Kingdom of Peacocks: Mists of Time

Chapter One

SPICE WARS

This is a smuggler's tale, too long to attempt to tell and one that I, Zahran, the youngest of the corsairs and witness to most of the events, fear that others won't believe. As I reach my eighteenth year, the year I take the pirate's oath, I ponder the days when I was a simple young man working at my uncle's shop in Calicut, India. Sometimes I myself can't believe how things have turned out for me---or the secrets I unearthed as I traveled the Arabian Sea.

Uncle took me into his care when the rest of my family moved to Yemen. As a merchant trader, Uncle traveled from India to the Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea. A father of four girls, Uncle needed a hand, and he embraced me like a son to aid in his trade, and he taught me the rudiments of his business. Uncle owned a merchant dhow, a sailing ship, and transported rice, hardwoods, tin, iron ore, rope, and cloth between India and Yemen. In those days, the Indian Ocean and Arabian Gulf were at peace. Men sought trade, not war, and we lived well. Uncle brought home dresses from China for his wife and daughters---all different, all beautiful, all suggestive of new and strange lands. He told us hundreds of stories. I gathered ideas of Uncle's life from his tales of storms; collisions; rocks; and, finally, the suffering and end of ships and crews, until no stick or timber or bone or muscle remained in working order. I held his strength and experience in awe and listened each night to his suppertime tales with my mouth agog. The sailing men of Calicut were men of action---creators. They built up their own fortunes, and in doing so, they built up the city's fortunes.

Calicut was a strange, old-fashioned little town, smelling fragrant of salt marsh and sea breeze. The old Calicut families had populated the town for generations, and it became a place to nurse and preserve and care for old legends and traditions, until they grew from bits of gossip and news into treasured local lore. As time passed, lurid, dark strands were woven into the web of legends---evil doings, mysterious comings and goings. Such was the story of Dayjur, the pirate. In the end, his notoriety would stem not from piracy but from his unbelievable personal story. Eventually, the name of this most unlikely hero, a violent, rugged sea bandit, would echo up and down the coast of the Indian Ocean. People would call out his name in reverence, not fear.

For me, the tale began one February evening in the year AD 1510. The sun hung low, touching the hilltops and shining its fading light over the day. The wind's cold fingers seemed to pinch my cheeks. I went for a stroll in the marketplace while my uncle took his nap. The market formed the heart of our land's rich trade routes. Staple crops included rice and cotton and couscous, but Calicut also formed the apex of the luxury trade in spices and cloth. Europeans demanded our ginger, cardamom, and cinnamon. And above all else, they treasured pepper. Uncle also traded in Arabian opium. Uncle said the Chinese considered it a vital ingredient in their medicines. I wove through lines of carriages as their drivers attempted to navigate down narrow streets. A cacophony of diverse faces and languages assaulted my eyes and ears---Arabs, Nairs, Jews, Persians, Christians, Turks, Africans, and Chinese. These various groups coexisted in peace, as there had always been more than enough for all.

I squared my shoulders alongside the crowds of strolling bourgeoisie and beggars. They flowed down the street as if liquid, occasionally damming up behind an obstacle before finally funneling through doors and filtering into their countless destinations. The market square sat beside a large building where the Zamorin struck his money, the crown's money. Everyone on the Malabar Coast used our monarch's currency. As the sun set, merchants called out a last chance for customers to buy their wares---food, magic elixirs, spices, and aphrodisiacs. Barbers and bloodletters practiced their crafts alongside exotic alchemists, and a young Indian contortionist girl gestured to the richer citizens, hoping for a coin. The crowd laughed as she twisted into a human knot.

To the east, the horizon gathered into slopes and clustering hills interspersed with valleys. Many of our fine houses boasted tiled roofs, but the more humble homesteads had thatched roofs. I stopped on the shore and stared at the open sea. I often came to the water's edge just to watch the waves and yearn for the great blue. More than anything, I wanted to be a sailor. These days, my uncle usually maintained a quiet life in Calicut. Most of the time, his crew operated his voyages. The next time his ship set sail for Yemen, however, I'd take my own first sea voyage. I could hardly wait to get started.

The chattering of seagulls distracted me from my daydreaming. So many birds attracted the attention of other villagers. People wandered onto the beach, pointing and yelling. I stood up to see better, shadowing my eyes. As I walked closer to the shore, I saw a wooden dhow floating aimlessly toward shore. A horrific stench hit my nose.

Slowly, the scene came into focus, although my thinking mind didn't want to believe what my eyes told me. Dismembered heads, hands, and feet, like incomplete stone sculptures, were scattered along the ship's deck. Dozens of people, maybe a hundred, lay dead and rotting and violated. It makes me sick, even now, when I think of it. Crowd murmurs passed in a low key, horrified and shocked, but I could make out the name they cursed. And worst of all, based on the clothing, I assumed some of the dead had worked aboard one of my uncle's merchant ships.

I rushed back to the village to inform my uncle, but the story spread faster than I could run. As I was about to storm through the door with my tale of woe, Uncle barged out into the street.

Uncle, I said, panting, there's a dhow at dock. And the people aboard--- I leaned over, afraid I'd vomit. They're all dead, and it's---

I've heard the story already, he said. He clapped me on my shoulder. He was a tall man with a broad belly and big hands. Everything about Uncle seemed strong. Go inside. I'll tell you more when I return.

I couldn't sleep waiting for him to return. Nor could my cousins or my aunt. I can still remember the agony on his face as he finally stormed into the house that night. He sent his daughters to bed, but I lingered to eavesdrop.

A single survivor remained on board the ship, a boy who had hidden below deck amid the barrels of wine and somehow averted notice on the dhow of death. My uncle whispered the boy's terrifying tale to his wife as I listened just outside the room. The Portuguese, under Admiral Vasco da Gama, had come across the merchant ship, which had been carrying Muslim pilgrims going to perform their annual obedience to Mecca. Da Gama's crew had plundered the ship and transferred its cargo. Deaf to the travelers' pleas for mercy, Vasco da Gama had shrugged off all the offers and ordered the ship burned, with all its passengers, including women and children. Men had attempted to stamp out the fire, and the women meanwhile had rushed on deck, screaming and holding up their little ones in hopes of softening the cruelty of the Portuguese. The passengers had frantically attacked the Portuguese men-at-arms with their bare hands. Such was the fury they manifested when defending their wives and children, but to no avail. Vasco da Gama had witnessed the whole scene perfectly unmoved. He had the bodies hoisted up and hung from the maintop masts of the Portuguese vessels, and a few days later, their bodies were sent on a dhow to the shores with a note for the Zamorin, the king.

What did it say? asked my aunt.

It said, 'Make curry out of them,' said Uncle. He pushed aside a plate, futoor of dried fish, dates, and rice. His appetite must have left him. He rattled off the names of some of the dead. To my shock, he was broken, and I realized it was the first time I had seen him so.

It didn't last long. The more he talked, the more his fury returned.

I couldn't sleep that night. I was disturbed by what I'd seen, and now I wondered whether we would take our voyage to Yemen. Uncle's men had loaded the ship with trade goods, and we were ready to set sail.

***

I must have finally fallen asleep, but I woke to the sounds of shouting on the streets. My fears came to reality: The Portuguese caravels arrived to siege the city. We would be going nowhere. The Portuguese demanded that the Zamorin of Calicut expel the merchants or Vasco da Gama would bomb the city to the ground.

As the Portuguese ships pointed their cannon guns toward the village, I accompanied Uncle to a meeting with the local merchants in the market's fish cuttery. The odor of fish perfumed the place, and arguing voices punctuated the tense silence before fading to whispers. The men, about fifteen of them, sat in a circle. Uncle had the loudest voice and the strongest opinion. They are trying to break our hold on the trade. How can they expel us from our own town? Five thousand wealthy, successful men and their families?

For the first time, I realized the gravity of the situation. The men of Calicut believed that the Portuguese had one desire: to wrestle control of the spice trade out of the hands of the dominant Arab merchants. So far, European involvement in the trade had centered on Venetians and Genoese traders, the men who traveled the Red Sea. The arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean spelled ruin for Venice and sounded the warning gong to the local men who had dealt peacefully with those Europeans for generations. Portugal wanted to establish a trade empire in the East, and if the Portuguese traders could convert the local Muslims and Hindus to Christianity while they were at it, all the better.

I say we ban the trade with these newcomers, Uncle said. Shut out Portuguese purchasing agents from the city's spice markets. What of the Zamorin?

A crusty old Muslim trader shrugged his bent shoulders. We have sent word to him. But he and his troops are fighting elsewhere. He is not so concerned. These were Muslim pilgrims. He is Hindu, and he just wants to stay out of it.

Well then, we are all doomed, said Uncle. For the Portuguese will not be as indecisive.

He was right. Vasco da Gama's forces increased. Soon, fifteen ships carrying eight hundred men crowded the sea, churning the waves with their keels. A red cross adorned each white sail. They called for a yearly tribute of one thousand bags of plain rice and five hundred bags of quality rice and demanded that no pepper trade should be carried out at this port and that no ship be allowed to travel to Calicut. And worst of all, they still insisted the Zamorin expel all merchants, like my uncle.

The Zamorin dispatched an emissary to da Gama, a Brahmin dressed as a Christian friar. He offered a peace treaty and opened discussion of restoring seized Portuguese trade goods, albeit noting that the Zamorin had also suffered property damages from Portuguese actions and that he intended to deduct the cost from the final account.

An angry da Gama demanded the property taken be restored in full and brought to his ship and that all merchants be expelled from the village---before he'd discuss a treaty.

While awaiting the Zamorin's reply, the Portuguese seized a nearby idling sambuk, an old-fashioned dhow with an unusually deep keel, and pounced on three rice vessels, including one owned by my uncle. They seized the cargo and burned the vessels. Among the loot seized from Uncle's ship were some valuable silver Indian nautical instruments and navigational charts.

Most of the port's merchant dhows were destroyed by fire. My uncle's livelihood sank in the bottom of the ocean. People believed the worst was on its way, and they prepared for it. We flocked to the shore to witness the terrible scene. Villagers scorned the attack. The crowd chanted in disgust.

I climbed underneath a wooden pier. The water surface erupted with cannon shells. But no longer did they pummel the boats in the water. Now, they hit the beach, and hence, the watching villagers. The crowd dispersed in a panic, and I rushed home to tell Uncle the news.

The bombardment is meant to clear the beach, Uncle said, perhaps to make room for them to come ashore. He sighed heavily. We want revenge, but we have no assistance from the Zamorin and no grand strategy. Our swords wouldn't match their cannonballs.

My uncle knew it would be illegal, but we had no other choice. The time had come to put our hands in the owling trade. Stories circulated of the one-eyed pirate, Dayjur. He was widely viewed as the most dominant of the antiregime factions that make up the rebel side in the ongoing turmoil, and he'd acquired a reputation for almost reckless bravery. He was part trader, part smuggler but mostly a pirate. I thought I knew what a pirate was, but Dayjur was a very different creature from what I'd envisioned.

***

A few weeks crept by in a tense haze of misery. The people of Calicut crept about their business as well as they could, but everyone kept an eye on the Portuguese ships, which sat in the harbor like slumbering dragons. As the second week ended, Uncle arranged a secret meeting between the merchants and Dayjur. No one knew how he did this, and I never had the chance to ask. The merchants listened to Uncle as if he were a prophet. No one had traveled so far as he had, seen so many strange things, or met so many dangerous people and returned to tell the tale. So I, like everyone else, did as he asked.

The truth shocked me: Uncle's merchant group had paid Dayjur to gather weapons and supplies for a counterattack. Tonight, Dayjur would deliver his contraband supplies. The thought that I would play any part in the exchange, even one so minor as torch holder, excited and terrified me.

On the delivery day, Uncle told me to go to the marketplace at four o'clock, to a spot called the mouse hole. I carried a lantern and a charging pan, along with powder to produce a distinctive blue light. I'd then stroll back to the shop, to the storage room where the pirates would deliver their contraband. As I stood waiting in the desired spot beside a hatched roof, I scanned the crowd, but heavy rain hid their faces from me. I recognized no one.

I thought about what Uncle had told me over the past few days. Dayjur had promised to deliver the contraband, and if he failed to fulfill his side of the contract, his reputation for honest dealing would be questioned. The merchants had already paid him many coins to buy weapons. Dayjur always delivered his goods in the dead of night. In spite of all the efforts of the customhouse---in spite, too, of further legislation---the war with Portugal increased the need for smuggling. Repeated reprisals did not scare Dayjur, who found the benefits outweighed the dangers. Smuggling became a special branch of commerce.

Everyone held Dayjur in such unlikely awe. They praised him in all arenas. Dayjur was well read in law, and everyone trusted his judgment on legal points. He was a skillful dealer and attended to all business of that kind in town. Though the legends that had sprung up around Dayjur must have been exaggerated, they seemed too persistent to ignore. He had been dealing for some time. Perhaps he'd grown up in the smuggling business, but I knew little about his youth. How could an obviously learned man like Dayjur grow up to become a notorious smuggler? No one knew.

After what seemed like hours, a cart rolled noisily up the street, and I saw two figures dressed all in black. It was an effective disguise, as they were unrecognizable from the gaping blackness of the open marketplace. They stopped on the other side of the street, perhaps watching my dangling blue flame. Neither man flinched in the pouring rain.

As Dayjur came closer, my blue light crept under his cloak and threw his features into strange relief. First, and most shocking, his single eye, cold and staring, as if it could make up for its lost brother. His mouth, unsmiling, was a grim line. A strong, heavy, nut-brown man accompanied him. The companion approached me, his hands ragged and scarred as he reached for my shoulders. You go first, and we will follow you. Don't wander. Clear? he said.

I agreed and ushered them down narrow, crooked roadways. Some people looked at us with curiosity, and I had a nervous urge to turn back. Silly, as I doubted Dayjur and his companion would appreciate my sudden nerves. Finally, we arrived at the back of the shop. I pounded the wooden door, and after a while, Uncle appeared carrying a lantern.

Please come in, said Uncle. I admired his ability to seem polite and casual with such fearsome guests.

Dayjur followed Uncle up the stairs, his feet beating a noisy rhythm in the darkness. At length, we reached the second landing. Uncle opened a door at the end of the passage and ushered the two men into the storage room. Moonlight through a shutter threw a patchwork glow on the floor. Uncle struck a flint, and his single candle illuminated a group of merchants in white Arab thobe robes, their great bellies girded by extravagant belts and pricked by enormous jambiyas.

Zahran, close the door behind you, Uncle said, so I did.

I walked across the storage room and through another door. Weapons filled this room. I sat in the corner. I probably wasn't supposed to listen, but I kept the door open enough for their voices to flow to me across the night air. When I peeked through the door, the yellow light revealed many nut-brown faces gesticulating and debating. Dayjur didn't speak much unless asked a question. Despite his tattered clothing and damaged face, he still seemed gruffly handsome. Every line of him was distinct, cut clear and sharp, while sea and sun had tanned the naturally fair skin to a dark bronze that bespoke struggle and battle, adding both to his savagery and his beauty.

We must strangle the Portuguese. It is difficult for us to get arms. We are in need of more arms and your men, said my uncle to Dayjur and his fellow.

I could hear his fellow replying, Your concern---keep it to yourself. The greatest risk is not when landing the goods but when bringing them across land. We had to carry the arms from beyond the dark entry of the woodlands to avoid the owlers on sea. It was difficult for us to cross the slippery forest.

Dayjur finally volunteered a comment. Why are you in need of more arms? You're inclined to fight the Portuguese on land, but that is your lives. You have your families and a livelihood to take care of. Give yourself a chance.

What happened to you? You started something. You gave us hope on the seas, stated my uncle.

However strong, however skilled, I'm just flesh and blood. I am a smuggler. I can provide safety to your ships, smuggle weapons for you to defend your loved ones, but I will not aid in cursing this village in a battle on land.

The merchants looked at each other with raised eyebrows. A couple shook their heads.

We will fight the Portuguese with our lives, cried Uncle.

Fight? You're about to be slaughtered by those ships I've seen on harbor, replied Dayjur.

And if we choose to fight them? asked an elder merchant.

Have you tried to fight them, old man?

We prefer getting scars on our chests, rather than bowing our heads for the Portuguese, my uncle said, for once holding his temper.

Dayjur looked at the merchants gathered round him. That sounds heroic to you, to die fighting. Defend yourselves, but fight them not.

We will not surrender! cried the old merchant.

The Zamorin is weak, and he is unconcerned for our lives and trade, my uncle said.

Dayjur pointed around their circle. A fool fights those who make the laws. A wise man fights to join them.

What if those laws are wrong? replied Uncle.

They're still the laws.

It is impossible instantly to put down a practice which has been pursued by so many Arab families for so many hundreds of years in India, roared Uncle.

I sympathize with your cause, concluded Dayjur. Do nothing at present. Play your part and keep quiet. Go home to your wives, carry your children on your shoulders, and seek shelter. Let that suffice.

Dayjur was finished. He stood, and his ragged companion followed him. They donned their dark cloaks and turbans and took their leave. Uncle sank back on his chair and looked around at the merchant's broken faces. They all looked as if reality had slapped them, each one on his face. We had all believed that Dayjur would call his men and battle the Portuguese to drive them out of our village, but he was not such a man.

***

Later, at Uncle's cottage, he asked me to stand on the front stoop with him after dinner. He asked me, What did you think of Dayjur or the smuggling business he undertakes?

Dayjur and his men sound like heroes to me if all the stories are true, I thought. But looking up into Uncle's thoughtful eyes, I hesitated to tell the truth, in fear of punishment.

Uncle appeared to guess my thoughts. He murmured softly to himself, as if unconsciously putting his thoughts in words. I did not wish to interrupt as he told me dreadful accounts of Dayjur until he had finished all he had to say on the man. And I could see he had not yet quite finished telling of fighting and storms at sea and wild deeds and conflicts he and his men had had with the Portuguese. The pirates lived their life among some of the wickedest men that God ever allowed upon the sea. You could not trust them or make a deal or negotiate with them. After the Portuguese arrived in the East, Dayjur with his seamen had unleashed serious chaos across the Indian Ocean, which had gained him the reputation of a rebel pirate fighting for a good cause. Uncle admonished me to remember that Dayjur was motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain.

I have just now come to understand this, after tonight's meeting, said uncle. Don't you make the same mistakes I have. Never trust a pirate. He shook his head and spit.

He kept talking, about Dayjur and his men. His seamen belonged to various factions, but all shared, to varying degrees, a similar anarchist belief. They were a mix of resistance fighters, slaves who had fled at the onset of the Portuguese invasion and later been recruited to fight them, and Arab tribesmen who'd operated as fishermen and merchants in the past, and turned sea smugglers. They were entirely independent of governments.

I have heard, said Uncle, that when Dayjur discovered one of his sailors was conspiring secretly with the officials in India, the one-eyed pirate captured and punished him by nailing him to the deck and then having him beaten until he vomited blood. After some time of being in that state, the traitor was taken ashore and hanged by rope to his death.

How horrible, I said and shivered.

The sad truth is that a captain or a leader, even a merchant like myself, must be ruthless and react in such violent ways because, if he was weak, then his crew would most likely disown him.

And so I learned a last lesson from my uncle, about how to be man.

***

The anger of the Portuguese rose to the highest pitch as I stepped out of noon prayers from the village mosque. Something sang like an arrow through the air; I felt a blow and then a sharp pang in my shoulder. In the horrid pain and surprise of the moment, I could barely see, I could hardly hear---the bomb had perforated my eardrums. I touched my shoulder and found blood from shrapnel. All the echoes of the city awoke to the thunder of a cannon.

People raced around the marketplace in chaos, trying to get home. I stumbled along the road to Uncle's house, my right hand clenched over my left shoulder. Some men tried to direct women, children, and elderly men to shelter inside the mosque, but the roar of cannon fire drowned out their instructions. A cannonball shot through the trees and hit the ground not a hundred yards from me. Sand from the impact blasted into my face and stung my eyes.

All through the day, the Portuguese kept thundering away, blasting Calicut into ruins. I moved from hiding place to hiding place, or so it seemed to me, trying to get back to Uncle's house. Eventually, I had to retreat to the mosque. Some thirty or forty women were gathered there for protection. As I climbed the stairs to see if perhaps I could help the wounded, an eerie silence fell over the marketplace.

A small girl looked up at me with terrified brown eyes. Is the thunder over? she asked.

I don't know, little one. Where is your mother?

A woman burst from the crowd and grabbed the child. Daughter! she screamed. I have been looking for you---

Mama! the girl cried.

But before I could feel a sense of happiness at their reunion, the woman screamed, hysterical.

They're coming! I saw--- She gasped, her eyes wide. On the beach. They're rowing ashore. They're coming!

People fled in all directions. I ran inside the mosque, unsure of what else to do. I peeked through the mosque window to see the Portuguese soldiers in their white-and-red shirts and shiny armor entering the marketplace. They set to work ransacking the shops and stalls and breaking into houses. They threw what they wanted to keep in piles in the street and set about burning everything else. Even the mosque was not safe. When the fire blaze rose to the roof, I heard some woman shouting, Run! Fire! We must run.

To my terror, people jammed up against the back door. I wrapped my fist in someone's fallen cloak, and punched a hole through the windows. I somehow avoided skewering myself as I climbed through the window. I fell into the dusty road. I looked around to see innocent civilians sinking in pools of blood. Death swept the area like a turbulent wind. The Portuguese slaughtered everyone they could reach; they left no one breathing.

As I crawled along, trying to avoid detection, I heard the cry of a child. A naked boy of about four stood still in the chaos. His family might have missed him or might be among the dead, and this little child was left behind, following after nothing. A Portuguese soldier drove a small herd of panicked horses into the marketplace. The child stared at the horses approaching, confused. The little fellow turned my way, his eyes screwed shut.

I staggered instinctively toward him and dragged him onward with me. The child screamed in fear, for surely he was too young to know if I was a friend or an enemy. We stumbled along, beside the few others who could still flee. I found cover in a house that been holed out with shells and tugged the boy in beside me. I sat beside the boy and told him to be quiet. He didn't need to be told twice. He kept his eyes shut, and he whispered for his father.

I peered through a hole in the wall. The Portuguese continued plundering the village. Citizens ran out of their houses and showed their persons to let the soldiers know they were not radicals and begged for mercy, but the soldiers killed them all. Someone sent out a little girl with a white flag on a stick. She had not proceeded but a few steps before a sword cut her down.

The Portuguese soldiers removed gold bracelets and necklaces from dead women's wrists and placed them in waist pockets. They canvassed the houses, slaughtering anyone they found, and I knew I had to keep moving. I tried to get the boy to come with me, but he'd slipped into shock. He wouldn't move, and when I tugged at him, he screamed. I whispered in his ear that he must not move. He must stay still. He closed his eyes, and within seconds, fell into a tortured sleep. I said a quick prayer over him, hoped he'd sleep through the destruction and wake to a friendly survivor, and snuck into the street. I crept from one hiding place to another and wound up near the docks on the river. People tried to cross, like a herd of panicked cattle, but the soldiers in the ships fired on them. The river crimsoned with blood.

Late that night, I finally made it to Uncle's house under cover of darkness. I paused in the rubble of the neighbor's cottage, trying to determine if it was safe to enter. Amid the flames and debris, I caught a glimpse of the Portuguese commander in silhouette walking slowly past the doorway---a bald man with a twirly mustache. I waited, my heart pounding, until he left.

Once the soldiers had moved down the road, I rushed inside. My family lay in a heap, my uncle sprawled across his wife and children, as if he'd died protecting them. I rolled Uncle onto his back and slapped his cheeks. They were still warm. Blood seeped through his fine linen shirt. A knife wound, perhaps?

I repeated the process with my aunt and my cousins, but no one stirred. Soon they were lying in a line of splayed limbs and lolling heads across the floor. Perhaps it made no sense, but I wanted to leave them close together. It matched my memory of them as a loving, close family. So I moved the bodies. I draped several blankets over them. Perhaps now, I could pretend they were sleeping.

Am I going crazy? I wondered as I tucked my youngest cousin's hair behind her ears.

My ears hummed from the deafening noise of the cannon explosions. I knew not whether all that had passed had been real or whether it was a nightmare from which I might presently awaken. I had lost my only family, my hope of love. Somewhere nearby, a man screamed and then fell silent. Life had become, for the moment, one scream of horror connected to another.

***

Once the smoke cleared, the truth was even worse than my battered mind had imagined. The aftermath was hell on earth. I looked around to see our beautiful city destroyed, fires still blazing. Thousands perished. Like ears of wheat in the time of harvest, they were all cut down. The Portuguese were in the town but a short time, but they carried away everything of value---money and jewels, trade goods, and a dozen or more notable prisoners, whom they held for ransom.

I didn't understand the simple act of killing a human. As I walked among the corpses, I recognized people I knew. Children. Mothers. Old people. We had dined with their families. I had never seen nor contemplated anything like the horror I was now witnessing. My people had drunk deeply of the poison of