Black Leopard, Red Wolf

She nodded and two of her guards grabbed Mossi. He punched one straight on the cheek but the other pushed a knife against his throat. He turned to me and I mouthed, Peace. Peace, prefect. The guard used the same knife, lodged between the garment and his shoulders, and cut it off. The other guard pulled his belt and everything dropped on the floor.

“No gasps? I hear no gasping?” the Queen said, and the room erupted in gasps, coughs, wheezes, and shouts to the gods.

Mossi, thinking, These are the things that must happen to me, straightened his back, raised his head, and stood. The women and men and eunuchs, who sat at the foot of the Queen, all crawled closer to look. What was the mystery, I did not know.

“Strange, strange thing. Chancellor, why is it darker than the rest of him? Lift it, I will see the sac.”

He came for Mossi’s balls and Mossi jumped. Meanwhile in all this Sogolon said nothing.

“Just as dark? Yes, it is strange, chancellor.”

“It is strange, Most Excellent.”

“Are you a man made up of other men? Your arms darker than your shoulders, your neck darker than your chest, your buttocks whiter than your legs, and your, your …” Then, to the chancellor, “What do your courtesans call it?”

Truth, I laughed.

“I am not one for the company of courtesans, Most Excellent,” said the chancellor.

“Of course you are, they walk on four legs and cannot speak but they are yours. Enough of this talk. I will know why it is so darker than the rest of him. Is that how all men are in other lands? Is this what I would have seen had I married one of the Kalindar princes? East man, why is it the colour of that man standing with Sogolon?”

The chancellor said only that it was curious that a man with such light skin had such dark balls.

Mossi saw me covering a laugh and he frowned. “The gods had some play with me, my Queen,” he said.

The chancellor told the Queen what Mossi said, almost as he said it.

“Which man were they playing with when they took it from him to give it to this man? I will know these things. Right now.”

Mossi looked perplexed again, but watched the people watching him. Still he said nothing.

Sogolon cleared her throat. “Most excellent Queen, remember why we come to Dolingo.”

“I am not one for forgetting, Sogolon. Especially when it was a favor. Especially the way you begged for it.”

Mossi looked at them with the shock I hid.

“Look at your stunned lips. And why would I, the wisest of queens, not speak that savage North tongue—especially when I constantly have to deal with savages? A child could learn it in a day …. Why does my court not ooh and aah?”

The chancellor translated for the court, which erupted in oohs and aahs and shouts to the gods.

She waved her hand and the guards poked at Mossi with their spears. He grabbed his clothes and walked back to us. I looked at him the whole time but he only looked ahead.

“You share with me your cause because you think we are sisters. But I am Queen, and you are less than a flame’s moth.”

“Yes, Most Excellent,” Sogolon said, and bowed.

“I did agree to help you because Lissisolo and I should be queens together. And because your King gives even demons pause. How he wishes Dolingo was there for the conquering. I know what he thinks at night. That one day he will forget that Dolingo remains neutral and take the citadel for himself. And one day he will try. But not today, and not while I am Queen. I am also very bored. Your patched-up man come the closest to something worth my eye in moons. At least since I cut one of those princes of Mitu in half to see if he was as empty as he sounded. You, the one with marks, did you see our sky caravans?”

She spoke to me.

“Only on the way up to you, most excellent Queen,” I said.

“Many still wonder what craft or spell keeps them in the sky. It’s neither spell nor craft, it is iron and rope. I don’t have magicians, I have masters of steel and masters of glass and masters of wood. Because in our palace of wisdom are people who are actually wise. I hate men who accept things as they are and never question, never fix, never make better, or do better. Tell me, do I frighten you?”

“No, my Queen.”

“I will. Guards, take these two to Mungunga. The Ogo and the girl can head to their rooms. Leave us women to talk heavy matters. And feed the buffalo some elephant ear grass. Must have been moons since anyone give him food worthy of him. Leave now, all of you. Except this woman who thinks she is a sister.”

You should teach me such words, prefect,” I said, laughing. Mossi had been cursing and cursing in his home tongue, pacing up and down the caravan, stomping so hard it swung a little. He distracted me from the fact that we were hanging at a great height, being pulled across the great trees by gears. The more he cursed, the less I imagined a rope bursting and us falling to death. The more he cursed, the less I imagined that the Queen sent us up so high in the sky and so far from the ground to kill us.

“Any higher and we could kiss the moon,” I said.