“So you approve of the ways of your master,” I said.
“I approve of the coin he gives me to feed my children. From the look of you I know you have none. But yes, I stuff his face because every other work he gives to slaves.”
“Is he who you wish to be? When you are a man?”
“Unlike the bitch boy I am now? Here is more truth. If my master as you call him were any more dumb I would have to prune and water him three times a quartermoon,” Bibi said, and chuckled.
“Then leave.”
“Leave? Just like that. Speak to me of this Leopard. What kind of man, with such ease, walks away as he pleases?”
“One who belongs to no one.”
“Or no one belongs to you.”
“Nobody loves no one,” I said.
“The son of a bitch who taught you that hates you. So, as my master would say, tell me true, tell me plain, tell me quick. Is it you with the boy behind me, or the spotted one?”
“Why does every mis-bred soul ask me about this mis-bred boy?”
“Because the cat isn’t talking. The other servers of the King—they are slaves, mind you—were all casting bets. Who is the rod, who is the staff, and who takes it up the shithole.”
I laughed. “What did you guess?” I asked.
“Well, since you are the one they both hate, they say you are being fucked by both.”
I laughed again. “And you?”
“You don’t walk like someone who gets fucked often up the ass,” he said.
“Maybe you don’t know me.”
“Didn’t say you weren’t fucked in the ass. I said you weren’t fucked often.”
I turned and stared at him. He stared at me. I laughed first. Then we couldn’t stop laughing. Then Fumeli said something about not sticking the horse hard enough and we both nearly fell off our horses.
Except for Sogolon, Bibi looked the oldest among us. Certainly the only one so far to mention children. It made me think of the mingi children of the Sangoma who we left with the Gangatom to raise. The Leopard was to give me word of what has happened to them since, but has not.
“How did you come by that sword?” I asked.
“This?” Bibi withdrew it. “I told you, from a mountain man east who made the mistake of going west.”
“Mountain men never go west. Let us speak true, date feeder.”
He laughed. “How old are you in years? Twenty, seven and one?”
“Twenty and five. Do I look so old?”
“I would guess older but did not want to be rude to so new a friend.” He smiled. “I have been twenty twice. And five more years.”
“Fuck the gods. I have never known men to live that long who were not rich, or powerful, or just fat. That means you were old enough to see the last war.”
“I was old enough to fight in it.”
He glanced past me, at the savannah grass, shorter than before, and the sky, cloudier than before, though we could feel the sun. It was cooler as well. We had long left the valley for lands no man has ever tried to live in.
“I know no man who has seen war that will speak of it,” Bibi said.
“Were you a soldier?”
He laughed short. “Soldiers are fools not paid enough to be fools. I was a mercenary.”
“Tell me about the war.”
“All one hundred years of it? Which war are we speaking?”
“Which one did you fight?”
“The Areri Dulla war. Who knows what those buffalo-fuckers of the South called it, though I heard they called it the War of Northern Belligerence, which is hilarious, given that they threw spears first. You were born three years after the last truce. That was the war that caused it. Such a curious family. With all the inbreeding producing mad kings you would think one day a king would say, Let us find some fresh blood to save the line, but no. So we have war upon war. This truth. I cannot say if Kwash Netu was a rare good king or if the new and mad Massykin King was just madder than the last, but he was brilliant at war. He had an art for it, the way some have an art for pottery or poetry.”
Bibi halted his horse and I did mine. I could tell Fumeli looked up, annoyed. The air was wet with the rain that was not going to come.
“We need to move now,” Fumeli said.
“Rest easy, child. The Leopard will be just as hard when you finally get to sit on him,” Bibi said.
This I turned around for. Fumeli’s face was as horrified as I knew it would be. I turned back to Bibi.
“My father never spoke of the war. He never fought in any,” I said.
“Too old?”
“Maybe. He was also my grandfather. But you were talking of war.”
“What? You … Yes, the war. I was ten and seven years and staying in Luala Luala with my mother and father. The mad Massykin King invaded Kalindar, a moon and a half’s march to Malakal, but still too close. Too close to Kwash Netu. My mother said, One day men will come to our house and say we have chosen you for war. I said, Maybe if I fight in war it will finally bring back the glory to our house that Father squandered with wine and women. With what will you bring glory, for you have no honor, she said. She was right, of course. I was between killings, and people have less need for private battles when all are caught up in war. And just as she said, great warriors came to the house and said, You, you are young and strong, at least you look it. Time to send that Omororo Bitch King back to his barrenlands with his tail between his legs. And what should I fight for? I asked, and they were offended. You should fight for the glorious Kwash Netu and for the empire. I spat and opened my robe to show him my necklace. I am of the Seven Wings, I said. Warriors of the coin.”
“Who are the Seven Wings?”
“Mercenaries, kidnapped from drunkard fathers with debts they cannot pay. Skilled in weapons and masters of iron. We travel quick and vanish like an afterthought. Our masters test us with scorpions so we know no fear,” Bibi said.
“How?”
“They sting us to see who lives. In battle, we make the formation of the bull. We are the horns, the most ferocious; we attack first. And we cost more than most kings can pay. But our Kwash Netu was quite wise in the art of war. I heard this from the mad King: One ruler cannot be in two places at once or three, for he is only one. He sits in Fasisi, so let us attack Mitu. So the Massykin attacked Mitu, and Mitu was his. He thought it was victory, and it is not an unwise thought that since the King cannot be in two places at once, he let us attack a place he cannot be. This was his mistake, Tracker. Hear this, that was no weakness. The southern armies played into the very greatness of Kwash Netu, being in many places at once.”
“Witchcraft?”
“Not everything comes from the womb of witches, Tracker. Your King’s father knew how to move armies faster than any king before or since. Movements that would take even the Kongori seven days, his army could cross in two. He chose wise where to fight, and where he could not, he bought the best, and most brutally taxed his people to do it. The best were the Seven Wings. Take this as truth as well. The mad King was a flighty fool who screamed at the sight of blood, and did not know the name of his own generals—while Kwash Netu had his own men to lead in the territories, strong men, who could run a city, or a state when he was gone to war in another. Did you hear of the war of women?”
“No. Tell me.”
“After his generals said to the mad King, Most Divine, we must retreat from Kalindar, our four sisters are in jeopardy, the King agreed. But then that night at the camp, for he demanded to be with his men in war, he heard two cats fucking and thought it was a night devil calling him a coward for retreating. So he demanded they advance again into Kalindar, only to be beaten by women and children hurling rocks and shit from their mud-brick towers. Meanwhile, Kwash Netu took Wakadishu. The final stand at Malakal was not even much of a stand. It was the dregs of an army fleeing stone-throwing women. The war was already won.”