The girl grabbed her lance and raised it above her shoulder.
“You was awake all of last night?”
I looked straight at the girl. “Woman-child, what is this you doing? Sogolon teach you two lessons and you think you can throw a lance at me? Let’s see if your lance can pierce my skin before my ax splits your face.”
“He was awake all night, Sogolon. I was there with him,” Mossi said.
“You don’t have to vouch for me.”
“And you don’t have to keep making malice with people right beside you,” he said.
He shook his head as he walked past me. The girl helped Sogolon up. Sadogo came back holding his hands out as if he lost something.
“Your horse, she broke two legs,” he said. “Nothing to do but—”
“If the Aesi don’t jump in your dream, then he find some other way to follow we,” Sogolon said.
“Unless you mean the daydream of me between an Omororo prince and his comelier cousin, I will say no.”
“What about the prefect?”
“What about me?” Mossi said.
“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 none 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.”