Lord of Darkness

  This was the time to tell him that a Portuguese army was not far away, and that we must enter it into our planning. But something held me from giving forth that news at just that instant, and in the next he drove it utterly from my mind by saying most offhandedly, “And also, we will deal with the Portugal woman tonight. I give you leave to pay your farewell to her, if you so desire.”

  That struck me most heavily, for in recent days it had seemed to me that under the press of circumstance Calandola had forgotten Dona Teresa entirely, or else was no longer set on having her life. The force of his words must have had its conspicuous effect in my features, for he noted my look and said more gently, “She must die, Andubatil. There is no other way about it. Have you not resolved yourself to it?”

  “That woman is most dear to me.”

  “Aye, but she is a traitor, self-confessed. I cannot let her live, or it would be the end of all government among my nation. Kinguri cries for her blood.”

  “And who is lord here, Kinguri or Calandola?”

  “Calandola is lord!” he howled. “Calandola will have her slain! And take care, Andubatil, lest he take your life, too, for insolence if not for treason!”

  “I meant no offense, my lord. You see how strong I regret her slaying, that I would speak that way?”

  “She must die,” said he more calmly, though I knew I had wounded him deep and would not be soon forgiven. “Speak no folly, Andubatil. Go to her, bid her be resigned, comfort her, take what comfort you can yourself; for it is sealed.”

  “There is no sparing her?”

  “None.”

  “I will go to her, then,” I said.

  And as we parted he called after me, “Andubatil? Attempt no desperate treason, when you are with her. I pray you, do not do any foolish thing. It would grieve me to see you slaughtered beside her at the festival.”

  “I shall not be rash, O Imbe-Jaqqa,” I did reply, though he had read my heart.

  I went at once to the place where Dona Teresa was kept; and her guards, knowing that it was Calandola’s will, admitted me freely to her cage. Thus was it that our first meeting was reversed, she now being the prisoner and I the visitor, whereas in the presidio of São Paulo de Loanda upon my coming to this land it had been the other way.

  Her captivity had gone severely with her. They had not starved her, for I saw food and drink within her cage; but she must have eaten little of it, and she was most haggard and diminished, as though the flame within her did burn low. Her garments, that had been in rents and tatters before, now were loose and soiled and she made no show of fastening them, so that her breasts and belly were all but bare, and her skin seemed slack to me, her bearing feeble, her nobility and beauty in retreat. When I entered I found her bent over, crouched over some small thing of twigs and straw, and muttering words to it, and she looked up, alarmed, and hid it behind her back.

  “What is that, Teresa?” I asked.

  “It is nothing, Andres.”

  “Show it me.”

  “It is nothing.”

  “Show it.”

  She shook her head; and when I reached for it, she hissed like an angry cat, and backed away from me to the corner of the cage.

  “It is some idol, is it not?” I asked. “Some mokisso-thing that you have fashioned, and that you are praying to?”

  “It does not concern you,” said she.

  “This is no time for idols and witchcraft. This is a time for true prayer, Teresa.”

  She looked toward me with dull and somber eyes and said, “They are to slay me tonight, Andres, are they not?”

  “So the Imbe-Jaqqa declares.”

  “And will they eat me afterward?”

  “Speak not of such things, Teresa, I pray you.”

  “They will eat me. It was as my mother died. I will go into their pot, and they will carve me, and this one will eat my breasts, and this one my thighs, and—well, and what does it matter, when I am dead?” She stared me cold in the eyes and said, “And will you eat your share of my flesh?”

  “It is a sickening thing you have said.”

  “Andres—O! I would not die, Andres, not so soon! Is it to be tonight?”

  Softly I said, “That is their intent.”

  “And will you not save me? Is there no way? You are brother to these Jaqqa lords: go to them, plead for me, ask a pardon, tell them they can banish me instead, that I will go to the Kongo, to Benguela, to any place they choose, an’ only they let me live, Andres!”

  “I have pleaded for you strongly. It has not availed.”

  “But you have power with them!”

  “I count myself lucky not to have been drawn down into your guilt, as Kinguri would have had it befall me. For I did stake my honor you would not do a treason. They would be within their rights to punish me for your deed.”

  “What could I do, then? Allow the city to be sacked, and send no warning?”

  “It was folly. They were on their guard against some such thing from you.”

  “Well, and what does it matter now? I am to die,” she said, wholly dejected and defeated. “You cannot save me? You will not?”

  “I cannot. Though I have tried, and will try again, at the very last. I will speak again with the Jaqqa king, when he has had some wine, when he is easy among his women, and perhaps then at last he will give you pardon.”

  “You do not sound hopeful of it.”

  “I will attempt to save you. I can give you no promise I will succeed. I will attempt: I will ask again, Teresa.”

  She said, “Let them not eat me, at least.”

  “If I cannot have your life spared, I will beg the Imbe-Jaqqa to allow you a Christian burial, if it come to that. But I hope it will not come to that.”

  “O Andres, I am not ready for this! I loved my life. I was a great woman in Angola, do you know? I was like a queen in that city. Look at me now! I am ten years older in a single week. My beauty is destroyed. I am afraid, Andres. I was never afraid of anything, and now I am a column of fear, and naught but fear, the whole length of my body. Will I go to Hell, Andres?”

  “You should not fear it, if you die a Christian.”

  “I have sinned. I have done sins of the flesh—”

  “They were acts of love, which are not sins.”

  “And other sins, of pride, of avarice, I have been treacherous to you whom I loved, Andres, I have told lies of great evil nature to work harm on you—I did love you, is that known to you?”

  “Aye, Teresa. And I had love for you. Mingled with a certain fear, I think, for you were so strong, so frightening in your strength.”

  “My strength is all gone from me now. I will beshit myself with fright when I walk out to be slain.”

  “I think not. I think if it must come to that, you will do it well. Like a queen.”

  “Like an English Queen? What did your King Harry’s Queens say and do, when they came forth to lose their heads?”

  “Why, I was not born then,” said I, “but the tale is that they were most courageous, and faced their doom without the least quiver. As also did Mary the Scottish Queen, that was done to death just in the years before I left England. And you will be bold and strong like all of them, for you are queenly too. If it must come to pass that way.”

  “Hold me, Andres.”

  I took her into my arms. She was trembling, and folded herself against me like a frightened child.

  In a voice I scarce could hear, she said, “When first I saw you in São Paulo de Loanda so long ago, I said within myself, He is beautiful, he shines like the sun, I want him. You were a pretty plaything. And then I came to you in the fortress, and I nursed you when you were sick and gone from your rightful mind, and as you slept I looked upon you and loved you. And when you healed, and I bathed you with the sponge, and your manhood rose, I wanted you as I have wanted no other man, and so we became lovers, and would have been lovers all the years since, but for circumstance. I dreamed of you. When I was in bed with Don Fernão I pre
tended he was you. When you got yourself that blackamoor wench as your slave and concubine, I thought of killing her—or you—or myself, so strong was my love. Well, and so I felt, and I could not help myself for it. And did you love me, Andres?”

  “That I did, most deeply, Teresa. For I think you have been the great love of my life.”

  With a little laugh she said, “And the wonderful Anne Katherine of whom you spoke so much?”

  “Long ago. A ghost that flits in my mind. I knew her only a little, when I was a boy. You have been at the center of my heart these fourteen years.”

  “Andres—”

  “Aye, Teresa. It is true.”

  “I am afraid of dying now.”

  “We will pray together.”

  “I am afraid of praying, also,” said she, with a glance behind her, where she had dropped her little magic-thing of straw and twigs. “I have fallen away from the true God, Andres.”

  “He welcomes always the strayed sheep,” I said. I reached past her and took the little pagan thing in my hand, and said, “You must not damn yourself, so near the end. Put this witchcraft aside from you, and spurn it, and give yourself over to the loving Son of God.”

  “Will you pray with me, now?”

  “That I will.”

  She shredded her idol, and strewed its fragments on the ground.

  “Pray in English. Pray what prayers you would pray for your English wife,” she said.

  “If I remember the words, I will do that,” said I.

  And the words were slow to come, but come at last they did, and I knelt beside her and I did say, “The Lord is my light, and my salvation; whom then shall I fear: the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?” And I said the words then in Portuguese also, and she said them with me. And also I said, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills: from whence cometh my help. My help cometh even from the Lord: who hath made heaven and earth.” And she said this after me. And I said, “Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night.” Which she the like did say.

  Then Dona Teresa on her knees alongside me did begin to speak to me as though I were her confessor, and to tell me her sins, which I had no right to hear, I being no priest and scarce even of the same faith as she. But I listened, since that she had a need of telling, and I would not ask of her that she go unshriven to her death, if this night were indeed to be her last. And the sins that she told me were some of them trifles, and some of them not such trifles, and some that gave me great amaze. But though I have spoken in such fullness of all that befell me in Africa, I will not speak of Dona Teresa’s sins here, since they were hers alone, and if I was her confessor then I must respect the sanctity of the confessional, and let God be the only witness to my knowledge of her heart. So I heard her out, and when she was done she spoke the Credo to me, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth,” saying it in Latin while I spoke in English with her, and at the last I did say to her, this one last thing, “Good Lord, deliver us, in all time of our tribulation; in all time of our wealth; in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment, Good Lord, deliver us,” which she did pray most fervently.

  Then we rose and we embraced, and through my mind there rolled as though upon an endless scroll all the images of my life with this woman, from first unto last, our great carnality and high joyous lusts, our sorrows and disturbances, our partings and our reunions, and I felt tears within the threshold of mine eyes, and I withheld them lest I induce grief in her. But at last I could withhold them no more, and we wept together. And I kissed her tenderly and she said, “Go now. I am ready for what must come, Andres.”

  “We will have faith, and you shall be spared.”

  “I do not think so, Andres.”

  “We do not abandon hope, lady, until hope is rendered hopeless.”

  As I turned to go, she reached for my hand, and pressed something into it, and folded my fingers over it, as once she had done long ago with that carven love-idol of hers. I opened my hand and saw that she had given me a little golden crucifix, that often I had seen between her breasts.

  “Take it,” she said. “To remember me.”

  “You should keep this upon you.”

  “I will have no need of it soon. Take it, Andres.”

  I could not tell her that to me this piece of gold was as much an idol as that other one; indeed, at that moment, strange to tell, I did not entirely feel that way, but recognized in it a kind of power, which I suppose meant that Africa had seeped into my soul a little, and had made of me not a Papist but an idol-worshipper to some degree. But I think mainly it was because it came from Dona Teresa that I felt the power in it. So I took it and placed it safe about me, and thanked her.

  And I went from her, and the cage was closed behind me, and I walked me a long while around the Jaqqa camp, listening to the strange and barbarous sounds of it, the chanting and the singing and the playing of instruments, and the sharpening of knives, and when I came to the place of the kettles a fire was already lit, and the water was aboil. And at the sight of that, a vast rage rose in me, so that I pondered seizing Calandola and holding him as hostage for Teresa’s life, and breaking forth from this camp with her beside me and the Imbe-Jaqqa at my sword’s point; but I knew that to be folly.

  Yet was I beginning to draw away from my immersement in the Jaqqa way, and commence my voyage back toward civilization. For I did boggle at this purposing of theirs to slay Dona Teresa, and all the rest of their intent did now begin to take on the taint of blood, and I pulled myself back from it, and stood hesitating, drifting between the side of God and the side of Satan. For I did see that God is the spirit that cries Yea, and Satan is he that cries Nay, and I in my African captivity had become as great a crier of Nay as the Fiend himself, willing to tear down anything to ease mine own pain. For a time I had been mad, I think, or adream. And in that time had I given myself unto Calandola, for whom the act of destruction was the act of creation: I had for a time seen the poetry within that strange pairing of ideas. But no longer. And now I wandered, desperate, lost, between one world and another.

  In that moment Golambolo came to me, running, breathing hard, as though he had run a great distance. He lurched to me on his long legs and gasped before he could speak, and finally the words tumbled from him.

  “The Portugals! They are advancing, O Andubatil! They are coming toward us!”

  “Is it an attack, then?”

  He shook his head. “I think not. I think it is but by chance that they move in our direction. But when morning comes they will surely stumble upon our outlying forces.”

  “How far are they now from us?”

  “An hour’s march, perhaps, or two or three. They have camped for the night.”

  “Ah. And where are they?”

  “In the direction of Langere, between the two gray hills.”

  “The Imbe-Jaqqa must be told,” said I. “I will go to him at once.” Then did I take Golambolo by the wrist and look him close in the eye and say, “Speak nothing to anyone else of what your scouts have told you, not to Kinguri, not to Ntotela, not to anyone, until I have been to the Imbe-Jaqqa: for I would not have the news going running wild through our camp, until the high council has met to resolve on a plan.”

  “I understand. I will obey, O Andubatil.”

  “You do well, Golambolo,” I told him, and sent him on his way.

  Now all fate was in my hands; and I stood poised on the knife’s-edge, between this way and that; and I did make my choice.

  To Kulachinga my Jaqqa wife did I go, she who was so sturdy and reliable, and strong of leg and wind.

  “I have urgent need of you,” I said. “Go now, run eastward, toward Langere way, to a place of two gray hills, that we have seen in recent days. There will be an army there. Take this, and give it to the high commander.” I put into her hand the golden crucifix that Dona Teresa had bestowed upon me. “And
tell him these words, that you must repeat to me until you have them by heart.” And I told her the Portuguese words that meant, “Come at once, strike tonight!” These she said after me, and on the fifth time she had them perfect, though she had no idea of their meaning. “Show them by signs where our camp is located, and lead them to us: for it is the Imbe-Jaqqa’s plan to deceive them, and fall upon them when they least do expect it. Go now!”

  “I will go,” said she, and turned from me, and sank herself into the forest like a stone into the depths of the sea, and was lost to my sight.

  So it was done. I had made me my choice.

  And night descended; and the Jaqqas did gather for their grand festival of death.

  THIRTEEN

  THE PRINCES of the man-eater nation bedecked themselves in their finest finery, their paints and beads and ornaments of bone; and I who was a Jaqqa prince did do the same, it being incumbent upon me to play my part. So certain servants to my naked body applied white circles of paint, and stripes of red and blue, and on my face where certain tribal scars had been incised I did color myself with the special Jaqqa powders, and I wrapped palm-cloth over my loins and put on my jingling necklaces of honor, and donned my sword on the one hip and my dagger on the other. All this while Kulachinga was running through the darkness, with Dona Teresa’s little golden crucifix clutched in her hand and the words, “Come at once, strike tonight!” going over and over in her mind. And would they come? And would they come in time? And what price would I pay for my treason, when they came? Those questions I could not answer. In my grand insignia of office, then, I went me down to the festival to sit beside Imbe Calandola and my brother Kinguri.

  When it was full dark they brought forth Dona Teresa.

  Her rags were stripped away and they had bathed her body and painted it somewhat, too, and given her nothing more than a ringlet of some animal’s teeth about her loins to wear, that hid nothing, so that she came forth as I once had come to a place of execution with all her privities laid bare, the high round breasts and the dark curling mat of lower hair put on exhibit.