to rather than because she was afraid.
She said nothing?as though his mildness confused her. He had intended it to.
“We would be right together, Anyanwu. Have you never wanted a husband who was worthy of you?”
“You think very much of yourself.”
“And of you?or why would I be here?”
“I have had husbands who were great men,” she said. “Titled men of proven courage even though they had no special ability such as yours. I have sons who are priests, wealthy sons, men of standing. Why should I want a husband who must prey on other men like a wild beast?”
He touched his chest. “This man came to prey on me. He attacked me with a machete.”
That stopped her for a moment. She shuddered. “I have been cut that way?cut almost in half.”
“What did you do?”
“I … I healed myself. I would not have thought I could heal so quickly.”
“I mean what did you do to the man who cut you?”
“Men. Seven of them came to kill me.”
“What did you do, Anyanwu?”
She seemed to shrink into herself at the memory. “I killed them,” she whispered. “To warn others and because … because I was angry.”
Doro sat watching her, seeing remembered pain in her eyes. He could not recall the last time he had felt pain at killing a man. Anger, perhaps, when a man of power and potential became arrogant and had to be destroyed?anger at the waste. But not pain.
“You see?” he said softly. “How did you kill them?”
“With my hands.” She spread them before her, ordinary hands now, not even remarkably ugly as they had been when she was an old woman. “I was angry,” she repeated. “I have been careful not to get too angry since then.”
“But what did you do?”
“Why do you want to know all the shameful details!” she demanded. “I killed them. They are dead. They were my people and I killed them!”
“How can it be shameful to kill those who would have killed you?”
She said nothing.
“Surely those seven are not the only ones you’ve killed.”
She sighed, stared into the fire. “I frighten them when I can, kill only when they make me. Most often, they are already afraid and easy to drive away. I am making the ones here rich so that none of them have wanted me dead for years.”
“Tell me how you killed the seven.”
She got up and went outside. It was dark out now?deep, moonless darkness, but Doro did not doubt that Anyanwu could see with those eyes of hers. Where had she gone, though, and why?
She came back, sat down again, and handed him a rock. “Break it,” she said tonelessly.
It was a rock, not hardened mud, and though he might have broken it with another rock or a metal tool, he could make no impression on it with his hands. He returned it to her whole.
And she crushed it in one hand.
He had to have the woman. She was wild seed of the best kind. She would strengthen any line he bred her into, strengthen it immeasurably.
“Come with me, Anyanwu. You belong with me, with the people I’m gathering. We are people you can be part of?people you need not frighten or bribe into letting you live.”
“I was born among these people,” she said. “I belong with them.” And she insisted, “You and I are not alike.”
“We are more like each other than like other people. We need not hide from each other.” He looked at her muscular young man’s body. “Become a woman again, Anyanwu, and I will show you that we should be together.”
She managed a wan smile. “I have borne forty-seven children to ten husbands,” she said. “What do you think you can show me?”
“If you come with me, I think someday, I can show you children you will never have to bury.” He paused, saw that he now had her full attention. “A mother should not have to watch her children grow old and die,” he continued. “If you live, they should live. It is the fault of their fathers that they die. Let me give you children who will live!”
She put her hands to her face, and for a moment he thought she was crying. But her eyes were dry when she looked at him. “Children from your stolen loins?” she whispered.
“Not these loins.” He gestured toward his body. “This man was only a man. But I promise you, if you come with me, I will give you children of your own kind.”
There was a long silence. She sat staring into the fire again, perhaps making up her mind. Finally, she looked at him, studied him with such intensity he began to feel uncomfortable. His discomfort amazed him. He was more accustomed to making other people uncomfortable. And he did not like her appraising stare?as though she were deciding whether or not to buy him. If he could win her alive, he would teach her manners someday!
