Lord of Darkness

  “Do you mean they are whores?” I asked.

  My informant, who was a merchant of grain, laughed broadly and said, “Nay, nay, they are respectable women! They are Jewesses, but they are respectable!” And he told me that there was in Portugal a place called the Casa Pia, founded by a former queen, where unfortunate women dwelled. Some of them were criminals that had been reformed, and some were Jewesses who had been converted to Christian ways; and it was twelve of those latter, all of them now rigged out with crucifixes at their breasts and other signs of high piety, that had been introduced into this rough and harsh frontier.

  And indeed they did soften and beautify the place, for each was like a little sun, giving off a bright radiance in her perambulation through the streets of São Paulo de Loanda. At another time I might have sought a closer touch of that radiance myself; but other men were ahead of me in ample number, and I had no wish to struggle through such crowds. Moreover did I have Matamba to console my nights, and that night she and I took such a reunion of the flesh as allowed me no sleep, but provided us both the most intense of delights, with many a moaning and a gasping, and making of love in this position and that, she tickling me and clipping me until I thought I would go mad of it, and then turning and crouching to present her ebony buttocks to me whilst I did thrust my stiffened wand into the hot place below them, and afterward taking me the other way around, kneeling above me in her manner, and still later even granting me the rare favor of letting me have her in the European custom with her body beneath mine, and so on and so on all through the night, in a frenzy of quivering breasts and flashing thighs and moist slippery loins and bright laughing eyes and agile thrusting hips. Which made me weep from sheer gladness of it, that I was here alive in São Paulo de Loanda in the loving arms of this good-hearted Negress, and not lying dead with vulture-picked eyesockets on the field of Kafuche Kambara.

  THIRTEEN

  IT WAS some days before I encountered Dona Teresa, for now that she was a married woman certain constraints were upon her, and I could not merely go to visit her, nor she come to me. But I did see her in the grand plaza of the city on the arm of Captain Fernão da Souza, she all elegant in veil with cap of black velvet, and chains of gold, and a silken robe, and he thrice as splendid as ever in crimson breeches and a brilliant yellow coat. The sight of her gave me a sharp pang and thrill, to remember how I had grieved for her rumored death. As I passed them she nodded to me and smiled through her veil, all with the greatest dignity, as if she were a lady of the court of Her Protestant Majesty Elizabeth, and Souza, too, gave me his most formal salutation. But we went on beyond one another without exchanging words.

  Again the next day I saw them together, but from a greater distance, and as she went by I suddenly had a vision of myself in my prison-cell days, and Dona Teresa with me, both of us naked and she lying with her face against my thighs, and taking the tip of my yard into her mouth as she had several times done, and sliding it deep to the inner part of her throat, and moving back and forth along it until I was ready to cry out with ecstasy. That vision striking me in the public street all but smote me down. My heart began to pound and there was a dryness in my nostrils and my eyes did go bleary, and I craved her with all the craving in the world, and nothing else mattered. Then I caught my breath, and turned away, not willing to look upon her for fear of seeming a fool. The power of the moment released me and I turned again, and she was gone from my sight.

  From that I learned how strongly Dona Teresa still held me in her grasp. Which I feared; for these Portugals take the chastity of their wives most serious, and I craved no quarrel with Captain Fernão da Souza, nor did I care to be drawn yet again into Dona Teresa’s mischievous spells, beautiful though she was. She was too sly and perilous for me: I would remain content with Matamba, I told myself, until I could quit this place forever.

  The day after that, as I was setting forth to the harbor to inspect the pinnace, Dona Teresa came by without her husband, carried by a team of bearers in a corded hammock, and she did command her bearers to halt beside me, and spoke with me from aloft, as a great lady would have done. She said she was surprised to find me still in Angola, having thought I would have obtained my release by now. To which I replied that I appeared to be of value here, in that the several governors constantly found new tasks for me, and I much doubted I would ever go home. And she said, still in that same distant way, that she had heard good report of my valor in the battle with Kafuche Kambara; and she remarked somewhat on the changes in my appearance that those hardships had worked in me. We exchanged another some few pleasantries of this kind, at the end of which she invited me to attend her at her residence that afternoon: she would send bearers to fetch me.

  Her manner was altogether different when I came to her, at the handsome new dwelling that she dwelled in now with Souza. Still was she clothed in great finery; but that lofty style, that high and distant condescension, had been put aside. Now was she the woman I remembered, whose body had been coupled to mine in every several position of the act of love, and whose each inch I did know with mine eyes and fingers and lips and tongue. She glistened at me with memory of lust and desire yet unfulfilled; and I in turn responded with tremors of yearning that I controlled only barely.

  Yet control it I did, as did she, for we were in the formal drawing-chamber of her house, with slaves all about us bringing us little cooked morsels and wines and the like. What passed between us, to the eyes of those onlookers, was as proper and seemly as anything that might occur between some old dowager and a decrepit monk. Only Teresa and I could detect the searing currents of powerful attraction that flowed from her eyes to mine, and mine to hers.

  She proffered me a tray of sweetmeats and said, low and throbbing, “All the while I was in Europe I imagined you atop me, Andres, and I was sick to the heart from being so far from you.”

  “And I, lady, sick to the heart that I thought you were murdered.”

  “It was a near thing. Who told you of it?”

  “One of my sailors, as I went toward Loango. He had heard in a tavern, rogues talking too loud of the plot. How I raged, how I pounded the staves of the ship in fury over the loss of you, Teresa! A near thing, you say?”

  “We learned of the scheme only a day or two before it was to happen. Three men meant to come to us in the night and cut our throats and put us over the side, but Don João had loyal servants who scouted out the murderers, and made them admit their plan, and it was they who went into the sea instead, with their hands tied in back.” She filled my goblet a second time. “It was the worst moment of the voyage for me, hearing how close I had come to dying. Nay: the second worst.”

  “And what was the worst, then?”

  “Seeing Don João greet his wife in Lisbon.”

  “His wife? But I thought—”

  “Yea, so did I. A promise of marriage made unto me. But he had never said it in so many words. He had planted the idea in my own mind, and let me think it, and embellish upon it, and imagine great things of it, but he had never said it himself. He is subtle at such twistings of the truth, is Don João. But as I sorted through my memories of our dealings on that theme, which were not many, I saw that he had not pledged me anything, but merely had allowed me to trick myself into thinking us betrothed. For how could he wed me, if he has a wife already in Portugal? The Church will allow him only one, and he cannot put her aside as easily as your English king did dispense with the queens he no longer required.”

  “I am sorry for your pain,” I said, seeing the flaring of her nostrils in anger, and the sheen of withheld tears in her eyes.

  She said, “He married her when they were very young. She is of a noble family, yea, I think of royal blood, and wealthier than he, with powerful connections in the government, and he does not dare break with her, though he has lived in Africa these many years and has had no commerce with her all the while. When we arrived in Lisbon he at once sent his messenger to her, and in the time we were in that city they
did consort themselves as man and wife, with much public show of it. Although they spent their nights in separate chambers, I think.”

  “Then why bother to bring you to Portugal at all?”

  Dona Teresa smiled a bitter smile. “Because he had truly pledged it to me, without equivocation, that if ever he returned to Portugal I should go with him. I think he never expected that pledge to be redeemed, for he planned no more to set foot in that land. But when circumstances here required him to go, why, he did not cheat me of the journey, knowing that I desired so much to see Europe. In that regard he is an honorable man. And then also it is a long voyage, and Don João is not one who cares to spend weeks and weeks without a woman in his arms. And also I think he wanted to display me at court, as his beautiful African concubine, for men take pride in such show, do they not, Andres? And even among good Christians there is no evil in taking a concubine when one has a wife already, if one is a man of high position, or so I understand it. The wife herself did not seem jealous of me. She praised me, in sooth, for my beauty, and I think gave her husband congratulation for having chosen so well.”

  “And is this why you married Captain da Souza?” I asked. “By way of revenging yourself?”

  “That is too simple a reason.”

  “But Don João had done you a great injury.”

  “Nay, Andres, my own hopes and follies had done me the injury. I hold no grudge against Don João.”

  “He is most marvelously fortunate, that he can injure people and they will still love him.”

  “He has promised you a return to England, has he not? And not by subtlety and indirection, either, but in most straightforward outright words. Yet he has not made good the promise, and still you serve him, and still I think you love him.”

  “It is not the same,” I said. “He has no reason nor obligation ever to release me. It is only his gift to me, which he can bestow whenever he chooses, or withhold forever, and I have nothing to say in the matter. But to allow you to think he would wed you, knowing all the while it was impossible—”

  “I have told you, it was self-deception on my part. Mine eyes were blinded to the truth. I will not deny I am greatly disappointed, and that it was painful to learn how far I was from an understanding of the actual situation. But I do not hate him for it. I remain his friend.”

  “But you are now the wife of Souza.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Why Souza?”

  “He is handsome. He is ambitious. I was eager to wed, and if I could not have Don João, why, it was time to choose another. And I chose Souza.”

  “And he does not object that you’ve been the mistress of Don João?”

  “Why should he? Men do not seek virgins here. And it does him honor, to have all know that he has captured so high a prize as Dona Teresa da Costa.”

  “And how does Don João feel about all these matters?”

  Dona Teresa said, smiling slyly, “His conscience is eased toward me, now that I am truly wed. And he has lost nothing.”

  I stared at her. “You intend still to—”

  “He is the governor, is he not? If he still finds me attractive, is there not advantage for me in gratifying his desire? Is there not advantage for my husband, also?”

  It was much like the court of England, I thought, this pandering of wives for preference, this winking at adultery. It is the same everywhere, I do suppose.

  After a moment I said, “It amazes me that Souza will let himself be cuckolded before the whole community for the sake of gaining a little power. Has the man no shame?”

  “Ah, it will not be so public as you seem to think. We will be circumspect. There are decencies to consider, are there not?”

  “Are there?”

  She laughed now. “Andres, Andres, you look so stern!”

  “This kind of business is not comfortable to me, this handing off of a discarded mistress to a younger officer to be his wife, and then this sneaking around behind the new husband’s back, and—”

  “Ah, you are so pious! And when I thought I was betrothed to Don João, and I came secretly to you, did you find it so uncomfortable that you did refuse me, Andres?”

  “That was different!” I cried.

  “Was it? Not so far as I can see. I do brand you hypocrite, dear Andres, and false moralizer.” She offered me the sweetmeats again, like a proper hostess, and then she leaned close to me and said in a low rich voice that went through me like a hot blade, “Nothing has changed, except that I am now called wife. I use Don João to my benefit. I use Fernão the same way. So has it been, so shall it be. What passes between them and me is a kind of business, a transaction, do you understand? It is not the same between you and me. And we remain as we are. Do you remember how it felt, when I was in your arms? Nay, you have not forgotten that. I have not forgotten, neither. And it has been a year, has it not? That is much too long. I remember your body, the size of it, the taste, the feel. I remember everything about you. I hope you will not tell me in your pious English way that I am too sacred to touch, now that I am called wife. Eh, Andres?”

  Her eyes were upon me. Her skin was flushed, her lips were gleaming and parted. I think if she had asked me to take her right there, on the thick green carpet, in front of all her slaves, I would have done it. I could not have resisted. Then and there, had she bade me, would I have spread her and tupped her, without a thought of saying no. Such was her hold on me.

  But of course that could not happen, and it did not happen. She leaned away from me, she let the throb and tremor go from her voice and the fire from her eye, and we did talk again like dowager and monk, all calm and innocent, until the visit had its end.

  When I was outside in the full blaze of the day, though, a sweat came over me that had nothing to do with the heat of the murky air, and I was hard put to steady myself. Jezebel! Messalina! She was terrifying, that woman: she was an irresistible force, that swept down upon a man like the River Zaire.

  And yet must I resist the irresistible.

  Her design was perilous for me. It had been bad enough in the times gone by for me to be cuckolding Don João with her; but either Don João had not known, or he had known and had not cared, or else Don João peradventure had known and found it amusing and flattering to have his favorite concubine futtered by the valiant Englishman. For that was truly all he saw her to be, his concubine, his plaything; or he would not have acted out the cruel game of letting her travel in pomp with him to Europe and then producing upon her his proper wife.

  But now that she was Souza’s, it was another matter. Souza was proud; he was young; he carried a sword, and looked for the chance to employ it. I did not care to trifle with a hot-blooded young Portugal in his early manhood. Souza might choose to close his eyes if his wife did swive the governor from time to time, and would tell himself that by so doing she advanced his own position in the government: that was vile, but it gave him vantage. But I doubted much that he would accept the horns from anyone less mighty than Don João. For my part I craved no quarrels, no duels, no gangs of angry bravos setting upon me by night; I wanted only peace, safety, security, until I could get me out of this land. For the satisfaction of my desires I had the pleasant and indulgent Matamba. Dona Teresa, though I lusted for her vastly and always would, to the end of my days, could bring me only trouble, and I resolved to steer clear of so risky a shoal as she.

  But easier would it have been to steer clear of the continents of the Americas, if you were making your voyage westward toward the Indies.

  Twice did she send messages to me in the next few days that I should come to her at such and such a place. The message was most careful not to say why; but I knew. The first time it was an inspection of my pinnace that she desired, but I replied to her that the ship had been careened for the removing of its barnacles, and was not ready to be boarded. The second time, she begged me to convey her to the isle of Loanda in our harbor, so that she might visit the factory where the money-shells were heaped; but that is
land has many empty places and few Portugals on it, and it was not hard to imagine what would befall between us the moment we were alone there. Again I extended an excuse. I hoped she would take her clue from that, that I loved her no less but did not dare to embrace her. For some days I did not have word from her, which gave me heart that she had understood my meaning. To refuse a woman like Dona Teresa was not easy for me, yet I must; and I prayed she would comprehend that I was not spurning her for any reason other than that of safety, my own and even hers.

  During this time a new chore descended upon me that took my mind away from these intricacies. For there appeared in our harbor a merchantship out of Holland, who had come to trade with the Portugals. And I was pressed into service to be the interpreter, for the Dutchmen spoke but feeble Portuguese, and the Portugals of Angola spoke no Dutch whatsoever. So Don João, greatly mystified that a Dutchman should be here at all, called me to the task, since the Dutch skipper, like most men of his kind, had a fair quantity of English, and I knew a shred or two of Dutch from my early voyaging days to Antwerp and such places.

  This ship of the Dutch was of the kind they call a fluyt, or flyboat, and a great hulking thing it was. I would call it no more than a floating cargo hold, practically flat on her bottom, with simple rigging and no guns to speak of and the masts stepped well apart, and the length of the ship maybe five times her beam—just a big barge, really, that could carry God’s own tonnage of cargo at the cheapest possible cost. I had heard that the Dutch had built many such vessels of late to fetch goods between Europe and the Americas, and were in their busy Dutch way prospering mightily by selling cloth and slaves in Brazil and buying sugar, and bringing salt from Venezuela to Europe, and such.