that you believe his story. Besides, he is a rich man, a very rich man given that none of us come cheap.”
“Us?”
“He has commissioned nine, Tracker. Five men, three women, and hopefully you.”
“So his purse must be the fattest thing about him. And the child—his own?”
“He says neither yes nor no. He is a slaver, selling black and red slaves to the ships that come from people who follow the eastern light.”
“Slavers have nothing but enemies. Maybe somebody killed the child.”
“Mayhaps, but he is set in his desire, Tracker. He knows that we might find bones. But then he would at least know, and knowing for certain is better than years of torment. But I skip too much and make the mission—”
“Mission, is it? We’re to be priests now?”
“I’m a cat, Tracker. How many fucking words do you think I know?”
This time I laughed.
“I told you what I know. A slaver is paying nine to either find this child alive, or proof of his death, and he does not care what we do to find him. He may be two villages away, he may be in the South Kingdom, he might be bones buried in the Mweru. You have a nose, Tracker. You could find him in days.”
“If the hunt is so swift, why does he need nine?”
“Clever Tracker, is it not clear to you? The child didn’t leave. He was taken.”
“By who?”
“Better if it comes from him. If I explain you might not come.”
I stared at him.
“I know that look,” he said.
“What look?”
“That look. You are more than interested. You’re glutting on the very idea of it.”
“You read too much in my face.”
“It’s not just your face. At the very least come because something will intrigue you and it won’t be the coin. Now speaking of desires …”
I looked at the man, who not long before the sun left convinced an innkeeper to give him raw meat soaking in its own blood for dinner. Then I smelled something, the same as before, on Leopard yet not on him. When we stepped outside the inn, the smell was stronger, but then it went weak. Strong again, stronger, then weaker. The smell got weaker every time the Leopard turned around.
“Who is he, the boy following us?” I asked.
I spoke loud enough for the boy to hear. He shifted from dark to dark, from the black shadow cast by post to the red light cast by a torch. He slipped into the doorway of a shut house, less than twenty paces from us.
“What I would like to know, Leopard, is would you let me throw a hatchet and split his head in two before you tell me he is yours?”
“He is not mine, and by the gods I’m not his.”
“And yet I smelled him the whole time we were at the inn.”
“A nuisance he is,” the Leopard said, watching the boy slip out of the doorway, too timid to look. Not tall, but skinny enough to come across so. Skin as dark as shadow, a red robe tied at his neck that reached his thigh, red bands above his elbow, gold bracelets at his wrists, a striped skirt around his waist. He was carrying the Leopard’s bow and arrows.
“Saved him from pirates on either the third or fourth voyage. Now he refuses to leave me alone. I swear it’s the wind that keeps blowing him my way.”
“Truly, Leopard, when I said I keep smelling him, I meant smelling him on you.”
The Leopard laughed, but a tiny laugh, like a child caught right as he is about to do mischief.
“He has my bow when I lose arms and always finds me no matter where I go. Who knows but the gods? He might tell great stories of me when I am gone. I pissed on him to mark him as mine.”
“What?”
“A joke, Tracker.”
“A joke doesn’t mean false.”
“I’m not an animal.”
“Since when?”
I stopped myself from asking if this is not the fifth boy or sixth you are leading astray, him waiting without hope for something you will never give him, because that is what you give, is it not, your eyes upon his eyes, your ears for whatever he says, your lips for his lips, all things you can give and take away, and nothing that he wants. Or is he your tenth? Instead I said, “Where is this slaver?”
The slaver was from the North, trading illegally with Nigiki, but he and his caravans, full with fresh slaves, had set up camp in the