Duvai brought him to me. He traced the air around me without touching me, and a shiver of power crawled along my skin. Duvai helped him sit on the first bench. Still holding on to his nephew, the old man spoke to the assembly in a voice as hoarse as a frog’s spring croak. “The spirit world is knit into her bones. But she is not a spirit woman. Hers is true human flesh. Therefore, she did not deceive us in asking for guest rights. It is a serious matter to consider handing over one we have promised to shelter.”
“The mansa will punish us,” said one of the women, “if we do not turn her over.”
“Give her to Andevai,” said a man, “and let him do what he must.”
“To kill in the village on Hallows Night,” said Mamadi, “is a very dangerous thing. Spirits will flock to her blood. That they would enter this village would be a very ill thing for the village.”
“Then hold her prisoner,” said that first man, “until Hallows Day has passed. Let her be taken back to the House, or have her throat slit beyond the stockade. We’ll be rewarded.”
“Rewarded as we were before,” asked another woman, “to see our noble son snatched away by the mansa?”
“Will we be rewarded for offering guest rights to a traveler who asked properly and then breaking our word?” demanded another woman. “What troubles will rain over us in the years to come, because we have done a wrong thing? She must be released to go on her way. If the mansa’s hunters track her down later, then it will not be on us that she is dead.”
“If we do not tell Andevai,” said another man, “then how will he know she was here? If he does not know, the mansa does not know.”
They discussed the matter while I stood there pressed against the wall, amazed so many spoke in my favor. Or not in my favor, precisely—I never felt they cared much for me one way or the other—but in favor of a code that safeguarded guests. This was not about me, but about the integrity of the village.
When all had made their arguments, the old hunter spoke again in his frog’s whisper. “If she has been offered guest rights, then we risk a worse thing if we turn her over to the mansa. If other villages should hear—and they will hear, you can be sure—then how can we expect them to greet our hunters and our women out gathering if they are caught betimes needing shelter? The mansa may fine us, add to our burden, even kill some among us, but his power is limited to this world. If we go against what the ancestors and the gods have told us is right behavior, then we offend a deeper power. And trouble will come down much harder on us, and on our children and on their children.”