Lion's Blood

by Steven Barnes

  One of the guards pushed Molly forward, her hands bound before her, her hair hanging wildly around her face. "You pretended conversion to Islam," said Ali. "Your life is already forfeit. Do you stand before Allah and profess belief in His Prophet?"

  Molly sneered at him. "Bring it closer," she said. He did, and she pressed her lips against the cross.

  "Good," Malik said. "Soon you stand before your God. This is not a time for lies."

  Then Ali stood before Aidan, and he felt as if judgment day itself had arrived. Blood roared in his ears. "Brian swears you were caught up in this, but killed no one, and planned nothing. I can find no one to testify against you. Perhaps you are even innocent. But I cannot bring myself to believe that you have genuinely embraced the Prophet." He leaned closer, his angry breath a bitter perfume. "What say, Irishman? Others have spoken the truth this day, have chosen honor over life. Does the burden of your lie weigh upon you?"

  Aidan saw Sophia out of the corner of his eye. She was restrained by Malik's men, and shook her head desperately. Don't make our child an orphan, she seemed to say without words. Live.

  He turned his head away from the crucifix. He wanted it to be over, wished that he had sunk into the depths of the bay with his son.

  "What?" Ali said, drawing closer. "I cannot hear you."

  Live. For his wife. For his son. For the promise he had made to Nessa, long ago.

  Aidan locked eyes with Ali and spoke the hateful words with reverence. "Lah illah hah illah Llah," he said.

  "Yes," Ali said. "There is no God but the One God. But by what name do you call Him, I wonder. And what do you really think of the Jew?"

  Malik turned toward Kai. "Father Leary admitted that he gave Communion to the Christians, Kai. What did you see?"

  Aidan saw Kai's gaze slide away to Sophia, and then to Mahon. He seemed to study the child, who nestled against his mother's breast, asleep.

  Then back to Aidan again, and in his eyes, Aidan saw nothing, could read nothing.

  Then Kai looked at Babatunde, who had witnessed the entire process without a word, his own face somber and watchful.

  Aidan held his breath as Kai reached into his pocket. He withdrew the silver crescent medallion, weighed it in his hand, then bent and placed it around Aidan's neck. "Ash-Shahid as my witness, I saw nothing," he said.

  Malik's voice was deadly quiet. "Allah knows if you lie. Would you risk your soul for this pigbelly?"

  "You were not there, Malik," said Babatunde. "You cannot say."

  "I say you should stay out of this. I am not certain where your loyalties lie, Sufi." Malik glared at Kai, but was unable to force his nephew to break contact, or retract his story.

  Now Ali spoke. "Those who led the rebellion must die, as will those who pretended conversion to Islam. All of those will have the honor of dying as did your precious Isu. The others are to be whipped, and returned to the fields." Aidan heard groans of grateful relief.

  Ali turned to the slaves. "Be not relieved so quickly." His grin was savage. "There is one thing more I must do."

  Hands and feet bound, Aidan stumbled along the dirt path leading to the grove, jabbed from behind by the point of a rifle. Guns everywhere, dark angry hands on the triggers, murder in their eyes.

  The entire tuath was gathered, every man, woman, and child. He heard the whispers: Will they kill us? Remember that rice farm out east? Chopped heads off half those poor bastards. Goddess mild, protect us, please . . .

  Ali cantered out in front of them, his face expressionless. "My father, the Wakil, is dead."

  Aidan felt leaden. Death, then. So be it, as long as his family was safe.

  Sophia will be safe, he thought miserably. Safe in Malik's bed.

  The slaves muttered and moaned and tore at their hair.

  "Some of you knew of this uprising," Ali said, "and some did not. I should have half of you skinned." He was struggling, fighting some great inner battle. "My father let you keep your names! Your barbaric language. Your deification of the Jew. Your worship of trees. See now what it got him."

  Madness burned in Ali's eyes, madness and death, barely restrained by . . . what? Aidan knew not, but felt almost pitifully grateful, whatever it was. Every face was riveted to Ali, all understanding the frailty of the thread that bound them to life.

  Ali raised his clenched fists into the sky. "No more!" He smacked his palms together, and his men ran in with torches and buckets of pitch. They doused the trees until their lower branches dripped black, and then set fire.

  The flames snaked along the branches, chewed at the trunks, leapt from tree to tree and into the sky.

  Aidan had sworn that he would not cry, would not show weakness before these monsters, but as the branches began to burn, as the smoke drifted down in rolling, choking clouds, his eyes began to sting, and he could not stop the tears. All around him, the men and women of the tuath watched their beloved grove flaming, branches and trunks consumed, and as a single heart they felt its death. Their past. Their futures. All aflame, soon to be nothing but cinders.

  Twin tear tracks glistened on Sophia's face, reflecting the flames ravaging their beloved grove. Over the months she had come to love it, and to understand what this place meant to the captive men and women. Only with its destruction did she fully grasp the enormity of the Wakil's kindness in allowing them this symbol.

  Only in loss, she thought, do we truly understand what we once possessed.

  She was forced to watch as Aidan was locked into the stocks and beaten until the blood ran from his back in rivulets to puddle on the ground. Every whip stroke was like a breath ripped from her lungs, a day torn screaming from her life. Yet her man did not cry out. He took blow after blow, and finally, when his legs could no longer support him, he hung moaning, biting through his lip. He did not scream, even when Malik deliberately raised his voice and ordered, "Bring her."

  She was dragged to Malik's waiting cart, where Bitta handed her a bundled Mahon. Her eyes held Sophia’s for a moment longer than necessary. There was neither hatred nor pity there. But in that broad, strong face there was something else, a glimmer of the communication that Sophia yearned for, some flash of understanding, perhaps. One woman for another.

  Then the moment was gone, and Bitta pushed Sophia brusquely up onto the cart.

  Sophia felt utterly numb, beaten, exhausted. She could not even pray for help. Certainly all God's grace had been expended in the restoration of her son, the sparing of Aidan's life. She could ask no more of Him in a lifetime of worship.

  But with every breath of her precious burden, she knew it had been worth the price.

  Her cart rolled slowly past the village, and the four slaves crucified before its gates: Brian, Father Leary, Molly, and old Auntie Moira. Spikes had been driven through their hands and feet. A small platform beneath the feet allowed them to take some of the strain off their hands, but in time fatigue and despair would weaken them, they would hang by their hands, their chest muscles would grow exhausted, and they would suffocate. It was only a matter of time.

  Brian craned his head to watch the smoke curling from the grove, his entire body convulsing with pain and terror. His pants were stained with blood at the crotch. Brian’s punishment had been severest of all.

  Sophia watched Malik look up into Brian's face. This time, for the first time, Brian could not meet his eyes. Malik laughed grimly, and rolled on.

  Sophia watched them all recede: the shantytown, the crucifixes, the stocks, the distant, burning grove. And distantly, just visible, the figure of Kai on his balcony, watching.

  PART FOUR

  War

  "The universe," said the Master, "reflects back the divine in the attributes of the imminent aspects of God."

  "The aspects?" asked the student.

  "The ninety-nine names of God," said the Master. "Al-Awwal, the First, and Al-Aqhir, the Last. Al-Muhyy, the Giver of Life, and also Al-Mumeet, the Causer of Death. And Al-Rahman, Mercy . . ."

  "And Al-
Jalal?"

  "Yes. And Wrath."

  Chapter Sixty-one

  It was said that if one hundred of the faithful offered sincere prayers for the soul of the departed, that that pilgrim would be guaranteed entrance to Paradise. If that were true, Kai thought, then his father must be already in the hands of Al-Quayyam, the Eternal Caregiver.

  It seemed that not a free citizen in all New Djibouti was about his own affairs that day. The roads outside Dar Kush were crowded with mourners, the grounds filled with coaches and horses, the private cemetery where Kai's sainted mother had rested now for fifteen years ringed with more than a thousand men and veiled women, wearing the white of grieving.

  Babatunde spoke to the standing throng, his voice pulling at Kai's heart, which felt as heavy as a stone.

  "Ahmad reported," the little Yoruba intoned, "that the Prophet, peace be upon him, said: 'Do not wash those who die as martyrs, for their every drop of blood will exude a fragrance like musk on the Day of Judgment.' The Prophet, peace be upon him, ordered the martyrs of the Battle of Uhud to be buried in their bloodstained clothes. They were not washed, nor any funeral prayer offered for them."

  The crowd was hushed. Kai's mind swam, sought firm ground, shamefully fled the reality of the burial.

  There was something so . . . final about placing your remaining parent in the ground. Perhaps before that moment, you could deceive yourself that Al-Qahhar, the Destroyer, Death, might pass you by. But when the ground has swallowed both Mother and Father, the lie is put to such childish notions, and what remains is a cold and relentless reality.

  He reeled, felt his balance crumbling, almost leaned into Elenya, who stood at his side with Lamiya. His sister seemed to be bearing the burden better than he, shutting away her grief in some part of her child's heart that seemed as old as the seas. Her cheeks, beneath her veil, bore no tear tracks. Her eyes were steady as the Pillars of the Nile. And yet he knew that, if possible, she had loved their father more than any of them. Perhaps in dying the Wakil had lent her some of his strength. He hoped so. He would not wish his own despair and misery on anyone, let alone Elenya.

  The washing of Abu Ali's body had been a subject of controversy. He had died protecting his home and family, and at the hands of an infidel. But there were those who said that since there was no jihad, no holy war, this made him a lesser martyr, whose body should be washed, who should be prayed over.

  Controversy be damned, thought Kai. Ulema be damned. My father lived in the light of Allah, and there he died. I rest my soul on that conviction.

  "And we ask," said Babatunde in conclusion, "that Allah accept His warrior into His holy arms, and that He hear our prayers. May he dwell always in the fields of Paradise, and may we meet again on a day beyond imagining."

  Kai felt coolness as the morning wind dried the tears upon his cheeks, and begged forgiveness of his father's spirit for his weakness. I have striven to be a good man. I have made mistakes, but you paid for them. Forgive me, I will be a man, Father. I will make you proud. Surely you know my heart now, as no mortal man ever could. Watch me, Father. If there is a drop of your blood in my veins, I will find a way to make you proud.

  Ar-Rahim, the Most Compassionate, help me to be strong. Help me make it so.

  In the days and weeks that followed, the house was repaired, and the skeleton of a new barn erected. Servants trudged to their tasks, heads down, shoulders slumped. It was the same with the field hands.

  Armed overseers hovered at all times. Watching, waiting. Perhaps even desiring a new cycle of violence to begin, that vengeance, stifled by the last wishes of the dead Wakil, might at last be delivered.

  Darkness had descended upon Dar Kush.

  Kai concluded his third prayer of the day, rolled his rug, then turned to find Elenya watching from his bedroom door.

  Abu Ali's death seemed to have thrust her into the childhood's gloaming. Her face had lost its baby fat. In truth, he thought that she resembled Fatima more than her own mother. Even had she been poor, she would have drawn highborn suitors. "Kai," she said. "You haven't eaten all day."

  He did not respond. She came to him and took his shoulders. "Kai! You do nothing but pray."

  "I have a great sin to wash away."

  "What sin?"

  He stared down at her, then softened his gaze and took her small hands in his. "Go, little one," he said. "Forget your brother." From some forgotten well of strength he managed to find a smile. "For now. I will find my way home."

  He trailed his finger down her dark, shining cheek. "I will come back." She backed out of his room, face flushed with alarm. Quietly, he repeated: "I will."

  A week later, Lamiya steeled herself and deliberately forced Ali to ride past Ghost Town, where the bodies of the renegades still hung from the crosses. They were rotten now, and when the wind shifted, their stench reached the main house. In the servant village, it must have been unendurable, a constant, nauseating reminder of their sins.

  Brian's withered corpse seemed to stare down at her, its face crawling with insects. He had certainly deserved death, but this? Brian had not abused her, had forbid any dishonorable actions toward the women of the Wakil's household. She had feared for her life, but never her chastity. Her upbringing encouraged her to take this haughtily, to assume that Brian had been intimidated by her royal lineage, but she wasn't so certain.

  Perhaps he had protected her to use as a trump card, knowing that if he damaged her, Ali's wrath would be impossible to control. Perhaps.

  Lamiya had traveled in the wilds of Europe, seen the crazed savages chained in the markets of Alexandria and Tarifa. Most of them were beasts, but a few . . .

  Just possibly, the rebel leader had been an honorable man. And if that was the reason she had not been molested, it was unseemly for his body to be displayed so once his soul had departed.

  Both eyes were gone now, and flies buzzed about him, crawled upon his tattered lips, his desiccated cheeks. His hair was as limp as bloodstained straw.

  Ali laughed. "Not so proud now, is he?"

  "Ali," she said, fighting for control. "Hasn't it been long enough? Couldn't you cut them down?"

  A pair of servants scurried past them into the village, keeping their eyes to the ground. They had scarves tied around their faces, faint protection against the stench.

  "Not yet," Ali said, and smiled. "Not quite."

  She rode with him for another hour, but could not keep her mind on the path, or her mount. There was nothing she could do to keep from glancing at her companion. The hard, fine lines of his face, which she'd once found challenging and strong, now verged on cruelty. His eyes, once steady and cool, were now cold.

  When they returned their horses to the stable, she made a weak excuse and set off by herself, supposedly to walk some stiffness out of her back, and pick flowers.

  But she found herself walking in circles in the woods, faster and faster, her thoughts describing similar arcs behind her furrowed brows.

  Why had she never seen this side of Ali before? Or had she, and ignored it? No . . . this was new, something unleashed by the death of his father. Would it accelerate? Fade after a while?

  And then, most terribly, she realized that it didn't matter.

  I cannot love a man who could smile at such a terrible thing. I cannot. I will not.

  A short while later, Lamiya found Babatunde in his room, standing at his reading pedestal, at the window facing the misty blue expanse of Lake A'zam.

  "Ah, Lamiya!" he said without turning. "I was just reading a new paper by Quallo, a Dogon astronomer with whom I once shared a wretched balloon ride in Alexandria. He claims optical verification of one of their myths, a story of a 'double star' system so distant its light would require ten or twenty years to reach us. Now, personally I doubt. . ."

  He had finally turned, and a glimpse of her stricken face finally seemed to quiet him.

  "My child," he said, gliding toward her. "Whatever is the matter?"

  She fell to h
er knees beside him. "I cannot do it, Babatunde." Her words were a rasping whisper. "I know that I say a terrible thing, but I cannot."

  "Cannot what?"

  "Marry Ali. He has changed. His father's death has made him cold, cruel. I cannot." She threw her hands across her face and rocked back and forth on her knees. "Merciful Allah, what will become of me?"

  He regarded her sternly, and as much as she wished for compassion, another part of her craved his strength, perhaps realizing that at this moment it was the greatest asset she possessed. "You will do your duty. What you were born to do."

  His words scalded. "But, Babatunde . . ."

  "You were not born for your own pleasure, but to save your aunt's kingdom."

  "But what if. . ." Confusion flooded through her mind. What if I love someone else? "What if I do not love him?"

  "What do you want?" Babatunde's voice sharpened. "Permission to disgrace yourself? You cannot have it. You think your place is hard. Life is hard. For every man whose honor compels him to lay his life on the field of honor, it is hard. For every slave who toils for a family that can be taken from him at a black man's whim, life is hard. How dare you?"

  Lamiya glared at him, hating the truth in his words, hating even more her own confusion. Then she scrambled to her feet and ran.

  The Empress's niece spent a half hour tearing her room apart, emptying her drawers, abortively packing a few belongings, then flinging them onto the floor while loyal Bitta watched in dismay. No matter how she struggled, Lamiya could not stop shaking and crying.

  Finally, she stopped, and looked around herself at the room that the Wakil had built for her, designed to remind her of home. Its darkwood paneling, its silken hangings, the canopied bed imported from her homeland, the silvered wall masks of her ancestors . . . assembled at great price and effort by a man who loved her, and believed her to be the future mistress of a great household.