Lion's Blood

by Steven Barnes

  Now, with his hands on her, she could smell his scent, knew his power. She felt her body responding to him, and was terrified of that reaction.

  "Do you think this is a game?" Aidan said. "That the exotic slave girl will win the master's heart and live happily ever after? You are a toy to him. A slutty. Little. Toy."

  Their lips were almost touching. His eyes were like those of a bird of prey. "If I were Kai, I'd never let you go. Who owns you, owns magic."

  She struggled in his arms as Aidan kissed her savagely. She pulled her head away. Their eyes sparked fire, and he kissed her again and drew her down to the straw.

  She gasped at his strength, but knew that her protests were a lie, knew that she was not resisting with her whole being. This was not love. Was not really even lust. It was revenge: she wanted to punish Kai, needed something to wash away and replace the pain she felt. Wanted to feel alive and desired. "You will die for this," she said.

  To her surprise, his eyes had softened. They were filled with hunger, a hunger to hold and be held, to understand, to open his heart to another human being. She felt the depths of his loneliness, and it startled her how deeply they echoed her own. "Die?" he said. "It would be cheap at the price."

  This time, her lips found his. She fumbled with his shirt, drawing it off. For a long and aching moment her fingers traced his body's rugged contours tentatively, with gentle wonder.

  Her breath came faster, and she shucked herself out of her dress. Sophia twined herself around him, snaked his pants down with her locked legs. As he pushed himself up over her, the muscles in the backs of his arms leapt out, and her nails clawed at them. One of her hands slipped down to his groin, positioning him. A moment later, he thrust forward.

  Sophia arched with pleasure, crying out as he entered her. Their love-making was intense, beyond mere passion, two desperate slaves who had found, for however brief a moment, freedom in each other's arms.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Their three elderly female chaperones monitoring at a discreet distance, Kai and Nandi stood together atop a dusty low hill overlooking Cetshwayo's kraal.

  Using skills developed by their ancestors over a thousand years, Zulu herdsmen worked the vast herds of cattle stretched off across the unfenced lands, ranging all the way to the horizon. Orange dust of earth and pungent powdered droppings rouged the horizon. The Zulu raised umkhonto spears to their chieftain's daughter. That was what Kai now understood Cetshwayo to be. Not just a landholder, or an employer: a chieftain. And possibly, Shaka was their king. The Zulu were citizens of Bilalistan, but they had brought their culture with them.

  "Mine," Nandi said. "This is what I would bring to our union, Kai, but none of it has any meaning. I could have nothing but the clothes upon my back, and you would be a fool to turn me away."

  She said that without a trace of irony. It was simple knowledge, an understanding of her worth that went deeper than mere self-respect or ego.

  "That is truth," Kai said, and found her hand with his. If this was his fate, he could face it well. He could find a way to embrace it. Nandi was beautiful, brilliant, passionate . . . and if he could believe her, had loved him since childhood. Why could his heart not simply surrender?

  Perhaps it was best that parents take these choices from the hands of their children. After all, your father chose Lamiya for Ali, and see how well . . .

  He turned his thoughts away from that direction and managed to smile at Nandi. Her braided, beaded hair was held in a silver scarf. Her face was a queen's, black as the night in which she had offered herself to him. Join me, she seemed to be saying. Together, we could rule.

  He leaned over and kissed her, felt the warmth and wetness of her lush mouth against his, hungry and searching. This was not mere political posturing. This woman wanted a mate who could match her own strength, her own hunger for life. She had placed herself before him as vulnerably as she could. When she pulled back, her fire was unabated, and if it had not completely burned away his reservations, he would be lying to say his blood had not quickened.

  Together they rode back down the hill. When they reached the house an hour later, the slaves were packing his family's luggage onto the wagon. The mares, well serviced, were tied up behind the coach.

  Nandi's father noted their approach, and his left eye raised in question. Nandi's spine was absolutely straight, her face without shame. These Zulus!

  "Ngiyabonga. Thank you for your hospitality, Cetshwayo," Abu Ali said.

  Shaka seemed to have completely recovered from his brush with death, and his smile was radiant. "I think your mares are heavier than when they arrived, eh?"

  The laughter was general, and appreciative, but Kai noted that Abu Ali was watching Shaka carefully. There would be conversation later, he was certain.

  Aidan and Sophia were seated on the wagon, but neither reacted at all. Good. He certainly didn't need any comments from those two.

  Abu Ali clasped hands with Shaka, locking eyes. "And such hunting! It is a fine thing to finally take the measure of the famed Shaka Zulu."

  To either side of the wagon, the Zulus pounded their umkhonto against the ground. Kai felt certain that Abu Ali's double meaning had utterly escaped them.

  Cetshwayo drew Kai aside. "So, young Kai," he said. "I think my daughter favors you."

  Kai squared his shoulders, determined to take every step in this process with full intention. "I would be honored to see her again," he said.

  "Make it so." Cetshwayo's face crinkled happily. "Uhambe kahle. Travel well!"

  The wagon rolled out, and the procession began its trip home. Nandi trotted her horse by Kai for a moment, waiting for him to turn to see her. When he did, she wheeled sprightly away, laughing.

  Ali shook his head. "These Zulu women are bold!" he said.

  Kai remained silent, but both his face and his loins burned with her memory.

  "But about Shaka . . ." Ali paused, and then continued more heavily. "I am not happy with what we saw, Father. Is this the best match we can arrange for my brother?"

  Abu Ali considered carefully. "Her father is saner than his brother. Nandi would make a good wife, Kai."

  Elenya's smile was mischievous. "If you can handle her."

  Ali and Abu Ali laughed. Kai's cheeks flamed, but he noticed that Aidan and Sophia showed nothing at all in their faces. He thought on that a bit, but decided that they were being discreet, for which he was grateful.

  The Wakil's party took a different route south than the one they had followed on their way to the kraal, circling east before angling home. Midway through the second day out they passed a river dock, where a screwship was unloading a shipment of terrified, confused slaves.

  "Gauls, by the look of them," Abu Ali said. "They are good in the house. Franks are better in the fields."

  Aidan merely held the wagon's reins, watching without comment. Most of these miserable wretches were adults. Was that worse than what he himself had experienced? His memories of home were growing more and more distant, like a dream that would dim but not quite die.

  "There are bills before the Senate prohibiting the importation of more slaves," Abu Ali mused. Instantly Aidan felt his attention focus. What was this?

  "Why, sir?" Ali asked.

  "They are stolen from their homes," the Wakil said. "Although care is taken not to harm them—"

  Ali laughed. "Who would harm a valuable cargo?"

  Aidan bit his tongue. At that instant his hatred and resentment boiled so high that it was all he could do to keep from throttling one of them. How dare they!

  "Indeed," the Wakil mused. "Still, many feel that it is . . . better to breed them here."

  "Hah! Well, breeding is easier than catching, I'm sure."

  "And more pleasurable."

  Kai had been quiet. Now, he pointed out another steamscrew passing the slave ship. "Where is that ship going, Father?"

  Abu Ali shaded his eyes. 'That is . . . a trading vessel. I am not certain. Perhaps to the b
ay, transfer their cargo to a larger ship, and off to Andulus . . ." He extracted a spyglass from his pocket and peered out.

  "Six-pointed star," he said. "The flag of Judea. Jews. Merchants, most likely. They ply every river in New Djibouti, and by the Treaty of Khibar pay less taxes than Persians, or even most Egyptians." He took the spyglass down. “They trade with us and the Northmen and show no favoritism, but they don't mix with us any more than do the Masai."

  Jews were white men who sailed the rivers? Aidan was boggled. Free white men who had favorable treaties with the government of Bilalistan?

  Or perhaps even fabled Alexandria herself? Unbelievable. Could they be a help to him . . . ?

  His hands had tightened on the reins until his knuckles were white. Beside him, Sophia was staring off at the screwship with, he thought, the same questions in her heart.

  Could we ever escape? Leave this place? Find a life somewhere, where we could forget all of this . . . ?

  Very tentatively and secretively, Sophia reached over and brushed her fingers against his right hand. He dropped that hand between them, and their fingers intertwined. And just that simply, without any words spoken, their pact was sealed.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  It was the month of Sha'ban, harvest time. Dar Kush's fields teemed with stalks of golden teff. The slaves worked the fields from dawn till dusk, singing and sweating in the sun that marked the passing of their days.

  In the northern quarries the mining operation ran at minimum, every available worker recruited to the fields. It was a good time: no hand was idle, every man and woman knew his place. At the end of the season would be the month of Ramadan, a time of fasting and reflection. At its end would come Idd-el-Fitr once again, and celebration.

  Kai's life had settled back into a routine. He studied, he managed the estate, and once a week he and Sophia or Aidan traveled to Malik's estate for practice. Once a month he and Ali drilled with Malik's regiment: musketry, cavalry formations, the psychology of command, tactics and strategy.

  On the surface, not much had changed. Sophia still warmed his bed, he and Aidan still rode and hunted. But Kai had a sense that his true destiny was now beginning to unfold. Although he felt more distant from Sophia, she was still the only one to whom he spoke of his emotions. When he considered their future, he vaguely supposed that marriage to Nandi would necessitate a brisk negotiation to keep his favorite servant available.

  He was certain Nandi would never allow Sophia as a second wife, but there were other ways to protect their relationship.

  Aidan remained Aidan. The young Irishman was still the person who knew Kai best, still his closest friend and confidant, although he found the servant quieter than usual, less likely to share his own feelings. Kai supposed it was just a natural part of maturation, that each man must keep his own council and to his own station. That was a saddening thing, but he knew that as the years rolled past, Aidan would come with him to his new home, and eventually manage the estate. Perhaps one day Kai might even free him, and wouldn't that be something? He would have the Irishman's lifelong gratitude for such a magnanimous act, and the blessings of Allah Al-Karim, the Generous, besides.

  Beneath Malik's watchful eye, Kai practiced sword. He could best most of his uncle's senior students now, although Ali still excelled him by a narrow margin. It was absolutely depressing to see how easily Malik thrashed his brother.

  Countless thousands of hours of practice, and still Malik was the master! But there was pride and camaraderie between the three men now, and every day Kai felt himself drawn more tightly into the arms of an elite brotherhood.

  At night he studied Babatunde's Sufi scrolls. Beloved Babatunde. His name meant "A father returns" in Yoruba, but Kai's mentor had been gone for so long that Kai sometimes wondered if he had ever actually existed. Returning seemed an even more distant improbability. He studied the diagrams of the Naqsh Kabir in the book, the odd geometrical design within the circle. Kai had covered a dozen notebooks with speculations and designs, seeking to find the secret in the patterns. They were intoxicating, and Babatunde, who was the wisest man Kai had ever known, had told him that there was something there within that pattern, something alive and mysterious that would help him grasp the meaning of his life.

  So he studied, and sought to understand how the different points on the diagram related to varying processes. How well he understood it he could not say, and if the mail brought him a letter a year from his erstwhile teacher, he counted himself fortunate. The answers to his questions were almost always obsolete, the ensuing months having been filled with study and pondering.

  And sometimes more.

  After a day of endless study he pulled the draw cord, summoning Sophia to his room. Swiftly she arrived, wafting perfume, all soft smiles and hard kisses, ever ready with some new and alluring approach to love-making that would make him forget his studies and fall into a physical reverie that lasted until well after midnight.

  In sleep, his mind, saturated with his studies to the bursting point, fell into dream.

  In his dream, Kai sometimes found himself in a world in which every pattern and object seemed related to the elusive symbol.

  Surrounded by them, he found himself shrinking, until he was minuscule, tiny running along the titanic symbol, his feet tracing its inner lines. Behind him, nipping at his heels, raced a line of fire. As it caught up with him—

  He awakened, huffing air, instantly humiliated, and hoping that the sounds of his distress had not penetrated beyond his bedchamber. At least no one but Sophia would know of his affliction.

  Then he saw that he was alone in his bed. The place where Sophia had lain was empty, still depressed, the sheets still warm and scented of her. The curtains blew gently in the night wind. He wondered where she was: perhaps gone for a moonlit walk, perhaps in her own sleeping chamber. It was not unusual for her to leave his side, and he was glad that she felt free to do so. After a night such as she had given him, he would deny her nothing.

  Calling her name once, softly, he surrendered to the arms of night and sank back down into sleep.

  If Kai had risen, and walked to the window looking out across the estate, he would just have been able to make out Aidan's house behind Ghost Town's fence, one of dozens clustered together there on the edge of the woods. No light glowed in its windows, but if he had had the eyes of an owl, he might have pierced that darkness. And there in the depths of Aidan's bed he might have seen the woman he owned and the friend he loved embracing, each kiss a betrayal, each murmured endearment an invitation to the sword suspended above their heads.

  Each tear that coursed down Sophia's cheek was testimony to the cost of her nights with Kai, her screams, muffled against Aidan's chest, her only impotent protest.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Two little white boys ran from the gates to the great cast-iron alarm bell at the eastern edge of Ghost Town, jumping onto it so that their weight forced it to ring back and forth, rocking as the clapper tolled joyously across the estate.

  The servants emerged from the village, wondering what the disturbance might be, alarmed at first. Was it the Aztecs? Could a band of savages have struck so far east. . . ?

  But as the servants gathered they saw only a fabulous golden coach drawn by a white horseman in pantaloons and turban.

  The excitement seemed infectious, and the servants were running now. "They're here!" old Festus cried, so excited he was virtually dancing a jig. "Young missus has come home!"

  Lamiya allowed a deep sense of satisfaction to wash over her. Dar Kush did indeed feel like home, and she was almost as glad to see it as she had been to place her feet on dry land again after weeks at sea.

  Beside her, Babatunde wore his customary inscrutable smile, the one he had worn since first landing, the expression that had wavered only when he saw the horse-drawn conveyance that came to carry them.

  "Infernal beasts," he whispered as one of the horses relieved itself in a steaming golden stream.
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  Six years had passed since Lamiya last touched the earth of Dar Kush, and many faces were utterly strange to her now. Children had grown, new ones had been born. But the adults were not so unfamiliar as she might have thought. She had first arrived in New Djibouti when she was twelve, already betrothed, knowing that she would have to learn to love this rough, wild country. Bilalistan was so young, and so potentially strong. Treated like a child by the throne of Alexandria, this land was a sleeping giant. Hers were among the hands that might shake it awake.

  In the last six years she had matured into womanhood; at twenty-one her training was now complete. In that time she had traded many letters with Ali. Those letters were affectionate if not passionate, respectful if not adulatory. He was a good man, and their union would be a strong one.

  She was tall, slender, with perfectly formed features and skin the color of unadulterated coffee. Her hair descended onto her forehead in a slight widows peak and was kept short, tightly curled and oiled. Lamiya fairly glowed with health and energy.

  Babatunde still grumbled. "I want to be on my own feet. I don't trust boats, and I don't trust these animals."

  "Perhaps we'll be better off when the airships can cross the ocean."

  "So we can crash, and then drown?"

  "I thought you liked airships."

  "That was before I rode in one." The carriage bounced. "Arrgh!"

  The conveyance rolled up to the main house and came to a smooth stop. Lamiya and Babatunde emerged, the Yoruba muttering and exaggerating his aches and pains with every step.

  Lamiya's pulse raced as the house grew nearer. She had spent so many happy days here, and knew that this was her destiny: to stand by the side of a warrior and statesman as he carved out an empire and freed a nation.

  Fawning and bowing, the house servants graciously helped them with their mountain of luggage and goods, carrying them up to the rooms prepared in anticipation of their return.