above him is Liongo the great, who ruled nearly seventy years. Who doesn’t know the great King Liongo? Then over here on this leaf, Liongo again and above him, Moki, his father, the boy King.”
“Turn the page.”
“I did. There’s nothing before.”
“You didn’t—”
“Look,” I said, pointing at the blank page. “Nothing is there.”
“But Moki is not the first Akum King, that would make the line about two hundred and fifty years old.”
“Two hundred and seventy.”
“Keep flipping,” Mossi said.
“Family map. Fasisi Kwash Dara. Akum. His seat of rule, his praise name, his king name, and his family.”
Three pages up, another family map someone drew in a darker blue. At the top of the page was Akum. At the bottom was Kwash Kagar, Moki’s father. But above him something curious, and above that even more curious.
“Is this a new line? An old one, I mean,” the prefect said.
“House of Akum up to Moki’s father. What do you notice?”
“Above Kagar is a line pointing to Tiefulu? That’s a woman’s name. His mother.”
“Beside hers.”
“Kwash Kong.”
“Now look above Kong.”
“Another woman, another sister. Tracker, no king is the son of a king.”
“Until Moki.”
“There are many kingdoms that follow the wife’s line, or the sister.”
“Not the North Kingdom. From Moki down, every king is the king’s oldest son, not his sister’s son. Grab these.”
I went back to the glyphs. He followed me over, looking at the maps, not at me.
“What did you say about kings and gods?” I said.
“I said nothing about kings and—”
“You tiresome in all your ways?”
He dropped the papers at my feet and grabbed the writs.
“A king is king by a queen, not a king,” he said.
“Give me that. Look at this writ.”
He bent over me. This was not the time to think of myrrh. He read, “‘That the house of kings return to the ways that had been decreed by the gods, and not this course which has corrupted the ways of kings for six generations. This is what we demand: that the king follow the natural order set by gods of sky and gods below the earth. Return to the purity of the line as set in the words of long-dead griots and forgotten tongues.’ This is what he wrote.”
“So the northern line of kings changed from king’s sister’s son to king’s son, six generations ago. These are facts for any that would look. No reason to murder an elder. And these writs, sure they call for a return to the old order, which some might say is mad, some might say is treason, but most will never go so far back in the line of kings to check,” I said.
“And what do you think will happen if they do?”
“Outrage maybe.”
He laughed. Such irritation.
“The times are the times, and people are people. Something so long ago? People will shrug it off like a smelly blanket,” he said.
“Something here is missing or—”
“What do you not tell me?” he said. His eyes narrowed in a wicked frown.
“You have seen what I see. I have told you what I know,” I said.
“What do you think?”
“I have no duty to tell you what I think.”
“Tell me anyway.”
He stooped down next to me and the papers. Those eyes of his. Popping bright in the near-dark.
“I think this is connected to that child. The one from Fumanguru’s house.”
“The one you think the murderers took with them?”
“They were not the ones who took the child. Before you ask how I know, just know I know. Someone I know claims she saved the child that night. Whoever sent assassins to Fumanguru must know somebody saved the child.”
“They wish to wash the world clean of him and mask their tracks.”
“That is what I thought. But too much has happened. There is no reason to kill Fumanguru, none other than they were after the child in the first place. It would be why so many people are still interested in such an old murder. I asked one who would know two days ago if he picked up any word on any man like Fumanguru. He told me two elders fucking a deaf girl said they had to find the writs, or it would be the death of someone. Maybe them. One was Belekun the Big. You should know I killed him,” I said.
“Oh?”
“Not before he tried to kill me. In Malakal. Had his men try to kill me as well.”
“A more stupid man has not been born, clearly. Continue, Tracker.”
“Anyway, the other was a whore named Ekoiye. He said let us talk in