Everfair (18 page)

“Ah!” Amazement lit the girl's face as she discovered the truth of this.

Several would-be recruits were missing hands, left or right. They approached the king, but said nothing. It wouldn't be wise.

Mwenda spoke into their silence. “I wield a gift from our allies.” He raised his arms, and, with his flesh hand, removed his other hand's sheath. Two blades gleamed in the sun. Murmurs of appreciation at their beauty rose from his subjects' mouths.

The heat of this mechanical hand's working was kept far from his body by a wooden extension—the Bah-Sangah had insisted on that, and even so countenanced its use for short periods only. Reaching past the arm's base he pulled out the globe-shaped engine's baffle and the power of the separated earths mingled and burned. Steam flowed inside its tiny tubes and soon overflowed out of vents pierced in its glittering sides. To pass the moments till it became fully pressured, he slashed at a broom an attendant held before him, clipping its thick, braided handle into pieces.

When that was gone, he polished the knives of his hand and looked about for a more impressive target. The leaves of a grove of young figs danced lightly in the wind near one edge of the valley. Close enough? He judged so, and had Captain Tombo clear people out of the way.

On his feet now, Mwenda cocked his arm back to position his weapon hand behind his head. His other hand he brought in front of his chest, palm up. Praying to his spirit father for good aim, he slapped the spring on the elbow joint and threw free his new shongo.

Thok!
It had flown true and buried itself in the tree trunk he intended! Just as when he had announced how to answer their enemies eleven seasons ago.… He grinned, satisfied, and brandished the remaining stump, the end of the arm off of which the new knife had launched. This was fitted with short, sharp spikes: a wicked club for fighting face-to-face.

Of course none of the maimed among the new fighters would merit such a fine piece of work. They were happy enough, when
Mbuza
arrived, accompanied by the recently built aircanoes
Zi Ru
and
Fu Hao,
to receive the simple hooks and knives their crews distributed.

That day and the next were spent in training recruits how to drop out of the aircanoes. Early on the third morning, all but six of them boarded
Zi Ru,
bound south and east to take Matadi. A larger force would be needed soon for the conquest of Kinshasa. The king's party forged onward.

Rumor spread ahead of them, sped by the drums' voices. Twice as far they rode to the next rendezvous, their party growing to double its size. Twisting paths clung to the hillsides, barely sheltered by bananas and oil palms, their long, green leaves affording only spotty protection. When boat motors grumbled up and down the Dja, the travelers hid as best they could, flattening themselves sometimes in the dirt. Finally they deserted that river and all the others for the hills' highest crests. Soon after, they descended to Yaound
é
.

A crowd of more people than the king could count awaited them there. He asked the white man how many. They had numbers as high as those of the sky-watching tribes to the north. The word the white man used was “thousands.”

Accordingly, he gave orders for music to follow their demonstrations. Tonight, a dance of celebration! Mwenda would display his skill and stamina, would laugh and show his shining teeth. Would make himself believe in happiness, that others might share in his belief. So many wanting to fight for their most just cause—assuredly they would win! They must.

 

N'dalatando, Angola, to Luanda, Angola, Aboard
Santa Librada,
and Aboard
Gloriana,
May 1900

Gratefully, Josina turned her cheeks to receive the kiss of N'dalatando's light evening breeze. The high ground of this outpost of her father's people made it convenient for aircanoes to come and go. Also it rendered the environs of the sacred well located here invitingly cool—appropriate to Oxun's mysteries.

She'd stayed here sufficiently long, participating in the proper ceremonies. Stopping at this temple accorded well with her king and husband's desire that she voyage out of Everfair in search of allies against Leopold. Disguised it also. But now she must move on.

The Poet's malaria-stricken daughter Rosalie lay in the temple pavilion's shade. Satisfied that the ants had bitten her patients' arms and ankles enough times, Josina gathered them up again in her honey-lined basket. This she set inside the jar of earth to be carried back inside. Then she turned to her not-quite-white sister, who knelt next to her. Lisette had followed the queen here to N'dalatando after the queen's recent arrival. She had dared to bring the sick child in her care across the border dividing Angola and Everfair, seeking learning and healing. Would she go further?

“The maiden will sleep for five more days—a market, at least,” Josina told her. “Recovery will be slow.” She spoke in French.

“But she will be well now? You've cured her?”

“Yes.” To Lisette it could be said; eventually she, too, would be a priest. “Yet you must give her only water at first—boiled water. Cover her in a fever, fan her in her chills.”

“And when may we return her to her mother?”

Josina frowned. “Best to bring the mother here. A flight to Kamina would not be a wise undertaking during recovery—not for a good while.” Aircanoes often flew so high now to avoid Leopold's forces that their occupants were exposed to a measure of cold much less beneficial than the mild coolness of this place.

“If you accompanied—”

“I don't plan on going in that direction. As you know. And I'm staying on here only a little longer. Send a message.”

A moment of quiet. The maiden Rosalie breathed slowly, evenly, already. The small animals inside the ants had begun their work after just one application; the ritual called for five. This had been the fifth.

“I prefer not to have to see the mother,” said Lisette.

“That's easily done. Come with me, as I've asked.”

“Nor Mr. Owen, if you are to meet with him.”

Josina peered up through her long, dark lashes. Her sister's face was calm; why did she bother to mask her jealousy? “When you see him, he will have to see you,” Josina pointed out.

A sour laugh. “That's no disincentive. The man hardly knows he hates me. Or why.”

“Those are things he may eventually figure out. Perhaps your absence will help? No, I don't plan to encounter him.”

“You really wish me to continue with you? Really?”

Josina did. Respect and genuine affection were part of this; practicality, too, for Lisette's familiarity with Europeanisms would be a great help on this trip; also, the time could be used to tutor her in Oxun's mysteries. Most important, though, the cowrie oracle had specified that she should come.

The queen used words and more than words—charms, offerings—to persuade her, but not till she saw Lisette mounting her steam bicycle next to the track to Luanda was Josina sure of her sister's decision. The maiden Rosalie had been awake for a whole day by then; the Poet, her mother, had arrived just the previous evening. Apparently there was some scene. Perhaps the Poet demanded to hear from Lisette how her eldest daughter had fled from Lisette's care. Perhaps Lisette hadn't felt quite as firm as she wished about rejecting the chance to be with her love again, compensating for her wavering desire with the bruising brusqueness of manner Josina had frequently observed in her.

At any rate, there Lisette was that morning, smiling as if everything had been arranged for weeks. A cart attached behind the bicycle held her belongings, which Josina recognized from the house they'd shared here—though not last night.

The first day of their journey there was no need to engage their bicycles' engines. They rolled ever downward, the slightest of slopes leading them at last to the encampment at Itombe her father's people had prepared. That night, again, the queen and her sister stretched out their mats together. Sifa and Lembe, who had walked the miles Josina and Lisette rode, slumbered beside them, exhausted, seeming undisturbed by their whispers.

Since anyone could be listening, even those she supposed asleep, Josina didn't dare talk of secrets, but only of customs needful to know. “Do they truly wear more than one layer of garments? And cover their arms and feet as you do?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“It must be colder in your country than on a mountain top. I will trade some of the jewelry my mother's father gave to me, and purchase proper clothing,” the queen declared. “And you will help me choose what to buy.”

Luanda's markets supplied the queen with strange, rich fabrics and matching thread, feathers, dyed palm fronds, beads, and tanned skins. Lisette was not much assistance there, but later, in the quarters provided by the Portuguese governor, she described to Sifa such European women's fashions as she recalled after fourteen seasons away. Sketching them out on their house's walls with the last of the body paint, Sifa grew quietly thoughtful. Then she and Josina consulted on what to change.

The results were elegant, though not, perhaps, what anyone would expect. Lisette tactfully alluded to this as they stood on the deck of their ship,
Santa Librada,
sailing south. Because of the freshness of the ocean air the queen had finally been able to don one of her new outfits: flaring panels of cotton gathered at her waist and sewn together down to just below the knee; a low, long-sleeved bodice formed of tightly wrapped silk; four pieces of barkcloth set end-to-end and worn as a shawl; sandals; netted gloves; and an open-weave hat adorned with beads and peacock plumes. In this it would still be possible to dance. And as her sister said, “The queen doesn't follow the style; she sets it.”

They'd taken passage to Cape Town aboard an ancient coastal vessel sailing under the Portuguese flag. Lisette was much vexed that
Santa Librada
moved without use of her beloved steam, and heartened when they changed, after landing and negotiations there, to a newer ship. Though Lisette tried to disguise it, pretending interest she ought to have felt in the treaties Josina entered into for her husband, her father, and Lisette's own country, she was clearly more interested in the ships.

Patiently she explained how impressed with her pseudo-European dress and manners regional leaders had inadvertently revealed themselves to be at every meeting. Her sister nodded. “Yes, yes. You've made quite the splash. But you should have brought Daisy instead,” she complained. “She cares more about politicking and so forth.”

Spiritual lessons progressed more easily. Sifa and Lembe knew the earliest part of what Josina had to teach; on
Santa Librada
classes were held in their presence, anywhere, and at any time. Their British vessel,
Gloriana,
carried few passengers from the start, and by the time it reached Durban, it was virtually empty. Without seeking the purser's permission, the queen availed herself of an unoccupied cabin. She always left its door open, but spoke quietly enough that only Lisette heard.

“All Africans are with us,” she said as they left their next-to-last port. “Khoi-Khoi to Haya—Cape of Good Hope to Dar-es-Salaam. And you have convinced the German tribe. Now the British, and then your French—”

“Don't call them mine!” Lisette twisted her mouth, blinked and shook her head as if to rid her wide eyes of an ugly sight. “I am an Everfairer, through and through.”

“But they must be yours, the French!” the queen insisted. “They'll only laugh at
me,
like the Germans did.” She removed her hat and bent to set it on the floor in front of her. This one was more closely wrought than the first Sifa had made, and broader, and higher, and decorated merely with a strip of barkcloth. “When we reach Mombasa—”

“The English won't laugh. You take yourself far too seriously for that.”

“Which is why they most certainly will!”

Lisette splayed three fingers over her closed mouth, considering, then opened it. “You are probably right. So it is to be up to me again? No doubt most of them will still believe me wholly white, if Mrs. Hunter's silence is to be trusted.” She didn't mention trusting her lover, who also knew of her black roots.

“I'm sure it is. That will make a difference in your treatment—”

“But which embassy shall I start with? English? French?
Belgian?
”

“Of course you must avoid Leopold and any of his agents, as you very well know how. You did so before—don't even joke! Begin with whichever of the others you like.” Josina gestured dismissively. “The English will have the biggest presence, but that makes no importance—you'll take them in turns, in any order. Then, on each ambassador, you will perform our charm.”

“The Five Yellow Scarves?”

“It is the simplest.”

“And once I've done the charm, you'll ask them for support, which the spell will render them agreeable to give.” Lisette frowned out of the cabin's little window.

“You do not believe? Yet you study diligently.”

“Let us say I entertain multiple possibilities.”

The question of which embassy to visit first was settled upon their steaming into port. A British emissary boarded
Gloriana
before they could disembark. A thin-limbed white, Mr. Twicket stood dry beneath the warm rain pouring from Mombasa's sky, protected by a red-clad servant holding an enormous umbrella. He offered them the use of more umbrellas, servants, and a carriage, and personal escort to his country's compound, where, he said, a letter awaited Mademoiselle Toutournier.

 

Kamina, Everfair, January 1901

“My dear Daisy,” began Lisette's response to the letter Daisy had so unfortunately sent to Mombasa. Daisy had memorized its entire text, from blithe salutation to pointed close. She might as well have sewn its pages into her undergarments—she never parted with them. They were all of Lisette she had left.