Lion's Blood

by Steven Barnes

  Kai and Aidan had spent most of the day in relaxed companionship, mending fences in the western pasture, where the foals were exercised in the spring.

  It was not hard work, but it needed consistency. The hundreds of miles of wire winding around Dar Kush were subject to rust, wear, and breakage both natural and human. Every cubit of the fence was inspected yearly, the more critical sections monthly.

  Aidan was pulling two broken strands together for Kai to twist and fuse when Kai heard the distant tolling of the gate bells. He glanced at his friend. "What day is it?" he asked.

  "Yarum al-arbâ?" Aidan replied.

  Kai grinned. "Lamiya!" He sprinted for Djinna, leaping onto her back, Aidan only half a beat behind. They spurred their horses toward the house, two superb horsemen at rough play.

  An informal reunion was already under way by the time they reached the house. Kai stripped off his gloves as he strode through the door. He was just in time to see Lamiya present her hand for Ali to kiss. She turned, a smile of greeting blossoming on her face like the rising of the sun.

  "Kai!" Lamiya said warmly, and enfolded him in a sisterly embrace.

  Kai reveled in that embrace, his emotions a confusing meld of excitement and guilty pleasure. Fearing an embarrassing physical reaction, he pushed her away to arm's length.

  "You have grown!" Kai said fervently. "By the Prophet, you have grown."

  "And you are a sapling no longer." Lamiya gazed at him with eyes so guileless and filled with pleasure that Kai felt almost shy, at the same time that he was proud of himself. By seeing himself through her eyes, for the first time he truly realized how much he had changed in the last years. Since Lamiya left he had grown five digits and gained five sep or more. He was a young warrior now, a guardian of his tribe, and her frank appreciation of him made all of the work and sweat and labor worthwhile. "So tall and handsome." She chucked him under the chin. "Why aren't you married yet?"

  He leaned close. "Father arranges that even now. You should see Nandi! I think she may eat me alive!"

  "Relax and enjoy it," she whispered, and they laughed together. His heart was happy, and he found himself thinking, She is my sister, and that is enough. That is right, and appropriate.

  Abu Ali interrupted them. "Lamiya, let me show you to your rooms. You must rest. We have a great feast planned for you! It will be the event of the season."

  She held Kai's hand lingeringly. "We have much to speak of, Kai," she said, and left with her retinue of retainers.

  Kai stared after her, temporarily speechless. He had so much to say, so much had happened! And he realized how much he had missed her. Lamiya was more than just an impossible fantasy figure. She had been, before Aidan, his closest friend. And now that Kai was taking on more and more duties as a man of the household, perhaps it was unseemly that a mere servant be his closest confidant. His heart swelled. Lamiya was home!

  "I see you have no greeting for your old teacher." Kai had been so preoccupied that he hadn't really noticed Babatunde's approach.

  El Sursur seemed not to have changed at all. His hair was still grayish brown and short, but full. His vast nose still perched in the middle of his face like a boulder, and his eyes were still piercing. If there was a difference, it was that once upon a lifetime ago Babatunde had been taller than Kai. When Lamiya left the country, he and Kai had been almost the same size. Now, Kai towered over him. "Babatunde. Forgive me. How was your trip?"

  "Ghastly," the teacher grunted. "Please, help me to my room."

  Kai carried three of Babatunde's bags. El Sursur walked with his hands knotted behind his back, studying the walls as if checking for new furnishings. "So . . . have your studies progressed?"

  "Yes, sir."

  One of Babatunde's bushy eyebrows raised. "So? We will see. Who formulated the Djinn theory of disease, and when?"

  Kai did not hesitate. "Al Khartoum, four hundred thirty six years before the birth of the Prophet."

  "Its direct application?"

  "The extinction of the sleeping sickness along the Nile."

  "Good. And its negative consequence?"

  That took Kai aback. "Sir, how could there be? Lives were saved!"

  Babatunde looked at Kai severely. “There are always consequences, young Kai. Lower mortality meant greater soil depletion due to the increased need for protein. It also meant a need for greater irrigation works, which placed Abyssinia in greater debt to the throne of Egypt." He grunted in disgust. "Did you read those books, or merely use them to swat flies?"

  Babatunde's library hadn't been disturbed in years, and a squadron of servants buzzed about the room dusting and straightening while El Sursur sat, immobile, seeming to revel in the return to familiar surroundings after long weeks of travel.

  When they had departed, Babatunde opened a flat black leather case and spread several odd, hand-sized pictures on the table. They were like no drawings Kai had seen before. Paintings? He wasn't certain. They had no color, only shades of gray and black, but there was a quality to them that was shockingly lifelike. Kai studied them. "What manner of drawings are these?" he asked.

  "They are light paintings," Babatunde replied. "Chemicals spread on paper react to the light, which is focused on them with a mirror or lens. It is the new thing on the Continent."

  Kai grew excited. He had seen paintings of some of these images before, and engravings in his textbooks. "This is the Great Pyramid. And the Sphinx! And the Pillars of the Nile!" Kai felt heat flash through his loins as that image reminded him of another, far more intimate association.

  Babatunde smiled approval, unaware of his pupil's carnal musings. 'You will see them all one day."

  "When I make pilgrimage."

  'That will be a day," Babatunde said.

  Kai reached into his teacher's bag and spread out an additional collection of maps and charts. His eyes glowed. He studied a multicolor map of the heartland: Africa, lower Europe, and the near eastern states. "The borders of Persia have changed," he noted. "By war or treaty?"

  "The threat of one, the promise of the other." El Sursur rummaged in another bag. "I have something for you, Kai."

  Babatunde opened a little silver box, extracting a crescent moon medallion. "Before I left, we spoke of another, harder spiritual path. One day, you may decide to accept its responsibilities."

  Kai stared at the medallion with wonder. "It's beautiful," he whispered.

  "And you are strong," Babatunde said. "You are the image of your father as a young man."

  "No?" His mouth denied the truth, but his chest lifted in pride.

  "But are you prepared?"

  "For what, precisely?"

  Babatunde's smile was a sphinx's. "The Ulema passes religious teachings to the citizens of Bilalistan. The public thinks they fight with the Senate, but they are but two hands serving a single mind, a mind that thinks only of commerce. The number of those who merely swallow their pronouncements is great indeed."

  Kai had a brief image of a vast throng waiting to gain admittance to Paradise, and was amused.

  "There is a smaller group," Babatunde said, his smile disappearing. "They strive to understand Allah more directly. They care not for expediency or propriety. They care only for what is right, young Kai. The ways of Allah and the ways of the Ayatollah may not always be the same. Would you place your salvation in a politician's hands, or indeed any hands but your own?"

  Kai looked at the amulet in the mirror and experimented with hanging it around his neck. Then he looked at Babatunde suspiciously. "Now comes the moment when you tell me I must change my sinful ways."

  "Oh?" the teacher said cannily. "Have you sinful ways?"

  Kai stared at him, and then burst into laughter. "Oh, Babatunde," he said. "For a moment you deceived me. I know my father has written to you in despair."

  "What has he to despair of?"

  "Oh, no you don't. I'm not ready to settle down yet." A series of images: of Nandi, of Sophia, and then of Lamiya, flashed through his mi
nd, warming him. Then there was another, darker thought. He had assumed that Babatunde was acting as moral watchdog, concerned that Kai's fleshly pleasures might interfere with his coming marriage. But could the Yoruban mean something else entirely? He felt a tingle of alarm. There was something here that he did not understand. Something that he was not prepared to deal with.

  Kai handed the medallion back. "Why don't you just hold this for me?"

  "As you wish."

  One of the charts was the fabled Naqsh Kabir, the circle with a triangle embedded in the center and six mirror-imaged lines arrayed to either side. Kai studied it, as if hoping that there was something hidden in Babatunde's copy that had not been present in his own. Finally he threw up his hands, despairing and then disparaging.

  "Now this is what I speak of. You told me to study this symbol. More important than sleeping, you said. But I can't make heads or tails of it: As esoterica, yes—but of what practical value . . .?"

  Babatunde smiled, noting the sword at Kai's side. "Have you learned to use that?"

  "Uncle thinks so," Kai said.

  "Show me."

  Kai drew his sword and began a lightning series of airthrusts, mentally slaying an entire army of wild-eyed Northmen. Babatunde watched for a minute, a faintly amused expression on his face, then plucked up a wooden wand and disarmed him with a single swipe.

  Slowly and disbelievingly, Kai picked his sword back up. "Let's try that again."

  Babatunde nodded agreement, spreading his arms in clear invitation.

  Aiming to slit the edge of Babatunde's robe, Kai advanced. The little man sidestepped—not with Malik's blinding speed, but with an economy that was baffling nonetheless, so deft it seemed almost as if he had simply disappeared and reappeared. Kai felt a pressure at his ankle, and suddenly he was on his backside.

  Kai got partway to his feet, and then thumped back down, staring up at Babatunde with brows furrowed. "What. . . what are you doing to me?"

  In answer, Babatunde slapped his hands on a table and said: "Help me move this."

  He and Kai pushed the table aside, removing it from the rug that covered the floor. When it was removed, he saw the bare floor for the first time in memory. Beneath it was a Naqsh Kabir large enough to stand upon, fully five cubits in diameter.

  "Stand here," Babatunde said, positioning Kai on the lines within the circle. "Thrust. . . so." Babatunde made a lunging motion. He was not lunging as deeply as Malik might have, and the motion was quite relaxed and fluid, almost casual, not at all martial.

  Kai sighed and extended his arm as requested.

  "Hold!"

  Kai froze in place. He felt himself to be in a very strong stance. Hawk's eyes, a leopard's grip on the ground. Babatunde chose his angle with precision, pushed along the line of Kai's shoulder, and toppled him to the ground with a single finger. Kai glared up at Babatunde as if he wanted to kill him. "What was that?"

  "That," his teacher replied, "was the fact that every position has both stability and instability. Viewed as a physical pattern, the Naqsh Kabir teaches both. When you are stable along this line," he said, indicating one of the inside lines of the symbol, "you are instable here."

  Kai took in the symbol as if he had never really seen it before, his eyes slowly widening. Then he sprang to his feet. "Teach me more."

  "Oh, no. It's too impractical for a sober young man like yourself."

  "Please . . ."

  "I am old," Babatunde said, stretching. "And have traveled far. Perhaps after rest . . ."

  "Babatunde!"

  Babatunde allowed a grin to soften his face. "Very well," he said. "Traverse the lines of the Naqsh Kabir, feet so, body so—"

  Excitedly, Kai began to practice.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Engraved invitations had spread across the country by steamscrew and horseback for a month. Dar Kush was filled with music and guests, the scents of doro-wote chicken and kitfo chopped seasoned beef, and food from a dozen exotic lands. The music of lute and drum and human laughter pulsed steadily in the background. The betrothal party drew dignitaries from as far as the Northeast coast: New Alexandria, Iroquoi, Delaware, and the Yoruba settlement of Lafia.

  As the hired band performed, men and women separated into groups by gender, and began the age-old rituals.

  Kai's clan: Malik, Ali, Abu Ali; the Zulus Cetshwayo and brother Shaka, Cetshwayo's sons Keefah and Darbul; their neighbors Djidade Berhar, his son Fodjour and as many of the others as could manage the moves performed a traditional stick-dance, testing each other's endurance and coordination in a blinding display of warrior gamesmanship.

  Then the mood and the tempo changed and the women—Malik's wife, Fatima, Nandi, Elenya and Lamiya, and Berhar's wife, Uchenna—danced together, for their own pleasure and the gratification of the men.

  Then the men and women formed into lines facing each other. They danced close, and then separated, and then close again: teasing, taunting and celebrating each other.

  Later in the evening came a performance by belly dancers drawn from professional troupes and Abu Ali's seraglio. They were quite skilled, and pretended to offer themselves to the noblemen, who responded with enthusiastic trills and whoops while their wives politely restrained them.

  Afterward, the servants performed. They played crude handmade instruments, their music a blend of Gaelic, African, and Egyptian, their dance also an energetic hybrid, with high-kicking steps that set the guests roaring in approval. When they were done, they were rewarded with applause and taken away to their own banquet of sweet cakes and roast lamb.

  The guests were seated at a low table, cross-legged with backs straight. When the main entertainment concluded, Kai watched as Shaka Zulu dipped his finger in fermented milk, and drew a line on the table. Then he pulled a basket of sesame rolls from the center setting. "Now," he said, aware that every eye was upon him. "Let this bread basket represent the Mosque of the Fathers."

  Malik nodded reverently. "Allah preserve its sacred name."

  "Pilgrims are imperiled as we speak," Shaka said, "if we allow the filthy Aztecs to violate our sacred ground."

  "Our sacred ground," Abu Ali said. "More amahewu, my friend?"

  "Yes," Shaka said with relish. Kai held his smile as a servant poured a pinkish stream of fermented sorghum into Shaka's glass: the Zulu was completely blind to Abu Ali's irony. Not a member of the Wakil's family was unaware that Shaka was eager for war, and that the shrine meant nothing to him. He was not Muslim, but would mouth such phrases as served his political purposes.

  Shaka drank deeply. "Excellent," he proclaimed, then warmed again to his previous subject. "Whether a sacred place or political symbol, we cannot have the cannibals so close to us. If we do nothing, we deserve the loss of respect. We deserve whatever the gods rain down upon us."

  Kai felt uncomfortable. Here he was entertaining the niece of the Emperor, a pious woman if ever one existed, and this creature of war ranted of "gods" as if he had never heard of the Qur’an. Blasphemy!

  Even the Wakil himself dared not chastise Shaka publicly. He did, however, seize the opportunity to change the subject.

  "Indeed, my friend, thoughts to ponder. But we have something more joyous to occupy us tonight." Abu Ali stood. "Ali. Lamiya. Please stand!"

  Lamiya looked away a bit shyly, but stood. At her side, Ali seemed proud to take her hand.

  "Today," said Abu Ali, "I have the very great honor of announcing the betrothal of my son Ali and my beloved Lamiya, Imperial Niece. May their union bring our two great houses into deeper accord. Hai!"

  The assemblage cheered, including Kai, who applauded, smiling stiffly. Nandi looked shyly at him, and then away. She had been entirely circumspect since her arrival, as if the interlude in her father's office had never happened at all.

  Kai boiled inside. For all of her aggressiveness, and despite their intimacy, there was no mistaking the fact that Nandi's own shyness was as genuine as Lamiya's. What a paradox she was! Would he ever
understand women at all?

  After the toasts were complete, the adult men retired to the garden. Smoke curled and dissipated from several hookahs. Their multiple mouthpieces branched like friendly snakes as a servant fed tobacco into the holder.

  One of the guests puffed deeply. "So, Abu Ali," he said, letting the mouthful out slowly. "Do you see a new line of trade opening with the Continent's east coast?"

  Another interjected, "More important, would a tie of blood prove problematic if Egypt and Abyssinia war?"

  The questions were greeted by nods and murmurs of interest.

  In his divan chair, Abu Ali took a small sip of smoke, and let it trickle from his nose. "In such an instance, I would hope that I might serve as a peacemaker."

  "As you did in the Senate on the Manumission Act," said Cetshwayo. The Wakil had spoken in favor of a national policy allowing slaves to purchase their freedom, and been defeated. It was said that the Ulema had used its influence to secure a negative vote.

  "Not a shining moment," Abu Ali conceded.

  Cetshwayo laughed derisively. "If they were capable of enjoying freedom, Allah would not have made them slaves."

  "A bit simplistic, but I hazard that the Ayatollah agrees."

  "They have no honor," Shaka sneered. "Nor did their ancestors. If they did, they would never have been taken alive. It is simple. Such 'men'—if men they are—could never bear the weight of citizenship."

  "I think you might be surprised. What think you, Babatunde?"

  Babatunde thought briefly before speaking. "Slavery is the process of turning wolves into dogs. You kill the ones that bite, and feed their pups until they forget how to hunt for themselves. Allah placed courage and intellect in many packages, with widely varied shading."

  Shaka's teeth gleamed. "I can understand why you would think so, philosopher."

  Babatunde remained silent, his expression studiedly neutral.