“Not going be around long for that,” he say and take both their smiles with him.
The caravan is just ahead of evening when they reach the great wall. Sogolon was expecting cut stone, perhaps even brick, but the wall smooth as clay. This also, a pale pink where the sun still hit it, and almost purple where the light throw shadow. Big turrets and little windows, and from one window, brown water flowing down. Sogolon guessing that the wall ten and two times as high as the guard standing next to it, and at the top and every few paces apart stand a guard wearing an iron helmet and holding a spear. They come upon another gate that open as soon as they see the escort approach, looking like he about important business. Sogolon try to hold her head high as well, but too much is there to see that she never see before.
They enter Fasisi. Before she even think about what she see, Keme say to her that this is the nobles’ enclosure and not the city proper. To get to the other edge of Fasisi would take half a day. Sogolon thinking that she is seeing more than enough on this street. She can’t help but compare it to Kongor. And Kongor walls are so much like dirt that the whole city can seem as if it rise from dust. Perhaps it is because her head is darting left to right so fast and so often that at first all she see is color. The blur of white, red, purple, green, and blue settle into white robes on the men and women; red dirt, bricks, and walls; purple fabrics flowing from the bazaar as they pass; green grass and trees crowning courtyards hidden behind walls. And blue walls down the road Keme take them. Settle, girl, settle, a voice sounding like Sogolon say, but she imagine Keme saying it. He already gone ahead, not too far, but far enough that the city know that a soldier returns.
She look up to the sky first and below it, the city draping around this grand mountain like a mighty dress. Farther up, at top, she guess is the palace but it is so high that all she see is shapes and lights. The street ahead of her is wide enough for three caravans to meet and pass. Brick again, all the world’s brick just for one road. Groups of boys in white skirts and breeches and wraps, groups of men with gold shields, spears and sword, and wispy headdresses from feathers. Every man wearing a beard and some have mustaches that drop even lower. She pass a little girl staring at her, wearing brown goatskin and a tower of beads around her neck. And three more women, all in white, all with hair large like cushions on their shoulders. Two carry shiny gourds with leather straps as bags, and one carry a large orange sash holding a baby. So this is Fasisi women. She know nothing of them. The women whisper to each other and laugh above the noise of the city that she don’t notice till then. Shouting, laughing, haggling, swearing, invoking, praying, demanding back my money you cheat, settling that dowry now that you have included a goat, leaving now to a scolding wife so best I not leave and drink some more beer, and is that who I think it is, with his mess of a wife, oh yes I hear she has been called back to court. And other loose words, and annoyed calls and drunken verses that almost pulled her away from seeing so much that is new. She swing around, almost prompting the horse to look also at the women, who did not see her.
Fasisi is not about to sleep, and neither is Sogolon. Houses in Fasisi stand taller than most in Kongor though they have fewer floors, because on a mountain no matter how high you climb, there is a part rising higher. The nobles’ district, Keme say. And very different from the rest of Fasisi, he don’t say but she guess. And if this is the nobles’ quarter, then it was clear who would be living higher. From where they are, all she see is walls like the one they passed through. Palace, court, king, all words she know of but can’t keep steady in her head. Master and Mistress are the only nobles she know. But here they be, moving in closer.
The mistress finally stick her head through the window. Sogolon slow down her horse. She is waiting for it to come from her, a command or a curse, but the mistress say nothing. Her lips part open and stay open and her eyes barely blink. The street too noisy to hear it, the mistress’s sigh. Ahead a wall stand higher. Not the palace, for the wall hide all but three towers, all with a nipple for a roof. They make her chuckle. Keme look at her, as if about to ask a question, but he say nothing. The palace walls not far ahead now. But then Keme rein his horse right and all follow. Another blue street, on the walls, the door, the windows that some are now closing. They pass buildings as grand as palaces, with stone arches, stone steps, dome roofs, and in some of them, men in blue robes moving up the steps slow with heads down. Monks, she remember their ways at the whorehouse. This is a house for the worship of magnificent gods. The escort lead them down another street more narrow than any before. The Wings, who was riding alongside the caravan, pull back. Two women with baskets on their heads squeeze by and one man dodge through a door. Sogolon is riding beside Keme but her eyes are on these houses on both sides, all with balconies and hanging gardens, two things she don’t have words for. And from the balconies men and women and children shouting at the horses.
Some kind of fuss stop them at a crossroad. A rumble. Two lazy men jump out of the way. Two chariots race by, each carrying two men. In both chariots, one standing and cracking a whip over the horses and the other sitting and examining something in his hands. Both men in white robes draped over one shoulder. All this commotion draw the mistress to the window.
“Stop. Stop at once,” she say. She shout twice more before the twin hear.
“Sogolon. Sogolon!”
Sogolon dismount and go to her mistress.
“Stupid girl, you didn’t hear me call you?”
“I had to dismount to get to you, Mistress.”
“Of course you had to dismount. This street is so narrow that only a woman with no damn breasts can pass through. And this street, what is the meaning of this? Talk quick, girl.”
“I don’t know what you asking me, Mistress.”
“If I am stupid, then I am stupid. But I sure even my stupid eyes can see this is not the royal enclosure. We reach Fasisi?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Then what is this place?”
“Fasisi, Mistress—”
“Girl, don’t make me drop like thunder on you. You know how long they been waiting for me at court? I swear I will whip the skin off the backs of all of you if you make me late. And what with night coming.”
“I will ask Keme, Mistress.”
“Keme? Well suck the teat of a barren cow, who is Keme?”
“The escort.”
“The escort. Listen, girl, you not to have any other name for this escort, but escort.”
“Oh.”
“Oh is right. Your days with Miss Azora long gone, girl.”
“I not—”
“I didn’t ask you no question, so why you replying to me? That escort’s head as soft as yours?”
“I don’t know, Mistress.”