When we returned to Boston some few days later, and the time of Lord Cheldthorpe’s visitation grew to its close, 03-01 appeared to be in ever more anxious a state. He fretted in the hallways and stood looking out windows, shaking his hands as if to restore circulation. He sat down in chairs and rose up again. From his agitation, I discerned that Lord Cheldthorpe had given no firm word on whether he would support our continued experiments and grace the arts of our house with his beneficence.

Two nights before His Lordship of the New Creation was to depart, the Royal Governor of the Province held a great levee to send Cheldthorpe off with pomp. There was to be a grand dinner, and then our music-master, Mr. 13-04, would lead a band and singers in a brief operatic divertissement, delectable to the taste of His Lordship.

My mother and I were told, before the event, that we should rest well and be prepared, for we might be called upon to play our instruments, and astound the assembled with our facility in music-making.

Mr. 03-01 used the occasion of the dinner to introduce his various suits to Lord Cheldthorpe: the need for another wing to the mansion, in which scholars could live; the desire for instruments which could be built only in Germany; and the hope that Lord Cheldthorpe would invest in a portion of Indian land west of Virginia, against the day when Parliament lifted its interdiction against settling there.

“I shall consider it,” said Lord Cheldthorpe, dubiously.

“I beg you to,” said Mr. 03-01.

“When shall we have opera?” asked Lord Cheldthorpe.

The opera that evening — sung, not acted, so as not to offend the sensibilites of the town — was a Peruvian love story, an entrée by Monsieur Rameau. An Incan princess felt the tenderest of passions for a Conquistador who had arrived with horses to subdue her nation. She ignored the warnings of a priest of her people who begged her to return to her gods; and she sang an aria of love for the Spaniard to the accompaniment of the flute.

My mother observed the plaint with gravity.

Come, Goddess of Wedlock, the Incan princess implored,

Come unite me to the conqueror, whom I adore!

Tie your knots, enchain me!

Tie your knots, she sang again and again, enchain! — enchain! — enchain me!

She clasped her hands in supplication to the heavens; she presented her wrists crossed, as if manacled. “Enchaîne-moi, enchaîne-moi, enchaîne-moi,” she sang, mingling her voice with the flute; and I looked at Mr. 03-01, and saw him smiling, and knew he had hit upon the clumsy symbolism of this bizarre pageant; and I turned to Cheldthorpe, and saw him nuzzling the air; and it occurred to me then that he heard this airy and liquid song and, within his fancy, was laying his head upon my mother’s bare breast, and moving his hand down across her belly, and it was night in a bed dark with curtains and flowers, in a chamber where no sound could come from below of the mopping of stairs or the shoeing of horses. I knew not whether he had enjoyed her in flesh; regardless, he now enjoyed her in fantasy.

And my mother smiled at him.

So the Incan woman retired to a galleon arm-in-arm with her Spaniard, singing that the chains of slavery were sweet when bound with the chains of love, while her people were engulfed in magma.

Thus ended the grotesque entertainment.

No sooner had the applause begun than Mr. 13-04, the music-master, bounded out beside the band, held out his hands for silence, and begged the ladies and gentlemen that they should be still.

At this, I flew into a sweat, and knew the time of my performance had come.

He spake some words — I attended not to them — but one was my name. My mother and I, exotic princess and prince, were to play another selection from Monsieur Rameau’s opera, the “Air pour les Esclaves Africains,” or Air for the African Slaves, which would give the assembled gentlemen and ladies much pleasure.

My mother rose and settled her dress about her. I went up before the assembly, and was given a violin that was not mine. I ran the bow across the strings, and listened for the tuning. My mother was perching herself before the harpsichord.

I had the music for the air before me. I began.

I played it through once; it was a simple tune. On the second time through, my mother was stumbling, having none but a parlor-training in the keyboard; but I grew bolder with each pass, and dressed up the simple tune with flourishes and descants, runs and arabesques. I looked at My Lord Cheldthorpe of the New Creation, and played the air and its ornaments to him, seeing the line of the tune in his loose, easy posture, and drawing all about his curved slouch in devilish profusion my extensions and diagrams, my lines and cross-hatching, my circles about his head and feet, until my eyes must have bulged with the sight of all the linearities and confusions in which I had engaged his sagging, rakish frame.

My bow stuttered across the strings; flew; landed; sung to my fingers; and thus, with a final thrust, a final parry, a final stab, I was done.

The sweat was on my nose.

There was silence, and then the applause was massive.

Mr. 13-04, returning to the front of the company, shook my hand. Below, Lord Cheldthorpe of the New Creation made his way to my mother’s side to offer his congratulations.

All were jubilant as we rode back to the Gitneys’ house. I alone did not speak. I watched my mother chatter with His Lordship.

At the house, there was more food laid out: oysters and duck, sweets, champagne. We ate abundantly, and the scholars took their final leave of Cheldthorpe. At last, the house was quiet.

My mother went alone to her closet and took off her wig. The maid came to loosen her stays.

Lord Cheldthorpe knocked upon the door. My mother sent the maid to answer it.

The maid said, “It’s His Lordship of the New Creation.”

“Indeed,” said my mother. “It is past the hour when one habitually receives nobility.” She sighed. “Franny, you may leave.”

Cheldthorpe asked permission to enter, and my mother granted it to him. He closed the door behind him. He said, “I come to offer my respects.”

“My son is a better musician than I,” she said. “He and the music-master can play ‘Stingo!’ by rubbing wet goblets.”

“Impressive.”

“The effect is perhaps more quaint than awesome.”

“How do we know he is not listening in?”

“To what?”

“To our present conversation. At a communicating door.”

“Our doors do not communicate.”

“He could have his ear pressed up against it.”

“Be assured, My Lord, in this house, there is no communication. Is there any topic that you would broach that my son should not hear?”

“Conversation flows more freely when it is unobserved.”

“Surely, My Lord, everything you say is observed, bandied about, and praised.”

“Princess.”

“For which reason, as you are a man of honor, you would not say or do anything that should be of discredit to your character in a sphere far more public than a lady’s bedchamber at midnight.”

“You know of my affection for you.”

The talk stopped; and I shifted my posture near the communicating door.

“I have,” she said, hesitating, “I have some inkling.”

There was another silence.

He said, “I would like to offer that you return with me to England.”

I could not crouch for much longer. My arms were around my knees. I hovered there, ready to sprint.

“In what capacity?” said my mother.

“You and your son. I may easily buy you from Gitney. We shall return to England. A woman of your accomplishments should not languish here in the Colonies. I shall buy you a flat in London. Your son shall be educated by Cambridge scholars.”

“A flat.”

“Apartments.”

“Why are they called ‘a flat’?”

“I have not the faintest idea.”

“It makes it sound as if the ceiling is low.”

“It is simply a term. The ceilings would be ten feet high and be adorned with moldings and bosses. Plaster swags.”

“You would purchase me?”

“Of course.”

“And Octavian?”

“Of course.”

“And some of the others in the household, so they might act as our servants?”

“Yes.”

“In our flat?”

“Indeed.”

“As hired servants? Free men?”

“Mademoiselle . . .”

“Behind communicating doors?”

“Princess Cassiopeia, you can scarcely imagine — the passion that suffuses me — and the extremity of my need.”

“Need?”

“The passion.”

“Is that need, My Lord?”

“Want . . .”

“So you offer me what?”

“A flat. An annual allowance.”

“Your hand?”

“To shake? Yes, is the deal to your liking?”

“In marriage. Your hand.”

“Now, Mademoiselle —,” he said, hedging.

“Wedlock?”

“You well know that —”

“What else follows love, sir?”

“I’ll show you,” said he.

“I will be wed in a church. With a Bishop.”

“Mademoiselle —”

“The correct form is ‘Your Royal Highness.’”

“Cassiopeia —”

“A Peer of the Realm addresses a princess as ‘Your Royal Highness.’”

“Your Royal Highness —”

“Do you offer me freedom?”

“Any freedom you wish to take with my person.”

“And the freedom of my person?”

“You misunderstand.”

“Shall I be freed?”

“I shall call you my queen.”

“The queen of your ‘flat.’”

“The queen of my heart.”

“A continent scarcely large enough for a round-dance.”

“You shall rule there absolutely.”

“Why do I suspect I would first have to visit the antipodes?”

“Mademoiselle, you are delightfully scurrilous.”

“This is no banter, sir. This is no game.” I could hear the fury in her voice. “This is no jest, no frolic, no badinage. I was a princess, once; I am a princess still. Royal blood will mix only with other royal blood. Otherwise, it demeans the line. Tell me what nation you offer me, what alliance, what regal house — or leave.”

Still in a tone of play, he said, “My lady, you know what scepter I offer, and what orbs.”

There was a stunned silence. And then she replied, “Then, sir, look out at the privy. There is my throne. Reach inside, sir, and you shall find the wedding feast. Eat well, My Lord. Eat abundantly.”

I know not who attacked whom; but I heard the struggle, and burst in through the communicating door.

They both were standing, and I could not make out who was striking whom — though both, as I conceive it, had their violent intent — but I imagined that he was first aggressor, and I called out, “Murder! Murder!” as I dragged upon his coat and pummeled him.

I reached up and struck him on the side of the head, and for a moment, his fury with my mother relented, and he turned his attention to me, hissing, “If you touch me again, I’ll see you hang — you and your mother both.”

I backed away, and watched their difficult embrace.

My cries, however, had roused the house, and in no time, the door opened, and Mr. 03-01 was there, and there was confusion all about us.

My Lord Cheldthorpe of the New Creation dropped my mother, and she dropped him, and looked away demurely, and I fell upon a chair.

Lord Cheldthorpe said, “The slut and her bastard . . .” He ceased.

03-01 looked gravely around the chamber and discerned the struggle that had transacted there. He said, “Gone like a vapor. All of it. Nothing.” He turned and walked out.

Lord Cheldthorpe followed. I heard him give an order.

My mother and I stirred not from where we stood.

Some minutes later, Bono came in with the footmen, and bound my mother and me, and took us outside, and we were lashed to the horse-post. The moon was gibbous that evening, and the air cold. There was a chill to the cobbles beneath my bare feet that made them arch.

My mother’s back was bared. They pulled her shift from her shoulders, and for the first time I saw her exposed, as she had been in the engraved figure hung upon the wall.

For an hour, they left us there before coming to inflict their punishment. We were all but nude in the night’s chill. We shivered tremendously, and did not look at one another.

I revolved in my head passages of ancient texts that recalled how Britons had been slaves. Horace, writing of their subjection; or the Venerable Bede, describing how Saint Gregory the Great, pope and punster, had come across some British slave-boys in the market, and had found them so fair he sent a mission to convert their race to the Christian faith.

The gates to the stable-yard where we were bound had been closed to exclude the gaze of the curious. It was early in the morning, perhaps three o’clock, and the city was quiet. The trees rattled in the wind, and then were still. I could hear my mother’s respiration in the silence, and it was rushed, as if she sobbed or had fits, but when I looked, there were no tears upon her face. Perhaps it was the chill of night, which was considerable. We stood there for some time.

The seagulls called in the moonlight above the Charles River.

When the people of the house came out, they came in numbers. Guests and servants standing around us, silent as they witnessed these cruel solemnities, Lord Cheldthorpe’s valet and his footman took turns whipping us with the rod.

We had not been told how many lashes we should receive. After each, we waited to see if there would be another; but they gave no sign.

We felt the eyes of all the house upon us.

The rod fell again. I was aware that, being silent habitually, I was expected to be silent now. I betrayed no grief, save wincing.

The rod fell again upon my mother. Following the stroke, she could not breathe, and gagged upon air.

The rod bit my back. I tried to stand, but could not, my hands were bound so low. I fell to the ground upon one knee.

Lord Cheldthorpe strolled around before us so that he could view our faces and judge the visage of punishment. My mother was vomiting; the issue was thin and yellow. She struggled for breath.

They ceased.

When, trembling, she regained her composure, and her breath came regularly again, Lord Cheldthorpe nodded, and they whipped her one last stroke.

She buckled and fell to her knees.

They came behind me. I would not grimace; I would not flinch; indeed, I would show nothing — considering, as the Stoic Phrygian slave, crippled by his master’s blows, hath writ: “Beyond the last inner tunic of my frail body, no one has authority over me. If I love too much this pitiful flesh, I have sold myself as a slave, for I have shown through pain what can be used to master me.”

So say I now, resolve standing tall in seclusion; but then, the rod cut; and, weakened by agony’s chains, ambushed by astonishment, I could not forbear exclamations of torment.

I barked once, like a dog, then let forth a high whine.

I am ashamed of my weakness.

There is no need to rehearse the pain and the humiliation of spirit in such an act.

I gripped the post.

So we stood for some time. We could hear the household turning away, retiring back inside. Lord Cheldthorpe watched with some satisfaction. Mr. 03-01 liked the whole thing not a bit, and frowned.

We were untied and taken back into the orchard. I knew not what further retribution they should demand; death was not too grave a punishment for the assault of a Negro upon a nobleman, though I did not think that such extremity would be called for in this case, when trumpeting abroad the facts would invite the scrutiny of idleness and public censure, fascinated by the midnight transgressions of nobility.

We waited upon the grass. Crickets sang all about us, as they had in the glade beside Champlain. Figures were carrying a sofa.

Bono stood guard beside us; His Lordship’s valet behind.

Bono reached up to wipe the slobber from my mother’s chin. She turned her head away sharply, and when he seemed likely to persist, raised her bound hands to foil his assist.

He dropped his hand, and faced away from us.

Mr. 03-01 came out of the gloom, misery in his countenance. He gestured, and we were led into the ice-house. It was a door into a hill. We went in, and the cold surrounded us.

They had a lantern burning, so we could see. My mother’s sofa had been deposited upon the stone floor. The ice was somewhat diminished, but still stood in blocks and shards all about the vault.

Lord Cheldthorpe was there. His arms were crossed.

Our shifts, which had been torn, were removed. We were naked in the room. We covered ourselves with our hands.

Lord Cheldthorpe said simply, “Here is your salon, Princess.” He walked out; and the others followed him with lugubrious mien. The door shut, and locked.

There was no light when they were gone.

We sat upon the sofa. My back clamored with the lashes to so great an extent that well could I believe that, though my spine was wet with blood, it burned.

We each could hear the other’s breath in the silence of the ice-house. Each motion across the embroidered stuff of the sofa sounded a great rasping.

I rested my elbows upon my knees, and my hands dangled. Casting about with my limbs, I could find no posture that did not scald, and returned, therefore, to my slump.

My mother’s breathing had now fallen into rhythm.

For a long space of time, which may have been hours, we were silent.

Then, “I would embrace you,” my mother said, “but for our nudity.”

I nodded, which she could not hear.

She shifted her body upon the sofa; I felt the padding warp. She said, “When you were small, you grew affectionate for a dragon’s skull. Do you recall?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You played an infant game and crawled within it. Do you recall this? I, jesting, asked you whether you were not apprehensive that it might bite you. You answered me, ‘Do not be afraid, Mother. Know you whose skull this is? Mine. I would not bite my own self.’”

Her voice echoed curiously around the chamber. The cold insinuated itself from every quarter; it unfurled itself throughout our skins.

I lifted my feet from the floor and jammed the heels into the cushion, teetering there upon the sofa.

My mother asked, “Do you understand why I acted as I did?”

I revolved the scene before me. At length, I answered, “No.”

She ran her fingernail along a seam. I could hear the mutter of the stitch.

I asked, “Did you love him?”

“Or?” she asked.

“Did you play for gain?”

She considered my question. She answered: “When you wish to lay your head upon someone’s breast . . . When . . . If one pictures a scene for oneself of sitting by a fire in one’s own home, in a dress of the latest fashion, of the latest Parisian cut, and having someone enter the house and be announced; and before the maid can fetch him up . . . he runs into the room and catches you up in his arms to . . . I know not . . . vent wit about the day. . . . If one hushes him with a hand upon his lips . . . a hand asparkle with rings . . . lovely, for one is loved . . . and he laughs by one’s hearth, which he has afforded one . . . and there one’s son . . . is . . . Tell me . . . I have been most . . .”

I waited.

“What is love,” she asked, “if not —,” but said no more.

After a time, I glared into the gloom as if I could pierce it with my gaze, and felt it almost part into its constituent blacknesses, so that I could see the beetles there.

“Octavian?” she said.

I did not answer.

“If I had inclined my head some few degrees . . . ,” she said. I did not know of what she spake, whether of that night or another night; whether of a kiss, a touch, or a blow.

“Mother?” I said, and she answered, “What?” We could barely speak, our jaws were so hardened with the cold and the pain of our backs. She reached out and found my hand and placed her wooden fingers around it.

Again, I said, “Mother. I . . .”

I had no insight; no sense of what to say; was sensible of nothing but the darkness, which was parted, which had resolved itself so that objects there were defined, though they were not objects that could be seen by light, but properties of unbeing; the furniture of negation; and so I sat, perched upon the sofa in our frigid salon; I watched unbeing in the ebon room; and together, our teeth chattered; and outside in the city, the sun rose, and it was morning.