“Little girl, me look like me give two shit, or even one? Don’t make me drop all of this and cut you.”
A roar, so quick and so loud that even Sogolon jump. The woman drop everything and run away. The lion trot after her a few paces and she run even faster. He follow Sogolon inside and she see no reason to stop him. Commander Olu sprawl himself out on the floor. In the quick she think him dead until he roll over. Keme is enough, she don’t want to see another man naked.
“Commander Olu. Commander Olu, wake up. Commander Olu.”
He shift a little and mumble something but don’t wake up. The lion roar and he fling himself out of bed. Sogolon surprised to see a spear so near where he sleep. He grab it like about to throw when he see Sogolon. The lion roar again. The commander drop the spear and rub his eyes.
“What you two doing in my house? A man can’t sleep.”
“Your whore was robbing you,” Sogolon say.
“Who?”
“Your whore.”
“The court lion and the court jester in my house this early. Must be a joke.”
Sogolon not trying to look at another naked man, but there he be right in front of her. This old man thin and muscular, like he from a roaming tribe, but on every limb be scars. And not a pattern or craft, but the rough scars of war. Hair on his chest and above his cock like the hair on his chin, black with some white sprouting all over. When their eyes meet, he is frowning, knowing she is inspecting him.
“I know you, but I don’t know your name,” he say.
“Sogolon.”
“Sogolon? You from the bush tribes?”
“Leave my name, old man.”
“Who your friend?”
“A lion.”
“Clever. You going to look in the air and tell me that it’s air next, or scoop out some water and tell me look at water?”
“Why everybody so rude in Fasisi?”
He laughs. “Because it is Fasisi. Everybody breed for war, even the wet nurse. No delicacy among us.”
“Maybe if you don’t lie with whore, you won’t wake up rude.”
“Look at this little girl, thinking she can try me in my own house. Now who rude?”
“I didn’t—”
“Don’t dare step in my house again thinking you can judge what I do in here.”
Sogolon pause. She hope her face say sorry without her having to say it.
“Lion, I feel like I fought by your side in war. Or maybe it was your father,” Olu say as he walk over to the lion and scratch behind his ear. “I am going to make coffee.”
“You don’t have woman to make it for you?”
“Little girl, why you in me house?”
“I mean, I see how the cook do it. I can make it for you.”
The commander go find his robe, while Sogolon go to the hearth, wake up the flame, and brew coffee. They go outside on a landing, where the lion roll over and sun himself.
“Sogolon,” Olu say.
“You remember.”
“Sometimes.”
“Somebody come to my room last night. If I go to anybody they will say my head take up with devils,” she say.
“Who come to your room?”
“He look like a boy. But only in his face. Legs long like a spider and his arms too. And he was crawling along the ceiling when he come for me. Black boy, black, black, black. He run along the ceiling like it is the floor. Then, then he come for me, but I throw the lamp on him and he catch fire.”
“And?”
“And he escape through the window. That’s when I leave the room and go sleep with the lions. With him. When I wake up this morning somebody put me back in bed and fix my room. The room, is like nothing happen there last night but sleep, Commander.”
“Olu. I not commanding nothing.”
That is when she see his head. The head is always in front of her but this is the first time she look at it. Not a hole going right through, but a scar with points like a star where no hair grow.
“Strange shit afoot since . . . I don’t know how long now.”
“Since when?” she ask.
“I say I don’t know, child.”
“Who are the Sangomin?”
“When you say that name, all I see is his face. Him, the Aesi.”
“A lady tell my mistress that he bring them here, when nobody could cure what ailing the Kwash Kagar.”
“I remember something like that. They didn’t cure him. No, they didn’t cure him, they only say witchcraft is upon the King. I don’t remember anything after that.”
“Maybe you write it down.”
“Maybe.”
They search the walls and the floor for words. Look for red letters or the dog with the tail of the snake, he say. Sogolon find one to the side of the privy, another under the rug hiding the warning about the Aesi, and one more in the middle of a garment that she drop when he say, Leave my underwear. He grab it from her, and she smile as modesty come over him.
“I hope I didn’t just take it off.”
“If you do, then you cleaner than most man,” she say and he nod. “What it say?”
“It not in order. Something come before it.”
The king is under a different kind of enemy, lord redhead say. Throne calls for a different kind of warrior, he say. Maybe he is correct.
He just do it, this Aesi. He sack all the throne guards, even the lions. A public outcry it take, to bring them back.
Only the Aesi and the Sangomin allowed near the King.
Nasty children, let slip dogs.
“You find another with the dogsnake?”
He lift up the rug higher than before.
And then the princess send for the herbswomen, the nuns of deep bush. We wait. Some of us wait. The prince is constant in cursing, and complaining and whining, truly this is a man who will never know war. The king is not worse today, but by the gods not better.
Six herbswomen come but four disappear. We couldn’t find them anywhere. I would find them, if anybody ask me. I am a commander, I have use.
“I must have . . . when I wrote this . . . I . . . the next one, where is the next one?”
The king is worse. The Aesi demand the execution of the herbswomen, and the prince agree. Witchcraft is the problem, he say.
Blood, so much blood. By the gods, that herbswoman bled. The Aesi.
I will never forget how to wield a sword, by the gods. Maybe I use it on him. Why do I forget everything, but him?
“Him who?” Sogolon ask.
“Who you think?”
What a boy to have hair that look like a dead snake. The hair is white clay. The face, the neck, the legs, everywhere like moonlight. The Aesi bring him and he come along with the strangest children in nine worlds but though he is bigger, he is child too. Many would swear it. I count nine, but later I count thirteen, and one day later, eight.
“Is there more?” she ask.
“I have to look. Maybe they tell the same thing. Maybe,” Olu say.
They look some more. Sogolon starting to see marks and words and know what they might mean if she can’t name them. “That mark, I see it ten and one times already. What it say?”
“Jeleza,” he say.
“Oh. And who she to you?” she ask.
“Is a she? I don’t know who that is.”
A voice that sound like her say, Those words pooling your mouth should not leave it. Never.
“That thing around your neck. I know what it is,” she say.
* * *