Everfair (45 page)

“Do it now.”

“My love. Will you marry me?”

“Yes! Yes!” She leapt from his bed onto the matting and whirled in circles for joy. “Yes! I will, I will, I will marry you, Matty! Yes!”

Why should she be this happy? Such a strange little man: so sad, so yearning. He must have been born old. Pale skin, flat hair—yet he was her friend, companion to her earliest voyages upon the winds of the world. And now! The adventures they could embark upon, the secrets she could tell him!

But first they must end this war. First there was work to do, such as freeing hostages. Fwendi's star pupil, Mwadi, had discovered at the beginning of the market that her father held George Albin aboard the watercanoe
Sidonie
. Formerly this craft had been owned by Mademoiselle Toutournier. Its plans were available. Mwadi, eager to prove herself capable of doing more than merely listening surreptitiously, of actually conducting an operation, devised a simple strategy. One that ought to work.

So the morning after Matty's proposal, Fwendi left his house bearing herself calmly. Sober clouds obscured the new risen sun; it was almost as dark as before dawn. But not so dark that she missed the shape of the man entering the courtyard as she exited it on her mission.

Had he been watching for her? In that case, Fwendi's departure would have been his cue to attempt access.

The six guards King Mwenda had assigned to Matty stood obliviously in front of the house. Half faced the street, half had their backs to it. On the corner she approached more reliable assistance: an out-of-place flower seller. Mwadi in disguise, as they'd arranged.

Feigning interest in the girl's fat nosegays, Fwendi maneuvered her into the newly installed swing. Somehow they lost their momentum mid-crossing and sat dangling in the intersection, apparently stranded.

At this hour, traffic was light. Fwendi took up the telescoping crook used to pull becalmed swings to the streets' farther sides. She held it ready in case of observers. “There's an intruder. We must change our course.”

Mwadi frowned. “Not one of my father's fighters?”

“No. I'm sure. He—he
moved
like a European. Though I didn't get a good look.”

Unreasoning fear assailed her. She should never have allowed herself to feel so happy. “I'm going back. Follow me—I may need help.” Had she taken too long? Extending the crook, she caught the mooring post and returned their swing to Matty's side of Vuba.

The guards wondered why she'd come back so soon. “I forgot my lubricant!” She spread her metal fingers wide and wiggled them to show the necessity. Inside, she ran up the stairs. Mwadi could find her own way in; she was proficient—

Fwendi stopped. Running made too much noise. Stealthily, she continued down the passage to Matty's room. Ten steps and she heard a thump, a stifled cry. She ran again, faster, not caring who heard, flung the door aside to find poor Matty struggling with a man taller and stronger—

Like the lions who were her ancestors, Fwendi roared and sprang. Tearing with flesh and metal hands, she freed her lover from the other's choking grasp.

Now Mwadi appeared and joined the fight. She had a shongo like her brother's. Blood and shit poured out of the attacker's wounds as he died.

A groan came from the bed's vicinity. Her darling! Fwendi realized she knelt on the sticky red matting, flesh fingers pressed into the white man's throat—though the pulse she'd automatically felt for couldn't have been there. Not with his entrails spilling out on either side of his abdomen. Had she done—that? No: those big slices could only have been cut by Mwadi's knife. Shakily, she attempted to rise to her feet and fell.

But Matty! Crawling, she made it to the bed. He lay naked, as she'd left him, but gasping deeply. Darkening areas on his forehead and cheeks showed where bruises would form.

“Huh—hih—” He wheezed and coughed.

“Here.” Mwadi gave her a cup of water from ancestors-knew-where. She held it to Matty's ridiculous moustache with her trembling left hand for a moment, then switched to her slightly steadier right. Neither was clean. He sipped the water down anyway.

A timid knock on the open door preceded Clapham's entrance. He sucked in a sharp breath at what he saw. “I heard—I thought … Is anything required?”

“A barrel or shipping crate,” said Mwadi. “A sail or something similar to wrap up this fool who attacked your master.”

At least one of them was thinking. “And don't let anyone else in here,” Fwendi added. “Close and lock the door behind you. Here's the key.” She held out the copy from her watch chain.

Fwendi wiped her hands so she could help Matty dress. The water came from the carafe always kept by his bed. Of course. While she was thus occupied, Mwadi matter-of-factly turned out the attacker's pockets and examined the labels on his clothing, all of it black—even the shirt.

The results were both cryptic and enlightening: no official papers or other clues as to the culprit's identity, but a suicide note in what looked like Matty's hand.

Wheezing, her love denied having written it. The note seemed to puzzle him more than the phial of clear, bluish liquid Mwadi found on the bed beside him. She correctly pronounced it to be prussic acid. Matty agreed with her, and added without apparent rancor that he thought the intruder had meant to make him swallow it. “I knew he was a murderer, but how did he manage to create such a convincing forgery? If—”

“You knew he—you know who this is?” asked Mwadi.

“Of course! I met him several times, following the advice of Mademoiselle Toutournier. We engaged in business. That's—he was Major Thornhill, Christopher J. Thornhill. He must have copied the style of my writing from letters he stole. I don't believe I ever sent—”

“Thornhill! He's the assassin Nenzima warned us about.” Fwendi stared down at the dead man. “Yes; the description fits.” Though Nenzima hadn't mentioned the stench of perforated bowels.

Clapham returned. Fwendi helped him with Thornhill's remains, which they doubled up, rolled in a length of canvas, and stuffed unceremoniously into a tall basket. The matting they bundled up separately. They lashed the basket's lid in place with a muffler from Matty's luggage.

It was too late now to remain unseen while getting rid of the evidence, as Fwendi preferred. Or too early. After dusk had fallen, they'd be able to transfer it to a canoe unseen. And then, the river and
Sidonie
.

Clapham arranged for food to be brought up to them on trays. Fwendi let Mwadi get the drummers to send their report to Mademoiselle so she could stay with Matty and glare at the phial of poison. The princess returned with a reply from Kalemie: Mademoiselle saw no difficulty with the delay till tonight.

This would be only the second time Mwadi rode animals. She had not progressed far enough yet to process multiple viewpoints without effort. But there was no way to persuade the cats Fwendi used to cross the river's fast-foaming waters.

They dragged the corpse's basket to the kitchen entrance and heaved it into the cart used for market. Fwendi had the better excuse for using Matty's property, so she rode off on the bicycle, pulling the cart, then waited nervously for her student at the wharf.

Everything must go well. Matty had consented to advocate for the Conciliation with other whites; it was to be hoped that, despite his incarceration, George, once freed, would do the same with his wife. She was the chief power behind much of the colonists' opposition. Including General Wilson's.

At last the princess arrived. Together they shifted the basket to Mademoiselle's small, nameless canoe and paddled out a short ways from the shore. Fwendi need not have worried: Mwadi had memorized complete instructions on how to start the canoe's engine, and she shut it off in good time. They reached
Sidonie
without incident, having rid themselves of the basket and matting on their way.

Then they floated on the black water, stars and mist shining silver and grey above. The princess whispered a high, eerie tune, and soon the dim air filled with half-visible white wings. Gulls. Gulls flying in the night. The flock grew, became enormous. Seemingly of its own accord, it mobbed
Sidonie
.

Raucous cries bounced off the flat roof of the canoe's engine house. Was that where they'd hidden him? A tall woman and two men struggled through a door in its windowless side. Screams and shouted orders battled with the gulls' screeching. The birds' wings and beaks struck the wooden walls, the fighters' bleeding arms and heads.

Fwendi shouted above the noise. “George! George!
Á
moi! Je veut vous sauver!” She grasped her shongun in one hand, stood unsteadily, and hooked hold of
Sidonie
's low gunwales with the other. She should shoot! But in all this confusion, how to be sure who or what she hit? The gulls were meant to lure the prisoner's guards to
Sidonie
's bow so that Fwendi might board and untie George and get him safe away. Instead, they looped around nearby, sinking dangerously low or zooming crazily high to disappear from sight.

Fwendi transferred the shongun to her teeth and hoisted herself onto the gunwale with both arms. Not one bit distracted, the thinner of the two men rushed to shove her back off. She aimed and fired. The blade hit him, but he tore it out of his chest and threw it to graze an unlucky bird's belly. The man's wound looked shallow. The poison didn't seem to affect him—had he been previously dosed with an antidote?—but the bird flapped off drunkenly into the night.

The thin man came for her again. All the gulls had gone. Fwendi released her grip on
Sidonie,
dropped back into the canoe, and snatched the paddle from beneath her seat. The river's swirling currents seized the watercanoe and sent it, too, into the darkness. The woman had armed herself. Her shots missed them. Narrowly. Mwadi roused herself as Fwendi paddled furiously to escape
Sidonie
's searching lights. They had failed. Failed.

The game of
sanza
would have to proceed, regardless.

 

Kisangani, Everfair, December 1918

Matty laid the Conciliation between them on the low table. “It's decently written,” he admitted. “Which of you is responsible?”

Mademoiselle Toutournier slitted her eyes, lifting the corners of her mouth as if delighting in this faint praise. Daisy bristled. “Both of us! It's a collaborative effort.”

“Naturally. But someone must have collaborated the most.”

“It's of no use, ch
é
rie. He won't believe that you are so devious or I so talented as to have contributed equally to such a result.” Mademoiselle shook her sleek head as if in sorrow.

“Besides, what does it matter?” She opened her grey eyes wider than it seemed they should go. “All that truly concerns us is your support. You won't withdraw that now you've seen the actual document?”

“Noooo.” Matty drew the syllable out long enough to convey nearly its opposite. “This concedes many points.” He tapped the Conciliation's three pages one after another. “Everfair's official language is no longer English, we cease to campaign for a national holiday in honor of Mr. Owen's death, and all future immigrants will need to publicly swear allegiance to the throne.”

“Not just future immigrants.” Mademoiselle sounded proud of that.

“The wording of that clause did impress me as … ambiguous.”

“Deliberately vague,” Daisy said. “We made it so.” She lifted her chin.

“Queen Josina has told us she'll be unable to bring King Mwenda to accept a compact that does not address the language and the holiday,” Mademoiselle continued. “We believe we've made the obvious sense of all this acceptable to all sides.”

“And what of the obscure sense?”

“No one could call
you
dull!” With a conspiratorial glance at La Toutournier, Daisy leaned forward. “The obscure sense is that once an immigrant has sworn allegiance, he's no longer a foreigner. And any of us may swear, at any time. You see?”

He did see. But the oath that was laid out specified renunciation of one's former citizenship. “Not all will want to do it.”

“No,” said Mademoiselle. “But the alternative is that none will be able to. It's our best effort.”

“Say you'll argue in favor?”

He couldn't do anything else. But he stalled. “There's no mention of the Motes.”

“We thought it best to set them aside for the moment.” Daisy's expression was painstakingly neutral. “Not to decide about them one way or another.”

“Best to set aside our participatory democracy? What would Jackie—”

“Mr. Owen would say we've done what must be done to survive.”

“Jackie was a pragmatist,” Daisy said. “We could give him a holiday or a statue, but more than anything else—more than the way I wanted to commemorate him—this is the monument he would have wanted us to raise to him. This country is the thing he built, and the Conciliation will save it.”

He supposed the Poet was right. If anyone living knew what Owen had been like, it would be she. He shrugged and opened his mouth to make his acquiescence plain. The noon whistle blew. He waited for it to end so he'd be sure to be heard, but it went on and on. It changed notes—how? Impossible—a run of notes, low to high, reversing, repeating—leading up to the familiar melody of their nation's anthem. At last he understood.

He raised his voice. “It's begun. The demonstration—shall we go out? Perhaps we'll be able to see something.”

They stood on the front steps. Distantly, from Fina and the neighborhood of the theater, came the sound of voices singing. The Poet frowned. “They've changed my words?”

“Translated them, ch
é
rie—and added but one or two more verses.”