Five months later, before the spring planting celebration, Ogin and my sisters took me aside. “We want you to do something that will put coins in our purses,” Ogin said. “We want you to run in the boys’ races. We will bet on you, and everyone will think we have gone mad.”
“Or let our pride in our village fool us,” Iyaka added. “They will bet against you, and we will win.”
My sisters’ eyes were bright and shining. Ogin—now fourteen and chief herdboy—grinned wickedly. I turned to my sisters, who were runners. “You think I can beat them?” I asked.
They giggled. “We know you can,” said Iyaka.
And so at the spring festival I lingered on the sidelines of the boys’ first short race until Ogin, according to our plan, dragged me over to the starting line. Everyone hurried to bet against me as the boys who were to race protested. The judge said that there was no rule against girls; only custom. The boys had to give in.
I was third in the first short race of sixty yards, second in the second short race of seventy-five yards, and first in the ninety-yard race, as my sisters had planned for me. I won the boys’ long race, too. That night there were honey cakes with supper and coins in the family purse.
Our lives marched on, through festivals and races. My sisters grew older and more beautiful. I simply grew. “She is turning into a giraffe!” boys would tease me. I ignored them. Thanks to my height and strength, my boy-less family had meat in the pot and coins for my sisters’ dowries.
Besides, I liked giraffes. They looked silly, but wise creatures let them be, and they feasted among thorns.
My goats were exchanged for Ogin’s old cattle herd when I turned eleven, while Ogin was made a hunter. As I learned the ways of the cows, I studied the plains and the rocks. In the tall grasses and wiry trees of the plains, I was free to join nature in its blood and power. There I practiced running, hitting, and kicking, using the blows to break fallen branches for firewood or to give a wounded animal a quick death. I learned more kicks from zebras, a double-hand strike from lions, and a back-of-the-fist blow from elephants.
Sometimes I dreamed about the world beyond the plains, trying to imagine its shape. My first taste of it would come when I was thirteen, when I would be allowed to attend the Nawolu trade fair for the first time. It was a week’s journey from our village, a gathering where tribes came from hundreds of miles to sell and to buy, to marry off daughters and sons, and to hold games of strength and speed. Daughters were presented when they were thirteen, though they were not actually married until they were sixteen or seventeen. During my twelfth year, my next-oldest sister went with the others to the fair. She came back talking of nothing but boys.
Iyaka, who was then seventeen, returned quietly. Mama told us the good news. A chief’s son, a wealthy young man named Awochu, had seen Iyaka race. He had fallen in love with her. It was odd for young people to choose their own mates, but Awochu’s father could not deny his only son. It did not matter that Iyaka’s dowry was tiny. For a bride-price Awochu would give us thirty cattle, and he would accept Papa’s blessing in return. Awochu would marry Iyaka at the next trade fair.
“What can I say? I am so honored by my family-to-be,” Iyaka said when we begged for details. “Thirty cattle will make Papa rich and honored. I could not have refused even if I had wanted to.”
When she put it that way, she made me ask myself what I would say if a man’s family offered for me. I thought about it as I watched over my cows the next day. Did I want to be married? I would have to leave my days on my beloved plains, and never see the world beyond. I would retire behind a wall like the one around our village to weave, cook, sew, and bear children. No more watching for game at the watering hole. No more entertainment from zebras and giraffes. No more gazelle and cheetah races.
I could wait to marry.
Still, every girl must turn thirteen, and so did I. The time of the trade fair came around. Our whole family went to Nawolu for Iyaka’s wedding and my first fair. Nawolu was a walled city on a deep river, so different from anything I had seen on the plains. In the distance towered a lone mountain, capped in white. Everywhere there were travelers, animals, bright cloths and flawless animal skins. I thought my eyes would burst from all the new sights.
Our village had a place by the fairgrounds outside the walls. Before we had pitched our tents, friends from other tribes came to visit and stayed for supper. Our chief finally sent them away so we could sleep. In the morning we would dress in our finest to meet Chief Rusom, who governed Nawolu and the lands around it.
I was close to sleep when Mama whispered, “I did not see Awochu.”
After a very long silence, Iyaka said, “He did not come.”
The next morning we girls fixed our hair, put on our best dresses, and decked ourselves out in our few pieces of jewelry. Then, with our mothers to guard us, we went to the fair. There was so much that was new. I saw the wonders of the world beyond my plains and felt a tug on my heart, a call to see where everything had come from. What exotic creatures wove the wispy cloth called “silk”? Who made fine jewelry from countless tiny gold beads? What ingredients went into the strange new perfumes and filled small stone pots with cosmetics? I wanted to know all of these things. The people who sold the goods would only point and name a country or a city I had never heard of.
Mama, Iyaka, and I moved ahead of the others. We were admiring exotic feathers for sale when Iyaka suddenly fell silent. Mama and I looked up. Here came a handsome young man, well-muscled, with the scars of a warrior on his cheeks and chest. A girl clung to his arm like a vine. She wore a blue-silk dress, and so much gold jewelry that it was impossible to tell if she was truly beautiful or simply dressed in money. She looked at him with passion in her eyes.
The young man, who also wore gold, halted. The blue-silk girl had to halt with him, and stared, as he did, at Iyaka. The girl looked at Iyaka, who had gone pale, and she smirked. At my sister, who was more beautiful than she without jewelry or silk!
“Awochu,” Iyaka whispered. The young man in gold licked his lips as if they were dry.
Mama stood in front of Iyaka. “Is this how you act before the family of the girl you are to marry in a week?” she asked sharply. “You parade this fair with a strumpet on your arm, mocking my daughter’s good name?”
The girl with the gold scowled. She will have wrinkles before she is thirty, I thought as I put an arm around my sister.
“She is no strumpet!” said my sister’s betrothed. “ She is my bride-to-be. I will not honor a contract with a witch and the family of a witch.”
Mama put her hands on her hips. “My daughter is no witch, you pompous hyena! You slander her name and ours to speak so!”
“She put a spell on me last year,” said Awochu. “My father’s shaman cured me of it. Now I will have nothing to do with a witch!”
A crowd was gathering. People are jackals, always willing to feed off someone else’s kill.
“You signed a marriage contract in blood,” Mama said. “You did it with your eyes open and your mama bleating like a sheep, telling you there were girls more worthy of you. ‘More worthy,’ with Iyaka and her family and chief standing right there! The only witchcraft was in you knowing she wouldn’t lie down for you without marriage, and you being like a spoiled baby who won’t hear ‘no’!”
“She put a spell on me!” Awochu cried. “She put it in the stain she used on her lips, so I was half mad.”
“Witch,” someone whispered behind me. I whirled to glare and saw people crowded all around us.
“Unlawful to spell a man into marriage,” a woman said.
“Oh, no,” Iyaka said. She shook out of my hold and walked up to Awochu, her muscles tight with anger. “You courted me with flowers and sweets and promises until I barely knew my name. You pursued me because I said no to you that first day, when you kissed me like a barbarian. And now you sully my name and the name of my family?” She spat in the dust at his feet and looked at the blue-silk
girl. “You want to be watching now,” Iyaka told the other girl. “This is what you want to marry. He will blame you when things go wrong between you.” Iyaka turned her attention back to Awochu. “You want your freedom? You may have it—after you pay half my bride-price for breaking the contract and lying about me.”
Awochu had looked arrogant, then petty, then furious. Now he looked smug. “I pay you nothing,” he told Iyaka. “Not to one who uses magic for love. Nawolu chief Rusom judges all trade fair disagreements. He will know what to do.”
He marched off to the chief’s pavilion. We had no choice but to follow, to stop him from lying to Chief Rusom. The witnesses followed, eager for more of someone else’s quarrel and the chief’s judgment.
Luckily, friends heard Awochu’s claim and ran to fetch our tribe. By the time we could see the chief’s bright red pavilion, Papa, our shaman, and our own chief had come, with the rest of my kinfolk. Now Chief Rusom would see that my sister was a girl of good family, the kind who would never use magic in a foul way. He would order Awochu to admit to his lie before everyone, so my sister’s name would go untainted.
In order for the chief to hear the many people who came to speak with him during the day, his men had built the pavilion with the floor raised up a foot from the ground. Chief Rusom and his companions could then sit at the edge, under the shelter of the canopy, and talk with those who stood on the beaten dirt before them. We moved to the front of the crowd, passed along by people who knew why we were there. Iyaka clutched my hand and Mama’s and would not let go. I had to stand right behind her as she stood in a line with Mama, Papa, our shaman, and our chief.
Awochu bowed to the man who had to be Chief Rusom. I glanced at the man on the chief’s right and almost gasped like an ignorant country girl. I had never seen a man so pale-skinned. Everyone in my life was dark brown or black. Some of the fair’s visitors were a lighter brown than I had ever seen before, but their skin was still brown. This man was bronze on his face, hands, and forearms, while his jacket, open at the collar, showed a chest that was white.
He had brown-black hair, straighter than the hair of anyone I knew. His eyes were brown-black, almost the color of normal eyes. He didn’t dress like a normal man, though. He wore a loose cloth jacket and, instead of a long skirt, a garment made of two cloth tubes that covered each of his legs. Instead of sandals he wore leather shoes that covered his feet and legs all the way to his knees. Only his hands looked right. They were hard, broad, and scarred, the hands of a warrior. His neck was muscled like a bull’s.
“Do you know who that is?” Ogin had worked his way up behind me. I looked at him. His eyes gleamed as he looked at the pale man. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, unable to stand still.
“No, but he looks very sick,” I whispered.
“Pf,” Ogin said, pushing me a little. “You know the stories of the Shang warriors, who fight and kill with bare hands? That man is the Shang Falcon. He is a great warrior!”
The pale visitor looked like a man, not a legend, to me. “He is a horse who will burn and bloat and explode in the sun,” I replied. “Put him back in the oven and let him cook until he is done.”
I looked at the platform and got a very bad feeling. Awochu had left his blue-silk girl to wait and climbed onto the platform to go to the other man, who sat on Chief Rusom’s left. This man wore gold on his arms and fingers. Awochu kissed him on both scarred cheeks. He looked enough like Awochu to be his father. Worse, there was a table placed between the man dripping in gold and Rusom. He and the chief shared food and drink like allies, or friends.
“Awochu, why have you brought these people?” asked the man with the gold, his voice filling the air. “Why do you disturb the chief?”
Awochu bowed to Chief Rusom. “Great chief,” he said with respect, “I come to you as a wronged guest. Last year at this fair I was overtaken by a madness that made me want that girl as my bride.” He pointed at Iyaka. “After I stole a kiss from her, I could not sleep or eat unless I was with her. I offered her my name and the wealth of my family. I begged my father and mother to accept this match with an ordinary plains girl.” He shook his head in sorrow. “When we returned to our own great village, our shaman saw the traces of magic on me. He kept me in his hut for nine days and nine nights to cleanse me of the evil spell. He told me—he will tell you, if you ask it—that the girl had painted charm color on her lips. When I stole that kiss, magic made me hers. It made me desire her to the point that I had signed a marriage contract with her family.
“Great Chief Rusom, is it not the law that no contract a man enters into while under the influence of magic is binding? For so my honored father explained the law to me. I owe this girl nothing. She cannot have me, so she binds me to a false claim, in order to steal my father’s cattle.”
“I do not steal!” cried Iyaka. “I happily release him from the contract. I do not want a man who is so fickle or so easily swayed.” She glared at Awochu’s father and the elegant woman who stood behind him, who had to be Awochu’s mother. “But he has sullied my name and the name of my family with his accusation of love-magic. He must pay half the bride-price for his lies. He should be grateful I do not ask for it all. You see?” She took the delicate skin on which the contract was written from her sash, unfolded it, and offered it to Chief Rusom. “It is written there. If I release him, he must pay half the bride-price to me. If he lies about me, he must pay it all and apologize for his evil, and admit he lied.”
“It is she who lies!” cried Awochu. “It is also written that if I am forced to this or lied to about her honor or her maidenhood, I am free of the contract!”
Chief Rusom read the document carefully, his eyes flicking to Awochu, to Iyaka, to my parents, to our shaman, and to our chief. He did not look at Awochu’s father. But when he reached down to that table for his teacup, Awochu’s father picked it up, filled it, and gave it to Chief Rusom. It was as plain as a baboon’s red behind: Awochu’s father would find a way to fill the chief’s cup if the chief could help his son.
Chief Rusom let the contract fall. “When there is such disagreement, and good names are at stake, there are several ways to resolve the matter,” he said in a voice like oil. “But involving magic . . .” He stroked his chin. “No, I think it must be trial by combat. The gods will allow the innocent side to win. Awochu?”
“I fight my own battles,” Awochu said, thrusting his chest out. His eyes held the same gleam as the eyes of the chief and his father. He knew the way was prepared.
“Me,” Ogin said, thrusting his way past Papa and me. The Shang Falcon was also getting to his feet, as if a pale man could know anything of us.
The chief was already shaking his head. “It must be a member of the girl’s direct family,” he said, proving he knew quite well who we were.
Papa took a limping step forward. The gleam in Awochu’s eyes brightened.
Without thinking, I pushed ahead, suddenly noticing that I was as tall as my papa. “I will fight,” I said, though my voice cracked when I said “fight.” I ignored people’s laughter and made myself say, “She is my sister. It is my name, too.”
“No!” cried Mama. “I forbid it! She is a girl! She is no warrior!”
But Chief Rusom already was shaking his head. “Do you believe the gods will help you, girl? This is no time to thrust yourself into serious business if you are not serious.”
I trembled as I answered, “I believe in the gods.” What I believed in was the ostrich gods, the giraffe gods, the lion gods. This dishonorable chief knew nothing of them.
“If the gods decide, then surely it only matters that she is of the girl’s blood,” said Chief Rusom. “I call for the combat when the sun leaves no shadows.”
All was noise then. Mama and Papa scolded me. Iyaka hit me with her fists. My own chief told me I was a fool and had cost my sister and my papa their honor. The gleeful crowd followed us to the enclosure set aside for trial by combat. Servants came to take away Awochu’s g
olden ornaments as his girl poured a cup of wine for him. His mama set a stool in the shade for him to rest upon while he waited for the proper time.
Ogin and the pale man brought a stool for me. They made me sit and drink some water. Gently the pale man, the Shang Falcon, placed hands like iron on the muscles between my neck and shoulders. I felt him hesitate. Then he raised my hands, examining my callused knuckles. He probed my back muscles with those hard fingers, then bent down to look at my legs and feet.
“Well,” he said. His voice was deep and smooth, like dark honey. “Perhaps this is not the folly it looks to be.” His Dikurri accent was thick, but I could understand him.
Of course, peahen, I told myself. He sat with the chief. They must be able to talk.
He was asking me something. I turned to look up at him. “What?” I asked. My lips felt stiff.
“What do you wear under your dress?” he asked slowly, as if he knew I could only understand slow speech, just then.
“How dare you!” cried Mama.
He put a hand on her shoulder. “Your daughter cannot fight in a dress,” he said kindly. “The women warriors of the Chelogu tribes fight entirely naked, in tribute to the Great Mother Goddess. I think your daughter may wear a little more than that, but a skirt will hobble her like ropes hobble a donkey.”
“She is a donkey,” my mother whispered, her lips trembling. “A stupid donkey who does not understand what she has done here.”
“She wears a breast band and a loincloth,” Iyaka said.
“If they are snug, that is enough,” said the Falcon. He asked me, “Can you remove the dress on your own?”
I plucked at my sash until it came apart. Someone pulled it away; then Iyaka took the dress from where it had fallen. I did not know why Mama was so upset. I raced in no more than this at every festival.
Young Warriors Page 14
