Golden Lion (42 page)

‘Look at them,’ she giggled. ‘Just lying there with their heads bobbing up and down, half in and half out of the water. All that you can see is their eyes and noses poking out of the river. It’s so funny the silly way their ears twitch. And look! One of them has got a bird standing on his head!’

‘You would not laugh if one of those creatures ever attacked you,’ Judith said. ‘An angry bull, or a cow with a young calf, would think nothing of charging this boat. On land, few men can outrun them, and with those great jaws they can cut you in half with a single bite.’

Just then one of the hippos yawned, revealing huge lower teeth that were as curved and pointed as a headman’s axe and the smile disappeared from Ann’s face.

And yet the greatest risk to life came not from mighty, charging beasts, but from the hordes of insects that plagued them, particularly at night, stinging and biting so that any exposed skin was soon left covered in swollen, red bites.

At least they had eaten well. Fish, oysters and crab were abundant. The porters hunted water birds with bows and arrows and collected sweet mangrove honey. From the tall white mangrove trees growing nearest the sea Judith pulled the thick, leathery, olive-green leaves, crushing them and adding them to her evening meal for the relief of her stomach cramps. She gathered the unripe fruit and smeared their pulp on the insect bites that covered her body, particularly her lower legs, and she used the sharpened twigs as tooth-picks.

On the second day in the estuary one of the sailors shot a fat, grey-skinned creature that looked like a seal with a dolphin’s tail and a gentle face, with eyes as sad and sweet as a dog’s and a mouth upturned in a permanent smile. ‘It’s called a dugong,’ the Buzzard told them, in an uncharacteristically sociable moment. ‘They eat sea grass. I dare say you’ll find it makes good enough eating.’

It had taken five men to drag the wounded creature, which bore an expression of docile puzzlement, into the pinnace, where they beat it to death with a club. They butchered it and salted the flesh, which, just as the Buzzard had promised, kept them well fed for several days, the sailors arguing at every meal over whether it tasted more like beef or pork.

By the time the last of the dugong meat had been consumed, however, they had long since left the boat, for the water was no longer deep enough to be navigable and they were forced to continue on foot, crossing the tidal mudflats and more often than not wading up to their knees through brackish mud and water. From the small, sturdy, black mangroves in the deeper reaches of the mudflats the men cut branches that they burned to smoke and thus preserve the fish they caught.

Troops of white-throated monkeys chattered at their passing. Snakes and other reptiles slithered from their path, plopping into the water around them. Bats whirred overhead at night, while by day they frequently heard the flapping and honking of the herons, ducks and geese that had been disturbed by their passing. Now and then, a mangrove kingfisher streaked by in an arrow-like blur of bright colour.

But as the days went by no clue was offered as to where they were going or what the Buzzard’s intentions were. All that Judith knew was that every plunging, strength-sapping step took her further from Hal. But at least she had gained something from the grim, sweaty trek through the mudflats. One of the Portuguese sailors had cut a straight branch from a tree for use as a fishing spear. Using his cutlass he had hacked the stick to a sharp point, when one mislaid chop cut too deep and the tip had broken off. As he trudged off to find another branch, swearing as he went, Judith had pulled the sharp little stake from the mud and tucked it away in her skirt.

It wasn’t much of a weapon. It would not defend her against the Buzzard’s sword or the sailors’ muskets. But it was something of her own. And it gave her a tiny ray of hope.

The
Madre de Deus
dropped her anchor in the bay off Quelimane and all the slaves were herded onto the deck where they waited in fear and uncertainty for their turn to be rowed ashore. They went twelve at a time, not in the merchantman’s own longboats, but in tenders rowed out from the shore.

Hal glanced over his shoulder at the
Madre de Deus
sitting serene on the
shimmering water out in the bay.
If I ever lay eyes on her again I will send her to the sea bed
, he promised himself, fixing the merchantman in his mind.
And though Barros may beg me for quarter, I’ll hoist the bastard to the yardarm and let the gulls pick his bones clean and white.

When they reached the shore, Hal and the others in his party were ordered to stand in line while they were formed into a coffle: a line of slaves with chains around their necks and hands and linked by more chains, from the neck of one man to the hands of the poor soul behind him. Two of the men in the middle of the line were not harnessed together with the same chains as everyone else, however, but by a heavy wooden beam, perhaps two paces long, which had yokes, also made of wood, at either end. The yokes were positioned on the shoulders of the two men: to the back of one and the front of the other. In this way a rigid distance was maintained between the unfortunate individuals who had been chosen as beasts of burden. As a result they were obliged to march at exactly the same pace, and that obligation was then extended to the other men ahead of and behind them.

Barros had come ashore by the first boat and as the coffle was assembled he looked on, conversing with a man in a large straw hat who reminded Hal somewhat of Consul Grey, for he was round and ripe and, though he was mounted on a mule, he was dripping with sweat.

‘As you can see, Senhor Capelo,’ Barros told him, ‘we have bought nothing but the finest stock in the market at Zanzibar. These are all fine specimens and I am certain that Senhor Lobo will be satisfied by their strength and endurance as workers.’

‘One of them is white,’ Capelo said, looking at Hal with a disapproving air. ‘Whites never last very long.’

‘You have no need to worry about this one,’ Barros assured him. ‘See for yourself. He is a fine specimen. Long-limbed and strong as an ox.’

Capelo gave a sceptical grunt, but accepted Barros’s invitation nonetheless. He climbed down off his mule, walked across to Hal and examined him, feeling his thigh and bicep muscles, examining the whites of his eyes and his tongue and prodding his stomach. ‘Very well, I shall take your word for it,’ Capelo said. ‘But if he fails to give satisfaction I will want an extra black to replace him and I’ll expect it free of charge.’

‘Of course, of course,’ said Barros. ‘You have the money for these men, though, yes?’

‘Of course.’ Capelo walked across to the mule, opened a saddle bag and pulled out a canvas sack that was heavy with coin. ‘It is all there, the agreed amount. You may count it if you wish.’

‘No need,’ Barros said, with an ingratiating smile. ‘I know that neither you nor Senhor Lobo would ever cheat me. So now, I will bid you farewell. I wish you a safe journey back to the mines.’

Barros departed. Capelo climbed back onto his mule, barked orders to the guards and then set off down the road. A second later, Hal felt the familiar sting of a whip on his shoulders, letting him know that he was expected to get moving too, and so the coffle began its long journey to the heart of Africa.

It took a while for the dozen chained men to get the hang of keeping their dressing as regularly as guardsmen on parade. Some stumbled and fell, bringing others down too, and more than once Hal felt himself dragged to the ground without any means of breaking his fall, for his hands were rendered useless by the chain that linked them. Their guards were Africans but they showed no mercy or sympathy towards their brothers in chains, lashing out with their wooden batons and long leather whips at anyone who did not move quickly enough to satisfy them.

They marched out of the port, through a grove of trees and into the buzzing hive that was Portuguese Quelimane. A newly built cathedral towered over clusters of primitive log huts and whitewashed mud dwellings. In the centre of the village stood the mud-brick ruins of an old fort and beside them the foundations of a new one under construction.

Slaves laboured and sweated in the heat. A team of them hauled an enormous brass culverin up a ramp into the new fort, the wheels of its carriage creaking in complaint and the men’s every step encouraged by the crack of the driver’s whip. Oxen lowed as they dragged in heavy loads of cut timber. Men yelled and cursed and argued or suddenly burst out laughing.

A little further on stood a well-built gallows, the wood still new and clean. By contrast the corpse still hanging from the gibbet, turning slowly on the rope, was reeking rotten and seemed to be dressed in a black cloak, but which turned out to be merely a coating of flies that swarmed over it.

Men sat on the edge of the road smoking pipes and mending fishing nets. Their wives waded into the slow-moving black river to do their laundry. Their children played nearby: fighting with wooden swords or kicking a ball or throwing pebbles at a barking dog which was tied to a stake. A blacksmith was at work forging a new anchor, the sound of his hammer ringing on the anvil like the bell of a country church. An old woman hawked baskets of allegedly fresh fish. A pretty bare-chested black girl declared that her mangoes were the sweetest in Africa.

But none of the Quelimane population showed the faintest interest in the pitiful column of slaves and their guards who wended their way past them. It was a sight so common as to be passing mundane. With that reminder of just how far he had been brought down, Hal kept putting one foot after another, matching his strides exactly to those of the man in front of him as they left the outskirts of Quelimane and headed out into the bush.

udith was nearing total exhaustion. Every muscle in her body throbbed and ached. Her vision swam and her head pounded as if her brain were shrinking in her skull, drying out like a fish carcass on the rack. And yet she kept pace with the rest of the slaves, refusing to let the masked man have the satisfaction of knowing how far gone she was.

The swamps and mudflats of the coast had long since given way to the savannah woodland of the interior. When first she had walked again on solid, dry land her feet, soaked in water for so many days, had been as soft as bread in a bowl of milk. They blistered and bled. But by now they had healed into hard calluses, leaving her with one less agony to endure. Often towards the end of another long day’s march she was at the point of collapse, but always she was able to carry on. She could not give in while she carried such a precious burden in her womb.

Keep going!
the child inside her seemed to say.
Don’t give in to them. We can get through this. If I can fight then so can you.

Ann also was nearing total exhaustion. Despite her own sorry condition Judith had to help the other girl, encouraging her when she slumped to her knees, drained of all will to go on. It was Judith who urged her on with soft words of reassurance, or at other times tongue-whipped her to her feet; anything to get Ann moving again when it seemed she would rather lie down and wait for death to give her surcease.

The masked man halted the caravan every three hours by his watch, allowing them half an hour’s rest. Ann sat in the dust beside her now, hugging her knees, her face buried in her ragged skirts.

‘Tonight,’ Judith leaned closer to her and whispered. ‘We’ll do it tonight.’

Slowly and pathetically, Ann lifted her head. She blinked her teary eyes and sniffed. ‘Do you mean it this time?’

They had talked about escape many times before, but they had never got further than merely talking.

‘This time I mean it,’ Judith assured her, afraid to say more because the
Pelican
’s sailors were sitting nearby, sharing a bottle of rag water and listening to the bawdy story one of their number was reciting.

‘How?’ There was a spark in Ann’s sad eyes now, an ember of hope.

Judith glanced over at the sailors, then at the Buzzard who was already lying in his blankets, his hands behind his head, his sword placed carefully beside him. Because of the mask it was impossible to see whether he was awake or asleep. Then, as though he had caught her thoughts on the night breeze, like a predator scenting prey, the Buzzard sat up and turned his head towards her. The fiercely frowning single eye, the absurd, yet frightening beak and that sharp-toothed satyr smile made Ann whimper.

‘Do not look at him,’ Judith said in a low voice. She could see that Ann was trembling and so she took the girl’s hand in hers and placed it on her own belly. ‘Pretend we are talking about the child,’ she said. Ann was still staring at the masked man. ‘Ann,’ Judith hissed and the girl swung her head round, then looked down at Judith’s stomach, understanding at last, forcing an upward curl in the tight line of her lips.

Then Judith told her how they were going to escape.

It was after midnight and the moon was high. Judith and Ann moved quietly to the entrance of the lean-to shelter, careful not to wake any of the men who lay snoring in their blankets around a dying fire, fast asleep despite the night chorus of crickets and cicada beetles. The man on watch was Pereira, the grey-beard who had helped guide the pinnace through the mangroves and ever since continued to act as the navigator leading them to their destination. For all his age, he was alert enough and he turned as soon as they left their lean-to shelter.