by Marlon James
“I speaking to him when he wake.”
“Maybe he sung about himself? Ask him that.”
“He not answering that.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“A griot never going explain a song, only repeat it, maybe with something new, otherwise he would give the explaining not the song. Nothing about the King?”
“No.”
“Or the boy?”
“No.”
“Then for what else he be singing?”
“Maybe what all men sing about. Love.”
She laughed.
“Maybe some people in this world still need it.”
“Do you?” she said.
“Nobody loves no one.”
“The King before this one, Kwash Netu, was never one for learning. Why he would need to? This be something most people don’t know about kings and queens. Even back in many an age, learning was for something. I learn the black arts to use for and against. You learn from the palace of wisdom, so that you rest in a better place than your father. You learn a weapon to protect yourself. You learn a map so that you is master of the journey. In everything, learning is to take from where you be to where you like to go. But a king already there. That be why the King and the Queen can be the most ignorant in the kingdom. And this King mind as blank as sky until somebody told him that some griots sing songs older than when he was a boy. Can you think it? He never believe that any man would put to memory anything that happen before he born, for that is how kings raise their boys.
“But this King didn’t know there was griots who sing songs of King before him. Who they be. What they do. Everything from the wicked work of Kwash Moki. The King didn’t even hear a song. The man at him side say, Most Excellent Majesty, there is a song that can rise against you. Then they round up nearly every man of song with verse from before Kwash Moki’s time and kill them. And who they couldn’t find to kill, they kill wife and son and daughter. Kill them and burn down they house and order all to forget that any song sing that way. Kill everyone in this man family, they do. He escape but even now he wondering why they didn’t kill him. They could have silence him without killing nine people to do it. But such is the way with these kings of North. I speak to him when he wake, that I know.”
* * *
—
Sobs woke me up before sun. First I thought it was wind, or something hanging on from a dream, but there he was across from the bed I slept in, the Ogo crouched in a corner by the south window, crying.
“Sadogo, what is—”
“It is like he thought if he walk on it he could ride it. That is how he looked. Could he ride it? Why didn’t he ride it?”
“Ride what, dear Ogo? And who?”
“The griot. Why didn’t he ride it?”
“Ride what?”
“The wind.”
I ran to my north window, looked out for a blink, then ran to the south window, which Sadogo crouched beside. I saw Sogolon and went down. She wore white this morning, not the brown leather dress she was always in. The griot was at her feet, limbs twisted like a burned spider’s, broken in too many places, dead. Her back was to me, and her robes flapped.
“Everybody still sleep?” she said.
“Except the Ogo.”
“He said he just walk past him and off the roof like he go down the road.”
“Maybe he walked on that road to the gods.”
“This look like a time for mockery to you?”
“No.”
“What he sing to you? In the day now gone, what he sing?”
“Truth? Love. That was all of his singing. Love looking. Love losing. Love like how poets from where Mossi come from talk about love. Love he did lose. That is all he was singing, love he did lose.”
Sogolon looked up, past the house up into the sky.
“He spirit still walking on wind.”
“Of course.”
“I don’t care if you agree or no, you hear m—”
“We agree, woman.”
“No good for the others to know. Not even the buffalo; let him eat grass otherwhere.”
“You want to drag the old man out into deep bush? You want him to be food for hyena and crow?”
“And then the worm and the beetle. It don’t matter now. He with the ancestors. Trust the gods.”
The Ogo came out to join us, his eyes still red. Poor Ogo, it was not that he was gentle. But something about someone else bringing his own self such violence shook him.
“We take him out to the bush, Sadogo.”
This was still savannah. Not many trees, but yellow grass reaching my nose. Sadogo had picked him up and was cradling him like a baby, despite his bloody head. The two of us went out to taller grass.
“Death remains king over us, does he not? He still wants to choose when to take us. Sometimes even before our ancestors have made a place. Maybe he was a man in defiance of the final King, Ogo. Maybe he just said, Fuck the gods, I choose when to be with my own ancestors.”
“Maybe,” he said.
“I wish I had better words, words like he used to sing. But he must have thought that whatever was his purpose, he fulfilled it. After that there was nothing to—”
“You believe in purpose?” Sadogo asked.
“I believe people when they say they believe in it.”
“Ogo has no use for gods of sky or place of the dead. When he is dead he is meat for crows.”
“I like how the Ogo think. And if—”
It flew past my face so fast I thought it was a trick. Then another flew right past my head. The third came straight at my face and as if coming for my eyes, but I blocked it and its claws scratched my hand. One came for the Ogo’s shoulder and he swatted it so quick and hard that it exploded in a cloud of blood. Birds. Two went for his face and he dropped the griot. He swatted away one and grabbed the other, crushing it whole. One scraped the back of my neck. I grabbed it from behind and tried to snap its neck but it was stiff, it flapped and clawed and snapped at my finger. I let go and it flew around and came right back at me. Sadogo jumped in my way and swatted it. On the ground I saw what they were, hornbills, white head with a black streak of feather on top, a long gray tail, and a huge red beak that curved down, bigger than his head, for the red meant male. Another landed on the griot and flapped his wings. The Ogo moved in to grab him when I looked up.
“Sadogo, look.”
Right above us, swirling, screeching, a black cloud of hornbills. Three dived after us, then four, then more and more.
“Run!”
The Ogo stood and fought, punching and swatting and crushing in his knuckles and tearing wings, but they kept coming. Two heading for my head crashed into each other and fought on my scalp. I ran, my hand blocking my face, them scratching my fingers. The Ogo, tired of fighting, ran as well. Near the door of the house, they stopped following. Sogolon came back out and we turned around to see the swarm of birds—hundreds, if not more—clasp the griot with their claws, lifting him up slow and low above the ground, and flying him away. We said nothing.
We gathered our things, with Sogolon telling the others that the man is gone into deep wilderness to speak to spirits, which was not exactly a lie, and said we should take as much as we could carry. I said, Why would we need to, if we are less than a day to Dolingo citadel? She frowned and told the girl to grab more food. The girl hissed and said, If you want more food, go get it yourself. I wondered if Mossi was thinking as I did, and that this was not something I wanted to ask about right now. He grabbed a cloth and wrapped it around my neck for the scratch. Sogolon took one horse, the girl climbed up Sadogo’s back and sat on his right shoulder. Mossi climbed on the buffalo and they both turned and looked at me when I started walking.
“Don’t be foolish, Tracker, you will slow us down,” Mossi said.
He held out his hand and pulled me up.
Day reddened, then blackened, and we were nowhere near the Dolingo citadel. I nodded off, fell asleep on Mossi’s shoulder, jumped back in horror, and fell asleep again, this time not caring, only to wake up finding that we were still not there. Dolingo must have been one of those lands that seemed small but took two lifetimes to travel. The first time I woke up I was hard. Truth, that is why I jumped back. It must have been a dream that vanished as soon as I woke. As dreams always do. Yes, as they always do. I shifted as far away from him as I could, for to tell truth, I could smell him. Yes, I could smell everyone, but everyone wasn’t breathing much slower than everyone else. And with me cursing myself for sleeping on Mossi’s shoulder, hoping I didn’t drool or poke his back, though I shoot up when hard, not out. Of course hoping that I wasn’t hard when I was asleep only made me grow hard awake, and I thought of hornbills, and night skies, and foul water, anything.
“Good buffalo, if you tire of us, we can walk,” Mossi said.
The buffalo grunted, which Mossi took to mean stay as you are, though I wanted to climb off. But I also wished I wore thick, heavy robes this once. Not that robes hid any man’s desire. But it was not desire, it was my body holding on to a dream that my head had long let go. We were climbing slightly, into cooler night air, and passing small hills and great rocks.
“Sogolon, you said we are in Dolingo. Then where is it?” I asked.
“Silly, stupid, tracking idiot. Do you think we pass mountains? Look up.”
Dolingo. Not much had passed since we left the griot’s house, but as the bush grew thick with trees, I thought we were swerving around great rocks to avoid climbing them. I would have fallen off the buffalo, had Mossi not grabbed my hand.
Dolingo. These were not great rocks, even though they were as wide as mountains—a thousand, six thousand, maybe even ten thousand paces all around—but the trunks of trees with little branches sprouting low. Trees as tall as the world itself. At first, looking up, all I could see were lights and ropes, something reaching taller than the clouds. We came upon a clearing wide as a battlefield, enough for me to see two of them. The first spread as far as the field; the second, smaller. Both trunks rose through clouds and beyond. Mossi grabbed my knee, I am sure without thinking. The first had an edifice, maybe of wood or mortar or both that wrapped around the base of the trunk, and rising five floors, each floor maybe eighty to a hundred paces high. Light flickered from some windows and blazed bold from others. The trunk rose dark, and continued even higher, past more clouds, where it split like a fork. On the left, what looked like a massive fort, huge plain walls with high windows and doors, another floor on top, and another floor on top of that, going on and on for six floors, with a deck on the fifth and a platform hanging off, held by four ropes that must have been as thick as a horse’s neck. At the very top, a compound with the magnificent towers and roofs of a grand hall. On the right, the branch went unadorned as high as the forts, with a one palace on top, but even that palace had many floors, planks, decks, and roofs of gold. Clouds shifted, the moon shone brighter, and I noticed that the fork had three necks, not two. A third branch, thick as the other two, and dressed with buildings finished and buildings being built. And a deck that stretched longer than all others, so far that I thought it would soon break off. From the deck hung several platforms, pulled up and down by ropes. What number of slaves did it take to pull them? And what kind of now was this, what kind of future, where people built high and not wide? On top of, but not beside each other? Where were the farms and where were the cattle, and without them what did such people eat? Farther out in the great expanse, seven more towering trees stood high, including one with massive shiny planks that looked like wings, and a tower shaped like a dhow sail. The other, the trunk pointed slightly west, but the structures shifted slightly east, as if all the buildings were sliding off the base. From branch to branch, building to building, ropes and pulleys, platforms, and suspended wagons moving to and from, above and below.
“What is this place?” Mossi said.
“Dolingo.”
“I have never seen such magnificence. Do gods live here? Is this home of gods?”
“No. It is the home of people.”
“I don’t know if I want to meet such people,” Mossi said.
“The women might like your myrrh musk.”
Metal crunched, gears locked. Iron hit iron, and the platform lowered. The ropes all around tightened, and pulleys began to spin. The platform, above and coming down, blocked the moon and covered us in shadow. It was as long and wide as a ship, and when it landed it shook the ground.
Mossi’s hand still grabbed my knee. Sogolon and the girl galloped ahead, expecting us to follow. The platform was already rising and the buffalo leapt up on it, sliding a little. Mossi’s hand left my knee. He hopped off and wobbled a little, with the rising platform. From a tower on high, someone turned a giant glass or silver circle, perhaps a dish, that caught the moonlight, and shone it down on the platform. We could hear cogs, and gears, and wheels. We rose higher, and as we moved closer, I could see patterns along the walls, diamond after diamond, up, down, and crossways, and balls in the same pattern, and ancient glyphs and stripes and wild lines that looked as if they still moved, as if an art master had painted with wind. We rose higher, past the trunk, taller than any bridge or road, to the three branches. On the side of the right branch, someone had painted the black head of a woman, so tall it rose higher than four floors, and on her head a wrap rose even higher.
The platform leveled with a plank and all movement stopped. Sogolon stepped off first and Venin followed, walking without looking right or left, or above, which had several orbs of light, but no string or source. So did Sadogo and the buffalo. They had been here before, but I had not. Mossi was still in shock. Sogolon and Venin left the horse standing to the side. This was the right-side branch, the branch of the palace, and on the nearest wall, a sign in a language like one I knew, with letters as tall as any man.
“This is Mkololo, the first tree and seat of the Queen,” Sadogo said.
The moon moved in so close she eavesdropped on us. We walked on a wide stone bridge that curved over a river and met a road that had no bend. I wanted to ask what kind of science makes a river flow from so high, but the palace stood before us, as if it only now rose from the ground, as if we were mice beholding trees. The moon made all the walls white. On the lowest level, a high wall and a bridge to the left above a waterfall. On the next level, something I have only seen in lands of the sand sea. An aqueduct. Above that, the first floor, with lit windows and two towers. And above that still more chambers and rooms, and halls, and towers and grand roofs, some like the dome of a calabash, some like the pointed tip of an arrow. Rising to the right, a long platform with people, throwing shadow beneath us, as we came to a double door about three men high. And standing guard, two sentries in green armour, with neck gorgets that rose right below the nose, and long lances in one arm. They grabbed the handles and pulled the door open. We walked past them, but my hands were on my axes and Mossi grabbed his sword.
“Don’t insult the Queen’s hospitality,” Sogolon said.
Twenty paces in flowed a moat, with a bridge no wider than three men aside, taking us over to the other side. Sogolon went first, then the Ogo, Venin, the buffalo, Mossi, then me. I watched Mossi look around him, jumping at the slightest splash, or gasping from a bird above, or the crank of gears from the platforms outside. I watched him more than I did where we were going, and besides, Sogolon clearly knew. Heat came off the water, but fish and fish-beasts swam in it. We crossed the bridge and walked towards steps, watching men, women, standing beasts, and creatures I have never seen, dressed in iron plates and chain mail, and robes, and capes, and headdresses with long feathers. The men and women had skin the darkest I have ever seen. On each step stood two guards. At the top step, the entrance rose taller than I could mea
sure.
Here is truth. I have been to magnificent dominions across the lands and under the seas, but where would one start with this court? Mossi stood still, struck with wonder, as I too stood still. The halls reached so high I expected the women and men to be as tall. In the great hall stood guards at positions along the walls, twenty plus ten more, and other guards, six, who stood facing us. They all had two swords and one spear and showed their faces, which were all a dark black-blue. Their hands as well. And the people who moved about the great hall, even those covered in colourful robes, still had the darkest skin I have seen since the Leopard when he moved like a cat. Guards stood on our landing as well, two of them. I wanted to see the make of their swords. This hall had gold on every pillar, and running through the trim of every armour, but gold would have been a terrible metal for a sword. The hall floor sunk lower than our platform, but the throne floor rose the highest, a pyramid that was all imperial seat, with a ledge or step all around on which several women sat, and above them, the actual throne and the actual Queen.
Her skin, like her men, a black that came from the deepest blue. Her crown, like a gold bird had landed on her head and wrapped her wings around her face. Gold also lined her eyes and glimmered from a small spot on both lips. A vest of gold straps hung loose from her neck and her nipples peeked out when she leaned back.
“Listen to me now,” she said. Her voice was deeper than the hum of monks. “Rumors I already hear them. Rumors of men the colour of sand, some even the colour of milk, but I am Queen and I believe what I wish. So I did not believe they lived. But look at the one before us.” The Dolingon tongue sounded like Malakal’s. Sharp sounds spoken in the quick, and long sounds that linger on purpose. Mossi already furrowed his brow.
He nudged me. “What does she say?”
“You don’t speak the Dolingon tongue?”
“Certainly. A fat eunuch taught me at four. Of course I don’t speak it. What does she say?”
“She talks of men she has never seen. You. I am almost sure of it.”