“Because it was,” say a woman I never see before, dressed all in white, a nun. “It was both palace and fort in its first life. And a prison.” This nun take we inside past several rooms with devoted men painted on the ceilings, and several women in white, walking together, talking together, pouring libations in the open yard, tending to a rich garden, and sitting by their lonesome, eyes closed or staring at sky. One of them approach us and Nsaka nod her head, then kneel halfway. I just look at the woman, who don’t seem like anything until three women not far away scramble toward us and stoop behind her.
“How I supposed to be one with all sisterhood, if the sisterhood keep treating me like one apart?” she ask. “You hear the latest on me, Ne Vampi? That I take to the corridors at night and whisper to the gods that I curse them. Can you imagine? Was any woman ever so brave, or foolish?”
“Not you, Your Highness.”
“Only thing high about me now is where I live. And who is this?”
“My great-great-grandmother, Highness.”
“Great-great-grandmother. She barely looks like a mother. And you. What is your use?”
“To bring you into your royal purpose, Princess,” Nsaka say.
“Is she mute, Ne Vampi? No? Then let her speak.”
The princess lean in to me as if she was expecting to hear more. Nsaka glare at me and I look at her blank, even though I know full well why. But if she is just like any other nun in Mantha, I was not going to regard her any other way. I done with acknowledging royal anybody.
“Nothing about my purpose is royal and I am no princess, not anymore,” she say. “So why is great-great-grandmother here? For certain she doesn’t believe in the cause.”
“The river goddess—”
“Sprite. She is a sprite.”
“Bunshi thought she would be of use.”
“Of use. What kind of—”
“I kill people,” I say and observe the long silence that follow. “People call me the Moon Witch.”
“Witch. The world is fickle about witches.”
“The world is fickle about women.”
“Where in all this do you fit?”
“I not trying to fit,” I say.
* * *
—
There is a spring on the sunset side of Mantha, and from that spring, water rush down into a waterfall that gather in a pool in which the divine sisters, all one hundred twenty and nine, bathe. It is from this pool that up jump Bunshi, who frighten the younger sisters.
“We will send a man. It has all been arranged,” Bunshi say to Lissisolo in her chamber.
“I miss sweets. Did you bring any?” she reply.
“Highness?”
“No question was ever simpler. Yes or no?”
Bunshi, all black, still somehow looking confused. She turn to Nsaka.
“No sex, no sweets, no song, no joy, no men, no books, no verse, no wonder it is dark up here, even at noon,” Lissisolo say.
“I . . . I . . . It has been arranged, Your Highness.”
“Arranged. All this arranging going on and not a hand I had in it.”
“It was what was best, Princess.”
“Says who? Is my mind, my body, I dare to say that it is even my damn koo since I’m the one pissing out of it.”
“We can’t risk a—”
“Don’t interrupt me, Ne Vampi. 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.”
“What she was about to say, Highness, was that we couldn’t risk any trace coming back to you. The Aesi has spies still. Even in the sky.”
“So you find a man who will arouse no suspicion? You expect my son to be some plain man’s bastard?”
“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.”
“From Mitu. He will make your child legitimate. And when the true line of kings return he can claim the North 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.”
I laugh, but I am the only one doing it.
“Then rule them, Princess. Rule them through him.”
“Him. Rule through him. Why only him? What if it’s a girl? How come neither of you, none of you even bother to think that maybe what we need is a Queen? Surrounded by women, even a divine-born one and all you can plan for is yet another man to come and rule you. You have nothing to say to that?”
Even the breeze was making more sound than they. Nsaka look off into space, when I wanted her to look at my face and see the same question on it.
“You, you have anything to say?”
“It will be as the gods will it, Highness,” say Bunshi. “Make your destiny 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. Six kings—well, five and a quarter. And in that time, the empire expand to Wakadishu, the Purple City, all the way west to the Mweru and all the way south to the Blood Swamp. Not to mention even the river tribes send tribute and pay taxes. So when is this pestilence taking place? Why not now?”
“Maybe the gods give you time to prevent it, Your Excellency,” Nsaka say.
“Your tongue is too smooth. I do not fully trust it. Is your great-great-grandmother like you?”
“She is nothing like me, Highness.”
“Oh. I like her already,” Lissisolo say.
* * *
—
Though Kwash Dara banish the King Sister to where she would be all but dead to him, still he want her dead for real. All of this was clear as the smell of shit from that of a flower. And yet she struggle to believe it, for banishment was already like death, so why kill the dead? This is why you are here, Bunshi say to me, for there was a part of Lissisolo that still think the heart will in its time heal, that her love for her brother would overcome her hatred of him, and one day, not soon but still coming, he will himself come begging forgiveness and restore her to her rightful place. Instead he send an assassin every other moon to kill her. He, meaning the Spider King, meaning he, being the Aesi. First he send a flock of crows that swarm above us one evening as we walk. She didn’t even notice the light drizzle of blood landing on her white shoulders as I let the push explode each bird one by one. The second assassin Bunshi enter through the nostril and boil him from the inside. Four more I kill myself. In the forest between Mantha and Fasisi, one jump me from a tree and almost cut my throat. Another, because he knock me down, make the mistake of thinking he going to rape me first. I fuck him with a dagger and cut a koo all the way up to him neck. Sometimes the murder come in the food and wine to kill the hungry, greedy sister who steal a mouthful. Fruits that kill the cow we feed it to. Rice that burn a goat’s tongue off.
“Who knew the company of women could be so boring?” Lissisolo say to me on a hot night with most of the moon eaten away. She of late take to having me with her as some sort of guard. First I thought it was against any threat that might come to Mantha, until I see that it was to scare away the other nuns. But listener is really what she take me for. They have heard of your power, that you blew up the Aesi like a puffer fish until he exploded, she say.