HEIRS OF TIME (CASTE BOOK 2) SAMPLE CHAPTERS

Chapter 14

“Carmichael’s Journal, No. 1, 1710”

“I was seventeen when my mother died. She was killed by French settlers. She was accused of fomenting plots to provoke a slave uprising in the Santo Domingo colony. You can’t say they were wrong. My mother had always worked to revolt against the masters, and I actively helped her. When they murdered her, she addressed her last words to me: “Mike, save yourself!”. Words that still rang in my ears, words strangled in the sound of her voice that I would never hear again. And the sight of my mother losing her blood, right on the steps of the master’s house, inflicted on me such extreme pain and anger that I slaughtered them all, without distinction. In full caste awakening, I still had no idea of the extent of my powers and barely remembered how I had committed this bloody deed. But I still hear the screams in my nightmares… In the carriage that took me to my father, whose existence I had just learned, I tried to repress these cries from my memory.

“We’re almost at the castle,” the man in the wig told me.

I kept silent. I had no confidence in him, for the good and simple reason that he was white. Yet it was he who pulled me out of this mess and took me away from my caste country. I felt relieved, even though I didn’t yet know what it was going to mean for me. But I was free, and that was all I cared about.

He had come on horseback, a huge black stallion. I had slept next to my mother’s body, covered in blood. About twenty dead settlers lay around us. Like a wild beast, I bared my teeth as he dismounted.

“I mean you no harm, my boy,” said the man.

I stood up and glared at him as he looked at the aftermath of the m******e. The fury still lived in my eyes. I even thought that it would never leave them again.

“Come with me.”

I backed up, ready to run when he called:

“I’m taking you to your father!”

I spun around and stared at the man in the white wig. I didn’t say a word, but my curiosity was such that I was already heading in his direction. He had answers. Answers to questions I’ve been asking myself since I was old enough to think. The first concerned the identity of my father.

I knew he was white. My mixed-race skin had earned me enough jeers among the slaves on the plantation, and I had understood very young that my skin wasn’t as black as the other children’s. But my mother had never wanted to talk about him.

The man held out his arm to me. I looked at his clean hand and ignored him. I headed for the barn and strapped a horse. When I reappeared on my own mount, the man let out a smile and remounted his.

It took us nearly a week to reach the boat. I didn’t know where we were going until I heard a crew member talking about England. I almost ran away when I heard this news, but the man, whose name was Christophe, held me back. He told me that my father owned a castle there and that he was waiting for me. Christophe offered me new clothes, but I refused them. Granted, I didn’t look good in my cotton shirt and shorts, and my dirty appearance put off even people of my own colour. But I couldn’t accept a white man’s gift! My resentment was like a stubborn hatred that I tried hard to contain. I had been transfixed by it since childhood.

On the boat, Christophe was very ill and I couldn’t help laughing when I saw him spit up his guts because of seasickness.

“Well,” he said, pale as a sheet, “glad to see you can smile, even if it’s at my expense.”

My smile widens. Christophe was in his thirties, with light brown eyes, and endowed with an innate elegance. I still hadn’t said a word to him when we got off at the coast of England, and I was beginning to admire his patience. Never had a white person been so respectful, never had a white person even shown any interest in me. So when we arrived at the castle, in the summer heat, I accepted the handkerchief he held out to me to wipe the sweat off my forehead. I dared not return it when I saw the marks of dirt left on the fabric.

The carriage passed under a huge gate. I poked my head out to glimpse the castle, and my lower jaw nearly dropped when I saw it. Its splendour appeared to me as a wonder of the world. So, for the first time since I left, I let out a laugh. What a home! I thought. I had never seen such a building and contemplating it seized me with indescribable joy, a feeling that I had never experienced before. I was longing now to understand its construction, to know the inhabitants. I couldn’t explain this sudden curiosity.

Christophe invited me to follow him and led me directly through a series of rooms to a stone staircase. We plunged into the depths of the castle and ended up in a huge circular room, which he called the Pomona room. Around an immense round table sat a man, whose proud bearing betrayed all the confidence he had in himself, and an old woman with white hair. Christophe’s footsteps echoed as we walked towards them. Mine were more discreet, probably because I wasn’t wearing shoes, which the man at the table noticed at first glance.

“So that's him?”

“Yes, my Master,” confirmed Christophe.

Hearing him call the man “my Master” shocked me, and my head turned sharply in Christophe’s direction. Was he a slave too? I wondered. He didn’t look like it though.

“Oh yes, it’s your son, Magnus,” said the strange white-haired woman, whose presence filled me with a strange light, “and he’s unique.”

“What are you talking about, old woman?”

“Get some women down here, I’d like to check something.”

“Does he speak English?”

“I speak it very well,” I said.

Christophe took a step back, surprised that I had finally agreed to speak. Magnus watched me and rose from his chair. He stopped two metres from me and examined my body.

“So you’re my son, are you?”

“If you say so,” I said, as if this news had no effect on me, when in fact it was quite the opposite.

“You’ll have to learn respect if you want to stay here.”

He seemed to think he had power over me, and I didn’t like that at all. This man had abandoned me to s*****y. What kind of respect could I have towards him? I remained silent. Footsteps echoed down the hallway I had walked through earlier. The laughter of young women reached my ears. I turned around, standing next to my pretend father. About fifteen women, each more enchanting than the other, entered the huge hall. When they saw me, they stopped and stared at me, puzzled. A strange feeling came over me, an unbearable heat crept into my stomach, my skin was electrified, and an exquisite shiver ran through my spine. I couldn’t help but walk toward them. They imitated me and came to meet me. I felt the passion of their unbearable desire, their fever and their need to touch me. Then my father materialized right behind me, touched my forehead, and I passed out.

As I read these lines, lying on the bed, I found myself captivated by Carmichael’s story, imbued with deep sadness. I had even shed a few tears imagining his ordeal in the colony of Santo Domingo, now called Haiti. But something else intrigued me. I had the sensation of seeing the images in my mind. As if every detail was imprinted on my brain with striking clarity. I closed the book and sighed, thinking again of the emotion I felt, and then my gaze fell on my cellmate. He was sitting on his bed, staring at me with his dark eyes. He didn’t have the king’s memoirs to occupy his time but devoted himself to multiple sessions of intensive weight training. He sent me a smile, revealing perfect white teeth.

A noise tore me from my thoughts: a dish appeared on the floor, at the corner of the glass wall. I saw the man go to the left corner of his wall and take a tray. He sat down near the desk, pulled out the chair and put his meal on it. Seeing him absorb its contents, I decided to imitate him. Hunger gripped my stomach. I ate a chicken thigh, accompanied by baby potatoes. It was delicious. Maybe it was hunger that made the contents of my plate so delectable, but I didn’t care. I devoured everything in the space of a few minutes, then resumed my place on my bed to read the rest of Carmichael’s memoirs.