"The very one. I caught a glimpse of her again last night."
"I know her, you rogue. Probably better than you do. Briggs is always sending her down here for bottles of kill-devil, sayin' he doesn't trust his indentures to get them home. She's a fine-featured woman of the kind, if I say it myself."
"Finer than Briggs deserves."
"Did you know that amongst the Council she's known as his 'pumpkin-colored whore'? Those hypocritical Puritan whoremasters. I always ask her to stay a bit when she comes. I think she's probably lonely, poor creature. But I can tell you one thing for certain—she takes no great satisfaction in her new owner. Or in Barbados either, come to that, after the fine plantation she lived on in Brazil." She laughed. "Something not hard to understand. I'm always amazed to remember she's a slave. Probably one of the very first on this island." She looked away reflectively. "Though now she's got much company."
"Too much."
"You may be right for once. It's a new day, on my faith, and I don't mind telling you it troubles me a bit. There're apt to be thousands of these Africans here soon. There'll be nothing like it anywhere in the Americas." She sighed. "But the Council's all saying the slaves'll change everything, make them all rich." Her voice quickened as she turned back. "Do you suppose it's true?"
"Probably. That's why I plan to try and change a few things too." He looked out at the bay, where a line of brown pelicans glided single file across the tips of waves. The horizon beyond was lost in mist. "My own way."
[Chapter Three]
Katherine gazed past the pewter candlesticks and their flickering tapers, down the long cedar table of Briggs' dining hall, now piled high with stacks of greasy wooden plates spilling over with half-finished food. The room was wide and deep, with dark oak beams across the ceiling and fresh white plaster walls. Around the table were rows of grim men in black hats and plump Puritan women in tight bodices and starched collars. For all its surface festivity, there was something almost ominous about the evening. Change was in the air, and not change for the better.