Master of Paradise (33 page)

Rodrigo looked down at her in doubt. She
said, “I do this without question, with an open, loving heart. I
pledge myself to you, body and soul.”

“You understand what it means?” he
repeated.

“It means I trust you completely.”

Rodrigo moved around and met her eyes. She
looked up at him with all her trust burning in her gaze. “It means
there’s no turning back,” she told him. “I wouldn’t if I could. I
give myself totally by this, the ultimate symbol of
commitment.”

He smiled. “Some women would think the
ultimate symbol of commitment was a wedding ring.”

“I’m not other women.”

“No,” he agreed. “You’re not.”

For once, Rodrigo took the instrument in his
own hand. As she knelt, waiting quietly, he went to the fire and
heated the needle. Her blood beat in rhythm with the drums. He came
back and handed her the rope to bite. But she shook her head. “Just
let me hold your hand.”

Tossing the rope aside, he moved behind her
and held his hand out to her. She clutched it tight with both of
hers. Then, steeling herself, she said, “I’m ready.”

The prick of the needle was more painful than
she could ever have anticipated. It continued its assault beneath
her skin, again and again, until she thought she could bear it no
longer. But he worked quickly, like an artist with a sure hand, and
just as she thought the pain was too much, she began to transcend
it. She was overcome with a feeling of fulfillment so deep that
tears of veneration flowed from her eyes.

She looked up and saw him standing over her
in the firelight with eyes as moist as hers. She could see how
moved he was by her display of devotion. And it made her love him
all the more.

“
Mkombozi,
” she said for all to
hear.

Then she collapsed to the sand.

She felt a wet cloth at her wound. Then a
cooling salve was applied. It robbed her of a great deal of the
sting. But she felt drained all the same. She felt her limp body
lifted in Rodrigo’s powerful arms. Felt herself being carried from
the scene.

In their hut, he placed her gently on their
makeshift bed. “I’ll get you some grog,” he said. “It will help the
pain.”

But she clasped his hand and wouldn’t let him
go. “It doesn’t hurt. All I want is you.”

He looked at her as if he didn’t quite
understand.

“Make love to me, Rodrigo.”

He held himself in check. She could feel the
effort he was making to be patient for her sake. She could also see
that her act of trust had aroused him greatly. “I don’t want to
hurt you.”

“Only your refusal could hurt me now.”

He didn’t refuse. More tenderly than she’d
ever seen him, he took her in his arms and made love to her with
long, slow, hard thrusts. As if each was a measure of his own
devotion, to be dragged out and savored. Hushed, intimate.
Wonderful
.

After the celebration of her total commitment
to the cause, Gabrielle began to take more interest in the training
of the men. It was difficult, because she didn’t understand the
language.

During the day, Rodrigo usually spoke
Swahili—which was the
lingua franca
of the African coast. It
was an extraordinarily melodious language. But though she derived
great pleasure from listening to it, gradually, she began to feel
excluded, and, from the worried tones, to sense that some ominous
new element had been introduced into the drama.

One afternoon, one of Rodrigo’s Seychellois
spies returned from Mahé and reported some information that set
Wallace arguing in soft but explosive tones with Rodrigo. As she
happened by, they switched from English to Swahili. When she asked
Rodrigo later what the fuss was about, he sloughed it off as “a
difference of policy.” He would say no more.

The next day, she went to Wallace as he was
sitting in the shade, eating freshly grilled marlin from a large
shell. When he saw her, he gestured for her to sit beside him in
the sand.

She smiled. “You’ve been with Rodrigo a long
time, haven’t you?”

“Long time, lassie. Five years. He took me
off a prison ship five days out of Cape Town. I was an officer in a
Scottish regiment serving at the pleasure of King George. You see,
lass, I’d borrowed some funds from the regimental treasury to pay a
pressing gambling debt.”

“I get the feeling you know him better than
anyone.”

“Except yourself, maybe.”

His words pleased her. “Instinct tells me
something’s happened. Something I don’t know about.”

Wallace didn’t respond to this. He set his
fish aside and rubbed his hands together like a man reluctant to
speak. They were dry, and the rustling sound of them scraping
together made her cringe. She stared at the shell with the
half-eaten fish, looking pearly white against the glimmer of
sun-drenched sand.

“I saw you arguing yesterday,” she
persisted.

“Mayhap you should be asking the
captain.”

“I’m asking you.”

He glanced at her as if wondering whether to
tell her the truth. “Well, lass, you’re bound to hear it sooner or
later. It seems word of our preparations has reached Mauritius.
Admiral Fulton is bringing in the entire British fleet from India
to protect Seychelles. Twenty fully armed men-of-war.”

“Twenty?”

“Aye, lass.”

“Then Rodrigo’s got to stop. He must give up
his plans.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling him. But he
won’t hear of it. He’s decided the only way to oust your brother
and his dirty compatriots is an all-out war, winner take all. Now
or never. No turning back.”

A chill swept through Gabrielle. She’d always
felt this coming. “But there’s no way he can win. He can’t take on
England herself!”

Wallace shrugged. “He thinks he must.
Normally he’s a more cautious man, but his mind is set.”

“There must be a way to stop this,” she
said.

“If there is, I don’t know what it would be.
God knows, I’ve tried.”

“You could refuse to follow him.”

“That, lassie, I would never do.”

She couldn’t let this happen. But what to do?
She felt adamantly that he was taking the wrong course. But she
knew her lover well. Well enough to realize he wouldn’t be swayed
by sentiment. What she needed was a concrete strategy that she
could lay before him, complete and logical. Something so obvious,
he couldn’t choose any other path. She thought of all she knew
about the situation. Hastings’s involvement. Rodrigo’s aims. The
stories she’d heard of people in England fighting the same issue on
a more abstract scale...the antislavery society...Thomas Fowell
Buxton...the issue in Parliament over the statute of Negro
emancipation.

And suddenly, she had her idea.

“Rodrigo, you must stop this madness.”

She’d taken hold of his arm and pulled him
around to face her as he was in the midst of a conversation with
Higgins and Jonah Fitch. He turned and glared at her as if he
couldn’t believe what she’d just done.

“You can’t go on with this. It’s
suicide.”

“You’ve been talking to Wallace, I
presume.”

“Something I should have done earlier.”

“We’ll talk about this later.”

“No, we need to talk about it now.”

“Not in front of the men.”

“But I have an idea. Something that will put
an end to this war and give you everything you want without losing
the life of a single one of your men.”

“I’d hear ’er out, Captain,” said Jonah
Fitch. “Her ideas are outlandish, I’ll grant you that, but they
usually get the job done.”

“Well, if
you
say so, Mr. Fitch, then
naturally,” Rodrigo said in a faintly sarcastic tone.

They left the others and walked toward their
thatched hut on the beach. “This must be quite an idea.”

“It is.”

“Very well. I’m listening.”

“To start, you must realize that waging war
with England is futile. It’s unwinnable. Even if you
did
win
this battle, what good will it do? They’ll just send more ships,
more men. They won’t rest until they’ve hunted you down. Sooner or
later, they’ll hang you the way they hanged your father.”

“It’s nice to know you have so much faith in
me.”

“But you see, it could be so unnecessary.
There’s a bill being debated in Parliament that, if passed, will
ban slavery in all the British colonies, including Seychelles.”

“Gabé, that bill has been around for years.
There’s no chance the powerful financial interests that depend on
the plantation economy—people like your father and his friends in
Parliament—are going to let that statute ever become law.”

“Rodrigo, you’ve been gone a long time. In
the last two years, an avalanche of reforms has swept over England.
That bill is coming to a vote in the next session. It’s all anyone
in Mahé is talking about.”

He mulled over her words. He held the thought
a moment, then rejected it. “It’ll never pass. The fight is here,
not there.”

“You may tell yourself what you will. I’m
telling you this battle must be fought in London. If you want to
win, sail with me for England.”

“Sail to England? What about your precious
Cullen?”

“Cullen has sealed his own fate.”

He grew silent a moment then said, “No, it’s
crazy.”

“It’s not crazy. There’s a man there, a Mr.
Buxton, a powerful man who’s spent his life fighting for the
abolishment of slavery. We can go to him and tell him all we know.
We can tell him about Hastings and Douglas and their friends in
Parliament. Tell them about the underground slave trade. How
British officials and officers of the East India Company are
involved. Don’t you see? The scandal alone will ensure that we’re
heard. This will be a tremendous boon to the antislavery forces.
They’ve been waiting for just such evidence to tip their hand.
We’ll help them get this law passed. But it has to be done now,
Rodrigo. If they deny the bill, it will be years, perhaps decades,
before they consider it again.”

“As if they’d listen to a pirate over a
duke.”

“If you don’t see the logic of this idea,
then all those years you spent studying England’s legal system were
in vain. You learned to think like us. Use it against them. Use
your intellect instead of your sword. Douglas is always complaining
how you took the education he financed and turned it against him.
For the love of God, for those you seek to protect, do so on a
higher order. Beat them at their own game.”

He just shook his head. “You’re dreaming.
Were I to show up in England, they’d hang me on sight.”

“No. I just told you, there are people in
Parliament who need you. They’ll protect you. You have to trust
them.” She paused a moment and added more quietly, “You have to
trust
me.
”

He met her gaze and saw the challenge in her
eyes. “It’s not a matter of trusting you. It’s a matter of doing
what’s right.”

“It’s a matter of doing the intelligent
thing. The thing that will work. And I’m telling you, Rodrigo, if
you wage war you haven’t a chance. You might as well slit your own
throat. But if you go to England, you can win.”

“My battle is here, Gabé,” he said
firmly.

She thought for a moment, wondering if she
should voice her thoughts. “If you refuse this sensible course of
action, then maybe I should go to Hastings and attempt to talk some
sense into
him
. He can’t really want this war. And you
yourself said he must...care for me. Perhaps I can persuade
him—”

He turned on her in anger. “If you think I’d
let you go to him, you’re mad. He’s not someone you can deal with
on those kinds of terms. No matter what his feelings are,
underneath it all he’s evil. I’ve always underestimated him in the
past. Don’t make the opposite mistake. Don’t overestimate him.”

Angrily, she retorted, “Then at the very
least, let’s go to Admiral Fulton and present our case. I’ve heard
he’s a fair man.”

“Gabé, sometimes you’re so naive.”

“You stubborn, short-sighted—” She checked
herself from going further.

He was still for a moment. Then he said, “I’m
sorry. But what you’re suggesting is a pipe dream. Strategy is not
what you’re good at. You must leave this to me.”

“I see.” She stood up and started to pace,
sweeping her arm angrily as she spoke. “I’m supposed to trust you
so completely that I allow you to mark my flesh to prove my
devotion. But when I ask you to trust
me—
”

“It’s not the same thing!” he roared.

She felt as if she were seeing him with newly
awakened eyes. “You don’t trust me. You’ve
never
trusted me.
You want me to trust you with everything, but the first time I ask
for your trust in return, you refuse. I’m right about this, damn
you! I grew up listening to Company officers discussing politics as
I served their meals. I know how they think, how they work. And I
know that the way to win this war is to go to England and change
this law. Whatever we have to do to get there, however dangerous it
might be along the way.”

“It’s rash and impulsive, just like you.”

“It’s a way to win—if that’s what you really
want to do. But maybe that’s
not
what you want. Maybe you’re
just in this for the glory. Maybe what you really want is to be
killed in battle, so people will write folk tales about the great
Mkombozi
who
died
fighting for his cause!”

“I won’t be spoken to in this manner,” he
raged.

“Then you won’t be spoken to at all. You’ve
betrayed me, Rodrigo. You ask of me what you’re not willing to
give. If I could, I’d scratch the brand from my back and throw it
in your sorry face!”

Later that night, she crept to Jonah Fitch’s
bed and shook him awake, hushing his protests.