“I . . . they tell me never to speak to the princess directly, noble lady,” Sogolon say.
“Who tell you that?” the princess say.
“Noble lady Mistress Komwono.”
“That banished woman? She might as well lift you up, tear your legs apart, and plop you down on my father’s cock. I wouldn’t heed anything she say.”
“Indeed, Princess,” say one of the women. “I still remember when she tell Queen Moth—”
“If I need to remember it, I will ask you.”
“Yes, Princess.”
The princess walk around Sogolon again.
“But you are a puzzle, girl.”
“Maybe she should be your new attendant, Princess.”
“Attendant? But then you women would be useless to me. Look at them, girl. I keep mistaking them for my friends.”
All of this is too much for Sogolon, who don’t know what to think, what to feel, or even where to look. She try to look out the window at a guard she hope is Keme but is just some other sentry.
“I know, Princess,” say a woman who might be Itulu. “Marry her off to Commander Olu.”
To this all the women laugh, a loud laugh that get louder and louder until they realize the princess not laughing.
“Can you imagine? The way he keep twirling that wedding necklace, as if he ever married nobody. Poor old madman,” say another.
“Mad, mad, mad.”
“Leave him alone, he never trouble anybody.”
“Viper don’t trouble nobody until you step on him.”
“Then leave a man’s snake for once.”
More laughter.
“Indeed, he already married to the air, or ghost, or demon maybe. I hear he moan for her at night, even though he can’t name her in the morning,” say another.
“Put them together and then you have two people who won’t know what to do. All he can do with it is piss in the bush, and she look like she come from bush,” say one more.
“That man is the reason you can all sit here eating chickens and being as stupid as one,” the princess say, which shut up the whole room. Indeed, so quiet it is that Sogolon can hear the guard outside telling somebody to use the third gate.
“Commander is that way because spear gone right through his head, leaving a hole to be taken up with devils. Why are you that way, Itulu? My stomach goes sick from the sight of all of you. Get out. Get out!”
Sogolon watch all the women leave, then turn to go.
“Watch them, watch the hawks and vultures. Every single one from conquered territory. The horse-looking one who served my mother lost her husband when we restored Wakadishu. I didn’t dismiss you. Where are you from, girl?”
“Mitu, Your Highness.”
“Tell me something of that place.”
“It . . . ah . . . I . . .”
“I’m already bored. Sit down. Eat chicken.”
In the middle of the next quartermoon, right after the sun slip away, Sogolon leave her room. The guard warn her many a time not to leave her chamber, but he can’t stop her if she go. She run down the stairs, around and around until she is at an archway, which lead to an archway, which lead to an archway, which lead to huge and heavy double door that she push open with all her strength. Outside she find herself on a path that branch out toward the King’s palace, the library, the amphitheater, and to steps going down to Kwash Abili’s ruins. A crowd of courtiers in fine dress and loud tongues are walking toward the castle where Crown Prince Likud stay. A voice she don’t hear that sound like her say, A gift for the King is a gift for the crown prince. She head opposite way to the library. But the voices seem to follow her. She never seen the prince and already know that she never want to. But she already know this is impossible talk. She will most certainly see him soon. He is the crown prince. All paths in the palace must lead to the crown. The voices are getting louder, laughter, like everybody laughing at her. She wondering how in this place with the least threat, she is the most scared. She turn around to see them still walking to the prince’s castle, farther away now. She turn back and walk right into his chest.
And books. She knock the books out of his hands. That is what he say, not mad or sad, but like someone noticing sun leaving sky. “You will be the one,” he say. “You will be the one to knock the books out of my hand, and try me.” They are at the door to the library. They, Sogolon and Commander Olu. The King’s greatest warrior, who now live at one of the palaces as reward. The women talk, even after that day in the room with the princess, about how there still be a hole in the commander head that go right through, that if he stand sideways you can see clouds in the sky. These women’s tongues no more refined than any whore at Miss Azora, but it tempt her, she know it, to pull down his hood and see for herself. Instead, she stoop down and pick up the books.
“Sorry,” she say.
“Books won’t care that you’re sorry,” he say. He serious for a blink, then he mumble something.
“What?”
“You can pick one to read if you like. I read all of them already.”
“So why you have them?”
“I will forget them all. Burden I bear, not true? I will read them all, and I can’t go to sleep because I close the book and one hundred men and beasts won’t leave my room. I will wake up the next day, and guess what. They gone. All gone. So I will read the book again.”
“If you forget all of them, how you know you reading the same books?”
“Pick a book.”
“I never learn book reading.”
He look at her like she say she never cure her leprosy. Old, thin, he already stooping in the back, and his eyes look almost like they are river blind, but in his way, Commander Olu more handsome than Keme.
“Then what taking you to the library? Nothing in there of use to you, not true?”
“I go the archive then. That a library too?”
“No. Common mistake of the fool, to think a library and archive is the same place, but they not. A library is a place to read a text. An archive is a place to hide it.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Of course you don’t. Walk with me. I will go to my room at the back of third palace, but I shall forget my room, which palace, and maybe even you by the time I get there. We must hurry.”
They set off walking.
“What would your name be?”
“Sogolon.”
“Sogolon. Who call you that?”
“Nobody.”
“You look like you don’t even know your own blood yet.”
“You look like that is not your business.”
He laugh. Louder than she expect. The grin wake up his face and make him look younger. She want the hood to fall off.