The bride received a special marriage gift from the groom, given to her as a “gesture of love,” so that the marriage ceremony could be performed and the mingling of their two households could take place. As hoped, she was a virgin (as virgins were prized, for it was thought virgins made more loving and devoted wives). She belonged to the Catholic faith; and there were mitigating circumstances for why she and her parents weren’t Muslims.
As her parents, she worked for a master who was tolerant and wise and who hadn’t tried to convert them to Islam. Unspoken was the fear of fornication if the marriage was not forthcoming. Felicia, therefore, became a slave of her husband (now a slave of two masters) and could never deny him favors. “Accept the least from me cheerfully and gratefully, and my love for you shall be everlasting. Argue not with me, when I am overcome with anger. Beat me not, beat instead a tambourine, for you do not know what is to come thereafter,” were promises that were never meant to be broken.
Was she unable to give herself freely to her husband as long as she served two masters? Or, after her slavery, could she ever be happy as a slave of her husband? His continued insensitivity led to more resentment.
He ordered her about but could never really subjugate her. Felicia of the late seventeen hundreds, if she had lived in the 1960′s, would’ve been labeled passive aggressive. The problem with Carlos was that he treated marriage as a civil contract rather than a religious institution, and he had an attack of nerves when he said, “I do.” Omar gave him the following advice: “Fear God, fear God in the matter of women.” And “they’ll be weak partners.” In the presence of witnesses, she was given to Carlos, but he wouldn’t accept her without offering to marry her. But at the time, she (in the deep and obviously blinded recesses of her mind) somehow knew it was wrong, still she agreed.
Some months after the frenzied activities of the wedding, Felicia found herself embroiled in a more desperate form of frenzy. Now “free,” she was told to oversee their servants (slaves). Immediately, she fell into depression over having lost her parents, who were still slaves.
For some time after “winning” Felicia, Carlos struggled over his own “loss” of freedom. He predicted how he would handle it. However, before then, he distinguished himself. For he participates in the defense of Jolo when the Dutch attacked the town. By then, he felt he had a debt to repay. That was how he earned a stake in the Sulus, and as he became more and more obsessed with soldiering, and why he would fight her enemies anyway and everywhere he could.
But he could never forget that he was a Spaniard.
So his lack of patriotism would have nothing to do with him becoming a traitor.
To survive his marriage, Carlos pretended that there was nothing wrong with him escaping into decadence. He manufactured excuses for contaminating himself. When he could, he would sneak off to the Chinese Pier, where he knew he could find opium and women. Opium and women, as in enjoying two Chinese whores at a time (one for his feet, the other for his head, mercy), “harping back to a primordial time before man had an inflated brain and a soul and could ascend to heaven.” In this way, he reclaimed his sense of adventure. Unafraid of all the risks. He thought this made him more of a man. What man didn’t have a love for opium and women? Moral men were desperate. Desperate men were dangerous.
To look more like an explorer, soldier, and mercenary, he let his beard grow. Then recklessly, he faced malaria and dysentery, and almost lost his life but God saved him. He volunteered for each major raid; and that was how he first saw Manila. Now a mercenary, he became a menace to the Spanish colony and soon had a price on his head. There was no knife of his that wasn’t dyed red, henna red, or swamps without corpses by the time he left them, and upon his return to Jolo, he was hailed a hero. Yet he was far from finished.
Randy Ford
