Elenya. Just the thought of his sister seemed to stab his heart. Was she well? Terrified? Had the Pharaoh decided he had reason to make her suffer?
Kai stood with Chifi as workers, directed by Sallah Mubutu, began dismantling crucial aspects of the workshop and loading them onto carts. The Tortoise itself was housed in a secure slip a few hundred cubits away, and would follow later. The lab equipment would be taken by road or barge to Lake A’zam, there to be reassembled.
“More ships,” said Chifi, peering out at the bay. “They arrive by three and leave by two. And every week there are a few more.”
“Here and at the Brown Nile, they amass their forces. Tease and threaten us. Move their ships farther south if we rumble, then slowly mass them again. It is an ugly game.”
“What do we do?”
“I know what Elenya would do, were an opponent to try such a tactic.”
“What?” Chifi asked.
“Maintain the strength of her position. Continue building her own plans. Refuse to be intimidated … and …”
“And what?”
“And win.”
Fifteen years ago, Kai’s father, Abu Ali, had built a mosque for Babatunde, but the Sufi services were conducted quietly, and with great regard for the sensibilities of some of the area’s more conservative Muslims. With Kai’s accession to the office of Wakil, local prejudices had been driven even farther underground, and as long as he held that office, Sufis congregated more openly.
As a result, Babatunde found his days filled with teaching, counseling, and conducting the zikr ceremony. When not so engaged, the Yoruban shaykh passed time studying scrolls in his room. It was there that Kai approached him, sorely needing his old friend and tutor’s guidance.
“I don’t know what to do,” Kai said, dropping into a chair. “Or if I have done the right thing. Elenya is in danger, I may lose my influence in the Senate, war is imminent. And …”
“And?” said Babatunde.
“And I fear that you spoke truly: our enemies know too much about our household. They slid past my guards and murdered a man under my own roof. There is a serpent in my house.”
“Who do you suspect?” Babatunde asked. “Your new bride?”
Kai looked up quickly. “No. Perhaps.” He cursed. “She was quicksilver itself during the attack, swift to protect children who were not her own.”
“A powerful plea for trust.”
Kai nodded. “But someone killed the Hashassin. Someone I trust. Damnation!” Kai stood and paced. He looked up at Babatunde. “Two wolves fight in my mind, Babatunde. One has my father’s aspect, the other my uncle’s. One speaks of love, and the other, betrayal.”
Babatunde was very quiet.
“My uncle thinks only of attack and defense. My uncle thinks that any woman not under his control is a danger, and that I have never faced greater danger than that under my own roof. My uncle bids me send her home now, while still there is time, no matter what the political cost.”
“Your uncle,” Babatunde said quietly, “is dead.”
Kai regarded him balefully. “As Shaka is dead.”
“You will not send her away?”
“No,” Kai said. “Not yet.” He sighed, and dropped to a chair. “And there is more. I do not know how Aidan is faring in his quest, and until I know that, I fear I may have placed my friend in mortal peril for nothing. What am I doing, Cricket?”
“The best you can,” Babatunde said. “Unfortunately, you have the burden of learning as you go. Mistakes are inevitable. Success is not. You will have to live with this.” A pause, and then he continued. “As your father did.”
That caught Kai’s attention. “Did my father doubt his ability to rule?”
“Every day of his life.”
Kai looked at his old tutor in amazement. “But … he always seemed so strong, so certain.”
“As a leader must. But he was a man, without the infinite knowledge of He who made us.”
“What do I do?”
“Pray,” said his teacher. “And love. And work. And live.”
Enough other landowners had joined their riches to those of Dar Kush that, although Kai was the largest single shareholder in the Lion’s Blood trading company, large disbursements were usually made in the form of loans from an investment fund, rather than outright withdrawals from Kai’s private or family account.
Djidade Berhar was the largest shareholder after Kai, and had lent his authority and experience to the board of directors since Abu Ali’s death. Since Berhar’s illness had accelerated, Kai had taken a more active hand, assisted by Lamiya, his First.
Its marbled halls rang with debate as Kai argued with the board of directors regarding his expenditures. Lamiya sat by his side, head covered modestly, watching and listening.
“Kai,” said the vice chairman, “we have done all we can to accommodate your wishes, but we are entrusted with the financial health of this institution …”
“My husband’s requests have not been exorbitant,” Lamiya said. “Nor do they endanger the stability of this institution.”
“Not in sheer financial cost, no, although the Wakil has authorized … ah … three thousand Alexanders to this project.”
Kai smiled dismissively. “A month’s interest on the island investments, if that.”
“That is not the only concern. Any modern financial establishment depends on reciprocal loans and agreements with other institutions. Our northern trading partners would be quite uncomfortable to hear of your expenditures. This ‘Tortoise’ is a short-range vessel, with no conceivable trade usage. In other words—”
Kai placed his hands flat on the table, and met their gazes squarely. “A ship-killer. Yes.”
The directors folded their hands, and regarded each other uncomfortably.
“Kai,” said the director. “It was your fathers request, and your request, that we consider our primary responsibility the protection of Dar Kush’s assets for future generations.”
“You are obligated to present a case for fiscal conservatism.” Lamiya said. “And so you have done. But my husband also expects you to honor his wishes, and so do I.”
The board members exchanged dubious glances, but finally recognized the inevitable. “If you are set on this path …”
“And I am,” Kai said.
“Then we will do all in our power to make it so.”
“Excellent,” Kai said. “And that concludes my business for today.”
Lamiya took her husband’s arm, and together they exited the main chamber, leaving the elderly officers shuffling papers behind them. He managed to reach the outer hall before bursting into laughter. “Did you ever see such a bunch of stiffbacks? I swear they sleep strapped to a board.”
Babatunde had waited in the hall outside, speaking with Rashid, the old man who was caretaker and night guard for Lion’s Blood. Rashid had been an old man twenty years ago, and oddly, had hardly seemed to age in the intervening decades. “Ah, Sidi, it’s not that they don’t respect you,” he said. “They just remember when your father brought you here, and you’d get into one mischief after another. Men their age have a hard time trusting anyone under fifty, let alone someone they remember peeing his pants.”
“Rashid!” Lamiya gasped.
Kai laughed. “It’s all right. And it’s true, if embarrassing.”
“Had to take you and clean you off myself, sir.”
Babatunde’s eyes were mirthful. “On a drier subject,” he said, “how went the talk?”
They bade good-bye to Rashid and walked to the window facing the harbor. The northern ships studding the harbor seemed ever more ominous.
“Strange,” said Kai, more serious now. “A sane man would hope only for peace. But if peace there is, I will likely lose my seat in the Senate, and possibly my Wakilship.”
“That may be an exaggeration,” Lamiya said.
“Oh no.” He laughed bitterly. “Even if I maintain my status as Wakil, my enemies will undercut my authority su
fficiently to cripple my court. The complex web of titles and contracts, legal and financial, that maintains Dar Kush will begin to unravel. If things go wrong in New Alexandria, and Aidan is traced back to me, I could end up a criminal, my family in disgrace.”
“And if war comes?” asked Babatunde.
“I am a hero. And thousands die.”
“And so…?”
Kai smiled. “So I pray for peace, of course.”
The Yoruba laughed. “Of course. Come. I have two words for the both of you.”
“Which are?” Lamiya asked.
“Doro Wate. There is a new and wondrous Abyssinian restaurant on the bay. Let me purchase lunch.”
“With the money we pay you.”
“Of course, my dear.”
“Make it an expensive one,” Kai said, surrendering. “Lead on.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Despite the gnawing tension, and the storm clouds hovering on the horizon, Nandi had continued to customize her rooms, making them reflect her personality to the extent that when Kai entered them he felt almost as if he were entering another world.
At the moment, they reclined together in a twining that was sensual, but not yet sexual. IziLomo reclined in a corner of the room, but if love-play truly began, Kai would send him to the kennel. It would be unseemly for the hound to bay in chorus to his mistress’s passionate cries.
“You did well during the attack,” he said, tracing his finger along her back, which was as well muscled as any boy’s.
“You expected less?” Her smile was mischievous.
“You are a woman, and so skilled at womanly things that I forget you are also Shaka’s niece, with all the hmmm … dynamism? Yes.”
“I like that word,” she said, and reinforced her opinion with a slow, subtle pulsing of her body against his.
“Stop that,” he said, fighting distraction. “All the dynamism that that implies.”
“It pleases me to have many skills,” she said. “It pleases me more that my husband approves.” She stretched like a great cat. “You approve, my husband?”
“Greatly.”
She sighed and seemed to relax. “Then it is good. I could be happy here, Kai of Dar Kush. We could be.”
“I am happy now,” Kai said.
“You could be happier still.”
He came closer. “Oh? How is that?”
She snuggled tightly against him, as if trying to make their two bodies one. “I could give you a son,” she said. “The women in my clan are famous for sons. For five generations, the firstborn of my line have all been sons. This gift I would give to you, my husband. A son to carry your name, a warrior to learn your swordcraft, who will stand proudly at your gate.”
Kai enfolded her in his arms. “You need make no promises,” he said.
“No?”
“No,” said Kai. “Just be my companion. Share my days and nights. Help me.”
Her eyes dropped. “You are so strong. You need no help.”
Kai blinked. “Is that what you think?”
She brushed her cheek against his.
“Strong, but gentle, also. For a time I did not understand. I wondered. Then, during the attack, I saw you, as perhaps you have not seen yourself. There was the man I was born to many.”
“I also am that man.”
“Yes,” said Nandi. “But only then did I recognize him. How strange, Kai.” She rolled away from him, staring up at the ceiling. “How strange and wonderful.”
“What? Tell me this strangeness.”
She peered into his eyes almost as if she had never seen him before. “You are not as our men, but you are still a man. Lamiya is not as our women, but is still a woman. I think that, perhaps, after all, there is room for Nandi in Dar Kush.”
“You doubted?”
“Yes,” she said. “Once, long ago, I doubted. But no more.”
She nestled back against him, and they talked, and sang songs to each other in low voices, and told jokes, and made plans until Nandi grew drowsy and, closing her eyes she rested her cheek against his chest and slept.
Kai looked down at her, wondering what dreams passed behind her eyes. Nandi no longer doubted …
But Kai ibn Jallaleddin ibn Rashid felt little save doubt.
Doubt, and love.
And that was the damnation of it.
Lamiya watched as, one cartload at a time, Kokossa’s laboratory was relocated to Lake A’zam’s yacht dock. Kai and his people stood wondering on the shore as the ironclad was towed in.
“Ugly thing,” said Fodjour. “Do you really believe it can work?” The Tortoise was constructed of flat black iron, a hundred ten cubits in length, with a draft of eight. Its revolving turret housed two ten-digit cannon, such that in battle only the turret, and not the entire ship, needed turn.
“I believe that Chifi believes in it,” said Kai. “She and her father never failed us.”
“Yes …” There was a reservation in Fodjour’s tone, but he seemed reluctant to speak it, and at last shrugged in submission.
The Empress’s niece watched as her husband scanned the ship. Kai had tasked the Dahomy to general assistance of Chifi and the maintenance of security around the construction site. With her father’s death, almost half of the Tortoise’s crew had left her employ. Kai was pleased to note how swiftly the Dahomy learned the various nautical tasks. Using ropes and poles they guided the Tortoise into the empty dock: the Sea Horse had already been moved to a sheltered berth in Djibouti Harbor.
“So much money and time,” Kai said. “Well. In days to come, we may be able to salvage something.”
“Risky to back this, isn’t it?” Nandi said.
“Yes,” he agreed. “But riskier still not to. The harbor grows daily more crowded with northern ships.”
“You can smell it, can’t you?” Nandi said.
“What?”
“Blood,” she said. “Blood, carried on the wind.” She turned and looked up at him. “Aren’t you worried about sabotage here? Your guard still patrols the borderlands.”
“The Dahomy patrol our grounds,” said Lamiya. “And they will be working with Chifi, now that the sailors have quit.”
Fodjour managed a laugh. “Female guards … a female crew … quite a secret weapon, Kai.”
Chifi guided the ironclad into the dock. She turned, and waved to them. She was suffused with a glow of intense joy, uniting her features so that they became not merely attractive, but actually lovely. She gave a special smile to Fodjour, who waved back somewhat less effusively.
“I think she likes you, Fodjour,” said Lamiya, too casually by half. “Have you any feelings for her in return?”
Fodjour cleared his throat. “She is a fine woman, but … well, no.”
“If this venture succeeds,” said Kai, “she will have the greatest dowry in the territory.”
“Is gold all you think of?” Fodjour asked.
“No, but it certainly seems the center of your fascination.”
“True, true.” Fodjour’s apparent irritation vanished as Kai’s words sank in. “Will she really be that wealthy?”
“Most certainly,” Kai said.
Fodjour turned and waved warmly back at Chifi.
“You are a scoundrel.” Lamiya clucked.
“But a lovable one.”
They laughed and turned away from him. But Lamiya’s expression hardened when she turned. Fodjour was Kai’s friend. And he was a compatriot, and had saved her husband’s life.
That didn’t mean she had to like him.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
21 Rabi al-Thaani A.H. 1295
(Wednesday, April 24, 1878)
It was with some surprise that Aidan had been told to dress, don cloak and collar, and accompany Rhino to a party on the Dosa estate. It was not utterly unknown for fighters to attend such affairs, and in fact they were, if suitably restrained, treated much like the leopards and greyhounds brought by some of the other guests: dangerous but con
trolled, a symbol of Alexandrian power that such creatures could be managed as mere pets.
“This is your chance to watch the German,” said Rhino. “Keep your eyes open.”
“I’m going to fight him?” Not tonight, I hope.
“Dosa will put his best fighter against the champion. Your master sold you for that purpose.” Rhino watched him with a certain humorous reserve. “You move strange,” the big man said, “but smooth. Makes me want to wager a few coppers on you myself.”
“Try to get good odds,” Aidan replied, hoping that his sour stomach would not rumble so loudly as to attract the leopards.
The public fighting ring was a dirt-floored arena within Dosa’s walled garden, with spectator seats set behind a stone wall.
Aidan watched from a section of the audience reserved for slaves.
At the back of the most exclusive section, a statuesque woman entered, and began seeking her seat. Gray streaked her hair, and there were signs of softening at the corners of her jaw. Still, considering the ease with which hair color might be altered, and the fact that she had eschewed the fashionably high collars that many mature highborn women sported to conceal wattling at the throat, it suggested an astounding level of self-confidence.
She wore the fashionable false beard affected by many other highborn women, but her copper skin was smoothly feminine and magnetic to the eye. Her body, beneath a sheer dress no decent Djiboutan woman would have worn between bedroom and bath, was as firm and flexible as a girl’s. Altogether, she one of the most stunning creatures he had ever seen. “Who is she?” he asked Rhino.
“She is Nefriti, the Caliph’s wife,” said Rhino, and for the first time in Aidan’s experience, the walking boulder sounded a bit nervous. “Avert your eyes if you would keep them.”
Nefriti was as sleek as the greyhound trotting at the end of her leash. When she scanned the room, he immediately dropped his own eyes. “She’s unbelievable.”
“Yes. I’ve heard rumors…,” Rhino began, and then let his voice trail away.
“What kind of rumors?”
“Well … let’s say she has her own reasons to love the fights.”
The champion entered, and immediately Aidan’s mind returned to business. The German was a brown-bearded giant, almost a full head taller than Aidan, and thick-fisted. His opponent, entering from the other side of the arena, was shorter than Aidan but broader across the shoulders. A squat, powerful wrestler, a Turk by the look of him. This, Aidan thought, would not be pretty. The German looked almost bored.
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