If he squinted, he imagined he could see Aidan and Sophia, traveling the northern road toward whatever fate awaited them. Yes. There they were, translucent in the dimming light, traveling just beyond the gate. Aidan seemed to stop, and turn. To search the house until he saw Kai. He waved.
Slowly, Kai waved back.
Perhaps thinking that the gesture had been intended for them, the crowd roared in response.
Kai looked back into the study, and saw Babatunde standing in the doorway, face placid. Things were what they were, nothing more or less. Had the little Yoruba always known that life could play such horrific tricks? Something in the trace of a smile on the round dark face told him the answer was yes.
He beckoned Lamiya forward onto the balcony. Her hand slipped into his. It was small and strong and warm. She would marry him, and he would do all in his power to ensure that Bilalistan's wealth continued to flow to the throne of Abyssinia. That if war came, Bilalistan's armies would not fight against the Empress.
Lamiya would bear him children, and in time the wounds of the past might heal. Might.
Allah, why have you brought me to this place? What man could be worthy of such damnation and such grace?
Then, left hand joined with the hand of his future wife, jambaya raised in his right, Kai spoke aloud: "Welcome to all who wish us well. There has been strife, and war, and care, but now is a time of feasting. Let all men be brothers this day," he said, his voice rolling resonantly unto the multitudes, "breaking bread and lifting our glasses in celebration. Let the feast of Idd-el-Fitr begin!"
And he looked out over the estate, and the vast holdings bought with the sweat and blood of good men, and the crowd, and the road which now held only ghosts and promise . . .
The purpled fields and shadowed mountains as the last glimmering of the sun disappeared in the west. . .
And his eyes closed, the warm pressure of Lamiya's hand the single thread connecting Kai of Dar Kush to the things of this world.
Epilogue
Four times in as many hours Aidan and his family were stopped by road patrols and forced to show their documents to men with small eyes and angry mouths. It seemed almost physically painful for these patrolmen, most of low birth, to admit that their documents were genuine, the Wakil's seal and signature unimpeachable, and grant them the open road.
Sophia said almost nothing the entire trip, but held their child and leaned against his shoulder, holding his arm as if the sweet contact itself were almost more pleasure than flesh could bear.
They carried more than the documents of freedom: they carried a map detailing their entire passage west, showing places where free whites might find shelter and food along the way.
It was almost dark before they reached the first spot on the map, designated as a small town.
It was all clapboard and cheap, straw-heavy brick, only four buildings off a tiny path branching from the main road. CONOR'S, read the sign.
There were a cluster of wagons and horses outside the longest and lowest of the buildings, and a white man with heavy jowls and substantial girth sat next to one of the horses, foot in a puddle of horse piss, swilling from a brown bottle. He seemed on the thin edge between sleeping and consciousness. Aidan reckoned he'd have no trouble from the drunk, but still lashed up their horses to a tree some cubits away. He helped Sophia down from the wagon and entered the main building.
As they approached the door he heard fiddle music, and almost couldn't believe his ears—it was a song he hadn't heard since it was played by the red-haired witch, a lifetime ago in O'Dere crannog. Could it be . . . ?
But when they came through the doors the music stopped, and every head in the room turned to face them. Now that the sun had set, the only light came from a pair of oil lamps. There were a dozen whites in the room, two children, a pair of oldsters, and eight or nine souls of prime working age.
His eyes sought the source of the music, and was vaguely disappointed to see that it had been played by a toothless old man. Though gray and balding, his hands were nimble enough with the bow.
At the back of the room was a table shaped like half a wheel, with a well-upholstered woman behind it. She regarded them suspiciously.
"Are ye free?" she asked. "We 'ave no need a' mischief 'ere."
Aidan showed her his papers, and she squinted at them, and then nodded. The mood in the room seemed to change completely, smiles and nods now that they knew he was no runaway who might bring the law down upon them.
"Aidan!" thundered a voice behind them, and he turned into Donough's crushing embrace. The two men buffeted each other mightily. Then the giant just hugged him, and Aidan squeezed him back, fighting not to let the tears fall from his eyes.
"You made it, little man," Donough said, grin splitting his bandaged face.
"I made it."
Donough shuffled his feet shyly. "And this must be Sophia?" He held out a bearlike hand, and she took it.
There was a giggling sound behind Donough, and he stepped aside as a tiny woman with a sharp, sunburnt face came forward, carrying a bundle of baby. Donough seemed even more nervous. "This is Mary," he said.
Something shifted in his demeanor, became challenging. "And this is my son, Donough," he said. Several of the drinkers roused themselves sufficiently to make appropriate cooing sounds.
Mary let them peel the blanket away. Donough was large for a child so obviously young, with dark eyes, dark hair . . . and dark skin.
There was silence in the room. Donough's arm tightened around Mary. One of the drinkers spit on the floor, muttered something under his breath, and waddled away.
Sophia was the first to speak. She reached out with a long, slender finger and traced the sleepy child's cheek.
"He has his mother's eyes," she said. "And will have your strength, Donough."
Aidan slammed an Alexander on the bar. "Drinks!" he cried. "All around! Tomorrow we head for the frontier, but tonight, we celebrate life and friendship!"
The woman behind the bar's eyes went round and wide. "We canna make change for that, and 'ave nothing worthy of it," she said. "Not if ye paid for every mug in the house."
"You're a pretty liar," he said. "It will be the first taste I have had as a free man. You could piss in a cup and it would taste like nectar."
She grinned at him. "We can do better than that," she said, and dragged up a brown jug. "Me 'usband makes it 'imself. Ain't much, but it's the best we got."
"It'll do," Aidan said. She poured four cups, and then four more, and then for the entire house.
"To tomorrow," Aidan said. And toasted his wife, and his old, newfound friend, and Donough's elfin wife. The core of the new crannog he would build. Yes. He would make safety for his family, and then he would make money in this wild land, and he would use every penny he could squeeze to find Nessa.
Keeping my promise, Ma. Here's to you, and to everyone who ever loved me. The best is yet to come.
He took a swig, and almost spit it out. Choked it down. The liquor was pure liquid fire as it burned its way down his throat, dizzying poison fit only for cleaning armor or filling lamps.
It was also, he decided, the very finest draught of his entire life.
Afterword
The symbol of the Nasq Kabir, "The Sign of the Presence of God," which figures prominently in this work of fiction, is indeed real, and might be considered a "paper computer" diagramming nonlinear process. In the Western world it is often called the Enneagram, and is little known other than through several books on personality, which present less than 1 percent of the actual teachings. Traditionally, one must find a master to receive oral instruction. One of the very few genuinely informative works on this subject is A.G.E. Blakes's The Intelligent Enneagram.
Among the other books which provided blessed assistance in the writing of Lion's Blood are the following:
On Islam and Sufism: Essential Sufism, edited by James Fadiman and Robert Frager, The Sun Will Rise in the West, by Shaykh Taner Ansari,
The Prescribed Prayer Made Simple, by Tajuddin B. Shu'aib, Principles of Islamic Teachings, by the Islamic Education Center.
On African culture: The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation, by John Laband, The Golden Age of the Moor, by Ivan Van Sertima, Encyclopedia Africana, edited by Henry Louis Gates and Kwame Anthony Appiah, African Kings, by Daniel Laine, African Ark, by Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher, Bless Ethiopia, by Kazuyoshi Nomachi, The Washing of the Spears, by Donald R. Morris, The Anatomy of the Zulu Army, by Ian Knight.
On Irish Culture: A Literary History of Ireland, by Douglas Hyde, The Celtic World, edited by Miranda Green, Life in Celtic Times, by A. G. Smith and William Kaufman, The Glories of Ireland, edited by Joseph Dunn and R J. Lennox. Of particular interest (considering this author's limitations) was The Complete Idiot's Guide to Irish History and Culture, by Sonja Massie.
And on the nature and nurture of cultures and civilizations themselves, Jared Diamond’s wonderful Guns, Germs and Steel, without which, to try to understand why history played out as it did, one must resort to the loathsome, politically motivated reductionism of The Bell Curve.
The poem shared by Kai and Lamiya on their way to Djibouti harbor was indeed written by the fourteenth-century poet Hafiz.
Major events in this alternate chronology given Gregorian dates might well map in the following fashion:
400 B.C. Socrates leaves Athens for Egypt.
323 B.C. A wounded Alexander has visions of completing his life as a pharaoh.
200 B.C. Egypt and Carthage defeat Rome.
A.D. 623 Treaty of Khibar: Muhammad approves a nonaggression mutual assistance pact with the Jews. Establishment of Judea follows.
632 Death of Muhammad.
650 Bilal rescues Muhammad's family at Karbala.
701 "Black Barges on the Nile"—germ warfare against the royal house of Egypt. Establishment of Fatimite Caliphate.
1000 Discovery of the New World.
1100 Fatimite Caliphate trading with Aztec/Toltec Empires.
1700 Colonization of Bilalistan.
1863 Lion's Blood begins.
Steven Barnes
16 Safar 1422
(May 10, 2001)
www.lifewrite.com
Steven Barnes
www.lifewrite.com
www.spectrumliteraryagency.com/barnes.htm
Steven Barnes has published twenty-three novels and over three million words of science fiction and fantasy. He has been nominated for Hugo, Nebula, and Cable Ace awards. His television work includes Twilight Zone, Stargate and Andromeda; his “A Stitch In Time” episode of The Outer Limits won the Emmy Award; and his alternate history novel LION’S BLOOD (a tale of Islamic Africans colonizing the Americas prior to Europe) won the 2003 Endeavor. GREAT SKY WOMAN and SHADOW VALLEY, adventures set 30,000 years ago in East Africa, were published by Ballantine/One World Books.
CASANEGRA, an erotic mystery novel written with his wife, American Book Award-winning novelist Tananarive Due, and Hollywood luminary Blair Underwood, was published by Atria and immediately became an Essence Best-Seller. Its sequel, IN THE NIGHT OF THE HEAT won the 2009 NAACP Image Award. The third novel, FROM CAPE TOWN WITH LOVE was notable for the creation of one of the first "Vook" video books, incorporating dramatized scenes from the novel into a digital App. The trailer, starring Underwood and scripted by Barnes and Due, can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybb1yPPs0fc
With World Champion martial artist Scott Sonnon, Barnes created the best-selling TACFIT Warrior mind-body exercise program, based on Soviet research into human performance. www.tacfitwarrior.com
He lives in Atlanta with his wife and son Jason.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Books by Steven Barnes
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Author's Note
PART ONE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
PART TWO
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
PART THREE
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
Chapter Fifty-two
Chapter Fifty-three
Chapter Fifty-four
Chapter Fifty-five
Chapter Fifty-six
Chapter Fifty-seven
Chapter Fifty-eight
Chapter Fifty-nine
Chapter Sixty
PART FOUR
Chapter Sixty-one
Chapter Sixty-two
Chapter Sixty-three
Chapter Sixty-four
Chapter Sixty-five
Chapter Sixty-six
Chapter Sixty-seven
Chapter Sixty-eight
Chapter Sixty-nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-one
Chapter Seventy-two
Chapter Seventy-three
Chapter Seventy-four
Chapter Seventy-five
Chapter Seventy-six
PART FIVE
Chapter Seventy-seven
Chapter Seventy-eight
Epilogue
Afterword
About Steven Barnes
Lion's Blood Page 56
