by Marlon James
A man and woman kneeled before him, both kicked to their knees by the two women guards behind them. The man crying, the woman silent like stone. The woman, a red slave and not dark like the men at the back, a slave white in teeth and eyes and with no blemish. Beautiful. She would be a concubine to another master, mayhaps even a master in the East, where a concubine could possess her own palace. A woman captured from Luala Luala or even farther north, straight in nose and thin in lips. The man was darker, and shiny from sweat, not the body oils they rub on slave skin to fetch a bigger price. The man naked, the woman in a robe.
“Tell me true, tell me quick, tell me now,” said the slaver. His voice was higher than I expected. Like a young child’s, or a ragged witch’s. “Man live to plunder, guest attack host, but you was a man under chain. A man ira wewe. Chained to one and twenty men with heavy iron that break the leg bone. You can’t go unless they go, you can’t come unless they come, you can’t sit unless they sit, so how you find yourself up the pupu of this future princess?”
The man said nothing. I don’t think he knew the midlands tongues. He looked like the men who lived along the two sisters river, kingless and strong, but strong from farming soil, not from hunting or fighting among armies and warriors.
The guard behind the woman said that it was the woman that seek him out, or so go whispers bouncing off their backs. That she lie with him while the other men stay quiet, hoping that she will lie with them too. And she did with one or two but this man most of all.
The woman laughed.
“Tell me true, tell me quick, tell me now. What will I do with a red slave carrying baby for a black slave? No merchant going want you, nobody going one day make you their wife and queen. You’re worth less than the robes you wear. Take them off.”
The guards grabbed her from behind and pulled the robes off. The red slave looked at the slaver, spat, and laughed.
“The robes I can wash and put on another. But you . . .”
The man feeding him dates bent to his ear and whispered something. “You are worth less than my sickest oxen. Make peace with the river goddess for you shall be with her soon.”
“Better you chop my neck off or burn me in flames.”
“You choose how you will die?”
“I choose not to be slave to you.”
I saw the truth in her before the slaver did. She went and had a child with the black slave because she wanted to. The smile on her face said all. She knew he would kill her. Better to be with the ancestors than to live bonded to somebody else, who might be kind, who might be cruel, who might even make you master to many slaves of your own, but was still master over you.
“Men who follow the eastern light would have been good to you. You never hear of the red slave who become empress?”
“No, but I hear of the fat slaver who smelled like ox shit, who will one day choke on his own breath. By the god of justice and revenge I curse you.”
The slaver lost his face. “Kill this bitch now,” he said.
The guard took her away as she laughed. Even gone I could still hear her. The slaver looked at the man and said, “I tell you true, tell you quick, tell you now. Only one thing the northern masters love even more than unblemished woman. Unblemished eunuch. Take him away and make it so.”
Two guards took the man. He was weak and bawling, so each grabbed a chain and pulled him away.
The slaver looked at me as if I was the first of the day’s business. He stared at my eye, as everybody else did, and I had long passed speaking of it.
“You must be the one with the nose,” he said.
SEVEN
They took the woman away to drown her, and the man to cut all manhood off.
“This is what you took me here to see?” I said to the Leopard.
“The world isn’t always night and day, Tracker. Still haven’t learned.”
“I know everything I need to know about slavers. Did I ever tell you of the time I tricked a slaver into selling himself into slavery? Took him three years to convince his master he was a master as well, after the master cut out his tongue.”
“You speak too loud.”
“Loud enough.”
The man had so many rugs thrown on the dirt, rugs on top of rugs, rugs clearly from the East, and others with colours for which there were no names, that you would think him a rug seller, not a man seller. He made walls out of rugs, black rugs with red flowers and writing in foreign tongues. It was so dark that two lamps were always burning. The slaver sat on a stool while one man took off his sandals and the other brought over a bowl of dates. He may have been a prince, or at least a very rich man, but his feet stank. The man who held the umbrellas tried to take his hat off but the slaver slapped him, not hard, but playful, too playful. I decided many moons ago to stop reading into the little actions of men. The man with the umbrella turned to us and said, “His most excellent Amadu Kasawura, lion of the lower mountain and master of men, will see you before sunset.”
The Leopard turned to leave, but I said, “He will see us now.”
The umbrella bearer caught his dropping jaw. The dates bearer turned around as if to say, Now we shall have words. I think he smiled. That was the first time the slaver looked at us.
“I think you not understand our language.”
“I think I understand it fine.”
“His most excellent—”
“His Most Excellency seems to have forgotten how to talk to the freeborn.”
“Tracker.”
“No, Leopard.”
The Leopard rolled his eyes. Kasawura started to laugh.
“I will be at the Kulikulo Inn.”
“Nobody leave without notice,” the slaver said.
I turned to leave, and almost made it to the entrance when three guards appeared, hands on weapons not drawn.
“The guards will mistake you for a runaway. Deal with you first, ask questions later,” Kasawura said. The guards clutched their weapons, and I pulled the two hatchets from my back strap.
“Who is first?” I asked.
Kasawura laughed louder. “This is the man who you said time cooled his heat?”
The Leopard sighed loud. I knew this was a test, but I didn’t like being tested.
“My name speaks for itself, so make your decision quick and don’t waste my time.”
Also, I hate slavers.
“Bring him food and drink. A raw goat shank for Kwesi. Make sure is fresh kill, or would you like a live one to kill yourself? Sit down, gentlemen,” he said.
Now the umbrella bearer raised his eyebrows and mashed his lips together. He handed the slaver a gold goblet, which he handed to me.
“It’s—”
“Masuku beer,” I said.
“It has been said you have a nose.”
I took a drink. This was the best beer I have ever tasted.
“You are a man of wealth and taste,” I said.
The slaver waved it off. He stood up but nodded at us to stay seated. Even he was getting annoyed at the servants fussing over every move. He clapped twice and they all left.
“You don’t waste time so waste it I will not. Three years now a child they take, a boy. He was just starting to walk and could say nana. Somebody take him one night. They leave nothing and nobody ever demand ransom, not through note, not through drums, not even through witchcraft. I know the thinking, which you now think. Maybe they sell him in Malangika, a young child would bring much money to witches. But my caravan get protection from a Sangoma, just as one still binds you with protection even after her death. But you knew this, didn’t you, Tracker? The Leopard think iron arrows bounce away from you because they are scared.”
“There are still things to tell you,” I said to the Leopard with a look.
“This child we trust to a housekeeper in Kongor. Then one night somebody
cut the throat of everybody in the house but steal the child. Eleven in the house, all murdered.”
“Three years ago? Not only are they far ahead in the game, they might have already won.”
“Is not a game,” he said.
“The mouse never thinks so, but the cat does. You have not finished your tale and it already sounds impossible. But finish.”
“Thank you. We heard reports of several men, mayhaps a woman and a child taking a room at an inn near the Hills of Enchantment. They all took one room, which is why one of the guests remembered. We know this news because they find the innkeeper a day after they leave. Listen to me—dead like stone, pale from all the blood gone from him.”
“They killed him.”
“Who knows? But then we get news of two more ten days later. Two houses all the way down in Lish where we hear of them next, four men, and the child. And everything dead after they leave.”
“But from those hills to the blood takes at least two moons, maybe two and a half by foot.”
“Tell me something we don’t ponder. But the killings the same, everybody dead like stone. Near one moon later people in Luala Luala run from their huts and wouldn’t go back, talking about night demons.”
“He travels with a band of murderers, but they haven’t murdered him? What is his quality? A boy freeborn of a slaver? Is he your own?”
“He is precious to me.”
“That is no answer.” I rose. “Right now, your story has meat where you will not talk, bone where you do. Why is he precious to you?” I asked.
“Do you need to know, to work for me? Talk a true talk.”
“No, he does not,” the Leopard said.
“No, I do not. But you seek a child missing three years. He could be beyond the sand sea, or long shat out of a crocodile’s ass in the Blood Swamp, or lost in the Mweru for all we know. Even if he is still alive, he will be nothing like the child gone. He might be under another house, calling another man father. Or four.”
“I am not his father.”
“So you say. Maybe he is now a slave.”
He sat down in front of me. “You want us to be out with it. Tell me true. You wish to throw words at me.”
“About what?”
“Every man here is unlucky in war. Every woman here will be bought into a better life. After all, if their lives were so good, they would not be on a bondsman’s cart.”
“He didn’t say anything, excellent Amadu, that is just his way,” the Leopard said.
“Don’t speak for him, Leopard.”
“Yes, Leopard, don’t speak for me.”
“You were a slave, no?” said excellent Amadu.
“I don’t have to dip my nose in shit to know it stinks.”
“Fair. And yet who are you that I should present my life as just to you? You who would search, and find, and return a wife even though her eyes had been cut out by her husband. Every man in this room has a price, good Tracker. And yours might even be cheap.”
“What of him do you have?”
“No, not so quickly. I only need to know that the offer tickling you. We have met, we have drank beer, we will make decisions. This you should know. I have made the offer to more as well. Eight, perhaps nine in number. Some will work with you, some will not. Some will try to find him first. You have not asked how much coin I will pay.”
“I don’t have to. Given how precious he is to you.”
The Leopard was raising a fuss. He didn’t know some would be searching for the child on their own. It was my time to hush him.
“Tracker, are you not offended by this?” he said.
“Offended? I’m not even surprised.”
“Our good friend the Leopard still doesn’t know that there is no black in man, only shades and shades of gray. My mother was not a kind woman and she was not a good woman. But she did say to me, Amadu, pray to the gods but bolt your door. The child has been gone three years.”
“Leopard, think. When we find him, we split coin two ways, not nine.”
The slaver clapped and the three men rushed in again, doing exactly as before, rubbing his feet, feeding him dates, and looking at me as if I would change into a Leopard too.
“I give you four nights to decide. This not going be no easy journey. There are forces, Tracker. There are forces, Leopard. They come in on wind at morning or sometimes in the highest sun, the hour of the blinding light of witches. Just as I wish him to be found, surely there are those who wish him to stay hidden. Nobody ever send word for ransom, and yet I know he is alive, even before the fetish priest consult the older gods who tell him this is so. But there are forces, you two. Ill wind rolling through the cities in the hot season, and taking what is not for them. Day robber, night thief, I can’t tell you what you will find. But we talking too much. I give you four nights. If yes be your answer, meet me at the collapsed tower at the end the street of bandits. You know this place?”
“Yes.”
“Meet me there after sunset and let that be your yes.”
He turned his back to us. Our business was done with him for the time. They came back to me just then, the woman he killed and the man he made a eunuch.
“Silly Tracker, surely you know how eunuchs are made? That man will surely die,” the Leopard said.
I asked the landlady to allow the Leopard stay in a room I knew was empty. I wore nothing when I spoke to her, so she said yes, of course, but now the rent is double, or you will return from one of your trips to find nothing in your room. But I have nothing, I said. The Leopard took the room after I told him that should he find some tree to sleep in as a beast, somebody would take a perfect shot from a bow and arrow and get him right through the ribs. And all the prey in the city belonged to one man or another, so one could not roam about and hunt them. And even if you did kill somebody’s goat or chicken, do not bring it back to the room. And even if you did bring it back to the room, do not spill even a drop of blood.
This annoyed the Leopard but he saw there was wisdom in it. I knew he would be in there pacing and pacing, knowing he could not growl. Trying to sleep in the window but knowing he could not, and smelling blood quicken under the flesh of prey down below in the animal pens. So he brought the boy up to his room. The third day he came up to my room, grinning and rubbing his belly.
“You look like you sneaked an impala into your room.”
“Quiet as it’s kept. I might have been the glutton lately.”
“The whole inn knows of your appetites.”
“You must be the one nun in the whorehouse. Fantastic beasts, fantastic urges, Tracker. Where go you today? I shall see your city.”
“You already saw the city.”
“I want it through your eyes, or rather your nose. I know there is something in this city waiting for us.”
I looked at him straight. “Go whoring on your own time, cat.”
“Tracker, who’s to say we can’t do both?”
“As you wish. Go wash.”
He poked out his tongue, long as a young snake, and licked both his arms.
“Done,” he said, and grinned. “Who shall we see? A man owing you coin, whose legs we shall break? To us each a leg!”
They say Malakal is a city built by thieves. Malakal is mountains and mountains are Malakal. The one place that was never conquered because it was the one city nobody ever dared to try. Just the trip up to the mountains would exhaust men and horses. Nearly every man here is warrior born and most of the women too. This was the King’s last stand against your Massykin people of the South, and that from here we turned back the war and beat you southerners back like the bitches you are. Truce was your idea, not ours. Nearly every city spreads wide, but Malakal reaches up to the sky instead, house on top of house, tower on top of tower, some towers so thin and high that they forgot steps, leaving you to get to the top by
rope. The towers themselves stacked so close that they seemed to have collapsed on each other, and to the south of the first wall was one that did, but was still in use. Four walls enclosed the city, built each inside the other, four rings built around the mountains that rose out of each other. Men built the first wall over four hundred years ago, after old Malakal went to ruin. The fourth and last wall was still being built. Come to it straight and Malakal looks like four forts, each rising out of the one below it, and towers set on top of towers. But take the view of birds and you see great walls like spirals and within them roads shooting out like spider legs from mountain peak to flat land, with lookouts for warriors, and arrow slits for archers, and homes and inns, and workhouses, and trade houses, and poorhouses, and dark lanes for necromancers, thieves, and men seeking pleasures and boys and women giving them. From our windows you can see the Hills of Enchantment, where many Sangoma live, but they were too far away. The citizens came to wisdom early how to use space for yards with chickens to get fat, and fences to keep out dogs and mountain beasts. Down from the mountains is the quickest way to the slave routes in the valley and the gold and salt routes to the sea. Malakal produces nothing but gold, trades everything that can be enslaved, and demands tribute from all who pass through, for if you are in the North it is the only way to the sea.
Of course I speak of nine years ago. Malakal is nothing like that now.
“I cannot tell you if these are good times or bad times to be in the city because the King is coming,” I said to the Leopard as we went out.
His caravan was seen two days out and all of Malakal was expected to celebrate his tenth jubilee as Kwash Dara, the North King, the son of Kwash Netu, the great conqueror of Wakadishu and Kalindar. Of course he celebrates in the city most responsible for saving his royal backside so that he could still have his royal shit wiped away by servants. But the griots were already singing, Praise the King for saving the city of mountains. Men from Malakal weren’t even in his army; they were mercenaries who would have fought for the Massykin had they come with good coin first. But fuck the gods if the city was not going to put on great fabrics and feast. The black-and-gold flag of Kwash Dara was on everything. Even children were painting their faces gold and black. The women painted gold for the left breast, black for the right, both in the sign of the rhinoceros. Weavers made cloths, and men wore robes, and women wrapped their heads into large flower arrangements, all of it black and gold.
