Everfair (35 page)

Great-Uncle Mkoi had changed very little since their last meeting: spare of body, broad of face, piercing of eye. Matty relieved him of his cloak, handing it over to Clapham.

“I hope your journey was all good,” he said in halting Lin-Gah-La.

“There was nothing to remark upon.” Not how such a journey would once have been described. “It went quickly. You have a cart to bring me to my girl?”

Matty had hired a roofed carriage pulled by a steam bicycle. Great-Uncle Mkoi's few baskets of belongings fit beside them easily. Darkness fell as they rode, but lamps lit the stairs to Matty's home.

They went directly to Fwendi's room. Early as it was, she slept. He explained that these light, erratic slumbers happened frequently enough for them to have formed the habit of awaiting her natural waking. Mademoiselle Toutournier offered Great-Uncle Mkoi her chair, which he refused. He walked about the bedchamber muttering to himself, pulling aside the blinds at the open window and lifting the lid of the chest beneath it.

A stirring came from among the blankets. In an instant, Matty was beside his dear's bed. “Great-Uncle Mkoi is here,” he told her. And there the man stood, suddenly, in a spot on the bed's other side.

“Fwendi,” Great-Uncle Mkoi began, but Matty found the rest of his speech incomprehensible. Fwendi seemed to understand, though—at one point tears appeared on her cheeks and she sobbed—crying! What was he saying to her? She nodded wildly—

“Where are the cats?” It took Matty a moment to realize what Great-Uncle Mkoi was asking—in
English
.

“Which cats?” he said, stupidly.

“You know. Those she goes on rides.”

“I—I don't—”

“Yes, yes, of course,” interrupted Mademoiselle. “Bijou. Minuit. They're outside somewhere—they'll be back to eat. We don't try to keep them in.”

Those were the names she'd given the poor injured, flea-bitten strays they'd picked up in Mombasa.

“That's fine. You treat them well?”

“Of course,” repeated Mademoiselle. “Why not?”

But Great-Uncle Mkoi was too busy talking to his niece, it seemed, to respond. More nods. More tears and sobs. And laughter! He had thought never to hear his dearest laugh again.

With that, Great-Uncle Mkoi patted the flesh hand he'd held, and lowered it to the covers. “I'll rest now,” he told Matty. “Thank you for taking such care of her.”

A low-burning shame withered Matty's insides. Why should he be praised for doing his duty as a man?

Great-Uncle Mkoi turned to Mademoiselle. “When the cats come back, you'll fetch me?”

“I, or whoever's here.” She looked at Matty. “Do you mind me staying again tonight?”

He assented, as always.

Great-Uncle Mkoi's luggage had been left, as Matty ordered, in the room immediately to the right. Matty showed it to him. He also personally pointed out the toilet at the passage's end. Then, remembering the African manners his cast had attempted to teach him, he asked his guest if he had eaten.

“Fruit juice and bean cakes were served aboard
Okondo
.”

Judging that this hadn't been enough, Matty went to the kitchen to order a tray sent to Great-Uncle Mkoi's room.

There were the cats, being fed scraps on the floor just inside the back entrance. Clapham rose from an undignified crouch. “Sir, it was at the request of Mam'zelle—”

Matty cut him off. “Never mind all that. Give them to me.” In the end, the butler carried one cat and he the other—first into Great-Uncle Mkoi's room and next, accompanied by him, into Fwendi's. Mademoiselle relieved Clapham of his rather unwilling burden, and Matty dismissed the servant to his duties.

They gathered around the bed. Great-Uncle Mkoi threw several glances over the premises, as if wishing to continue his earlier inspection. “Is there a fire?” he asked.

“No! You're not going to—to
set fire
to the animals as an offering, are you?” Matty knew he'd said something stupid as soon as the words left his lips. Great-Uncle Mkoi's quickly veiled glare confirmed this.

“Perhaps you'll be so kind as to tell us exactly what you
are
doing?” Mademoiselle Toutournier's question must have been meant to deflect Great-Uncle Mkoi's annoyance. It worked.

“It is a family matter, which is how I am involved, and yet immune. Both Fwendi's parents were shape-changers, and she is too.”

“Like the
loups-garou
? I think not.”

“Werewolves, she means,” Matty translated.

“It's not that way. She changes in and out, goes to different bodies. Her one remains the same, but she leaves it for another.”

“Understood,” said Mademoiselle. “What you say makes excellent sense.”

Did it? Matty did not want to think too deeply think about what was being said. He noticed he was staring at Fwendi and looked away.

“So my niece has her—I know no English word for these things. Parts of her being—she can separate them off. Her seeing, balance, smelling, hearing—she puts them inside an animal. In our family, we're most comfortable with cats.”

And now Matty was staring at the black cat—Minuit. Was there nowhere safe to simply rest his eyes?

“What has happened is she had to leave her animals so fast one of these parts got stuck behind. The part from where she can talk. She has to go back in and get it out.”

Matty struggled to come up with the right remark, some way to counteract his previous display of ignorance. “How can we help?”

Fwendi clasped his arm in her metal hand and hauled herself into a more upright position. She smiled as she shook her head.

“I can't see much for you to do at this point. Already you've saved at least some of the cats.” Great-Uncle Mkoi indicated them with his head. “That was
very
fortunate. I will sing. Without the music, she can't go into any animal. That's why this has gone on so long.

“A fire would be good, though, especially if it could be larger than the flame in a lamp. Not to burn things”—with a dark look at Matty—“but to gaze into and let go of our thoughts.”

Clapham was sent for and procured a brazier from a neighborhood mechanic. Matty directed him to set it alight. Mademoiselle held the cats in thrall with a bit of string she set dancing before their noses.

When all was ready, Great-Uncle Mkoi broke forth in song. At first it was a melodious enough tune, though loud. Gradually it thinned and rose to a high keening. Then the cats joined in, screeching and yowling.

Then, all at once, the eerie noise ceased.

And after another moment, Fwendi spoke again, at last.

 

Kisangani, Everfair, to Bookerville, Everfair, to Luanda, Angola, January 1916

Queen Josina smiled, then frowned. Then she smoothed all expression from her face. Here, with her ladies and her king beside her, she could show what she felt. But in Luanda, anyone's eyes might be on her. It would be well to get into the habit of caution now, at the beginning of her journey. She glanced all around: the plants of the palace garden grew rich with leaves—which cast shadows—and flowers, with scents that could mask those of anyone who might hide among them. She rolled the barkcloth message up and placed it below her breasts. Even if found and read, it contained only a fraction of the information she was carrying.

Lembe handed the queen her mirror. The brass reflection showed her the crownlike arrangement of reeds woven over with her hair, an elaborate construction of basketry and coiffeurage with glittering metal set shining in its dark splendor. Satisfactory. The Portuguese would be impressed.

Sifa appeared at the head of the stairs outside the royal suite of rooms, holding a bundle in her arms: warm wrappings Josina would need in the cool, high air. The lady waited for King Mwenda to precede her down to the garden. His four followers hung back with Sifa as the king approached Josina's seat.

“I'll miss you,” he said, simply.

They'd made their private farewells earlier that morning, in bed. This was for show. She rose properly from her throne. “My rivals will fill your arms in my stead.”

“Yes. I've sent for them. My arms will be full, but otherwise I'll be empty.”

The words should have been more formal. The courtiers were crowding too close—they would hear. She gestured Sifa and Lembe back and the others went as well.

“I have something you should see.” She unrolled the message. In addition to describing their enemy's defeat in words, her sister priest had drawn a picture: bees swarming, attacking with their stings, Rhodesian soldiers dropping guns and running away into the Bangweulu Swamp.

King Mwenda laughed. “Ah, that's good! And this has happened four times already? Won't the English become suspicious?”

“We prayed. There are going to be five incidents altogether. After that we must ask for other kinds of help.”

“My spirit father will provide what we need.”

“Yes.”

“And your body father, too, of course.” So certain. The king's arm fell upon her shoulders like a warm, heavy length of cloth. She didn't want to leave. Never before had relations between the two of them felt so effortless, her attachment to him so natural.

But the whistle blew. Its three-note chord called workers to drink their midmorning tea. When done, they'd finish loading
Wheatley
for the flight to Luanda; she should depart to board the aircanoe now. Soon.

This was what needed to be done. The mission had originally been her idea. Then her husband had added the force of his agreement, a force that kept her moving in the right direction.

“When you're with me again, we'll have peace,” said the king, in the cadence of received revelation. Did that mean they'd be separated for the rest of the war? That it would be short? That she would succeed?

He escorted her down the steps to their special carriage. It wouldn't be seemly for King Mwenda to accompany her all the way to the airfield. Lembe and Sifa took their seats. The partition against which they rested their backs divided them from the driver. The carriage's engine was a new sort, puffing black smoke instead of white steam. Reaching through one of the big windows in its sides, Josina gripped the king's hand hard. She let it go. They pulled away.

She gazed out of the carriage for a long while before she saw anything. By that point, they were on the city's edges, among the groves of oil and wine palms. Some of the more timid of the returning whites had built houses here with wooden walls too thick to replace easily, but too thin to keep things as cool inside as stone did.

They broke from the trees. The sun beat on the carriage's tin roof and she began to get hot. But, almost immediately, they came under the shelter of
Wheatley
's bulky shade.

Bulkier than before: like
Okondo,
though dedicated to civilian service,
Wheatley
now wore the lightweight, bullet-stopping “armor” devised by Winthrop. Viewed from underneath, it resembled a tangled thicket of leafless vines and branches. Josina remembered the Motes at which its adoption had been urged. She was glad to see the brown mass split by scales of shining bronze that had been fixed to a shield along the aircanoe's keel. The king had insisted on metal armor as well, and Tink had obliged.

Also new were the stairs being trundled out and carefully positioned: much easier to climb than rope ladders. The queen and her ladies mounted the stairs to the aircanoe and entered the woven shelter near its prow. Josina accepted Sifa's help putting on the lady's latest cool-air styles: a skirt reaching to her ankles, formed from dozens of alternating strips of fur and unpainted, feather-sewn barkcloth; a fitted palm-fiber bodice also embellished outside with feathers and lined with very soft fur; cork-soled sandals tied on with crisscrossing ribbons of thick yellow silk that rose to her knees; more silk, cut to resemble banana leaves and gathered in bunches to hang upon her shoulders as a beautiful green shawl. Soon she was comfortably settled among the little shelter's pillows and headrests, with a quilted coverlet—the gift of Mrs. Albin—at hand for when she required more warmth. It was most welcome that night.

By the middle of the next day they'd reached Mbuji-Mayi, the Everfair settlement Mrs. Albin's adherents persisted in calling Bookerville. Josina peered over the boarding scoop in
Wheatley
's side and saw many thatch roofs, most set in long, hollow, broken-walled rectangles.

Sifa had created and brought another kind of clothing: cotton pieces draped over a woven form so it appeared that an enormous saffron blossom fell from the queen's shoulders, baring her face, arms, and feet. It wouldn't keep her warm, but would ward off the jealous disapproval from Mrs. Albin and those like her of her beautiful bare breasts.

No stairs here to descend to the muddy field. Mrs. Albin waited for her at the ladder's foot and escorted the queen to her home.

A pair of pink-scarred men with their eyes sooted shut walked past them, guided by children. Tattered skin and rags covered the adults' arms and legs. The children led them inside a metal-roofed building that stank faintly of old meat.

Josina tried not to hear the screams coming from the second building they passed. If she heard them, she would want to stop and help. She must rest in Mrs. Albin's house and go on to Luanda. She must do her best to end the war, and then there would be less pain.

“You have enough medicines?”

“What we can't get from China and America we are learning to make for ourselves. The Lord gives us strength and tells us what we're meant to do, leads us where we're meant to go.”

So had Mrs. Albin's Lord led her people here to take over King Mwenda's land? Queen Josina didn't ask that question. She found out other things: how the hammocks at the ends of the “cranes”—the long poles—could be loaded with wounded fighters and gently lowered to the earth; how few of those hurt at the frontier lived long enough to arrive here and be treated; how deeply Mrs. Albin disliked Mademoiselle Toutournier.