Lord of Darkness

  Presently we overran the country at Kambambe, and built a fort hard by the riverside.

  No chance presented itself to me for my return to the coast, nor to seek ship for England. Governor Cerveira Pereira, when I reminded him of the promise of Don João Coutinho to release me after a time, only shrugged and said, “I find nothing in his journals of such a promise, Don Andres.”

  Aye, and what could I say?

  So I bided my time, a skill in which I had developed no trifling aptitude. I lived a private life apart from the Portugals now, friendly with them but not close, nor had they much wish to befriend me. I think they knew not what to make of me, and, God wot, I hardly knew what to make of me myself, for I was so changed by time and monstrous event. I had seen a quantity of gore and horror sufficient to leave its impress on me in the deepest ways. Often when I closed mine eyes I saw the headsman’s blade falling upon Dona Teresa; or I imagined myself in Kulachinga’s greasy embrace, her body slippery against mine own; or I sat between Calandola and Kinguri at some dread festival, and awoke with the savor of human meat in my nostrils and on my tongue. I had made a voyage that was passing strange, into the darkest of the realms of this world; and though I smiled upon others, with a cheery greeting, a “Bom dia” for all and a friendly “adeus” upon parting, yet was I a man alone within their midst, one who has looked upon things that put him beyond the pale of common society. I felt almost like a wanderer out of some other world: which I was, in good sooth, in some five or six various ways.

  We marched about upon the tribes outside Kambambe, and mastered many nations there. Among our conquered was Shillambansa, uncle to the King of Angola, that I had helped to sack utterly when I was with the Jaqqas. He had rebuilt his city to something of its old sumptuousness; when this chief did see me again in the triumphant army of Portugals, he looked upon me as a demon who particularly oppressed his destinies, and hissed “mokisso” at me, and “white Jaqqa,” and turned away in dread. Well, and I suppose he had no cause to love me for working two utter devastations upon him, and my appearance now was frightening to behold, with my scars and my long tangled white hair and my golden beard and my blue eyes to manifest me as a devil to him.

  Cerveira Pereira founded a presidio at Kambambe, and once again the Portugals set about the search for the silver mines, but I think they got small share of silver, or perhaps none at all. This new upstart governor, who held no royal commission from his king, was very cruel to his soldiers, so that in time all his voluntary men left him; and by this means he could go no further. So we remained at Kambambe month upon month, I now being past forty-five years of age, but still, thank God, strong and healthy.

  Then there did come to us a pair of Jesuits, that had traveled up the Kwanza to bring certain news to the governor, and not finding him at Masanganu had continued on to this place. These two were closeted with Cerveira Pereira a long while, and two days afterward messengers came to me, saying, Cerveira Pereira did wish to speak with me.

  I went to him and he declared, without any pleasantries of conversation, “Your Queen Elizabeth is dead.”

  “Nay, it is not so!” I cried, taking the news like a hard blow upon the back of my neck.

  “It is brought me by the Jesuit fathers, who say she is long dead, of the April of 1603.”

  “Then who is King in my land?”

  “James of Scotland, that was the Scottish Queen’s son.”

  “Aye, I suppose it would have been he,” said I. “For she died a maid, did Elizabeth, and the Scottish King is of the royal blood.” And I did fall to thinking inwardly, King James, King James, trying to get the sound of it to ring honestly in my head, for at the moment it was entirely false. King James. Never had there been a James King of England before, but only Henry, William, Edward, Richard, in the main, and your stray lone John and Stephen, so James was a strange noise upon the throne. And furthermore there had been no King of England at all in my lifetime, but only the Queen, that was Elizabeth, and before her Queen Mary Tudor, the bloody one, so that the rule of women had been customary to my mind. King James? Aye, then, King James, King James, King James: I would try to learn the music of it by heart, discordant though it now might seem. King James. Of that man I knew little or none, save that he was a Scot, and said to be not fair to look upon, and a Protestant, though his mother had not been one. A Protestant for good and aye, surely, else Elizabeth would not have bestowed upon him the crown.

  “There is more news, Don Andres,” Cerveira Pereira said. “The war is ended between Spain and England, by command of King James and King Philip, and so there is peace between Portugal and England as well, this having been proclaimed in August last.”

  “God be praised, then, I am no man’s enemy in this land!”

  “That is the case,” said he.

  “I do make petition to you, Don Manoel, to grant me license to go into mine own country, since that I am no longer a prisoner of the realm, but only a sojourner here.”

  He studied me a long while out of those harsh and beady dark eyes of his, and I felt me to be a fish upon a hook, dangling in air while the angler decides if he is to be thrown back into the freedom of the water.

  I said, into his silence, “You could consult the archives in São Paulo de Loanda of Governor Serrão’s time, that would record how I was brought here out of Brazil, upon my capture from a freebooter’s expedition, and—”

  “This I know,” he replied. “And most bravely have you served us, Don Andres.”

  “Surely that service is at its end now.”

  “I think so,” said he.

  “Then may I go?”

  “Aye,” he said. “Make to me a petition by writing, and I will grant you license, and you may go home.”

  Such simple and easy words! Such a trifle, falling from his lips! England to be mine again! I for King James’ land, by Governor Cerveira Pereira’s freely given license!

  Aye, but not so lightly, for nothing is light or swift when one is dealing with Portugals. I did make my application that afternoon by writ to Don Manoel Cerveira Pereira, and then I went off apart to give thanks unto God for my deliverance, and to pray for the repose of Her Protestant Majesty Elizabeth of beloved memory, and to offer also the hope of God’s benevolence upon my new King and master James I, who unknown to me had been my monarch some two years already. But still was I in Kambambe, many leagues from the coast. Nor did Cerveira Pereira favor me with a written reply to my petition, though I had the promise in words from him.

  Shortly it was time for the governor to return himself to his capital; and I departed with him and his train to São Paulo de Loanda. Scarce was I able to recognize that city, so great had it grown, with majestic new buildings now rising on the hill and in the flat places, and the old palaces and cathedral dwarfed in their midst. Slavery had become the main sustenance of the city, and it looked not much unlike the depot of São Tomé, with great pens everywhere in which the sad human merchandise of this commerce was penned.

  Strange was it to be back in civilization, to sleep in a true bed, to eat Portuguese food and drink claret and wear fresh clothes. I still felt the Jaqqa pull, the lodestone force of the jungle. I was in part yet one of that nation, even after some years away from them; I think I will always be, for Jaqqa blood does throb ineradicably in my veins. And also was there in me a void and chilly place where Dona Teresa had occupied mine affections, that left me hollow and bereft.

  In merely the few years that I had been gone from São Paulo de Loanda I had become a total stranger, without links to this place. I looked about most diligently, and all was unfamiliar. Those men known to me of old had died or gone elsewhere, even the streets I had known being engulfed into the new ones. I could not find Matamba, nor any who knew of her. The very names of Don João de Mendoça and Fernão da Souza and his wife Dona Teresa seemed lost to oblivion in this greater and noisier place. And as for Andrew Battell, why, he was forgotten also. I had no attention of any special kind, not even on accoun
t of my coloring, since my hair was no longer golden, nor was golden hair a scarcity here, the city being full of Dutchmen partaking in the slave trade, and some Frenchmen also.

  Aye, and did I board the first ship bound for Europe, now that I had license to go? Surely that is what I did, you say. But I did not do that. For they would not ship me home by courtesy of the crown: I had to buy my passage, and at most dear a price. And among those who had forgotten me were those bankers to whom I had entrusted my store of wealth. I had placed at deposit in the counting-house in São Paulo de Loanda all the proceeds of my trading voyages to Benguela, before my abandonment into the hands of Mofarigosat, and a heavy sum it was, too. But when I came calling for it, thinking it had compounded into a pretty pile, they left me standing in their velveted outer chamber a long span, and when they returned to me they feigned not knowing why I had come, and left me standing there another long while, and so on, before coming at last to deny any knowledge of my credit with them. Had I any certificate of that funding? What could I say, that I had been roaming naked in the wilderness, wearing beads and paint, and had had no purse to keep my documents in? “You will see,” I said, “I am Andrew Battell, or it may be that you have me down as Andres, who served as pilot under Don João de Mendoça—”

  But they knew not Don João, and they knew not me, and they had not my money, nor any record thereof.

  I went to the governor to make complaint, but he would not admit me, and his secretary told me bluntly that the counting-house was known to be honorable. I had no further recourse. These Spaniards who kept the bank were sly dogs, and I was English, having no rights in this land. And they had cozened me of all my wealth and that was the end upon it. When I returned to England, so one official opined, I might bring an action in court against the counting-house. But without that money I was unable to return to England!

  So, then, how to pay for my passage? Pawn my scars? I had no friends in this place, and of moneylenders there were none who would deal with me, and in fine I was as helpless a beggar here as I had been on the day Thomas Torner and I were led in chains into our prison.

  But at that pass a good Portugal came to my aid. This was a certain merchant, by name Nicolau Cabral, that was the younger brother of Pinto Cabral that had sailed with me on my voyages when I was a pilot here. This younger Cabral, knowing of me from his brother’s stories, sought me out and said, “I intend making a journey of trade into the kingdom of Kongo, where I think there is much profit to be had. And my brother says you are a man of valor, and of skill in languages, and with great knowledge of the peoples of the land: so I would have you as my partner in this venture.”

  I embraced this Cabral most warmly, and told him he was my salvation, for that I was penniless and seeking earnings for my homeward passage and the comfort of mine old age when I should reach England. And so it was agreed, that I would guide him and shield him from harm, and I was to have a portion of the profits of the venture to mine own, even though I put up no capital for it. Moreover, he said, even if we did not return a profit on our commodities, he undertook to pledge me enough money to pay for my passage. The which offer gave me great joy, although I said, “It will not be necessary to exact those terms from you, I think, since we will return well loaded with treasure.”

  TWO

  IN THIS way I found myself yet again a wanderer in the forests and wastelands of Africa, who had thought by this time to be long since on his voyage home.

  Yet was it not a burdensome ordeal. When one has been gone from home beyond fifteen year, as was now the case with me, what matters it to have a little more delay? I could not let myself go home a pauper. I confess to you also that I was fearful of returning to England, though it had been my dream so long, for it frightened me that I might be altogether bewildered in that land from its many changes. And the other thing that led me away from my great homeward goal was the knowledge still that there was too much African in me, that I was out of consort with the spirit of my native land and must yet strive to put Calandola behind me; for the taste of forbidden meat still sometimes rose to my tongue.

  We set forth, Nicolau Cabral and I, into the province of Mbamba, that lieth northward of Angola, through cities that were named Musulu and Lembo and Nkondo. These were Christian places, having long been under the influence of the Portugals. Yet it was a strange kind of Christianity they did practice here, that I found strongly repellent.

  This was, I suppose, in the town called Musulu. One evening an hour after sunset, I heard abundance of people singing, but in such a doleful tone as caused horror. I inquired of my servants what that meant, and they answered, it was the people of the town that came to discipline themselves in church, because it was a Friday in March. I went to the church to see it for myself, and found a Romish priest there, who lit two candles and rang the bell. The blackamoors in the meanwhile remained outside the church on their knees, singing the Salve Regina in their language, with a very doleful harmony; then being come into the church, the priest gave them all holy water. He offered some of it to me, but I did not take my place at the stoup. The worshippers were about two hundred men carrying great logs of wood of a vast weight, for the greater penance. The priest spoke a few words to them, saying, “If we do not undergo penance in this world, we shall be forced to endure it in the next,” and again he looked toward me, thinking me a good Paptist and expecting me to kneel down. I did not, but I stayed to watch, telling myself that although I could never do penance enough for my sins, yet I was not about to do it under the auspices of Rome.

  The blackamoors were all on their knees, and they disciplined themselves a whole hour, I suppose, with leather thongs and cords made of the bark of trees. Several times did the priest with gestures invite me to participate. But of what value would flagellating my body be to the purging of my soul? It was prayer that I needed, and the descent of divine grace, not whips. So the ceremony soon grew wearying to me, and I went out, to find Nicolau Cabral in search of me.

  “What,” he said, “are you a Roman now, Andres?”

  “Not quite yet,” said I. “But I have been witnessing a most joyless rite.” And I took him within, and showed him the blackamoors still flogging themselves in Jesu’s name. And the priest still exhorted them, saying that they had committed sins against the majesty of God, who is merciless to the penitent but most harsh to those who are not. Cabral drew me by the arm and took me out of there, saying it saddened him to watch it; for though he was of the Roman faith he held no sympathy for this flogging, and I think he inwardly believed it had been better to leave these folk in their paganism than to give them so bitter a taste of the love of our gentle Savior.

  But before we left that place we found the true reason for this extreme penitence, which was that the people of the town had learned that the Jaqqas were menacing the frontier, and by punishing themselves did somehow hope to win God’s favor against the man-eaters. At the sound of the name “Jaqqa” I caught in my breath, and bit down hard on my lip, for I was much appalled.

  I said, “And are they far from here?”

  “No one knows that,” replied my informant, a Bakongo man named Nsaku that had been traveling inland. “They flit like ghosts from place to place, as always.”

  “Is Imbe Calandola yet their king?” I asked.

  “Their king is said to be a dread monster, that eats children for his noon-meal,” said Nsaku, “but I know not his name. I know only that we must implore God’s mercy against these creatures, or they will destroy us.”

  Cabral to me said, “It is reported that you lived among them a time, Andres.”

  “Aye,” said I. “That I did, before they were defeated under Don João Coutinho.”

  “And was it a terrible torment to be their captive?”

  “Aye. I would not speak of it, so painful was it.”

  “I quite understand, my friend. The marks of the suffering are inscribed on your face.” And he smiled kindly upon me, and we gave Nsaku some shell-money for his
information, and we made ready to move on from that place. As we went forth into the dark forest I felt heavy fear descending upon me, like a tangible weight, that we might meet with a troop of Jaqqas in this deep wilderness. It is not that I dreaded dying at their hands; I think I had long since passed beyond such fear of death as I might once have had. Nay, what I truly feared was that I would see them encamped in some clearing, with their kettles and their music and all, and I would throw off my Portugal clothes and run to them, and fling myself before Imbe Calandola and beg his forgiveness, and give myself into their nation once again.

  Does that sound like madness to you? Aye, so it does to me. But it was a most plausible madness; for Calandola was real to me and England only a phantasm, now, and much of the time my mind lay in a hazy borderland between the real and the unreal. I had at first embraced the Jaqqa way only so that they might bring me closer to the coast, and hope of home; but in some fashion along my travels with them the infection of them had entered my flesh, and I was still raging with it in a distant corner of my being. I thought I had broken with the Jaqqas when I did send Kulachinga to Don João Coutinho to betray Calandola; I thought then that it marked my adherence forever to civilized Christian things; and yet here was I in the Kongo forest all atremble, lest I should find them in yonder ollicondi grove and be swept willy-nilly into new allegiance to their dark lord and master.

  But we encountered no Jaqqas, God be thanked, and came unhindered into the capital zone of the kingdom of the Kongo.

  Now this was the place where the Portugals first had taken root on this side of Africa, insinuating themselves into a kingdom that already was rich and well advanced to civility. There were black kings here long ago, some of them great ones. When the Portugals came, an hundred year and some ago, they gulled these folk into accepting the Papist faith, and into becoming allies of Portugal, which meant, in time, that Portugal swallowed them up. Christians did they become, with Christian ways and dress and names, and strutted about telling themselves they were much enlarged by these new customs, while quietly the Portugals did suck the wealth from their land through flattery and deceit. It is the old story, that will be repeated wherever the guile of Europe meets the innocence of Paradise, I fear.