Caribbee Part 22

"Rather than be wife to a Yoruba, you would be wh.o.r.e to an Ingles." He spat out the words. "Which means to be nothing."

"But if you take this island, you can have as many wives as you like.

Just as you surely have now in Ife." She drew away, still not trusting the pounding in her chest. "What does one more mean to you?"

"Both my wives in Ife are dead." His hand reached and stroked her hair.

"They were killed by the Fulani, years ago. I never chose more, though many families offered me their young women."

"Now you want war again. And death. Here."

"I raised my sword against my enemies in Yorubaland. I will fight against them here. No Yoruba will ever bow to others, black or white."

He gently touched her cheek and smoothed her pale skin with his warm fingers. "You can stand with us when we rise up against the Ingles."

His touch tingled unexpectedly, like a bridge to some faraway time she dreamed about and still belonged to. For an instant she almost gave in to the impulse to circle her arms around him, pull him next to her.

He stroked her cheek again, lovingly, before continuing. "Perhaps if I kill all the Ingles chiefs, then you will believe you are free. That your name is Dara, and not what some Portugues once decided to call you." He looked at her again and his eyes had softened now. "Will you help me?"

She watched as the moonlight glistened against the ebony of his skin.

This _preto _slave was opening his life to her, something no other man had ever done. The _branco _despised his blackness even more than they did hers, but he bore their contempt with pride, with strength, more strength than she had ever before sensed in a man.

And he needed her. Someone finally needed her. She saw it in his eyes, a need he was still too proud to fully admit, a hunger for her to be with him, to share the days ahead when . . .

_Yes

_. . . when she would stand with him to destroy the _branco_.

"Together." Softly she reached up and circled her arms around his broad neck. Suddenly his blackness was exquisite and beautiful. "Tonight I will be wife to you. Will you hold me now?"

The wind whipped her long black hair across his shoulder, and before she could think she found herself raising her lips to his. He tasted of the forest, of a lost world across the sea she had never known. His scent was sharp, and male.

She felt his thumb brush across her cheek and sensed the wetness of her own tears. What had brought this strange welling to her eyes, here on this desolate hillside. Was it part of love? Was that what she felt now, this equal giving and accepting of each other?

She shoved back his open s.h.i.+rt, to pa.s.s her hands across the hard muscles of his chest. Scars were there, deep, the signs of the warrior he once had been. Then she slipped the rough cotton over his back, feeling the open cuts of the lashes, the marks of the slave he was now.

Suddenly she realized he wore them as proudly as sword cuts from battle. They were the emblem of his manhood, his defiance of the Ingles, just as his cheek marks were the insignia of his clan. They were proof to all that his spirit still lived.

She felt his hands touch her s.h.i.+ft, and she reached gently to stop him.

Over the years in Brazil so many men had used her. She had been given to any white visitor at the plantation who wanted her: first it was Portuguese traders, s.h.i.+p captains, even priests. Then conquering Hollanders, officers of the Dutch forces who had taken Brazil. A hundred men, all born in Europe, all unbathed and rank, all white. She had sensed their _branco _contempt for her with anger and shame. To this black Yoruba, this strong, proud man of Africa, she would give herself freely and with love.

She met his gaze, then in a single motion pulled the s.h.i.+ft over her head and tossed it away, shaking out the dark hair that fell across her shoulders. As she stood naked before him in the moonlight, the wind against her body seemed like a foretaste of the freedom, the love, he had promised.

He studied her for a moment, the shadows of her firm b.r.e.a.s.t.s casting dark ellipses downward across her body. She was _dara_.

Slowly he grasped her waist and lifted her next to him. As she entwined her legs about his waist, he buried his face against her and together they laughed for joy.

Later she recalled the touch of his body, the soft gra.s.s, the sounds of the night in her ears as she cried out in completeness. The first she had ever known. And at last, a perfect quiet had seemed to enfold them as she held him in her arms, his strength tame as a child's.

In the mists of dawn he brought her back, through the forest, serenaded by its invisible choir of egrets and whistling frogs. He carried her home across the rooftop, to her bed, to a world no longer real.

"d.a.m.n me, sir, I suppose you've heard the talk. I'll tell you I fear for the worst." Johan Ruyters wiped his mouth with a calloused hand and shoved his tankard across the table, motioning for a refill. The Great Cabin of the _Defiance _was a mosaic of flickering shadows, lighted only by the swaying candle-lantern over the large oak table. "It could well be the end of Dutch trade in all the English settlements, from here to Virginia."

"I suppose there's a chance. Who can say?" Winston reached for the flask of sack and pa.s.sed it over. He was exhausted, but his mind was taut with antic.i.p.ation. Almost ready, he told himself; you'll be gone before the island explodes. There's only one last thing you need: a seasoned pilot for Jamaica Bay. "One of the stories I hear is that if Barbados doesn't swear allegiance to Parliament, there may be a blockade."

"Aye, but that can't last long. And frankly speaking, it matters little to me who governs this d.a.m.ned island, Parliament or its own a.s.sembly."

He waved his hand, then his look darkened. "No, it's this word about some kind of Navigation Act that troubles me."

"You mean the story that Parliament's thinking of pa.s.sing an Act restricting trade in all the American settlements to English bottoms?"

"Aye, and let's all pray it's not true. But we hear the d.a.m.ned London merchants are pus.h.i.+ng for it. We've sowed, and now they'd be the ones to reap."

"What do you think you'll do?"

"Do, sir? I'd say there's little we _can _do. The Low Countries don't want war with England. Though that's what it all may lead to if London tries stopping free trade." He glanced around the timbered cabin: there was a sternchaser cannon lashed to blocks just inside the large windows aft and a locked rack of muskets and pistols secured forward. Why had Winston invited him aboard tonight? They had despised each other from the first. "The better part of our trade in the New World now's with Virginia and Bermuda, along with Barbados and St. Christopher down here in the Caribbees. It'll ruin every captain I know if we're barred from ports in the English settlements."

"Well, the way things look now, you'd probably be wise just to weigh anchor and make for open sea, before there's any trouble here. a.s.suming your sight drafts are all in order. "

"Aye, they're signed. But now I'm wondering if I'll ever see them settled." He leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his thinning gray hair. "I've finished scrubbing down the _Zeelander _and started lading in some cotton. This was going to be my best run yet.

G.o.d d.a.m.n Cromwell and his army. As long as the Civil War was going on, n.o.body in London took much notice of the Americas."

"True enough. You Hollanders got rich, since there was scarcely any English s.h.i.+pping. But in a way it'll be your own fault if Barbados has to knuckle under now to England and English merchants."

"I don't follow you, sir." Ruyters regarded him questioningly.

"It'd be a lot easier for them to stand and fight if they didn't have these new slaves you sold them."

"That's a most peculiar idea, sir." He frowned. "How do you see that?"

Winston rose and strolled aft to the stern windows, studying the leaded gla.s.s for a moment before unlatching one frame and swinging it out. A gust of cool air washed across his face. "You Hollanders have sold them several thousand Africans who'd probably just as soon see the island turned back to a forest. So they'll be facing the English navy offsh.o.r.e, with a bunch of African warriors at their backs. I don't see how they can man both fronts."

"That's a curious bit of speculation, sir. Which I'm not sure I'd be ready to grant you. But it scarcely matters now." Ruyters stared down at the table. "So what do you think's likely to happen?"

"My guess is the a.s.sembly'll not surrender the island to Cromwell without a fight. There's too much royalist sentiment there." He looked back at Ruyters. "If there's a blockade, or if Cromwell tries to land English forces, I'd wager they'll call up the militia and shoot back."

"But they've nothing to fight with. Scarcely any ordnance worth the name."

"That's what I'm counting on." Winston's eyes sobered.

"What do you mean, sir?"

"It's the poor man that remembers best who once lent him a s.h.i.+lling. I figure that anybody who helps them now will be remembered here in the days to come, regardless of how this turns out."

"Why in the name of h.e.l.l would you bother helping them? No man with his wits about him wants to get caught in this, not if he's looking to his own interests."

"I'll look to my interests as I see fit." Winston glanced back. "And you can do the same."

"Aye, to be sure. I intend to. But what would you be doing getting mixed up in this trouble? There'll be powder and shot spent before it's over, sir, or I'm not a Christian."