"Caribbee" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoover Thomas)

Chapter Four

For almost a month now, any night he could manage, Atiba had slipped unseen from the compound and explored the southern coast of the island, the shore and the upland hills. Now he was sure they could survive after the island became theirs. The branco, the white English, were savages, who destroyed all they touched, but there were still traces of what once had been. Between the fields of sterile cane he had found and tasted the fruits of the sacred earth.

There were groves of wild figs, their dark fruit luscious and astringent, and plump coconuts, their tender core as rich as any in Yorubaland. Along the shore were stands of sea-grape trees, with a sweet purple fruit biting to the tongue. He had also found palm-like trees clustered with the tender papaya, and farther inland there were groves of banana and plantain. He had discovered other trees with large oranges, plump with yellow nectar, as well as pomegranates and tamarind just like those he had known in Ife, his home city. The soil itself gave forth moist melons, wild cucumbers, and the red apples of the prickly cactus. There also were calabash, the hard, round gourds the Ingles had already learned could be hollowed out for cups and basins. The only thing wanting was that staple of the Yoruba people, the yam.

But they would not have to survive from the soil alone. In the thickets he had heard the grunts and squeals of the wild hogs, fat sows foraging nuts, leading their litters. Along the shore he had seen flocks of feeding egrets in the dawn light, ready to be snared and roasted, and at his feet there had been hundreds of land crabs, night prowlers as big as two hands, ripe for boiling as they scurried back to their sand burrows along the shore.

He could not understand why the branco slaves who worked alongside the Yoruba allowed themselves to be fed on boiled corn mush. A natural bounty lay within arm's reach.

The Orisa, those forces in nature that work closest with man, were still present on the island. He could sense them, waiting in the wood of the trees. This ravished place had once been a great forest, like the one north of Ife, and it could be again. If the hand of the Ingles was taken from it, and the spirit of the Orisa, its rightful protectors, freed once more.

The first cooing of the wood dove sounded through the thatched hut, above the chorus of whistling frogs from the pond, signaling the approach of day. Atiba sat motionless in the graying light, crosslegged, at the edge of the mud seat nearest the door, and studied the sixteen cowrie shells as they spun across the reed tray that lay before him. As he watched, eight of the small ovals came to rest mouth up, in a wide crescent, the remainder facing down.

The tiny room was crowded with the men of the Yoruba, their cotton loincloths already drenched with sweat from the early heat. Now all eyes narrowed in apprehension, waiting for this babalawo, the priest of the Yoruba, to speak and interpret the verses that revealed the message in the cowries. Bi a ko jiya ti o kun agbon If we do not bear suffering that will fill a basket, A ko le jore to kun inu aha We will not receive kindness that will fill a cup.

He paused and signaled the tall, bearded drummer waiting by the door. The man's name was Obewole, and he had once been, many rains ago, the strongest drummer in the entire city of Ife. He nodded and shifted the large drum-the Yoruba iya ilu-that hung at his waist, suspended from a wide shoulder strap. Abruptly the small wooden mallet he held began to dance across the taut goatskin. The verses Atiba had just spoken were repeated exactly, the drum's tone changing in pitch and timbre as Obewole squeezed the cords down its hourglass waist between his arm and his side. Moments later there came the sound of more drums along the length of the southern coast, transmitting his verses inland. In less than a minute all the Yoruba on Barbados had heard their babalawo's exact words.

Then he said something more and shook the tray again. This time five cowries lay open, set as a star. Again he spoke, his eyes far away. A se'gi oko ma we oko The tree that swims like a canoe, A s’agada ja'ri erin The sword that will cut iron.

Once more the drum sent the words over the morning quiet of the island.

Atiba waited a few moments longer, then slowly looked up and surveyed the expectant faces around him. The shells had spoken, true enough, but the message of the gods was perplexing. Seemingly Shango had counseled endurance, while Ogun foretold war.

He alone was priest, and he alone could interpret this contradictory reading. He knew in his heart what the gods wanted, what they surely must want. Still, the realization brought painful memories. He knew too well what war would mean. He had seen it many times-the flash of mirrored steel in the sunlight, the blood of other men on your hands, the deaths of wise fathers and strong sons.

The worst had been when he and his warriors had stood shoulder to shoulder defending the ancient royal compound at Ife with their lives, when the Fulani from the north had breached the high walls of the city and approached the very entrance of the ruling Oba's palace, those huge sculptured doors guarded by the two sacred bronze leopards. That day he and his men had lost more strong warriors than there were women to mourn them, but by nightfall they had driven out the worshippers of other gods who would take their lands, pillage their compounds, carry away their seed-yams and their youngest wives.

He also knew there could be betrayal. He had seen it during the last season of rains, when the drums had brought news of strangers in the southeastern quarter of the world that was Yorubaland. He and his men had left their compounds and marched all day through the rain. That night, among the trees, they had been fallen upon by Benin slavers, men of black skin who served the branco as a woman serves the payer of her bride-price.

But the men of the Yoruba would never be made to serve. Their gods were too powerful, their ancestors too proud. The Yoruba were destined to rule. Just as they had governed Yorubaland for a thousand years. Theirs was an ancient and noble people, nothing like the half-civilized Ingles on this island. In the great metropolis of Ife, surrounded by miles of massive concentric walls, the Yoruba had lived for generations in wide family compounds built of white clay, their courtyards open to light and air, walking streets paved with brick and stone, wearing embroidered robes woven of finest cotton, sculpting lost-wax bronzes whose artistry no Ingles could even imagine. They did not swelter in patched-together log huts like the Ingles planters here, or in thatched hovels like the Ingles planters' servants. And they paid reverence to gods whose power was far greater than any branco had ever seen.

"The sky has no shadow. It reaches out in all directions to the edge of the world. In it are the sun, the moon, all that is." He paused, waiting for the drums, then continued. "I have gone out into the dark, the void that is night, and I have returned unharmed. I say the Orisa are here, strong. We must make war on the branco to free them once more." He paused again. "No man's day of death can be postponed. It is already known to all the gods. There is nothing we need fear."

After the drums had sent his words across the island, the hut fell quiet. Then there came a voice from a small, wizened man sitting on Atiba's left, a Yoruba older than the rest, with sweat pouring down the wrinkles of his long dark face.

"You are of royal blood, Atiba. Your father Balogun was one of the sixteen royal babalawo of the Oba of Ife, one of the great Awoni. It was he who taught you his skills." He cleared his throat, signifying his importance. "Yet I say you now speak as one who has drunk too many horns of palm wine. We are only men. Ogun will not come forth to carry our shields."

"Old Tahajo, you who are the oldest and wisest here tonight, you know full well I am but a man." Atiba paused, to demonstrate deference. He was chagrined that this elder who now honored his hut had to sit directly on the mud seat, that there was no buffalo skin to take down off the wall for him as there would have been in a compound at Ife. "Though the gods allow me to read their words in the cowries, I still eat the food a woman cooks."

"I know you are a man, son of Balogun, and the finest ever sired in Ife. I knew you even before you grew of age, before you were old enough to tie a cloth between your legs. I was there the day your clan marks were cut in your cheek, those three proud lines that mark you the son of your father. Be his son now, but speak to us today as a man, not as babalawo. Let us hear your own voice."

Atiba nodded and set aside the tray. Then he turned back to the drummer and reached for his gleaming machete. "Since Tahajo wishes it, we will wait for another time to consult more with Ogun and Shango. Now I will hold a sword and speak simply, as a man."

Obewole nodded and picked up the mallet.

"This island was once ruled by the Orisa of the forest. But now there is only cane. Its sweetness is bitter in the mouths of the gods, for it has stolen their home. I say we must destroy it. To do this we will call down the fire of lightning that Shango guards in the sky."

"How can we call down Shango's fire?" The old man spoke again. None of the others in the cramped hut dared question Atiba so boldly. "No man here is consecrated to Shango. We are all warriors, men of Ogun. His power is only over the earth, not the skies."

"I believe there is one on this island whose lineage is Shango. A woman. Perhaps she no longer even knows it. But through her we will reach him." He turned and signaled Obewole to ready the drum. "Now I will speak. Hear me. Shango's spirit is here, on this island. He will help us take away the strength of the Ingles." He paused for the drums, then continued, "I learned on the ship that before the next new moon there will be many more of us here. The other warriors who were betrayed by the Benin traitors will be with us again. Then we will take out the fire of Shango that the Ingles hold prisoner in the boiling house and release it in the night, among the fields of cane. We will burn the compounds of the Ingles and take their muskets. Then we will free the white slaves. They are too craven to free themselves, but they will not stand with their branco masters."

He turned again to Obewole and nodded. "Send the words."

Winston shifted uneasily in his sleep, then bolted upright, rubbing the slight ache of his scar as he became aware of the distant spatter of drums. They were sporadic, but intense. Patterns were being repeated again and again all down the coast.

He slipped from the bed and moved quietly to the slatted window, to listen more closely. But now the drums had fallen silent. The only sounds left in the sweltering predawn air were the cooing of wood doves and the harsh "quark" of egrets down by the bridge, accompanied by Joan's easy snores. He looked back and studied her face again, realizing that time was beginning to take its toll. He also knew he didn't care, though he figured she did, mightily.

She'd never concede he could take Jamaica. Maybe she was right. But odds be damned. It was time to make a stand.

Jamaica. He thought about it again, his excitement swelling. Enough cannon, and the Spaniards could never retake it, never even get a warship into the harbor. It was perfect. A place of freedom that would strike a blow against forced labor throughout the New World.

Not a minute too soon either. The future was clear as day. The English settlers in the Caribbees were about to install what had to be the most absolute system of human slavery ever seen. Admittedly, finding sufficient men and women to work the fields had always been the biggest impediment to developing the virgin lands of the Americas, especially for settlements that wanted to grow money crops for export. But now Barbados had discovered Africans. What next? If slavery proved it could work for sugar in the Caribbees, then it probably would also be instituted for cotton and tobacco in Virginia. Agricultural slavery had started here, but soon it would doubtless be introduced wholesale into North America.

Christians, perpetrating the most unspeakable crime against humanity possible. Who knew what it would someday lead to?

He no longer asked himself why he detested slavery so much, but there was a reason, if he'd wanted to think about it. A man was a man. Seeing Briggs horsewhip his Yoruba was too similar to watching Ruyters flog his seamen. He had tasted the cat-o'-nine-tails himself more than once. In fact, whipping the Yoruba was almost worse, since a seaman could always jump ship at the next port. But a slave, especially on a small island like Barbados, had nowhere to go. No escape.

Not yet. But come the day Jamaica was his…

"Are you all right, love?" Joan had awakened and was watching him.

"I was listening to the drums. And thinking." He did not turn.

"Those damned drums. Every morning. Why don't the planters put a halt to it?" She raised up and swabbed her face with the rough cotton sheet. "God curse this heat."

"I'm tired of all of it. Particularly slavery."

"I fancy these Africans are not your worry. You'd best be rethinking this daft scheme of yours with the indentures."

"That's on schedule. The Council agreed to the terms, drew up a list of men, and I picked the ones I wanted."

"What're you thinkin' to do about ordnance?" Skepticism permeated her groggy voice.

"I've got a batch of new flintlocks on the Defiance. Generously supplied to me by Anthony Walrond's trading company." He laughed. "In grateful appreciation for helping out that frigate of theirs that went aground up by Nevis Island."

"I heard about that. I also hear he'd like those muskets back."

"He can see me in hell about that." He was strolling back toward the bed, nude in the early light. She admired the hard ripple of his chest, the long, muscular legs. "Also, I've got the boys at work making some half-pikes. We've set up a forge down by the bay."

"And what, pray, are you expectin' to use for pikestaffs?"

"We're having to cut palm stalks." He caught her look. "I know. But what can I do? There's no cured wood to be had on this short a notice."

"Lo, what an army you'll have." She laughed wryly. "Do you really think all those indentures will fight?"

"For their freedom, yes." He settled onto the bed. "That's what I'm counting on."

"Well, you're counting wrong, love. Most of them don't care a damn for anything, except maybe drinkin' in the shade. Believe me, I know them."

"I'll give them something to fight for. It won't be like here, where they're worked to death, then turned out to starve."

"I could tell you a few stories about human nature that might serve to enlighten you." She stretched back and pulled up her shift to rub a mosquito bite on her thigh. "If it was me, I'd be trying to get hold of some of these Africans. From the scars I've seen on a few of them, I'd say they've done their share of fighting. On my faith, they scare the wits half out of me."

"They make me uneasy too."

"How do you mean, darlin'?"

"All these drums we've been hearing. I found out in Brazil the Yoruba there can talk somehow with a special kind of drum they've got, one that looks like a big hourglass. I figure those here can do it too, only nobody realizes it. Let me tell you, Joan, there was plenty of Yoruba talk this morning. So far, the Africans here are considerably outnumbered, but if they start a revolt, the indentures might decide to rise up too. Then…"

"Some indentures here tried a little uprising once, a couple of years back. And about a dozen got hanged for their pains. I don't fancy they'll try it again soon."

"Don't be so sure. Remember how the Irish indentures went over to the Spaniards that time they attacked the English settlement up on Nevis Island? They swam out to the Spaniards' frigates, hailed them as fellow Papists, and then told them exactly where all the fortifications were."

"But how many of these Africans are there here now? Probably not all that many."

"Maybe not yet. With the Dutch slavers that've come so far, I'd guess there're no more than a couple of thousand or so. But there're more slave ships coming every week. Who knows what'll happen when there're three or four thousand, or more?"

"It'll not happen soon. How can it?" She slipped her arms around his neck and drew him down next to her. "Let's talk about something else. Tell me how you plan to take Jamaica. God's life, I still don't know why you'd want to try doing it at all."

"You're just afraid I can't do it." He turned and kissed her, then pulled down the top of her shift and nipped at one of her exposed breasts. "Tell me the truth."

"Maybe I will someday. If you get back alive." She took his face in her hands and lifted it away. "By the bye, I hear you had a fine time at the ball. Dancin' with that jade."

"Who?"

"You know who, you whoremaster. The high and mighty Miss Bedford."

"I'd had a bit to drink. I don't precisely recall what all happened."

"Don't you now? Well, some of the Council recall that evening well enough, you can be sure. You weren't too drunk to scare the wits out of them with those Spanish pistols. It's the talk of the island." She watched as he returned his mouth to her breast and began to tease the nipple with his tongue. "Now listen to me. That little virgin's no good for you. For one thing, I hear she's supposed to be marryin' our leading royalist, Sir Anthony, though I swear I don't know what he sees in her. She's probably happier ridin' her horse than being with a man. I warrant she'd probably as soon be a man herself."

"I don't want to hear any more about Miss Bedford." He slipped an arm beneath her and drew her up next to him. "I've got something else in mind."

She trailed her hand down his chest to his groin. Then she smiled. "My, but that's promisin'."

"There's always apt to be room for improvement. If you set your mind to it."

"God knows, I've spoiled you." She leaned over and kissed his thigh, then began to tease him with her tongue. Without a word he shifted around and brushed the stubble of his cheeks against her loins. She was already moist, from sweat and desire.

"God, that's why I always let you come back." She moved against him with a tiny shudder. "When by rights I should know better. Sometimes I think I taught you too well what pleases me."

"I know something else you like even better." He seized a plump down pillow and stationed it in the middle of the bed, then started to reach for her. She was assessing her handiwork admiringly. He was ready, the way she wanted him.

"Could be." She drew herself above him. "But you can't always be havin' everything your own way. You've got me feelin' too randy this mornin'. So now I'm going to show you why your frustrated virgin, Miss Bedford, fancies ridin' that horse of hers so much."

Serina was already awake before the drums started. Listening intently to catch the soft cadence of the verses, she repeated them silently, knowing they meant the cowrie shells had been cast.

It was madness.

Benjamin Briggs sometimes called her to his room in the mornings, but she knew there would be no call today. He had ordered her from his bed just after midnight, drunk and cursing about a delay at the sugar mill.

Who had cast the cowries? Was it the tall, strong one named Atiba? Could it be he was also a Yoruba babalawo?

She had heard the verses for the cowries once before, years ago in Brazil. There were thousands, which her mother had recited for her all in one week, the entire canon. Even now she still remembered some of them, just a few. Her mother had never admitted to anybody else she knew the verses, since women weren't supposed to cast the cowries. The men of the Yoruba always claimed the powers of the cowries were too great for any save a true babalawo, and no woman would ever be permitted to be that. Women were only allowed to consult the gods by casting the four quarters of the kola nut, which only foretold daily matters. Important affairs of state were reserved for the cowries, and for men. But her mother had secretly learned the verses; she'd never said how. She'd even promised to explain them one day, but that day never came.

When she was sure the drums had finished, she rose slowly from the sweltering pallet that served as her bed and searched the floor in the half-dark till she felt the smooth cotton of her shift. She slipped it on, then began brushing her long gleaming hair, proud even now that it had always been straight, like a Portuguese donna's.

She slept alone in a small room next to the second-floor landing of the back stairway, the one by the kitchen that was used by servants. When she had finished with her hair and swirled it into a high bun, Portuguese style, she slowly pushed open the slatted jalousies to study the clutter of the compound. As always, she found herself comparing this haphazard English house to the mansion she had known in Brazil, on the large plantation outside Pernambuco.

Now it seemed a memory from another world, that dazzling white room she had shared with her mother in the servants' compound. The day the senhor de engenho, the master of the plantation, announced that she would go to the black-robed Jesuits' school, instead of being put to work in the fields like most of the other slave children, her mother had begun to cry. For years she had thought they were tears of joy. Then the next day her mother had started work on their room. She had whitewashed the walls, smeared a fresh layer of hard clay on the floor, then planted a small frangipani tree by the window. During the night its tiny red blossoms would flood their room with a sweet, almost cloying fragrance, so they woke every morning to a day bathed in perfume. Years later her mother had confessed the beautiful room and the perfume of the tree were intended to always make her want to return there from the foul rooms of the branco and their priests.

She remembered those early years best. Her mother would rise before dawn, then wake the old, gnarled Ashanti slave who was the cook for the household, ordering the breakfast the senhor had specified the night before. Then she would walk quietly down to the slave quarters to waken the gang driver, who would rouse the rest of the plantation with his bell. Next she would return to their room and brush her beautiful mulata daughter's hair, to keep it always straight and shining, in preparation for the trip to the mission school the priests had built two miles down the road.

Serina still recalled the barefoot walk down that long, tree- lined roadway, and her mother's command, repeated every morning, to never let the sun touch her light skin. Later she would wander slowly back through the searing midday heat, puzzling over the new language called Spanish she was learning, and the strange teachings of the Christians. The priests had taught her to read from the catechism, and to write out the stories they told of the Catholic saints-stories her mother demanded she repeat to her each night. She would then declare them lies, and threaten her with a dose of the purgative physic-nut to expel their poisons.

Her mother would sometimes stroke her soft skin and explain that the Christians' false God must have been copied from Olorun, the Yoruba high god and deity of the cosmos. It was well known he was the universal spirit who had created the world, the only god who had never lived on earth. Perhaps the Christians had somehow heard of him and hoped to steal him for their own. He was so powerful that the other gods were all his children-Shango, Ogun, all the Yoruba deities of the earth and rivers and sky. The Yoruba priests had never been known to mention a white god called Jesu.

But she had learned many things from Jesu's priests. The most important was that she was a slave. Owned by the senhor de engenho. She was his property, as much as his oxen and his fields of cane. That was the true lesson of the priests. A lesson she had never forgotten.

These new saltwater Yoruba were fools. Their life and soul belonged to the branco now. And only the branco could give it back. You could never take it back yourself. There was nothing you could do to make your life your own again.

She recalled a proverb of the Ashanti people. "A slave does not choose his master.''

A slave chose nothing.

She found herself thinking again of her mother. She was called Dara, the Yoruba name meaning "beautiful." And she was beautiful, beyond words, with soft eyes and delicate skin and high cheekbones. Her mother Dara had told her how she had been taken to the bed of her Portuguese owner after only a week in Brazil. He was the senhor de engenho, who had sired mulata bastards from the curing house to the kitchen. They were all still slaves, but her mother had thought her child would be different. She thought the light-skinned girl she bore the branco would be made free. And she had chosen a Yoruba name for her.

The senhor de engenho had decided to name her Serina, one night while drunk.

A slave chose nothing.

Dara's mulata daughter also was not given her freedom. Instead that daughter was taken into the master's house: taught to play the lute and dance the galliards of Joao de Sousa Carvalho when she was ten, given an orange petticoat and a blue silk mantle when she was twelve, and taken to his bed the day she was fourteen. Her own father. He had used her as his property for eight years, then sold her to a stinking Englishman. She later learned it was for the princely sum of a hundred pounds.

A slave chose nothing.

Still, something in the Defiance of Atiba stirred her. He was bold. And handsome, even though a preto. She had watched his strong body with growing desire those two days they were together in the boiling house. She had begun to find herself wanting to touch him, to tame his wildness inside her. For a moment he had made her regret she had vowed long ago never to give herself to a preto. She was half white, and if ever she had a child, that child would be whiter still. To be white was to be powerful and free. She also would make certain her child was Christian. The Christian God was probably false, but in this world the Christians held everything. They owned the Yoruba. The Yoruba gods of her mother counted for nothing. Not here, not in the New World.

She smiled resignedly and thought once more of Atiba. He would have to learn that too, for all his strength and his pride, just as she had. He could call on Ogun to tell him the future, but that god would be somewhere out of hearing if he tried to war against the branco. She had seen it all before in Brazil. There was no escape.

A slave chose nothing.

Could he be made to understand that? Or would that powerful body one day be hanged and quartered for leading a rebellion that could only fail?

Unsure why she should bother, yet unable to stop herself, she turned from the window and quietly headed down the creaking, makeshift rear stair. Then she slipped past the kitchen door and onto the stone steps leading out into the back of the compound. It was still quiet, with only the occasional cackle of Irish laughter from the kitchen, whose chimney now threaded a line of wood smoke into the morning air.

The gate opened silently and easily-the indenture left to guard it was snoring, still clasping an empty flask-and she was out onto the pathway leading down the hill to the new thatched huts of the slaves.

The path was quiet and gray-dark. Green lizards scurried through the grass around her and frogs whistled among the palms, but there was no sign the indentures were awake yet. In the distance she could hear the low voice of Atiba, lecturing courage to his brave Yoruba warriors.

The preto fools.

She knew a woman would not be welcome, would be thought to "defile" their solemn council of war. Let them have their superstitions. This was the New World. Africa was finished for them. They weren't Yoruba warriors now. Here they were just more preto slaves, for all their posturing. Once more she was glad she had been raised a Portuguese, not a Yoruba woman bound to honor and revere whatever vain man she had been given to as wife.

As she neared the first hut, she stopped to look and shake her head sadly. What would the slaves in Brazil think of these thatched hovels? She knew. They would laugh and ridicule the backwardness of these saltwater preto, who knew nothing of European ways.

Then she noticed a new drum, a small one only just finished, that had been left out for the sun to dry. She had heard once what these special drums were for. They were used in ceremonies, when the men and women danced and somehow were entered and possessed by the gods. But there were no Yoruba women on Briggs' plantation. He had not bothered to buy any yet, since men could cut cane faster. She wanted to smile when she realized the Yoruba men here had to cook their own food, a humiliation probably even greater than slavery, but the smile died on her lips when she realized the drum was just a sad relic of a people torn apart.

She examined the drum, recalling the ones she had seen in Brazil. Its wood was reddish and the skins were tied taut with new white cords. She smoothed her hand against her shift, then picked it up and nestled it under her arm, feeling the coolness of the wood. She remembered the goat skin could be tuned by squeezing the cords along the side. Carefully she picked up the curved wooden mallet used to play it and, gripping the drum tightly against her body, tapped it once, twice, to test the fluctuation in pitch as she pressed the cords.

The sharp, almost human sound brought another rush of memories of Brazil, nights when she had slipped away to the slave quarters and sat at the feet of a powerful old babalawo, an ancient Yoruba priest who had come to be scorned by most of the newly baptized slaves. She was too young then to know that a mulata did not associate with black preto, that a mulata occupied a class apart. And above.

She had listened breathlessly night after starry night as he spun out ancient Yoruba legends of the goddess Oshun-who he said was the favorite wife of Shango. Then he would show her how to repeat the story back to him using just the talking drum.

She looked toward the gathering in the far hut, thinking again of the verses of the cowries. Holding the drum tightly, she began to play the curved stick across the skin. The words came easily. A se were lo nko You are learning to be a fool. O ko ko ogbon You do not learn wisdom.

She laughed to herself as she watched the startled faces of the Yoruba men emerging from the thatched hut. After a moment, she saw Atiba move out onto the pathway to stare in her direction. She set the drum onto the grass and stared back.

He was approaching now, and the grace of his powerful stride again stirred something, a desire she had first felt those nights in the boiling house. What would it be like, she wondered again, to receive a part of his power for her own?

Though his face declared his outrage, she met his gaze with Defiance-a mulata need never be intimidated by a preto. She continued to watch calmly as he moved directly up the path to where she stood.

Without a word he seized the drum, held it skyward for a moment, then dashed it against a tree stump. Several of the partly healed lash marks on his back opened from the violence of the swing. He watched in satisfaction as the wood shattered, leaving a clutter of splinters, cords, and skin. Then he revolved toward her.

"A branco woman does not touch a Yoruba drum."

Branco. She had never heard herself referred to before as "white." But she had always wanted to. Always. Yet now… now he spat it out, almost as though it meant "unclean."

"A branco woman may do as she pleases." She glared back at him. "That's one of the first things you will have to learn on this island."

"I have nothing to learn from you. Soon, perhaps, you may learn from me."

"You've only begun to learn." She felt herself turning on him, bitterly. She could teach him more than he ever dreamed. But why? "You'll soon find out that you're a preto. Perhaps you still don't know what that means. The branco rule this island. They always will. And they own you."

"You truly are a branco. You may speak our tongue, but there is nothing left of your Yoruba blood. It has long since drained away."

"As yours will soon. To water the cane on this island, if you try to rise up against the branco. "

"I can refuse to submit." The hardness in his eyes aroused her. Was it desperation? Or pride?

"And you'll die for it."

"Then I will die. If the branco kills me today, he cannot kill me again tomorrow. And I will die free." He fixed her with his dark gaze, and the three Yoruba clan marks on his cheek seemed etched in ebony. Then he turned back toward the hut and the waiting men. "Someday soon, perhaps, I will show you what freedom means."