See the girl, in a room at the third tower of the princess’s palace. Not doing anything but waiting. On the sun each morning, on food three times a day, on the change of guard though the housemaid say she is not a prisoner. But everywhere Sogolon wish to walk is forbidden, so confined to room is what she be.
From her window she see dwellings she is waiting to learn the names of. All of them wonders compared to a termite hill, whorehouse cupboard, or the cookroom floor of a lord. Mistress Komwono not gone so long that she should start to forget her face, but forgetting it she do. From her window she see steps leading out of her own tower. This she also see: part of the battlements and tower of the busy King’s castle, guarded by sentries. The rest is out of her window’s view. Direct ahead a paved path to library, a castle to itself, but with four walls like a box, two floors, and no door that she can see. To the right of that, the banquet hall as big as a field, where at night she hear music, dancing, shouting, and screaming. If she look hard enough past the trees, the grand archives, twice as wide as the library. Right in line with the library, the unfinished castle of Kwash Abili, who die one moon after he become King, and beside that, the finished castle of Kwash Kojo, his brother, and this King’s great-granduncle. The line of kings confuse her, but the castles do not. She just wish she could look inside them. But even this place they lock off from her. Farther off, left of the living King’s castle, is that of Kwash Kong. Not the oldest, though it is the only one falling into ruin. No house is as narrow, yet no house climb as high. She can count four rows of windows above the trees, leaving her to wonder how many are below. From her window she see halls and the roofs of halls, covered hallways and the ruins of hallways, people and beasts dressed for court, guards and soldiers, orchards and pastures, peacocks, and lions.
By dusk light, five women all wearing white come for her. They come by morning light as well, to take her to the dining hall, where they stand while she eat breakfast or dinner, and say nothing to her.
“Your tongue cut out?” she ask them but they don’t answer. Sitting in this dining hall that can hold a hundred, but now holding only one, make her feel like a queen of nothing. She can feel it hounding her thoughts, jealousy, loneliness, the knowing that this is food and drink for many, as is this room. At least she never see the Aesi. That man unnerve her with just his robe alone. Nor do she see Keme, except once when the princess decide to mount a horse and ride, and the palace guards, none of them horsemen, shout for him and two more, and two lions to follow her. Maybe what she is seeing from her little window is how the palace work? Seeing is all she is left to do. Sogolon is losing count of days, but the last day of the third quartermoon since she get leave in this room, the princess demand to see her, the girl somebody thought to present as a gift.
“Her head have a nice shape,” a woman say.
Sogolon assume she is of noble blood, by the way her chin is jutting out so far from her neck. She is in a room and can’t remember how she get there. Through a doorway she see a bed, which make her think this is a bedchamber, but the princess is sitting in the windowsill, while the other women relax on stools on the floor. This room could be where any of these women stay, all of them in fabrics of big fashion, their foreheads and cheeks in white umchokozo dots because they visiting something or someone important.
“A nice shape for what, Vunakwe? From what kind of mouth come such shit?” the princess say.
This Vunakwe looking like she want to say something but think better of it.
“Stop thinking better of saying something, and say it,” the princess say.
“I just saying the girl head look good, Princess. When you have nothing, even a little something is a big thing.”
“Hmmm. And what do you have, Vunakwe, but my indulgence?”
Vunakwe eyes say it all. Better for her that she don’t speak.
“And listen to me, being so cruel to my mother’s favorite,” the princess say. “Lady Vunakwe, you must forgive me.”
“Of course, Princess.”
“Say it.”
“I forgive you, Princess.”
The princess laughs. “The thought, that I would need forgiveness,” she say. “Fuck the gods, if I can’t joke with my dearest friends. Must I have no mirth in this place?”
The four women laugh. The princess cross her legs at the knee and Sogolon just now realize that she dress herself like a man.
“Nice shape head? I find her head odd,” the princess say. “Come forward, girl.”
Sogolon hesitate, but step forward before the women mark her insolence. She standing nearer to them, all reposing on rugs and pillows on the floor, than the princess. Sogolon standing there, feeling women eyes on her and how it different from men’s eyes. Neither nice, but this is not nice in a different way.
“Itulu, what can we do with her?”
Itulu lips are shiny from chicken grease. She tries to talk as she chew, not seeing that this make the princess frown.
“You asking me, Princess?”
“I called your name and asked a question. What do you think? The gods are trying me today, with my mother’s women.”
“Perhaps offer her up as sacrifice to Baraka, Highness.”
The princess stand up and laugh. She walk all the way around Sogolon before she say, “Itulu, that is for people who still cut out their women’s koo. Don’t be a savage. I know your mother was from Bornu.”
Itulu laugh with her lips, but her eyes not doing it. The other women try to look busy by eating chicken, drinking nectar water and wine, fondling fabric dolls, tickling a baby lion, fanning themselves, but what they really doing is watching the princess, trying to get where she going before she get there, so they can be ready for whatever she going to say.
“She is studying us,” the princess say, amusement on her face. Sogolon’s eyes dart away, but the princess is laughing now.
“Precious girl, look around if you wish. Nobody here is worth your study.”
But study she do. Reading how much these women hide feeling from their faces, whenever the princess say something that, judging from her face, she like to say to women such as these. It make her wonder if anywhere in the lands are two women like Keme and the lion. Maybe they too spend the afternoon eating chicken and being cruel to each other. No, just she, the princess, being cruel. But Sogolon is reading faces. A small smile, meaning hiding hurt, which turn into a big smile when the hiding work, and a droop when it don’t. Two eyebrow raised mean what thrilling news, but one eyebrow mean there go this bitch. If the eye under the raised brow roll, then it’s the same road we going again. And no matter how quick it shut, a gaping mouth mean I didn’t see that lash coming. A quick look away, a turn for tears. A quick turn away while still looking, to see if anybody going to witness it.
“What she learning from us, Princess?”
“I don’t know. What are you learning from these esteemed women? I speaking to you, girl.”
“Such insolence. Answer your princess,” Itulu say.
“Girl, you want us call for the whip? Answer Her Highness.”