A sad-eyed boy of about thirteen spoke. "We nailed one of them to a cross for stealing horses, and the next thing, our town was burning."
Now Kai's eyes widened. "Crucified? But the Kwami treaty specifically—"
Abu Ali shushed him. "They made a mistake, and paid for it," he said softly. "I hope the blood already spilled is sufficient price."
"Insh'Allah," Kai said, as his father walked on.
Chewing at his mustache and brooding, Ali approached his brother. "Father hopes for peace," he muttered. "Meanwhile, the Aztecs feed our hearts to the fire, and refugees clog the roads. Keep your sword sharp, little brother."
Chester, Aidan's short, husky next-door neighbor, came running from the direction of Ghost Town. "Aidan!" he called. Aidan turned, face tense and a bit fearful. "What?"
Led by the ancient Rune Woman, four of the village women had gathered in Aidan's cottage, preparing with herbs and boiled water and candles to help Sophia give birth. When Aidan arrived his wife was red-faced and panting. "Aidan, my love," she groaned. "The baby is coming."
His heart pounded at him. "What can I do?"
"I'd say ye already done it," Moira cackled at him. "This is women's work. Just leave us to it." She turned, speaking sharply to one of the other women. "I'll need more rags," she said, and then glared pointedly at Aidan. "And someone to get this man out of here."
Aidan bent to Sophias side. "What do you want me to do?"
She gripped at his hand, in pain. "Have the baby for me?" she suggested, then arched her back. "Ob!"
She cried out as another contraction hit her, and one of the old women bustled Aidan out of the room. "Come along now. We can handle this."
"Breathe, now," Moira said. "Low in your belly. Pant, push . . ."
Aidan paced outside the house, cringing every time he heard Sophia scream. Brian handed him a pipe. "Here, boy—calm your nerves."
Aidan took a rough inhalation, held it and then expelled slowly. Almost immediately, his load felt a bit lighter. "How many times have you been through this?" he asked.
"How high can you count?" Brian laughed, smoke puffing from his lips. "I've made more money for the masters than all the teff and hemp in the fields."
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean," Brian said evenly. "You just don't want to think, about it. Smoke up, boy—you're about to be a father."
Two hours passed, and still they stood outside the house. The world felt a good deal brighter and blurrier to Aidan by this point, and he handed the pipe back to Brian with somewhat bleary eyes. "And Abu Ali, and Ali and that damned Malik never take a puff?" he asked, and laughed.
"They ain't human," Brian speculated.
"They think they're more than human, and that we're less. The bastards sell our families off because they think marriages don't mean anything to us. That our children don't."
"That what master Kai told you?"
Aidan nodded sourly. "Implied as much. All just a lot of animal humping."
"If yer lucky," Brian said. They laughed for a few seconds, but the brief spate of humor quickly died. Brian puffed at the pipe again.
"Once upon a time," Aidan said, "I heard Oko say that if the Wakil could be white for just one night, he'd never want to be black again."
Brian stared at him, and then laughed uproariously, snatching the pipe from Aidan's hands to puff again.
Aidan suddenly shook himself out of his growing intoxication. There had been low cries in the background, but now there was silence. "What's that?"
"What?"
"That."
"Nothing."
"That's what I mean."
Suddenly, a baby's screams filled the air. The front door opened, and the Rune Woman emerged. Her brittle, wrinkled face had softened. For a moment Aidan could see what she must have looked like in her youth. "Stop laying about," she said. "It's time you saw your child."
Time seemed to stop, sound to cease. He swallowed thickly. "My child?"
"Your child. Go on, boy."
In the bedroom, Sophia's face was still flushed and damp, her hair tied back from her forehead with a string. She held their child close to her breast. She looked like she wanted nothing in the entire world so much as a week's sleep, but still had a smile for him. "There's someone I want you to meet," she said.
She tried to hold the swaddled infant out, but her strength failed. One of the women helped her, and Aidan took the child. So small, so impossibly frail, red-faced and damp. Aidan searched the infant's blue eyes, and for the first time realized that on some level he had wondered if this child would have dark skin, dark eyes. If his woman had miscalculated, if her herbs and sponges had failed her . . .
No. No chance of that at all. From the first glimpse, the first whiff of that unique and priceless baby scent, he knew that this was his flesh, his blood.
"Kiss your son."
"My . . . son?"
Aidan held his boy, and kissed his wife, tears streaming freely down his face. One of the old women cut a lock of the boy's thin hair and gave it to Aidan. He kissed Sophia again, and left.
Brian watched as Aidan left, smoking his pipe, keeping his thoughts to himself. "You know what to do, boyo?"
Aidan nodded.
Night was quiet in the grove. He carried the lock of his son's hair the mile to the swamp's edge, accompanied by four of the old women. They entered, making as little sound as possible. The night stars and crescent moon cast dim shadows into its depths. He found his way by memory and instinct.
Then, finding the right place, he knelt and dug a tiny hole with his hands. When it was as deep as his forearm, his fingernails clotted with earth, he put the lock of hair down in the hole, and nestled a sprouted date palm stone atop it. Then he filled in the hole.
His hands trembled as he wiped them against his face, and he realized that he was leaking from nose and eyes, that he had been making inarticulate mewling sounds. He looked up, and his eyes had adjusted to the light sufficient that he could see everything clearly.
Until this moment, he had kept a wisp of his dream of escape, of making his way back to that verdant land whose memory faded even now. But the birth of a child . . . that changed things. This was his world, and he would find a way to make a good life here.
"I, Aidan O'Dere, son of Mahon, give this bit of my own child to the earth. May the tree I plant here grow strong, and my son grow stronger still. May my son eat of the fruit of this tree as a free man."
The old women chanted alongside him, and he stood, allowing himself to take in the thousands of trees in the grove. Realized far more fully than ever he had that each and every tree in this grove represented a man or woman who had come to this land, or been born here. Each of them thought they were unique, and doubtless had their own special dreams. And so far as he knew, every single soul had been forced to abandon those dreams, and find what peace they could in the lot of a slave.
Then, with soft hands beneath his arms, the old women guided him gently from the grove, and back to his home.
Chapter Forty-four
Three days after her baby's birth, Sophia returned to Dar Kush's kitchen to work, carrying her new son in a stomach sling. Mahon reacted to the bustle of cooks and serving girls by burrowing deeper against his mother.
One of the kitchen women abandoned a bubbling stew kettle to chuck the newborn under the chin. He drooled, his head flopping to the side, stubby arms moving blindly. "Oh! Isn't he just precious? And his name?"
"We named him for Aidan's father, Mahon." Sophia felt a bit flustered as the staff gathered around.
Round gray kitchen master Aengus looked at the baby almost as if he were examining a turkey roast. Then he smiled broadly, and Sophia's unease vanished. "Don't you need another day off?"
"It's time I'm back to work," she said.
A door opened and closed behind them, and a hush came over the kitchen staff as Lamiya and Babatunde entered, Lamiya in a simple saffron dress and the Yoruba wearing a tan robe. Instantly, Aeng
us deferred to them. "Miss," he said.
"Please," Lamiya said, holding her hands up. "Proceed. I just heard that there was a new member of the family."
She smiled at Sophia. Sophia had had a hard time relating to the masters since the dissolution of her relationship with Kai, and this unexpected kindness made her feel shy.
"May I?" Lamiya said.
"Certainly." She appreciated the courtesy, but knew that under it was the fact that any member of Abu Ali's household could sell her, or her baby. The realization caused a brief, hot flash of panic. She handed Mahon to Lamiya. Lamiya traced the child's face with one gentle finger.
"Beautiful," she said. "Motherhood is a precious thing."
Babatunde poked at one of the child's cheeks, and Mahon gurgled in delight. "Blessings upon you both."
"Do you have needs?" Lamiya asked, and seemed genuinely concerned.
"We are fine, mistress."
Lamiya nodded. "If you need anything, please let me know. Kitchen Master—what is that glorious aroma?"
"Roast bison, mistress."
"May I?" Babatunde asked. He dipped a spoon into a pot, and sipped the contents. Every slave in the kitchen waited anxiously for the response.
Babatunde seemed to roll the fluid around in his mouth. "You are . . . an artist."
"Thank you, sir," said Aengus proudly.
"Remember," Lamiya said. "If there is anything . . ."
Sophia managed to curtsy. "Yes, ma'am."
Lamiya and Babatunde left the kitchen. The slaves were silent for a moment, and then began talking again.
"You know," said one of the kitchen girls. "She meant that. When I had my third, the mistress was just a lass, but she talked the Wakil into extra meat rations for a month."
"Really? I—"
The women in the kitchen suddenly froze. Sophia turned anxiously.
Kai stood in the doorway, dressed in his rather severe black robes. He nodded to the kitchen staff, and they bowed in return. Kai walked slowly forward to where Sophia held her baby. Kai leaned close without speaking.
His face softened, and for a moment Sophia saw a glimpse of the old Kai, and it was such a happy sight that she wanted to reach out and touch him. Then he straightened without saying a word, and left the room. The slaves looked after him, and Sophia held her baby as tightly as she could without cutting off his breathing.
Chapter Forty-five
On a tile square beside the atrium's reflecting pool, Uncle Malik conducted a lesson for Kai and Ali, providing both instruction and amusement to the household. Malik was in fine fashion, more jovial than Kai had seen him in months. Understandable, of course: just last week, Jimuyu had pronounced Fatima well and fully pregnant!
Moving as lightly as a man in his twenties, Malik exhausted the brothers one after another, in rotation. Lamiya, Babatunde, the Wakil, and Elenya watched. From time to time, in response to a particularly well executed thrust or parry, they cried "Hai!" or "Ho!", or appreciative catcalls upon an error.
Through great exertions Kai managed to get a touch in, and grinned in satisfaction. An instant later, Malik's spiraling disarm wrenched his blade from his fist and made his fingers sting. Kai watched in dismay as his sword clattered to the ground.
"Well done!" his uncle cried. Then, chidingly, "Next time, don't stop to admire your thrust, eh?"
A white servant in robe and turban approached Malik, offering a tray of refreshments. "Coffee, sir?"
Malik took a cup of coffee as Elenya bounced up to Kai enthusiastically. "You're getting better." A recent growth spurt had raised Elenya to three and a half cubits in height, with a round face that had yet to shed the last of her baby fat. Recently, she had taken to dressing in the fashionable Afar style: simple peasant blouse, dress, and sandals, her hair worn short with tight, well-oiled braids in precise rows, studded with glazed beads.
"I'm still dead." Kai shrugged.
"And a fine-looking corpse you make." Malik slapped Kai on the shoulder. "Tell me, Kai, how goes the courting?"
Kai's cheeks burned. "Nandi? Well, we write letters."
"I'm sure they singe the paper, eh? She is a worthy prize, yes?"
Kai grinned and, rather uncomfortably, extracted himself from the conversation. He accepted a cup of coffee from the servant, and sipped, waiting for his heartbeat to slow back down. Despite his ignominious disarming, and subsequent chiding, he had done almost as well as Ali. High marks indeed. His work with Babatunde, while a mere supplement to Malik's teaching, was helping him to visualize the line of engagement, the angles of attack and defense, and was beginning to make a difference.
In watching his uncle spar against Ali now, he was able to determine how Malik chose his attacks, watch how he separated a single second into fractions, and managed to conserve emotion and energy so that he had all the time in the world. Truly masterful, but no longer an absolute mystery.
The sparring ended. He watched Malik's head turn in distraction as a pair of servants walked the edge of the atrium toward the front of the house. Ah, it was Aidan and Sophia. Aidan often came to the house after the day's work, walking Sophia back to Ghost Town with their little Mahon. And if Kai felt a wrench at the double loss, he was also relieved to find that part of himself could rejoice in Aidan's happiness.
Then, almost as if sensing Malik's eyes on her back, Sophia turned to face him.
Their eyes locked across the distance. Malik's gaze bored into her with a boldness and directness no Muslim ever displayed toward a woman of his own station, or indeed any black woman. Sophia seemed taken aback by his intensity. Aidan, slower on the uptake, turned to regard Malik.
The sword master smiled and hoisted his cup of coffee in a silent tribute to the new mother. Sophia found the strength to place her right hand over her heart, and bow courteously. Then, turning, she gripped Aidan's waist with her arm and hurried away, somehow managing to maintain her dignity with every step.
Later, after a fine dinner, Malik and Abu Ali led a stroll out to the barn, to examine the most recently foaled horses. "Our youngest," said Abu Ali enthusiastically. "Fine, strong creatures, with great spirit."
"It seems the season for them. Tell me, Kai," he said, turning to his younger nephew. "How is your riding?"
"Djinna is magnificent," Kai hedged. He sensed a contest in the wind. He hated competition, always had. Probably because he almost always lost, but that was besides the point.
"Excellent! Ali?"
Ali bowed, his ego having recovered completely from Malik's most recent humbling. "At your service." Kai groaned to himself. Ali would take out his frustration on his younger brother, and it would not be a pretty sight.
Abu Ali was interested. "What do you propose?"
Malik grinned. "A race, of course. Your sons, these fine steeds, a peerless day. Say, ten Alexanders?" Ten Alexanders was more than most share-landers earned in a year.
"Twenty?"
"Done!" Malik smacked his palms together with relish. "Sport!"
"Kai?" Abu Ali asked.
Kai was hesitant. "I don't know, Father. Who would wager against Ali? I've never beaten him!"
Malik put his arm around his nephew's shoulder. "Today may be your day. Come!"
Outside, on the vast pasture grounds, the two brothers trotted their horses back and forth, preparing. Malik examined Djinna with satisfaction. "A fine animal," he said. "I think today is a day for risks. I'll bet on you, Kai."
Kai nodded glumly. Now he would not only be embarrassed, but cost his uncle gold. Allah help him come his next lesson!
He noted that a pair of servants had wandered over to the fence. They were a pair of shaggy scoundrels named Olaf and Cormac, the sort of men who disappeared the instant a job was done and were rarely found again before suppertime.
"I like the young master," Olaf said, perhaps not realizing he was in earshot.
"Tell you," Cormac replied. "Ali can't be beat, not on that monster of an animal."
He's smarter than he looks,
Kai thought.
Olaf grinned. "You draw my water all next week, I'll cut your wood."
Cormac spit in his hand, offered it in a firm clasp. "Done."
Grumbling to himself, Kai mounted and pulled his horse up to the starting line. Ali wheeled his own steed into position. Malik motioned to Kai. "Kai! A moment?"
Kai walked his horse over to Malik. "Uncle?"
Malik's voice became conspiratorial. "Remember how I told you to hold the sword last week?"
"You said that I should relax more, let it be softer—"
"More alive in your hand. Yes. But I can only say that to a student who has already learned to grip. You grip the saddle with your thighs. Think of your best lover. Come now. Who was she?"
Kai felt a flush of heat. "Uncle!"
"Come on," Malik crooned.
"Well," he stammered, and then dropped his voice. "The slave girl, Sophia."
Malik wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. "As I thought. And how did she grip you with her thighs?"
"There are no words."
Malik laughed softly. "Grip your saddle in such a fashion. Feel what the horse is thinking. One body. One mind. I have wagered on you. Have I ever before?"
"No . . ."
"Because never before did I feel you could win. I am right about this. Do not argue. Do not doubt. Trust your teacher—go and win."
A thunderclap roared in Kai's chest. His uncle believed he could win? Would win? Impossible. Yet . . .
He studied the scarred face of the man who had taught him to hold a sword, and saw no doubt there. "Yes, Uncle," he murmured, then with greater feeling, shouted, "Yes!"
Shivering with excitement, Kai returned to the line. More servants were arriving, choosing sides, cheering them on.
Abu Ali took his pistol from his belt. "Ready—luck to both of you, my sons. Ride proudly."
Kai stroked Djinna's neck and then turned to Ali. "Good luck," he said.
Ali grinned, hunching over his saddle. "Keep it for yourself. You'll need it!"
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