“You had forty-seven children,” he said in disbelief, “and all of them lived and were perfect?”
“Perfect in their bodies, at least. They all survived.”
“They are my people’s children! Perhaps some of them and their descendants should come with us after all.”
Anyanwu stopped so suddenly that he almost ran into her. “You will not trouble my children,” she said quietly.
He stared down at her?she had still not bothered to make herself taller though she told him she could?and tried to swallow sudden anger. She spoke to him as though he were one of her children. She did not yet understand his power!
“I am here,” she said in the same quiet voice. “You have me.”
“Do I?”
“As much as any man could.”
That stopped him. There was no challenge in her voice, but he realized at once she was not telling him she was all his?his property. She was saying only that he had whatever small part of herself she reserved for her men. She was not used to men who could demand more. Though she came from a culture in which wives literally belonged to their husbands, she had power and her power had made her independent, accustomed to being her own person. She did not yet realize that she had walked away from that independence when she walked away from her people with him.
“Let’s go on,” he said.
But she did not move. “You have something to tell me,” she said.
He sighed. “Your children are safe, Anyanwu.” For the moment.
She turned and led on. Doro followed, thinking that he had better get her with a new child as quickly as he could. Her independence would vanish without a struggle. She would do whatever he asked then to keep her child safe. She was too valuable to kill, and if he abducted any of her descendants, she would no doubt goad him into killing her. But once she was isolated in America with an infant to care for, she would learn submissiveness.
Paths became occasional luxuries as they moved into country Anyanwu did not know. More and more, they had to use their machetes to clear the way. Streams became a problem. They flowed swiftly through deep gorges that had to be crossed somehow. Where the streams interrupted footpaths, local people had placed log bridges. But where Doro and Anyanwu found neither paths nor bridges, they had to cut their own logs. Travel became slower and more dangerous. A fall would not have killed either of them directly, but Doro knew that if he fell, he would not be able to stop himself from taking over Anyanwu’s body. She was too close to him. On his way north, he had crossed several rivers by simply abandoning his body and taking over the body nearest to him on the far side. And since he was leading now, allowing his tracking sense to draw him to the crew aboard his ship, he could not send her ahead or leave her behind. He would not have wanted to anyway. They were in the country of people who waged war to get slaves to sell to the Europeans. These were people who would cut her to pieces if she began reshaping herself before them. Some of them even had European guns and powder.
Their slow progress was not a complete waste of time, though. It gave him a chance to learn more about Anyanwu?and there was more to learn. He discovered that he would not have to steal food while she was with him. Once the two yams were roasted and eaten, she found food everywhere. Each day as they traveled, she filled her basket with fruit, nuts, roots, whatever she could find that was edible. She threw stones with the speed and force of a sling and brought down birds and small animals. At day’s end, there was always a hearty meal. If a plant was unfamiliar to her, she tasted it and sensed within herself whether or not it was poison. She ate several things she said were poison, though none of them seemed to harm her. But she never gave him anything other than good food. He ate whatever she gave him, trusting her abilities. And when a small cut on his hand became infected, she gave him even more reason to trust her.
The infected hand had begun to swell by the time she noticed it, and it was beginning to make him sick. He was already deciding how he would get a new body without endangering her. Then, to his surprise, she offered to help him heal.
“You should have told me,” she said. “You let yourself suffer needlessly.”
He looked at her doubtfully. “Can you get the herbs you need out here?”
She met his eyes. “Sometimes the herbs were for my people?like the gods in my compound. If you will let me, I can help you without them.”
“All right.” He gave her his swollen, inflamed hand.
“There will be pain,” she warned.
“All right,” he repeated.
She bit his hand.
He bore it, holding himself rigid against his own deadly reaction to sudden pain. She had done well to warn him. This was the second time she had been nearer to death than she could imagine.
For a time after biting him, she did nothing. Her attention seemed to turn inward, and she did not answer when he spoke to her. Finally, she brought his hand to her mouth again and there was more pain and pressure, but no more biting. She spat three times, each time returning to his hand, then she seemed to caress the wound with her tongue. Her saliva burned like fire. After that she kept a watch on the hand, attending it twice more with that startling, burning pain. Almost at once, the swelling and sickness went away and the wound began to heal.
“There were things in your hand that should not have been there,” she told him. “Living things too small to see. I have no name for them, but I can feel them and know them when I take them into my body. As soon as I know them, I can kill them within myself. I gave you a little of my body’s weapon against them.”
Tiny living things too small to see, but large enough to make him sick. If his wound had not begun to heal so quickly and cleanly, he would not have believed a word she said. As it was, though, his trust in her grew. She was a witch, surely. In any culture she would be feared. She would have to fight to keep her life. Even sensible people who did not believe in witches would turn against her. And Doro, breeder of witches that he was, realized all over again what a treasure she was. Nothing, no one, must prevent his keeping her.
It was not until he reached one of his contacts near the coast that someone decided to try.
