by Marlon James
The balcony outside was a thin platform, maybe two footsteps wide, and loose, with rope as high as the chest to stop drunk men from falling to their ancestors. Behind this tree, two trees stood, and behind them several more. My head was scrambling for a bigger word than vast, something for a city as large as Juba or Fasisi, but with everything stacked on top and growing into the sky instead of beside each other and spreading wide. Did these trees still grow? Many windows flickered with firelight. Music came from some windows, and loose sounds running on wind: eating, a man and woman in quarrel, fucking, weeping, voices on top of voices creating noise, and nobody sleeping.
Also this, a closed tower with no windows, but where all the ropes carrying caravans came in and out. The Queen was right when she said Dolingo did not run on magic. But it ran on something. Night was going, leaving us, leaving people who would not sleep, leaving me wondering what Sogolon spoke of to the Queen, and where she was right now. Maybe that was why it took me longer than it should to smell it on me. Myrrh. I rubbed my chest, cupped my nose, and breathed in as one would drink in.
In the dream jungle monkeys swung on vines, but the trees grew so tall that I could not see sky. It was day and night like it always is in the Darklands. I heard sounds, laughter that sometimes sounded like tears. I was hoping to see the prefect, expecting to see him, but a monkey walking on two legs pulled at my right hand, let go, and jumped off, and I followed him, and I was on a road, and I walked, then ran, then walked, and it was so very cold. I feared hearing black wings but did not hear them. And then fire broke out in the west, and elephants, and lions, and many beasts, and beasts with forgotten names ran past me. And a warthog with his tail on fire squealed, Is the boy, is the boy, is the boy.
A smell woke me up.
“Welcome to Dolingo the magnificent, Dolingo the unconquerable, Dolingo that make the gods of sky come down on earth for nothing in the sky was anything like Dolingo.”
He stood over me, short, fat, and blue in day as the Dolingons were in night, and I almost told him that had I slept the way I usually do, with my ax under my pillow, he would be a headless man right now. Instead I rubbed my eyes and sat up. He leaned in so close that I almost bumped his head.
“First you wash, no? Yes? Then you eat the rise meal, no? Yes? But first you wash, no? Yes?”
He wore a metal helmet that lacked the nose guard of a warrior. But it was trimmed in gold, and he looked like a man who would soon tell me such.
“Magnificent helmet,” I said to him.
“Do you love it? No? Yes? Gold mined from the southern mines made its way to my head. This is no bronze that you see, only gold and iron.”
“Did you fight in any wars?”
“Wars? Nobody wars with the Dolingon, but yes, you should know that I am indeed a very brave man.”
“I can see it from what you wear.”
Indeed, he wore the thick quilted tunic of warriors, but his belly poked through like a pregnant woman. Two things. “Wash” meant him summoning two servants to the room. Two doors to the side opened without a hand, and the servant pulled out a wood-and-tar tub full of water and spices. That was the first I knew there were doors there. They scrubbed me with stones, my back, my face, even scrubbed my balls with the same roughness that they scrubbed the bottoms of my feet. “Eat” meant a flat plank of wood pushing itself out of the wall, where no slot was before, and the man pointing me to the stool already there, then feeding me with those things beloved of flighty men from Wakadishu, knives and spoons, and making me feel like a child. I asked if he was a slave, and he laughed. The plank pulled itself back into the wall.
“In our radiant Queen is all wisdom and all answers,” he said.
They left me and after going outside and walking ten paces in the cold, I went back in and dressed in the robes they left out. If anything these rare moments in robes made me hate them all the more. At the door, I heard a scuffle in the room, scurrying feet and huff. Charge in or sneak in, I wasn’t sure, and when I did choose to swing the door open, the room was empty. Spies, I expected. What they could be looking for, I didn’t know. Over by the balcony the door opened before I reached it. I pulled back a few steps and it closed. I stepped forward a few steps and it opened.
I left again and walked down to a path running along the edge of this floor. Dirt and stone as if cut from a mountain. This is what happened. I walked until I came to a break in the boundary, and attached to the break and hanging off the edge was a platform of wood slats, held by rope at the four corners. Without my word, and with no sight of anyone, the platform lowered a long drop to the floor below. I left the platform and walked down this new path, which was a road, wide as two. Across I could see the palace and the first tree. At the lowest level of this one, a small house with three dark windows and a blue roof, which seemed cut off from everything else. Indeed, no steps or road led to it. It stood in the huge shadow of the lookout platform, a shelf as wide as a battlefield, on which guards marched. The floors looked patched together, the lowest with a drawbridge and the wall a red colour, like savannah earth. The next floor a retaining wall that went half around. The third, high with massive arches underneath and trees, wild and scattered, and still another floor with the tallest walls, taller than seven, maybe eight times taller than the door and windows. This floor boasted towers with gold roofs, and still two more floors climbed higher. Across on the right to yet another tree, and level with my eyes, were wide steps leading up to a great hall. On the steps men in twos, in fives, and in larger, wearing blue, gray, and black coats sweeping the floor; sitting, standing, and looking like they were talking of serious things.
“I thought my poor balls would bleed the way those fucking eunuchs went at it,” Mossi said when I saw him. They had put him on this floor. It came to me: Why would they scatter us so?
“I said, Sirs, I am not the one who clipped you both, don’t take your anger out on my poor little knight. So that’s what makes you laugh, tales of my suffering,” Mossi said.
I didn’t notice that I had laughed. He broke into a wide grin. Then his face went grave.
“Let us walk, I must speak with you,” he said.
I was curious how roads worked in a city that went up instead of wide. What did that waterfall fall into?
“How sorry I am for you, Tracker. In a crowd you would have been lost to me.”
“What?”
He pointed at what I was wearing, the same as he, and as many of the men and boys who passed us, a long tunic and a cloak clasped only at the neck. But only in the colours I saw before: gray, black, and blue. Some men, all older, wore red or green caps over their bald heads, and red and green sashes at the waist. The few women passed by on carts and open caravans, some in white gowns with wide sleeves like wings, the tops split open to plump up breasts, and head wraps in several colours pointing to peaks like a high tower.
“I have never seen you so dressed,” he said.
A cart pulled by two donkeys passed us, with an old man and a boy in it. They went to the edge as far as I could see, then vanished. At first I thought the man rode the cart off to his death.
“The road spirals around, sometimes in and sometimes out of the tree. But at some point, if they want to leave the citadel, one of those bridges that pulled us up must take them down,” Mossi said.
“One night and you are guide to all things Dolingo.”
“You learn much in one night when you miss sleep. Like this. The Dolingon build on high because of an ancient prophecy that the great flood will one day return, which many still believe. An old man told me this, though he might have gone mad from walking the streets and not sleeping. The great flood that consumed all lands, even the Hills of Enchantment and the unnamed mountains beyond Kongor. The great flood that killed the great beasts that roamed the land. Know this, I have been to many lands and one thing they all seem to share is this great flood that came to pass
and another that will one day come true.”
“Seems what all lands do share are gods so petty and jealous that they would rather destroy all the worlds than have one that moves on without them. You said we must speak.”
“Yes.”
He took my arm and started walking faster. “I think we should assume we are being watched, if not followed,” he said. We went over the bridge and under a wide tower, with a blue stone archway taller than ten men. We continued walking, his hand still grabbing my arm.
“No children,” I said.
“What?”
“I have seen no children. None last night, but I thought that was because it was night. But so far into this day, none I have seen.”
“And your complaint is?”
“Have you seen even one?”
“No, but there is something else I must tell you.”
“And slaves. Dolingo is not Dolingo because of magic. Where are the slaves?”
“Tracker.”
“First I think the servants who scrubbed me are the slaves, but they seem like masters of their craft, even if the craft was back scrubbing and balls scraping.”
“Tracker, I—”
“But something is not ri—”
“Fuck the gods, Tracker!”
“What?”
“This night gone. I was in the Queen’s chambers. When the guards took you to your room, they took me to mine only to wash me and take me back.”
“Why did she call you back?”
“The Dolingon are a very direct people, Tracker. She is a very direct queen. Don’t ask questions where you know the answer.”
“But I do not know.”
“They took me back to her chambers, on the same caravan that we came over. This time four guards went with me. I would draw a sword but then I remembered they took our weapons. The Queen would see me again. I mystified her, it seems. She still thought my skin was magic and my hair and my lips, which she said looked like an open wound. She had me lie with her.”
“I did not ask.”
“You should know.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know! I do not know why I feel you must know, since it means nothing to you. Curse this. And she was cold, Tracker. I do not mean she was distant, or that she showed no feeling, not even pleasure, but that she felt cold, her skin colder than northern wind.”
“What did she have you do?”
“This is what you are asking me?”
“What do you expect me to ask, prefect, how did it make you feel? There are many women I could ask that question.”
“I am not a woman.”
“Of course not. Woman is supposed to look at this as a natural course of events. Man, he falls on his knees and screams what a horror, what a debasing.”
“How you have no friends mystifies me,” Mossi said.
He walked away. I had to skip to catch him.
“You asked for my ears and I gave you a fist,” I said.
He walked several steps before he stopped and turned around. “I accept your apology, such as it is.”
“Tell me all,” I said.
Mungunga was waking up. Men dressed like elders on their way to where elders go. Jugs held by no hands, at windows throwing out the slop of last night into gutters that ran inside the trunk of the tree. Men in robes and caps passing by on foot with books and scrolls, men in cloaks and pants, passing by on carts driven by donkeys and mules, without bridles. Women pushing carts overflowing with silk, fruits, and trinkets. People hanging off the retaining walls, with dyes, and sticks, and brushes, back to painting the mural of the Queen on the side of the right-hand branch. Everywhere and nowhere, the sweet reek of chicken fat popping over flame, and bread baking in ovens. Also this, so everywhere that the noise of it became a new quiet: gears running, ropes creaking, and the beat and boom of big wheels turning, though nothing for the eye to put such sounds to.
“They would not even let me wash myself, saying that the Queen has a nose for filth and sneezes like a storm at even a hint of it. I said, Then like many in these lands you must be nose-blind to the funk under your arms. Then they rubbed me in a fragrance they said would be most pleasing to the Queen, which made me wince for the smell was like shit at the feet of growing crops. In my hair, in my nose, do you not smell it still on me?”
“No.”
“Morning bathers scraped it off with all my skin and most of my hair then. Sogolon was there, Tracker.”
“Sogolon? Watching?”
“They were all watching. No queen fucks alone, nor king either. Her handmaidens, her witchmen, two men who looked like counselors, a man of medicine, Sogolon, and all the Queen’s guards.”
“Something ill is in this kingdom. Did you—how does one—”
“Yes, yes, curse it. I think the old bitch promised this Queen something from me, and didn’t ask me.”
“What did she have you do?”
“What?”
“No children anywhere and the Queen has you lie with her the first night you are here. Did you—”
“Yes, if that is what you wish to know. I left my seed in her. You act if as arousal means anything. It does not even mean consent.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Your eyes asked. And they judged.”
“My eyes don’t care.”
“Fine. Then I shall not care either. Then her witchmen and night nurses said it was so, that my seed was in her. The witchman made sure.”
“Why does a queen bed a foreigner she had only just met to have him leave his seed in her? And why is that a matter for the whole court? I tell you, Mossi, something is wrong about these lands.”
“And the Queen was cold as a mountaintop. She said nothing, and they warned me not to look straight at her. She didn’t look as if she was breathing. And everyone watched as if I was there to patch a hole in the floor.”
“Who warned you?”
“The guards who washed me.”
“Did they look like her? Skin so black it’s blue?”
“Isn’t that everyone we see?”
“We have seen neither slaves nor children.”
“You said that. She had a cage, Tracker. A cage with two pigeons. Strange pet.”
“Nobody keeps that disgusting animal as a pet. The Aesi uses pigeons. So does Sogolon. She said she was sending word to the Dolingon queen when I asked her.”
“Twice they made me spill inside her.”
“What did Sogolon say to you?”
“Nothing.”
“We should find the others.”
I grabbed his hand and pulled him quick into a doorway and held him.
“Tracker, what in all the fucks—”
“Men, two in number, following us.”
“Oh, the two men a hundred paces behind me, one in a blue cape and white robes, the other, open vest and white trousers like a horseman? Trying to look as if not in league with each other, but clearly walking together? I think, Tracker, they are following me.”
“We could lead them to that plank, and throw them off.”
“Are all your forms of fun this quick?”
I pushed him away. We kept on walking, past a number of steps I could not count, but I did notice the path took us right around the trunk, covered in little roofs, towers, and great halls, twice. And at almost every turn there was a new tree in the distance. And at every turn I was getting angry with Mossi and couldn’t explain why.
“A city with no children, and a queen hungry to get one, even from you. There is some honor in that, is there not?”
“No honor to such lowly customs.”
“And yet you dropped your robes, and rose to meet it.”
“What is burning you?” he said.
I looked at him. “I feel lost and I do no
t know what to do here.”
“How could you be lost? I am following you, so I am lost too.”
The men stopped waiting on us and were approaching.
“Maybe what you’re looking for is not a reason to fight, or to save the boy, but just a reason,” Mossi said.
“Fuck the gods if I know what that means.”
“I’ve spent my life on the chase for men. People are either running to, or running from, but you just seem to be cut loose. You have no stakes in this and why should you? But have you a stake in anything? In anyone?”
At this I wished for nothing more than to punch the next remark back into his mouth.
He looked at me, his eyes sharp, waiting for an answer. I said, “How shall we deal with these men? We have no weapons, but we do have fists. And feet.”
“Are they—”
“Do not turn around, they are upon us.”
The two men looked like monks, tall and very thin, one with the long hair and the cultivated face of a eunuch. The other, not as tall but still thin, looked at us for less than a blink before looking past us. Mossi clutched at his sword but there was no sword. They walked past us. Both smelled heavy of spices.
* * *
—
On the way back to my room not even the thought of the gods at peace could stop me from cursing.
“I cannot believe you fucked her.”
He spun around to me. “What?”
I stopped and turned back. Only one cart passed us. The street stayed empty, but you could hear buying, selling, and yelling down the bazaars in the lanes.
“You heard what I said. Thank the gods, I am just a low jungle boy,” I said. “She must think you’re an eastern prince.”
“You think that’s how it is, that you’re too low to be used and killed,” Mossi said.
“If she conceives you can thank the gods you are a father of multitudes. Like a rat.”
“Listen, you bush-fucker. Don’t judge me for something you would have done. Was there any choice? Do you think I even wanted to? What would you do, insult the Queen the night she gives you hospitality? What would have happened to us?”
