Therefore, Anyanwu must live and bear her valuable young. But she had too much power. In her dolphin form, and before that, in her leopard form, Doro had discovered that his mind could not find her. Even when he could see her, his mind, his tracking sense, told him she was not there. It was as though she had died, as though he confronted a true animala creature beyond his reach. And if he could not reach her, he could not kill her and take her body while she was in animal form. In her human shape, she was as vulnerable to him as anyone else, but as an animal, she was beyond him as animals had always been beyond him. He longed now for one of the animal sensitives his controlled breeding occasionally produced. These were people whose abilities extended to touching animal minds, receiving sensation and emotion from them, people who suffered every time someone wrung a chicken’s neck or gelded a horse or slaughtered a pig. They led short, unenviable lives. Sometimes Doro killed them before they could waste their valuable bodies in suicide. But now, he could have used a living one. Without one, his control of Anyanwu was dangerously limited.
And if Anyanwu ever discovered that limitation, she might run away from him whenever she chose. She might go the moment he demanded more of her than she was willing to give. Or she might go if she discovered that he meant to have both her and the children she had left behind in Africa. She believed her cooperation had bought their freedombelieved he would give up such potentially valuable people. If she found out the truth, she would surely run, and he would lose her. He had never before lost anyone in that way. He lost people to disease, accident, war, causes beyond his control. People were stolen from him or killed as had been his people of the savanna. This was bad enough. It was waste, and he intended to end much of it by bringing his people to less widely scattered communities in the Americas. But no individual had ever succeeded in escaping him. Individuals who ran from him were caught and most often killed. His own people knew better than to run from him.
But Anyanwu, wild seed that she was, did not know. Yet.
He would have to teach her, instruct her quickly and begin using her at once. He wanted as many children as he could get from her before it became necessary to kill her. Wild seed always had to be destroyed eventually. It could never conform as children born among his people conformed. But like no other wild seed, Anyanwu would learn to fear him and bend herself to his will. He would use her for breeding and healing. He would use her children, present and future, to create more acceptable long-lived types. The troublesome shape-changing ability could probably be bred out of her line if it appeared. The fact that it had not appeared so far told him he might be able to extinguish it entirely. But then, none of her special abilities had appeared among her children. They had inherited nothing more than potentialgood blood that might produce special abilities after a few generations of inbreeding. Perhaps he would fail with them. Perhaps he would discover that Anyanwu could not be duplicated, or that there could be no longevity without shape-changing. Perhaps. But any finding, positive or negative, was generations away.
Meanwhile, Anyanwu must never learn of his limitation, must never know it was possible for her to escape him, avoid him, live free of him even as an animal. This meant he must not restrict her transformations any more strenuously than he restricted his children in the use of their abilities. She would not be permitted to show what she could do among ordinary people or harm his people except in self-defense. That was all. She would fear him, obey him, consider him almost omnipotent, but she would notice nothing in his attitude that might start her wondering. There would be nothing for her to notice.
Thus, as the journey neared its end, he allowed Anyanwu and Isaac to indulge in wild, impossible play, using their abilities freely, behaving like the witch-children they were. They went into the water together several times when there was enough wind and Isaac was not needed to propel the ship. The boy was not fighting a storm now. He was able to handle the ship without overextending himself, able to expend energy cavorting in the water with a dolphin-shaped Anyanwu. Then Anyanwu took to the air as a great bird, and Isaac followed, doing acrobatics that Doro would never have permitted over land. Here, there was no one to shoot the boy out of the sky, no mob to chase him down and try to burn him as a witch. He had to restrain himself so much on land that Doro placed no restraints on him now.
Doro worried about Anyanwu when she ventured under water aloneworried that he would lose her to sharks or other predators. But when she was finally attacked by a shark, it was near the surface. She suffered only a single wound which she sealed at once. Then she managed to ram her beak hard into the shark’s gills. She must also have managed to take an undolphinlike bite out of the shark, since she immediately shifted to the sleek, deadly shark form. As it happened, the change was unnecessary. The shark was crippled, perhaps dying. But the change had been made, and made too quickly. Anyanwu had to feed. With strength and speed she tore the true shark to pieces and gorged herself on it. When she became a woman again, Doro could find no sign of the wound she had suffered. He found her drowsy and content, not at all the shaking, tormented creature who had killed Lale. This time, her drive to feed had been quickly satisfied. Apparently, that was important.
She adopted the dolphins, refusing to let Isaac bring any more aboard to be killed. “They are like people,” she insisted in her fast-improving English. “They are not fish!” She swore she would have nothing more to do with Isaac if he killed another of them.
And Isaac, who loved dolphin flesh, brought no more dolphins aboard. Doro listened to the boy’s muttered complaints, smiled, and said nothing. Isaac listened to the crewmen’s complaints, shrugged, and gave them other fish. He continued to spend his spare time with Anyanwu, teaching her English, flying or swimming with her, merely being with her whenever he could. Doro neither encouraged nor discouraged this, though he did approve. He had been thinking a great deal about Isaac and Anyanwuhow well they got along in spite of their communication problems, in spite of their potentially dangerous abilities, in spite of their racial differences. Isaac would marry Anyanwu if Doro ordered it. The boy might even like the idea. And once Anyanwu accepted the marriage, Doro’s hold on her would be secure. The children would comedesirable, potentially multitalented childrenand Doro could travel as he pleased to look after his other peoples. When he returned to his New York village of Wheatley, Anyanwu would still be there. Her children would hold her if her husband did not. She could become an animal or alter herself enough to travel freely among whites or Indians, but several children would surely slow her down. And she would not abandon them. She was too much a mother for that. She would stayand if Doro found another man he wished to breed her with he could come to her wearing that man’s body. It would be a simple matter.
What would not be simple would be giving Anyanwu her first hard lesson in obedience. She would not want to go to Isaac. Among her people, a woman could divorce her husband by running away from him and seeing that the bridewealth he had given for her was returned. Or her husband could divorce her by driving her away. If her husband was impotent, he could, with her consent, give her to another man so that she could bear children in her husband’s name. If her husband died, she could marry his successor, usually his oldest son as long as this was not also her own son. But there was no provision for what Doro planned to dogive her to his son while he, Doro, was still alive. She considered Doro her husband now. No ceremony had taken place, but none was necessary. She was not a young girl passing from the hands of her father to those of her first husband. It was enough that she and Doro had chosen each other. She would think it wrong to go to Isaac. But her thinking would change as had the thinking of other powerful, self-willed people whom Doro had recruited. She would learn that right and wrong were what he said they were.
At the place Doro had called “New York Harbor,” everyone except the crew was to change ships, move to a pair of smaller “river sloops” to travel up the “Hudson River” to Doro’s village of “Wheatley.”
With less experience at absorbing change and learning new dialects if not new languages, Anyanwu thought she would have been utterly confused. She would have been frightened into huddling together with the slaves and looking around with suspicion and dread. Instead, she stood on deck with Doro, waiting calmly for the transfer to the new ships. Isaac and several others had gone ashore to make arrangements.
“When will we change?” she had asked Doro in English. She often tried to speak English now.
“That depends on how soon Isaac can hire the sloops,” he said. Which meant he did not know. That was good. Anyanwu hoped the wait would be long. Even she needed time to absorb the many differences of this new world. From where she stood she could see a few other large, square-rigged ships lying at anchor in the harbor. And there were smaller boats either moving under billowing, usually triangular sails or tied up at the long piers Doro had pointed out to her. But ships and boats seemed familiar to her now. She was eager to see how these new people lived on land. She had asked to go ashore with Isaac, but Doro had refused. He had chosen to keep her with him. She stared ashore longingly at the rows and rows of buildings, most two, three, even four stories high, and side against side as though like ants in a hill, the people could not bear to be far apart. In much of her own country, one could stand in the middle of a town and see little more than forest. The villages of the towns were well-organized, often long-established, but they were more a part of the land they occupied, less of an intrusion upon it.
“Where does one compound end and another begin?” she asked, staring at the straight rows of pointed roofs.
“Some of those buildings are used for storage and other things,” Doro said. “Of the others, consider each one a separate compound. Each one houses a family.”
She looked around, startled. “Where are the farms to feed so many?”
“Beyond the city. We will see farms on our way upriver. Also, many of the houses have their own gardens. And look there.” He pointed to a place where the great concentration of buildings tapered off and ended. “That is farmland.”
“It seems empty.”
“It is sown with barley now, I think. And perhaps a few oats.”
These English names were familiar to her because he and Isaac had told her about them. Barley for making the beer that the crew drank so much of, oats for feeding the horses the people of this country rode, wheat for bread, maize for bread and for eating in other ways, tobacco for smoking, fruits and vegetables, nuts and herbs. Some of these things were only foreign versions of foods already known to her, but many were as new to her as the anthill city.
“Doro, let me go to see these things,” she pleaded. “Let me walk on land again. I have almost forgotten how it feels to stand on a surface that does not move.”
Doro rested one arm comfortably around her. He liked to touch her before others more than any man she had ever known, but it did not seem that any of his people were amused or contemptuous of his behavior. Even the slaves seemed to accept whatever he did as the proper thing for him to do. And Anyanwu enjoyed his touches even now when she thought they were more imprisoning than caressing. “I will take you to see the city another time,” he said. “When you know more of the ways of its people, when you can dress as they do and behave as one of them. And when I get myself a white body. I am not interested in trying to prove to one suspicious white man after another that I own myself.”
“Are all black men slaves, then?”
“Most are. It is the responsibility of blacks to prove that they are freeif they are. A black without proof is taken to be a slave.”
She frowned. “How is Isaac seen?”
“As a white man. He knows what he is but he was raised white. This is not an easy place to be black. Soon it will not be an easy place to be Indian.”
She was silent for a moment, then asked fearfully, “Must I become white?”
“Do you want to?” He looked down at her.
“No! I thought with you I could be myself.”
He seemed pleased. “With me, and with my people, you can. Wheatley is a long way upriver from here. Only my people live there, and they do not enslave each other.”
“All belonging, as they do, to you,” she said.
He shrugged.
“Are blacks there as well as whites?”
“Yes.”
“I will live there then. I could not live in a place where being myself would mean being thought a slave.”
“Nonsense,” Doro said. “You are a powerful woman. You could live in any place I chose.”
She looked at him quickly to see whether he was laughing at herspeaking of her power and at the same time reminding her of his own power to control her. But he was watching the approach of a small, fast-moving boat. As the boat came alongside, its one passenger and his several bundles rose straight up and drifted onto the ship. Isaac, of course. Anyanwu realized suddenly that the boy had used neither oars nor sails to propel the boat.
“You’re among strangers!” Doro told him sharply, and the boy dropped, startled, to the deck.
“No one saw me,” he said. “But look, speaking of being among strangers …” He unrolled one of the bundles that had drifted aboard with him, and Anyanwu saw that it was a long, full, bright blue petticoat of the kind given to the slave women when they grew cold as the ship traveled north. Anyanwu could protect herself from the cold without such coverings though she had cut a petticoat apart to make new cloths from it. She disliked the idea of covering her body so completely, smothering herself, she called it. She thought the slave women looked foolish so covered.
“You’ve come to civilization,” Isaac was telling her. “You’ve got to learn to wear clothes now, do as the people here do.”
“What is civilization?” she asked.
Isaac glanced at Doro uncomfortably, and Doro smiled. “Never mind,” Isaac said after a moment. “Just get dressed. Let’s see how you look with clothes on.”
Anyanwu touched the petticoat. The material felt smooth and cool beneath her fingersnot like the drab, coarse cloth of the slave women’s petticoats. And the color pleased hera brilliant blue that went well with her dark skin.
“Silk,” Isaac said. “The best.”
“Who did you steal it from?” Doro asked.
Isaac blushed dark beneath his tan and glared at his father.
“Did you steal it, Isaac?” Anyanwu demanded, alarmed.
“I left money,” he said defensively. “I found someone your size, and I left twice the money these things are worth.”
Anyanwu glanced at Doro uncertainly, then stepped away from him as she saw how he was looking at Isaac.
“If you’re ever caught and pulled down in the middle of a stunt like that,” Doro said, “I’ll let them burn you.”
Isaac licked his lips, put the petticoat into Anyanwu’s arms. “Fair enough,” he said softly. “If they can.”
Doro shook his head, said something harshly in a language other than English. Isaac jumped. He glanced at Anyanwu as though to see whether she had understood. She stared back at him blankly, and he managed a weak smile of what she supposed to be relief at her ignorance. Doro gathered Isaac’s bundles and spoke in English to Anyanwu. “Come on. Let’s get you dressed.”
“It would be easier to become an animal and wear nothing,” she muttered, and was startled when he pushed her toward the hatchway.
In their cabin, Doro seemed to relax and let go of his anger. He carefully unwrapped the other bundles. A second petticoat, a woman’s waistcoat, a cap, underclothing, stockings, shoes, some simple gold jewelry …
“Another woman’s things,” Anyanwu said, lapsing into her own language.
“Your things now,” Doro said. “Isaac was telling the truth. He paid for them.”
“Even though he did not ask first whether the woman wished to sell them.”
“Even so. He took a foolish, unnecessary risk. He could have been shot out of the air or trapped, jaile
d, and eventually executed for witchcraft.”
“He could have gotten away.”
“Perhaps. But he would probably have had to kill a few people. And for what?” Doro held up the petticoat.
“You care about such things?” she asked. “Even though you kill so easily?”
“I care about my people,” he said. “Every witch-scare one person’s foolishness creates can hurt many. We are all witches in the eyes of ordinary people, and I am the only witch they cannot eventually kill. Also, I care about my son. I would not want Isaac making a marked man of himselfmarked in his own eyes as well as the eyes of others. I know him. He is like you. He would kill, then suffer over it, wallowing in shame.”
She smiled, laid one hand on his arm. “It is only his youth making him foolish. He is good. He gives me hope for our children.”
“He is not a child,” Doro said. “He is twenty-five years old. Think of him as a man.”
She shrugged. “To me, he is a boy. And to you, both he and I are children. I have seen you watching us like an all-knowing father.”
Doro smiled, denying nothing. “Take off your cloth,” he said. “Get dressed.”
She stripped, eyeing the new clothing with distaste.
“Accustom your body to these things,” he told her as he began helping her dress. “I have been a woman often enough to know how uncomfortable woman’s clothing can be, but at least this is Dutch, and not as confining as the English.”
“What is Dutch?”
“A people, like the English. They speak a different language.”
“White people?”
“Oh yes. Just a different nationalitya different tribe. If I had to be a woman, though, I think I’d rather pass as Dutch than as English. I would here, anyway.”
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