The ship was much closer now than when Ntikima had first glimpsed it, and he recognised it immediately, but Noell Cordery’s eyes were poorer than his. The white man put the glass to his eye, and kept it there while he watched the vessel approach. The ship was the caravel Stingray, its captain Langoisse. Ntikima did not like Langoisse, who was loud and boastful, and he was not displeased to see that the ship was in a poor condition. She lay low in the water, her square sails ragged and her rigging much torn. Ntikima knew nothing of the sea, and could not guess whether she had been in a battle, or whether she had simply been battered by Shango’s thunderbolts in a great storm.
Langoisse was finding it difficult to bring the ship to its intended berth, even though the wind was not against him. Burutu was nearly ten miles from the coast, and the ships which sailed here sometimes had to fight hard to reach the wharves, especially in the wet season when the flood-currents were strong. Sometimes native canoes had to tow the merchantmen to the wharves. Though this made things hard for the honest traders, it meant that the stockade at Burutu was defensible not only against native marauders but also against unwelcome visitors from the ocean. This was the direction from which danger had most often come. The six cannon on the station pointed out to sea, not at the inner delta.
The white babalawo, who called himself Quintus, came to the foot of the ladder with Jan de Groot to hear the news, but de Groot turned away again when Ntikima cried 'Stingray!’ De Groot did not like Langoisse any better than Ntikima did, and knew that there was little profit to be made from his periodic visits. But Quintus came up to join Noell Cordery and Ntikima, and stood behind them while they watched the ship labouring against the current.
No signal came from the vessel, though Ntikima caught a glimpse of the woman who loved Noell Cordery standing on the bridge and waving. Ntikima could not understand why Noell did not simply buy her from Langoisse, to be his wife, but it was difficult to fathom the attitude to women which these white men had, which seemed out of keeping with their attitude to other property.
‘Best kill the fatted calf,’ said Quintus, with a sigh. ‘The prodigal has come home again.’ This was nonsense. There were no cattle in Burutu, and the evening meal would be a brace of fowl, with bread from millet flour and soup made with dazoes and earth-peas. Ntikima knew, however, that Langoisse always brought bottles of exotic wine with him, so that he and his friends could besot themselves in their own manner, instead of sharing the palm-wine and the millet-beer which the black men made.
‘Will they need help to dock?’ asked Quintus of Noell Cordery.
‘They have the tide,’ Noell told him. it all but cancels out the current, and they have sail enough left to use the breeze.’
Quintus clapped Noell on the shoulder, with enthusiasm that was slightly forced. ‘They’ll bring tall tales if naught else,’ he said, ‘and the Phoenix will surely be here within the week, to bring us cargo which we need, and to empty our stores of ivory, palm-oil and rubber.’ Ntikima listened to the exchange carefully. Quintus had shown more than an ordinary interest in the promised arrival of the Phoenix. In the past weeks he had become very intent upon stocktaking and calculating supplies, as if he expected to withstand a siege or to undertake a journey. Perhaps his powers of foresight were greater than they seemed, and he knew that the Ogbone would send for him soon. Even before Ntikima came the babalawo had begun keeping and breeding donkeys within the outer stockade, and Ntikima had guessed that his purpose was to make a pack-train. Quintus obviously knew that he was destined to make the journey to Adamawara. Ntikima was not surprised; a baba?lawo must always know something of the future.
While the population of the station turned out to give a lukewarm welcome to Langoisse and his crew, Ntikima watched and listened. The white men rarely paid him much heed, and seemed more pleased than alarmed by his interest in them. He was always near to run errands, always enthusiastic to learn more of the English language, and hear more tales of the lands from which they had come. Noell Cordery and Quintus both liked him, and were pleased to help him learn.
The subtle undercurrents in the relationships of these people were a constant source of fascination. He noted, for instance, that it was Quintus who took the lead in offering a welcome to these visitors, and that Noell Cordery hung back. This was definitely not to the liking of the brown woman Leilah, who looked for a warmer reception from what was perforce the lesser of her two loves. She seemed to live always in the hope that Noell would one day learn to look at her with more desiring eyes. When she leapt to the wharf to greet him, he received her kiss meekly on his cheek, and did not return it. Nor was Noell’s reluctance to the liking of Langoisse, who was wounded on his own behalf; Ntikima had noticed previously that the so-called pirate was ever of the optimistic opinion that all men should be delighted with his company. Ntikima was unsurprised that the feast which the traders offered to their visitors that evening, and which he helped to serve, was not entirely enjoyed by any of its participants, though it was clear that the fresh food answered a hunger which Langoisse and all his crew had been nursing for some time.
The one man at the table who frightened and overawed the Uruba boy was the disfigured Turk, Selim, who was ever in a surly mood. Ntikima hated the sight of the man’s scarred and twisted face, which made him think of the face of Egungun, the risen dead, or an apparition sent by Shigidi, who disturbed men in their dreams. Langoisse would never turn his most faithful servant away from his table, though there were probably others in the big house who wished that he would command the Turk to eat with the sailors aboard the ship. Ntikima was glad when the meal was finished, and the Turk went away. The woman went too, though she seemed more reluctant to go.
When he was left at table with Quintus and Noell Cordery, Langoisse produced a gift with which he obviously hoped to win the favour of his hosts - a demijohn of Madeira - and then he set out to entertain the company with accounts of the storm through which he had lately sailed, and news of the last few ports in which he had dropped anchor. Ntikima sat on the floor in the corner of the room, shadowed and patient. He understood only a little of what was said, but he was hungry to learn the names of places beyond the sea, and to hear what was said of them.
Every now and again Ntikima would take his canoe and go to the forest, where he would speak to a magician or an akpalo - an itinerant storyteller - to whom he would tell all that he had heard. Even when he did not entirely understand what he was telling, they would nod gravely, and tell him that he had done well. The Ogbone, no doubt, would know what it all signified far better than he.
Tonight, Langoisse’s talk was of Maroc and of Spain, and of a land which might exist beyond the great ocean, which he called Atlantis. These names Ntikima had heard before, and he could find nothing new in what was said of them, but he became more attentive when Langoisse asked Quintus whether he had ever heard of a kingdom ruled by a man named Prester John.
it is a legendary Christian kingdom in Asia,’ Quintus said to Langoisse, ‘said to lie beyond the Khanate of Walachia, in the desert on the edge of Cathay. The Byzantines sent emissaries to find it, in the hope of finding allies when the Mohammedans drove the vampire armies out of Asia Minor, but they never returned, and Vlad Tepes ultimately recaptured the lost lands without assistance.’
Ntikima’s thoughts swirled as he tried to fix these strange names in his memory.
‘The vampire lords of Granada are now convinced that the kingdom lies in Africa,’ Langoisse said. ‘They say that it is identical with a land called Adamawara, of which you have spoken to me before, where the Garden of Eden was in the beginning of the world. It is rumoured that a great river might gives access to that land, the Kwarra is one the three which are suspect. The Spanish will send three ships to the Senegal this winter, if the French will let them, with a company of soldiers and horses. They will set forth in hope, though the French say there is nothing for them to find save deserts and arid mountains. The arabs who know where the Senegal rises laugh
at the Spaniards behind their backs. Is it possible, do you think, that it is the Kwarra which leads to this marvellous kingdom?’
‘I cannot believe it,’ said Quintus. ‘I do not believe that any such kingdom as Prester John’s exists, and certainly not that it is the country which the Uruba call Adamawara.’
Langoisse shrugged. ‘Someone has spread tales of a white king in Adamawara, and it is said to be written somewhere that Christians went there long ago. Perhaps it is the third river mentioned by the legends which is the right one - its mouth is supposedly far to the south.’
‘There is a greater river than the Kwarra,’ agreed Quintus. ‘The Oba of Benin claims that the ships of his ancestor, Ewuare the Great, journeyed there two hundred years ago. Perhaps it is true, though the Beninese vessels are poor things.’
Ntikima knew all the tales of Ewuare the Great. He also knew that there was another great river, far away, beyond the lands which acknowledged the wisdom of the elemi. Nevertheless, the white men had it wrong. The Kwarra was only one of the three rivers which must be followed in order to reach Adamawara, and though there were white people there, they did not rule. Certainly there was no Prester John. ‘Do you think the Spaniards will come here?’ asked Noell Cordery. it is possible,’ said the white babalawo. ‘Men have travelled further in search of legends than they have ever gone for more practical purposes. The master of the Tudor Rose told us of ships setting forth from Bristol in search of Atlantis, determined to sail across the great ocean until they sight land, hopeful of finding a way to Cathay if nothing else. I have sometimes feared that the tales of Adamawara which we have innocently passed on to visiting seafarers might one day bring explorers here, carrying the commission of some curious vampire prince. It is only a matter of time - the world we know is becoming too small to confine the affairs of the Imperium of Gaul.’
‘Perhaps the time has come to undertake our own journey of exploration,’ Noell Cordery said to him.
‘Perhaps it has,’ Langoisse agreed. ‘The likes of you and I were never meant to be traders. The sea has nearly had enough of my poor Stingray, and I might be better employed in journeying up the Kwarra in search of my fortune. I wonder why you are so content to shut yourselves up in a wooden cage like this one, when you hear so much of richer realms in the interior. Why do you not go to Oyo or Ife, or to Adamawara itself? Why must you sit here and barter good iron for the meagre handfuls of gold dust which the savages bring you from their hidden mines, and for the occasional handful of gemstones which they spare from their coffers? I could not be content to deal in ivory and oil and rubber when there are treasures to be had by the men who have the courage to go in search of them, in Prester John’s land, or whatever others there are in the centre of the continent. Have you no idea how hungry the world is for gold?’
Noell Cordery seemed not to like this speech, and only replied: ‘The interior is dangerous, and has a fuller measure of plague and misery than of gold and glory.’
The white babalawo, however, answered more calmly. ‘I do not think the black men mine gold,’ he said, it is mostly native gold that they use, like the native copper they use in their ornaments, easily refined if not so very easily found. Since first we began to trade for gold and gems, they hunt out all that they can for us, for they reckon iron and tin more precious. They have no secret coffers full to overflowing. All travellers tell stories of fabulous treasures to be found in lands where they have never been. Beware of believing that because the interior is mysterious, it is also rich. You know as well as we do how many men have gone upriver, and never returned.’
‘They had not your knowledge,’ said Langoisse. if ever there was a man that I would trust to guide me through this heathen land, it is you. I promise you, faithfully, that when you undertake your journey into the interior, I will go with you, not just to seek gold, but to seek the lands where vampires live and do not rule, and the lands from which vampires first came.’
Quintus turned toward Ntikima, and met his eye. ‘There is one here,’ he said, ‘who can tell you about Adamawara.’ He beckoned, and Ntikima stood up, and went to stand beside the babalawo, to bear the hostile gaze of the sea-captain.
‘He’s but a boy,’ said Langoisse, dismissively.
‘He is Uruba,’ said Noell Cordery, quickly. ‘And he is a man, for he has undergone the ikeyika rite, and earned his place in the world. He lost his parents to the plague, but he met a god in the forest and was given to magicians to be raised. He is a very clever person, and has learned more English in three years than Ngadze has in ten. Tell, us, Ntikima, what you know of Adamawara.’
‘Adamawara is the land of the tigu,’ said Ntikima, obediently, it is in the country of the Mkumkwe, from which the first elemi came when the world was young. It was made when Shango sent down a great bolt of lightning, so that Olorun might have a place to offer his heart to the wisest of men. ’
Langoisse was impatient, but Noell Cordery held up his hand to tell him to wait. ‘Tigu’, he said, ‘means finished. The elemi are tigu because they have undergone a rite of passage; just as ikeyika makes boys into men, so this rite called Ogo-Ejodun makes men into vampires. Ejodun means season of blood, and is the title which the Uruba give to various kinds of blood sacrifice. Is it not so, Ntikima?’
Ntikima nodded in reply.
in which direction does Adamawara lie?’ asked Noell.
‘Toward the sunrise,’ Ntikima answered, ‘But in order to reach it one must follow the rivers - first the Kwarra, then the Benouai, then the Logone. It is a dangerous journey, for those who would become elemi must prove themselves in the lifeless forest, where the silver death strikes them down, and where Egungun comes to judge them.’
‘The Uruba heartland is to the west,’ added Noell Cordery, ‘but the Uruba believe that their ancestors first came to Ife and Oyo from another land, guided by the Ogbone, much as the Children of Israel were brought across the desert in the time of Moses.’
Is there gold in Adamawara?’ asked Langoisse, in a sarcastic voice.
‘Oh no,’ said Ntikima. ‘No gold at all.’
‘How do you know these things?’
Ntikima shrugged. He knew because he was Ogbone, but it was not permitted that he should say so.
‘How are the elemi made, in Adamawara?’ asked Noell Cordery. ‘By the Oni-Olorun, which are the wisest of the elders. They prepare the heart of Olorun, so that it may be given to the wisest and the best, who receive the breath of life, to live on while the unworthy die.’ Noell Cordery looked at Langoisse, and made a sign with his hand, as if to say: there you have it.
‘Have white men ever been to Adamawara?’ growled the pirate. It was a question that neither Quintus nor Noell Cordery had ever asked. ‘Oh yes,’ said Ntikima. ‘Long ago. There are only a few there now.’ All three of his inquisitors looked at him in surprise.
‘How long?’ asked Noell Cordery, though he should have known better than to ask.
Ntikima shrugged. ‘Long ago,’ he repeated.
‘But there are a few there still?’ asked Noell. ‘Do you mean that there are white elemi in Adamawara?’
‘Oh no,’ said Ntikima, patiently. ‘They are not elemi, because they are aitigu, but they have lived for a long time. There is a white woman who is older than the elders, though she looks young. There are men, also, and though they will never be tigu, they might never die.’
Ntikima could see that this information caused a certain consternation among his hearers, though they did not seem to know exactly what he meant.
‘When you say aitigu, where we might say not finished,’ Quintus said, ‘you do not mean what we call common men? The elemi are tigu-finished - but there are some who are not tigu, yet live much longer than ordinary men?’
‘Oh yes,’ Ntikima told them, as if it was obvious.
‘Vampires,’ said Langoisse. ‘You are telling us that there are white vampires in Adamawara?’
Ntikima furrowed his brow, unable to answer.
Noell Cordery laughed. ‘Remember,’ he told his companions, ‘that this is the boy who was once possessed by the spirit of a dead child, and had it driven from his body by poison - and this is the boy who met a god in the forest, who promised to teach him the secrets of medicine.’
Ntikima knew that the white man quoted these things to show that what he said could not always be be trusted. But when he was very small, and his mother and father had died, he had been possessed by an abiku, an evil spirit which had been driven from his body by a magician. And after that, he had met Aroni in the forest, and shown such courage that he had not been devoured, but had been given instead to the Ogbone, who would one day teach him the secrets of medicine, so that he might become a white-clad magician, and after that an elemi. What he knew, he knew, and it did not matter what the white men cared to believe.
Quintus intervened then, and told Ntikima that he should go to his bed, and sleep. Ntikima knew that he was being sent away while the white men carried on their discussion in private, but he bowed his head, and went. He did not go to the hut where he slept, however, but kept watch beneath a window of the great house, content to wait although he could not hear a great deal of what was said.
Not until the white men finally went, not soberly, to their curtained beds, did Ntikima finally abandon his vigil, and go to sleep himself. Nothing else had happened, but he did not resent the delay. He was Ogbone, and his time was not his own to use. He knew that he must hurry to tell his masters that the white men were planning an expedition to Adamawara, because he knew that it was part of the Ogbone’s plans that they should do exactly that, and the Ogbone would be glad to hear the news. The future was settled, and only needed to unfold, like the measured aspiration of the breath of life.
Empire of Fear Page 17
