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  Princess Mwadi wheeled gracefully above the Nile. She flew in two birds, turning them in upward spirals to catch the last thermals of the day. Soon the sun would set, the air cool. But shortly before that she would be home.

  She could have cut hours off her time. The desert route between Alexandria and Cairo was far shorter than this one. But Mwadi was kind to her mounts and didn’t often ask them to betray their true natures, and then not by much. Far easier to persuade seabirds to travel along a river than to force them to abandon the water entirely.

  Far easier to make these periodic journeys to the coast by occult means than to persuade her buffalo-headed brother, Prince Ilunga, to “allow” her to go there alone, in her own body.

  She switched her eyesight entirely over to the younger of the gulls she rode, then swooped that one ahead of its elder. A barge piled high with bales of white cotton floated toward her, passed beneath her. They traveled in opposite directions and in opposite conditions: the boat was headed north to Rashit, loaded full of merchandise to sell in foreign lands across the Mediterranean; the princess south to Al-Maadi, the aristocratic enclave outside Cairo, and sailed through the sky empty-clawed, delivered of the reports her birds had carried to visiting spies.

  At last! The sharp downstream spit of Gezira Island appeared ahead, swelling as she glided on southward. A change in the river’s course had exposed this highly valuable land, Mwadi’s sources informed her. So then greedy Cairo had expanded to cover it. Greying shadows filled the wide new boulevards erected here in the opening years of this nineteenth century by the British, and over there on banks reclaimed by Egypt’s previous rulers, the Turks. But the low stone wall of the Corniche still gleamed as if made of gold, reflecting the sinking light of the sun for which, by many accounts, the city had been named.From behind a raucous cry pierced her four ears, stirred her two hearts. Mwadi cried out too, struggling against both birds’ urges to dive. Fragrant garbage tossed from the decks of low houseboats called to her, bobbing temptingly up and down on the suddenly murky waters. Below the surface a flash of silver—a fish? But she had anticipated this.

  Firmly she imagined the brackish, half-salt pond she had ordered to be installed in her villa’s garden, the schools of carp she raised there—picturing not just their bright colors but the barely visible tracks of their sinuous wakes, and more: the smell of their soft droppings falling to the pond’s silty bottom, the dampness rising off the water’s warm surface to cloud the air with their perfume. The birds’ attraction to the trash immediately available lessened sufficiently for Princess Mwadi to conclude her flight home.

  Alighting on the tall spire of limestone she’d had the builders place in the pond’s center, Mwadi turned four beady orange eyes toward the pavilion on its shore. Yes. Her body lay where she’d left it, apparently drowsing on a divan. She turned her mounts’ fidgeting attempts to plunge into the pond beak-first into a double arc passing over her body’s head, and let go. And fell into herself.

  Darkness. These eyes—the eyes she’d been born with—were shut. She kept them that way a moment more. Listening, she heard brisk footsteps—but far off. Good. Her instructions to the women who waited on her were to protect these special slumbers from intrusion. She stretched and moved her feet so they hung over the divan’s edge and sat up slowly. In the evening dimness, the pavilion’s silk awning and shadowy netting resembled the walls of a room in the “palace” where she’d spent several years of her childhood—the hotel her father, King Mwenda, had commandeered from Leopold II’s European thugs. The hotel’s gardens had crept in everywhere, green life seizing avidly on crumbling stucco and cement. And since her mother, Queen Josina, seemed to welcome it in, and also to prefer the garden’s nooks to her royal chambers, Princess Mwadi had joined her there back then. She found comfort now in those memories.…

  Well, but that was long ago—before she’d learned to ride the birds, before Mademoiselle Lisette and Lady Fwendi taught her the rudiments of her craft. They would be glad to receive her latest intelligence report, but it would worry them. Perhaps they’d need her to act quickly—to hinder Ilunga in his idiotic flirtation with Britain before it bloomed into a formal relationship. Would the prince inherit their father’s throne only to become Victoria’s puppet? If so, how could she cut the strings?

  Best to prepare for any likelihood. Mwadi stood, smoothing out her creased skirt. She pushed through the netting to the path that would take her to the terraces and up—and paused.

  Above the rustling leaves stirred by the evening’s rising breeze came another, similar sound: a rhythmic swish of fabric, the fluttering back and forth of another woman’s clothes. Whose?

  Sudden as a storm, Rima Bailey swept around the path’s gentle curve and flung her bare arms wide. “Look at you! Ain’t you grown now? Litta bitty Bo-La turned into a fine young woman for sure.” Rather than prostrating herself on the ground before the princess like the tiresome Egyptians, the actress seized Mwadi by her shoulders and pulled her into a tight embrace. In Everfair they’d been equals despite Mwadi’s royal rank—troupers in Sir Jamison’s play Wendi-La. Bo-La was Mwadi’s role.

  But the production was on tour. The last she’d heard they’d finished three months of engagements in Brazil.

  Released from the actress’s strong brown arms as swiftly as she’d been gathered into them, Mwadi shook herself straight. “How did you get past my serving women?”

  Miss Bailey threw back her head and laughed. “Them cobwebs? They couldn’t hold back a spider. They’ll be followin me down here soon, though, if we don’t head on up to your house mighty quick. I told them I had a short private message to deliver you from Queen Josina.”

  “You do?” It had been nearly a season since her mother had contacted Mwadi.

  “Naw, not actually.” The berry-dark lips quirked downward.

  “Well, why say what you said, then? Why say anything? And what is it brings you here if you’re not coming from my father’s favorite?” Who could have sent whatever word she desired to send via a dozen other routes, now Mwadi considered the idea dispassionately.

  Miss Bailey laughed again, an entirely different sound. Half a choke. “Child, you know my job is makin people believe lies.”

  The princess was no longer a child. “Take a holiday from your work, then. We’ll join the rest of my household now, as you suggest, and on the way you can tell me the truth.”

  “Yeah.”

  They walked together to the arbor at the bottom of the terrace steps. As they climbed upward night descended, closing the blossoms of the jasmine bushes planted on either side. Moths and mosquitos came near, attracted by oil lamps along the paths being lighted by small, self-effacing boys. Some of these lamps bore the pierced brass shades popular in the country of the princess’s birth.

  They reached the terraces’ third level in annoying silence. One more to go. Vexed, Mwadi stopped, and tugged on Miss Bailey’s wrist to make her stop, too. They stood in clear sight of the balcony where Ilunga customarily held a lax court with his friends, other students at Victoria College. The balcony was obviously occupied: drunken voices slurred indistinctly from its tobacco-scented shadows. There could be no excuse for her overzealous attendants interrupting her tête-a-tête with the beautiful actress here. But it was also doubtful she’d be overheard. “Why did you need to speak to me alone?”

  “They said you was sleepin.”

  Not an answer. “Why?”

  “But I know better. You ride anything besides seagulls?”

  Even less of one. How should Miss Bailey know about that? Had Lady Fwendi—or her husband, Sir Jamison—been indiscreet?

  The princess found to her irritation that she held Miss Bailey’s hand. She released it. Her mother had taught her that power lay always with the questioner, never with the questioned. She tried again. “What do you want with me?”

  The hand had somehow found its way back to hers, claiming it now as the other woman’s possession. “You know, Brother Mo-La is kinda stupid, but he can see plain enough if we only talkin. An then he’s gonna wanna know what’s bein said. Better make him think we makin love.” She suited action to words, kissing Mwadi’s rosy palm, stroking her wrist, rucking up her loose sleeve to reach the shivery skin that paled at the fold inside the bend of her elbow …

  “No!” Mwadi drew away. Hard as it was.

  “So you go with men?”

  She shouldn’t answer that. “With you!”

  “Ah! ” Miss Bailey’s hands and mouth returned. They moved to the thin cloth over Princess Mwadi’s armpit and nestled in. They—didn’t tickle. Not really. No, not at all. A barrier she’d never before been aware of broke. Pleasure poured through it.

  The princess fought to surface from the flood. “But I have to know where.” That must make sense. She didn’t trust her voice for anything longer.

  Miss Bailey’s head rose. Her tongue carved a riverbed beneath Mwadi’s shoulder blade. Beside her spine. Flirting with the back of the girl’s tingling head, the actress buried her face in the naked crook of Mwadi’s neck. Then lifted her lips and murmured low: “You wanna know where you goin with me?”

  Mwadi nodded, a response which would be felt if not seen.

  “I was plannin on a little jaunt to a buildin site.”

  That seemed more like Mademoiselle Lisette’s sort of excitement.

  Mademoiselle had been Miss Bailey’s lover once. For some time. Perhaps an attachment still lingered on the part of the actress. Mwadi set her steady hands on the actress’s smooth-brushed hair and moved her away. Gently. But firmly.

  The actress smiled confidently. “Come on. Sir Jamison heard from his Lady Fwendi you learnt to ride gulls so fast you asked how many other sortsa birds you could study for mounts. You ever try on any around here?”

  Was that all this was? The dalliance a cover for whatever scheme Miss Bailey wanted Mwadi involved in? She had said so. Shame pricked the princess’s eyelids, stinging them. To be used so, fooled so—

  “Bo-La? You rather I invite you more formally? In front of your brother and all? As princess? I thought this would be nicer—”

  “Hullo! What sport! Nigger hoors! Loongee, you’re the right sort, you are—no? Positive?” The jovial cries from the villa’s balcony ceased, hushed by others of her brother’s white friends. The unlucky merrymaker’s ebullience subsided as they repeated their assurances that the women on the lawn below had not been hired for his entertainment.

  “Pardon me! So awfully sorry!” The apologies grew louder as Mwadi walked quickly toward the library’s French doors, then ceased abruptly as the women waiting there to open them swung them shut behind her. The noise revived briefly when, at the urging of Miss Bailey’s polite rap on the glass, the doors reopened.

  The actress slipped into the room with the offhand grace Mwadi remembered admiring at rehearsals. “Aloli, ain’t it?” she asked the tall maiden on the door’s right. Who bowed almost as deeply as she had to the princess. “Sweet name. Juicy.”

  “You would like water? Beer?” Many Egyptian Muslims frowned on alcohol, but Prince Ilunga’s retinue expected and got plenty of exceptions to this custom of his adopted country’s upper classes.

  “I’ll take whatever you’re havin.”

  After a day of fasting, Mwadi’s body ravened. She ordered a supper such as the queen would have offered to guests arriving from an embassy. Primarily Everfairer delicacies: well-spiced soups served alongside heaps of stolid grains. A course of freshwater fish, to which she had the cook add shelled creatures from the river’s highest reaches. Perhaps this was owing to her mounts’ lingering influence? The whole was to be followed by iced fruit. And to begin, bean cakes and a gourdful of the local, peasant-made barley brew. And two cups.

  Upon these appetizers’ arrival the princess dismissed all her women but one. She ordered Aloli to stay, determined not to show any jealousy. Though she poured Miss Bailey’s beer herself.

  The actress took a healthy swig. “Good as I remember from Everfair.” They sat on spindle-legged benches with curving backs, British furniture supposedly modeled on Egyptian antiquities. Ilunga treated these sorts of objects carelessly, so Mwadi had gathered as many she could into her private apartments, protecting and maintaining them. She took a strip of linen hung over Aloli’s arm and arranged it on the little table between them, then poured her own beer and set the gourd on the cloth. She drained her cup in one gulp. She hadn’t meant to. She poured more, but held off from drinking it. She ate a bean cake instead, dipping it in a fiery red sauce that did nothing to assuage her thirst.

  A scratch at the door signaled the advent of the first course. The servant woman Aloli went to usher it in. Mwadi bent close to the table and leaned forward so Miss Bailey would hear her soft speech more easily. Or did she speak softly so she could lean forward?

  “I’ve experimented to expand my reach, living so far inland as I do here. I found a flock of kattar-kattars—”

  “What you call them?”

  “That’s the locals’ name: kattar-kattar—after their call. They’re desert birds resembling pigeons, but far better fliers. I’ve ridden several at a time.”

  “You think you can get em to go where—”

  The servant Aloli returned bearing a tray of covered dishes. She transferred them to the table with fluid motions more careful than Miss Bailey’s, but just as pleasing to watch. If Mwadi had been in a mood to be pleased by them.

  A loud knock came from the door. Swirling her shoulder scarf as if it were a cape, the servant turned to answer it, but before she took two steps it opened. Mwadi’s brother entered, face shining with an inner heat. “So sorry to disturb you,” he enunciated with too much precision. Behind him hesitated another man, his skin and clothing white against the passageway’s gloom. “Scranners insists on apologizing to you as well as to me. Personally. And to your guest.”

  The white man followed the prince in then, crushing what looked like a slouch hat in his fidgeting hands. A shamed grin stretched his thin lips. “Deveril Scranforth at your service. Must beg your forgiveness for my very silly mistake a few minutes ago. I ought to have known—at any rate, abject abasement and all that. Are we quits?” One hand released his hat and was offered to the princess—to shake? Presumptuous of him.

  “You served in Kenya?”

  Scranforth started as if he’d overlooked Miss Bailey’s sprawling beauty till she questioned him. “Ma’am?”

  “Rima Bailey. The other ‘nigger hoor.’”

  White became red. “You oughtn’t say such words.”

  “You did.”

  “Completely different cases.” Her brother’s friend appealed to Mwadi with his rough-lidded eyes. “Aren’t they, Miss, umm—Miss?” The ungrasped hand dropped.

  “Thank you for your apology.” Mwadi rose to curtsy stiffly, without inclining her head one inch. Would he go now?

  “You ain’t answered me.” Miss Bailey stood and stalked off from the table where Ilunga swayed over her neglected food, lifting the dishes’ covers.

  “I—what?”

  “I asked did you serve in Kenya. Because of your hat—the kind they used to wear there in the police force. ’Scuse me; the army. So?”

  “Ah—no! It was my cousin’s. Grandison Sprague. He wore it when they were putting in the rail line under Lord Delamere. The Lion Killer?”

  Lady Fwendi hated Delamere.

  “Your cousin get eaten by one a them giant lions?” Looming now over Ilunga’s friend.

  “As a—as a matter of fact he did. Look here, Loongee, you want to pack it in and talk about selling off those shares in the morning?”

  “I’ll be fine once I have a bite. Fine. Need to soak up the excess spirits.” The prince picked up Miss Bailey’s abandoned porcelain spoon and helped himself to her groundnut stew. “Fine.”

  “But—the ladies? That is, we don’t need to discuss business in your presence, Miss—boorish behavior by any standards.”

  More boorish than labeling them prostitutes and thus businesswomen themselves? Mwadi took note.

  The second course had arrived, barely noticed. The serving woman fitted more dishes on the already crowded table. Ilunga plopped down in Miss Bailey’s place and lifted another lid. A large fish stared up from its platter with one cloudy eye. Brown breading glistened with fat.

  “This will only take a moment. I swear. When I’m done we’ll retire to my rooms. Finish the deal there.” The prince stabbed a three-tined fork into the fish and flaked off a bite. “Wait, though—Didi has shares to get rid of too. Don’t you?”

  How Mwadi loathed her brother’s new habit of calling everyone by these “nicknames” he came up with. But as with his other and often more troubling habits—his Western dress, his immoderate consumption of alcohol, his gambling, his reckless abandonment of tradition-minded counselors for scions of Europe’s upper classes such as this very Scranforth—she practiced a pacific tolerance. For the moment.

 

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