“Fine. Then I shall not care either. Then her witchmen and night nurses said it was so, that my seed was in her. The witchman made sure.”
“Why does a queen bed a foreigner she had only just met to have him leave his seed in her? And why is that a matter for the whole court? I tell you, Mossi, something is wrong about these lands.”
“And the Queen was cold as a mountaintop. She said nothing, and they warned me not to look straight at her. She didn’t look as if she was breathing. And everyone watched as if I was there to patch a hole in the floor.”
“Who warned you?”
“The guards who washed me.”
“Did they look like her? Skin so black it’s blue?”
“Isn’t that everyone we see?”
“We have seen neither slaves nor children.”
“You said that. She had a cage, Tracker. A cage with two pigeons. Strange pet.”
“Nobody keeps that disgusting animal as a pet. The Aesi uses pigeons. So does Sogolon. She said she was sending word to the Dolingon queen when I asked her.”
“Twice they made me spill inside her.”
“What did Sogolon say to you?”
“Nothing.”
“We should find the others.”
I grabbed his hand and pulled him quick into a doorway and held him.
“Tracker, what in all the fucks—”
“Men, two in number, following us.”
“Oh, the two men a hundred paces behind me, one in a blue cape and white robes, the other, open vest and white trousers like a horseman? Trying to look as if not in league with each other, but clearly walking together? I think, Tracker, they are following me.”
“We could lead them to that plank, and throw them off.”
“Are all your forms of fun this quick?”
I pushed him away. We kept on walking, past a number of steps I could not count, but I did notice the path took us right around the trunk, covered in little roofs, towers, and great halls, twice. And at almost every turn there was a new tree in the distance. And at every turn I was getting angry with Mossi and couldn’t explain why.
“A city with no children, and a queen hungry to get one, even from you. There is some honor in that, is there not?”
“No honor to such lowly customs.”
“And yet you dropped your robes, and rose to meet it.”
“What is burning you?” he said.
I looked at him. “I feel lost and I do not know what to do here.”
“How could you be lost? I am following you, so I am lost too.”
The men stopped waiting on us and were approaching.
“Maybe what you’re looking for is not a reason to fight, or to save the boy, but just a reason,” Mossi said.
“Fuck the gods if I know what that means.”
“I’ve spent my life on the chase for men. People are either running to, or running from, but you just seem to be cut loose. You have no stakes in this and why should you? But have you a stake in anything? In anyone?”
At this I wished for nothing more than to punch the next remark back into his mouth.
He looked at me, his eyes sharp, waiting for an answer. I said, “How shall we deal with these men? We have no weapons, but we do have fists. And feet.”
“Are they—”
“Do not turn around, they are upon us.”
The two men looked like monks, tall and very thin, one with the long hair and the cultivated face of a eunuch. The other, not as tall but still thin, looked at us for less than a blink before looking past us. Mossi clutched at his sword but there was no sword. They walked past us. Both smelled heavy of spices.
On the way back to my room not even the thought of the gods at peace could stop me from cursing.
“I cannot believe you fucked her.”
He spun around to me. “What?”
I stopped and turned back. Only one cart passed us. The street stayed empty, but you could hear buying, selling, and yelling down the bazaars in the lanes.
“You heard what I said. Thank the gods, I am just a low jungle boy,” I said. “She must think you’re an eastern prince.”
“You think that’s how it is, that you’re too low to be used and killed,” Mossi said.
“If she conceives you can thank the gods you are a father of multitudes. Like a rat.”
“Listen, you bush-fucker. Don’t judge me for something you would have done. Was there any choice? Do you think I even wanted to? What would you do, insult the Queen the night she gives you hospitality? What would have happened to us?”
“This is new waters for me. Never had I had a man fuck somebody else for my benefit. If she conceives they will come for you.”
“If she conceives they will come for everyone,” Mossi said.
“No, you.”
“Then let them come. They will learn there is one man who is not a coward in Dolingo.”
“I could strike you so hard right now.”
“You, the hound on two legs, thinks he can strike a warrior? I wish you would.”
I walked right up to him, my fists clenched tight, just as several men in the gowns of scholars came out of an alley and walked past us. Three turned around, walking with their group, but backward to look at us. I turned away and walked to my room. I didn’t want or expect Mossi to follow me, but he did and as soon as he came through the door I pushed him hard against the wall. He tried to push me off but could not, so he kneed me in the ribs, and they shifted like he broke one. The pain hit my chest and ran up to my shoulder. He pushed me off hard. I staggered, tripped, and fell.
“Fuck the gods,” he said, and sighed.
He offered a hand to pull me up, but I pulled him down, punching him in the stomach. He fell, yelling, and I jumped on him trying to punch him, but he grabbed my hands. I pulled, and we rolled and hit the wall, rolled to the terrace door, which opened and we almost fell out. I rolled on top again and grabbed his neck. He swung his two legs up from behind me, crossed them at my shoulder, and pushed me off, then jumped on me when I slammed into the floor. He punched but I dodged and he hit the wood and yelled. I jumped on him again, wrapping my arm around his neck, and he flipped backward, slamming hard into the floor with me underneath him, and the air pushed right out of my nose and mouth. I couldn’t move or see. He flipped under me, choking me with one arm and locking down my legs with his legs. I swung my one free arm and he caught it.
“Stop,” he said.
“Go fuck the prickle palm.”
“Stop.”
“I will kill—”
“Stop or I start breaking fingers. Are you going to stop? Tracker. Tracker.”
“Yes, fucking whorseson.”
“Apologize for calling my mother a whore.”
“I call your mother and your fath—”
I screamed the rest of the word out. He had pulled my middle finger so far back I could feel the skin about to pop.
“I apologize. Get off me.”
“I’m under you,” he said.
“Let go.”
“By the gods, Tracker. Flush this fury from you. We have bigger fusses than this. Will you stop? Please.”
“Yes. Yes. Yes.”
“Give me your word.”
“You have my fucking word!”
He let go. I wanted to turn around and punch him, or slap him if I couldn’t punch, or kick him if I couldn’t slap, or head-butt him if I couldn’t kick, or bite him if he caught my head. But I stood up and squeezed my finger.
“It is broken. You have broken it.”
He sat on the floor, refusing to get up.
“Your finger is no more broken than your ribs. Fingers are spiteful, though. If it is sprained it will stay sprained for a year.”
“I will not forget this.”
“Yes you will. You picked this fight because another deceived you long before I even met you. Or because I fucked a woman.”
“I am the biggest fool. You all look at me, the fool with the nose. I am just a hound, as you say.”
“I spoke harsh. In the middle of a fight, Tracker.”
“I am the hound from the river lands, where we build huts from shit, so I am nothing but the beast to all of you. And everybody had two plans, or three, or four, plans so they win, and everybody else lose. What is your second plan, prefect?”
“My second plan? My first plan was to find out who murdered an elder and his family, until I came across some people who would not leave their bodies alone. My second was not to follow a suspect to the library that got burned down. My second plan was not to kill my own prefects. My second plan was not to be on the run with a bunch of bastards who can’t even cross a road together, all because my brothers would kill me on sight. My second plan, believe it or not, was not to be stuck with such a sorry bunch of fellows because I have nowhere else to go.”
He stood up.
“Fuck yourself and your self-pity,” I said.
“My second plan is to save this boy.”
“You have no stake in this boy.”
“You are wrong. One night. It took one night to lose everything. But maybe everything was nothing if it could be lost so fast. This boy is now the only thing that will make my life seem as if the past few days have any sense to them. If I am going to lose everything, then fuck the gods and the devils if my life will not mean something. This boy is the only thing I have left.”
“Sogolon wants to save the boy herself. Maybe the girl and the buffalo as well to protect them on the way back to Mantha.”
“A thousand fucks for what Sogolon wants. She still needs you to find the boy. Here is a simple thing, Tracker. Give her no news.”