The ball flew into the air, sailing through the plume of smoke, reaching its zenith over the stall of snickering horses before beginning its plunge. A boy chased it, his face streaked with the sweat and grime of play. Lean and fast, he crashed through the stack of cane baskets left in the middle of the mud-slick road. A woman came out from under a raffia booth and shook her fist at him. A man snapped at him.
“Careful!” A youth yelled out from behind the boy. “Ga’a!”
The ball continues its descent, landing with a bounce on a thatched roof before rolling off and down into a woman’s lap. She jerked back, shaking off the ball, and with a hiss of disgust, she kicked it away.
“Ah ha, so it’s you again,” she said when she turned around and saw the boy trotting after the ball.
Ga’a ducked his head, murmuring his apologies without stopping.
“Ga’a!”
The ball rolled to a stop. “Coming, brother.” He scooped the ball up with a grin of triumph. It was a light thing, a bundle of soft turf and cloth. His brother made it for him this morning after their mother forced Ga’a to give his clay horse to his wailing little brother, Olubi.
It was the fifth time Ga’a had had to give Olubi something of his because his mother couldn’t bear to hear Olubi screaming atop his lungs. The last time, he’d parted with the pair of sandals that the Hausa trader from Bariba had traded for directions to the Asipa quarters. It was made of fine goat leather, tooled with gold and silver threads. Ga’a had worn them with a new gbariye and kembe to the last Bere festival and felt like a prince, strutting around in it. At night, he’d hugged them to sleep, relishing in their softness and the feeling of being bigger than he was. So, it had stung when Olubi wailed for it. Ga’a was shooting up like a sapling, everyone said, and his feet had long outgrown the sandals. He’d known that and meant to give it to Olukuoye when the moon turned into his birthday. But Olubi had cried and sniveled, and his mother softly had whispered her command into Ga’a’s ears. So he relinquished them and tried not to scream when Olubi dragged his feet around in them, the straps muddied by his brother’s play. Even when the gold stamps broke off, he stifled his cries with his fist and held back his tears. He was eight now. Tears would be unseemly now that he was growing into a man.
He’d done the same when Olubi came for his brass bracelet, his necklace, and his piece from the dried beef their older brother, Oluko, got from a tapa trader. He’d only broken when Olubi’s eyes turned to the clay horse. Something black had taken hold of him, filling his head with fog and turning his vision red. Blood rushed in him, boiling so hot it made him cry out, the rushing sound deafening him. When it was all over, Olubi was sprawled on the floor of their father’s kara, his small hand over his face and between the fingers, a geyser of blood spurt.
Ga’a’s ears rang. He didn’t know when his mother rushed out to assess the situation or when she slapped him. He’d only felt the prickling sting of the blow and tasted the salt of blood in his mouth, coming alive when their mother wrested the clay horse from his hand and gave it to Olubi. He screamed then, a guttural sound of howling spirits, and clawed at his mother’s hand.
“It was like you’d become a beast,” Edan Asiko had whispered through the window, the stream of moonlight framing her face and lending her the appearance of a wood wraith. She’d brought adun to the shed his mother had confined him to without food or water. “You were still howling as she whipped you.”
And he was still howling in his heart. He’d hardly slept, something cold congealing in his stomach, heavy and full of bitter loathing and despair. When dawn came, Oluko came into the shed, the ball in his hand. He said nothing, merely handed it to him and led him out to eat eko tutu. Ga’a knew he hadn’t asked permission from their mother.
“You are coming to the king’s market with me,” he said.
It was a tiny market right outside the western gates of the Afin’s walls. Oluko had a stall there where he sold the calabashes he carved and painted himself to passing noblemen and merchants. Ga’a had followed Oluko there a few times and sometimes played with the other children who came with their mothers. But today, he played alone, and his brother watched him play instead of tending to his wares, laughing when Ga’a kicked the ball too high.
He trotted back to Oluko, grinning when his brother shook his head and paused briefly to restack the baskets he’d trampled through.
“Ga’a!” came Oluko’s voice, filled with urgency.
“I’m coming, brother.”
“Get out of the way!”
Ga’a glanced up, momentarily confused. The tender look had left Oluko’s face, replaced with one of urgency.
“Ga’a! Get out of the way,” he shouted again, panic in his voice.
Shrill sounds followed Oluko’s shouts, and above them came another. The thunder of hooves and the loud snickering of horses. A finger of chill trailed down his spine, and his feet grew roots. The thundering grew louder.
He turned his head and saw the horse rear, its rider’s robe spilling over its rump, just like the clay horse his father had made for him before he went off to fight in the war. You’ll make a fine rider, like my great-grandfather, Yau Yamba. Ga’a had grinned until he feared his face would split open. He’d watched his father, Swaa, leave for battle on his war horse. It had reared like so before his father rode through the gates with his retainers. His body returned a year later, but he’d shed the warm smiles and laughs in the sands of the battleground. And they wouldn’t return, not when his mother spoke to him softly in Baruba or when it was time for Olubi to shed his yisi piibu. All that was left of him were dark eyes and heavy hands.
The horse loomed closer, growing bigger, and above them were cruel dark eyes beneath a heavy brow. Ga’a’s mouth fell open.
The scream was closer now. Something smacked into him, and his teeth tore a new cut in his mouth. The ground left his feet, and the sky turned. The ball flew again, sailing in a low arch before rolling to a rest on the muddy road.
Blurs of brown and grey thundered by, the ball crushing beneath their iron studded hooves. A lump sat on Ga’a’s chest, pressing down and threatening to crush his heart.
I’m nearly a man. I mustn't cry.
But tears stung his eyes, misting his vision. The pressure lifted, and a face came into his field of vision.
“Ga’a? Are you hurt?”
It was Oluko. He’d thrown himself over Ga’a to protect him.
Ga’a blinked away the film of tears and saw the concern stamped on his brother’s face and the thin line of blood crawling downward into his mouth.
“Brother,” Ga’a tried to say, “you are …”
“It’s nothing.” Oluko lifted off him and turned. A red flower of blood bloomed in the nape of his neck, and at the centre was the white of pulsing flesh.
“How can you be so careless?!” Oluko’s voice rang with anger. “I know that cap didn’t cover your eyes and you could see a child on the road.”
Hands grabbed Ga’a, pulling him to his feet. “Are you okay?” Voices asked, but Ga’a didn’t respond. His eyes were on his brother, standing with his feet firmly planted in the road. Next to his feet was the torn ball of turf and old clothes. The red flower kept blooming.
The horses stopped and turned. There were three, all nobly dressed, but the one in the middle, the one with cruel eyes, was dressed more richly. His ibo on his gberiye sparkled with gold threads, and his cap was a rich deep red. He scowled down at Oluko. He was younger than Ga’a first thought. He looked the same age as Oluko. Fourteen.
“Why is a gnat speaking?” His voice was low and deceptively soft, but Ga’a could hear the scorn and rage. The other two laughed, a ringing one. It set Ga’a’s teeth on edge.
“Because a monkey in costly clothes is acting like it now has the impudence to barge through without care.”
The laughter stopped, and the leader’s eyes slitted, the black of them glimmering with malice. A cold fist of fear gripped Ga’a’s heart.
“Brother, please …” He tried to free himself of the grip, but they held on tight.
“Be quiet, Ga’a.” Someone warned, but he didn’t know who.
“Have a care how you speak to me.” The man’s voice had gone lower, resembling the hiss of a serpent. The hiss of snake spirits who caused malice at night. A yawning pit had opened in Ga’a’s stomach, and his spirit was plunging through.
“Why should I, when you refuse to do what is appropriate?”
“Hush,” said one of the other two. “Do you not know who you are speaking so carelessly to? It’s Akeyo Labisi, son of Adenifuja. Salute him and be grateful he didn’t crush you beneath his hooves.”
“Grateful?!” Oluko thundered. Ga’a flinched at the thunder of rage, the pit widening in his stomach. He felt like he’d been drenched in cold as he watched something immutable unfold. He knew it just as he knew his name. Something awful was happening, and he couldn’t stop it.
Oluko was trembling now, the petals of the red flower lengthening, twisting shape into a macabre spider. A stamp of a grim omen.
His heart squeezed. Stop.
“Grateful?! To the likes of you?”
The one who’d spoken danced closer on his horse, leaning over the reins still in his hand. He leaned over, and Ga’a’s breath seized. “Salute the prince.”
Oluko tilted his head. “No.”
He lifted his arm, a whip arching back, and brought it down. Oluko grabbed him by the wrist and pulled. The horse reared, whinnying away, and the nobleman landed in the mud with a cry. It was the sniveling sound Olubi made.
Several cries rang out.
“You dare!” The snivelling man screamed, his noble clothes stained with mud. “You dare!”
“Hold him!” came from the cruel-eyed youth.
Noise faded from the world as other horses joined, bearing men with half-shaved heads. The Alaafin’s ilaris. They corralled Oluko with their horses and dismounted to seize him.
Ga’a swallowed his heart, fighting against the grip holding him in place. He tore free and ran at them, his chest and throat burning.
Those abominable hands grabbed him again. This time, they bound him to a wide chest. He could feel the heave of every breath they took, the pound of his heart, the radiating pain in his chest, the stiff tingle at his fingertips.
They took Oluko to the horse stalls.
“Don’t look,” a voice told him. Darkness fell over his vision. “Don’t look.”
But he heard.
The whistle of a sinewy whip swishing through the air, the crack of its descent. Once, twice, thrice. On the fifth, Oluko cried out. A ragged sound of agony.
Ga’a fought, but the hands held him.
The sixth. The seventh. Oluko cried again.
On the tenth, someone cried out: “Enough. It’s enough for pity’s sake.”
But the whip kept whistling and cracking.
A woman started sobbing. Oluko fell silent. All Ga’a heard was the pound of heartbeats and the crack of the whip. Twenty, he counted in his heart. Twenty-one, Twenty-two, Twenty-three, Twenty-four.
Twenty-five.
Silence fell louder than the noise before it.
Laughter boomed and howled, then the thunder of hooves sounded again, loud, then slowly faded away. Only then did the hands leave him.
Ga’a, suddenly free of support, fell to his knees. His vision was blurred, and his mouth trembled. He crawled forward and then pushed himself up before running toward his brother.
They’d tied him to one of the posts of the stall, and despite the support of the lash and post, Oluko’s head hung lifelessly, the red spider limbs crawling cruelly across his mangled back.
The hands grabbed him again, but Ga’a clawed at him. He would not be restrained. He tore at the hand, snarling and screaming.
“Peace,” said a voice. “Peace, my boy.” It was a gentle grip this time, a comforting pressure on his shoulders.
“My brother,” he began and choked on the rest of the word.
The owner of the voice and hands, a Tapa man and the stall’s owner, looked over Ga’a’s head and down at him. His eyes, Ga’a noted, were soft. Nearly as soft as their father’s used to be. “We will get him home.”
Is he …? His throat moved, but he couldn’t get the words out.
The Tapa man said something in his language and then looked at Ga’a again. “Here, you are a man. Tears are not for you.” He wiped Ga’a face with the hem of his robes, and only then did he realize he’d been crying and he’d chewed his lips raw.
“My brother, is he …?”
Pity shone in the man’s eyes. “We will take you home to your parents. Come, you’ll ride with me and show me the way.”
His brother was dead. The Tapa man had all but said so.
They’d killed him. They’d whipped him to death and then laughed about it. Something coarse swept through him, as blitzing as the whipping sand. All at once, the sound fell to silence, and something shone in his eyes as his heart pounded, boiling his blood something fierce. But it wasn’t the wild thing that rode him when he hit Olubi. It was something else. Something as still as a stone yet as sharp as a finely honed blade.
They’d murdered his brother and laughed. Akeyo Labisi, his friends, those Ilaris. He knew their faces and would know them until he died.
They would pay for this, he promised himself as the Tapa man lifted him onto his horse. They would all pay.
That promise beat in his heart as loudly as the grief and the cold notion that it was his fault.
Everything was his fault.
