However, he had a role to play in order to survive. There was only so much he could give. He had to be a shadow of himself to pass easily in and out of these villages, and so the friends he made were also shadows. He accepted this and made the most of his transience. He worked hard to convince himself that it was an adventure.
Ituen leant into the stall, about to ask the bead-seller what exactly she saw in him when he felt a shift in the atmosphere. The scent of wealth had intensified. He could also tell there was a change by the ripples in the air, the slight murmurs in the marketplace when someone from the king’s company was around, the reverent jealousy and the gossiping. The bead-seller rolled her eyes and kissed her teeth in a way that immediately informed Ituen that she was looking at a woman she either hated or wanted to be.
When the bead-seller spoke again, her voice was no longer sweet. ‘That one, I don’t know who she thinks she is.’
Ituen straightened and turned to the brassware stall the bead-seller was looking at. He saw where the scent of wealth was coming from. She had skin as deep and as rich as the earth in the forest, as smooth and full as fruit about to drop from branch, and it gleamed and glistened in the midday sun. He only caught her profile, but it was enough. He noted the rich, textured red cloth she was wearing, designed with white nsibidi characters that boasted a royal history of wars and celestial beings. Usually that cloth was only worn by men who belonged to the upper echelons of society. The material swathed around a waist that dipped and hips that bloomed. Her arm was smooth and elegant as she picked up a sculpture of a brass leopard and turned it around in her hand. She was stood under a parasol constructed out of dried palm branches, paled by the sun. The parasol was held up by one of her ladies, who wore an outfit sporting a yellow sparrow print, the royal cypher of King Offiong. Ituen felt his heart stop and, in that moment, all the truths of the universe came rushing to him. Then he came alive again and all truth fell away until the only one that remained was the woman he was looking at.
The bead-seller continued, voice low and compressed with resentment, revealing intricate personal information in a manner only one’s enemy could. ‘It is King Offiong’s youngest wife, Attem. An insolent girl. During the Harvest Festival, the old king saw her dancing and immediately fell in love, so he took her as his seventh wife. You should have seen her dancing. Ah! Shameless. Right in front of the king, in front of his wives. I don’t trust her. Now she moves around the town as if she owns it. She has become the most prominent wife. No wife but the first is permitted to travel to the market, and yet every Fourth Day she comes.’
Ituen couldn’t take his eyes off Attem, now in full view. She smiled at the brass-seller and said something to her handmaiden that made everyone laugh. ‘And does the king mind?’
Ituen could hear the bead-seller roll her eyes. ‘No. The king is not thinking with his mind, so how can he mind?’
Ituen smiled and walked towards the brass stall.
Attem smiled.
‘He really is beautiful, isn’t he?’
Her handmaiden, Affiah, put the small wooden elephant carving back onto the table and turned in the direction Attem was looking in, until she spotted Attem’s target. A sharp intake of air confirmed to Attem that Affiah had seen what she had seen. ‘Oh yes, madam. A fine choice. Tall. Strong looking. Handsome.’
Attem moved a little further on to a garment trader and picked up a thickly woven purple cloth, the most expensive within the spread, rare, really only displayed for proof that the trader could obtain it. It wasn’t for sale, but served as a bar against which the trader would set his prices. Attem picked it up.
‘Well, all my choices are tall, strong looking and handsome, but this one also has a different air about him. Quiet. Nothing to prove. Most would never be able to tell he was a thief.’ She knew he was; she had been one herself not so many moons ago.
They were whispering despite the fact that Attem’s royal guards were quite a way behind them, by Attem’s request, and so far, nobody had discovered the real reason for their Fourth Day market expeditions. They could take no risk of being overheard.
Attem was twenty-one and married to a withered old man who repulsed her. A king, yes, but a man nonetheless. Men, Attem found, were fools in general, and Offiong was perhaps the biggest fool of them all. This worked well for Attem. He was so bewitched by her mimicry of affection and so arrogant in his belief in his desirability that Attem found she could virtually live her life the way she pleased. She could keep him distracted by his base desires while she attended to hers. Attem felt that she should not waste her gifts as a beautiful young woman, or live a life absent of pleasure, and so she set out every Fourth Day to shop for more than just trinkets.