Zulu Heart
ZULU HEART
By Steven Barnes
A Mystique Press Production
Mystique Press is an imprint of Crossroad Press
Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press
Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press
Digital Edition Copyright © 2018 Steven Barnes
Previous publication by Warner Books—2003
LICENSE NOTES
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Meet the Author
Steven Barnes is a New York Times bestselling, award-winning novelist and screenwriter who is the creator of the Lifewriting™ writing course, which he has taught nationwide. He recently won an NAACP Image Award as co-author of the Tennyson Hardwick mystery series with actor Blair Underwood and his wife, Tananarive Due. For an overview of his 20-plus novels, visit Amazon.com.
But Steve’s true love is teaching balance and enhancing human performance in all forms: emotional, professional and physical.
In addition to being an author and writing instructor, he is also a life coach, CST coach and certified hypnotist. He has more than 30 years’ experience in the self-development arts, including hypnosis certification with Transformative Arts Institute in Marin, CA, training as a yoga and Tai Chi instructor, and fourth-degree black belt. He has counseled executives, royalty, prominent politicians and Hollywood celebrities at the Moonview Sanctuary in Santa Monica.
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To my wife, Tananarive Due:
My Nandi, my Lamiya.
Sometimes, one is enough.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Zulu Heart is dedicated to the friends and colleagues who never allowed me to forget either my bliss or responsibilities. This is the life I chose, and no matter how steep the path, one can only climb: for every blister and exertion, there is a commiserate heightening of perspective.
But beyond those stalwarts …
To my daughter Lauren Nicole, who has so wonderfully fulfilled her promise.
To Rebecca Neason, Brenda Cooper, Todd Elner, and Tiel Jackson for reading and for comments that helped to clear away the fog. To Toni Young, mother of my child, for both comments and her wonderful maps. Bless you. Once again to Heather Alexander, for permission to quote her wondrous words of song.
Charles Johnson and Harry Turtledove, for encouragement.
Betsy Mitchell, who first believed in the dream.
Jaime Levine, my current editor at Warner/Aspect: you demonstrated patience above and beyond the call. This one was like pulling teeth, I know, but you applied what emotional Novocain you could, and were kind.
For Eleanor Wood, my extraordinary agent and friend. How incredibly lucky I was to find you. Thank you for everything, always.
Mad props to Wendi Dunlap for her knowledge of African culture in general and Yoruban philosophy and the Orishas in particular.
Shall I tell you what acts are better than fasting, charity and prayers?
Making peace between enemies are such acts, for enmity and malice tear up the heavenly rewards by the roots.
—The Prophet Muhammad
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
—Jesus Christ
If you could get rid
Of yourself just once,
The secret of secrets
Would open to you.
The face of the unknown,
Hidden beyond the universe
Would appear on the
Mirror of your perception.
—Rumi
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Bilalian weights and measures are modifications of ancient Egyptian standards. The royal cubit is here interpreted as about eighteen inches. A digit is about an inch. A kite is approximately an ounce. Ten kites equal one deben, ten debens equal one sep.
The dates given in chapter headings are rendered in both Hijri (dating from Muhammad’s flight from Mecca) and Gregorian (dating from the birth of Christ).
ZULU HEART
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
PART I
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
PART II
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
PART III
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
PART IV
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
CHAPTER SEVENTY
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
PART V
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
CHAPTER EIGHTY
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE
CHAPTER NINETY
CHAPTER NINETY-ONE
AFTERWORD
PROLOGUE
Edge of the Dahomy Empire,
central West Africa
A.H. 183 (A.D. 800)
In the verdant grasslands a brisk hour’s run from the coast, close enough for to spice the air with the ocean’s foam, thirteen solemn men sat circle, speaking of death.
These thirteen represented the twelve independent Yoruban city-states. Different tribes they were, but a single nation when faced with disaster, whether that grief was occasioned by man or nature. This day they confronted the greatest challenge within living memory: a vast and voracious Dahoman army even now preparing to march against their farms and towns.
Although they had freely elected to lay their lives down for their people, terror and despair gnawed at their hearts. The Dahoman empire had consumed all within its path, offering liberal terms to those who laid down their arms, but destruction, torture, and slavery to any who dared resist.
Negotiation had failed. With the morrow’s dawn, the Yoruban forests and plains would churn with battle.
Akintunde, senior war chief and griot of the Yoruba, was a man of fifty rains. Despite his burden of years and scars, he stood as erect as any man twenty rains his junior. His shaven head and torso were intricately tattooed with keloid scars proclaiming Yoruba battles, calamities, and triumphs. Even in silence, Akintunde was his people’s living history.
Whatever misgivings the Twelve might have felt, they held themselves straight and strong, eyes locked on the man whose very name meant “courage returns.” Akintunde had called this gathering that his people might march to the rhythm of a single heart. His courage would be theirs. As he had done so many times in the past, Akintunde locked his own fear deep within his breast, that only vitality might shine from his eyes, only words of power issue from his tattooed lips.
Each subchief represented many hundreds of fighting men. In peacetime they were farmers, hunters, fishermen. In time of war, they kissed their wives and children good-bye, gave their souls to Chango or Ogun, and marched off to war. This, then, was their final meeting before the morrows fateful clash.
“Men have faced such odds before,” Akintunde began.
“Did they survive?” asked a short, muscular young blacksmith. He squatted on his heels, obsidian face taut with worry. Akintunde knew that Ojo was troubled: his breathing was shallow and high, his posture canted forward, denoting tightness in the gut. During a war-dance hours before, Akintunde noted that Ojo’s coordination was degraded by tension. Hunger or fatigue could do these things, but the old war-chief intuited that Ojo yearned for more than food or sleep: Ojo was famished for hope.
“Survival is for the beasts of the forest,” replied their leader. “Men are born to conquer and prevail.”
Every eye was fixed upon him. Battling desperation, Akintunde scanned his memory for some bit of encouragement he might offer. His chiefs would fight and die if he so ordered them. But if only he could find the words, they might do much more.
If Akintunde was truly worthy of the name his father had given him, they might fight and win.
So, steadying his voice and expanding his chest, he began to speak. Not of their own ancestors, who, though mighty and brave, had never faced a challenge such as that the morrow would bring. Instead, it was a tale of an ancient, faraway people, a tale that had traveled with the Abyssinian and Egyptian traders who had plied the coastlines for a thousand years. A tale that lived in the writings of Aeschylus, long-dead bard of the fabled city of Athens, who had raised his spear above a plain called Marathon, and thought that moment of ultimate trial the greatest of his life.…
In the days before the rise of Pharaoh Haaibre Setepenamen, Darius, the King of Persia, dreamed a dream that all the world should rest in his bejeweled hands. Between this king and his loathsome vision stood only a tiny group of free warriors who would bow their heads to the sky, or their ancestors, or the Orishas, but never to mortal men.
Darius considered himself more than mere flesh, and vowed to humble the Athenians, or destroy them.
The Persian soldiers were more numerous than ants in the forest. Their mighty warships dominated the oceans. Armor-plated Persian warhorses darkened the horizon. So abundant were Darius’s bowmen that their flights clouded the sky. His commanders, Datis and Artaphernes, were demons in fleshly form, beyond human capacity to defeat.
Ten thousand Athenians marched forth, a force that was to the Persians as a stripling is to a blooded warrior. Their tribe, the Greeks, had spawned great Setepenamen, whom some called Alexander.
Unlike the Persians, these Greeks fought not for a distant god-monarch, that his shadow might enfold an entire world. Each fought that his children might live their lives, till their soil, love their women in their own way, and not at the pleasure of a madman who thought himself beyond death and judgment.
Each and every Athenian fought not for gold, but for a dream. No professional soldiers, they were poets, philosophers, teachers, fishermen.
These men had vowed victory, or death in its attempt.
Minds unburdened by the fear of death, they gained the clarity Ogun gifts only those true in every part. They saw not disaster. Instead, the god of war gave them a vision: by meeting the Persians in a narrow place, then stretching their lines out so they could not be flanked, the number of their enemies mattered not.
All that mattered was the absolute courage in each heart, the strength in each Greek arm.
The battle was the crash of waves against a rocky shore. Pitted against a Persian ocean, the Athenian rock did not yield. As the tide retreated, so fled the Persians.
Wise in the ways of war, the Greeks did not pursue. They knew the Persians would send their fleet to Athens, hoping to deceive the city into opening its gates, attempting guile where force of arms had failed. The Greeks sent a runner on ahead, a man of quicksilver tread named Phideppides. Fleet as an antelope, he ran for hours without an instant’s rest. Upon reaching his people he cried, “We have won!” and fell, his heart at rest, the ancestors welcoming him home.
When the enemy arrived, the Athenians knew better than to open their gates. For the first time, the Persians knew defeat.
The Greeks won because Ogun smiles upon the courageous, because each and every Athenian was righteous in the eyes of his ancestors, who watched from the shadow world, and were well pleased.
They won because the Persians were slaves of King Darius. He, and the mad King Xerxes who followed him, were weak and arrogant.
The Athenians won because they were free men.
As Akintunde concluded his story, his voice rose to a crescendo. The twelve chiefs stood, pounding their spear-butts against the ground, howling their defiance and battle-fever to the sky. Akintunde was proud, and knew they would give the last drop of blood from their veins, wring the last crumb of strength from their sinews. More than that Chango himself could not ask.
And on that next fateful day, the Yoruba prevailed, inspired by an ancient tale of a long-vanquished people. A tale that, with the passage of centuries, would seem ever more mythic than historical.
After a
ll, Europe was a conquered continent, its children raped and slaughtered, its lands divided among the Africans who washed her soil with blood.
But the Yoruba remembered: once, before the fall of barbarous Rome, had lived the Greeks. And for a single scintillating moment, they had shone as a beacon of light in the diseased soul of a war- and plague-torn continent. On a distant day, Athens had chosen death over slavery, and had been rewarded with freedom. And if her descendants had forgotten that lesson, there were others who held it close.
As a thousand years of monarchies held Africa and Europe in thrall, as emperors clutched the throne of China and the Gupta controlled all of India, as kings and princes of all stripe ruled the islands east of Abyssinia, along with the vast tides of wealth in trade and tribute flowed another current, one carrying not men or materiel, but an idea stronger than either.
Freedom, it whispered.
And one day, though it might take another thousand years, that whisper would become a roar.
PART I
The Wakil
“I have studied for many years,” said the student, “and yet have not experienced that of which you speak: that clarity, that connection with the divine. My heart yearns for that food I have yet to taste.”
“It is the yearning that sharpens the student,” said the master. “And also separates him.”
“I do not understand.”
“We yearn for what we do not have, so that our minds are there, and here, and there. You seek what was yours at birth.”
“Then why do I not feel it?” asked the student.
“Because you have entered the world of men, in which lies are often preferable to truth.”
“And in the world of spirit there are no lies?”
“None,” said the teacher. “Nor truth. Only Allah.”
CHAPTER ONE
Songhai Islands, south of New Djibouti
8 Ramadan A.H. 1294
(Sunday, September 16, 1877)