At the head of the table were the most prominent members of the Council, the owners of Barbados' largest plantations. She knew the wealthiest ones personally: Edward Bayes, his jowls protruding beneath his whisp of beard, owned the choicest coastal lands north around Speightstown; Thomas Lancaster, now red-cheeked and glassy-eyed from the liquor, had the largest plantation in the rolling plains of St. George's parish, mid-island; Nicholas Whittington, dewlapped and portly, was master of a vast acreage in Christ's Church parish, on the southern coast.
Anthony Walrond had not been invited, nor any other of the new royalist emigres—which she should have known was exactly what was going to happen before she went to all the bother of having a new dress and bodice made up. No, tonight the guests were the rich planters, the old settlers who arrived on Barbados in the early years and claimed the best land. They were the ones that Dalby Bedford, now seated beside her, diplomatically sipping from his tankard, liked to call the "plantocracy." They had gathered to celebrate the beginnings of the sugar miracle. And the new order.
The room was alive with an air of expectancy, almost as palpable as the smoke that drifted in through the open kitchen door. Benjamin Briggs' banquet and ball, purportedly a celebration, was in truth something more like a declaration: the Assembly, that elected body created by Dalby Bedford from among the small freeholders, would soon count for nothing in the face of the big planters' new wealth and power. Henceforth, this flagship of the Americas would be controlled by the men who owned the most land and the most slaves.
The worst part of all, she told herself, was that Briggs' celebration would probably last till dawn. Though the banquet was over now, the ball was about to commence. And after that, Briggs had dramatically announced, there would be a special preview of his new sugarworks, the first on the island.
In hopes of reinforcing her spirits, she took another sip of Canary wine, then lifted her glass higher, to study the room through its wavy refractions. Now Briggs seemed a distorted, comical pygmy as he ordered the servants to pass more bottles of kill-devil down the table, where the planters and their wives continued to slosh it into their pewter tankards of lemon punch. After tonight, she found herself thinking, the whole history of the Americas might well have to be rewritten. Barbados would soon be England's richest colony, and unless the Assembly held firm, these few greedy Puritans would seize control. All thanks to sugar.
Right there in the middle of it all was Hugh Winston, looking a little melancholy and pensive. He scarcely seemed to notice as several toasts to his health went round the table—salutes to the man who'd made sugar possible. He obviously didn't care a damn about sugar. He was too worried about getting his money.
As well he should be, she smiled to herself. He'll never see it. Not a farthing. Anybody could tell that Briggs and the Council hadn't the slightest intention of settling his sight bills. He didn't impress them for a minute with those pretty Spanish pistols in his belt. They'd stood up to a lot better men than him. Besides, there probably weren't two thousand pounds in silver on the whole island.
Like all the American settlements, Barbados' economy existed on barter and paper; everything was valued in weights of tobacco or cotton. Metal money was almost never seen; in fact, it was actually against the law to export coin from England to the Americas. The whole Council together couldn't come up with that much silver. He could forget about settling his sight bills in specie.
"I tell you this is the very thing every man here'll need if he's to sleep nights." Briggs voice cut through her thoughts. He was at the head of the table, describing the security features of his new stone house. "Mind you, it's not yet finished." He gestured toward the large square staircase leading up toward the unpainted upper floors. "But it's already secure as the Tower of London."
She remembered Briggs had laid the first stone of his grand new plantation house in the weeks after his return from Brazil, in anticipation of the fortune he expected to make from sugar, and he had immediately christened it "Briggs Hall." The house and its surrounding stone wall were actually a small fortress. The dining room where they sat now was situated to one side of the wide entry foyer, across from the parlor and next to the smoky kitchen, a long stone room set off to the side. There were several small windows along the front and back of the house, but these could all be sealed tight with heavy shutters—a measure as much for health as safety, since the planters believed the cool night breeze could induce dangerous chills and "hot paroxysms."