The Call of Zulina (17 page)

“Aye, Woman, Zulina
is
mine!” Joseph shouted back. “An’ I will run it me own way, I will! An’ I’ll do it wi’ no ’elp from the likes o’ ye!”

For the first time in their life together, Joseph turned his back on his wife. Then as steadily as he could manage in his condition, he strode across the compound, across the fields, and out through the front gate. His head much cleared
—
more by the confrontation than by the outside air
—
he marched down the road toward the baobab tree and then headed toward the narrow road that led up to the fortress. He did not slow his pace, and never once did he look back.

L
ow moans of hopeless despair echoed through the grate in the wall above the dungeon door to drift into the night shadows and mix with Grace's uneasy dreams. Then the hiss of Tungo's angry voice seared her sleep. “They will feel my wrath! I will slash her throat and throw her body at their door!”

Grace jolted awake. Was the voice real? Or was it just another attack of the night terrors? She couldn’t be certain. But through the rest of the night, she lay perfectly still, her eyes and ears on guard. Something was happening, of that she was certain. And because so much danger prowled the air, she must keep a watchful vigil.

Snatches of urgently whispered arguments reached her: “… risking our lives to be in here so long!” Hushed, angry voices: “… must kill or be killed! It is not us who are at fault, but we will pay the price.”

Although Grace heard these snippets, try as she might, she could not follow the disjointed conversation. Nor could she identify who said what, so swift and urgent did the whispers fly through the air. Several times she heard a key turn in the lock, and each time it was followed by the cautious scrape of the door opening, then closing. And throughout the night, shadowy figures crept past her.

To the best of Grace's reckoning, four nights had passed since she left home. Just four nights since she climbed onto the compound wall and jumped over into another world. Just four nights since she made her way to the baobab tree. Four nights since she turned left at the tree and ran up the narrow road to Zulina. Only four nights! Was it possible?

When she tried to picture the London house, it seemed so distant and long ago, almost too far away to remember. How could she have lived there all her life?

Concentrating on one room at a time, Grace mentally walked through the only home she had ever known: the dining room, with its ornate mahogany tables and fancy chairs with legs that ended in carved goat's feet … the parlor, with its brocade settees that her father forbade her to sit on because they must be preserved for the most important people, which obviously did not include her … her father's office, which she was allowed to enter only when bidden … the library—the most comfortable room in the house, as far as she was concerned. It contained the books her father had brought back from Europe and pretended he could read when anyone he wanted to impress was in the house. In truth, she was the only one who could read them because her father said all proper English ladies knew how to read and write and it wouldn’t be fitting for an admiral like him to have a daughter who was not a proper English lady.

Grace sighed. Her poor father just could not accept the fact that half the blood in his daughter's veins was African. Of course, her mother couldn’t accept that the other half was English. And since she could not change her blood, Grace could do nothing but forever disappoint both of them.

Grace concentrated on each piece of furniture in her bedchamber, which wasn’t difficult since she knew it so well
—
the quilted coverlet on her feather bed, the silver brush and comb side by side on her dressing table, each handkerchief neatly stacked in her dressing table drawer. Then she pictured her father's bedchamber. Actually, all she could remember were the shelves he built to hold the many things he collected during his sailing days. Then on to Lingongo's bedchamber—first the small entry room and then her sleeping room, both of which her mother kept locked with a key she fiercely guarded. Since Grace had never seen inside her mother's rooms, she had little to picture. Once Lingongo had carelessly left the outer door ajar, and being a curious child, Grace had peeked in just as her mother opened the inner door. In the second before it slammed shut, Grace caught sight of a glorious flash of sun shining on gold. At least she thought she did. But it could have been her imagination.

Next Grace pictured the inside kitchen, which Joseph wanted because it was English, and the outside kitchen, which Lingongo wanted because it was African. Early every morning while everyone slept, Mama Muco built cooking fires in two very different ovens so that the family could awaken to a breakfast of fried plantains and porridge (outside oven) and hot biscuits for Joseph Winslow (inside oven).

Oh, Mama Muco! Grace's eyes flooded at the thought of Mama's love and gentle touch. How she longed for the one person who ever truly cared about her. When Grace had first whispered her escape plan to Mama
—
sprinkled with assurances that Yao planned to meet her and embellished with allusions to a ship waiting at the harbor
—
Mama had grabbed her and held her close. “No, no! Oh, no!” she had cried. But then she pushed Grace out at arm's length and declared, “Slave life is no life at all,” and she set to work.

Carefully, Grace cradled her injured hand in her lap. The pain had subsided some, but now she tucked her hand in out of habit. Grace took a deep breath and purposely relaxed her clenched jaw and stretched the edges of her mouth just the tiniest bit until anyone looking at her would insist she had just the shade of a smile on her face. Yao was wrong, she thought with a strange sense of satisfaction.
I
did
leave the London house. So I’m
not
Lingongo's slave. Not any longer!

What was it Yao had said?
“I need nothing but my wits, and so I will not stay.”

Well, I have my wits too!
Grace determined.
And I am out of there. But I will not stay here, either. I will also find a way out of this dungeon.

As the first glimmer of morning light worked its way through the dungeon grate, Cabeto stood up from his place in the huddle of men. He positioned himself so that the faint shaft of light shone on his face and everyone could see him, and then he spoke in a strong, clear voice:

“The wise men say no matter how long the night, the day is sure to come. Though the night seems too long to bear, we are a patient people. Two more days we will wait while Tungo and Antonio and Kwate play the part of trustees in the white trader's service. They will gather my family and bring them to this room. On the third night, when the moon is gone from the sky and the night too black for white men to see, we will leave here and we will return home. Then we will be slaves no more. You can go back to your villages, or you can come with us. It is for each of you to decide.”

Grace called out, “Oh, please! My friend Yao—he was brought to this place in chains, in a yoke like an ox. But he says he won’t live like a slave. He must get out too! Please, can’t you find him?”

“I know this Yao,” said Antonio. “He came here with the brand of your padre burned into his shoulder.”

A menacing growl rolled up from Tungo. “Branded like an animal!”

Grace looked away, her face burning with shame.

But Cabeto stepped forward and stood in front of Grace. Despite her shame, she looked up at him and dared to fix him in her gaze. So much had happened since the day he clapped his hand over her mouth, dragged her inside the fortress, and locked her inside, yet Cabeto had barely acknowledged her existence. Not until this day. This day he looked straight at her and slowly shook his head back and forth.

“I am sorry I brought you here,” he said softly. “This is not your fight. None of this is of your making. It never was.”

Grace didn’t know how to answer, and so she remained silent.

Freed from their shackles, Grace and the other two younger women settled together on one side of the room. The woman who had been chained next to her
—
Safya was her name
—
was older than Grace by a good ten years. Now she turned her golden brown eyes on Grace. Her low-hung eyelids made it look as though she was half-asleep, but Grace was not fooled. She knew Safya watched her closely. Not like Oyo, the shorter, rounder woman—the lovely one who was locked to the wall next to Sunba. Oyo watched no one. She kept her face turned away and her eyes on the floor.

The trustees, along with Cabeto and Sunba, had spent the night huddled together on the side of the room opposite the women. At some point, the man in the ragged
dashiki
shirt joined them. All night long the men argued among themselves, their voices rising in anger and passion and then falling off into urgent whispers.

In another corner, Udobi and Ikem huddled together. Udobi crooned and moaned as her husband petted her and whispered words of comfort.

Only the boy remained alone.

Abruptly, Ikem rose to his feet and strode over to Cabeto. “My woman and I leave now,” he announced. “We not be part of this trouble. We not wish you ill, but we go now. Take us to different room and leave us in peace.”

“We cannot do that,” Cabeto said. “When we leave, you can come with us, or you can stay here. But now you cannot go.” “Ikem will not fight your fight,” he said firmly.

Tungo shoved Ikem aside. “You have no choice, old man! And if we refuse to crawl away like frightened children in the night—” Here he made a point of casting a disdainful look in Cabeto's direction. “—If we stand and fight like the warriors we are meant to be, either you will fight beside us or you will die at our feet!”

The man in the ragged
dashiki
jumped up. “I am a warrior!” he proclaimed with pride. “It is my name—Gamka. In the tongue of my people it means ‘one who is a warrior.’ I will fight alongside you!”

This Gamka looked nothing at all like the tall, muscular Cabeto and his leopard-like brother. Gamka was much shorter. His skin was not black like theirs, but a dusky brown, more like Mama Muco's. His face was round like Mama's too. Yet Grace knew from watching the workers at the compound that a person could not tell the value of a man by the way he looked. Nor was it possible for someone to gaze upon a man and accurately predict what danger he posed.

“Warriors do not slink off like hyenas in the night!” Gamka scowled.

“Many white men are in this place, and they have many Africans working for them. We cannot fight them all,” Cabeto argued. “Is it not enough to free our people and return to our homes in peace?”

“No!” shouted Tungo. “It is
not
enough! Gamka and I say we fight!”

Now Sunba was on his feet. “The white men have many guns and much gunpowder. All of them carry muskets. We have only a few muskets. No matter how strong and brave we are, we cannot stand up against the white man's guns.”

“Put a spear in my hands and I will be worth twenty white men with guns!” boasted Gamka.

“You talk of peace,” exclaimed Tungo with scorn. “Do you know what will happen when you get back to your village? The slave trader and his lioness will send slavers to hunt you down with whips and muskets—to punish you and prove they are your masters. They will rape your women and murder your children in front of your eyes. Then they will beat you and drag you back up here in chains.”

Tungo paused, and for many minutes the dungeon was silent. When he spoke again, the scorn in his voice was replaced by weariness. “Perhaps you believe if that happens, you will be as you are now. But you will not. No, it will be much worse for you … and much worse for your people.”

He gazed hard around the dungeon and fixed his eyes on Cabeto. “You talk of peace? There will be no peace! If you believe differently, you are a fool. All of you—you are all nothing but fools!”

Grace squeezed her eyes shut and grasped her throbbing head, and then she rocked back and forth, back and forth. Think! Think! She must think! But how could she think among so many voices of misery?

People were locked up in all the other dungeons and cells. What about them? All the men and women and children would not be able to escape with Cabeto and Sunba in the dark of the night. What would happen to those who were left behind? What would the slave trader and the killer lioness do to them? Her father and mother … what would they do to the ones who were left?