A single golden braid surrounded her neck: no multiple strands, no gems or strings of other precious metals, just that single braid, as if any further ornamentation would draw the eye away from the perfection of her face and form. Although she had spent nearly her entire life within the confines of her father’s kraal, the finest tutors gold could buy had educated her in both traditional Zulu herbology and Greek and Egyptian medicine and animal husbandry. If she were not a princess with a royal destiny—had she been, say, a man—her intellect might easily have found a place for her at any university, or indeed in private practice. But those potentials were less important than her status as bargaining chip in nuptial negotiation. She knew it, her mothers and father knew it, and for a thousand miles in all directions, every father with an eligible son knew it as well.
But it was to the younger son of the Wakil Abu Ali that she had been promised, and to that fate she had reconciled herself. To find herself so enormously drawn to Kai had been an unexpected blessing. To be set aside for long years as her intended played out some morbid Muslim mourning drama was a torment almost beyond bearing.
“I might think that,” said her chaperone. “But you cannot. What of Kai?”
Nandi waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Oh, away. It has been years; my father has heard nothing. I’ll be an old maid like you if I don’t take matters into my own hands.”
Her chaperone’s eyes widened. “Mistress! You have not met this dog trainer alone?!”
“No,” she said with a faint, contemplative smile. “Not since we were children. Even when we trained IziLomo, we were chaperoned. I have never met with him.” She paused, then added, “But I might.”
Chalo stood, and looked up at her, and waved. Nandi guided her horse down to him.
“Mistress!” her companion implored. “This is improper!”
Nandi grinned. “Yes. Isn’t it, though?”
She rode down to where Chalo trained the ridgebacks, sitting high in her saddle, conscious of her every motion and her impact on any and all who might be watching.
“Good morning, Princess,” Chalo said.
“Good morning, Chalo,” she said brightly. Chalo himself was descended from a noble line. Man or hound, it took generations to breed a champion. “How goes the training?”
He grinned broadly. Nandi’s retainers twittered a bit, scandalized but also delighted.
“Well indeed.” He squared his shoulders and expanded his chest. His shirt, of thin pressed and beaten leather as malleable as wool, swelled under the pressure. “None of these are as fine as IziLomo, but they’ll do. We hunted this morning.”
“Successfully, I assume?”
“My gift.” With a flourish, Chalo pulled a tarp back from a shadowed hump. Beneath lay the mauled form of an enormous brownish-black bear. Its eyes stared vacantly, and upon them insects crawled already. The carcass must have weighed fifty sep. The scent of blood was a sudden perfume.
Nandi inhaled that heady scent sharply. She was trained in biology, of course. As a people who measured wealth in cattle, Egyptian ideas of classification and analysis had swiftly taken root among the Zulu. The animal sciences, the understanding of human and beast on every physical level, became a specialty of Zulu academies. The others, of course, were war and jurisprudence.
To read of exotic medical procedures or beasts is one thing: to see and smell them, to taste with the mind, remained an almost overpowering exhilaration. “Magnificent,” she said, gazing into Chalo’s eyes.
“Truly, one of a kind,” he replied. “She was well worth the hunt.”
Their eyes kept contact for a moment longer, until Nandi’s youngest chaperone said, “Mistress. We should return to the house. Your father is home soon.”
“Princess,” Chalo said. “I will have my experts prepare and skin the carcass. It is your wall hanging, and a token of my esteem.”
“I thank you.” Nandi’s eyes sparkled. Again, their gazes linked and smoldered. Then the princess turned and guided her horse away.
After a hard day’s riding, Cetshwayo and his men had finally returned to the gates of his kraal. This was his pride, inherited from his father, who had homesteaded before most of the Zulus had expanded into the Azanian Purchase, the vast tracts acquired with Zulu gold in hope of creating a separate nation. Such hopes had not yet been realized, but the coming time of crisis might prove to be just the leverage the Zulu nation needed to become a geopolitical entity. While Cetshwayo possessed extensive Azanian holdings, it was the Wichita kraal that truly stirred his heart.
Immediately after turning his stallion over to a servant Cetshwayo went to the house of Munji, his second, and favorite, wife.
As Zulu custom dictated, Cetshwayo had no house reserved for himself alone, nor did all wives live beneath the same roof. Rather, each lived in a separate house, the seven houses arranged in a circular ring in the center of the kraal, protected by a ring of warrior’s barracks without. His second wife Munji lived in the eastmost building. A round, stern woman with the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen, Munji had noted his approach from a window, then vanished so quickly that the curtains were still swinging after her back had turned.
As he had expected, she awaited him with a somewhat formal demeanor, but Cetshwayo sensed that behind the reserve lived a reservoir of almost giddy expectation.
Munji wore a tan, beaded headdress and several ropes of small, densely stringed pearls. Her voluminous orange cotton dress was cinched at her ample waist, and her small and shapely feet were shod in fashionably thin leather sandals. “Is it done?” she asked, her plump hands folded before her.
No need to ask her meaning. “Yes. Soon it begins. I would speak to my daughter.”
Although she had four, and knew that Cetshwayo had twelve more by other wives, Munji required no clarification. Without a word she led her husband upstairs, then stood aside as he knocked on his daughter’s door.
After a short pause, the door swung open, and Nandi stood before him, eyes cast slightly downward.
“Daughter.”
“Father,” she said, and tiptoed to kiss his cheek. “How went your trip?”
“Well,” he said. His eye cast about for the great lump of shadow that usually crouched at her side. Where? He looked to the right, and there, hidden in shadow, hunched IziLomo. A five-year-old Zulu ridgeback in the very peak of its power and senses, IziLomo was fourteen sep of black muscle and bone, a fearsome hunter who was affectionate only with Cetshwayo’s daughter, who had raised him from a pup. Quiet and respectful IziLomo might well be to family members and Nandi’s friends, but the beast was utterly protective, and the Zulu prince himself hesitated to raise his voice in its presence.
IziLomo seemed naturally to seek the camouflage of shadow, so that in any room one entered, it was necessary to look twice to make certain the monster was not lurking about. So watchful was the dog that he was often restrained when visitors arrived, for fear of an unfortunate incident. This was no idle concern: when but a year old, IziLomo had been running alongside Nandi’s horse Bejane, “Black Rhino,” when the unfortunate beast threw her. Before anyone could intercede, IziLomo had torn Bejane’s throat out.
“If not for this leg of mine,” said Cetshwayo, “I would have found it all to the good.” He sat heavily at the edge of her bed.
“Truly?” Despite herself, she could not restrain a touch of eagerness. “Tell me, Father. Tell me everything.” Nandi had never traveled to Radama, and probably would not until and unless taken there by her husband. However much she loved every hollow or blade of grass in her father’s holdings, she yearned to be her own woman, forging her own life path with a great warrior and statesman at her side.
Their trip, four years ago, to New Djibouti on the occasion of Ali’s engagement and that Abyssinian witch Lamiya’s return had been her most recent extensive sojourn. Since that time, she had been kept in a kind of frozen time, awaiting decisions beyond her influence.
As a loving father, C
etshwayo regretted these things.
As Shaka Zulu’s younger brother, and inheritor of his political power on the other hand, there was no choice at all.
Nandi suddenly seemed to remember her restraint and reined her excitement back in, dropping her eyes again.
Cetshwayo yawned massively. “This accursed leg condemns me to the chair or canter, but in truth I prefer the thrill of the hunt to the world of politics.” He paused. “In that sense, I believe I am similar to a certain young Wakil.”
Now her eyes sparked. “Oh?”
He nodded. “I believe we can play each side against the other.” His generous mouth split in an open smile. “If we conduct ourselves with care, our homeland is all but secured.”
She knelt before her father, gazing up at him. “Tell me more of this young Wakil.”
IziLomo’s ears had perked up, and he made a snuffling sound, as if aware that his young mistress’s interest was engaged. But neither that nor Nandi’s eagerness wrought any change in Cetshwayo’s manner. “Oh, he is a bright young man, thought to have excellent prospects.”
“Is he a family man?”
“Indeed. Married to the imperial niece, although there, too, is a scandal.”
“And why is that?”
“It is said that she was intended for his brother, who died in the Shrine campaign three years ago.”
She sniffed. “She should have returned home, to live her days in a nunnery.”
He neither agreed nor disagreed with this sentiment. Lamiya could be drowned in the sea, a cloistered virgin, or bride of a Celtic Druid—any of these would have suited his purposes. But her marriage to Kai made the situation far more complex. “She chose to stay. Some say she saved the Wakil from madness. Some say that their ‘Immortal’ Empress has disowned her, others that it was under that Lady’s clandestine orders.”
“And you think…?”
Cetshwayo shook his head. “I doubt there was time for a message to travel from Bilalistan to Abyssinia. Either contingency plans were preexistent, or the two reached some new arrangement.”
Nandi seemed to ponder that one. “Extreme circumstances call for extreme actions. Father, brother, and uncle all died within a span of weeks. Their house must have been greatly disarrayed.”
“Yes,” Cetshwayo said calmly. He paused, as though listening to music above her range of hearing.
The tension was unbearable. Finally, she broke the silence. “And how fares the young Wakil now?”
Cetshwayo considered for a moment. “Healed, I think. And ready to find his Second.”
Nandi’s face was perfectly composed, hands resting on her knees, eyes relaxed and focused on her father’s. “And…?”
“This is your time, Daughter.”
Nandi’s face remained steady, but her eyes were bright and hot behind the mask of restraint. Whether joy, anger, or anticipation it was hard to say. Even her own father could not be certain. How strange that he could know this child since birth, and still be uncertain of the emotions burning in her breast.
“Are you prepared?” he asked.
“All my life,” said Nandi.
“And these three years?”
Her full lips thinned. “Harder than I will say.”
Cetshwayo nodded. “They made you wait, my child. Can you control your anger?”
She inhaled sharply, then let the breath out far more slowly. “I am your daughter.”
“Never forget that,” her father said. “For our time is at hand. If you will but trust me now, and follow my advice and command …”
She half-lowered her lids. “Have I not, always?”
Her father studied her intensely. “In your way. In these recent years you have masked your heart, even from me.”
“Really, Father?” she asked. “Never was that my intent. Why would I have reason to mask my feelings from you, Father, who have given me nothing but love all the years of my life?”
Cetshwayo was quiet. He knew, and she knew, that his children were as much political instruments as the nieces and nephews of the fabled Empress. Knew further that he could not deal with them merely as a father who loved his twenty-five offspring. What, then, was her statement’s meaning?
In that instant he wondered if Nandi was even stronger than he had suspected. By sky and sun, if only she had been a son and not a daughter!
“Have I not done everything I could to please you?” she said.
“In your way.”
“Did I not open my heart to the one you chose for me?”
Now it was Cetshwayo’s turn to remain impassive. “At the least.”
Her eyes flashed fire, although the rest of her expression remained the same. He had misjudged. That last comment had hurt her, and her rage was but thinly veiled. IziLomo sensed the mood shift as well, and gave a low rumbling sound. Cetshwayo’s hand slid a digit closer to his umkhonto.
“I did what I was born and bound to do,” Nandi replied. She was so still that Cetshwayo felt as if he were peering into the eye of a hurricane. “I was to be first wife to the son of a famed Wakil. Then came the slave uprising, the Shrine, and all of its ugliness. And the death of my uncle, great Shaka.”
She paused. When she looked at him again, her eyes were piercing, and he actually had to fight the urge to look away. “This is no longer politics, is it, Father? I am no longer a bridge, a means of joining. You no longer see me as a daughter. You see me as a spear.”
Cetshwayo broke eye contact. “You are a princess of your people. You are all things. And I, a loving father.”
Her smile was cold. “Yes. Well, then, loving father. I will be loving daughter, and do as you say, as I have always. Tell your obedient child what you would have her do, now that your plans have come to fruition.”
A chill swept through him, although whether motivated by temperature or tension, Cetshwayo could not say. He suspected the latter: something had just shifted in that room, some subtle sense of mass or energy.
Then Nandi’s face softened. But was this a mask donned or removed? Her smile was radiant. She rose. Without a sound she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his.
“A daughter’s kiss,” she said, retreating again. “How few remain. Soon, Father, I will no longer be of your house.”
“You will always be of my house, and of my heart.”
“Always of your heart.”
He nodded. “And when the ceremony is past, the Zulu blood will run still in your veins, and you will remember the things I say this night.”
“Always,” she said.
Then, after a short silence, he began to speak.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Although only three-quarters the size of Dar Kush, because less of the Berhar estate was devoted to farm land, it actually had more raw, undeveloped, recreational acreage. It was also less dependent upon slave labor: most of the Berhar fortune came from business concerns at home and abroad, rather than from agriculture.
Still, they maintained more than a hundred slaves, and half as many free laborers and supervisors.
There were small dwellings scattered across the entire estate, and it was toward one of these that Allahbas Berhar was led by her boss slave Olalye. Olalye was an ugly tree trunk of a man with limited intelligence but great capacity for both work and loyalty. Years of honest toil had been rewarded with his current position, which not only meant a better cabin and more meat, but which had won him the hand of one of the prettiest little sluts on Dar Berhar, a red-haired hussy named Morgan.
He was a happy man now. And if Allahbas suspected that Morgan was not entirely faithful, and that the object of her lust happened to be Kai’s man Olaf, well … that was slave business. And slave business didn’t reach the main house. What was her business was her suspicion that Morgan’s constant demands had induced her boss slave to steal from his owners. Silverware and rare spices had come up missing, and whispered accusations indicated Olalye. If this turned out to be true, punishment would be severe indeed.
But for now … she watched and waited.
Olalye bowed to her, and said, “Here he be, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Olalye,” she answered without a hint of her ugly thoughts, and entered the hut.
There in the darkness sat an olive-skinned Persian, face bent in shadow, form cloaked in a vertically striped robe.
“Omar Pavlavi,” he said, and bowed in his seated position.
“Allahbas Berhar,” she replied, sitting across from him in a straight-backed chair. Never before had they met face to face, but Allahbas knew the Hashassin by more than their lethal reputation. In fact, once upon a time she had made excellent use of their deadly skills. She felt no fear in his presence, only an intense heightening of awareness, as one might experience in the presence of a leopard. Such a heightening would be interpreted by most as an unpleasant sensation.
Unless one were also a leopard.
“I am glad you have come,” said Omar. “I wish conversation on business that might enrich us both.”
“I dealt with your people ten years ago, and that interaction was both successful and profitable,” Madame Berhar said.
“More profitable for you than for my predecessor,” he said, “but I have no reason to complain. The contract was fulfilled, and you became First.”
She nodded. “If this day’s conversation proves as profitable as that, you will find me receptive.”
“I come to you on behalf of the Caliph of Bilalistan. Some weeks ago, an important message was stolen, and we believe that it found its way to the Wakil of New Djibouti.”
“Kai?” she asked.
“Yes. The son of Abu Ali. We wish for you to observe him, and report back to me.”
She pondered, and then phrased her reply carefully. “I must respectfully decline.”
“May I ask why?”
“Certainly. I am aware that your master seconded you to the Pharaoh, doubtless to gain some trade or political negotiation point favorable to Persia.”
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