Black Leopard, Red Wolf

“Indeed. They whipped a woman … seven days ago? No, eight, it was. They found her leaving the house of a man not her husband without her outer robes.”

“What did they do with the man?” I said.

“What?”

“The man, was he whipped as well?”

The man looked at me as if I had just spoken in one of the river tongues even I don’t know.

“When do we go to the house?” I said to Sogolon.

“You didn’t go last night?”

“Not to Fumanguru’s.”

She turned away from me, but I would not be flashed off by these two.

“This grand peace is walking on a crocodile’s back, Sogolon. Is not just Kongor and is not just Seven Wings. Men who don’t fight since the Prince was just born are getting word that they must reach for armour and weapon, and assemble. Seven Wings assemble in Mitu as well, and other warriors under other names. The Malakal you left, and the Uwomowomowomowo valley, both now gleam from the iron and gold of armour, spear, and sword,” the man said.

“And ambassadors roam each city. Sweat not from heat but from worry,” she said.

“This I know. Five days ago four men from Weme Witu come for talks, for all come to Kongor to settle disputes. Nobody see them since.”

“What they disputing?”

“What they dispute? Not like you to get deaf ears to the movement of people.”

She laughed.

“Here is a true thing. Years before this skinny boy’s mother spread her koo to piss him out, right before they mark the peace on paper and iron, the South retreat back to the South.”

“Yes, yes, yes. They retreat south, but not full south,” Sogolon said.

“The old Kwash Netu give them back a bone. Wakadishu after conquering it.”

“I was just in Kalindar and Wakadishu.”

“But Wakadishu never liked that arrangement, not at all. They say Kwash Netu betray them, he sell them back to slavery under the southern King. They been bawling for years upon years and this new King—”

“Kwash Dara looking like he hear,” she said.

“And all this movement up north making the South rumble. Sogolon, word be that the mad King’s head is again infected with devils.”

This was annoying me more and more. Both were saying things the other already knew. Not even discussing, or reasoning or arguing or repeating, but finishing each other’s thoughts, like they were talking to each other but still not to me.

“Earth and sky already hear enough,” Sogolon said.

“You talk of kings and wars and rumors of war as if anybody cares. You’re just a witch, here to find a boy. As is everybody, except him,” I said, pointing to the lord. “Does he even know why we’re under his roof? See, I too can talk around a man as if he’s not there.”

“You said he have a nose, not a mouth,” the lord said.

“We waste time talking about politics,” I said, and walked past them inside.

“No one speaks to you,” Sogolon said, but I did not turn back.

Upstairs one floor, the Leopard came towards me. I couldn’t read his face, but this was a long time coming. So let us have it out, with words or fists or knives and claws, and whoever is left let him have at the boy, you to fuck him, me to beat him with a shit stick, and send him right back to whatever thing shat him out. Yes, let us have this. The Leopard ran up, almost knocking over two of the dozen statues and carvings in the hallway, and embraced me.

“Good Tracker, I feel I have not seen you in days.”

“It has been days. You couldn’t pull yourself out of sleep.”

“This is a true word. I feel as if I was sleeping for years. And I wake to such dismal rooms. Come now, what sport is there in this city?”

“Kongor? In a city pious as this even the mistresses seek marriage.”

“I already love it. Yet is there not some other reason we are here? We hunt a boy, do we not?”

“You don’t remember?”

“I remember and I do not.”

“You remember the Darklands?”

“We went through the Darklands?”

“You were one for harsh words.”

“Harsh? To whom? Fumeli? You know he likes when we spar. Are you not hungry? I saw a buffalo outside and thought to kill it, or at least bite off the tail, but he seems an ingenious buffalo.”

“This is very strange, Leopard.”

“Tell me at the table. What happened these few days since we left the valley?”

I told him we were gone a moon. He said that was madness and refused to hear any more.

“I hear the gap in my belly. It growls obscene,” he said.

This table was in a great hall, with plate after plate of scenes covering all the walls in the room. I got to the tenth plate before I saw that these works of the grand bronze masters all showed scenes of fucking.

“This is strange,” I said again.

“I know. I keep looking for one where the cock goes in the mouth hole or the boo hole but I couldn’t find any. But I hear this is a town of no shoga. How could that be tru—”

“No. It’s strange that you remember nothing. The Ogo remembers everything.”