Antelope

By Marea H Whitley

An epic tale of endurance, love, betrayal and revenge, Antelope is the perfect reading companion for lovers of

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marea Whitley
• Release date: Aug 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9780645575309

Book preview

Chapter 1

1788 - Arrival

Adowa grabbed the ship’s rail and fixed her stormy gaze outward, over the sleeping, moon-speckled sea. Behind her, loud and raucous, the crew of the Serendipity celebrated impending landfall with a drunken orgy of jigs, brawls, and brutal intercourse with females kept topside for their amusement. The sailors’ greedy eyes glanced Adowa’s way, ablaze with repressed desire. But none dared touch the remarkable girl at the rail. Who could stop at a touch?

‘She’ll be sold as Black royalty,’ the captain constantly reminded his men. ‘Worth a fortune. I get a commission if she reaches Barbados a virgin, and I’ll keelhaul anyone who defiles her.’

At five feet, six inches, Adowa stood taller than most women of her tribe, and carried herself in a composed, weightless manner, as if invisible hands supported her svelte, supple frame. Other captives modelled shaved heads, but Adowa kept her multitude of long, beaded plaits and her braids swished to the sway of the ship’s tireless roll. Proud, but not vain, the enigmatic girl considered the world from beneath thick, curling lashes, appraising, analysing, accumulating knowledge. Tonight, fury and dismay tightened Adowa’s features, but no amount of angst could detract from her peerless perfection.

The crew’s end-of-journey celebration was the most brutal yet, and Adowa flinched each time a girl screamed in fear or pain. But loud as it was, the sailors’ debauchery couldn’t smother the mournful drum of the Africans trapped below decks: the hundreds of men, women and children crammed onto shallow, makeshift shelves. Death from sickness and neglect constantly lessened their number, and tonight, above all other noise, Adowa heard a woman’s howling lament for her lost child. 

Powerless to help, the girl once destined for greatness leaned against the ship’s rail and let the wind carry her tears to the deep, glassy waters below.

Regaled from birth as a gift from the gods, Adowa’s sharp intellect and unmatched beauty captivated her family, enchanted friends, and intrigued strangers. News of the girl’s uniqueness spread far beyond her village, and people travelled long distances to view the treasure. A privileged future awaited the favoured one, and after fourteen summers Adowa’s parents arranged her marriage to a great warrior prince. But the joyous excitement of the wedding day turned to terror when native slavers arrived, armed with white men’s weapons.

Traitorous Africans ensnared the young, slaughtered the old, and executed the rebellious. Separated from her friends, Adowa wove a perilous path through the melee towards her parents. But a violent, paralysing blow struck her from behind, and the young bride closed her eyes to the sound of her mother’s anguished scream.

When Adowa awoke, the village was silent of voices but full of the dreadful noise of burning huts swirling red and black against the lowering afternoon sky.

A raider waited impatiently for her recovery. Stripped of her wedding garments, Adowa rose to a sitting position and swung her naked back to the stranger with an audible huff. Amused but annoyed, the man smacked her head, then tied her hands and tugged the cord, prompting her to stand and walk. Legs trembling, her head throbbing, the desolate bride stumbled after the slaver, through the crumbling remains of the village, and past the bodies of those who’d fought to protect their people.

Her warrior prince lay with the dead. A pool of blood, thick and wet, coated his right shoulder and covered his arm, right down to the spear still held tight in his hand. Adowa drew a sudden, deep breath, but her face registered no surprise. A valorous choice between victory or death embodied the warrior creed, and her prince had died a hero.

‘Slut!’ A drunken voice raised the dreamer from her reverie. ‘Cockteaser.’

The sailor’s angry, frustrated bark startled Adowa, but did nothing to diminish her dignity. Not disguising her smoldering contempt, the dark-eyed beauty stared through the awful man and slowly moved away.

Yesterday was a dream: today a nightmare.

Seven prisoners died that night; six from mistreatment and one brave girl who attacked an officer with his own blade, then leaped overboard to her death. This annoying and costly finale to the voyage infuriated the captain. But with dawn’s creeping light, the intoxicating aroma of a tropical landscape wafted over the ship’s bow, and the officer, his spirits rising, peered through his eyeglass at the hazy hint of land on the ocean’s crest.

‘At last,’ he cried. ‘Land ahoy!’

Heads turned towards the shimmering island rising from the aqua: a lush, green sorceress drawing the ship’s cargo into her tight, forever embrace.

Reprieve in the cruellest form had arrived for the kidnapped Africans. The Serendipity was about to dock at The Town of Saint Michael, gateway to that diamond of the Caribbean, Barbados. Officers shouted orders and sailors prepared for docking. Below decks, the enslaved Africans heard the commotion, guessed its cause, and gazed at the hatchway, nervous but relieved. An emaciated youth began a warrior chant, and his countrymen chimed in with a stirring chorus. Fearful of what the day would bring, yet confident of its improvement over the floating death-trap, the captives united in a futile chorale of hope.

Hundreds of chained Africans shuffled down the gangway and across the dock towards rows of holding pens. Families and friends formed groups, large and small. Some managed to stay united: others were roughly pulled apart and separated.

‘These ten in that pen; this ten in the next.’ Alan Gibson ran up and down the pier, shouting orders to his handlers. ‘Wash them. Oil them. Quickly now. Quickly!’ Sighting the virgin amongst a group of women, the slave trader pulled Adowa aside and indicated with a pointed finger she was to stay with him.

Auctioning a cargo this size would take days, so Mr Gibson opted for a general sale that very afternoon to avoid the cost of housing the Africans. It took three hours to prepare and catalogue the Blacks, and then the pen gates were thrown open and customers invited to inspect and choose. Mayhem ensued. Buyers rushed in and out of enclosures, clamouring over the merchandise, checking teeth, testing muscles, and weighing the men’s reproductive organs.

Satisfied, Gibson left the wheeling and dealing to his deputies and devoted his time to his pièce de résistance. The captivating virgin would be the sole auction of the day.

Placing the prize on a small platform in the middle of the chaos, the entrepreneur undid Adowa’s shackles, then raised his arms. ‘See here, see here,’ he cried, ‘a Black princess. Untouched and a marvel to behold. What am I bid?’

Buyers gathered, and offers came quick and often, but the trader held out.

‘Come now, gentlemen,’ Gibson reasoned, pulling his whip from his belt and flicking Adowa’s rump to encourage a smile, ‘this filly is worth a king’s ransom.’

Through it all, Adowa stared unflinchingly, enduring the demeaning procedure with the aplomb of a dethroned queen. 

Fifty yards away, in the swirling dust on the edge of the bustling throng, Bernard and Herbert Randolph stood with hands on hips, using their height to intimidate and posing like bigwigs awaiting special treatment. As members of Barbados’s richest family, the brothers viewed themselves as Caribbean royalty.

Their father, Robert, an American from Virginia, had arrived in the thriving British outpost back in the sixties, determined to capitalise on his recent good luck.

A self-proclaimed royalist during the early days of unrest in the colonies, Robert had used his handsome looks and sly ways to ingratiate himself into the good graces of an elderly English officer. A lowly, but obliging sycophant, Robert enjoyed luxuries erstwhile denied him and soon became privy to the officer’s private life.

The Englishman had a daughter, a wealthy London socialite whose maternal grandfather had willed her a sugar plantation in Barbados. The daughter’s allure — so Robert proclaimed when shown a cameo of the heiress — displayed qualities not to be found in any woman in the New World. How was it possible, Robert wondered aloud, that sweet Lucinda remained unattached? A mystery indeed, agreed Lucinda’s father, without mention of his daughter’s pompous, insufferable ways.

Robert became enamoured from a distance and declared his undying devotion for the lonely heiress. Letters were exchanged, and Lucinda’s American admirer sailed to England. Banns were pronounced within a day of the suitor’s arrival; a wedding performed within a fortnight. Then, in less than half the time it took to beguile his English bride, Robert seized Lucinda’s assets, replaced her accountant with a shyster, moved her into a large house in Pall Mall, and vacated dreary England for sunny Barbados.

Money makes money and the once destitute American put his latent business skills to work. Robert sacked the plantation manager, gave the property his surname, absorbed his neighbours’ puny farms, planted more sugar cane, and doubled the estate’s contingent of Africans. In a short time, the plantation grew to be the largest in Barbados, and although Robert carried the stigma of ‘colonist’, the name Randolph commanded respect.

Today, however, despite their indignant attitude, Robert’s sons went unnoticed, and the young men tossed their blonde curls in disgust. When the Randolphs visited The Town of Saint Michael, they didn’t expect to mix with the rabble.

‘Where the bloody hell is Gibson?’ griped Bernard. ‘We’re his best customers.’

‘Bugger Gibson.’ Herbert slapped his breeches to kill an annoying mosquito, then took a reluctant step into the fracas. ‘Come — if we don’t get in soon, there’ll be nothing left worth buying.’

A premature demise was an African’s lot in The Caribbean, and while masters cared naught for a worker’s passing, the resultant reduction in labour and impact on production demanded their attention. New purchases were a regular expense, but today the Randolph brothers sought more than sugar cane workers: their father’s sex slave was pregnant, and Robert wanted a replacement. 

From the dawn of slavery, exploitation of women for sex was commonplace, and it was a perk the Randolph men heartily embraced. To avoid risk of disease, the father and his sons restricted their debauchery to adolescent girls on the assumption their youth offered a greater chance of purity. 

‘Over there, Brother!’ Bernard spotted her first. ‘With Gibson. She’s perfect.’

Herbert turned his gaze to the platform. ‘Looks sour,’ he griped, changing direction, ‘but worth a look.’

‘Her breasts are well formed,’ said Bernard, following, ‘though I doubt she’s over fourteen.’

Interest remained strong for the stately African beauty, but bidding had stalled. Herbert saluted the dealer, ‘Morning, Gibson,’ and mounted the small podium.

‘Morning, Gibson,’ Bernard copied, positioning himself on the ground beneath. ‘This one a virgin?’

‘Good day, gentlemen,’ replied the trader with a broad smile. ‘Yes, she’s untouched, I guarantee it — but you may examine her if you wish.’

‘No need,’ said Herbert. ‘We’re interested, but we’re also looking for ten bucks and five wenches.’

‘Consider it done. My men will pick them for you.’

‘And this one?’ Herbert stared at Adowa. ‘What’s the bid?’

‘Way below anything acceptable,’ Gibson whined. ‘She’ll be passed in if I’m not satisfied.’

‘What will satisfy?’

‘More than the hundred pounds offered. Much more.’ An apologetic clearing of his throat followed as Gibson waited for a response. Receiving none, the dealer opened his palms. ‘I have other—'

‘One hundred and twenty,’ said Herbert. ‘That’s fair.’

‘A good starting point,’ wheedled the merchant. 

‘I detest games,’ said Herbert, idly lifting Adowa’s plaits and examining her neck. ‘What do you want?’

‘You can’t argue—'

‘Your price, man, give me your price!’

‘Two hundred.’ Gibson gulped at his presumptuousness. ‘She’s worth that and more.’

‘Humph.’ Herbert seized the girl’s chin and twisted her face until their eyes met. Unflinching, expressionless, Adowa’s stare gave nothing yet spoke volumes. The young Englishman’s heart skipped a beat.

‘One fifty,’ said Herbert, ‘and not a penny more.’

‘One ninety,’ the dealer pressed, ‘and she’s yours.’

‘One eighty.’

‘Done!’ Gibson proffered his hand. ‘You’ve beaten me down, Mr Randolph.’

Herbert shook on the deal, then asked, ‘Do you have another?’

‘I have lovely wenches but can’t guarantee a virgin.’

‘What-ho, Brother?’ Bernard frowned. ‘We’ve got one — and a pretty price we’ve paid, too.’

‘She’s mine,’ Herbert answered.

‘But you have Fanny.’

‘I tire of her.’ Herbert locked the neck shackle around Adowa’s throat and led her from the platform. ‘O’Connor’s auction is across town. We’ll look for another virgin there.’

Sourcing a virgin at O’Connor’s auction took longer than expected, and it was late afternoon when the brothers herded their purchases through the plantation gates and between the cherry trees lining the pebbled road leading to the big house. Twenty yards inside the farm, they met the young overseer, Wilbert Olsen, and he waved the Africans to the left, directing them down a dirt track to a large barn.

Adept at handling new arrivals, Wilbert — mid-twenties, average build, average height, average in everything except cruelty — corralled the Africans into the barn and, with the help of a sharpened cattle prod, convinced them to hold still while he pressed a hot iron into their chests. Once tortured with the branding of the letter R, those Africans destined for the sugar fields were made to sit on the earthen floor while their young masters deposited the two virgins in the big house. 

Patriarch Robert waited on the verandah with the Black housekeeper, Helen. Tanned by the sun, firm and muscular, Robert Randolph appeared younger than his forty-eight years but acted with the cunning of a shrewd, old fox. The only soft thing about Robert was the abundance of loose curls draped carelessly over his forehead. His outlook lacked any shade of grey and his quick glance at the approaching virgins told him which was the treasure.

But Herbert had foreseen Robert’s preference, and when his father’s eyes devoured the taller girl, he placed a possessive hand on Adowa’s shoulder as he walked her up the verandah stairs.

Robert scrunched his face. ‘I’ll have her, Son.’

‘No, Father.’ Herbert pointed at the pretty girl following Bernard up the steps. ‘That one’s yours.’

‘Enough life in my sugar stick for two,’ Robert replied. ‘Give you boys a run for your money any day.’

‘Don’t care. This one is mine.’ Herbert’s tone turned serious and his father, though miffed, backed down.

‘Never mind.’ Robert shrugged and reviewed his consolation prize. ‘I’ll call her Abigail. Wash them, Helen,’ he instructed the housekeeper, ‘and check for body vermin.’

‘Yas, massa.’

‘And, Helen,’ said Herbert, ‘move Fanny to kitchen duties.’

‘Yas, massa.’

With a friendly arm around each girl’s waist, Helen ushered them inside, into the grand hall that led to the kitchen at the rear of the rectangular Georgian mansion. The virgins were smarting after their branding, but Abigail managed a close inspection of the housekeeper’s European clothing and cast an appreciative eye over the majestic decor. In contrast, Adowa displayed complete apathy, staring blankly ahead and ignoring the anxious female who rushed past the trio and out the front door with a tray of drinks.

Arriving in as quick a time as possible, the servant with the drinks offered her young masters refreshments and apologised for her tardiness.

Covered in dirt and sweat, their throats dry, Bernard and Herbert gulped the brown ale, then apprised their father with a brief description of the day’s events. Angered by Gibson’s lack of respect, Robert swore an impractical promise to boycott the English trader’s auctions, and then sent his sons to help Wilbert Olsen settle the new recruits.

Fresh acquisitions could be troublesome, but today’s newcomers wrapped their coarse, cotton strips around their waists and ate their salted fish with little trouble. No doubt the looming threat of the overseer’s whip, used twice already on dawdling females, helped check their conduct.

Fondness for the lash and other implements of discipline made Wilbert Olsen an expert in handling untrained Africans. To Wilbert, an early taste of torture was the perfect preparatory lesson for a fledging fieldworker — and who could argue? The Africans on the Randolph plantation were the best behaved in Barbados, and today’s purchases were learning fast.

Bernard strutted alongside the overseer, glowering a deadly glare at those fettered men who dared challenge him with a look, however feeble. But Herbert watched the induction process with little interest, occasionally smiling reassurance to a confused child, and making hand signals to adults not understanding an order.

A perfect face on a perfect body occupied Herbert’s thoughts.

In the big house, the new concubines squeezed together in a battered washtub and listened to the housekeeper’s glowing description of their elevated status. Speaking in a West African dialect, Helen presented a positive outlook, portraying the girls’ positions as sex toys as one of comfort — incumbent upon obedience and submission. Surrogate wives, she explained, had no wedding, but enjoyed a comfortable life, busy in the big house by day and pleasing their masters by night.

A naïve, hopeful expression lit Abigail’s pretty face, but Helen could read nothing in the deep, black eyes of the other, divinely beautiful girl. 

Robert Randolph lowered his third pre-supper drink and greeted his sons warmly when they returned to the big house for the evening meal. The sugar magnate was proud of his progeny. Bernard and Herbert were quick and clever, and their diligence granted their father free time to enjoy the benefits of a rich man in Barbados.

Tonight, Robert was in the mood for talk, but it was late, and the brothers didn’t dally over their food or seek conversation. A more entertaining form of recreation occupied their minds, but the older sibling’s envy of the younger’s new toy took the shine off his sexual expectation.

A beautiful girl, beaten into submission by cruelty and degradation, awaited Bernard in his bedroom. But Herbert had something unique, and Bernard berated himself for not grabbing the exotic piece when he’d had the chance. Cheated, he must wait until the girl’s freshness wore off and her owner offered to share.

Unable to suppress his resentment, Bernard threw his younger brother a surly glance when Herbert, who could wait no longer, added insult to unintended injury by lowering his cutlery and bidding a cheery goodnight. ‘I’m off,’ he said with a wink, rising and taking a spill from a vase on the mantle over the fireplace. ‘See you in the morning.’

Not waiting for a response, Herbert lit the spill, then left in a hurry, tearing down the hall to the wide, curved staircase and bounding up the steps three at a time.

‘Only me,’ he whispered, stepping softly into his bedroom. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

No sound in reply.

Herbert closed the door and lit a tall candle on the centre table before extinguishing the spill. Gold beams illuminated the room, revealing Adowa where she sat cross-legged on a pallet of straw beneath the far window. As sleek, but not as transparent as her gown, the bold girl maintained a disinterested demeanor and kept her lovely head lowered, fiddling with the hem of her flimsy shift as if more inquisitive about the cloth’s composition than Herbert’s abrupt entry.

Angered by her cool disregard, Herbert stamped his foot and shouted, ‘Look at me! Heed me,’ and the girl slowly raised her regal, unseeing gaze.

‘Move.’ Herbert pointed at the large four-poster. ‘Get on the bed.’

The direction was clear, and the lithesome girl rose in one smooth movement and crossed the floor, climbing atop the thick mattress and assuming the same seated position, her head down, her fingers twisted around the hem of her gown.

‘I’m naming you Mary,’ Herbert decreed, leaning over the bed. ‘My Jewel, my Mary.’

Mary didn’t acknowledge the title; her expression, almost trancelike, remained fixed on the fabric of her shift.

‘Show respect.’ Herbert removed his shoes and stockings and hurled them across the room. ‘Blacks lack intelligence, but they’re quick to learn respect.’

The English words were gibberish to the African girl, but there was no mistaking the white man’s attitude — and conviction of his superiority. A flash of defiance darted unchecked from beneath Mary’s black lashes, but she quickly recovered and resumed her detached, infuriating expression.

‘Enough of that!’ Herbert thumped the mattress. ‘Look at me. Heed your master.’

Discernible in any dialect, the intimidation met with an equally forceful rebuttal. Mary stared at the enemy, fired a momentary blast of contempt, then fixed him with a glassy, malevolent glare.

‘Damn your insolence!’ Herbert struggled against the urge to strike his prize and she, reading weakness in his hesitation, mocked him with a supercilious smirk. ‘Impudent girl!’ he cried with a gasp. ‘Have you no fear?’ He disrobed and climbed onto the mattress. ‘Wipe that sneer from your face, do you hear?’ Mary didn’t hear, so Herbert placed a finger on either side of her mouth and pulled her lips into an upward arc. ‘Smile for your master.’

Mary’s stare remained an unseeing glare, but her mouth widened into a sour, sarcastic grin.

‘Good grief!’ Herbert couldn’t believe his eyes. ‘Never have I known such a brazen wench.’ Exasperated, he snatched Mary’s hand and wrapped her long fingers around his swollen shaft. ‘Here! It’s your job to make me happy, and it’s a better job than most wenches enjoy.’

Better or not, the job held little appeal and Mary let her fingers fall away.

‘Bah!’ Herbert tossed his head in anger. ‘You’ll be grateful when you realise your good fortune.’

Strong and virile, the young man hadn’t missed a night of sexual intercourse in weeks, possibly months. But this mysterious girl with the body of a goddess and carriage of a queen excited Herbert as no woman, enslaved or free, ever had.

‘Lie down.’ He unravelled Mary’s legs and pushed her onto the mattress before lifting her gown to expose her mound — ‘Oh, God!’ — and then her breasts. ‘By gar, you are divine.’

The unsolicited flattery failed to spur his Jewel and Herbert, convinced of Mary’s suppressed desire, encouraged participation, rubbing his erection across the top of her thighs, and watching for a break in her controlled demeanour. Nothing. The disobliging girl’s expression remained a blank, yet critical stare. Rattled, and aroused, Herbert straddled the ingrate and fondled her breasts. ‘You’ll enjoy this.’

Manipulation of Mary’s nipples caused them to pucker, and Herbert applauded the natural, uncontrollable reaction, rewarding her with a smile of approval. But the foreplay yielded no change in his victim’s jaded countenance. Undaunted, Herbert returned her hand to his engorged penis and moved it up and down. ‘This is your fate; your future.’

Majestic child of the African grasslands, Mary guessed the meaning behind the foreign words and replied in her own way, turning to the wall and, for the second time, letting her fingers fall limp.

His patience exhausted, Herbert cursed, ‘Damnation!’ and tore the shift from Mary’s body. ‘You will obey.’ He seized her wrists and pulled her arms above her head. ‘It’s for your own good, I tell you, your own—'

Mary’s naked form, stretched beneath him, sublime and pure, smothered Herbert’s wrath. ‘God’s truth,’ he panted, ‘you bewitch me.’ Next moment he shifted his hips and violated his helpless victim. ‘Fuck! Oh, fuck!’

Tribal wars and the taking of slaves were practised in Africa, and Adowa, renamed Mary, realised she now belonged to this detestable white man. But acknowledgement did nothing to appease.

The village beauty of four months earlier had been destined for greatness — a glorious future as a stately, benevolent consort alongside a brave, warrior king. How could she equate that divine decree with this hideous reality? She could not; would not.

The white man’s tribe was victorious, and he claimed the spoils. But the girl once fated for grandeur refused to part with her noble essence, the natural dignity inherited from her ancestors and nurtured by her people.

Mary braced against Herbert’s unwelcome intrusion and steadied her rage, slowing her breathing and listening to nothing except the sound of air travelling to and from her lungs. Flooding her mind with a calming, repetitive chant, Mary separated spirit from body and flew to a golden landscape where lions roar and elephants rule; where her parents walk beside her, and a handsome prince pledges his undying love.

But then Herbert shuddered and flopped onto the mattress beside her, and Mary quickly re-entered her body, reclaiming her limbs and inching away, grasping the edge of the bed and swinging her feet to the floor.

‘No.’ Herbert reached for her arm. ‘Stay with me.’

Mary froze, and her master pulled her to him and studied her face, searching for signs of distress. All virgins suffered pain when penetrated, and Herbert knew he’d been fierce. But not a whisper of discomfort registered on Mary’s perfect features. Quite the reverse. Cool as ice, the haughty girl contemplated her lord as if he were a lump of wood.

‘What a curious creature you are,’ mused Herbert, running a finger down her cheek. ‘I’ve never known a woman — young, old, Black or white — that remotely resembles you.’

Unfortunately for Mary, rather than dampen Herbert’s lust, her defiant nonchalance ignited his passion and reactivated his excitement. Buoyed by youth — and the girl’s enchantment — Herbert enjoyed his Jewel many times that night and it was long past the witching hour before he placed his head on the pillow and sought sleep. Sated, but wanting her near, he gently squeezed Mary’s right breast. ‘Stay with me, sweet wench; stay close.’

Ten minutes later, when his breathing deepened, Mary pushed his hand from her bosom and slipped off the mattress. Uncomfortable as it was, she preferred the solitude of her straw pallet to the shared habitation of the Englishman’s soft bed.

---

An exception among plantation owners, Robert Randolph denied his wife admission to Barbados. Cited justifications included the risk of tropical disease and a dearth of suitable, highbrow society. Unspoken, yet paramount, reasons included Robert’s sexual freedom and relief from a disapproving spouse.

Lucinda didn’t complain. She missed her sons dreadfully, but was comfortable in her London mansion, living the life of a blithe wife, free of her husband’s control.

In the early years of the marriage, Robert had made short, annual visits home and the couple, heartened by the brevity of their closeness, had indulged each other’s vanities with fake affection. Over time, these fleeting interludes produced two healthy sons, and Robert, content with two heirs, had released Lucinda from her conjugal duty and made Barbados his permanent home.

Child mortality was high and Lucinda, who’d only married to have children, spoiled her sons to strengthen the odds of their survival. The wealthy woman placed Bernard and Herbert above other children in looks and ability and groomed them for a life among the elite of London society. Her shock when Robert summoned Bernard to Barbados resulted in a screaming fit of enormous proportions and protracted duration.

Bernard had just turned seventeen and was about to enroll at Cambridge, but his father, a self-made man, didn’t hold with highfalutin universities and thought it time the boy learned the family business.

Terrified of losing Bernard to the allure of a tropical paradise, Lucinda delayed his departure, but after a letter from Robert expressing his anger and threatening to tighten his wife’s spousal allowance, Lucinda shipped her firstborn to the Caribbean — and then formed a marital pact to force his return to England.

Lucinda made an offer of marriage on Bernard’s behalf to a local debutante of good pedigree and better money. Daughter of a wealthy baron, the stately fiancé expressed a strong aversion to any country that wasn’t England, and Lucinda believed the union would bind Bernard to London.

Robert reacted angrily. An American at heart, he wanted his sons to wed sensible girls from Virginia. And because he held no fear of a breach of promise, Robert’s first impulse upon hearing the news was to break the contract. But that changed when Lucinda sent details of the bride’s dowry. There was immense monetary benefit in a marriage with dark haired, white skinned Sophia Warburton and, though Robert made the desirable fiancé wait while he trained Bernard in the sugar trade, he obligingly sent his son home after his twentieth birthday to honour the marital promise.

Sophia Warburton’s wedding settlement included a sprawling mansion in Hanover Square. Robert told Bernard to settle Sophia there, consummate the marriage, transfer her money into the Randolph bank account and then, despite any objections from Lucinda, return to the Caribbean with Herbert.

Bernard followed his father’s instructions and left his mother sobbing and his sardonic wife bemused when, eight weeks after the wedding, he bid them farewell and sailed from London with his younger brother.

White men lived like kings in the Caribbean. A word, a wave, a look, and enslaved Africans rushed to do their bidding. A natural bully like his father, Bernard revelled in the salacious lifestyle and felt no compulsion to return to his birthplace. But Robert had created a dynasty, and his vanity demanded grandsons to continue the line.

‘Herbert’s been here two years and knows the ropes,’ he told Bernard a month after the latest intake of Africans. ‘He can manage with the overseer’s help. Go to your wife and don’t come back till she’s pregnant.’

Bernard had anticipated the command and, feeling very much like an unpatriotic soldier ordered to the front, he prepared for a trip to London — but not before warning Herbert about the wiles of a manipulative, uppity wench.

Robert Randolph’s second son, though a trifle soft towards the Africans, grasped the harsh mechanics of forced labour and executed his duties with diligence. It was no surprise, therefore, when Bernard voiced his disappointment at Herbert’s new trick of abandoning his post and returning to the big house. Herbert used any and every pretext to justify the excursions. Before, after, even during a task, he’d flip a flimsy excuse and vanish for anything up to an hour before reappearing with a hangdog expression. Correctly suspecting an unwholesome infatuation with the insolent Mary, Bernard berated his brother, ‘Focus on your work, Herbert,’ and appealed to his common sense, ‘and keep a healthy perspective — Mary’s a slave, nothing more.’

Such admonitions were met with vehement denials of attachment, but Herbert’s irregular visits continued, irritating Bernard, and distressing the domestics.

Daylight hours for the house servants, though hectic, provided relief from Robert’s sons. Arrival of the wondrous Mary, however, presaged a disagreeable deviation in Master Herbert’s routine. Without warning, at various times during the morning and afternoon, the white man appeared among them like a ghostly apparition seeking company.

Abrupt and unwelcome, the erratic visits stifled conversation and induced a bevy of nervous activity. They also caused Mary to stiffen and withdraw behind her mask of cool detachment, foiling her master’s desire to study his Jewel in a relaxed, natural state.

Discovery thwarted success, so Herbert changed tactic, stopping short of the kitchen, and hovering in the hall to peer, unseen, through the gap of the open door. Just the sight of Mary, unadorned in her simple gown and apron, with her plaits tucked under her headscarf, sent her master into raptures. But watching his Jewel interact with her peers, comfortable yet composed, popular yet humble, imbued Herbert with an insatiable yearning. And the yearning made the young man covetous.

Why did the Africans, who did nothing to warrant Mary’s good grace, enjoy her bountifulness while he, her admiring, benevolent master, received nothing but bitter disregard?

Exasperated by the girl’s inexplicable lack of gratitude, Herbert tortured himself with a difficult, dangerous conundrum. How could he convince Mary of his magnanimity and, more than that, how did he develop a rapport with his Jewel without betraying his kind? As a member of a superior race, governed by moral codes forbidding regard of an African, man or woman, as equal, Herbert’s unhealthy fascination scorned convention. To lust after Mary was acceptable, but to seek a relationship wherein they exchanged ideas and opinions and — God forbid! — shared emotions, was reprehensible, shocking.

There was but one answer. The intolerable deviation must remain a secret buried deep within the heretic’s heart, and when Bernard left for London, Herbert farewelled him with the false guarantee everything was jolly in the male-dominated, and very white, Randolph household.

Herbert took guidance from the overseer and managed the extra workload during Bernard’s absence without having to draw Robert from his indulgent, semi-retirement.

Not that this appeased the cranky patriarch. Robert had his eye on Mary and grew impatient with his son’s selfishness.

‘Why don’t you try Abigail?’ he asked Herbert. ‘She’s tight and flexible.’

‘When do you leave for Virginia?’ Herbert retorted. ‘You’re due for a visit.’

Robert looked sullen. ‘I’ll go when I’m ready.’

‘Why wait?’ said Herbert. ‘I’m managing the plantation. You’ve no worries there.’ 

‘I’m not worried.’

‘What then? Why delay another triumphant parade around your jealous relatives?’

‘Because I can do as I please, and what pleases me is to remain in Barbados until I’ve tasted Mary.’

Herbert kept his calm. ‘No, you can’t have Mary.’

‘Damnation, Son! You can spare her for a night. I’m giving you Abigail.’

‘No.’

Such greediness was unusual. To gift a sex slave once the novelty wore off was common practice, and Herbert knew his behaviour went against the norm. But he refused to allow his father, a sexual deviate, anywhere near Mary. He tried to make his Jewel less attractive. ‘She’s pregnant,’ he said, ‘and you don’t like them pregnant.’

‘No,’ Robert agreed, ‘I don’t. But she isn’t showing.’

‘There’s a ship sailing to the United States in two days,’ Herbert persisted. ‘I can book your passage.’

‘Want to get rid of me, eh?’ Robert griped. ‘Well, can’t say I blame you. I’m a pest.’ Dramatic affectation swept over his tanned features. ‘Never mind, I’ll soon be dead and won’t be a bother to anyone.’

‘Which is why you must go at once. Delay, and you’ll be too old to rub your wealth in your relatives’ faces.’

‘What an ungrateful boy!’

‘Yes, I’m an ungrateful boy. Now go to Virginia.’

‘All right, I will, and I'll fuck every wench from Charleston to New York.’

‘Gadzooks, sir,’ cried Herbert, laughing, ‘you’re incorrigible.’

‘Damn your blood!’ Crabby and unforgiving, Robert sailed for the United States two days hence.

Chapter 2

1788 - An Unbearable Life

Control of the plantation granted Herbert the opportunity to implement new procedures, and curry favour with Mary. Aware of Robert and Bernard’s impending objections, Herbert determined to have his ideas operative — and well ensconced — before their return. With a mind only for his Jewel, he dismissed Wilbert Olsen’s undisguised disgust and supplied the overseer with a detailed brief of a raft of radical modifications.

Until now, there’d been no impetus, no reward to motivate Mary’s good will. But his benevolent changes to the oppressive system, Hebert felt confident, would bring a smile to Mary’s lovely face and prompt her into his arms.

Each day strengthened Herbert’s obsession with his mysterious Jewel. The more he gazed into those deep, black eyes, the more intelligence he perceived behind their haughty regard — and the more he craved intimacy with the exquisite, enigmatic Mary.

English came easily to the young African, and Herbert realised the canny girl understood more than she acknowledged. As she grasped the language, Mary’s carefully chosen words, though not rebellious in content, subtly hinted her antipathy towards white men, and Herbert worked to close the racial divide and separate himself from the prejudicial values of his peers.  

Bribery with expensive gifts and elaborate gowns hadn’t helped his cause, and Herbert prayed the new policies would sway Mary’s closed heart.

‘Things have improved,’ he told his pregnant Jewel when he raised her onto his stallion for a ride around the plantation. ‘The gangs have longer rest periods, and extra water. And different crews work the mill on alternate nights.’

Though heartfelt and not wanting in delivery, Herbert’s speech drew no reaction from the proud passenger perched side-saddle on his horse. ‘Wait till you see,’ he said, climbing up behind her. ‘Just look at their faces.’

But as they rode through the tall, bending rows of ripe sugar cane, weaving left and right to avoid the hot, busy fieldworkers, Mary’s head drooped, sad and despairing, and Herbert sighed with disappointment. Self-convinced the workers appeared more content, he almost wept over Mary’s reaction, and pondered desperately how he could please this perplexing girl. With a doleful face, he nodded to the overseer when they crossed paths — ‘Morning, Olsen’ — and then spurred his steed, pulling Mary tight with a protective arm around her thickening waist.

‘Good day, sir,’ called Wilbert Olsen. ‘Enjoy your ride. Uppity slut,’ he whispered, leering after Mary. ‘Your time will come.’

A surprised Bernard Randolph expressed nothing but disapproval when he returned a month later to what he described as a bloody disgrace.

‘I’ve never seen such indulgence,’ he complained at supper. ‘Has production dropped?’

‘Slightly,’ said Herbert, ‘but the Blacks are healthier.’

‘Who cares? Higher levels of production offset the cost of slaves.’

‘I care.’

Bernard’s neck muscles tightened. ‘Do the sums, Brother. Why do you think other farmers work their slaves till they drop?’ He poked the air with his knife. ‘Because that’s how you run a business. That’s how you make money.’

‘It seems—'

‘What?’ said Bernard. ‘It seems what?’

‘An unnecessary waste.’

‘The Caribbean sun has addled your brain. You’re being ridiculous.’

Not desirous of an argument, Herbert said, ‘We’ll see,’ and changed the topic. ‘How is Sophia?’

‘Pregnant, thank God!’

Early next morning, the brothers inspected the plantation, and the younger worked to sell his new system. ‘I’m certain the improvements shall produce a superior crop.’

‘Humph!’ Bernard thought it was all rubbish. ‘How do you figure that?’

‘Listen.’ Herbert, forever hopeful, fancied the Africans were in better spirits. ‘They’re singing in English.’

A mature male led a gang in a slow, sorrowful dirge, sung in the African style of call and response:

Massa buy me, he won’t kill a me, Oh!

Massa buy me, he won’t kill a me, Oh!

Massa buy me, he won’t kill a me, Oh!

’For he kill me he whip me regulaw

A mournful wail sufficed for the chorus:

Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay-ay, ay, ay, ay, ay-ay, ay…ay

Herbert was impressed. ‘They’re adapting.’

Bernard wasn’t. ‘Who cares?’

‘They’re happier, healthier.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Bernard. ‘They’re getting soft and lazy.’

‘No, they’re grateful, and we’ll reap the rewards. You’ll see.’

Lamentably, Herbert was wrong — very, very wrong — and the repercussions were anything but rewarding.

Gratuitous tokens of kindness do little to gladden the hearts of the downtrodden, and a week after Bernard’s return, five fieldworkers put their good fortune to use and sneaked away early one morning during an extended break. After escaping the planation perimeter, the runaways kept low and headed for the forest, unknowledgeable of its ravaged flora and low level of protection.

Freedom through flight had a low success rate in Barbados, and liberation did not await these five young men. Word of their exploit spread across the island, and less than a mile from the first row of scanty trees, an alert, God-fearing citizen intercepted the group, shooting two dead and firing after the others as they zigzagged over open ground to dodge the whizzing bullets.

Their efforts were in vain. A mounted posse led by Wilbert Olsen emerged from the dust and encircled the escapees. Minutes later, whipped, bleeding, and heavily shackled, the trio staggered behind their captors back to the plantation, sometimes shouting their defiance, sometimes weeping tears of anguish.

Consumed with rage and flushed with embarrassment, Bernard railed against his brother. ‘What a disaster! You’re to blame for the Randolph Plantation’s first breakout.’

Trampled by the truth, his conceit in tatters, Herbert hung his head and bore the tirade in silence. The Africans had made a mockery of his generosity, and everyone thought him a fool. Why should he seek leniency for those who’d betrayed him? White man’s law screamed violent retribution, and the runaways had only themselves to blame.

To observe and learn a valuable lesson, Bernard assembled the Black workers to witness the butchery. Truculent but cowered, they formed a silent guard of honour as the first prisoner stumbled into the open space where the overseer snapped his whip and exchanged pleasantries with a group of neighbouring farmers who stood in a semi-circle behind him.

One neighbour, a man renowned for his barbarity, suggested the overseer use the gameron stick, and Wilbert, unfamiliar with that instrument of torture, asked the man to oblige.

‘A small branch will do,’ said the farmer, snapping one off a nearby tree. ‘Tie his hands, then sit him on the ground and push his arms over his bent legs.’ Wilbert complied, and the farmer threaded the branch between the triangle created between the victim’s limbs. ‘That’s how it’s done,’ he said, booting the runaway onto his side. ‘Get to it, Olsen.’

Tethered into a cramped, painful ball, the African glanced at the overseer, then closed his eyes and called his dead wife’s name: ‘Máanu—’

‘Quiet!’ Wilbert worked like an ancient gladiator trying to impress the crowd, circling his victim and curling the whip before each strike in wide, impressive loops. He quickly settled into a potent rhythm and the runaway, without the relief of stretching his limbs, dug his toes into the ground and heaved his body forward in short, useless jerks. After eighty strokes, the African’s body sagged and his screams sunk to a whimper: one hundred more, and his voice faded to silence.

A bucket of water revived the tortured man, but the next fifty lashes took him beyond endurance. Torn open, incapable of breath, his young body flopped, hideously mangled and devoid of life. Nothing could rouse him now, and a second application of water merely dispersed the gore on the sodden, red soil.

Herbert suddenly felt ill. He turned from the gruesome scene — and matched eyes with Mary. His Jewel stood at the end of the line of African spectators, silent and still, gouging her master’s heart with an aloof, yet damning glare only she could muster.

It was a crushing blow; the undoing of Herbert’s hard work to sway his Jewel. The young man sagged beneath the weight of who and what he was, but Wilbert, devoid of such scruples, dragged the gameron stick from the dead man and used it to wave the next runaway forward. Months prior, this strong, handsome African was a husband, a father, and a hunter. Back then, little frightened him, but today he trembled in morbid anticipation. 

‘Fifty lashes for this one,’ Herbert shouted, his voice tight, ‘and don’t use that fucking stick.’ He hadn’t the gumption to stop the bloodshed but would lessen its severity. ‘These are expensive bucks and I don’t want another one killed.’

A handful of the white onlookers, shocked at Wilbert’s savageness and glad for a milder approach, mumbled their support, convincing Bernard not to override his younger brother’s command.

‘Yes,’ he reaffirmed, ‘fifty lashes.’

With a peevish huff, the overseer discarded the bloodied stick and tied the next victim to the whipping post. Wilbert considered anything under a hundred lashes soft reprisal for