A Nest of Vipers Read Free Page B

knowing Mother Hopkins would make the best use of it and that Sam would like to see his mother’s letter when this was all over.
    ‘The captain noticed his seal gone that evening. He was like an ox that’s been driven wild at Smithfield by the ’prentices, and made the same amount of noise and mess, throwing his papers about and bellowing. The mistress was obviously well used to this behaviour. She told him it had probably been just misplaced or, worst of all, fallen down between the boards, and not to go so red in the face. His anxiety would be the death of him, she said, and made Miss Elizabeth sing to soothe him, which I think only made him worse.
    ‘That night Sam came to me where I slept in the kitchen. He was almost mad with worry and fear. “They are coming for me in the morning, Cato! And I have seen no progress! I can wait no longer – I will run tonight. You can open the front door for me and I can take a place on a boat.”
    ‘I begged him not to go. Captain Walker would know all the boats this side of the river and probably half the ones on the north side. So I pleaded with him: “Sam, please! You must trust Mother Hopkins. Captain Walker will put a price on your head if you run, and any boat man will turn you over soon as look at you!”
    ‘“You are but a baby who knows nothing!” he said, and I made to speak again but Mrs Leppings the cook came to see what the noise was. I stayed up all night in case I heard him try to leave. I was so vexed I bit my fingernails to the quick imagining Sam chained to the mast of a boat in the Thames and – in my worst nightmares – me alongside him, sailing for the plantations.’
    The Ordinary stopped writing to rest his hand. He stared at me through the bleak light, no doubt guessing I would rather be heading for the plantations than heading for the noose. Both options were hell, but one was a living one. I shifted uncomfortably and he picked up his quill once more.
    ‘So,’ I continued, sighing, ‘in the morning the doorbell sounded at eight thirty, and Sam was shaking. But it was a messenger from the bank, a boy dressed in the livery of the Commonwealth and Indies Trading Bank. A slight and slender boy, but the captain let him in and the boy winked at me. I had to keep my face straight because Addeline made such a very convincing boy.
    ‘She asked for the captain’s signature and waited while he signed and sealed (with his second-best seal) various letters. Then the messenger boy was gone. So when (I imagine) the Mistress Walker called for her little Sam to pour chocolate that morning at eleven, she called for ever, louder and louder and longer and longer until she must have been quite red in the face. Sam and I had slipped out of the back door into the street, where Mother Hopkins and Bella waited with a change of clothes for me, and Sam Caesar’s certificate of freedom signed and sealed that morning by the captain himself. By eleven o’clock me and Sam were sat snug in the upstairs room at the Nest of Vipers, Mother Hopkins counting the cash she’d made from selling my collar and clothes, Addy still dressed as a boy, her eyes saucer-wide as I told her about the house and the diamonds.
    ‘I read Sam the letter from his mother, her tender words hoping her son would find his freedom in England, but Sam snatched it away, pretending the tears I could see so plain were provoked by nothing but a bit of dust. Oh, I should mention, Sam can read himself now. Bella taught him, and Mother Hopkins bought the fine sedan chair he runs with Jack Godwin – you must have seen them, all in their wigs and livery. You won’t find sharper pair of young men! I had hoped, one day’ – I sighed and shifted on the hard stone floor – ‘that I would be like Sam.’
    I tried to stretch – my wrists were raw and oozing under the shackles – and yawned, making the Ordinary yawn too. He was still scratching away with his quill. Then, when I spoke no more, he looked up from