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Grey felt his shoulders tense, but spoke calmly.
“In what way? Have there been more—” He hesitated, searching for the right word. “More demonstrations?” It was a mild word to describe the burning of cane fields, the looting of plantations, and the wholesale liberation of slaves.
Warren gave a hollow laugh. His handsome face was beading with sweat. There was a crumpled handkerchief on the arm of his chair, and he picked it up to mop at his skin. He hadn’t shaved this morning—or, quite possibly, yesterday; Grey could hear the faint rasp of his dark whiskers on the cloth.
“Yes. More destruction. They burnt a sugar press last month, though still in the remoter parts of the island. Now, though . . .” He paused, licking dry lips as he poured more wine. He made a cursory motion toward Grey’s glass, but Grey shook his head.
“They’ve begun to move toward King’s Town,” Warren said. “It’s deliberate, you can see it. One plantation after another, in a line coming straight down the mountain.” He sighed. “I shouldn’t say straight. Nothing in this bloody place is straight, starting with the landscape.”
That was true enough; Grey had admired the vivid green peaks that soared up from the center of the island, a rough backdrop for the amazingly blue water and the white sand shore.
“People are terrified,” Warren went on, seeming to get a grip on himself, though his face was once again slimy with sweat, and his hand shook on the decanter. It occurred to Grey, with a slight shock, that the governor himself was terrified. “I have merchants—and their wives—in my office every day, begging, demanding protection from the blacks.”
“Well, you may assure them that protection will be provided them,” Grey said, sounding as reassuring as possible. He had half a battalion with him—three hundred infantry troops, and a company of artillery, equipped with small cannon. Enough to defend King’s Town, if necessary. But his brief from Lord North was not merely to defend and reassure the merchants and shipping of King’s Town and Spanish Town—nor even to provide protection to the larger sugar plantations. He was charged with putting down the slave rebellion entirely. Rounding up the ringleaders and putting a stop to the violence altogether.
The snake on the table moved suddenly, uncoiling itself in a languid manner. It startled Grey, who had begun to think it was a decorative sculpture. It was exquisite: only seven or eight inches long, and a beautiful pale yellow marked with brown, a faint iridescence in its scales like the glow of good Rhenish wine.
“It’s gone further now, though,” Warren was going on. “It’s not just burning and property destruction. Now it’s come to murder.”
That brought Grey back with a jerk.
“Who has been murdered?” he demanded.
“A planter named Abernathy. Murdered in his own house, last week. His throat cut.”
“Was the house burnt?”
“No, it wasn’t. The maroons ransacked it, but were driven off by Abernathy’s own slaves before they could set fire to the place. His wife survived by submerging herself in a spring behind the house, concealed by a patch of reeds.”
“I see.” He could imagine the scene all too well. “Where is the plantation?”
“About ten miles out of King’s Town. Rose Hall, it’s called. Why?” A bloodshot eye swiveled in Grey’s direction, and he realized that the glass of wine the governor had invited him to share had not been his first of the day. Nor, likely, his fifth.
Was the man a natural sot? he wondered. Or was it only the pressure of the current situation that had caused him to take to the bottle in such a blatant manner? He surveyed the governor covertly; the man was perhaps in his late thirties, and while plainly drunk at the moment, showed none of the signs of habitual indulgence. He was well built and attractive; no bloat, no soft belly straining at his silk waistcoat, no broken veins in cheeks or nose . . .
“Have you a map of the district?” Surely it hadn’t escaped Warren that if indeed the maroons were burning their way straight toward King’s Town, it should be possible to predict where their next target lay and await them with several companies of armed infantry?
Warren drained the glass and sat panting gently for a moment, eyes fixed on the tablecloth, then seemed to pull himself together.
“Map,” he repeated. “Yes, of course. Dawes . . . my secretary . . . he’ll—he’ll find you one.”
Motion caught Grey’s eye. Rather to his surprise, the tiny snake, after casting to and fro, tongue tasting the air, had started across the table in what seemed a purposeful, if undulant, manner, headed straight for him. By reflex, he put up a hand to catch the little thing, lest it plunge to the floor.
The governor saw it, uttered a loud shriek, and flung himself back from the table. Grey looked at him in astonishment, the tiny snake curling over his fingers.
“It’s not venomous,” he said, as mildly as he could. At least he didn’t think so. His friend Oliver Gwynne was a natural philosopher and mad for snakes; Gwynne had shown him all the prizes of his collection during the course of one hair-raising afternoon, and he seemed to recall Gwynne telling him that there were no venomous reptiles at all on the island of Jamaica. Besides, the nasty ones all had triangular heads, while the harmless kinds were blunt, like this little fellow.
Warren was indisposed to listen to a lecture on the physiognomy of snakes. Shaking with terror, he backed against the wall.
“Where?” he gasped. “Where did it come from?”
“It’s been sitting on the table since I came in. I . . . um . . . thought it was . . .” Well, plainly it wasn’t a pet, let alone an intended part of the table décor. He coughed, and got up, meaning to put the snake outside through the French doors that led onto the terrace.
Warren mistook his intent, though, and seeing him come closer, snake writhing through his fingers, burst through the French doors himself, crossed the terrace in a mad leap, and pelted down the flagstoned walk, coattails flying as though the devil himself were in pursuit.
Grey was still staring after him in disbelief when a discreet cough from the inner door made him turn.
“Gideon Dawes, sir.” The governor’s secretary was a short, tubby man with a round, pink face that probably was rather jolly by nature. At the moment, it bore a look of profound wariness. “You are Lieutenant Colonel Grey?”
