by Robi, Carol
“I think she wants me, but is just hiding the fact..”
“Would you listen to yourself, my prince?” A wave of embarrassment hits me at that moment. “She’d make a terrible queen..”
“I know,” I say sharply, digging my heels into my beast, needing us to pick up our pace as I’ve run out of patience to listen anymore to Chacha’s counsel.
“She’s too timid.” Chacha calls, his zorse once again catching up with mine.
“I know, Chacha,” I say through clenched teeth.
“Her sister would do better..”
“Her sister would as easily marry you as she would me!” I snap angrily, and he doesn’t argue with me because it’s true. Princess Matinde does not particularly care for me. She flirts with me, but I know she does not love me.
“Given the choice, she’d undoubtedly pick you..”
“Because I’m the Nyabasi crown prince,” I state bitterly.
“Maybe because she believes you’re the better man..”
“Don’t act daft, Chacha. We both know what I say is true. Every one of those maidens would marry me, just because I am who I am. If I was lazy, and thickset from drinking too much wine and not doing any work, they’d still opt to marry me over you or any other mura in the kingdom. I could be the most daft of all nitwits, my speech slow and my mind slower, but they’d still agree to marry me, because everyone wants the title Nyarmaga. Everyone wants to be queen.” I finish bitterly.
“Then count yourself lucky and stop acting as though it were the worst punishment. Love will come later..”
“I didn’t say anything about love.”
“You didn’t have to say it, but I know you well enough to hear that which is yet unspoken.”
“There you go again, priding yourself in how much you know me. Maybe we should marry!” I mock him, desperately wanting him to talk about anything else but this subject. Chacha Renchoka however has never been the kind of person to leave a bone yet fleshed.
“Love is a terrible emotion to wish upon yourself, my prince. Listen to my words, for I know it first hand.”
“You know it to be terrible first hand because you’re the fool that went and fell in love with the one person you can’t have in all the four brother kingdoms!”
“Yes, and I gladly admit my folly and bear my burden with pride. if I could go back to that point when I began to fall in love with princess Gati, I would. Only problem is I fear I might have to go all the way back to before I was born, for I can’t remember ever not loving her..”
“You’re a big fool, my friend.”
“In this matter, yes! And that is why I wish to protect my future king from making an equally grave mistake. Leave matters of love to the women. Don’t marry for love, don’t attempt to. Marry with your head. Pick out the most agreeable girl with comely features and a mind strong enough to keep you sane, and marry her. Let her be the one that falls in love with you, and you shall learn to fall in love with her in the course of your marriage.”
“I fear I’ve missed a great deal. Since when did you turn into our mothers?” I question chuckling, which has the desired effects on him as he laughs nervously.
“I just wish to protect you from falling into the same demise that is love as I have, my prince.”
“I assure you you’ve done a good enough job. Now please, let us talk about that Bakira girl’s breasts instead of this disheartening topic of doomed love!” I exclaim.
“My those breasts!” Are the next words to be expelled from Chacha’s mouth as he leans back his head and shuts his eyes as though remembering to himself just how they looked.
I laugh gratified, knowing that it shall be a while before Chacha remembers that he has a broken heart from unrequited love. We men have two heads to think with, and rarely do they both function at the same time.
Chapter 14
As the days approach for Wei’s impending nuptials, I find it harder and harder to detach myself from her side. She’s my closest sister, the one that taught me most things I know, the one that consoled me whenever I was sad, and the one that nursed me whenever I got sick.
She taught me how to balance large water pots on my head, and how to best make myself a kata, a round pad weaved from grass and banana leaves and secured with sisal ropes that serves as a rest for loads carried on the head like water pots.
“Your head load will only be as heavy as your kata allows it,” I remember her often telling me whenever I’d struggle with my loads. “Make a perfect kata, and you will feel like you were born with that water pot on your head,” she’d said.
I’d then spent days and days weaving and discarding unfinished katas until I made the perfect one that fit my head just right and helped balance the loads on my head. She’d been right, for now all I have to think about whenever I have a pot on my head, is how not to stumble.
“I’ll always be your sister,” she whispers to me today as I help her with lifting the large pot with boiling porridge off the kitchen hearth. “It’ll be fine,” she adds once the pot is settled between us. I look up at her with wary eyes, not believing her.
“You’ll be gone,” I simply say, biting my lower lip so hard I almost break skin, needing that pain to keep my tears at bay.
“Yes, I won’t be here, but I won’t be gone either. I’ll just be in Bairege..”
“It’s a whole kingdom away, past the Nyabasi..”
“Yes, it is far away. But it is still Bakorialand. We shall meet..”
“You lie! We shall never meet again!” I break down now, unable to hold back myself anymore.
“Oh, dear,” she says, stepping around the hot pot and coming to my side so as to envelop me in her arms. “Of course I will see you. We have the trade days..”
“So I’m only to see you once or twice every dry summer season,” I say almost unintelligibly as I heave, choking on my words and tears. “Why must you marry so far away, sister? Don’t you care for me anymore that you find it so easy to uproot yourself from our life..”
“Hush now, you are saying silly nonsense,” she scolds firmly, halting my words, though she still embraces me warmly, her hands running up and down my arms.
“I’m not getting married to leave you, but I’m getting married to start my life with my love. I love you dearly sister, but our time together is over, and you’ve always known that it’d come to an end. It was not my wish to fall in love with a Bairege warrior, but I did. One day you’ll understand when you too do fall in love. Don’t you think it’s hard enough for us? I can only see him rarely because for us to spend time together he has to travel for days- days, when he has chores to take care of at home.”
I scold myself upon hearing her words, for I’d forgotten to imagine how hard it must be for them to conduct such a long distant relationship.
“I love you, Nyangi, but I love him too. I’ve waited for this day for too long, for the day we shall finally be united, and I shall live with him and create a family with him,” she says, laughing wishfully between the few tears that have snaked down her cheeks. I reach out and brush them away as she goes on to speak.
“Please don’t dampen my joy by making me feel even more guilty about leaving than I have to.”
“I won’t,” I rush to reassure her. “I’m sorry I’m so selfish. I hadn’t..”
“Shh.. it’s okay. You’re not selfish, Nyangi. Not you. Matinde, maybe,” she adds low with a wicked chuckle, and I can’t help but smile despite my tears. “But I want you to remember that however far I might be, I will always love you. And if you ever need anything, and I mean anything at all, I want you to know that I’ll always be more than willing to help.”
I have no words to say to that at the moment, but just tears to shed. So many tears pouring down in torrents, that I’m forced to leave the warm kitchen house and go hide so as to try recollect myself.
The day draws closer and closer, and all anyone can talk about is the wedding, and the long trek that Wei’s bridal walk is to be. It s
hall take us at least four days to get there, as a bridal walk is not a typical walk, but a slow trek spent singing and dancing while the bride’s family, peers and well wishers send her off to her new home. We shall therefore make the journey at a much slower pace, and all shall undoubtedly be wiped out with exhaustion by the time we get to her new home. The Bairege royal family shall host us and our large party on the eve of the wedding. The other nights spent during the trek across Nyabasiland shall be spent at some important homesteads along the main trade road.
Many families have been clamoring for the honour to host our large bridal party along our way, but mother has only said yes to the Nyabasi royal family for our first night, to the Hiri Nsweto family in Nyabasi for our second night, where a favourite sister of father got married into in Nyabasiland. She’s dead already, for she too had a weak chest like father’s. And though younger, she was unable to manage the malady as well as he has. Her sons however still retain close ties with father, and are always looking forward to help us in anyway they can. Our third night is to be spent at the Bairege kingstead, where the Bairege royal family shall host us.
If all goes well, we’re to spend the fourth day and night celebrating Wei’s nuptials. It is to be a rather long journey, one that will be most taxing, for with bridal walks, only the bride is afforded a riding beast, and the only other beasts making the journey are those transporting the various presents with which my parents shall send her to her new home.
We’ve spent these last days packing up all the presents for her new family, embroidered cottons and sheets, piled up straps of crocodile skin, well patterned mats and excellently knitted and coloured baskets, perfectly molded pots, as well as earthenware from the Maigi and Moreno kilns. Jewelled necklaces, and piles of treated steel from the iron mined by Migo hold down perfectly loomed cotton cloths and towels from blowing away. More gemstones set in necklaces by the most skilled of jewellers in the kingdom shall soon be hanging around the necks of her new mother and sisters.
Father is loving, as he’s prideful. He wants people to know the advantage of being related to the Bagumbe royal family. He wants people to always remember the depth of our coffers, a thing his father taught him, and he’s now drummed into Chacha, my eldest brother.
“Never forgive their debts, but keep giving them more riches as presents,” father likes to say. “They’ll be grateful, but will still remain in your debt, as they can’t pay their debts with the presents you give them. And keeping them in debt ensures that they always owe you a favour, should there ever come a time when you might need one. And the debt will only keep growing with time, and in effect the favour they owe you will keep multiplying.”
“But why don’t you just forgive their debts, father,” I’d chanced to ask on one of those rare moments when I’d choose to speak up. “We don’t need it. Aren’t we more than well off?”
“Yai, my little pumpkin. We have more than enough. We don’t need the wealth, so we never need them to pay us back. What we will never stop needing is them remembering that they owe us. Favours.”
“What favours?” I’d asked puzzled.
“It’s principally kingly matters that I don’t wish to disclose, but I’ll tell you if you promise not to tell another single soul.” I started nodding eagerly even before he finished speaking, to which he chuckled.
“Well, whenever we brother kings meet to talk about the general running of our kingdoms and matters concerning all the four brother kingdoms, who do you think runs those meeting? Whose word do you think breaks the impasses?”
“You?” I asked, unsure of myself.
“Yes, of course. You see they all owe me. They have something of mine they can’t give me back, so they pay me the only way they can.”
“So their debt to you has made you the king of kings?” I asked, trying to make sense of what he was saying.
“Yes, my child. I’m principally king, of the Bakoria brother kings, as was my father before me, and his father and their fathers before them, since the first brother kings were foolish enough to borrow from our family. You must never tell this to anyone though..” He drew off because I was already shaking my head so hard, he must have feared I might break my neck.
I’d never voiced those words again, for my father had said them to me in confidence. However it’d warmed my heart to know that my father was in charge of things over all, for him I do dearly trust.
Chapter 15
Dread it as I may, the day we are to leave does come, and early that morning all my older brothers accompany my father on their riding beasts and go on ahead, leaving behind the women, and we maidens and young warriors that shall accompany Wei to her new home.
Preparations have all been made the days before, so the only thing that happens after our hurried first meal, is the preparation of my sister.
I help mother and my sister in laws and sister with the beautification of Weigesa, which entails scrubbing her painfully clean, drying her, and then beginning the oiling process.
Only the richest of scented oils from natural extracts, an act perfected by the Moreno, is what my father would settle for. That is why during the last main trade, he’d made sure that word was sent out to the Moreno to bring the best of their oils that they could make, and that he’d pay however much for it.
Wei’s skin now glows a rich coffee bean colour when we are done, and she honestly smells so lovely that I chance to lick the oil still thickly lacing my fingers, for I’ve never smelled anything so sweetly scented.
Matinde is ecstatic that Wei lets us use some of the oils on ourselves, for she says she has enough jars to last her whole journey until her wedding day.
“And once he marries me, I shall have no need for the oils, for I shall have already entrapped him to be with me forever!” She says, which causes all women and maidens around to laugh heartily.
Our peers are envious, and doing a poor job at hiding it, as Matinde and I emerge from our maiden house, smelling as lovely as Wei, and glowing as much as she does in that rich dark colour that our people are so well known for. We had used the jar given to us sparingly though, for we hope to use it yet again everyday of the trek, including the actual wedding day.
I find my royal headdress, resting against the wall where Matinde had placed them after brushing them and repairing them again, for we’d agreed that she’d take care of them while I took up the water run chore. I don’t mind it one bit, even though my task is harder than hers. I like going for water runs, for it gives me time to delve into my thoughts and take a breather from all. She hates water runs for she believes the carrying of water pots on her head is making her neck shorter and stunting her height. She might be right, for I’ve noticed that she isn’t getting taller as fast as she had been before.
Lately she’s been obsessed with height ever since she met with that very tall warrior from the north of our kingdom. Matinde has always been confident in herself and her body, its perfection and imperfections, but that young warrior seems to have her spending hours mousing over herself. Her height has now become an issue to her, because during the gender dance last evening fete, which was when she’d first danced with him, Mbusire is his name, I should think, her eye level had only come up to halfway his chest.
Now all she wants is to be taller, so that she can at least easily see past his shoulders. A reasonable enough wish, and though she taunts me so and has always tried to make my life a chore, I see no reason as to why I can’t make double the trips to the brook each morning, if it means that my sister gets what she wants.
Being so close to losing Wei as a sister, I’ve become even more committed into ensuring the limited time left for me and Matinde as sisters is spent cordially and with a semblance of love. At least I know it is love from my side, but even if tolerance is all I get from her, I’ll gladly take it.
We are back with Weigesa, fussing with her heavily netted bridal dress, that is really intricately webbed silver chains netted together, holding heavy and brightly colou
red gemstones. Mother and Chacha’s wife help her into the heavy net, and secure it in place on either side of her torso, making the webbed chains and glistening stones press tightly against the bare supple skin of her torso and back.
Her arms are bare of all jewellery, as are her feet and her head. At the moment, all she has on is a loincloth and the bejewelled bride dress hugging her torso, that is to replace her necklaces for the wedding. Maidens don’t wear necklaces at weddings. Married women and older women shall have their necklaces on, but we maidens and young warriors are to remain oiled and glistening, with our best skirts tied around our waists, and our best and most flirtatious moods at hand. For unmarried maidens and warriors attend weddings for one main reason, to fill up the air with charged sexual tension as a gift to the goddess of fertility to bless the new couple.
Mother wraps one of the richest shredded crocodile skin skirts around Wei’s waist, which falls past her supple thighs. I always knew that my sisters are beautiful, but I’ve never seen Weigesa look as lovely and ripe as she does today.
“I must look amazing,” she says chuckling, when a hush silence falls over the spacious maiden house, to which we all laugh.
“Princess, you’re an image of sheer beauty!” One of the women says, and I catch my mother as she chokes back tears right on time, before moving to tap Wei’s shoulders affectionately.
“Not even the sun shall shine as radiantly as you do today,” mother tells her with much affection, to which I rapidly nod, my mouth dry and my mind blank of any compliment that could justly describe how I see her at this moment.
“Then by gods take me to my bridegroom, that he may see the present my family is to give him!” Wei exclaims, which sends the whole room laughing again goodnaturedly.
Chapter 16
I hate Chacha! I really hate him! When he gets back from annoying my sister by walking ahead beside her as we escort this bridal party, I’ll tell him just how much I hate him.