He turn and go inside the tavern. People shouting, Keme! She about to follow him, but can’t pull herself from all that is in front of her. Everything look like one suppose it to, unless you look down. At the edge of a wood or stone path is a gap separating one part from another. What happen when somebody fall off or through? Maybe people from Go fly too? People pass by, going about their business, but they look no different from anybody else in Fasisi. And this is a tavern. What befall the drunk who walk? Three man pass her, too much into arguing about what a look from rich maiden might mean, to notice her. Her eyes follow them until they turn left and vanish behind a wall, with glowing red patterns all over it. She is tempted to touch the glow to see if it burn. This is a big district she is seeing, looking like houses on top of houses, many boasting the glow of firelight. People in their homes about their business. She go inside.
At every corner hang torchlight. Under every torchlight, people gathering, laughing, shouting, cussing, yelling for another draw of wine or another mug of beer and bring your naked self with it. What you going do with my naked self, yeye man? the server girl ask. Come back naked, the man say. Come back and I drink you like how I drink the beer. You mean only glug half because you can’t handle the rest, the girl say and everybody laugh. Through the laughs Sogolon find Keme, for his is the loudest, a shout that end with what sound like a sigh. The room puzzling her. Music, from kora and oud, but no players of instrument. A dim light, enough to see all for who they be, but the light is a blue blanket, landing on every face gentle. Everybody on carpets, carpets on the floor. Everybody leaning against pillow and cushion, or sitting up straight. Like Keme. He burst out laughing and slap the lion lying right beside him, who growl and raise a paw like he about to knock Keme over. Keme laugh louder, and the others join in. An old man with a staff he still holding and whose back is to her. A bare back, and scrawny with his ribs poking through the skin. Also laughing, one of the wingsmen with his head wrap off and his bald head shiny, another man dressed in the armor that Keme usually wear, a woman in a long gown with gold stripes, but the gown so thin that what not gold show right through to her skin. A woman brush past Sogolon on her way to them, a beautiful woman that she thought is a serving girl until the woman sit beside the old man.
“Sogolon, meet my friends,” he say.
The old man turn around to look. Keme start with him.
“That is Alaya. Don’t be perplexed when you go to Malakal or Mitu or where else and you see a man looking just like him. Some say is his twin.”
“More than eight mean more than twin,” the old man say.
“More than eight mean an inbreeding daddy,” say the woman beside him and they all break out into laughing again.
“The wicked woman beside him, Bimbola.”
“Every woman get call wicked when she realize man stupid,” Bimbola say and point to a spot for Sogolon to sit. Keme continue.
“You know the Seven Wing, but this must be the first time you seeing Djabe’s face. To my left, Beremu, the foulest-smelling lion in Fasisi.”
The lion growl again.
“And to my right somebody nobody need to know.”
Out of the dark, something hit the side of Keme’s head.
“Woman what in two fucks you hit me with?”
“Something Beremu can eat,” the woman say as she come into view.
“Oumou them call me. What they call you?” she ask.
“Sogolon.”
Keme look at the old man and say, “But Alaya, how fare the King?”
“You the one who serve the palace. I just a griot.”
“Who have news of the realm even the realm don’t know.”
Alaya pound the carpet two times. “The King is about his business,” he say and the lion roar. “Yes, Beremu tell him again not to peddle that shit.”
“You must think we in your bedchamber.”
“Shut up, Oumou,” Keme say.
“I not saying nothing.”
“But you thinking it. Beremu, what you know?”
The lion growl, then he purr, then he make a sound that Sogolon don’t know.
“People up in the sky don’t care about the King, whoever that is,” Alaya say.
“What that mean?”
“It mean your prince already acting like the crown sitting on his head. And the King, he getting more busy and more busy. Two nights ago he almost finish he work. First time in three moon, the prince come to the palace and nobody summon him. But then Kwash Kagar decide there was more work to do. He even get up and walk a few paces before we put him back to bed. You should see that prince face when his chariot take him away. Man have a look that can melt silver.”
“Chariot don’t take him far enough,” Bimbola say. “They have to pull him off a girl in the Taha section when she stop moving. Right there in the street and he don’t care who see. Then the Sangomin find her house, and burn it down. Only this week them children—”
“Bimbola,” Keme say.
“I talking the things. Ever since that witchfinder get the ear of the Aesi, ever since the Aesi bring him and his whole brood of demon kin, all of Fasisi on the edge of a knife. Running loose, disturbing everything, taking what they want. You see them in the market, grabbing any food they desire. Last week a woman make protest and one of them burn her tongue out. Another one just slap a man face, only for people to see that he slice off his head. And gods help you if you just in their way, for who don’t stomp on you will walk right through your body and make your heart explode. A lucky day is when they only take a finger. Call a magistrate, they just walk away. They running loose in the kingdom.”
“They not running loose. Somebody set them loose,” Alaya say.
“What a land this going to be when this King—”
“Shut up, Oumou,” Keme say.
Beremu roar.
“Beremu, you watch your mouth too,” Keme say. Beremu rise, growl, and leave for another room.
Alaya turn to Sogolon. “That is the lion saying stop being such a coward.”
“And he lucky it’s him or I would drag my knife right across his face. How the fuck he going to call me a coward?” Keme say.
“Tu loju,” Bimbola say.
“My face not hot,” Keme say.
Keme take a drink of his beer. Oumou look at Sogolon and say, “So Sogolon, girl, you plan to be Keme second wife?”
Keme shout something but Sogolon don’t hear. Second wife. It go through her head, leave her head, come back to her head, and leave again. Her mind don’t know what to say to it. But it keep bouncing in and out of her.
“The poor man can barely take care of the first one,” Oumou say.
“Come out of the girl face, Oumou.”
“I not in her face. If I was planning disrespect, I would have asked you.”
Sogolon look away to the group on the right, the two old men smiling but saying nothing for nearby ears to hear. To Bimbola, who go over to the counter to pour a man more beer. Of course he have a wife, look at him. He perhaps have even two. What is it to you? Between him and you is nothing but breeze. Sogolon want to be a big woman, who already understand big woman things. But this make her feel like she just a girl. No, not a girl, a fool. Not just for feeling a way, but for feeling at all.
“Which of the nine worlds you just gone to?” Oumou whisper to her.
Sogolon don’t answer. The air thin here and she want to leave, she think.
A crash, a roar, a scream, a snarl, more crashing, a scuffle, and something running. Then something chasing it, then a slam into a door or onto the floor. Nobody know which until the lion come back with a little white girl in his mouth. People in the bar jump and scream and run, but nobody by Keme move. Beremu’s jaws around the girl’s neck, the girl skin white like kaolin.
“Beremu, drop the girl!” Keme shout.