Danger is back on a farm in a place she never learn the name of, with three brothers waiting to kill her. Danger is man who visit Miss Azora to bed the Forbidden Lily, man she couldn’t get to drink the potion before he push her down on the bed. Danger is somewhere in the otherworld where according to her brothers, her mother is screaming for them to take revenge on the little dog who claw out of her koo and kill her because she selfish. Kongor? This land is a wonder. And it sadden Sogolon because she don’t want to leave. Even if the master still walk right past her like she is an old ghost in the house. Mistress do more than enough looking at her. And fussing. Sogolon is somebody for the mistress to fuss over, and worry about. Somebody to dress in good clothes so that people think of her as coming from a good house. She is somebody to instruct, correct, rap on the forehead, slap across the buttocks, scold when she speak like some Mitu river rat, which is what the mistress call her when she work out where exactly Sogolon come from. But she know. The mistress is preparing her for somewhere else. Somebody else. So she learn days and start to count them. Twenty and nine and you have a new moon. Then she learn moons and how to count them, glad when she count one off, scared that it will be the last moon she count in this house. Stand tall like a woman and not some lazy fool, Mistress Komwono say when she catch her slumping, but her slump don’t come from laziness. Meanwhile the master still don’t look at her.
Then one night the master come down into the quarters near the cookroom where she and the slave girl sleep. She not asleep, though it look that way, and so be the slave girl. He trying to be quiet. Tiptoeing in slippers that slap the floor with each step. He nudge the slave girl with his foot. She don’t move and he rouse her hard. She groan and roll away from him but he follow, then nudge her with his foot again. She groan again, a groan that turn into a mumble. Enough for the master, who lift up his nightshirt to show nothing underneath, but that nothing black in the dark, making him look like a ghost under a dress. The nightshirt keep falling down and he keep pulling it back up. The master kneel and pull the slave girl to him. She groaning like she want to go back to sleep, and roll onto her belly as he pull her across the floor. The master push her robe past her buttocks up her back, and lift up his again. He slap it on her skin until he think he ready. Sogolon turn to watch them, interested in seeing what she think he think he did do to her at Miss Azora. He thrust and push and stop to brush off something pricking his knee, maybe a pebble, but she don’t move. She grunt none, but he grunt plenty.
The city is the city. Where she come from, sometimes the sway of grass in the breeze can feel like the land is opening itself up to her. Especially with nothing but a hole in the side of the termite hill to look out of. But Kongor don’t offer nothing. And when sleep don’t find her, she get up and look out the window. A street near asleep, but boys always on the road, looking like they going somewhere. Some in wraps, some naked, all wearing or carrying straw helmet, or elbow brace, shin brace, in bright color that defy the dark. Trappings that she know, but can’t place why. But something hit her deeper than knowing. And something about the boys, strutting in the city like they own the street, make her feel freedom, which just wash up to her feet, is now running away. She out the door before a devil could blink. A door with no lock or guard, for the master’s name is his protection. Too much time pass before she realize that she don’t know where to go. Or how to get back.
But she in Tarobe quarter, and that the way south is to the riverbed, so if she moving the other way, to the Tower of the Black Sparrowhawk, then she must be moving north, or north and east. The night streets in Tarobe quarter all lined with torches for light. But soon Sogolon on a street she don’t know, where the only light carrying her is the moon. Sound is carrying her more than sight, for she catch up with the boys. The Tower of the Black Sparrowhawk is getting closer and closer but still far away. She approach a clearing where a large market bustle by day, but is now filled with voices and torchlight. She come around the corner and see the bonfire blazing as high as a house. And the boys, but is not the boys that strike lightning in her chest. Is the trappings on their head and their elbows and knees and fingers. The straw armor of the stick fighter. She is in a lane that open out into the bonfire square, as the roofs cut the moonlight and cast her in shadow. She step back from the flicking bonfire light and watch from the dark.
Boys jumping, yelling, laughing, and braying. Not like her brothers, where every move is marked with wickedness. Men here too, some dressed like Seven Wings with black garments on the outer, white on the inner, some in illustrious agbada, some looking like lords, others looking like beggars. But more than them, boys, most of them naked or taking off clothes. Many in stick-fighting armor. Some wearing nothing but white clay and a belly chain. See the boys. One on the ground blocking another who hammering down his stick on another boy. The hammering boy shiny and quick. The boy on the ground have no finger shield, and a strike to his knuckles make the stick slip his grip. One whip of the face and another to the cheek and a man run in to stop it. Some boys cheer. They run in and lift the winner on their shoulders. The loser, nobody come for.
The second fight longer but still too quick. She want to watch the boys, but that is not all she want. Watching them leap, yes, but Sogolon imagine her feet off the ground. Thrilling her it is, to watch them swing, sweep, dodge, and parry and strike and strike again until blood spray, but she swing in the dark, and sweep and dodge and parry and strike also. This is what dancing can do, for even when they strike blood, there is bounce and lift and grace. Sogolon want a stick, more than anything. One thin as her thumb, tall as a tree, and tougher than stone. Sogolon want to go down empty street with evil waiting to pounce. Another fight. When she leap in the air, just as a boy also leap in the air, it is like she stay there.
Sogolon thinking the way back home is south, but Kongor streets don’t play by those rules. She don’t find the house until noon, and everybody doing what they doing, moving with the course of the day. Misery chase away her relief when it come clear to her that nobody miss her. What a place, where everything go on without her as if nobody counting on her for nothing, as if she of no significance to nobody. Truly it make her want to scream.
One day Sogolon is walking down the entry hall and happen upon people in the welcome room deep in talking. Here is truth, Sogolon didn’t happen to walk there. She know that the secrets of the house all come out in the welcome room, for everything find a home there, confidences most surely. Not that the mistress and master didn’t keep things private. It is that nobody walking down the entry hall ever stop to listen to people’s business, for surely she must be busy with business of her own. And if the cook did ever see Sogolon there, she would give her cheek a hard slap and report her to the mistress. Sogolon mark the ways of nobility. Not for the noble to be secretive, but for the lower born to not walk in on the secret. That don’t stop her from sneaking toward the entry hall to listen.
“How I must go to him? How that supposed to look?” the master ask. More agitated than Sogolon have ever hear him.
“Look to who, husband?” the mistress ask. “Nobody on the street at noon.”
“You mocking daft, or you daft for sure? Nobody on the street at noon. You think I don’t want go because I afraid of people?”
“No, husband.”
“And then telling we to walk, when he know I have cart, chariot, and the finest horse in Kongor.”