Zulu Heart

by Steven Barnes

  “Can you save her?” Kai asked Babatunde.

  “I think so. I believe so.” He folded his hands together, thinking hard and fast. “Send for Jimuyu, and the herb woman.”

  “You will stay with my daughter. You will save her life, if it is possible. I know this.”

  “Insh’Allah.”

  Kai gripped Babatunde’s shoulder, then released it before rage and fear transformed his hand into a claw. Trembling, he stalked from the room.

  As if it had held its greatest wrath for just such a moment, the sky had opened, unleashing its fury. The search continued for an hour in the midst of the downpour, and then …

  “The Hashassin is found!” cried a servant.

  They rushed toward the barn, entering with drawn swords, and found Fodjour standing over a limp body.

  The corpse was freshly dead. The body was dressed in a Zulu kilt, a spear still clutched in his right hand.

  “What is this?” Kai asked, kneeling to see more closely. “I know this man, but cannot name him.” Had he seen the man before? His head seemed muzzy, anger coursing through his veins with such a fire that it grew difficult to think.

  “He is Zulu,” said a guard.

  “Yes,” said Kai. “Not Persian. But the Hashassin adopt children from other tribes, and raise them to kill. We must assume nothing. Does anyone know him? Has anyone ever seen him?” His guards shook their heads. Kai frowned. “There will be a reckoning. Someone among my people may know something.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he either entered the house, or had a confederate within. I want my servants brought to the barn. Now.”

  Conair stepped forward, wringing his hands miserably. “I, sir. I have seen this man.”

  “When? Where?”

  “I dare not speak,” the boy said, averting his eyes.

  “Why?”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “You need fear nothing if you speak truth. And everything if you fail to speak. I will have answers.” Kai struggled with all his powers to keep his emotions under control.

  “I saw him speaking to the sitta-t.”

  “Lamiya?”

  Conair shook his head.

  “Nandi?”

  The boy nodded.

  “When?”

  “At the birthday party.”

  “Where were they?” Kai’s head was whirling, rage and pain combining to head-splitting effect. “Who else was there?”

  “Sir. They were … alone.”

  Kai looked stricken. His eyes tightened and then opened. “Nandi. Who else has words for me? Speak now.”

  “Sir,” said the cook. “I saw her put a powder into your stew two months ago. I thought that they were special spices, and watched her sample it herself, so …” He looked completely abashed. “I hope that I was not mistaken.”

  “Why said you nothing?” The rage in his voice was shocking, even to himself. It was not his voice at all; it was Malik’s, and some deeper part of Kai said, Why not? See where your greed and lust have brought you? But I am here. I will guide your hand.

  Release me.

  “Accuse the lady of the household, sir? Your new wife? If I was wrong, she would have me crucified.”

  Kai was as silent and still as the center of a storm. Then without another word he left the barn, and walked through the rain back to the house, making no attempt to shelter himself, barely blinking as the water ran through his hair and into his eyes.

  Kai went to the third-floor nursery. Babatunde still hovered over Aliyah, who remained deep in her swoon.

  “How is she?” he asked.

  “Strong,” the Sufi said. “With the grace of the Almighty, I believe she will survive. I cannot leave her side yet.”

  “I do not wish you to,” said Kai. “I wish you to remain in this room for the next hour.”

  Those words broke Babatunde’s focus, and he turned to examine his pupil. What he saw alarmed him. “Kai. You are not well.”

  Do not listen to him. “I wish you to tell me the truth, Babatunde.”

  “Have I ever done other than that?”

  “Never have I asked you a question of such import.”

  They were both silent. Aliyah moaned. Babatunde mixed unguents from several jars, placed the resultant mixture of herbs and honey on a thin stick, and placed it on her tongue.

  “The fit has passed. Danger remains,” he said finally. “Your question?”

  “What do you know of Nandi, and a Zulu warrior. Nandi, and herbal powders in the kitchen. The truth!”

  Pupil and teacher gazed into each other’s eyes, and Babatunde was clearly uneasy.

  “Babatunde,” Kai growled, in a tone he had never before used with his teacher. “Speak, damn it!”

  “I know nothing of powders. I know that she collected Lamiya’s nail clippings. The Zulus believe such tokens can be used to influence behavior, and I thought it a harmless affectation. I corrected her, and thought that would be the end of it.”

  “And the Zulu warrior?”

  “She admitted to me that she had spoken to him, but that is all.”

  “And my daughter?”

  “There is no evidence … no …”

  Babatunde hung his head, tears sparkling in his eyes. “I am sorry. I fear I have failed you.”

  “Not yet,” Kai said. Crimson clouds boiled at the periphery of his vision, but he managed to lay a gentle hand on his old friend’s shoulder. “You may still do me service if you save Aliyah’s life.”

  Kai left. Behind him, Babatunde looked absolutely haunted.

  Kai stalked downstairs, to Nandi’s room. His foot crashed against the door, just above the lock, splintering it inward.

  “Kai?!” Nandi screamed. IziLomo, crouched at her side, growled at him and started forward.

  Nandi reacted instantly, spitting out “Kulungile.” As if he had run into a wall IziLomo stopped, trembling, whining, straining forward, constrained by iron bonds of discipline and love.

  She turned back to Kai, saw her husband’s hand upon his sword hilt, and felt her blood turn to water. “What is it?”

  “Up, witch,” he snarled. His voice seethed with rage, but for just the moment, he managed to control it. “Walk out of the room,” he said. His eyes were locked on her, but she knew that his vision was taking in everything in the room, every detail. Knew also that if IziLomo moved, Kai would gut him.

  Managing to maintain a semblance of dignity, Nandi turned to IziLomo, who was staring at Kai, a low, hungry moan in his throat. She spoke to her canine friend in Zulu. “Ngizokubuya.” I will return. The dog did not know that she was saving his life, knew only that there was something terribly wrong, and that his mistress was in peril. Still, though IziLomo loved her more than his own life, discipline was stronger than will or instinct, and he remained in place.

  Posture very erect, Nandi walked from the room. Kai closed the door, both of them startled as IziLomo crashed against the heavy wood the instant she was out of his sight. He began to howl.

  “Kai—” she began, but got no further as the temporary dam Kai had placed upon his rage broke. His hand flickered out, slapping her across the face with shocking, contemptuous force.

  Nandi stumbled backward, crashed into the wall and then reeled forward. “You would kill the fruit of my body, and then me, and think to take what my father and uncle spent a lifetime in building?” Kai threaded his fingers into Nandi’s hair, and dragged her down the stairs.

  His men had arrived behind him, stunned at the sight, but instantly grasping the enormity of the situation. Nandi’s maids had appeared at the top of the stairs, and Kai’s men blocked their way with drawn swords.

  Kai saw none of it. The only thing in his heart was the sight of his poisoned daughter, struggling for her life.

  Kai dragged her outside, Nandi holding his hand with hers, lest her hair be pulled out by the roots. IziLomo’s howls echoed through the house like the cries of a lost soul.

  He began to drag
her toward the barn, and was barely aware that Aidan had run up behind him.

  “Kai! No!” Aidan called.

  Kai gazed at Aidan with eyes that were as black as the heart of hell. When he spoke, there was no shred of humanity in his voice.

  “This is not your affair. Go.”

  Aidan started to extend his hand, but then stopped, frozen by the expression on Kai’s face. Both of them knew that if Aidan touched him at that moment, Kai’s sword would taste blood. Doubtlessly Kai would regret it later, but regret did not return men from the grave. At this moment, Aidan’s boyhood friend was like a half-tamed wolf chewing a mutton joint at fireside. Do not touch the wolf while it eats.

  Or avenges its pup.

  Kai pulled Nandi into the barn, and pushed her face at Chalo’s corpse. Then he dragged her back outside.

  “Not in a building,” he growled. “Not beneath a roof. I want your accursed ancestors to watch. Try as it may, all Allah’s rain cannot wash away your sins, and where your accursed blood spills, may nothing grow for a generation.”

  Lamiya had watched, and whatever warring emotions might have lived within her breast, no one could say. She stepped forward, screaming “Kai!” in a commanding voice, and indeed, as mother of his child might well have been the only human being on Earth who could still his hand.

  “Kai!” Lamiya called again. “Listen to me!”

  “Out of my way, woman!”

  “No! I have as much right to revenge as you. Look at me and tell me it is not so.”

  Kai stared at her. The rain coursed down his face. Nandi lay weak in his grasp, undone by struggle and terror.

  “There is more here than we know,” the Empress’s niece said urgently. “Think!”

  For an instant he stared at her, and there was momentary hope that her words might have struck home. Then Kai spoke slowly, as if the pronunciation of each and every word were an effort. “I think that I brought a viper into our home,” he said. “I think that there is only one way that this can end.”

  He looked down at Nandi. “One minute.”

  He drew Ruh Riyȃh. Once Soul Wind had been his father’s sword. Carried onto honest battlefields, Soul Wind had cleft honest skulls and stilled honest hearts. And now … this. He would rather have faced a thousand foes with blood in their eyes and murder on their lips than one deceitful woman.

  Rainwater trickled off its blade like blood after a battle. His chest was heaving as if he had just completed a race. “I give you one minute to pray. Pray to the naked sky, or whatever heathen devils burn in the depths of your Zulu heart. Pray that there is no hell to swallow a creature who would defile the home that welcomed her, betray the man who loved her, kill a child who trusted her.”

  She gazed up at him, perhaps seeking some sign of softness, some trace of hope. The rain beat into her face, pouring from a cold and uncaring sky.

  Distantly, IziLomo wailed.

  He leaned down closer to her. “My hand feels weak tonight,” he whispered. “Pray that my blade needs but a single stroke.”

  Kai raised his sword.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

  Nandi’s world had imploded. All honor was gone. All hope, all love, and now all life were ended. The fall of Kai’s blade would terminate more than her life—it would end any chance for her people to find their homeland.

  Her father would learn of this, and he would want revenge against Kai. Djibouti would defend its Wakil, marginalizing Cetshwayo and his men. War would tear the continent—all because she, Nandi, had failed.

  In the depths of her mind, images flashed like falling stars, dying just as swiftly. She saw the day of her own arrival at Dar Kush. The days of sexual delay and anticipation, once thought delicious, but now seeming only the games of a wounded child. The attack that had claimed Kokossa, when she had placed her own body between the children and danger. An instinctive action, not even now, in the last instants of her life, regretted. Chalo sneaking onto Dar Kush. The deathly sick Aliyah. With impossible swiftness the images sailed past, and might have continued backward to her childhood had she not taken control, a tiny possibility burrowing its way into consciousness.

  “Your eyes, Kai,” she said. “You’ve been drugged. You are not yourself.”

  “Witch. I know what medicine I need. It will flow in but a moment.”

  “Kai,” she said, wrestling mortal fear in an effort to steady her voice. “You saw Chalo fight at the wedding. You saw. Could Fodjour beat him?”

  The rain beat against Kai’s face. “Save your breath for prayer, witch. You profit nothing by slandering Djiboutan men. Soon enough, your kin will flinch from our steel.”

  “Kai! Who profits from this?”

  “You thought to bear my only child, my heir.”

  She nodded in misery, realizing how closely his words struck. “I hoped to bear your son. I put herbs in Lamiya’s food to make her child a girl, not to kill her. And into yours was only a love potion. I sought to win your heart. That was my only sin.”

  Kai lowered his sword. “And your meeting with Chalo?” he asked, no trace of softness in the words. He might have been a machine.

  Chalo. Brave, handsome, foolish Chalo. Chalo, whom she had toyed with. And led to his doom…? “He was a boy, taken with me. I met with him to tell him never to come again.”

  “You should have been more persuasive,” Kai said with finality. “Bow your head.”

  Nandi broke into deep, wracking sobs, cries that even a lifetime of iron discipline were unable to repress. Rain and tears mingled as she stared into the mud. Lightning breached the sky above them. Reflected in the puddle she saw Kai raise his sword again. Holding it in his right hand. She closed her eyes and remembered Chalo, holding his spear.

  Holding his spear.

  “Kai!” she pled in desperation. “One last question. Please. If ever you cared for me. Just one, and then I die.”

  The sword had crested, beginning its downward stroke when she spoke his name. Kai’s shoulders trembled with the effort to halt the lethal descent. “What?”

  She turned her head to look at him. Was it rain? Or was Kai crying? What lived in his eyes seemed not one but two men: one an unyielding angel of vengeance, but the other … the other …

  She spoke what she knew would either be the most important, or the final words of her life. “Why was Chalo’s spear in his right hand?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “He was left-handed, Kai.”

  Kai remembered the day of the wedding. Chalo’s prowess was more than impressive—it was astounding, expert clarity of line combined with a sheer physical exuberance that seemed a defining characteristic of the Zulu people. Kai had wondered what damage he himself might take in the killing of so superb a warrior, and was profoundly grateful that the experiment was not required.

  He struggled to remember. The fire in his blood pulled at him, whispering release if he would but surrender to it.

  As Malik had surrendered. No. He was more than that. Not more than Malik—but he stood on Malik’s shoulders. To do honor to his uncle, he must see farther.

  A moment. Just a moment to think.

  Yes, he had seen Chalo, watched him. Yes. And Nandi was right: Chalo was left-handed. Why then, had he fought Fodjour with his umkhonto in his right?

  Kai stood stock-still in the rain.

  A succession of images and sensations, running backward in time, colliding until he fell to his knees, the world spinning around and around, everything that had happened in the last three years weaving together in his mind.

  There were two families of answer. The first posited that for a reason Kai could not, and might never understand, Chalo had simply used his right hand. A possibility.

  The other, though, was enough to freeze his breath in his chest. Because if Chalo hadn’t fought with his right, then Fodjour had placed the spear in his hand. And that meant that to one degree or another, the scene had been staged.

  Fodjour? But why?

 
; Kai was not in the rain. Instead, he knelt in his meditation and exercise room, the image of the Naqsh Kabir on the floor before him. And as clearly as he saw the rain falling before him, each drop separate and floating through the air like a drifting leaf, he saw Babatunde speak:

  Time is created by our minds. The seductive temptation is to assume linearity is a thing in and of itself and the best way to order and interpret events. In other words: What caused this thing? What led to this thing? What has happened before that, creating a foundation for this thing?

  But that is not the only way to interpret reality. Look at the Naqsh Kabir. If one orders events around the outer rim, that rim represents temporal sequence. But note the lines within. Every connecting pair forms its own meaning, a meaning that exists outside of formal time, that looks both forward and backward in the same instant. We learn one set of things by accepting time, and another still by denying it. Before you come to conclusion, ask yourself what does this mean, from either view?

  The linear: Kai of Dar Kush killed Shaka Zulu. Nandi was sent to destroy his house: first his heirs, and then, after producing her own child, by killing him and Lamiya. The Zulus inherit Dar Kush’s wealth and influence.

  Diabolically simple.

  But what else was there? Was there someone who benefited not from Kai’s death, but his child’s death?

  Perhaps.

  What if his sword had fallen on Nandi’s neck? All hope of alliance with the Zulus would end at that same instant. The Zulus would form alliance with the north …

  No. The Zulus did not respect the “effeminates” of New Alexandria. If a peacemaker approached them, offering sufficient proof of regret and honorable intent, the Zulu might well continue to back the south. Yes. If it served their best interests, that was exactly what they would do.

  What else? What would be both a prize and proof of sincerity in the eyes of the Zulu?

  The office of Wakil, of course. Given to Kai’s father Abu Ali in part for military service, and in part a political acknowledgment of his economic and social power, the office bore powers of high and low justice, and was ancestral—that is, would be passed from father to son.

  What if Kai were disgraced? Already, there had been rumbles, efforts to remove him from office. This action, destroying Dar Kush’s alliance with the Zulus and certainly feeding into the perception of him as an unstable, violent man, would certainly result in impeachment, such an action providing proof positive of Djiboutan regret. A grieving Cetshwayo thus satisfied.