Zulu Heart

by Steven Barnes

  “Very well.” Kai sighed. “Who is the arresting officer?”

  A broad hearty man with three parallel scars on each cheek stepped forward. “I am, sir. Constable Mamady.”

  “And who has seen this case?”

  “Justice Asab.”

  “A good man. Stern man. And his judgment?”

  “Guilty of theft,” Mamady replied.

  “Mercy!” the poor man shrieked.

  Kai ignored the outcry. “I see. And the complainant?”

  “I, sir, Abu Hassan,” said a man in varicolored robes, a tall, knobby fellow who had watched the proceedings with barely disguised contempt.

  “Ah,” Kai said. He leaned to Kebwe and whispered, “Father had dealings with this one.”

  “And he is?”

  “A knife with two edges and no handle.” Kai cleared his throat and addressed the complainant. “So you came personally?”

  “To see that justice is done to this wretch.”

  Kai raised an eyebrow slightly. Even if his father had not warned him, something about Abu Hassan set his skin acrawl. “A worthy goal. Please. Relate the circumstance.”

  Hassan harrumphed and began. “Sallah farms on my property, and has done so for seven years. In the four years since his return from the mosque, he squandered his half-Alexander—”

  “Sir!” Mubutu protested.

  The constable clapped his meaty hand on the poor man’s shoulder. “Silence!”

  Kai spoke more softly, but with no lesser degree of authority. “Your turn will come,” he said.

  He turned to Abu Hassan. “Continue.”

  The richer man gestured with a bony arm, continuing as if his right to public audience had been prescribed by the Almighty. “His family has not made its break-even, so I carried them for the past two years, hoping that this good-for-nothing would put his back to it. And how does he reward me? By stealing my prized Egyptian chickens. What does the Kitab say? ‘And as for the thief, his hand should be cut off.’”

  “Chickens?” Kai glanced at his assistant, amused in spite of the situation’s gravity. “Chickens. We are in mortal danger here. Why are this man’s ankles unshackled? Very well. The defendant may speak.”

  Sallah Mubutu’s wife and three children knelt humbly to the side. He moaned on the ground, misery apparently negating his capacity for speech.

  “The defendant may address the bench,” Kai repeated.

  “Sayyid, I am a poor man….”

  “This,” Kai said, as kindly as he could, “is evident from your raiment.” Most who appeared before him wore their best, seeking to curry favor. The man was poor indeed, and the gap between their stations made his use of the honorific “Sayyid” understandable if a bit improper. Most correctly, this was only applied to descendants of the Prophet, Peace Be Upon Him. “Please continue,” Kai said.

  “Ask him if he stole my chickens,” demanded Abu Hassan.

  Kai’s irritation increased. “You had your chance to speak. Does he not deserve the same? Fair is fair. It is, after all, his hand at risk.” His gaze returned to Sallah. “Continue.”

  “I stole them,” said Sallah, “but my family was hungry!”

  “They say you squandered the gold you earned in the Aztec War. Is this true?”

  Sallah tried to straighten his shoulders. “Not squandered, sir. I purchased implements with which to begin a new business.”

  “And what business is that?”

  “Toolmaking. My uncle was a shipbuilder, and I apprenticed in the harbor. I have a talent for engineering.”

  “And your father was…?”

  “A farmer, and his father before him, and fine ones. He fell into debt through no fault of his own. I simply do not have the way of it in my bones, but yet attempted to carry my father’s debt after his death.”

  Kai empathized with the little man more than he cared to display. A son’s burden could be heavy indeed. “A worthy goal. And what happened to your business?”

  Sallah’s face fell and shoulders slumped. “My landlord went to his neighbors and advised them against dealing with me. I could find no customers.”

  Kai’s hands fisted in his lap. He turned to Abu Hassan. “He speaks truly?”

  Abu Hassan squared his thin shoulders and spoke with no hint of embarrassment or apology. “This man is a scoundrel. I merely wished to protect the righteous from his deception.”

  It was well that Abu Hassan could not see the fire seething in the Wakil’s eyes. “I see. So. And why was his family hungry? This same sloth?”

  Kai stepped down from his platform and extended his hands to Sallah. After a pause, the poor man extended his own. Kai examined them carefully, eyes and fingers tracing every blister, tear, and callus. Sallah had thick skin and clean, broken nails. “The hands of a lazy man?”

  Abu Hassan merely grunted.

  “The soil is poor, sir,” Sallah moaned. “Abu Hassan will not let a third of it lay fallow, nor did his father, and the land is exhausted.”

  Abu Hassan was pitiless. “Another excuse!”

  Kai folded his fingers together. “And so when he ran out of food, rather than redouble his miserable efforts, he stole chickens.”

  “Exactly!”

  Kai leaned toward Sallah. “Abu Hassan is correct when he says that the thief’s hand should be cut off.”

  Sallah Mubutu rolled in the dust beneath his feet and sobbed. His family wailed and tore their hair.

  Abu Hassan was exultant. “Yes! You see? Your efforts to embarrass me have availed you nothing.”

  “A moment,” Kai continued, raising a single slender finger. “The Book further states: ‘but if the thief is repentant, then Allah will forgive him.’ Sir,” he said to the prostrate Mubutu. “Are you repentant?”

  Abu Hassan sneered. “He would say anything.”

  Kai had grown dangerously quiet. “Please, do not interrupt. Sir, are you repentant?”

  “I regret being poor,” Sallah said. “I regret working my entire life to pay debts that are not my own. How can I regret trying to feed my family?”

  “Indeed,” Kai said. “It is, in fact, your sacred duty. Hmmm.” He leaned back, growing more thoughtful.

  “I regret troubling the great Wakil,” said Sallah. “I do not know what justice is. I only know that for pain of hunger, my children cry in the night.”

  “Loudly?” Kai asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He turned to Abu Hassan. “Truth?”

  Hassan rolled his eyes in his great sun-weathered face. “Oh, I suppose they wail that their father is such a wretch. I have a hundred sharelanders, as did my father before me. If they have a bad season, I advance them seed, tools, food.”

  “As you did to his father.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are many of these sharelanders in debt to you?”

  “Many of them, yes.”

  “Most?”

  “Perhaps, yes.”

  “All?”

  Hassan looked away. “I think not.”

  “I see.” Kai drummed his fingers on the desk. “Our laws allow such systems, which in essence place our humbler citizens on a level with whites. Would you agree with that?” Kai studied his fingernails carefully.

  “If they sink so low, I suppose,” said Abu Hassan.

  “There are obligations,” Kai said. “Servant to master, master to servant. What are your obligations?”

  “Why, to deal with them honestly,” quoth the pious Abu Hassan.

  “By the law of the land. Yes. But more, as well. You, sir, have the obligation of charity. This man works your land. His hands are blistered with toil, to make you wealthy. Sallah is correct—it is his responsibility to feed his family. However, it might also be said that it is your responsibility to look out into the world and find those who are in need, and respond to that need.”

  For the first time, Abu Hassan’s smile faltered. “That is not the law.”

  “Yes, it is,” Kai corrected. “Sacred,
not secular. You opened that door by quoting the Qur’an. You are devout?”

  “Of course,” Hassan said, allowing a tremor to enter his voice.

  “Then you should know charity is one of the five great obligations. The Ulema has gone so far as to say it is the second most important, excluding only the obligation to proclaim the singularity of Allah and His messenger.” True enough. The Ulema, the college of scholars who debated and interpreted both the Qur’an and Hadith, was considered the most important contemporary source of sacred law. “This man stole chickens, but he found himself in that position because he attempted to clear his father’s debts. That he failed in his efforts does not change the intent, and it is the intent that led him to this place.”

  Abu Hassan’s eyes narrowed. “What is your meaning, Wakil?”

  “I will pay for your chickens personally. I declare this man’s debts to you canceled.”

  While Hassan sputtered, Sallah’s family wept uncontrollably. Kai leaned forward. “You are a toolmaker?”

  “Yes, sir,” Sallah replied.

  “A good one?”

  “On my life, it is the greatest skill I possess.”

  There was a path, a thread of justice in every case. Where the early phases were often a confusing compendium of law and custom, suit and countersuit, claim and defense, there came a moment when Kai could see the path that wound narrowly between law and morality, and could set his feet confidently upon it. It was these moments that made all of the formality worthwhile. “There are jobs in the Djibouti shipyard. You will go to a man named Maputo Kokossa, and tell him that I sent you.”

  The little man wiped his tear-streaked face, gazing up at his benefactor. “Ko-Kokossa? The Maputo Kokossa?”

  “Oh?” Kai said dryly. “You know of him?”

  “Who has not? You would do this for Sallah?”

  “No,” said Kai. “This I would do for the one God, who lives in you. You stood with me at the mosque, and there proved yourself a man. Rise, and be one once again.”

  Kai then turned the full measure of his scorn upon the astonished Abu Hassan. “And as for you, who feel no charity toward those who have profited you, I say it was as much your responsibility to be aware of genuine need among your people as it was Sallah’s to feed his crying children. One might say that you forced him into his current condition. That by forcing him to his knees before me you stole from this man his pride. If this is true, then you, Sidi, are the thief.”

  The assembled murmured in response.

  By now, Abu Hassan had completely lost control of his temper. “How dare you, you Sufi whelp! Your father would never have—”

  Kai stood, breathing deep in his belly to quiet the adrenal fire flaring in his veins. During his father’s life, Abu Ali had been sensitive to local conservative prejudices against Sufism, requesting Babatunde to keep a low profile. Since Kai’s ascendance to the office of Wakil, the nasty whispers had continued, but lacked any legal or political weight. The term “Sufi” had been used pejoratively before, but never in Kai’s own court! He stood. “You ask how I dare? Who am I to dare? I am the Wakil, empowered by law and custom to be the court of appeal for men like you and the men bonded to you in service. You dare quote scripture to me, and conjure my father to serve your purpose? Then know this: I place you on notice. Within the month I will inspect your sharelanders. Their homes and your books. And if I find that either of them are in disrepair—if I find that you have abused the laws of usury in any way—then it is your wrist that will bleed.”

  It was possible that never in all Abu Hassan’s adult life had he been so publicly upbraided. If a sword had been close to hand he might well have leapt forward with murderous intent. “How … how dare …”

  At that instant, Kai considered lending this toad a shamshir, that Hassan might fulfill his apparent fantasy of challenging the master of Dar Kush in his own home. Such conflicts he found cleaner, more honest. More swiftly resolved.

  “I will appeal to the Governor!”

  Kai’s smile was cold. “Yes. Do. Let us both go before the governor. And the Ulema. And ask them to interpret the law for us, with your financial records for the last ten years presented in your defense.”

  Abu Hassan was stunned. He sagged like a deflated waterskin. “You … why would you do this, Wakil?”

  “Ah,” said Kai, seating himself again. “So I am once again Wakil? No longer the upstart son and nephew of dead heroes?”

  Defeated, Abu Hassan lowered his head. “I meant no offense.”

  Kai snorted, unable even to acknowledge Abu Hassan’s polite lie. “It is in the memory of my father, and in the shadow of the Kitab that I proclaim so.”

  Abu Hassan’s eyes searched the courtyard, as if searching for support. There was none. “I … a thousand apologies, Sayyid.” Kai almost smiled at the slip. Truly, fear was a leveler of men. “I deeply regret any actions that may have, however inadvertently, contributed to … this action.”

  “The theft of chickens. Yes. Small things can have large consequences. It would be good for us all to remember this.”

  “Yes, Sidi,” several of the witnesses agreed.

  “Next?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The garden’s myriad leaves and flowers rustled as the prior complainants retreated down the narrow tiled path, and a pair of new entreators advanced.

  To Kai’s surprise and immediate interest, two identical sword-carrying women entered the courtyard. “Who are these?” Kai asked of Kebwe. Both women were tall, muscular, and of mirror visage, two souls with but a single face. They carried long-bore muskets and wore heavy, unbleached, undyed cotton skirts over some kind of dark leggings. The skirts fell to a few digits below the knee. Their blouses were crimson silk, with front buttoning, similar to those worn by Hausa Muslims.

  Their necklaces were tightly beaded, colors and shapes repeated in intricate mathematical patterns. Their faces were strong and square. Unpainted and unadorned, still they were of noble character and almost masculine beauty. Almost. Despite the relative harshness of their garb, there was something indefinably feminine about the two, some inexpressible aura of sensuality that could not be hidden or disguised.

  Fascinating.

  A black ink crocodile was etched on each of their cotton skullcaps. Their leather sandals cradled strong feet with square-cut toenails. Their carriage and alertness would have shamed most of his own guard, challenging enough to send a tiny jolt of alarm coursing through his veins.

  “Dahomy warrior women,” Kebwe whispered. “Forty in number, who arrived in this district yesterday. These are their leaders.”

  Kebwe consulted a sheet of paper. “Their names are Yala and Ganne.”

  “Warrior women? Twins? Dahomy?” Kai said in delight. Not only warriors, but comely as well. He wished that Babatunde was there, knowing his tutor’s hereditary distrust of all things Dahoman. Suddenly, the day seemed brighter and far more interesting. “How shall I tell them apart?”

  “Why would one wish to?” Kebwe whispered. “On a dark night, an honest mistake … one sister as ripe as the other …”

  Kai tsk’d and fixed his magisterial expression back into place. “Very well,” he said. “Approach.”

  They moved with focus and discipline as well as grace, and Kai hazarded that they could use those swords with lethal facility. Although delightfully womanly, their bodies carried no excess padding: muscles in their arms bunched and released like oiled chains.

  “I am Ganne,” said the one on the left. Kai saw that she had two thin scars on her cheeks, while the identical woman beside her bore but one. “And my sister is Yala. Our farms in Deregget are suffering.” He knew the district, a southern parish of Wichita whose Amharic name literally meant “to lay the foundation.”

  “We lost our crops,” Yala agreed. “After council, we decided to fall back on our grandmothers’ ways.”

  “You have raised sword and shield?” Kai asked.

  “And gun, yes. You unde
rstand?” Yala said.

  “No,” he replied. “But I empathize.”

  “You are a warrior, Sidi.” said Ganne. “What if you had been born a woman?”

  “I would not be a warrior.”

  “But what if you were?” she insisted, not a kite of deference in her manner. “What if that was your heart? We cannot change our natures—they were given to us along with our blood and marrow.”

  Kai leaned back thoughtfully. “And you propose to sell your swords. I must tell you frankly—I have little love for mercenaries. You would kill for money?”

  “We would prefer to act as guards, or even a roving patrol, but will take any honest work offered. Your Honor,” Ganne said, “you said in your own court that it is a parent’s obligation to feed her children. Ours were hungry. The hiring of a sword arm is more palatable than the sale of our bodies. Our culture does not offer many choices to such as we.”

  On his desk, a long-necked vase held a single cut rose, just that morning pruned from his private garden. He leaned forward and inhaled deeply.

  “Here,” he said to the twins. “Scent.”

  Yala of the single scar did so, briefly, then stepped back. “It is very beautiful.”

  “Your women appreciate such things?”

  “Of course.” She bristled.

  “And swords as well. Delightful. Please,” he said. “A bit of your history to illumine a dreary day.”

  Yala commenced without hesitation, as if she had told the story many times. “Once upon a time,” she said, “there was much corruption in Dahomy, many traitors, much intrigue. But a troupe of woman hunters had served the King well, and were recruited to the palace as guards.”

  Kai held up a finger, asking for silence, and turned to Kebwe, eyebrows raised in a quizzical arch. Kebwe inclined his head slightly. Affirmative. So, his old compatriot had heard these stories as well, perhaps from Makur, a friend and comrade of Dahoman ancestry. He turned back to Yala and Ganne. “Continue, please.”

  “Those grandmothers were sworn to celibacy, and kept from things feminine. Still, they were women, and the more ferocious for it.”

  “Oh?” Kai asked, using his mildest voice. “Are women fiercer than men?”