“Because they share a love for black?”
“You the one seeking answers, wolf. This is known. Somebody entered the house of Basu Fumanguru and killed everyone. Nobody see no bodies and there were no burial rites. Imagine an elder of the city of Kongor dead with no tribute, no funeral, no procession of lords with a man of royal blood leading it, nobody even declaring him dead. Meanwhile thornbush sprung wild around the house overnight.”
“What do your elders say?”
“None come to me. Do you know he was killed on the Night of the Skulls?”
“I do not believe you.”
“That it was the Night of the Skulls?”
“That none of those chatty child-fuckers have seen you since.”
“I think the Seven Wings assemble for the King.”
“I think you dance away from the question.”
“Not how you think.”
“Lowly people all seem to know the ways of kings these days.”
He grinned. “I know this, though. People visit that house, including one or two of the elders. And maybe one or two Seven Wings. One not from here, they call him Belekun the Big, because that is how men around here joke. He was one who could not keep any of his holes shut, his mouth the worst. He came here with another elder.”
“How do you remember after three years?”
“It was last year. As they both took turns fucking a deaf girl, Miss Wadada heard also. Them saying that they need to find it. They need to find it now, or it will be the execution sword for them.”
“Find what?”
“Basu Fumanguru wrote a long writ against the King, they said.”
“Where is this writ?”
“People keep breaking in his house and not finding anything, so not there mayhaps?”
“You think the King killed him over a writ?”
“I think nothing. The King is coming here. His chancellor is in the city.”
“His chancellor visits Miss Wadada?”
“No, stupid Tracker. I have seen him, though. Kinglike but not the King, skin blacker than you and hair red like a new wound.”
“Maybe he will come sample your famous services.”
“Too pious. Holiness itself. As soon as I saw him I forgot when I first saw him and it was as if I was always seeing him. Do I sound like the fool?”
A dark man with red hair. A dark man with red hair.
“Tracker, you look gone.”
“I am here.”
“As I say, nobody can think of a time when he was not chancellor, but nobody can remember when he became so, or what he was before.”
“He was not chancellor yesterday, but has been chancellor forever. Did they kill all in Fumanguru’s house?”
“Maybe you should ask a prefect.”
“Maybe I will.”
He turned to look down in the street and wrapped the cloth over his head.
“One more thing. Come closer, one-eyed wolf.”
He pointed down into the street. I came up beside him as the clothes fell from him. He arched his back, his body was saying I could have him again right there. I turned to face him and he smiled a smile, all black. He blew it all in my face, black dust. Kohl dust, a large cloud in my eyes, nose, and mouth. Kohl dust mixed with viper poison, I could smell it. He looked at me deep, not with any malice, just with great interest, like he was told what would happen next. I punched him in the neck bump, then grabbed his throat and squeezed.
“They must have given you the antidote,” I said, “or you would have been dead by now.”
He coughed and groaned. I squeezed until his eyes bulged.
“Who sent you? Who gave you kohl dust?”
I pushed him hard. He fell back from the edge of the roof screaming and I caught his ankle. He kept flailing and yelling and almost slipped from me.
“By the gods, Tracker! By the gods! Mercy!”
“Mercifully release you?”
I eased my grip and he slipped. Ekoiye screamed.
“Who knew I would come to you?”
“No one!”
I let his ankle slip again.
“I don’t know! It’s an enchantment, I swear it. It must have been.”
“Who paid you to kill me?”
“It was not to kill you, I swear.”
“There is venom in this kohl. An ingenious thing like you must know of enchantments, so learn this. Nothing born of metal can harm me.”
“It was for anybody who ask. He never said kill you.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know! A man in veils, more veils than a Kongori nun. He come in Obora Dikka moon, in the Basa star. I swear it. He said blow kohl breath in the face of anyone who asks of Basu Fumanguru.”
“Why would anyone ask you of Basu Fumanguru?”
“Nobody ask until you.”
“Tell me more of this man. What colour his robes?”
“B-black. No blue. Dark blue, his fingers blue. No, blue in the fingernails like he dyes great cloths.”
“Are you sure he was not in black?”
“It was blue. By the gods, blue.”
“And what was to happen next, Ekoiye?”
“They said men would come.”
“You said he before.”
“He!”
“How would he know?”
“I was to go back to my room and release the pigeon in the window.”
“This story grows more legs and wings by the blink. What else?”
“Nothing else. Am I a spy? Listen, I swear by the—”
“Gods, I know. But I do not believe in gods, Ekoiye.”
“This was not to kill you.”
“Listen, Ekoiye. It is not that you lie, but that you don’t know truth. There was enough venom spewing from your mouth to kill nine buffalo.”
“Mercy,” he said, weeping.
Sweat made him slippery in my hand.
“The ever-dry Ekoiye breaks into sweat.”
“Mercy!”
“I am confused, Ekoiye. Let me retell this in a way that adds up to sense, for me and perhaps you. Even though Basu Fumanguru has been dead three years, a man in blue robes hiding his face still approached you, little more than a moon past. And he said, Should anyone speak of Basu Fumanguru, a man you would have no reason to know, take this antidote, then blow viper-soaked kohl dust in his face and kill him, then send word for me to pick up the body. Or not kill him, just put him to sleep as we can collect him as garbage mongers do for a fee. Is that all?”
He nodded, over and over.
“Two things, Ekoiye. Either you were not supposed to kill me, only leave me helpless so they can squeeze fact from me themselves. Or you were supposed to kill me but ask deeper questions before.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don—”
“You don’t know. You don’t know anything. You don’t even know if the antidote, the poison killer, kills the poison. Here I thought you were a wise boy trapped in an unwise life. No antidote ever kills the poison, Ekoiye, it only delays it. The most you live is eight years, maybe ten, pretty one. Nobody told you? Maybe there is not too much venom in you, and you live ten and four years. I still don’t understand why they came to you.”
Now he laughed. Loud and long.
“Because everybody comes to the pleasure monger later or sooner, Tracker. You cannot help yourselves. Husbands, chiefs, lords, tax collectors, even you. Like a pack of hungry dogs. Later or sooner you all come back to who you are. Like you pushing me down and fucking the little he-whore rough because you were a dog even before that eye. You know what I wish, man-fucker? I wish I had venom to kill the whole world.”
When I let him go he screamed all the way down. He would not be dead—the fall was not high enough. But he would break something, maybe a leg, maybe an arm, maybe a neck. I went back the way we came, passed under the same sounds of men fucking every last coin into wet rugs, and bolted the hatch behind me. The pigeon that he kept in a bamboo cage by the small window I took out and held gentle. The note wrapped around her left foot I removed. At the window I let it loose.
The note. Glyphs, the like I had seen before, but could not remember it. I pushed the birthing chair into the darkest corner of the room and waited. The window looked large enough. The door would mean that others knew about this arrangement, among them, Miss Wadada. I thought on this hard. Nothing could have happened under Miss Wadada’s roof without her knowing of such. But this too is so of the Kongori. If I did kill Ekoiye tonight, she would still welcome me tomorrow with a Take off those robes so I can see you, big stiff prince, and then send me off with her newest girl-boy.
Even as night grew deep the heat still crawled around, leaving my back sticking to the seat. I peeled off the wood and almost missed it, the kick of feet on the wall. Climbing without ropes, a man perhaps under enchantment, where whatever the foot touched became floor. Hands at the windowsill first, knuckles ashy. Hands pulled up the elbows, which pulled up the head. Black head wrap around the forehead and the mouth. Eyes, an opium-lover red, sweeping the room, locking with my eyes, but not seeing me. Shoulder robes in blue, a leather sash over the left shoulder. One leg in, and at the bottom of the sash, two sheaths for two swords and a dagger dangling. I waited until all of him was in and his long blue robes swept the floor.