Free Easton by Paul Butler

him.
    “Yes,” he replies in a whisper. He takes a short step closer.
    Her eyes darken fractionally.
    “Easton lies,” she says.
    George stares for a moment, aware of the spider’s web delicacy of this conversation, aware she is telling him things that are surely forbidden and that he must maintain the trust he has gained, apparently by accident.
    “He lies?” he prompts gently.
    “The head. The boy,” she says. “Nobody does that where I come from. It’s Easton. It’s all him.”
    Blood rushes around George’s ears and his skin begins to burn. This is exactly what he did not wish to hear. Yet it has been spoken with a conviction and sincerity which cannot be denied. What reason could she have for lying when the practice had been so eloquently defended by Easton? No, she wasn’t lying. Which meant the whole thing, all those elaborate explanations of doorways, souls and the afterworld were part of the most bare-faced, treacherous deceit which could be imagined. It means that Easton must grow even larger in his estimation both in his power and in his malignancy.
    George sways and almost stumbles. The slave takes a short step back.
    “What really happened? Did you see him die?”
    “Yes, I saw it,” she says. An expression bitter, hurt and telling of long experience spills over her face.
    “Did Baxter, the boy, draw his sword?”
    The woman breaks into an unhappy laugh. The corners of her mouth turn down. She says nothing.
    “No?”
    She sighs, her eyes becoming moist. “The boy talks. Easton yawns. The boy talks. Easton scratches his head. The boy talks. Easton’s sword goes into the boy’s neck. The boy chokes. Easton peels an apple, watching. The boy dies. That is what happened. Then he tells me ‘go!,’ he has work with the body.”
    George backs off onto the bed, feeling sick. He sits down. The woman remains before him. She sways as though about to leave.
    “No,” he gasps, “don’t go yet. I must know...” His mind is buzzing in confusion and horror. The idea that this woman can continue to serve Easton and satisfy his every whim is suddenly abhorrent to him. He remembers the first night when Easton’s hands had touched hers on the goblet stem and he caught a lascivious glance upon the pirate’s face. Did she return it? It is hard to remember. She certainly didn’t draw away.
    The woman stares down at him, half curious, half sympathetic, while he catches his breath. “What I want to know is,” he begins before his thoughts have properly formed, “what I want to know...is, why have you never tried to escape?”
    The woman’s eyes slowly widen. She presses her hand into her breast. “Me!” she exclaims. “Escape?” George recognizes the arched body and flashing eyes of a woman’s anger. Even through his malaise he is surprised to note how similar the gestures are to those of women from England. “Maybe I escape and captain my own ship, you think, Captain Dawson?”
    He looks up, surprised at his name on her lips.
    “Maybe I lead my own flotilla against Easton! Maybe I go to the King and ask for money to do this! Do you think he would?”
    George looks down at the rug. “Sorry,” he says lamely.
    “You are the captain. You do something. You and the admiral!”
    She walks out and the door swings to with a clunk.

Chapter Seven
    George spends a fitful night. He dreams of a flag-draped corpse hitting the water, then sinking slowly with bubbles fizzling to the surface. He dreams of the slave woman in a captain’s uniform striding alone up and down the deck of the
Happy Adventure
with a storm raging all around her. She walks with her arms behind her back in the manner of a great sea captain weighing a decision. George dreams of himself and Admiral Whitbourne dressed as menials, serving Easton with meat and wine at his luxurious table. He dreams that the movements of his limbs have become magically joined to Easton’s will, that he will refill a goblet or carve another slice of meat,