Dedication

  For my ancestors Alexander and Mahalia Lloyd and Dean and Mariah Edwards

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Book I

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Book II

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Book III

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Book IV

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Epilogue

  A Note From the Author

  Bibliographical Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Rita Williams-Garcia

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Patience. There is no story without history.

  Ante 1678

  BEFORE THE SPREAD OF SMALLPOX AND INFLUENZA, before the land was claimed in the name of a French king, before the land and its abundant rivers passed from French to Spanish to French hands, the land, the boot of the territory, thrived with Native peoples as diverse as its soil, trees, vegetation, waterways, and creatures. The people who populated the land thrived! The Caddo to the west, the Tunica-Biloxi to the northeast, the Natchez at its heart, the Atakapa and the Chitimacha to the south, and the Muskogee, the Choctaw, and the Houma to the east. And throughout the land, the Alibamu, the Apalachee, the Bayogoula, the Chickasaw, the Coushatta, the Ouachita, the Quapaw, the Quinipissa, the Yatasi, the Yazoo, and many more. This fertile land, with its wide southern mouth, surging rivers, still lagoons, bayous, swamps, and marshes couldn’t be kept to itself, for to follow the great river called Messipi by the Anishinabe people was to find the land and its wealth. So the French, the Acadians, then the Spaniards came by the hundreds, and then thousands. Like the river that carried them, they couldn’t be stopped. They learned the land from its diverse people, exchanged gifts, and negotiated the ownership. Yes. Some native to the land remained and brought their cultures into a rapid mixing of French, Spanish, African, and Caribbean people. But many were pushed into the shadows, the marshes, and the piney woods, and many were ultimately removed from the land.

  While the land changed hands, finally, from Napoleon Bonaparte to Thomas Jefferson, one Bayard Guilbert, who had fled the Haitian Revolution with his wife, had secured a narrow tract of land to begin his life yet again. Although the land was granted to him, it didn’t hurt that he offered a bit of gold to the governor’s clerk for his administrative trouble. The land grant was about twelve hundred acres, wedged between wealthier planters. Those acres were not as much as he had owned in the former Saint-Domingue, but they were enough to grow and rotate sugarcane, a decent plot of cotton, some timber, and tobacco near the river’s banks. Here, he gave himself and his generations the greatest gift he could afford: he made himself anew in this country, la Louisiane. Like a pig rooting in the dirt for turnips, he could sniff his fortune in the soil without having to till or clear the fields. Before enslaved people, mules, horses, cattle, wagons, plows, and cast iron kettles were purchased, or a house facing the river was erected, “Vié Pè,” as the Black Creoles called him, or “Ol’ Pap,” as the Africans called him, tasted the promise of cane juice, hogsheads of molasses, and golden-brown crystal in his clay-rich soil. Although he might have been no more than a yeoman farmer in France, his birthplace, Bayard Guilbert would make himself a lord on this moist earth, as he had done in Saint-Domingue—the land his former slaves and now the emancipated Black men and women call “Ayiti.” Long after Bayard Guilbert was gone, the grandchildren of the Africans, Caribbeans, and coloreds on the Louisiana plantation called their children inside after darkness fell, saying the old planter still walked barefoot, stepping on the little things in the way of his big feet. “Run quick! Run quick! Ol’ Pap walk de earth!” or “Galopé, piti! Galopé! Vié Pè apé maché la tè! Vié Pè apé maché la tè! Be ware!”

  As a young man in France, he couldn’t marry his love, the daughter of a vineyard owner, for he was a nobody, young and hardworking. But through time in Saint-Domingue, his brown crystals by the hogshead gained him substantial prosperity.

  Bayard Guilbert had plans to return triumphantly to France and claim the object of his affection. Through associates, he learned that the daughter of the vineyard owner had married, given birth to a girl, and then, eight years later, had died. Bayard Guilbert wouldn’t be stopped by death. If he couldn’t have the woman, he would have her daughter. Kidnap the girl, if necessary. Time. Distance. Impossibility. These things didn’t matter to Bayard. He worked each day with the daughter of his love in mind. He bided his time. The girl was now thirteen. He braved seafaring pirates and returned to France to take his prize. Through careful inquiries he learned that in the wake of the French Revolution, the girl had become a discarded remnant of the queen’s court. She was within his grasp! He went about finding her.

  At that time Bayard was but thirty-five. His suntanned face made him stand out among French men on the streets of Paris, but where he was not fair and handsome, he was virile and formidable.

  He found an inn, a bath, and suitable clothing. Not attire so grand he’d look like a mongrel in a poodle’s collar.

  Bayard wisely dispatched a person who could inquire further among social circles he was not comfortable in. It was still dangerous. The blood of King Louis XVI hadn’t satisfied the people. The Terror and revolutionary thirst were in the air. Blood. Blood. Blood.

  But what of the girl? Thirteen. Perhaps an improvement upon her mother? It didn’t matter. Bayard Guilbert was fixed on his new object. This girl. She would compensate him for what he had been denied in his youth. Second, her French blood, her association with the very thing he despised, the aristocracy, would erase his humble background, and his children’s children would never be denied entry into society or looked down upon. Yes. He would have her.

  1793

  Bayard paid a poor farmer handsomely for a perfect head of cabbage. Perfect in color, size, and shape. He then cut the head from its neck in one clean blow and sharpened the hardened neck’s rim with his knife. He hired a broker of sorts and gave the man instructions on how to present the gift. She is a child; she would like a gift and a game. He had his broker purchase a satin box from a fancy milliner. His broker asked no questions and placed the cabbage in the box with its neck facing up and tied it neatly with a wide satin ribbon. A note, dictated by Bayard, and improved upon and handwritten by the broker, was to be given to the girl. Bayard Guilbert possessed neither persuasive charm nor social grace and couldn’t risk frightening the girl with his illiterate scrawl and his gruff manner; he relied solely on the broker to obtain his life’s object.

  A brief meeting at the convent where the girl had been deposited was arranged between her and the broker. The sneer the girl gave the broker said this meeting wouldn’t be long or an easy one. The broker smiled anyway, introduced himself, and asked if she was Sylvie Bernardin de Maret Dacier of the Bernardin de Maret vineyard.

  “I am,” she snapped. She looked down at the box in his hands. “Is this from the Family?” she asked of the box. He noted she wasn’t demure or hopeful, like a poor child, but that she had asked assuredly, if not accusingly, with the scrutiny of a grand inquisitor.

  “No, mademoiselle,” he said. “I am here for Monsieur Bayard Guilbert, who sends you this gift.” If it was Bayard’s design to enchant this Sylvie Bernardin with the box, he had miscalculated. The broker extended the box to her and then laid it on the table, since she wouldn’t take it from his hands.

  “Hmph,” was all Sylvie said. She untied the ribbon, lifted the satin-covered lid, and peered down her small but pointed beak of a nose at the cabbage, still green and perfect. She looked at the broker and placed the lid back on the box, dismissing
him with dispassion. “Good day, monsieur.”

  “Mademoiselle,” the broker said. “You are too hasty.”

  “Hasty? I’ve given you more than you or your master can repay. Even now, I overspend my courtesy.”

  She turned to leave, but he rushed ahead to block her exit. He had counted on the money Guilbert promised, and this snit of a girl was not enough to keep him from it.

  He bowed before her, clasping his hands. “Humblest of all pardons, Mademoiselle Bernardin de Maret Dacier. My master asks that you closely examine the contents in hand. I beg you, mademoiselle. It will be the worst for me if you refuse.”

  She was miffed, but it was also true that she was bored, having been confined for nearly two years in the convent for her safety and separated from her dearest friend, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte.

  Sylvie huffed through her nostrils, a sign she had relented; removed the lid from the box; and took the cabbage head. Her expression of impertinence and boredom hadn’t changed.

  The broker read her face and spoke quickly. “My master only asks that you run your finger swiftly along the cut stem.” He demonstrated the gesture in the air.

  Sylvie huffed again, fluttering her eyelashes before doing as the broker had demonstrated. She ran her finger swiftly around the hardened edge. She drew blood, dropped the cabbage, then sucked her bloody finger.

  The broker said, “My master commanded me to say, ‘Better to stick your finger than lose your head.’” Clearly, he had her. At the least, he had succeeded in wiping away her impertinence.

  “Mademoiselle Sylvie Bernardin de Maret Dacier, you are an orphan, no longer under the protection of the Royal Family. Monsieur Bayard Guilbert is the lord of profitable sugar plantations in the New World and he sends me to make his offer of protection and marriage. Do you accept?”

  At thirteen, she knew it was improper for a girl to decide her own fate, especially in affairs of marriage, even with the smell of spilled blood in the streets. In good times she had expected a proper negotiation for her dowry—a prosperous vineyard and manor house with so many cottages, a fair annual income, and her mother’s jewelry. While she didn’t expect the same royal situation due Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, her imprisoned friend, she was certain to receive an advantageous negotiation on her behalf. But hastily she must decide: convent, guillotine, or plantation lord’s wife? For the moment, she was safe, hidden in the convent in a novice’s habit. But even she had heard the shouts for blood in the streets. And for how long would she be safe?

  The broker smiled. He had her answer. Without intending to, Sylvie touched her neck.

  He held out his hand. “You must come now.”

  She stood firm and crossed her arms. “No,” she said. “First, he must register me as his wife. The vineyard must stay with my family. And I must see the contract.”

  He couldn’t believe her demands. Her mouth. “Are you blind to the thirst for blood? There is no time for a contract.”

  “Then there is no bride.”

  He didn’t know which he feared more, this thirteen-year-old girl or his master. He wanted to slap her, but he dared not touch her.

  The broker changed his tone. “I will do as you ask, mademoiselle, but what you ask will take time. Please be ready to leave when I call tomorrow, or the next day.”

  “Come with the marriage contract in hand. You tell your master I can read and will read it carefully. And for the marriage contract I am Sylvie Bernardin de Maret Dacier.” She recited her date of birth, the name of the convent, the names of her parents and grandparents, the name of the vineyard and its region. She made him repeat everything back, her arms crossed, her brow lifted in complete insolence. Then she sent him on his way.

  Sylvie’s heart remained proud, and she even congratulated herself on delivering her demands. That wave of triumph, however, dissolved swiftly. The nun who served her bread, potatoes, and green vegetables that evening relayed to Sylvie a horrific sight that left her shaken. A young girl, believed to be a friend of the court, had been dragged away screaming for her life.

  Although hungry, Sylvie could not eat.

  Two days later the broker returned with a sheet of rolled-up paper and a plain dress. One fit for the scullery maid’s daughter in the queen’s country home. It was not the gown of a nobleman’s daughter. Sylvie was put off by the look of it—a heavy linen dress, too big for a girl with buds for breasts and barely hips.

  The broker anticipated her expression and said, “It isn’t safe to walk the streets in high fashion.”

  Yes, she thought. The young girl seized by the mob was likely dressed as a young lady and not a peasant. Still, Sylvie couldn’t help herself. Even when she took the garment, she gave the dress the look she had given the cabbage, the broker, and anyone for that matter she deemed beneath her notice. “Where does it come from?”

  All he could think of was how he wanted to be outside the bed chamber on her wedding night to enjoy her screams. This thought made him patient with her. “Mademoiselle, the master offers you protection and you care where the dress comes from. Change and leave all behind. As you can see, I have your contract,” he said, holding up the rolled paper.

  Sylvie appeared before the broker wearing the scullery maid’s dress and carrying a small, plain bag. The convent doors closed swiftly behind them, a reminder or omen. Once again, young Sylvie Bernardin de Maret Dacier had left one place of protection for another.

  She looked at her soon-to-be husband, who had not been waiting in a carriage but on foot. He was a man surely the age of the queen. Thirty-eight. Forty? Big. Tall. Sun-brown skin. Dressed well, but not what she expected in a lord. He didn’t try to make himself or the circumstance appealing. Though he had recently bathed, his hair clung to his face. His teeth jutted from his lips.

  “May I present Mademoiselle Sylvie Bernardin de Maret Dacier.” The broker turned to her. “Mademoiselle, Monsieur Bayard Guilbert.”

  She waited to hear more. Perhaps a title. Where he was born, or some sort of succession. The realization of it, that she would be absorbed into this giant of a man—and the smallness of his circumstance—made her both woozy and then sober.

  He bowed.

  With the doors closed behind her, she had no choice but to follow the man and the broker to the office of the registry. Once there, she asked the attending clerk to see the registry. It was all she could think of, the most pressing evidence of her existence. Who she was. Granddaughter of the baron of Bernardin de Maret vineyard; her father, Captain Dacier, a military nobleman with the favor of the court.

  “The vineyard. It must stay in the Bernardin de Maret Dacier line and pass to my issue. But you, my lord, cannot own it.”

  The broker’s eyes shone as he waited for the master to smack her down. This he would enjoy as much as if he had laid the blow himself.

  The master said, “Write it in the contract.” He neither smiled nor flinched.

  The young clerk, unlike the girl, feared the master. He wrote quickly while the girl peered over the proceedings, making sure her words were represented as she dictated them. “Monsieur clerk,” she said. “The vineyard is to be looked after by and profited to the convent until the heir appears.”

  Sylvie, acting on her own behalf, had played her card. Besides a printed contract filed with the registry and a secret token stashed on her person, she was out of luck and options. She was still a girl, and in her girlish heart she nursed a hope that members of the Royal Family would learn who she was attached to and obtain her release.

  The ink hadn’t dried on the writ of marriage contract when Bayard took the thick parchment paper and herded the girl to the church. He presented the paper. The priest said the words. She gave her pledge. He grunted his. The broker witnessed the ceremony, received his gold pieces, and was on his way.

  In the dark of night, the former Sylvie Bernardin de Maret Dacier followed Bayard Guilbert to the stinking part of town where the ship they would set sail in had been docked.

  On the ship, he said, “You have a bag. You were told to bring nothing.”

  “I’m to have nothing? Nothing of myself?”

  He didn’t reply. He had done his whoring during the day and settled his business and waited for the girl to be delivered to him. With her in his possession he had no reason to linger. Not even for a meal at an inn. When they were aboard the ship and she was queasy from its motion, he said, “There is no need for these old things from that old place. You are coming with me to Saint-Domingue. For you, a new place. A new life.”