—
Three days later Sogolon still wake up shocked and mad. She think back to the fear as well, that moment, short as a blink when it look like he would do something to her. Sogolon didn’t know what to expect from him, but Olu flying into such a rage that the lion had to come between them and roar him off is not it. All she do is tell him that Jeleza is the sister of the King, and his wife, and she don’t know where she is, and how she can be gone, but everybody seem to think this woman never lived, everybody but me. And you, Olu. She thought he would show relief, that at least he know why this strange name haunt his dreams. At least he would know that he have good reason to distrust the Aesi, and she do too, for all that stand between her mistress remembering the King Sister one day, then the next acting like the woman was never born, is the Aesi. Except for Olu. He don’t fully forget. She linger on in him perhaps because love is a thing that linger, and maybe it is something no force from the Aesi or whoever can smite out. As for that force, she don’t know. She don’t know anything about the Aesi. She barely know anything about this court, or this King. But maybe Olu do. Maybe it is written in red or in black somewhere in the house.
She wasn’t expecting a smile, for this is not cheerful news. But she did expect some satisfaction from knowing both the truth and that Olu is being deceived. Instead he start screaming. How nasty and wicked one girl need to be to make up some whole lie about a fucking King Sister when she know everybody at court think he is a madman who make up things every day? Is this mockery? Is this from the prince? From the cruel bitches at court who make up stories about a hole in his head?
“Is my head, not so? Is because you hear that I will forget most of what you will say, that you come in here to say any vile thing you can. How many days you doing this now? How could you put so much wickedness on a man when all he ever know is loss, you little—”
He come at her and the lion come between them. Then he scream for her to leave.
* * *
—
On the sixth day of the third quartermoon, Princess Emini hold court to hear all entreaties and petitions to the King. Sogolon don’t know if she is to go until a hard knock on her door tell her all she need to hear. Now she is in the throne room hearing the same people, looking at the same people asking for the same things. The princess look as bored as she always look, and the Aesi almost turn around when Sogolon enter. She stare at his back even as she lose herself in the crowd. Turn around, she think, but then shudder, wondering how in all this forgetting, his is the name that one hear over and over. He half turn again and Sogolon shut up her mind. She look around and the feeling come on like a flood, that she the only one in the kind of clearness that only come at night, when skin and sky, person and spirit is all the same color. While everybody still in the blindness of high noon, daylight burning everything into nothing but white. This time he do turn around to look straight at her, but she shift behind a woman with a large ighiya.
“He bringing them?” somebody whisper. Two women gather by a window and whisper. Sogolon want to see what they looking at, but then a door swing open and outside light rush in. Also with it, three of them. The black one from that night, or perhaps another, crawling on the ceiling, stopping to poke his head down and scare the women of court. Another one, red as sunset from head and neck, blue as sea from chest to feet, and a yellow fork tongue slithering from her mouth. Somebody whisper that here also is he, the oldest of them, but entering the room is just a boy, older than the others. Tall and lanky, with hair on his face, but a boy nonetheless. A boy who make some people tremble. He sit at the foot of the throne steps and the princess glare at the Aesi.
“Move,” the Aesi say to the boy.
“Everybody giving orders, and yet I am the crown prince,” he say. Prince Likud, entering the room. The first time Sogolon seeing him. The court drop down on one knee so fast that only Sogolon standing. She stoop too quick and nearly fall back. Prince Likud skip up the steps to the throne and stand right beside it, looking down on the princess until she move herself. He smile at the crowd, and Sogolon take him in, his thick eyebrows above small eyes, his beard and whiskers below thin lips, but no mustache. Strong head, the shoulders of a man who do labor, and not a prince. A skull cap in black and gold and a cape draped on his right shoulder, the other shoulder bare. She’s not been in the knowledge of royal customs long enough, yet even she know that only kings go shirtless, with a robe drape over the right shoulder. The princess frown and shake her head. She know it too. Meanwhile Sogolon watch the children, and how they circle, hop around, and enjoy how people pull back. A girl from a farm know what this is. Herding. She not sure if they are Sangomin, but she sure they are one thing.
Pets.
Even the older one, the white clay one look on like he’s waiting for the prince to throw him scraps. The red and blue lizard girl clear a whole path to the throne just by walking through the people. The ceiling walker is still scrambling across the roof, as if looking for her. Sogolon bow her head. The prince fling himself onto the throne in the same way as the princess.
“So, sister, give me news,” he say.
The ceiling walker eye the chandelier, then crouch to jump on it. But then he see the Aesi looking at him and pull back. He crawl down to a window and sit on the sill.
“And good news,” he add.
“Give you news?” she say.
“Not like that, Emini. Not like you’re about to spit out something sour.”
“How about I—”
“Nicer. Like a poet.”
“You cannot be se— Verse?” She is standing now. Both of them looking like they talking not to each other but to the court. “How about a riddle? Guess who just left your royal court.”
“Never liked riddles. Why choose to make your brain hurt?”
“Chiki of Gonyo.”
“Did I have her in the front or the back?”
“The back is my guess, brother, since Ambassador Chiki is a man.”
Sogolon look up, expecting a scowl on his face, and that is just what she see. But she also see the ceiling walker eyeing her. He change from a sit to a stoop and touch the wall, ready to climb it. To crawl back to the ceiling and right over to her, she think.
“Ambassador Chiki. Of course.”
“He gave you the red horse for your birthday.”
“Yes, of course.”
“The ambassador from Wakadishu.”
“Good, good.”
“No, not good. Wakadishu expecting us to sign a treaty that we will not invade. That we make no move counter. Otherwise they will get help from the South.”
“Father always said that Wakadishu is North. The gods did tell him so.”
“Father also said that any land south of the Kegere River is South.”