Nandi watched through slitted eyes, her mouth pursed with disapproval.
At last Sophia knelt before Kai, her body carefully arranged for display, tray out, face down, a light dew of perspiration on her cheeks. "May I serve you, sir?"
Before he could respond, Nandi plucked a piece of spiced flattened meat from her own plate, rolled it, and popped it into her mouth. Then, in a conversational tone, she began an odd line of discourse. "There is a Zulu story, Kai, of two rivals," she said. "It may be of interest to you. Zwide of the Ndwandwe gained spirit control over Dingiswayo of the Mthethwa by sending his own sister to steal Dingiswayo's sperm."
Elenya's eyes widened and she glanced swiftly from father to brothers, as if seeking advice on how to react to these intimate details. Kai was too surprised to offer any help. However embarrassed he and his family might have been, the other Zulus felt nothing of the kind, and were already leaning forward in anticipation of a favorite tale.
Abu Ali tried to take control. "I am not certain that the dinner table is the place—"
Very smoothly, Nandi cut him off, somehow managing not to seem rude in the process. "But it is interesting how many cultures have their version of this story, how a woman can weaken a warrior in bed. Even the Jews have the story of Samson, and how Delilah 'Cut his hair.' Hah! We all know what they really meant."
Nandi was looking steadily at Sophia as she spoke. Her voice was warm, her eyes cold.
Kai was genuinely confused. Sophia stood very still, as if belatedly aware that she had strayed into dangerous waters.
"I'm not sure I understand," Kai said.
"I only say that a man must be careful where he seeks relief," Nandi purred. "A lover must not only be of a man's own social station, but of goodwill as well. Otherwise she will bring him low."
She popped another morsel into her mouth and chewed carefully. The table was deadly quiet.
Sophia rose and backed out of the room, face down. Her shoulders trembled, though whether with fear, humiliation, or rage Kai could not say. As the door closed behind her Kai shifted in his place, determined to follow her.
Before he could disgrace himself, Ali clamped a hand on his arm. "No," his brother said with quiet force, barely moving his lips.
Kai sat back down. Nandi smiled sweetly at him and cut a small slice of fried banana, offering it to Kai on a skewer. "This is really quite excellent, Kai," she said. The entire table was watching him. Time slowed to a crawl. Finally, he leaned forward and took the morsel with his teeth.
Nandi glowed.
Chapter Thirty-four
For two more days the Wakil's family enjoyed Cetshwayo's hospitality, although there were no more outings quite so exciting as that first hunt.
Chaperones ever present, Kai and Nandi spent hours walking, talking, and riding, allowing whatever natural sparks that existed between them to fan into flame.
To this end, it would have been counterproductive for Sophia to share Kai's bed, and at Cetshwayo's urging she spent her nights in the servant quarters. During the days she was free to entertain herself, but that very freedom grew chafing. She had no part in the picnics and dinners and dancing. There was no way for her to insinuate herself into the conversations and games, and most frustratingly, she watched as Kai began to share with Nandi the secretive, boyish laughter she had once thought reserved for her alone.
Through great exertions she managed to catch Kai alone near the breeding pen where the mares and stallions were quartered.
"Sophia!" he said in pleasant surprise. "I had not expected to find you here."
"I hoped to witness," she said, "what I have missed these last nights."
Kai grinned and combed her hair with his fingers. "You have been lonely?"
"Terribly." She sniffed.
"I have hurt you?"
"More than I can say. I fear you no longer care."
Kai drew her closer. "This is all politics," he said. "Fear not. Whatever plans my father and Cetshwayo have for me, they will include you. How could I put you aside?"
"Talk," she said. "Words are ever less costly than actions."
"If it is actions you wish," said Kai, "it is action you shall have." He brushed her lips with his.
"When?"
"Tonight. Find your way to my room."
Her smile was radiant. "If you are not ready for me, I may never recover."
"Readiness is never the issue," he said. "All we require is opportunity." Kai kissed her again and began to walk back to the house.
Sophia sighed in relief. This was good. If Kai was willing to break Cetshwayo's house rules to sleep with her, then she still had a chance.
All the rest of that day Sophia's heart was lightened, and she seemed to dance through the few chores given her by Cetshwayo's wives. She even had a few flirtatious words for Aidan, who was spending his days in similar idleness.
In fact, something seemed to be eating at the Irishman, disturbing him. From time to time she caught him staring at her, and realized that when their gazes met both held the contact a moment too long and too warmly. Ah, she thought. He is smitten.
It was no fault of hers if Aidan was taken with her. She had certainly done nothing to encourage it.
That night, she waited until the house was quiet, then rolled out of her cot and rouged her mouth in the darkness of the servants' quarters. So long had she practiced perfecting her face paints that she knew she could make herself delectable without mirror or light, and she had been careful to bathe before bedtime. Tonight, she would give Kai something special, a touch of magic that that virginal bitch Nandi couldn't imagine.
Timing her motions to the snores of the women around her, Sophia crept out of the room.
Cetshwayo's mansion was built in the round, with an open central courtyard serving all the rooms on the main floor like the hub of a great wheel. She would cut across the courtyard and slip into the kitchen, take the back stairs up to the guest quarters, and then—
She had only passed halfway through a deserted stand of lilies and roses when she heard a familiar voice and froze.
"—thought that you might like a walk," Nandi said. Something else was said, followed by quiet, throaty laughter.
"—for sleep." Kai's voice.
"—else to do? No assignation?" Teasing. "Your little slave girl is pretty, after all."
Despite her disappointment at finding Kai and Nandi together, Sophia had to smile. So, even Nandi had to admit of her charms.
"—means nothing to me," Kai said. 'Truly, I received two mounts that day, and Djinna is the better ride."
Sophia froze in disbelief as Nandi and Kai, arms linked, passed within a few cubits of her and headed toward Cetshwayo's study.
She trembled in the grass for almost two minutes before she forced herself to follow them. Why, she did not know. There was nothing in their plans that included her. Nothing in this night that she needed or wanted to see. But still, Sophia had to follow.
"Truly, this is magnificent," Kai said, and he meant it.
Nandi had come unchaperoned to his room only a half hour before, startling him. He had expected Sophia, and the timing of Nandi's arrival made him wonder if Zulu women had the asmat, the magic. Perhaps all women did.
Certainly she considered Sophia an irritant, if a minor one. Through rough words he had attempted to downplay his "plaything's" importance, although he doubted Nandi had been deceived.
But if she had ruined his assignation, saying, "I wish to show you a treasure," he had to admit that she had delivered on her promise.
Her father's office was on the east side of his circular house, on the ground floor, with a fireplace the size of the Wakil's. Its coals still glowed, whereas the Wakil was careful to extinguish his at night. "It is a custom among my people," Nandi told him, "never to let the fire die completely, to begin each day’s cooking with the fire from the previous day. It is a continuance of life." She placed a log on the embers. Almost at once, it began to smoke.
Nandi took a tube of fire paste from her father's desk and put a daub from each end on the thick lamp wick. In a few seconds the mixture began to smoke, and then puffed into flame. She slipped the cover on the lamp and turned the wick up.
Placing a finger against his lips to warn Kai to silence, Nandi searched in her father's desk until she found a key, then tiptoed to the wall next to the fireplace. She placed the key into the wall, turned it, and a cunningly concealed door popped open.
A number of scrolls and parchments were stacked inside, nestled into a metal box lined with heat-resistant ceramic. She extracted a velvet bag, untied it, and extracted a scroll. "Here," she said, and spread it on her father's desk.
"What is it?" he asked, absorbed despite himself.
"You tell me," she said.
As it unrolled, Kai caught his breath. “The Pillars of the Nile." He instantly recognized the design. The Nile had long ceased to be merely a natural waterway. The major artery of travel through Egypt's empire, it had been dredged and deepened and dammed, made more navigable with a series of locks and artificial channels. But if the Nile had, over the centuries, become one of the Wonders of the World, no part of it was more fabled than the Pillars supporting the Empresses's private bridge, the royal span twenty years in the building, a marvel equal to the pyramids themselves.
And this diagram was, unquestionably, a painstaking copy of the original, designed by a mad Frank named Da Vinci in about 700. Da Vinci had possessed genius unknown to others of his kind and found patronage with the royal house of Abyssinia. Even in the darkness of Europe, Allah had birthed a spark of light. Although genius or no, the idiot had killed himself testing some manner of flying machine off the top of Khufu's pyramid. Pigbellies.
A copy, yes . . . his fingers traced the almost absurdly delicate and precise lines, the mathematically perfect arches and spires. Babatunde was right. He should have gone to school in the East, where wonders like this . .
"No copy, Kai," she whispered, her mouth very close to his ear. He had been so absorbed in this drawing that he had heard rustling sounds behind him, and now her nearness reminded him of what he had heard and not registered. His throat felt thick.
"Not a copy?"
"No. The royal architect was also something of an artist. . . this was authenticated because of a preliminary sketch on the reverse side."
Swallowing hard, feeling her fingers moving in light circles on his shoulder, Kai slowly looked at the other side. A sketch, certainly. Several men seated at table, each of them turned reverently and expressively toward a bearded man in the middle.
"Original?" An original blueprint for the Pillars? It was priceless. He should not even handle it. "This is treasure indeed."
"It is not the treasure I spoke of, Kai," she said, and turned him.
In the glow from the fireplace, the Zulu princess was an onyx statue, flawless, almost mythical, her clothing about her feet. Kai's mouth dried. Her breasts were heavy and dark as ripe plums, the aureoles darker circles at their tips.
Incredibly, Kai had never seen a naked black woman before. He felt as if standing on the threshold of some mighty shrine, each curve and firelight shadow an awesome revelation. Never in his life had he beheld such beauty, and the sheer power of the experience rendered him speechless.
"You can frolic with all the whores in New Alexandria," she said, her voice soft and commanding. "But none of them can open the door to who you really are, Kai. What we could share is something different. With me, you enter the hall of your ancestors. With me, you open the door to your future, and your children's future. Together, we will have sport that would make Allah wish himself a mortal man."
The sheer staggering blasphemy of her words inflamed him. He could not take his eyes away and reached for her. She pressed her palms against his chest, keeping him at a slight distance.
"No," she said. "I must be a virgin on my wedding night."
"What, then . . . ?"
"There are other ways," she said. "Zulu ways. But you must let me lead if you would embrace ukuHlobonga."
Powerless to resist, Kai let her unbuckle him. When his pantaloons settled about his ankles, her calm, warm hands fondled him, as if affirming his readiness. He pulsed against her fingers. Her eyes locked with his as she moved forward, her hand still gripping his manhood as Nandi kissed him for the first time. Her lips were impossibly lush, the offering of her wetness and warmth enough to threaten explosion.
She never closed her eyes, never pulled away, but increased her hand's pressure, her fingers and thumb finding secret places at the base of his scrotum so that the impending release was forestalled.
She drew him down to the zebra skin rug arrayed before the fire. She lay beside him like a reclining lioness, turned her back and then nestled herself against him. Her body was taut and muscular as a boy's but fashioned as lushly as a woman's could possibly be.
Just when he thought she was offering him her back door, she reached back, found his hardened zakr and glided it between her thighs. She had lubricated the skin of her legs with something that smelled faintly of butter, and when he glided between them she arched like a cat and gripped him deliciously, every muscle flexing and then releasing, holding him with such control that he might have been milked by hand.
As she ground herself back and onto him the sensation was astonishing. Kai wrapped his arms around her waist, right thumb and forefinger finding the rough flesh of her left nipple and rolling it tenderly. Slowly, she accelerated the rhythm, the slick skin between her legs gripping and
pulling at him, the friction and wetness creating waves of heat that rolled up his spine until he feared the top of his head might fly off.
The room seemed to disappear, and it was just the two of them, before the fire. They might have been in a mansion, or on the veldt, two human animals with nothing in the world to cling to save each other.
Kai groaned as she quickened, her thigh muscles fluttering against him, the pressure building until he lost control, stabbed forward. Uttering a low cry he voided, lost in a world of liquid fire, pulled into a whirlwind created by a woman beyond his experience or imagination.
For a time he lay there, spooned to her. Nandi cooed to him as if she was speaking to a child. "That is who I am, Kai. Who we are. In all the world, there is only knowledge, and pleasure, and power. I offer all three."
Kai cupped her breasts and held himself tightly against her, unable to think or speak. Faintly, he had a sense that a breath of cool air was blowing against him, almost as if a door had been quietly opened and closed. Very distantly, his warrior's mind heard the fall of small footsteps retreating with an animal's stealth. The sound was swiftly gone, and forgotten almost as quickly as Kai buried himself against the nape of Nandi's neck, luxuriating in the scent of musk and butter, and the heat of the woman with whom he might—just might—spend the rest of his life.
Chapter Thirty-five
The night stars were bright and pitiless as Sophia fled from the house out to the horse barn. Tears flooded her cheeks. She felt confused, embarrassed, humiliated, as if all of her dreams and plans were tumbled about her like shards of broken glass. Why had she deceived herself? Why?
And she knew the answer: her dreams were the only things that had helped her keep her sanity. The myth of what might be between slave and master was fed to the girls to keep them in line. It was the ancient game of carrot and stick, and the slave-sluts of Dar Hudu were the donkeys. There was pain and disfigurement for the wenches who disobeyed, but there were also elusive and fabled rewards for those who discovered or pretended pleasure in their hideous station.
Her pretensions and illusions crashed around her. She was a fool! A fool! Because Kai had treated her with kindness, because he was handsome and good, she had allowed her desperate dreams to blind her to reality. She was a slave, no better than any of those in Ababa or those working in the fields along the road. Worse, because those slaves had no illusions.
The death of dreams was ki
lling her, ripping out the lining of her heart, and she couldn't stop the tears.
"Sophia?" Aidan said.
She whipped her head around, realizing that he had followed her from the house. What had he seen? What did he know? Her entire world was crumbling about her, and she simply could not deal with him now.
"Leave me alone," she said.
Instead of leaving, he came closer. "Sophia," he said. "I'm sorry for your pain. I tried to warn you: you are not his woman. You are his plaything."
She turned on him fiercely. "I could be more!" she said. "If only . . ."
"If only what?" In the moonlight, his face seemed to have been leached of color. He was silver now, not quite flesh. More than flesh . . . and his words rang out remorselessly. "Don't you understand? There is nothing there for you, Sophia. He could not marry you. He won't even free you. You are nothing—"
She didn't let him finish. Her hand lashed out, cracking him across the cheek.
Aidan's head rocked but he didn't even blink in response. He merely watched her steadily. "You are nothing to him."
The implication in his words electrified her. Frightened her. He had voiced what had shimmered in the air between them since their.first meeting.
"To him, Sophia." What was it in Aidan's voice? There was a pleading there, a vulnerability she hadn't seen. He wasn't laughing at her, wasn't mocking her. See me, he seemed to be saying. Open your eyes. "He could never build a life with you. Could never really love you."
"How dare you," she said, and realized that he had taken two more steps forward, that she was very nearly trapped against a stall. She slapped him again. This time he grabbed her arms and pulled her close. Aidan was actually stronger than Kai, his body that of a worker, while Kai's was more that of a muscular dancer, the result of endless hours of swordplay. Since her arrival and partial supplanting of Aidan's relationship with his young master, Aidan had thrown himself into physical labor, punishing himself.
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