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not worry. These people know me. I have given them gifts—dash, they call it—and promised them more if they rowed my people down the river.”
    “Do they know you in this body?” she asked, using the question as an excuse to touch the hard flat muscle of his shoulder. She liked to touch him.
    “They know me,” he said. “I am not the body I wear, Anyanwu. You will understand that when I change—soon, I think.” He paused for another fit of coughing. “You will know me in another body as soon as you hear me speak.”
    “How?” She did not want to talk about his changing, his killing. She had tried to cure his sickness so that he would not change, but though she had eased his coughing, prevented him from growing sicker, she had not made him well. That meant she might soon be finding out more about his changing whether she wanted to or not. “How will I know you?” she asked.
    “There are no words for me to tell you—as with your tiny living things. When you hear my voice, you will know me. That’s all.”
    “Will it be the same voice?”
    “No.”
    “Then how … ?”
    “Anyanwu …” He glanced around at her. “I am telling you, you will know!”
    Startled, she kept silent. She believed him. How was it she always believed him?
    The village he took her to was a small place that seemed not much different from waterside communities she had known nearer home. Here some of the people stared at her and at Doro, but no one molested them. She heard speech here and there and sometimes it had a familiar sound to it. She thought she might understand a little if she could go closer to the speakers and listen. As it was, she understood nothing. She felt exposed, strangely helpless among people so alien. She walked closely behind Doro.
    He led her to a large compound and into that compound as though it belonged to him. A tall, lean young man confronted him at once. The young man spoke to Doro and when Doro answered, the young man’s eyes widened. He took a step backward.
    Doro continued to speak in the strange language, and Anyanwu discovered that she could understand a few words—but not enough to follow the conversation. This language was at least more like her own than the new speech, the English, Doro was teaching her. English was one of the languages spoken in his homeland, he had told her. She had to learn it. Now, though, she gathered what she could from the unspoken language of the two men, from their faces and voices. It was obvious that instead of the courteous greeting Doro had expected, he was getting an argument from the young man. Finally, Doro turned away in disgust. He spoke to Anyanwu.
    “The man I dealt with before has died,” he told her. “This fool is his son.” He stopped to cough. “The son was present when his father and I bargained. He saw the gifts I brought. But now that his father has died, he feels no obligation to me.”
    “I think he fears you,” Anyanwu said. The young man was blustering and arrogant; that she could see despite the different languages. He was trying hard to seem important. As he spoke, though, his eyes shifted and darted and looked at Doro only in brief glances. His hands shook.
    “He knows he is doing a dangerous thing,” Doro said. “But he is young. His father was a king. Now the son thinks he will use me to prove himself. He has chosen a poor target.”
    “Have you promised him more gifts?”
    “Yes. But he sees only my empty hands. Move away from me, Anyanwu, I have no more patience.”
    She wanted to protest, but her mouth was suddenly dry. Frightened and silent, she stumbled backward away from him. She did not know what to expect, but she was certain the young man would be killed. How would he die? Exactly what would Doro do?
    Doro stepped past the young man and toward a boy-child of about seven years who had been watching the men talk. Before the young man or the child could react, Doro collapsed.
    His body fell almost on top of the boy, but the