Shaka turned to Kai. "And young Kai. What think you? Could ghosts ever make citizens?"
Kai shrugged. "Probably not. Their children, if raised carefully, might make good free workers, but give them the vote? I think not."
"Free workers, to compete with our own people?" Cetshwayo sneered, disbelieving. "Babatunde, with what are you filling his head?"
Babatunde seemed to have had enough. "An excellent question," he allowed, and rose. "A good evening to you, gentlemen."
Babatunde stood, and retired.
Cetshwayo watched him go, and then leaned forward. "I heard rumors that Babatunde is actually a Sufi. What do you say, Wakil?"
Abu Ali smiled. "There is no traitor or heretic in my house. Rumors are easy to start, harder to prove."
Kai caught up with Babatunde before his teacher could reach the hallway leading to his room. "Babatunde!" he called. "Wait!" Had the talk of slaves had anything to do with Babatunde's talk of medallions?
"No, Kai," the little man said fondly. The sounds of music and merriment drifted up from the floor below. “Your father would want you at the party, not puttering around with an unfashionable old fool like me. Go." There was force in that final word that stole the words from Kai's lips. Babatunde turned and left.
Kai sighed, then walked back the way he had come. Halfway back he looked down from a stairway and saw Ali and Lamiya. They were together in the moonlight; alone. At that moment, Ali seemed very much the man, the inheritor of the estate; Lamiya's expression was affectionate and as calm as an oiled sea. Ali leaned forward and kissed her.
It was the first time that Kai had ever seen them kiss, and it caused a twist of pain that he would not have credited.
Stricken, he turned and fled.
Kai managed to reach the horse barn without encountering any other party guests, for which he was profoundly grateful. He needed to think through this sudden, unexpected misery. He hammered his fists against the horse stall, distantly aware that the animals were skittering away in fear.
All but Djinna, who attempted to nuzzle against him, seeking to comfort. "No, girl," he said. "Easy, girl—I'm sorry." Sudden inspiration occurred to him. "Hey, how would you like a nice ride? Maybe that's what we both need."
Stroking Djinna's head, Kai smiled, struck by a new thought. He would ask Aidan along. It had been too long since the two of them had taken a night ride. This might be a night for breaking the rules. Too long had he been confined by what others thought were appropriate actions. Tonight, they would play!
Kai chose Aidan's customary horse, Majii, and took both fine animals out into the night.
He led them over to the village, where the slaves greeted him. In the distance, he could still hear the sounds of the party.
He tied Djinna and Majii in front of the gates.
"Evenin sir," said a straw-haired servant boy of perhaps fifteen summers. Kai searched his memory, and finally produced the name. "Evening, Dingane."
On the way into the village, he passed two men passing a pipe of hemp. One was Topper, the burly blacksmith, now gone largely white-haired. The other was a big, eyepatched man sucking at his pipe. Brian. The fragrance of hemp drifted from the pipe, awakening another hunger.
Brian bent low. "Evening, sir," he said. "What brings ye from the party?"
Kai didn't like to think what the thoths had done to Brian; he reminded himself that, sometimes, a few had to suffer for the enlightenment of the many. "I thought it a good night for a ride. Felt like some company."
Topper chuckled and Brian smiled, an affectation that if anything made his scars all the more terrible. "A good night indeed," he averred. "Peace with ye, sir."
"Thank you, Brian." The man had done nothing at all to suggest disrespect, but Kai was still a bit off-put by Brian's very obsequiousness. He didn't like turning his back to the man.
But perhaps he was putting too much there, starting at shadows as might a child. He walked on through Ghost Town's narrow, muddy streets.
The servants scattered out of Kai's way as he passed. He had been this way many times before, and could have found the way to Aidan's blindfolded.
He reached his friend's door but held his knock when he heard a laugh from within. A woman's laugh. Kai smiled, arching an eyebrow. He sneaked around to a side window and managed to find a slit in the cloth through which he could watch. Now here was the cure for a sagging spirit!
Aidan and a woman were making passionate love on his rude bed. Kai's eyes widened in delight. This was a capital idea—it had been too long since he and Aidan sported. Perhaps he could even join in the current entertainment. He doubted the wench would object—
Then the two lovers rolled over, and Kai saw her face.
Djinna might as well have kicked him in the chest. He staggered back, a sulfurous anger seething through his veins.
Barely thinking, only feeling, Kai burst through the front door into Aidan's single room. For a fraction of a second the tableau was frozen, the two lovers entwined, kissing, but in the next instant Sophia screamed and threw the covers over herself. Aidan scrambled up, and Kai slid in a long step, clinched his fist, and crashed it against Aidan's cheek.
Kai grabbed Sophia, murderously furious, and slapped her. "Whore!"
Aidan scrambled up, pulling Kai away from her. For another long moment the three of them stood frozen in some kind of static opposition. "No, Kai, it's not her fault—" Aidan began.
Sophia was babbling too, the sheet only partially covering her nakedness. The sight of her, and the sweat glistening upon her, Aidan's juices upon her thighs, drove all thought from Kai's mind, brought him close to madness.
"Kai," she begged. "Don't punish Aidan. We love each other."
Aidan managed to wind his arms around her, as they attempted to present a united front. For a moment, Kai just looked at them; then, with an inarticulate cry, he launched himself at Sophia.
A moment before he would have struck her to the floor, Aidan interposed himself.
Kai drew his sword. It gleamed in the dull light. "Get out of my way."
Aidan's eyes were wide and desperate. "You need a sword for this? To fight for a woman?"
"You are both my slaves. I can do with either of you as I wish."
Aidan caught Kai's sword arm. Kai struggled to pull it back. If he had succeeded, he might well have impaled his friend.
"Do you wish to command her love," Aidan said, "or to earn it?"
Kai was able to hear the sound of his own breathing, but little else. Then, as if stepping away from the edge of a pit, he sheathed his sword.
"Dress," Kai said. "And then, outside."
Kai took several deep breaths. Pure slaughter seethed through his veins. He needed this, somehow. This would be a purging of the poison in his heart, the pain that had controlled him for the last sour days. It would end. Now.
Ghost Town's entire population seemed to have gathered outside Aidan's house. Kai removed his sword belt and laid it against the side of the house. He rolled his shoulders, then turned to address the crowd. "I swear upon my honor that the bondsman Aidan has the right to defend himself freely, without fear of consequence. Do you witness?"
There was a general murmur from the assembled, but the only one who responded openly was Topper. "Aye, sir," he said. "I witness." Kai paused, and looked into the blacksmith's eyes, seeing something there that he had never seen before. Suddenly, the entire village of slaves was foreign to him. He had spent countless hours here since his youth, and thought them simple folk, largely content with their lot. Now he could feel that they were rooting against him. How dare they! He fed and cared for them! Didn't they understand that?
Well, they would learn a lesson today on the difference between black and white.
The tension built for a few seconds, and then Sophia, clutching a blanket around her body, ran between them. "No," Sophia said. "Please. Both of you.”
Kai shoved her aside. When he was finished with Aidan, he would deal with her. F
irst he would use her sexually, drown Aidan's seed with his own. And then he would cast her down into Ghost Town, down among the wretched until she begged, begged to return to his bed. "Quiet, woman," he said. "Watch and learn."
He and Aidan squared off.
For years Kai had practiced punching and kicking tactics to complement the swordwork. He was absolutely confident in his ability to take Aidan apart, make him beg for mercy. He watched Aidan, who crouched almost as if he were some kind of ape, his thin lips and pale eyes narrowed. He stank of fear, of the primitive, of an unevolved people still trapped in a stone age of ignorance and superstition.
The two men circled each other, and Kai lunged in, nailing Aidan with a jabbing right. Aidan reeled back, and Kai shuffled forward. As Aidan ducked under Kai's next short and scientific swing, Kai brought his knee up, nailing Aidan on the side of the jaw, spinning him back with blood smearing his mouth. As he did, Kai punched again, a trip-hammer left-right left-right, in his enthusiasm forgetting Malik's clever combat moves. Who needed them against such an untutored opponent!
Then Aidan charged in again, as if the knee and the pounding hadn't deterred him at all. He seized Kai around the waist. With unexpected and disorienting strength, the Irishman heaved Kai into the air and hurled him to the ground.
Kai's breath wboofed out of him, and stars danced. It had not been a pretty throw, but it had certainly done the job. Aidan, to his credit, did not step in and kick, which was more restraint than Kai would have expected. All right, then, this was a fair fight, not mortal combat. He would teach the pigbelly a lesson, but perhaps it wouldn't be necessary to cripple him.
Aidan charged in again. Kai stepped to the side and targeted Aidan's temple, hammering him two, three times, then uppercutting. Aidan went down, blood gushing from a broken nose.
There. Perhaps this time Aidan would stay down.
But the Irishman sprang up with an agility that suggested that he wasn't tired at all, whereas Kai was disconcerted to realize that while they had been fighting for only a few minutes, he was already feeling winded. Why couldn't he breathe properly? It seemed that he was fighting while holding his breath! Battered but unbowed, Aidan charged back in, and Kai realized something: he, Kai, had had his weekly lessons, but Aidan had been a servant competing among the others for status and women since childhood. And that experience, that confidence in his own ability not merely to hit but to absorb punishment, was serving him quite well just now.
Aidan dove under Kai's arm and got hold of him. His shoulder smashed into Kai's ribs, driving the breath from him again. Kai hammered at Aidan's back, alarmed to realize that he was swinging wildly, that too much of his
carefully cultivated technique was vanishing under the emotional and physical pressure, the sheer adrenal exhaustion.
Aidan picked Kai up, heaving and grunting as he pitched his master over his shoulder, backwards to the ground. If Kai hadn't twisted like a cat, he might have broken his neck. He landed hard on his shoulder, and was glad not to have fractured anything as he struck the packed earth.
"Kai!" Sophia called. He stood again, dazed, blood starting from his mouth. Triple Aidans danced in his vision.
Hit the one in the middle.
The two men commenced pounding on each other. Kai got in one, two, three good shots to body and face. He had good leverage, fought to get torque and remember the other things that he had been taught. Aidan snuck in a blow to Kai's abdomen. It was like being jabbed with a hot poker. Aidans body was so hard! How could it be so hard? He, Kai, did his exercises daily, as prescribed, and a reasonable man might expect him to be the better conditioned. But Aidan had labored dawn till dusk for years. His barrel of a midsection, while not pretty, was simply a wall of iron around his internal organs, against which Kai battered with little apparent effect.
Losing the fight against panic, Kai charged Aidan. Together, the two of them crashed through the door of Aidan's house, across the room, and almost onto the bed itself. Before Kai could right himself, Aidan was up, face bloody and grim, and hammered a right fist into Kai's jaw, knocking him sprawling. Kai managed to stand, all of the strength drained out of him, and Aidan knocked him down again.
He tried to rise to his hands and knees, vision blurred. Aidan stood over him, gazing down, his fists clenched, the muscles in his pale forearms swollen, and Kai looked up at him, thinking, I don't know this man at all.
"Stay down, Kai," Aidan said quietly, his voice deadly quiet. "I don't want to hurt you."
Kai stared at him in amazement, and then slowly rose to his feet. He didn't look at Aidan, filled with shame and confusion so deep and pervasive it was physically debilitating.
He didn't speak to Sophia, but he did look at her. She was as pale as the ghost she was, all blood drained from her face. She couldn't meet his eyes for long, and turned away.
Kai buckled on his sword, and for a moment the crowd of witnesses at the doorway held its collective breath, perhaps wondering if he would slay Aidan now. And estafghuar Allah—Allah forgive him—he wanted to, so badly, so fiercely, that it was shocking. He wanted to drive his sword into Aidan's guts, watch the smug bastard's eyes roll up, listen to him scream, smell his blood in the night.
You gave your word, on your honor, that he had the right to defend himself. Even though he wronged you. Even though you have the right. You gave your word.
Kai had to leave, and right now, or it wouldn't matter what he had promised. The urge to avenge his honor, to reassert himself in the eyes of these miserable creatures, was almost more than he could bear.
Instead, he staggered away, away from the house, and then out of the village.
Aidan watched Kai leave, Sophia clutching him so tightly he could barely breathe. All of the emotion he had repressed during their fight boiled out of him now: regret, pain—and most of all, fear. What had he done? Only now, watching Kai's battered face attempting to compose itself into dignity, did he realize that it was not merely Sophia's betrayal that had wounded the Wakil's son. It was not just his loss of status in the eyes of his human possessions. Kai had thought Aidan his friend, and betrayal was betrayal, a knife that cut deeply regardless of station.
Worse, Aidan realized that that bond's rupture had gutted him as well.
And after the flash of grief and regret another layer opened up: despite Kai's promise, both Aidan's life and Sophia's could be forfeit at a single word. And the only thing that kept his fear at bay was his belief, his trust, that Kai was still his friend, and would respect his promise.
And if he was, if Kai was his friend, and a man of honor, then what had Aidan done?
He ground his fist against his temples as his heartbeat slowed, the adrenaline fading. No! He had done nothing wrong! This was madness! He was a man who had been torn from his home, his father killed, sister sold away and mother destroyed, that Kai's family might profit by his misery. And after long years he had found love. If Kai was worthy of friendship, then on some level he had to understand that.
But if he was . . .
If he wasn't. . .
Aidan felt as if the top of his head was about to fly off. Sophia clung to him desperately, and at last he gave in to his own fatigue and fear, and held her, trembling in her arms.
"Come, please," Sophia said. "You're hurt." Unprotesting, Aidan let her lead him back into his ruin of a house.
As they went, Aidan saw Brian, who leaned back into the shadows and lit his pipe with a flaming straw. The mixed aroma of tobacco and hemp wafted through the darkness. His smile was like the night stars, conferring light, but no warmth at all.
Not speaking, Aidan sat staring at his cottage's shattered door as Sophia mixed soap and water, dampened a cloth.
She swabbed and daubed his wounds, her own hands trembling now as the enormity of the events crashed down upon her as well. For a time she was able to maintain focus, but as soon as Aidan's wounds had been cleansed, the gaping hole at the center of her heart drew her back down. This was beyond disaster
: it was death and destruction. There were some mistakes that you cannot undo. You cannot uncook a fish, then set it free to swim. Cannot unscramble an egg and set it beneath a hen to hatch.
Their fate was utterly in the hands of the man who owned them both, who had every reason to consider himself betrayed, and the privilege to enforce his will. "What will become of us?" she asked.
"I don't know," Aidan said, and meant it.
Kai staggered away from the shantytown toward the lights of Dar Kush, leading Djinna and Majii by their reins. He made it about halfway, and then sank to his knees. He sobbed for breath, disoriented, unsure where he was or what he needed to do. He rose again, staggered halfway to the barn, then collapsed again. He had made a wide circle around the house, where the party was beginning to wind down. Many of the guests had already left, some had turned in for the night in one of the many guest rooms.
How would he explain his injuries! What if a slave's whisper found his father's ear? Or Nandi's, or, Allah save him, Malik's? The shame was almost unendurable. He held his arms up in supplication to the moon.
"There are no answers there, young Kai," said Babatunde, appearing suddenly and quietly behind him.
Kai was too exhausted and wracked with pain to be surprised. Instead, he felt an almost pitiful gratitude. "Babatunde," he croaked. "Help me. Please."
Babatunde studied Kai carefully, coming close without actually touching him. "What has happened?"
Kai considered. Did he dare tell the truth? And then realized that if there was anyone in the world who might help him through the labyrinth he had constructed for himself, it was the little Yoruba scholar.
So there, in the moonlight, Kai spoke his heart, and when he had concluded, Babatunde breathed deeply, and stood, staring up at the moon and the stars for almost two minutes before speaking. "I have no power to help or heal," he said. "But Allah does."
"I hurt," Kai said, his voice a child's.
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