"And women?"
The Master laughed. "I am an old man," he said. "You, my student, have a lifetime before you to answer that question. That, young sir, is a miracle."
Chapter Twenty-five
21 Muharram 1288
(April 12, 1871)
Those who hate you are more numerous than those who love you.
Housa saying
It is sad to have no friends, sad to have unfortunate children, sad to have only a poor hut, but sadder still to have nothing good or bad.
Irish saying
Kai blinked his eyes open, for a time just watching the billowing clouds sliding through the sky above him. He felt a fine emptiness below his belly, one just now beginning to fill again. The glen was quiet except for the soft nickering as a fine pair of mares nibbled at the grass.
Then came a welcome sound, the lilt of a young, feminine voice calling: "Here we come!"
Aidan sat up from the grass beside him, chest and flat stomach still slicked with perspiration from the afternoon's sport.
At nineteen, Aidan was just a hair taller than Kai and a deben or two heavier, with a quarryman’s tight, dense muscles. Save for Kai's greater flexibility and grace in motion—and for the color of their skins—they might have been mirror images.
Aidan turned to Kai and raised his right eyebrow. "Here they come. Ready, boy?"
"On your life!" Kai replied. The heaviness low in his gut increased. Juices were flowing now, and he felt the familiar tingle of anticipation.
A pair of slave girls greeted them, returning from the river, wrapped in sheets that clung wetly to their ripe bodies. These were Bahati and Mumbi, a pair of plump blond vixens bound to Djidade Berhar's estate across Lake A’zam. Known to be of high spirit and negotiable morals, both girls were willingly available to the province's highborn in exchange for gifts and trinkets. Truth be told, Kai suspected the freckled, short-haired Mumbi actually desired a brown baby. Berhar enjoyed the increase in his servant stock, and rewarded fertile women with extra food and privilege. The other serving women might scorn them, and their own men revile them as sluts, but Mumbi and Bahati were well on their way to being the wealthiest white women in the district.
Bahati, a giggling pug-nose and at sixteen summers the younger of the two, flashed the edge of her sheet open. "Catch us if you can," she said.
Kai and Aidan glanced at each other, two minds sharing a single thought. They leapt up as if spring-driven and were off on the chase. The brush scratched and flapped at them without diminishing their enthusiasm. Sheets were soon lost, all four of the youngsters as naked and wanton as any forest creatures.
"Victory!" Kai called, gazing down on Bahati, whom he had tackled softly to the ground. She lay panting, breasts high and nipples erect, firm broad thighs parted, her green eyes huge.
"And to the victor . . ." Aidan said beside him, already squeezing himself between Mumbi's legs.
"Go the spoils," Kai said, and sank down into softness, and a pair of very willing arms.
The day had grown cooler, and then faded into early evening. Passion had been slaked, grown sharp, and slaked again, and had finally devolved to conversation and affectionate murmurs.
The girls were buttoning their clothes, casting back over their shoulders glances that were part coquette and part slattern. Kai opened his purse and extracted a few small coins, dropping them into Mumbi's open palm. "Playtime's over, girls. Get off with you."
"Will we see you next week?" she pouted.
"Now, lass," Aidan said. "How could we stay away?" He followed his words with a swift flurry of gropes and kisses.
Aidan sighed and collapsed onto his back, his shirt unlaced to the waist. "Now that was a pleasant evening."
"I think I'm in love."
"Not very likely," Aidan snorted. "You'll fall in love with some ugly Wakil's daughter with ten thousand head of fat cattle in her dowry and live happily ever after."
"Not the way it works," Kai said. "Among civilized people, the man pays the dowry."
"Ye been robbed."
Kai regarded Aidan sourly. "Flogging," he said, "is not out of the question."
Aidan levered himself up and mounted his speckled brown mare, digging his heels into her sides. "Have to catch me first!"
Kai rose as swiftly as fatigue and inebriation allowed. He buckled on his sword and took a running jump, vaulting onto his own mare, heading down the darkened road after Aidan.
By boat or horse, home lay an hour's ride from the Berhar estate. As they rode along, Kai sang songs and exchanged bawdy jokes with his companion, enjoying the deepening night and the perfection of the moment.
Suddenly, dirt flew into the air, spraying them both. Twanging like a harp string, a rope sprang up and across in front of them, rising as high as his mare's neck, barricading the road.
Before shock could sweep away the effects of the beer and hemp, three hooded men had stepped out on the road in front of them. Kai glanced back over his shoulder swiftly. Two more men behind them. All were armed with sticks and knives. Their hands were white.
Runaways!
"What the hell is this?" he said indignantly. Any idiot could guess what this was, but the more oblivious they thought him, the more likely they were to make a mistake. From the corner of his eye, he noted with satisfaction that Aidan's hand had drifted to the short cudgel strapped beside his own saddle.
The largest of the hooded men ignored Kai's question and turned to Aidan. "Stay oot a' this," he warned, then whipped his cudgel at Kai's shoulder.
The exchange was brisk and violent, a flurry of clubs and knives. Kai moved before he could think, countering and slashing from horseback. One of the attackers fell to his knees in the dirt, screaming as he struggled to staunch the flow from his severed fingers.
As the highwaymen crowded beneath him Kai wheeled and spun, keeping his mount moving constantly, forced to be more defensive than aggressive, blocking and warding off.
He caught a glimpse of Aidan, who had backed Kai's actions with gratifying speed. Although clumsier on horseback, the Irishman wielded his cudgel with strength and vicious accuracy. In the brief view he was afforded before wheeling his horse about again he saw Aidan block a knife with one end of his two-cubit stick and pound the face of an attacker with the other, splitting his nose and making him spit teeth. Blood gushed.
Three men came at Kai at once, and he knew he could deal with only two before the third wounded him. He steeled himself for the pain and deflected a cudgel stroke that would have spilled his brains. A knife nicked his left shoulder, then the knifeman ducked aside to avoid decapitation. From the corner of his eye he saw the knife coming for his side, then Aidan's club smashed down on the extended arm. Bone cracked.
Then one of the attackers yelled: "Enough, boys! Take off!" and they began to run.
One of the others yelled back over his shoulder, "White bastard! Traitor! We'll 'ave ye, coal-licker!"
Aidan ignored him and drew his horse closer to Kai. "Are you all right?"
Kai examined his right arm. His shirt was rent a few digits above the elbow. "Just a little nick," he said.
"Who the hell were they?"
"Slaves, probably runaways seeking gold or blood." He grinned. "Good work with the stick. I saw a bit of Malik's style there."
"You've been beating me for years. You think I've learned nothing?"
Kai clasped Aidan's arm. "Thank you," he said. "You saved my life."
Aidan nodded but didn't reply. They continued on down the road, quieter now.
They were ghosts, Kai thought. Aidan is white. For even a moment, did he consider joining them . . . ?
They parted ways as they passed through the front gates of Dar Kush. While Kai headed toward the mansion, Aidan reined his horse toward the shantytown. In the intervening years a small barn had been built for the slaves who owned or used horses in their work, and Aidan sheltered Imi, his own mount, there. Imi was on permanent loan from Kai: Aidan could not sell or lend her, but she was h
is to use so long as he was the young master's companion.
The village, their tuath, had swelled to almost three hundred souls now, the passing years filled with acquisitions and births.
He was most often greeted with a polite wariness: as the chosen companion of Abu Ali's youngest son, Aidan was a man to be reckoned with, even if one ignored his breadth of shoulder and strength of arm. Some of the men seemed a bit cautious of him, resentful of his status as a favored pet. He knew that they sometimes whispered "coal-licker" or "shadow-boy" behind his back.
On the other hand, young women often greeted him more warmly, perhaps believing that he could provide them with greater status and comfort.
Molly, once a playmate but now grown into a flame-haired, wide-hipped vixen, greeted him saucily. "Aidan!" she said, noting his disheveled condition. "You needn't travel so far for company. My hearth is warm."
Aidan pulled her close and whispered: "Why not build a fire for me tomorrow night?"
He smacked her lips and she yielded for a moment, then twisted away with a wink and a satisfied smile, swinging her ample hips about her business.
Aidan stepped around the corner, coming face-to-face with—
Brian. Two digits taller than Aidan, but no longer the village's angelic protector. His face was a mass of old scar tissue and his hair had gone coarse and gray. He seemed ten years older than his age, but still as dangerous as a timber wolf. Thinly veiled murder danced in his eyes. "So, Aidan. Been oot a' night with the young master, have ye?" He blocked Aidan's path.
Aidan locked eyes with him, a challenge. "And if I have?"
Brian sneered at him. Putting a straw to one of the lamps lighting the village's center path, he lit his pipe. Aidan smelled a mixture of tobacco and hemp. "Nothing. Nothing. Except despoilin' our womenfolk. Do ye sleep easy, Aidan?"
"They're eager for it," he said, a touch defensively. "No one forces them."
Brian exhaled a slender plume of sweet smoke. "No. I suppose not. They're free to make their choices, free to feel what they feel. As are we all. I'm sure that when they were wee girls they played with their cornhusk dolls and thought, 'When I grow up, I want to be used and thrown away, to bear the wee bairn of the men who own and sell us.' "
A flash of shame warred with anger and lost. "Get out of my way," he said, and pushed past his former friend.
"I'm sure you're doing the right thing, Aidan. I'm sure yer Ma would approve."
Aidan's muscles still burned with the fire of recent combat but he quelled his urge to smash Brian's face and brushed past him, stalking off.
"Did you never wonder if one of those girls is your sister?" Brian called after him. "Or who's dipping his black wick in her hot wax?" A thousand vile visions, suffered through every night’s dark dreams exploded to mind. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. His fists were balled painfully tight. If murdering Brian could have given Aidan the slightest hint of his sister's whereabouts, the slightest chance of rescuing her, Aidan would have torn the other man's throat out with his teeth.
Instead he merely squeezed his eyes so tightly that darkness exploded into light, then breathed deep, forced himself to relax, and continued on.
Aidan slammed the door of his house behind him. The room hadn't changed much in the years since Deirdre's death, and her presence was still sorely felt. Her sewing kit still sat on the table, her favorite chair still pulled to its edge. He never allowed another to sit in it.
His flippant smile, worn bravely passing Brian, had faded like the tablecloth, as had his anger, leaving an empty pit of shame and self-loathing. He tore off his jacket and opened the cupboard, taking down a piece of dried meat and a hunk of bread. He stuffed a pipeful of hemp, lit it from the lamp beside the door, and drew deeply, almost savagely, as if trying to punish his lungs.
He ate and drank slowly, hunched over his solitary table, loins empty, mind filled with odd thoughts that flew like moths in a whirlwind.
I'm still here, Ma. I have more freedom than most. I'm alive. I eat more meat, get my pick of the work details, and wear better clothes than most of the others. I can read and write their language, and their youngest son thinks I'm his friend. Hell, mayhe I am. He's not bad. He's all I have.
Today, I might have had a chance for freedom. Instead, I fought men who might have been of my own tuath, and saved my master's life.
Perhaps I am no longer fit to be free.
What promises had Aidan made over the years and not kept? Despite a steady stream of inquiries to every visitor to Dar Kush, he had not heard a word of Nessa's whereabouts. He had not avenged his father's death. All of his dreams were fading. He was more comfortable than most—even most free blacks. Ate in the kitchen when it pleased him, had few tasks besides being Kai's companion and almost the run of the place. When Abu Ali died and Kai inherited, Aidan would probably be his overseer.
Kai certainly trusted him: on occasion they had even gone shooting together, and the Wakil's son had taught Aidan how to load and aim the fire-sticks that had killed his father. Little did Kai know that when Aidan fired at a target, he was seeing a Northman, or a black, wooly head.
In time, he might earn his freedom. Mnyamana, a slave on Djidade Berhar's plantation, had done it just last year! And if he earned that precious gift and decided to stay on in Kai's employ, Aidan might eventually be quite well off. It was not unknown for former slaves to become wealthy merchants, if they conducted their trading under the protection of their former masters.
Legality and custom were two very different things. And he didn't think he was selling too much of himself in order to find a measure of comfort and security . . .
He took another bite, chewing carefully. Thinking and evaluating. No. He was doing all that he could to stay alive, and sane. Brian should talk. Look where his big attitude had gotten him! The man was half mad. Children ran when he approached.
Who fills your bed now, Brian?
Aidan finished his meal. There was more. All year long, there was food. There were no lean times here on Dar Kush, and that was just fine. He remembered lean times in the O'Dere crannog, when the fish were not running, when the salted pork was gone and winter hunger had been a live rat in his young belly.
Never here. He was fine. He ate again and stared at his home.
Four walls. A floor. A straw ceiling.
Home.
Chapter Twenty-six
Kai gritted his teeth against the leather bit as Jimuyu, the Wakil's short round Kikuyu doctor, put needle and thread to his wound. "Damn!" The chunk of leather fell from his mouth. "Ow! I need a surgeon, not a boot maker—"
Jimuyu merely smiled, his receding hairline and slow manner concealing a knowledge of health and sickness both intuitive and scholarly. His people's herbalism was famed as far as the Ayurvedic schools of India, their knowledge of energy healing comparable to anything China's chi gung healers could muster. But he had also mastered the Greek and Egyptian methods, and because of that complete knowledge was perhaps the finest doctor in all New Djibouti.
Wakil Abu Ali and Ali entered Kai's room.
The air around his father seemed to crackle. "Kai!" he raged. "I wish they'd hacked that arm off! Then you might learn your lesson."
"Father . . ." Kai began. The Wakil waved a hand curtly.
"Is that what I am? How could I be when my son won't listen to me?"
"Father," Kai protested. "I listen . . ."
His brother Ali leaned closer, sniffing, his neatly trimmed black beard twitching as he did. He wrinkled his nose. "Beer."
Abu Ali's face creased in disapproval. "My son," he declared, "is a drunkard. You are the disgrace of the district, boy."
Kai dropped his head. "Father . . ."
Abu Ali paced back and forth and back again, his hands linked behind his back. "No more of this. You are a man soon, with responsibilities. I have been willing to turn a blind eye to your childish antics—but. . . finish them now!" He turned and glared, and again Kai was unable to meet his fath
er’s eye. "When you are a man, it changes. No man of my household will carry himself thus. Do you understand my meaning?"
"Yes, Father," Kai said meekly.
More quietly this time, Abu Ali asked, "Were they white?"
"Yes, Father."
"Runaways," Jimuyu said placidly. "There have been reports of runaway brigands waylaying travelers. Now stay still—"
"Ow!"
Abu Ali turned to his eldest. "Have the constabulary double their sweeps. I want their livers on a pike by sunset tomorrow." He turned to leave the room, then paused and asked: "How many attackers were there?"
"Five, Father."
Kai wasn't certain, but he could have sworn that he saw a slight, prideful lift to his father's shoulders. He might have even been smiling, but that he would never show his son. "Next time, I wish them better hunting."
Ali lingered behind a moment, grinning openly, and slapped Kai's sore shoulder. "Well done," he whispered.
Kai groaned. He floundered around for the leather bit and set it between his teeth again as Jimuyu put down his needles and began the application of salves that first stung, and then soothed like ice.
Kai was alone in his room, the ache in his left shoulder reduced to a dull throb. He remembered the moment when he had left his right upper quadrant vulnerable and cursed himself. Now he understood some of the concepts Malik tried to teach him. The need to maintain soft eyes and wide focus, to put the conscious mind into a kind of servant position, merely maintaining awareness while the deeper mind was allowed to spontaneously express its learnings. What had been repeated to him in a thousand lectures was made clear in a single crystalline instant of actual combat. Strange, how that happened.
And if Aidan hadn't been there, Kai might never have lived to learn it.
He stood on the balcony, looking out across the yard and the road to the village, where lantern lights still burned bright. Aidan was a good sort. If not for an accident of birth he might have made a decent laborer or horse trainer, might have eventually owned his own land, or business. It would have been hard, but he would have managed: Aidan was no ordinary ghost. Still, Aidan was fortunate to have the Wakil to protect and feed him. The whites were often hardworking and loyal, but not capable of much above that. Oh, once the Romans had had some sort of primitive empire, but books said most of their architecture and philosophy had been stolen from Greece. And most Greek philosophers had fled to Egypt along with Socrates, a clear testament to the superiority of African culture.
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