“No. No, Master, she hate witches. No witches come to us in Kongor.”
The Aesi nod and laugh again. Quick as a blink he turn and stare at her. Sogolon try to hold the stare. She not trying to be defiant or strong, but she tired of men working their strength over her, even if is just a stare. She stare back and blink once. The Aesi hold the look and don’t seem to blink at all. It is there so quick she know that most wouldn’t see it, but she do and she don’t know why. Right before he smile again, he frown. It take over all of his face, then vanish.
“I would tell you to remind your mistress to control her tongue this time, but you don’t have the liberty to say such things to her,” he say. “Who name you Sogolon?”
“Me name myself, sir.”
“That is a lie. The mistress call you by that name.”
Just then one of the guards grab his belly and vomit. It distract Sogolon, but when she turn back to the Aesi, he is staring at her.
“Take him out,” he say, then get up to leave. “What happen when the master finds you?” he ask.
Sogolon’s jaw drop. The Aesi smile.
“Wrong question. Wrong person,” he say.
The mistress take to her bed the rest of the day and keep to it until morning. Sometime before dawn she shout, Your words are the same for any woman whose dress you don’t lift up, then wake up. Sogolon is in the sleeping chair by her bed.
“What you watching over me for, girl? I not sick.”
“Sleep just catch me here, Mistress.”
“Don’t make it catch you here again. I will not be watched over. Anyway, what a glorious day. Why ruin it with malcontent and bad temper? Nobody has time for such. Sogolon, go to the cookwoman right away. I will have eggs and not some muck she surely cooking. Glorious day.”
Sogolon walk off when the mistress call her back.
“And when you come back we’ll pick which of these fabrics suitable for a gown and gele.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Sogolon do you . . . No, go on girl. No, wait. . . . Why am I asking you, you are nothing but a bush girl.”
That didn’t even bother her. She turn to go.
“I just don’t know what to say to her, not as a subject, but as a friend. As a woman.”
“I don’t know what word you last say to the King Sister, ma’am, but—”
“King Sister. Silly girl, I am talking of the king’s daughter. Kwash Kagar don’t have no sister.”
Sogolon blink away the shock.
“Kwash Kagar don’t have no sister, girl.”
FIVE
Reading? You must think you’re in Juba. No reading happen in Fasisi. And what do you need to read for?” Keme ask.
See the girl. See how her face drop when this man among men in her mind tell her not to bother with reading for he see no use for it in himself, and no good that can come out of it for her. She don’t know why she ask him. He making her sour lately, and it is everything and nothing, like laughing at her wanting to understand what it means when a man make a mark on parchment. And wanting somebody to teach her for she can’t teach herself. He make her lose memory over why she want to read in the first place. In Kongor, there is a great hall of records, a great egg built from thatch and plaster that stand ten and three men high and that contain the records of every Northern king and kingdom. People from Juba talk about the Palace of Wisdom, where people from far and wide, some as distant as lands across the wild sea, come and read their way on to knowledge of natural science, mapping of stars, healing arts, surgery, and mathematics. The Palace of Wisdom only care about the mind, and don’t bother with the body carrying it. But neither place is Fasisi, the seat of the empire. Here knowledge is for those who wish to prosper and if you already of noble birth then what in the nine worlds is there to prosper to?
Somebody tell her that man have might because only man have burden, somebody with a voice that sound just like Keme, which further sour her. All she see is man going through life so easy that he can even scratch his crotch when it itch no matter where he be. Or walk into a place smelling ranker than a dead corpse and expect that a woman will not deny him her koo. Even her brothers used to look at her as nothing but a burden, though she is the one carrying everything from a bag of grain to a big leaf scooping up all the cow, pig, and dog shit. If man want to think he have the burden, let him think it. She see scrolls and loose parchment, and engravings, and leather-bound books in a dusty room of this house, and want to know what lay in them. To know because she is beginning to despise the feeling of a book opening up only to lock her out. A scroll unrolling but keeping itself shut, an open parchment showing everything but revealing nothing. But she cut the wish loose. A burden is upon her that have nothing to do with what make her knees buckle.
Now every invitation from Keme sound like something else. We should go around the back. I can show you something you will like. Sogolon young enough to know she not yet come into her full growth, but old enough to know not to trust any man to lead her anywhere in the dark. Lessons she done learn from living with Miss Azora. When she ask him why he is still here, he ask her if she wish him gone. Before she decide if she is to answer or not, he laugh and say that his instruction is to deliver the house of Komwono to the royal court and from where he and the crown see it, she not delivered yet. Come learn archery is the last thing Sogolon look at him and say no to.