by Marlon James
“He attacked you first, Sogolon,” I said.
“And he never attack you at all.”
“Maybe my runes work better than your runes.”
“You the one who can hound the boy. He might need you.”
We walked through thick forest bush until we came to see stars dancing across open savannah, where not far away was the house of a man who Sogolon said owed her. Mossi walked beside me but he winced often. Both of his knees were bruised, as was my elbow.
“I don’t know why you would know,” Mossi said to me.
“What would I know?”
“Why the boy’s trail goes hot, then in a blink goes cold, then hot again.”
Behind me walked the buffalo, and behind him, Sadogo.
“They are using the ten and nine doors,” I said.
SEVENTEEN
Divide the Kongor lord’s house by six. A house that is but a room, with an arch door, and walls of clay and mortar. Now put another room on top of that one, then another, then another, and another, then one more and one more on top of that, with a roof that curves like when the moon cuts herself in half. That was this man’s house, a house that looked like just one column was cut off and sent to the Dolingo mountain roads. This lord waited outside his hut, chewing khat, and was not surprised when we approached. It was three nights since we left Kongor. Sogolon nearly fell off the horse trying to dismount. The man pointed inside and the girl helped Sogolon in. Then he sat back down on his stoop and chewed.
“Look up inna the sky, woi lolo. You be seeing it? You be seeing the things?”
Mossi and I both looked up, him as unclear as me.
“You not be seeing the divine crocodile eat the moon?”
Mossi took my arm and said, “Dost you know anyone not mad?”
I did not answer him, and he would not have known had I asked, but I wondered if I was the only one who noticed that this man looked exactly like the house lord back in Kongor. Leopard would have noticed. He would have said so.
“Do you have a brother north of here?” I asked.
“Brother? Ha, my mother, she going tell you that one boy was one too many. She still living too, my mother, still testing me to die first. But he lick her hard, don’t he do? He lick her down hard. Harder than all her blood spirit them.”
“Blood spirit?”
“He lick her down, that mean he close, that mean he right back of you. You know who I speak?”
“Who are the blood spirits?”
“Never in this world or any of the other world I mention him name. The one with the black wings.” Then he laughed.
That morning, the girl painted runes on Sogolon’s door with white clay.
“Did she teach you this when you were both gone?” I asked of her, but she said nothing.
I wanted to tell her that she was wasting her contempt on me, but kept quiet. She saw me coming to the door and blocked me. Her lips shut tight, her eyes narrowing in a stare, she looked like a child told to watch over the younger children.
“Woman-child. Neither might nor craft will stop me from entering this room.”
She grabbed her knife but I slapped it out of her hand. She reached for another and I looked at her and said, “Try to stab me with it.” She stared at me for a long time. I watched her lips quiver and her brow frown. She stabbed at me, suddenly, but her hand shot past my chest. She stabbed again and the knife in her hand bounced back at her. She stabbed and stabbed, aiming for my chest and neck, but her knife wouldn’t touch me. She aimed for my eye and the knife shot over my head. I caught it. She tried to knee me in the balls but I caught her knee and pushed her through the door. She staggered backways and almost fell.
“The two of you have too much time,” Sogolon said from the window.
I stepped inside to see one pigeon fly from her hands. She reached in a cage and pulled out another. Something red was wrapped around its foot.
“A message for the Queen of Dolingo to expect us. They don’t show kind to people who come with no announcement.”
“Two pigeons?”
“There are hawks in these skies.”
“How go you today?”
“I go good. Thank you for the concern.”
“If you were a Sangoma and not a witch, you wouldn’t need to draw runes everywhere you go, and suffer attack if you forget one. The things you have to keep in your mind all at once.”
“Such is the mind of all womenfolk. I forget how big it be, Dolingo. All you can see from here is the mountain pass. It will take another day to be among its trees—”
“A hundred fucks for Dolingo. We shall have words, woman.”
“What you speaking to me about now?”
“We speaking about many things, but how we start with this boy? If the Aesi is after him and the Aesi stands behind the King, so is the King.”
“That is why they call him the Spider King. I tell you this over a moon ago.”
“You told me nothing. Bunshi did. Everything about the boy was in the writs.”
“Nothing about this boy in no writs.”
“Then what did I find in the library before they burned it down, witch?”
“You and the pretty prefect?” Sogolon said.
“If you say he is.”
“And yet you still to escape. Either you too hard to kill, or he not trying hard to kill you.”
She looked at me, then went back to the window.
“This is between us two,” I said.
“Too late for that,” Mossi said, and walked in the room.
Mossi. Sogolon’s back was to us but I saw her shoulders tighten. She tried to smile.
“I don’t know what people call you, other than prefect.”
“Those who call me friend call me Mossi.”
“Prefect, this not your move. Best thing for you is you turn around and go back for—”
“As I said. Too late for that.”
“If one more man interrupt me, before I finish what I say. This is no mission to find drunk fathers, or lost child and send them home, prefect. Go home.”
“Sun’s set on that thanks to all of you. What home is there for the prefect? The chieftain army will think all on the roof were killed with my blade. You don’t know them as I do. They’ve already burned down my house.”
“Nobody ask you to push up youself.”
He stepped right in and sat down on the floor, his legs spread wide apart, and pulled his scabbard around so it rested between them. Scabs on both knees.
“And yet plenty is upon me, whether you asked or not. Who do you have good with a sword? I was doing what I was paid to. That I no longer have that calling is your fault. But I bear no malice. And man should never turn down great sport or great adventure, I think. Besides, you need me more than I need you. I’m not as aloof as the Ogo, or simple as the girl. You never know, old woman. If this mission of yours excites me, I may do it for free.”
Mossi pulled out of his satchel a bunch of papyrus leaves folded small. I knew from the smell before I saw what they were.
“You took the writs?” I said.
“Something about them had the air of importance. Or maybe just sour milk.”
He smiled but neither I nor Sogolon laughed.
“No laughter to you people below the desert. So, who is this boy you seek? Who presently has him? And how shall he be found?”
He unfolded the papers, and Sogolon turned around. She moved in closer, but not so close it would look like she was trying to read them.
“The papers look burn,” she said.
“But they fold and unfold like papers untouched,” Mossi said.
“Those are not burns, they are glyphs,” I said. “Northern-style in the first two lines, coastal below. He wrote them down in sheep milk. But you knew this,” I said.
“No. Never know.”
“There were glyphs of this kind all over your room in Kongor.”
She glared at me quick, but her face smoothed. “I don’t write non
e of them. Is Bunshi you must ask.”
“Who?” Mossi said.
“Later,” I said, and he nodded.
“I don’t read North or coastal mark,” Sogolon said.
“Well fuck the gods, there is something you cannot do.” I pointed at Mossi with my chin. “He can.”
The room had a bed, though I was sure Sogolon never slept on one. The girl went beside her, they whispered, then she went back to the door.
“The writ the prefect holding be just one. Fumanguru make five, and one come across where I stay. He say the monarchy need go forward by going back, so that make me want to know more. You read the whole writ?”
“No.”
“Don’t have to. Boring once he stop talking about the King. Then he just turn into one more man telling woman what to do. But for what he say about the King, I find him one night.”
“Why would anything about the elder and the King concern you?” I said.
“It never was for me. Why you think no man can touch me, Tracker?”
“I—”
“Don’t bother with the smart tongue. I didn’t call on him for me, but for somebody else.”
“Bunshi.”
She laughed. “I find Fumanguru because I serve the sister of the King. From what he write, he sound like the one man who understand. The one who could look past his own fattening belly to see what wrong with the empire, the kingdom, how the North Kingdom being plagued by evil and misfortune and malcontent for as long as a child know the kingdom. Your eyes pass the part where he talk about the history of kings? The line of kings, this I know. That who succeed the King change when Moki become King. He not supposed to be King. Every King before him was the oldest son of the King’s oldest sister. So it was written for hundreds of years. Until now we have Kwash Moki.”
“How did he become King?” Mossi said.
“He murdered his sister and all under her roof,” I said.
“And when the time come Moki send his oldest daughter to the ancient sisterhood where no girl can become a mother. That way his oldest son, Liongo, become King. And so it go for year after year, age after age that when we come to Kwash Aduware, everybody forget how one become King and who can become King, so that even the faraway griots start singing that so always be the way. This land curse ever since,” Sogolon said.
“But all the griots’ songs sing of winning wars and conquering new lands. When exactly did a curse happen?”
“Look behind the palace wall. The records show all the children who live. You think it going show all the children who die? Too many dead sons mean the royal blood weak. Records, do they tell you of the three wives Kwash Netu have before he find one that would give him a prince? Kwash Dara lose his first brother to plague. And have three slow sisters because his father breeding concubines. And one uncle as mad as a southern king, and death strike nearly every wife who don’t give him a son. In which book all of that write? Rot run through the whole family. Here is a question and answer it true. When you last see rain in Fasisi?”
“And yet there are trees.”
“Defeat is not the problem. Victory is.”
Even Mossi leaned in when he heard that. Sogolon finally turned around, and sat in the windowsill. I almost expected Bunshi to come seeping down the wall.
“Yes, the great kings of the North make war and win plenty, but they always want more. Free lands, lands in fuss. Those cities, and towns that not take a side. They cannot help themself, man raise by man, not woman. Woman not like man, they don’t know gluttony. Each kingdom, spread wider, each king get worse. The South kings get madder and madder because they keep making incest with one another. The North kings get a different kind of mad. Evil curse them, because they whole line come out of the worst kind of evil, for what kind of evil kill he own blood?”
“More interested in questions where the answer is the boy,” I said.
“You said you know him? Tell me what you know,” Sogolon said.
I turned to Mossi, who was looking at us, back and forth, like somebody who had not yet decided who to believe, who to follow. He rubbed his young beard, longer and redder than I remembered it, and looked at the papers he held in his hand.
“Mossi, read it.”
“Gods of sky—no, lords of sky. They no longer speak to spirits of the ground. The voice of kings is becoming the new voice of the gods. Break the silence of the gods. Mark the god butcher, for he marks the killer of kings. The god butcher in black wings. And the rest?”
“Please.”
“Take him to Mitu, to the guided hand of the one-eyed one, walk through Mweru and let it eat your trail. Take no rest till Go.”
Sogolon shook her head. She had never read or heard this before, and knew that I knew it.
“So Fumanguru say take the boy to the one-eyed one in Mitu, walk through the Mweru, and then head to Go, a city that only live in dreams. And the Aesi is the butcher of gods? Maybe I choose a wrong man in Basu,” Sogolon said.
“You dare say that now? It was your choosing that led to his death,” I said.
“Watch your tongue,” said the girl.
“Did I hold a knife to his neck and say, Fumanguru, do this? No.”
“Mark the god butcher, for he marks the killer of kings,” I said.
“And?”
“Leave playing the fool to the girl, Sogolon. The god butcher is the Aesi. The killer of kings is the boy.”
Sogolon laughed, soft like a grin at first, then a loud howl.
“They are prophecies, are they not? Of some child—”
“What kind of prophecy rest hope on a child? Which prophet so fool? Witch bitches from the Ku? On a little thing that not going live ten years? Your pretty prefect come from a place where people never stop with the talk of magic children. Children of fate, people put all hope in them. All hope in a thing that stick a finger in he nose and eat what he pull out.”
“And yet that prophecy makes more sense than the horseshit you and the fish keep selling,” I said. “I took this road with you because I thought it would go somewhere. This boy is as much proof the King killed Fumanguru as a cut on a donkey’s ass. You still clutch it in the breast, the truth. I know what you put in my way to not find, Sogolon, including that you were at Fumanguru’s house and tried to use a spell to hide it. That you have been looking for ways to find the boy yourself so that you would not need me. You even had one whole moon to do it, and yet here we are. You are right, Bunshi is not your master. But she is not used to lying to men. She nearly went mad when I caught her double-tongue. And what is this girl anyway? You go off in some secret door and make her play with spears and knives and now she calls herself warrior? Is this another person who will die while you watch? I see that too, witch, for that you can also blame the Sangoma. She’s more powerful dead than alive.”
“I tell only truth.”
“So either you are a liar or you have been lied to. I sniffed you out every step of the way, Sogolon. The night Bunshi told me Fumanguru ran afoul of his own elders, I went to see an elder. Then I killed him when he tried to kill me. He also wanted to know about the writs. He even knew about Omoluzu. Your fish told me the boy was Fumanguru’s son, but he had six sons, none of them the boy. The day before we met you, the Leopard and I followed the slaver to a tower in Malakal, where he kept a woman with the lightning sickness inside her. Bibi was there too, and Nsaka Ne Vampi. So either you were dropping nuts like a trail for the bird to pick and follow, or your mask of control is just that, and you control nothing.”
“Watch your mouth. Do you think I need a man? I need you is what you thinking? I know the ten and nine doors.”
“And you still couldn’t find him.”
Mossi went to stand behind me. Sogolon stared, frowned for a blink, then smiled.
“What is his use, you said to me when you saw the Leopard’s boy. A woman like you keeps the grains and burns the chaff,” I said.
“Give me the meat and not the fat, then.”
“You need me. Or you would have been rid of me a moon ago. Not only do you need me, you waited a whole moon for me. Because I can find this boy; your door only makes it more quick.”
“He is with you?”
“Mossi is his own man. We have come a long way, Sogolon. Longer than I would have ever gone on half-truths and lies, but something about this story … no, that’s not it. Something about you and the fish shaping this story, controlling so hard how each of us reads it, that turned into the only reason I came. Now it will be the only reason I leave.”
I turned to walk away. Mossi paused for a second, looking at Sogolon, then turned.
“It right there. Read it. Everything right there. Now you waiting on me to put it together for you like your name is child.”
“Be a mother, then.”
“Pretty prefect, read that line again.”
Mossi pulled the papers out of his pouch again.
“Lords of sky. They no longer speak to—”
“Jump over that.”
“As you wish. Mark the god butcher, for he marks the killer of kings.”
“Stop.”
Sogolon looked at me as if she’d just made everything plain. I almost nodded, thinking I must be a fool to still not see it. I would have left it there too.
“Your little boy is a prophesied assassin who will kill the King?” Mossi said before I could say it. “You want us to find the boy fated by some fool to commit the worst crime one could ever commit. Even this talk right now is treason.”
He was still a man following his uniform, even now.
“No. That would take least ten more years, if it was true. A bad slave and terrible mistress? Why you think it say take him to the Mweru, where no man come back from alive? And to Go, which no people ever see? Killer of kings mean killer of the depraved line, rejected by the gods, or else why would the Spider King join so close to the god butcher? The boy not here to kill no King. He is the King.”
Both Mossi and I stood silent, the prefect more stunned than me. I said to Sogolon, “You trusted this prince to a woman who sold him as soon as she had the chance.”
Sogolon turned back to the window.
“People are deceitful above all things. What can one do?”
