At Moonroy, a modest plantation on the South Carolina coast, the wagons are ready to roll to take the last of the harvest to CharlesTown.  The Monclairs -- Peter and the four children but not Christine who is expecting a child within a few weeks, -- are also going to town to see Andy off to attend university in Scotland.  

 

        After Pierre's death, Peter had not only taken over Moonroy but increased its earnings. Still, as he rode along Moonroy's fields and across the embankments that framed the rice paddies, Peter realized with dismay how much work still had to be done before winter--harness work, smithing, cutting shingles and staves, boiling pitch, repairing irrigation ditches and gates, all in addition to the never-ending chores of tending the pastures, the stables, the coops, the hog crawl, the spring house, the kitchen garden.

       Peter regretted having to forsake Moonroy for even one day, much less a week. But there were times when events demanded it. Andy's departure was one of those events, so Peter must go to CharlesTown to see his son safely aboard the ship. At least the time was suitable just now to be in CharlesTown, to visit friends, to discuss and hear discussed the latest British outrage. . . .     He must not worry about Christine. She was safe with Patience at Moonroy. The child was not due for another six or eight weeks.

       Christine! How the two faces in the gold frames would have loved Christine! Just as they had hated Emily. A puling, pasty female, old Pierre had called her, without enough life between her legs to spawn a single child. Thank God there had been no children!

          "You should have more of the pirate in you, mon pauvre frère," Peter's sister Clarice used to lament during those grim years. "God has spit on you with that woman, mon pauvre frère. You were too young, and she is too British."

             "Or we are too French," Peter would sigh. . . .

      Christine was the sunshine that chased away the dark memory of the swamp witch. There was a glow about Christine, a love of people and of life that radiated gently around her . . .   That first time he saw her he had stared at her, imagining that God had chosen one of the prettiest angels, done up her golden hair in the French fashion of the day, dressed her slender curves in pale blue wool, and set her down before Peter as if saying, "I am well pleased with you, Peter. Here is your recompense." From that moment, Peter could not imagine life without her.

 

Because Andy will be gone several years, his father, Peter is letting Andy be in charge of taking the wagons to CharlesTown.

 

       It was important for a boy turning man that he be allowed to do things of importance. Peter's own father had never understood that, which is why Peter understood it so well.  Old Pierre Monclair had never trusted his own son with anything important. For Pierre Monclair there had been only one way of doing things, his way, the pirate's way. . . . So Peter had left Andy to be the man in charge all by himself. Andy would see that the wagons arrived safely, and Old Turner would see that Andy arrived safely. Between the oldest son and the oldest slave, the last harvest shipment was in good hands.

 

Andy, age 15, was impatient to get started, lest his father try to take over what he himself knew he could do perfectly well.  But now the line of wagons are starting off to town.

 

         Andy turned on the wagon seat and looked back.  Another few feet and he would no longer be able to see the solid, weather-beaten house of cypress shingles and brick nor the window to his own room in the plain-faced southern wing.  He knew it all so well . . . . Let it be just the same when I come back! Let Moonroy live forever! . . . . When I return, Davey will be my age and maybe as tall.  Celeste will be a woman, a beauty with suitors a-courting. Fragile little Claudette will be Celeste's age.  The baby I won't have seen will be the same age as Claudette.    And Patience will be Patience.

       

In town Andy will stay with the Moultries and visit with his other two close friends, Dan Hart and Tommy Lynch, Jr. who will all secretly join the 1765 midnight raid on the Fort to seize the Stamp paper and send it back to England.

 

         Patience was a Barbados woman, a slave born of slaves, a young girl bred to her first man when she was fourteen and later shipped to CharlesTown because Benjamin, the son she bore, had a twisted foot.  In the West Indies it was cheaper to buy another slave than to raise one, and to raise one who would never be sound or keep one who bore unsound babes was folly. . . .

     When Peter Monclair proposed marriage to the daughter of Madame Marguerite, it was decided that Patience and her son should accompany the bride to Moonroy. . . It was not, Patience had explained to Benjamin, like being sold.  They were going with Missy Christine, who had always been their mistress, and they would still be her people, and they would go together. . . . . . Benjamin had soon grown accustomed to Moonroy.  In time he was apprenticed to learn the prestigious smithy trade, for in spite of his twisted foot, Benjamin grew tall with the powerful chest and arms of his father. . . .  

       Thanks to Master Peter, in a world full of troubles, hers was a life of good fortune.  Still, there were times as she looked out over the ocean, her duties pushed to the rim of her mind, when her inner thoughts roamed backwards, past Moonroy, past Missy Christine growing up gently in the dress shop, past even her own girlhood in Barbados.  Her thoughts drifted back to what she would never know, to Africa, to a world of her own people, whoever they might be. Who indeed were her people? They existed somewhere inside her, somewhere in a part of her too remote to remember, a place where her soul dwelled, created from out those people.

 

Patience is keeping the three younger children down at the beach and out from underfoot until it is time for them to leave for town.

 

      "Such a pretty castle," mourned little Claudette. "I was bringing shells for it."

      "Save your shells, Claudette," said Celeste. "When we get back from CharlesTown, we'll build another. The biggest one ever."

      "But Andy won't get to see it." Davey scuffed his way up towards the dunes. "I don't see why Andy has to go away."

      "When you're his age, you'll go, too," Celeste answered, quite aware that with Andy gone, she would be the oldest and expected to explain things, just as Andy had always explained things to her. "On a ship. Just like Andy. And you can go to school in England. Or in Scotland like Andy if you'd rather."

     "If I go in a ship, it will be a pirate's ship," proclaimed Davey, "likeGranpère's.  And I'll wear a golden earring and I'll capture the British and feed them to the crows."

         Patience stared down at him.

       "Well," amended Davey, his grandeur abated by the stare of disapproval from beneath the bright turban, "maybe I'll just turn them loose again. After they've had a good scare."

     "That might be wiser," agreed Patience in her deep-toned, resonant voice.

  

Patience also has a daughter, Ruby, but she had not welcomed the twice-escaped Hambro as father to her grandchildren.  In spite of that, Peter purchased him.   

      "I want freedom," said Hambro when they caught him again and whipped him five lashes, a light punishment for a second escape, but Mr. Henry Laurens was given to leniency.

     "Tell me you want warm clothes against the winter chill," Patience had scolded, her long-ago anger rekindled.  "Food in your belly, a mug of rum in the moonlight, my daughter Ruby in your bed.  But freedom?   What kind of thing is that to want?"

       Hambro had answered with fire in his eyes.

       "Without it, the rest tastes of ashes."

     For all the good it did him!  Sold again, this time to an Up Country man come to CharlesTown for supplies.  To be taken this time where he'd never see his Ruby nor his son Jason newborn.  Freedom!  A weeping wife, a fatherless son.  So Master Peter arranged to purchase Hambro and bring him to Moonroy. 

       "I still want my freedom," Hambro had said before he went into the whitewashed cubicle on the slave street with Ruby. . . . .

       As for the advice of Peter's well-meaning friends, they had not grown up with a father who had been a pirate and measured men differently than most.

      For a minute Peter watched the strong black torso bend and straighten and bend again as it swung the sheaves against the wooden planks. Suddenly Hambro, with the instinct of a wild animal, or perhaps, mused Peter, with the instinct of a hunter of wild animals, sensed he was being watched. Without changing rhythm, the defiant dark eyes stared into Peter's.

       With some men, when you looked into their eyes, it was as if you saw into their soul. In Hambro's eyes Peter could see only a wall hiding the soul. At least, thought Peter, he's not scowling. And he's working at a steady pace. Maybe I wasn't such a fool after all.

 

      Peter's most recent gamble was an expensive Holstein bull, a purebred with no colonial mixtures in the bloodline which would arrive any day in CharlesTown to be herded back to Moonroy by Jeremy.

 

      "A bull, Peter, is a high risk gamble," Henry Laurens had warned him. "What if it sickens on the high seas and dies?  Or finds our climate in Carolina too humid and sickens and dies?  What if it's an intractable bull that some rascally Brit has palmed off on you?"

            Peter had smiled. "I have Jeremy."

          Henry had nodded. "That does improve your odds."

        Jeremy was from Gambia. Pierre Monclair, less than a year before he was laid to rest beside Amarette, had purchased Jeremy. The boy was only about twelve years old, owned by a Virginia planter who didn't know what he had in a Gambia man.

       But old Pierre Monclair knew. Pierre Monclair, pirate turned planter, prided himself on knowing men. He had lived a life that required it.  Pierre Monclair had sailed the coasts of Africa, raiding the Europeans . . .and trading with the African natives for supplies.

       "One tribe is as different from another as a Frenchman is different from a Greek, or a Dane from an Italian, and good and bad in all of them.  If you would understand the world, Peter, you must weigh each man for his human worth."

       Old Pierre Monclair understood, as the Virginia planter who first owned Jeremy did not, the genuine worth of a Gambia man. The Gambia River in Africa was home of some of the best herdsmen in the world.  By the time Jeremy was eighteen, other plantations might boast grander houses with finer furnishings or more extensive acreage, but none could claim better horses or cattle than those raised on Moonroy.

  

     When they arrive in CharlesTown, Peter will stay with his good friend, Henry Laurens, and Jeremy who is to take the new bull back to Moonroy, is with him.

 

        "Am I also to stay with Mr. Laurens?" Jeremy asked Peter as they rode through streets where lanterns were being lit to wink up at the scattered stars.

      "Is that a problem," asked Peter, "because of Hambro?" It was, after all, Henry Laurens who had caught the twice-escaped Hambro, had him whipped with five lashes, and sold him to an Up Country trader.

       "Hambro?" laughed Jeremy. "He tells us we are only cattle in the field.  I tell him I'm a Gambia man and don't graze in fields. I live in my own cubicle, with my own clothes and a blanket, and I do all the looking after the stock."

       Peter, knowing Jeremy well, knew that for all his ready laughter, the Gambia man usually had a point to his conversation.

     "Are you saying that Hambro's causing problems on the slave street?"

       Jeremy shook his head. "He doesn't dare.  Deep down, he's afraid you'd sell him off.  So he just argues with everyone.  Even with Patience."

       Peter laughed. "Not for long with Patience, I wager."

     "Not for long," agreed Jeremy. "Hambro has a fine wife.  Ruby is a fine woman, and she gave Hambro a fine son.  And now a baby girl."

         Peter shrugged. "That's not enough for some men."

     "Work that is not too hard, a full plate of food, and a good woman who gives you healthy children, that is much for any man to have." Jeremy paused.  "Mr. Laurens has some fine slaves."

      Now Peter understood the point of the conversation.   Henry Laurens apparently had some slave who was a fine woman, a woman Jeremy would like to have as wife.  Well, Peter might need to look into that. Jeremy, sitting so easily astride Sunfire, certainly deserved a woman of his choice.  For a time, Peter thought Jeremy might couple with Ruby, but somehow, while Ruby was in CharlesTown apprenticed to Madame Marguerite, Hambro had caught her eye instead.

  

     Among the slaves at Laurens is Diamond, inherited from Henry's father-in-law,who opens the gate for the visitors although that is not what he usually does.          

     "Fine animals," said Diamond as he walked alongside Jeremy towards the stables and the quarters at the back of the property. "Purchased?"

       "Bred on Moonroy," answered Jeremy, trying not to sound too proud, because Diamond was a man of importance.

       Diamond heard and understood. "You raised them, I take it.  A Gambia man?" He smiled at Jeremy, a broad, knowing smile.

         Jeremy nodded.  But he did not dwell on the praise, because it was his turn to show that he knew he was speaking with Mr. Laurens' lumber man.

       "Are you between lumber cuts?" he asked. "You're not too often at the town house."

       Diamond's eyes flickered, acknowledging the recognition that he, too, had importance.   "There is much to complete before the winter months. I am to collect more workers from the new slaves that Master Henry purchased."

       The words were said with indifference, a man used to being given responsibilities, but there was a razor edge of displeasure in his voice.  Jeremy heard and understood.  Jeremy had the good fortune to work only with new livestock, but Diamond must work with new slaves. 

     Jeremy found it almost unbearable even to pass by the slave market or see a cargo of new slaves being paraded onto the wharves. The bewildered faces, sullen faces, angry faces, sick and dying faces, the sounds of rage and fear and pain in unknown tongues, the whips, the leg irons, the iron collars brought back memories that no man wanted to relive.

       Jeremy had been captured by the Dahomey when he was ten and sold to the Britishers in their "castle" at the river mouth where they bargained with the native tribes for captives and loaded the human booty on a waiting ship.  Jeremy did not think longer on that, nor on his terror at the sight of the pale, ugly, lipless crew that he feared intended to eat him, nor the brutal, bloody punishments at sea and on land that he had seen his first year as a slave.  What was the point of making himself re-live any of it, even in the faded reality of memory?

       When he was twelve and working the tobacco fields, he had been purchased for Moonroy by Master Pierre himself, because the old pirate knew the value of a man from the Gambia River and liked the look in Jeremy's eye.  In spite of himself, Jeremy had liked the look in the old pirate's eye.  The old pirate was the first human, white or black, to look Jeremy in the eye since his capture.

 

      Celeste and Claudette will stay with their grandmother, the petite Marguerite Balfour, who arrived years ago with her infant daughter and little else except the mysterious jewels and is now a most prosperous seamstress with several slaves as seamstresses including the very rotund Hannah whose best talent is making cookies.  Aunt Clarice and their cousin Geneviève will also come to visit.

 

       Ever so gently so that not even an invisible, whisper-thin smear might remain, Celeste ran one finger over the pink silk. Usually, she didn't much like pink. But this particular pink stirred memories of a sun coming up over the ocean on a clear summer morning to spread golden rays across the water in a pathway from the far horizon to the waves breaking and flowing onto her own ten toes. She could reach her fingers into the foamy edges of the water to feel its softness and find only wetness and air.

      She could run her finger over the silk, though, and the softness stayed, to be felt again and again. Of all the bolts of cloth tumbled onto the great table in the fitting room in her Granmère's house, none glowed like the sunrise pink silk.

     "Aren't they beautiful?" sighed Geneviève. "Granmère hasn't had cloth from China for ever so long.  It has to come such a long ways."

       "The people must be very beautiful in China," said Celeste, "to wear cloth like this. At least, the ones who can afford it.  But then, they don't have to pay its long journey, the way we do."

       "And they don't have to buy it from the British," added Aunt Clarice with a toss of her auburn hair. "William says they are consumed by the demon greed. Outrageous, the percentage they add to everything. No wonder pirates do such a good business!"

       "Piracy is a matter of viewpoint," said Madame Marguerite. She walked around the great table, examining each silk, feeling it with practiced fingers, scrutinizing the weave, judging the sheen, testing how quickly it might wrinkle, how well it would hold for the needle.  "A merchant," she said, nodding with approval at a green silk, "can be just as ruthless without fear of hanging. Especially a London merchant."

         "Granpère Pierre used to say that it would be a better world if they hanged the British merchants from the yardarms of a pirate ship," said Celeste.

    Madame Marguerite regarded Celeste with snapping black eyes. "Where do you learn such things, girl?"

          "Old Turner," answered Celeste promptly.

        "True enough," said Aunt Clarice. "Old Turner loves to tell the children about Father, just as he loved to tell Peter and me. And we never tired of listening, even though the tales were far from gentle. Peter would rather the children not hear such bloody accounts of their family tree. He's cautioned Old Turner about it. But Old Turner says the children should know their kin, or they'll be like him, 'adrift on life without knowing where his soul was born.'"

 

 Peter's sister, Clarice, had married a preacher, William Tremaine. 

 

     The old pirate had never understood why a daughter of his should favor, over any other suitor, a preaching man, a man dedicated to the God Pierre had so long ago forsaken.  Peter, on the other hand, admired William's strength, not a pirate's kind of strength, not a sword-swinging, shouting, stamping-about strength, but a strength that kept William doggedly courting Clarice in spite of her father. Old Pierre might have thought better of his son-in-law had he lived to see William and Peter march off together to fight the Cherokees.

 

     These are some of the people in the story of Moonroy that spans the years from 1765 when the winds of rebellion are already blowing across the South, through three British attacks on CharlesTown which falls at the third assault in 1780, and ends in December 1782 when at long last the British leave after their brutal occupation.