Lord of Darkness

by Robert Silverberg

  God rest me, but I never thought I would weep with joy at entering Masanganu again. Yet this time it was as welcome to me as the shores of Paradise.

  TWELVE

  AT MASANGANU the Portugals did make much over us, for they had not expected any survivors of the massacre to come among them.

  News of that disaster had reached them five or six days previous, when the first who got away had come into the presidio. These were the ones who had escaped by horse, mainly the ranking officers, who had galloped valiantly toward safety, leaving all their infantry to be slain behind them. Such men as Balthasar d’Almeida and his captain-major Pedro Alvares Rebello had already left Masanganu for São Paulo de Loanda, to confer with Governor d’Almeida, but others who had come safe away were still in the town, and great was their amazement when they learned that we had managed to bring ourselves alive from the place of battle.

  We were taken to the hospital and given food and drink and medicines, and our wounds were treated, and an officer named Manoel Fonseca, who had the charge over the Masanganu garrison, visited us to learn how we had achieved our escape.

  “Why,” said our Portugal surgeon, “we were rescued by five Jaqqas, who guided us thither and provided us with food along the way.”

  To which Manoel Fonseca responded with loud laughter, and cried, “You are mad with fever, man!”

  “No,” I said, for I lay on the next bed, “it is the truth, by God’s eyes! They spoke not a word, those Jaqqas, but said with gestures, Come, follow; and they kept us close by them until we saw the palm-trees that stand by the river’s edge.”

  “I will not believe that. Jaqqas? How do you know they were Jaqqas, pray tell?”

  “Because that they had teeth knocked out above and below,” said I, pointing to my own front teeth. “And because that while we were with them, they did roast and eat three dead blackamoors that they hauled off from the battlefield. Is that not proof enough?”

  Fonseca still could not believe it, though, and not until he had had the same tale from all the others of us did he credit it to be truthful. Which caused all the more amazement, since no one could recall the Jaqqas doing the like in all the time of the Portugals in Angola. Yet there was no denying that we were here and safe, and it had not been angels that wafted us here.

  I was in Masanganu some weeks healing. That is no place to heal, with its foul air and poisonous climate, but I was too weak then to travel further, and in any case there were no ships there to make the journey to the coast. After a time I left my bed and walked about, and regained some strength. The town at that time was closed tight like a turtle in its shell, with sentinels posted night and day, for the Portugals were badly frighted and did not know what disaster might come upon them next. They had suffered the most terrible defeat in their African history at the hands of this Kafuche Kambara, having lost hundreds of men and much equipment and nearly the whole of their black auxiliary force, and they believed Kafuche might try now to finish them off, or peradventure that the other sobas, emboldened, would rise and overthrow their yoke. But none of these things happened, and in July of ’94 a ship finally came to Masanganu bringing reinforcements. When it returned to São Paulo de Loanda I was aboard, and did pilot it on its voyage down the river.

  Vast surprises awaited me in the capital city.

  There was a great huge new galleon of Portugal riding out in the harbor, a 600-ton vessel at least, and when I entered into the city proper I saw all the buildings amazingly decorated in banners and ribands and brightly colored flags, as though the Portugals had not just suffered a monstrous defeat at all, but rather were celebrating some colossal victory. Streamers in scarlet and green flew in the breeze, and the palace of the governor was especially bedecked with buntings and velvets of great gaiety.

  I asked the bearers that were taking us to town, what had befallen to merit such brave decoration, and they replied, “It is in jubilee of the new governor that Portugal has sent.”

  “New governor? Where is Don Jeronymo?”

  And they pointed most somberly toward the presidio, toward the very same grim fortress where I had been held prisoner four years before. So there had been great reversals and transformations in the colony, it did seem, during my many months of absence.

  But I knew less than the half of it.

  I went first to my cottage, which I found all in order and well kept. Matamba was there with my other slaves. She gave forth a little gasp as of fright and shock when she saw me, and ran to my side, tears starting from her eyes, and she dropped to her knees before me and looked up troubled, saying, “You are so changed! You are so altered!”

  “Am I, now? Come, stand up, girl.”

  I drew her gently upward and sent the slaves away, and embraced her, and she ran her fingers over my cheeks.

  “You have been ill,” she said.

  “Aye, and a little damaged, too. But I am the same man.”

  I went to my chamber, where I kept a dim old looking-glass, and peered at my image. And in truth it startled me some to see what I had become, for my face was five years older at least, with deep lines cut alongside my mouth and about my eyes, and a general shrinking of flesh, and a rising of the cheekbones. The heat of the interior and my exertions there and the wound I had suffered had all worked to boil and distill me down to the hard essence: I looked gaunt and fever-eyed, and dangerous of spirit, like some wild brawling bravo of the city taverns. Why, I trow, if I had met a man looking like me on the streets of London I would have been struck with fear of him, so mean and piratical of face had I become!

  I removed my clothes, that were sweaty from voyaging, and Matamba sponged me clean. Water is always scarce and most precious in São Paulo de Loanda, since that there is no source of it in the city, but all must be brought in from the island through a trench, and that is much contaminated by the nearness of the ocean. As she bathed me Matamba did finger and inspect my new scars, both the angry one in my back that the arrow had left me, and the lesser ones, fading but not yet wholly gone, that I had taken by crawling around in those murderous thorny plants. In her thus fondling me and making much of me I had new proof of her devotion to me, and once I was refreshed I thought to take her to my bed, I having had months of abstinence in my soldiering and she looking most desirable to me, wearing a simple white shift with her breasts bare, and a blue circlet about her throat, and her eyes shining with eagerness. But then came a knock at the door and a messenger from the governor, saying that I was summoned at once to his palace, and the man handed me a writ to make it more official.

  I opened the paper and read it and I like to have choked in my astonishment, for the writ was signed most boldly with the name of the new governor, and the new governor’s name was Don João de Mendoça.

  “But he is dead!” I cried out. “How can this be?”

  The messenger, who was only a slave, looked at me as though I had gone mad, and Matamba knew nothing of governors except that the Portugals of the town had lately done much marching about in the plaza, with pompous changings of the guard and raisings and lowerings of flags, but that was all Greek to her. So, consumed with curiosity, I got me into my best clothes and bade her wait there until my return, and hurried to the palace. I could not comprehend this, for how had Don João escaped the assassins? I thought me that perhaps he had had a son of the same name, who had come from Portugal to avenge his father’s murder, but I wondered much at that.

  Then I was ushered into the same high-vaulted audience-chamber where I had several times met with Don Jeronymo d’Almeida, the former governor, and there, seated at the governor’s great polished desk of brilliant red wood, was Don João himself, not any newly arrived son by that name, nor any ghost neither, I trow. He looked plump and hearty, and scarce a day older than when I had last seen him in the days before the Jesuit troubles, and although he did not rise from his chair of office he favored me with a warm good smile and a broad gesture of greeting, and exclaimed, “Andres! Andres, my friend, my E
nglishman, my Piloto!”

  “Don João, it gives me joy and amaze to see you.”

  “And joy do I take in this meeting also. How we are all changed, eh? I am governor at last, and you—you look as if you have fought hard, and suffered no little.”

  “It was a difficult campaign. But by God’s grace, and some help from the Jaqqas, I was spared. And you also have been spared! I thought you long dead, Don João.”

  He gave a little startle. “You did? Why so?”

  “They told me a tale, that Don Jeronymo had plotted to have you hurled into the sea when you sailed to Portugal.”

  Leaning forward, he said, “Knew you of that, Andres?”

  “Aye. But my knowledge came too late to help you, for I was already halfway to Loango when I learned of it, and you well out toward Portugal. But was it as I heard?”

  “It was,” said he in a low dark voice. “There were three men of Don Jeronymo’s pay, who planned to carry it out. But I had warning, and I took care to be well guarded, and we found out the men and questioned them. And they did confess, and their scheme was blocked.”

  “God be thanked. I grieved much for you.”

  “For that I am much moved, Andres. But you see, I was prepared. I had known Don Jeronymo for what he was, and I placed no trust in his words.”

  “And now you are governor!”

  “Yea. It was simple enough, arranging the appointments, once I spoke before His Majesty, and showed how we were in danger of losing our hold here if the rule of the d’Almeida brothers continued. It was already known that Don Francisco had fled to Brazil. Don Jeronymo’s appointment had no legitimacy to it. And so I received the royal assent, and returned here with four hundred soldiers and thirty horses, and now I am putting things to right. We will go forth to punish the lawless sobas, and we will do a better job of it, if God wills, then Don Jeronymo did. You were at Masanganu when Kafuche Kambara made his massacre?”

  “Nay. I was at the massacre itself.”

  “And survived? God’s grace indeed!”

  “And luck, and some skill. Alas, among those slain was the good Barbosa, that was like a second father to me.”

  “His loss is sad. I knew of that, and that hundreds of others had perished with him. Well, and well, Andres, these are the risks of empire. Were you wounded?”

  “I took an arrow. It was not so bad.”

  “Why were you in the war at all?”

  I shrugged. “Don Jeronymo had me ferrying troops to Masanganu. When he took ill, his generals ordered everyone out to fight against Kafuche, and I could not refuse.”

  “I meant for you only to be a pilot for us,” said Don João. He looked close at me and said, “Do you think I have forgotten my promise to let you go home? Eh? I said, Serve me a little while in voyaging along the coast, and I will put you on ship to England. Eh, Andres? How long ago was that?”

  “I think it was in June of ’91, or the July.”

  “Three years. A longer service than either of us expected. The promise still stands, Andres. But I have more need of you. Will you renew your pledge a little longer?”

  “I do yearn for my homeland, Don João.”

  “Yea. I comprehend that. But give me a little more, Andres, only a little more. Will you do that?”

  He looked at me, his eyes on mine, and suddenly I saw the truth that lay behind his warm and friendly pleading words, which was that he was not pleading at all: he was commanding me. This was his method, to be kind and insinuating, as it had been Don Jeronymo’s method to be fierce and domineering, and either way the result was the same, that I was compelled to remain in this land of Angola. I had mourned Don João most keenly when I had thought him to be dead, and we had taken meals and wines together many times as though we were truly friends, but at the bottom of things the reality was that I was a slave and he my absolute master, the which he softened and concealed with gentle words. But what could I say? Could I refuse service, and demand instant passage to England? I had no claim. If I did any such thing, he would, with the greatest sadness and sweet professions of friendship, commit me to his dungeon, and then I would rot there for ever.

  I do not think Don João was insincere. I believe he had true regard for me, and a fondness. But he had need of me to sail his ships for him, and that need was paramount. Perhaps one day he would indeed let me go, but not now, not yet. And I could do nothing but yield.

  “Aye, since you ask me, I will serve,” I said. “But once the rebellion is put down, and you are secure in your power here, will you release me, Don João? Five years is a long time to be away from one’s native land.”

  “It will be only a little,” said Don João, “and then you will be on your way thither.”

  Which he said with such warmth and such clear profession of good will that I could not for the moment doubt him. Yet I knew that when he said, “Only a little,” that little might be two months, or six, or a year and a half, or eternity, according to his changing needs of me, and that as those needs changed he would ask me again and again, with the same warmth, with the same good will, to extend my service to him. I think I would rather be compelled without deceit than cozened with such beguiling, but no matter: in Angola I would have to remain.

  We talked for a time of the voyages he required of me, in sailing his pinnace along the coast in various trading missions. And when we had done with that, and as he was making ready to dismiss me, only then did I ask the question I had held back in my mind all this while, the question that I had not thought seemly to introduce in any earlier part of our meeting.

  Quite casually I said, “The same who told me of the plot against you did say that Dona Teresa was to have been slain in the same manner. I trust it is not so.”

  Don João smiled. “Nay, she is well, and was never at jeopardy. O, she thrived in Lisbon! Her eyes were wide all the day and all the night, as she soaked up the wonders of the place. Yet the winter weather was harsh on her, and she was gladdened to return to São Paulo de Loanda. She is a married woman now, you know.”

  “Married?”

  I did not conceal my shock; I could not, for the surprise was too great. Dona Teresa had told me, before she set sail for Europe, that she and Don João were to be wed in Lisbon, so I was not altogether taken unawares by his statement. But yet the phrasing of it was not right, for if he had married her he would have said, “Dona Teresa and I now are married,” and not, “She is married.” So I looked at him with bewilderment and I think, through showing so strong a response, I might have revealed to him that my interest in Dona Teresa went beyond mere polite curiosity.

  But he gave no sign of seeing that. He said only, “Aye, she lost no time taking a husband when she came back here. Father Affonso performed the ceremony himself, and I stood up there beside her almost as a father would.”

  “And the husband?”

  “Why, it is that man of fantastical costume, Captain Fernão da Souza. You know him, do you not? The commander of the presidio guard? I think they have long been—ah—friends, and now they are man and wife, this fortnight past. You should call on them, once you are reestablished in your life here.”

  He rose—standing, he was so very short!—and gave me his hand, and I thanked him for all his mercies to me, and went out from there in a veritable daze of stupefaction. Dona Teresa married! And not to Don João, but to Fernão da Souza!

  Well, and I had known she carried on some long intrigue with Souza. For when I had asked her how she had gained access to me so easily whilst I was imprisoned in the fortress, she had quite forthrightly explained that Souza was her friend, and that could only have meant her lover. But Souza surely had known that what went on between Dona Teresa and me in my prison cell was not merely a chaste discussion of geographical matters; and beyond any question he knew she was Don João’s mistress, for all the colony was aware of that. Why, then, would he want to marry her? Had he no pride? Could he take to wife a woman who had openly been had by the governor of the colony for
some years, and one whom he knew furthermore to have been had by the English prisoner Battell? I think I might not have cared to marry Anne Katherine if all of England knew she was some cast-off mistress of Sir Walter Ralegh’s, say, and if I had helped pimp her as well to a Spaniard captured in the defeat of the Armada.

  But the situations were not equal, I realized, upon giving the matter some further thought. This was not England or any other civilized place, but merely a remote colony at the edge of a pagan and barbaric land. There were many men here, and few women, at least few who might be taken for Europeans, as could Dona Teresa. Those rules of chastity and propriety that might apply at home were of no substance here, I supposed. Don João, for some reason I did not fathom, had not in fact married Dona Teresa when they were in Portugal; now she did see some merit in marrying Souza, who was ambitious and of a growing importance here, and doubtless Souza saw merit in it, too, perhaps because it would bring him the enhanced favor of Don João. Perhaps. I did not know how such matters were worked. But I was shaken by the surprise of it, I who had had no small passion for Dona Teresa myself. My own embroilment with her now must certainly be ended, for as a captain’s wife she could not sneak around, could she, and spread her legs secretly here and there for old lovers such as I? Or could she? Well, and I had Matamba now anyway; the cases were altered for us all.

  As I moved through the town that day I found other surprises, namely, several women strolling about that seemed pure European, and protecting themselves from the sunlight by paper shades stuck to long handles. Each of these was young and handsome, and had her little following of the men of the town, who moved in close formation around her, like a cloud of gnats. I made inquiries and learned that upon Don João’s return from Portugal he had brought twelve such women with him, the first pure-blood European women ever seen in Angola, to provide a gentler touch in the life of the town.