To not scream she has to say it out loud. But the horse is bounding and bouncing, she is slipping and they are moving so fast. So fast. Faster. He will throw her off, this horse. She will break her neck. She squeeze the reins and pull, but still the horse gallop. He jump over a rock and Sogolon feel her entire body leave the horse until she land in the saddle again. She pull the reins tighter and tighter until she realize that make it worse. Each pull make the horse shudder. Make her more afraid. And still it won’t stop. Sogolon try something else, pulling the left rein, firm yet gentle, pulling until the horse turn his neck. The turning slow them down. Calm the horse. Soon they in a trot, and Sogolon, for the first time, breathe. In her mind she flip the time glass three times before the caravan catch up to her, standing by the horse. When he see her, Keme make a quick gallop, stop when he right before her, and dismount.
“Sogolon! I was starting to fear bad things happen to you,” he say, the smile on his face never wider. Sogolon open her mouth to say something but all that come out is a snarl. She charge him and swing her arms. He duck. Just as she want. He don’t see the knee coming up until it hit him straight in the face. He fall flat on his back and don’t move.
“Keme?”
Sogolon fury turn to mist. She drop to the ground.
“Keme!”
Keme open his eyes, he turn and spit blood, and when he smile his teeth still red.
“Fuck the gods, you’re a horse lord now, aren’t you?” he say.
* * *
—
And so, Fasisi.
Fasisi, like Malakal, is a city where you know you are close when you start to climb. The air turn thin, then cold. The Wings mask their faces again, and the twin try to wrap himself in a caravan curtain. Keme still in green, but he switch his cape for a blanket like what Mistress Komwono sometimes wear. White and green of course, Sogolon say to herself when he wrap it over his shoulders. White like the cold dirt of the mountains, but the green pattern, corn popping out of the husk. He throw another blanket to her.
“Fasisi coming in closer,” he say.
“We should wake the mistress?”
“No.”
The sudden steepness jolt the twin. Something roll and drop inside the caravan, but he don’t stop to check.
“He taking after you,” Keme say.
“What? How you—”
“Don’t reply to everything with what.”
“I say how you mean?”
“At the start of this trip, if he hear something in the caravan, he would stop everybody to check. To make sure all is the best for his mistress. Now she could be breaking her neck, and the boy just carry through.”
“Is a long trip.”
“No lie you tell there. I already feel older just for making it.”
“You going be glad when we done reach, and you done gone.”
He turn to look at her.
“Not totally glad.”
The road winding as soon as they set on it. Soon they riding through mist, but only when they get far enough past it that Sogolon see that they riding through clouds. The road is twice as wide as the caravan, and at the horse’s feet is cut brick that go as far as she can see. Almost red, and clean as if rain just fall. The road is a snake, with turns leading up to turns, and little of it straight. Sometimes the road hug the mountain, for this is a mountain, and sometimes it lay out along the very top, with a steep drop into mist on both sides. Sometimes the roadside is bare with nothing to stop a wayward carriage, or a frightened horse. But right around another turn the road narrow down even more and on both sides a stone wall rise high. Sogolon never gone this far, never climb this high, never see mountains in the company of so many mountains, so green that they blue. Maybe this really was the work of the son of the god of sky, pushing aside dirt and making hills and valleys as he turn and toss in sleep. This is the back way, he say. Less use, but leading direct to the royal enclosure and cutting a day off entering through the city gates. They come to a turn that go almost full around before it straighten again. Every two hundred paces or so they pass through a brick archway.
“You a child of your mother or father?”
“Wh—”
“No more with your what.”
“That is one of those questions that people of learning ask each other.”
“You asking or telling?”
“Yes.”
“Well I was asking. What would people say? You, your mother’s daughter or your father’s?”
“I don’t know.”
“How? Mark it, next time me and my father meet, he will also meet this dagger. But even I have to admit I have his stubbornness, his mirth, and gods forgive me, his sins. We even like the same kind of woman. I know this because he almost stole mine.” Keme laughed. “That is too coarse.”
“I prefer it.”
“I know.”
They let the horses trot on their own pace.
“My mother, she midwifed the crown prince, and then his sister. They call her special among women, for she delivered he who will one day become a god.”
“Blessed hands, the mistress would say.”
“Not so blessed when she whip us like she driving out devils. Ay the gods. They must know how you can have a great love and steeping dislike for the same woman. They consume you, both of them, love and dislike.”
“So who you both hate and like, then?”
“What, there’s no such thing. I—”
“No more your what.”
He laughs. “Clever, clever girl,” he says.
She says, “Father or mother it don’t matter. I don’t have knowledge of either.”
“None? None at all? But you’re not an orphan?”
“Three men out there looking for me will say I am their sister. One is the worst man I ever know, and the other two worse. But I never know my mother or father. People say devils infect my father’s head.”
“Maybe he was just sick. How do they know?”
“He put his cock to his mouth and drink his piss like wine.”
“Fuck the gods. Vile yet impressive. And your mother?”
“I take her name. I leave my brothers with nothing but that.”
“She let you leave?”
“She dead. Die giving birth to me. Also what drive my father mad.”
“Ah.”
“I don’t want to hear it, that I am cursed.”
“What sniveling son of a hyena bitch tell you such a thing?”
“My brothers. And everybody in the village. Their words jump over the fence and come to me.”
“Oh Sogolon.”
“What is that? What you doing?”
“Taking pity on you.”
“I don’t want it. Who would want that?”
“I wonder if these will always be your ways. You see it and you call it. A vulture is never a hawk with you.”
“Is that good?”
“Most of the time.”
“When they call me cursed they bring pity with the scorn. The village burn the last woman somebody call a witch.”
“Fuck the gods, and the witches, and the belief in witches. A motherless child and a brotherless sister. Instead of one life, you already live three. Do you think on these things?”
“Why? Living is living, and that alone take so much to do. Who have time to do anything else?”
He stop the horse to look at her.
“I will not soon forget you, Sogolon the motherless.”
* * *
—
The mistress wake up with a wild beast appetite. She mouth, “One whole day?” to herself over and over, for she cannot fathom how she sleep away two sunrise and one sunset. Or why this stupid girl didn’t wake her. Sogolon leave the mistress to her lonesome as soon as she start checking to see if she piss herself while asleep. The rest of the afternoon, she catch the mistress looking outside the window, like she trying to find the day that slip away. Sogolon thinking of the many teas in the caravan, and how she brew too much of the wrong one. By accident, she tell the escort, then herself. Sogolon feeling monstrous for what she do, but every time her eye catch the escort he either giggle or laugh loud.
“Shut up,” she say.
“Nothing come out of my mouth.”
“Trouble is what you setting for me, I know it.”