—
The slaver say it was two days around the Darklands, but three nights now pass and we still not even around the horn. The girl ask so many questions that I thought Venin was another one until I realize it was her name. But then she recall the names of all the glorious sacrifices of the Zogbanu through the ages and all of them named Venin. All were raised to be blessed offerings to the Zogbanu, so the trolls wouldn’t terrorize their village, which mean her own people raise her to be food. The first night she jump off the horse, land hard on her left foot, and try to limp away, crying that she will not be cheated out of her glory. The second night, Venin was crafty. She wait until I was asleep and make a run for it, but I done tie her ankle to a rope that done tie to the horse. The third day and night I let the horse rest. By the fourth night, we run out of food and all she do is whine and bawl, and I start to picture smashing her head in and cooking it. Late in the night wild dogs start to circle, but they run when my wind (not wind) fling one up in the sky so high that he don’t come back.
Near daybreak I feel a hand around my neck. Here is truth, that while the spirit can throw and punch and land a blow, and while they can put on force, they can’t hold it for long. The grip squeeze tight, then vanish like dust blowing away.
Give me the girl, he say.
Other voices come to me, including one that say I deceive his mistress, then him, and where is my heart, girl, where is my heart? But Jakwu is the one that torment me the most, so much that I learn his name. Sometimes I find myself trying to understand him, but all I grasp is that what was a crucial moment for him, his death, a murder by a woman’s hands, was just another notch on an arm full of scars for me. Jakwu, the prized warrior tactician of the South King, who once honor his noble warrior with a statue of his likeness in gold. Jakwu, who everybody long know was raping and killing girls but it did not affect his warring skill, and those girls hail from Weme Witu. Maybe he remember me because I did go out of my way to make his killing memorable.
Give me the girl, he say.
“I wouldn’t give you my morning piss,” I say to the wind. The girl is still asleep after I rustle up enough insects to roast and feed her.
I know what you want. What you really want. I alone know.
“Yes? And how you know that?”
Stupid bitch, I live in your head.
Lie, lie, he lie, I tell myself. He is the father of deceit, after all not a single woman I find in his house come there by their own will. I’ve been living with his yapping for years and am not about to take his words to mind, much less to heart, now. But he’s been worse of late, even with me writing nsibidi to shut him up. He is crowding me and know it. He might even know why. You know it too, say the voice that sound like me. That voice and Jakwu trading harsh words with each other day and night, and about to drive me mad. I pull myself out of drowsiness and stand, telling myself to not let them clutter. Don’t let them clutter your mind. I was expecting a legion, but the only one bothering me is Jakwu.
He live in your head too, Jakwu say.
The “he” that I should be thinking about is this boy, and the vampires he travel with. That though he will serve no use as King, he will be excellent as bait. Bait? the voice ask. What it say about you that all he be is a little piece of fish set to catch a shark? I snarl back, saying that given that all kings, queens, and nobles ever did to me was eat me whole, then shit me out, I have no problem with treating this child as just a thing with little use. Besides, I live long enough to see Moki the Wicked, Liongo the Good, Paki the Unlucky, Aduware the Defeated, Netu the Vengeful, and Dara the whatever, and in all regimes those fat was still getting fatter and those starving still starve.
I come to realize that Bunshi abhor violence against man. Oh she abhor violence that man commit too, why would she not? But for a divine-born being she still accept that this is province of men, something to skip, avoid, or endure. That wickedness is part of maleness whether King or Aesi and is not that he have the right to it so much as we don’t have the right to fight it. Or avenge it. Or maybe the silly black bitch don’t even think that deep. But even when she agree to me going after the Aesi as a boy, it was never to set right the wrong he do, but to stop his influence on court. His influence on other man. Well fuck the gods, for if a man leave me with suffering I can leave him with violence. And maybe there is something to restoring the line of kings, other than just one king taking power from another because power is there to take. I am a woman of the world and in the world, so why wouldn’t I want justice, or the order that men keep confusing with justice? But justice don’t consume you. Helping one power take another power is not what keep my days moving slow but my years moving quick. And all you do is keep him in your head glutting on him until you wet.
Jakwu.
Some of we live here because you trap us, but him you invite. Also Jakwu.
“If I was going to trap a man, I would pick one that delight me,” I say.
You going tell me that none of this is delight? Look at you, fooling you. All consumed with raging fire, and yet all you do is go to sleep in a mountain house and let monkey fuck you.
“No monkey fuck me.”
That what they tell you? You deep in sleep for moons.
He stun me, so hard it might as well he used a brick to slam in my face. Jakwu know what he do, know how much doubt can shake a woman, when she cannot account for own body. I see what he doing, he is trying to strip away all I know, leaving only what I believe, an easier thing for him to snatch.
Even Mistress Vengeance can’t account for when she sleep.
I take too long before I say, “Nor you.” He laugh loud and long.
“Whatever truth there, your tongue don’t know it,” I say.
Give me the girl.
“Shut up.”
Give me the girl.
“Shut up!”
And so we go until morning come and my shouting finally wake the girl.
* * *