A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [608]
Phaedre shook her head, her lips gone pale.
“I don’t think so. He say I’m what he call a ‘fancy.’ That’s why he’s kept me so long; he got some men he know, come up from the Indies this week. Planters.” She swallowed again, looking ill. “They buy pretty women.”
The bread Brianna had eaten melted suddenly into a soggy, slimy mass in her stomach, and with a certain feeling of fatality, she got up and took a few steps away before throwing up over a bale of raw cotton.
Stephen Bonnet’s voice echoed in her head, cheerfully jovial.
“Why bother takin’ ye all the way to London, where ye’d be of no particular use to anyone? Besides, it rains quite a bit in London; I’m sure ye wouldn’t like it.”
“They buy pretty women,” she whispered, leaning against the palisades, waiting for the sense of clamminess to fade. But white women?
Why not? said the coldly logical part of her brain. Women are property, black or white. If you can be owned, you can be sold. She herself had owned Lizzie, for a time.
She wiped her sleeve over her mouth, and went back to Phaedre, who was sitting on a roll of copper, her fine-boned face thin and drawn with worry.
“Josh—he took Josh, too. When we came ashore, he told them to take Josh to the barracoon.”
“Joshua?” Phaedre sat up straight, eyes huge. “Joshua, Miss Jo’s groom? He’s here?”
“Yes. Where’s the barracoon, do you know?”
Phaedre had hopped to her feet and was striding to and fro, agitated.
“I ain’t knowing for sure. I cook up food for the slaves there, but be one of the seamen takes it. Can’t be far from the house, though.”
“Is it a big one?”
Phaedre shook her head emphatically at that.
“No’m. Mr. Bonnet, he ain’t really in the slaving business. He pick up a few, here and there—and then he got his ‘fancies’”—she grimaced at that—“but can’t be more’n a dozen here, amount of food they eat. Three girls in the house—five, counting they Fulani he say he’s bringing.”
Feeling better, Brianna began to cast about the yard, searching for anything that might be of use. It was a hodgepodge of valuable things—everything from bolts of Chinese silk, wrapped in linen and oiled cloth, and crates of porcelain dishes, to rolls of copper, casks of brandy, bottles of wine packed in straw, and chests of tea. She opened one of these, breathing in the soft perfume of the leaves and finding it wonderfully soothing to her internal distress. She’d give almost anything for a hot cup of tea just now.
Even more interesting, though, were a number of small barrels, thick-walled and tightly sealed, containing gunpowder.
“If only I had a few matches,” she muttered to herself, looking at them longingly. “Or even a striker.” But fire was fire, and there was certainly one in the kitchen. She looked at the house carefully, thinking exactly where to place the barrels—but she couldn’t blow the place up, not with the other slaves inside, and not without knowing what she’d do next.
The sound of the door opening galvanized her; by the time Emmanuel looked out, she had jumped away from the gunpowder, and was examining an enormous box enclosing a grandfather clock, the gilded face—decorated with three animated sailing ships on a sea of silver—peeping out behind the protective laths nailed over it.
“You, girl,” he said to Brianna, and jerked his chin. “You come wash yourself.” He gave Phaedre a hard look—Brianna saw that she wouldn’t meet his eyes, but hastily began to pick up sticks of kindling from the ground.
The hand clamped hard on her neck again, and she was marched ignominiously back into the house.
THIS TIME, Emmanuel did lock the door. He brought her a basin and ewer, a towel, and a clean shift. Much, much later, he came back, bringing a tray of food. But he ignored all questions, and locked the door again upon leaving.
She pulled the bed over to the