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Privileged young Pieter may have grown up on a sugar cane plantation, but that doesn’t mean he agrees with the way his father runs things. He falls in love with Joss, one of his father’s slaves, and their affair sets off a chain of events that is destined to tear them apart.
When Pieter’s father dies, he returns home hoping to find Joss. It’s too late for their love, but maybe it’s not too late for Pieter to find happiness. As he makes his way to America, Pieter realizes old conflicts still rage, and even as he finds a new love, danger stalks his every move. Can Pieter learn to overcome the hate and fear that threaten to tear his world apart?
Excerpt:
Pieter wasn't far from his favorite hostelry, the Koningin, where he knew he could get a really good meal with decent wine; Pieter was in a mood to celebrate.
Making his way to the Koningin, Pieter turned into the main thoroughfare of the city, a large square with large houses on two sides, the church on the third, and stores of varying kinds on the fourth. In the center was a large grassed area surrounding a large palm tree that was encircled with a low fence and looped ropes. It was the oldest tree in the city and as such was protected. Just to one side of it, however, was a stand of half a dozen much more common trees. Because of their central location they were used as a kind of notice board. People tacked all kinds of messages to the trees, notices of sales, rewards for lost items and even rare escaped slave reward notices. Besides the weekly newspaper, it was the main way of notifying residents of what was going on in the district.
Pieter glanced over at the small group of people scanning the notices, and a young boy thrust a sheet of paper into his hands. When Pieter saw the heading in large block letters with the name of his own plantation he frowned. As he read it, Pieter gasped with shock.
He wouldn't!
His father knew how much they meant to him. They'd literally been his friends for as long as Pieter could remember. His father couldn't really mean to sell Tillie and Joss. Reading the words again, the shock still reverberated through him. The notice specified the sale by auction of six young slaves in excellent physical condition, five strong field workers and one well-trained female house servant, followed by a list of names and ages and the particular skills the slaves had. The auction was to take place in three days.
The notice mocked him and his hand shook as he held it. The slave auction was the first item on the list, followed by a list of other items for sale, vegetables, grain, books, ribbons – disgusted, Pieter tore the paper to shreds. How could they list people – people, damn it! – together with such mundane items?
Mechanically, he carried on walking toward the stand of trees where other notices were pinned. Reaching past a man reading the notices, Pieter tore his father's from the tree, staring at it again as if it would somehow be different. But, no, there were their names again. Matilda and Joshua.
Dear God, how could his father sell them?
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