Part 22 (1/2)

”Rather than be wife to a Yoruba, you would be wh.o.r.e to an Ingles.” He spat out the words. ”Which means to be nothing.”

”But if you take this island, you can have as many wives as you like.

Just as you surely have now in Ife.” She drew away, still not trusting the pounding in her chest. ”What does one more mean to you?”

”Both my wives in Ife are dead.” His hand reached and stroked her hair.

”They were killed by the Fulani, years ago. I never chose more, though many families offered me their young women.”

”Now you want war again. And death. Here.”

”I raised my sword against my enemies in Yorubaland. I will fight against them here. No Yoruba will ever bow to others, black or white.”

He gently touched her cheek and smoothed her pale skin with his warm fingers. ”You can stand with us when we rise up against the Ingles.”

His touch tingled unexpectedly, like a bridge to some faraway time she dreamed about and still belonged to. For an instant she almost gave in to the impulse to circle her arms around him, pull him next to her.

He stroked her cheek again, lovingly, before continuing. ”Perhaps if I kill all the Ingles chiefs, then you will believe you are free. That your name is Dara, and not what some Portugues once decided to call you.” He looked at her again and his eyes had softened now. ”Will you help me?”

She watched as the moonlight glistened against the ebony of his skin.

This _preto _slave was opening his life to her, something no other man had ever done. The _branco _despised his blackness even more than they did hers, but he bore their contempt with pride, with strength, more strength than she had ever before sensed in a man.

And he needed her. Someone finally needed her. She saw it in his eyes, a need he was still too proud to fully admit, a hunger for her to be with him, to share the days ahead when . . .

_Yes

_. . . when she would stand with him to destroy the _branco_.

”Together.” Softly she reached up and circled her arms around his broad neck. Suddenly his blackness was exquisite and beautiful. ”Tonight I will be wife to you. Will you hold me now?”

The wind whipped her long black hair across his shoulder, and before she could think she found herself raising her lips to his. He tasted of the forest, of a lost world across the sea she had never known. His scent was sharp, and male.

She felt his thumb brush across her cheek and sensed the wetness of her own tears. What had brought this strange welling to her eyes, here on this desolate hillside. Was it part of love? Was that what she felt now, this equal giving and accepting of each other?

She shoved back his open s.h.i.+rt, to pa.s.s her hands across the hard muscles of his chest. Scars were there, deep, the signs of the warrior he once had been. Then she slipped the rough cotton over his back, feeling the open cuts of the lashes, the marks of the slave he was now.

Suddenly she realized he wore them as proudly as sword cuts from battle. They were the emblem of his manhood, his defiance of the Ingles, just as his cheek marks were the insignia of his clan. They were proof to all that his spirit still lived.

She felt his hands touch her s.h.i.+ft, and she reached gently to stop him.

Over the years in Brazil so many men had used her. She had been given to any white visitor at the plantation who wanted her: first it was Portuguese traders, s.h.i.+p captains, even priests. Then conquering Hollanders, officers of the Dutch forces who had taken Brazil. A hundred men, all born in Europe, all unbathed and rank, all white. She had sensed their _branco _contempt for her with anger and shame. To this black Yoruba, this strong, proud man of Africa, she would give herself freely and with love.

She met his gaze, then in a single motion pulled the s.h.i.+ft over her head and tossed it away, shaking out the dark hair that fell across her shoulders. As she stood naked before him in the moonlight, the wind against her body seemed like a foretaste of the freedom, the love, he had promised.

He studied her for a moment, the shadows of her firm b.r.e.a.s.t.s casting dark ellipses downward across her body. She was _dara_.

Slowly he grasped her waist and lifted her next to him. As she entwined her legs about his waist, he buried his face against her and together they laughed for joy.

Later she recalled the touch of his body, the soft gra.s.s, the sounds of the night in her ears as she cried out in completeness. The first she had ever known. And at last, a perfect quiet had seemed to enfold them as she held him in her arms, his strength tame as a child's.

In the mists of dawn he brought her back, through the forest, serenaded by its invisible choir of egrets and whistling frogs. He carried her home across the rooftop, to her bed, to a world no longer real.