Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [99]
These men briefly aided Paris, abetted the illusion. But from a living man, not a drained simulacrum, the sound that came now, the single cry from below, throat-formed and pure. He saw the brief tension in the group of men holding the negro down. Barber, with the boy Charlie to help him, moved forward with the shackles for the legs. A smell of burned flesh hung in the air. My uncle has acquired his first slave, Paris thought. Through what seemed still the ripples of the cry he heard Yellow Henry’s voice raised in a tone more plaintive than angry: ‘For why you no got green baftees? For why you tankids no got handuls?’ Bargaining had commenced over the second negro.
‘Stow dat palaver,’ Thurso said, leaning back with affected carelessness. ‘You take dashee two brass pan?’
‘Man here no want sospens. Dey say you sospens trash.’
‘We got muskets, made Brummagem.’
‘Muskits, haw-haw.’ Yellow Henry raised a face distorted with false mirth. ‘We know you muskits,’ he said. The men around him laughed in a whooping chorus.
It was death of course that made the difference, Paris told himself carefully, as if reciting a lesson. You can work your will on a dead body. Those laid out for dissection had been men and women dying destitute, stolen from paupers’ graves, or criminals cut down from the gallows, with no rights whatsoever over the disposal of themselves in death. And in life? As he stood there the distinction grew blurred in his mind. Was there really so much difference?
Glancing up, he saw Hughes high in the cross-trees of the foremast, white sea-birds wheeling beyond him. From so high above what must this business seem like? What sense could someone unacquainted with the trade have made of it? Too far away to smell the scorched flesh. A brief contortion of the face, which might have betokened laughter or even merely dazzlement. A cry thinned out to a voice of the wind. And all the while these goods steadily piling up on the quarterdeck, shining kettles and pans, cut glass beads, the jumble of vividly coloured cloths. From the perspective of the cross-trees inexplicable, unless you knew. From the office where his uncle sat even the mystery was gone from it, reduced to an entry in a ledger.
Banks of white cloud were building to the west. The sun struck through them in shafts of silver. Paris stood against the rail on the weather side of the ship, taking advantage of what breeze there was. The boy went for thirty-five bars – the last of the males to be sold. He began to cry out as soon as he was seized, and screamed repeatedly while he was branded. Afterwards he wept, with an isolated and persistent sobbing in which there seemed all childish heartbreak and loss. It was not even this, however, but a kind of joke about the muskets, which finally drove Paris below.
In the course of bargaining for the female slaves Thurso had ordered two cases of muskets to be brought up on deck. One had been opened to show the oiled barrels. He was hoping to seduce Yellow Henry with the sight, having been privately surprised that the other had not so far made any mention of firearms. The mulatto’s rule depended on his ability to reward his followers, which in turn depended on his ability to maintain a supply of slaves for the visiting ships. This he did, as Thurso knew, by fomenting small wars in the interior and sending raiding parties to make captives in the confusion. It was a profitable trade and the mulatto had rivals – Thurso knew of several. The more men Yellow Henry could enlist to his cause, the safer he was. But recruits had to be attracted with the promise of muskets … ‘See,’ Thurso said, pointing at the cases. ‘These fust-class muskets. Brummagem goods. Look here, it is printed on the case.’ He pointed