After a year, as I walk to the sacred hall to pour libations, she point at me and say, “What is your use?”
“To bring you into your royal purpose, princess.”
“Nothing about my purpose is royal and I am no princess,” she say.
Two moons, and she move me to her side. Women as equal but knowing she is the royal. Two moons after that, I telling her that the water goddess have greater purpose for her. Three moons more and she believe me, after I summon dew to lift me off the ground and above her head. No, not believe me, she believe that something more be to her life than a childless widow saying prayers to a goddess she hate. No, not belief, for she say, belief will get people around her killed. I say to her, No, my mistress, only belief in love do that. Accept it, return it, cherish it, but never believe love can do anything other than love. The year didn’t finish before Bunshi appear to her on the last hot night of the year, when nearly all the women, one hundred and twenty and nine, went to bathe in the waterfall with nymphs, to tell her the truth about her line, and why she will be the one to restore it. We will send a man, it has all been arranged, Bunshi said.
“Look at my life. All of it around a hole owned, ordered, and arranged by men. Now I must take that from womankind too? You know nothing of sisterhood, you’re just a pale echo of men. The true King will be a bastard? Did this water sprite also fall on her head at birth?”
“No, Your Most Excellent. We have found a prince in—”
“Kalindar. Another one? They seem to be everywhere, like lice, these kingdomless princes of Kalindar.”
“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.