Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [93]
Barber had lit a pipe in the interval of waiting. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘they are Kru people, they belong to the coast; no one else can get these skiffs through the surf. The slaves are from inside the country.’
‘And are they never made captive themselves?’
‘The Kru?’ Barber grinned round the stem of his pipe. It was clear he found this question funny. ‘Who would do the paddlin’?’ he said. ‘Not those other beggars – they prob’ly never seen the sea before.’
‘Never seen the sea?’ Paris peered down over the side again. ‘But in that case –’
The man standing in the canoe was still grasping the narrow accommodation ladder. He looked to Paris now as if he might have mixed blood. He made a kind of military salute with his free hand and turned a beaming face upwards. ‘Welcome Libberpool!’ he called. ‘Cap’n Thursoo! Haloo! You ’member me? You ’member King Henry Cook?’
‘It is that fat scoundrel Yellow Henry,’ Thurso said to Barton. ‘One of those women has got fallen breasts, I can see it from here. I ’member you fine,’ he called down. ‘Come up, and welcome aboard.’
Yellow Henry was beaming still but he made no immediate move to accept the invitation. ‘Ten prime slave,’ he shouted. On the words, the drummer struck his drum a number of times and the bugler tilted up his instrument and elicited a short series of ear-splitting notes. Yellow Henry smiled through this, holding his hat. Still he made no move to mount the ladder.
Thurso nodded his head as if in appreciation of the music. ‘Bring up you slaves for look-see,’ he said. ‘You know me, you know Thurso, no panyar with Thurso.’
‘What is panyar?’ Paris said quietly to Barber.
‘That is kidnappin’, stealin’ people for slaves.’
‘But that is what we are doing, isn’t it?’
‘No,’ Barber said. ‘What we are doin’ is buyin’ slaves. There is some skippers go in and take their own slaves, without benefit of dealers. They even takes the dealers for slaves sometimes. That’s why these fellers are grinnin’ so much. They are afraid of being took themselves.’
Paris watched the slaves unbound and the halters taken off them, watched them forced up the ladder one by one, Yellow Henry’s attendants, all steadily beaming, prodding them on with their cutlasses. The girl was very young, he saw now, hardly out of puberty, with high, small breasts and a thin down of pubic hair. He saw that there were tears on her face, though she made no sound. The faces of the others were fixed and expressionless – from exhaustion, it seemed to Paris. But their eyes showed too much white as they came on to the deck. Some final, useless reluctance made him move away from the opening where the ladder was let down.
Last on board was the king himself, his arrival signalled by a fanfare more prolonged than any yet. He shook hands with Thurso, smiling still, breathing heavily from the climb. His attendants formed up on either side of him, clutching their muskets loosely. They were a motley band. All wore cartridge belts across their bodies. One or two sported cocked hats, though not so magnificent as their chiefs. One wore a dishevelled grey wig, another a lace shawl. All cast uneasy glances round them.
‘Ah, Bartoon,’ the king said. ‘You keepee strong?’
‘Can’t complain.’ Barton raised his narrow face and grinned. ‘You have got a memory for names, ain’t you? This here is Mr Paris, our doctor.’
‘Ah, Paree! Dat a good hat.’
Yellow Henry smelled strongly of rum but he did not seem unsteady. There was spray on his gold-laced hat and on his sparse grey chest hairs and grossly swollen belly. The slaves, whom he affected now to ignore, were huddled behind him against the rail, guarded by members of the crew armed with whips. His own people stood in a semicircle