He then said, louder, ‘？？un doesn’t like to dance. I miss dancing. Dance with me.’
He moved slightly to reveal ?ba; ?àngó’s former lover-friend, pre-??un, her baby-round eyes soft and stupid, small pretty flower mouth, waist moving with smooth respectful reverence as ?àngó called to her with his hips, jutting in response to the beat of the faraway drums. The way her waist moved was polite and coy, technically rhythmic but with no fire of its own. Even in dancing, she was bowing for ?àngó. ??un rolled her eyes. This, ??un hadn’t been fine with. ?ba was meek and irritatingly sweet, a sweetness that ??un found cloying. Even after ??un had successfully captured ?àngó’s attention, ?ba had been kind to ??un, insisting she held no ill-feeling, that all she ever wished was for ?àngó to be happy. ??un had found this exceedingly pathetic and would have had more respect for the girl if she had sworn a vendetta, if she had told her to her face – like a warrior – that she would not be letting him go. However, ?ba’s involvement was not what struck ??un so hard in her chest that she almost stumbled back. It was ?àngó’s words. It was a lie. ??un loved to dance. She and Yem?ja danced by the seashore every night at sunset, drumbeats rising from the ocean for them, their laughter melding with the roar of the tide. ??un danced every time she was in the water. She thought that ?àngó, at least, saw that. Through everything, the one thing that kept her tethered to ?àngó was that he saw her. They saw each other. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, when she was with ?àngó, she felt close to how she felt when she was in the water. She realised now that this was an illusion. Sometimes, when you are hungry enough, you can will the ghost-taste of sweetbread in your mouth. It will make you hungrier, though, and emptier. And sometimes you won’t know how truly bereft of food you are until it’s too late.
After a few moments, ?ba saw ??un through the branches and froze. ?àngó followed ?ba’s gaze, saw ??un too, his eyes flashing in alarm, a bolt across his face. ??un observed his eyes slide from silver to slate. He stepped forward, ??un raised a hand. ?ba looked sorry for ??un, which made ??un feel sick to her stomach. So ??un smiled, wide and beautiful, dazzling and terrible. It made ?àngó call on the rain clouds for anchor, and the sky turned grey. It made ?ba feel like she was submerged in the river behind her, unable to breathe, to see, to speak. Then, ??un turned around and returned to the party as if nothing had happened. After that day, ?ba found that the ear that ?àngó had whispered in felt like water had plugged it. Try as she might, nothing would pour out. Herbalists couldn’t fix it, priests feared it. It forever felt as if she was half submerged in the river. From that day on, ?àngó was too terrified to speak to ?ba ever again and didn’t dare visit his other girls. For reasons ??un could not confess to anyone, not even herself, she stayed. ?àngó still never asked ??un to dance.
He was talking to his boys now, palm wine sloshing out of his cup. ??un rolled her eyes. ?àngó loved an audience, adored holding court, regaling them all with stories from sports tournaments, from the places he visited and sought to conquer when he ascended the academy. His people laughed on cue, a chorus in a call and response tale, unable to display anything but sycophantic joy as ?àngó told of how, once, a market man refused to sell a lion-skin cape to him. The man had told him the cape was for men with honour, and that he hadn’t seen enough in ?àngó to sell it to him.
‘I told him I would rule over him one day. Old fool said that he knew. He said that he hoped that I would accrue enough honour for the lion-skin, that my back would become broad enough for it. Can you imagine? A whole me. A whole me who can carry an ox on his back? Two oxen! I thought he must have surely been joking.’ ?àngó spat into the earth as his eyes melted into something darker than slate at the memory. ‘So I laughed in his face.’
With ?àngó’s angry laughter came thunder, and with thunder came lightning.
‘The only problem was that now the lion-skin was stained with ash. Dyed with idiot.’
His court roared with jest. ??un felt ill.
She shrugged ?àngó’s arm off her neck, feigning that she was readjusting the multicoloured beads that hung around her throat. The feeling of being watched grew more intense. She turned around, and through the heated dancing bodies, she saw a tall, lithe, muscular figure, leaning against a tree. His arms looked like branches twined to make a trunk, and so it almost seemed as if he was mocking the fever tree’s strength. He was eating a rose apple, white teeth sinking into membrane and then flesh, playful eyes never leaving ??un’s. His left ear glinted with a silver crescent cuffed into his lobe and it matched the flash in his eyes. It was different to the light she saw in ?àngó’s eyes, which was entirely indicative of himself, his whims. ?àngó’s eyes flashed lightning when he was in the mood to drown in her, but he never asked her if he ever made her catch fire. This man’s eyes were calling her, pressing through her. He was seeing into her and he wasn’t bowing. He had three striking scars across his muscular chest, on the left side, welts she immediately wanted to run her fingers across. He smiled at her as if he knew.