by Robi, Carol
He chuckles, but I will myself against being intimidated by him. I take in a couple more deep breaths before I move to speak.
“Prince of the Nyabasi,” I answer, a low mutter that comes out as a gruff croak.
“You have yourself a beautiful beast here,” he says, starting to walk around my new stallion, rubbing his mane and stroking his long face, before he scratches his belly and strokes his deep back. His attentions to my zorse only make me care for him deeper.
“He was gifted to me by my brother,” I state.
“Prince Chacha?” He asks.
“What?” I ask. For the moment I’m distracted by the feel of his fingers when he brushed them against mine as he took my necklaces and is now placing them one by one over my beasts head, so that they fall down his long neck.
“Was it prince Chacha that gifted him to you? Your eldest brother?”
“No,” I say. “It was Merengo.”
“Oh,” is all he says. “I don’t know prince Merengo too well.”
“He’s quiet,” I say. “He likes to keep to himself, and when all others leave home to attend an event or other, he prefers to be the one left behind to keep watch over our home and run things,” I say.
“So he’s also a nurse like you,” Makena surprises me by saying.
“I guess you could call him that, but I doubt he’d be particularly glad for the reference.” The Nyabasi prince laughs right then, catching my jibe.
“You’re funny,” he says.
“Not particularly so, most would say,” I inform him, a smile I can’t help toying at the corner of my mouth, as I look up to meet his gaze.
“Go ahead,” he says, my gaze still captured in his.
“I don’t understand,” I let him know.
“Go ahead and smile. I know you want to.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about, prince,” I tell him, biting back the smile attempting to get wider.
“Yes you do, you cunning cat,” he says, now a full smile on his face, his hands crossed over his chest and head cocked to his side as he regards me.
“There’s nothing cunning about me, unlike what I could say about most people I know,” I inform him, suddenly getting very nervous and uneasy.
Why is he flirting with me so openly so? Doesn’t he know that people will think that he wishes to propose? Doesn’t he fear that I might think so, and thereby raise my hopes for no reason?
“Is that an accusation, princess?” He asks.
“It is,” I surprise myself by saying with a straight face.
“When ever have I attempted to con you?”
“This very moment,” I state after a long pause.
I don’t wait to see how his face reacts to this information, moving to remove the rest of my necklaces from around my neck, slipping them over my head, painfully aware that he is watching me intently, the movements of my now bare breasts very noticeable as I complete the motions.
Is that why I do it? Do I wish him to notice me, my body, even though I know it isn’t exactly the body a typical Bakoria warrior would be attracted to?
“At this very moment, you are the cunning one,” he says, his voice heavy, and his eyes lidded as I lower my hands again, the rest of my necklaces now in my hands.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell him, forcing the words out, while forcing my feet forward towards my beast’s head, stopping only half a pace away from him, so close that I can feel his breath blow over me.
Give me strength, gods! Give me strength, spirits! For care for him, I do. And though I risk making a fool of myself, in this very moment I’ve decided that I’ll try tempt him for myself. I’ll not lose him to other girls so easily because I never tried. Even though in the end there’s a very high chance that he won’t even consider me, I will try! Even if it is just so that I don’t live the rest of my life regretting never having done my best to capture him, I will try! By gods, I will!
Better to try and lose, than not at all, as the famed Bakoria saying goes.
“How you toy with me!” I’m most surprised when he confesses this in a ragged whisper, as I lift my hands yet again to slip a necklace over my stallion’s neck.
He can’t honestly mean that, can he? No, the Nyabasi prince is a cruel man. It’s he that is toying with me. I won’t give up though.
“I have no idea of what you refer to,” I say, my eyes looking everywhere but at him as I slip the last necklace over the beasts neck.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, princess,” he informs me, his voice dripping with so much danger, but instead of scaring, it begins roping me in deeper.
“Like I said, prince, I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Really?” He asks, that dangerous gleam in his eyes brightening as he does the unspeakable. He moves to step closer to me, knowing very well that it’ll force us to touch- we yet unmarried, and not even engaged.
“Prince!” I call out alarmed, jumping backwards so fast that I scare my zorse. He chuckles with satisfaction at my fright.
“This is a dangerous game you’ve started with me princess. Run, run and hide as far as you can, but know that now that I’ve begun hunting you, I won’t stop until you are in my snare..”
I am running as he says this, running fast, past puzzled warriors and maidens from the four brother kingdoms lazily flirting, throwing myself into the water and pulling away into the deeper parts of the lake in powerful strokes, ignoring his rich laughter following behind me.
Whatever am I upto, dear forefathers?
Chapter 27
Found her! I think to myself with satisfaction.
She’s been avoiding me. After that first season’s afternoon at the lake, she’s been doing everything to avoid me. I can’t seem to corner her alone anywhere, try as I may.
She is always in the company of her peers, more so now. Anyone else might have been discouraged by now, but I’m not. I know what I saw that afternoon as she undressed for the dip in the lake. She had no reason to step in so close to me, and take her time in so seductively taking off those heavily jewelled necklaces of hers. She was attempting to seduce me.
The mouse princess isn’t as mousy as everyone thinks, after all. I’m driven with a greater desire now to find out just what else she hides from others. I remember the assertive way with which she’d handled her father’s near fatal attack on the way back from her sister’s wedding. That was definitely not the same person that hides under water all afternoon long, or hides behind stacks of drink all evening long during a party. The maiden that stepped up so seductively close to me that afternoon at Pride Lake is neither the same mousy princess all know her as. She has depths in her character, and I’m determined to figure her out. I will figure her out. And tonight, tonight she won’t get away from me so easily.
She has a new hiding place for evening fetes now, being that she’s hiding from me, but knows that I know she always hides behind stacks of drink. I’m yet unaware of where she hides, and it is the reason I arrived so early this time. I made sure to arrive before she did, and now I will tail her to her new hiding place.
I follow after her quietly, and slowly we leave behind the party noises and music, and get deeper into the darker parts of the hosting homestead.
Of course! I should have known it! She hides among the riding beast. I watch her a moment longer before revealing myself, watching her as she walks between the beasts, muttering under her breath as though she’s talking with them, as she strokes them and examines them. She loves animals. I should have known that I’d catch her here, as was the case during her sister’s bridal walk that turned into a many days trek.
“I doubt your father sends you to evening fetes that you might seduce riding beasts,” I say aloud in a mock.
I startle her, I realise regretfully, for she jumps, letting out a squeal as she does so, and rests a hand over her chest as she falls to her knees.
I rush towards her in alarm, fearing that she mig
ht have as weak a heart as her father’s, and that I might have set off an attack.
“Don’t touch me,” she warns in a low but firm whisper, and I surprise myself by obeying it, staying beyond an arm’s length away from her.
“Are you alright?” I ask, unable to cover up the worry in my voice.
“I am, not thanks to you though.” I chuckle in response to her answer. I can’t help it.
“I feared that I might have set off an attack..”
“I do not have the same malady as father,” she says in answer, almost too defensively.
“Sorry.. I just assumed..”
“Because I’m such a weakling..”
“I didn’t say that. I just know that you are nervous..”
“An ailment of nerves, and that of the chest and heart are two entirely different things. One is mental, and the other is physical. Think of that next time you choose to seek me out.”
“Why are you being so abrasive?” I ask confused, running my hand over my braids, as I sit on my heels before her, still keeping my distance.
“And why are you flirting with me? That is what you’re doing, right? I might share the same name as Nyangi, and maybe blood, considering we Bagumbe are all descended from the same forefathers, however I do not share her values.”
“How dare you!” I glare offended. Wide light eyes meet my narrow darker ones unrepentant.
“I just wished to clear that up with you,” she says.
“Rest assured that that isn’t what I’m seeking from you!”
Chapter 28
Rest assured that that isn’t what I’m seeking from you! The words echo in my head again and again for the following days.
There’s my proof, proof that my feelings for the Nyabasi prince are indeed misplaced, for he never wishes for that from me.
I had been mistaken in thinking I could seduce him. He seemed to be flirting with me that afternoon because while my father had been ill, a comfortable friendship had developed between us. I’m the one that had gone ahead and entertained all sorts of misplaced hopes and dreams for things I could never be afforded.
This heartache, this pain, I caused it all. I brought it upon myself by hoping for things I had no right hoping for.
Stupid girl! Stupid, stupid girl!
I grow weary from my pain, so weary that my family fears that there’s another impending attack on my nerves. I stop attending evening fetes and afternoons at the Pride Lake with my saro members, choosing to remain at home in the comforting company of my family members, and the familiarity of my home.
My greatest fear at the moment is that anyone might come and ask for my hand in marriage, and that I’ll be forced to accept. It is about that time. I am in my fifteenth cycle after all, and that is when most get proposed to. The evenings I’d spent at the lake before my confrontation with the Nyabasi prince that night, had seen to it that I was witness to many proposals, some accepted and other’s rejected.
Half of my saro members, my peers, are now happily engaged. Almost all of Matinde’s peers are happily engaged as well too. It is rumoured that Matinde has received more than thirty proposals already, but she’s put them all on pending, citing that she’s yet unsure on whom to marry.
Most suspect it’s because she’s waiting for Prince Makena to propose to her, then she’ll accept. Otherwise if he doesn’t, she’ll accept any of those that have already proposed to her.
How lucky she is, I often think to myself, happy for her, and sorry for myself. How lovely it must be to have so many suitors after you. So many willing to wait patiently for your answer, even though they know that they must compete with more than thirty other warriors, and that they might not, in that time of waiting for a response, propose to another. More than thirty handsome young warriors she has under her wing, at her beck and call, while I have none.
I don’t need thirty though. I don’t even need two. All I need is one, all I want is one. Prince Makena, crown Mona wa Maga of the Nyabasi. I love him.
I do! It must be love, what else can it be? This constant nagging, this gnawing fear that I’ll lose him, and the growing monster of jealousy whenever I see him with another.
Like that evening when he found me by the visitors’ stables of the Sariro homestead, where the Sariro family was hosting the evening fete for us marriageable youth.
I hadn’t meant to snap. However just earlier that afternoon I’d seen him conversing yet again with Nyangi, my namesake, whom I’d caught in a compromising situation with him on the eve of my sister’s wedding.
Sure, they were just conversing. However this jealous monster inside me had nearly blinded me with rage. So much rage that I’d wished to take up all of Nyangi’s strings of necklaces around her riding beast and climb over the cliffed rocks and throw them into the deepest part of the lake, just to succumb her into the embarrassment of riding home bare chested. Since she likes bearing those verily endowed breasts of hers for all to see, I would have done her a favour, right?
However, common sense had luckily slipped back into my mind, stopping me short of grabbing the necklaces, when I’d remembered that as annoying as Nyangi Nguti is, the Nguti family is essentially one of the poorest in the kingdom. Just by looking at the few almost invaluable stones of her necklaces, one can tell about the situation back at her home. It is why the Nguti family has never held a feast. It’s rumoured that after her father’s descent into heavy drinking seasons ago when we’d all been but young children, and his inability to bear sons, had driven the Nguti family into deep poverty.
Everyone knows that unmarried women can never work the farm. The lack of a son in the Nguti family, and with Nyangi’s father constantly too intoxicated to lift a finger, the burden of farming and feeding the family had fallen to her mother. The girls, and Nyangi Nguti does have many sisters indeed, have done a great job rearing livestock however, an acceptable job that doesn’t roughen the hands of girls and maidens before they are married off.
It is inspiring, the story of her family and their determination to remain fed. And it is that, only that which kept me from throwing away whatever meager possessions they call wealth.
However I had still harboured that anger in me when the Nyabasi prince sought me that evening, and his departing line that he does not seek from me that which he seeks from all other women had hurt. It had hurt so bad, that it had rekindled my waves of insecurity that I haven’t suffered from in a while.
That is why I’m hiding away. I’m not entirely sure how long father will let me hide away, but for now I’m safe from all but my mind.
At times however I fear that my mind is my worst adversary. Mother has stated it as a fact often before, and I now realise that it’s true. She often tells me that all I ought to do is silence that inner voice that constantly seeks to tell me just how much I’ll never be good enough.
However at this point, I do not wish to silence my inner voice because it is right.
I’m not good enough, not especially for prince Makena. I never will be, and I ought to uproot that notion out of my head from its roots. How dare I think that a future king could want me for his wife? How dare I? The mere fact that I’m princess can only go so far. Matinde is princess, and much better at it than I am. She possesses the beauty, the firmness in mind, the resolve, and open defiance to all. She commands respect just by her mere presence, and all are undoubtedly in love with her.
What do I have?
I finally manage to snap out of it. Not the mental self degradation, but I finally manage to convince my mind that I can’t have the Nyabasi prince, and that it’s alright.
What is it that father always says? That people can’t always have what they want. A true statement indeed. The Bakoria gods are too cruel to let that happen. They like to remind us that they control everything about us, and that we are just puppets to be played with. Dare to want too much, and they’ll strip it from you even before you can chance to blink. Dare to laugh too much, and they’ll be sure to make you weep
the next day. Those are our gods. We love them, but we also revere them, for their love is cruel and their humour is darker than the darkest of nights in the Southern Forests of Wisu.
So when I do feel much better, strong enough that I know I won’t crumble upon seeing the prince to the neighbouring eastern brother kingdom, I send message to my peers that next time they chance to go to the lake for an afternoon, they should pass by and get me so that I might accompany them.
Two days later, about a dozen of my peers are calling for me from our kingstead’s entrance.
“How do you do, princess!” They call variably as I approach, perched on my mare, being that the stallion Merengo gifted me is in desperate need of rest as I’ve been tearing with him across the expanse of our extensive farms so as to prepare my nerves for this afternoon.
I detect genuine concern from most of my peers, and it warms my heart to see that they have come to love me and respect me as one of their own. It has taken a long while, many torturous seasons spent withstanding their taunts, until they realised that I do have the will of steel, and they got tired of it. Now there is no doubt that they all respect me, and most of them genuinely love me. That is the main reason we Bakoria divide ourselves into saros. It’s because a saro is set to be the basis of sisterhood and eternal friendship for women, and brotherhood and eternal friendship for the men.
“Much better, thank you,” I call with a smile, joining them as we start following the road that will eventually lead us to Pride Lake.
“You’ve missed quite some, while you were away,” Nyangi Ngoti says cheerfully.
“Do tell, I pray,” I urge, and the girls develop into excited banter letting me me know of all the new proposals that have been made.
My heart is held in suspense, as I wait with dread to hear if the Nyabasi prince has proposed to anyone as yet. He isn’t mentioned however. The story then moves on to the new maidens, and whom they think is prettiest of all.
“What about the prince?” I force myself to ask, garnering all the courage I can muster.
“Prince Makena?” Robi Magige promptly questions. “He hasn’t yet dug his spear down, though we all wait in anticipation, for we know it is to be your sister. Undoubtedly.”