Assignment- Tyrant's Bride

by Will B Aarons

  "We go,” Mkondo urged.

  "We go,” Durell agreed. The shrieks of Ausi’s bloodthirsty men made the skin creep about his shoulders.

  They scrambled down the bank as a stalk of lightning popped a few hundred yards north. Its thunder rumbled off in booming ripples. He smelled rain.

  The riverbank must have been beyond normal water level, cut into the edge of its floodplain, because the earth leveled here amid twisted, debris-laden trees. Rounded stones clattered underfoot. The bridge was visible as a black web against the darkness and lightning flashes by turn. He ran toward it, and Mkondo padded behind on leathery feet. They found Wells and the rest of the party close to the bridge, where they had hidden the outboard.

  From the shouts it seemed the troops were all around them; they must have spread out to scour the riverbank. Durell regretted having gunned the sentry—that must have drawn them to the immediate vicinity—but it was no time to brood.

  The scudding clouds opened up at last in a tropical downpour that hit all at once, drenching everyone.

  Wells came up and called to him: "They must be right behind you.”

  "Close enough. Get the others; get in the boat.”

  "There isn’t any boat, Cajun.” His voice went apologetic. "I’m sorry.”

  "The kid?” Durell asked.

  "Gone. He must have stolen it.”

  21

  "I’m sorry,” Wells repeated. "It’s my fault.”

  "He was scared. Forget it,” Durell said. He felt the rain running down his face. His clothing stuck to him. "We have to get out of here some way,” he said.

  "Not on foot. Listen to them up there. There must be fifty of them, right on top of us and shooting at everything that moves.”

  "They’ll be down here in a few minutes. Think we can make it along the river a way?”

  Wells leaned out and peered through the darkness and blowing rain. Above, a gun cracked, others joined in, then it died away as quickly as it had begun. Shooting at ghosts. "Seems clear, the best I can tell,” Wells said.

  Durell started walking. "The villagers must have a few boats,” he said.

  "Should I get Ogwang and the women?”

  "We don’t want to have to come back for them,” he called back. He could see hardly anything. The bridge had vanished in the deluge. Mkondo went with Wells, probably because he felt uneasy about Teresa. Everything made more apparent his fanatical loyalty to her. Durell had learned something about that connection since leaving the capital. Mkondo’s clan had been dedicated to the service of the Ndolo kabakas since time began. Not Ndolo themselves—their true origins were lost in myth—they had accompanied the conquering nation in its migrations, acting always as the fiercest shock troops in the Ndolo center and performing most reliably as royal guards and messengers. Highly prized and rewarded, they had lived as freely and proudly as the Ndolo themselves, within this relationship. The tradition still lived in old Mkondo, and he would do anything Kabakaliya Teresa commanded or go to any lengths to protect her.

  It did not take long to find the boats, as Durell slogged through the hissing rain. They were almost under the bridge, beached where villagers could reach them by way of a short, steep path down from the highway.

  He inspected them with distaste, for they all were dugout canoes, and he suspected that they would be somewhat unwieldy. However, they would be heavy and stable. He sloshed around in puddles as the storm poured down and collected paddles until the others arrived. Faces were only dark blurs in the night, as he spoke over the crashing deluge. "We will have to take two canoes,” he said, and laid the paddles in the craft.

  The soldiers still shouted and beat the bushes in the darkness above them. The rain was a blessing, and, when it came, the lightning had almost stopped.

  Teresa spluttered through water that dribbled over her lips: "I will not go in the one with Albert.”

  "Fine,” Indrani snapped.

  "I’ll keep General Ogwang company,” Dager offered.

  Durell blinked and wiped water from his eyes. "Wade them out and climb aboard,” he called.

  The men nosed the canoes into the current, helped the women aboard and swung their legs over.

  The canoes slipped down the hissing river and away in the night.

  The next morning Durell had them beach the canoes and hide in the undergrowth by the bank to rest. There seemed little question but that the alarm had been spread by the troops they had encountered the night before: daylight was out for traveling. Overnight they had descended into a region of savanna interspersed with miombo woodlands. There were elephants here. The riverbank remained densely jungled and provided ample cover. They had left the rain behind—Durell had been concerned for a possible flash flood, brought on by the storm, but that did not occur. This seemed drier country, with long sweeps of grassland, where rhinos and giraffes fed. Villages were primitive and far between, the best Durell could see.

  Gold and black weaverbirds cheeped furiously in the trees as they pulled their canoes onto the sand of a wide beach, flushing a puku antelope. The dark, wide river flowed almost soundlessly by. The air was damp and warm, and Durell judged it would be scorching by noon.

  Teresa asked him when he thought they would reach Kipora.

  "If we wait until dark to continue, it may take most of the night. I’m not sure,” he said, and sat down wearily. His clothing still held the damp of the rain, but at least some of the stench had been washed away. He wished for a shave. And a bath with soap.

  Teresa said: "Then things must be settled today.”

  "What things?”

  Her soft, almost naive eyes gazed at a dragonfly. "The matter of Albert and that girl, of course.”

  Everybody stopped what he was doing. Indrani stood somewhat apart, beautiful in a lace of leafy sunlight. Splashes of hippos sounded from around a bend.

  "You’d better talk that over with General Ogwang—in private,” Durell said.

  "I have nothing to be ashamed of. Albert, on the other hand—”

  Ogwang, who lay within earshot, raised onto an elbow, his mouth down at the corners. "Don’t be insolent, woman; I am still your husband,” he said.

  "Those days are past.” She sounded tired and worried. "You left me, left our people—”

  "I fought as hard as I could.”

  "Until you found the greater rewards of banditry.” Ogwang shook his jowly face. "The people failed me. I was reduced to hit-and-run.” His voice became exasperated, and he slashed a big hand through the air.

  "What do you know about it? No one knows what it was like.”

  He seemed to expect sympathy, but Teresa was offering none. "I could say the same about what I have had to live through,” she said, her tone calm.

  Ogwang breathed huffingly. "I am sorry about that. What do you want me to do?”

  "You must get rid of her.”

  Ogwang stared at her. Indrani came to his side and knelt down and ran her hand over his shoulder possessively. His arm went defiantly around her waist. Everyone waited, watching to see what would happen.

  "And if I won’t?” Ogwang said, speaking slowly.

  "You will not receive my support for the leadership of the Ndolo.”

  "You have no choice, if you want to save them.”

  She touched her chin. "I have choices,” she said with quiet confidence.

  "You are bluffing, my dear. You will have to have a man—a woman has never led the Ndolo. They will accept you as a symbolic leader, but they will make you choose a warlord.”

  Teresa licked her sensual lips and spoke with deliberate thoughtfulness. "These are unprecedented times. I am the last of my line, and I am prepared to take unusual steps.”

  Dager stepped in, smiling ingratiatingly. "Kabak-aliya Teresa, the success of our efforts is predicated on General Ogwang’s role as the chief military figure among your people.”

  "I will not be humiliated,” she stated firmly.

  "He has to be accepted in Kipora,” Dager
said. "You must support him; do you understand?”

  Her face showed disdain. "Maybe I will,” she replied, "but only if he rids himself of that—that mistress of his.”

  Dager sighed heavily and threw up his hands and strode into the deeper shadows for a place to lie down. The brilliant sun was coloring the whole sky a brassy yellow. Durell’s eyes followed an otter that fished for freshwater crabs. Vervet monkeys scolded as they moved through on the opposite bank.

  The silence lasted several seconds, and when Ogwang spoke next, he had begun to crumble, showing real concern. "What would you have her do?” he asked. "She has no one to turn to.”

  "I do not care what she does,” Teresa said.

  "We can’t just leave her here.”

  "Yes we can.”

  Ogwang showed more grasp than Durell had credited him with. "This is pure spite,” he said. "You clearly have no love left for me. It is beneath you, Teresa.”

  "Suit yourself,” she said. Her face was cruel. "I shall be just as pleased to be rid of you, also.”

  That was more than General Ogwang was prepared to stand, and he got up and moved menacingly toward her. "You let me get you away from the butcher just so you could do as you pleased. You used me!”

  "Yes! But I didn’t ask you to do it—you wanted to soothe your wounded pride, as a man whose woman had been taken by another.” She rose to her full, stately height, statueque in the soiled blue twill of her shirt and trousers.

  In a flash Willie Wells put himself between them, facing up to the bigger man. "Watch yourself,” he snapped at Ogwang.

  "How dare you!” Ogwang stopped, his eyes thinned to angry slits.

  "I think you’d better cool off,” Wells told him.

  "You have encouraged her in this foolishness,” Ogwang said.

  "Better keep your distance from her; I don’t care who you are,” Wells warned.

  Durell broke in. "That’s enough. From both of you.” He gave Teresa a hard look. "I haven’t been through what I have to see everything fall to pieces now.” His tone brought attention, and while he had it, he cast urgently about for some way to quiet things. A few moments of reflection would put this nonsense out of their heads. And they had to have rest, or none of them would be fit to travel tonight. He found the solution readily at hand. "There’s oil and patches in the butt plate of my shotgun,” he announced. "If each of you doesn’t oil and clean your weapon, it’ll be so much junk in a few more hours. Then we can try to sleep. I know it’s hot.”

  General Ogwang and Wells backed off from each other, stiffly. Durell felt the tension break and masked his thankfulness with a severe look of reprimand. He got the patches and distributed them, and everybody worked in the silent shade by the rippling river for a while.

  Indrani whined that she was hungry: "Naona njaa.” Her ebony hair hung in long, loose ropes that she held up to cool her neck.

  "I’m sorry, there’s nothing to eat,” Durell said.

  "Fish?”

  "Our matches were soaked: we can’t build a fire. It would be too risky, if we could. Go to sleep. Maybe there will be some fruit later. Willie?”

  "Yo.”

  "Take the first watch, over the other side of the tree-line. Make sure you are not seen by anyone.”

  He saw Deirdre die again.

  It was horrible: everything happened so slowly, and there was no sound, as if it were underwater.

  She screamed, reaching out to him, the flash of the silently firing gun flickering on her face, but he could not hear her or touch her.

  He was bound invisibly to the spot.

  He had to watch her die, gray eyes shocked wide as she gasped and spun among wheeling arms and bodies crumpling down riddled in the greenish-yellow death light....

  He straggled up to wakefulness, gasping for air.

  His eyes ached at the dazzle of sunlight on the river. He was soaked with sweat' in the sultry heat of the riverine jungle, and flies droned around his face, and insects sawed and screeched.

  He shook off the horror.

  Crocodiles on a midchannel sandbank dozed and baked in the piercing sunrays.

  He had slept, taken his watch, slept again. Now it was nearly two in the afternoon. He tasted dry hunger and smelled decaying fish and mud.

  His eyes traveled around the camp. Indrani slept a little apart, curled up like a child. Her silken black hair lay in a fan across her cheek. Her rubicund lips were slack, tender. Wells sat with Teresa. They leaned against a dugout canoe and conversed in low tones. Durell would have liked to know what they were saying. Mkondo, with the dreamy look of one who could relax anywhere and go to sleep on a moment’s notice, and Dager were stretched out in the shade, slumbering away.

  He shook his face, wiped sweat from his eyes. The far-carrying cry of an ibis echoed from the distance. Wells and Teresa noticed him, nodded coolly, as he rose and went into the brush along a path chopped out with a couple of heavy panga knives found in the canoes. For a brief distance the sunlight turned green in a gauzy radiance reflected down among countless bright leaves. Then he came into a pocket on the dry side of the jungle shaded by a few overhanging branches and fronted by tall grass.

  General Ogwang sat there, legs crossed and shirt unbuttoned, watching the glaring spread of open bush-land with its islands of woods that stretched away. Elephants and a herd of wildebeest were visible. Ogwang turned a sour face and stared at Durell from over his shoulder.

  "Seen anything?” Durell asked.

  "It has been quiet,” Ogwang said. "I need a drink.”

  "What do you plan to do about Indrani?” Durell stood beside him, regarding the distance.

  Ogwang’s tone was gruff, sullen. "Nothing. At least until we reach Kipora.”

  Durell exhaled audibly. "It was a mistake to bring

  her. You will have to handle it carefully. Kabakaliya Teresa must not be alienated.”

  "Isn’t she already?”

  "I gather the door is still open for cooperation, provided.”

  "I suppose you would have me leave Indrani here, in this godforsaken place? Just forget about her?”

  "That isn’t necessary. She can be sent on, when we reach Kipora, if you will stand up for her now. Be ready to compromise.”

  Ogwang looked up at Durell from where he sat on the ground. "I don’t know,” he said.

  There was a long pause, as both men stared at the horizon. The loud, cackling chatter of a roller bird came from the river behind. Durell regarded Ogwang, who had slung his web belt and holster over his shoulder, relieving the pressure around his comfortable potbelly. Appropriately, the general looked like something washed up on the riverbank—like all of us, Durell thought: smeared with caked mud, clothing wrinkled and tom, skin scratched and grimy. Unaware and uncaring, evidently, of Durell’s gaze, Ogwang’s cunning, hooded eyes brooded over the bright plain, beyond the trees.

  "I. . .” he began. He stopped and studied his hands.

  "Yes?”

  He raised his eyes once more to Durell. "I meant to send Indrani back, before Teresa arrived. . . .”

  "But she wouldn’t go,” Durell supplied.

  "I suppose I could have made her.”

  "Then why didn’t you? You knew what was at stake.”

  Ogwang slowly shook his big head and picked at the straw. "She’s a demon.” He took a deep breath. "She is a demon, and I cannot deny her anything. Do you know what I am saying?”

  Durell’s tone did not condemn. "I’ve heard of such things.”

  "I thought,” Ogwang continued, "that if I got Teresa back...”

  Another long pause. Durell ended it with: "You thought you still loved Teresa?”

  General Ogwang slammed his fist against the earth. "She is my wife!”

  "Not any more, except on paper. She said it herself: those days are past.”

  A sour satisfaction colored Ogwang’s tone. "At least I got her away from that son of a dung beetle. I have had the last laugh.”

  "Only if you ca
n keep her away from him,” Durell reminded.

  "Ndio." Ogwang nodded. "The trouble is, Mr. Durell, that I find I am in love with that devil Indrani, after all.” He cleared his throat and spat.

  "I know,” Durell said.

  "I am aware that she has amused herself with other, younger men. I don’t care. She may be the end of me; Teresa could make me an outcast, despised by my own people—”

  "What is left of them, after Field Marshal Ausi gets through.”

  "Who will organize them against him? Who has a chance of success, besides me? Help me, Mr. Durell; I must have Teresa’s protection, or the Ndolo won’t even let me through the gate of the city.” There was just a hint of a whining note in Ogwang’s voice that irritated Durell.

  He knelt down and looked into Ogwang’s face. "You will have to handle this problem,” he said. "I want to leave it to you and Teresa to work out. You needn’t live as man and wife, or even pretend to. All that counts is that neither of you sells the Ndolo down the river. Remember: if you can pull them together enough to trip Ausi, it may shatter his grip on the whole country—his regime is shot through with corruption and inefficiency.”

  General Ogwang shook his head and said, in a subdued tone: "I will try.”

  "Not try. Do it. Sir.”

  Durell got up and said: "I’ll send Ken Dager to relieve you in an hour.” Ogwang’s eyes remained fastened to the breezy distance. The horizon shimmered

  behind heat waves; mirages reflected the sky like sheets of polished chrome. Durell strode back into the narrow belt of riverside jungle. A fine kettle, he thought, but who could he blame? No one at State could have guessed that General Ogwang’s long-lost wife would despise him. And Ogwang’s infatuation with the Eurasian girl was natural enough: fate had thrown them together intimately; she was beautiful, eager for his protection and grateful. But the group was splitting into hostile camps, and there had to be a stop put to it.

  He heard someone on the trail, and the green-and-red fire of a startled touraco burst out of the foliage.