“Show me. I am so very bored.”
I don’t waste time. The desire appear in my head, and out in the space it happen. The wind, the force, the push thicken the air enough that I walk up into the sky as if on steps. I climb high enough to spook birds. The princess clap as I step back down.
“You’re the closest thing to a not-boring woman that we have here.”
We’re out in the ramparts of Mantha’s highest tower. At two corners rise tall posts with roots and branches and leaves curling around up to the top, where stand two massive statues of dragons folding their wings, and two women with spears standing guard at the base. Two moons since I come here and I never seen this part, never seen the sky or the straight drop below.
“They tell me he will come disguised as a eunuch. If he please me then we will find an elder who cares for our cause.”
“An elder? So we are doomed to be betrayed then,” I say.
“I think you are here to make sure that doesn’t happen,” say the princess.
Then this happen in the quick. The nuns raise their spears at the sunset and the dragon statues blow fire and light them. My gasp turn into a quick scream that turn into a gasp. I didn’t run, for nobody else was running, but my feet set themselves to run like they have never set themselves ever. One hundred thirty and six years where I done see everything, and the two of them, with a flap of their wings and a snort of smoke, say that is not true.
“And they are just babies, I hear. A few more years and there is no controlling them,” Lissisolo say.
“Ninki nankas? Fuck the gods, how?”
I blink and stare at the post again. No thick roots, just a long, scaly, shiny tail wrapped all around the base. Head like a horse, ears like fans, with two small horns above the forehead and two large ones behind them. Neck as long as a giraffe before it reach the shoulder and the long limbs and claws like blades. Hair running all the way down the spine as if it just catch fire, but back skin like a crocodile. And wings. The little I know of ninki nankas never say nothing about wings. I can’t take my eyes off the dragons and the woman warriors at their feet, as if one is protecting the other. Then just so, the ninki nankas push themselves off the base and fly off, high first, then deep into the valley below. Both of them as long as six men head to foot, and they are just babies. I forget what she was saying to me and what I was going to say to her.
“You can stay and watch dragons. But bring yourself to my chambers as soon as night fall,” Lissisolo say.
* * *
—
The river sprite say preparations already afoot,” Lissisolo say in her room, which look like the room I stay in, like everybody else’s room, with linens on the floor, a headrest for sleeping, a jug for drinking, and a pot for pissing and shitting. Different rooms have different charms for different gods, and judging from all the blue gems and beads, and stone, and statues, this room was in devotion to the gods of lakes and sea. Rivers would be green, I guess.
“Maybe I am exactly where I supposed to be, anybody thinking about that? No. Not a one. All this thinking of history makes my head hurt. Both your great-great-granddaughter and your river sprite care about this more than me. I already had a son. Your kin and the goddess, are they together in an intimate way?”
“What? No! I never hear of it.”
“Hear of it? You two far from close, so why would you hear of it?”
“She talk of a man. Call him hers.”
“Like that mean anything in this world. My husband’s father’s father claimed me before I was born. Bunshi is here because a divine sprite need a purpose, something to bring her glory, otherwise the world forget her and she blow away like chalk dust. She will become immortal in the minds of men, not just with river spirits whispering. Even if not one word that come out her mouth is her own. Speak true, what this silly river sprite know about the natural order of the nine worlds? She still getting lost in this one. The gods feed her words, for whatever this Aesi is doing, it is harming the gods.”
“What he do?”
“Gods never tell, not even the fetish priests, for then we will know what make them weak.”
“Nobody cares.”
“Which is a symptom of their weakness. This time two years ago I was planning my son’s birthday ceremony. Take one whole year to plan his . . .”
Lissisolo stop. I think she is being silent until I see her trying to weep in secret. It make the room stop, waiting on her to let it out and regain herself. But she keep weeping, refusing to wipe her face, until the lamplight reflect itself in the wetness.
“Now I find myself thinking about the strange things. Why nobody ever tell me these things about death and living. That you remember the strange things, like the fact that we loved each other, my husband and I. A princess don’t need love, not really, certainly not the love of a man, but I did love him and something about the love made me stronger. Too bold, perhaps. Is boldness why I end up in this place.”
“Tell me about it,” I say.
“So I can flush it all out of my system and leave my head several weights lighter? So that I will walk like on air for the first time in years, and coo like a bird? So that I will get some peace magic, miss woman?”
“Because I want to know.”
She study my face hard, asking with her eyes if I really want to know. I reply with my eyes.
“My father, Kwash Netu. Really no different from his grandfather. He didn’t make it a royal decree that the firstborn sister must join the divine sisterhood, but he was going to uphold it. And he would say the same thing to me, that it’s not me, it’s the decree. After I reach ten and three, but before I reach ten and eight, I am to give myself over to the divine sisterhood, which sound like it is something I choose. Well, let ugly woman no man want become divine sister. Why would I push away great meats and soups and breads to eat millet and drink water with bitter, wrinkled dogs, and wear white for the rest of my days? Just so I ask all these wise men, including my father. Even that coward the Aesi, who hitch himself behind my father so tight that once I asked him if he’s a living chamber pot, just opening his mouth wide to receive my father’s shit. You should have seen the court laugh, indeed what a day! But he didn’t answer me and no other man either. Instead the men do like they say woman do and start rumors about me. This princess forget that she be princess and start to walk like a prince. A crown prince. Look how she ride horse, and strike and parry with sword, and string the bow, and play the lute, and amuse her father and scare her mother. My own mother say, What happen to the girl who used to live for new dresses, and food from the sand and sea. As if that have anything to do with what I want. So I say to my father, Send me to join the women warriors in Wakadishu, or send me to be hostage in a court in the South, and I will be your spy.