“Even the night is taking her time, officer,” she say.
Standing in a dark corner is the headwoman, who shake her head at Sogolon when she try to move from the door. The guard remove his armor and undergarment. The princess already ready when he climb on the bed. He is unsure for sure. A princess is not a woman, he must be thinking. The princess pull him to the bed, his back down, then straddle him as if on top of a mule and ride. Sogolon watch the princess controlling how fast he stroke, what he can touch and what he cannot, how far up in her she allow, and who get to cry out. Olu’s words return to her right there, that restoration will come soon.
* * *
—
Is a long time since it happen, but Sogolon catch herself looking at herself. It happen when over by the princess’s bedroom window she learn of glass. Truth, she never even know of such a thing before she try to push her hand through the window to feel rain and nearly break a finger. Glass, like amber that trap the fly, but the same color as air. She tap it, rub along the iron frame holding it, and at one time, lick it. By day she watch outside as the ladies of the bedchamber ready the princess. By night, when lamps bring more light inside than out, she look at the glass and see herself. Sogolon pull back, for what she see is a boy. The tunic with a strap around the waist, the little knife, the hair that grow up and out, but never down. She think to ask if the princess is bringing her up as a boy, but know she will say she is not bringing her up. Right now the ladies of the bedchamber are washing the princess in another room. What are you, her pet? say a voice she don’t recognize. The voice ask again, and again, and again until she realize it is Middle Brother. The thought make her jump. She dart left and right, looking up and down for him. But there is no way a man like him would ever find himself in any royal bedchamber. That fact make her look at her life in the quick, at how none of it make any sense. But maybe her path to here leave a trail for her brothers, maybe dead Miss Azora, maybe spirits of the unpeaceful dead. Boys who can slice a skin open with fingers, boys with two arms for legs, and girls who turn to dust. A boy black like a night spider, with the legs as well. But she is just a girl, just a girl who neither ask for nor want notice. Now she at court and feel safe in the eyes of the princess, but unsafe everywhere else. The prince will demand that they send her to his court again. She is sure of it. And the twins will again ask for her head, or with the help of the Sangomin just snatch it.
“Now we wait for the day of no moonblood,” the headwoman say when Sogolon ask what they are doing.
“You know what I mean,” Sogolon say.
“But you don’t hear what I mean. Her reasons be her own, but she let you into her inner room and I don’t mean a place. It mean now you see more and talk less.”
“Why me?”
“You asking royal blood to explain their ways? If it was up to me I wouldn’t pick you.”
“I not a problem to you.”
“You not a thing to anyone. I hear say you are a foundling. Everybody here have something to lose, but what you have?”
“I wouldn’t pick me, either.”
“Her Highness possess wisdom from the gods. God wisdom sound like folly to many. But make me repeat it, lest you let your head take you somewhere foolish. You are a woman of the bedchamber now. It mean we be the ones who see more and talk less. If the seed don’t take, we do this again. What any of this mean is not for you to think, much less say.”
But talk is all the princess want her to do. Princess Emini ask Sogolon her opinion of other ladies of the court, whether Mitu is a land of river people or lake people, and what certain guards look like with all their clothes off. She laugh at the shock coming over Sogolon face when she ask how she figure general this or commander that fuck. Other times, the princess ask a question that need a long answer, such as why you think you are born as woman in this age and not another, not to hear the answer, for Sogolon take too long and make her yawn twice, but to hear her Mitu bush girl voice and giggle. “You are a puzzle, Sogolon. In your face there is nothing you have not seen, and nothing that you have. Teach me, girl. Teach me how to be one year old, and one hundred at the same time,” Emini say. Another time, in the middle of an audience with the people, she grab Sogolon by the arm and whisper, “Nobody raised you. That means nobody can fool you.”
A quartermoon later and in the quick, the King die. Pass on to the ancestors silent, like an afterthought.
EIGHT
Sogolon do the work of forgetting Keme so well that she don’t recognize him passing right by her in the funeral procession until near one hundred soldiers also pass. By then he is gone too far, and she is nodding at man who don’t nod back. Kwash Kagar when he die become an ancestor, for there is no such person as a dead king. Nor do he return to his name before kingship, for that is lost to all but the griots, and most griots now in hiding, for it is said that they are in league with witches. Only Alaya, from the floating district, dare to show his face in the streets, singing truth until somebody send a stone straight to the side of his head to shut him up, and others come after him with sticks to drive him from the street. Nobody like the songs he is singing, about age, and disease, and weakness, and death. But nobody want to say what everybody thinking nonetheless. That whatever lead to the King’s death, even if it is disease, or the call of the ancestors, evil is going on. So they call him Ancestor Kagar and hope that when he reach the final house, those long gone recognize his name.