Desmond Harriet was certain he was not a coward. Why should a man, and a godly one at that, have any compunction whatsoever to the martial calling? War was an ugly, brutish thing. Desmond was not himself beautiful, but was certainly not ugly, certainly not brutish. Commerce, however, industry, this was Godly enterprise. Wanting to make paper instead of war was no cause to be called a coward. If only the rest of the town agreed.

His quill tip scratched at a parchment, affixing his signature to a bill of purchase of one hundred pounds of flax from Hurbert & Macklin and Associates, Incorporated in the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He sealed the document with wax, using his signet ring. He pressed it into the gooey red, leaving the time honored sign of his family crest, the groundhog, perched on hind legs, sniffing proudly at the sweet spring air as it rose from its winter burrow.

He removed his spectacles, pocketed them in his thin blue waistcoat and rose to find Baxter already coming through the office door. The tall man wore a beige ensemble, professional but not gaudy, much like his master, Mr. Harriet, and had his long black hair pulled back into a knot.

“Baxter, good man. I’ll require you to oversee our supply run to Providence.”

“The flax?” Baxter asked.

“The very crop, yes. Hundred pounds worth.” Desmond handed Baxter the bill of purchase, before counting coins from a locked cabinet and placing them in a purse. “The price was agreed upon at forty-seven Spanish dollars. Don’t let them try and tell you it was pounds sterling agreed upon. I’m paying them in good coin, not paper.”

“Very well. And the sweet meats?”

“Ah!” Desmond said, waving a finger in the air. He fetched another few coins and pressed them into Baxter’s hand. “What would I do without you, Baxter? The anniversary!”

Baxter departed, and Desmond stepped out of the office to inspect the slaves in the mill. He walked across patchy grass and bare earth scorched by a particularly unrelenting summer, and into the highly uncomfortable soggy airs of the mill. Huge vats bubbled away, softening fermented fibers pounded out of rags and old clothing until ready for screening into sheets of paper.

Gilbert was the most experienced vatter, making him the most valuable member of the estate, apart from perhaps Baxter, and Ella, Mrs. Harriet’s servant. The sweaty-faced slave wore only a pair of overalls with no shirt. He stuck an oar in a vat and stirred, looking it over.

“Ah, Gilbert.”

“Mr. Harriet,” Gilbert answered without looking away form his vat.

“How are our preparations for the new process?”

“They’re well.” Gilbert stirred.

“The men have been trained to strip the flax? You have all the equipment you require?”

“I reckon.” Gilbert pulled out his oar and moved away from Desmond toward another vat. Desmond scurried up behind him.

“Yes, you see, Gilbert, it’s just that I am very eager to see my new process implemented forthwith. I beg no delays. I aim to have the finest paper in the colonies before they sign their pronouncement of rebellion.”

Gilbert stuck his oar in, paused before stirring and cocked an eye up at Desmond. “I believe they’s callin’ it the Declaration of Independence.”

“Well, whatever they call it, I want the title printed on my new paper. Then when it is posted in every town hall and public house and every fencepost in the land, the people will perhaps, when they are finished crying freedom, ask themselves, why, whoever made this stunning paper stock?”

Gilbert blinked and stirred his oar.

“Well, just make sure everything is ready to proceed once Baxter returns from Providence with my flax.”

Gilbert didn’t respond, and Desmond had to take it for confirmation.

Desmond found his midday meal quite to his liking. He ate until sated, but had enjoyed his roast fowl and peas porridge so much he was considering intemperance.

“George, have we any more of the fowl?”

The tall, teenage slave poured more wine for his master. “I fear she only cooked one for you, Mr. Harriet.”

“Ah, that is just my luck.”

“She know how much you care of temperance, how you is preaching it most loudly to your household.”

“We must keep all things in moderation. It is true. However on this one occasion, I really did wish to step out on the limb, as it were.”

“Perhaps you should fire Etta,” George said. “Get a cook who ain’t so good a cook, and you won’t be wanting second helpings.”

Desmond picked up his glass. “Why George, what an idea.” He drank, but was already shaking his head before he swallowed. “But Mrs. Harriet would never allow it. She demands her fineries. What would the ladies of Cranston think if our next party served them inadequate duck? No, she would never go in on that.”

“Perhaps sir should find a new wife, one who does not vex him or hinder his temperance.”

Desmond turned in his chair. “George, you speak blasphemy. While the laws of men have such provisions, the laws of God do not. Even of slaves, who can be sold and bought by law, my father used to say that gentlemen of breeding do not cut people away. They model their relationships, form them, work with them. I seem to remember we had our differences before, but you have found a proper attitude since.”

“You never sold a slave, Mr. Harriet?”

“Never.”

“But you bought them Irish.”

Desmond cast a probative glance up at George. He had recently sent for indentured servants, but they had not yet arrived. Still, word had spread. “I didn’t buy them. I bought their passage to the colonies. In exchange they will work for a term of seven years, after which, we may arrive at terms for wages.”

“You got enough money to pay all them Irish?”

“In time, George, in time. With my new flaxen paper, I will have wages for a great many more too.”

“Why you gonna pay them white men when you can just buy more slaves?”

“I’ve already mentioned. I do not wish to buy flesh.”

“But you are not bothered to be given it from your father?”

Desmond turned back forward in his chair. His fingers ran up and down the stem of his glass, and his tongue punched into the inside of his cheek. “That will be all, George.”

“Very well, sir.” George bowed and left.

Horse hooves pounded down the road past Desmond as he walked back to his office and the paper mill. By the time he reached it, he could hear the gaggle forming in the town square. He checked to see if Baxter had returned with the flax, knowing it was probably too soon to expect him, then strode down the street. Thaddeus Trumple, Lieutenant of the Rhode Island Militia and son of the wealthiest man in Cranston, stood upon the base of a statue honoring William Arnold, one of the original white settlers of the area. Even as the crowd gathered, handsome young Lt. Trumple began to read from the paper he held aloft.

“On the second day of July, in the year of our Lord, seventeen hundred and seventy-six, the representatives of these thirteen colonies did proclaim their independence from the tyrannical rule of Great Britain, its parliament and its king, George III.”

Before he finished, many of the townspeople began to cheer and shake their fists in the air in defiance of the king. Desmond searched for fearful or disappointed faces, but found only ebullience at the momentous occasion settling in on the audience, no displeasure, no anger.

No Loyalists.

The surge in patriotic and liberal sentiment had transfixed New England, and at least in Cranston, those with business interests pinned to crown loyalty had had the sense to flee weeks or months ago. This same surge had ridden on the back of pamphlets like Common Sense which sold so many copies that both the demand and price for paper went up, bestowing upon Desmond Harriet the easy capital with which to take up his flax paper venture. So far, revolution had been good for business, but how long could that last?

“I shall now read the Declaration of Independence in its fullness,” Lt. Trumple announced. “When in the course of human events…”

Desmond had to admit it was all quite grand, the words and ideas, enough even to warm Desmond’s indifference to at least moderate pride. But just as soon, his sense of patriotism began to wane. Dread overcame him. He turned on his heel and trudged back to his office. No, it had all happened too soon. He wouldn’t be ready. The printers would be flying this very minute to get off as many copies as they could manage. The printing might go on for a while, though, to keep up with what must be a huge demand. He had to redouble his efforts. He himself would travel to the docks in Providence and sink more funds into the flax. He had it to spare.

Desmond broke into a run.

“No time for half measures,” he mumbled to himself as he loped behind Mrs. Green’s shed and through her yard, taking a shortcut. He squeezed between a fence and courtyard wall onto his own property and took the rear steps into the larder two at a time. Once inside, Desmond stopped cold.

There, sitting on an upturned bucket, sat George, holding a roast fowl between his hands, teeth sunk into to. George stared up at Desmond for a long moment, his greasy lips shining, then slowly pulled the meat and skin away from the bird and chewed.

Desmond squared up to him. “George,” he gasped. “You’ve lied to me. You’re eating my fowl.”

George said nothing, still staring at his master.

“You scoundrel. Have you been stealing my food long?”

Still, George did not speak.

“Well, man? What do you have to say for yourself? I thought we’d cured you of your impertinence.”

George rose to his full height, a head taller than Desmond. He took another bite and chewed it, taking his time before swallowing.

“Well, this is… this is just—”

“It’s what, white man?” George’s voice was lower than usual, almost a growl.

“George… you vex me.”

“You want your chicken back?” George flung it, and the fatty bird slapped into Desmond’s chest and fell to the floor.

Desmond’s mouth worked, but no words came out. This was mutinous, it was…

George took a step forward.

“You’re a young man,” Desmond said. “We are all a bit foul tempered in those years, but… but…” Desmond stammered. “You mustn’t do this.”

“Do what? Make you be a master?”

“Yes. I mean, no.”

“I ate your fowl, Mr. Harriet. I lied to you, then I stole from you.” George craned his head. “What are you gonna do about it, you buckra motherfucker?”

“George!” Desmond could weep for shock. “I have no time for this.” His eyes flashed to the stick handing by a nail that Ella used to pull things from high shelves. He looked to George.

“Go on then,” George said. “Beat me, white man.”

“George, this is not necessary.”

“Oh, it is. You know it is.”

“I do not have the ti—”

George snatched the stick, clenched it in his fist and shook it before Desmond’s face. “Beat me. I’m your nigger! You gotta beat the smart outta my ass.”

Desmond began shaking his head, mouth agape.

“Beat me, or I will kill you with this stick.”

Desmond took a step away, but George advanced. Desmond’s back hit the door, and George was on him. He pressed the stick into Desmond’s throat with one hand.

“Do it.”

With a trembling hand, Desmond took the stick, and George took a half step back. Desmond’s gaze travelled from head to arm to thigh, as if gauging where to administer his punishment.

“I am a peaceable man,” he protested.

“No you’re not.” George glared at him, defiance clear in his eyes. “No you’re not.”

“I am, I never raised my hand to—”

“You gonna pay them Irish with coin some day. But you’re never gonna pay Gilbert or even that house boy, Baxter. That ain’t peaceable. That violent.”

“I… I…”

“You can’t own slaves and call you peaceable. Everyday, we here because of that. Only that.” George pointed to the stick. “It’s violent in us head. Why you in the big house. Why George in the bunkhouse. So, hit me!”

Desmond gripped the stick and tensed to deliver a blow, but he couldn’t.

“That’s what I thought,” George said. “I been thinking for a long time, wondering if the stick were real. It ain’t real.” He gave a sickly smile. “Not with you.”

George calmly stepped out of the larder to the outside, leaving Desmond quivering and staring wide-eyed at a sack of beans in the far corner, but seeing nothing.