Mark of the Lion

by Suzanne Arruda

  The man was obviously drunk and barely in control of his legs. His leering grin made it crystal clear what was on his mind as he staggered out the slow-slow-quick-quick-slow tempo. Jade pulled back and inserted her free left hand against his chest to maintain some space between them. The man had little sense or else he overrated his personal charm because he threw Jade back into a deep dip and lunged for her neck. Jade saw Harry trot towards them, but she was faster. Her right hand pulled back in a fist and let fly a strong shot to the drunk’s eye.

  Her partner’s head jerked back, and Jade broke free of his embrace. Mr. Holly held a hand to his eye and weaved around the room, mouth agape, as he tried to figure out what had happened. Some of his friends laughed loudly at his plight and congratulated Jade.

  “He should have known better than to mess with Memsahib Simba Jike,” said Harry. “What’s a jackal to her after killing a hyena?”

  The group applauded his speech, and Donaldson shouted, “Throw out the jackal.”

  The crowd took up the chant, grabbed the drunk by his jacket and trousers, and tossed him outside the Muthaiga. He landed sprawling in the dust, where he promptly passed out. The Thompsons, Colridge, Harry, and Jade watched as his friends hauled the drunken Mr. Holly into the backseat of a car. Then Jade noticed that Roger wasn’t part of the crowd and wondered what had happened to him. She looked around and saw him standing in a far corner with Leticia, engaged in what appeared to be a passionate declaration. He held her hands clasped in his while he made his case. Leticia looked more woeful than before. Her husband staggered out of the men-only bar, where he’d gone to reinforce his own manhood, and spied them together.

  This time Harry grabbed his friend before Godfrey Kenton could start trouble. “You’d better go, Rog,” he urged. Roger left with a backwards look at Leticia and her reeling spouse.

  “It was kind of you to look out for Mr. Forster, but I can’t imagine what Mr. Kenton could have done, aside from throwing up or passing out on him,” said Jade. “He doesn’t strike me as being a particularly formidable opponent.”

  “Never underestimate a wounded animal, Jade,” Harry replied, “and a jealous husband who thinks he’s being cuckolded falls square into that category. Kenton’s an underhanded bloke who’ll try to swindle anyone. I should know, as you may have gathered. He’s probably the reason Roger lost his first herd with that anthrax scare. He even cheated Maasai once.”

  The rest of the dinner guests hadn’t noticed the near encounter. They were busily engaged in sticking butter pats on the table roses and tossing them to the ceiling to see if they’d stay. Mrs. Woodard put on a waltz and cornered Mr. Donaldson for a dance. Mr. Woodard was nowhere to be seen, but then neither was Seton’s tipsy wife. Lord Colridge snoozed on a chair along the wall, an empty wineglass in his hand. The sound of a subdued argument caught Jade’s ear. She turned to witness Godfrey Kenton expostulating harshly to his browbeaten wife.

  “The Woodards will drive you home, Leticia,” Kenton said.

  Leticia made little fists and waved them uselessly in front of her. “Are you seeing that woman again, Godfrey?”

  “That is not your concern, now, is it? But if you must know, I have a business meeting.” He waggled a slip of paper in front of her face.

  Jade’s attempt to hear more was stifled by a respectful hand at her elbow. She turned to see Harry standing beside her.

  “May I have this dance, Jade?” he asked. She nodded.

  Neville and Madeline were already dancing together, and Harry took Jade’s hand and caught her up in the slow, dreamy rhythms of the waltz. She found herself remembering her first dance with David in Paris. She closed her eyes and could almost smell his scent. When she opened her eyes, it was to Harry’s intent gaze and, for the first time in her life, Jade felt in danger of losing the staring contest. Just before she looked away, she attempted to divert him with small talk.

  “Where did you learn to dance, Mr. Hascombe?”

  He didn’t answer at first and, when he did, Jade felt the words hit like a rifle’s recoil. “You need to forget him, Jade,” he said softly. “I could make you forget him, if you’d let me.”

  Harry stopped dancing and simply held her in his arms. His eyes traveled from her hair, down her face to her lips, and lingered there. She pulled away.

  “Madeline, I’m very tired. Shouldn’t we be going?” She woke Colridge from his nap, made her grateful farewell to him, and stepped outside into the cool night air.

  Jade knew Harry had wanted to kiss her, but what had startled her was that she’d felt dangerously close to letting him.

  CHAPTER 13

  “In Africa, one feels the book of Genesis has come to life and is being played out for the world to see, if the world would only stop and look. Gardens of Eden as vibrant as the flowing springs and as dazzling as the shimmering sunbird’s wings grow wild here. Alas, it’s after the Fall, and the lion would just as soon devour as lie down with the lamb. Into this backdrop of life, the missionaries have come afire with zeal, attempting to set the garden ablaze.”

  —The Traveler

  DESPITE THE LATE EVENING, JADE WOKE up very early the next morning and put on the same conservative serge suit she’d worn on the train. It was Sunday, and she intended to drive herself to the French mission. The Thompsons had protested against such an idea. They flatly stated that she’d get lost or worse, but Jade held her ground and countered all their arguments. She spoke French fluently, was capable of navigating on her own, knew how to drive and repair her motorcar, and was experienced ad nauseam with maneuvering along cratered roads and tracks. In the end, Neville drew a map for her and instructed their headman, Juma, to accompany her.

  They left before dawn in the leased Ford and reached Nairobi by sunrise. From Nairobi, they turned east toward the Ngong hills. There, in the flatlands below the hills, stood a sturdy gray stone church planted by French missionaries. Their cultivation of souls was so successful that the church structure had grown to the point of sprouting a bell tower. The mission buildings sat square in the middle of a well-maintained coffee plantation like a quaint and tidy European village. The bell chimed as she drove down into the main grounds, past the rectory, and across an arched stone bridge to the church. A few Africans emerged from their nearby huts and headed in the church’s direction. Others sat outside in the morning sun.

  Jade parked the Ford a respectful distance away from the church so as not to cause too much of a distraction. Juma opted to remain in the village, so Jade walked into the church alone for Mass, presented in a curious blend of Frenchaccented Latin and Swahili.

  After Mass, Jade introduced herself to one of the missionary priests. Father Jacquinet stood two inches shorter than Jade. The wiry little man wore a brown robe, and his flowing beard, which reached his waist, completed the illusion of a gnome. He expressed delight at being addressed in his native tongue and quickly bustled her off to the cool refectory for a breakfast of crepes stuffed with ripe pawpaws and topped with thick whipped cream. Juma, Jade noticed, had found his own way to one of the native huts and dined happily with other Kikuyu.

  Father Jacquinet introduced Jade to his two colleagues, the elderly Father Robidoux and the younger Father Duflot. Each of the three priests listened intently to her tales of the Great War in their beloved homeland. They mourned the destruction of so many lives and beautiful farms and praised her great bravery. She asked them many questions about their mission and the coffee farm, which they gladly answered, trading news of themselves for news of others in and around Nairobi. They seemed to know a great deal about the colony, and Jade hoped one of them might have known or at least heard of Gil Worthy. Eventually she explained her own mission. They listened sympathetically and with keen interest.

  “You assume then, mademoiselle, that Monsieur Worthy fathered a child in Africa and that someone killed him when he came back to find his son?” said Father Jacquinet. “Have you thought perhaps he found his son and the son killed him?” />
  Jade shuddered. “What a horrid idea, Father. No, I had not thought that, but I have good reason to think otherwise.” She told them what she knew about Gil’s death and about the hyena that killed a boy in the Kikuyu village. “Fathers, have you ever heard of a laibon using trained hyenas to kill?”

  The three priests looked from one to the other and all but Father Jacquinet shook their heads. “Evil knows no country, my child, so I am not surprised at the tales the Kikuyu tell of an evil laibon. But I ask myself, why would such a man want to kill your Englishman? Is it not more likely that a hungry wild animal, attracted perhaps by a cut or a scent of food on Monsieur Worthy, was drawn inside? During the war, Nairobi was in much turmoil, and that agitated the animals, too.”

  “But,” protested Jade, “the Kikuyu boy said—”

  Father Jacquinet finished for her. “The boy was of course scared to hear a wild animal in the hotel. But he was also ashamed to have run away. Perhaps he feared a beating for not helping Monsieur Worthy. So he embellishes his tale with the supernatural to give his actions greater justification.”

  “And the neck chain on the hyena?” asked Jade.

  Father Jacquinet shrugged. “Something of Monsieur Worthy’s, a trinket of Africa.”

  Jade sighed and put her head down. Father Robidoux patted her hand gently. “You have an awesome quest, mademoiselle,” explained Father Robidoux, “but not an impossible one. First, because nothing is impossible with God’s aid, and second, because you look for an Englishman. They are becoming more numerous, it is true, but there are yet not so many of them as to make it impossible. Add to it that you look for an orphan Englishman, young like yourself, and that narrows the search.”

  “It is true,” agreed Father Jacquinet. “And the empire likes to keep records of its subjects, does it not? Surely there will be a record somewhere of his birth.”

  Jade shook her head to indicate none so far. “But you have not met someone such as that yourselves?” Jade asked without expecting an affirmative answer.

  The three priests shook their heads again, and Father Duflot rose to get more coffee. “The English do not associate with us,” said Father Jacquinet with a smile. “We are French, for one,” he added with a wink. “But that is the way of the world. What is different is shunned. Even here, families reject those who do not fit, even if it is their own child. A young woman who marries into a different tribe, or has a child outside of their own wedlock, is just as likely to be cast out as in our own countries. Luckily, the missions are havens for those who find them.”

  They mused on such tragedies in mutual silence while the younger priest poured more of the rich, dark coffee and placed a fresh pot of cream on the table. They visited for a while longer, and Jade asked permission to photograph the mission.

  Father Jacquinet took her to the coffee plantation with its tidy rows of coffee trees. He showed her the best views of the church and waited patiently while she took a picture. They passed a small cemetery, and Jade remarked on the scarcity of markers. “Does no one die here?” she asked.

  The little priest chuckled. “Of course, mademoiselle, but very few wish burial. It is not the Kikuyu manner. Those interred are either very devout in their new faith or not Kikuyu. For instance,” he said, pointing into the cemetery, “a Sudanese trader left his ailing son behind one time, and many years ago, a French Somali woman and her little child came. She had been cast away from her family and traveled all this way back to Nairobi. She came to us very ill, succumbed within a few weeks, and is buried here as well. An old Boer who drove oxen fell ill with the influenza and died recently.”

  “A Boer? What was his name?”

  Father Jacquinet pointed to a newer stone. “Von Tonden.”

  Jade didn’t know whether to feel sorry that Kruger had again eluded her or relief that he might still be alive somewhere.

  Father Jacquinet sensed her anxiety, turned to her, and gently took her hands in his. “There are many like that,” he said. “Wounded souls that are wandering, searching, much as you are now.”

  Jade flinched. Involuntarily, she grabbled hold of the ring under her shirtwaist. An idea flashed in her mind.

  “Father, have you ever seen a stone like this?” She took the cord holding the ring from around her neck and handed it to the priest. He held the ring and examined it, carefully taking in every detail. The lush green of the stone came to life under the bright sun and sparkled from within with a cool, flashing glow.

  “Never,” he remarked softly. “It is most interesting and beautiful.” He peered deeply into the gem. “It is not an emerald,” he remarked finally. “At least, I have never seen one that clear and with that command of light.” His work-hardened fingers traced the etched patterns on the ring’s side. “This is of all most curious. Only lines and curves. Do you know what it means?”

  Jade shook her head. “No, Father, I don’t. If it’s a family crest, it is one that no one connected to the family knew about. I thought perhaps it might be some form of writing, but it doesn’t look like any hieroglyphs I’ve ever seen before.”

  “No,” he agreed. “It does not. Perhaps the written variety, though? What is it called? The hieratic form?” He handed the ring back to Jade, and she slipped the cord over her head. “I am not perhaps the most educated man to ask,” he said. “To me it looks more like a child’s scribbles, such as the children here make with a stick in the dirt.”

  “I’m beginning to be afraid that is all it is,” said Jade with a sigh. “A favorite scribbling of a lost child.”

  The little man put a friendly hand on Jade’s shoulder. “Do not fear, mademoiselle. We will pray for your success.” He blessed her, and Jade thanked him.

  She found Juma pleasantly engaged with an elderly man who just happened to have a pretty young daughter. The girl waited on them while they ate, and Jade found it difficult to tear him away from such attractions. She succeeded, finally, and they walked to the Ford.

  Jade eyed the gently sloping hillside and decided the car would do just as well in forward as in reverse. She drove off with mixed feelings. It hardly surprised her that Gil Worthy and the French mission had never crossed paths. After all, he wasn’t Catholic. But a part of her had still hoped for a bit of enlightenment. Perhaps tomorrow she would have better luck when she spoke to the doctor who had examined Gil’s body. She decided to quit focusing on her problem and asked Juma how he had enjoyed his morning.

  “Very fine,” he said. He added that the food, a traditional millet porridge, was plentiful and tasty. Jade asked about the pretty girl. Juma said she would cost too high a bride-price in order to keep her in that area. Her father had moved there to escape threats from the Wakamba tribe and felt protected by the white God. Juma scoffed at that notion. “The white God lives in a fine house, but he did not protect his people from the big war. Why would he protect the Kikuyu at the mission?”

  Jade tried to explain that God loved all people. He was their father. But children fought among themselves and disobeyed. Their disobedience started the war.

  “When a child in his village disobeys his father or the elders, they take him in hand,” Juma said, “to correct him. Why did not your God do that to the white men?”

  “Perhaps,” she said sadly, “that is just what he did.”

  The witch huddled beneath the hyena skin and felt it mold to his body, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that his body fitted itself to the hide. An hour had come and gone since he had performed the ritual and by now there wasn’t much manlike about him except for his human mind. Even that, he knew, became more sharply honed, like a well-crafted weapon. More remarkably, some of that mental crafting lingered even when his man-form returned.

  He flexed his powerful jaw muscles and felt their strength. They could crush a man’s skull or rip out his throat. Years ago his teacher told him to use a lion skin, like he did, but he chose the hyena instead, a true night predator. What little he lost in size, he gained in sharper night
vision. To his delight, he found that the hyena had tremendous strength for its size.

  Power! That was what drove him, the search for power. At first he wanted power only to control his destiny. Then he made his first kill for money and discovered a new kind of pleasure. He enjoyed toying with other lives such as the one he watched now. While the first kill was for money, now he killed for revenge and the sheer joy of killing.

  The man called Godfrey Kenton paced back and forth not ten yards away from him, hugging himself against the cool early morning air in what Kenton would probably call “an ungodly hour.” How suitable. The witch chuckled, but the sound came out as a low, gurgling laugh.

  Kenton jerked around, fear showing in the beads of sweat that popped out on his forehead. The witch man smelled the sweat before he ever saw the beads. As he watched, Kenton fidgeted with the stickpin at his throat. His throat, thought the witch, and felt saliva form on his tongue and hate rise in his chest.

  Kenton spoke aloud to himself. “That blasted note said sunrise. Now where the hell is he? To think I came all the way out here to listen to that idiot’s deal on a Sunday morning when I could still be warm in Cissy’s bed.”

  The witch saw the man handle something in his pocket and knew he had brought some puny little pistol along for protection. Time to finish him. He called Kenton’s name, his voice a husky shadow of a human’s but clear enough for Kenton to recognize it. He watched as Kenton turned towards his place of concealment and heard him say, “Well, come on. I haven’t got all day.”

  He certainly doesn’t, thought the witch as he gathered his muscular hind limbs and sprang for Kenton’s throat.

  CHAPTER 14

  “Coffee farming is a jealous spouse, always demanding attention of some sort. It’s either time to start seedlings in a nursery, plant new seedlings during the rains, weed between the trees, or harvest beans. The growing trees demand to be shaded by banana tree fronds and to be debugged or manured until they come of age and finally pay their own way. Then the coffee cherries insist on daily picking, pulping, drying, and shipping. Following all this, it should be a sin to drink tea, but old British habits die hard, even in the colony.”