The Table and the Back Rooms

By the time Senamé left the queen’s rooms, the kitchens smelled of fried onions, and she had acquired three questions she could ask nobody.

Had Tassi brought her here for the necklace? Would she still help if Senamé refused to talk about the sword? And how was she supposed to find out without losing the first person who had offered to try?

Afiwa waited outside their room with a piece of roasted yam.

“Is that mine?”

“It was.”

Senamé took the rest from her hand. She needed food before she could bear advice.

Yétundé spotted an approaching attendant, silenced them and led them into the kitchen. Beyond the hot ovens, women cleared dishes, talking over the clatter.

Here, at least, nobody expected her to know which silence meant what.

“The queen mother asked for your entry in the guest register,” Yétundé told them.

Senamé stopped chewing.

“Because of last night?”

“She asked before we finished clearing the table.”

Their names. Their home. The person who had let them in. Sètondji’s signature was there, under a story with several useful gaps in it.

Afiwa brushed salt from her fingers. “We told her nothing she can prove false.”

“That isn’t the same as telling her nothing.”

“No. That would have required you to stop talking.”

A woman stacking cups pushed a basket off the bench beside her.

“Sit. You’re blocking my light.”

Senamé obeyed. The woman had served them at dinner. She had been holding the water when Adonon mentioned Akaba.

“Is Tassi eating?” she asked.

“I left before lunch.”

“Good. Perhaps she’ll finish it.”

The woman reached for another cup. Senamé watched her wipe a stain from the rim.

“Does her mother always speak to her like that?”

Yétundé set down the tray she was carrying.

“Our names stay here.”

Senamé glanced around the work court. One woman had paused with a cloth in her hands. Another kept scraping a pot, but more slowly.

“They stay here,” she promised.

The cups began moving again.

Everyone missed Akaba, especially when his sister issued orders. A minister had returned one three times for different seals. An officer refused a posting, claiming the dead king wanted him nearby.

“The late king never wanted him nearby,” the cup counter added. “We had to find him somewhere else to eat.”

Afiwa laughed. Senamé almost did, until she pictured Tassi at the table, waiting for her mother to finish.

“Can’t she replace them?”

“With whom?” Yétundé asked. “Their cousins?”

A man appeared at the doorway, and the woman beside Senamé immediately asked where the missing cups had gone. By the time he crossed the court, three people were arguing about them.

Senamé counted along. She was two cups behind when he left.

Yétundé caught her eye.

“You’ll learn.”

Kpénahi had sent her to learn whose orders mattered. Those answers waited in the back rooms she had passed while following Sètondji.

There was something else these women might know.

She drew the folded scrap from beneath her wrap, keeping the name covered.

“If the Crown arrested someone years ago, where would his family’s letters go?”

“What did they ask for?”

“News. His return.”

“There may be separate records,” Yétundé said. “The arrest in one office. The petitions in another.”

Even the absence of Kpénahi’s father had been divided between rooms.

“Sètondji is helping me get access.”

“Find out which books he’s allowed to show you before you give him that,” Yétundé said.

“You think he’d tell someone?”

“I think you should know.”

Senamé tucked the scrap away. A tray was ready to go inside; she picked it up, and Yétundé removed half the cups.

“Learn the doors first. Then show us how strong you are.”

That evening, Afiwa combed Senamé’s hair while they prepared their report. Kékéli slept on the bed, one small foot sticking out from beneath his wrap. They kept their voices low.

Senamé wrote down the minister’s name. Beside it, she added that the story about the seals came from household staff.

“No names,” she reminded Afiwa.

“I heard you promise.”

The comb caught a knot. Senamé bent with it.

“And Sètondji?” Afiwa asked.

“What about him?”

“The families trying to find him a wife.”

Senamé held the pen above the page until a drop of ink fell.

“Have they?”

“Not yet.”

She rubbed at the blot and made it larger. Behind her, Afiwa had the kindness to continue combing.

“You can like him. Just learn who he is as well.”

“I am learning.”

“Then leave room for something disappointing.”

She thought of the messages beneath his wrist cord. How much attention had other people left him to give her?

The report brought her back to the queen.

She described the examination, the pain when she tried to produce her own magic, and Tassi stopping before it grew worse. Then she wrote about the sword.

Afiwa leaned over her shoulder.

“Does she know Kpénahi has it?”

“She asked. I didn’t answer.”

“Put that in.”

She could picture the reply: Come home. Kpénahi would see only a queen reaching for Azara’s weapon.

The little house by the western cistern would have to wait. So would every answer Senamé had come here to find.

“She let me refuse.”

“Write that too.”

“They won’t care.”

Afiwa put down the comb.

For a while, Senamé listened to Kékéli breathing. Then she took a clean sheet.

She kept the examination. She kept the mirror. She left out the sword.

“Senamé.”

“If they bring us back now, I won’t find anything about her father either.”

“Is that why you’re doing it?”

The pen scratched across the paper. Senamé finished the sentence before answering.

“I need more time.”

Afiwa moved away from her. The unfinished section of hair fell loose against Senamé’s neck.

“I won’t lie if she asks me.”

A knock spared Senamé an answer.

Yétundé came in with their water. Behind her, servants hurried past carrying bedding towards the eastern guest rooms.

“Olúṣọlá’s people are here. The imperial collector follows tomorrow.”

Outside, voices called increasingly loudly for the treasury clerks.

She added the news to the report. This time Afiwa took the sheet without helping her read it through.

The first version still lay beside the lamp.

Senamé held its corner to the flame. For a moment the words about the sword stood clear inside the burning paper. Then the edge curled towards her fingers, and Afiwa snatched it away.

She dropped it into the washing bowl.

“You’ll burn yourself.”

Senamé looked at the black flakes floating on their clean water. She had wanted Afiwa to say something kind. Now that she had, it was worse.

The next morning, Yétundé finished the braids Afiwa had left loose.

Gold shone in the brass mirror whenever Senamé moved. She liked it, which made Afiwa’s unfinished braids harder to explain.

“Too tight?”

“No. Leave some height here.”

Yétundé loosened a braid near the crown. Under her hands, Senamé began to recognize herself again.

Afiwa came in as the last thread was tied. She had tucked their report inside her clothes, ready for the next chance to send it home. Her gaze lingered on Senamé’s hair.

“Keep that.”

“The whole head?”

“The hair. We’re still discussing the mouth.”

Senamé smiled at her in the mirror. Afiwa’s answering smile was small, but it was there.

Sètondji arrived with news of a reception in the weaving court that afternoon. Tassi expected them both. Adonon, apparently, expected Senamé to have learned something.

He had brought a brass bowl to help.

She listened to the exercise, balanced the water on her head and crossed the shaded porch. At the far pillar, she bent to greet an imaginary elder, then returned without spilling a drop.

Afiwa’s laughter followed her the whole way.

Sètondji accepted the bowl.

“You’re attending the reception,” he explained. “You aren’t carrying its water.”

“Then give me something a guest would carry.”

He considered her, poured the water into a cup and handed it over.

That went better.

Remembering whom to greet first proved harder than walking. His account of dinner explained the cooling dishes, the watching faces, everyone waiting for Adonon.

“So if she wants us hungry, we stay hungry?”

“You can ask her to pass something,” Sètondji replied.

“And remind her we’re waiting.”

“With a smile.”

Senamé tried one.

“Preferably a different smile.”

He played a friendly aunt counting her village’s women, then an elder curious about their weapons. Afiwa supplied ever nosier relatives. Senamé stopped treating the lesson as punishment.

Senamé caught herself halfway through explaining the patrols.

“You must come from a very peaceful place, my lord, to find guards so interesting.”

Afiwa covered her face.

Sètondji laughed, then glanced towards the passage to make sure nobody had heard.

“Try asking about his home before insulting it.”

She tried again. This time, she got him talking.

Three messengers interrupted with appointments. Senamé counted the hours he promised away.

“Does anyone ever hear you say no?”

The messenger was still within earshot. Sètondji waited until he had turned the corner.

“Some requests are easier to settle than refuse.”

“All three?”

He checked the messages. She watched him searching for an answer that would also make her wrong.

“You can tell me you’re busy,” she said. “I won’t fall apart before this afternoon.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you still here?”

His full attention returned to her. Without a waiting servant or a title between them, she regretted the question.

“I wanted to finish.”

She looked down at the cup. Somehow, she had spilled water on her skirt.

The weaving court rang with the knock of wood against wood. Under the awning, shuttles slipped between stretched threads while visitors admired cloth they would never have to make.

Senamé nearly walked past her greeting.

Green cloth brightened where sunlight touched it. Beyond it, a weaver’s shuttle crossed a cream-and-red border, each pass carrying a spell to keep the tension even.

Senamé had begun following it when Sètondji caught her eye.

The queen first.

Tassi tested cloth beside a clerk’s ledger, looking tired. Even that ordinary act reminded Senamé of the report.

Her greeting went well. The cloth stayed secure around her hips, and she managed to rise without checking it.

Tassi noticed the gold in her hair.

“That suits you.”

Warmth spread through Senamé before she could help it.

“Yétundé did it.”

“Then thank her for me.”

Senamé moved aside for a supplier. Welcomed, complimented, allowed to stay: the afternoon ought to be pleasant.

Then the woman with the coral hairpins joined her.

“How much better.”

She recognized the woman who had offered clothes on their arrival. Coral pins framed a face so composed she wanted to discover what could change it.

The woman turned to Sètondji.

“You’ve worked wonders.”

Senamé felt the compliment pass over her head and land at his feet.

“She learns quickly,” he replied.

A tray came between them. Senamé accepted a cup and drank before she could say anything unhelpful.

“Will you show us?” the woman asked her. “We keep hearing about these talents of yours.”

Two guests nearby turned to listen.

Her fingers found the bead. She could copy the shuttle’s spell, spread wings on every woven bird and wipe that smile away.

A familiar ache stirred in her wrist.

Yesterday Tassi had stopped her examination because it hurt. Today Senamé would hurt herself for a woman who barely knew her name.

Her hand fell away from the necklace.

“Are you arranging the entertainment?”

“Merely looking forward to it.”

“So am I.”

Senamé took another drink. Her heart was beating much too fast for so small a victory.

The woman waited, still smiling. Senamé let her wait.

Sètondji asked about the coral, offering her tormentor a graceful escape. His kindness was harder to enjoy from this side.

But he had left Senamé’s answer standing.

She slipped away while the woman described where the coral had come from.

At the nearest loom, the weaver was watching her.

“Did you want something?”

“The turn you made with the shuttle. Could you show me again?”

The woman glanced towards the guests.

“Will they be calling you back?”

“I hope not.”

A basket moved, making room for a stool. Senamé settled beside the loom, close enough to smell the warm wood and the faint sharpness of dye in the thread.

The weaver showed her the pattern. She understood immediately. Her hands disagreed: one row too tight, the next full of gaps.

She reached towards her necklace, then stopped.

“Again?”

The woman loosened the row.

“Again.”

By the time the guests began leaving, Senamé had produced a strip narrow enough for a bracelet and crooked enough to discourage anyone from wearing it.

She loved the colours.

Sètondji found her holding it against the green cloth. He bent to inspect her work, bringing with him the clean scent she had started noticing far too quickly.

“Did you make this?”

“Try not to sound so alarmed.”

“It’s your first?”

She nodded. He studied the uneven edge without offering to fix it.

Behind him, a messenger called his title.

The familiar answer was already on his face. Senamé could almost hear it.

Then Sètondji looked back at the loom.

“Tell her I’ll come when I’ve finished here.”

The man bowed and left.

Senamé kept her eyes on the thread. If she smiled now, he would know exactly why.

“Where were you?” he asked. She made space for him beside the stool.

“Apparently, I’ve pulled this too tight.”

His fingers fumbled with the thread, delighting her. Then he held it steady while she eased the knot apart. Across the court, Afiwa waited beneath the awning. Senamé caught her watching them and expected a raised eyebrow, perhaps a grin. Instead, her friend pointed to the unfinished row.

Senamé went back to it. For a few more minutes, nobody called Sètondji away.