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  “Make your arrangements at once, Kai,” she said. “The Zulus have waited three years. This meeting in Radama was the first chance Cetshwayo had to speak with you informally, without making his family vulnerable if your answer was negative. A face-to-face meeting was the only way to do this. Past hesitation can be forgiven. Failure to act swiftly now would be a grave insult indeed.”

  Kai thought back over her words and found them convincing. He found them also to be curiously devoid of inflection. Lamiya had weighed the pros and cons as if discussing the market price of teff. He thanked and left her, not certain whether to be relived or annoyed at her reaction.

  Later, Lamiya took counsel with Babatunde. Her brothers and uncles were scattered about the world, and her father had died when she was twelve and away in Bilalistan. The little Sufi was the only male with whom she might have intimate discussions. “I know that I was raised to such a fate, but things have changed.…”

  “Things always change, my dear.”

  Bitta, her shaven-headed Ibo bodyguard, smiled silently.

  “They changed when I changed. When I bore Aliyah in my body, I grew selfish. I want everything for my child—all of his wealth and power, all of his love. To be forced to share that with a stranger …”

  “Nandi is not a stranger,” Babatunde reminded her.

  “Yes. I met her, twice. Once when she was a child, and once again at the engagement party. But I do not know her.”

  He covered her hand with his. “In time you will.”

  “In time …” She seemed to ponder his words. “Still,” she said finally, “it doesn’t matter. This is my fate. I will make my peace, and find ways that the arrangement will be to my advantage.”

  Babatunde studied the girl he had virtually raised. “Why so cold?”

  “I received a note from my eldest brother,” she said.

  “This is very good! How is Ghana?”

  “He did not say. He said little, save that his family is healthy, and that the Empress’s advisors tell her that by marrying Kai I have weakened the feder näfs system.”

  “One might have hoped that that would not be true—you have, after all, married the Wakil, which is what the union to Ali was intended to accomplish.”

  “Yes, but the feder näfs system rests upon the belief, deeply held by millions, that the Immortal Empress can see into the inner heart, and find a perfect soul mate. She is, of course, in the business of creating political unions: but that is not the veil she draws across it.”

  “Ah,” said Babatunde. “It is not the reality that is threatened, but the illusion which supports the reality.” He shook his head. “I’m afraid that I must side with Kai on this: politics are a necessary insanity.”

  Lamiya smiled wanly. “So. If my aunt’s advisors are to be believed, her daughters and nieces are no longer such untarnished gold, and I have been the agent of diminishment. I am, they say, a scandal.”

  Babatunde sighed. “Perhaps love ought not be bartered in such a manner.”

  “To be simultaneously so naive and so wise requires prodigious gifts.” She was smiling as she said that, but it was not a happy smile.

  “Hmmm,” mused her tutor. “To think I once bounced you on my knee. Once again, wisdom’s seeds have fallen on barren ground.”

  Lamiya bent her head. “I pray I have done the right thing. I have made such prayers countless times. And my brother hints—indirectly, of course, that the Empress wishes to reach out to me.”

  “If war truly comes, you may be of greater aid on this side of the ocean.”

  “I pray so,” she replied. “I would like to see my mother again. My brothers and sisters. Save for a few short notes sent through intermediaries, they have turned their backs upon me.”

  “They had no choice.”

  “Perhaps,” she said. “But still, part of my heart remains in Africa. That gives me less to offer my husband, and weakens our union.”

  Babatunde hesitated. “Do you love him?”

  She paused as well before answering. “Can you love someone you do not understand? The heavens do not sing when I gaze into Kai’s eyes, but he has a good heart, and I am happy in his arms. I wish to understand him. He has never spoken to me of what occurred at the mosque, and I long to know. I think something happened there, something that keeps his heart from me.”

  Interest flickered sharply in the tutor’s eyes. “Something? For instance?”

  “I know not. It is said that Malik killed too many men, and fell into the darkness. Perhaps that is all I sense, that Kai’s sword sent too many men to hell, or Paradise. Perhaps Kai’s own spirit is suspended between the two, unable to choose.”

  Her tutor bored in. “Two, yes. But not heaven and hell. It is Abu Ali and Malik who contest for Kai’s soul.”

  “How will he save himself?”

  “His heart. It may seem hidden now, but what if he truly offered it to you? All of it? Would you be strong enough to love him, weakness and all, when your heart does not sing for him now?”

  She lowered her eyes. “Sometimes, it is easier for a woman to love when she senses a gap in the armor, a place where her softness might enter and comfort. At the beginning he needed me. Now … I just don’t know.” Her hands fluttered. “I think. I hope.” A pause. “I hope.”

  She looked out the window. Below her in the lawn between Dar Kush and the public gardens, Kai was giving two-year-old Aliyah a riding lesson on her Zulu pony.

  “I should have given him a son,” she murmured.

  “You are yet young,” Babatunde replied.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  2 Shawwal A.H. 1294

  (Wednesday, October 10, 1877)

  Aliyah and Azania toddling at his side, Kai walked with his daughters through the hall of ancestors, a passage connecting the first floor’s main library with the central atrium. In much of the Muslim world, images of human beings and animals were discouraged: those of the Prophet and his family forbidden. But Fatimite Islam as practiced in Bilalistan had a fine tradition of graphic and statuary art.

  Here in the hall were exquisite portraits of his mother, Kessie; his father and grandfather, his Uncle Malik and brother Ali.

  “Who was that?” Azinza asked, pointing up at a woman’s portrait seated next to that of Kai’s father. Round-faced, with full smiling lips and bright eyes, although of Ethiopian blood she wore a Yoruba-style headwrap of gold cloth that perfectly crowned her face. The artisan had managed to imbue her with a sense of serenity and great vitality, so that the eye was powerfully drawn. ***

  Kai never saw that painting without some shift in his mood. Today, thankfully, it lifted his spirits.

  “Your grandmother,” he said. “She died when I was a little boy, not much older than you.”

  “Beautiful,” said the little girl.

  “More than you know,” Kai replied.

  “What happened to her?”

  It was the first time Azinza had asked a question about death. Instead of answering directly, he said, “She knew how the world began. Would you like to hear?”

  “Yes,” Azinza and Aliyah said at once, and Kai told them a story that he had heard from his mother. He had been only five when she died, and might have forgotten, but his nurse had recited it a hundred times, and told him that his mother herself had heard it from her own Kikuyu nurse….

  On the first day, God created the light. From the depths of this light, God created the souls of every person who would ever live. First, souls of the prophets were created, then the souls of holy men and women. After these, the Lord fashioned the souls of ordinary people. Angels, too, were woven of this light. Because their bodies are transparent, they contain only purity, and their only need or desire is to worship God and to help His children.

  After the light, God created seven other great things: the Throne, the Canopy, the Book, the Pen, the Trumpet, Paradise, and Hellfire. The Canopy is like a tent above the Throne upon which God lives. The Book contains all the events that will
ever take place. The Pen reaches from sky to earth and writes, day and night, the fate of all people. The Trumpet of the Last Day will announce the world’s end and God’s final judgment over all the souls He created. God then created Paradise, where good and obedient souls will live in eternal bliss. Finally, God created Hellfire, as a place for the wicked to repent their sins.

  Beneath His Throne, God fashioned a giant tree, the Cedar of the End. On this tree’s branches are millions of leaves, some fresh and green, others old and withered. God writes a name on each and every leaf. When he wills it, a leaf comes floating down, but before it reaches the earth, the Angel of Life reads the name on the leaf, and tells the Angel of Death who is ready to leave the earth.

  At the end of the day, God created the Earth out of one ocean, and also the sun to rise above it. The warm sun made the mists rise up and form themselves into clouds that travel from one end of the sky to the other. Then God called the continents to rise out of the ocean. Next, he called the islands, and they rose up quietly in the midst of the foaming waves. God caused green vegetation to sprout. Trees formed forests, grasses decorated the hills, and palm trees waved along the seashore.

  When God made the sun set in the west, He painted the sky red and gold. He filled the night sky with bright lights, which He called stars.

  Next, God created animals in four classes: those that swim, whose king is the whale; those that creep, whose king is the python; those that fly, whose king is the eagle; and those that walk on four legs, whose king is the lion.

  Four classes of creatures with intelligence were also created: angels woven of light, djinn or wind spirits woven of air, evil spirits woven of fire, and human beings woven of the earth.

  All of the Lord’s creatures are born, and so they all must die, for nothing will live forever except God.

  “Nothing?” Azinza asked, her dear little face shining.

  “Nothing,” Kai said.

  “Papa no go,” Aliyah said, and held Kai’s leg.

  “Not for a long time,” Kai said. “Not for a long, long time.”

  Kai wondered why had he told that particular story to the children. Certainly the idea of death would trouble them, would lead to painful discussions in the days and weeks ahead. Certainly, he might have waited until they were a bit older. But no, Kai had opened his mouth, and the story had emerged.

  You heard that story as a babe. Knowing death makes you strong.

  Did it?

  After putting the children down for their naps, Kai went alone to the family graveyard northwest of the main house, as if in this place he could actually confer with the spirits of his dead father and mother, brother and uncle.

  As in times past, once there he knelt against the cropped grass and bowed his head. After a few moments of silence, he spoke. “I have tried to keep true to the values you taught me,” he said to his father’s spirit. “To protect the wealth and power I have inherited. Men envy me, think that I came into this station cheaply. Some are callow enough to wonder if I rejoice in the deaths of those I hold most dear.”

  His voice shook, his fingers furrowed the earth. “But they do not know that I would abandon all of this, all the luxury and privilege, if I could but spend one more hour with any of you.

  “Father. Your only failing was to think that we would have more time to spend together, that the time you spent with Ali to my exclusion would strengthen our house. How could you have known?”

  He paused. The whispering wind stirred the trees behind him until they rustled like a restless audience. “Ali,” he said. “You were my idol. You were best at everything—despite the single time I beat you at horses, or that Malik claimed I would one day surpass you at swords. Ever you extended your hand to me, like the stronger climber reaching out to the lesser. Gratefully, I took it.”

  Again he paused. “Malik. There is nothing for me to say. I draw breath today because you spared me. Men wonder if I know this truth. I know, more deeply than they ever could, that I am not worthy to carry your sword, let alone clash with it. You are within me, more deeply than anyone except Father. Please: help me be strong enough to channel your fire.”

  He turned to face the fourth of the simple granite headstones. “Mother. I am shamed to say that if not for your portrait, I would no longer remember your face. But still, your voice is with me, and always will be. That, and your touch.”

  Kai’s eyes brimmed, spilled. “Why did you leave me so soon? In dying, you gave us Elenya, in whom we are justly proud. But if Allah had granted you more summers, perhaps I would have found a flaw in you. In your smile, your walk, the clarity of your mind. Without that flaw, how can any woman compare to you? And if none can, how can I ever open my heart as Father opened his? After you, there was no woman for him, nothing but the hope of a life swiftly and honorably passed, that he might hold you once again, in Paradise.”

  He waited, but the wind held no answer. “They say that those we love sometimes come to us in dreams, and speak to us of things unfinished. If you can, please do. Any of you. I need you. I feel so alone.”

  Overwhelmed with sorrow, he lowered his head to the ground, and there he remained for a time, his weariness of spirit and body more than he could bear.

  Kai turned his head, blinked, and for a moment a familiar visage seemed to be standing before him. A muscular, bearded man of proud carriage, with a predator’s piercing eyes. “Father?” so alike the brothers were! “No! Uncle! Is it you?”

  Malik’s full lips curled in anger. “Did I die for this?”

  “What?”

  “That you might weep like a virgin on her wedding night, regretting all that you have done, all that you have earned?” His scarred dark face radiated scorn.

  “Earned? I earned nothing!”

  “Save such talk! You deserve everything you have! Do you think you are a being alone, a tree without root or seed? No!” In Kai’s ears, Malik’s voice rolled like thunder. “My blood flows in you, as it once flowed over you. Your father’s blood mingles with yours! And our father’s, and back unto the beginning! If I had known you would wail so, perhaps I might have thought less of your life’s value, and perhaps I would wear the title of Wakil, not a coward who kneels and begs the forgiveness of spirits.” He came closer. “But then, you’ve always had a weakness for ghosts, haven’t you?”

  Kai recoiled. “Uncle,” he pled. “Please …”

  “You killed me, Kai!” his uncle roared in a voice that seemed to issue more from sky and earth than any mortal throat. “Shall it be said that Malik was slain by a weakling, or by a man great enough to carry his father’s sword? Did your father and I die for nothing, or for the future of our blood and land? Tell me, now. At once!”

  Now, at last, Kai was able to raise his head. “For … the future.”

  “Aye,” said Malik, and nodded his head. Kai could see now: that head was not substantial. Trees bent in the wind behind that furrowed brow. “Weep no more. All that has happened is as it was intended. I am at peace, young Kai. You slew my body, but I live on, in you.”

  Malik began to retreat. “Uncle … don’t leave.”

  Now at last the apparition smiled. “You have all you need, young Kai. Allah would not be so cruel. Your father gave you his seed, but you are my son. I live in you. Let other men trust their hearts.” A pause, and then the thick lips curled in a smile. “You may trust your sword.”

  And with those words, Malik was gone.

  And moments later, Kai awoke, alone in his bed, staring up into a ceiling barely dappled with the first soft glow of the new day.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Fragrant fir and spruce trees around the Ouachita crannog were chopped down, their stumps pulled so that their land expanded every week. When cleared, the land was seeded with mulch and cow dung until ready for planting. It was hard, honest work, and to his surprise Aidan found that he actually enjoyed it.

  They had spent the morning digging and pulling, Aidan and Donough and some of the other m
en harnessing their horses to the stumps, cutting and hauling until the earth surrendered and the remnant ripped free of the ground.

  The wood went into the walls, into the fire pits, into their boats and houses and sheds. On the land, they raised their crops. The arable land had increased threefold in their years there. In decades it might spread out so far a man could not walk its circumference in a day.

  As they worked they sang old songs, timing their efforts to the happy sounds. They had just finished a story of King Roth’s three sons, and were raising their voices to another song brought recently by a Scottish ex-slave.

  I will go as a wren in spring,

  With sorrow and sighing on silent wing,

  And I shall go in Our Lady’s name,

  Aye, till I come home again.…

  They all sang, exulting in the simple glorious effort and the strength of the sun beaming down on them. Every song sung and shared knit them more closely together, and it buoyed Aidan’s heart to hear them, helped him to forget the problems in Salima.

  He had not been to town since, and had allowed others to conduct trade for him. Upon return, their stories said that the mood in town was ugly, with fewer shopkeepers willing to trade. There had been more shoving and cursing, as if a slow thunderhead were assembling. But so far the constable had kept a lid on things, and he hoped that the energy would dissipate.

  Then we shall follow as falcons gray,

  And hunt thee cruelly for our prey,

  And we shall go in the Good God’s name,

  Aye, to fetch thee home again—

  And then he heard a scream.

  Donough ceased his prying at the stump, his eyes growing huge as he spied what Aidan saw next:

  A black-haired white man stumbling out of the woods, stripped to the waist, body crisscrossed with whip marks. His hands were lashed behind him.