“Aye,” said I. “I do think of the city.”
She scowled at me, and tossed her head, and strode away in the direction of our cottage. I did not follow her thence, but paced like an anxious lion, throughout the Jaqqa camp, and my mind did swim and flutter with the chaos that was in it. I scarce saw where I was going; but as I wandered freely I came to a place where the musicians of war dwelled, and they were tuning of their instruments, or whatever it is they do with them. These men grinned at me most amiably and offered me their fifes and viols to play, but I shook my head, and walked on, and from behind me in ten discordant tunes at once came the wild and jangling sounds of Jaqqa harmonies.
11
For some several days the preparations for war went on at an increasing fervor. Weapons were gathered and made ready; war-chiefs met in council to construct their web of stratagem; Kakula-banga the high witch did busy himself in the casting of omens and the lighting of foul-smelling witch-fires on the borders of our camp. In this time I had my role to play as lieutenant to Calandola, and spent much time with him, sketching for him maps of the city of São Paulo de Loanda, showing the approach routes, the location of the citadel, the quarters where the soldiers dwelled. I saw little of Dona Teresa except at night; but she was more calm now, with that wrath and anxiety gone from her, and a new serenity over her countenance.
Then on a night a few days thereafter was I awakened suddenly in mid-sleep, and pulled roughly to my feet, and caught from behind by both my arms. Greatly did I struggle, but it was useless: I was held fast, a prisoner, still half befogged by slumber.
“What is this?” I cried. “Help! Assassins!”
Our cottage was full of Jaqqas. By their torches I saw their scarred and gap-toothed faces, and they were men I knew, Golambolo and some others who had served me in the wars. But now they seemed forbidding and hostile, and as much like demons as were the first Jaqqas I had ever seen, long ago, when I had known nothing of these folk but their fearsome repute. They gripped me so I could not break free, and gripped Dona Teresa, too, whose face in the torchlight was a stark mask of fear. Kulachinga lay untouched, at my feet, on the straw couch that the three of us had so cozily shared together until just moments before.
They swept me off, and Dona Teresa as well, through the camp to the inner fortification behind which the Imbe-Jaqqa dwelled. And there I saw all the high ones of the man-eater tribe already assembled, with their visages seeming most grim and somber. Imbe Calandola sat upon his high throne, garbed in a necklace of whitened bones and holding in his hand a scepter that was of bone also, a shin perhaps, and beside him was Kinguri equally solemn, and other lords. And on the ground before them, trussed and bound so that his body was arched most painfully in the manner of a bow, was a blackamoor I did not know, one of the Bakongo slaves that the Jaqqas did keep about them in their camp. At the sight of this man, there came from Dona Teresa a little hissing sound, and then a deep groan of pain or of sorrow. The which served to provide me with the unraveling of this mystery that encumbered us and with a melting feeling in my legs I came to understand what must have occurred. In shock and anger did I look toward Dona Teresa, but she did not meet my gaze. Then those who held us did lead us to separate sides of the council-hearth, far opposite one another. My heart beat with frightsome force and I glared across the way at her, knowing she had betrayed me yet again and not being willing to believe that of her; but she would not look at me.
Kinguri said, “There has been treason here.”
Ah, then it was so! Yet was I determined to separate myself from the deed, for I had had no part of it.
“Good brother, what has happened?” I asked. “And why am I restrained this way? I have done no wrong.”
“That shall we discover,” said Kinguri. He gestured toward the Bakongo slave. “Is this man your creature, Andubatil?”
“Never have I seen his face.”
“Aye. But perhaps you have spoken with him through some intermediary, to give him a commission on your behalf.”
“I do not take your meaning,” I said. I looked toward Calandola, who sat above this assemblage as remote as Zeus, and seemingly as uncaring, his eyes far away, and I said, “Mighty Lord Imbe-Jaqqa, I ask you what this proceeding may be.”
“Address yourself to me,” coldly said Kinguri, Calandola making no response to my words.
“Then I ask you again—”
“You have not hired this man to undertake some task for you?”
“I have not.”
“Nor your Portuguese woman?”
In sore rage I looked across to Dona Teresa, who met my gaze for an instant, and her eyes were hard and bright with terror.
“I do not know what dealings she has had with this man, if she has had any,” I said. “I have, as you know, been preoccupied of late with the planning of the war.”
“Ah,” said Kinguri. “Of course: how could I have overlooked that? But there has been treason here, Andubatil.”
He made gesture to a hulking Jaqqa, who stepped forward and tightened the bonds on the Bakongo slave, the which did draw a yelp of distress from the tormented man. Then Kinguri said, in the slave’s own tongue, “Tell us once again what you were hired to do, and by whom.”
“To go—to São Paulo de Loanda—” the man said softly, for he was so bent and strained that he could scarce get out the words, this being the Jaqqa approximation of the rack upon which more civilized folk do stretch their inquisitions.
“For what purpose?” demanded Kinguri.
“To warn—Portugals—Jaqqas coming—”
“Ah. To give warning! Do you hear, O Imbe-Jaqqa? Do you understand the man’s words?”
Calandola scowled most darkly.
Kinguri leaned close by the slave, and signalled for another twisting of the trusses, and said to him, “And by which persons were you charged with this message?”
“Woman—Portugal woman—”
“The one you see there?”
“That one.”
“And by which other person?”
“Woman—the woman—”
“The woman, yes, but who else?”
Naught but moans and whimpers came from the slave.
“Ease him a little,” said Kinguri, and this was done. Then, as severe as any Cardinal of the Holy Office, the longshanked Jaqqa did hover above the sweat-drenched man and say again, “What accomplice did the Portugal woman have?”
“Spoke—only with—woman—”
“Name the other!”
“Don’t—know—”
“Tighter again,” said Kinguri, and the cords were pulled, and the slave did cry out.
“Enough,” said Imbe Calandola.
“He has not yet confessed fully,” Kinguri did protest.
Calandola waved impatiently. “It is enough. He knows no more. Destroy him.”
“My Lord Imbe-Jaqqa!” cried Kinguri.
But there was no halting the order of Calandola. A Jaqqa that was one of the headsmen of the tribe stepped forth, and with a stroke of his immense blade, that whistled as it fell, he cut the hapless slave in twain. There was a sharp sound of metal against bone, and a dull sound of metal against earth afterward, and the severed parts of the dead man, released so instantly from the taut strings that held him, did fly apart most horridly, with a scarlet spraying going most wondrous far, even to the feet of Calandola’s throne. Kinguri, at this, did whirl around and throw up his arms in expostulation, for he was maddened by this hasty slaughter of his source of confession.
Calandola looked downward toward Dona Teresa and said, “You are named by this slave as treasonous toward us. What statement do you make?”
“None,” said Dona Teresa, when the words were explained to her in the Kikongo tongue; but she said it with throat so dry that no sound emerged, only the silent mouthings of her lips, and perforce she had to say the word again.