NOVEL WEB Chapter XXVII – Bless them which meet you.
Most that I have done and suffered in the service of our cause has been in public, and I have received much encouragement at every step of the way. You, on the other hand, have labored in a private way. I have wrought in the day, you in the night. I have had the applause of the crowd and the satisfaction that comes of being approved by the multitude, while the most that you have done has been witnessed by a few trembling, scarred, and foot-sore bondmen and women, whom you have led out of the house of bondage, and whose heartfelt "God bless you" has been your only reward. The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism. Excepting John Brown, of sacred memory, I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than you have.
- Frederick Douglass’ letter to a certain someone (1868)
Old John Brown sat in his new room, the former dining room of the Algernon estate, inspecting what might be the most important item in the entire building: a map detailing Mount Curry and its immediate area. He had found this map while looking around the late Algernon’s office. Other copper mines, farms, villages… All were noted on one gargantuan piece of paper detailing bits of information about these locations. This would be pretty useful for their future expeditions, and Brown had already began constructing further plans in his head.
Ayomide came into the room, carrying two cups of tea. “Old man, you still staring at the paper?” She set one cup down for Brown, and took a sip from the other. Getting something to drink other than slime soup felt heavenly.
“May God bless you, young lady.” Brown accepted Ayomide’s offer for having a tea break. He leaned back on his chair, his old spine making concerning cracks as he did. “I wish we had someone else that could read, but alas.” These sorts of jobs requiring literacy had all been left to Brown. Latin script was pretty commonly used in Gemeinplatz, as Brown had observed in his visit to Azdavay, and items like maps usually had transcriptions in English written under native Gemeinplatzian script.
Ayomide stared at the map with a blank expression. She was unable to read any of the text on it. “Man, I wish I could read.” Knowledge was power; the slaveowners definitely didn’t intend to distribute power to their chattel. “All of these symbols look too complicated to learn. Too many of them.”
“It’s not too complicated, young lady. The English alphabet isn’t, anyways, I don’t know anything about this other writing that they use in this realm.” Brown leaned forward to point at a point on the map that was spelled with an “A”. “For example, this is pronounced as ‘a’. A. There are twenty-five other letters like it, learning them all shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Eigh. Eeeigh.” The odd way that an English speaker like Brown spelt ‘A’ didn’t help Ayomide much in understanding anything. “Eigh? Which place has a name beginning with eigh?”
“Azdaweigh. The town that we had visited, young lady.” Even if the local language had been somehow beamed into his mind, Brown wasn’t adept at pronunciation.
“That’s pronounced Az-da-vay. Not Eigh-zee-da-weeigh, whatever that’s supposed to be.” Ayomide took another look at the letter ‘A’. “I’m guessing that this is supposed to be pronounced more like ‘[aː]’ not ‘[ˈeɪ]’. We’re not in Awmereighka, old man. Nobody here pronounces anything like that.”
“Is that so…” Pronunciation was a battle that was fiercer than any battles Brown had in Kansas. Even with divine intervention, it seemed, he wouldn’t be able to stop pronouncing “A” differently. “Oh Lord, guide me in pronunciation.” He took a sip out of his tea to calm himself down. “No matter my pronunciation, I plan on getting to teach everyone how to read and write eventually.” Currently, the former Algernon estate was operating in a mode of full mobilization which left no time for A's, B's and C's.
Literacy would have to come after they were sure that they could defend this place, or organize an orderly retreat if they couldn’t. Realistically, Brown thought, they had to retreat from the estate. He didn’t plan on staying here for long anyways, guerilla warfare like the one he planned to conduct involved not having any known place that the enemy could assault. Staying immobile in a known location was the worst case scenario. Still, before the local forces could mobilize to meet him, Brown planned on using the estate as much as he could before their inevitable retreat.
“Mister Brown, hello? Anybody there?” Ayomide waved her hand in front of Brown, who had spaced out while thinking of future plans.
“Sorry, young lady. I was just following a train of thought that happened to pass by.” Brown took a deep breath. The future was the future; the present was the present. He needed to focus on what was in front of him right now. “I think it’d be best if I trained someone to be a teacher, someone who has decent command of this realm’s language.”
“Guess I can do that. I don’t mind learning how to read and write. I could teach the rest.” Her time in the service industry as a waitress had already given Ayomide a decent grasp of Gemeinplatzian language. Learning to read and write didn’t seem to be too daunting of a task: memorizing twenty-six letters wasn’t exactly the hardest thing in the world.
“Great, young lady.” Brown seemed pleased at her willingness to learn the ABCs. “Then… Let us begin right now, if you are not occupied.” He grabbed an errant sheet of empty paper, and intended to write some letters on it, before he was interrupted by a knock on the door. “…Or not. Come in, we’re not busy.”
A small group entered the office, which was a lot more than Brown had expected from a single knock. This group of freemen was armed with spears, and they surrounded a smaller group of three people.
Brown was about to ask what the meaning of their visit was, but he immediately stopped once he realized the existence of a certain old woman among the ranks of the smaller group. The old man rubbed his eyes two or three, trying to make sure that he wasn’t seeing some sort of illusion. The familiar figure still stood in front of him, as real as anything else in the room.
“Praise be to the Lord, is that…” Brown rose up from his chair to show respect. “…is that really you? I had heard about one ‘Miss Moses’, but I thought that it was impossible for it to be you!”
“As real as you are, Brown.” The old woman slowly walked toward Brown. “I knew that you were not the type of man to lay calmly, moldering in a grave.”
The crowd of freemen looked at each other, confused as to what connection these two people might have. Bilal stepped forward to voice their concerns. “Who’s this woman, Mister Brown?”
“Right. You probably haven’t been acquainted.” Brown stepped aside to present an old friend to the people in the room. “I bring you one of the best and bravest persons on the American continent and on this realm: General Tubman as we called her.”
“Harriet Tubman. Former conductor on the Underground Railroad and…” Tubman walked toward the two people she had brought along with her. “…current conductor of the League of Canaanites.”
“So those queer hooded figures talking about ‘Miss Moses’…” Brown definitely remembered seeing the same sort of dark, hooded people back in his flight from Azdavay. “…they were your men?” His smile widened greatly. “It seems that General Tubman has outshone us once again.” None of the men in the room, except for Brown and the men of the league, had ever seen Tubman. They weren’t sure as to what Brown was alluding to by “once again”.
“It is only by the grace of God that we’ve been able to get so far, Brown. So far back in America, and so far here in Gemeinplatz. The Lord hasn’t deserted us in any trouble.” Tubman didn’t forget to add an obligatory dose of Christian humility.
“Indeed, let us not forget that.” Brown added a few more words of praise to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit before continuing. The freemen watched while these otherworlders participated in this odd ritual. Ayomide yawned; she had seen this same thing play out far too many times whenever the old man achieved something. “…Now then, General Tubman, please sit down. Join me for some tea, and let us talk of business as usual.”
“That’d be nice, yes.” Harriet took a seat, along with her hooded comrades, and the crowd of curious onlookers dispersed. They weren’t exactly interested in eavesdropping on a conversation between two close comrades, not to mention the fact that they had actual work to do.
Ayomide soon came back with a fresh cup of tea for her new sister. “Here you go, Miss Tubman.” She took a few steps back to properly introduce herself to this friend of John Brown. “I’m Ayomide from Azdavay.” She instinctively ended up performing a curtsy, an act that was still engrained within her from the maid café. Ayomide was under mind-control at that time, of course, but her body still remembered how she had been moved.
“Oh, what a nice young lady you are.” Tubman was a bit surprised at how refined Ayomide seemed. Her wearing clothes ‘borrowed’ from Sir Algernon, Lady Leila’s clothes were a tad bit large for her, made her look like she was supposed to be the owner of the estate they were standing on. A silk waistcoat and pants (Brown was shocked when he learned of the fact that woman wearing pants was common in Gemeinplatz) made Ayomide look uncomfortably sharp for her own tastes.
“Thank you, mistres- Ahem, Miss Tubman.” Ayomide had to stop herself from being overly formal. Her gaze shifted toward the strange hooded figures who had been standing quietly, watching them while they had been proceeding with the introductions. “…So, who are these people?” Ayomide pointed at the strangers.
“Oh, they?” Tubman turned around to meet her followers. “Come on, we’re with our allies. I don’t need to tell you to uncloak.”
The figure on the right took off her hood, revealing a face that Brown and Ayomide had ended up making themselves familiar with. “Sorry. Just a force of habit.” It was Kyauta. “Though, I don’t think introductions are necessary for me.”
Yes, I’ve been all to closely acquainted with you and your knife, thought Ayomide.
Brown knew Kyauta too, though not as closely as Ayomide, for she was a character that he had met in the first chapter of his life in this new realm. “Glad to see that the Holy Spirit guided you to safety and good company.”
“Indeed, I have been guided to a good place.” Kyauta, having stopped being in mission mode, found herself a chair to sit down and relax. “Vaiz, I believe it’s your turn.”
“Right! Right, it’s my turn.” The other figure who revealed himself was a young man. He looked out of place in this gathering of freed slaves, with his skin colored like fresh milk that had been left in the sun for too long. His eyes were crystal blue, like a clear river under daylight, and his locks had color that wouldn’t be off on the bark of a tree. His teeth were mostly intact, which was pretty rare in a land like Gemeinplatz where dentists were as common as unicorns on Mars.
“I’m Vaiz, priest… or former priest of the Temple of the Divine. Peace be upon ye.” Vaiz acted timidly in his introduction, and his appearance was one of a young man from a well-off family who hadn’t seen much of the world yet. “They kicked me out when I tried to teach The Hallow Word to demi-humans, you see. The people of Casamonu didn’t take kindly to me doing that…”
“A priest?” Brown hadn’t been able to gather much information about religion in Gemeinplatz. He had no qualms working together with anyone of good character who professed abolitionism, regardless of creed. A younger Brown would have began arguing with this man over doctrine, an older Brown still planned to do so later in their free time, but with age had come wisdom as to when argument and debate was appropriate.
“Y-Yes, sir.” Vaiz took off the rest of the black robes to reveal the white robe of a priest. He took out a small skullcap from his pockets and put it on to complete his hallow outfit. “With Divine guidance, I intend to right the heretical doctrine of the Temple barring our darkskin and demi-human siblings from seeing the light.”
Vaiz seemed to gain a whole lot more fervor at the last part of his speech, casting off this timidness. Thus began, unbeknownst to many, a grand schism and reformation within the Temple of the Divine.