“How long have you known of this portal?”
“Not long. I only know of three, but there might be more. To tell truth, if there was no portal in Dolingo, we would not be here.”
I know that face. Plotting already—if not plotting, then conceiving, taking stock of the marvel of the door, now even less interested in the boy.
“If Bunshi had more wisdom about people you would not be here. I offered to hide the boy. Instead they took him to some man because he wrote some writs. Another man with a mission—all of them make me sick. I told Lissisolo that I was pleased with her plan. Too many inbred kings and their inbred cocks when what we need are Queens to rule. And even though I was disappointed that all she wanted to do is put yet another man on the throne, I was happy that she would be regent. The real power. We would be women together. But her steady belief in nothing but her son began to displease me. How long this boy been with vampires? Don’t lie to me.”
“Three years.”
“Three. So vampire is all he know?”
“Bunshi swear he is unspoiled, Majesty.”
“But does Bunshi know? Yes? No? I must say this is all too surprising. When my sentries said you approach and with who, I was thinking old business.”
Now I am the one confused. I don’t have no business with this woman. I certainly don’t have no business with queens.
“And how you plan to find the child? Shall you knock on doors and ask politely are there vampires within?”
“One who ride with us, the Tracker, he have a nose. He is the one who track his moving. He is the one who know the boy coming and where he going be.”
“Fascinating.”
“I send two notes, Majesty. One of where we were and when we coming. One with what we need.”
“Chancellor, what notes does she speak of?”
“There is no word of any note, Majesty. None in the provinces, none in the great hall. Nothing on the drums or in the clouds.”
“Two pigeons. It was two pigeons.”
“Chancellor,” she say to another, “it’s your business to watch sky. What news from pigeons?”
“No news, Majesty.”
“But . . . but . . .”
“Somebody intercepted your birds, Sogolon,” she say.
It come over and crush me, a feeling so weak that I need a seat, even though a seat is under me. To not fall on the floor is all I can think.
“This dance we’re having, this peculiar dance. You thought I knew. No, I didn’t get your pigeons. But we did get a crow.”
“A crow?”
“I know you’re not deaf.”
“The Aesi.”
“Already sending a delegation. Won’t be here for a moon and a half at least, and that is if they take the river, but they are coming. How is it that Fasisi’s chancellor is right behind and far ahead of you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. You have a spy. We will be women together, your King Sister said to me. Yet at every turn she depends on the work of men. And here you come with three, and none of them like you. Either one of them is a spy, or you’re the spy. A better question is how is he contacting them. Crows?”
“I don’t see no crows.”
“You have a mystery, then,” she say.
No, I already solve it.
“Bunshi is the one who insist on the Tracker. Delay us a whole moon just to wait for him. If not for those twenty plus days we would be in Nigiki, or even Juba, not here,” I say.
“And the Ogo? The horsehair one?”
“Bunshi choose the Ogo. The magistrate is with the Tracker.”
“And the girl?”
“With me.”
“Some fellowship this is.”
“My Queen, you have an agreement with the King Sister.”
“Don’t you tell me what I have and don’t have. ’Twas different when all of this was a secret. You think I would anger the King of the North lands, for some princess itching for the throne but no desire to rule it herself? If she wanted to be Queen, that would be one thing, but she’s just fighting for a boy. Why, because she bred him? What a stupid reason. Meanwhile your Aesi is coming.”
“I am sure the King Sister will make you some offer.”
“I am sure the King of the North will offer more. Truth, your King Sister has nothing to give me. You, however, are a different story. So tell me, who do you think is your spy?”
She want me to see. The Queen continue. “You want truth? That is what I am looking for, Sogolon. I am looking for truth. Our truth is that intimacy is the threat, carnality the assault, and since we have long separated barbarism from reproduction, who needs the diseased or the deformed? Mingi children, simplistic pleasure—who needs the sweat of a man or the violence of him? Who needs children—beings when they are the most demanding yet the least useful—when through science and math we can hatch livelings fully grown and ready to work?”
There she is as her women wash and dress her, wanting to win my mind. Instead I give her silence. Her chambers are as big as her throne room, with a bed at the center as wide as a Fasisi pool. Everything is blue, the walls, the bed linen, and the veils skirting the bedposts, making everything within it a blue haze. The bath push itself out of the wall, as do the table with oils and perfumes, and the stools for her handmaidens to sit and wash her. They put me to stand by the far south window, beside a white scientist trying to make it look like he is not pulling baby mice from a bag and popping them in his mouth. A little tail is dangling out his mouth before he suck it in and smile. My head leave this room for another, where I see rope around a neck, around an arm, on both legs, and around the tip of each finger. And eyes seeing whatever people see beyond terror. And a door that open and shut, open and shut, open and shut.