A Mercy (2 page)

In short, 1682 and Virginia was still a mess. Who could keep up with the pitched battles for God, king and land? Even with the relative safety of his skin, solitary traveling required prudence. He knew he might ride for hours with no company but geese flying over inland waterways, and suddenly, from behind felled trees a starving deserter with a pistol might emerge, or in a hollow a family of runaways might cower, or an armed felon might threaten. Carrying several kinds of specie and a single knife, he was a juicy target. Eager to be out of this colony into a less precarious but personally more repellent one, Jacob urged the mare to a faster pace. He dismounted twice, the second time to free the bloody hindleg of a young raccoon stuck in a tree break. Regina munched trail-side grass while he tried to be as gentle as possible, avoiding the claws and teeth of the frightened animal. Once he succeeded, the raccoon limped off, perhaps to the mother forced to abandon it or more likely into other claws.

Galloping along, he was sweating so heavily his eyes salted and his hair matted on his shoulders. Already October and Regina was drenched and snorting. No such thing as winter down here, he thought, and he might as well have been in Barbados, which he had considered once, although its heat was rumored to be more lethal than this. But that was years ago and the decision was null before he could act on it. An uncle he had never met from the side of his family that had abandoned him died and left him one hundred and twenty acres of a
dormant patroonship in a climate he much preferred. One with four distinct seasons. Yet this mist, hot and rife with gnats, did not dampen his spirits. Despite the long sail in three vessels down three different bodies of water, and now the hard ride over the Lenape trail, he took delight in the journey. Breathing the air of a world so new, almost alarming in rawness and temptation, never failed to invigorate him. Once beyond the warm gold of the bay, he saw forests untouched since Noah, shorelines beautiful enough to bring tears, wild food for the taking. The lies of the Company about the easy profit awaiting all comers did not surprise or discourage him. In fact it was hardship, adventure, that attracted him. His whole life had been a mix of confrontation, risk and placating. Now here he was, a ratty orphan become landowner, making a place out of no place, a temperate living from raw life. He relished never knowing what lay in his path, who might approach with what intention. A quick thinker, he flushed with pleasure when a crisis, large or small, needed invention and fast action. Rocking in the poorly made saddle, he faced forward while his eyes swept the surroundings. He knew the landscape intimately from years ago when it was still the old Swedish Nation and, later, when he was an agent for the Company. Still later when the Dutch took control. During and after that contest, there had never been much point in knowing who claimed this or that terrain; this or another outpost. Other than certain natives, to whom it all belonged, from one year to another any stretch might be claimed by a church, controlled by a Company or become the private property of a royal’s
gift to a son or a favorite. Since land claims were always fluid, except for notations on bills of sale, he paid scant attention to old or new names of towns or forts: Fort Orange; Cape Henry; Nieuw Amsterdam; Wiltwyck. In his own geography he was moving from Algonquin to Sesquehanna via Chesapeake on through Lenape since turtles had a life span longer than towns. When he sailed the South River into the Chesapeake Bay, he disembarked, found a village and negotiated native trails on horseback, mindful of their fields of maize, careful through their hunting grounds, politely asking permission to enter a small village here, a larger one there. He watered his horse at a particular stream and avoided threatening marshland fronting the pines. Recognizing the slope of certain hills, a copse of oak, an abandoned den, the sudden odor of pine sap—all of that was more than valuable; it was essential. In such ad hoc territory, Jacob simply knew that when he came out of that forest of pine skirting the marshes, he was, at last, in Maryland which, at the moment, belonged to the king. Entirely.

Upon entering this privately owned country, his feelings fought one another to a draw. Unlike colonies up and down the coast—disputed, fought over and regularly renamed; their trade limited to whatever nation was victor—the province of Maryland allowed trade to foreign markets. Good for planters, better for merchants, best for brokers. But the palatinate was Romish to the core. Priests strode openly in its towns; their temples menaced its squares; their sinister missions cropped up at the edge of native villages. Law, courts and trade were their exclusive domain and overdressed women in
raised heels rode in carts driven by ten-year-old Negroes. He was offended by the lax, flashy cunning of the Papists. “Abhor that arrant whore of Rome.” The entire class in the children’s quarter of the poorhouse had memorized those lines from their primer. “And all her blasphemies / Drink not of her cursed cup / Obey not her decrees.” Which did not mean you could not do business with them, and he had out-dealt them often enough, especially here where tobacco and slaves were married, each currency clutching its partner’s elbow. By sustained violence or sudden disease, either one was subject to collapse, inconveniencing everybody but the lender.

Disdain, however difficult to cloak, must be put aside. His previous dealings with this estate had been with the owner’s clerk while sitting on alehouse stools. Now, for some reason, he had been invited, summoned rather, to the planter’s house—a plantation called Jublio. A trader asked to dine with a gentleman? On a Sunday? So there must be trouble, he thought. Finally, swatting mosquitoes and on the watch for mud snakes that startled the horse, he glimpsed the wide iron gates of Jublio and guided Regina through them. He had heard how grand it was, but could not have been prepared for what lay before him. The house, honey-colored stone, was in truth more like a place where one held court. Far away to the right, beyond the iron fences enclosing the property and softened by mist, he saw rows of quarters, quiet, empty. In the fields, he reckoned, trying to limit the damage sopping weather had wrought on the crop. The comfortable smell of tobacco
leaves, like fireplaces and good women serving ale, cloaked Jublio like balm. The path ended at a small brick plaza, announcing a prideful entrance to a veranda. Jacob stopped. A boy appeared and, dismounting a bit stiffly, he handed over the reins, cautioning the boy.

“Water. No feed.”

“Yes, sir,” said the boy and turned the horse around, murmuring, “Nice lady. Nice lady,” as he led her away.

Jacob Vaark climbed three brick steps, then retraced them to stand back from the house and appraise it. Two wide windows, at least two dozen panes in each, flanked the door. Five more windows on a broad second story held sunlight glittering above the mist. He had never seen a house like it. The wealthiest men he knew built in wood, not brick, riven clapboards with no need for grand pillars suitable for a House of Parliament. Grandiose, he thought, but easy, easy to build in that climate. Soft southern wood, creamy stone, no caulking needed, everything designed for breeze, not freeze. Long hall, probably, parlors, chambers … easy work, easy living, but, Lord, the heat.

He removed his hat and wiped the sweat from his hairline with his sleeve. Then, fingering his soaking collar, he remounted the steps and tested the boot scraper. Before he could knock, the door was opened by a small, contradictory man: aged and ageless, deferential and mocking, white hair black face.

“Afternoon, sir.”

“Mr. Ortega is expecting me.” Jacob surveyed the room over the old man’s head.

“Yes, sir. Your hat, sir? Senhor D’Ortega is expecting you. Thank you, sir. This way, sir.”

Footfalls, loud and aggressive, were followed by D’Ortega’s call.

“Well timed! Come, Jacob. Come.” He motioned toward a parlor.

“Good day, sir. Thank you, sir,” said Jacob, marveling at his host’s coat, his stockings, his fanciful wig. Elaborate and binding as those trappings must be in the heat, D’Ortega’s skin was as dry as parchment, while Jacob continued to perspire. The condition of the handkerchief he pulled from his pocket embarrassed him as much as his need for it.

Seated at a small table surrounded by graven idols, the windows closed to the boiling air, he drank sassafras beer and agreed with his host about the weather and dismissed his apologies for making him endure it to come all this way. That said, D’Ortega swiftly got to business. Disaster had struck. Jacob had heard about it, but listened politely with a touch of compassion to the version this here client/debtor recounted. D’Ortega’s ship had been anchored a nautical mile from shore for a month waiting for a vessel, due any day, to replenish what he had lost. A third of his cargo had died of ship fever. Fined five thousand pounds of tobacco by the Lord Proprietarys’ magistrate for throwing their bodies too close to the bay; forced to scoop up the corpses—those they could find (they used pikes and nets, D’Ortega said, a purchase which itself cost two pounds, six)—and ordered to burn or bury them. He’d had to pile them in two drays (six shillings), cart them out to low land where saltweed and alligators would finish the work.

Does he cut his losses and let his ship sail on to Barbados? No, thought Jacob. A sloven man, stubborn in his wrongheadedness like all of the Roman faith, he waits in port for another month for a phantom ship from Lisbon carrying enough cargo to replenish the heads he has lost. While waiting to fill his ship’s hold to capacity, it sinks and he has lost not only the vessel, not only the original third, but all, except the crew who were unchained, of course, and four unsalable Angolans red-eyed with anger. Now he wanted more credit and six additional months to pay what he had borrowed.

Dinner was a tedious affair made intolerable by the awkwardness Jacob felt. His rough clothes were in stark contrast to embroidered silk and lace collar. His normally deft fingers turned clumsy with the tableware. There was even a trace of raccoon blood on his hands. Seeded resentment now bloomed. Why such a show on a sleepy afternoon for a single guest well below their station? Intentional, he decided; a stage performance to humiliate him into a groveling acceptance of D’Ortega’s wishes. The meal began with a prayer whispered in a language he could not decipher and a slow signing of the cross before and after. In spite of his dirty hands and sweat-limp hair, Jacob pressed down his annoyance and chose to focus on the food. But his considerable hunger shrank when presented with the heavily seasoned dishes: everything except pickles and radishes was fried or overcooked. The wine, watered and too sweet for his taste, disappointed him, and the company got worse. The sons were as silent as tombs. D’Ortega’s wife was a chattering magpie, asking pointless questions—How do you manage living in snow?—and making sense-defying
observations, as though her political judgment were equal to a man’s. Perhaps it was their pronunciation, their narrow grasp of the English language, but it seemed to Jacob that nothing transpired in the conversation that had footing in the real world. They both spoke of the gravity, the unique responsibility, this untamed world offered them; its unbreakable connection to God’s work and the difficulties they endured on His behalf. Caring for ill or recalcitrant labor was enough, they said, for canonization.

“Are they often ill, Madam?” asked Jacob.

“As they pretend, no,” said his hostess. “Scoundrels they are. In Portugal they never get away with this trickery.”

“They come from Portugal?” Jacob wondered if the serving woman understood English or if they cursed her only in Portuguese.

“Well, the Angola part of Portugal,” said D’Ortega. “It is the most amiable, beautiful land.”

“Portugal?”

“Angola. But, of course, Portugal is without peer.”

“We are there for four years,” added Mistress D’Ortega.

“Portugal?”

“Angola. But, mind you, our children are not born there.”

“Portugal, then?”

“No. Maryland.”

“Ah. England.”

As it turned out, D’Ortega was the third son of a cattleman, in line for nothing. He’d gone to Angola, Portugal’s
slave pool, to manage shipments to Brazil, but found promises of wealth quicker and more generously met farther abroad. The kick up from one kind of herding to another was swift and immensely enriching. For a while, thought Jacob. D’Ortega did not seem to be making a go of his relatively new station, but he had no doubt he would prevail somehow, as this invitation to dinner was designed to prove.

They had six children, two of whom were old enough to sit at table. Stone-quiet boys, thirteen and fourteen, wearing periwigs like their father as though they were at a ball or a court of law. His bitterness, Jacob understood, was unworthy, the result of having himself no survivors—male or otherwise. Now that his daughter Patrician had followed her dead brothers, there was no one yet to reap the modest but respectable inheritance he hoped to accumulate. Thus, tamping envy as taught in the poorhouse, Jacob entertained himself by conjuring up flaws in the couple’s marriage. They seemed well suited to each other: vain, voluptuous, prouder of their pewter and porcelain than of their sons. It was abundantly clear why D’Ortega was in serious debt. Turning profit into useless baubles, unembarrassed by sumptuary, silk stockings and an overdressed wife, wasting candles in midday, he would always be unable to ride out any setback, whether it be lost ship or ruined crop. Watching the couple, Jacob noticed that husband and wife never looked at each other, except for a stolen glance when the other looked elsewhere. He could not tell what was in those surreptitious peeks, but it amused him to divine the worst while he endured the foolish,
incomprehensible talk and inedible dishes. They did not smile, they sneered; did not laugh, giggled. He imagined them vicious with servants and obsequious to priests. His initial embarrassment about the unavoidable consequences of his long journey—muddy boots, soiled hands, perspiration and its odor—was dimmed by Mistress D’Ortega’s loud perfume and heavily powdered face. The only, if minor, relief came from the clove-smelling woman who brought the food.