by Marlon James
“A marriage to a prince make your child legitimate. And when the true line of kings return he can claim before all lords.”
“Fuck all lords. All these kings also come from the womb of woman. What is to stop this man-child from doing just as all other man has done? Kill all men.”
“Then rule them, princess. Rule them through him. And leave this place.”
“What if I like this place? In Fasisi even the winds conspire against you.”
“If it is your wish to stay, then stay, mistress. But as long as your brother is King, plagues above the earth and below will visit even this place.”
“No plague has visited so far. When is this pestilence taking place? Why not now?”
“Maybe the gods give you time to prevent it, Your Excellence.”
“Your tongue is too smooth. I do not fully trust it. Let me see this man, at least.”
“He will come to you disguised as eunuch. If he pleases you then we will find an elder who cares for our cause.”
“An elder? So we are doomed to be betrayed, then,” she say.
“No, mistress,” I say.
I bring the prince from Kalindar. No man put down foot in Mantha for one hundred years, but many eunuchs. None of the women would ask the eunuch to lift he robes for the scars show horrendous knife craft. But at the great entrance stand the big guard, daughter from a line of the tallest women in Fasisi, who grab the crotch and squeeze. Before, I tell this prince, this is what you do, forget you great discomfort and do not betray your unease or they will kill you at the gate and not care that they kill a prince. Take your balls and feel for each, then push them out of the sac up into your bush. Take your kongkong and pull it hard between your legs until it touch near your bottom hole. The guard will feel you ball skin, hangin’ on both sides of the kongkong, and think you are a woman. She will not even look at your face. The Prince make it all the way to Lissisolo chamber before he remove veil and robe. Tall, dark, thick in hair, brown in eyes, thick and dark in lips, pattern scars above the brows and down both arms, and many year younger in age. All he know was that this is a crown princess and he will see title.
“He will do,” Lissisolo say.
I did not have to go find the elder. Seven moon, and the elder find me. Fumanguru finish the writs, then send a message under the ewe drum that only devout women could hear, for he play it like a devotional, saying he have words for the princess and tidings that may be good, may be bad, but will certainly be wise. I ride horse seven days to meet him, and tell him that his wish, his prophecy, it real, but her son cannot be born a bastard. We ride back in another seven days, me, the elder Basu Fumanguru, and the Prince from Kalindar. Some of the sisters know, some do not. Some know that whatever be taking place was of great importance. Others think new people come and violate the sacred hymen of Mantha, despite that for years upon years the fort was a place for men. I ask some not to speak of what was happening, and I threaten others. But as soon as that boy is born I know he not safe. The only place safe for him is the Mweru, I tell the princess, who would not lose a child again. Keep him here and you most certainly will lose him again, for a sister done betray us, I tell her. And indeed it play true. This sister, she leave at night, not to travel what would be ten and five days by foot, but she go far enough to release a pigeon. She set the pigeon free before I reach her, but I get out of her that she send them back to a master in Fasisi. Then I slit her throat. I go back and say to the princess, No time leave. A message already on the way to court. We take him to Fumanguru that night, knowing it would take seven days, and the princess we leave with another sect of wisewomen loyal to the Queen of Dolingo. The boy stay with Fumanguru three moons and live like him own. You know how the rest go.
We sat there in the morning room feeling the quiet. Mossi, behind me, his breathing grew slow. I wondered where the Ogo was, and how much of the morning was gone. Sogolon was looking out the window so long that I went beside her to see what she was looking at. That is why the boy ran by my nose one blink and vanished the next. Also why sometimes he was a quartermoon, sometimes five moons away.
“I know they are using the ten and nine doors,” I said.
“I know you know,” she said.
“Who is this they?” said Mossi.
“I know of only one by name, and only because of who he leave behind him, most of them womenfolk. The people in the Hills of Enchantment call him Ipundulu.”
“Lightning bird,” whispered the old man. A harsh whisper, a curse under his breath. Sogolon nodded at him and turned back to the window. I looked outside and saw nothing but noon coming to pass. I was about to say, Old woman, to what do you look, when the old man said, “Lightning bird, lightning bird, woman beware of the lightning bird.”
Sogolon turned around and said, “You about to give us song, brother.”
He frowned. “I talking ’bout the lightning bird. Talk is just talk.”
“That is a story you should tell them,” she said.
“The Ipundulu is—”
“In the way of your ancestors. In the way you raise to do.”
“Singer men don’t sing songs no more, woman.”
“Lie you speaking. Southern griots they still be. Few and in secret but they still be. I tell them about you. How you keep to memory what the world tell you to forget.”
“The world have him father name.”
“Many a man sing.”
“Many don’t sing at all.”
“We will have verse.”
“You the ruler over me now? You giving me orders?”
“No, my friend, I giving you a wish. The southern griots—”
“There is no southern griots.”
“Southern griots speak against the King.”
“Southern griots speak the truth!”
“Old man, you just say there be no southern griots,” Sogolon said.
The old man walked over to a pile of robes and pulled them away. Underneath was a kora.
“Your King, he find six of we. Your King, he kill them all, and not one he kill quick. Do you remember Babuta, Sogolon? He come to six of we, among them Ikede, who you know, and say, Enough with hiding in caves for no reason, we sing the true story of kings! We don’t own truth. Truth is truth and nothing you can do about it even if you hide it, or kill it, or even tell it. It was truth before you open your mouth and say, That there is a true thing. Truth is truth even after them who rule send poison griots to spread lie till they take root in every man’s heart. Babuta say he know a man in the court of the King who serve the King, but loyal to the truth. The man say the King come into knowledge of you since he have belly walkers on the ground and pigeons in the sky. So gather your griots and let a caravan take them to Kongor, for they can live safe among the books of the house of records. For the age of the voice is over and we in the age of the written mark. The word on stone, the word on parchment, the word on cloth, the word that is even greater than the glyph for the word provoke a sound in the mouth. And once in Kongor, let men of writing save words from lips and in that way they may kill the griot but can never kill the word. And Babuta say, back in the red caves stinking with sulfur, that this be a good thing, my brothers. This sound like we should take the man for his word. But Babuta is from the time when word fall like waterfall in a room and even smell like truth. And the man say, When the pigeon land at the mouth of this cave, in the evening two days from now, take the note from its right foot and follow the instructions of the glyphs, for it will tell you where to go. Do you know of the way of the pigeon? It flies in one direction, only to where is home. Unless they are bound by witchcraft, to think home is an otherwhere place. Babuta say to the man, Watch me now, no man here ever wished to read, and the man say, You will know when you see the glyphs, for the glyphs talk like the world. And Babuta approach the others, and Babuta approach me, and say this is a good thing, we must no longer live like dogs. And so instead we go to the hall of books and live like rats, I say. There is nobody in the
King’s court any half imbecile should trust. And he say, Go suck a hyena’s teat for calling me a fool, and I leave the cave for I know it marked and I start to wander. Babuta and five man wait by the cave, day and night. And it come to pass three night hence that the pigeon land at the cave mouth. No drum ever beat. No drums ever tell where Babuta and the five go. But nobody ever see them again. So there be no southern griots. There be me.”
“That was a long story,” Sogolon said. “If not verse then no verse. Tell them about the lightning bird. And who travel with him.”
“You see how they work.”
“So have you.”
“One of you stop staring at the shit and tell us the story,” Mossi said. And it was going to be the first time he didn’t irritate me, had he not smiled at me when he said it.
The man sat down on the bed that Sogolon never sleeps in and said, “A wicked word come from the West, ten and four nights previous. A village right by the Red Lake. A woman say to her neighbor, Is one quartermoon now we don’t see anybody from that house, three hut down the left. But they is quiet folk who keep their own company, another woman say. But not even the spirit of the breeze this quiet, another say and they go to the hut to look see. All around the hut death be stinking, but the foul coming from dead beasts, from cows and goats slaughtered not for food but for blood and sport. The fisherman, his first wife and second wife, and three sons dead but they did not smell. How to describe a sight strange even to the gods? They were all gathered around like worship fetishes, piled up as if about to burn. They have skin like tree bark. Like the blood, the flesh, the humors, the rivers of life, something suck it all out. The first and second wife, both of them chest cut open and they heart rip out. But not before he bite them all over the neck and rape them, leaving his dead seed to grow rot in they womb. You already call him name.”
“Ipundulu. Who is his witch? He roaming loose like he not under command anymore?” Sogolon asked.
“He not. The witch who control him die before she could pass ownership to she daughter, so Ipundulu change back into the lightning bird and grab the daughter with him claws, and fly with her high and high and high, then let her go. She hit the ground and smash to juice. This is how you know he seed was in the two wife. For little drops of lightning was falling out of they kehkeh even after they start rot. The Ipundulu he the handsomest of men, he skin white like clay, whiter than this one, but pretty like him too.”
He pointed at Mossi.
“Ayet bu ajijiyat kanon,” Mossi said, and surprised everyone.
“Yes, prefect, he is a white bird. But he not good. He evil as people think. Worser. Ipundulu because he handsome and he in a gown white like he skin, think woman come to him free, but he infect they mind as soon as he enter the room. And he open he gown which is not no gown but his wings and he not wearing no robes, and he rape them, one then two, and most he kill and some he make live, but they not living, they living dead with lightning running through they body where blood used to run. I hear rumors that he change man too. And watch if you step to the lightning bird and he know for he change into something big and furious and when he flap him wing he let loose thunder which shake the ground and deaf the ear and knock down a whole house and lightning that shock your blood and burn you to a black husk.
“This is how it happen in a house in Nigiki. A hot night. See a man and a woman in a room, and a cloud of flies above a bed mat. He a handsome man, neck long, hair black, eyes bright, lips thick. Too tall for the room. He grin at the cloud of flies. He nod at the woman and she, naked, bleeding from the shoulder, walk over. Her eyes, they gone up in her skull and her lips, just quivering. She covered in wetness. She walking to him, her hands stiff at the side, stepping over her own clothes and scattered sorghum from a bowl that shatter. She comes closer, her blood still in his mouth.
“He grab her neck with one hand and feel her belly for sign of the child with the other. Dog teeth grow out of his mouth and past his chin. His fingers roughing between her legs, but she still. Ipundulu point a finger at the woman’s breast and a claw pop through the middle finger. He press deep into her chest and blood pump up, as he cut her chest open for the heart. The cloud of flies swarming and buzzing, and fattening up with blood. Flies pull away for a blink and is a boy on the mat, covered in pox holes like chigger. From the pox holes worm burrow out, ten, dozens, hundreds, pop out of the boy’s skin, unfold wings and flying off. The boy’s eyes wide open, his blood dripping onto the bed mat also cover in flies. Bite, burrow, suck. Him mouth crack open and a groan come out. The boy is a wasp nest.”
“Adze? They working together?” Sogolon said.
“Not them two alone. Others. Ipundulu and Adze, they two suck the body life out but they don’t drain it to a husk. That be the grass troll, Eloko. He only hunt alone or with his kind, but since the King burn down his forest to plant tobacco and millet, they join anyone. A lightning woman, this be her story. This is what happen when Ipundulu suck out all the blood but stop before he suck out the lifeblood, and breed lightning into her and leave her mad too. A southern griot pull all of this out of her mouth, but he never make no verse out of it. There be those three and two more, and another one. This is what I telling you. They working together. But Ipundulu leading them. And the boy.”
“What of the boy?” Sogolon asked.
“You know the story yourself. They use the boy to get into woman the house.”
“They force the boy.”
“Same thing,” he said. “Also this. Another one following them three or four days later, for by then the rotting body and the stinking humors is a pleasing scent to him. He cut them open with he claws and drink the stinking rot juice, then eat the flesh till he full. He used to have a brother till somebody kill him in the Hills of Enchantment.”
I looked at them as plain as one could.
“They using the boy, Sogolon,” the man said.
“I say nobody ask about—”
“They turn the boy.”
“Look here.”
“They make the boy into—”
A gust, thick like a storm, blew up from the floor and kicked everybody against the wall. The angry wind hissed, then flew out the window.
“Nobody make the boy into nothing. We find the boy, and—”
“And what?” I said. “What does this man say to displease you?”
“Don’t you hear it, Tracker? How long has the boy been missing?” Mossi said.
“Three years.”
“He’s saying the boy is one of them. If not a blood drinker, then under necromancy.”
“Don’t provoke her. She will blow the roof off next,” the old man said.
Mossi gave me a look that said, This little old woman? I nodded.
“Tracker right. They are using the ten and nine doors,” Sogolon said.
“And how many doors have you been through?” Mossi asked.
“One. It is not good for one such as me to go through that door. I get my calling from the green world and that travel violate the green world.”
“A very long way to say that gates are bad for witches,” I said. “You need me and my Sangoma craft to open them for you. And even passing through each door weakens you.”
“What a man, he know me more than I know myself. Write my song for me then, Tracker.”
“Sarcasm always masks something else,” Mossi said.
“How quickly the Leopard get replace.”
“Shut your face, Sogolon.”
“Ha, now my loose tongue will be a river.”
“Woman, we lose time,” the old man said to her, and she quieted herself. He stepped over to the chest and took out a huge parchment.
Mossi said, “Old man, is this what I think it is? I thought these were uncharted lands.”
“What do you two speak of?” I asked.
The old man unrolled the scroll. A big drawing, in brown, blue, and the colour of bone. I have also seen the like; there were three in the palace of wisdom, but I did not
know what they were or what was their use.
“A map? Is this a map of our lands? Who did such a thing? Such masterful craft, such detail, even of the eastern seas. Was this from a merchant in the East?” Mossi said.
“Men and women in these lands have mastered crafts too, foreigner,” Sogolon said.
“Of course.”
“You think we run with lions and shit with zebra so we cannot draw the land or paint the buffalo?”
“That is not what I meant.”
Sogolon let him go with a huff. But this map thing made him grin like a child who stole a kola nut. The man dragged it to the center of the room and placed two pots and two stones at the corners. The blue pulled me in. Light like the sky, and swirls of dark blue like the sea itself. The sea but not like the sea, more like the sea of dream. Bobbing out of the sea, as if leaping on land, were creatures great and small, grand fishes, and a beast with eight tails gobbling a dhow boat.
“I have been waiting to show this to you, the sand sea before it was sand,” the old man said to Sogolon.
Which waters are these? I said to myself.
“A map is just a drawing of the land, of what a man sees so that we too may see it. And plot where to go,” Mossi said.
“Thank the gods for this man to tell us what we already know,” Sogolon said. Mossi kept quiet.
“You mark them in red? Based on what wisdom?” Sogolon asked.
“The wisdom of mathematics and black arts. Nobody travel four moons in one flip of a sandglass, unless they move like the gods, or they using the ten and nine doors.”
“And this is them,” I said.
“All of them.”
Sogolon kneeled and Mossi stooped down, the man excited, the woman silent and with a frown.
“Where you last hear anything about them?” she said.
“The Hills of Enchantment. Twenty and four nights ago.”
“You draw an arrow from the Hills of Enchantment to … where does this point, to Lish?” Mossi said.
“No, from the Hills to Nigiki.”
“This one points from Dolingo to Mitu, but not far from Kongor,” I said.
