Under Her Protection

The messenger had rehearsed his account throughout the journey. Before the emperor, he could scarcely remember how it began.

Behind the throne, woven kings crossed a dark red landscape beneath banners stiff with gold. Some rode horses. Others stood beside cities whose names the messenger knew only from praise songs. The oldest tapestry had been repaired so often that the hands preserving it had become part of the history it depicted.

He kept his forehead low.

“They refused the tribute, Majesty.”

“How much?”

The messenger gave the quantity.

A woman seated beside the throne stopped turning her bracelet. The emperor looked towards her, then back at the man on the floor.

“That is not the quantity in the treaty.”

“It includes the additional assessment.”

“Whose assessment?”

The messenger’s mouth dried. He had brought the account entrusted to him. Nobody had suggested he might be required to explain its construction.

One of the emperor’s brothers leaned forward.

“Whatever dispute there may be over the reckoning, they raised magic against your officers. If the southern courts hear that your collectors can be driven out—”

“They will hear what we permit them to hear.”

The emperor extended his hand. An attendant took the dispatch from the messenger and carried it up the steps.

For a while, silk shifted and nothing else moved.

“Send for the original accounts,” the emperor instructed. “And have the southern commanders report their readiness.”

The messenger bowed until his forehead touched the floor.

He had been believed less than he feared, and the army would prepare anyway.

* * *

At Allada, Senamé recognized the bird stamped on the warehouse doors before she saw the man who owned them.

Carts stood beyond the royal compound, their loads covered against the dust. Men checked lashings and argued over axle grease. A split sack leaked grain beneath one wheel. Senamé watched a boy gather it into his cupped hands while an overseer counted the sacks still intact.

Inside, the meeting had been arranged in a rectangular courtyard. Three shallow steps led to the queen’s pavilion at the far end. Along the right-hand wall, pierced clay screens shaded a narrow shelter where the clerks had set out their papers. The gate stood opposite the pavilion. Senamé marked the distance between them without deciding to.

Sètondji was checking the transport agreements beneath the screens. He had travelled with the royal party to oversee the copies, and he looked as though he had spent the journey trying to sleep through an argument inside his own head. When he reached across the table, his collar pulled aside. The dark mark above his heart had lengthened.

He noticed her looking and straightened his clothing.

Senamé turned away before either of them could attempt another conversation neither knew how to finish.

Beside the pavilion, two attendants lowered the mirror’s travelling case onto a padded stand. Kossiwa watched them check its fastenings, then returned her attention to the gate.

Dossou arrived without hurrying.

He was handsome enough to make Senamé resent noticing. His wrapper fell in immaculate folds, and the rings on his fingers seemed chosen to flatter the hands rather than announce their cost. He greeted Tassi with a bow that placed precisely enough distance between respect and familiarity.

Then his eyes moved through her household.

They paused on Kékéli.

The child stood beside Senamé, examining the carved clasp on a document box. Dossou glanced between them, apparently finding no family resemblance worth respecting.

“Is the little one yours?”

“He’s with me.”

“A handsome child. What would you take for him?”

Senamé pulled Kékéli behind her so sharply that his heel scraped her sandal.

Dossou waited. He had asked a question about a purchase and expected the ordinary courtesy of an answer.

“He is not for sale.”

“Enough.” Tassi’s voice carried from the pavilion. “You are here to discuss grain.”

Dossou inclined his head.

“As Your Majesty wishes.”

He passed Senamé with the faint fragrance of perfumed oil. She wanted to scrub the air where he had stood.

Kékéli’s fingers closed around hers.

“I don’t like him.”

“For once, keep that to yourself.”

She led him to Sètondji.

“Keep him here. Please.”

He put down his pen at once.

Across the courtyard, Tassi remained standing while Dossou presented the dispatch tallies. Senamé could see the queen checking each departure against the promises made in Abomey. This was what protection bought: carts moving, grain arriving, a man allowed to discuss quantities after asking the price of a child.

A shadow crossed the papers.

Senamé looked up.

The rapace descended beyond the gate, enormous wings beating dust through the entrance. A horse screamed. Men abandoned the nearest cart, and through the pale cloud came Kpénahi with the wrapped sword across her back.

Senamé’s stomach turned over.

She knew that walk. During training, Kpénahi could shout, threaten, even laugh. When something truly needed killing, she became economical.

Senamé crossed the courtyard before the guards had finished closing ranks.

“Kpénahi.”

The warrior’s gaze passed over her and settled on Dossou.

“So that is him.”

“Listen to me.”

“I read your letter.”

“Then listen to the person who wrote it.”

Kpénahi stopped. Up close, Senamé could see the rawness around her eyes. For an instant she wanted to put her arms around her, as though they were at home and grief could be taken somewhere private.

Then Kpénahi reached behind her shoulder.

Senamé caught her forearm.

“No.”

The wrapped blade came free. Kpénahi shook the cloth loose, and a low sound rolled through the compound.

Kpo stood at the pavilion steps.

Senamé had never seen the Panther this large. Her shoulders rose above a man’s head; the muscles beneath her dark coat shifted as she placed herself between the exposed sword and the queen.

Dossou backed into the shade.

“Kpo.” Tassi descended one step. “Let me speak to her.”

The Panther’s lip lifted.

“I could slap the manners back into her.”

“Let me speak.”

Kpo remained where she was. Her tail swept once across the paving.

Tassi turned to Kpénahi.

“I know what you have learned. I have ordered the remaining records brought here.”

“Bring him.”

“He is under my protection.”

Senamé felt the arm beneath her hand tighten.

“For how much?”

Tassi absorbed the question without looking towards Dossou.

“We can hear the charge. We can establish who signed the order, who received payment, who concealed the letters. I will give you that hearing.”

“My mother asked for one.”

“I cannot answer for what my father refused.”

“But you can finish his work?”

Behind Senamé, a guard muttered to his captain.

“If she harms the queen, we march on Azara.”

Senamé turned on him.

“Then stop making it easier.”

The captain motioned his men back. Sètondji was already moving the clerks away from the open side of the shelter, keeping Kékéli behind him.

Kpénahi took one step to the left.

Tassi matched it.

The next movement was so fast that Senamé felt it through the arm she held before she saw it. Kpénahi twisted free, driving towards the gap beside the steps. Wind struck her sideways. She planted a foot against the pavilion wall, used the force to turn and landed facing Dossou again.

Tassi’s hand closed.

Earth gripped Kpénahi’s ankles. She tore one foot loose, breaking the paving with it, but the delay was enough for a pale shield to rise between her and the merchant.

“Stay behind me,” Tassi ordered.

Kpénahi lifted the sword. Light gathered along its edge and followed the downward cut.

The shield opened from top to bottom.

Tassi stepped back. Her fingers remained curved around a working that no longer existed.

For the first time since Kpénahi’s arrival, Senamé saw surprise break through the queen’s composure.

“That sword.”

Kpénahi advanced through the severed protection.

Senamé met her shoulder-first.

The impact jarred her teeth. Kpénahi was heavier, stronger through the trunk, but Senamé knew the turn she used to free herself from a hold. She hooked a leg behind the warrior’s knee and drove with everything Sakpata’s earth had given her.

They struck the edge of the steps together.

“Stop,” Senamé gasped. “You’re going to get us all killed.”

Kpénahi caught her by the upper arm.

“You stand in front of him?”

“I’m standing in front of you!”

“Traitor.”

The word loosened something in her grip.

Kpénahi pulled free and swept the sword towards the next barrier forming across her path. Senamé threw up a defence. The released edge passed through it, opened her upper arm and hurled her across the courtyard.

She struck the ground on her side. Dust filled her mouth. For several terrible breaths, her body refused to take in air.

Sètondji reached her first.

“Stay down.”

She tried to push herself upright. Her arm folded beneath her, wet and suddenly unfamiliar.

Across the courtyard, Tassi drove Kpénahi back with a blast of compressed air. The warrior skidded, found her footing and changed direction before the queen could close the distance again.

Afiwa appeared in the gate, bent over, one hand braced against the wall. Her eyes found Senamé on the ground and stayed there.

“Afiwa.” Senamé dragged breath into her chest. “Kékéli. Take him.”

Her friend did not move.

“Please.”

That reached her. She stumbled towards the shelter.

Kpénahi raised the sword again. Tassi sent a sheet of fire across her approach, forcing her to turn the cut away from the pavilion.

The shining edge passed beneath the eaves instead.

Dossou cried out.

He staggered against a support, one hand clamped to his side. Blood spread between his fingers and ran onto the pale folds he had arranged so carefully.

Senamé stopped struggling against Sètondji.

She knew what Kpénahi would do next.

“Help me up.”

He looked towards the merchant, then back at her.

“Senamé—”

“If he dies, this doesn’t end with him.”

She got her feet beneath her. Across the courtyard, Tassi stood between Kpénahi and the wounded man, while Kpo turned towards the frightened people crowding the shelter.

Dossou slid down the support.

Senamé pressed her good hand over her own wound and began listening for the pattern that would make her fast enough to reach him.

Senamé reached Dossou before his next breath had finished.

Borrowed speed sickened her. She dragged Dossou’s hand from the wound and pressed his folded wrapper against the blood.

He cried out and seized her injured arm.

“Let go.”

His fingers tightened. Pain shot into her shoulder, sharp enough to blur his face.

“Unless you would prefer to manage this yourself.”

He released her. She pressed his hand onto the pad and covered it with hers. His rings dug into her palm. Minutes ago those hands had offered money for Kékéli; now they clung to her for help.

Across the courtyard, Kpénahi stood six paces from Tassi. The queen blocked the narrow approach to the shelter. Behind her, Kpo braced a shoulder beneath the damaged eaves while Sètondji dragged the last clerk clear of a fallen beam.

“Look at her arm,” Tassi urged.

Kpénahi’s sword dipped at her blood-soaked sleeve. Senamé almost called her over, remembering how crossly she dressed wounds, how carefully she tested injured fingers.

Then the warrior noticed whose blood covered Senamé’s other hand.

“Move away from him.”

“And leave you to finish?”

“He does not deserve your hands.”

Once, Kpénahi had said that about a woman who brought broken tools without thanks. She had been defending Senamé then.

Dossou shifted beneath the pad. Senamé pressed harder.

“You’ve cut my arm open. You don’t get to tell me where to put the other one.”

Kpénahi flinched. Her eyes returned to the wound, but before she could speak, Tassi approached.

“Put the sword down. Please. We can still leave this courtyard with everyone alive,” Tassi said.

“He left my father alive too. Long enough to sell him,” Kpénahi replied.

“I read the account.”

“And offered his seller safe conduct.”

“Yes.”

The answer came with difficulty. Tassi looked towards the man bleeding beside Senamé, and for an instant Senamé hoped she would withdraw it.

Instead, the queen faced Kpénahi again.

“His goods are already on the road. I need them to arrive. Then I can begin replacing him.”

Kpénahi glanced towards the gate.

“His carts are outside. Take them.”

“And the next convoy? The warehouses beyond my borders? Those belong to men who are watching to see whether my guarantee means anything.”

“Let them watch.”

Tassi’s patience broke.

“You can say that because you will go home.”

Kpénahi went still. Senamé felt it too: the forest path, the boundary closing behind her, keeping every consequence outside.

Tassi had no such place to go.

“You will go home to stores no imperial collector can empty,” the queen continued. “I have villages eating their seed grain. When the rains come, they will have nothing to plant. I cannot feed them a promise that the next merchant will be a better man.”

“And how many fathers does this one get to sell while you wait?”

Senamé watched Tassi, Dossou’s blood between her fingers, still wanting an answer that would let her go on loving the queen.

Tassi looked exhausted.

“I have no number that will make this acceptable to you.”

“To me?”

“To anyone. But killing him today will not release the people he sold. It will stop deliveries I have already paid for.”

“Then change what the kingdom depends on,” Senamé called.

The queen turned towards her. There was hurt in the look, as though she had expected Senamé, at least, to understand how hard she had been trying.

“I am trying to keep it alive long enough to do that.”

Blood slowed beneath Senamé’s hand. Beyond these walls, strangers waited for the grain this man had promised.

She hated being able to understand.

Dossou drew a careful breath.

“The coastal houses will require assurances after this.”

Senamé increased the pressure until his words broke.

“You are receiving one.”

Tassi’s gaze remained on her a moment longer. Then Kpénahi spoke.

“You came to Azara asking us to serve this.”

“I came asking for help,” Tassi said.

“You wanted our sword.”

“Yes. I wanted enough strength to refuse Oya without handing them my people. You refused me. I still had to find a way to feed them.”

Senamé had admired Azara’s refusal. It felt good to belong to women a crown could not command. She hadn’t considered what followed for Tassi.

Sètondji stepped out from behind the screen. Dust covered one side of his tunic.

“She refused the increased tribute. She refused to surrender children in its place. You have that report too.”

“So now she buys grain from a man who sells somebody else’s?”

His glance towards Dossou held open contempt.

“I helped prepare these agreements. I wish we had found another supplier.”

“Then stop defending him.”

“I am defending her.”

Senamé looked up.

He stood beside the shelter, the dark mark above his heart exposed, too angry now to soften his meaning.

“If her guarantee dies here, every person she sends to negotiate after this will pay for it. You may be willing to take that risk. They have not been asked.”

Kpénahi turned back to Tassi. Having someone defend the queen seemed to wound her more than the argument itself. Senamé knew the feeling: looking around a room and discovering that everyone had found a reason to be reasonable about something that had ruined your life.

“We feed the women who come to us,” Kpénahi said. “We shelter their children. Do not tell me what protection costs.”

“And the women who cannot reach it?”

Behind the screen, Kossiwa adjusted her pagne. The cloth was already secure; she pulled it tighter anyway.

Tassi saw only Kpénahi.

“The woman who cannot carry her old mother through your forest. The one with three children and no food for the journey. Who protects her?”

“Do not put their deaths at our door.”

“Then stop speaking as though everyone outside it has chosen to live badly.”

The anger in Tassi’s voice startled Senamé. Until now, the queen had been explaining herself. This mattered to her in a way that went beyond winning the argument.

“They are my people too,” Tassi continued. “The ones who cannot leave. I must find a way for them to survive where they are.”

For a moment, Kpénahi looked towards Senamé.

Senamé could not give her the agreement she wanted. Her hand was still holding Dossou’s against his wound.

Kpénahi saw it and turned away.

Afiwa stood beneath the shelter with Kékéli pressed against her hip. Senamé tried to catch her eye, but her friend was watching the sword. Her fingers had locked around the child’s shoulder.

The blade shifted.

Senamé recognized the feint a heartbeat too late. Kpénahi showed Tassi the beginning of a cut, drawing the queen sideways to avoid its line. Then she drove inside the distance the sword required and struck her beneath the breastbone with her shoulder.

Tassi left the ground.

Her back hit the steps hard enough to split their edge. A royal pearl flashed at her throat, catching the force before it crushed her against the pavilion. The queen folded over it, mouth open, unable to draw breath.

Senamé started towards her. Dossou’s hand slipped beneath hers, and fresh blood flooded the cloth.

Kpo’s head snapped round.

“Stay with them,” Tassi forced out.

The Panther remained beneath the damaged eaves. A tile slid down her back and shattered beside her paw.

Kpénahi was already turning towards Dossou.

Senamé pushed his hand firmly onto the dressing.

“Hold that.”

Then she dragged herself between them on her knees. The movement pulled at her wounded arm until she felt warm blood reach her elbow.

“You’ll have to move me again.”

Kpénahi stopped.

Kpénahi’s breathing rasped. Senamé waited for her to reach down or help her stand, as she would have yesterday.

Behind them, Tassi struggled upright. Blood shone along her lower lip. She remained bent over one hand while she recovered enough breath to speak.

Senamé watched the guards watching her. A gesture would be enough. Kpénahi had struck their queen in front of them all.

“Kpénahi.” Tassi swallowed, wincing. “Give me something I can still call a surrender.”

Kpénahi looked back at the broken steps.

“Your father sold mine. You protect the man who carried out the sale. And you ask me to kneel.”

“I am asking you to live.”

The queen’s voice shook with the effort of keeping it quiet.

Kpénahi shifted her grip and looked towards the open gate.

Then her gaze returned to Tassi.

“Was Akaba this careful with his merchants? Or do you only hide behind his name when your own is not enough?”

Tassi stopped wiping the blood from her mouth.

Kpénahi had never seen the queen bending over Akaba’s pearl. She did not know what she had reached into.

“Leave him out of this,” Senamé warned.

Kpénahi did not look at her.

Heat touched Senamé’s cheeks. Dust stirred around Tassi’s bare feet.

“Do not use my brother to make yourself brave, woman of Azara.”

“He is dead. So is my father. Yours had the courtesy to leave you a throne.”

For a moment, Tassi seemed unable to understand the words.

Her hand remained against her mouth. When she lowered it, blood had stained the lines of her palm. She looked down at it with an expression Senamé could not bear.

Then she faced Kpénahi.

“What do you know about dying for something bigger than yourself, woman of Azara?”

Her voice carried clearly now.

The name Akaba had brought back the mourning drums. Beneath them came other voices, patient and respectful, explaining what her brother would have wanted.

Men had pressed for her seal while claiming to know her dead brother’s wishes. In the cave, Kokou had let her tell her stories badly, forget the endings, begin again. His hands held her food when hers shook. At last she uncovered the mirror and saw the people suffering beneath orders issued in her name. She returned.

Kokou died after helping her return.

The palace filled with condolences. Men who had pressed for her seal bowed over her hand and assured her that his killers would be punished. She searched their faces for satisfaction and found only sympathy, beautifully performed.

For a long time afterwards, she could not bear anyone trying to make her laugh.

Then, in Azara, a girl with a bandaged hand had imitated an offended elephant over supper. Hangbé had laughed hard enough to reopen her split lip. The girl apologized, still laughing herself, and pushed the water closer.

It had been so easy to want her nearby.

Senamé was on her knees in the courtyard.

Blood ran down the arm that had reached for Kpénahi. The girl still tried to keep everyone alive, in a household that had taught her the cost of kindness.

And she had let herself believe she could protect her.

“There was a man called Kokou,” she said.

Kpénahi’s eyes narrowed.

“After Akaba died, when I could no longer bear this crown, he came to bring me home. They killed him for succeeding.”

Senamé wanted to reach the queen. Kpénahi stood between them, sword bright beside her leg.

“Do you think I have never wanted to leave?” Hangbé asked. “That I have never hated what keeping this kingdom alive requires of me?”

Kpénahi’s face tightened, but she offered no answer.

Tassi still waited for some admission that the pain did not belong to Kpénahi alone.

Kpénahi looked towards Dossou.

Hangbé’s expression closed.

“Step away from him.”

The pearls rose from her chest.

Senamé felt the queen’s own power gathering beneath theirs, deep enough to make her teeth ache. The scattered heat across the courtyard drew towards Tassi. Light thickened around her body, gold turning white where it touched her skin.

There was no wind for Kpénahi to turn against, no grip of earth to tear apart. The solar borg enclosed the queen in a clear, burning curve.

Kpénahi set her feet.

* * *

Senamé watched the first pearl circle Tassi’s shoulder.

Its light passed over the queen’s bruised chest, then joined a second and a third. Heat gathered between them. The air above the paving trembled until the straight edges of the steps seemed to bend.

Kpénahi drove the heel of her free hand against the light enclosing Tassi.

The blow rang across the courtyard. The golden surface held.

Tassi caught her wrist through its radiance and forced her back.

“Yield.”

Kpénahi looked at the fingers around her arm, then at the sword in her other hand. Tassi released her before the blade could turn towards the grip.

Dossou began dragging himself towards the gap beside the support.

“Stay still,” Senamé snapped.

He was staring past her.

She turned towards Tassi just as the royal light swelled. Its brightness filled her eyes, and for a fraction of a breath she lost Kpénahi.

Above her, a roof tile cracked.

Senamé looked up.

Kpénahi had sprung onto the low wall beside the shelter. She came down behind Senamé with the sword held close, its point already aligned.

Senamé reached for Dossou.

She caught his sleeve.

The blade entered beneath his ribs.

His weight jerked against her hand. Kpénahi pulled the sword free, and Senamé went down with him, pressing the ruined cloth back against a wound that would no longer close beneath it.

“No. No, stay here.”

His eyes moved towards her. For the first time since she had met him, there was no calculation in them.

Then there was nothing she could reach.

Senamé kept pressing.

Kpénahi stood close enough that the edge of her wrapper brushed Senamé’s shoulder. Neither spoke. Blood crept through the grooves between the paving stones.

Tassi approached.

“Move away from him.”

Senamé lifted her face, ready to refuse.

The queen was looking at Kpénahi.

For one moment, the warrior seemed to have no idea what to do with the sword now that she had used it. Her gaze passed over Dossou, over Senamé’s hands, towards the gate.

Then Tassi spoke again.

“You will put the blade down and submit to my guard.”

Kpénahi’s shoulders settled.

“No.”

* * *

Kpo lowered the damaged eaves onto the support the guards had dragged beneath them. Her great body contracted as she stepped clear; a tall woman in black and silver stood where the Panther had been.

“Everyone behind the screens.”

Sètondji took Afiwa by the elbow. She resisted for a moment, staring at Senamé.

“Come with us,” he called.

Senamé could not make herself leave the body yet.

Tassi removed her outer tunic. Beneath it, a woven band held her breasts; the bruise from Kpénahi’s blow was spreading below its edge. She laid the garment on the broken steps and turned towards Kpo.

“Mother of heroes. You sheltered my fathers before their names were carved above these doors. Lend me strength to answer for the crown they left.”

Senamé had never heard her incant before other people.

The ground shuddered.

Kpo placed her palm against the courtyard wall. Darkness spread through the mortar, ran beneath the paving and rose in a curved shell around the open space. The shelter and its crowded witnesses remained outside it. Senamé, beside Dossou, remained within.

A deep gold entered the queen’s light.

She crossed to the travelling case, opened it herself and lifted the mirror. Every pearl orbiting her body appeared in its surface. Their reflections multiplied as she turned it towards Kpénahi.

Sètondji’s voice reached Senamé through the forming barrier.

“She’s going to kill her.”

Kpénahi looked towards him.

Doubt crossed her face. Perhaps the body, the frightened witnesses, the queen’s burning light would finally be enough to stop her.

The sword rose.

Kpénahi set both hands around its hilt. Along the blade, power gathered in a bright, narrowing edge that made the barrier groan.

Senamé knew that stance too.

She had copied it as a child with a stick too heavy for her arms. Kpénahi had come behind her, corrected her feet and told her to look where she meant to strike.

Now she was looking at Tassi.

The queen angled the mirror. Fire folded into its depth, white at the centre, gold along the rim. Senamé could hear each return feeding the next, the familiar workings joined under a pressure that made her teeth ache.

Neither woman was watching her.

Senamé eased Dossou’s sleeve out of her hand.

She had believed being useful enough would teach her what to do. She understood both attacks, and exactly how they would kill the women releasing them.

Her mind offered adjustments, imitations, a dozen small clevernesses. She followed each far enough to find the death waiting at its end.

“Senamé.”

His voice pulled her from the calculations. For a moment, she heard him singing to the night, unaware of her listening.

She turned. His hand was against Kpo’s barrier.

“Come back this way.”

She wanted to.

Beyond him were Afiwa and Kékéli, pressed close together. Kossiwa stood behind them, one hand closed at her chest. Inside the courtyard, Kpénahi had tears on her face. The light around Tassi was too bright for Senamé to see hers.

She had carried words between her two homes, hoping these women would understand each other.

Now each was about to leave her with the other’s body.

“Oh, you stupid, stubborn women.”

Her voice scarcely travelled beyond her own mouth.

She rose. The movement pulled at her wounded arm, and the courtyard tilted; she waited until it steadied, then took a step towards the space between them.

The two workings reached their final shape.

Senamé let go of the borrowed defence she had begun assembling around her heart.