Redemptor

  When he spoke again, the courtier’s drawl had vanished from his voice. “I think, Idajo,” he said, “you severely underestimate how easy you are to love.”

  When he cupped my face and kissed me, his lips were soft, like the sun through palm leaves. Then he stood and disappeared below deck, leaving me alone with my sky of sentient stars.

  CHAPTER 26

  Zuri insisted we hold the ceremony at the crack of dawn, in the central compound of the sprawling Wanguru Fortress.

  His home castle was made up of long, low mudbrick buildings, etched elegantly with geometric patterns and dotted with fortified towers. Upon our arrival, I immediately wished I could spend more time in Djbanti. A cerulean sky stretched over neat, bustling towns and villages surrounded by lush brush forests—purposely untamed to preserve the Djbanti’s expert pastime: the hunting of beasts, providing the exquisite pelts that Djbanti exported throughout the empire.

  Beggars lined the well-ordered streets, their gaunt faces a stark contrast to the old, elegant mudbrick high-rises. Clearly, the commoners of Djbanti had not always been poor. Hollow eyes watched our procession to the fortress, and children fought dogs for scraps in the alleys. The damage wrought by Zuri’s warlords grew clearer by the hour. More than ever, I was desperate for my Pinnacle to succeed.

  “D-Don’t worry, L-Lady Empress,” Adukeh whispered, squeezing my hand. Her throat glittered with strings of coral akorin beads. She and the other attendants preceded in a grave procession through the fortress hallways. “After my p-performance, those nobles will have to listen.”

  I smiled and winked at her, moved as usual by my akorin’s unshakeable confidence. “If you can’t put the fear of Am into those nobles,” I told her, “no one can. The audience won’t know what hit them.”

  By tradition, all Pinnacles involved some form of entertainment, usually something flattering and benign, like oriki praise poems in the guests’ honor, or dancing parades of animals from each realm.

  But for my Pinnacle, I had asked Adukeh to sing the scariest tale she knew. The idea had delighted her, and even now she muttered the lines to herself, caressing her grandmother’s drum.

  The main gathering area of Wanguru Fortress lay in a vast limestone courtyard, overlooked by towering statues of lions—patron beasts of Djbanti royalty. I could hear the audience’s rumble long before we entered—noble clans teemed in every inch of the standing space. In the courtyard’s center, Zuri sat enthroned on an echo-stone dais. He wore a richly patterned wrapper and sash in black and crimson—the royal cloth of Djbanti. More ornaments glittered in his locs than I had ever seen on him before. When I appeared, he leapt up, sweeping a bow and gesturing toward his throne.

  “The court is yours, Imperial Majesty,” he slurred, with a lurch so convincingly clumsy, I thought he was drunk for real. Then he settled onto a lesser gilded stool, and emitted a hiccup so violent, I bit my lip to keep from laughing. I couldn’t giggle now—thanks to the nervous energy roiling in my stomach, I wouldn’t be able to stop.

  As I ascended the dais, Adukeh hollered the traditional entry song with barely a stutter. “Of what use—Of what use is an empty throne?”

  A sea of noble faces, bodies swathed in fabrics from all over the empire, glowered at me from behind lace fans and woven palm fronds. Zuri’s warlords stood out among them—seven burly, smug-faced men in war paint and lion pelt mantles. They shot sneering looks at Zuri, and glared at me, but in a bleating chorus, they echoed the call-and-response with everyone else.

  We have found someone worthy—(Have you found someone?)

  Aheh, Kunleo is worthy to fill it—(Yes, Kunleo is worthy to fill it!)

  How many of these nobles had been terrorized by my “servants”—the ojiji who had murdered my enemies in droves? Sweat sprung from my palms, but I clenched them, head high, and sat on Zuri’s throne.

  The adinkra cloth from my outing with King Kwasi—black, white, and metallic gold fabric—hugged my hips in an arresting gown, leaving my shoulders bare. My jewelry I kept simple: a gold cuff choker and my rising sun crown, a complement to the stark glyphs on my adinkra and the blue patterns covering my skin.

  “You look,” Zuri said, “like someone to be feared.”

  “In the words of my council sister Queen Min Ja,” I whispered back, “that’s what makes me so popular.”

  Adukeh’s voice pinged from the echo-stone, words sliding in the tonal scale of ancient Arit orators. “N-Noble clans of the t-twelve Arit realms. Your obabirin b-bids you welcome to the first P-Pinnacle of her est-esteemed reign.”

  On cue, my attendants passed bowls of kola nuts around the courtyard. Every clan leader took one, politely biting the pieces of small, hard fruits and spitting onto the floor: an acceptance of my peace offering. I wondered how long peace would last once I started talking.

  “In honor of this m-momentous g-gathering,” Adukeh went on, clearly rallying her courage, “I, a f-former quarry girl, will t-tell you a story.”

  Members of the crowd jeered at Adukeh’s impediment. She stole a glance at me, and I smiled, mouthing what I’d told her this morning:

  Make history.

  Adukeh’s eyes glittered. Brandishing her drum like a weapon, she tore on, her stutter growing weaker with every word.

  “Hear a song of life and d-death,” she bellowed. “Hear the t-tale of Egungun’s Parade. I have three bells in my mouth. I do not tell a lie.”

  Then she trilled, throwing her shoulder into beating the drum. When she started the song, my attendants and I joined in, crowing out the well-known refrain:

  Egungun, I hear him! He was the first man.

  Egungun, my ancestors’ ancestor.

  Egungun wins souls with the beat of his drum—

  Egungun, he leads the parade.

  All around us, the court of nobles murmured, alarmed and discomfited. The tale of Egungun was said to have sinister power—that when sung, it awoke beasts who lurked in the Underworld, eager to pull souls into the depths below. As a result, the story was only told in whispers, or jeered at criminals on their way to execution, hoping to heap bad luck on already-doomed souls.

  But Adukeh grinned and pressed on, declaiming in a strident sing-chant:

  “There was no death in Human-town. Watch my eyes, I am not a liar! There was no death in Human-town; we walked the earth as gods. Our children lived forever until Warlord Fire cursed us. Hear the sounds of beasts baying: gorrun-go, gorrun-go! The Warlord has sent his thirteen monsters; they prey on Human-town!”

  Adukeh hunched over as she drummed, baring her teeth in her best imitation of snarling beasts.

  “Each monster is a death that you or I may die,” Adukeh continued, “and the strongest, Old Age, shall catch us all. Hear a wail lift up from Human-town. The children of Earth and the Pelican have known pain, but death? This is a journey no human has taken. Who will be the first?

  “ ‘Me,’ intones the Gray-Beard Man, and so we call him, for we have lost his name to time. ‘I was the first that Earth shaped from blood and clay. My limbs are weak, and when the Warlord’s beast growls for me, I shall not outrun her.’ ”

  Adukeh stroked her smooth chin in imitation of Gray-Beard, and then shifted, rolling her shoulders like a wolf on the prowl.

  “This very night, she comes: Old Age, with her mane as white as coconut, scratching her claws—krit, krit—on the walls of Gray-Beard’s house. He does not run, our Gray-Beard. No, he kneels at her paws and bows his ancient head. He says, ‘I am ready.’

  “This pleases the Warlord’s beast. So she allows him to take one item with him: his favorite drum. Then Old Age smites Gray-Beard with her chilling breath—saa, saa—and takes him to a forest deep in the Underworld, where animals unlike you or I have ever seen live.

  “‘Select a companion,’ Old Age tells him. ‘For beyond this forest lies the path to Core: the paradise that gives rest to all souls. But for every step of your journey, you will feel any pain that you caused on earth.’ Then Old A
ge vanishes. A black dog, tall and fat as a harvest cow, comes to Gray-Beard: Aja, the first emi-ehran. Faithful Aja! Hear it pound its massive tail—khoum, khoum—to embolden Gray-Beard’s soul. Together, they descend into Core.”

  Adukeh played an interlude on her drum and danced, swaying her hips and stepping rhythmically on the balls of her feet.

  “This is the part you will not like. You will want to run me, an honest griot, out of town. You will throw rocks and say, ‘Ah-ah, you are trying to scare us! It isn’t true!’ But I swear on the hide of this drum: I will someday walk that painful path to Core, and so will you.

  “Aieeee! Hear Gray-Beard shout! His body aches. His cheeks sting from the blows he rained down on his siblings as a quarrelsome young boy. He doubles over. He jerks, as if he has sprouted invisible wings, now bruised and broken: the death of birds he once struck down for sport.

  “‘If these are the crimes of my childhood,’ sobs Gray-Beard, ‘how will I endure the wrongs I committed as a man?’

  “He falls to his knees. The pain is bad, bad now. He feels the shame of the peasant who swept his front step, teased and spat upon by Gray-Beard’s children. He feels the thirst, the hunger of the poor who toiled in his mills, and mined his quarries.”

  The crowd’s foreboding hum grows louder—these lines of Egungun’s story were new, clearly added by Adukeh.

  “Gray-Beard flees from the path,” says Adukeh. “away from Core! He beckons to Aja—‘Come with me, my faithful friend!’ But the emi-ehran stays put, staring with sad eyes at the path. Aja’s message is clear: I am your companion for this journey only. So Gray-Beard wanders the Underworld for seventy days,” Adukeh intoned. “But the loneliness is too much for him to bear. So he returns to that harrowing path! Aja nuzzles his face—gurunun, gurunun—and they walk on.

  “The journey to Core can take years, or no time at all. It depends, you see, on all the pain that you have caused out of malice or neglect. But Gray-Beard is very old, and so the path stretches on for miles. He would go mad, I think, if not for the love of Aja, and the boon of his drum.

  “Egungun, Egungun, Egungun! The sound shores up Gray-Beard’s limbs. He plays the drum until his hands are calloused. His heartbeat tunes to the rhythm. The drum is part of him now, and swallows his name. Egungun—and so we must now call him, for Gray-Beard is no more—laughs with every painful step. Gray-Beard knew nothing but shame, but Egungun is wise. See his feet swell with love for those he has hurt! See him pity his enemies, who will someday die and walk the path before him!

  “Hear a song rise in Egungun’s heart. There are many verses, but time has lost them. This part, however, I know:

  Walk on, beloved, walk on!

  There is life at the end of the world.

  “Will you sing now, to strengthen him? I will, for what else is a griot’s purpose?

  Egungun, I hear him! He was the first man.

  Egungun, my ancestors’ ancestor.

  Egungun wins souls with the beat of his drum—

  Egungun, he leads the parade.”

  Then Adukeh, every muscle in her body shaking with fear and triumph, swept a solemn bow. From behind me I heard fervent applause—Zuri, standing and clapping. I did the same, and the nobles reluctantly joined in, scowling at Adukeh as she scrambled off the stage and my attendants ushered her away. Only then did I address the court, smiling tightly at the crowd.

  “Here is the part that you will like,” I said, voice reverberating through the courtyard. “My akorin did not finish her story. Egungun reaches the gates of Core. The Ira, guardians of all souls, invite him in, but Egungun refuses to enter. He knows that every other human soul will suffer on their journey, as he did. So he returns up the path, and to this day, we hear Egungun’s drum pound through the Underworld, guiding tormented souls to their final rest at Core. Giving hope to all who join Egungun’s Parade.” I paused. “Today, I give all of you a chance to turn back. To redeem yourselves for the abuses, the poverty that flourished under your watch. You may get away with it now . . . but will you escape the consequences on your journey to Core?”

  To my endless relief, some of the nobles actually appeared chastened. But most of them scoffed, and loudest of all were Zuri’s warlords, jowls shaking with laughter.

  “Is this why you have come all this way, Imperial Majesty?” called the boldest one—a warrior with elaborate bone piercings—grinning at me with gold-capped teeth. Zuri had warned me about him: Lord Gakuru, overseer of Djbanti’s largest limestone quarries and tanning houses. “Do you mean to scare us with cookfire tales? Either your throne has power to enforce the laws it passes . . . or it does not. This very Pinnacle is a show of weakness. We are not children to be chastened with wagged fingers.”

  The warlords chuckled. I heard Zuri shift behind me, and though I knew he could not show it, rage was rippling through him.

  I smiled coldly. “You are not children,” I agreed. “Some of you are greedy, ready to grasp at land and resources no matter who it hurts—and that is exactly what I’m counting on.”

  Confused chatter from the crowd. I glanced back at Zuri, who watched me with deepened curiosity.

  “As your Empress Redemptor and High Lady Judge of Aritsar,” I declared, “I hereby pass the Watchman Edict. As of the next moon, the crown will strip lands from any noble clan who refuses to cede the Kunleo-owned resources in their jurisdiction. The crown will then award the confiscated land to another clan . . . whichever one reports the crime.”

  I watched wheels turn behind the warlords’ pompous faces, from which the smugness gradually faded.

  “You will police each other,” I said simply. “Many of your clans have been rivals for decades, and each would leap at the chance to gain your neighbor’s property at the first whiff of illegal operations. The burden of proof will be on the reporter. But with lands to win,” I added, “I’m sure you’ll be resourceful. So . . .” I crossed my arms. “What have you to say, nobles of Aritsar? Any objections?”

  I braced myself for an onslaught, but to my fascination, the courtyard had gone quiet. Greed hung in the air like a sensual veil of smoke. Already I could sense them plotting, panicking, wondering how soon they could unveil the illegal operations of their neighbors.

  Behind me, Zuri gave a low whistle of admiration. “Diabolical, Idajo,” he slurred. “Wish I’d thought of it myself.”

  Again, the kola nut bowls were passed around the courtyard. I held my breath as, one by one, the clan leaders of Oluwan, Swana, Quetzala, Mewe, Moreyao, and every other Arit realm bit and spat, accepting my edict and hurrying from the courtyard . . . all except the warlords of Djbanti.

  “Unlike our fellow Arit lords,” Gakuru hissed, “we Djbanti are not easily led by imperial tricks. The clans of other realms may squabble in rivalry, but we warlords learned to stand together ages ago. We know from experience that when nobility unites—in trade or in war—no one may stand against them. Not even a king.” He sneered at Zuri, then turned to me. “Not even an empress.”

  “You will accept my edict,” I snapped. “No matter how powerful your forces are, they cannot stand against the entire Imperial Guard.”

  “But of course we accept, Imperial Majesty.” Still grinning, Gakuru bowed, bit a kola nut, and spat loudly on the ground. “Just don’t expect to receive any reports from Djbanti anytime soon.”

  My face flushed. Slowly, my heart sank to my sandals. This had been my plan’s weakness—at the end of the day, I still depended on nobles to be my eyes and ears. If Zuri’s warlords were unwilling to report disobedience, then how could I eradicate dissent?

  I turned to Zuri for help, but he only raised an eyebrow, nodding at my chest, where my mask lay hidden beneath my wrapper. “You know what to do.”

  I froze on the dais, temptation stirring in my veins. With a word, I could wipe the grin off Gakuru’s face. I could make every one of those slimy warlords bow. With a flash of my mask, I could save every child like Adukeh.

  “There’s no
thing wrong with using power, Idajo,” Zuri said. His courtier drawl was gone. He spoke quietly, though the echo-stone undoubtedly allowed the court to hear him. “You aren’t an ehru-master. You are a gear in an imperial machine—just like everyone else. You are tool—so be a useful one.”

  Slowly, my hand rose to my mask. I met Gakuru’s mocking eyes, and fury roiled inside me, ready to spew in a word: Bow. Bow and obey.

  But then my spear shifted in its holster, reminding me of its presence. I reached up and touched the shaft, feeling a spark of Sanjeet’s essence in my fingertips. Just then I remembered a night so many months ago, when Sanjeet embraced me in the palace salon, whispering in my ear.

  No human being should be reduced to a function. The day we do that—it’s the beginning of the end.

  “I’m not a tool,” I rasped, after a deafening silence. “And I refuse to make one of anyone else. We’ll find another way to help your people, Zuri. I promise. We’ll build the Djbanti you want, together.” I reached to take his hand. “But this . . .” I gestured toward the mask beneath my clothes. “This isn’t it.”

  To my surprise, Zuri did not look disappointed—only resigned. He stood and touched my cheek, gaze reaching past me to the fortress walls. “I hoped you wouldn’t say that, Idajo. It would have made this day so much easier.”

  Only then did I notice a roar in my ears—and this time, it wasn’t due to sleep deprivation. Faintly, beyond the fortress walls, shouts and the pounding of feet and the clanging of iron against iron sounded.

  A runner boy in Wanguru colors stumbled into the courtyard, eyes glinting with fear. I noticed that he bowed to the warlords instead of to Zuri. “The peasants,” he wailed. “Workers, everywhere, in every region—they’re setting fire to your villas. Laying siege to mines, claiming ownership of the tanneries. They’re armed. I’m not sure how. But now they’re coming for the fortress, and . . . it’s a revolution, Lord Gakuru.”