But then, to my horror, Calandola did make a signal most imperious, and a second of his wives was thrust forth out of the crowd of them.
What, and was I meant to massacre the Imbe-Jaqqa’s entire harem, one by one? God’s death, I would not! Lieutenant or no, Kimana Kyeer or no, chief of all the warriors or no, I would not! On that I meant to stand firm, and not be swept away again by Calandola’s bluster or by his strange resistless power to command. I looked about in appeal to Kinguri, who even then I understood to be more reasonable a man than his great brother, and I began to frame some words of protest. But Kinguri was smiling; and so, too, was the woman who had come forth out of the group of wives.
“The Imbe-Jaqqa is well pleased with you, Andubatil,” said Kinguri, “and he gives you this favorite among his women, to be a wife to you.”
God’s wounds!
I a cannibal, and a cannibal’s husband! Well, and what was I to say? I looked at her close.
She was of that early womanhood that Matamba had had when first I bought her out of slavery: sixteen years, or perhaps even younger, it not being easy to tell. Her flesh was ripe, with high heavy breasts and great round buttocks, and solid smooth thighs like ebon columns, and everything about her was youthful and firm, with her skin drawn tight over the abundant vigorous flesh beneath. Her eyes were mild and her smile was gentle, but her face was not beautiful to me: for even though her features were sharp and well sculpted, and indeed were graceful and far from coarse, she was so heavy adorned with the cicatrices of their barbarous fashion that she scarce seemed like a human being, but rather some sort of fabulous monster. Ornament in the shape of lightning-bolts and triangles and serpents had been laid upon her cheeks and forehead, and between her breasts, and down the outside of one thigh and the inside of the other; and each of her buttocks, which were bared where her tight loin-cloth passed between them, had a design of circular rings, one within the other, raised amazing high. Then also she was oiled with the grease of the fat of men, which gave her a high shine but made her reek most strangely, and her hair, which was long, did hang in heavy plaits waxed with oil and red-colored clay, and sprinkled with the scent of something much like lavender, but more sour. And this woman, and not Anne Katherine, whom I had all but forgot, was to be my wife, I who had been unmarried since Rose Ullward’s time. God’s bones, such a strange dream has my life been, such a walking sleep of phantasms!
The cannibal woman came to me, all demure, eyes downcast, and knelt, wife-like.
“Raise her, Andubatil,” said Kinguri.
I drew her to her feet.
“How are you called?” I asked.
“Kulachinga,” she said, in a low murmur barely within the range of my hearing.
“She is full of juice, Andubatil!” Calandola cried. “She is soft and tender! A fine wife for the Kimana Kyeer!”
I looked at him and saw that he had brought forth his Romish gear, his cassock and his chalice and his crucifix. He had donned the cassock, and now did bang the crucifix against the chalice most gleefully, to signal a new start to the festival, which now had become my wedding feast. No meat remained, but they brought forth fruits and great store of wine, and there was more dancing—first the wild capering of the old Jaqqa manner, and then a renewal of the hornpipe I had taught them, and the longways dance—and all the while bridegroom and bride stood in the midst, hand in hand, as flowers were showered upon us.
This went on for some hour and more. And then to us came Calandola, and laughed and put one hand to the small of my back and one to hers, and pressed us together so that her breasts did flatten into me, and pushed us back and forth, by way of miming that it had arrived time now for the consummation of our nuptial.
God’s cod, was I to perform it in front of them all?
Surely such a thing would be impossible, I being full of wine, and half dead with weariness, and shaken by all the frenzy and clamor of the evening, so that it would have been hard to couple under any circumstance, but trebly so with a whole tribe of leering cannibals looking on. And also this Kulachinga being so remote from my ideal of beauty, with her oiled skin and mud-thickened hair and the cicatrized scars all over her. And her with her memories of Imbe Calandola’s massive yard in her, so that how could I begin to equal him?
Well, and yet I told myself I would essay it, come what will.
The Jaqqas were already building a bower for us under a vast ollicondi tree, piling high the torn-off limbs of some flowering shrub, most sweet and fragrant both of wood and leaf, arranging them in a roundel, with an open place for us to lie at the center. And they clapped and danced and sang, and pantomimed us into the bower, and pantomimed also the joining of man and woman with the finger-mime. And grinned their jack-o’-lantern Jaqqa grins at me. I was gamesome for anything, I the man-eater, I the bead-wearer, I the woman-killer, I the Kimana Kyeer, I the English Jaqqa, Andubatil.
I took my fair young bride by the hand and I did draw her down upon the soft tender young grass.
Then we made away with our loin-wraps and our shells and our beaded bangles, of which Kulachinga wore great store about her neck and arms and legs. And when we were naked as Eve and Adam we faced each other, and she made a little whistling sound through the places of the missing teeth, and said, “Andubatil.”
“Kulachinga,” said I.
Her skin was bright by the flaring torchlight. I touched her skin and drew my fingers along the greased tracks, over the ridges and hillocks and bumps of her ornaments. I held her breasts in my hand and let the weight of them arouse me, for they had a great merry exuberousness. I cupped the buttocks of her, and touched her hot thighs, with their markings high and strange. And she with great sly skill did caress my arms and my back, and then went lower, to my rump, even sliding her fingertips between my buttocks and into the hole a little way, which felt passing strange to me but excited me. And from there she traveled to my yard, which had not hardened yet except a little, but she took it deftly with the fingers of one hand, and drew upon it, as one draws on the udder of a cow, a gentle firm tug, and with the other, most skilfully, this woman Kulachinga Jaqqa did seize my ballocks, stretching her fingers about to contain them both. And to my amaze I did respond despite all of the challenge of the public moment, and grew stiff and huge to her touch, and she laughed just as a little girl will laugh when presented with a pretty frock, a playful laugh of pleasure in her own attributes, and she drew me down on her and widened her thighs to me and with one good thrust I speared her, while from all about me the jungle resounded with the crying of my name by the Jaqqas, “Andubatil, Andubatil, Andubatil!” In and out, in and out, moving easily and surely, and Kulachinga lay back, her head lolling, her lips slack, her eyes open but the dark of them rolled up far into her head, and I reached down and with the tip of my finger did burrow in the thick hair of her, and found her hard little bud, and touched it only twice and she gasped and moaned and had her fulfilling. Which we did three or four times the more, until at last she drew her knees up toward her breasts and outward, and clamped her heels against my back, and with sudden violent movements of her hips did push me onward to the venting of my seed. After which a heavy sweat came upon me like unto that caused by the greatest heat of the jungle, and rivers of hot fluid did burst from my every pore, so that I was slippery as a fish, and I sank forward onto her breasts and she held me and I dropped into a sleep that was none very different from death itself, I trow, for I did not dream and I did not know I slept, but lay like a stone until morning. And so did I pass the first night of my life among the Jaqqas, and so also did I accomplish myself on the night of my wedding to my African bride Kulachinga.