Page 12 - Microsoft Word - FANG EMPIRE - NOVEL.docx

will say, ‘the queen is very careful not to send the message that she is overly concerned with

fashion and frivolity—like the other women.’ ”

This was typical GoGo doctrine. She considered herself a woman of character, and like an

eclipse, she wanted her natural countenance to cast a shadow of respect and eminence.

A mystical-looking older man sat behind the queen. He looked more like an alchemist than

an advisor. He wore a tightly fitted crimson-red hood on his head with openings for his pierced

earlobes that were stretched to accommodate two round nuggets of rare fire obsidian. A black

cowl faired up around his shoulders attached to a cape. A jeweled all-seeing eye hung around his

neck on a silver chain. In the lavish and official setting of the Mandinka royal court, Sooth as he

was called, seemed out of place, out of time; owlish and odd, more a citizen of ancient Babylon

than sixteenth-century Timbuktu. Still, he was closer to the queen than anyone else in the royal

court, her marabout and spymaster, who kept a keen eye on the serpent coiled at the king’s right

hand, a man known only as . . . Ramoth.

At six feet tall, Ramoth had the uneven brown skin tone of roasted lamb. His irises were so

dark they blended in to his pupils, giving his glassy eyes a dank inexpressiveness found only in

predatory beasts and opium addicts. Foreign diplomats called him the King’s Cobra and

complained that he was too cunning. But in truth, Kanja liked that about Ramoth. Cunning was an

essential quality of a king and Kanja knew he was missing it. The strange man had become a real

star in the tricky African body politic, efficient yet slippery. But like an internal organ, Queen

GoGo believed he was best unseen. Which made it all the more excruciating for her to watch her

husband put him front and center.

The Albaka gave Ramoth an annual platform to use his position as secretary of state more

like master of ceremonies, heralding the foreign officials in a loud offical voice as if they were

kings and queens themselves. So glorious were the introductions that the pompous politicians

repaid him with that look, “meet me later for your reward,” it said. Yet according to the queen’s

own spymaster, Ramoth had never taken a bribe.

A short, obese man in official tribal robes stepped forward. Ramoth announced him to the