“Well,” she said at last, “have done with it, drag me to the pot and hurl me in, Andres!”
“Do you think I will do that?”
“You are so rigged and geared for savagery that it would amaze me if you did not.”
“Ah, you are fierce, fierce, Teresa!”
“Am I, then? But not fierce enough to gnaw through these bonds, I fear.”
“How has this befallen you? To be in captivity here?”
“Don Fernão and I were journeying through the interior,” said she. “From Ndemba to Masanganu to Kambambe, to inspect the presidios, at the behest of the governor.”
“Don João de Mendoça still?”
“Nay,” said she. “He is long dead, poor sweet man, and there is a new one come from Portugal, Don João Coutinho by name, that is very bountiful and well loved. He is to build new castles in this land, and conquer it supremely, by order of the King of Portugal. And so are there armies marching now through all parts of the province.”
Ah, I thought. That explained the troop I had seen beyond the city of Ndala Chosa.
She went on, “And so this governor sent us outward here—but our horses perished, and the Jaqqas came upon us in the road—” Her lips trembled, and her strength broke a moment, and she began to snuffle and weep, which was strange to behold in that regal woman. But only a moment, and then she had her strength again. “Don Fernão is slain, and we are to be eaten,” said she bitterly. “And are you to feed upon us as well, Andres? Are you transformed into a man-eater? For that is what I believe you now must be.”
“Which is Don Fernão?” I asked.
She indicated, with a gesture of her head, one of the dead Portugals, that even as we spoke were being quartered and thrust into the bubbling kettles. And as she looked that way, such a revulsion and terror came upon her that her gorge did rise, and she writhed in nausea and turned her head from me to choke back the tide of vomitus that was surging upward in her. I felt nigh the same way, to think of that finely garbed vain foppish man Souza, that had had little real harm in him, cut to pieces by my Jaqqa brothers and put up to boil like so much mutton; for though he had been weak and trifling, he had been Dona Teresa’s husband these many year, and for that long companionship she doubtless felt a deep pang to see him perish so before her eye.
Then once more she regained herself and said, “How much longer am I to live? And can you bring me a swift death, so I need not endure this limb of Hell in which I am?”
Most gently I did say, “I mean to preserve you from doom.”
“You? The capering painted jigging naked man-eater?”
“I am indeed much changed, as you see, Dona Teresa. But something in me remains, of the man you knew.”
“This is no moment to mock me, Andres.”
“I do not mock. I will save you from this feast.”
Her eyes went wide. “Jesu Cristo, and can you do it?”
“I have much power among these people, for I am become close kin to the Jaqqa king, and to his brother as well.” I put my hand to her arm, and gripped it most fondly; from which touch she shrank away at first, but then yielded and softened against it. Aye, how could I let her be slaughtered? That were too heavy vengeance for the wrong she had done me: and she had done me much benefit, ere that one betrayal. I would right then have pulled free her bonds and taken her against my bosom to comfort her, in the midst of all that cannibal nightmare. But first I needs must beg her liberty from the Imbe-Jaqqa.
Softly I said, “I cannot save your comrades. But your life I will at once make venture for. Fear no more: you shall be spared from the kettle.”
On the far side where the lords of the Jaqqas did sit, all was wild and merry. They swilled their blooded wine and laughed most uproariously and showed much joy over their feast. I approached the Imbe-Jaqqa. He looked upon me with a little display of anger or at least displeasure, and said, “I told you, Andubatil, you might interrogate the prisoners tomorrow. Come, now, join us, and share our wine!”
“By your pardon, my Lord Calandola, but I was not interrogating the prisoners.”
“Only the woman, eh! I saw you at it.” He slapped his great thighs and merrily rubbed his hands over his greased body and said, “She is fair and juicy, that Portugal! I will have her breasts, and Kinguri her rump, and the thighs, Andubatil, will you take the thighs?”
His callous words did strike me to the quick.
“Nay!” I cried in sudden heat. “Nay, Lord Calandola!”
“Not the thighs, then?”
I shook my head most vehemently. “No part of her! She shall not be eaten!”
“What is this you say?” he asked, in his curious way, for it always amazed him much to have his will gainsaid, and he would stare at the gainsayer the way he might at a flea the size of an elephanto, or at an elephanto the size of a flea. “Not eaten, Andubatil, by your command?”
“Good my lord,” I said, with more humility, “I crave a great boon. I ask you not to slay this woman.”
“So that you may have her, is that it?”
“O Imbe-Jaqqa, that Portugal woman was my wife, when I did live in São Paulo de Loanda.”
“Ah, your wife,” said he, the way he might have said, Your boots, your cap, your drinking-mug. “Well, what of that? You have another wife now. You can have three or four more, or seven, if it please you.”
“Nay,” said I, sweating freely and struggling to conceal my unease. “I loved her dear, and I preferred all other women before her. I beg you speak not so hungrily of her.”
“Your wife, Andubatil?” said he, musing on the idea.
“Aye, we were joined in the highest way before our God,” I lied most fervently, “and greatly did it amaze me just now to see her among your captives. For we have been parted these some years past, since my betrayal into the hands of Mofarigosat. But all this time have I yearned keenly for her, and now she is reunited to me.”
Kinguri, leaning close, said in a dark voice, “You should know, An-dubatil, that she clung very near and familiar to one of those Portugals, that now is dead and being readied for the feast.”
“Her brother,” said I hastily.
“Ah.”
“Aye. Don Fernão da Souza: I knew him in my old life, a man of much fantastical taste in garments. They were very dear, the brother to the sister, the sister to the brother. Lord Imbe-Jaqqa, let me go to her now, and cut her free of her bonds.”
Kinguri did say to his brother, but I was able to hear it, “The woman is dangerous. I saw her with the other Portugals, and they did look to her as though she was their queen. There is great strength in her. I feel it, I see it clear. If we let her live, she will bring us harm.”
“She is the wife of Andubatil,” Calandola did rejoin.
“He has another wife now.”
I saw that this was becoming a dispute between the royal brothers, that had questions of power at the root of it, and perhaps also some question of my turning away from love of them toward the woman I said was my wife.
Stretching forth my arms to Kinguri, I did cry, “Brother! How can you speak so callously before me?”
With a frosty smile Kinguri did make reply, “I would not imperil all our nation to save one woman, even if she be your woman.”
“And one woman, naked and frightened, imperils all the grand nation of Jaqqas? Fie, Kinguri, I thought you to be a man of wisdom!”
“That I am, Andubatil Jaqqa, my wisdom and yours that mingles in my blood, and that shared wisdom tells me to fear this Portugal woman. I say, smite her while she can do no mischief.”
I turned from him.
“I appeal to you, Lord Calandola—”
“You do cherish her?” the great Jaqqa asked me, still most curious, as if this sort of passion were a vast mystery to him.