Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [97]
‘To tell you the truth, I don’t know,’ Paris said. He met the eyes of the diseased negro. They were muddy and there was a sort of remote terror in them. ‘It was mine to dispose of,’ he said heavily. He felt again the hot clutch of the sky.
Barton raised his face in the peering, sniffing, jocular way he had. ‘Well,’ he said after some moments, ‘whether this quashee has got pox or whatever it is, we can’t take him. We would have the whole shipload sheddin’ their skins before we get sight of Kingston. An’ one of them boys is too young, not more ’n nine or ten, by the look of him. The captain won’t take ’em so young, on account of they needs extra lookin’ after an’ then generally dies anyway. So that leaves the two wimmin.’
The procedure with these was the same as for the men, except that they were made to lie down on their backs and open their legs for the more convenient inspection of the genital parts, a spectacle arousing much ribald comment from the crew, though there were those who observed it in silence and one or two who, with feelings of uneasiness they might not have recognized for compassion, contrived – though inconspicuously – not to look closely on.
The woman was full-breasted, with high muscular haunches and slender legs. Pushed down to the deck, she yielded to the gross inspection, merely turning her head to the side and laying an arm over her eyes. The girl uttered some sounds of no more meaning to the men around her than the cries of gulls, and she stiffened involuntarily against the pressure of Paris’s fingers. Her arms had to be held, or she would have covered herself. This agony of resistance was brief. With surrender the girl’s body collapsed into inertness on the deck, though her eyes remained open and fixed as she stared directly upwards.
‘Nice bit of flesh, this ’un.’ Barton flicked his fingers at the small nipples with casual brutality. ‘Hot little bitch too, I ’spect, when she gets over this. Like all of ’em. But I would rather rattle the older one. I like ’em matoor, they knows more tricks. Not that there’ll be much joy on this voyage, not if I know anythink, not without payin’ for it with the skin off your back. With Thurso it is hands off or a floggin’. Our skipper takes a moral line with wimmen slaves.’
Before Paris could inform himself further as to this, the captain himself reappeared from below with King Henry by his side. They reseated themselves under the awning, where the king’s motley entourage once more assembled around him.
‘More brandy for our guests,’ Thurso said briskly. Paris had not seen him before in such festive mood. ‘Morgan,’ he shouted, ‘damn you, look alive, serve it out. Mr Barton, I want you by my side here. Haines, go and see to the fire. I want them branded as soon as purchased.’
‘There are three we don’t take, sir,’ Barton said. ‘There is the woman and a boy who is too young and one of the men who our doctor will give you a full report of when you are more at leisure, but it looks like a case of Spanish pox to me.’
‘I want them off the ship,’ Thurso said. ‘They can go back down over the side. Tut-tut, sir,’ he said, turning to Yellow Henry. ‘You tink Thurso go buy pox man?’
The king was looking graver now, though squinting slightly as a result of the liquor. ‘You no got green baftee stuff,’ he said. ‘I very sorry bout dat. You got blue, you got red, you no got green.’ He shook his head sadly from side to side. ‘I hopin’ for green,’ he said. ‘Plenty trade for green baftees. You no got sletas, neether. Dat bad, Cap’n Thursoo. Plenty trade silk sleta stuff.’
Thurso nodded. He had expected that the mulatto would start with complaints. It was always what you hadn’t got that they claimed most to want. But he had noted the scornfully cursory way Yellow Henry had glanced at the pans and kettles and the gilt-framed looking-glasses. It was these he really wanted, not bafts or chintzes. And muskets, probably – without arms they could not make forays for slaves. ‘For dat tall feller there, I make