“He did not hurt you, Anyanwu?”
“No.” She looked at the young man who was holding a red place on his right arm. “I think I have hurt him.” She turned away in shame, appealed to Doro. “He helped me. I would not have hurt him, but … some spirit possessed me.”
“Shall I apologize for you?” Doro seemed amused.
“Yes.” She went over to Isaac, said his name softly, touched the injured arm. Not for the first time, she wished she could mute the pain of others as easily as she could mute her own. She heard Doro speak for her, saw the anger leave the young man’s face. He smiled at her, showing bad teeth, but good humor. Apparently he forgave her.
“He says you are as strong as a man,” Doro told her.
She smiled. “I can be as strong as many men, but he need not know that.”
“He can know,” Doro said. “He has strengths of his own. He is my son.”
“Your …”
“The son of an American body.” Doro smiled as though he had made a joke. “A mixed body, white and black and Indian. Indians are a brown people.”
“But he is white.”
“His mother was white. German and yellow-haired. He is more her son than minein appearance, at least.”
Anyanwu shook her head, looked longingly at the distant coast.
“There is nothing for you to fear,” Doro said softly. “You are not alone. Your children’s children are here. I am here.”
“How can you know what I feel?”
“I would have to be blind not to know, not to see.”
“But …”
“Do you think you are the first woman I have taken from her people? I have been watching you since we left your village, knowing that this time would come for you. Our kind have a special need to be with either our kinsmen or others who are like us.”
“You are not like me!”
He said nothing. He had answered this once, she remembered. Apparently, he did not intend to answer it again.
She looked at himat the tall young body, well made and handsome. “Will I see, someday, what you are like when you are not hiding in another man’s skin?”
For an instant, it seemed that a leopard looked at her through his eyes. A thing looked at her, and that thing feral and colda spirit thing that spoke softly.
“Pray to your gods that you never do, Anyanwu. Let me be a man. Be content with me as a man.” He put his hand out to touch her and it amazed her that she did not flinch away, that she trembled, but stood where she was.
He drew her to him and to her surprise, she found comfort in his arms. The longing for home, for her people, which had threatened to possess her again recededas though Doro, whatever he was, was enough.
When Doro had sent Anyanwu to look after her grandson, he turned to find his own son watching her gowatching the sway of her hips. “I just told her how easy she was to read,” Doro said.
The boy glanced downward, knowing what was coming.
“You’re fairly easy to read yourself,” Doro continued.
“I can’t help it,” Isaac muttered. “You ought to put more clothes on her.”
“I will, eventually. For now, just restrain yourself. She’s one of the few people aboard who could probably kill youjust as you’re one of the few who could kill her. And I’d rather not lose either of you.”
“I wouldn’t hurt her. I like her.”
“Obviously.”
“I mean …”
“I know, I know. She seems to like you too.”
The boy hesitated, stared out at the blue water for a moment, then faced Doro almost defiantly. “Do you mean to keep her for yourself?”
Doro smiled inwardly. “For a while,” he said. This was a favorite son, a rare, rare young one whose talent and temperament had matured exactly as Doro had intended. Doro had controlled the breeding of Isaac’s ancestors for millennia, occasionally producing near successes that could be used in breeding, and dangerous, destructive failures that had to be destroyed. Then, finally, true success. Isaac. A healthy, sane son no more rebellious than was wise for a son of Doro, but powerful enough to propel a ship safely through a hurricane.
Isaac stared off in the direction Anyanwu had gone. He shook his head slowly.
“I can’t imagine how your ability and hers would combine,” Doro said, watching him.
Isaac swung around in sudden hope.
“It seems to me the small, complex things she does within her body would require some of the same ability you use to move large objects outside your body.”
Isaac frowned. “How can she tell what she’s doing down inside herself?”
“Apparently, she’s also a little like one of my Virginia families. They can tell what’s going on in closed places or in places miles from them. I’ve been planning to get you together with a couple of them.”
“I can see why. I’d be better myself if I could see that way. Wouldn’t have run theMary Magdalene onto those rocks last year.”
“You did well enoughkept us afloat until we made port.”
“If I got a child by Anyanwu, maybe he’d have that other kind of sight. I’d rather have her than your Virginians.”
Doro laughed aloud. It pleased him to indulge Isaac, and Isaac knew it. Doro was surprised sometimes at how close he felt to the best of his children. And, damn his curiosity, he did want to know what sort of child Isaac and Anyanwu could produce. “You’ll have the Virginians,” he said. “You’ll have Anyanwu too. I’ll share her with you. Later.”
“When?” Isaac did nothing to conceal his eagerness.
“Later, I said. This is a dangerous time for her. She’s leaving behind everything she’s ever known, and she has no clear idea what she’s exchanging it for. If we force too much on her now, she could kill herself before she’s been of any use to us.”
CHAPTER 5
Okoye stayed in Doro’s cabin where Anyanwu could care for him until his sickness abated. Then Doro sent him below with the rest of the slaves. Once the ship was under way and beyond sight of the African coast, the slaves were permitted to roam where they pleased above or below deck. In fact, since they had little or no work to do, they had more freedom than the crew. Thus, there was no reason for Okoye to find the change restrictive. Doro watched him carefully at first to see that he was intelligent enoughor frightened enoughnot to start trouble. But Anyanwu had introduced him to Udenkwo, and the young woman seemed to occupy much of his time from then on. Rebellion seemed not to occur to him at all.
“They may not please each other as much as they seem to,” Anyanwu told Doro. “Who knows what is in their minds?”
Doro only smiled. What was in the young people’s minds was apparent to everyone. Anyanwu was still bothered by their blood relationship. She was more a captive of her people’s beliefs than she realized. She seemed to feel especially guilty about this union since she could have stopped it so easily. But it was clear even to her that Okoye and Udenkwo needed each other now as she needed Doro. Like her, they were feeling very vulnerable, very much alone.
Several days into the voyage, Doro brought Okoye on deck away from Udenkwo and told him that the ship’s captain had the authority to perform a marriage ceremony.
“The white man, Woodley?” Okoye asked. “What has he to do with us?”
“In your new country, if you wish to marry, you must pledge yourselves before a priest or a man of authority like Woodley.”
The boy shook his head doubtfully. “Everything is different here. I do not know. My father had chosen a wife for me, and I was pleased with her. Overtures had already been made to her family.”
“You will never see her again.” Doro spoke with utter conviction. He met the boy’s angry glare calmly. “The world is not a gentle place, Okoye.”
“Shall I marry because you say so?”