Kelvin Christopher James's Blog

This excerpt from The Sorcerer's Drum:






Prologue

Scant flesh barely holding skin to bone, the sorcerer faced his peers. Caught before their inscrutable regard, he closed his eyes as the one with the speaker’s staff announced, “The consensus is banishment from our guild!”
The sorcerer chuckled weariness. “Banish…can you banish sunshine?” he asked. “Can you outlaw night, fresh air, or fire? Storms or subjugation? Hear me now, gatekeepers! With my will as free as light, I leave your shade. And with full intent to thwart your influence, I depart vengeful!”
Then the proud sorcerer spread wide his skinny arms and climbing up the sinews of a passing breeze, he abandoned his society.


PART ONE

Beginnings


This is a tree that knows all the stories.
Some say it is the gods’ mischievous messenger, Eshu-Elegba, who dwells in such a tree. Others caution that whoever speaks knowingly of Eshu is a fool—that mere language can hardly express the coolness of this enormous baobab so tendered with calluses of unhurried Time.
Do respect this gnarled ancestor towering over the sunrise corner of the headman’s compound, its wrinkled bark knobby with ever-swelling dents and gullies.
Do honor to this stance of wrestled knots that supports a canopy of twisted branches, spreading an evergreen cloud over half the compound.
Admire this baobab’s grizzled, formidable bole. A dozen link-armed hunters cannot girdle it. Bucks and brash young men have ventured up the trunk only to be deterred by impassable junctions.
After rain showers, its tumbled, raised roots sweat an aroma that sets a taste of tempting at the back of women’s throats, makes them touchy.
This is an experienced tree, informed by bird and breeze, by rain and see-all sunshine. And though a dozen or so fruit trees might raise their crowns over the zangalas in the headman’s compound, every soul of the surrounding village knows that the orishas of this baobab rule.


In an inner room of his large zangala privileged to the shade of this grand baobab, Prince Bembo Khufu Chinua Dan sat upon his mahogany throne. Head hunched down vulture-like, his eyes stayed fixed on his sweaty hands that rested listless on each knee, like broken wings. A cock’s crow set off a raucous competition outside. ‘Midday,’ his mind vaguely registered. ‘There was business that needed tending.’ Yet his only move was to clasp his hands together and pass each over the other as if washing them in their own damp anxiety.
“So for some domestic trifle, you waste half my day!” An amused tone complicated the rebuke coming from the doorway.
Startled, Khufu looked to the threshold and met a gaze rheumy with contempt. Such a gaze as could only be cast by the piercing eyes of Lathso, his blood uncle and personal babawalo. Khufu started up from his big chair. A whine to his manner, he said, “Your lodging is but a stroll beyond the river. What you mean, half a day?”
Skin and spark to a skeleton, naked but for a ragged red boubou around his waist, Lathso reached his knob-headed staff into the spacious room, stepped in slowly after it. Then he stood and looked around, taking his time as if he hadn’t just been quibbling about busy. He studied each familiar wall, high to the thick thatch ceiling, low to the polished red-clay floor. He contemplated the cleverly woven mural, the numerous fetishes and pendants leaning against the wall, resting on the windows’ broad ledges. The musket in one corner. A war drum in another.
At last, still without formal salutations or so much as a glance at Khufu, he answered, “My time is my own to measure, does not need your leave.”
Prince Khufu took in a sharp breath and drew himself up lordly. With both hands he grabbed the folds of his robe, pulled them close around broad shoulders. “Be careful, old man,” he said harshly. “You take it too far if you belittle my affairs.”
Lathso chuckled lightly, planted his staff and leaned on it to peer out the doorway he had just passed through. “Threats even. Hnnn!” he murmured and at last turned to regard Khufu with a casual eye.
‘Nephew or not,’ the sorcerer mused, ‘if ever a royal deserved exile, this was he.’ An arrogant man of limited ability, Khufu’s leadership fitted simple systems. Ram goat of a new herd at a small watering hole, he was suited to basics. Complications caused him anxiety. ‘Still,’ thought Lathso, ‘the fears of this prince might turn out useful to my purposes. The skin of even an ordinary goat might be stretched into an uncommon drum.’
He moved closer to the prince and like a cloud—though with not a single stink fly—a powerful stench of unwashedness floated farther into the room with him.
Khufu gasped, marshaled an urge towards the window and insisted with less heat, “You are my babawalo. You have fealty to me, to my office.”
“Servant of Eshu-Elegba I am. Ostracized dabbler I may be. But certainly I’ll not cower to incompetents who threaten me with posture. Until there are matters that match my abilities, hail to the ancestors!”
The old man thumped the floor with the staff’s worn, splayed end, and turned towards the doorway.
“Forgive me, Uncle,” Khufu said, all at once sheepish. “In truth, I have presumed upon your time. You know how I depend on you. Don’t be stubborn. Look, you are here now. Please, won’t you toss your divining chain for me? Someone has cast up a spell on me. Someone who wants to bring me down. Three full moons now, the same dream attends me. I’m tired, tired beyond measure. I’m struggling along a muddy road—” his words gained speed, a relieved rush speaking torment “—mired to my knees and sinking deeper in mud and something is behind me. I can feel its hot breath, then in a sudden change I’m scrambling up a slippery tree-trunk, striving and striving but making no progress. Then next thing, tired to death, in an agony of slowness I am edging across a sickening, sagging rope bridge that’s narrowing and evermore narrowing and always a panther is stalking just behind. Right there he is! I can feel his hot breath laughing on my naked backsides and when I scream awake my oko is like a tiny worm resting on my balls. I can…”
Khufu stopped as Lathso’s mild gaze at the smooth clay wall announced he was not listening.
Silence grew solid as a mask.
Khufu endured it as long as he could then broke saying, “Please, Uncle. This may seem simple to you, a father of secrets, elder wise above elders. But I am no more than a bested, banished prince…”
“Wrestling his worries around his ring-fingers,” Lathso interrupted, stamped his grizzled heel. “Study Ifà’s knowledge and perhaps you’ll find a solution.”
Intent only on winning the old man’s sympathy, Khufu dumbly accepted the admonition.
With startling agility Lathso sprang forward and fingertips held together, struck Khufu smackon his forehead.
And the air in front Khufu seemed to swirl then glaze and present a reflection of his sweaty face. The fretful, furrowed brow. Reddened bulging eyes. Full bow-shaped lips gone slack. Then just quickly as it had congealed into being, the image diffused away.
With a calm belying the magic just happened, Lathso murmured, “That boy who brought your message, I cannot place him.”
Breathless and abashed by the image just plucked from empty air, groping for composure, Khufu replied, “He’s family, Uncle. Ammaa’s nephew. He journeyed here with a recent party, the last one, I think. He’s trustworthy enough.”
“Not for my business. Yesterday, after placing your message token on my sleeping pallet, he remained eyes and fingers studying my quarters.”
“You saw…?”
“My dwelling watches itself!”
What might the boy have been up to? Khufu worried. “Don’t be hard on him, Uncle,” he said, “his is only a youth’s simple curiosity.”
“Simple matters cast long shadows, but enough, enough. Tell me more of your troubled dreams so that I might find meaning in them. Maybe my opelé chain can show what must be done.”

* * *

Late afternoon showers reigned—roared down with extravagant vigor, self-indulgent and robust like a mature husband on those first nights with a lusty wife. Prince Khufu stood at his window watching the downpour, sipping from his cup of lukewarm cava, lips puckering from its bitterness. A taste befitting his mood.
Four full moons had passed since the sorcerer had done his part. Cast his opelé chain, recited the odu verses, reported what the seeds of Ifà said. ‘Yes,’ Khufu brooded grimly, ‘it had made sense that first wife Tebika should be the source of those troublesome dreams.’ Willful daughter of the King and his favorite diviner, her father had wived her to Khufu upon his exile—married troublesomes tossed the distance of a one-month caravan. The years in her company had brought Khufu to understand the marriage to be further punishment—ironic judgment, for wife though she was, Tebika had proved herself among the fittest enemies Khufu ever had encountered. Constant vigilance was needed to remain one trick ahead of her ambitious plotting.
A seep of gratitude slipped into Khufu’s thoughts as he admitted the value of Lathso’s guidance through this thicket of troubles. Never would he have managed without that Father of Intrigues, and he must remember this and be patient with the old man.
A gust of wind slanted rain in through the window, splattering sprinkles against Khufu’s forearms. Reminded of pending duty, he wished he could muster the rain’s zest, hoped a head lightened by cava would help.
Intelligent, nubile, but of common stock, this recently bought third wife presented a special challenge. Koita M’fela Kemnebe was her name, the best Ahmed El-Houssan, the itinerant trader, had available. She was Bambaran, of dervish bloodline, barely fourteen and stubborn enough to have deflowered herself rather than submit to ritual. Which determination had forced her sale, as a spoilt female, into justifiable slavery. Same quality that Khufu saw as an unwelcome challenge, as only her complicity would foil the first wife’s plots.
Carnal beyond his thirty-four years, his penchant was for a certain female wantonness that came with maturity. But Tebika’s intrigues had left him no choice, and response was essential.
‘How he tempts the game his way is the best measure of a man,’ his late father’s jovial voice sounded in Khufu’s head. He muttered aloud, “You should be here and see how sayings only sound life easy.”
As necessary as this particular play was, it did not come naturally to Khufu. Bluntness, not charm, had always been his best way. He sighed and heavier than his robust bulk, heaved himself up, unaware that he fingered Eshu-Elegba’s amulet for luck.
Cloaking his shoulders with a soft leather hide, he ventured out towards Koita’s quarters.
Beyond the baobab’s cover, a sky of gorged black clouds cast a false dusk through which the excessive rain beat down on his compound’s trees. The forceful water pellets stripped leaves and sent immature fruit thudding to the ground.
Tail between its scrawny legs, an ownerless dog scuttled in search of a sheltering den with urgency of which Khufu’s instincts approved. But mindful of status, he reined his pace to a steady gait, turned his thoughts to other effects of the deluge.
Such torrents might easily flex sinew streams into savage rivers capable of testing limits, rampaging afar. Yet Khufu was confident that the village’s irrigation system would stand, that the crops and gardens would survive. Three years past when choosing the site for settlement, he had studied this tributary, the overall lie of the land. Where was clay, sand, rock, or loam. Where was forest, field, or scrubland. Then with thoughtful plans he had constructed this sound aqueduct.
Privately, the pride in his soul that he always worked to suppress welcomed these testing floods. Yet same pride was pricked with worry for the surrounding fodder lands, they probably being swamped and hazarding the herd animals.
Khufu snorted and blew his nose hard as if to force away concern. Surely the men assigned to that problem would manage. ‘What’s more,’ he counseled himself as he stopped before his destination’s door, ‘these are matters for another time.’
He masked his face as would a kindly master and called softly, “Koita, I am here.”
Came her instant reply, the voice slipping out soft and shy like a river snail from its plain shell. “Enter with welcome, my lord.”


She kept her waiting home clean, simply furnished—a fiber mat softened with embroidered pillows, a small Mora wood stool, a cured hide that curtained her bed. Pale smoke with an unfamiliar but pleasant woody fragrance spiraled up from a censer on a three-stone stand that held furry, smoldering charcoal.
Koita approached Khufu from the sweet, smoky gloom. She knelt and removed his yard slippers, gently dried his mud-stained feet with a soft cloth held in elaborately tattooed hands.
Barely disturbing the quiet, Koita asked, “Where would you relax, my lord?”
Khufu chose the mat and she arranged pillows behind his shoulders. As she did, he was not surprised that the close smell about her was like that of a trapped antelope.
“What can I serve…?”
“You might warm my gourd of cava for me,” Khufu offered, with a smile.
She took the gourd, went to the fire. Khufu watched her. Although Koita moved gracefully, her slight build was not his preference. Her face in profile was angular, her brow high. She had a sharp nose, pouting lips, a small chin. The faded blue khanga that she wore gathered over her shoulders and draped over her chest obscured another disappointment. More dismaying, though, were her narrow hips that hardly seemed capable of birthing.
Still, she was all that he had to counter Tebika and her sorcery.
“Here, my lord. Does this suit you?”
Khufu took the still cool gourd, sipped. “It pleases,” he answered.
Koita went and sat on the low stool. “Any other comfort…?” she began, her speech awkward with the Fon words.
A gesture from Khufu stopped her. In Dioula, a tongue more similar to her Bambara, he began, “You should know that in this household we accept your close-held feelings with utmost respect. You shall not be forced to anything here. We are not barbarians. I only look forward to the day when you would consider me your prince and welcome me as Khufu, your husband.” He regarded her long, keeping a serious demeanor, again sipping his cava.
Then, with a chuckle, he added, “That will be, of course, long after you are comfortable with meeting my admiring eye—” he smiled to her startled look, admixed of surprise and relief “—but for now I am happy to tell you of ourselves so that you may know us better.”
Encouraged by her hesitant nod, Khufu began recounting the colony’s brief history, soon losing himself in the tale of his triumphs and travails: Scant four years past, close to two hundred souls had departed the capital of kingdom Dahomey with him, an exiled prince made headman to this village now grown to three hundred and more. The banishment itself was a mild portion of a royal uncle’s spite. Crueler was being wived to one more wicked than wildfire, and bound to these hinterlands with a caravan of the Oba’s regal disaffections.
Among those undone were people tainted by association with the cast-off royals, their relatives and pets, their craftsmen and their wives and the family slaves with their families. Accompanying also, for reasons of their own, were adventurers seeking reputation; artisans and medicine folks; weavers and toolmakers and sandal-makers; musicians, storytellers, dancers, and drummers. Still others joined in exile as spies and scandalmongers; or lovers eloping; and miscast souls with obscure motives…
So absorbed was he in his story, or so quietly respectful was she, Khufu only noticed the second time Koita took the gourd to re-warm his cava. “No more,” he said then, and rose. “Already I have overstayed. We will continue tomorrow.”
Koita returned the gourd to him, bowed her head. “As you wish, my lord,” she murmured and knelt to fasten Khufu’s slippers.
Khufu lifted his cloak about his shoulders, stepped out into the night’s cool drizzle, which somehow now felt pleasant and refreshing.


Three more evenings Prince Khufu returned to Koita with his settlement stories. On each visit he brought her a gift—a bolt of indigo cotton cloth, a bowl of honey, a charm. No need to mention that this fetish was provided by Lathso and assured her pregnancy with a boy child.
Came the time for what she saw as fate and duty, Koita was indifferent. She was, after all, a bought slave subject to her master’s wishes. Yet to ease it for her before the bedding, Khufu had her drink some cava, and he was gentle.
Purpose done, Khufu returned to his quarters with a light heart. “Mmngh!” he grunted in satisfaction. He had performed strictly to Lathso’s directions and was now confident about foiling treacherous Tebika. This just-conceived boy child was indeed perfect response to the princess’s schemes!
The thought of his wily uncle sent an uneasy memory flitting across Khufu’s gloating. The babawalo’s counsel had come at the price of a promise: When Lathso deemed the boy ready, Khufu would permit his apprenticeship to the exiled and acknowledged enemy of the dreaded Leopard Guild of Poisoners and Sorcerers.
Khufu shook his head to un-snag this troubling thought. No reason to worry, he tried to assure himself, time should see him a way out of the bargain.

* * *

Ten full moons later, on a sunny morning towards the end of the second, brief rainy season, bought-wife Koita M’fela Kemnebe awoke to sharp pains in her womb and a slow stinging drip of soupy liquid mixed with coppery blood. She sent her servant-girl to Prince Khufu with a message: “My lord, your son has begun the journey of his destiny.”
Innocent about childbirth, but determined to manage by herself, Koita summoned no assistance. In the background of her life, countless women had made babies, lending a familiarity to this effort. A hard job, yes. But to slave-wife Koita, hard work was her pastime. Moreover, she felt close enough to no one here to seek her help at such an intimate matter.
Strong comfort to her resolve was the intuition that this child would mark the end of her waiting for value. Too long she had endured the hostility that first wife Tebika directed her way—an animosity that intensified when the princess, too, found her belly. Thus for slave-wife Koita, this first child—a boy, the prince had assured her—would be safeguard against a harsh future.
So she spread an animal hide on the ground and put a clean cloth over it, then laid down upon this thin pallet to await the birthing. For reassurance, she reached out one hand and touched her knife, its blade sharpened to a keen edge—the only possession from her former life, the tool whose silver handle she had used to rupture herself, and was ready now to sever the cord when her baby emerged.
Her ignorance was betrayed though, by hour upon hour of immense struggle. Horrible pains rode her. Pranced and jumped. Fell upon each other in rendering wickedness for exquisite intervals. Sometimes after the briefest rest, without a spit of mercy they’d pummel her in the tender pouch bellying the baby, or low down her backbone and hips and buttocks, or high between her thighs where they had no right or reason. All of a sudden it seemed her womb had caged a spiteful pinch that frightened her baby into trying to tear its way out.
Such war, such riot and ruination were beyond everything Koita had expected. Sliding down a well of fear, she watched her belly roll and bulge in places to twice its painful size. Breathing hard, sweaty with patience, she swallowed her groans. Finally, as the sun sank from the sky, it seemed the baby, too, would descend. But strain as she might, it would not come out, and at last Koita’s self-muffled screams decided her worrying servant-girl to alert the master.
Immediately, appalled that it had not been done earlier, Prince Khufu summoned the midwives.


The three elders surround the now very weak young woman. Weather-beaten hands softened with wisdom are firmly touching. Calm eyes shine with sympathy. Patience confident voices urge instructions. Skillful hands perform. Orders are snapped to bustling, excited servants who bring quick prepared hot water. Swiftly they meet demands for warm wet cloths, then after a bit, for soft dry ones. Then they are gentle with the special swaddle.


Although their combined expertise was tested, the midwives excelled themselves, saved both mother and a healthy son. Koita remained conscious only long enough to see her keen blade used on the slick, purple-veined navel cord.
Mother passed into safe sleep, the midwives sent a servant with the glad news to Prince Khufu. Then, sharing congratulations and hard-earned refreshment, they rested under the baobab.
“What big hands and feet, hiii!” one woman noted. “He’s going to be a strapping fellow.”
Another laughed and sallied, “Me, I made note of his privates. I have granddaughters to look—”
“To be forewarned, you mean!” cackled the third elder before taking a long draught of ginger beer.
The midwives’ labor was not as yet done, though. Scarcely had they rested from swaddling Koita’s newborn, their special skills were again requested.


Earlier that day, as soon as princess Tebika learned about Koita’s birthing pains, she had sent a trusted slave on an urgent mission. Now, quiet as a shadow, the sorcerer Lathso slipped into Tebika’s zangala, into her intimate sleeping room where she sat on a tool beside her weaving loom.
Dirty and naked but for his ragged boubou and the mischief in his smile, Lathso presented himself, “Great lady, here am I, servant to the serpent who steals darkness. No god’s pet, no man’s beast, the fool unwelcome at funeral and feast. How can I serve the royal princess?”
“Save your prattle for commoners!” commanded Tebika. “You belong to Lord Eshu, who consumes the will of his servants. I summon you because I have a task that meets your unique skills and none must know of it. I will pay with favor, or gold, or any manner you might name. Only our business must remain private.”
A shrewd smile on his face, Lathso squared with her proud regard. “Of course, royal princess,” he said and shrugged his skinny shoulders high as he continued, “But with who would an outcast as I share privacies? What might be this special task?”
Tebika glared, said firmly, “First, you respect my condition for secrecy.”
Without yielding her eyes, Lathso bowed slightly. “You have my word.”
Voice lowered and hesitant, Tebika said, “I want my baby born right now!”
“Of course, royal princess,” said Lathso. “Already I was preparing for your summons.”
Tebika cast him a confused look. “How…?” she began.
“When I heard that Koita was giving birth.”
“Well, what payment do you wish?”
“Your trust in our enterprise is enough, royal princess.”
“Is this your word?”
“It is!”
“Well then, what do I do?”
“Prepare yourself,” said Lathso. “I must confer with my medicine cloak.” And on the balls of quiet feet, the sorcerer prowled out of the zangala.
He quickly returned with potions that Tebika swallowed without hesitation. Soon afterwards began the pains of her birth labors that pronounced a premature end to the pregnancy connived from the husbandly duty of a complacent Khufu.
Done with his part, the sorcerer slunk away.
When the midwives arrived at Tebika’s zangala, her labor was in last stages. So not long after Koita’s delivery, the royal wife Tebika had birthed a small, though perfectly formed baby. According to the weary midwives, the cocoa-colored boy came into this world with his right fist clenched and his wrinkle-wise golden eyes wide open.


Prince Khufu was overjoyed. First years of the settlement, he had spoken tolerantly and smiled with each daughter—Ezene, then Mesphi—born by second wife and favorite, Ammaa.
And now two sons in one day!
In celebration, he ordered slaughter of lambs and yard chickens and guinea fowl. He had his kitchens prepare yam poi and plantain balls and cassava fu-fu, and boiled millet, and groundnut cakes, and sago drinks, and plenty ginger beer.
Family members, neighbors close or cool, passersby—anyone who entered his compound—were bidden to join the merriment.


Second wife, Ammaa was not only a wholesome and experienced mother of two bright and healthy daughters, she was a pure-hearted, nurturing soul. Thus two moons later, it was normal that when their mothers were not nursing them, the babies were cared for in Ammaa’s zangala.
This sunny morning found them loosely swaddled in small hammocks being gently rocked by their fascinated sisters. Mature female servants were indulging them with watchful eyes while keeping flying insects at bay with brisk whisks and fans.
Ammaa came in from the kitchen, knelt besides Koita’s child and was touching his face and making mothering noises when Khufu tiptoed in, “Isn’t he marvelous?” he said.
“He is,” agreed Ammaa and gave her husband a conspiratorial look as she rose up. “They both are.”
She hugged her husband.
As he returned her embrace, he whispered gleefully, “Now I have the means to foil our grand princess.”
“Yes, my husband,” said Ammaa, showing him a rueful face.
“Yes! Yes! But we’ll talk later. Now I want to borrow them.”
“You don’t have to, husband,” said Ammaa with a giggle. “They are forever yours.”
Khufu took up the swaddled infants and holding them one under each arm lie long pumpkins, he went into his own zangala. He took his baby sons into a private room built around an intrusion of baobab roots—a place that contained his secrets and masks, his Fà. He laid the bright-eyed boys on his altar, did ritual etutu thanking his ancestors. Then prostrate in that sacred hollow, in reverent tones he sang out over his blinking sons, “Praise to thee ancestors for these man children, the prides of my continuance. And please, O Generous Spirits, pass along my thanks to my mother. May the ancestors regard her kindly. Yes, please. With respect of service to her, I name my firstborn and natural heir, Sikivu M’nalo Fanta Bembo. His brother, second born from the royal princess, I name Izi Onamuli Fanta Dan.”


From the night of Koita’s successful birthing, her status in the household was elevated. Her zangala was enlarged by one room and stained with white clay. A house-slave’s eight-year-old daughter was assigned to her as help nurse. Then Khufu himself installed the gift of a woven bleached-raffia wall curtain depicting his bloodline.
All this irked Tebika no end.
Some days after the curtain hanging, in her zangala preparing accounts to purchase garden seeds for the next season’s crops, Tebika brought up the matter with her husband. “You shame me, Khufu,” she railed. “She’s a bought breeder. I am a royal princess. Even the village walls are laughing at me.”
He sucked his teeth disdainful while his eyes slid away from hers up and out towards the window’s pale blue sky. He explained in lofty tones, “We must make her feel like family. We’ve to include her. Welcome her. Remember, her son is mine, of royal blood, as is yours.”
This answer only fueled Tebika’s outrage. She had long accepted Khufu’s antagonism. She knew he preferred avoiding her company altogether. Yet, once they were together something in her highborn blood smarted and took over. She became helpless to her carping.
“But your grandfather’s raffia curtain?” said she. “A piece with so much honor, such great prestige? You yourself said you hold it closest. And you gave it to her, raised it on her wall! She, a family problem that cost you a lump of silver and a sick cow. Oh! How my father would writhe in shame!”
“Take counsel from Ifà, Tebika,” Khufu replied sharp-toned. “Be careful and mind your pride. The boys, yours and hers, are tied together by the wish of Eshu Elegba. Their navel strings are twisted one with the other and buried under the baobab. This is their destiny. The ancestors will not be denied.”
“But she’s a slave!” screamed Tebika.
“Enough!” shouted Khufu, rising and striking the table with his fist, upsetting the counting blocks and seed bowls, several of which fell to the floor. “I’ll hear no more of this cavil. If you don’t wish to speak of business matters, I’ll return to my privacy.”

Long after Khufu had escaped her zangala, Tebika roamed restless around her dim rooms quarrelling with her furious self. She would not be demeaned by Khufu and share her household’s status with a slave. Some lazy god had permitted the Oba to banish her to this backwoods. But that did not mean she’d accept such a future. Better suggestion was that she employ a cleverer game. Or did Oba expect that a princess born of his favorite diviner to curl up and transform from viper to lapdog? And as for this second rate husband of hers—he who speaks as if navel cords cannot be dug up, and their Fà untwined. As if one can’t be fed to night scavengers and the other reburied in his mother’s special shrine. Did not this husband of hers consider that a royal princess would resist his commonplace destiny?

* * *