"This is the key to the Wakil's armory," he said. "Each brother has keys to both weapon rooms, but I don't know where the Wakil keeps his, or where Malik keeps the key to his own armory. If I hadn't been a coward, I would have made a copy years ago."
"You ain't no coward," Tuti said. "You're our only hope."
Musawwir grunted. "Then I'd better get to it. I will need five minutes to make an impression, and then, I think, two hours to make a key. Yes?"
"Yes," she said.
"I do this, you take me with you, yes?"
"We'll need you, Musawwir."
"My name," he said, "is Hans."
Hours passed, hours in which Sophia did not sleep, even when Malik rolled over and began to snore once again. Only when the first light of dawn began to paint the horizon did she allow slumber to take her, and a restless, fearful sleep it was.
When she awoke, Malik was on the balcony performing his morning prayer, his back to his bedroom and the door. What had awakened her . . . ?
Tuti was at the door, silently carrying a breakfast tray. Sophia wrapped herself in a silk robe and rose from Malik's bed. She took the tray and the master key Tuti passed from palm to palm. As Tuti left Sophia slipped it back into the drawer. She composed herself as Malik rose from his prayer.
"I go to serve your child," she said. Malik nodded as she bowed and backed out of the room, as if her presence or absence were of no consequence at all.
It was commonplace for slaves to travel the dirt access roads in wagons, carrying straw and other goods between the estates. They sometimes used the Wakil's main road as well, but then had the obligation of carrying a pass at all times. Slaves caught by patrols without a pass, or with a stolen or forged pass, were severely punished.
As the cart rolled into Dar Kush estate, the house servants directed the unloading, and Tuti passed a copied key to Aidan.
Aidan walked and then ran to the shelter of a tree, holding the precious object tightly. He, more than anyone, could guess the price Sophia had paid to obtain it. He brought the key to his lips, giving thanks for her strength.
He spent the day laboring in the teff fields, the key burning a hole in his pocket. He could have sworn that every guard who glanced at him knew his secret guilt, could read the fear in his face.
But dinnertime finally came. Servant women emerged from Ghost Town and the main house, pushing food carts out to the fields. Molly, wearing the same drab gray dress she wore every day now, broke away from the others and offered him a mutton sandwich on coarse dark bread. As she passed it, she very cautiously took the key.
With a barely discernable nod, she turned and circulated among the other men, passing out food.
Chewing his sandwich without tasting it, Aidan watched Molly finish her job and then push her cart back to the main house.
Luck to you, Molly, he thought. But even as he thought it, Kai rode past.
Kai glanced briefly at Molly, the beginning of a question on his lips.
"Kai!" Aidan called, and waved his arm, smiling with his face. "Half a mutton sandwich?"
Kai's curious expression vanished, replaced by one of amusement. "Dinner's waiting," he said. "But why not come by tonight? We might take a ride together."
Aidan clasped his hand over his heart in salute and Kai wheeled, heading home. When Kai turned, Aidan's smile remained in place, but any warmth that might have lived within it was gone entirely.
Molly ran to the house, and quietly reported back on duty, donning her apron. After a few minutes stirring a spicy, simmering pot of yebeg-alecha merek lamb curry, she made an excuse and left the kitchen.
Down through darkened corridors she passed, her nervousness shrouding her like the stench of something rancid and toxic.
The cellar was hung with dried fish, red and black peppers, beef, and garlic, and filled to the ceiling with kegs of flour. She approached the armored door, and with trembling, hand, inserted the key.
The door opened.
The room was filled with rifles and barrels of gunpowder. Molly was breathing hard and fast now. Her hands stroked one of the gleaming barrels slowly, gingerly, as it were something other than steel. As if it were, perhaps, the body of the man who had died protecting her in the swamps.
The next morning, Kai joined his family in the dining room for a breakfast of genfo porridge and savory gengelfel, a peppery meat dish served on engera flat bread. Its smell alone usually set Kai's mouth to watering, whether served for breakfast, brunch, or snack. This morning, however, his appetite seemed to be drowsing.
"Kai!" his father beckoned. "The mutton is especially fine this morning."
"Coffee and rolls for me," Kai said. "My appetite is thin."
"Come," Lamiya said. "A forkful and you'll change your mind."
"We'll see."
"Kai," Abu Ali said, "I would like you to ride to the quarry. Our tonnage has fallen in the last two weeks. See if you can determine the cause."
Ali leaned forward. "Would you like me to go along?"
"No," his father said. "I'd like you to examine the fences by the lake."
"Is anything the matter, my friend?" Babatunde asked.
"No." The Wakil sipped at his coffee, his brow creased with worry. "Well, perhaps, but I can't quite grasp it. For now, let's just say I have a feeling."
Like fish in a reef, servants glided in and out of the room. Silent. Almost unnoticed.
The largest of Dar Kush's three quarries was just under an hour's ride north, a great unhealed gash in the gray earth. In its depths, workers pounded rock with long-handled hammers or worked with pick and shovel to move earth.
As Kai approached, he watched Bari, their white overseer, signal with a white flag then hunch his head down as an explosion pummeled his ears and filled the air with smoke and powder.
As the cloud drifted to earth, Kai could finally make out a few human figures, Aidan standing closest, hammer in hand. His face was grayed with powdered rock, and he wiped his face with the back of a dirty hand. "Kai," he said. "Asslaamu alaykum."
"Waalaykum salaam."
"What brings you here?"
"Just making a routine check. Tonnage has dropped twenty percent over the last weeks." He strove to make his words as neutral as possible. "Are the men content?"
"I'd say so." Aidan's voice was as flat as the blade of a shovel. "We just got the new shipment of blasting gel yesterday. I think that will make a difference.".
"If there was . . . anything wrong, you'd tell me?"
Aidan's eyes were expressionless. "It is my duty."
Those answers were precise, and simultaneously evasive. The other slaves watched and listened to the exchange, their callused hands gripping hammers and pickaxes. Something had shifted, changed, some strangely hostile energy in the air even though no one approached him, no overtly threatening move had been made. His skin crawled.
"Well," Kai said, hand creeping closer, to his sword, "I suppose my father may be worrying at nothing."
"The Wakil has many things on his mind. He needn't concern himself with this."
"Very well." Kai swung up on his horse. He looked down, troubled without being certain exactly why. "God be with you."
"And Allah save you, my friend."
Aidan's smile was warm, perfectly friendly . . . and chilling. Kai rode off.
The giant Bari gestured threateningly with his rifle. "The master may give a shit about your soul—but your asses belong to me. Get to sweatin'."
This is how it began . . .
That night, at the final call to prayer, the slaves bent in worship, but several of them glanced at each other as they bowed, exchanging fierce grins.
As they sat down to dinner that night the mood was almost celebratory. All laughter seemed a bit brighter, the voices a bit louder if not quite shrill. Sequestered in their special corner of the village, the overseers were pleasantly surprised when laughing Irish girls presented them with bowls of stew, rich with mutton and potatoes, and special spices th
at brought a certain something special to the dish.
In one of the last cogent comments of his life, Oko Iskahar would remark to his comrades that he had especially enjoyed the mushrooms.
Chapter Fifty-three
13 Muharram 1290
(March 13, 1873)
Aidan O'Dere crept toward Dar Kush's unnatural stillness, dreading what the night would hold.
He knew that Abu Ali, Ali, and Lamiya all lay quiet in their opulent rooms. Kai, Elenya, and Babatunde as well. Quiet, but not asleep. More than asleep.
Mere sleep might have been disturbed by the sounds of doors opening in the night. And if they had been awake and alert enough to glance out of their windows, they might have seen the shapes creeping across the lawn, admitting themselves into the house one at a time.
They were led by the scarred Brian. Bari, sleeping in a cot in the kitchen, rose groggily, blinking as if trying to brush away cobwebs.
Aidan clubbed him, cracking his skull against the wall with an axe handle. The sound was ghastly, as was the almost childlike confusion in the giant's face. Brutal wielder of the Wakils whip he might be, but no man was a stranger to fear.
"What—?" Bari's voice was thickened with pain and confusion.
"This, ye bleeder," Brian replied, and set the edge of his knife against Bari's throat. "Safe in your arms, was I?" The big man opened his mouth to scream, and Brian sliced the skin above his artery. "A sound," Brian said. "Any sound but one and you are dead."
Bari's eyes were frantic.
"I want a name," Brian said. "Who betrayed me? Who betrayed Aidan? Who is your spy in Ghost Town? I want the name, or you're dead."
Bari paused, and Brian nicked the giant's throat again. Gurgling, Bari spoke a single word.
Brian nodded. "That was the right name," he said, then stabbed Bari a dozen times in the chest and belly.
When the big man's body spasmed into death, Brian turned, panting, to Aidan. Bari was a human sieve. Blood was everywhere: the wall, the floor, the knife. It soaked Bari's clothes. His strangely soft eyes stared out at them, uncomprehending. Nausea at the sudden violence leached strength from Aidan's limbs.
Brian grabbed his shoulders, shook him alert and pushed him toward the stairs. "No turnin' back, boyo."
Brian descended to the basement and used the stolen key to open the armory. He opened the door, and the expression on his face was exultant. "All right, boys," he said. "Have at it."
The instant Aidan's fingers closed around the cold barrel of a rifle, he felt almost faint. Then that sensation passed and raw, almost irresistible confidence surged through him. He had fired rifles at Kai's side, bringing down rabbits and pigeons and once, even a cougar. But he had hardly dared dream that this great day might actually dawn.
After the others armed themselves Aidan headed back upstairs, slowly, a step at a time, until he and his men were in the bedroom wing. They began to open the doors.
Abu Ali sprawled sleeping on his bed. His eyelids fluttered and then opened suddenly, although for another few seconds his mind was still groggy and sleeping. As night's strong arms released their grip he gained enough wit to realize he felt heavy-headed, furry-tongued. A foul gut told him that he had been drugged.
The Wakil's every sense burned with alarm. Every instinct told him something was amiss. He felt like a man balanced on a floating cork as he climbed out of bed, and reached out for his sword . . .
Barely able to walk, he made his way to the door, and opened it to see—
Brian. Standing in the hall just outside the door, holding a bloody knife to Lamiya's throat. His future daughter-in-law was in her frilled nightshirt, with full undergarments, but still. . .! Fear for her life and honor burned away the poisoned fog. Swiftly, he noted that the girl's throat was, as yet, unmarked.
Another man's blood, then. Whose?
Lamiya was barely conscious. "Shhh," Brian said. "It's a lovely throat. Let's keep it that way."
Ali's bedroom was at the far end of the hall, and as Abu Ali watched in shock, his elder son was pulled out, helpless under the threat of three rifles. Thank Allah that Ali had not attempted some idiot heroics! Nothing to do now but wait. . . their time would come. "By the Prophet," he said, voice cold as the grave. "Harm any member of my family, and I will harry you beyond the gates of hell itself."
He watched Ali's face, realized that the boy was readying himself for some kind of suicidal action, and barked: "No!" Then amended in Abyssinian: "Gana naw." Not yet.
"Bastards," Ali fumed.
Brian nodded and smiled unpleasant agreement. "Yes, most of us. And whose fault might that be?"
The night wind plucked at Kai as he gingerly edged around his balcony's ledge, dressed only in his white cotton nightshirt. Although his poor appetite had saved him from all but a spoonful of the narcotic mushrooms, he was still fog-headed, frantic and afraid, but determined. He climbed down to the second floor along a trellis. As he did, through the first-floor window he saw his family herded together, the damned camel-fucking servants were using Lamiya to secure cooperation from the men: Wakil Abu Ali, Ali, and Babatunde. Rage and terror warred like fire and ice in his veins.
Where was . . . ? For a moment he dared to hope that Lamiya’s bodyguard Bitta had escaped immediate capture, then saw her gray-stubbled head atop what seemed to be a bundle of clothes. For a moment he thought she was dead, then managed to discern the ropes binding her arms, saw the line of blood on her scalp where she had been clubbed. One of the slaves nursed a gashed arm. He kicked Bitta's ribs as he passed her, and Kai smiled with grim satisfaction. So, Lamiya's bodyguard had managed to fight back, even under such constraints. In fact, it seemed Bitta had been the only one who had.
There were cries above him, and Kai strove to conceal himself in the shadows.
Voices: "Do you see him?"
"No. Try the kitchen . . ."
Kai climbed to within eight cubits of the ground, then jumped down, landing in a crouch. He steadied his breathing, listened until all footsteps seemed to be heading away from him. What to do? Which way? The lake? The barn?
The overseer's hut lay between the main house and Ghost Town. He crept through shadows masking the front of Dar Kush until he could see the hut's outlines. Darkness. Perhaps, just perhaps, they were still asleep. A cloud masked the moon, and he used the darkness to dash across the road. Kai pushed the door open as quietly as he could, and peered within.
Oko Iskahar was sprawled on his side, twisted in an obvious posture of death. Agonized death: his face was distorted, eyes open, pink froth dried at the corners of his mouths.
Kai was horrified. Horror turned to shock and dismay as a hurtling body caught him from behind, apelike arms gripping him about the shoulders. Kai's trained reflexes were faster than his mind: he dropped to one knee, gripped the grasping arm and twisted. With a howl, his attacker flew through the air, smashing back-first into a table, reducing it to splinters.
The rebel slave was just a field hand, but tenacious. He tried to scramble up, but Kai was faster, meeting him with a kick under the jaw that relieved him of teeth and consciousness in a single instant.
Fighting to control panic, Kai went back the way he had come, crouching and crawling across the road, then creeping along the bushes in the front flower bed, skin itching as he heard guttural voices as slaves ransacked Dar Kush in search of hostages. When he reached the west side, he was dismayed to see a pair of whites with covered lanterns striding out toward the barn.
His heart pounded as he watched them, and was unable to determine their identities in the dark. He had to get to the barn. If he could reach Djinna, he could get to Uncle Malik's. And once there . . .
Kai was about to turn back when the two men emerged from the barn, heading back toward the house. A swift search had doubtless convinced them that no blacks quavered in the straw. When they came closer, he recognized them as Olaf and Cormac. Kai cursed under his breath that, once upon a time, he had been foolish enough to think them h
armless. As soon as they were safely back in the house, he sprinted toward the barn.
Cries from the house betrayed him long before he reached the door. As he flung it open the servants came shouting and running, their lanterns casting ghostly glowing fingers. Without saddling Djinna he leapt astride her, wheeling as the slaves came on.
"Go, Djinna—" he yelled. No need to whisper now! The servants attempted to drag him off the horse. He slashed left and right with sword and boot. Olaf flew back howling, clapping his hand against the stump of a severed ear. With a jolt that nearly unseated Kai, his boot struck squarely into Cormac's cursing mouth, cracking teeth. His way momentarily clear, Kai galloped out of the barn, directly into a volley of rifle fire. The shots were ill aimed, but one plucked at his nightshirt, drawing a line of fire along his ribs.
He pulled Djinna's mane and sped toward the pasture.
He charged toward the fences, servants struggling to strike and bring him down. Djinna jumped the first fence, almost jolting him from her back, but as she landed he caught sight of a slave, face masked in shadow, running at him swinging a shovel.
The blade caught Kai flat on the chest, driving air from his lungs, and himself from Djinna's back. He tumbled to earth and struck the back of his head hard against the ground. Arms and legs gone soft and rubbery, Kai tried to rise, then all strength failed and he collapsed into darkness.
Chapter Fifty-four
It took an hour for Aidan to row across Lake A'zam to the Berhar property. As yet, all of Berhar's windows were still dark, and his entire grounds quiet. So far, then, no hint of alarm. He tied up his boat on the dock and stealthily made his way to the slave quarters. Berhar's estate, while smaller than the Wakil's, was laid out in a similar fashion, with a separate slave village within a walled stockade.
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