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A soldier plunged a spear into the side of the general's neck. His declaration sputtered into wet gurgling as blood poured from the wound. He fell onto the platform, seizing, until his movements gradually came to a stop.
The babaláwo raised his arms to the sky. "Ṣàngó yọ mí."
"Ṣàngó yọ mí," the crowd echoed. Ṣàngó saved me.
The affirmation scratched my throat, threatening to bring more than words with it. But like the rest of the onlookers, I knew to thank the god of thunder and lightning for not condemning me to death instead. His wrath was as deadly as wildfire and just as easily spread.
The griot said, "Nothing about your life in Timbuktu need change. So long as your governor pays tribute to the Aláàfin, he may continue to rule as he sees fit." He turned to a richly-dressed man standing beside the platform in between two soldiers. "Do you accept these terms, or are you determined to follow the fate of Timbuktu's former general?"
The brown seemed to drain from the governor's face. He fell to his knees, his hands clasped in front of him. "I am honored to serve the Aláàfin," he said. Then, in stunted Yorùbá, he added, "An honor."
The griot nodded, and the crowd began to disperse, many of them taking cover from the rain. But I remained rooted in place. I watched as soldiers stepped forward to retrieve the body of the Songhai general. They hauled it onto a wagon like it was a sack of garri, moving with an efficiency that suggested they had done this for years, though they could not have been much older than I was, around the age of nineteen.
"There, there." A robust man slid next to me. He laid a meaty arm around my shoulder, his palm moist against my skin. "I understand your shock. Is it difficult to wrap around your head?"
"I've seen executions before," I said quietly. Though this was true, I had never seen lightning be the final verdict.
"I don't mean the execution." The kindness enveloping the man's words peeled back to reveal impatience beneath. I looked at him and saw that he was pointing at my head. "Your headscarf is the brown of an overripe plantain," he said. "It is old and stiff. Difficult to wear, yes?"
From somewhere within the sleeves of his tunic, he extracted a silk scarf so white that it stung my eyes. "My dear girl," he continued, "your scarf does justice to neither your black nor your beauty. What you need is a bright scarf, for the night sky needs its stars."
It was then I remembered that I did not know this man.
I shrugged his arm off, and as I made my way through the marketplace, other vendors called out to me, also telling me what I needed.
"Come and see your new sandals," called a man with a large beard and a larger belly. "The leather is soft and smooth, but they are strong."
"Fruit directly from the riverbanks of the Niger," proclaimed a woman as orange as the mangoes she held. "The juice can cure the most stubborn of illnesses."
The marketplace's rhythm resumed as though it had never paused. The Yorùbá seizure came as a surprise to no one; Timbuktu sat on agriculturally rich land in a commercially active area. When the Songhai captured the city three years ago, in 1468, they had only been one more addendum to Timbuktu's long history of changing hands. The city's population was not made up of just one people; there were the Songhai and the Yorùbá, but there were also the Fulani, the Moors, the Portuguese, and more. The only thing that unified Timbuktu's inhabitants was a drive for profit. So long as the marketplace continued running, who ruled the city was of little importance.
I had come to the marketplace today with my mother, but in the commotion of the execution, I lost her. Knowing that she would not want me wandering around alone, I decided to head home.
Excerpted from Masquerade by O.O. Sangoyomi. Copyright © 2024 by O.O. Sangoyomi. Excerpted by permission of Forge Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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