Washington and Caesar

The old man was done before Nicholson, and he looked at Washington and smiled. He pointed to a young man in an old French coat.

“It happens often to Gray Coat here when he hunts deer, but not to me.”

Most of the warriors laughed, although the one man looked sour.

“I should have ignored the boy, although he made a good slave, for a while. My mother adopted him, and he was with us until the Pennsylvania men made us send him away.”

Washington smiled, but he had rather the look of Gray Coat the moment before. The old man raised his hand, and smiled a feral smile.

“I should have killed him and taken you. I still wonder what kind of a slave you would have made.”

Mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, November 6, 1773

“You clap on to that line and haul, laddie. That’s it. Handsomely now, you lot. Pull. Pull, you black bastards. Belay there, King. Right.” High overhead the newly fished spar rose into the dawn light and was seated home against the mast. The black men on the deck hauled and sweated, but the sailors sweated just as hard.

The squall had hit them inside the capes, laying the vessel on her beam-ends, stripping off every scrap of sail and cracking the fore-topsail yard. The sailor called King, a free black, had cut the broken yard away from the rigging it threatened to shred, standing on the canted deck with the ropes’ ends pounding him like a dozen fiendish whips.

The ship’s master, Gibson, had shipped a small cargo of West Indies blacks to augment the rum and molasses in the hold. They were skilled men: two bricklayers, a carpenter, a huntsman, and a gunsmith, all likely to fetch first-rate prices among the Virginia gentry. In the meantime, they could haul ropes in an emergency.

High above them, King waved at the captain and leaned out, grabbing a stay and sliding for the deck. Something King saw at the last moment of his slide halted him, and he ran his eyes over the group standing in the waist of the ship, still holding the line that had raised the yard. One young man had scars over his eyes, hard ridges that told a story, if the watcher knew what to read. King wandered over, acknowledging the praise of his shipmates and some good-natured abuse. He turned to the man with the scars, a wave of homesickness hitting his breast and slowing his breath.

“Hello, cousin.”

The man’s eyes widened for a moment, then his white teeth flashed in an enormous smile.

“Greetings, older cousin.”

The man looked young, young to have left home with the scars of a warrior and already have a skill worth selling in America. His face was not yet hard or closed as the slaves’ too often were.

“I honor your courage in the storm, older cousin.” Nicely phrased. King smiled himself, but turned away, headed for his hammock. It didn’t do to associate too much with slaves, at least where white men could see you. It gave them ideas.

King returned topside at the changing of the watch, to see the familiar low Virginia shore clear to the southwest. The Chesapeake had become confused in his memories with Africa, where great rivers ran deep into the woods, and he thought of Virginia as home, the place where he had a wife and a family. He stood by the heads watching the shore for a moment, and then moved into the waist. The sails were set and, barring a disaster, wouldn’t need to be touched until the turn of the tide. Until a crisis came, sailoring was an easy life, and King liked a crisis here and there. They made good stories.

The young one with scars was watching him from the group of slaves at the base of the mainmast. It was a polite regard: the youth didn’t stare, but simply glanced his way from time to time, as if inviting him to speak. King settled into the shade of the sail with the other crew on deck and accepted a draw from another man’s pipe. There were sailors who wouldn’t smoke with a black man, but not many around King. Gibson preferred English sailors to Americans. King had noticed that Englishmen seemed easier with blacks. It didn’t stand to reason.

“You gonna jabber some more o’ that black cant, King?” asked Jones, the mate.

“I might, then.” King looked at Jones, who was smaller but loved to fight.

“Now then, King, boyo, don’t you glare at me. I’m all for your talkin’ any lingo you like. It’s just funny to hear from you, that’s all I’m saying.” Jones was from a part of Britain called Wales, where they seemed to sing instead of talk. King was on the edge of a retort about Jones and talk, but he smiled to himself and let it pass. Instead he motioned to the scarred youngster, who rose from his squatting position against the mast in one fluid, athletic movement and walked across the deck to the sailors.

“Speak the King’s English, boy?”

“Little, ya.”

“The better you speak it, the better you will be treated. You have a name, then?”

“Cese. Cese Mwakale. My father commands a thousand warriors—”

“Not here, he doesn’t. What were you called in Jamaica?”

“Caesar.”

King nodded. He knew a dozen Caesars in Williamsburg. “How long ago were you taken?”

“Four years, older cousin. You?”

“Twenty-five years, young one. But I was a fool, and walked to their landings to see the world. Who was king when you left?”

“King of Benin, sir? Or of my province?”

“Benin will do.”

“Callinauw was king when I last heard, sir.”

“And where do you hail from?”

“Eboe, in Esaka. My father commanded the regiment there.”

King nodded, curtly. It took him back to hear the words, to know that a man he had hated once was lording it in Benin, but it all sounded very far away. He smiled at the young man and held out the other sailor’s pipe.

“Smoke, Cese?”

The lad seized the pipe greedily and sucked a great draught into his lungs. Jones watched in amazement as the inward breath went on and on. Cese held the breath for a moment and returned the pipe with more gravity than he had taken it.

Jones looked into the bottom of the pipe bowl and mimed using a glass. “Tobacco is cheap in Virginny, but not that cheap, Blackie.”

“Call him Cese.” King smiled at the boy.

“How were you taken?”

“My father’s regiment was away in the north. You know of the Northern War?”

“I had heard. It was a small trouble in my youth.”

“It is a great war now. So many young men are away that kidnappers, criminals, can steal children and young people from their homes; larger towns have militias of old men and women.”

“And the king tolerates this?”

“The king fears Muslims more than he cares for us. Listen, then. I was at the camp with the youngest men, those unblooded, just training. We were drilling with spears when the shots were fired, and our officers led us straight out after the raiders. The old men and women turned out with swords and shields, but the raiders shot them down with muskets.”

“Where were your own muskets? We had hundreds in my youth.”

“All our muskets were away with the regiment. Nor had we ever fought against men armed as our men were. So we charged them, like fools. In moments they were all around us, in the brush on our flanks. Some of us were shot, and some stopped charging and ran. When I saw that, I knew we were done. I determined to die, and charged on. My spear bit deep into one, and then I was clubbed down. When I awoke, I was a slave.”

“You killed one. That’s good.”

“I paid. Perhaps I’m still paying. Some of the men who were taken were ransomed later, but I was not. I think my father took another wife. I do not know.” He crossed his arms to indicate that this was not a topic he wished to discuss. “Now I am here. Tell me about Virginny.”