use what she called the curing honey — a powerful and dark variety that he extracted from the combs of a particular hive in Porter’s Woods. Only he knew its location, though he had passed that secret on to Morri. Lily assured me that Morri would surely give me a jar of it for my daughter before I left River Bend.
I kissed her for this kindness, and glimpsed her rubbing her cheek as I stepped out the door.
So I learned how Midnight had brought on the spells. As to his motivation, it didn’t seem that a slave would need a particular reason to give
Lily always thought the spells got worse by themselves and that the curing honey was all that stood between her master and the grave. She had no reason to doubt Midnight, whose talents as a healer were renowned. He told her when to start using it and when to stop.
Of course, it might have been possible that the very first spell had been real and had given Midnight the idea for his gambit. In any case, once he had seen how easy it was to produce a grave illness and then effect a cure by withholding the cause, he understood the usefulness of this ruse. He had planted his rhododendrons to have access to the mad honey made from their pollen.
It was, in fact, a brilliant strategy. Likely he’d regarded it as unfortunate but necessary. And sanctioned by history through the victory of King Mithradates. It would have also been a reminder of the power that honey held in the Bushman culture.
During my very first talk with Morri, she told me that Big Master Henry had had his way with some of the slave girls for a month prior to his falling victim to a terrible spell. A sudden spark in her eyes — which she tried to hide from me by gazing down — led me to believe that she had been one of his victims. Even if she had kept this a secret from everyone, her father would likely have guessed from some subtle change in her bearing.
This was motivation enough for Midnight to commit murder, as I saw it, as was the cutting of his heel- strings. Yet I didn’t believe he had done either killing. For if he had sought to end either Big or Little Master Henry’s life, he merely would have had to increase the dosage of honey or add a more potent poison to Lily’s lemonade.
When I mentioned the possibility that Mistress Holly had committed the murders to Crow and Lily, they replied that it was impossible. They assured me that she’d cowered in front of her husband like a whipped dog. Lily also told me that the Mistress had been so fond of her ne’er-do-well son that she would have laid down her life for him without a moment’s hesitation.
It seemed possible that up to three different people were involved in the murders: Midnight to bring on the spells with the mad honey and one or two others to plunge knives into Big and Little Master Henry.
If, in the first case, the perpetrator had been Mistress Holly, then her husband would not have cried out upon seeing her in his room. Though likely the murderer had stabbed him at the height of one of his spells, when he was delirious, and he therefore might not have been able to cry out the killer’s name, whoever he or she was.
Unless he was already dead prior to the use of the blade and it had been used merely to divert suspicion from poisoning. That seemed to me likely, except that Crow had said that a great deal of blood had soaked into the victims’ shirts. If they had been dead for even half an hour, I did not believe this would have been the case.
Perhaps the second murder had been the handiwork of Mistress Anne, who seemed to me a lady of thwarted hopes and vengeance, carrying all the rage her mother had never dared to express.
I’d had little reason to seek out Mr. Johnson previous to these discoveries, but I now went to him in the fields to see if he might have any ideas on the matter.
“I’ve nothing to tell you, sir” was all he would answer with regard to the murders. In the stern compression of his lips I could see he might have liked to thrash me for questioning him about such a delicate matter. The obvious had yet to occur to me — that he regarded himself as partly responsible, since the day-to-day running of the plantation was under his command.
“Do you believe one of the slaves capable of having committed the murders?” I asked.
“I would believe none of them incapable.”
“And Mistress Holly?”
He bristled. “What are you suggesting, Mr. Stewart?”
“Only that she was gravely unhappy.”
“I can’t rightly see how that concerns you. No, I can’t see that at all.”
His stance had changed to one of defiance, and I could plainly see that I had made an enemy. I apologized quickly and walked back to the Big House.
From my window, I spotted Morri returning home late that night, near the stroke of twelve. As she whispered good night to Weaver on the gravel driveway by the piazza, I realized what I’d previously refused to admit — that speaking with her would prove useless. She had told me so much in passing the day before, but I saw now, in the way she gazed slowly around the plantation, how hard it would be for her to leave this place without her father. Particularly as it was the only home she had ever known.
Sitting on my bed, listening to the ratcheting sound of the crickets and the hooting of a far-off owl, all the night seemed to be telling me,
I decided then that it would be best for me to join Isaac and Luisa for a few days. This would give Morri an opportunity to consider her destiny without my wishes playing havoc with her emotions. Also, I would prevail upon Luisa to return with me and speak to Morri. I was sure that she would have a much better chance of convincing the girl to leave River Bend than I did, that no argument I could ever come up with would be nearly as eloquent as Luisa’s freedom itself.
