it,” I said.
“One of we in chains and one of we not.”
“You never learned how to ask a favor.”
“The Queen will treat you and the prefect and the Ogo better than concubines.”
“Will she give us each a palace that she never visits?”
“All my life men telling me this would be the life above all lives. Well here come the Queen of Dolingo saying, That is all you have to be for however long you live. From how man talk, this should be the greatest gift.”
“Would be much greater if the man get to choose it.”
“So now you is like a woman in all things. How it feel?”
“Have the griots sing you a song about your victory over man.”
“Man? You just a nose.”
“A nose for which you still find use.”
“Yes, a nose that may still to come to use. The rest of you just in the way. And when I get the boy, know that you help bring back the natural order to the North. Let that feed you as you settle the rest of your living days here.”
“Here where everything is unnatural. A devil’s fuck for the North.”
“You look at me good, boy. Because you never see me before. You never in Kongor? You never see the Seven Wings amass? What you think in the heart of this King? The King in South too busy confusing his throne for his shithole to start a war, so why they amassing? And is not just mercenaries in Kongor. The infantry at the border of Malakal and Wakadishu get call back a moon ago. Fasisi horsemen all call to camp. The South King one kind of mad. The North King another, much worse. First he going violate the treaty and go after Wakadishu, watch my word. And that won’t be enough, for it never enough for anybody in this poison line. Then he going come conquering everywhere he can point on the map. Dolingo.”
“He can burn Dolingo to the ground.”
She stepped closer to me, still out of the reach of my chains when I stood up.
“Ha. You think he going stop at Dolingo and all the free states? What you think he going do with Ku and Gangatom and Luala Luala? A bigger kingdom will need more slaves. Where you think he going get them from? He won’t care if they have legs like a giraffe or have no legs at all.”
“Shit-cursed witch.”
“A shit-curse witch who know the only future for your children is for Fasisi to return to being the true North. He already taking men and every healthy boy from Luala Luala. The world spinning off for too long, and everything off it balance. And this shriveled bitch here you looking at? She will take anything and take anyone, especially a boy lesser than a shit mark on convict’s wall if that bring the true line of the sister back on the throne. True North. The future of the North is in the eye of the boy. And maybe then the gods will come back. The future bigger than me, it bigger than you, it even bigger than Fasisi. I don’t expect you to understand, you still sleeping, and from that sleep man like you can never wake.”
“Then look for my help in dreams, bitch.”
“The Queen like her new seeder whole, this is a true thing. But she already pick her seeder, and is not you. The pretty prefect fuck her good, I was there to see it. So good even she don’t see that is man he like. He going live nice until he seed done, or go bad, or he get old, or she get bored and then send him off to the fire chamber for other use. But you? They don’t care which part of you they crush, break, or cut off, as long as is not that one. Listen to me, fool. You never have no stake in this, you already know that. You losing nothing, and all you was going to gain was little money. Money less than what I give to beggars on the street. Now you have plenty to lose. You see these people, they live their whole life keeping slave under control. You think they don’t know what to do to you?”
“One thing, Moon Witch? Is that what they call you?”
“People always giving woman name when they already have one.”
“You’re using words like a woman, as if you speak for any. As if you come from some sisterhood. And yet how many sisters