Nobody's Slave (29 page)

When Madu cried out to stop them they asked him who he was, but he had forgotten and could only say: ‘Nobody ... I am no-one ... nobody.’

And so the sharks' heads grinned wickedly at him as they consumed his only friends.

T
HE DREAM left Madu feeling vile, sick with self-disgust. For a long time he had not thought much of his own position, had not seen how he was once again enjoying the scraps of status the red-face clothed him in, copying the Spanish customs to please his new owners. But the dream showed him what a mockery it was. He could help no one; the memory of the failures and betrayals of his past made him feel foul.

So when they got up to dress next morning he avoided Tom’s eyes, afraid to  see the scorn he felt for himself reflected there. He was about to leave the room when Tom suddenly pushed him in the chest, making him sit down abruptly on the wooden bed.

‘Wait for me, can't you? If you’re ready before me I'll have bloody Antonio yelling at me again!’

It was a challenge, a direct insult to Madu's new authority. Yesterday Madu would have fought back; this morning he just shrugged, and looked away.

‘Hurry then. Is not important.’

Madu knelt on the bed and leant his chin on the window, gazing out into the grey courtyard, where the first of the housemaids was yawning and pumping water. Far away, above the courtyard walls, he could just glimpse the tops of the mountains.

He turned abruptly to face Tom, who was struggling to pull on his hose. ‘Tom, you want to go from here, I help you.’

Tom looked at him, startled, flicking his hair from his eyes. ‘What? Why should I want to go?’ He frowned sullenly as if he didn’t want to talk, just wanted to be left alone.

‘Because of the Inquisitors,’ Madu insisted. ‘If father Perez bring them here, they take you. I help you to run. I'll try.’

‘You? You helped to catch me before.’

‘I know. And I tried to make you a slave like me, because you took me from home. But it is nothing, to be a slave. If I have somewhere to run to, I go as well!’

Tom glared, sullen, mistrustful. ‘What do you mean, if you had somewhere to go? 'Tis the same for you as for me, isn't it? You could have run before if you was going.’

‘No!’
Madu spat out the word, his chest hot with fierce emotion. ‘Is not the same for me and you, not at all, not ever!’ He drew a shuddering, furious breath, seeking the red-face English words to express his meaning, but Tom interrupted with his stolid, dull determination.

‘Of course it's the same. You'm a slave, and so'm I, now. We bain't no better nor worse'n each other, either of us. If I saved your life, you saved mine. Maybe I helped catch you once, but you caught me too, so we're quits there as well. And outside this city 'tis the same for both of us - Spaniards, Indians, starvation, forest, thirst, all trying to catch us again. If you'm scared o' those things, I don't blame 'ee, so'm I. But I'd rather face them than stay here, a fancy lickspittle slave like I am now - and if you wants to be free, you got to face 'em too.’

It was a long speech for Tom, but he was convinced it was true. It was how Master Barrett have spoken, he felt sure, or John Hawkins or his cousin Francis - there was no other course for a freeborn Englishman.

Madu faced him, trembling in a frenzy of contradictory emotions. More than ever before he hated Tom for his bull-headed, thick-skinned obtuseness, his utter failure to understand the effect of his actions on others; and yet something in that very obtuse determination struck a deep, challenging chord which hummed in him in a way nothing had done since the death of Temba. He knew that if he was to survive as anything like the man he had once wanted to be, he had to respond to it. He spluttered for a moment, inarticulate. He felt so deeply that the words came in his own, Mani language. He struggled to translate what he felt.

‘Is not ... not so ...
not
the same for us! Never will be the same, how can you say that? You sit there, strong and … proud  … like some English warrior, and you ... you say
I'm afraid
because I not run before? So where you go, if you escape, if you run, eh? You tell me that - where you go if you escape?’

Tom’s pale, unfeeling blue eyes watched him in astonishment.

‘To the coast, of course. Where else?’

‘Yes, to the coast! Of course, to the coast - to wait for your Admiral, your John Hawkins to find you, take you home, right? You think he'll come back?’

‘That's what he promised. John Hawkins is a man of his word.’

‘Oh yes, to the red-face, maybe - men who not slaves. But not to blacks. You remember Alberto, La Hacha?’

Tom frowned, puzzled, trying to remember. Rio de La Hacha was where he had pulled Madu out of the sea. But who was Alberto?

‘You see? You not remember. Alberto black slave, he took us to gold, Hawkins promised him freedom. Gave him his
word!
’ Madu shook his head bitterly. ‘But he not important, not to you, not to Hawkins.’

Tom shook his head, confused. ‘I don’t remember. Anyway, that’s different …’

‘Is it? Different how?’ Madu waited for an answer, but none came. ‘Is  different because you not black, you red-face, English, like Hawkins. So maybe yes, he will come back for you, like he say, take you home - English hero warrior. But to your England, your Queen Elizabeth, your mother and father - your family. That’s what you think, eh? That’s why you can't bear to be a slave, why you want to be free?'

‘Yes, of course. But also ...’

‘Where is
my
family, Tom?’ The words were hissed with a vehemence that left the small cell suddenly silent. A bird sang in the dawn outside the window. Tom shifted on his bed uncomfortably.

‘’Tisn't my fault if they'm ... dead. ’Tis …’

‘Whose fault is it?’

The bird was singing louder now; others were beginning to join in. Soon the cook would fling open his door, spit loudly, and start to call for slaves. Madu’s questions continued.

‘Where you think I go, when I reach the coast?’

‘Well, you ... you can come back to England with me, maybe. We don't have slaves there, you know - not proper slaves, like this here. You could come to our house, be a servant, and ...’

Tom did not understand why Madu turned away. He saw the tension in the line of his back, but could read no meaning in it. The sudden smell of new-mown hay in his father's hayloft came to his memory. He wondered if his pony was well, thought perhaps he would teach Madu to ride it ...

‘I can be a slave here.' Madu turned again, to face him. ‘Listen, Tom, and try to think, only just one time, eh? I will help you escape, like I say. And I run with you, from here. But not to your country, home of John Hawkins. And not to my country, either, because that not possible now. I will come because like you I am – what you say?
Nobody's slave
. And I won't be caught again. Not even by Spanish, who are more kinder to slaves than English. I will live free in the forest like in manhood training; and when time comes, I will die.’

‘Then perhaps I'll go without 'ee, if you feel like that.’ Tom gave an indignant flick of his hair, a sullen frown.

‘How?’ Now he had decided, Madu almost laughed. Tom's sulks did not matter. He could control those.

‘I'll find a way.’

‘Not without me. Listen - I am Mani, you know, black man - like you say ignorant savage. I know how to live in forest, hunt animals, find water, even here. I speak Spanish, too - better than you. Don Carlo trusts me, lets me out alone. How you go without me?’

The cold, blue eyes watched him sullenly, as they had in his dream. But this was not a dream; he had the power to change it. And so did Tom.

‘Tomas! Madu! ¿Dónde estáis? Vamos, salid de la cama, perros holgazanes, antes de que venga y me mee encima de vosotros.’

Antonio's voice echoed down the corridor, but before they moved to obey it a look was shared between the two boys that was a promise, though nothing was said; and throughout the busy day each sought the other’s eyes more than once, to find the same determined look still there. The decision was taken; now they just had to work out what to do.

But no easy, obvious method of escape presented itself. On his errands in the city Madu saw the Indians unloading food - maize, fruit, meat, fish, live sheep and fluttering chickens in boxes - from the canoes that came across the lake every day and into the heart of the city. Could he persuade them to carry him and Tom out, hidden under sacks, when they left in the afternoon? Or perhaps they should just walk out, over a bridge, following a litter as though they were servants of its owner?

Neither idea seemed very promising.

Madu shuddered as he passed the massive stone colonnades of the palace that was reserved for the Inquisitor-General, when he arrived from Spain. No-one went in or out; it stood still in the middle of the city, like a tomb waiting for its occupants, a thing men wished to avoid. A grim, pious man in black robes glanced at Madu coldly, like a shark searching for someone weak, someone strange among the colourful inhabitants of the city. The fleet from Spain was due this month; any day the Inquisitors might arrive and come for Tom, yet still they had no plan for escape.

One afternoon Madu went with Don Carlo to see the Viceroy, and spent a long, dull time sitting in an ante-room outside the Viceroy's office. He tapped his hands softly on the marble bench, remembering the rhythms of the drums from his village. Could he really keep himself and Tom alive in the wild, as he had said? At least he could try! He had decided that if nothing happened before the end of the week, he would smuggle Tom out of the house one afternoon, and slip away over a bridge before they closed in the evening. It was a poor plan, Madu knew. They were likely to be caught, and killed if they resisted; but he did not care any more. Now that he had an aim he felt less like a slave, more like a man. His fingers beat faster, involved in the rhythms of an emotion he had long forgotten, that might have almost been happiness …

The door opened and Don Carlo stepped briskly out.

Madu sprang guiltily to his feet, convinced his thoughts had been heard. But Don Carlo's unusual energy came from something quite different.

‘Ha! Madu - come with me. We go straight home. I have news for the family – such news! And then the fox will be in the hen-coop!’

As they hurried down the steps into the dazzling sunlight of the central square, Don Carlo stopped dead, one hand poised in mid-air, as though he had suddenly thought of something.

‘I shall need another slave, I think, besides you and the secretary, for such an important journey as this. Yes, yes, - one must keep up appearances, look important. But is there anyone that can be trusted, and the ladies will not miss? I would like to take the English boy, Tomas, but he is too clumsy. Is there anyone else who could travel on board ship, care for the baggage and clothes?’

‘I …’ Madu was not sure he was meant to answer, so unusual was it for his opinion to be asked; but when he looked over his shoulder there was no-one there. What did Don Carlo mean? It sounded as though he was going on a journey, and needed two slaves to go with him. ‘I ... I don't know of anyone. But ...’

Don Carlo was already turning away. He
must
say it!

‘... the English boy is not so clumsy, now.’

‘No?’ Don Carlo half-turned back, as though considering the idea. Then he dismissed it. ‘But he still has a lot to learn, and then there is that trouble with the Inquisition. A vile business, that - at least we will be free from it in Panama.’ He strode off across the square, at the same terrific pace.

Panama!
As he hurried in Don Carlo's wake, dodging some ladies' maids and an Indian with a string of donkeys, Madu wondered where that might be. Certainly it was not near here, if there was talk of a ship. It must be further than usual, for Don Carlo to show such excitement about it.

The excitement spread throughout the household that evening. The womenfolk fluttered and bustled around Don Carlo like hens, half upset, half overjoyed at the honour of the mission. For Don Carlo was being sent, it seemed, to write a complete report on the transport of silver bullion from Peru to Panama. It seemed there had been rumours of corruption recently. Later that evening at the dinner-table, Don Carlo assured his family that this was a most difficult and onerous assignment, which he had only accepted at the personal request of the Viceroy.

‘But what an honour! If you succeed, then surely you may become a Viceroy or governor yourself.’ Donna Anna's eyes were alight with pride, which Madu, standing discreetly behind Don Carlo's chair, thought was more concerned with a vision of herself as Viceroy's wife than with the wishes of her husband.

Don Carlo picked up his wine-glass in his thin, leathery fingers, and swirled the wine it in thoughtfully, watching the candle-flames through its ruby light.

‘If I succeed, perhaps. But there is always the possibility that I might fail, if the situation is as I have heard. There will be no prestige in that.’

‘Nonsense! You never fail at anything. There is no question of failure.’

Madu caught Tom's eye briefly across the table, and wondered if he, too, was thinking how strange it was that this powerful, respected man could be so bullied by his wife at home.

‘Papa, what is Panama like? Where will you live?’ At least Lucia, her chubby young face rosy in the candlelight, seemed to care something about the effect of the change on her father.

‘It is hot, I believe, with thick forests and mountains. I shall stay on a ship first, then in various governors’ houses.’

‘Why can't
we
go?’ The sudden fierceness of Isabella's question startled Madu, so that he spilt a drop of wine on the polished table as he refilled Don Carlo's glass. Don Carlo snapped at him irritably before he replied.

‘Because of the discomfort, my dear, and danger. Anyway, you have Rob....’

‘Danger? You didn't tell us of that. What danger?’ Isabella's strange, pock-marked beauty glowed with interest.

‘It is part of what I go to investigate. The men who have made these losses claim there are gangs of escaped slaves in the hills, and that they have allied, at times, with French and English pirates. If so, then it is indeed serious, though such stories are always suspect when local officials are also accused.’