HF - 03 - The Devil's Own (42 page)

Here Tom Warner stopped for a moment, and glanced at his companion. 'This was the site of the battle, between Edward Warner and Tony Hilton, and the Carib Wapisiane,' he said. 'A good place for men to die, would you not say, Captain Hilton? We must cross it. But beware. Do not allow your feet to slip into any of that water, or you will be stripped to die bone with a speed far greater than my men could accomplish. Follow me, closely.'

He scrambled down the side of the hill, and Kit followed. The Caribs fell into single file behind him, and they made their way across the valley. Here the heat really was intense; not even the boiling house at the height of grinding quite equalled it, and instead of the sickly smell of evaporating sugar juice there was the lung-blocking stench of sulphur, which rose around them and blotted out the sun; the clouds themselves were a sickly yellow.

And now there came a roar from somewhere to his left, and the earth shook. He checked, and Tom Warner turned with a smile. 'That is the volcano. My people call it the Boiling Lake, because it bubbles without ceasing. But it has not actually exploded within the memory of any man of my tribe; I think it is because the excess of steam is carried off by these pools and this stream. We shall soon be across.'

And indeed already the air was clearing, and the ground beginning to rise, and there were other sounds to be heard above the hissing of the steam. Soon Kit saw green leaves again, and a puff of wind dispelled the worst of the vapour, and now he saw the palm-thatched roofs of the Carib benabs. A few moments later he was surrounded by women and children, all entirely naked, leaping and shouting, reaching out to touch his clothes, to squeeze his arms and belly, to fumble at his thighs.

'They suppose you are for the stake,' Tom Warner said.

'I hope you will be able to persuade them otherwise,' Kit remarked.

Once again Tom Warner smiled, and stopped and clapped his hands. The Indians fell silent, to listen to their Governor. His voice echoed across the clearing, while Kit seized the opportunity to look around him. The breeze still blew, but he was not at all sure that the scents which now afflicted his nostrils were preferable to that of the sulphur. Apart from the expected odours of a savage village there was another, more intense tang in the air, the stench of putrefying flesh, and now he saw, to his horror, three stakes erected in the centre of the rough circle formed by the houses. To each of the stakes there clung a skeleton, suspended by throat and waist as he had been strapped to his own banisters, tatters of rotting flesh dripping from shoulder and thigh, faces the more horrible because the heads had been untouched, and were mouldering on the bones as they grinned at him, expressions still caricatures of ghastly fear and pain.

Tom Warner ceased speaking, and the crowd melted away, casting glances over their shoulders at the white man they would not possess. 'They will not harm you,' Tom said.

'As they did those poor devils?' Kit demanded. 'Tell me, Governor, did you partake in that feast?'

'I thought you came here to talk peace, Kit,' Tom remarked. 'Indeed, I have eaten human flesh. Those were brave men, before they were tied to the stakes. They died screaming, yet there was sufficient courage left in them to impart some to those who tasted their flesh. Come.'

He walked across the clearing, and Kit followed, acutely aware that he was being watched by every man, woman and child in the tribe, and there seemed to be a great number of them, more than he had expected, crouching in shaded doorways and standing in clusters beneath the overhanging branches of trees. And suddenly his courage and the confidence of his demeanour was assailed by a new threat.

'Captain Hilton,' a woman screamed. 'Captain Hilton.'

He checked, and saw a white body, naked and stained with dirt and filth, tumbling from a doorway to his right, to be seized by the ankle and dragged back into the shade.

'Captain Hilton.' The sound wailed on the wind.

'Bv Christ,' Kit said, once again feeling for his absent sword hilt.

'She is one of our captives,' Tom Warner said. 'There are eleven of them, and some slaves. Fear not, Kit. We do not eat either blacks or women. As for their misuse, I have been told that you sailed with Morgan, and were at Panama. Women, like gold, are the spoils of war, are they not?'

'Yet must they form part of any negotiation between us,' Kit said.

Tom nodded. 'If your people would have it so.' He stooped, to enter a house somewhat different to the others, in that the palm fronds which composed the roof had been thickened and
allowed to droop closer to the ground, to provide more shade and more privacy to those within. Kit had to bend almost double to gain the interior, but here he could straighten without difficulty, and blink into the gloom. Tom stood beside a gently swaying hammock, perhaps six feet away from him. 'I would have you meet my mother,' he said. 'Yarico.'

For the first time in too many years Kit was embarrassed, unable to move, uncertain what words to use, or even if to use any. But the woman in the hammock knew no such restrictions. 'Kit Hilton,' she said, in amazingly good English. 'Come closer, Kit.'

He crossed the beaten earth floor, frowning into the shade, and stood beside the hammock. His impression was first of all of white hair, descending to the shoulders, and this struck him as odd, because in all the village there had not been a single white-haired Indian, of either sex. Then there was brown flesh, surprisingly firm. She did not bother with the apron of the other married women, nor was her body, which could hardly be younger than seventy years old, he realized, less attractive than those outside, and her grasp, which now fastened on his hand, was as strong as a man's.

But it was her face he searched. And without disappointment here either. Like all Carib faces it was long, and the features were prominent, high cheekbones, straight, thrusting nose, firm chin, wide mouth. And glowing black eyes. It seemed the most natural thing in all the world, to drop to his knees next to the hammock, to feel her fingers rippling up his arm and across his shoulder and into his hair.

'Susan's grandson,' she said, softly. 'Did she tell you of me?'

'Endlessly, princess,' Kit said. 'Of how you loved and laughed together, and how you fought together, too.'

'A long time,' Yarico said. 'A long time. Now all are dead, from those days.' Her voice changed. 'Save Philip.'

'He waits with his fleet.'

'I know that, Kit. My son has told me. Philip was my son, too. Not of my belly. He was Rebecca's child. But when she died, I felt guilty. Because his father had neglected her, for me. I was beautiful then, Kit. There was no man could look upon me and not wish to share my hammock.'

'You are beautiful now,' Kit whispered.

Yarico smiled. Her teeth were the whitest he had ever seen. 'Now,' she said. 'Now I am a goddess. I am unique, Kit. My people do not grow old. It is the custom amongst the Caribs for any man or woman feeling the onset of infirmity to take themselves alone into the forest, there to die of starvation. But my people would not let such a fate overtake me. Because I have known the great white man, Sir Thomas Warner, and his even greater son, Edward.' Once again the change of tone. 'Would that the white people had felt it also.'

'It is my purpose,' Kit said. 'To bring an end to that strife.'

Her eyes searched his face, in the gloom. 'Aye. You have the breadth of spirit of your grandfather. I would speak of him again. And of you. But now my son's chieftains await you.'

Kit realized that Tom Warner had left his side, and that almost the entire Carib nation, it seemed, had gathered beyond the hut to wait for the white man. He stooped, and returned to the sunlight, gazed at the assembled warriors. Here were men. He wondered if Philip Warner understood the force by which he might be opposed, should these talks come to nothing. But then, did he understand what would be
his
fate, should these talks come to nothing.

'Speak to them, Kit,' Tom Warner said. 'I will relate your words, as faithfully as I can.'

Kit hesitated, once again staring at the stern red-brown faces, the muscular arms, each one holding a spear or a bow, the heaving chests, the powerful limbs. But was he not just such a man, to them? To all men? As white men were ranked, he was more of a warrior than any man present, even Indian Warner himself. He inhaled. 'Tell them that I know of the past, Mr Warner. That I know how Tegramond and his people welcomed the Warners and their people to St Kitts, and how the English and the French repaid that kindness and that trust with blood. Tell them that I know how the Caribs were expelled from all the Leewards by Edward Warner. Tell them that I know how the Caribs under Wapisiane sought to avenge themselves, and how they kidnapped Edward Warner's wife after destroying his colony in Antigua. Tell them that I know how the Warners, aided by the Hiltons and their people, came to Dominica and won a great victory, and killed and
murdered and raped and plundered, also in the name of revenge. And say also, that I understand why the Caribs came to Antigua last month, once again in revenge, and why they murdered and plundered and raped. Tell them that my own wife suffered, and that I know why she did. Because her name was Warner.'

Tom Warner gazed at him for a moment, and then slowly translated. The language was guttural, and brief. No flowery phrases for the Caribs.

'You may continue,' he said.

'Then tell them that, knowing all this, I have accompanied the fleet of Colonel Philip Warner to these shores. They know it is there. Then let them know this also, that there are two hundred and fifty men on board those ships, more men, every one of them armed and determined to fight, than all the people in this tribe, from the newest babe to your mother. I come here in no consciousness of weakness, from no fear of the Caribs. But knowing too that the fight, when it comes, will be long and terrible, and that many brave men on both sides will die. No Carib fears to die. Every Carib may wish to do so in battle. But there is more. The white man is coming, in ever-increasing numbers, finding his way across the sea to live in these magnificent islands, to make himself rich from the sale of his sugar-cane. Every Carib warrior who dies is gone for ever. Every white man who
dies will be replaced a hundred
, a thousandfold. This struggle is one the Carib nation cannot hope to win. And why did it begin? Because of an act of the Warners. Why does it continue? Because of the hatred of Warner for Warner. Now there arc so many wrongs on both sides, there is no hope of surrender. There is only hope of a mutual forgiveness. It is to see if this can be done that I have come to your village. Here is your noble and valiant chieftain, your Governor, Thomas Warner, and down there on the ship is our noble and valiant leader and Governor, Philip Warner. They are brothers. Now is the time for them to shake hands, as is the white man's way, to look together at the great Sun, as is the Carib way, and to break their swords together.'

He paused, and Tom Warner frowned. 'My brother will do this?'

'He has promised. There will be some argument, I am sure.

But he wishes to talk with you, and your chiefs. No harm can come out of that. You have my word, and his, that your lives will be safeguarded.'

Tom Warner nodded. 'I will tell my people. Then we will feast.'

The Carib women were already preparing the slaughtered birds and the fried fish, and pouring the cups of piwarri, the fermented juice of the cassava plant. Now they waited to serve their men as the braves sat in a vast circle, and ate, and drank, with much solemnity, and muttered at each other, and watched the white man sitting next to their cacique, while the heat left the sun as it dipped towards the moun
tains. And Kit stared back at th
em, and beyond, at the ghastly things that had been men hanging from their stakes, and listened, to the whimperings of the white women confined to the huts behind him. As the afternoon wore on, and the piwarri mounted its attack on his senses, he ceased to believe that he was here at all, eating and drinking with the fiercest people on earth. And by the time the feast ended the day had become a long dream. He found himself in a hammock, and there was a soft body next to his. Carib custom, or Tom Warner's way of making some atonement for the crime he had committed on Marguerite? Or perhaps it was Yarico herself, moving her ancient limbs silently against his, bringing him to enticing orgasm time and again. Or was that also a dream, for certainly the ground no longer existed, but he floated on air, and the night no longer existed, as bright lights hovered around his brain, and the darkness dissolved into eternity, which ended with the rising of the sun, with a nudge in the thigh, and with a sudden return to reality.

He was in a hammock, and alone, and the day was already hot.

'My chieftains say they will come, to hear what my brother has to say,' Tom Warner said.

Kit sat up, and scratched his head. 'When will we leave?'

'Immediately. But my mother wishes to speak with you again, before you go.'