“Are you deaf today, dear Prince?”
“I hear everything, dear Princess,” he say, but the princess already looking at the crowd. “Who brings tribute from our friends?” she ask. Keme and the wingsmen step out of the way, and prod the mistress to do the same. Sogolon shift to the side, between two women with gold-striped clothes and noble noses. From there and for much of the day people come bringing trunks, bags, sacks, palanquins, barrels, and cages. Carrying birds and beasts, and horses small as cats, and two boys who shift into an animal never seen in North or South. A prince from Kalindar who can’t prove what he is prince of come with an offer of marriage, which make the princess laugh and ask if he knows that she is married. The whole court gasp, and Prince Majozi hiss when the man say that he know. Prince Majozi glare at the princess to do something but she laugh and say, Besides, my real husband is my father’s responsibility, but you never know, my prince, are we not people, and people’s lives change in the quick. Then she wave away the prince with a wink and a smile. And still more come from lands across the wild sea, and the sand sea, the last one smelling of the myrrh that he bring. Sogolon wince for the mistress, who bring the same gift.
“I think I am near the end for today. My room is overflowing with all your tributes. And complaints,” the princess say.
“A few more, Your Highness.”
“One more.”
“As you wish,” the Aesi say, and spread both arms as he bow. It look like too much to Sogolon, but too much of what, she don’t know.
“Returning to us, the lady mistress from the house of Komwono,” he say and the mistress shuffle forward before anybody prompt her. She bow.
“Returning from where?”
“Kongor.”
“From so far? That’s a month and a quartermoon. Why were you gone?”
“I . . . if, if it please Your Highness,” Mistress Komwono say, now nervous as she look around at the people of the court. She turn and look at the Aesi as if asking for help.
“Lady Mistress is pleased to be with us,” the Aesi say.
“But why was she gone? Were you not at court once? Here, then gone, and now you’ve returned. This is not a hard question.”
“This is before you grew in your royal responsibilities, my princess,” the Aesi say.
“Taking a very long time to answer my question, both of you.”
“Lady Mistress Komwono—”
“Komwono. Komwono. Oh . . . oh yes, I see it now. I see it.” The princess stop and think for a long time, glancing at the mistress, then glancing into space. “You’re the one who was banished. By my mother if I remember.”
Mistress Komwono bow her head again.
“The lady mistress—”
“Can speak for herself, Aesi, unless you enjoy me constantly interrupting you. Lady Mistress, the crown and the court welcome you.”
“Thank you, Most High.”
“Most High would be my father. I’m a considerably lesser light.”
“With permission, Your Highness, sad and sick was my years away from court. I sit many days in fear and trembling, missing the light of his presence. Oh the misery, oh the regret. My late husband—”
“I was about to ask his whereabouts. Especially since the invitation would have gone to the husband, for him to bring his wife. Or whoever. Up to now nobody seemed to know you are a widow. Did you think we would have retracted the invitation?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then you would have been wrong. The gods set the rules, we simply follow them as best as we can, don’t we? Sometimes we have to do without them. Take your case, Lady Mistress. The invitation was for your husband and his guest, not you, but here you are without him. Since you sent no word of his death, what can we conclude here but that you have committed a lie of omission? And since this invitation is through the grace of the King, indeed you lied to the King. And lying to the King, Lady Mistress, as you well know, is punishable by death. But as I said, rules, sometimes one must do without them, not so?”
“Yes, yes, yes, Your Highness.”
Sogolon wonder if the mistress nearly piss herself. She know she come close to it.
“My mother is dead and my father is . . . busy. I am afraid there’s no royal to reminisce with you, Lady Mistress.”
Sogolon feel a knot at the back of her head so tight that she look down just to let her neck stretch. When she look up, the Aesi looking at her. She look away, at the gold trim running up the canopy shading the princess and at the chair arms, both carved into lions. And the four lions who did just stand as men from before the sun turn color. She turn back to the Aesi still looking at her.
“Is an honor to return to court, Your Highness.”
“We will see what you think after a day of court with these beautiful ladies and learned gentlemen. In the meantime, gifts? I shall see the gifts you have brought your King.”
At this the wingsmen come forward with two chests and place them on the floor. One open a chest, and the silk cloth wake up, and start to free itself before he lock the chest back shut.
“You present these chests to the King?”
“A chest filled with silk from across the wild sea, my princess. Silk as worn by nobody in this court, for none go on no ship to bring it back.”
“That might be true.”
“And a nkisi nkondi made from gold with gold nails.”
“For when my father wishes to make a golden curse,” the princess say. She is looking bored, not for herself but for her father.
“And this girl, Most High. I bring the King this girl.”