During the time D’Azevedo had led the professed house, he had often ventured near the shacks where the slaves made their homes, usually during the early morning, usually to conduct a quick inspection to ensure that things were as they should be. Not once had he noticed anything amiss. Nevertheless, as he now trod the hard, hot soil trail behind Dom Gaspar, it was as if he were stepping into a completely different world. Behind one of the shacks, straight ahead, he saw Padre Pero, shirtless and wearing only a bandanna around his neck, soiled work britches, and shoeless, dressed in the manner of a slave himself, holding a black woman by her neck, her wrists bound behind her back. Her wild hair cascaded about her narrow shoulders, covering her face, down almost to the waist of the gossamer linen frock that stopped just above her ankles, which D’Azevedo could see were also bound tightly with rope. She was slender, slight almost, and appeared to be standing only because Pero held her up. Before her, up to her knees, rose a pile of wood, and beside it several urns, smelling of palm oil, and several long coils of rope. D’Azevedo tried to piece all these clues together but they made no sense. It was only then that he noticed that there were only two other adult male slaves present, also apparently bound by their wrists, behind Padre Pero. Three, he realized, instead of the eight that should have been there, though little Filhinho stood almost within the prodigious beard of Padre Barbosa Pires, who wore only his cassock and no doublet, he grasped that the other child, who had served his students and whom he had seen quite recently, also was missing.
“Padre Pero, for heaven’s mercy,” he called out to the older priest, who maintained his tight grip on the slavewoman’s neck, “what is the source of this commotion?”
Pero released his grip on the slavewoman, and raised his other hand, in which he held a large hunting knife. “These creatures were going to burn us all to ashes in preparation for the heathens’ arrival, led by this beast, isn’t that right?” He cuffed the woman hard on the side of her head, knocking her to the ground. One of the black men stumbled forward to assist her, but Pero brandished the knife and the man froze. The fallen woman struggled to her knees, before Pero pushed her back down with his foot, holding her there. “I have a mind to take care of it myself right now.”
“Padre Pero,” D’Azevedo said again, “in the name of Our Father, and the Holy Bible, and the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, and the Captaincy of this Province, and in my capacity as the Provost and head of this Professed House of the Second Order of the Discalced Brothers of the Holy Ghost, I command you to desist. If this person, these persons, have been engaged in any mischief, such as a plot to harm this house, especially at this fraught moment, we will address it according to the laws and rules already set down.” D’Azevedo took two steps toward the woman, who continued to writhe about until she rose to kneel, and then was again standing.
As D’Azevedo asked, “Can someone tell me whence this African woman came?” Pero reached out and yanked the curtain of hair from her head, revealing the slave João Baptista, whom, D’Azevedo could see, was also gagged. Lacking words to express his astonishment, D’Azevedo staggered backward, until he felt Dom Gaspar’s arms bracing him.
“This João Baptista, or Quimbanda as they call it,” Pero said, “has long been a source of mischief, well before you arrived. It — she — he sent away a number of the slaves, as you can see, as part of his, its mischief, and was planning to dispatch the rest of us to that blackest place, well before the Dutch could.”
“T-t-t-throw him on the w-w-woodpile,” Barbosa Pires shrieked, startling D’Azevedo, who was just regaining his composure. “T-t-t-there may be more p-p-plots afoot in town given w-w-what this one is capable of.”
“I concur with Padre Barbosa,” Padre Pero continued, “that we hurl this pillar of evil on the very woodpile it was assembling”—and as he uttered these words he approached the bound slave and whispered something D’Azevedo could not hear, the knife in his hand grazing the back of João Baptista’s neck—“then put all the rest of them on there, lest those filthy Dutch or anyone else get their hands on them.”
“T-t-there is a plot afoot,” Barbosa Pires screamed.
“Padre Pero,” D’Azevedo said again, “Padre Barbosa Pires, we will not and cannot proceed in this manner. We have laws and rules and will deal with this person, these persons, as they compel us to, and we shall follow them.” After saying this, D’Azevedo stood silently, neither he nor Dom Gaspar nor Padre Barbosa Pires nor Padre Pero nor any of the enslaved men, save João Baptista, stirring at all, until he finally said, “Dom Gaspar, I want you to bring this person to my office, immediately.” He turned to Padre Pero, who was still holding the knife and glowering at João Baptista as he was led away, and Padre Barbosa Pires, who was holding tightly onto the boy in front of him, and, collecting his words before he spoke, D’Azevedo said, “My blessed brothers, I want you to untie these men and take them and the boy to the barn. Order them to stay there. Then I want you to get dressed, and prepare yourselves so that we might discuss not just this matter, but the far graver threats we face. We shall meet in the chapel in one hour.”
D’Azevedo did not move until he had watched Padre Pero cut the manacles of rope off the two men, before guiding them, with Padre Barbosa Pires following him, Filhinho in tow, toward the barn. If it came down to the Dutch offering these men their freedom he would emancipate them all on the spot. He decided to draft a document to this effect as soon as he was done with his initial interrogation of João Baptista. When Dom Gaspar returned, he asked the brother to collect the wig, the rope and the oil; the first two he should bring to the chapel for the meeting and discussion, the second he should deposit in the kitchen. D’Azevedo went straight to his office.
The slave João Baptista stood waiting outside the door. D’Azevedo led him inside and, taking a rare step, locked the door behind him. At first sight, the slave looked wretched and forlorn. The thin linen shift was smeared with dirt and grass, and a large patch of soil, where Padre Pero had pushed him down, covered part of his neck and cheek. Down the white back of his shift rilled a thin band of blood. There was also blood on his lips, and on his slender arms. D’Azevedo removed the gag and untied the rope binding João Baptista’s hands and feet, guiding him to the stool facing D’Azevedo’s desk. Into one small glazed bowl he poured well water and into a second coconut water from the very urns that João Baptista brought to him several times a day, then handed both, with a rag that sat on his table, to the servant so that he could refresh and clean himself.
Now that he was looking João Baptista in the eyes, he considered that he had never really observed him, never seen him before. The face was crystalline in its familiarity, but not from regular viewing; it was if he had glimpsed this face somewhere else, on an inner mirror, and what he had seen for nearly his entire stay at the house had been merely an outline, a mask, a shadow. João Baptista’s face was very dark, like ebony bark with numerous threads of navy woven through it, the ageless features full but at the same time delicate, the contours sharp but pleasing to the eye. As woman or man he was, D’Azevedo considered, striking. The eyes seemed to blossom from their pupils outward, fixing D’Azevedo’s own. He had to look away, toward his books, to settle his thoughts.
What he thought was: he had never conducted an inquiry of this sort before, and although he had halted Padre Pero’s savagery, supported as it now appeared by Padre Barbosa Pires, he had no idea of how he should proceed. He had immediately sought to question the slave to ascertain the depths of his mischief, which included but was not limited, given the cross-dressing, to the alleged plot. Were there time, D’Azevedo thought, he would seek the counsel and lead of the Olinda House, appealing directly to you. But he had not heard from you in a month, for he, like nearly everyone in that house, was unaware that the Dutch had already seized Olinda and were on the verge of doing the very thing of which the person sitting there was charged: burning most of it down.