tell you this over a moon ago.”
“You told me nothing. Bunshi did. Everything about the boy was in the writs.”
“Nothing about this boy in no writs.”
“Then what did I find in the library before they burned it down, witch?”
“You and the pretty prefect?” Sogolon said.
“If you say he is.”
“And yet you still to escape. Either you too hard to kill, or he not trying hard to kill you.”
She looked at me, then went back to the window.
“This is between us two,” I said.
“Too late for that,” Mossi said, and walked in the room.
Mossi. Sogolon’s back was to us but I saw her shoulders tighten. She tried to smile.
“I don’t know what people call you, other than prefect.”
“Those who call me friend call me Mossi.”
“Prefect, this not your move. Best thing for you is you turn around and go back for—”
“As I said. Too late for that.”
“If one more man interrupt me, before I finish what I say. This is no mission to find drunk fathers, or lost child and send them home, prefect. Go home.”
“Sun’s set on that thanks to all of you. What home is there for the prefect? The chieftain army will think all on the roof were killed with my blade. You don’t know them as I do. They’ve already burned down my house.”
“Nobody ask you to push up youself.”
He stepped right in and sat down on the floor, his legs spread wide apart, and pulled his scabbard around so it rested between them. Scabs on both knees.
“And yet plenty is upon me, whether you asked or not. Who do you have good with a sword? I was doing what I was paid to. That I no longer have that calling is your fault. But I bear no malice. And man should never turn down great sport or great adventure, I think. Besides, you need me more than I need you. I’m not as aloof as the Ogo, or simple as the girl. You never know, old woman. If this mission of yours excites me, I may do it for free.”
Mossi pulled out of his satchel a bunch of papyrus leaves folded small. I knew from the smell before I saw what they were.
“You took the writs?” I said.
“Something about them had the air of importance. Or maybe just sour milk.”
He smiled but neither I nor Sogolon laughed.
“No laughter to you people below the desert. So, who is this boy you seek? Who presently has him? And how shall he be found?”
He unfolded the papers, and Sogolon turned around. She moved in closer, but not so close it would look like she was trying to read them.
“The papers look burn,” she said.
“But they fold and unfold like papers untouched,” Mossi said.
“Those are not burns, they are glyphs,” I said. “Northern-style in the first two lines, coastal below. He wrote them down in sheep milk. But you knew this,” I said.
“No. Never know.”
“There were glyphs of this kind all over your room in Kongor.”
She glared at me quick, but her face smoothed. “I don’t write none of them. Is Bunshi you must ask.”
“Who?” Mossi said.
“Later,” I said, and he nodded.
“I don’t read North or coastal mark,” Sogolon said.
“Well fuck the gods, there is something you cannot do.” I pointed at Mossi with my chin. “He can.”
The room had a bed, though I was sure Sogolon never slept on one. The girl went beside her, they whispered, then she went back to the door.
“The writ the prefect holding be just one. Fumanguru make five, and one come across where I stay. He say the monarchy need go forward by going back, so that make me want to know more. You read the whole writ?”
“No.”
“Don’t have to. Boring once he stop talking about the King. Then he just turn into one more man telling woman what to do. But for what he say about the King, I find him one night.”
“Why would anything about the elder and the King concern you?” I said.
“It never was for me. Why you think no man can touch me, Tracker?”
“I—”
“Don’t bother with the smart tongue. I didn’t call on him for me, but for somebody else.”
“Bunshi.”
She laughed. “I find Fumanguru because I serve the sister of the King. From what he write, he sound like the one man who understand. The one who could look past his own fattening belly to see what wrong with the empire, the kingdom, how the North Kingdom being plagued by evil and misfortune and malcontent for as long