“We come bearing news, Sister. It is not good, my brother say. That the prince consort and the children all fell from air sickness, for it is the season and they went where malevolent airs were prominent. They will be buried tomorrow, in ceremonies fit for princes, of course. But not near the royal enclosure, for they may still carry disease. He say more but I interrupt him. I mean this speck of shit on donkey’s backside that the tail can’t flick off, calling himself King—who I didn’t betray.
“What did you come down here for? A scream? A plea for my children? You sitting on a man’s back waiting for a woman to come undone? Is that what you waiting for? He tell me that he would leave me to grieve. I ask him if his wife hear him calling my name when he fuck her yet. I knew that would get to him. He jump up and kick out the guard, then leave the Aesi. Me and him alone, I almost say finally. He tell me the very next day I am to join the divine sisterhood, since that was my original destiny. He even wished me abiding peace. Give your peace to the grieving, I say. Grief sound like this is a tragedy, but this is a disgrace. I curse him so bad that he finally lose all Itutu and say he will kill me too. This imbecile compel me ask him if he really just come to my cell to confess murder. I curse him and his children and he run.”
That was enough talking for the night. I didn’t have anything to say to her, not even goodbye. She was doing all the talking, but I was the one who wake up tired. And yet as soon as she see me, she have more to say. And ask.
“I know why Bunshi is involved, but I don’t know what motivate Nsaka Ne Vampi,” she say.
“Money,” I say.
“No, that is you. There’s more to it for her. No. I am wrong. There is more for you as well. What is it?”
“Because a man take what is not his to take and it’s the same man who take everything from me. Then he take everything again. I am helping you because fuck him and fuck your brother. Fuck your kings and fuck all gods.”
“Your plan don’t sound like their plan. Yours sound like revenge.”
“Revenge? How am I going to take revenge on a god?”
“They say you killed him once.”
“I would kill him for good the next time but Bunshi have other plans.”
“Yes, I know about her plans. But I would want this Aesi dead too.”
“She say that is the wrong road to travel. That in his own way the Aesi is as bound to order as anybody else and if what we do line up in the order of things then even he have to submit to it.”
“You ever submit to order?” Lissisolo ask.
“No.”
“From what I know, whenever he is reborn he is weaker, is he not?”
“Yes. Sound like more reason to kill him, but Bunshi, like I say, have other plans.”
“Does that mean you think this is a good plan?”
I didn’t answer. She take that as the answer.
* * *
—
I meet the Prince of Mitu in the Longclaw woods, the cold mountain forest between the Mantha trail and the Fasisi border. I come on horseback, he come with five more men than we plan. I take the one with the gold helmet to be him and say that there is only passage for one. The others protest before he say that it will be only because they are dead why they would not be accompanying their liege, and I fight the urge to say that I can arrange that. No man should ever enter the sacred fortress of Mantha, so just one is already too much. That is when this prince say that this could be an ambush for all he know, and if his men can’t come then he don’t go. Nobody is paying me to reason with him, I am thinking, but losing him is a loss for me too, not just the princess. And this prince: tall and dark, thick in hair, brown in eyes, full and dark in lips, pattern scars above the brows and down both arms, and many years younger in age.
“I am sure they tell you the arrangement, Prince.”
“Well, yes, but . . . but now there is nothing but doubt.”
“I know one thing that is without doubt.”
“Without doubt, what?” he say, nodding at me, like that title he’s so hungry to hear will ever leave my mouth.
“Without doubt, if she can’t have Your Grace, she will find another. Think of where this will place you when all it come to pass. You will be exalted above all other princes. You won’t even be called Prince.”
That is all I had to say, so if he isn’t taking to it, I am setting to leave them all here.
“Wait,” he say.
Morning come before we reach halfway and evening arrive before we are near the Mantha rock.
“Why do we stop? Shouldn’t we make haste? Enough with this foolishness, we need to make haste now, or I swear I will turn back.”
He say something else, but I stop listening and dismount.
“Anyway, they give me instructions for you, which I don’t feel like repeating. 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. So listen to me now, forget you great discomfort and do not betray your unease or they will kill you at the gate and not care you are a prince.”
“What? This is outrageous, I—”
“I not giving these instructions twice. You can do this in front of me or behind me, I don’t care. Take off your armor and tunic.”
“I will do no such—”
“Take them off!”
He jump. I wish he remove his clothes as quick.
“You want me remove my undergarment too?”
“Your choice, Prince. But this is what you going need to do. Take your balls and feel for each, then push them out of the sac up into your bush. Take your penis and pull it hard between your legs until it touch near your bottom hole. The guard will feel your ball skin hanging on both sides of the penis, and think you are a woman. She won’t even look you in the face.”
His mouth gape open in silence, but his eyes say, You cannot be serious.
“I can grab it and pull it back for you,” I say and his face take it like a punch.
“Absolutely not,” he say and suck his teeth as he go behind the horse.
“He will do,” Lissisolo say, when we get him to her chamber.
* * *
—
Six moons later and the divine sisters still don’t know what kind of white science or black math leave Lissisolo pregnant. Ne Vampi, gone for half of those moons, come back heavy with tidings. We smile at each other until we both notice that we smiling, then we nod, then we make one step to reach each other, but reach and do what? The question stop both of us. So we nod at each other again and wait for the princess to ask where she was and what bring her back.