by Dilman Dila
“Who are you?” the prince said.
“I’ll speak in private,” Mozze said. “It’s about the inn at the foot of a mountain.”
A long silence ensued. Prince Manet and his wife whispered to each other, obviously arguing. Eventually, Prince Manet stopped arguing and nodded to whatever she said. She then gave a command. Everybody except three guards withdrew from the room. Mozze remembered that three messengers had come to Hinko’s inn. Were they these three guards?
“So talk,” Prince Manet said. “Who are you?”
“You hired me.”
“I did not.”
“You wanted it done before the Elephant Festival. Any fool can decipher to whose advantage that is, since you married a rabbit-eared creature.”
“We are people!” Manet’s wife screeched. Her lips trembled in anger, her teeth clenched. “I’ll kill you for this,” she added.
“So what do you want?” Prince Manet asked.
“Help,” Mozze said. “I have to get out.”
“We can’t help you,” Manet’s wife said. “If you can’t get out–”
Mozze yelped in a feigned lisis attack, cutting her short. He fell down, crying, kicking his legs as though desperate to take off the boots.
“Lisis,” the prince said. “The disease of the mountain people. We don’t have the medicine to help you.”
“I have my medicine!” Mozze cried, twitching, trying to reach for the vial.
“Let him help himself,” the princess said.
One guard stepped to him. He had the keys to the shackles. He freed Mozze’s hands. Mozze fished out the bottle and pretended to take a sip. He could not swallow for it would leave him weak. He needed strength for the next phase of his plan.
“I have to take off my shoes too,” he cried.
The guard unshackled his feet. The moment the chains fell off, Mozze punched him in the throat, hard, shattering bones and tissue. The guard fell, gasping for air, chocking on his shattered larynx. Mozze snatched his sword and charged at the other two men. They were quick to meet his challenge, but they were no match for him. They fell within a few heartbeats.
The prince and his wife shouted for help, but they had locked out the other guards. They had nowhere to run. By the time the jessis forced their way in, they were both dead. Mozze had removed the crown from the woman’s head and cut off her ears. Each was two feet long.
#
Prince Palla was crowned at the Elephant Festival. Six days later, Hinko visited Mozze, on the morning of the day he was to be executed.
“They refused to allow your family to see you,” Hinko said.
On hearing that, even before Hinko told him what had happened, Mozze knew that Jez was alive. After killing King Amara, he had hidden in the ceiling of the kitchen. He had no hope of getting out until he overheard the cooks talking about the surrender of the assassin. He knew they had made a mistake, but this meant they were no longer searching for the man disguised as a cobweb cleaner. That night, he sneaked out of the ceiling and hid in a garbage cart. He did not know the identity of the captured assassin until he reached home. It changed his life.
“He asks for your forgiveness,” Hinko said.
Mozze did not know what to say in reply. He was shackled to a chair. They were in the windowless cell. The air was damp and muggy. A long silence followed.
“When the time comes, listen hard. You will be blindfolded, but listen for his voice above the roar of the crowd.”
They marched him out at noon. They made him lie face up on a large, flat stone. The sun kissed his face with hot lips. He longed for a cool breeze, for a cold shower. He wished the axe could fall before he heard his son’s voice. He wished he was able to put his fingers into his ears and shut out the clamoring crowd, and his son. He could not. The voice crept into his head like a shy girl climbing into her lover’s bed. Every other sound in the world faded away.
His son sang mpenzi moja. The lyrics wafted about like butterflies around flowers, blowing a cool breeze over him, making him smile. He was happy. Jez knew all the words to the song. How had he learnt them? How had he learnt to sing so beautifully in such a short time? He did not care for answers. Jez would make a very fine assassin, and an even finer musician. The pariah days were over for the family. Mozze started singing too, and his wife added her voice to the family choir. The axe fell, but the smile stayed frozen on Mozze’s face.
Other Titles by Black Letter Media
The Short Story is Dead, Long Live the Short Story
Voices From My Clan - edited by Obinna Udenwe and Mukoma wa Ngugi
My Holiday Shorts
Poetry Potion print quarterly journal
http://www.poetrypotion.com
http://www.blackletterm.com
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Other Titles by Dilman Dila
The Terminal Move
Cranes Crest at Sunset
http://www.dilmandila.com
About Dilman Dila
Dilman Dila was long listed for the BBC Radio Playwriting Competition (2014), shortlisted for the prestigious Commonwealth Short Story Prize (2013) and long listed for the Short Story Day Africa prize (2013). He was nominated for the 2008 Million Writers Awards for his short story, Homecoming. He first appeared in print in The Sunday Vision in 2001. His works have since featured in several literary magazines and anthologies. His most recent works is the novelette, The Terminal Move, and the romance novella, Cranes Crest at Sunset. His films include the masterpiece, What Happened in Room 13 (2007), The Sound of One Leg Dancing (2011), which won him the Jury Award at the Nepal International Indigenous Film Festival (2012), and the narrative feature, The Felistas Fable (2013), which was nominated for Best First Feature at Africa Movie Academy Awards 2014. More of his life and works is available at his website http://www.dilmandila.com.