“Go on,” says Placide.
“Well, Richmond’s always having slave revolts.”
Jack does not like where this is going.
“Richmond hadoneslave revolt,” says West. “More than a decade ago.”
Young doesn’t back down. “It was a fairly large one, though, wasn’t it?”
Placide glances at West. “Let him finish.”
“Suppose there were a bunch of Negroes running around out back with torches. If they set the building’s exterior on fire, it’d be the people backstage who caught wind of it, long before the audience did.”
“You’re absolutely right,” says Placide. “That’s brilliant.”
Like most boys in Richmond, Jack grew up on stories of Gabriel Prosser’s rebellion. Supposedly, Prosser rallied a thousand men to rise up against the city’s white elite, but the plan was found out, and within weeks, Prosser and at least two dozen of his friends and allies had been killed.
Jack hesitates to say anything, but none of the actors know the city the way he does. “The last time someone said the words ‘slave revolt’ in Richmond, a lot of innocent men died.”
“Innocentmen?” asks Placide with a hint of amusement on his face.
“Yes,” says Jack as confidently as he can, but his voice cracks in the middle of that one tiny word.
“Like who?”
Jack wishes he’d paid more attention to the details of the case. All he knows, for sure, is that his father believed the trials were a big sham. “I don’t know names, but…”
His voice trails off, and it’s clear he’s lost Placide’s attention.
“Mr. Young,” says Placide, “I think you’re onto something. What we need to do is get out ahead of the story. Plant the seed that we were attacked.”
“By a band of rebellious slaves?” says Perry, like he can’t quite believe where this is going.
“Exactly,” says Placide. “We’ll write to the paper. Give our account of events. Before people have a chance to come to their own conclusions.”
Jack looks at Anderson, who is nodding along agreeably. Sometimes he reminds Jack of an oversized lapdog.
“It’s good thinking,” says Twaits.
Even West doesn’t argue, and when Jack looks over at Lydia, she won’t meet his eyes.
Jack reminds himself that Placide and the others aren’t keeping him here against his will. They can’t force him to go along with this. He’ll leave. Go to the authorities, or maybe to Girardin. What a relief it would be to lay all of this at his professor’s feet, to admit his mistakes and ask what he should do next.
At the academy, Girardin used to make Jack and his friends read the Greek philosophers. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle. Jack’s Greek was never very good, but he remembers a bit of Aristotle, who was so concerned with the virtue of man.Virtue means doing the right thing, in relation to the right person, at the right time, to the right extent, in the right manner, and for the right purpose.
He thinks about that now as he looks around the room, taking in the faces of the men and women he’s spent the last two and a half months getting to know. They are gifted actors who are transforming the American stage, and who might—if given enough time—have come to recognize his own talents, but they are not virtuous.
“Do any of you know anyone who volunteers with the slave patrol?” Placide asks in a booming voice that brings Jack back to his senses. “If we get the patrollers riled up, that might be all it takes.”
“Wait,” says Jack. “We’re going to go to the slave patrol?”
“Do you have a problem with that?”
Jack’s uncle volunteers with the patrol, and Jack saw enough—when he was living with him—to know that the group does more harm than good. “They’re a bunch of ruffians.”
“Yes, but they’re not going after us,” Placide reminds him.
Jack doesn’t think too hard about what he’s doing; he just pushes hischair back from the table and leaps to his feet. “I can’t go along with this,” he says, in a voice that manages to come out too high and too loud, all at the same time.
