“They have already cast bets, most for you, some against you.”
“What do you mean?”
“The word was you were the smart Ogo.”
“Speak plain and true, slave.”
“The Master of Entertainments, he send bets, by slave, by messenger, and by pigeon, from seven days before, saying you will be pit against the blue one in a fight to the death.”
Before the fight, noise from the well rose loud and thick and bounced off dirt and rock. Noblemen in noble gowns, and gold-streaked slippers, and because this was a special night of special entertainment, they brought several noblewomen with heads wrapped like tall flowers pointing up to the sky. They were impatient, even though many battles left men with broken limbs, smashed heads, and a neck yanked out like from a chicken. Some men started cursing and some women too. Bring the sad-faced one, they chanted. Sad Ogo, sad Ogo, sad Ogo, they said, and shouted, Sad.
Ogo.
Sadogo.
Sadogo.
The blue Ogo threw off a black hood and leapt from a high ledge to the mound. He puffed his chest out. The women hissed and called for Sadogo. I will ram an iroko branch up his ass till it bursts through his mouth and cook him on a spit, the blue Ogo said.
Sadogo came in from the west, a tunnel no man had used before. He had wrapped his knuckles in straps of iron. The master followed him and began to shout.
“Lightning strike and thunder roll, even the gods stealing a look on this right now. Mark it, good gentlemen. Mark it, good wives and virgins. This day not going to be a day anyone soon forget. Who didn’t bet, bet now! Who bet, bet again!”
The new slave girl came down in the bucket and men threw satchels and coins and cowries at her. Some fell in the bucket, some hit her face.
Sadogo saw the new slave girl, lowered to the lowest ledge, then raised from ledge to ledge and swung around to take the bets. Just then it came to him, poetry sung by the girl in a language he did not understand. A language that might have said, Look at us, we speak of melancholy, and melancholy no matter the tongue is always the same word. The blue Ogo’s fist clobbered him right on the cheek and he spat the thought out. He fell back down in the water, which rushed into his nose and made him choke.
The blue Ogo waved into the crowd as some cheered and some hissed, clear when Sadogo’s ears rose out of the water, murky when he fell back in. The blue Ogo stomped around the mound, shoved his crotch out, and fucked the air. He looked down on Sadogo and laughed so loud that he coughed. Sadogo thought of lying there, hoping the water would rise, perhaps in a tide, and swallow him. The blue Ogo backed up and lowered his head like a bull. He ran three steps and leapt high. He clasped his hands together to bring them down on Sadogo’s head. Sadogo jammed his elbow into the mud and pulled himself into a right-hand swing, which punched right through the blue Ogo’s chest and burst through his back. Blue Ogo’s eyes popped wide. The crowd fell quiet. Blue Ogo fell, and rolled, pulling Sadogo up. Blue Ogo’s eyes still popped wide. Sadogo bellowed into the walls, pulled his hand and tore Blue Ogo’s heart out. Blue Ogo stared at him quick, spat blood, fell dead. Sadogo stood up, threw the heart at the middle ledge, and all the men dodged.
The Master of Entertainments ran out and addressed the crowd.
“Was ever a champion so, so melancholy, my brothers? When will he be beaten? When will he be stopped? Who shall stop him? And whose death—I said whose death, my brothers—will make him smi—”
The people right in front of the master saw it. Iron knuckles as they burst out of the master’s chest. The master’s eye flipping up into white. The Ogo’s hand pulling back in the quick and wrenching out his backbone. The master crumpled like fabric. The slave looked down from her bucket. The whole well fell quiet until one woman screamed. Sadogo dashed to the first ledge, punched away the wood brace supporting it, and screaming men slid right into his punching fist. First, second, third. The fourth tried to run through the water, but he grabbed her leg and swung her into another ledge full of men, knocking them