“You think you’ve cut me enough for one night?”
She bow her head, but no words come. She feel the rain drawing her, so she go to the stable door. The air is crisp, cold, and thick with spray. She close her eyes and let it wash her face. Keme take a deep breath.
“The gods are wise, and the gods are stupid,” she say.
“That sound like old woman wisdom.”
“I know the things that old woman know.”
“It brings you no happiness?”
She laugh.
“What?”
“I never have a happy day ever.”
“That is the most piteous thing I ever did hear.”
“I not sad about it.”
“So you say.”
“Look like we all here at the grace of the prince. The princess too.”
“Careful. The prince is to be the King and the princess, the King Sister. Word is the King already take a new name.”
I have a few names for them, she think but don’t say.
“Maybe the same people making you rise, making Alaya fall.”
“Speak of what you know, woman.”
Something come to the tip of her tongue and she swallow it back down. She don’t want to ask him again what he want. Though his voice is still like river flow. The rain spray is making her clothes wet but she is still standing there, feeling that one spot of peace.
“You getting wet.”
“That is what rain do. Get people wet.”
“Sogolon.”
She jump. He is right beside her. She didn’t hear him get up. His helmet is in his hands and his hair is wild. The armor make him taller.
“They’ve been rounding up witches, so many women plotting that the King die early. Word was—”
“Word from who? If there is a word, then somebody saying it.”
“Word from the people. The people think that the King’s days were cut short because witchcraft let loose in the kingdom. They round up twenty yesterday.”
“If a man look at anybody and call her witch then she is a witch. Go look at that stone and call it a witch so you can throw it in a dungeon.”
“I think—”
“Don’t worry your head, thinking is not for you. You a guard now. Doing is all you do.”
“Fuck yourself, girl.”
“Practicing what you going say to Alaya when they catch him? ‘My friend, how I love you, but I love my ambition more.’?”
“I really could strike you.”
“For the last time, guard, why you come?” Sogolon ask.
“Because nobody is around to make me feel like a flea.”
“Not that what wives do?”
“You do better to ask my father about my wife. He the one who pick her.”
“You just fat her up with children.”
“Don’t speak of things you know nothing about, girl. You don’t like when I do it to you.”
She can’t bring herself to say anything like sorry. So she hang in silence instead.
“Nobody care about my ambition here. I am just a peasant that slip through some crack they forgot to seal. You hate it. At least that is something.”
She grins.
“At least I get a laugh out of those lips,” Keme say.
“That is no laugh.”
“That is something. You will be restored to the princess palace soon. And then she will be the King Sister screaming at you. You say nothing.”
“Nothing to say. It is all their will, truth?”
He touch her shoulder. She jump and he move his hand away just as quick.
“There is a power in you, Sogolon.”
“Spite the gods if this man call me strange again.”
“I didn’t say strange. I say power. One day you will see it.”
“You turn prophet now?”
“Maybe. Look, call me a fool. But I see people pretending power all the time. I know what it look like when somebody don’t have it.”
“The world is what it is,” she say. He nod and they both stare at lightning far off.
Maybe nobody is looking, in all the fuss over the King’s death and burial, and the hunting down of witches. Or maybe nobody is looking at the point where night is an old woman and day just a baby, the point where gods of sky and gods from underground show divine favor and lay stone upon stone, stones too heavy for a hundred slaves to lift. That is what the headwoman say about Prince Likud’s palace when she bring scraps to Sogolon to see how she fare. That gods and divine craftsmen finish the prince’s castle overnight, for that is the way for every house of the King and no living men could ever place stones so huge in walls so high. Maybe the gods showing this new King much favor, she also say, but Sogolon wonder who in the living shit she speaking to. I don’t know who in the living shit you speaking to, she say to the headwoman, who raise her hand to strike her.
“Lay that hand on me and I promise you, you won’t get it back,” she say. The headwoman taken aback.
“Wh-what you say?”
“Your ears deaf or your mind slow?”
“The impertinence! You think I would lower myself to come give you food the dogs don’t want? You lucky this headwoman come to bring you glad tidings.”
“Of what?”
“Of Her Highness, soon to be Her Excellency, deciding to forgive you and indeed show you favor. I was to tell you that you returning to the royal household, but maybe I should tell them that no part of you change.”
“Suit yourself, headwoman.”
“You don’t care?”
“I don’t care if you walk back, trip, burst your head on stone, and bleed to death.”
The headwoman’s jaw drop so low that she cover her mouth. Then she giggle, though her eyes fill with so much distress that tears well up. She bite herself but the giggle force itself out. She jerk and cover her mouth, but can’t stop it. The headwoman cough and choke but still can’t stop giggling. She run out.