The Exiled King

Calabar rain does not fall like Benin rain. Benin rain is short and angry and then it stops. Calabar rain is patient. It falls all day, like it is trying to wash something that will not come off.

On the morning after they arrived at the Hope Waddell archive, Osaze woke up to that rain and to the sound of a printing press.

Ekpo was already working. The old Efik teacher had taken Osaze's smoked plantain leaves and was carefully pressing them onto wet paper, tracing the scratched words with ink, making copies. His hands moved slowly, like a caster pouring bronze.

"You see?" Ekpo said without looking up. "This is how paper fights fire. You make two. Then you make four. Fire can burn one, but not four if you hide them in different places."

Osaze sat up. Adesuwa was still asleep, with Osaro curled against her, his fever gone, his breathing soft. The cowrie necklace was still around her neck. The satchel was under her head.

"Did you sleep?" Ekpo asked.

"No."

"You were thinking about the Oba."

"Yes."

Ekpo put down his pen. "I will tell you truth. The Oba Ovonramwen is in Calabar, but he is not free. The British keep him in a compound in Government Hill. Two soldiers at his door always. They let Efik chiefs visit him sometimes to show that British are kind. But they don't let Bini people visit him, because they fear you will make a plan to bring him back."

"Can you get us in? As Efik?"

Ekpo smiled behind his glasses. "You are not Efik. Your scar is Bini." He pointed to the small scar on Osaze's forehead that all Igun boys get when they start learning to carve. "But the girl — she has no scar. And the boy is small. And I am Efik. I can say you are my servants from Creek Town who help me carry books. The British don't look at servants."

Adesuwa woke up at that moment. She heard the last part.

"We will go," she said, sitting up. "Now."

"You have not eaten," Ekpo said.

"A king does not eat while his Oba is a prisoner," Adesuwa said.

Ekpo looked at her and nodded like she was his own daughter.

They left Osaro with Ekpo's wife, who promised to feed him more soup. Then the three of them — Ekpo, Osaze, Adesuwa — walked through the Calabar rain up Government Hill.

Government Hill was different from the rest of Calabar. The houses were white, made of stone, with big verandas. White men sat on verandas drinking tea even in the rain, with Efik servants holding umbrellas over them. British flags hung limp and wet.

At the top of the hill, behind a high fence, was a small house. Not a palace. Not even as big as a chief's house in Benin. It was a bungalow, with a tin roof that drummed with rain. Two Hausa soldiers in British uniform stood at the door with rifles.

Ekpo walked up confidently, speaking English loud.

"Good morning, Sergeant! I am Teacher Ekpo from Hope Waddell Institute. I have brought books for the Chief of Benin, as allowed by Reverend Anderson. These are my helpers to carry them."

The sergeant looked at Osaze and Adesuwa. Osaze kept his eyes down, like a servant. Adesuwa kept her eyes down too, but her fists were clenched.

The sergeant shrugged. "Five minutes only. The old man is sick. Don't give him any knives."

They went inside.

The house smelled of damp and palm oil and sadness. It was dark, because the windows were small. And there, sitting on a low stool that was too small for him, was Oba Ovonramwen Nogbaisi.

Osaze had last seen him in the palace courtyard in Benin, sitting on a dais, wearing coral beads that shone, with chiefs around him, with power that made the air shake. Now he wore a simple white wrapper. No coral. No beads. His head was bare. His beard was grey. He looked older by twenty years, though it had only been a month.

But his eyes were the same.

The Oba looked up when they entered. He saw Ekpo first, then Adesuwa, then Osaze.

For a second, there was no recognition. Then his eyes widened.

"Igun boy," he whispered. "The boy who runs with paper."

Osaze fell to his knees. He did not care that the floor was wet. He did not care that the soldiers could see through the window. He prostrated, his forehead on the floor, the way you greet an Oba in Benin.

"My king," he said, his voice breaking. "My king, I ran."

"I told you to run," Ovonramwen said. His voice was hoarse, like he had been coughing. "You did what I said. That is more than my generals did."

Adesuwa knelt too, pulling Osaze up a little. She had never seen an Oba up close.

Ekpo stood by the door, watching the soldiers outside.

Ovonramwen reached out and touched Osaze's head. His hand was thin.

"You have it?" he asked.

Osaze opened his wrapper and showed the satchel, which he had hidden inside. He took out the papers — the copies Ekpo made that morning, not the originals.

The Oba took them with both hands, like they were coral beads. He looked at the drawings, at the writing.

"You wrote that I told you to run," he said.

"Yes."

"Good. Write also that I did not run at first. I stayed until they came into my courtyard and put rope on my hands. Write that I was not brave like my ancestors, but I was not a coward either. I stayed until there was no city left to stay for."

"My king, you are brave," Osaze said.

"No. I am a man who lost a city. But you — you did not lose the story. That is something."

He looked at Adesuwa. "Who is this daughter?"

"Adesuwa, daughter of Amadin the dyer. Her mother stayed in Benin. She saved your scribe and her brother."

The Oba looked at Adesuwa's cowrie necklace. "You wear Keme's necklace. You have been to water people."

Adesuwa was shocked. "You know Chief Keme?"

"I know all who trade on my river. Keme was a stubborn woman. She never paid tribute. I liked her."

The Oba coughed, hard. Ekpo stepped forward.

"My king, you need doctor," Ekpo said softly.

"The British doctor gives me medicine that makes me sleep. I don't want to sleep. I want to remember."

He turned back to Osaze.

"They are taking all my bronzes to England. They say they will put them in a big house and people will pay to see them. My fathers' heads will be looked at by white children. Is that true?"

Osaze nodded, unable to speak.

"Then write this," Ovonramwen said, and his voice became strong again, like in the palace courtyard. "Write that we did not make bronzes for white children to look at. We made them so our children would remember our faces. If they are in England, our children must go there to remember. Or they must make new bronzes. Tell Iwebo to make new bronzes. Is Iwebo alive?"

Osaze looked down. "I don't know, my king. He stayed to bury them."

The Oba closed his eyes. "Iwebo was a good man. He buried kings in earth. Now earth is all we have."

Outside, the sergeant shouted: "Time up!"

Ekpo pulled Osaze and Adesuwa.

"You must go now," Ekpo whispered urgently.

Osaze grabbed the Oba's hands.

"My king, what should I do? Where should I go?"

Ovonramwen held his hands tight.

"You have been to earth, you have been to water. Now go to air. Go where your paper can fly. Go to the place where white men make books that they cannot burn. I hear there is a school in Lagos, or in England even. Take your paper there. Make it a book. Not a bronze. A book. Bronze can be stolen and put in museum. Book can be stolen and copied. They cannot steal all copies."

He let go.

"And take care of this daughter. A girl who refuses a fisherman is a queen."

The soldiers opened the door.

"Out! Out now!"

Osaze, Adesuwa, and Ekpo were pushed out into the rain. The door closed behind them. The last thing Osaze saw was the Oba sitting alone on his small stool, holding the copied papers, in a white house on a hill in Calabar, far from his palace.

They walked down Government Hill in silence, rain soaking them.

At the bottom, Adesuwa stopped.

"Did you hear what he said?" she said to Osaze. "Go where paper can fly."

"What does that mean?" Osaze asked.

Ekpo answered. "It means Lagos. There is a printing press in Lagos that is owned by Africans, not British. A man named John Payne Jackson. He prints a newspaper called Weekly Record. He prints what British don't want printed. If your book is printed there, British cannot burn it all. People will read it."

Osaze looked at his satchel. Inside now were the originals and the copies Ekpo made. Two sets. As Ekpo said, fire can burn one but not two if you hide them in different places.

He looked at Adesuwa, rain on her face, cowrie necklace shining.

"Will you come with me to Lagos?" he asked.

She smiled. "You still have to write me properly. You wrote that I cried twice. I want to go to Lagos so you can write that I went to Lagos and became a queen."

Ekpo laughed, despite the rain.

"Then you will need more paper," he said. "Come. We will make more copies tonight. And tomorrow, I will find you a canoe to Lagos. A big canoe. Not like your small one. A canoe that can take you and your history and your queen."

They walked back to the archive, where Osaro was waiting with soup, where the printing press was waiting, where hundreds of books waited on shelves.

And for the first time since the war drum beat in Benin City, Osaze did not feel like he was running from ash. He felt like he was carrying a seed.