Butler, Octavia - Wild Seed

“You did well enough—kept us afloat until we made port.”

“If I got a child by Anyanwu, maybe he’d have that other kind of sight. I’d rather have her than your Virginians.”

Doro laughed aloud. It pleased him to indulge Isaac, and Isaac knew it. Doro was surprised sometimes at how close he felt to the best of his children. And, damn his curiosity, he did want to know what sort of child Isaac and Anyanwu could produce. “You’ll have the Virginians,” he said. “You’ll have Anyanwu too. I’ll share her with you. Later.”

“When?” Isaac did nothing to conceal his eagerness.

“Later, I said. This is a dangerous time for her. She’s leaving behind everything she’s ever known, and she has no clear idea what she’s exchanging it for. If we force too much on her now, she could kill herself before she’s been of any use to us.”

CHAPTER 5

Okoye stayed in Doro’s cabin where Anyanwu could care for him until his sickness abated. Then Doro sent him below with the rest of the slaves. Once the ship was under way and beyond sight of the African coast, the slaves were permitted to roam where they pleased above or below deck. In fact, since they had little or no work to do, they had more freedom than the crew. Thus, there was no reason for Okoye to find the change restrictive. Doro watched him carefully at first to see that he was intelligent enough—or frightened enough—not to start trouble. But Anyanwu had introduced him to Udenkwo, and the young woman seemed to occupy much of his time from then on. Rebellion seemed not to occur to him at all.

“They may not please each other as much as they seem to,” Anyanwu told Doro. “Who knows what is in their minds?”

Doro only smiled. What was in the young people’s minds was apparent to everyone. Anyanwu was still bothered by their blood relationship. She was more a captive of her people’s beliefs than she realized. She seemed to feel especially guilty about this union since she could have stopped it so easily. But it was clear even to her that Okoye and Udenkwo needed each other now as she needed Doro. Like her, they were feeling very vulnerable, very much alone.

Several days into the voyage, Doro brought Okoye on deck away from Udenkwo and told him that the ship’s captain had the authority to perform a marriage ceremony.

“The white man, Woodley?” Okoye asked. “What has he to do with us?”

“In your new country, if you wish to marry, you must pledge yourselves before a priest or a man of authority like Woodley.”

The boy shook his head doubtfully. “Everything is different here. I do not know. My father had chosen a wife for me, and I was pleased with her. Overtures had already been made to her family.”

“You will never see her again.” Doro spoke with utter conviction. He met the boy’s angry glare calmly. “The world is not a gentle place, Okoye.”

“Shall I marry because you say so?”

For a moment, Doro said nothing. Let the boy think about his stupid words for a moment. Finally, Doro said: “When I speak to be obeyed, young one, you will know, and you will obey.”

Now it was Okoye who kept silent thoughtfully, and though he tried to conceal it, fearfully. “Must I marry?” he said at last.

“No.”

“She had a husband.”

Doro shrugged.

“What will you do with us in this homeland of yours?”

“Perhaps nothing. I will give you land and seed and some of my people will help you learn the ways of your new home. You will continue to learn English and perhaps Dutch. You will live. But in exchange for what I give, you will obey me whether I come to you tomorrow or forty years from now.”

“What must I do?”

“I don’t know yet. Perhaps I will give you a homeless child to care for or a series of children. Perhaps you will give shelter to adults who need it. Perhaps you will carry messages or deliver goods or hold property for me. Perhaps anything. Anything at all.”

“Wrong things as well as right?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps I will not obey then. Even a slave must follow his own thoughts sometimes.”

“That is your decision,” Doro agreed.

“What will you do? Kill me?”

“Yes.”

Okoye looked away, rubbed his breast where the branding iron had gouged. “I will obey,” he whispered. He was silent for a moment, then spoke again wearily. “I wish to marry. But must the white man make the ceremony?”

“Shall I do it?”

“Yes.” Okoye seemed relieved.

So it was. Doro had no legal authority. He simply ordered John Woodley to take credit for performing the ceremony. It was the ceremony Doro wanted the slaves to accept, not the ship’s captain. As they had begun to accept unfamiliar foods and strange companions, they must accept new customs.

There was no palm wine as Okoye’s family would have provided had Okoye taken a wife at home in his village, but Doro offered rum and there were the familiar yams and other foods, less familiar; there was a small feast. There were no relatives except Doro and Anyanwu, but by now the slaves and some members of the crew were familiar and welcome as guests. Doro told them in their own languages what was happening and they gathered around with laughter and gestures and comments in their own languages and in fragmentary English. Sometimes their meaning was unmistakably clear, and Okoye and Udenkwo were caught between embarrassment and laughter. In the benign atmosphere of the ship, all the slaves were recovering from their invariably harsh homeland experiences. Some of them had been kidnapped from their villages. Some had been sold for witchcraft or for other crimes of which they were usually not guilty. Some had been born slaves. Some had been enslaved during war. All had been treated harshly at some time during their captivity. All had lived through pain—more pain than they cared to remember. All had left kinsmen behind—husbands, wives, parents, children … people they realized by now that they would not see again.

But there was kindness on the ship. There was enough food—too much, since the slaves were so few. There were no chains. There were blankets to warm them and the sea air on deck to cool them. There were no whips, no guns. No woman was raped. People wanted to go home, but like Okoye, they feared Doro too much to complain or revolt. Most of them could not have said why they feared him, but he was the one man they all knew—the one who could speak, at least in limited fashion, with all of them. And once he had spoken with them, they shied away from attacking him, from doing anything that might bring his anger down on them.

“What have you done to them to make them so afraid?” Anyanwu asked him on the night of the wedding.

“Nothing,” Doro said honestly. “You have seen me with them. I’ve harmed no one.” He could see that she was not satisfied with this, but that did not matter. “You do not know what this ship could be,” he told her. And he began to describe to her a slave ship—people packed together so that they could hardly move and chained in place so that they had to lie in their own filth, beatings, the women routinely raped, torture … large numbers of slaves dying. All suffering.

“Waste!” Doro finished with disgust. “But those ships carry slaves for sale. My people are only for my own use.”

Anyanwu stared at him in silence for a moment. “Shall I be glad that your slaves will not be wasted?” she asked. “Or shall I fear the uses you will find for them?”

He laughed at her seriousness and gave her a little brandy to drink in celebration of her grandchildren’s wedding. He would put her off for as long as he could. She did not want answers to her questions. She could have answered them herself. Why didshe fear him? To what use didshe expect to be put? She understood. She was simply sparing herself. He would spare her too. She was his most valuable cargo, and he was inclined to treat her gently.