Three hours upstream from the fort, they had said, and they were right. Corbeau wiped more sweat from his face, and then knotted the wet bandanna round his neck. He set his hat more firmly on his head, and grasped the gunwales of the bateau as it came into the side of the dock. There were slaves here, waiting to take the bow rope and assist the white man ashore, and then to gossip with the men from town.
'Your business, meinheer?' demanded a swarthy white man, wearing a filthy white cotton shirt and breeches and a straw hat, and carrying a thick leather whip.
'Where is Mulder?' Corbeau inquired. His Dutch was poor, and his grammar worse, but he did not intend to be polite to an overseer.
The man pered at him from bloodshot eyes. 'You're English.'
'No, sir. I am French. I should be obliged if you'd not make that mistake again, eh? Or I will remove your ears,' Corbeau said. 'Now I will go to the house. You'll inform your master that Louis Corbeau, of Rio Blanco in St. Domingue, has come to visit him.'
For he could see it, a low, rambling accumulation of sticks and palm thatch, hardly more than an elongated shack, and set only a few hundred yards from the water. And between it and the dock were no less than a dozen triangles, each one suspending a naked black man or woman, each back a mass of bloody grooves, a home for a thousand humming insects, each tortured mouth moaning its agony and its despair. The sound rose above even the swish of the river. Beyond, the grinding house was a primitive affair, operated mainly by water power, which was reasonable enough in view of the abundance of that energy, but clearly the machinery was better than a hundred years old. There was no flower garden, and the Negro village looked scarcely better than an encampment, while he could see no overseers' houses at all. He seemed to be stepping backwards through history, and the feeling was accentuated by the stillness and the heat, for now the sun was ascending in all its power through the last of the trees to beat full down upon the plantation.
'Corbeau, you say? Plantation Rio Blanco?' The Dutchman was at his side, and speaking French.
'You'll have heard the name.'
'Oh, indeed I have, monsieur. Hans Mulder, at your service.'
Corbeau stopped, and looked at the man again. But he was here to do business. 'Then I apologize. I had not expected to be met. You've no overseers?'
'What use have I for overseers? This is not a large plantation. Not like Rio Blanco, eh?'
They were passing the triangles. 'And your blacks love you that much you live here alone?'
Mulder grinned. 'My blacks fear me that much, monsieur. With slaves it is the more effective emotion.' His feet clumped on the wood of the low steps leading to his verandah. ‘You'll take a glass of punch?'
Corbeau nodded, and studied the shade, allowing his eyes to become accustomed to the sudden removal of glare, and also enjoying the sudden increase in his heartbeat as a naked woman detached herself from the shadows and came towards them. But this girl was clearly at best a mulatto, although a young and pretty one.
'Punch,' Mulder growled, and sat in the hammock which swung between two of the uprights, leaving the one chair, a somewhat insecure antique, for his guest.
The girl nodded, and withdrew. Corbeau removed his hat and sat down, cautiously. 'I wonder you stand the heat, and the isolation.'
Mulder grinned. 'I am not lonely, monsieur. I enjoy the
isolation. But you did not come all the way to Essequibo, and all the way up this river, to pass the time of day.'
Corbeau had long decided that his best chance of finding the girl would be to avoid dissembling. 'I seek Gislane Nicholson.'
'Gislane ...' Mulder frowned, and glanced at the mulatto, who was back with a wooden tray and two cane tumblers of rum punch.
'I know you bought her from Hodge, of Nevis,' Corbeau said. 'Now I wish to see her.' 'You wish?'
Corbeau reached into the satchel which hung from his shoulder, took out a canvas bag, allowed it to clink. 'I have here five hundred gold pieces, Mulder. Should she please me.'
'Five hundred ...' Mulder stared at him. 'Open it,' Corbeau suggested.
The Dutchman hesitated, then reached for the bag, untied the neck. 'By Christ. For a slave girl? And you are French. You ...'
'My purpose is my own.' Corbeau regained the bag, re-tied the cord. 'Is she here or not?'
Mulder stood up. 'Oh, she is here. Annie, summon the girls. Fetch Gislane. Quickly now.' He went into the house, and Corbeau followed, to pause as his head brushed a drooping palm leaf which had detached itself from the prevailing thatch of the low roof. But now he could see in the gloom; there was no furniture save hammocks and an old scarred table, and the floorboards creaked with age and rot as they walked. But there were a dozen women summoned by the stroke of the gong delivered by Annie. And all of them, of varying in shades from black to yellow, were young, and naked, and afraid. They entered the room, silently, and dropped to their knees, hands clasped in front of their breasts as if in supplication.
Mulder grinned. 'You'll see I have no lack of company, monsieur. Gislane is but my favourite. Come here, girl.' He snapped his fingers, and a woman rose from the darkness at the very back of the room. 'Gislane Nicholson.'
She was first of all a shadow, but an incredibly white one, which but slowly took on substance as she approached. He reminded himself that she was twenty-three, and that for nearly four years she had been the object of the worst that man, or woman, could devise in personal mistreatment, and then discovered that there was no reason to find excuses for her. Her flesh was as smooth as any man could wish, and she moved as gracefully as a princess. Her breasts were heavier than he had imagined, and tended slightly to sag, but for this reason were the more compelling; they underlined her maturity, and he had not come here to find innocence. But it was a body, however alluring, which could no doubt be duplicated easily enough; even Georgiana would look like this after a year or two of married life. It was her face which kept him silently watching as she came closer, because here was beauty, unaided by personality, the intense eyes and the flickering tongue, which for instance made Suzanne Huys so attractive. Gislane Nicholson's face was utterly closed, and yet utterly beautiful, in its every feature. And her eyes, wide and seeming to return his stare, yet looked almost asleep; he was there, as was her master, and they were white men, so to them she must submit, and submit, and submit, but she granted them no humanity, considered them as lifeless, if as impossible of rejection, as the heat which afflicted her senses or the rain which occasionally bounced off her skin. This he knew, immediately. And immediately too, he knew what a triumph it would be were he, or any man, able to bring those eyes to life.
And only when she stood immediately in front of him did he realize that he had not previously noticed her hair, black and thick and glossy, tumbling past her shoulders to her thighs.
'You'll leave us,' he said to Mulder. 'And take your harem.'
'Eh? By Christ, monsieur, she is not yet yours.'
'Nor will she ever be, if I do not speak with her alone.'
Mulder hesitated, then nodded. 'Away with you,' he shouted. 'Have you no work? You'll obey Monsieur Corbeau, Gislane. In everything.'
Her head half turned, and for just a moment she gazed at her master. Then she nodded.
'I'll be outside’ Mulder said, and left the room behind his women.
'I am to lie with you, sir?' Her voice was soft, her French faultless.
'Does your master often give you to other men?' She nodded. 'It pleases him.' 'Aye. And you are not diseased?' 'No, sir.'
'But you are a mother?' 'No, sir.'
'You must have a secret all your own.' She did not reply. Her gaze was almost a physical presence, a veil, lying across his own body. 'I know your story.'
Was there a change of expression? He decided not. But the eyes had become watchful.
'So I had expected ...' he shrugged. 'I do not know what I expected. There are no marks upon your skin.'
'No, sir.'
'After four years as a slave? Does Meinheer Mulde
r never flog you?'
Almost she smiled. 'He will not destroy what he values, sir. He uses a cane. Sometimes.' 'Turn round.'
She obeyed and he bent to look at her flesh. And had to prevent himself touching the smoothly rounded buttocks. 'On my feet’ she said.
'By Christ’ Corbeau said. 'The bastinado. This pleases him?'
'Of course’ she said. 'As I am tied to his bed, the master can lie on me while I yet writhe with pain. This pleases him.'
Her voice remained soft, yet Corbeau could feel the hate, shrouding every word.
'And do you scream?'
'No, sir. I pray.'
'By Christ’ he said, and she almost smiled again. 'By Christ, to the Serpent, I'll wager.'
The smile disappeared, and her face was again closed. 'But you belonged to Hodge. And never tasted the whip?' 'But once, sir. Mistress Hodge preferred red pepper.'
'By Christ,' he said again. 'And you prayed?'
'No, sir,' she said. 'Then I screamed. I thought I was dying. My breasts were swollen to twice their normal size.'
'And none of these things have changed your face, changed your body. Yours is a powerful serpent.'
The very intensity of her stare was her answer. He touched her hair, stroking it across his fingers. He touched her shoulder. But she did not turn, or acknowledge him in any way. She could be no careless devotee. There was too much intelligence here, too much determination, and even, perhaps, a little humour. A mamaloi? By Christ, he thought, there is a risk. Yet why? He knew a great deal about voodoo; no one living in St. Domingue could help but know about the religion of the snake and the drum. It was an idle superstition, brought across from West Africa, but in it the blacks found some form of release from the intolerable harshness of their lives. And in it this girl had certainly found a mental refuge. So why should it be a risk? To be harmed by a voodoo spell one had to believe in it, and he had no time for superstition: he had little enough time for religion in any form. And if she was, indeed, a priestess, then might the future be even more crammed with alluring prospect.
'Do you hate your master?' There was no reply.
'There shall be no more bastinado, I promise you,' Corbeau said. 'I have come to buy you.'
Now her head did turn, and now he had penetrated the reserve. She frowned. 'Sir?'
'I told you, I heard your story, and I wished to see for myself, this girl who is so beautiful, and so tragic'
'You came, two thousand miles, to see a slave?'
Corbeau smiled; she was for the first time talking as a human being. Not even four years of slaver)', and perhaps as long of voodoo, could diminish her natural female curiosity. 'Life is a business, of doing, and seeing and experiencing, is it not, Gislane? Guyana is a place I have always wanted to visit. I will tell you my philosophy. In my public life, I am governed solely by honour. And I will kill any man who impugns that honour. But you will have no part of my public life. In my business life, I am governed solely by profit. And
I will sacrifice any man, or any woman, to attain the maximum profit. But you will have no part in my business life. And in my private life, I am governed solely by my wish to be amused. I think you will be able to amuse me, for the rest of my life, in one way or another. Will you be able to amuse me, Gislane?'
She hesitated. Another success. She was realizing for the first time that here was no brute of a man, like Hodge or Mulder, who could be conquered in turn merely by spreading her legs. She was understanding she would need her mind, for this new master.
'If you desire me, sir.'
'So tell me, do you hate your master?'
Once again the hesitation. 'I hate the master, yes, sir.'
'What of Hodge? And Mistress Hodge?'
This time there was no hesitation. 'I hate them, sir. Is that strange?'
'I am merely surprised you can say it so quietly. And what of Matthew Hilton?'
He had remained standing behind her, and she had never turned. But now her movement was almost vehement as she faced him. 'You know Matt Hilton?'
Corbeau shrugged. 'The Hiltons are great planters. So are the Corbeaux. Of course I know him.'
Her hand moved, as if she would have held his arm. Then it fell to her side again. 'Then where is he?' she asked. 'Please, Monsieur Corbeau.' Her upbringing, her education, came slicing through the humility of the slave, the remoteness of the mamaloi. 'Is he all right?'
'Oh, indeed,' Corbeau said. 'He lives on Plantation Green Grove, in Antigua.'
'Green Grove,' she whispered.
'With a young woman. His cousin. I believe they intend to get married, whenever she can secure a divorce from her husband.'
Slowly the interest, the eagerness, faded from her face.
'The story has it,' Corbeau said, quietly, 'that he wished to seek you, and then fell in love with this cousin, and so changed his mind.'
'The story,' she said. 'Who tells this story?'
Corbeau shrugged again. 'It is common talk.'
'And is this why you would possess me, sir? Because I am common talk?'
'I would possess you because you are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen,' Corbeau said, and wondered if he was not, perhaps, even telling the truth.
Certainly he had again penetrated that withdrawn mind. Her eyes searched his face. 'Monsieur does not speak like a slave-owner.'
'But as a man, I would hope. So tell me, do you still love Matt Hilton?'
She hesitated, then she shook her head. 'No, monsieur. Perhaps I do not hate him, either, as I hate the others. Perhaps he is no more than weak. I wish him to be happy, and he will be happier with a white woman, even if she is his cousin and another man's wife, than he could ever have been with me, as his name is Matthew Hilton. But I do not love him, any more. I do not love anyone, or anything, any more.'
Corbeau smiled. 'It will be my pleasure, mademoiselle, to teach you how to love again. Now get your clothes. Let us brush this mud from our feet.'
To love again. She supposed, incredibly, that that could almost happen. Given time to understand the utter incredibility of everything that was happening to her, that had happened to her, it seemed throughout her life.
She had known, from the day of Robert Hilton's visit to Hodges, the day she would not forget to her dying moment, that Matt would never come for her. She had understood this as the burning pepper had seemed to eat into her flesh, reaching through breast and bone to penetrate her very heart, seeped upward from her groin and cut her body in half, as she had screamed and twisted and spat, trying to make her feeble saliva reach Janet Hodge's grinning face. Then she had hated, in a manner which made her hatred of Runner and Penny, of the Unknown who had condemned her to this, of the Hodges themselves, previously, no more than a slight discontent.
And then too, she had known that she was damned, perhaps being punished for some long-dead ancestor's crimes, but certainly damned, and thus excluded forever from the courtesies and considerations due to a lady in the white man's world, and excluded too from the hopes and fears of the white man's religion, from the love it preached and no doubt, in some fortunate cases, practised. Her refuge must be Damballah Oueddo, the Serpent, who taught patient hatred and physical gratification. And to that refuge she had devoted the last three years. Indeed, but for Damballah she would long have gone mad. She owed the invisible Serpent who was so omnipresent in her every sensation her very life, for he had taught her to accept the slobbering brutality of Mulder no less than the slobbering uncertainty of Hodge. But he had taught her more than that. In his eyes her removal from Nevis to the hell of Essequibo had been a necessary part of her education. He had been able to teach her that the ceremony she had attended on Hodges, when he had first appeared to her in the form of Charles the butler, had been no more than a polite gathering of devotees. The slaves of Nevis had lacked the desire, and even on Hodges they had lacked the necessary hatred, properly to communicate with the Serpent. In Essequibo, where the sun was too hot and the rain too heavy, where th
ere was no refreshing sea breeze to calm the spirit, and no clear-green water in which to bathe, but only the piranha-filled brown rivers, Damballah was no god of pleasure to be enjoyed, but instead a god of wrath, to be feared, and to be used, as well, and the blood on her fingers these past two years had too often been human.
In those two years she had learned to exist in the bosom of the Serpent, to wait, with that patience which he demanded, for the day he would rise up amongst them and grant them that revenge which was all they lived for, to pray that she would remain alive for that moment, to ask nothing more of life.
So then, what was she to make of this last week? Whenever she thought this, she rolled on her back and stared at the deckbeams immediately above her, doubting that they were really there, and reached down to touch the soft cambric of the sheet beneath which she lay, of the nightgown in which she was enveloped, from neck to ankle. She had not worn a nightdress since the night before she had sought to elope.
But if these were there, waiting for her touch, if the creaking of the rigging and the soft swish of the water passing the hull, were at last real - and the first night the motion of the ship had kept her awake in a long nightmare - what was she to make of her situation? Of the gowns, richer than any she had ever known, which hung on the door and waited, as yet untouched, in the chest by the bed. What was she to make of the perfume which shrouded her body? Only on the perfume had he insisted. Odour was everything, he said.
So perhaps she was not dreaming, as she could inhale, and now that dawn had broken she could see the clothes. But surely she was dreaming, in that they had been at sea for nine days, slowly beating northward, and in all that time no man's hand had touched her body, save to assist her from her seat after dinner. But there again was a dream, that she should sit down to dinner in the great cabin, opposite her master, and have wine poured for her by an attentive Negro boy, and be engaged in conversation, of Paris and London, of politics and art, for all the world as if she were his bride, rather than a chattel he had purchased for an unreasonably large sum.
Mistress of Darkness Page 32
