At night, Brian helped Moira with prayer services in the glen, but there was something so intense and incendiary in his teachings that it was actually unnerving. His torn face and eye patch seemed to add an eerie weight to his words, almost as if his dead eye saw nothing of this world, but everything of the next.
Blended together with a kind of spicy imbuzi goat salad, the scent of steamed cabbage and carrots together with a side of izidumba yams created an explosion of color and fragrance. Aengus had exceeded himself, adding a master's flourish to the traditional Zulu fare.
The meal was held in the Family Hall, one third the size of the Great Hall on the eastern side of the ground floor. The Wakil's full household was present, with Malik and Fatima in attendance as well. The candled chandeliers glowed orange, casting a warm, earthy light across their faces and over the woolen wall hangings, which depicted the Mosque of the Fathers. No silk tonight: Shaka was the guest of honor, and any fabric so effeminate would have been tantamount to an insult.
Tonight, the Family Hall seemed a celebration of war. Four empty sets of leather Aztec armor stood at the corners of the room. Newly acquired, their feathers were fresh with blood.
"That one!" Shaka roared, quaffing his beer with relish and pointing at Kai. The boy started, then realized Shaka was pointing beyond him, and turned toward a set of deeply scored armor in the corner.
“That one was a madman!" Shaka said. His three officers, battle-scarred Zulus like their chief, pounded the table. "He came at me as if he had already thrown his life away. As if he longed for the tip of my spear, and wished only to cleave my own head in the process. Hah Hah! I liked him!"
The Wakil grinned and shook his head. "You mean you liked killing him."
"Well, that too. But I wished he was one of ours. What I could have done with such a man. See?" Shaka leaned his head to the right, exposing a fresh scar on his neck. "A little more luck, and we would have met our ancestors together."
Abu Ali snapped his fingers and Brian stepped forward from the shadows and filled the Wakil's water glass. His single glaring eye was carefully lowered. Kai felt queasy about the presence of the eye-patched, scarred servant. This was some kind of adult game, one-upmanship. Perhaps Kai's father wanted Brian as a kind of trophy. Perhaps he was their way of saying, See? See, Shaka? You are not the only one who can inflict damage on your enemy.
Shaka took a great forkful of the steaming goat and closed his eyes with pleasure. Zokufa, Shaka's first cousin and chief lieutenant, spanked his palms together, grinning. Half the teeth on his upper right side were broken, and that section of lip was missing. The right ear was but a scarred nub. "Shaka! Tell the story again."
Shaka didn't need to be reminded which story. The Zulus leaned forward in pleasurable anticipation.
"Zokufa and I were cornered, cut off from the rest of the men and surrounded by five of the devils, swinging and cutting at us with those razored clubs."
"I thought we were dead!" Zokufa laughed. "I could smell my intestines already!"
"Please, Zokufa," Fatima protested. "Some of us still have ears to offend."
Zokufa's eyes widened and he roared with laughter, and the other Zulus pounded the table until the cutlery danced.
"We fought like men!" Shaka said. "And they fell before us. Ssshut! Ssshut!" He made cutting motions in the air, and Kai could almost see the blood spray. Appetite was a distant memory. "One, two, three, they die. The fourth ran. Ssshut! I throw my spear, and he falls like rotten fruit."
"The fifth," Zokufa said slyly, "we . . . detained for conversation."
The six Zulus suddenly became very quiet and polite, glancing at each other with barely concealed mirth. Shaka made a slight bowing gesture, as if withholding details in deference to the ladies. In actuality, of course, the lack of details merely made the implications more obscene.
Apparently energized by the vile memories, Shaka plucked up a knife and flipped it in the air, caught it by the blade and hurled it point-first into the leather throat-guard of the Aztec armor.
"Excellent!" Malik laughed and followed suit, his own blade landing within a digit of the first.
And then it was a game. Ali and then Abu Ali snatching up their knives, spinning and hurling them into the armor, demonstrating their skill. The air buzzed with cutlery.
Even Kai joined in. He hadn't practiced knife-throwing for a month, and his first effort hit handle-first and clattered to the ground.
Malik chuckled. "Wrist straight, boy," he said, meaning Don't embarrass me, boy, and tossed Kai another blade. The entire table was quiet as Kai aimed, murmured a little prayer to himself, and let fly. This time his wrist was straight; the blade revolved exactly five times and sank a half-digit into the leather.
Kai sighed relief, the men roared approval, and even Elenya and Lamiya clapped their hands.
"More knives!" the Wakil called: "The game is just begun!"
Servants bustled in and out of the room, ducking and dodging the flying kitchenware. When Brian resupplied Shaka, Malik's throat was momentarily within reach. Kai imagined Brian thrusting in a knife with all of the desperate speed he could muster. Imagined the screams and consternation, the pulse of blood from the awful wounds, and a beatific smile on Brian's face as he died knowing he had dealt death to his enemies.
But even as Kai thought those thoughts, he glimpsed Malik's eyes. They were peaceful, watchful, almost playful. Daring Brian to try it. Please, they said. Give me an opportunity to display my prowess.
Brian laid the knife on the table. Malik smiled as he would to a child, and deliberately turned his back on him. "Fatima, if I can pierce the armor's eye hole, can I win a kiss?"
She blushed and whispered something to Malik that Kai could not hear. His uncle’s eyes widened. Malik stood and hurled his knife. It pierced the eye hole in the leather war mask. Malik beamed down at his bride. "Tonight," he said. Then he turned and gave Brian a particularly warm and friendly smile.
Chapter Twenty-two
It was, Kai decided, a fine day to fly a kite. The winds gusted from the east, pushing clouds before them, a strong steady pulse that caught the tissue of his lacquered red box and lifted it to the sky, a dancing red dragon. He felt a little bit wistful, remembering the days when his father had first taught him to fly kites, gifting him with dancing boxes of light wood and gilded tissue shipped all the way from China. It seemed his father had more time for him in those days. Now Abu Ali would listen to his younger son recite poetry, or the Qur'an, or sometimes watch him practice his swordplay against his more accomplished older brother. At such times Abu Ali's darkly bearded face warmed with pride. But he just didn't seem to have as much time for Kai as he had just a few years previous.
Nor did Ali. Even little Elenya seemed busier, more involved in her lessons and in her relationship with Lamiya, which grew more important to her with every passing day.
So the plunging and capering of the kite, with its delicate control strings, sometimes seemed a salve to Kai, a way to concentrate his attention on something other than the turmoil and isolation roiling within him.
The kite, Kai thought in a poetic fancy, is my own heart.
Its tissue and balsa frame began to rise as he spied Aidan's figure approaching, pushing a cart filled with firewood toward the house.
When Aidan drew closer, Kai called: "Aidan! Come play!"
Aidan regarded him deferentially, emotionlessly. "I'm sorry. Bitta told me to bring wood."
Kai smiled. "I could write you a pass?" There was a question in that, almost a request. Of course, he could demand that Aidan stay with him and play, but he could not bring himself so low.
Aidan replied in flat, lifeless tones. "No, sir," he said. "That won't be necessary. Excuse me, sir, I have work to do." He bowed politely, but coolly, and went about his business.
Kai looked after him, saddened. Why couldn't Aidan understand? Brian had virtually begged for his punishment. The maintenance of a household demanded order—his father had s
aid so a thousand times. Such a savage thing would never happen to Aidan, who was obedient and polite. Never.
Why couldn't he see that? Why wouldn't he play?
It was disturbing, and confusing, and just a bit irritating to be so dependent upon the availability of a slave.
All afternoon Kai played with his kite, while the business of Dar Kush went on about him. The Great Wakil was expecting ambassadors from the Ayatollah, head of the Ulema, the sacred branch of Bilalistan's aristocratic theocracy. They would probably ask him for intercession in some deadlocked matter with the Senate, or perhaps even a personal letter to the Caliph. It was said that the Ulema favored declaring jihad against the Aztecs, but the Senate opposed such total war, and without the Senate, there could be no Federal troops to back up the wild-eyed radicals eager to march to the frontier, waving swords they had never learned to wield.
Below him to the south, the Danakil were breaking a trio of new horses in the pasture. He did not like the wiry, braid-haired Danakil, despite—or perhaps because of—their great skill with animals. Part of the Danakil's charge was to handle the man-hunting thoths. Kai rarely looked out toward the lake, and the thoth pens, without grimacing.
He reeled in the string, walked up to the slight hill rising above the manor and let it out again. From his new perch he could see everything: the servants in the fields, the house itself, the distant sparkling blue of the lake. The wind shifted and he turned with it. Now he was looking out to the west, toward the end of the fields and the vast undeveloped land owned by his father.
"Kai," Lamiya said behind him, and he turned with a start. She wore peasant sandals and a print dress strewn with purples and ocher moons. Behind her the silent Bitta was swathed in a spotless white smock.
"Lamiya." His heart brushed the clouds. "Will you try my kite?"
She smiled, and in answer took the thread from him, playing the line expertly. A great sense of peace descended upon him. "You're really the best at this," he said, and was rewarded with a smile.
Kai watched Lamiya out of the corner of his eye. At fifteen she was three years older and two digits taller than he, so beautiful and utterly unreachable that his heart ached until he was certain that her slightest glance would reveal every secret in his heart. He rushed to find words to fill the deadly silence. "This summer, we are taking a trip north. There will be hunting and fishing. I hope you're coming. And Bitta, of course." He nodded toward the stern, gray Bitta, who seemed oblivious, her eyes calm as still water.
Lamiya shook her head. "I can't do that, Kai. I wanted to talk to you. It's been decided: the Empress has requested my return to Addis Ababa. I must complete my education."
Kai felt as if someone had torn a hole in his chest. Always had he known this might happen. Never had he allowed himself to contemplate how it would feel. "Leaving? When will you return?"
"It will not seem so long, little one," she said. "You will have so many things to fill your time."
"Nothing . . . no one like you."
She played the line of his kite, made it swoop, performing its lonely dragon dance in the sun. "I will miss you too, Kai."
His eyes felt heavy, and he couldn't raise them to hers. What did he want her to say? More than she had. More than she could.
When he finally looked up, she was gazing at him fondly. She seemed to be struggling with herself, coming to some kind of small but important decision. With a single glance at a disapproving Bitta, she pulled a little pearl-handled knife from her waist sash and pricked her finger. A single scarlet drop of blood welled up.
She stood, holding her bleeding finger up for him to see. For a moment he didn't respond, then reached out and took the knife from her hand.
"In my homeland," she said, "it is a way of joining."
Hand shaking, Kai cut his finger, and Lamiya pressed it against her own. She stood so close to him that he could smell the scent upon her breath, something of roses and mint.
"You are now my little brother," she said.
Kai felt a deep stab of disappointment and realized that, impossibly, he had hoped for something more. Lamiya took his head in her hands, leaned close, and pressed her lips against his forehead.
Then she smiled again, a bit sadly this time, and turned to Bitta. "Come," she said. She handed the kite string back to Kai, and they left him there on the hill, the kite pulling helplessly, seeking freedom, leaping in the wind.
Kai sleepwalked through the rest of the day, barely said a word at dinner. He excused himself as quickly as possible and returned to his room. There he sat gazing at the wall and its hangings of kites and lions and flags of a dozen nations. None of these bright and gaudy things appealed to him at all today.
He gazed into his room's raised fireplace, idly studied the flames for a few moments, and then reached under his bed, pulling out a notebook bound in wood. Within were a set of drawings, the products of his eye and heart. Sketched in a young but talented hand were images of sky and tree and lake—and Lamiya.
Lamiya, drawn from memory. Against a sunset, laughing at table, riding on the ridge and in the forest. One at a time he pulled the drawings out, and one at a time fed them to the fire, watching them smoke and curl and blacken as they were consumed.
Then he drew a basin of water, washing his face and hands. He stood, hypnotized, as a thread of blood drifted out of his finger into the water. Numbly, Kai wrapped a piece of cloth around his cut finger, then gazed at himself in the gold-veined mirror above the basin. What did he see? The face in the mirror seemed very, very young, but also lined and heavy with sadness. Kai squared his shoulders. It was time to be a man.
Miserable but struggling to mask his misery, Kai helped Babatunde pack. As he did, he realized that he would miss the little Yoruban almost as much as Lamiya. For all Babatunde's eccentricities, the scholar seemed the one who best understood Kai. Who could ever replace him?
Babatunde hemmed and hawed to himself. "Now . . ." he said. "Where is that Aztec scroll?"
"This one?" Kai was digging through a table piled so high with books that a lion might have hidden there successfully.
Babatunde smacked his palms together. "Thank you," he said. "Rush rush. So much to do." A thought seemed to occur to him. "Pity the airships are so primitive. One day, they will make an ocean crossing almost tolerable."
Kai felt a panic hammering at him, crumbling his enforced calm. "Babatunde," he said. "Why do you have to leave?" He couldn't meet his mentor's eyes, because he already knew the answer.
"The Empress commands." He said it with finality, and it should have been answer enough, but something in Babatunde's face said that he knew that such an answer would never soothe a young heart. He laid a gentle hand on Kai's shoulder. "Young Kai—we don't want to leave," he said, "but none of us are our own masters. As you said to Aidan in the barn, not so long ago: each of us has our obligations. The whole is more important than any of the parts."
Kai recognized, and was stung by, his own words. "You were spying on me."
Babatunde answered fondly. "Not spying. Just . . . listening." He scrubbed Kai's head with his knuckles. Chuckling, he turned away. "Here, Kai. I have something for you."
Kai's mood brightened. "You do?"
Babatunde didn't answer, just continued rummaging about until he found two books, then handed both to Kai.
"What are these?" Kai asked.
"Poetry of Yunus Ernre, and more important, Sirral Asrar."
"What is that?"
" ‘The Secret of Secrets.' These are the lessons you are to memorize by the time I return. They will speak to you of your future, young Kai."
Kai's brows drew together in puzzlement. He thumbed through the books. "My future?"
Babatunde's expression was studiedly neutral, but there was something in his eyes that was as deep as the night sky. "You are no small part of the overall plan, Kai. You must study. Must prepare."
"What are you talking about?"
"Your future," Babatunde said. "You
pray five times a day, as the Prophet proclaimed?"
"Of course."
"There are those who say that it is the Ayatollah who opens the road to Allah. This is not true for the Sufi. We open our own road, are responsible for our own salvation. We stand directly before Allah. We are responsible for our actions, and punished or rewarded for our intentions. No human laws can save us. There is no court of appeal."
"Sufi?" Kai asked. He had never heard that word before.
"I have no greater gifts to offer you than this," Babatunde said. He took a crescent moon medallion from his neck and held it for Kai to see.
"My grandfather gave it to me when I achieved my manhood."
Kai could not take his eyes from the medallion. It was a simple thing, but he intuited that he was being given much. "Babatunde," he protested. I can’t. . .
"I have no son, Kai," El Sursur said simply. "I would ask you to take it, and give it one day to your boy."
Against the simple affection in Babatunde's eyes, there was no defense. "I will," Kai said.
"And this also," Babatunde added. He reached into his bag and extracted a second piece of jewelry. On the end of a chain swung a triangle and a many-pointed symbol embedded within a circle.
"What is this?" Kai asked. The way Babatunde extended it to him, one would have thought it held the Sufi's heart.
"The Naqsh Kabir," he said, almost whispering. "Al Naqsh Al wajid Allah." The sign of the presence of God. "It is a secret, Kai. The books will speak of it, but you will not understand. Think on it before you go to bed, and your dreams will tell you what you need to know."
Kai's head spun. "I don't understand."
"Understanding is not necessary," he said, and hung it around his pupil's neck.
Chapter Twenty-three
Death is the poor man's best physician.
Irish saying
The royal steamscrew was to leave on first tide, so Lamiya and her coterie began their journey to Alexandria Bay at night by the Wakil's coach, a luxuriant black-tasseled ceremonial conveyance drawn by four white Arabians.
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