The sun had not yet cleared the horizon, but the heat was already murderous. It rose from the wooden planks of the dock in shimmering waves, thick as the stench of human waste and fear that hung over the harbor like a funeral shroud. The sea breeze, which might have offered mercy, carried only salt and the distant promise of a voyage into hell.
Count Phinias Beaumontâ4th Earl of Asbury, father to the man who would one day torment Edward Witherspoonâwiped the sweat from his brow with a soiled handkerchief and smiled. He was a large man, corpulent in the way of those who profit from others' suffering, with a florid face that had gone the color of raw meat under the African sun. His coatâonce fine, now stained with God knows whatâhung open in the heat, and his shirt clung to his barrel chest in dark patches. In his right hand, coiled like a serpent, was a bull whip. In his left, a short leather leash attached to sixty pounds of snarling muscle and teethâa mastiff bitch named Catherine, after his mother, whom he'd hated.
"Move along! MOVE ALONG, YOU BLACK DOGS!" His voice cracked across the morning air like the whip itself. "Captain wants this ship loaded by the noon tide, and by Christ's wounds, we'll have it loaded!"
The line shuffled forward. Forty-seven soulsâno, not souls, not here, not nowâforty-seven units of cargo moving in chains toward the hold of the Mercy of Bristol. The irony of the ship's name was apparently lost on her captain.
A young manâperhaps twenty, though who could tell when hunger and despair aged faces soâstumbled on the gangplank. The chain connecting his ankle to the man ahead jerked taut. Both men fell.
The Count was on them in three strides, his boots thundering on the dock.
"LAZY BASTARD! THINK WE'VE GOT ALL DAY FOR YOUR DAMNED GAMES?"
The whip sang through the humid air and cracked across the young man's bare back. Once. Twice. Three times. Each strike opened the dark skin like ripe fruit, and blood welled up in the wounds, mixing with sweat.
The young man did not cry out. His jaw clenched so tight the muscles stood out like cables, but he would not give the Count the satisfaction. His eyesâdark as the hold that awaited himâfixed on something beyond the harbor, beyond the ship, beyond this evil man's reach. Perhaps his village. Perhaps his mother's face. Perhaps simply the last morning he would ever see as a man rather than chattel.
This defiance, this silent dignity, enraged Phinias more than any curse would have.
"LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M SPEAKING TO YOU!"
Another crack of the whip. The young man swayed but did not fall. Did not cry out. Did not look.
"Fine then," the Count said quietly, and there was something worse than rage in his voice now. Something cold and eager. "Catherine's been good and patient this morning. Reckon she's earned herself a treat."
He bent down and unclipped the leash.
The dog needed no further encouragement. She had been bred for this, trained for this, fed meat and rage until the two were indistinguishable. She launched herself at the young man with a sound that was half snarl, half scream.
He tried to raise his chained hands to protect his throat. He was too slow.
Catherine's jaws closed on his left forearm, and then he screamed. The bone snapped with a sound like green wood breaking. The dog shook her head violently, tearing muscle from bone, and the young man's blood sprayed across the dock in an arc that caught the early morning light, turning it momentarily, eerily, mesmerizing.
"CATHERINE! HEEL!"
Beaumont's voice cut through the screaming. The dog released immediately, returned to his side, sat primly with blood dripping from her muzzle. She looked pleased with herself. Proud, even.
The young man collapsed, his ruined arm hanging at an impossible angle, his face gray with shock. The other enslaved people in the line stood frozen, their eyes carefully averted. They had learned long ago that looking meant becoming next.
"Get him up," Beaumont said to one of the other taskmasters, a weasel-faced man named Trent. "Wash him off and get him aboard. Damaged goods fetch less at auction, but something's better than nothing. Captain can decide whether to throw him overboard mid-voyage or take the loss."
"Yes sir, Mr. Beaumont."
As Trent dragged the semi-conscious young man toward the ship, Beaumont reattached Catherine's leash and surveyed his work with satisfaction. The line was moving now, moving quickly, all thoughts of stumbling or delay banished by the demonstration. The ship would be loaded by noon. The captain would be pleased. Beaumont would collect his commission. Catherine would get extra meat with her dinner.
It was shaping up to be a fine morning.
The sun finally cleared the horizon, flooding the dock with golden light. The Mercy of Bristol sat low in the water now, her hold nearly full. By sunset she would be gone, a dark speck on a darker ocean, carrying her cargo toward the Caribbean sugar plantations where most would die within five years and none would ever see their homeland again.
On the dock, a puddle of blood was already baking dry in the heat, turning black as it congealed. By afternoon, even that would be goneâscrubbed clean by the tide or covered by the footprints of the next shipment.
The morning's work was done.
Only the screaming continued, muffled now from somewhere deep in the ship's hold, a sound that would follow the Mercy of Bristol across the Atlantic like a ghost.
Beaumont whistled as he walked back toward the harbor master's office to collect his pay. Catherine trotted beside him, her tail wagging. Behind them, the sea continued its ancient rhythmâindifferent to human suffering, indifferent to human joy, indifferent to everything except the pull of the moon and the turn of the tide.
Time and chance happeneth to them all.
But not equally.
Never equally.