by Robi, Carol
“The feel of those soft hands I do dearly dream of almost every night, my body erect and aware when I wake up, and realise that it was the cottons of my bed after all, and not you keeping me company..”
“My prince!” I exclaim breathlessly, his lovemaking leaving me hot and bothered, my body weakening under his scrutinising gaze, and an ache so deep and urgent burbling from my core.
“Do you dream so too? Tell me you do..”
“Look!” I choose to call then, attempting to distract him. He chuckles confidently, and does not turn to where I point, refusing to take my bait.
Those eyes imprison me with such a force that I fear I will fall forwards, fall into his arms. I mustn’t, I oughtn’t. I can’t touch him, as much as my mind and body beg to. Not yet. It isn’t right, unless a matter of life and death, it isn’t right. Not until we’re married.
“I have.. I must find my peers,” I tell him, attempting to back away.
“We both know the truth,” he regards me with that cocky smile of his. “You want to find a place to hide.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or run away, as I meet his gaze again and he sees the truth in them. This seems to amuse him.
“Alright, betrothed,” he tells me. “Run along and hide, but remember when I have the desire to see you, I will always find you.”
And with that, he turns around and leaves to join his peers, leaving me shaken, breathless, and with a deep pit of longing inside me.
How could anyone want something so much that it makes the sick?
Chapter 31
I haven’t conversed with my parents about his proposal. I oughtn’t, not until his family comes to consult with mine. I know however that before he chanced to ask me to marry him, the head of his family must have come to alert my father of his intentions.
How odd, I think, that my father would keep so grave a secret from me. It must have happened the time when father had been recovering from his illness, their last visit before the long rains season began. It must have been then, when Makena, his sister and his father journeyed all the way to see father. Yes, that is why father had asked me and the Nyabasi Bana ba Maga to leave the two kings alone to discuss kingly matters. That is when his father must have told father of his son’s intentions.
How odd that father had known all along that the Nyabasi prince did care for me. Father is a very secretive person. I’ve always known it, but now I know he’s even more secretive than I previously suspected.
The short rains season begins, and with it I fear that Makena might have changed his mind. Why else hasn’t his family come to meet mine and discuss my dowry?
This short rains season is abnormally busy for my people, because we do a lot more planting because of our failed crops last season. Almost as much planting as we tend to do during the long rains season.
As the days grow colder, ushering in the cold season, a Nyabasi messenger arrives announcing that the house of Ribasi seeks word with the house of Umbe on matters of marriage in ten days.
My heart beats so fast as the days fly by, and I’m unable to meet with my peers, as uncertainty and anxiety grows within me.
“It shall be alright,” mother says. We haven’t discussed Makena’s proposal as yet. We can’t, not until his family comes and initiates the conversation. However she knows. Father must have told her as soon as he had that talk with Maga Ribasi. How odd to think that mother had known all along too.
The ten days do fly by, and sooner than I know it, Matinde is helping me with boiling pots after pots of porridge for our soon to arrive guests.
She’s now to be married too. To the tall Bagumbe warrior I’d suspected her to be impartial to. I was right after all, she does care for him. As much as she’d deny it if asked, I do know her well. She’d accepted his proposal merely days after I said yes to Makena. The warrior had asked her for her hand last dry summer season, which goes to prove all suspicions true. She’d been waiting to see if Makena would ask her, before she accepted or denied her previous proposals.
I’m sure she’d have said yes if Makena asked her, for Matinde is better than me in that she thinks with her head rather than her heart. With Makena, she gets to be queen one day, but not love. Not really. With her betrothed, she’d get love, but no grand position. One can never get everything, I’d tell her now, if I didn’t think it’d only anger her, as we two have never had the kind of relationship where we could confide in each other. But that is what I’d tell her, the gods never give us what we want. Not entirely. Look at me. I’m to marry the man I love, but then I’ll have to be queen one day. How burdening and undesirable!
I take that moment to yet again send a prayer to the gods that Maga Ribasi might outlive me. I doubt Makena even wants to ever be king. All he wishes for is to drink and party, and be prince. That’s my prince for you, and I dearly love him.
The increasing drums in the distance announce the approaching royal Nyabasi party, and as though in synchrony, my heart does too quicken in pace as Matinde and I hasten our endeavours in filling up more gourds with warm porridge.
“Be gone,” she now says. “Go dress up and get yourself clean, for they shall soon be here, and you need to be presentable for the meeting with the women in his family.”
I nod, my heart drumming in my chest as I start to unwrap the soiled cotton wrap tied around my waist.
Before I walk out of the kitchen though, Matinde does something she hasn’t done since we were little girls making mud cakes. She pulls me into her arms and embraces me. Not awkwardly so, but a true embrace, her arms warm around me, her heart beating against my chest, as mine beats against hers.
“Good luck, dear sister,” she whispers in my hair, before pulling away and going back to tending to the baking cassavas, leaving me stunned in place.
There can never be enough love, not really! And to add my sister’s to my already richly loved self, never have I been happier. My parents love me regardless, as do my brothers. My eldest sister loves me dearly wherever she is, and now I know that my other sister does indeed love me, despite our differences. She cares for me, and that knowledge alone strengthens my resolve today. I doubt she knows what importance the confirmation of her caring for me holds.
And now to add all that love to that of Makena, surely the gods have been more than kind to me.
I hastily dress up, remembering my ill fitting royal headdress, as this is an official meeting.
It is mother that knocks on the maiden house’s door, that let’s me know it’s time. I open the door and meet her at the porch, the endearing smile on her face heartwarming.
“You’re beautiful,” she tells me with the most heart wrenching smile I ever so on her face, and it then becomes a struggle to hold my tears at bay.
“Come child,” she says, taking my hand in hers and leading me on along the path. “We have guests today that seek your attention.”
My knees are weak and shaking, but her closeness, and the warmth emanating from her, gives me the strength to keep holding my head up.
We walk up to the royal gooti, finding out guests waiting on its steps, my father and brothers ceremoniously dressed, talking cheerfully with Makena’s father, sister and uncles, as well as Makena himself.
His mother stands away, with her whom I presume to be Makena’s grandmother the Nyabasi kingdom’s Gake wa Maga, his father’s mother. She’s a formidable woman, and many claim that princess Gati is who she is because she took after her grandmother. The Nyabasi queen-mother never became a warrior like her granddaughter is today, but she commands with her enough authority to reassure all that she’d have made as great a warrior as well, had she ventured down that path.
It’s all a blur as niceties are exchanged, Makena’s reassuring smile so breath taking that I momentarily forget myself and the setting, and once again thank the gods for the gift of his love.
Mother invites the female concession to join us in our kingstead’s craft house as is customary, while father invites the men
and warriors, wherein princess Gati is included, to join him in the royal gooti.
I part with them so, leaving my father and brothers behind, and following after my mother in silence, as the Nyabasi queen-mother, and the Nyabasi queen converse heartily with the Bagumbe queen.
I’m glad that the women never once force me to say anything beyond the initial greeting. They seem to have forgotten my presence, and for that I’m most glad.
They question my mother on anything and everything after my sister and nieces serve us with banana wine, porridge, baked cassavas, calabashes filled with plump delicious berries and others with various jams to spread over the cassavas. Baked green bananas that Matinde had toiled over this morning also lie steaming in another widened bowl, thick delicious marrow sauce spread over them.
If my stomach wouldn’t spin, turn and tumble so, I’d have sought solace from the food. Instead, I quietly sip on my calabash of banana wine and nibble on a cassava, hoping they keep forgetting of my presence until the day is done.
However, I’m not so lucky. After asking my mother everything there possibly is to ask about regarding our family, they begin discussing me. At first they discuss me as though I weren’t there.
“As you might have suspected, Nyarmaga Umbe, our prince wishes to marry your youngest daughter,” the formidable queen-mother begins. Her I undoubtedly fear. Makena’s mother I’d rather be around.
“So I’ve heard,” mother says, holding her own regally as she bites into a heavily jammed cassava.
Will I ever be as regal a queen as she is? I doubt it, I answer myself. Not in a long short. I hope Makena knows this, and hasn’t made up any assumptions on my state of nerves ever changing in the future.
“We wish to know if she’s attached to anyone,” Nyarmaga Ribasi asks, as is customary to.
“None, as the gods are true,” my mother answers swiftly, barely sparing me a glance. It is true.
“We wish to know if she’s pure,” the eastern queen goes on to say.
“As pure as the day she was born, as the gods are true,” mother answers yet again, before sipping some more wine. Now the two Nyabasi regal women send studious gazes my way, which causes me to squirm in my seat.
“I hear she has an affliction!” The queen-mother states.
“Depends on if one would call a state of jumpy nerves an affliction,” mother says, meeting the revered Nyabasi queen-mother’s gaze with her own steely one.
“I’d call it an affliction, if she’s meant to rule a kingdom one day,” the queen-mother gravelly voices, not averting her eyes from mother. The two women now stare at each other with steely gazes, while Makena’s mother just stares at me.
Gods, help me! Make me strong enough that I might not flee this table! I pray in my heart.
I don’t flee. Not yet, at least.
“And isn’t a zebra as regal, jumpy as she may be? Aren’t her nerves the reason she’s able to raise her children and keep them safe until they’re of age to run as fast as she, in the Northern Plainlands where there lies many formidable predators?” mother states, not at all seeming perturbed.
“We Nyabasis are cheetahs, not zebras,” the Nyabasi queen now states, startling me, as her eyes never once leave my own. “We hunt, not run from our predators.”
Don’t look away, I beg myself.
Please, all you do, do not look away. They already think you weak, do not let them confirm it. Think of all you have to lose. The only man you’ve ever loved. The only person you care for so much, that leaving your childhood home doesn’t seem as scary anymore.
“Even predators have cubs they must protect. Wait until your cubs are in trouble, then we’ll see how quickly the flitty traits of a zebra will become most advantageous to adopt.”
I have lost all sense of the conversation they are having, my head too scattered at the moment to pay attention to the heavy use of imagery and metaphors. However, Bravo mother! I wish to call. Someone ought to applaud her for this moment, for she’s holding her own very well.
The conversation drifts off to other less confrontational matters. Matters of norms in our family, descriptions of a typical day here, skills I’ve been taught, what I excel at and fail at, and such.
“Exemplary at pottery! Is that true, princess?”
Oh no! Oh no! Why ever must you speak to me? Keep speaking to mother, she knows best.
“Yes, Nyarmaga Ribasi,” I answer the eyes that now study me from across the table.
“May I see this exemplary work of yours?”
“Of course,” I say, rising to my feet.
We spend a long time after that showing the visiting women my work. I never knew mother thinks me so skilled, considering how often she scolded me whenever I made a mistake. Now I know she did it because she knew I had a talent. I often thought she just picked on me, considering Matinde’s work was considerably poorer than mine, yet she never got scolded or lengthily schooled.
Mother speaks with so much pride as she not only shows the pots I molded, self baked and designed, put also shows the decorating engraving works I’ve done on our gourds and calabashes, and my weaving and basketry works.
“She’s exceptionally accomplished,” Makena’s mother finally says, letting on the first praise I’ve heard from the two women.
“What about her bleeding pot?” For the first time, I see the doubt flicker across mother’s face, as she reaches for my bleeding pot that we so conveniently brought into this house incase our visitors should ask for it.
The Nyabasi queen-mother weighs it only a couple of times with her swinging hand, before handing it back to mother without a second thought.
“It’s unacceptable! She’s barely bled.”
“Is she a light bleeder?” Makena’s mother asks with concern.
“Yes,” mother confesses, her voice faltering.
“We can’t have that. My son is to be king, and he needs a fertile wife.”
“There’s no reason to think her infertile..”
“On the contrary, queen, there’s every reason to think so. Tell me, would you have let your eldest son marry a woman that had bled so little without a fight, and yet her saro is in her fifteenth cycle?”
“If he loved her, yes,” mother says with falsified certainty. I say falsified, because I know when she’s lying.
No, is what she means to say, I think to myself, my heart faltering. She’d have fought Chacha against such a decision, as the women in Makena’s life will fight him on this decision to marry me.
“We’re sorry, princess. Lovely you may be, but I shall advise my son against marrying you. Not because I don’t think you suitable, but because I don’t think you fertile enough,” the queen of Nyabasi says, meeting my eyes, and in them seeing the tears held in balance.
“Sorry child. With this I can’t compromise, although it warms my heart to see that you care for him deeply. Now! Let us go on and enjoy this delicious banquet laid before us. There’s no reason as to why we women can’t enjoy ourselves as we await the men and warriors to complete their discussions.”
My heart then falls, plunges into the dark depths of a bottomless abyss. The pit of loss so great, that seasons and seasons spent shedding tears would never fill it. Could never.
Chapter 32
“What!”
“Maga, listen. It’s only fair that..”
“How dare you insult my daughter so!”
“It’s not an insult..”
“You want my daughter to pay so dearly to be your son’s wife.”
“On the contrary, we only wish you to gift us so dearly for securing your daughter’s future happiness,” father says.
“You can’t possibly love her,” Nyangi’s father says, now turning my way, and I see the irritation, mistrust, and derision he now harbours for me. It’s the same look that all her brothers that love her so dearly now direct my way.
“On the contrary, Maga Umbe, I love her dearly..”
I’m barely done speaking when the Bag
umbe king turns to his side and spits with disgust to the floor, and that is the moment I know they will always hate me. Even if they agree to what we propose, they’ll hate me, for they’ll never believe that I truly love her.
“You wouldn’t ask this, if you loved her.”
“I ask this, because like you, it’s not just my heart I must think about, but my father’s kingdom too..”
“My answer is no!” I jump off my seat in shock as he says this, my father restraining me to his side.
“Be quiet and seat down!” He mutters under his breath.
“I won’t lose her, father..”
“Be quiet and listen to me! I’m your king!” Father grinds firmly under his breath, and I have no alternative but to sit back down and be quiet. He is my king, and it will always precede the fact that he’s my father.
“You realise, Maga Umbe, that you shall then subject your daughter into a loveless marriage with another, for I hear that she’s much taken by my son..”
“I don’t care. My daughter will not pay for her marriage!”
“King,” I call, ignoring the hiss from my father. “I love her!”
“Yet you voice so outrageous a request!”
“To deny this request would be to subject both of us to an eternity of loveless marriages,” I call out, for we Bakoria believe that marriage is forever, and goes on when we meet in the afterlife after death.
“I will not betray her so. The day she realises I paid for her to be wed..”
“She’ll never know..” My father starts.
“Nonsense! Secrets never remain buried forever!” The Bagumbe crown prince calls.
“Father, I say this meeting has gone on long enough,” Nyangi’s quiet brother, the one that gave her the stallion, now speaks up, rising to his feet. “Isn’t our answer no?”
“I’m afraid my son speaks the truth,” Maga Umbe says, rising to his feet as all his sons do.
“Father, break your resolve,” I beg in a whisper. “I love her, I swear I do.”