“What happen when you go back?”
“So far nobody who do live to tell it, so nobody know for sure. Some believe that to go backwards is to flip the way inside out, and so the same go for your body.”
“I will find this door.”
“You need Sangomin magic for that.”
“Or a useless water sprite who turn out to have one use.”
But Bunshi don’t come to my room. The guard stationed at my door tell me that she enter a room then disappear—after he spend near all of the morning telling me about the glorious feats of his astonishing Queen, in whose presence every head will bow and every knee will kneel. And so beautiful she is too, have I gazed upon her? Bunshi gone indeed. Coward is not what I would call her, but fear seem to be her natural state. Or she know that I blame her for this, and Lissisolo too, for I didn’t have any reason to go through any enchanted door. Sorry for what come to you, this princess say, not sorry for causing it. Not sorry for now making me hesitate before all kind of door.
“Sit,” Lissisolo say. I look around but see no other stool nor cushion.
“I not sitting on no damn floor just so you can have somebody lower than you.”
“Fuck the gods, Sogolon. I didn’t say sit on the floor. I said sit.”
Maybe she just want me to fall. Maybe she want me to look and feel a way. Maybe I should just squat like I going to piss. I sit and just like so, a door cut itself open from the wall and a chair push itself out to catch me.
“Remarkable, is it not?”
“Not the word coming to my mouth.”
“Science, or magic?”
“I don’t know.”
“It must be neither. Who told us they were at war? No such war going on in Dolingo. I almost wish I was a princess of this kingdom. Queendom. Has ever a place been so perfect in all its ways? Perfect.”
“Again, not the word coming to my mouth.”
“Then run outside and swing in a tree if it suit you. The Queen just told me how it must be the gods bless her with a sister, for we shall rule together.”
“You want to be Queen now.”
“Of course not. I must be regent for the true King, who else will protect him?”
“Can’t answer that question for you.”
“You will cease with that tone. I am still royal blood in a kingdom that recognizes my title. You would do well to do the same.”
“Yes . . . Highness,” I say. But then her face change as she smile at me again, like we are sisters about to share wicked secrets.
“But our Queen, do you know what she just told me? That I waste precious time and cause too much danger trying to beget an heir in such a backward, barbarian way. I could have just come to Dolingo and a son would have been born to me in three moons.”
I want to tell this bitch that hers is not the time that done waste but instead I say, “What that mean?”
“Breed with a minor demigod, perhaps. She wants to meet you.”
“What if I don’t want to meet her?”
“Your great-great-granddaughter never mentioned your humor,” she say.
“I wasn’t making joke.”
“Nor was I. You seem to think the Queen is making a request. You also seem to think we are women together. On both counts you are wrong. Know your place before somebody here has to remind you,” she say. I hold my tongue, for I see her for who she always was, somebody who couldn’t wait to close ranks and leave me on the outside. I done serve my use.
Even when it is full, I feel alone in the sky caravan, perhaps because it is the only place I don’t feel watched. No voice unlike mine bother me in the sky. I take the caravan to the Branch of Court Nobles, then take another to Mluma, the brightest district because its wings catch the sunlight all day and then light up the sky at night. I follow the small group to a platform that lower itself one floor. Nobody move to get off, so I do. I pass through hall made out of clay, rough and uneven like hand work. In the corner is the statue of a man and woman sitting by a fire, everything form from clay as well. The swamp grass is what tell me that this is a tribute to old Dolingo. The hall spread out from the entrance in a circle, and on the left wall are drums, spears, lion skins, cheetah skins, parts of a dhow, and two skeletons wearing crowns and carrying scepters. On the right is a scroll, unrolled all along the wall. Testimony to some glorious age that was not so glorious, I am thinking, until I move in closer. This is not papyrus or leaf, but linen, and on the linen is Dolingo. The linen have nothing about it to say what it is, who make it, or how. Maybe this is the work of the land’s grand designer, and all of this spring from his head. The first drawing is a tree tall past the moon, and a city or citadel on top. Beside it a road snaking around branches and a river going up instead of falling down. A palace in a tree, and another farther off, and ropes connecting the two, ropes carrying cargo, carts, and beasts in cages. Rope in knots, rope on wood, rope connecting big wheels to small wheels and big wheels again. House on top of house on top of house on top of house.
“So high they would frighten the gods.” The whisper barely leave my mouth.
* * *
—
I don’t hear from my great-great-granddaughter since she take that baby to Basu Fumanguru. Word that his writs to the King was all the talk of Fasisi, Malakal, and Juba, and spreading to Kongor, though few have read all of them.
“No writ pass my eye, except for the writing on the wall,” I say to the Queen of Dolingo. She will know of the writs and she will know now. Does it speak out against all monarchy or just the Fasisi King? And this Queen haughty, harsh, and sharp with everybody. No patience for fools but it seem that to her everyone is a fool. Especially her chancellor, who translate for her even though her tongue was not much different from most of the North once one get used to it. This tall, thin Queen wearing a gold peacock crown that her ladies-in-waiting had to catch from slipping off her head. Gold also on her eyelashes, dotting her lips, and cupping her nipples. A magnificent throne behind her, but she remain standing. And this throne room, this great hall, with gold columns racing up to a ceiling so high it might as well be sky. The throne, a pyramid rising out of a low platform where everybody else stay standing. At the base of the pyramid, a platform littered with women and with soldiers on the left and right flanks. Soldier being a word I use loose. Those gold throwing daggers and ceremony swords not ready for even a rumor of war.
“Next time bring me this Basu Fumanguru. ’Tis been a long time since I heard any such wisdom coming from a man. I find this funny,” she say with a smile that shift into a scowl when no reaction come from the court.
“I said I find this funny.”
The whole room burst into laughing, clapping, whistling, and shouts to the gods. One wave and they quit in a blink.
“You interest me,” she say looking at me. “Chancellor, is she not interesting?”