Lion's Blood

by Steven Barnes

  They laughed together until they were nearly sick. The camp had quieted down.

  "How is your leg?"

  Aidan slapped it, and winced. "Happy to still be part of my body."

  "I think Sophia would kill me if I brought you back without all parts in working order." Kai stirred at the fire with a long branch. "You are officially ordered to immediately begin work on a collection of fine, strapping boys."

  "And girls," Aidan sighed. "Sophia would like girls."

  Kai crinkled his nose. "Do you really want girls, knowing that there are boys like us lurking about?"

  "I'm a veteran now," Aidan said. "I can kill without mercy."

  They laughed again, and talked more as the night wore on, and at length the campfire burned low. Kai and Aidan stretched their bags out beneath the stars, their heads close together.

  "Remember those stars?" Aidan asked.

  The night sky seemed infinitely clear, stretching up above Kai like some vast, eternal fire viewed only through pinpricks in black velvet. He thought the sky had never seemed so clear and deep. "I haven't seen them in a long time."

  "They've been there," Aidan said, "waiting for us to notice them."

  Kai let his gaze wander among those stars, feeling his fatigue reaching to swallow him, and with that fatigue a rare and treasured sense of contentment. So many stars. Could each of them really be a sun like that bringing life to Earth, as claimed the learned Dogon? And had almighty Allah gifted them with planets? And life? And if there was a plan that kept them all burning, all spinning, mightn't every living thing on all those worlds feel confusion, fear, anger, love, the need to find truth?

  If there was, then no matter how things seemed to him now, how impossibly confused, he had to believe that there were answers as well as questions. Solutions as well as problems. He had to.

  "I see them," Kai said. "I'll try not to forget them again."

  Chapter Seventy-six

  "If you would not fear the lion, you must be a lion yourself."

  Swahili proverb

  After two more days, only a weary dozen of Kai's men remained to cross over onto his ancestral land. Another half-day's travel brought them, by late afternoon, to the moat surrounding Malik's castle.

  The fields, roads, and even the castle itself seemed almost deserted. The teff fields surrounding the castle looked ill worked, although a few slaves were hoeing among the rows.

  The slaves saw them, but there was no joy in their faces, and no waves of greeting. They registered the newcomers, then turned back to their tasks.

  Kai drove the lead wagon personally now, Aidan hunkered beside him on the thinly padded seat. "It's quiet," Kai said.

  "Aye," Aidan replied. "For the moment."

  After they crossed the moat Kai dismounted, and approached the main house. Just when Kai was beginning to wonder if Malik had taken his entire household on some manner of outing, horsemen appeared from around the side of the castle into the courtyard.

  Malik's guard Quami was dressed almost formally, as if their arrival had been anticipated.

  "Asslaamu alaykum, Kai," the Afari said, and saluted. "Welcome home. Word of your victory precedes you."

  "Waalaykum salaam. Where is my uncle?"

  Instead of answering him, they held their positions. He knew Malik's men were merely arrayed as an honor guard. Why, then, did his eyes keep roaming to their swords?

  Finally, the lead guard said: "He comes."

  Malik appeared from his castles front gate, wearing light ceremonial armor under a white hemp robe. A red and white moon crest graced his chest. Its steel mesh and interlinked ringlets gleamed in the waning light. He saluted Kai, fist to heart. "Nephew!" he cried, approaching. "You make me proud. How your father would have wished to see you now."

  They embraced, but in the instant before they did Kai saw that the armor was only partially polished. There were specks of cleaning compound caught in the mesh. Some ringlets gleamed, others were clearly tarnished.

  "I am sorry to hear of Ali," Malik said. His face was a bit puffy. If Malik had been an unbeliever, Kai might well have thought him a drunkard. But Malik would not touch spirits, so whatever had affected him so had to be something deeper and more damaging. "We will mourn together."

  Kai nodded, cautious and alert. In Malik's speech and carriage there was something too expansive, too deliberate. Behind his black beard, his eyes were too bright.

  "Come, now," said Malik. "I have prepared a feast for you. Your men may take their horses to the barn—I will have food and drink brought to them."

  Kai respectfully rested a hand on his uncle's shoulder, and set his feet more firmly. First things first. He pulled the scroll from his tunic. "Uncle Malik. I have an order here—"

  Malik waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, that? Yes, I heard. Well, we can discuss that later. First, let me feast and celebrate you. Come!"

  Kai held his ground. "Uncle? No. This must be settled now."

  Malik became very quiet. His men were silent, as were Kai's. Even the wind refused to blow. Kai swallowed hard, his sense of alarm growing. Malik held his hand out, taking the scroll from Kai's hand. He read the scroll hurriedly. "This is not binding—my land was ceded to me for government service. It needs to be countersigned by the governor. When you do that, come back. But for now, let us feast!" He whirled, the hems of his robe swirling as if in a whirlwind.

  Perhaps Kai would have followed his uncle in, shared meat and drink with him and delayed more serious discussions until later, but a pale, slender figure in the castle's main doorway caught his eye, a flicker of motion that made his heart glad.

  "Aidan!" Sophia called. She was dressed in a kind of gold wraparound dress, something combining both Abyssinian and Moorish influence. Her eyes went to him with an uneasy mixture of greeting, joy, and fear. She ran from the house toward the wagon, and Aidan began to clamber down.

  "Restrain her!" Malik said to his men. Qwami grabbed her arms.

  "Sophia!" Aidan started forward, and Malik's men bristled, moving swiftly to form a curtain between the mamluk and his bride.

  Kai's men, black and white, straightened on their horses or sat erect in the wagon. Several of them half pulled knives and swords before Kai raised his arm in brisk command. "Hold!"

  Suddenly, whatever lethargy Kai had sensed in his uncle was gone, as if he had awakened from a twilight dream. Malik was as still as stone, his eyes flecks of arctic ice. "What is this? Your men draw arms in my house?"

  "Uncle, I beg you," Kai said. "This is a simple case. This man has done service to the state—"

  "As have I!" his uncle thundered.

  "No one disputes that."

  "No?" Malik asked, voice twisted with scorn. "No? Then why do you come to my home, telling me which of my possessions I may own and which I may not?"

  "Please, Uncle. Obey the law . . ."

  "The law? Obey the law?" Malik grabbed Sophia and pulled her forward. There was a blur of motion, and his jambaya was at her throat. Aidan froze. On horseback and in the wagons, Kai's men ceased all motion. Kai raised both hands, showing his palms, desperate to stop the situation's dreadful momentum.

  "No one," said Malik, "will take what is mine, and she is mine. You want a slave? What—five slaves? Take five. Or twenty-five. But you cannot have this one." He paused, and Kai sensed that Malik was not merely telling him. He was, in his way, pleading with his nephew. "She is mine. You cannot."

  "I can have the signature within a day," said Kai.

  Malik's eyes gleamed. "Yes. And much can happen in a day. Due to the excitement, she might run away. We might never see her again."

  Sophia's face was white with terror. The edge of the blade was tight against her throat: she could end her life merely by nodding her head.

  "For love of Allah . . ." Kai whispered.

  "Yes," said Malik. "For the love of Allah."

  No one dared to move. Then, haltingly, Aidan limped down from the wagon. All eyes turned to him. Wounded
, he could barely hobble, and each step seemed wrenching.

  Silence, and then Aidan spoke. "As a free man," he said, "I have the right to trial by combat for the mother of my child." He seemed to search for words, and finally said, "May God decide which of us is righteous."

  "Aidan," Kai begged. "Don't do this."

  Aidan ignored him. "Malik Jallaleddin ibn Rashid al Kush, I challenge you to a duel."

  Malik stared at Aidan in stark disbelief. Then his knife left Sophia's throat. Malik threw back his head and roared. Tears sparkled at the corners of his eyes when he finally desisted. "You must have lost your head as well as your heart. I accept."

  The instant the words left Aidan's mouth, Kai felt as if someone had removed all of his internal organs and replaced them with ice. It was as if he had fallen down some kind of chute, sliding into a black, cold, pitiless place, a place without hope.

  Aidan was a dead man, and everyone there, especially Aidan, knew it.

  Malik called two servants, spoke to them briefly, and then stood, watching without speaking as several more brought a wide selection of weapons from his training hall.

  Swords, pikes, battle-axes, knives, whips, staffs, shields—weapons Kai could name but had never trained in, and some he could not name.

  Ali had allowed Aidan and Sophia to spend their waiting time together, and was behaving in an expansive, almost solicitous manner.

  As Aidan limped along the line of weapons, Malik stripped to the waist. His chest hairs were grayer than Kai remembered, but his body itself was still like chocolate poured over rock.

  "Aidan," Sophia whispered, the urgency in her voice carrying her words to Kai's ears. "You can't do this!"

  "Yes," he said grimly. "I can."

  "You're so badly wounded."

  "Not as badly as you think," Aidan said, voice low. "Or he thinks. Don't worry, little one."

  Kai backed away from Aidan and Sophia, stared with disbelief at his uncle, still stunned that this was actually going to happen. He felt as if he were watching the entire disaster through a telescope.

  Malik whipped the air with his sword, then turned to Aidan. "Would you like more time to make your selection?" he asked. "Allow me to recommend the Gupta blade—it is a man-killer, and beautifully balanced. Or perhaps . . . the Turkish. Unusual design, but excellent for a man of strength and courage."

  Aidan looked at Malik, and chose a blade similar to Malik's Moorish rapier, three and a half feet of Benin steel honed to a razor edge, with a full hand guard and contoured grip. He balanced it in his hand, chopped with it like an axe.

  Kai winced. He knew that Aidan had more skill than that. Did he think that Malik would be lulled by such a charade?

  Malik's smile broadened, almost as if he could read Kai's mind. "Shall we call for my surgeon?" he asked. "We could have your wounds rebound."

  "No," Aidan said.

  "And you are resolute in this?" Malik raised his voice. "All present hear clearly that this man, of his own free will, has challenged me for this woman's hand?"

  There were murmurs of assent from the gathered.

  "I can understand, of course. She is most exceedingly tender. But I fear it has been many, many nights since last she lay with you. Her body has, in all likelihood, forgotten yours—"

  Howling, forgetting whatever stratagem he might have devised, Aidan attacked fiercely, wildly. Barely moving yet somehow completely avoiding the attack, Malik flicked his sword contemptuously, and pinked Aidan's left shoulder. Then, before Aidan could wheel, he transferred his blade from his right to his left hand. "It is good to give the weak side occasional practice," he said to Kai, as if the entire affair were of no more import than a training exercise.

  Aidan attacked again. Malik was so far above the wounded mamluk that there was no competition at all. Aidan turned, swinging his sword like a club. Malik slid back a lightning step to gain a moment's time to adjust tactics, then sliced the tendons in Aidan's right arm. Sophia screamed but Aidan backed away, grimacing as he ripped off his shirt and wrapped it around his wound. Blood dripped to the ground, puddled on the tiles. Then, limping, Aidan picked the sword up with his left hand and stood before Malik again, who was warming to his work.

  The next time Aidan lunged, Malik slipped the tip of his blade along Aidan's forehead. Blood streamed into his eyes.

  Kai had had no hope for any positive outcome from this disaster, but with Aidan blinded, this had descended from butchery into some darkly, sadistically comic theater.

  He watched his uncle touch Aidan again and again, each time with absolute fluidity and control. At any instant Malik could have set the blade in Aidan's throat or heart. He wanted to vomit: no slaughterhouse cow would be tormented like this.

  Kai was stiff, unmoving, disbelieving. He met Sophia’s eyes. She sagged with grief, her moment’s crazed flare of hope extinguished. Her dark hair half masked her face. Her eyes streamed tears and she had turned her head away from the sight. Her man was so weak he could barely stand, meeting his death pointlessly.

  Even Malik seemed to understand this. "It is time this nonsense ended," he said, and shifted his balance. Set his heel firmly against the ground. The next motion would be a half-speed feint to draw a sluggish block, followed by a disengagement and a killing lunge. Everyone knew it, even if they had not seen Malik perform a thousand times in the past. It was in his posture, in Aidan's grim resignation as he wiped blood from his eyes and prepared himself for one final effort. Sophia stifled a scream—

  "Hold!" Kai heard someone scream, and then realized the single word had emerged from his own throat.

  Even Malik was taken aback as he stepped back out of range. "What? Do you plead for this man's life?"

  "No," Kai said, holding his voice steady. "No. As his commander, as an officer in the federal forces, as inheritor of the Wakil's manor and mantle, I proclaim that this man, honorably wounded in holy war, is unfit to continue this trial."

  "My honor was challenged. You cannot merely end this."

  "I do not. But you will."

  Malik's right eyebrow raised in astonishment. "Or . . . ?"

  "By right of arms, by all that is holy, I say that this man and his family are under my protection." Some small part of Kai struggled frantically to seize those words, reel them back before they passed the gate of his lips. This was insanity, and would avail nothing, lead to nothing but death.

  "This is my house," Malik said. "I will not release her."

  Moving in part to conceal the trembling of his limbs, Kai removed his cloak. "Then I must proclaim myself Aidan's champion," he heard himself say.

  Malik stared at him. "This is madness."

  Yes.

  "Kai," Aidan gasped, on hands and knees. "No—"

  Aidan staggered to his feet, blinded, crippled, exhausted, and pushed Kai away. Without taking his eyes from Malik, Kai caught Aidan's left arm, spun him, wrenched the sword from his hand and swept his feet from beneath him as if he were but a child. Aidan struggled to rise, and Kai kneed him under the jaw. Aidan flopped to his back and lay dazed.

  "Well done." Malik, ever the teacher, seemed to be trying to smile. "But as always, your back was not straight."

  "I apologize," Kai said. "After all your patient tutoring, I should know better."

  Kai faced his uncle, fighting the growing sense of being separate from himself, floating above and beyond himself. You're going into shock, he thought. Breathe. Breathe. His uncle beckoned Kai forward until their faces were only digits apart. "You are superb, Nephew. But you of all people know that you are not my equal. I beg you to reconsider."

  Kai inhaled, held it in the pit of his stomach, exhaled slowly. Inhale the complexity of the world. Exhale Allah's essence. Allah hoo. "Uncle," Kai said, judging every word carefully. "This man saved my life. He is the best friend I have ever had. He was wounded fighting for our mosque, when he could have gone free." He paused. "When you yourself were forced to remain behind." Malik flinched at that, and Kai knew h
e had struck a nerve. "There is no other course open to me. But you can end this honorably. Free Sophia."

  Malik wavered. He looked back at Sophia, and she at him. The four of them seemed to exist in a place without sound, without time. Kai's troops, Malik's guards receded until they were all but vanished.

  Malik seemed engaged in a titanic struggle. With what part of himself? What had he really lost in the Battle of Khartum? What was the gap between the outer man, the hero of a hundred battles, slayer of a thousand men, the great and invulnerable Malik, and the inner man, the man who had held his dead wives, who had so lovingly nurtured his nephew?

  Sophia faced Malik: proud, beautiful, at the very height of her power as a woman. Kai remembered her gifts, even now was moved by the brand she had placed on his heart. And when Malik turned away from her, dropped his face, Kai knew that her strength had conquered his uncle when he was most vulnerable, knew before he spoke what his answer would have to be.

  "Allah preserve me," Malik whispered. "I cannot." Almost a minute passed, and still the witnesses were frozen, suspended in time by the shocking turn of events. "You know that you cannot survive this."

  Kai said nothing, but felt his jaw incline a fraction in assent. "Then let us pray together a final time."

  Malik nodded. Without taking his gaze from Kai, he commanded:

  "Quami—bring my kilim."

  As Malik's chief guard hurried to the house, Kai went to his wagon, brought down his pack, obtained his own prayer rug, and unrolled it in the courtyard. Malik's rug came, and he laid it beside Kai's. They began to pray as the others watched.

  "La illah ha ill Allah."

  Kai made two rakats, and then made du'a, supplication. Holy Father, he prayed. I know not what You wish. I cannot follow my heart. My heart says to run, to turn away from this terrible thing in my path. But honor is a thing of the spirit, and it tells me that there is no other way through this. Help me. Help us both. Show us another way, or if not, let he who walks most fully in Your eternal light win the day.

  And if not that, let us die together.