Zulu Heart

by Steven Barnes

  Stavros, the Greek. Aidan was running toward him, as others ran from the crannog’s gates. Stavros managed another few steps and then collapsed into the dirt.

  Gingerly, Aidan turned him over. Stavros’s nose was smashed and bloody, one eye swollen shut.

  “What happened?” he asked. “Who did this to ye?”

  He had to bring his ear close to Stavros’s bruised mouth to hear the answer. “Mob,” he whispered. “Caught me just out of town. Said this was just a warning. Said they wanted you. Said they’ll get you, Aidan….” Then he managed to smile, “I … I broke a few teeth of me own …” And then he passed out.

  Donough tenderly lifted Stavros, hefting him as if he were almost weightless. The giant cradled the Greek in his arms like a baby and carried him back to the crannog.

  Suddenly, and despite the sun’s warmth, Aidan felt chilled to the bone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The world turned, days passing like sparrows before clouds. Life continued on Dar Kush. Kai rode the extent of his domain, from rock quarries to lake fishery, from teff fields to the vast herds where itinerant Kikuyu guarded Kai’s stock from any theft but their own. With Lamiya he supervised the social calendar, receiving guests and supplicants. He walked a thousand miles in the gardens with his children and Babatunde as the little scholar taught them the names of each and every flower.

  “What is this?” Kai said to Aliyah.

  “Fig,” she said, toddling beside Kai and her cousin.

  “Sour fig,” Azinza corrected.

  Kai laughed. “Well done!” He turned to Babatunde. “You see? Genius runs in the family.” Kai crouched next to Azinza. “And do you know what it’s used for?” The flower had narrow purple leaves and a fluffy yellow center.

  Azinza screwed her little face up. She shook her head no. “Tell me,” Azinza said.

  “The Khoe-Khoe of the western Cape used this plant for ointments.” Babatunde said. “If a person is stung by an insect, it can help the swelling go down.”

  “Khoe-Khoe,” Azinza said, and rubbed her arm as if she had just been bitten. “Owww. I want Khoe-Khoe.”

  Kai laughed, and hugged her, saying, “First, let’s see if kisses will work just as well.”

  Late in the day, Kai was poring over household records at his desk when Babatunde and Lamiya entered. “El Sursur,” he said in pleasure. “And she who holds my heart. Give me a bit more time,” he said, scratching his head. “These records are crystalline to you, but a labyrinth to me. I have no idea how you reconciled the last month’s expenses with the report from the trading company. Magic. Are you a witch, as well as …” His playful, puzzled words wound down as he noted her tense expression. “Yes, my love?” he said.

  “A letter,” she said. “From Alexandria.”

  That caught his attention, tore him from the world of balance sheets and numbers. “New?”

  “Old,” she said. Her face was curiously strained.

  He put his quill aside. “Who is it from?”

  “Elenya.” Her tone carried a spine-bending load of anxiety.

  “Egypt?” he said weakly. “That cannot …” He seized it from her hand, tore it open, and fumbled out a rectangle of parchment. The almost mechanical clarity of penmanship announced it Elenya’s slightly florid hand, each word crafted as if by an artist. At first he read to himself, and then as if sharing made the burden more tolerable, read aloud.

  “Dearest brother,” it read. “I write this letter in sadness. The vessel returning me to court was intercepted by Egyptian privateers, and Captain Fazul forced to turn me over. Please do not hold him accountable. I am now a guest of the Pharaoh, and will remain so until certain matters can be resolved. I am well, and will so remain unless you take actions against Egyptian interests. Please remember that I love you, and all that we shared during my visit. I hope to play Satranj with you again, soon. Affectionately yours, Elenya.”

  He paused, unable to speak or move. Almost unable to breathe.

  It was Lamiya who first regained the power of speech. “Brave girl,” she whispered.

  Kai’s voice was a deadly hush. “How dare they!”

  “He is the Pharaoh,” said Lamiya.

  “I care not if he is the angel Azra’il! This is my family! Why would he do this?”

  “Leverage,” said Lamiya. “You are Wakil, second only to the governor in authority. You are a war hero, a wealthy man, and married to the Empress’s niece. This is preemptive action. She will be well treated—so long as there is peace.”

  Babatunde studied Kai with concern. “I know that expression,” said his tutor. “This is not a time for rash action.”

  “Yes,” Kai said. “It is a time for caution—but also courage.”

  “You dare not,” Lamiya whispered.

  They might not have been in the room at all. “All I wanted, more than anything in the world, was to be left alone to live my life and raise my family.”

  Lamiya and Babatunde exchanged a glance.

  “Apparently,” Kai continued, “this cannot be.”

  Babatunde’s voice was low and reasonable. “We have spoken many times over the years, Kai. There is always a price—for either action or inaction.”

  Lamiya touched his arm. “Lives will be lost.”

  “Life lasts but a few days. Principle is eternal. I must act.”

  “You must think,” she insisted.

  He wheeled to face her. “Why do you discourage me?” Kai said. “It is your wish that the house of Kush support the Empress.”

  She met his gaze squarely. “I wish also to see Elenya alive and safe.”

  He managed a shallow smile, a bit of warmth breaking through the frost. “I did well taking you to wife. Do not fear; there is a way.”

  Babatunde tried another tack. “What do you think Elenya would want?”

  “She would want me to act, even if such action placed her life in jeopardy.”

  Lamiya seemed doubtful. “How do you know this?”

  Kai grinned wolfishly. “When she mentioned and capitalized the word ‘Satranj,’ that emphasis was intended to remind me of our last chess game. The master of her ship was Captain Kwazi, not ‘Fazul.’”

  “Then what was her meaning?” Babatunde asked. Then his eyes widened. “Ah! Fazul’s Gambit?”

  Kai nodded approval. “Yes. It works only against players who care less for position than materiel. She chided me on just that point during our last game together before she left. She said I must love my mamluks less, and my Sultan more.”

  “Kai,” said Lamiya, “Allah gave man arms to raise a sword, but also a mind to think.”

  “Yes,” Kai said, but already his eyes had drifted elsewhere.

  “I plead with you to remember that there are times when inaction serves a greater purpose,” Babatunde said.

  Now Kai faced his teacher. “I have done little these past three years—” When Babatunde made as if to interrupt him, Kai raised his hand. “No, hear me out. After the mosque … after Malik’s death, I imagined I could withdraw from the world, fulfill my duties, but no more. Raise my family. Find some measure of peace. Now I see that even if I do not seek the world, the world will seek me, and mine. I must act.”

  The three, family in a sense greater than blood, shared a moment of silence.

  Again, it was Lamiya who spoke first. “Yes. I see that this may be true. But Kai, if you are to place Elenya’s life in peril, you must be very certain that the effort will not be wasted. You must decide exactly, precisely what you will do, and when it is best to do it. You must conceal your hand until the last possible moment.”

  “Agreed,” said Babatunde. “You must determine with great clarity: what is the minimum action that might have the maximum result? Motivating others to take action while remaining in the background would be ideal. Make no speeches, and be very certain of your allies.”

  “But what action?” Kai mused aloud.

  “Motivate the other nobles to prepare,” his
wife suggested.

  Kai chewed at the inside of his lip, and then turned and pressed a panel on his wall. A compartment opened, and from within it, he withdrew two scrolls. He handed one to Babatunde.

  The Yoruban scholar studied it, and then blanched. His finger traced a crimson wax cartouche depicting a pyramid with the sun above its apex. “This is the Caliph’s seal. How did you obtain this document?”

  Kai shook his head. “From a Kushi privateer in the Songhais.”

  Lamiya glared at him. “So that was the true purpose of our ‘vacation’? The reason you decided to intercept Elenya’s ship?”

  “A small deception, I hope,” he said, sounding uncomfortably contrite. “I had no wish to involve you. Two months ago there was a very heated meeting in the Caliph’s home. Do not ask how I know, but I know that a message was dispatched to the Pharaoh concerning its outcome.”

  “Spies? In the Caliph’s house?”

  “Let us just say that from time to time a little information makes its way to me, and that this informant was insistent that something of importance had occurred.”

  “I see…. But it doesn’t explain—”

  “No, it doesn’t. Seven weeks ago one of the Caliph’s ships was taken, and these scrolls found in the captain’s cabin. I received a letter offering to sell them to me, which included a code phrase my father’s will had warned me to expect. He was, indeed, part of a movement pressing for secession. I determined when the doomed ship left New Alexandria, and realized that there was a chance that these scrolls were minutes of that very meeting.”

  Babatunde unrolled the scroll. It was covered with Egyptian hieroglyphs, abstracted images of birds and snakes and such. “The high speech,” he murmured. “But this is gibberish!” He glanced at Kai, suddenly comprehending. “Coded?”

  “Yes. I can be certain that they were intended for the Pharaoh, but beyond that, can say nothing.”

  “I know little of ciphers,” said the Sufi, “but if necessary, would accept the challenge.”

  “While in the capital,” Kai said, “I made inquiry. In all Bilalistan there may be no more than two devices capable of decoding that message.”

  Lamiya traced a finger down a row of hieroglyphs, both horrified and fascinated with the danger the two documents represented. “And where are these ‘decoding machines’?”

  Kai seemed to ignore the question. “Every instinct tells me that these messages betray the Caliph’s intent, else they would not be encoded. Else the captain and crew would not have sold their lives so dearly—”

  “Kai!” Lamiya said, alarmed. “Men died?”

  “They always do,” he said.

  She seemed to bite down on her emotions, repressing her response. Finally she said, “And if this letter proves the Caliph intends to betray us?”

  “I believe the landowners would accept a deeper levy, that we might raise our ramparts higher. Without this, I fear we will not be ready, and failing readiness, will fall if the northerners attack.”

  “Be very careful, Kai,” his tutor warned. “Your decisions will affect Elenya, the Empress, the fortunes of Dar Kush, and the fate of your nation. Pray for wisdom.”

  “So should we all,” said Kai. “As the Pharaoh should have, before he took my only sister hostage.”

  All night they talked of politics and possibilities, espionage and war. Lamiya had been to New Alexandria, and helped him refine his thoughts, and gave her husband new ideas that might never have occurred to him.

  And when the sun began to rise, she asked him, “And afterward. How do you get them out?”

  “I have an idea about that,” Kai said. “The two of you have done most of the thinking this night. I am glad to make a contribution of my own.”

  He smiled at Babatunde, and the little Sufi’s answering smile was, Kai noticed with interest, creased with tension.

  “Yes indeed,” Kai said. “I have a fine idea.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Ofttimes, Kai prayed for the souls of the dead at Babatunde’s mosque, a small brick hutch east of the main house and gardens. Tonight, he wished to pray that their plans would not trigger a disaster. He had thought the mosque would be empty this evening, but as he entered he spied a human figure crouching in the shadows.

  Male, bone-thin, white. Shivering in the darkness so that his teeth actually rattled together. The man stank with terror.

  The young Wakil pretended not to notice. Babatunde entered behind him, and seeing the huddled form, quickly ushered Kai back out into the starlight.

  “Come,” said his teacher. “Let us take in the night. There are times Allah’s canopy of stars is a better theater for prayer than any wrought by the hands of men.”

  “They are beautiful, indeed,” Kai said, and allowed himself to be led away.

  Babatunde sought to comfort him. “You are plagued by doubts. Questions about whether you are the man your father would have wished to inherit his mantle.”

  “Yes,” Kai said softly.

  “You are your father’s flesh, and no finer blood runs in this new land,” Babatunde said. “And he could wish no better son than he who holds his office.”

  “But it was Ali he prepared to be Wakil.”

  Babatunde shrugged. “How could he do otherwise? Ali was the eldest.”

  Kai brooded. “All the times they spoke of war, and I crept about the outer edges of their company, listening.… Ali saw me, knew I was there, but let me spy. I sometimes suspect he knew this day would come.” He glanced at his teacher. “Why did my father shield me so?”

  “He thought that one brother might live in the world of men, and the other in the world of spirit, and that together, they might rule Dar Kush with greater wisdom. The world of men, of politics,” said Babatunde, “is not absolutely corrupt, but is often corrupting.”

  “Why?”

  “Where there are two men, there are two ways of looking at the world. In a world of millions, no common view of the physical world can be forged without compromise.”

  “And of the spiritual?” Kai asked.

  “Tell the Sunnis and the Shi’ites,” Babatunde said. “Or the Fatimites who control our own Ulema. No, there may be one reality, but there are as many roads leading to it as there are men to traverse them. This is why we say that every man must make his own way to Allah—the Prophet, Peace Be Upon Him, could not shoulder that burden for us, as the Christians seem to believe the Christ suspended it for them.”

  “How do I do this?” Kai asked.

  “To be in but not of the world? I think you already know, Kai. Keep your eye on Allah, and with every action and thought, prepare yourself to kneel before him and justify your actions in this world.”

  “I struggle.”

  “As do we all. But I think your struggles will bear sweeter fruit than most. Kai … your father may have shielded you, but always you were his son. And he would expect you to act as lord of this house.”

  “And if I err?”

  “Then you err. Only Allah is perfection. The rest of creation can but strive toward that unreachable goal. You will do your best. That is all your father would ask. All anyone who loves you would ask.”

  He held Kai’s hands and gazed into his student’s eyes. “And all you may ask of yourself.” He chuckled. “Otherwise, you would be like a Persian rug weaver, deliberately leaving a flaw in your work, that you might not approach that perfection found in heaven alone. You have no such ego. And that, my boy, is both blessing and curse.”

  “Will you pray with me?” Kai asked.

  “Forever,” his mentor replied.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  4 Shawwal A.H. 1294

  (Friday, October 12, 1877)

  Hundreds of miles away, across the border from New Djibouti in southern Wichita, another world existed.

  A Zulu world.

  Cetshwayo’s kraal, although smaller than his brother Shaka’s Azanian holdings, remained a place of power and majesty, home to vast herds
of cattle, thousands of square miles of grasslands, and hundreds of inter-nested wood-frame houses. Zulus preferred wood over stone or adobe. When appropriate timbers could not be harvested locally, they were imported for the sake of tradition.

  A line of horsewomen rode west along a low ridge overlooking the grounds, from which they could peer down on a series of fences. There they watched a small group of Zulu men training a pack of ridgeback hounds.

  The dogs were almost fifteen sep apiece. Black, lean, and long-muzzled, they ran and jumped with the alacrity of small horses. From birth they were taught to fight and obey commands even unto death.

  The head trainer was called Chalo, a handsome young man, lean and sharp as his umkhonto, with perfect white teeth in his gleaming smile. He was, of course, a blooded warrior, tested in the Aztec Wars under Colonel Shaka. Although in Islamic Bilalistan a dog trainer would be a position of low status, among the Zulu Chalo was celebrated as a lord of the hunt.

  At the moment he was completely immersed in the business of training, inviting his formidable charges to attack him. When they lunged for his throat they grasped instead his leather-wrapped arm. Man and hound strained together, and it was here where Chalo’s superlative strength and balance came to play. A lesser man would have been forced to the ground and savaged. Instead, it was Chalo who wrestled his four-legged adversaries one after another into the earth. He would control their heads, and gaze into their eyes until they quieted, and they adored him for it.

  On the ridge above them, the first woman in line winced as Chalo torqued one of the great ridgebacks on the axis of its neck. The dog crashed to earth paws-up, a feat that required not mere strength and speed, but absolute coolness of mind to wait until the very last instant. “He is very brave.”

  “Yes,” replied the woman behind her. “And handsome, too, don’t you think?” As Cetshwayo’s eldest unmarried daughter, Nandi was the focus of more attention and speculation than any woman in the Zulu nation.

  She was tall but not slender: this was a full-hipped, broad-shouldered Zulu woman in her prime. She wore no makeup or facial paint, and needed none. Her eyes were wide and deep and filled with laughter, her nose generous, her lips full and generally curled in a secretive half smile. Her cheekbones were high, her ears small and delicately shaped.