The Indians had been drinking piwari all day and night. They were ripe for the plucking. There was just one more matter to attend to.
Borguri looked at the Eboe fisherman. His head had been shaved, and ashes from the Imbangala hearth fire sprinkled over it, to erase his old identity, to remove him from the protection of his ancestral spirits. Assuming that they cared what happened to him across the Great Sea. In the ordinary course of things, in a few weeks he would go through a binding ritual which would make him property of Imbangala’s lineage, and drive thoughts of escape from his mind.
But no war party could set forth without at least one human sacrifice, to please the gods and feed the warriors.
* * *
Maurício spoke to the sentry. “I need to talk to him.” The guard shrugged. “Watch your step.”
Maurício took a deep breath and entered the hut. The change in illumination, from the high tropical sun to the indoor gloom, was stunning. It was several minutes before he could see much beyond the tip of his nose, and he said nothing until his eyes adjusted. At last he could make out the dark figure sleeping, or pretending to sleep, at the far end of the hut, his arms and legs both shackled, and the leg shackles in turn fastened to a chain which circled the great tree trunk that rose from the ground, piercing the roof of the hut.
“I have a few questions for you.”
“Do you now? Come a little closer, so I can hear you better.” The erstwhile slaver captain rattled his chain. “It’s not as though I can come closer to you.”
“I’ll just speak louder, thanks,” said Maurício. The first day after his capture, the captain had half-strangled the man who brought him food. The captain was then punished, by being given nothing to eat for several days, and was fed only after he apologized properly. Maurício was not especially reassured by this expression of contrition.
The captain laughed and laughed, then stopped abruptly. “Well, well, I am a busy man, as you can see. So be quick about it.”
“It’s a small matter. One of the Coromantee said that his two children were kidnapped and taken to Elmina for sale. He pursued the kidnappers and was captured in turn.”
The captain snickered.
“He spotted the children in a pen, but that was all.”
“How old were they?”
“The boy twelve, the girl eleven.”
“Ah, a good age. They can be trained as domestic servants, or be taught a trade and hired out. Of course, they are long-term investments.”
Maurício suppressed the urge to strangle the captain. “So, do you know what happened to them?”
“I can make an educated guess. But what’s in it for me?”
Maurício hesitated. He had already read the ship’s log, and quizzed all of the other survivors of the slaver’s crew. The captain, damn his soul, was Maurício’s last hope.
“I suppose I could do something about your rations, if I thought your answer was sufficiently helpful.”
“My rations, eh? Well, that’s not good enough. I want my freedom.”
Maurício turned and started to walk out.
“Wait, young fellow.” Maurício stopped.
“They can put a ball on this chain and let me walk about a bit, outside. Where would I run to, after all? If the Africans didn’t get me, the Indians would.”
“I promise that if you give me the information I need, I will speak to the governor, and request this boon.”
“Not on my behalf. As a favor to you. To redeem your word.”
“Yes, as a favor to me! Now talk, damn you!”
* * *
The attack took the Indians by surprise. The men were too drunk to put up a fight at all. The women weren’t in much better state.
The men of warrior age were slain and eaten, to the horror of their kin. Not that cannibalism was unknown in South America, but of course the Africans had different rituals and so far as the Indians were concerned, what the Imbangala were doing was completely wrong!
The younger boys were gathered together. They would be taught, brutally, that they were now Imbangala. The young women would become wives of the senior Imbangala warriors, and the older men and women would be put to work, as slaves, in the fields. If the old men thought that farming was beneath their dignity they would be beaten until they rethought the matter.
A week or so after the assault, one of the young women managed to escape. Tetube hid in an old hunter’s shelter that her brother had once pointed out, until the Imbangala tired of searching for her. Then she slipped downriver.
Long Rainy Season (April to August, 1635)
Carsten raised his hands. “All right, I can’t hear anyone if you all talk at once.”