The Right Hand Of The Father

chapter 3

“I think that might be your new Master’s man.” Captain Morris said as they stood on board the ship and watched as a mountain of a man in dark black silk came stalking to their berth, papers clutched in his hands. 

Alexander swallowed in fear. The servant looked angry. As if retrieving Alexander was not how he’d intended to spend the day and he’d spent long enough in servitude to know that when the senior servants were inconvenienced it was the younger ones — like Alexander— who’d feel the back of someone’s hand. And the servant waiting for him? He was monstrous. His shoulders easily twice the size of Captain Morris’s own broad ones. Hands like dinner plates. Easily a foot taller than Alexander’s own slight frame. He could see the muscles in the other man’s thighs shifting underneath his silk breeches even from the ship. He was so large that the stevedores hustling around him looked tiny in comparison. His hair was shorn close to his mahogany scalp and Alexander saw that he didn’t bother to wear the customary white whigs that most planters made their major domo’s wear when out in society.

 
“Sir.” Mr. Turner’s voice behind them caused Captain Morris to shift. “I’ve sent a boy for the harbor master and we’ll be ready to unload the cargo as soon as the surgeon’s cleared them.”

“Unload Alexander first.” Captain Morris’s voice was tight as he turned to Alexander. “I expect that crow down there is here for him, invite him aboard so we can see them off before we unload the rest of the wretches.”

“Sir,” Turner said and Alexander heard his footsteps hurrying away.

“Time for those irons now boy,” Captain Morris said.

Alexander tore his eyes away from the dark clad man standing on the docks, staring at the ship and turned to Morris. Held his wrists out for the man to shackle them.

“It will not be so bad,” Morris told him quietly as he fit the first cuff over Alexander’s wrist. “That one down there looks like he could be brought around.”

Alexander raised an eyebrow at him.

“Don’t look so suspicious,” Morris chuckled as he fit the other shackle onto Alexander’s wrist and locked it. “It’s those big ones with the constipated expressions that are always the first to fall over themselves for a pretty bit of arse and you’ve been a slave long enough to know that it isn’t a master who runs his house it’s the head boy doing the thinking and just lets the master think he’s making the decisions.”

Alexander nodded slowly. That was how it had been at Master Stevens. Alexander had run the office and Seneca had run the cane workers and Tacitus had kept a firm hand on the household.

“You get that one to fall for you?” Morris said, his voice quiet. “He’ll make sure you’ve got plenty to eat and will probably keep whatever old cock bought you drunk enough that he won’t be able to bother you overmuch. Just remember to play sweet and bat those pretty lashes.”

He slipped a hand down to cup Alexander’s arse and gave it a quick pinch. “You’ll be fine lad.” 

The first mate— Turner— cleared his throat behind them and Alexander slipped out of Morris’s grip. “Surgeon’s here and the servant Washington sent to retrieve the boy is ready to come on board.” 

“Well enough,” Morris said.

Alexander watched as a gangplank was slipped onto the deck and a short man with a moth-eaten red beard and a battered brown medical bag scurried up it, the servant stalking up behind him.

“Well well, Captain.” The short man said as he sat his bag on a cask and held out his hand. “You’ve arrived a day earlier than planned.”

“We had good winds and fair luck,” Morris said as he pushed Alexander toward the doctor. “See to him first, while you’re doing that Turner will round up the crew and then the rest of the goods.”