Kalisha made a swift sign with her own hands. The guard relaxed, shifted his weapon aside, and motioned her to enter the building. He knew Kalisha well. But if she had not given the proper sign, he would have killed her where she stood. So would the other guards hidden on the roof and in the shadows. Rivalries among the various sets was as unrelenting as any among the tribes and nations of Abengoni, and to be unprepared for trouble in the Maim was to be prepared for death.
The interior of the aderash belied its ruined exterior. Light from dozens of torches flickered on finely woven tapestries, intricately carved furniture, multi-patterned carpets. Treasures looted from the rest of Khambawe lay scattered in careless heaps in various locations on the floor.
Scores of tsotsis filled the room. Many danced to the sensuous beat of a trio of male drummers accompanied by a woman shaking a beaded rattle. Others sat and stared with glazed eyes as they chewed leaves of khat or quaffed potent talla ale. Children – some barely old enough to walk – scurried underfoot. There were no older people; life was short in the tsotsi domain, and those who survived beyond their twenties usually departed from the Maim, preferring to disguise their origins and live the rest of their lives in safer places.
The dancers called greetings to Kalisha as she worked her way toward a huge pile of loot in the middle of the room.
“Amiya-girl,” they said, laughing, referring to her position and her place of employment.
Kalisha only nodded and kept going until she reached her destination.
At the top of the jumble of jewelry and cloth sat Jass Mofo, leader of the Ashaki tsotsis, one of the most powerful sets in the Maim. Like most tsotsis, he was lean and sinewy. Braids decorated with beads of silver and gold hung from his half-shaven head. A thin mustache and goatee framed his full-lipped mouth, and he gazed at Kalisha with hawk-like eyes. His clothes were those of a Jass, and he wore them with far greater panache than many of Emperor Alemeyu’s courtiers. A sword rested at his side, within easy reach.
Mofo was not alone in his perch. At his other side, on a slightly lower level of the pile, sat a young woman not many years older than Kalisha. Her skin was a deep, lustrous umber, and her face combined innocence and lasciviousness in equal measure. Her hair was a mass of beaded braids that clicked together as she moved her head in rhythm with the drumbeats.
The white-and-gold-striped chamma she wore was pulled down to her waist, leaving her upper body bare, save for a jewelled necklace. Mofo’s hand cupped one of her small, round breasts, his fingers fondling the nipple. As the woman chewed a leaf of khat, her eyes looked through, not at, Kalisha.
This was Kimbi, Jass Mofo’s consort of the moment. Like her predecessors, her tenure would last until he tired of her or got her pregnant, whichever came first. In either case, she would no longer be his responsibility.
“What you done got for me now, Amiya-girl?” Mofo asked Kalisha.
In response, Kalisha dug into the cloth at her waist and pulled out a tiny leather pouch. She upended it, and a small link of silver dropped into the palm of her hand. She held the shining bit of metal up to Mofo’s gaze.
“This from the costume Tiyana be wearin’ for First Calling,” she said in the rough dialect of the Maim, a speech pattern the youth gangs had developed during their bitter isolation.
“I take it out and weave the chain back like it been,” she continued. “They never be knowin’ what I done.”
She tossed the link up to Mofo, who lifted his hand from Kimbi’s breast and caught the piece of silver in an easy, deft motion. He gave it a quick appraisal. Then he laughed.
“You just the best, Amiya-girl,” he said. “You my luck.”
His laugh broke through Kimbi’s khat-induced torpor. She stared hard at Kalisha for a moment, then dismissed her as too young to be of concern. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against Mofo’s knee. Then she took his hand and placed it back on her breast. Mofo was not distracted; his attention remained on Kalisha.
“I can be give you, hmm, twenty hands of khat for this,” Mofo said to Kalisha. “Heard?”
Kalisha nodded. He was her Jass; if he had offered her only one hand of khat, she would have taken it. Among the tsotsis, twenty hands of the leaf was worth a fortune.
“Want some now?” he asked, teeth flashing in a grin.
“No,” Kalisha replied, even though she would have liked nothing better than to chew the plant’s leaves and sway to the drums along with the others. But she had to get back to the Beit Amiya before dawn, and to attempt do so with her mind numbed by khat would be to invite disaster.
She knew Mofo had just given her a test. His slight nod indicated that she had passed it to his satisfaction.
“We put it in your stash, for when you want it,” he said. “You go on back now, Amiya-girl. And keep you eye on the strange ones who come on the boat. Heard?”
Kalisha did not wonder how Mofo knew about the arrival of the Fidi. Sooner or later, the tsotsis learned everything of importance that happened in Khambawe. Nor did she question his interest in them, for he was her Jass
