Black Leopard, Red Wolf

“Ngombe ngulu. First I grab the slave. The master bred red slaves. One ran away. The gods demanded a sacrifice. He struck the master. So I set him before the execution floor. Three bamboo stalks sticking out of the ground. I push him down, force him to sit up, lean him against the stalks, and tie both hands back. Two small stalks, I drive in right by the feet and bind the ankles. Two small stalks I drive in right by the knees, and tie the knees to them. He’s stiff, putting on bravery, but he’s not brave. I take a branch from the tree and strip it of leaves and pull it down so it bends tight like a bow. The branch is angry, it wishes to be straight again not bound, but bind it I do, bind it to grass rope, then I tie it around the head of the slave. My ngulu is sharp, so sharp that looking at it will make your eyes bleed. My blade catches sunlight and flashes like lightning. Now the slave starts to scream. Now he calls for ancestors. Now he begs. They all beg, do you know? Men all talk of how they rejoice the day of meeting the ancestors but nobody has joy when it comes, only crying and pissing and shitting. I swing back my arm with the sword, then I scream and I swing and I chop off the head right at the neck, and the branch breaks free with the head and flings it away. And my master is happy. I killed one hundred, seventy and one, including several chiefs and lords. And some of them were women too.”

“Why did you tell me this?”

“I do not know. The bush. Something about the bush.”

Then I saw the Leopard. In his room, lying on rags bunched up as if he’d slept as a cat. Fumeli not there, or gone, or whatever. I had not thought of him, had not, I just realized, even asked Sogolon of him. The Leopard tried to turn behind him, craning his neck.

“There are holes in the ground, baked clay and hollow like bamboos.”

“Leopard.”

“They take your piss and shit away when you pour water from the urn in the hole after.”

“Kongor is unlike other cities in what she does with piss and shit. And bodies as—”

“Who put us in this place?” he said, pulling himself up to his elbows, frowning at being watched.

“Take that up with Sogolon. This lord seems to owe her many favors.”

“I wish to leave.”

“As you wish.”

“Tonight.”

“We cannot go tonight.”

“I never said we.”

“Leave? You can’t even stand. Change form and a half-blind bowman could kill you. Find your strength, then go where you wish. I will tell Sogolon—”

“Don’t speak for me, Tracker.”

“Then let Fumeli speak for you. What does he not do for you?”

“Speak again and—”

“And what, Leopard? What poison has come over you? Everybody sees you and that little bitch of a boy.”

This made him angrier. He rose from the rugs but stumbled.

“What makes you laugh so? Nothing is funny.”

“Nobody loves no one. Remember? Verse I learned from you. I have heard of warriors, mystics, eunuchs, princes, chiefs and their sons, all wither from futile love for the Leopard. And who is it, that finally clips your balls? This little clump, who wouldn’t be worth saving if he was the only man on the boat. Hark, everyone in this house. Hark how your bitch turns the great Leopard into an alley cat.”

“And yet watch this alley cat find the boy on his own.”

“Another great plan. How went the last one? And yet it is I, the man whose love you have forgotten, who rode in to save you. And the little bitch. And lost all our horses doing so. Maybe I saved the wrong animal.”

“You want thanks?”

“I have truth. Join Nyka and his woman, or make trails with your bitch.”

“Call him that one more … By the gods I will …”

“Find your strength and go. Or stay. Your malcontent is no mystery to me anymore. You are always the Leopard. But maybe you stay out of bushes you don’t know. I won’t be there to save you next time.”

Fumeli stood in the doorway. He carried bow and quiver and straightened, trying to puff his chest out. Whether to laugh or slap him I could not decide. So I passed him close enough to knock him out of the way. The Ogudu was still in him, a weak trace, but he stumbled and fell. He yelled for Kwesi and the Leopard jumped to a crouch and wobbled.

“Deal with him,” Fumeli said.

“Yes, deal with me, Leopard.”

I scowled at the boy.

“Either he’s marking the room as his, or he can’t even rise to go piss somewhere else,” I said.

In the hallway the girl walked up to me. She had found white clay and covered her body in patterns underneath a red-and-yellow sheath. A headdress hung on her head, little ropes with cowries, and iron loops, with two ivory tusks down each temple. Something wicked came upon me to say something about man- and woman-eaters. But she was just looking through clothes and tusks and scents to find herself. The thought was a wild animal.