Dead water - Barbara Hambly [19]
“Well,” said January, coming up beside the still-shaken Hannibal, “getting the pilot of the boat set against you: that'll help things.”
“And as sterling an example of bog-Irish manhood as ever graced my homeland by his departure.” Hannibal picked up his violin-case, which had been dropped when Molloy had shoved him. “I understand pilots are the true rulers of the steamboats—I hope this isn't going to get me dropped overboard some night.” He waited until Molloy had hustled Miss Skippen up the stairway that led from the wide bow-deck up to the boiler-deck above before venturing up the gangway himself, January at his heels.
Because the deck-hands were lowering the last of the cargo—including Miss Skippen's trunks—into the hold, a small crowd had gathered on the apron of the boat at the bow, waiting to pass and go up the stairs. The slave-dealer Ned Gleet was just chaining his four female slaves to rings set in the wall of what was called the promenade, the narrow outside corridor that ran down both sides of the 'tween-decks housing from bow to stern. The men were chained starboard, the women along the port, and one of the young planters who was traveling up-river had stopped to watch. Gleet caught his eye and winked: “She's a beauty, ain't she?” And he tweaked the chin of the girl he was chaining, the beautiful girl January had noticed before, who had stared at Gleet with such loathing. “She's yours for a thousand dollars.”
The young man flushed in the paling torchlight and looked hastily aside. But he didn't move off. Gleet's sly smile widened.
“Worth every dime of it,” he coaxed. “Sixteen years old . . .” His big hand tugged off her tignon, releasing a soft cloud of dark-brown hair over her shoulders. “Come up closer and have a look. She's a prime one.” And he dragged her head back around when she would have turned her face away, her expression wooden but for the tears of shame in her eyes. “Now, you tell me if you've ever seen one half so sweet, for a thousand or fifteen hundred.”
The young planter stammered, “I— She's very lovely, of course, sir, but . . .”
“But you got your daddy's money, and can't spend it?” Gleet nodded understandingly, his sharp blue glance taking in the sweat that stood out on the youth's forehead. “But that's the great thing about a gal like this, you see. You don't like her, you can sell her again, and not a penny the worse. Here—feel of her if you don't believe me.” With a quick move he tore open the front of the girl's dress and pulled it back over her shoulders, leaving her breasts bare in the torchlight. “Go ahead, feel of her. Tell me if you ain't felt titties as hard as those in all your born days.”
Hannibal slipped through the crowd like a ferret and climbed the stair. January followed. The two men were silent as they walked down the long upper promenade on the starboard side of the boiler-deck, past the shut doors of the staterooms to the one Hannibal had been given, three from the stern. The young steward in his white coat was there, setting out a carafe of water and a glass: “Let me know if there's anything you need, sir. My name's Thu; I been with Mr. Tredgold on the Silver Moon three-four years now. You're on a good boat.”
“I'm sure of it,” returned Hannibal, slipping him one of the eleven-penny bits he'd acquired earlier in the night.
“Luncheon is served in the Main Saloon at noon, dinner at six. I see you have a fiddle with you, sir. If it isn't an imposition, if you'd care to favor the company with a little playing after supper, it's often done on board that there's playing and dancing in the evenings. . . .”
“As it happens, my man Ben is also quite accomplished. . . .”
It is only a game, thought January. Only the masque of despotism, necessary to their disguise. But after the scene on the deck below, he felt disgusted and angry, and walked to the end of the promenade, where the most fashionable of the staterooms overlooked the giant wheel. Narrow stairways ran down to the lower promenades, where the valets and maids of the