Zulu Heart

by Steven Barnes

  “Yes, Sidi?”

  “My man can survive your battle royale,” said Kai. “I want him entered!”

  Mem looked Aidan up and down. Perhaps because Aidan massed about twenty sep, he was unimpressed. “It is a dicey business, sir. Are you certain?”

  “Quite.”

  “Very well.” Mem sighed. “Sign here—but remember, I promise nothing for his personal safety.”

  “His safety is not my concern,” Kai said in his haughtiest voice. “My profits are. Move along, boy,” Kai said, signing Mem’s contract.

  Aidan glared back at Kai, but moved. “Master …” Aidan said in suddenly broken Arabic. “When I see ye again?”

  “After the fight. Now make me proud, and you will be rewarded.”

  Aidan nodded, his shoulders hunched, his head slightly bowed. “Thank ye, thank ye sir …”

  Kai glared at Aidan a bit for his ghosting about. But before he could say anything, his friend was seized by two huge, muscular guards, and hustled away.

  Aidan was escorted to a plank-floored holding pen. Two barred windows admitted dusty streams of light, and the floor was matted with straw. There were about twenty men in that room, some sitting, some standing or leaning against the stained wooden walls. Aidan was smooth-skinned in comparison to many of the other slaves. They seemed a brutal, brutalized, scarred, dangerously quiet lot, who glared at him without a word. After a few minutes armed guards appeared and began leading the men away. Aidan was twelfth to be taken, led down a dark corridor to a cell just large enough for one man. The air smelled of vinegar and urine.

  Mem appeared in the doorway before it could close. “There’s a mat, and a blanket. Rest. Do you want a woman?”

  “No.”

  “Hemp? Beer?”

  “No.”

  “A boy?”

  “No!”

  The booker rubbed his scraggly beard. “You may die tomorrow.”

  Aidan ignored him and settled back against his mattress. Hard it might be, but he had slept on worse, and less.

  “You are an odd one,” said Mem. “I will watch you.”

  “Do that,” Aidan said, and closed his eyes.

  It was three hours later that he was called for the first meal, taken to an open area filled with hard, quiet, dangerous pale men.

  He glanced over them idly, shocked when he recognized a familiar face. Aidan hunkered down close to a man who huddled in a corner, arms wrapped around his knees. “So, Simon,” he said. “You do not recognize me?”

  The other man looked at him incuriously. “Who are you?”

  “Months ago, on the frontier. You came to my village, seeking shelter.”

  Now Simon’s eyes widened. “Oh, yes. And you turn me down, din’ you? High and mighty then, weren’t you. Look at you now, coal-licker.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “What the hell you think?” Rage seemed to expand Simon like a bellows. “Got caught before I could get halfway to the Nations. Wouldn’t tell them who my master was, and he hadn’t branded me, so I went on the block. Here I am. They’ll use me up, throw me away when I’m broke.” He gave a bitter, broken smile. “Same as you.”

  Aidan felt terrible, but swallowed his urge to apologize. This was no place or time for softness. Nevertheless, he said, “I’m sorry we couldn’t help you.”

  Simon grunted. “You’ll be sorrier tomorrow. Now get the hell away from me.”

  Aidan retreated, joining the line where men were served steaming piles of bland, hot cooked grain with chunks of fish folded in. It wasn’t good. It wasn’t bad. It was just food, and in memory of weeks of semi-starvation, Aidan ate every scrap of it he could get.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  5 Rabi al-Awwal A.H. 1295

  (Saturday March 9, 1878)

  Azinza’s birthday party expanded across Dar Kush’s house and grounds like a sprawling, blind but happy living thing. Servants prepared food, readied games on Lake A’zam, sent troupes of jugglers in, and organized slaves for singing and dancing.

  Near the lake, troupes of wrestlers competed as their exertions were accompanied by growl-throated lambe and hypnotically rhythmic Gambian mbung-mbung drummers.

  The grounds were thronged and decorated for the pleasure of four-year-old Azinza and two-year-old Aliyah. A thousand concerns crowded for Lamiya’s attention, and she was delighted to encounter Babatunde walking serenely through the crowds of delighted children, thriving on the joy and sheer aliveness they radiated. “Babatunde!”

  “Yes, my dear?”

  “Would you be a blessing and check that the supervision is adequate at the lake?”

  “I thought the Dahomy were seeing to that.”

  “Yes, but … check on them, would you?”

  Babatunde nodded. “Of course.”

  Babatunde walked from the house out toward the lake’s crystal waters.

  A slave driving a cart filled with kids called to him. “Master, give ye a ride?”

  Babatunde’s dark round face wrinkled; then he sighed and accepted. He hoisted himself up on the wagon, surrounded by squealing black and brown children.

  He turned to one of them. “You … actually enjoy this?”

  “Fun!” the child squealed.

  “Yes, fun.” He scowled. “So is running and walking. You should use your legs while you’re … Oh, never mind.”

  Babatunde passed a troupe of Middle Eastern jugglers entrancing the children with almost magical feats of coordination and skill.

  They reached the lake, and Babatunde gratefully disembarked. The lake was filled with children swimming and boating … under the watchful eyes of Kokossa and his daughter Chifi, and of the warrior-women. The children could not have been safer in their own beds: the Dahomy took their responsibility to the Wakil and his family seriously. Kai knew that, but the Empress’s niece was a worrier.

  “Maputo,” said Babatunde.

  “My friend. How wonderful to be young, eh?”

  “Or too old to be involved in such things. Ah!” He moved nimbly to the side as a group of shrieking, wet children ran past.

  “Once we were so young.”

  “Never so young as that. I swear that I was born with stiff joints … Ganne!”

  He turned in time to see the leader of the Dahomy women approach. Her expression was businesslike, but there was a bit of sway in her walk.

  “Babatunde,” she said. “I had hoped to see you.”

  “Oh. Is there a concern?”

  “Only that I have not seen you in some days, and I miss you.”

  Kokossa and Chifi shared a little grin at this, and moved away, much to Babatunde’s discomfort.

  “Ah, well, duties, you know.”

  She watched the playing children, standing very close to him. “Have you never wished children?”

  “I have hundreds of children.”

  “Spiritual children. Did not the Prophet—”

  “Peace Be Upon Him,” Babatunde murmured.

  “Yes. Peace Be Upon Him. Didn’t the Prophet encourage his followers to marry and have children?”

  “Yes. Well… I have been married to my books and scrolls and duties these many years….”

  She was very close now. “And now that some of those duties have slackened? Have you never thought of taking a wife?”

  “I was married once.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Your wife is…?”

  “Gone now,” he said, and seemed to drift away for a moment.

  “I am sorry,” Ganne said.

  He smiled again. “But that was long ago. Life is to celebrate. But strange you should ask me! You are beautiful and … ahem … your own life path has prevented you from taking a husband.”

  “Many of my warriors have husbands. I have not met a partner who could walk with me.”

  “And that is the way of the world. I might say much the same thing.”

  Ganne’s voice dropped into a husky whisper. Although she was a head taller than the Cri
cket, she somehow managed to seem frailer and shorter than her actual size. “What is the teaching on modesty and submission?”

  Babatunde cleared his throat. “Ah … yes. ‘Men are responsible for women because God has given the one more than the other.’”

  “‘Virtuous women are therefore obedient, guarding in their husbands’ absence that which God has guarded,’” she finished.

  Babatunde swallowed. “That is accurate, yes.”

  “And aside from obedience and faithfulness, what other characteristic would such a woman require?”

  “There are … a number of characteristics. Ahem …”

  Suddenly, and somewhat to his surprise, Babatunde felt a bit muzzy-headed, as he had once in his youth after ascending Kilimanjaro.

  Babatunde heard a horse, and turned to see Fodjour walking his mount up behind them. He wondered how long Kai’s friend had been listening. Fodjour made a few hand gestures, and then grinning, rode off.

  “I don’t recognize those hand signs,” Babatunde said.

  “You wouldn’t,” said Ganne. “We’ve been teaching him our battlefield signals.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I may tell you,” she said, eyeing him speculatively. “Some night.”

  Fodjour rode hell-for-leather back to the house, around the other side.

  Along the way he saw a juggler entertaining a knot of children. By his relatively pale skin, he knew the man to be Persian. The juggler made eye contact with him, and nodded.

  Fodjour rode on. So much noise, so much chaos. It should have been a happy chaos, and was that for so many of the guests, but …

  His eye was drawn to the back porch of Dar Kush, where a red-haired slave woman was whispering to Olaf One-Ear. They glanced about, thought no one was watching, and Olaf stole a kiss, then swatted her behind and sent her packing. Fodjour recognized the wench—she was a slave purchased from Kai after indicating a willingness to marry one of Djidade Berhar’s boss men, Olalye. Olalye had been a sturdy worker once, but the slut had corrupted him. Olalye had been stealing to provide luxuries for his slave bride. Fodjour knew it, and had intended to horsewhip the fool and sell him south. But Allahbas had had a better idea.

  As he had suspected, as his mother had suspected, the woman Morgan was a whore, using the relaxed rules of festival to establish an assignation. Ordinarily such a discovery would mean less than finding two squirrels rutting in the woods.

  But in their current situation, this might prove useful.

  Yes, it might. He rode up next to the house, and called out to her. “Morgan!” he called. After a few moments she appeared, flour covering her hands.

  “Yes, sah?”

  “What are you doing on this side of the lake?”

  She blinked several times, and he knew she was busy combining lies and truth. “Miz Allahbas loaned me to the Wakil for the party.”

  And you jumped at the chance to see your lover, didn’t you? “Have you seen Olalye, your husband?”

  “Not since mornin’. He in trouble?”

  “No. I want him to travel to the harbor with me tonight. We may be gone overnight, so pack him a bag and have him meet me at the barn.”

  “Now, suh?” Her cheeks had flushed. Even this slow-minded slut could see the possibilities.

  “No. After supper. Go along now,” he said, and turned his horse away.

  Nandi was completely immersed in entertaining a group of children, including the tiny Azinza.

  “—and our ancestors live in the ground, far below us,” she was saying. The children had asked her why Zulus didn’t pray five times a day, and her explanation had expanded to include her people’s beliefs. “But they watch us, and shelter us, and love us.”

  “Can they hear us when we pray?”

  Nandi nodded. “Yes, of course they can. And if we listen closely, we can hear their answers.”

  So occupied was Nandi in her explanations that she never heard Lamiya’s approach. The Empress’s niece was accompanied by guests, Lamiya’s Indian friends the Guptas and the pious N’Guy clan from Mali.

  “Lamiya,” said Lady N’Guy, “you must introduce me to your co-wife.”

  “Of course. Lady Tinia N’Guy, please meet the former Nandi kaSenzangakhona, new to our house.”

  Nandi stood, unfolding from her kneeling position with effortless grace. “So glad that you could share this day with us.”

  “And you know the Guptas,” Lamiya said.

  “Of course,” said Nandi. “You were kind enough to attend our wedding.”

  “I was not able to attend, I’m afraid,” said Lady N’Guy. “Pressing business.”

  “I understand,” Nandi said, and indeed she did: she understood N’Guy’s tone as a suggestion that had there not been pressing business, she would have manufactured some other pretext for avoiding the nuptials.

  But Lady N’Guy had more on her mind than mere one-upmanship. “I overheard your comments to the child.” Her trace of a smile was withering. “Certainly you don’t believe such fantasies.”

  Nandi was very quiet. “It is my people’s faith.”

  “I thought that you would be converting to the True Faith. Lamiya,” she said, turning to the Empress’s niece, “wasn’t that a requirement of the marriage contract?”

  Nandi squared her shoulders. Taller than N’Guy, but far more compact, she suddenly seemed to dominate their common space. “You need not ask Lamiya. I stand before you and can speak myself.”

  N’Guy’s smile was silkily conciliatory. “Surely, I meant no offense.” She oozed condescension. “But you are not in Azania now. This is the civilized world, and such provincial beliefs do not become the wife of a Wakil.”

  Voiced between men, such a rebuke might well have triggered a duel. Nandi’s eyes narrowed, and her head tilted slightly downward, so that the white crescent below her pupils expanded. Her breath grew shallower, and her hands knotted.

  Sensing disaster, Lamiya stepped between them. “I do not think, I know that Nandi brings her whole heart to the union. Whatever beliefs that heart may embrace, I am certain it is for the good of all.”

  “Of course.” N’Guy smiled.

  Nandi calmed herself, and retreated from the precipice. “Excuse me,” she said, and left them.

  N’Guy clucked. “Goodness. Are all Zulus so sensitive? One would hardly credit it from their carriage and reputation.”

  Gupta hamam’s eyebrows arched. “She has a certain … vitality, of course, but … well, politics certainly makes odd housemates.”

  Lamiya held her tongue. The Guptas she genuinely enjoyed, but N’Guy’s pretensions irritated her more than was ideal for a wise and judicious hostess. She might have taken greater offense had N’Guy’s words not mirrored her own thoughts, almost as if her guest had taken it upon herself to say what Lamiya herself could not. Nandi had retreated from confrontation, but Lamiya knew better than to think that she would do so in every instance—or even the next. The young woman was trying to fit into the household, but a point would come when she might well express herself more … forcefully.

  And if she was anything like other Zulus Lamiya had known, there could be hell to pay.

  Trembling with suppressed rage, Nandi wandered the grounds. She felt lonely and ill at ease.

  A flash of unexpected light blinded her for an instant, and she shaded her face with one hand. What was that? She searched in the direction of the barn, and watched as a bright flare of light blossomed once, twice … a pause, and then it repeated.

  This was a message for her. The light shone directly into her eyes, flashing on and off, and she finally recognized the pattern. Once, long ago, she and a friend had used such signals to pass messages and summon one another.

  Her heart raced with an overwhelming amalgam of emotions: anxiety, anger, excitement, the anticipation of a forbidden encounter. Since arrival at Dar Kush she had felt almost manacled, only the intensity and depth of her connection with Kai making life tolerable. And
Kai was absent. Lamiya herself was a gracious, lovely woman: time would tell if the Empress’s niece was genuine. But Lamiya’s insufferable guests simply begged for a knife-dance. But since that more satisfyingly visceral route was closed to her, she had to present a public face that satisfied the household and their guests until she had time to root more deeply in this alien place.

  To be unchaperoned in Chalo’s presence was wrong, yes. But sometimes, small wrongs could forestall the larger. She would see Chalo. Chasten him, yes. But also luxuriate in the knowledge that his love and lust for her had motivated him to risk death for the mere hope of seeing her smile.

  And that cast the entire day in a new and warmer light.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded. Nandi’s hands were perched on her hips, her head thrown back in a deliberately theatrical gesture. She had entered the barn with trepidation, but as the door closed behind her she felt a mixture of excitement and irritation. So far, the irritation was winning, but …

  So still stood Chalo that he all but disappeared into the shadow. His gaze was like molten iron. “You know why I came.”

  She flushed with the intensity of this young warrior’s ardor. Her posturing wilted before his simple, honest intensity. “Chalo, Chalo,” she said, shaking her head. “You don’t know what you are doing.”

  He reached out for her. “The things we said—”

  She took a step back, mistrusting the merest of contacts. “Those things I said to you as a girl. I am a married woman, with obligations.” By sun and sky—what was she doing? “I should not even speak to you,” she said. Chalo was not the man for her, she knew that now … in fact had always known it. But now she saw the folly she had wrought by trifling with his heart.

  Chalo’s tongue moistened his lips. He spread his hands in a beseeching posture. “What kind of people are these who would take you away from your family, not even allow you to speak to your … friend.” He paused, suddenly seeming far more youthful than his summers. “Isn’t that what I am, your friend?”

  “What kind of people are they?” she said, answering him before he could ask the question. “They are people who trust me to uphold the honor of their household—”