Serpents in the Garden (The Graham Saga) Read online

  The door opened, and he flinched at the sharp shaft of light.

  “Awake?” Ian’s dry voice sounded amused.

  “Uhhhh,” Matthew replied, hoping Ian would understand. A hand appeared with a cup of cider and Matthew gulped it down.

  “It seems I got you out at the last moment,” Ian went on with an element of reproof. “That wee lass had a good grip on you.”

  “I was drunk,” Matthew informed him haughtily. He closed his eyes. “I’m still drunk.”

  “I don’t think Mama would care why.”

  “Nay.” A quick shudder at the thought of Alex’s reaction flew through Matthew.

  He was still very sore on the inside of his skull when he stepped out into the street some hours later. The voice that called his name cut through his sensitive brain tissue and made him wince, but he turned in the direction of the speaker, if nothing else to stop whoever it was from calling his name again.

  “Kate!” Matthew shone up with genuine pleasure – it had been some time since he saw her last, one or two years back. “I hear you’ve managed to evade the hunt,” Matthew teased, looking her up and down. Widowhood became her, he reflected, and especially now that she had left the sober colours of her widow garb behind and moved on to this far more attractive golden red. It brought out the colour of her hair and lightened her eyes, and, all in all, she looked most pleasing.

  Kate Jones rolled her eyes and tucked her hand into the crook of his arm with far more familiarity than he was comfortable with. He shook his head and increased the space between them, making her smile.

  “You fear word of our cuddling might reach Alex?”

  “Aye,” he replied, miming a cut throat. Alex might have forgiven, but she had definitely not forgotten, that he’d bedded Kate all those years ago, when he was a slave and Kate the single thing he had to hold onto.

  Kate laughed and dropped her hand to walk beside him, no more.

  “You look well,” Matthew said, having concluded a detailed but surreptitious inspection. Well, he assumed being rid of a husband like Dominic Jones had to be a relief.

  “I am well.” Kate brushed at her velvet skirts.

  “And the bairns? Are they well?”

  “Bairns?” Kate laughed out loud. “The youngest is seven, Matthew, and the eldest is seventeen.” A shadow flew over her face.

  “Is seventeen?” Matthew asked perceptively.

  Kate sighed. “John died of the measles two years back, so now it is only Henry left of the twins.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Matthew said.

  Kate looked away, her chin quivering. She cleared her throat and turned to face him. “And you? I hear that one of your sons has taken to the seas.”

  Matthew kicked at the ground and muttered something about gossiping women.

  “Esther is my friend. She’s quite upset by the whole situation, and what with her breeding again…” Kate made a face. “She misses her daughter. But then all mothers miss their children once they’re gone.”

  Matthew inclined his head in silent agreement. “And yet all children must ultimately leave the parent nest.” He looked thoughtfully at Kate. “Don’t you miss it? Someone to help you place the bairns and order your affairs?”

  “I can take care of my affairs on my own, and as to the children, I haven’t begun looking for suitable partners – they’re still too young.”

  “Henry is seventeen,” Matthew reminded her. “And the next lad is what? Fourteen?”

  “He’ll not wed yet. I’m of a mind to send Henry to Boston for some years.” Her eyes slid over to meet Matthew’s, and a slow smile spread over her face. “How old is your eldest girl? Twelve?”

  “In a few months.” Matthew smiled back.

  “Mayhap that would be a suitable match for my Henry.”

  “Alex won’t want her to wed too young,” Matthew prevaricated. Alex wouldn’t want Ruth anywhere close to Henry Jones. Nor did he, not really, but he liked the mother well enough, and the lad stood to inherit a sizeable property.

  “We can wait, and we don’t have to decide anything as yet. But it’s an interesting thought, isn’t it?” Kate smiled again, leaned forward to peck him on his cheek, and told him she was late for her appointment with Mrs Malone.

  “Mrs Malone?” Matthew must have sounded very surprised because Kate burst out in laughter.

  “I’m not applying for a position, but Mrs Malone happens to be the best dressmaker in town. Quite a lucrative sideline, I gather.” With that, she was gone, nodding in passing to Ian who bowed before taking the few steps necessary to bring him abreast with Matthew.

  “Gone,” he said.

  “Gone?” Matthew asked.

  “The Burleys. Young Farrell told me they’d been seen riding south towards St Mary’s City late last afternoon.”

  “Ah.” That was good news, even if Matthew feared it was but a matter of time before he ran into them again. Those three demented brothers were nothing if not persistent, and what had begun as a hunger for revenge on account of their miscreant of a brother’s death had swelled into an obsession, further fuelled by all the times when the Grahams – be it him or his wife – had bested them.

  They walked along in relative silence for a while, Matthew nodding to the odd acquaintance, Ian commenting on the new houses that had sprung up since last he was here.

  Providence – or Anne Arundel’s Town, as the minority Anglicans insisted on calling it – was growing at an impressive pace, and, for all that it remained more of a village than a town, it had something of a bustle to it, a quality it shared with most ports, Matthew reckoned. The area round the docks was a beehive of activity, one warehouse after the other lined the waterfront, and on the opposite side were the slave pens, at present very empty. There was even talk of erecting a windmill down by the wharves, but so far nothing had come of that; as Matthew heard it, because Mr Farrell was reluctant to part with the land in question.

  At present, the little town was thronged with people, most of them farmers like himself, come to attend the Michaelmas market. Matthew came with hams and sausages, smoked fish and pelts, further supplemented by Jenny’s cheese and Alex’s stone jars of honey. From what Matthew could see, Jenny was holding her own in their stall, giving them but a hasty wave before going back to her business endeavours.

  Ian suggested they repair to an inn for some beer, but Matthew shook his head: no beer, not yet.

  Ian laughed. “Why were you there? And why go to Mrs Malone’s in the first place, when you know Mama doesn’t like it that you do?” Precisely because she didn’t like it, Matthew thought, recognising how childish that was. He was still angry with her over Angus, and after that dismal discussion with William, he had needed some cheering up.

  “The beer is good,” he said.

  “Aye, that it is,” Ian said. “But the lasses are good as well. I had to pay that wee redhead off last night before she would let go of your balls.”

  “Thank you,” Matthew muttered. “I didn’t want to.”

  “Oh, aye? It didn’t seem so.”

  Any further discussion about this uncomfortable subject was cut short when they entered the main square. A triumphant Mr Farrell was watching while the stranger from last night was stripped and put in chains, despite his loud protests that he was a free man, as free as any of them, and all this was a mistake.

  “Hey, man, what d’you think you’re doing? Just let go of me, okay?” His dark skin glistened with sweat, he struggled like a fiend, but the odds were overwhelmingly against him, and in less than ten minutes, he was being dragged away, as naked as the day he was born.

  “No!” he shrieked. “What the fuck is this? No!”

  Matthew shifted restlessly from foot to foot. This was wrong, somehow, and he was on the point of interrupting when Ian placed a hand on his arm.

  “No, Da, it won’t help him, and it may harm you.”

  “He says he’s free, and now look at him, chained like a beast.”


  “Do you know for sure that he isn’t lying?”

  “Nay.” It was just something about how the man carried himself, how confidently he had stepped into Mrs Malone’s last night, and how he spoke – definitely how he spoke.

  Ian hitched his shoulder. “You don’t know, Da. And it’s rare for a black man to be free.”

  William Hancock appeared beside them, nodding at this last statement. “If he is free, he’s a fool to come here without documents to prove his freedom. The man couldn’t properly explain where he came from or what he was doing here.” William frowned and shook his head. “He kept on repeating something about a crossroads and a thunderstorm, and when Mr Farrell called him a lying Negro, he got most upset and loudly demanded he be called an…em…Afro-American – yes, that’s it, an Afro-American.”

  Matthew had stopped listening beyond the word crossroads.

  “Where?” He asked in a breathless voice that had both Ian and William looking at him with concern. “Where was this crossroads?”

  “Down south,” William said.

  Matthew felt the strength drain away from his legs so fast that, if it hadn’t been for Ian’s support, he would have fallen to the ground. A crossroads, here! He’d hoped all such time nodes were left forever behind in the old country, ensuring Alex was safe with him.

  He stared in the direction they’d dragged the poor bastard. The stranger came from another time, a time when black people were as free as white men were. He was as vulnerable as a newborn babe in the here and now. Without a backward look, Matthew hastened over to talk to Mr Farrell.

  “No,” Mr Farrell cradled his broken arm to his chest. “He isn’t for sale, Brother Matthew.” He looked over to where his latest human asset was being chained to a cart and smiled nastily.

  “Everything is for sale, Mr Farrell, as long as the price is right.”

  “Not this one. This one will work his life out for me.” With that, he bowed and turned away.

  “Explain,” Ian said, having followed Matthew across the square.

  Matthew blew out a long gust of air and looked at his eldest son. “It isn’t really my story to tell.”

  “I won’t spread it, but you have to explain why you attempt to buy a slave when you know Mama doesn’t hold with slavery.”

  “She wouldn’t mind if I bought this one.” Matthew grabbed Ian by the arm and led him off towards the bay. For a long time, he walked in silence, having no idea how to begin – or even if he should begin.

  “Well?” Ian said. They were well out of town by now, surrounded by nothing but reeds and water.

  Matthew looked about for somewhere to sit and perched on a rock. “You know how we’ve always told you that me and your mama met each other on a moor?”

  Ian sat down beside him. “A right huge thunderstorm, and Mama’s father went missing and you thought him dead.”

  “Quite,” Matthew said.

  “But he wasn’t, and I still don’t fully comprehend how he came to be in yon thorny thicket back home.”

  “Nay, that was a surprise.” Matthew frowned down at the tear in his shirt, fingering the ragged edges. “As you said, it was a thunderstorm, and one of those bolts of lightning threw Alex to land at my feet.” He smiled at the memory. “She was a strange lass, dressed in long blue breeches she called ‘djeens’. And her hair was short.” He indicated with his hand how her hair had been no longer than to her ears, seeing Ian’s brows rise in surprise.

  “Had she been ill?”

  Matthew laughed hollowly. “Ill? No, not as such.” He took a deep breath. “She was thrown through time.”

  Ian looked at him for a long time and then began to laugh. “You’re making this up,” he said once he had calmed down.

  “I wish I was, but no, I’m not. Alexandra Lind was born in 1976, and a few weeks short of her twenty-sixth birthday, time unravelled beneath her feet and sent her spinning to land in 1658.”

  It was almost amusing: his son blinked owlishly, mouth gaping wide.

  “Is she…?” Ian licked his lips. “Is she…?” He stood up, all of him twitching.

  “A witch?” Matthew filled in. “Do you think she is?”

  Ian sat back down. “Nay. If she is, she’s not a very good one.”

  Matthew smiled in agreement. He wasn’t about to tell Ian about Mercedes, because there he had no doubts: Alex’s mother had been a witch, her paintings throbbing with magic, horrible little squares of greens and blues that sucked you in and spat you out in another time.

  “And Magnus?” Ian asked.

  “Magnus…” Matthew hedged. Dear Lord! The man had tumbled out of the year 2016 to arrive here in 1672. “He was ill, and he wanted to see his daughter before he died.”

  Ian bit his lip. “How?” he said hoarsely. “How did he do that?” He had paled to the point of acquiring a bluish tinge to the skin around his mouth.

  “A painting,” Matthew said. “A wee, accursed painting, that was how.” Matthew saw Ian’s hand form itself into a protective sign against evil and smiled sardonically.

  “Aye,” Matthew agreed, “it’s enough to make your head ache – even without Mrs Malone’s excellent beer.

  “Crossroads,” Matthew continued. “That first time, Alex was standing on a crossroads when she was caught in a thunderstorm – a huge thunderstorm by all accounts.” He smiled briefly at his son. “That’s why Alex is so terrified of lightning – and crossroads. Twice, time has opened at her feet at the crossroads on the way to Cumnock; twice, I’ve managed to keep her here with me.” He swallowed, recalling just how close a call it had been.

  Matthew cleared his throat. “Yon crossroads is very exact, and Magnus told us how such crossroads can at times mark points where the weave of time is weaker than it should be.”

  “So it rends more easily,” Ian said, his face reverting to a more normal colour. He turned to stare at his father. “And that black man: he has fallen through as well!”

  “I don’t know for sure, but, aye, that would explain some.” Matthew painted a brief description of a future society in which all men were equal, no matter race or creed, and Ian listened with an incredulous expression on his face.

  “No king?” he said.

  “Not here,” Matthew said, and both of them grinned.

  “And the paintings?” Ian asked.

  “I don’t know, lad,” Matthew lied. “Magnus reckoned they were depictions of the fall through time, painted by someone who’d had the misfortune of falling repeatedly from one age to the other; someone who desperately tried to paint their way home. Magic, son, black magic.” He swallowed, feeling a twinge of pity for Mercedes, a woman he had never met nor ever wished to meet, but who had by all accounts led a miserable life, thrown hither and thither through time. In his head, he heard a sultry laugh, a soft woman’s voice telling him it hadn’t been all bad. After all, she’d had all those years with Magnus, and… Matthew recited the first few lines of the Lord’s Prayer, relieved when the voice faded away.

  “Repeatedly?” Ian croaked.

  Matthew nodded. “An accursed existence, don’t you think?”

  “Very.” Ian shuddered.

  “You can’t help him,” Ian stated after a couple of heartbeats of silence.

  “Nay,” Matthew agreed. “Poor man.”

  “Farrell will make him pay.”

  “Aye, that he will.” Matthew frowned down at his clenched hand. To be free, and have it all taken from you, to be degraded to an animal. To father bairns – and Farrell would make sure the well-built stranger fathered several – and see them sold away from you and not be able to do anything about it. But, most of all, to live that day when you bowed to the ground and admitted that, yes, you were a slave, a beast of burden… Like he himself had done, eighteen years in the past on a plantation called Suffolk Rose, crawling at the feet of that accursed Dominic Jones, may he rot in hell.

  Matthew shook himself free of these unwelcome memories, and turned his mind to other concern
s. “I’ll be riding back after dinner. I don’t want to be gone for longer than I have to. Will you and Jenny manage on your own?”

  “Aye, we will. I met one of the Ingram men in town so we can ride together.” For an instant, Ian rested his hand on Matthew’s shoulder. “Don’t be too harsh on her. She did what she thought best.”

  “She was wrong. She should have told me about Angus pawing at Daniel – it isn’t her right to withhold such from me.”

  Chapter 11

  One of the more irritating things about life in the seventeenth century was that nothing was ever on time – departures and arrivals were at best approximations, dependent on the vagaries of the weather. To ride back and forth to Providence could take anything between five days and eight, and adding a further four or five for the business Matthew had to conduct meant that at earliest he would be back nine days after setting out. So it was with surprise – and some apprehension – that Alex watched Matthew ride into their yard on the afternoon of the seventh day, on a winded Moses with Narcissus an exhausted shadow at their heels.

  He only had to look at her and she knew. A lump settled heavily in her stomach, and she turned her head to look at Angus, who was trailing the rest of the household towards the master. Matthew intercepted her look, and his eyes went very green, never leaving hers. Shit, he was mightily pissed.

  She hugged herself and went forward to greet him with his children, but hung back. He didn’t stretch out his arm to envelop her in an embrace as he would normally do, but allowed the children to monopolise him instead, laughing down at them, tweaking cheeks and ruffling hair. From the pocket of his coat, he brought out ribbons for the girls, boiled sweets for the boys, and a wooden rattle for little Hannah.

  “And Mama?” Adam asked, tugging at his coat tail. “Didn’t you bring something nice back for Mama?”