disease that burned all the colour from your skin? Tell me now, since nobody in this court likes when you annoy their Queen …. I said, nobody in this court like if you annoy the Queen.”
The court erupted in nos and uh-uhs, and shouts to the gods.
“And yet his hair is black as coal. Lift that sleeve …. Yes, yes, yes, but how is this? Your shoulder is lighter than your arm? I can see it right there, did they sew arms onto you? My wise counsel had better start counseling.”
I was looking at all this and wondering if only the South had mad kings and queens. Sogolon stood back when I expected her to say something. I tried to read her face but hers was not mine. If you disgusted me, you knew as soon as I bid you morning greetings. The Queen was playing and what was play to her? The Ogo stood still but his knuckles cracked from him squeezing too hard. I touched his arm. Mossi was no better at hiding his mind from his face. And Mossi standing there, looking at everything, understanding nothing.
He saw my face, and his fell into worry. What? he mouthed to me, but I did not know how to say anything to him.
“I will see more. Remove it,” the Queen said.
“Remove your robes,” said the chancellor to Mossi.
“What?” Mossi said. “No.”
“No?” the Queen said. That she understood despite the Kongori tongue. “Shall a queen wait for consent from a man?”
She nodded and two of her guards grabbed Mossi. He punched one straight on the cheek but the other pushed a knife against his throat. He turned to me and I mouthed, Peace. Peace, prefect. The guard used the same knife, lodged between the garment and his shoulders, and cut it off. The other guard pulled his belt and everything dropped on the floor.
“No gasps? I hear no gasping?” the Queen said, and the room erupted in gasps, coughs, wheezes, and shouts to the gods.
Mossi, thinking, These are the things that must happen to me, straightened his back, raised his head, and stood. The women and men and eunuchs, who sat at the foot of the Queen, all crawled closer to look. What was the mystery, I did not know.
“Strange, strange thing. Chancellor, why is it darker than the rest of him? Lift it, I will see the sac.”
He came for Mossi’s balls and Mossi jumped. Meanwhile in all this Sogolon said nothing.
“Just as dark? Yes, it is strange, chancellor.”
“It is strange, Most Excellent.”
“Are you a man made up of other men? Your arms darker than your shoulders, your neck darker than your chest, your buttocks whiter than your legs, and your, your …” Then, to the chancellor, “What do your courtesans call it?”
Truth, I laughed.
“I am not one for the company of courtesans, Most Excellent,” said the chancellor.
“Of course you are, they walk on four legs and cannot speak but they are yours. Enough of this talk. I will know why it is so darker than the rest of him. Is that how all men are in other lands? Is this what I would have seen had I married one of the Kalindar princes? East man, why is it the colour of that man standing with Sogolon?”
The chancellor said only that it was curious that a man with such light skin had such dark balls.
Mossi saw me covering a laugh and he frowned. “The gods had some play with me, my Queen,” he said.
The chancellor told the Queen what Mossi said, almost as he said it.
“Which man were they playing with when they took it from him to give it to this man? I will know these things. Right now.”
Mossi looked perplexed again, but watched the people watching him. Still he said nothing.
Sogolon cleared her throat. “Most excellent Queen, remember why we come to Dolingo.”
“I am not one for forgetting, Sogolon. Especially when it was a favor. Especially the way you begged for it.”
Mossi looked at them with the shock I hid.
“Look at your stunned lips. And why would I, the wisest of queens, not speak that savage North tongue—especially when I constantly have to deal with savages? A child could learn it in a day …. Why does my court not ooh and aah?”
The chancellor translated for the court, which erupted in oohs and aahs and shouts to the gods.
She waved her hand and the guards poked at Mossi with their spears. He grabbed his clothes and walked back