Lion's Blood

by Steven Barnes

  Such conversations had been suspended this evening, in favor of outdoor adventure. Kai, Fodjour, and Elenya crept through the shadows, across the access road toward the servant quarters, Kai carrying a little pouch of the mixture purloined from Babatunde.

  Ghost Town's privies were just outside the gate, generally downwind from both servant and master. They were of simple design: holes dug in the ground with chemicals sprinkled in to hasten the breakdown of waste and mute the odor. The privies were covered up or pumped out every few months, with an eye to limiting disease and making the settlement as pleasant as possible.

  Fodjour crept close to Kai as the three came within sight of one of the privy hutches. They hid behind bushes. "Are you sure this will work?"

  Elenya's round little face glowed with worshipful confidence. "If Kai says it will work, it will work," she said.

  Kai shushed them as he scrambled up to the back of the hutch. He took a few minutes to attach his innocuous little bundle, and then amidst giggles and shushing sounds they scampered off again.

  Kitchen Master Aengus had enjoyed a wonderful meal. Not the garbage he fixed for the blacks in the big house, concoctions of ground beef and lamb that they would probably prefer spiced with beetles and grubs. They thought themselves so civilized, but didn't appreciate the value of a side of roast pig, of good honest simple raised bread. He could work all day in their kitchens to produce a banquet to their taste, but what Aengus really wanted was to get home and savor the chicken and potatoes he had simmered in the pot all day, his good wife, Ana, having added whatever garlic, bay leaf, and shallots she could obtain. Ana would have stirred slowly and carefully for hours, blending in sufficient native herbs and mushrooms to produce a truly wondrous meal.

  Aengus was filled almost to bursting with her current efforts. Another spoonful and they would have to roll him to bed. That and the beer that he was allowed to brew. Another alien and disgusting thing about these damned blacks was their aversion to alcohol—the followers of Muhammad, at least. The Zulus and Ibos were rarely Muslims, and those he sometimes provided with beer or imported Roman Provincial wine or fermented milk.

  Tonight it served him well. He was so drunk he could barely walk, which was not an uncommon occurrence. Beer helped him forget, helped keep him from wringing a neck or slitting a throat, or more pointedly from putting ground glass or poison into the food and killing every black man and woman in Dar Kush, an act that would be suicide for the entire settlement.

  So he smiled, and dreamed, and practiced his culinary arts, learned as a boy on far Eire. Aengus barely remembered those days anymore, and often managed to forget them until the next batch of slaves came in, emerald memories still alight in their eyes. He envied them the sunsets they had seen on the shores of his youth, and pitied the awful freshness of their loss.

  Then he could remember, then their pain was his, and he attempted to make their lot a little easier, to warn them against rebellion, or attempted escape. Damnably clever, Abu Ali favored the purchase of intact family pairs whenever they could be found: daughters with fathers, mothers with sons. Always hostages. Always another to share the cost of punishment if one struck out against the masters.

  And one of the most effective punishments was the simple threat to sell one from the relative comfort of the Wakil's settlement to another, less pleasing place. Oh, yes, there were worse by far, and Aengus knew it. There were mines where healthy boys became toothless, broken old men in a single year; swamps filled with fever, pit-fighting circuses where men fought to the death for a crust of bread or a single night with a diseased whore.

  Yes, there were worse.

  Aengus waddled into the nearest hutch and dropped his pants, settling his ample buttocks onto the round wooden seat. The seats were low, so that his knees were a bit higher than his hips: not his favorite squatting position, but truth to tell it did seem to facilitate evacuation. He could already feel gravity doing its work. Aengus hummed a song to himself as he alternately grunted and relaxed.

  The smell was awful, of course, but not as bad as some privies he'd known in his youth. These black bastards did have their uses.

  Suddenly, he realized that there was another smell mixed in with that of urine, feces, and stale old farts. Something that was like fire, a faint burning smell—

  He had a single instant to feel alarm, and then the back of the privy simply vanished with a flash and a roar. The floor beneath him groaned, and he fell into a ghastly sour soft wetness.

  Fear warred with anger as he thrashed in the awful muck, slimy fingers finally finding purchase and hauling his bulk up (and for once he was glad of that mass! If he had been a lad or a lass, he might have sunk right into the midst of the filth, never to be seen again!). With deceptive strength he pulled himself out, covered toe to chin in stinking slime.

  He heard their laughter without being able to see them, and wrath's red tide boiled behind his eyes. He took a step, slipped, and almost slid back into the pit, finally lying there and sputtering at them. "You . . . your father will 'ave your 'ide for this!" he shrieked at them. "I . . . I'll 'ave you!

  Three of the little bastards were running away, doubled over with hilarity.

  Behind him, the other slaves were pouring out of their houses, through the gate. They had heard the muffled explosion, of course. Perhaps at first they had been afraid, but when they saw its target, recognized an irresistibly perverse sort of justice. As a result, they began laughing too, pent-up emotion and fear breaking free to a torrent of cleansing mirth.

  "Aengus," one woman called out, hands cupped to her mouth. "Are all yer dangles in order?"

  Aidan joined the edge of the crowd, his young eyes narrowed. Everyone was laughing at the sight of Aengus lying in a pool of shit, greased from head to toe in foulness. Smoke and stinking steam wafted from the pit. Why were they laughing?

  He felt something brush his elbow and looked up to see Brian Mac-Cloud, a tall, golden, charismatic rogue, neighbor and crony of Topper the blacksmith. The Wakil could vest power where he would: old Auntie Moira was designated the official village leader. Aidan and most others chose Brian. He was a spellbinder and a schemer, fast with his fists and his wit.

  "Well," Brian said. "Serves him for pissin' in the punch."

  "What?"

  Brian grinned his wide, white grin and lit his pipe. Aidan loved the way it smelled and hoped that the wind would hold steady. "Ye never heard it from me, boyo, but come party time, I'd suggest ye stick to water."

  "Aidan?" a familiar voice called. "What happened here?" It was Deirdre, dressed in the thin blanket wrap that substituted for a shawl. Thank heaven that most nights were warm, because with the loss of body fat, his mother would have suffered terribly. There were never enough blankets. The food, while sufficient to ward off hunger, never seemed to be enough to make them truly full, unless one was lucky enough to sit at Aengus's hearth.

  "Evenin, ma'am," Brian said politely. "Just one of the good Lord's thunderbolts, I reckon. All sins accounted for, eh?"

  Aengus struggled up, then slipped again, and for a moment seemed destined to slide back down into the pit.

  Aidan turned in time to see a goddess saunter out of the shantytown. Her hair was yellow, her face an oval vision. Aidan felt his breath quicken and then freeze whenever he watched her approach. Her name was Main. She was Brian's frequent companion, and probably the most beautiful woman in the village.

  He felt a moment's shame and disloyalty that he would think that about someone other than his mother, and snuck another glance at Deirdre. His heart sank. Her eyes were dark-rimmed and her posture was slumped, as if she were still chained in the terrible narrow spaces in the slave ships.

  Aidan swallowed hard.

  Main's clothing was disarrayed, and a shimmering aura of heat seemed to envelop her and her man as she linked arms with him. Brian looked at her with lazy-lidded eyes, his long strong jaw working around the pipe. "Now, girl. Where were we . . . ?"

  Murmuri
ng to each other, they returned to the village. Aidan knew that they were bound for Brian's bed. Since arrival in this land, he had seen and heard things that shocked him. Men and women seemed to pair off and couple with no concern for possible pregnancy. There seemed no shame, no guilt, little morality.

  He let Deirdre shepherd him back, but her attention was split. Her eyes focused beyond him and across the road to the distant big house.

  Guards roamed on horseback, just visible in the distance. The village gates were open, but not for a moment was Aidan gulled into believing he could just walk out and away.

  He had seen the scars of those who had been ridden down, seen the missing eyes and fingers, and heard whispers of night riders and death in the swamp. No. When he made his move, he would be certain. He would be sure.

  And right now, his mother needed him.

  Her eyes were far away, further even than the great house or the imagined limits of the estate. He knew that she was seeing, lost in the verdant mists of time and distance, the O'Dere crannog. She imagined she was seeing her husband, Mahon, his da, wishing she could join him in whatever heaven or hell he reposed. She was remembering Nessa.

  What else did she see? Lir, the fisherman? Kyle and Donough, his old friends? And little red-haired Morgan? The thought of her crimson tresses saddened Aidan, a sweet-sour ache in his chest. Her smile, so warm and challenging. She had known something, held within her some secret about life. Perhaps about their life together, and if he had not awakened to that reality in the crannog, it gnawed at him now. Where was she? He had not seen her since the slave market, and there he had been too panicked and frightened even to say good-bye.

  "Come," Deirdre said, as if she could read his downward-spiraling thoughts. "Morning comes too soon. You need your sleep." He found her hand, a dear, thin hand, and held it tightly as they returned to their simple shelter.

  Chapter Sixteen

  So the days turned. The servants worked in the laundry or the kitchen or dusted and cleaned; they hoed and irrigated and planted in the hemp and bean and teff fields; they mucked the stables and groomed the horses; they bent their backs with hammer and pick and shovel in the northern quarries. Dar Kush had found a home for Deirdre's skills: she was the only slave capable of reading and deciphering complex sewing patterns imported from Alexandria or Djibouti. She labored by candlelight fashioning or mending clothes, embroidering sheets and stitching pillowcases. When she had a spare moment she stitched rags into clothes for the villagers, trading for extra food or labor. Despite the indignity of patching their owners' clothes, his mother was at least spared the hardship of the fields, and Aidan was grateful for that.

  Aidan rubbed his hands raw scrubbing pots in the kitchen. He spent so much time raking straw in the barn that he could recognize individual horses by their droppings, and began learning the theory of crop rotation and the value of the fallow field where Kikuyu herdsmen ran their hardy cattle.

  Above all, he was on call to take care of Kai's needs: polishing, cleaning, sometimes just simple companionship. Kai was a mysterious creature: elegant and effeminate yet well versed in fighting. A lover of scrolls yet quick to mischief, lonely and yet surrounded by slaves, family, and would-be friends.

  He was the favorite of his father's seraglio, the six women, black and white, who slept in a second-floor wing of Dar Kush and seemed to have no function save slaking the lust of Wakil Abu Ali. Plump and giggly, they plied Kai with sweets and pinched his cheeks, but the smiles never remained on his dark face for long.

  Abu Ali's business and political contacts—men from New Alexandria, Wichita, and as far as some place called India—often brought their children with them, as if hoping that Kai might bond with them. The boy was rarely more than polite, as if wary that they wanted something from him or afraid that someone would use him to influence his mighty father.

  And so, curiously, Kai sought Aidan's company frequently, as if comforted by the constraints upon such a formalized and limited pairing.

  The artificial camaraderie might have seemed demeaning if Kai had been a less agreeable sort, but in truth Aidan rather enjoyed his company: he felt a soothing quiet emanating from Kai that he had previously experienced only in his mother's presence, and from the teacher Babatunde. It was strange, and deep, and he had to caution himself not to relax in the other boy's presence, to constantly remind himself: This is not your friend.

  In fact, Aidan's connection to Kai served him quite well. He was able to learn, to gain privilege, to become an invisible set of eyes and ears around the grounds.

  He learned that servants often moved with great freedom in the household, if they were plausibly going about their duties. Aidan spent the days practicing his Arabic until he could stumble his way through a conversation without making a complete fool of himself.

  Most important, he learned to mask his true emotions. For days after the incident in the privy, Aengus had glared at Kai, but his genuinely murderous anger seemed reserved for Abu Ali, who declined to punish either his children or their guest, Fodjour. Twice Aidan had seen Aengus spit in the master's food, then stand beaming with pleasure as the Wakil cleaned every morsel from his plate.

  Once a week Aidan traveled with his young master to Malik's castle, which lay three hours north by horse-drawn cart. Malik's home was squarish, perhaps two-thirds the size of Dar Kush, a sandstone-walled, moated, turreted fortress enclosing a central atrium crowded with strange, fleshy-leaved, spiny-flowered plants. Twice Aidan had been allowed to spend his waiting time in a kind of glass-walled house of flowers, where he reveled in blossoms of phenomenal delicacy, perfumed beyond anything he had ever imagined, a place which bore no slightest imprint of the mighty Malik. This was his wife, Fatima's, sanctum, and Aidan had only invaded it on those occasions when she desired his clever hands to work the pruning sheers.

  All of this land belonged to the brothers, and Aidan was drop-jawed with amazement at its wealth and extent.

  At Malik's mansion, Kai tested the limits of heart, mind, and body. Usually Aidan stayed outside the room, but on a few occasions—for instance when Malik wished Kai to practice a new throw or hold—Aidan was invited in. These sessions, when Aidan left skin and sweat on the floor, were the most painful and rewarding of all.

  Of all the things that confused Aidan, none puzzled him more than the old man, Babatunde. He was tiny, hardly one of the massive warriors who seemed to hold all the power in this bizarre land, yet the black men treated him with the utmost respect, as if he were a kind of seanchai. Babatunde treated all the slaves with a certain degree of consideration: the very first time Aidan met the little man, Babatunde held a door open for him as he struggled under a load of firewood. But whatever concern for slave humanity Babatunde might possess, it didn't translate into the kind of help that might mean freedom or even ease, and expecting favors from Babatunde was like watching a campfire through a wall of ice, hoping for warmth.

  But he did enjoy the fact that Kai, who grew weekly more proficient with sword and empty hand, was never able to sneak up on Babatunde. The little man had the same phenomenal level of awareness displayed by some of the crannog's best hunters, a kind of animal awareness that was never completely set aside, even in sleep.

  Then why were they slain by the Northmen? he asked himself at night.

  And would these black warriors have been taken so easily? It had been a matter of surprise, he told himself. Surprise, and sleep, and ships that spit fire. The black men would die just as easily.

  And one day, Aidan promised himself, he would prove it.

  Sometimes Kai treated his footboy like a pet, a mere plaything. Aidan never had the sense that his young master was being deliberately cruel— just treating him with the casual dismissal that Aidan might have felt toward a nameless village mongrel.

  About once a month, especially after a particularly brutal lesson with Malik, Kai dressed Aidan in ludicrously oversize leather armor and lunged at him as his footboy sought to scramble in evasion.
No matter what he did, Kai would inevitably thump him about the head and shoulders with his light wooden sword. Other times, Kai practiced the throws and holds he had learned from his uncle, inviting Aidan to attack him (often while Ali or Abu Ali watched approvingly) and then pounding Aidan into the dust while his family applauded.

  Following such sessions, Aidan limped back to his bed, enduring the laughter and catcalls of the village men. One particularly ache-filled night Brian MacCloud took pity on him. "Are ye not weary of having the tar whaled out ye, boy?"

  "There's nothing I can do," Aidan said, begging his eyes to cease their shameful watering.

  "Not true, boyo. Not true. In fact, you're about the only one of us who could thump these black bastards and not take a hidin' for it."

  Aidan was shocked by Brian's words, but intrigued as well. "But how? He's so good."

  "Bosh. I seen that fancy nonsense they call fightin'. If they were really any good, they wouldn't need their damned guns. They're not even strong enough to do their own work." Brian knelt down and looked him squarely in the eye. "Don't be so focking impressed." He hunkered closer. "I kin teach ye to knock the shite outa that boy, and make him like it. You game?"

  Aidan nodded eagerly. Brian walked him to the rows of vegetable gardens at the back of the village. There, on furrowed but unplanted earth, in relative privacy, he began to teach Aidan the holds and locks, the throws and sweeps of wrestling. Aidan had seen such skill in the crannog, of course, and there were times when boys and men from his village would match with those of other villages, either traveling troupes who competed for food and a place to rest (and the favor of the village's unmarried girls), or at spring festival, when the prizes were even greater: pigs or goats or sheep or even lumps of gold.

  He reckoned that Brian would have risen high in such competition. He was strong, and fast, and knew a thousand different painful ways to tie a man up.