A Nest of Vipers Read Free Page A

nothing for a long minute on account of having forgotten I’m now Sam and not Cato. “Sam, our guests!” Then she says to Lady Stapleton, “He is newly come from Africa, directly from the jungle . . . He doesn’t speak a word . . .” She looks at me with mock pity. “Captain Walker says he is the son of a prince and was brought up by leopards!”
    ‘I stood up straight, and I would have laughed if Miss Elizabeth hadn’t been pinching me hard – to see if I’d squeal, I reckoned. I had to feel pity for the girl – there she was being lined up for the Stapleton boy, just like me at the auction. I looked hard at him. It would not be a barrel of laughs being married to him. But at least her collar was made of diamonds, and she did not seem to mind. I think she was set on his fortune, not on his looks or manners, and in view of her pinching, her manners were of the same rank as his.’
    I paused, trying to make myself more comfortable, although that was impossible. My final hours were no luxury.
    ‘Sam had been put to work in the garden and bade not to leave the house or grounds. I could see him through the window, turning over the cold earth. He ate with us in the kitchen but as I was supposed to be mute, nothing was ever said. He was nervous though, I could tell.
    ‘At night I slept down in the kitchen and talked to Sam then. I sprang the lock on my collar – they insisted I sleep in it – and resolved to take Sam’s letter. I tiptoed back up the stairs to the study. The lock was feeble and the door opened easily, as did Captain Walker’s bureau. Inside, however, there were so many letters I lost all faith that I would find it . . . Letters from moneylenders and ships’ companies, sums of money flying back and forth across various oceans and through various banks. But eventually I came across the very same. It was
written on behalf of a Mistress Juno Walker of Spanish Town, Jamaica, by the Reverend Butler
. Juno, I thought to myself – Sam’s mother. I knew the fashion for giving us darker-skinned people such fanciful names as have come out of legends or history. For example, Cato is not – as Addeline would tease me – the king of Cats – but the finest Roman that ever lived. Although as you see, sir, I am not myself a Roman, and neither, I expect, was this Juno, who probably had a priest write for her and, by her words, beg that her son should be treated better than she was. And Walker? Well, don’t most slaves wear their masters’ names, whether or not they wish to?
    ‘Back to the letter . . . The writing was faded and old. I held it up to the window where the moonlight streamed in over Greenwich Park and thanked Mother Hopkins for teaching me the reading as I reckons that sometimes it is more valuable and just as useful as the best set of lock picks money can buy.
    ‘The next few days dragged as slow as the Cheapside night watchman, and he has such a limp that he can hardly make it down St Paul’s Churchyard. The household was busy enough: Captain Walker with his shareholdings, Mistress and Miss Walker with the wedding that had been brokered with the Stapleton family. I stood in the corner of the drawing room with my silver tray, saying nothing. They treated me much as they would a lap dog: from the mistress it was soft words, from Miss Elizabeth pinches, and from the captain slaps and kicks. I felt sorry for Sam having such a father and was glad I had none. I was looking forward to the day I could walk out of their house and take off the torturous silver collar for good. I was only sorry I wouldn’t see the look on the captain’s face when he realized what was happening.
    ‘I busied myself with secreting little things they wouldn’t miss: a hatpin with a pearl, a couple of silver spoons, and the captain’s seal, which he used for business correspondence. I tossed them all over the wall when I knew Addy was waiting by the park, as a little taster. I threw the letter over too,