"A son," Caleb said. He suddenly jerked his head up. "Two sons."
"If you die, I will free your eldest son. Any man who dies, his freedom is passed to his eldest offspring, or his woman, or eldest sibling."
Caleb looked at Kai, suspicion flaring in his drugged and clouded eyes. "You would do that?"
"On my honor," Kai said.
Caleb closed his eyes and sagged, but a smile shadowed his face.
Kai stood. "Kebwe? Make the same offer to all of these brave men. Find paper. Write the name of the person they would have inherit their bounty."
Kebwe nodded. "It will be done."
Kai had returned to the mosque's flat tile roof, and stood studying the surrounding brushlands, now a smoldering, corpse-littered waste. A detail of men had been assigned to find living soldiers and bury the dead. Occasional screams floated free as Aztec throats met the knife.
As he peered and pondered, Kai made out one familiar blond figure: Aidan, bringing in the wounded. So like his old friend. A warm feeling spread within him at the thought.
Beside him, Makur huffed. "Isn't that pale-haired one your slave?"
"He was, yes," Kai said.
"I've watched him. Arrogant bastard. Why didn't you ever break him? On my estate, he would never dare look me in the eye."
"Would you trust a coward to guard your back?" Kai asked mildly. Makur had no reply. Kai continued to scan, eyes on the horizon now.
"And we will need every atom of courage we can muster. The Aztecs are coming," he said. "They will come. The only question is when."
Chapter Sixty-eight
Kai's answer was not long in coming.
As the Muslims concluded their evening prayer, a proud line of horses entered the fire-cleared area. They halted just beyond rifle range, forming a line which doubled, then increased into three ranks, and four, until at least two hundred warriors faced the defenders.
Two of them walked their mounts forward. The riders were brown men of noble carriage and warrior aspect, mouths drawn flat in lines as cruel as the slash of a knife, eyes as sharp as the double-edged war axes hanging at their sides. In their feathers, gold ornaments, and leather armor, they were a startling sight.
The lookout sent for Kai, who made swift apologies to Allah for truncating his prayer and ran up the clay steps to the roof. Kebwe joined him a moment later, out of breath. They watched as the two Aztecs waited. "What do we do?" Kebwe asked. "What do they want?"
"A parlay," Kai said. "I believe that this is a temporary truce." Unable to completely control their nerves, Kai and Kebwe mounted the best horses they could find and rode out to face their foe.
Much to Kai's surprise, he found himself facing the man his father had aided months before at the Ababa land office. For the first time since the Zulu incident, a tiny spark of hope flared in his heart. The man was taller than his companions, muscular and imposing. He recognized Kai. "You are the son of Wakil Abu Ali."
"Yes." He straightened in his saddle. "I am Wakil Kai Jallaleddin ibn Rashid al Kushi. I remember you."
"I am Cuahutomac, chief of this pride," said the Aztec. "Brother by marriage to Montezuma the tenth himself."
"We met before, in New Djibouti."
"Yes. In better times."
"Your Arabic is excellent."
Cuahutomac ignored the compliment. "I must inform you that you and your men are outnumbered and surrounded."
This I knew already. "We are prepared to fight to the last man," Kai said.
"And that last man will fall, have no false hopes. We outnumber you ten to one. Our engineers will have catapults here by tomorrow night. If we wish to, we will reduce your precious mosque to rubble."
Kai felt sickened. Cuahutomac spoke the truth—such tactics would work well. The Mosque of the Fathers had never been built to withstand siege. And the Aztecs cared nothing for its heritage. He and his men would be dead long before Fodjour could return with reinforcements.
"However," his adversary continued, "a slaughter here, on your sacred ground, would trigger all-out war between the glorious Aztec empire and Bilalistan."
Kai felt a trickle of relief that Cuahutomac understood this. "True," he said.
Cuahutomac met Kai's gaze directly. "Montezuma does not desire total war.
Kai found himself believing the man, and knew that his surge of hope must not show in his face. "What do you want?"
"We merely want the land that belongs to us, and the guarantee of peace for a generation."
Kai shook his head sadly. "I am not empowered to offer these things."
"True," said the Aztec. "But a gesture of goodwill on our part, and your promise to convey my message, would do much to further our cause."
"What gesture of goodwill?"
Cuahutomac leaned forward in his saddle. "I will allow your officers and black foot soldiers to go peacefully."
Kebwe sat noticeably taller, unable to repress a sharp exhalation.
Kai remained far more cautious. "And . . . ?"
"That is all."
There had to be more, but Kai kept his tongue still.
"And, of course," the Aztec said casually, "your slaves must be turned over to us, for sacrifice to great Quetzalcoatl."
Kai started to speak, then restrained his tongue. Now he believed that the Aztec had spoken his mind, and also that the terms were nonnegotiable. Damn!
Cuahutomac seemed to be looking off at the horizon, where a rust-colored dust storm was brewing. "I remember your father," he said. "Is he well?"
"He is dead."
Cuahutomac's mouth tightened in respect. In that moment Kai saw that the Aztec was at least ten years older than he had first thought, small wrinkles at his throat and on the back of his hands betraying the fact that he was at least fifty. "He was a great warrior. You must live to carry his name. You have until dawn to consider my offer."
And the Aztec and his companion turned and left.
"But he offered life!" Kebwe shouted, his voice ringing from the walls of their makeshift conference room. "Do you want to die?"
"Of course not. But at what price?"
"A few miserable slaves!" said a second.
Kai tried to keep his voice level, and didn't entirely succeed. "Even if you don't care about the slaves, we were sent to recapture the mosque, to hold it at all costs."
"And we've done the best we could!" Kebwe said, trying to sound reasonable. "We took it once, our forces can take it again!"
"If we give up the mamluks, we desecrate the mosque. We will be blasphemers!"
Kebwe slammed his pistol on the table. "For that I accept the judgment of Allah. Life is precious!"
"All life," Kai said. "Not just ours. I won't—can't—win my life at such a price."
"It is not your decision alone!"
Kai straightened. "Following my brother's death, I am the ranking officer."
"Let us not forget Shaka's death, also," Kebwe said quietly.
Kai was unmoved. "This is a holy place. This is now jihad. If we die defending the mosque, we die clean in the eyes of Allah. I will not buy my life by violating honor. I am in command. Who would challenge me?"
As the officers grumbled, Kai rested his hand on his jambaya's hilt. Technically, he was correct: the Wakil was appointed by the Caliph, and the title was ancestral, passing to his sons. Although Kai was younger than some of the other officers, he had New Alexandrian authority behind his words.
"Damn it," Kebwe said, but stepped next to his dead friend's younger brother. "Who challenges Kai faces both our swords."
One at a time, the officers ceased their grumbling.
"All right, Wakil," Makur said, tight-lipped. "What now?"
By dint both of his own personality and his relationship with Kai, Aidan had become a leader among the mamluks. Even mamluks with more gray than black in their hair looked to him for advice.
So it had been easy to convince the boy Mouse to spy for them, to send him wiggling between a stack of barrels be
side the inner wall, where he could hear the conversations in the conference room.
When he came running back to Aidan and relayed what he had heard, Aidan nodded: war had bloodied Kai, but not changed him.
His mind was buzzing. A few hours ago he had all but given up hope of life. Now he was thinking not only of life, but of freedom, and love, and perhaps more. Yes . . . there might be a way . . .
By the time the officers filed out of the conference room to the main yard, the soldiers, slave and free, had grown restless, had eaten and salved their wounds and begun to recover enough from their exertions to gripe.
"What the hell is going on?" Donough said.
"I don't know," one of the black soldiers spat, "but I'm not dying for you white bastards."
"Bastard?" said Donough, massive fists knotting. "At least my mother could walk on her hind legs—"
Before the argument could escalate to blows, Kai appeared, and all attention focused on him. Aidan thought Kai looked weary, but in command. From the deference shown him by the others, it was as he had suspected: the son of the Wakil had greater authority than any other officer.
This is good, Aidan thought. Bide your time.
Kai waited for quiet, and then spoke. "You have questions," he said. "Questions that must be addressed."
"I hear that the Aztecs offered us life!" shouted a black foot soldier.
Kai nodded gravely. "At the cost of our souls."
The soldier was unimpressed. "Will you free us from our bond?"
"The gate is open. You black men—you may leave your weapons and walk out, deserters. If you are right, if we die, then no one will be left to call you coward. You may tell any story you like. But do not expect me to salve your conscience."
He looked out at them fiercely. The men murmured among themselves.
"What of us?" Aidan called, worming his way closer to the front.
"What of you? We are terribly outnumbered. Tomorrow, my brothers, we die. But you, who have fought so bravely, will enter Paradise as free men. Tonight, your chains dissolve. This sacred ground should not be held by slaves."
"And we may leave?" called Donough. Good lad, Aidan thought. Put the pressure on him. Don't any of you see what is happening here? They need us. Without us they are lost. Here, for the first time, they are weak and we are strong.
Kebwe gripped at Kai urgently.
"Yes," said Kai. "Leave your weapons and depart."
Again, there were whispers among the whites.
"You free us, to die here with you," said Aidan. "Or we may leave, without paper to prove our freedom, without land or gold."
"It is life," said Kai.
The moment had come. "It is shite!" Aidan cried.
Kai stared at him, stunned into silence.
"Let me put it another way," Aidan continued swiftly. "What if we win the day? What if we can hold out until reinforcements arrive? What then, Kai?"
Aidan's eyes locked with Kai's. It felt as if there was no one else in the room, as if this moment, this war, was for the two of them alone.
"Any free man who stands with me," said Kai, "if we live, wins land and gold. By my brother's promise, any slave who stands wins freedom. To that I add gold . . ."
Kai took a deep breath, paused as if understanding that he was crossing a critical line. The next comment was directed directly at Aidan. "And his family's freedom."
Yes.
The murmurs were building to a roar.
"Do you pledge?" called Aidan, loath to let the moment pass.
"By my sacred honor," Kai said, "I pledge to buy or obtain the release of every man's family, if that man stands and bleeds with me this day."
The white men around Aidan roared their approval.
"And if we fall, but you survive?" asked Donough.
Even as Aidan watched, Kai seemed to transform, to expand in gravity and force. If he had seemed fatigued at first, he seemed to almost radiate strength now. If before Aidan had assumed that Kai had been granted power by his family connections or rank, now he seemed to swell, to grow in stature and authority. The others stared at Kai with the kind of respect men offer heroes and kings.
"This day," Kai said, "each of you gives the names of your family to my officer. If either of us lives, I pledge that whether you survive or not, your family, up to . . . five members . . . is free for all time."
And there it was. Hope, and a promise for the future. He saw Mahon and Sophia, together in an emerald glade. Free.
Aidan nodded, holding his friends gaze.
Kai turned to his officers. "Arm them with rifles," he said.
"Mouse," he had been named by his fellows. Abdul was the name given him by his master, who owned a peanut plantation in the north. The boy much preferred Mouse, and in fact had begun to insist that everyone use that name. Mice were clever creatures, survivors, almost impossible to eliminate once they invaded a cupboard.
Now Mouse was one of a press of slaves rushing down stone steps into a cellar armory, where a black man with small, suspicious eyes handed them rifles. Rifles! Mouse had never even touched a rifle, and now he was going to have one of his own, and be taught to fire it. And just maybe, when all of this was over, he would take the rifle with him and use it for hunting rabbits and deer.
"One for each man!" cried an officer. "Report to the courtyard in half an hour for drill and practice—"
A big red-hair Mouse didn't know was rolling a barrel away from the wall when he revealed what looked like a rectangular outline etched in the clay. The mamluk looked surprised, disappeared for a moment behind the barrels, and then stood and rolled the barrel back into place swiftly.
One of the others came in close to look as soon as the black officer was looking the other way, and then motioned Mouse to come over. "It's a door," Red-Hair said, offering him a candle. "We need you to find out where it goes."
Now Mouse could see why they asked him: the door was barely big enough for an adult, and beyond it was a passage of some kind, dark enough to give him shivers.
Still, he wondered where it might lead.
Mouse climbed through it on knees and elbows. It was a suffocating journey, all scrapes and head bumps, with a pair of abrupt turns. The candle sputtered, and then winked out. Mouse was suddenly and terrifyingly in total darkness. If he had the nerve to turn and face the mockery of his comrades he might have retreated. At that moment he was convinced that the passage went nowhere, and that he would die here, in the darkness, in the earth, without drawing a single free breath in his entire misbegotten life.
Then he felt the faint tickle of fresh air riffling his hair, and realized that the passage had to end somewhere close. He continued to crawl forward.
The passage tilted down a bit, and he found himself scrambling and sliding the last few feet, and then his face struck a bush.
Yelping, he clawed his way through the obstruction to tumble down into cracked, dried mud.
Mouse wiped his face clean and looked up at the moon. He was out! High earthen walls were on all sides, twisting off into the darkness. This had to be the wadi behind the mosque. He had apparently found a secret escape passage dug by the original builders, who feared that the shrine might be too close to enemy territory.
The boy looked up at the moon almost as if he had never beheld its pale face. "Damn," he said.
The mosque's most sacred and private sanctum was reserved, not for pilgrims, or even for the caretakers, but for holy men making pilgrimage from as far as Abyssinia, come to see what Bilal had wrought. This place, within the great golden dome atop the flat brown tile roof, seemed to Kai like the gateway to Paradise.
The dome arched high above him, buttressed within by cross-beams cunningly designed so that the timbers formed a recognizable Naqsh Kabir. He felt Babatunde's presence, and it was a profound comfort. The hand of the Sufi brotherhood was in play here.
From within, the dome seemed almost to glow, as if the ceramic tile not only conducted starlight, but had a lumi
nescence of its own. Thin matting covered the wooden floor, and just in kneeling there, he felt as if he were part of a lineage of suppliants who had prostrated themselves before the Almighty in this special place.
This insane place.
Mosque Al'Amu. An empty plane. A line on a map between warring empires. How strange that here he felt closer to Allah than at any other place he had known. Here, in the midst of war and death, betrayal and loss, honor and disgrace. Here, where it would be reasonable that a man might cast his eyes upward and see nothing, the glories of Paradise forever withheld . . .
In this place, he felt the hand of God. Knew himself to be in the sight and presence of God. And he trembled.
"Allah, hear my prayer. Here, near the bones of my spiritual ancestors, I feel the nearness of death. And I am so afraid." He knotted his fingers together, trying to stop himself from shaking. "I do not ask for my life. I do not ask that You forgive my actions. Only You know if the things I have done are worthy of forgiveness, and I do not presume to know Your mind. I know that this is where You intend me to die. I ask only that my cowardice not disgrace me. That I may lead my men to some kind of victory, or at least to clean and honorable death."
He paused. "Allah. Let my promise be kept. The men have been true. My friend Aidan has been true. I don't know what is just, or unjust, what Your divine plan is for men in bondage to other men. I only know I gave my word, and if You have to choose between my promise and my life, let my promise be kept, and my life lost."
Another pause, searching for the right words.
"Thy will, not mine, be done."
When Mouse returned through the cellar door, he was covered in rock dust, cut and bruised, and so excited he could barely keep control of his bladder.
The cellar was deserted, and he had to creep up the stairs and out to the main courtyard before he found a clutch of mamluks crouched in a circle, passing a hemp-filled pipe from hand to hand. "It's true!" he told them. "We could escape out the back. We know the Aztecs are watching in the front. That's why he said we could go. He knew no one would. But we can escape!"
Lion's Blood Page 49