Because that there was a cold place now beneath my breastbone like a lump of ancient ice, I drank heavily to warm it, a stoup of wine perhaps and then another, a bucket of it, a hogshead, a barrel. Yet it barely moved me and did not stir my soul; the coldness within burned it all away.
Some Jaqqa servants meanwhile gathered up Dona Teresa’s body and took it to the kettle, and her head they did remove from the scene, to give it interment and prevent the mokisso of her from molesting their souls, I suppose, or to keep her zumbi from haunting their sleep. To all this I paid little heed. For I was sunk deep in gloom of her death, that cut me so deep. And I thought me of her ambitions to greatness, her dreams of glory and lust for high place, and all those other aspects of her, reduced to nothing now, for that she was mere dead meat, and that gave me great sadness, at the injustice of her death and the injustice indeed of all death.
Yet as the wine entered at last upon me and lulled my sorrow, I came to be more accepting. Truly what did it matter that Dona Teresa had died now instead of then, since that it was foreordained that one day she must die? I remembered me the words of one of the wisest men that ever was, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, whose book of meditations I had pored over as a boy, and his words now floated through my soul, that were, “Do not act as if thou would live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee.”
Aye! And where today is Marcus? And where are all those who stood beside Henry Tudor at Bosworth Field an hundred year ago, so proud as they were then at the winning of the commonwealth from King Richard Crookback! So why feel torment for the death of a woman now, or fear indeed for mine own death to come, when our lives are like unto that of a butterfly? Everything is only for a day.
These thoughts did ease me some, and also the wine. But I did sit morosely while those about me were in wild frenzy. There were Jaqqas making festivity as far as my gaze could encompass, all of them heavy gone in drink, and rolling about with their women, and coupling on the warm bare earth. Slaves went among them, bringing slabs of meat from the slaughtered cattle, and all manner of fruits, and other dainties.
And then came the monstrous moment when the banquet was at its fullest and the flesh of Dona Teresa was deemed to be ready, and they did bring this most awful food to the high bench for the delectation of the Jaqqa lords.
Kinguri rose, and smiled a cold savage smile upon me, and addressed his royal brother, saying loudly, “O Imbe-Jaqqa, since that this woman was Andubatil’s wife, it is fitting that you surrender unto him the choice of all the meat of her, though it be your right to take the first selection.”
Calandola did at that look startled, for he had not expected it, and I supose was not sure whether Kinguri meant some mischief toward him from it. But then he considered, and I think it did seem proper to him. Turning to me he declared, “Aye, that is the fitting thing. I grant you the Imbe-Jaqqa’s portion, O Andubatil!”
I gaped at him in amaze. “You would not have me do that, my lord!”
“It is honor most great.”
“Nay,” I said, deep in my throat. “I will not eat of it!”
But this enraged the Imbe-Jaqqa, for he was not accustomed to refusal, nor was he practiced at being told by Kinguri how he should comport himself, and all this had put him in a whirl. His eyes grew furious and veins stood out upon the great thickness of his neck, and he cried, “Take her and make her into you.”
“I beg you, Lord Imbe-Jaqqa—”
“I command you, Andubatil!”
To which Kinguri said, “Would you dispute the command of the Imbe-Jaqqa?”
“Give over, brother,” I answered him. “I want no part of this festivity.”
“Ah, we should have slain you at the first,” said he. “Instead of cherishing you, and nurturing you, and feigning that you were of our own kind. A white Jaqqa! What madness! You are the cause and root of all our woe! Take and eat!”
And Kinguri did seize and shove into my face the broad green leaf of a jungle tree, wide as a platter, upon which lay steaming a cut of meat, a section that—nay, I will not write it, my mind rebels, even now my gorge rises—
But this dreadful meat the Imbe-Jaqqa’s brother did most insistently offer to me, exclaiming all the while in stentorian voice that high acclaim was being done to me by this, and urging me to have it for the good of mine own spirit. I was steadfast in my refusal, and he in his insistence, and he pressed the steaming meat upon me, and I did force it back. Both of us were shouting most furiously. I did not fear Kinguri’s wrath. I did not at that moment fear even death: but I would not die with the shame of this bestial meal upon my soul.
Calandola, too, was in outrage that I had refused the meat.
“You will not say nay!” he cried. “Eat! Take, eat!”
And he held me and shook me, and I fought back at him, which made me indeed feel like a butterfly in his mighty grip; but the wine and my grief and rage did arm me, and with a strength I did not expect I pushed myself back from him a bit. Yet did he seize me again.
“Eat! Eat!”
And from behind him came Kinguri, cackling with delight at the strife he had let loose, crying, “Eat, Andubatil! Eat!”
Calandola’s strength was diabolical and could not be resisted. He held me and forced me backward, and that loathly fillet of once-beloved flesh he did most terribly bring into approach of my mouth, though I resolved I would not open for it, no matter how frightsome the torment he applied. His face hovered an inch from mine; his sweat fell upon my skin and scalded me; his eyes were great beacons that burned into my skull; truly he was the incarnation of the Dark One, truly the authentic Diabolus, and in that nightmare noise of shouting and battling and musicking my spirit began to reach the limit of its tether, all but overcome by the dread force of this cannibal chieftain.
I know not what would have happened then, save the Imbe-Jaqqa would have had the flesh of Teresa into me to satisfy his crazed need to overmaster me; but at the moment of it, as the meat neared my lips, Calandola did utter a sudden great cry of surprise and pain, and released me. I beheld Kinguri standing behind him with a war-hatchet raised, having struck at his brother and cut him deeply.
So the insurrection had begun, and the enemy had had his first blow. I saw that all this was a ruse on Kinguri’s part, a diversion, this business of the meat, to enrage Calandola and cause him to put aside his prudence so that he could be slain. Now blood poured down the Imbe-Jaqqa’s back and he looked dazed and stunned by his wound, and Kinguri was making ready to strike a second and fatal time.
At the sight of this, the Jaqqas below and around us began to shout also, and caper, and strike one another; the dissension at the high table seemed to act very like a kindling, that struck into the dry tinder of the camp, they being so far gone, all of them, in wine, and so wrought-up from the long delay before marching into battle. And the striking of Calandola by Kinguri was, I perceived, the signal for a general affray, a war between two Jaqqa factions, one faithful to the monarch and one loyal to his brother.
The Imbe-Jaqqa’s bodyguard, stupored somewhat by wine but not yet altogether incapable, rushed toward Kinguri and pulled him some dozen feet away before he could strike the second blow. All was engulfed now in madness. Thousands of drunken Jaqqas roared and thrashed about like ape-creatures, scarce human, more like hairy baboomas or wild pongos and engecos, smashing whatever lay in their way, tipping over the kettles of scalding water, hacking at trees and at cattle and at one another. I looked to escape, but no escape was possible, for that a turbulence of berserk men surged on all sides, a stew of flailing crazed humanity, and it was like the great maelstrom or whirlpool of the northern waters, that becomes so irresistible a vortex as to swallow everything, and there is no fleeing from it. So was I buffeted about, and swept here and there. There was killing everywhere; and I saw the bloody Calandola roaring and bellowing and fighting a dozen men at once.