The First Dance

Yétundé had to take the earrings away from Senamé twice before she would stop putting them back in the box.

“They’re borrowed,” Senamé said.

“Yes.”

“So if I lose one…”

“Keep your head attached,” Yétundé replied.

Kékéli nodded from the bed as though this were advice he had given her repeatedly.

The blue cloth had changed beneath the lamps. What looked almost black in daylight now carried a deep, shifting colour, with gold appearing wherever the folds opened. Yétundé had left Senamé’s shoulders bare and gathered the fabric at her waist without trapping her legs. The braids rose into a generous crown, their gold thread disappearing into the dark coils and flashing again when she turned.

Senamé stood before the polished plate.

She recognized herself. That was the surprising part. Yétundé had not made her smaller, or hidden the muscle in her arms, or persuaded her body to apologize for occupying the room.

“You’ve left the necklace.”

Her hand rose to the grey bead.

“I always wear it.”

Yétundé considered its dull surface against the blue and gold, then adjusted the cord so it lay flat.

“Then it stays.”

From the bed, Kékéli held up one foot. Senamé crouched to fasten his sandal, caught sight of her reflection bending with her and began to laugh.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

She finished the knot and stood. The woman in the plate straightened too, beautiful enough to make her suspicious and wearing the expression she usually had before trying something she had been told not to do.

Senamé took her invitation.

The palace had opened its courts to the night.

Lamps hung between the galleries, each flame sheltered inside a thin globe of worked glass. Above the central court, small workings kept lengths of translucent cloth suspended in curves that lifted when the breeze passed beneath them. Light moved across the fabric and broke over the crowd below.

Senamé slowed at the entrance. She could hear the pull inside the nearest working, a delicate adjustment repeated whenever the wind changed. Whoever had made it had allowed the cloth to move instead of holding it rigid. She followed the sequence with her fingers until Yétundé nudged her gently forward.

Several heads turned.

One man interrupted himself while speaking to his wife. The wife finished his sentence for him without looking in Senamé’s direction.

Senamé kept walking.

At the far side of the court, musicians sat beneath an awning bordered with white flowers. Drums carried the rhythm, a bell picked through it, and strings laid a bright melody above both. The sound reached her through the soles of her sandals. Her body had begun answering before she found the right place to stand.

Dèdoun was magnificent.

Senamé conceded it immediately, with resentment and considerable professional interest. Her cloth was a warm, luminous red; a broad ornament lay against her upper chest, and the arrangement of her hair made every turn of her head appear intentional. Around her, women from the visiting families spoke with their relatives while watching one another over fans and lifted cups.

Kossiwa stood beside Adonon in dark green. Somebody had given her a gold clasp. It sat near her shoulder, bright enough to be noticed without looking as though it had been placed there for that purpose.

She saw Senamé and went still for half a breath.

Then she inclined her head.

Senamé returned the greeting before she could decide whether she resented its formality.

Tassi received her near the steps. The queen wore ivory and gold, her ornaments arranged around a face that had recovered all its public composure. She took Senamé’s hands briefly and held her far enough away to inspect Yétundé’s work.

“Well.”

Senamé smiled before remembering to bow.

Tassi let her complete the gesture, although amusement had reached her eyes.

“Enjoy yourself.”

There were several answers Senamé had been taught to give. She found none of them.

“I will.”

The queen released her hands.

For once, the promise seemed easy.

Sètondji had been surrounded.

Senamé discovered him between an elderly nobleman and a woman introducing a niece who had already met him twice. He wore dark blue with a pale embroidered border, and somebody had fastened a gold ornament at his shoulder that required him to stand even straighter than usual.

He caught sight of her while the niece was speaking.

His answer arrived late enough that the older woman repeated the question.

Senamé looked away before she could grin in front of them.

She managed perhaps three steps before he reached her.

The conversation around them continued, but its details became difficult to follow. He stopped close enough that she could smell the clean oil at his throat.

“Was it worth all those mornings?”

She spread her hands, letting him inspect the result.

“You should see me carry water.”

He laughed, then looked at her properly. The pleasure on his face made her toes curl inside her sandals.

“You look…”

She waited.

He shook his head once, smiling at his own failure.

“I had a better sentence prepared.”

“Keep it. You may need it for the next niece.”

His gaze moved briefly toward the group he had escaped.

“You saw that.”

“The whole kingdom saw that.”

A change passed through the music. Attendants cleared the middle of the court, carrying cushions and cups out of the performers’ way. Sètondji turned towards Senamé, but an older woman approached with a message from Adonon. His place was beside the visiting families.

“Go,” Senamé told him. “Try to look as though you came willingly.”

His mouth twitched. “You might extend me the same courtesy when your turn comes.”

She watched him take his seat beneath the awning. Even sitting down involved an order here. Someone had arranged the cushions so that Dèdoun’s mother would barely have to turn to address him.

A storyteller stepped into the cleared space. At his first words, the chorus answered; the drums caught their reply and carried it beneath the opening scene.

Senamé recognized the passage from rehearsals. Dèdoun entered as the royal messenger, bearing news she would have to deliver before the court. Her movements were beautiful. Every pause gave the audience time to admire her, every turn showed another gleam of gold against her skin. Even the lowering of her eyes reached the furthest seats.

Annoying woman. She could at least have been bad at something.

Beside Senamé, a young performer silently rehearsed his response, worrying the edge of his wrapper between his fingers. When his cue approached, he drew breath so violently that she glanced at him.

“Leave some air for the rest of us.”

He swallowed a laugh and made his entrance.

Olúṣọlá arrived before he could finish his speech.

The herald’s voice travelled across the music. It did not silence the court immediately; instead, conversation broke unevenly, leaving little pockets of laughter that died a moment too late.

Senamé turned towards the entrance, where men in unfamiliar formal dress stood beneath the arch.

The collector stood at their center, short and broad, with rings pressing into the flesh of his fingers. His clothes had been chosen to conceal nothing about their expense. He acknowledged his reception while examining the nearest lamp, then the carved support beneath it, then the goldwork on a noblewoman’s wrist.

Behind him, an officer waited with one hand near his belt.

A small metal emblem caught the light.

Senamé caught the edge of the column. The hooked shape on the officer’s fastening brought back an elephant’s frightened eye, the pressure of a foreign working and the awful moment when a body too large to stop had ceased obeying itself.

The music reached its final beat.

She looked toward Tassi.

The queen was already watching the newcomers.

Nothing changed in her face as she descended the steps to receive them.

Senamé crossed the court. Before she reached Tassi, Sètondji intercepted her gently, following the direction of her stare.

“What is it?”

“The officer behind him. That mark.”

His eyes moved without his head turning.

“What about it?”

“I’ve seen it before.”

He heard enough in her voice to release her at once.

Tassi’s greeting ended as Senamé approached. The queen accepted the brief interruption with a small inclination of her head. Senamé leaned close enough to speak without carrying.

“The mark on his belt. It was in the working on the elephants.”

Tassi’s fingers closed once around the edge of her cloth.

“Which man?”

Senamé indicated him with her eyes.

The queen returned her attention to the collector.

Only then did Olúṣọlá notice Senamé properly.

His gaze travelled from the gold in her hair to the grey bead at her throat. It stayed there.

“What an unusual piece.”

Senamé’s hand rose before she could stop it.

The collector smiled.

“May I see?”

He extended his fingers as though she had already agreed. Senamé stepped back just enough to leave them in the air.

“It’s mine.”

“I should hope so.”

His smile widened, inviting the others to enjoy her lack of polish. Tassi moved beside her before she could answer.

“My guest has been promised an evening without business.”

“Then I envy her.” Olúṣọlá lowered his hand and turned to the queen. “Tomorrow will be less forgiving.”

“Tomorrow has been prepared for.”

“Excellent.”

The officer behind him had not moved. Senamé could feel his attention now, although he appeared to be watching the dancers.

An attendant came to guide the imperial guests to their places. Olúṣọlá followed, pausing only to examine the rim of the cup offered to him.

Tassi kept Senamé beside her until he was out of earshot.

“You were right to tell me. Stay where we can see you.”

“Are you going to let him remain?”

“For tonight, he is a guest.”

The queen’s gaze followed the officer.

Senamé understood that the answer had cost something. She wanted a different one anyway.

Then Tassi touched her wrist.

“Go. I know where he is.”

Sètondji found her beneath one of the floating lengths of cloth.

She was watching the officer through the crowd and trying to decide whether the lamps would survive if she brought the entire canopy down on his head.

“You’re doing arithmetic.”

She glanced at him.

“What?”

“That expression. Somebody is about to become a problem with a solution.”

Despite herself, she smiled.

“They’re waiting for you.”

Beyond Sètondji, an attendant beckoned from the edge of the performance space. Senamé looked towards the imperial guests.

“Let him watch,” he murmured.

She turned back. He was smiling, but there was nothing careless in the way he held her gaze.

“You know your entrance.”

The bell sounded before she could answer.

Senamé stepped into the cleared court. Warm earth pressed through the thin soles of her sandals; the lamps smelled of oil and singed wick. Beyond their light, the audience was a dark bank of faces, earrings and waiting eyes.

During rehearsals, the performers had traded roles until everyone knew the story. Tonight, someone else would play the ruler. Senamé had been given the woman at his gate.

A good decision. She had considerable experience of being told to go away.

The storyteller announced a victory. The chorus praised the soldiers, the walls, the ruler whose wisdom had kept his people safe. At each new title, the drums answered.

Senamé waited until they had finished praising him.

Then she knocked on the imaginary gate.

The oldest singer turned.

“What have you brought for the king?” the singer asked.

“A question,” Senamé answered.

“Questions do not fill a treasury.”

“Neither does your singing, but he seems very pleased with it.”

Laughter ran through the nearest seats. The singer planted herself in Senamé’s path, enjoying the offence.

The woman in the story had come from a village beyond the walls. During the fighting, its people had fed the king’s soldiers. When the enemy reached their homes, they had fled to the city and found the gates shut.

Senamé began her verse.

“We carried your grain when the road was burning.
We carried your wounded home.
Now our children sleep outside your walls.
Tell us whose kingdom this is.”

The chorus answered with the ruler’s titles.

She tried to pass. They closed around her.

The drums quickened, and the argument moved into her feet. Each turn brought her towards another opening; each answer from the chorus shut it. She appealed to one guard, flattered another, then inspected the oldest singer from head to foot as though wondering how so much importance had fitted into one woman.

Even Tassi laughed.

Senamé heard her and grew bolder. When the drummer challenged her with a quick broken phrase, she caught it in her shoulders, held the pause and stamped her answer into the earth. His shout sent a thrill through her. Gold brushed her neck. Her wrapper snapped around her legs, blue opening into gold beneath the lamps.

Nothing burned at her throat. No scales tightened beneath her clothes.

She could do this without borrowing anything.

Across the court, Sètondji leaned forward. She caught his eye during a turn and almost laughed with him, but the chorus was gathering for its final refusal.

“The king cannot open his gates to everyone.”

Senamé let the last drumbeat fade.

“Then he should not send everyone’s sons to war.”

The singer’s smile vanished into her role. Behind her, the man playing the king rose from his seat.

In rehearsal, Senamé had hurried the silence that followed. Tonight she stayed where she was. The woman had walked too far to help the king escape an uncomfortable moment.

The bell rang once.

The ruler came down to open the gate himself.

As the chorus parted, Senamé looked back towards the entrance through which her character had come. She beckoned to the children waiting there. They ran to her, nearly upsetting the youngest, and she caught him without breaking the rhythm. Together they crossed the cleared court.

Only then did she greet the king.

Applause rose before she had straightened. The little boy clung to her fingers, delighted by the noise. Someone called for the verse again; the oldest singer squeezed her shoulder as they left the performance space.

Senamé’s cheeks hurt from smiling.

Near the steps, Tassi was applauding too. For once, Senamé had found a way to make the court listen to an impertinent woman all the way to the end.

Sètondji waited at the edge of the cleared space.

“Was that greeting acceptable?”

He bowed deeply enough to make the women nearest them notice.

“I shall have to find something else to teach you.”

She had several suggestions. None could be made within Adonon’s hearing.

Adonon allowed the applause to finish.

Then she rose.

The musicians quieted, and attendants moved through the court with the practiced speed of people who had been waiting for a signal. Several women drew closer to the steps. Dèdoun was among them, one hand resting lightly against the ornament at her chest.

Senamé was still trying to recover her breath when Sètondji was called forward.

He glanced back at her.

She smiled at him.

Adonon spoke of the families who had honored the palace, the women whose accomplishments had enriched the recent gatherings, the importance of a household formed with care. Names were mentioned. Gifts acknowledged. Senamé listened with half her attention, still flushed from the applause and the way Sètondji had bowed to her.

Then Dèdoun’s mother moved beside her daughter.

The warmth began to leave.

Adonon praised Dèdoun’s conduct, her education, her understanding of the duties attached to a great house. Around the court, women nodded. Several had been judging those qualities for days. Senamé could see the little exchanges between them now, the satisfaction of an arrangement approaching its conclusion.

Sètondji stood very straight.

When Adonon reached for Dèdoun’s hand, Tassi spoke.

“Has Sètondji given his answer?”

The court held still.

Adonon kept Dèdoun beside her.

“He wished to know the women considered for him. We have respected that wish.”

“That was not my question.”

Senamé’s breath caught.

Sètondji turned toward the queen. His mouth opened, but Adonon touched his arm.

“Her family has accepted the terms.”

The words were quiet. They carried anyway.

Dèdoun stood between them with her head lowered, allowing him no expression to answer except the perfect appearance of trust. Behind her waited her mother, then the relatives who had travelled, the women who had selected, the men who had already begun calculating what the union would mean.

Senamé could see him looking for a way through them.

He had found so many ways for her.

His eyes reached hers.

She did not smile this time.

Adonon’s hand remained on his arm.

“My son?”

Sètondji looked back toward the steps.

“Yes, Mother.”

The first cries of congratulations rose before Senamé understood that he had finished speaking.

Dèdoun lifted her head. Her smile was radiant.

Someone beside Senamé began applauding. The sound struck close to her ear, sharp and enthusiastic. She stepped away from it and found herself against a column.

Across the court, Sètondji turned.

People were already moving between them.

Senamé lowered her eyes to the blue cloth. Its border had caught beneath her sandal. She freed it carefully, smoothing the little crease with fingers that had become clumsy.

When she looked up again, Dèdoun had taken his hand.