Outlander 03 - Voyager

Next was a young man, by his face the brother of the first young woman, who squatted respectfully upon his haunches, touching his head before he spoke.

“Grandmère,” he began, in high, nasal French. Grandmother? I thought.

He asked his question looking shyly down at the ground. “Does the woman I love return my love?” His was the jasmine spray; he held it so that it brushed the top of a bare, dusty foot.

The woman beside me laughed, her ancient voice ironic but not unkind. “Certainement,” she answered. “She returns it; and that of three other men, besides. Find another; less generous, but more worthy.”

The young man retired, crestfallen, to be replaced by an older man. This one spoke in an African language I did not know, a tone of bitterness in his voice as he touched one of the clay figures.

“Setato hoye,” said—who? The voice had changed. The voice of a man this time, full-grown but not elderly, answering in the same language with an angry tone.

I stole a look to the side, and despite the heat of the fire, felt the chill ripple up my forearms. It was Margaret’s face no longer. The outlines were the same, but the eyes were bright, alert and focused on the petitioner, the mouth set in grim command, and the pale throat swelled like a frog’s with the effort of strong speech as whoever-it-was argued with the man.

“They are here,” Ishmael had said. “They,” indeed. He stood to one side, silent but watchful, and I saw his eyes rest on me for a second before coming back to Margaret. Or whatever had been Margaret.

“They.” One by one the people came forward, to kneel and ask. Some spoke in English, some French, or the slave patois, some in the African speech of their vanished homes. I couldn’t understand all that was said, but when the questions were in French or English, they were often prefaced by a respectful “Grandfather,” or “Grandmother,” once by “Aunt.”

Both the face and the voice of the oracle beside me changed, as “they” came to answer their call; male and female, mostly middle-aged or old, their shadows dancing on her face with the flicker of the fire.

Do you not sometimes imagine that you see things in the fire? The echo of her own small voice came back to me, thin and childish.

Listening, I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck, and understood for the first time what had brought Ishmael back to this place, risking recapture and renewed slavery. Not friendship, not love, nor any loyalty to his fellow slaves, but power.

What price is there for the power to tell the future? Any price, was the answer I saw, looking out at the rapt faces of the congregation. He had come back for Margaret.

It went on for some time. I didn’t know how long the drug would last, but I saw people here and there sink down to the ground, and nod to sleep; others melted silently back to the darkness of the huts, and after a time, we were almost alone. Only a few remained around the fire, all men.

They were all husky and confident, and from their attitude, accustomed to command some respect, among slaves at least. They had hung back, together as a group, watching the proceedings, until at last one, clearly the leader, stepped forward.

“They be done, mon,” he said to Ishmael, with a jerk of his head toward the sleeping forms around the fire. “Now you ask.”

Ishmael’s face showed nothing but a slight smile, yet he seemed suddenly nervous. Perhaps it was the closing in of the other men. There was nothing overtly menacing about them, but they seemed both serious and intent—not upon Margaret, for a change, but upon Ishmael.

At last he nodded, and turned to face Margaret. During the hiatus, her face had gone blank; no one at home.

“Bouassa,” he said to her. “Come you, Bouassa.”

I shrank involuntarily away, as far as I could get on the bench without falling into the fire. Whoever Bouassa was, he had come promptly.

“I be hearin’.” It was a voice as deep as Ishmael’s, and should have been as pleasant. It wasn’t. One of the men took an involuntary step backward.

Ishmael stood alone; the other men seemed to shrink away from him, as though he suffered some contamination.

“Tell me what I want to know, you Bouassa,” he said.

Margaret’s head tilted slightly, a light of amusement in the pale blue eyes.

“What you want to know?” the deep voice said, with mild scorn. “For why, mon? You be goin’, I tell you anything or not.”

The small smile on Ishmael’s face echoed that on Bouassa’s.

“You say true,” he said softly. “But these—” He jerked his head toward his companions, not taking his eyes from the face. “They be goin’ with me?”

“Might as well,” the deep voice said. It chuckled, rather unpleasantly. “The Maggot dies in three days. Won’t be nothin’ for them here. That all you be wantin’ with me?” Not waiting for an answer, Bouassa yawned widely, and a loud belch erupted from Margaret’s dainty mouth.