But there was the most fantastic dream of all. For had she been his bride, he would have been in here with her. The bunk was certainly large enough for two. But to lie here, in cleanliness and comfort, well fed and even a little dazed with wine, and to be alone ... almost it made her afraid. What did he intend? For what torture was he reserving her?
Or could Damballah himself be no more than an illusion, the past four years no more than a nightmare from which she would now awaken?
Oh no, because she was, most certainly, a slave. And the waiting, which grew more and more unbearable with every day, was surely at an end. She heard the deck creak, and a moment later the door opened. He had not entered here since he had shown it to her as her cabin, while they had still lain at anchor off Kyk-Over-Al in the mouth of the Essequibo.
'Awake?'
She sat up, the sheet drawn to her throat. How easy was it to regain the habits of a lifetime.
'Come,' he said. 'I would show you the most beautiful sight in the world.'
She hesitated. 'You wish me to dress?'
'It will not be necessary.' But he waited, and watched her throw back the sheet and step down from the berth. The cambric was sheer, and clung to her body. But why stare at her through gauze, when by a command he could snatch it from her? And now he held out a robe. She turned away from him and he touched her shoulders as he rested the heavy material. But only for a second, and his fingers were gone again. She could count the number of times he had touched her, from their very first meeting, on the fingers of her hand. So he had declared that his sole purpose in buying her had been to be amused. Then this must be his idea of amusement.
If only she did not feel, did not know, whenever she met his gaze, that there were depths behind those black eyes deeper even than the darkness she had plumbed. And she knew too well the boiling cauldron which lay in the recesses of her own mind.
Corbeau held the door for her, and she ducked her head to enter the great cabin, and mount the companion ladder, already deepening her breathing as the fresh sea air filled her lungs. She held the robe close as she gained the deck, and tossed hair from her eyes, and looked at the sparkling blue of the sea, and then ahead. Since leaving the brown waters of the Essequibo they had sighted no land as they had made their way directly across the centre of the Caribbean Sea. But now the horizon was suddenly filled with mountain peaks, and these were unlike any she had seen in her life before, reducing Dominica to a proper insignificance, towering across the skyline, rising and falling and disappearing into the blue haze beyond.
'It is a continent,' she whispered.
Corbeau smiled. 'No. But it is certainly the second largest island in the Caribbean. It yields only to Cuba.'
‘I had no idea we were so close,' she said. 'To Rio Blanco?' 'We are not close, to Rio Blanco,' he reminded her. 'My plantation is on the north coast, and that is still three days' sail away. I but wanted to show you your new home.'
'It is magnificent,' she said. 'They say there are high mountains in Guyana, but I have never seen them.'
'You will see these,' he promised her. 'They tower over Rio Blanco like the walls of a fortress.'
Once again he held the door for her, and she returned down the companion ladder, and hesitated. He stepped past her, and opened the cabin door. She entered, and waited yet again. His fingers touched her shoulders, and she hastily released the cord holding the robe, felt it being slipped from her body.
'You have had a week,' he remarked, 'to get to know me. To become used to me, perhaps.'
So then, it had only been a game after all. 'I am grateful, sir,' she said. ‘I have lived like a lady, for that week, and remembered how pleasant it was.'
'And do you now suppose you shall cease to be a lady?' he asked.
She sucked her lower lip beneath her teeth, and waited. She could not join in the game until she had learned the rules.
'Sit down,' he said.
She sat on the bunk, her hands clasped on her lap. 'Do you wish me to undress?'
‘I know what you look like,' he said, gently, and sat beside her. 'Any beautiful woman has the right to be a lady, if she chooses. Although sometimes the choice is a difficult one. But then, you are by far the most beautiful creature I have ever seen, and I completed my education in Paris and Vienna.'
'It pleases you to flatter me, sir.'
'I never flatter,' Corbeau said. 'It is not in my nature. But it is your future we should discuss. Are you totally unfamiliar with French law?'
She glanced at him, frowning. 'Should I be familiar with it, sir?'
He shrugged. 'I suppose not. French law in many ways is the most liberal in the world. For example, it states quite plainly that any human being with but a drop of white blood in his or her veins is free from the moment he or she sets foot on French soil.'
He paused, and she checked her head as it started to turn. For a moment she was not sure what she had heard.
'And St. Domingue, of course, counts as French soil,' Corbeau said, softly.
Now she did stare at him, and hated the hot flush which filled her cheeks, even as she hated the way her mouth had drooped open. But it was a game. It had to be a game. He had told her this was her sole purpose in life, for him.
'And I have been informed, of course, that fifteen-sixteenths of your blood is white,' he said, still speaking very softly. 'So you see, you have but three days of slavery left to you, unless the wind entirely drops.'
She swallowed, and found it hard to lose the lump which had appeared in her throat, stretched down to her chest and belly. How strange, that she felt physically sick, now, where she had never known it before. A game. It had to be a game.
'Or unless, having shown me your island, you command your captain to alter course, and take me to an English or Dutch colony,' she said.
He smiled. ‘I have spent the better part of the past two years in Jamaica, as a prisoner of war,' he said. 'I have had my fill of the English. And I have never liked the Dutch. In three days, wind permitting, we shall disembark at Cap Francois, and you will be free.'
A fresh cause for hatred. Her eyes had filled with tears. And how long was it since she had known that comfort.
'Do you not believe me?' he asked.
'Dare I believe you, Mr. Corbeau?' she asked. 'It makes no sense to me, that you should pay so much to set me free.'
'Ah,' he said. 'There are, of course, many forms of freedom. There is mine, for example, mademoiselle. I think of something I wish, and I snap my fingers, and
voila,
I own it. I think of somewhere I wish to go, and I snap my fingers, and
voila,
I am on my way. I am freer than the strongest eagle in the sky, because my range is unlimited.'
'You are fortunate, sir.'
'Oh, indeed. Below me, of course, there are infinite reaches of freedom. The freedom of the army commander, who has power of life or death over his men, but yet must answer with his reputation, perhaps his own life, for his successes or failure. The freedom of the overseer, who dominates the slave beneath him, but yet walks in fear of his employer. The freedom of the whore, who bows to no man, but must lie before them all. Or the freedom of freedom, which as often as not leads to starvation in a gutter.'
Gislane stared at him, her colour fading, her brows slowly drawing together as she began to understand.
'So, you see, my dear, you must choose, which of those freedoms is to be yours. I make a virtue of necessity, perhaps. I wish to possess you, the woman. I wish that very badly. To do that, I gave away a large sum of money. Not large to me, but none the less large. Perhaps then I was not sure, but now I am. There would be scant pleasure in commanding you to lie down before me, and thrusting my member into you, and knowing that you merely waited for my weight to be removed. There would be some pleasure, but not enough, in applying the bastinado to make sure your body moved. It is your mind I wish to respond to me. And a mind, to respond, must be free. But of course, as I said, when I purchased you, I knew that I was also freeing you from slavery.' He smiled at her. 'I knew I must win you.'
Slowly Gislane left the bunk, and reached for her robe. She draped it round her shoulders. 'There is only freedom, Mr. Corbeau. Did you suppose that because you for a week treated me as a lady, I would stay with you of my own free will?'
'Of course I did,' Corbeau said, still smiling. ‘I supposed it not merely because I consider myself to be a charming and attractive man, and a wealthy one, but because I understand you to be a most intelligent young woman. As my housekeeper, you will enjoy every privilege I can grant you.'
'Save that of being your wife, perhaps,' she said. 'Or do you already have a wife?'
'I am betrothed, certainly. But the marriage will not take place before next year. And even after it does take place, your position in my household will be unaffected. I give you my word on that. Rio Blanco is amply large enough for two mistresses.'
'As you say,' she agreed. 'Whatever you wish, you take, and have.'
'There is common sense,' he agreed. 'Now I can ask you, for the first time, to take off both that robe and that nightgown, and come here. I have waited for this, I sometimes think before I ever saw you, when a woman like you was no more than a dream.'
'And I am still your slave,' she said. 'Until we touch land. So I must obey.'
‘You do not seem to understand,' he said. 'I gave you your freedom the moment I bought you. I merely sought to break news of such importance in its proper place and time.'
She stared at him. 'And if I refuse to undress for you now, you will not beat me?'
‘I shall never beat you, Gislane.'
'Then, sir,' she said, 'undoubtedly I owe you an enormous debt of gratitude, and believe me, I am grateful. Yet sir, as you appear to be a man of such sensibility, I am sure you can understand that I doubt I can at this moment look at anyone with a white skin without a shudder, deep in my heart. Certainly any planter. And in any event, upon this I am resolved; when next I share my body with any man, it must be for love of him, unless I am forced to it.'
'And you do not love me,' Corbeau said. 'There is a pity. But do you not suppose you could grow to do so?'
'You are a planter. Will I not be constantly surrounded by memories of my former life?'
‘I should have thought there would be a constant cause for self-congratulation. But no matter. Well, then, I seem to have erred in my judgement. But I am not a man who breaks his word. You shall be set ashore as soon as possible, this morning in fact. There is no point in sailing all the way round the island to Cap Francois when you surely wish only to be rid of me. I'll give my captain orders to set you ashore at the first village we reach.'
'You would do that?' she asked. 'Then, sir, my gratitude is redoubled.'
'But your determination is unchanged.' Corbeau stood up. 'Then you had best prepare yourself. You'll undress, if you please, and take the deck.'
Her head came up. 'Sir?'
'I give you your freedom, Gislane. The clothes, you may recall are mine. So is this cabin, reserved for my most intimate companions. This you are declining to be.'
Her mouth slowly dropped open, and then she snapped it shut again. 'And so is this ship.'
'Ah, but I would not murder you, sweet Gislane. I am a generous man. You may enjoy the deck until we can set you ashore.'
'Naked.'
'But of course. You possess nothing save your skin, do you not?'
'And you think I shall immediately starve?' she demanded, a touch of her old anger surging back to the surface. 'As you say, I have my skin.'
'Yet will it avail you naught,' he said. 'I am Louis Corbeau. In St. Domingue, I make or break men with a snap of my fingers. Within a week of my gaining Cap Francois there is not a soul, white, brown or black, who will so much as dare to offer you shelter for the night, not a sea captain who will offer you passage, not a beggar who will dare offer you a share in his crumb.'
She found herself panting. For a moment she had almost believed. 'And that is the freedom you offer me?'
'Did I not explain that freedom is a matter of choice, my sweet child? You can be as free as air, but then you must make your own way, and the world is full of dangers and difficulties. Or you can be equally free, acknowledging only that you are my mistress, bound to me by ties of love and no other.'
Gislane licked her lips. 'And suppose I promise you that I -could never love you, that I should always hate you?'
Corbeau continued to smile. 'My father told me, long ago, that it is futile for any man to attempt to understand the workings of a woman's mind. If you stay, Gislane, it will be because you wish to, and that surely can only be because, whether you are aware of it or not, you love me. I will insist at the least that if you stay, you reveal your love for me every day and all day, whether or not you are in my company. In return, I shall accord you every honour I may. Short of marriage. But that is an accident of your birth, is it not?'
'Or I can starve.' She hesitated, and then threw back her head and laughed. And was rewarded with an expression of surprise on his face. But then, she remembered, she had not heard herself laugh for a long time, either, and never in that tone. It was a laugh compounded at once of despair and hatred and frustration. But of determination, too. For she would still survive, and Damballah would still be waiting for her, but in even newer and perhaps more positive guise; certainly the poor half-starved fellow who had acted the
hougan
in Essequibo had scarce measured up even to old Charlie.
And Louis Corbeau was probably the most attractive man she had ever encountered, superior even to Matt, as a man is to a boy.
She released the robe and allowed it to fall to the deck. She raised the nightgown over her head, and threw it also at her feet. She crossed the cabin and stood in front of him, and when he would not move, she put her arms round his head and brought his face against her belly. 'Then shall I love you, Louis, sweet. You do not mind if I call you Louis?'