After finishing his examination of the two witnesses he was able to call, Robert did a bit of writing and then, bidding his client and his family farewell, went back to his inn for a bit more substantial of a meal. Instead of the chicken and rice soup from yesterday there was a lamb stew. This was also acceptable to Robert, seeing as he was very fond of lamb and the vegetables were very hearty.

When he was done enjoying his meal, though, he thought it would be worthwhile to stop by the jail and see how his client was doing. When he did, to his surprise he saw young Sadie in the prison talking to her brother. He stood at some distance away from them so that they could talk in private, and then when they were done talking he spoke to them.

“Pleased to see you,” he said politely to Sadie. “How are you holding up?” he asked his client.

“I feel today went pretty well for me,” Harrison said.

“I think so too,” Robert said. “Your half-brother is a piece of work though.”

“He never liked us, or our mother,” Sadie said.

“Is it any surprise to you why?” Robert asked somewhat bluntly.

“Do you think that he holds it against us that our father slept with our mother rather than remaining a loyal widower after his wife died?” Sadie asked.

“I do not think that his not wishing to sleep alone was the real problem,” Robert said.

“He does not think that a white man should sleep with a black woman, then?” Sadie asked.

“Probably not. A great many people consider the mixing of different peoples to be an abomination,” Robert said.

“My brother and I are the product of that mixing, and so are many people in this city,” Sadie said. “Surely he knows that.”

“One would have to be blind not to see the sort of mixing that regularly goes on here in the South,” Robert said. “I think, personally, that the lack of freedom of many of the women involved makes it more appealing than it might otherwise be.”

“What do you mean by that?” Sadie asked.

“What I mean is that there is a certain availability that someone has because they happen to be unfree that is not the case when they are free. If you consider someone to be your property, they are always at your beck and call and have no right to say no. Even if you are not a violent or aggressive person, that is something that is always going to stand in the way of genuine understanding between people. When someone is free to decline your advances, you have to think of how you would charm them and how to make them want you. That is not something a master ever has to ponder. It would have to be a very brave or very foolish slave woman to decline the advances of her master,” Robert said.

“Have you ever owned any slaves?” Harrison asked.

“No, I have never owned any slaves,” Robert replied. “Admittedly, I have lived a pretty simple life myself, but hiring servants has always been my family’s practice, rather than owning them.”

There was a brief silence.

“Here, of course, for someone to be anyone they have to own others or at least aspire to,” Harrison said.

“In that the upper classes here are not too different from the upper classes where my family is from,” Robert agreed. “The aristocratic ideal has always been to avoid labor, to have others do the work while one collects the rents.”

“When people look down on work, it guarantees that no one wants to do work unless they are forced to do so,” Harrison said.

“Right you are, and when that happens there are a few forces that can force people to work. Either gnawing hunger can eat away at someone’s pride against engaging in labor, or people can be coerced to do labor that is not respected or regarded but that is necessary,” Robert said.

“What is your own family background,” Harrison asked Robert.

“My father was the second son of a viscount, the lowest rank of the peerage, which is entitled to sit in the House of Lords. Since he was not the eldest son, he did not inherit the title, and since he had no ambitions to be a soldier or a minister, he was sent here to the colonies to work on behalf of the government. He died of apoplexy when I was somewhat young, but old enough to carry on in his work after him, which is what I do,” Robert said.

“But you are my lawyer,” Harrison said.

“I am indeed your advocate,” Robert said. “But that is only one thing I do, and probably not even the most often.”

“Are there many cases to deal with where you are from?” Sadie asked.

“In Saint Augustine there are few colonists, and so there is no great amount of work for a part-time barrister like myself,” Robert admitted. “That said, I am known for being willing to take cases that others are not, so in the British occupied areas of the South, I am called upon every now and then to take on unpopular cases.”

“Defending me sure is an unpopular case,” Harrison said.

“You can say that again,” Robert said.

“Why is defending us so unpopular?” Sadie asked. “We are people just like you are.”

“It is true that you are people like the rest of the people here, but they would rather die than to admit that you are just like them,” Robert said.

“We are connected to many of the best families,” Sadie said. “I know plenty of men and women here who come from all of the planters’ and traders’ families just as we do.”

“I have no doubt of it,” Robert said. “But no matter how closely you share a blood relationship with them, there are people who will look at you and deny until kingdom come that you are kin with them.”

“Why do they refuse to recognize it?” Sadie asked.

“I’m not sure,” Robert said. “I think that they view you as African, and nothing you do can ever make them think any differently of you.”

“We are not African,” Harrison said. “Certainly our forefathers came from that place, but none of us remember what tribe we came from.”

“What do you think of this?” Sadie said. “The more humane among our neighbors would wish to exile all blacks, especially free ones and troublemakers, to some malarial shore of Africa, where we may die easier than we die here. Why would we want to go to Africa?”

“I’m not sure. Some people might argue that you should go to Africa because you are not likely to be treated here with the respect that you feel you deserve, and many will not see you as anything more than wild horses without masters even when you are free,” Robert said.

“But we are your people,” Sadie said.

“They will not see it that way,” Robert said. “You could let them think about it for two hundred years and they would still not see you as one of their kind.”

“How can you make them see it?” Harrison asked.

“I don’t think you can,” Robert said. “If people refuse to accept something, no truth will be obvious enough or self-evident enough to move them. They will move heaven and earth itself rather than accept it.”

“What do you know of the slave trade?” Sadie asked.

“I have never been involved in it, but I am somewhat familiar with it,” Robert said evasively.

“What do you know about it?” Sadie asked.

“People in Africa, for one reason or another, are marked as slaves and taken to a coastal city, where they are kept in fortresses waiting for ships of slave traders to come. Then they are bargained over and sold, and eventually make their way across the Atlantic to various slave trading markets, where they are sold again,” Robert said.

“But what happens when they get here?” Sadie asked.

“What do you mean?” Robert asked.

“Do you think that the African who is shipped over from the continent knows who he or she is and what tribe or village he belongs to?” Sadie asked.

“I would think so,” Robert said. “I still know where I come from.”

“Do you think his wife would know? Would his children or grandchildren know?” Sadie asked.

“They would probably not know, unless he told them,” Robert said.

“And why would he tell them? What good would it do? He might be stuck on a plantation where no one is from the same tribe he is, and is probably on a ship with people from a great many different tribes and villages already. No one will care much about him except that he is African, and then once he is seasoned, he or his kids will have acquired a different identity on this side, and their old language and ways will largely be forgotten. If one happens to be a mistress of an owner, as our mother was, that is even more true. It is largely those who are already somewhat mixed that are the most attractive partners for the men of the South, and that just means they get less and less black, and far less knowledgeable about their African roots, especially if they are a quarter or an eighth or even less black,” Sadie said.

“You are aware that you have no future here in Charleston, right?” Robert said.

“Yes, I know it,” Harrison said. “The people here think that I raised a hand against my old man. They will never let me live among them as a neighbor.”

“What do you plan on doing about that?” Robert asked.

“I’m not sure,” Sadie said. “I’ve just been too busy hoping that Harrison lives.”

“It is reasonable to have that as one’s main concern, but it is also worth thinking of what you will do in case you win,” Robert said. “If you can’t stay in Charleston, where would you prefer to go?”

“What the options?” Harrison asked.

“As far as I see it, you have three options. Either you can settle somewhere in the British Caribbean and make a new life outside of slavery there, you can go to Canada, where I hear it can get awfully cold in the winters, or you can return to the coast of Africa,” Robert said.

“You know our feelings about the uselessness of returning to a continent that sold us as property to you white people,” Sadie said.

“I do not think that the cold would suit us very well,” Harrison said.

“Then I would try to find my way to the Caribbean and start a new life there, where it is warm and you might find something that reminds you of home,” Robert said.

“What reminds you of home?” Sadie asked.

“I have never yet been to a place that I thought of as a permanent home yet, though perhaps it will happen for me someday,” Robert said.

And with that, silence fell between them until Robert judged it was time to return to the inn, and so he bid his client and his sister a good night.