The Queen of Swords

by R. S. Belcher

  “Yes,” Maude said. “I felt it. We may win the battle but lose the war.”

  “Are you prepared for that?” Bella said, finishing off her drink. “Ready to implement our scorched earth option, if we fail to win this in the courtroom?”

  “No,” Maude said. “I refuse to believe that odious option is our only recourse. I was taught that the courts were where truth and justice resided in this nation, that people of good conscience and strong character could come to them and hew out the truth. I’m not ready to give up on that notion just yet. We have right on our side. I can’t, Bella, I just … can’t. To acquiescece to that is to agree with madness.”

  “If most of the good, god-fearin’ people in that courtroom had their way,” Bella said, imitating Rutledge’s preacher voice for a moment, “Isaiah and his children would still be slaves, and you and I would never have a notion of being more than a wife or mother ever pop into our vapid little skulls. This world was born of madness, Maude, and when you’re used to madness, you fear sanity.”

  16

  The Sun

  Abomey, Kingdom of Dahomey, Africa

  August 31, 1721

  The meeting before the throne was between Anne, King Agaja and his defeated war chief and leader of the Ahosi, Nourbese. No members of the court or even warriors or bodyguards were present. Nourbese, like Anne, had healed from the worst of her injuries from the duel. Anne suspected that Adu had been giving her some of his healing tonics as well. Nourbese looked at Anne with sullen eyes, still smoldering with anger. Anne gave her a wink and then returned to listening to Agaja.

  “In accordance with the laws of my kingdom,” Agaja said in English, “you, Anne Bonny, seeker and champion of Oya, have won through trial by combat the privilege and honor to lead my personal guard, the Ahosi. You have further won the right to decide the fate of their former leader, Nourbese Edenausegboye Sosi Ayawa.”

  Anne sized up Nourbese. She was still dressed as one of the Amazon warriors, however the ornate gold rings were no longer about her neck, nor the iron blades at her fingertips.

  “If you wish her dead,” Agaja said, “you have but to say the word and she will fall upon her blade.”

  “You fought like hell against me,” Anne said to Nourbese. “Best scrap I’ve ever been in. You’d do that? You’d die now, by your own hand?”

  Nourbese didn’t hesitate in her response. “I’d die to keep my word and honor my oath to my king,” the Amazon said in English, her eyes still glistening with anger. “Life without those things is not life, it’s breathing. It’s something only a warrior could understand.”

  Anne looked to the king. “So you’ll honor whatever I decide to do to this woman?” Agaja nodded. “Then I make her my second. She will follow me, and command the Ahosi in my name, and I’ll command all of them in your name, your majesty.”

  Nourbese looked as if she just had fallen on her sword.

  “You understand she may betray you,” Agaja said. “Assassinate you, or give you poor advice in battle that leads to your downfall.”

  “I don’t think so. She will give me her word,” Anne said, “and she will give you her word as well.” Anne was now facing Nourbese as close as they had been when the war chieftain had been stabbing steel into Anne’s flesh. “If I think for one second that she isn’t giving me her full loyalty, I’ll take back the life I’m loaning her.”

  “I will kill you one day,” Nourbese said. “Your kind befoul my country, my people. You are like a sickness that eats us away slowly. You are a thief and a whore. You have no code and believe in nothing past your own skin. One day I’ll be free and I will kill you. I swear that too.”

  “Will you swear an oath to be loyal to this woman, to recognize her command of the Ahosi,” Agaja asked, “and of you?”

  “I will, my husband, my king,” Nourbese said. “I swear it.” Nourbese fell to the floor before the king upon his throne, her face nearly touching the stone. She stood and turned to Anne.

  “Your orders?” she asked.

  “How many Ahosi are there?” Anne asked.

  “Three hundred,” Nourbese said.

  “Go tell them of what has happened here and that I am now your commander,” Anne said. “Select two hundred of them to accompany us on our journey and have them prepared for the trip. The others will remain here and act as the king’s guard until the rest of you return at our journey’s end.”

  Nourbese swallowed hard, and Anne could tell the Amazon was fighting her instincts, her emotions, her urge to lash out at her. “It will be done,” Nourbese said.

  “And if possible, I’d like the ones to accompany us to have no family, no children,” Anne said. Nourbese nearly snorted.

  “You know nothing of us … war chieftain,” she said. She bowed before the king and departed.

  “All of the Ahosi are maidens,” Agaja said after she had departed. “They are considered my wives, but it is purely ceremonial. They only take a husband and have children once I have released them from their duty to the throne.”

  “Good,” Anne said. “Wise. No sense creating more orphans and widows if you don’t have to. War does that just fine without any help.”

  “You fight like someone who has made your share of widows and orphans,” the king said.

  “I have,” Anne said. “That’s why I don’t fancy making more. I’ve never killed anyone for pleasure, always business. ’Sides, it seems odd that a fellow so deep in the hole with slavers would be wobbly in the knees about killing.”

  “You do realize that disrespect to me is an offense punishable by death,” Agaja said.

  “Mmmhm,” Anne said. “You already tried that. Sent your best warrior. I’m still here and now she works for me.”

  Agaja laughed heartily. “You have no fear in you,” he said. “Good. You’ll need that to face Oya.”

  “Who exactly is Oya?” Anne said. “I can’t get a bloody straight answer to save my life … literally.”

  “Oya,” the king said, with reverence and humility in his voice for the first time. “It means ‘she tore.’ Oya-lyansan is mother of the nine, the goddess of the mighty Niger River. She is sister to the god of storms, and she is the Orisha of rebirth. She casts down the dead wood with her machete, and makes room for the green. She is the giver of truth and the bringer of justice.”

  “Oya is a goddess,” Anne said. “No wonder the dodgy old bastard didn’t want to say.”

  “On the path of Oya,” Agaja said, “you either learn her wisdom or die trying.”

  “I’ve been through too much and I’m too close to retiring a landed lady,” Anne said. “Dying is not in the cards here.”

  “You’ve seen enough of it to know,” the king said, “death does as it will. There is no bargaining with it, no cheating it. King or slave, it will greet us all, in its time. If you seek the city of monsters, then you will find Oya, its guardian, and perhaps you will find death. I hope not, though. I fancy this world much more with you in it, I think.”

  “Why do you deal with the slavers?” Anne crossed her legs as she sat on the floor before the throne. “You don’t seem the type. It doesn’t suit you.” To her surprise, Agaja joined her on the floor, sitting before his throne.

  “Thank you for saying that,” the king said. “Most believe it is for power. Wealth, guns, to make my kingdom stronger, larger. I have no love for selling slaves to the whites, but they are here now, and they must be dealt with. I choose to keep them close for now, and use them as they use us. But one day, I will rid my kingdom and all these lands of your people.”

  “Not my people,” Anne said. “Fuck the lot of them, fucking scavengers. I’ve lived most of my life more slave, more criminal, than anything else. My sympathy is usually for the one in the shackles.”

  “You may have trouble believing it, but I do understand,” Agaja said. “My people, the Fon, have known the yoke of the Oyo Empire, of the Yoruba. They have taken our people as slaves, demanded tribute in flesh, long before
the whites arrived and showed us how to make a shameful tradition into a horrific industry.”

  “Everybody shits on everybody,” Anne said. “We do it to ours, you do it to yours, we do it to each other. And the ones with the most money and the most power, with the right names, the right goddamn pedigree, the keys to the peggin’ kingdom, they bugger us all as hard up the mine as they can.” Agaja shook his head. “Oh, no offense, your majesty,” she added. “I meant those other rich, powerful blighters.” They both laughed.

  “I’ve only a very few people in my life,” the king said, “who’ve ever spoken to me without so much…”

  “Shit?” Anne offered.

  “Yes,” the king replied. “Not the word I was thinking of, but yes, without so much shit. I like that.”

  “I’m an acquired taste,” Anne said.

  “Are you hungry?” Agaja asked. “Will you dine with me?”

  “I’d be honored,” Anne said.

  They retired to one of the royal apartments in the palace, a room filled with silks and gold, more murals, ancient tapestries and thick lounging pillows of Egyptian cotton. Servants brought course after course of food while the court musicians played. Anne dug into every dish eagerly, much to the king’s delight.

  “You eat like a warrior, that’s for sure,” he said. “You eat like three warriors.”

  “Never pass up a meal,” Anne said around a mouthful of food. “You can’t be sure it won’t be your last.”

  The dishes included sosatie, curried lamb on skewers, and mesfouf, a dish much like couscous. There were cakes of seasoned locust beans, and numerous mashed and spiced vegetables served on large platters covered in unleavened kitcha bread used to scoop up the mash. Anne particularly liked the samosa—fried pastries with a variety of fillings. She liked the spiced potato samosa very much. Dessert was an endless wave of sweets, fig rolls and a sweet bread called himbasha that Agaja said was normally only prepared for celebrations, and was being served in her honor. There was kelewele, fried sweet plantains, and braided syrup-covered pastries called koeksister. Of course there was much European wine and spirits. Anne drank her fill.

  “That mural hidden by the tapestry in the throne room,” Anne said, “what is that, why was it so important to Adu, to everyone?”

  “It is a very old story,” the king said, sipping his wine while reclining on cushions, “the story of the first war on Earth, the first war between men, monsters and gods. Adu was there, as was his family. Most fought for humanity and Earth; a few sided with the monsters and their father.”

  “Father?” Anne asked. She reclined back on the pillows, yawned and stretched. She felt Agaja’s eyes roam across her body as she did. She decided she liked that.

  “Yes,” Agaja said. “Its true name is stricken from human speech, for it gives it strength to utter it. It is known that it is the son of Apophis, and groom to Echidna, the mother of all monsters. Adu helped the alliance of spirits, gods and people that Oya led against the monsters and their sire. The battle lasted one hundred hundred years, and it was fought on the great plain where the city you seek now resides.”

  “You know where I’m headed,” Anne said. “Adu?”

  “Yes,” the king said. “He said you seek the wisdom of Oya, and if a mortal seeks Oya, it is said she may only be found in the shadow of the city made from the bones of the beasts she helped slay. I do wish you were not going there. It is a bad place, the earth is stained with much evil blood there. It’s not a city for mortals to behold.”

  Anne let her head roll back on the cushions. “I’m not seeking fucking Oya, or any wisdom, luv; I’m seeking bloody treasure—gold, jewels, loot—enough to let me retire to a nice little palace of my own.”

  “I could give you palaces,” Agaja said. “Gold, jewels, a dozen lifetimes worth.” He reached over to Anne. His thick finger traced a surprisingly gentle path along her cheek, then slowly down her neck, toward her shoulder. The finger glided along her skin and sent a shudder, like soft lightning, through her body.

  Anne’s breath quickened and a flush, a dizzy thrill better than any liquor, spread across her, through her. She took his massive hand in her small pale one and stopped its descent effortlessly. He was touching her as if she were spun out of dreams and shadows and would evaporate if he were too forceful. The thought of such a large, powerful man—a king, a fighter, capable and used to getting exactly what he wanted—being so careful touching her made her flutter inside.

  She kissed his knuckle while she looked into his eyes, dark and damp with a growing hunger. Hers were twinkling, mocking, a green devil dancing in them. Anne bit his finger playfully, grinning as she held it locked in her teeth.

  “It’s always better to take something than be given it,” she said.

  “Spoken like a true thief,” Agaja said.

  He pulled her toward him insistently. Anne met his embrace with one of her own, kissing him fiercely and with a muffled growl. The kiss devoured both of them, and they lost themselves in the unfettered need in it, the searing sweetness. Agaja’s massive hands moved effortlessly to her waist as she slid over to straddle him, her hands on either side of his large neck, her nails faintly raking his skin as they moved down.

  Agaja broke the kiss with a groan of frustration. He turned his head and addressed the musicians in a hoarse voice. “Leave us!” The music stopped, and the servants quickly departed. Anne chuckled and kissed, then nipped, at his neck.

  “Poor king,” she muttered into his warm flesh, “what you must go through.”

  “I could make you my queen,” he said, and Anne saw he meant it. “I’ve never seen your like; you fight like a tiger, you drink and swear like a sailor, and you are more lovely than the dawn after a battle. Be my wife, in more than just name. Be mine.”

  Anne drank deeply of his lips again and she found sweet strength, comfort and solace in them, felt her body move of its own accord, like waves, against his, the land against the sea. A dark certainty, tempered of too many losses, too many lies, too many passions forged in flame and quenched in the cold water of time, whispered to her, and she heeded it, as she always did, putting the armor up again about her heart.

  This was what it was, nothing more. To try to make it such only cheapened the glory, the joy, the magic inherent in it. When she broke the kiss, Agaja saw her eyes were full of devouring flame. It startled him more than any charging warrior ever had. He gasped at the intensity of her gaze.

  “I’ve tried my hand at marriage,” she said, flushed and breathless. “Didn’t take.” She sank her nails into the back of his neck and head as she pulled him to her for another kiss. Blood thudded in their ears, their bodies ached, arched and writhed. “What say we skip straight to the honeymoon?”

  They consumed each other as the night is devoured by the day.

  17

  The Four of Cups

  Charleston, South Carolina

  May 20, 1871

  Bella had taken the carriage back to Charleston and Maude had finally given up on another wasted night of searching for any mention of the Daughters, the mysterious Sons or how Constance was connected to the Grail of Lilith. She was supposed to meet Alter at the courthouse tomorrow to discuss his investigation into the dead Sons she and Constance had fought in Charleston, and what he had uncovered.

  Isaiah entered the parlor with two mugs of tea. He gave one to Maude and then sat in the chair next to her before the fire. Maude sipped hers and then glanced up in surprise.

  “This is Gran’s Blood-Dragon Oolong,” Maude exclaimed. “I haven’t had this since I was little!” Isaiah nodded and sipped his own mug.

  “The emperor himself gifted her a small cask of it after that whole god-awful Jiang Shi affair,” Isaiah said. “He said it was grown in the heart of Kunlun, harvested by the gods themselves. I don’t know if you recall Ching Shih, she was a friend of your grandmother, a remarkable woman, one of the Daughters of Lilith, I believe. I met her a few times, when I was very young. Madame C
hing used to bring a little of it to Lady Cormac whenever she visited. I managed to save a bit of it for you. I thought you might need it.”

  “Thank you,” Maude said. “You always gave me this when she had been hard on me, when I was ready to give up.”

  “You never did,” Isaiah said. “How are you, little girl? Still no luck with the research?”

  “Nothing,” Maude said. “You’re certain she never mentioned any other archive, or a book she might have kept separate from all the others, papers, a lock box, a diary?”

  “No,” he said. “She mentioned a ‘record’ a few times, but never any specifics about it, and to my knowledge she never referenced it, at least not here at Grande Folly. There is a considerable amount of land connected to the estate, though; maybe it’s hidden or buried somewhere on the property?”

  “I can’t start digging up miles of land at random,” Maude said.

  “No, she’d have left some kind of map, the old pirate,” Isaiah said.

  “I can’t beat an enemy I don’t understand,” she said. “Gran told me the Daughters don’t normally ever meet up, unless things are truly bad, like end-of-days bad. Something big is going on, it involves Constance, and I have only scraps of information to work with. The Daughter I spoke with briefly during the fight seemed surprised I hadn’t encountered the Sons before, but Gran never mentioned them to me, and I can’t help but wonder why. It’s very frustrating.”

  Isaiah smiled, and sipped his tea. “She was always damn good at being frustrating,” he said. “But she had so much faith in you, Maude. She struggled with whether she was too old to teach you or not, but she told me many times, and I quote, that you were going to do great things, and that she had prepared you with every tool, every resource you’d need. I believe her. I did then, and I do now. You will find a way. ‘There’s—’”