Of Horns and Chains ((LitShark & NimbleNonsense))

[LitShark]

Daewon’s chains rattled as he was forced bodily up the worn, wooden stairs onto the ramshackle stage that bordered the docks. He was naked and still covered in the burning white dust that the men threw on him after he was forced off the ship. Everywhere he went now Daewon was forced, perhaps it would be this way forever now. He would only ever be forced from place to place now by strangers, forced to do worse and worse things until he could no longer do what they were forcing him to do and then they would kill him.

Daewon was no fool, though his English was almost nonexistent he understood what was happening to him. He’d been taken and was to be a slave. He’d seen slaves before, usually dishonored or defeated members of rival clans, taken as property after being conquered—but this, this was different. Even the slaves back in his homeland were treated as people, in spite of being owned and disgraced—these men did not see a man in him. To them he was a thing only.

It wasn’t Daewon’s concern what these white men saw him as, his keen dark eyes scanned the line of dark bodies being led off the ships and brought to the auction blocks, looking for his wife Tania. He knew she’d been on the same ship as him, he had to make sure they didn’t get separated for good, they had to be bought together.

“Wait, my wife!” Daewon tried to plead with the auctioneer in his native tongue, gesturing to where the emaciated women were being led down from the ship, “you must bring my wife! We must stay together, please! I am strong, I can work hard, just please let me be with my wife.”

“Well, look here. We’ve got a big, strong and lively nigger here. Just look at how much energy he has,” the auctioneer proclaimed to the small contingent of likely buyers gathered around the wooden platform, “we’ll start the bidding at five pounds sterling.”

It was just then that Daewon caught sight of Tania, similarly naked and covered in the burning powder, he called out for her and tried to run to her, but the large man at the back of the stage held the chain that linked his neck, wrists and ankles together. Nonetheless, Daewon struggled against his chains and called out Tania’s name with all the might in his lungs. Across the docks, Tania saw him and began struggling against her own captors, crying out for him as well. As Daewon grew more desperate it took more and more white men to hold him back by his chains, they began beating his legs and ribs with clubs, but he didn’t stop. He had to get to her, no matter how they beat him or tortured him—Daewon couldn't lose his wife, or his child that she carried in her belly.

-*-*-*-

Nigel Hornsby didn’t care much for these Carolina territories, it was too constantly hot for his taste, and he missed his society friends back in England more than he’d expected to. He’d already spurned half of his wardrobe over the damnable heat of this place, but now even his waistcoat felt oppressive and his ascot was making his neck sweat more than seemed dignified.

At his side was his lovely, young wife, but it was hard to look at her with the same unambiguous adoration as he had before, now that the reality of her family’s finances were known to him. When they’d wed she seemed every inch the high society lady who Nigel was hoping for as a wife, but after her parents untimely passing, he learned of her father’s clandestine gambling problem and his private debts, which fell to him after they were gone. So it was that he had to leave the comfortable confines of his family estate and seek new fortunes out in the so-called New World.

Nigel felt like he had a unique gift for getting straight to the soul of matters, piercing any problem or situation to the quick, knowing at first glance what was called for. It was this gift that kept his attention at the slave blocks while most of the other bidders dismissed the slave at auction as unruly. He was a terribly large stud of a bull, Nigel certainly wouldn’t want to be on the restraining end of the chain—but his keen knowledge of human nature led him to spot an opportunity.

“That female negro, just there. He seems to be indicating her quite emphatically,” Nigel interrupted the scene taking place on the raised platform, gesturing with his marble gripped cane, “bring her over and see if that doesn’t gentle the old chap up a whit.”

At his gesture, the Nubian behemoth began hooting and grunting, mimicking Nigel’s gesture and demonstrating acquiescence to the men who were beating him. When she was brought onto stage, Nigel wasted no time.

“Eight quid for both.”

“Sold! To the dapper gentleman with a cane.”

 

[NimbleNonsense]

Esther Hornsby (nee Ridley) fanned herself idly as she stood next to her husband Nigel. He had brought her with him to the auction block seemingly as part lesson and part punishment. He had been distant from her for months--after the couple had received news of her parents' untimely passing in India—“Cholera,” the barrister’s letter had read. Her father--Mr. Elton Ridley--had been involved in the East India Company. There had been only a handful of times in her life when her father had gone to India. She was never sure what he was doing there, but over time, she realized that the trips were always precipitated by the descent of anxiety on her home. Her mother would go into hysterics on the regular about finding her--Esther--a husband of suitable wealth while her father grew unnervingly stoic. Honestly, the pair were perfect for each other--their opposing toxicities feeding each other when times were trying. Perhaps their toxicity was why Mrs. Ridley's first three children had been all sons but all stillborn. Maybe that was why the news of her parents’ passing had been almost welcome to Esther.

Of course, the barrister’s letter also contained unwelcome news. Naturally, Mr. Ridley had left everything to her new husband Nigel, Mr. Ridley having no natural heirs of his own. But, the letter also noted that Mr. Ridley’s estate had already had several creditors serving the barrister with claims for deep indebtedness that would require the liquidation of a not inconsiderable amount of Mr. Ridley’s remaining assets. The will would be publicly probated so that the Court could oversee the settling of the debts. The barrister’s letter had tried to reassure Mr. Hornsby—it was just the chance of insolvency that required the Court’s supervision and, anyway, Mr. Hornsby had been appointed the executor and could sell or auction off assets to fill the holes. Esther had wondered throughout her late childhood and adolescence about the state of the family’s affairs, but her parents had elected to keep her in the dark about the grim details. That is, Esther suspected that Nigel’s inheritance might be a half-empty one, but she hadn’t expected it to be completely empty or one that would apportion taxes to its sole beneficiary--Nigel.

Esther only learned of the full extent of her father’s debts in passing from her husband; Nigel had indicated to her the barrenness of the estate almost matter-of-factly after telling her just as matter-of-factly that both of her parents had passed. His tone did not lessen the impact of both sentences for Esther. If anything, it telegraphed her husband’s disappointment plainly. Esther had simply remained silent, the shallowness of her knowledge about her family’s affairs a suitable defense at the ready. After all, based on the fineries her father had showered her with growing up, she had almost no reason to believe his debts went that deep—no culpable ignorance. Of course, Nigel's plain disappointment was not enough to squelch Esther’s curiosity, which drove her to locate the letter hidden in some drawer in his study and read it for herself while Nigel was away in town.

Yes, after that, Esther perceived a noticeable wrinkle in his affection for her. Until then, Nigel had always doted on her, at least in the way men of his class would. He would take her to society balls, call the seamstress for a new dress; he even once joined her personally for the purpose of shopping for ribbons and lace. Naturally, they had not been wed for love, but perhaps unlike some other eligible bachelors, Nigel appeared committed to earning her affection in earnest. That said, Nigel’s plying for affection sometimes had the opposite effect on Esther; sometimes it felt desperate, especially since the two apparently had almost nothing in common.

Then again, her husband’s increased distance since the letter from the barrister had not been any more successful in winning her affection either. No, instead, she rather despised him for bringing her here. When he had first told her that he had designs of being a plantation owner, she nearly laughed, thinking he was joking. Esther had not been raised to be a planter’s wife; she knew virtually nothing of farming. And then he kept talking, telling her about some property he bought in the Carolinas. It was then that she had started to plead with him, “Husband, you can’t be serious—there is no society there.” When he didn’t respond immediately, she stuttered a little as she continued, “Y-you know those colonists are positively crude.”

Yet, here she was, on Carolina soil, sweating in her petticoat and corset at a slave auction of all places. She felt her sweat slowly seeping into the thick ribbon keeping her wide-brimmed hat on—one the first purchases she had made with the modest allowance Nigel allowed her. She told herself this was half-punishment for a debt for which she had no responsibility; half lesson in that he was acclimating her to her new position as a plantation mistress. How she didn’t faint from the heat and clamour, Esther had no idea.

And that brute on the stage was certainly making a violet fuss. She had never seen a man like that before; certainly, she had seen slaves before but none of them had matched him in musculature. Even so, like the other bidders (and their company), she had dismissed him. Nigel’s voice seemed to come from another world as it reached out to the men on the platform, encouraging them to bring an unnoticed negro woman forward. Unwittingly, Esther stopped her fanning, her eyes focused on the stage, ears primed for her husband's next order. She was half stunned when the woman’s presence managed to calm the chained negro down; how had Nigel even noticed her, understood their connection? She was fully stunned when Nigel bid for the pair.

Esther continued staring at the negro pair on the stage, now being directed on, questioning her husband almost breathlessly, “Nigel . . . dear?”

 

[LitShark]

“Quite so!” Nigel exclaimed, swinging his fist dramatically through the air as the auctioneer closed the bidding, he heard the uncertainty in his wife’s voice, but there was no dampening his genuine excitement at winning his first New World slave auction, “you see that, dear? I got one for you as well, to help with housework and the sort. Look at how well we’re adapting to our new life! Why that fellow looks strong enough to plow half our acreage on his own back. But look dear, all he wants is his woman to come with him.”

Nigel leaned toward Esther and planted an enthusiastic kiss upon her rosy bottom lip, draping his arm around her and leading her toward the wooden table which was serving as an ad hoc cashier’s window. Seated at the table was a lavishly dressed Spaniard who was clearly the interim owner of the slaves being unloaded onto the docks. It was common for Spanish merchants to make slave runs from secret slave fortresses where illegally captured slaves could be bought on the cheap and laundered in the Americas, bypassing British taxes in the process. Nigel paid with coins and was handed the chains that led to the man and woman’s metal collars.

When his hand touched the cold iron links, Nigel swallowed hard. If that big brute of a man tried to oppose him ferociously he doubted there was much he could do to stop him. The couple came along willingly enough though, following obediently back to the cart that Nigel and Esther had ridden in on. Nigel tossed the chains onto the bed of the cart, gesturing for the slaves to follow the chains onto the bed.

“Go on then, up you go.” Nigel gestured more emphatically, only to be met by dispassionate stares of the nude pair, “my word, I don’t know how we’ll communicate with them.”

“You sure got a big fucker, there,” a voice from the tree line interrupted Nigel’s dilemma, “tough when they don’t speak anything other than that jungle noise. My cousins and I have experience working as overseers, have our own bloodhounds and everything. You don’t want to go spending too much on nigger flesh before you’ve contracted a decent overseer team.”

“Come forward, would you?” Nigel inquired, walking toward the voice and extending his gloved hand, “I’m Nigel Hornsby, this is my wife Esther. We’re novices, I suppose you could tell, but I’ve recently acquired some acreage nearby on which I intend to grow tobacco and cotton.”

“Good crops for the south, but tough work come harvest time. You’ll need at least four more men, and some more women for separating. Like I said, my cousin and I have experience commanding a team about that size.”

“Lucky that we’ve crossed paths then I suppose.”

“Luck’s got nothin’ to do with it. We come down here to look for in-over-their-heads part-timers like you. But I guess you are lucky, since we Carters are honest,” the man who’d still declined to shake Nigel’s hand grinned, revealing a mouthful of yellow, rotted teeth. It was quite clear that this Carter fellow didn’t spend much time among civilized society, “Jeremiah Carter, you’ll meet my cousin Johnny soon enough. Go on and finish your trading, I’ll keep watch over your niggers.”

Jeremiah was dressed from head to toe in animal skins, buckskin trousers and a bison coat with jagged cuts of fox fur around the collar and cuffs. His wide brimmed hat kept his blue eyes peering out of shadow even as his rotted teeth reflected the setting sun.

“Quite so, Jeremiah. We’ll ride back together and I’ll show you around the property. Come darling, we still need seeds, timber and household goods. Shall we?” Nigel offered his arm triumphantly to his wife. They were making for fine pioneers afterall.

 

[NimbleNonsense]

Esther felt Nigel's kiss on her lips as though he were a ghost--there and then gone, the exuberance still evaporating off her lips as he led her towards the cashier. Look at how well we're adapting to our new life! Was Nigel trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince her? No sooner had the kiss left her lips did she distantly watch ownership of the slaves pass to Nigel. She thought she detected a slight tremor in his hands as metal met flesh. Whether the tremor was there or not, Nigel's general fecklessness was confirmed when he apparently sought Esther's advice: my word, I don’t know how we’ll communicate with them.

Fortunately, Esther was not actually required to give advice--a voice from the tree line stepped in, uninvited. She watched Nigel affably extend his gloved hand only to hear his refined London accent rebuffed by a near-toothless drawl that appeared to be the vernacular here. Saints above, how she had warned Nigel--no society. The two slaves stood by--patient, nonplussed, as much objects as the cart Nigel had implored they haul themselves onto. Had Mr. Carter not approached, she might have inspected this odd pair more closely--might have tried to ascertain whether she thought these two were really suitable to what she imagined the Hornsby's needs to be.

But, Mr. Carter did show, unexpectedly and almost menacingly. She protectively held her hands clasped in front of her, her folded fan tightly drawn closed in her palms held in front of her skirts as she watched the exchange between the two men--between Nigel and this... Mr. Carter.

Carter? What kind of name was that? Had Esther departed from London for the Americas and unexpectedly ended up in the Scottish Highlands? Were the Carters some fracture of a clan that had long ago given up on the Jacobite cause, dropping the "Mc" preceding their clan name when James had been deposed by Parliament already so long ago? She continued to listen to how "Jeremiah" would re-direct the conversation: Luck's got nothing do with it, he crowed. Jeremiah had the same sheep-shaver humor as some of the Scots the Nigel had once enlisted to protect the couple during a stay at Inverness--barely understandable, just as offensive. Her eyes flicked over his animal skin ensemble as if it were a full kilt; her eyes narrowed when Jeremiah showed his rotten mouth. She did not like Jeremiah Carter, she decided.

Esther's eyes perhaps rested too long on Jeremiah, letting Nigel's proffered arm perch aloft a second too long. Her own blue eyes met his, as if daring him to look away first, letting him know--silently--that she disapproved of her husband's employment of him and his family, that she did not trust the self-acclaimed "honest" Carters.

Yet propriety demanded that she take Nigel's arm. After all, Nigel was her only ally on this earth. Sure, she could write to her friends in England, beg them to visit, write about how enraptured she was with slow trickle of London and Paris fashions across the Atlantic, but those letters were poor substitutes for day-to-day advocates that could actually improve her life, here, in the southern heat and humidity. So, she broke her graze with Jeremiah, wordlessly taking Nigel's arm. As they walked, she turned her gaze on Nigel, catching his profile intermittently as they gained distance from Mr. Carter, her large hat noticeably tracking with her gaze as she turned her head at intervals.

Speaking from her deep education of petty society gossip that had taught her to identify the unscrupulous, she intoned her disapproval with a question--"Mr. Carter seems very knowledgable." She looked forward as that pair headed back into the mercantile melee of the town before again looking directly at Nigel's profile, hat rotating noticeably to anyone who cared to notice, "Are you sure we can trust him?"

 

[LitShark]

Daewon clung gratefully to Tania, not wanting to allow any separation between them lest they be torn apart again. The white man who’d reunited them with a few wining sounds and gestures of his arm seemed to be quite pleased with himself, while Daewon felt ill knowing that he owed this frail man a debt. He hadn’t expected to feel gratitude toward his captors, much less his would-be owner, but now he had no choice.

”Are you alright, my love?” Daewon whispered to Tania, gently parting her curls away from her face, ”if any of these bastards harmed you I’ll break them with these arms, I’ll…”

Tania just laid her fingertips gently against Daewon’s chin, stopping his furious oaths and shaking her head. It wasn’t so much an answer to his question as it was a dismissal of any plot that jeopardized his safety for her honor. Honor was no longer a privilege afforded to them. They were alive and they were together, more fortunate by far than most who’d been loaded onto the ships with them.

It was hard to fight the urge to pull back when Daewon and Tania’s chains were handed over to the frail man, one solid tug could easily have toppled him and perhaps bought them the chance to flee to freedom, but home was much too far away to run, even if they both hadn’t been malnourished and dehydrated. No, their best chance at survival was to follow this man, surely he couldn’t hope to hold them for long.

They reached the man’s conveyance, standing by the roadside with the beasts who bore it still strapped to the rolling perch. The man, his new owner deposited the chains that bound him and Tania onto the bed of his conveyance, urging them to climb onto the bed as though the ends of the chains themselves had some supernatural ability to drag them to a location.

Not wanting to press his luck, Daewon simply laid his hand on the wooden contraption which seemed destined to transport them to whatever new prison awaited them, from there they could plot their escape. The reality of their escape was something that Daewon had to hold as a fact, this hellish reality couldn’t be their future—the future for their child.

“Are we supposed to go with these men now?” Tania asked timidly, keeping her voice soft as she whispered against his neck.

“Only for now, my love. For now we must do as they command.” Daewon answered in a close whisper.

It was then that the other white man came across them, his teeth rotted from lack of attention and his body covered in skins, clearly a hunter—or whatever the white man equivalent of a hunter was. The man must not have been much of a hunter, since most of his pelts were of modest size, rabbits, rodents and the like—nothing worthy of wearing in public by Daewon’s standards, but nonetheless, in his yellowed eyes, Daewon could see the glare of a man-hunter. He resolved not to let the modest size of his pelts fool him, this man was a killer.

Daewon didn’t even know this man’s name or what he was discussing with their new owner, but it was apparent to him that their relationship would be a fatal one. For Daewon and Tania to live free, this red-haired, yellow-eyed man would have to die.

*-*-*

Are you sure we can trust him?

Nigel laughed mirthfully and patted the back of Esther’s hand as though she’d sneezed or committed some other mild, yet adorable faux pas. They turned away from the auction blocks and ships at anchor toward the storefronts of the recently constructed hardware and textile markets.

“Darling, it’s not as if that filthy trapper and his brother will be sharing the manor house with us. They’ll be camping on the outskirts of our property, trust doesn’t even enter into a relationship like that,” Nigel smiled, interlacing his gloved fingers with his wife’s and raising her hand to gently kiss the back of it, “rest your mind at ease, my love. I need to go purchase tools, seeds and other necessary items for the plantation—why don’t you go to the textile market and buy yourself some new fabric for a dress, and perhaps some sack-cloth to make clothes for our new slaves—they certainly can’t go around flaunting their dirty bits like they are. It would do you good to have projects to keep your mind from worrying over trivialities like our overseers’ trustworthiness.”

With his grip on her hand, Nigel unlaced Esther’s arm from his own, leading her toward the textile storefront. Before they parted ways he turned her back toward him again, laying his hand gently along the nape of her long, statuesque neck before giving her what he hoped was a reassuring and tender kiss on her bottom lip.

“Let me worry about the tending of our fields, love. Keep your mind on the tending of our home, such matters were not meant for the female constitution.”

With this, Nigel parted ways with Esther, making his way to the hardware and general goods store to purchase bulk sacks of seed for cotton and tobacco, the most profitable crops known to grow readily in this New World. Nigel knew what he was looking for, so his shopping excursion was mostly uneventful. He simply had to order the tools and seeds that he knew he needed to begin operating his own New World plantation.

*-*-*

Johnny Carter was the only man in the textile store without a proper shirt, but if it made him uncomfortable, he was showing it the least of those around him. He was swearing and bullying the meek shop clerk as they argued over five yards of tarp fabric. Johnny gripped the length of fabric in one fist and the clerk’s shirt-collar in the other fist, eliciting a gasp from one of the women in the shop, keeping her distance from the unstable trapper.

“Goddamn you, I paid for a waterproof tarp, you fancy fucking poof!” Johnny shouted, immune to the disdain that his choice of language was eliciting from those around him, “this is the same shit that our last tent was made of and it pisses rainwater through in more than a drizzle. I want a waterproof, goddamn tarp! I know you have it back there, Jonah LeGrie told me that you sold him his tarp and it can keep the fucking snow off, but it wasn’t this shit!”

“I-I-I’m s-sorry s-sir—we just don’t have the quantity in stock that you requested—“ the clerk muttered in reply.

“So you try to pawn this shit off on me? I’ll take as much of the good tarp as you have, but don’t you bring me any more of this leaky bullshit if you want to keep your scalp on your fucking skull.”

“Y-yes sir” the clerk squeaked, relieved to be free from Johnny’s grasp to scamper back to his reserved stock.

Letting go of a loud, exasperated sigh, Johnny turned away from the counter toward the door where he saw a beautiful, young blonde who he was unfamiliar with enter into the textile store. His eyes made short work of her, even behind the various layers of fabric and undergarments, constructing in his mind her naked body as it would be without all the fanciful clothes. A sinister smile crept across his face as he watched her enter.

Though he said nothing, Johnny’s eyes stayed locked on Esther’s young body as she entered the shop and began her shopping.