Near two moons ago. Keme hear this from somebody, who hear it from somebody who attend the King. This was the custom, he say, that as soon as the King wake, especially if he rise in a bed that he was not supposed to fall asleep in, the Aesi is there to bid him good morning, tell him in which day we live—for wine would still be clouding his head—have some servant wash his face, sweeten his breath, brush his hair with warm oil, help him choose his private robe, hold his chamber pot for the royal expulsion, and wipe clean the royal backside. Always in such order. But on that morning the Aesi don’t come. Kwash Moki wake up in a room he don’t recognize that lead out to a hallway he don’t know, to the window of a castle he can’t remember. Word is wind, but word is true that terror grip the King, for first he is thinking that somebody done kidnap him. Back in the room sleep the women and men who never expect to wake up in the presence of the King either. At least one of them, a man, know that at some time in the deep night, the Aesi was supposed to appear as if he was always there and drive everybody from the room so the King could wake up thinking he rise from pure sleep. So when this King wake up naked under arms and thighs not his own, faces he don’t know, bodies on top of bodies, between bodies and inside bodies, terror seize his heart. He pull himself free from the tangle of so much skin touching him, stagger to the first door he ever had to open by himself, and flee down a corridor that take him to a window with the sun waiting outside. The yelling is what wake up the castle, the King screaming that they release him right now. A serving girl see him first. A guard, second. They both have to avert their eyes since nobody dare see the King naked. Your Majesty, you are in the Red Castle, right across from your own, the guard say, but Kwash Moki not used to anybody speaking to him direct, so he don’t hear. They watch him talking long enough to realize that he was speaking to the Aesi about his unforgivable mistake. The guard take to his heels, to Kwash Moki’s castle, one assume, because in the quick, all five of the Aesi’s attending White Guards rush to the King, surrounding him in the flurry of their white robes, scrambling and fumbling with trying to act as the Aesi would. They try to drive all the entangled men and women from the room until the King scream that he wants his own damn bedchamber. Then guards try to find his robes, as the King promise a brutal round of lashes to every single person in his presence, a lash for whatever number he count to until they find them. Somehow they get him to the castle, but put the basin below his buttocks, and the chamber pot near his face. The King bellow again, wanting to know how come nobody knows which servant to call so that he does not go through the day an untidy, shit-filled fool with foul breath. By evening three of the White Guards are whipped for mistreating the King, with two more getting the lash for failing to know the Aesi’s whereabouts.
This go on for a half moon. The King waking terrified, the White Guards not knowing how to do anything in any way other than wrong, the people of court not knowing where and when to gather, the noblemen petitioning the King, not knowing how to appeal and who to, the gatehouse swelling with all the people waiting on audience with the Aesi before audience with the King. Fifth in command, stuck in all his customs and waiting on direction from fourth in command, who was waiting on third, who was waiting on second, who was waiting on the Aesi. Which mean nobody know whether to cook lamb or goat, or whether to raise the minimum or maximum price for slaves coming from the river. Nobody know whether to speak to the ambassador from Wakadishu first or Omororo. Nobody know how to rein in the unruly Sangomin, for there is nobody who don’t fear them.
First thing the soldiers do, they search the home of every virgin. Green Army and Red, for nobody was there to separate men by rank or skill. That is how Keme say it, which mean that is how he hear it pronounced as royal decree. No explanation come with the order, for why would a king need to explain? But all of Fasisi know, and if everyone didn’t they do now, that the Aesi has a thirst for young girls. Maybe some virgin decide she not going to give what he trying to take and take something from him instead. Keme go on three raids himself, three that he tell me, so perhaps more that he don’t. The first was to a girl not even ten in years, but she know to lock her windows at night. The second practice saying I not a virgin but then confess that she break her own hymen with her fingers and her mother cut her finger to drip blood on the sheets many moons ago so that man would believe it. The third don’t speak but the father do, shouting that he wouldn’t dare take another daughter after he ruin the first one so much that not even the nuns of Mantha would take her. I don’t tell Keme that I walk around Taha province hoping the wind (not wind) will blow what people saying to my ears, and this is what they say. That the Aesi visit girls’ houses at night and you can tell because before, the girl is all sweetness, and take care of her younger brothers, and is ready to marry. But after, she grow distant with eyes always open but looking at nothing and mouth always open but speaking air. Or she go mad, and red beside black make her scream. When the soldiers learn this, they change tactics, leaving the unspoiled girls for those talking nonsense and harming themselves. Still no Aesi.
“Mayhap he just done take leave of you, Your Majesty,” say one of the White Guards.
“As one does a prostitute one is tired of?” shout the King.
“No, my lord.”
“Do I tire you?”
“No, my liege.”
“Oh do tell me . . . whatever your name is, if your King puts you to sleep.”
A time glass don’t even flip before Kwash Moki order the guards to cut out the man’s tongue. That was when somebody spread word that maybe it was best to not tell the King that ten and one of the Green Army gone missing too. Everybody know this word come from the generals, in counsel with the elders, but nobody was taking credit. And keep the secret everybody do, until one of the White Guards with a little more ambition than the others, one thinking the Aesi was a position, not a man, say to the King, “Mighty Kwash Moki, there is word that ten and one of our soldiers have gone missing. Green Army, Your Magnificence.”
“My chancellor and my soldiers. You telling me a whole delegation is missing? What do their wives say?”
“Whose wives, Excellency?”
“The soldiers.”
“I . . . I didn’t ask, Majesty.”
“And what do my generals say?”
“Oh . . . I didn’t ask, Majesty.”
“So instead of facts, you come to me like some little eunuch spreading gossip. Hark, you must be a eunuch.”
“No, my lord.”
“Congratulations must be in order. For before this quartermoon is out, you shall become one.”
Then he call for his generals, who admit that just as many soldiers have not reported to the Green Army barracks for near on a moon. None of their wives could tell where they went, nor any of their mistresses. This was being handled as a case of desertion, nothing more. After all, a man of such esteem and rank as the Aesi would have no business with the Green Army.
Then the King call for all fetish priests in the region and send word to Juba and Kongor and beyond. The Queen-Mother-now-Queen ask him if it was wise to have it get out that the Aesi is missing, for many will look upon it now as him being vulnerable.
“Vulnerable? Vulnerable? Is he the King here, or me?” he say, and though he don’t order her tongue cut out, he make her know that he was thinking about it with a hard slap. And so it go, the King desperate to find the Aesi, but also desperate to not seem desperate.
“You think I don’t hear it?” he say to nobody and to everybody gathered in the throne room. Man, woman, beast, shifter, none of them knowing how to behave without the chancellor giving instructions. Nobody answer the King’s question, not even the King, but they all know what he is shouting about. Of course he hear it by now, for who is there to shield him from it, with the shield missing? The Spider King, he lose four of his legs, is what they say. They whisper it in Ugliko but shout it all over the streets of Taha, and make song and dance out of it in the floating city. The song come back to court, and somebody hear two hair crafters sing it in what they think is a locked bath chamber. The same evening Kwash Moki call them to the throne room. I hear you have a new song, so please delight us in verse, he say. The girls don’t know what to do, and even people at the back of the room could see them shake. They start to weep, but Kwash Moki say, What terrible song is this? You sound like kicked dogs. Sing the song. So they sing a song, the taller one first, a child’s song about a magic berry where if you bite into it everything eaten after taste sweeter than honey, even something sour, even something salty. The girls try to sing away their tears but only tremble and stammer. All everybody can do is watch as Kwash Moki rise from his seat, take a machete from one of the guards, trot over to the girls, and chop the taller one in the neck. The look in his face say it, that he was hoping to chop her head clean off. He yank away the machete and chop and chop until everything is off. Then he point the blood blade at the standing girl, blind with her own tears. She start to sing.
O’ Spider King, yea Spider King, where did your four limbs go?
Burn aloe wood oh, call Assaye Yaa, maybe he know.
Maybe he—
Kwash Moki point the machete at her and she is not the only woman who jump.