The fort was in the Nimbe quarter near the east bank of the river, with a view of the imperial docks. We went down steps into a room made out of stone and mortar. Two chairs and a table. Candles on the table, which surprised me—candles were not cheap anywhere. I was sitting long enough for a cramp to shock my left leg. I stood up when the Prefect came in. He had washed his face. Black hair that when long would be loose and curly, but thin like the hair of a horse. Hair I have not seen since I was lost in the sand sea. And skin light as dried clay. Men who followed the eastern light looked like this, or men who bought slaves, gold, and civet, but slaves the most. His eyes made sense to me now, and his lips, which looked thicker now but still thinner than anybody else’s in these lands. I could already think of how Ku women and Gangatom women would be horrified at a man looking like this. They would have tied him down and baked him until his skin was the right dark. Legs like the Leopard’s, thick with muscle, as if he fought in a war. Kongori sun made his legs darker. I could tell when he pulled his tunic up higher, past where they were before, high enough to show how light the rest of his legs were and how black his loincloth. He pulled the fabric out of his belt and it fell this time below his knee.
“Expecting a jinn to seat you?” He sat on the table.
“Did a pigeon tell you I was coming?” I asked.
“No.”
“Did you—”
“I am the one to ask the questions.”
“So I am the one to be charged with robbery.”
“That mouth again, ’tis like a loose bowel. I can plug it.”
I glared at him quiet. He smiled.
“Brilliant answer,” he said.
“I said nothing.”
“Your best answer yet. But no. No robbery, since you would be the thief’s fool. But murder is untaken.”
“Kongori jokes. Still the worst in the empire.”
“As I’m not Kongori you should be of more laughter. As for these murders.”
“You cannot kill the dead.”
“Your friend the Ogo already confessed to killing twenty in just as many lands, and shows no sign he will stop.”
I sighed loud. “He was an executioner. He knows not what he speaks,” I said.
“He certainly knows much about killing.”
He looked older than he did in the dark. Or maybe bigger. I really wanted to see his sword.
“Why did you come to Fumanguru’s house tonight?” I asked.
“Perhaps I am heedless. People with blood on their hands tend to wash it where they shed it.”
“That is the most foolish thing I have ever heard.”
“You cast a foolish hand, moving in masquerade and climbing over thornbush yet expecting none to take note.”
“I track lost people.”
“We found them all.”
“You did not find one.”
“Fumanguru had one wife and six boys. They are all accounted for. I counted them. Then we sent for an elder who has since moved to Malakal. Belekun was his name. He confirmed all eight were blood.”
“How soon after did he move?” I asked.
“One, two moons.”
“Did he find the writ?”
“The what?”
“Something he was looking for.”
“How do you know the elder was looking for anything?”
“You are not the only one with big, fat friends, prefect.”
“Do you itch, Tracker?”
“What?”
“Itch. You scratched your chest seven times now. I would guess you are those river types who shun clothes. Luala Luala, or Gangatom?”
“Ku.”
“Even worse. Yet you say writ as if you know what it is. You might have even been looking for it.”
He sat back down on the stool, looked at me, and laughed. I could not remember anyone, man, woman, beast, or spirit who irritated me so. Not even Leopard’s boy.
“Basu Fumanguru. How many enemies had he in this city?” I asked.
“You forget I am the one to ask questions.”
“Not any wise ones. I think you should jump to that time of the night when you torture me for the answers you want.”
“Sit down. Now.”
“I could—”
“You could, had you your little weapons. I will not ask again.”
I sat back down.
He walked around me five times before he stopped and sat down again, pulling his stool next to me.
“Let us not talk of murder. Do you even know which part of the city you were in? You would have been detained merely for casting strange looks. So what took you to the house? A three-year-old murder or something you knew would still be there, untouched, even unspoilt? I will tell you what I know of Basu Fumanguru. He was loved by the people. Every man knows of his clashes with the King. Every woman knows of his clashes with his fellow elders. They killed him for some other reason.”
“They?” I asked.
“What happened to those bodies could not have been by one man, if done by man at all, and not some beast bewitched.”
He looked at me so long and so quiet that I opened my mouth, not to speak, just to look as if I was going to.
“I have something to show you,” he said.
