He halted his men about fifty yards from the slaving party.

  “You are surrounded and your ship is taken!” he shouted, his booming quarterdeck voice carrying easily over the flat ground. “Surrender yourselves to Her Majesty’s justice!”

  Mungo stared. This time, his surprise was entirely unfeigned. Now that they had stopped, he could see the officer clearly.

  “Fairchild?”

  “Mungo St. John!” There was no surprise in Fairchild’s voice; he had anticipated this moment. They stared at each other across a hundred and fifty feet of mud. “In the name of all that is honorable and good, I implore you to surrender!”

  Mungo had no time to wonder what trick of fate had brought his old adversary here. The die was cast.

  “We surrender!”

  He threw down his rifle. The other men did likewise. The Africans in the coffle looked around as if they could not believe what was happening, while Fairchild advanced with his men. Mungo met his gaze head on, no sign of defeat in his yellow eyes.

  “You did the right thing,” said Fairchild.

  “You did not give me much choice.”

  Mungo nodded to the men surrounding him, then back to the Raven. Dozens more sailors had appeared on her deck, muskets at the ready.

  “But you have a choice now.” Fairchild’s men spread out, making a ring around the slave party. “God has given you one last chance. Give up this life you have made for yourself.”

  He thought he saw a shadow of regret cross Mungo’s face.

  “I did not choose this life,” Mungo said softly.

  “But you may choose to change it.”

  “No.”

  Fairchild thought he had misheard. Before he could think, a cry from beside him drew his attention away.

  “The ship!”

  His lieutenant was staring beyond the captives, across the flats to the river where the Raven was moored. Or rather, Fairchild saw, where she should have been moored. Instead of lying fast at anchor, she had somehow slipped her cable and was drifting downriver toward the sea.

  It took her prize crew completely by surprise. They dropped their weapons and scrambled for her rigging, trying to find the sheets and halyards on the unfamiliar ship so they could regain control. The mainsail dropped, but that only made the situation worse. The wind was coming from off the land, so that as it caught the sail it only added to the ship’s momentum downstream. Away from Fairchild.

  Fairchild turned to Mungo in horror. “What—?”

  In the few seconds he had been distracted, everything had changed. The slaves were no longer bound in a coffle. They had pulled off the sticks that yoked them together—which were not sticks at all, Fairchild realized, but rifles with bark tied to them. They brandished the guns at their erstwhile rescuers.

  “Don’t you understand?” Fairchild shouted. “We are here to rescue you!”

  Of course they could not comprehend him. In a split second, something he had said to Mungo that night at the Cambridge Union flashed back in his memory. Arguing with you is like arguing with the Devil himself. White is black, and black is white. And how else could you explain the terrible sight he saw now? Blacks, armed with modern rifles, turning them on the white men who had come to save them.

  The Africans fired. The Maeander’s men were taken completely off guard. Eight or nine of them went down, clutching wounds, or killed outright. Before the others could respond, Mungo’s crew grabbed the weapons they had thrown down and added a second volley.

  Fairchild’s numerical advantage had evaporated. Instead of a dozen men, he was now facing three times that number, all armed. The reinforcements on the Raven were drifting helplessly downriver. And the sudden onslaught from the Africans had leveled the field still further.

  One man was responsible for this. One man alone who could make Africans turn against their saviors, who could ruin Fairchild’s triumph yet again. With his sword in one hand and pistol in the other, Fairchild sought him out through the smoke and dust that swirled on the battlefield.

  The guns had fallen silent. There was no time to reload, even with the rapid Hall rifles. Some of the Punu used the stocks of their guns as clubs, while others pulled out the knives they had hidden under their loincloths, or revealed spears hidden as coffle sticks. Wisi picked up a boarding ax dropped by one of the dead sailors and whirled it over his head, driving back any man who came near.

  But British reinforcements were arriving. The men Fairchild had left on the embankment ran down to help their comrades. That gave the Royal Navy men a numerical advantage once more. Mungo and his fighters had to give ground, retreating toward the river. Soon they would be trapped against its banks.

  Fairchild saw Mungo’s broad figure and lunged toward him. One of the slavers—a white man in an extraordinary purple coat—tried to block Fairchild’s way, but Fairchild leveled the pistol and shot him in the face. The sound of the gun warned Mungo. He spun around, just in time to see Fairchild’s blade coming at him. He swayed out of the way, bringing up his own sword to parry. The blades rang together.

  The two men faced each other.

  “I will kill you, St. John!” shouted Fairchild.

  “So you keep saying.”

  Mungo put up his guard—but at that moment, one of Wisi’s men leaped back to avoid a cutlass thrust. He knocked hard into Mungo, pushing him aside. Fairchild saw and went for him with his knife. By the time Fairchild had beaten him back, Mungo had disappeared again in the confusion.

  A dripping figure rose out of the reeds that fringed the water. With his hairless head and giant bare shoulders, he looked almost like a hippopotamus emerging from the river. But this was a man, with a heavy cutlass in each hand. He strode out of the water where he had been hiding and threw himself into the fray. Three of the Maeander’s sailors came at him with boarding pikes. He beat the points aside, decapitated one man with a swing of his massive arm, punched another in the face so hard it shattered his nose, and ran the last through left-handed. More men followed him out of the water. They were the men who had slipped downriver unseen and cut the Raven’s anchor cable. Only five of them, but they came at the British sailors from their flank where they were unprotected. They made a bloody impact, and when the sailors turned to meet the new threat they exposed themselves to a fresh onslaught from Wisi’s men.

  Downriver, the Raven had stopped moving. She had drifted onto a sandbar and run aground. The men aboard looked to the boats, which had been tethered to her side, but their painters had been cut and the boats were no longer there. With no alternative, some of the crew leaped in the water and tried to swim across to help their shipmates from the Maeander. They paid for their bravery. The river looked placid, but its current was strong and its channel deep. Soon the water rang with the screams of men being carried away out to sea.

  Their shipmates on the mudflats heard them. Veterans of the Royal Navy, they were no strangers to close combat. They had fought in boarding parties, against slavers and pirates, many times. But those were on cramped quarterdecks, where the fighting arena was tightly circumscribed. This was new and frightening, not knowing where the next attack might come from.

  There was another difference, too. On a ship, you could not run away. Here they had that option. Mungo’s men pressed them hard, contesting every inch of the riverbank. The sailors had been told they had come to rescue the Africans, but now those same blacks were fighting and killing them with shocking efficiency. More and more, the British sailors decided that the battle was not worth it. They broke and ran, back across the mudflats toward the trees at the top of the embankment. Back toward the Maeander, moored on the other side of the peninsula.

  Mungo was not stupid enough to think that the battle was won. If the sailors managed to load their muskets and form a line, they would have a clear shot at the men on the flats. He ran after them, swerving wide, scrambled up the embankment and into the copse where they had lain in wait.

  The position was abandoned. All the sailors cared about was getting back to their ship. From the heights, Mungo could watch them running into the forest. He did not try to stop them. They were too few to do him any harm now.

  Except one.

  * * *

  Fairchild was the last to give up the battle. He was no coward; he would gladly offer his life to his cause. But there was no point fighting on when his men had deserted him. Surrender was unthinkable. So he ran. Better to fight another day, than die for nothing on this godforsaken patch of mud.

  No one followed, or offered any parting shots. The victors were exhausted, and though they had plenty of rifles, none could find the ammunition to load them. They let him go. Fairchild reached the shade of the embankment, grasping roots to pull himself up, and set out after his men. Once he was in the trees, he would be able to lose any pursuers.

  A shadow moved in the forest. A man stepped out of the shade that had hidden him and planted himself on the path, directly in front of Fairchild.

  Fairchild shook his head in disbelief.

  “Mungo St. John. It seems the Lord is determined to put you in my way.”

  Mungo leveled his sword. Fairchild laughed. He pulled back his coat and there, in his belt, sat a second pistol, untouched. He pulled it out and aimed it at Mungo.

  “This time, I have the advantage.”

  Mungo went still. “Even at the Union, you were a hard man to beat.”

  Fairchild ignored the compliment. He had fought against a rabble of slavers, outnumbered them more than two to one, and still lost. The rage and the shame of it burned in his breast. But there was one thing that hurt most of all.

  “How did you do it?” he asked. “How did you persuade those blacks to fight against us? Against their own interests? Against me?”

  Mungo shrugged. “You are a good man,” he said. “But you cannot see past the color of a man’s skin.”

  “I will not take lessons in morality from a slaver,” spluttered Fairchild.

  “You see a black face, and all you see is a saint or a victim. I see weakness and strength, greed and hope, value to be exploited and potential to be harnessed—just as I do when I see a white face. In short, I see a man I can do business with.”

  Fairchild shook his head in incomprehension. “But what will it profit you, if the cost of that business is your own soul?”

  “The good Lord, in His wisdom, left me with no other capital to work with.”

  Fairchild tightened his grip on the pistol. Mungo was a monster, an unrepentant sinner. To kill him now would be doing God’s work. A chance to salvage victory from this disastrous battle.

  Yet his finger hesitated on the trigger.

  “The last time we met—aboard the Blackhawk—you could have killed me, and you did not.”

  “I threw you in the sea for the sharks,” said Mungo evenly.

  He took a stride forward. Fairchild stepped back, maintaining the distance between them.

  “You saved my life. Something in you rebelled at the path you have taken and offered you a glimpse of the light.”

  He looked into Mungo’s eyes, the golden flecks so impenetrable. Was that a hint of doubt he saw? Mungo stepped forward, hand half raised as if offering it in friendship. Fairchild wanted to believe it was sincere, but he was not so gullible as to trust Mungo. Again, he took a step back so that Mungo would not get too close.

  “Come with me. Bear witness against the evil things you have seen and done. Redeem yourself.”

  “You think you could make an abolitionist of me?” Mungo was still advancing, forcing Fairchild to retreat.

  “You proved at the Union you can be a fearsome advocate for any cause you choose.”

  “I am not cut out to play the hero.”

  “A man like you can play any role in life he chooses.”

  “It would be a life of poverty.”

  “A life of virtue,” Fairchild countered.

  Mungo sighed. “I cannot afford that.”

  All the time they had been speaking, Mungo had kept edging Fairchild backward. Now, Fairchild noticed how far he had gone. Was Mungo trying to take advantage of him somehow? It was time to remind his opponent who had the upper hand.

  He stiffened his pistol arm, and planted his back foot firmly behind him to show he would not be moved any further.

  And suddenly the world went askew. His boot did not land on the hard ground he was expecting. Instead, the earth gave way beneath him. His leg plummeted through a thin crust of dry soil and stabbed downward, until with a sudden jolt it stopped dead. He felt a snap, and a stab of excruciating pain.

  Quick as a snake, Mungo darted forward. Two strides brought him to Fairchild. He twisted the pistol out of the Englishman’s grasp and took it for himself, stepping back before Fairchild could respond.

  Fairchild hardly noticed. He lay on the ground, writhing and clutching his leg, which had been swallowed almost thigh-deep by a hole that had opened in the ground.

  Eyes watering, he gazed up at Mungo with a look of such fury it would have made a lesser man flee. Mungo only laughed.

  “What . . . ?” Fairchild could hardly speak through the pain.

  “A termite nest,” said Mungo. “You must be careful of them. They can be quite treacherous.”

  Keeping out of range of Fairchild’s grasp, he peered over into the hole. Fairchild’s leg hung at a horribly unnatural angle.

  “I think you have broken it.”

  Fairchild clenched his teeth. He tried to haul himself up, but the moment he put weight on his leg the pain was so great he bellowed in agony. He slumped back down. Mungo stood over him with the loaded pistol.

  “So this time you mean to kill me?”

  Fairchild tried to put a manly face on it, to meet his death with dignity. But the pain was so intense he could not manage it.

  Mungo’s eyes were unreadable. Perhaps he was considering killing Fairchild; perhaps he was simply savoring his victory. Then he smiled.

  “I think, for the moment, I will keep you where you are.”

  Leaving Fairchild cursing and groaning, he returned to the beach. He dispatched two men to go and stand guard.

  “Do not harm him,” he told them, “but see he does not go anywhere.”

  The battle had been brutal. More than half of his men were dead or wounded, including Alcott Pendleton. Mungo did not mourn the old slave trader’s loss for a second—it would save him a thirty-five percent commission—but it did mean he had lost his interpreter. And he needed to speak to Wisi.

  “I have a proposition for you,” he said.

  Fortunately, one of the Punu warriors had once served a French slaver at Bangalang, and spoke enough of that language that Mungo could communicate through him. He waited patiently while the interpreter translated.

  “I have a ship, and a cargo—but not enough crew. I want you and your men to come with me.”

  The slaves they had captured were all safe in their coffle, behind the ridge where they had been left during the battle. But Mungo had too few men to keep them under control on the long voyage, let alone to handle the ship, even if they could float her off the sandbar.

  Wisi looked doubtful. “Black man goes on white ship, not come back.”

  “I will see to it that you come back.” Mungo saw doubt in the prince’s eyes. “I saved your life,” he reminded him. “And you saved mine. Surely that is reason to trust each other.”

  He could see the Punu prince was not convinced. He pointed to one of the captives, a broad-shouldered young man of about eighteen or nineteen.

  “See him? Where we are going, he is worth a thousand dollars. A thousand dollars will buy ten rifles.”

  Now he had Wisi’s attention.

  “I will offer you one tenth of all the profits from the venture,” said Mungo. “Enough to buy two hundred rifles. When you come back, you will be the most powerful king this country has ever seen.”

  A slow grin spread across Wisi’s face. He nodded.

  “And the English ship?” said Tippoo. He jerked his thumb toward the promontory. “She is still waiting.”

  “She will not attack us,” said Mungo confidently.

  As many men as he had lost from his crew, the Maeander had suffered worse. He guessed they barely had enough men to get underway, let alone to man the guns in a fight. And he had their captain.

  “Send a message to them under a flag of truce,” he said. “Tell them we will release Captain Fairchild, as soon as we have loaded our cargo and put to sea.”

  “Will they accept those terms?” asked de Villiers doubtfully.

  They had freed him from the Raven’s hold, embarrassed but unhurt. When he saw the slaves they had brought, he had looked at Mungo as if he were a magician.

  “The Maeander must have been patrolling this coast for weeks,” said Mungo. “I guess they do not have the stomach for another fight. They will take any excuse to go home.”

  Wisi had not followed the conversation, but now he spoke up. A short question, punctuated with jabs of his finger at the Raven.

  “He says, ‘Where do we go?,’” said the interpreter.

  Mungo stood and pointed down the river, out beyond the estuary to the far western horizon. The sun sank into the sea behind a haze of clouds, a red orb that laid a bloody path across the waves.

  “That way.”

  III

  Bannerfield

  Shafts of sunlight lanced through the glass dome that crowned the great rotunda of the St. Louis Hotel in New Orleans. They shone down through the cigar smoke and sweat haze that filled the air, playing over the marble pilasters and carved garlands that adorned the walls. A traveler who had been to Rome might have recognized a resemblance to the Pantheon, or St. Peter’s Basilica—but this was a temple to less exalted gods. Half a dozen wooden lecterns stood on the floor, and at each one an auctioneer was going about his business. Anything could be bought. The auctioneers spoke rapidly and at the tops of their voices, each trying to outdo the other, while the well-dressed crowds moved about so constantly that an unschooled observer could not be sure if a man was bidding on a piece of fine art, or furniture, or a consignment of tobacco or a brace of young slaves.