Black Leopard, Red Wolf

“Who knows, water witch? Perhaps he took revenge by dragging her with him through one of the ten and nine doors. I heard that you cannot return to a door until you have been through all ten and nine. This she proved true, if you were one of those that wonder,” I said.

“And you let him.”

“It happened so quick, Bunshi. Quicker than one could care.”

“I should drown you.”

“When did you learn that she changed the plan? Did she not tell you? You a liar or a fool?” I said.

“With your permission,” Bunshi said to the King sister, but she shook her head.

“At some point, she decided we were all unfit to save your precious boy. Even as we, the unfit, freed ourselves and saved her from the one called Ipundulu,” I said.

“She—”

“Made a mistake that cost her the child? Yes, that would be what she did,” I said.

“Sogolon only tried to serve her mistress,” Bunshi said to the King sister, but she was already facing me.

“Tracker? What is your real name?” the King sister said.

“Tracker.”

“Tracker. I understand you. This child carries no stakes for you.”

“I hear he is the future of the kingdom.”

She rose.

“What else did you hear?”

“Too much and not nearly enough.”

She laughed and said, “Strength, guile, courage, where were men of such quality when we needed them? Where is the woman that you have hurt and abandoned?”

“She hurt herself.”

“Then she must be a woman of more power and means than me. Every scar I have, it is somebody else who put it there. Which woman is this?”

“His mother,” said the Leopard. I could have killed him in that moment.

“His mother. She and I have much in common.”

“You’ve both abandoned your own children?”

“Maybe we’ve both had our lives ruined by men only to have our children grow up blaming us for it. Pray forgive that remark; I have also been living in a nunnery across from a whorehouse. Think of it, I, the King sister, in hiding with old women because he has sent assassins to the same fortress he imprisoned me. Seven Wings, they left to join the King’s armies in Fasisi. From there they will invade Luala Luala first, and the Gangatom and the Ku, and force every man, woman, and child into slavery. Not will, has. Luala Luala is already under control. War weapons do not build themselves.”

“Respect of the kings to you. But you stand there and try to make ordinary men and women care about the fates of princes and kings, as if what happens to you changes anything that happens to us,” I said.

“The Leopard tells me you have children among the Gangatom.”

“Don’t think I have been in any koo long enough to seed a child,” I said.

“Is this the mouth you warned me of?” she said, looking at both Bunshi and the Leopard. The Leopard nodded. She sat back down on a stool.

“How lovely a family you must have had, so that the loss of a son means nothing to you.”

“Not my—”

“Tracker,” Leopard said, shaking his head.

“The view is different when you are the child lost, Your Excellence. Then all you think of is the disappointment that is parents,” I said.

She laughed.

“Do I look calm to you, Tracker? Do you think here is one possessed with Itutu? How is the King sister so calm when monsters and men have taken her son? Maybe it is only the latest violation. Maybe I am tired. Maybe I take a bath every night so that I scream underwater and wash away tears. Or maybe a thousand fucks for you, thinking any of this is your business. Word has already reached several of the elders that not only do I have a child, but a child of a legal union with a prince. They know I will go to Fasisi and I will bring my claim of succession to the elders, the court, the ancestors, and the gods. My brother even thinks he has killed all the southern griots, but I have four. Four with account of the true history, four whose account will not be questioned by any man.”

“Why do all this to put another man on the throne? A boy.”

“A boy trained by his mother. Not by men who can only raise a boy to become another just like him. My brother’s army marched north to the river lands two days ago. Do you not have blood there?”

“No.”

“Gangatom is just across the river. And what he will do with the children too young to be slaves? You ever heard word of the white scientists?”

It took everything in me to answer quickly, and I still spoke too late.

“No.”

“Thank your gods that you never cross them,” she said, but she looked at me with one raised eyebrow, and slowed her words.