by Robi, Carol
No one should be this happy. The gods have been too kind to me. Something must be waiting in store for me, I’m thinking, as I pick up the gourds of drink and begin making my way towards the royal gooti where father and the men have now decided to sit and enjoy drinks and smokes, while mother shows the Nyabasi royal women her flower garden, which is famed in the brother kingdoms. My mother is skilled at many things, and it’s only fitting that her garden is so well renowned. I only wish to be one day half as remarkable a queen as she is.
I’m going around the royal gooti when I hear them. Over hear them in actuality, as I’m cutting through the shortcut I know so well, as it’s often that I carry heavy trays or gourds into the royal assembly hall, and I know the shortest route to cut through from the kitchens, rather than follow the river stone paved paths outlined.
My shortcut passes right under a window closest to the fireplace, where father likes to seat most and thereby the rest of the people in a meeting with him seat near there as well. It is therefore easy to overhear them speak, though it wasn’t entirely my intention. Not this time.
“..Given it a lot of thought with my sons. We’ve decided as a gesture of goodwill, that we’ll forgive half your debt.” Father’s words shock me some, and so I decide to stop all movement and continue listening.
“That’s great to hear, my good brother,” I hear Makena’s father say in answer. “This generosity will strengthen the relationship between our kingdoms.”
“I just need to make sure that she never finds out.”
“Do not worry. It’s of no benefit to anyone in this room to distress her so. We welcome her with open arms.”
“I still think it very bad business to treat our sister as though a defected commodity. That she should be wed off, and yet we must pay dowry for her.” Chacha’s words stun me.
No, no they can’t mean what I think they mean!
“Just think it as a sign of your goodwill..”
That’s the moment I stop listening. I rise to my feet, still balancing the now warm gourd filled with hot porridge, and make my way cautiously around the large royal gooti, so that I find myself before its front stairs.
There’s a calmness in me that I can’t quite explain. Like when a pain is of such a magnitude that you cease to feel it, and you cease to fear it. You just know that it’s there, a gaping wound, but as there’s nothing you can do to alleviate the pain, you push on. That’s the state of my nerves.
I knock, and then wait a moment before walking in through the doors. The men have now had ample time to turn the conversation around, and are now discussing the great harvest this season. Nobody talks about harvests this late in the dry summer season. That is now past and very old news. They only changed the subject because I came in, and will soon take it up after I’ve left.
Not if I can help it, I think to myself as I settle the large gourd onto the table.
“Thank you, child,” father says kindly.
I turn and smile at him, a hollow haunted smile.
“Break it off, father,” I say calmly.
Large pairs of confused eyes identical to mine look back at me questioningly.
“Break what off?”
“My engagement. My husband shall not be paid off to marry me. I’d rather remain an old maid living at the edge of the Southern Forests of Wisu than..”
“Nyangi!” I hear him call out in what may easily be misconstrued as a heart breaking voice from my side. But I don’t turn. I can’t. Not now when my resolve must remain firm. I need all the strength I can muster.
“Nyangi, listen..” Father now starts.
“No, father! You listen! Rarely do I speak up. Rarely do I put my foot down. But on this I do. And if you dare force me to marry just because you do not wish for the shame of an unmarried maid in our family..”
“You don’t understand..” It’s Chacha that butts in to say this.
“What is there to understand, when men of families soon to be joined in matrimony speak of forgiving the debt of their future son-in-law because he’s agreed to marry their daughter? As a sign of good will! What nonsensical euphemism is that? That is bribery, by any other name, it’s still bribery. Leave me out of it, kingly business or otherwise! I don’t want any part of it.”
I finish, and without hesitation turn around.
I shall not marry him, not like this.
Chapter 35
All I know, is that she’s walking away, and I can’t just let her do that. I can’t.
“Nyangi!” I call yet again, jumping off the high chair and rushing after her.
Gods is she fast!
“Nyangi!” I call, catching up to her, but she doesn’t stop. I risk touching her. I’m about to, but I know I’m already on her last straw today, and that she might never forgive me if I break stupid customs she holds in such high regard at this moment.
“Nyangi!” I call again, jumping before her so that she’s forced to stop or risk pushing against me. She stops as I predicted.
“Nyangi, listen! Look at me, love,” I urge again, but I’m unable to meet her gaze. Her eyes look anywhere but at me.
She starts moving backwards as I step in closer, preying on her as she quickly retreats until her back is pressed against the wall.
All else doesn’t exist, not this hall with our families watching us. Neither my title, nor hers, or family responsibilities. Nothing exists but her, and the knowledge of just how close I am to losing her. If she walks out now, her father will declare her wishes that we break it off, and then I fear that she’ll never give me the time of day again. I can’t let her walk out now. Unless she walks out, and her father repeats her wishes to us officially, her words don’t hold any weight as yet. This is my moment.
She must revoke them now- she must!
I edge in closer to her again, placing my hands on either side of her, so that she is caged in between me and the wall.
“Let me go, prince.”
“Yesterday I was your prince!” I remind her, my teeth ground together in agitation, and honestly raw fear and dread.
“That was before I knew you were being paid to marry me.”
“That’s not true. Your father just proposed it..”
“Father would never just propose a thing like that..”
I must tell her the whole truth, I now realise to myself. I can’t have this hanging over us.
“Listen to me,” I start, ensuring she’s boxed in tight so that whatever move she attempts to make, she’d be forced to touch me. This way I’ll make sure she’ll listen to me until the end, and not have a chance to escape.
I lower my head as low as I can, so low that I can almost kiss the top of her thickly curled hair, and I start the narration. I start from the beginning, the night I told father that I wished to marry her, and Gati joined us with the proposal.
At some point her head lifts, and she arrests me in her gaze as I come clean of all of it.
“All I ask is that you believe that I’m telling you the whole truth. If not, ask your father and brothers. I don’t even care about any of it anymore,” I tell her. “Not if I can’t have you. You’re enough for me. You’re all I ever wanted, even before I truly knew it. We can go away together if you want. We can leave all of this behind if you so wish..”
“Hey!” Her father’s voice calls from right behind me. I’d been so engrossed with her mesmerising eyes as she listened to me, that I hadn’t even heard him approach from behind.
“No one is going anywhere with my daughter,” Maga Umbe says.
I do not edge away though. I fear that if I give her any room, she might bolt past me, and that I might never find her again. She’s exceptionally skilled at hiding.
“Listen, Nyangi my dear child whom I love so much, named after my own dearly departed mother,” her father starts fervently.
“You know I love you- that you must.”
“I know you do, father,” she answers quietly, her face now bent down again to face the stone floo
r under our feet.
“I reconsidered their proposal for you. For your future sons and their future sons. They are to be my grand children after all. I wouldn’t want them to be indebted to my family..”
“You would pay for me to be married off..”
“That isn’t it,” her father says.
“I don’t want a cent,” I rush to say at the same time.
“How do you think it makes me feel?” She asks, her large eyes brimming with tears my undoing, and I look on helplessly as they spill over.
“You were never to find out,” her father tells her.
“I don’t want a cent,” I repeat earnestly.
“I don’t know what to do? What to believe..” she says in a quiet whisper, looking so helpless that I cuss the day I ever listened to father and Gati. To gods with all of them and their kingdom! If I manage to win her over today, I’ll always put her first over all. Before all that is good and true, I swear!
“Believe in me- in my love for you,” I urge her, seeking her eyes until I find them and hold her gaze.
“These old men, love them as we may, have lived their lives,” I tell her. “Let them not ruin ours. I don’t want a cent, Nyangi. Not a single cent. I just want you, you know in your heart that to be true. I’ve paid my dowry, the date is set. Let’s ignore these kings, and live our own lives.”
She isn’t convinced, however. Not yet.
She turns her gaze to her father over my shoulder.
“If you pay a single cent for me, I will leave home and never come back,” she says gravely. Then she reverts her eyes to me.
“And if you take a single cent for me, I will never be with you.”
“If they exchange any underhand dealings in our backs, and we shall find out for one day I shall be king, as the gods are true I swear to take mine and my own and leave the Bakoria brother kingdoms forever. I’d rather wander aimlessly with you in the Northern Plainlands as a wildling, than be a king to a place with so deplorable morals..”
“Whatever happened to children that listened to their parents!” I hear my father exclaim, his voice not coming too far back from where we are. I didn’t hear him approach either.
“You and me against the world, Nyangi my love. That is what I offer you from here on,” I say, ignoring my father.
“I’ll marry you, even if you leave all this behind, I’ll still marry you,” she finally says, meeting my eyes. “You know I love you!”
“And I you,” I tell her, expecting my chest to burst at any moment from joy.
“Fine, children! You win! Makena you may go on leading a kingdom deep in debt with your father-in-law. For all your stubbornness you’d think I’m not trying to help you..”
“You ruled a kingdom in debt, father, as did my grandfather- and yet it still stands to date.” I argue, never taking my eyes off her. I watch as the look of betrayal in her face slowly begins to dissipate away. How could anyone be so beautiful?
“Are you okay with marrying a future king knee deep in debt to your father?” I ask her.
“Yes, if only his ego can withstand so harsh a condition,” she says, a small smile playing on her lips, that has my heart toppling over again.
“You know me and my ego, princess.”
“Yes, unfortunately I do. I think you have a healthy enough ego to survive this.” My smile widens as hers does as well. Never have I ever loved anyone as much as I love her right this moment.
“That I do, my princess,” I confirm, battling my affected voice against breaking.
“Under one condition, however,” she adds.
“Anything!” I say, ignoring the loud sigh of disappointment from my father.
Before this whole incident, I’d thought him the greatest man alive. Now I know otherwise. Here is a man that would put a price to my happiness.
“Total honesty, from here on, my love?”
“Total honesty here on, my princess,” I solemnly swear.
~The End~
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Map of the region
Glossary
Age group
An age-group spanning three years specific to a particular gender. See also Saro
Age set
A set of age groups or saro said to belong to the same life period. i.e.
● Boys or girls between 0-12 years belong to the same age set and are referred to as children.
● Young men between 12-18 years belong to the same age set and are referred to as young muras.
● Young maidens between 12-18 years belong to the same age set and are referred to as waiseke until they get married.
● Men between 18-45 years belong to the same age set and are referred to as muras.
● Women between 18-48 years belong to the same age set and are referred to as women/wakari.
● Men between 45-60 years belong to the same age set and are referred to as retired muras.
● Women over 48 years belong to the same age set and are referred to as retired women/ elderly women.
● Men over 60 years belong to the same age set and are referred to as elders.
Bana ba Maga (Mona wa Maga sing.)
A term used to refer to the princes and princesses of the reigning king.
Bori
A family homestead. Normally the family head occupies the same bori with his brothers and children and their descendants. Upon his death, his eldest son takes up responsibility as the head of the family. His late father’s brothers and their families are thereby expected to move out of the bori and build up their new bori somewhere else, with the help of all the males in the family. They may occupy nearby lands, or move farther away to new locations.
Calabash
The Bakoria people call a gourd that is not complete a calabash. This could be any guard sliced horizontally to create a deep bowl, or sliced vertically to create a bowl-like utensil with handles. This is normally used just as one uses a cup, for example to drink their millet mead, porridge or water.
Clans
Subgroup of a tribe.
Council
A kings advising body made up of the Wasacha, council of elders, the Gake wa Maga and the king himself.
Council of elders
It is the elders and retired muras that vote among themselves for members of the council of elders. Once appointed, the position is held until death.
First meal
Breakfast. The first meal of the day eaten at about midday, contrary to the main meal which is eaten at dusk.
Gake wa Maga
A position primarily held by a king’s elder sister, though it may also be held by his younger sister under special circumstances. She acts as his adviser, and is the most important position a Bakoria woman can hold. As a rule, a Gake wa Maga may not marry, as her brother’s affairs ought to be her first priority.
Upon a king’s absence, or his death before his heir comes of age, she is the most important person in the kingdom, as she now takes up the position of regent, and reigns in his stead.
In cases where none of the king’s sister opt for this role, or the king denies their requests, the queen-mother may be appointed to the position. It is however not necessary to have either of the women in the council, and some kings may opt against it.
Gooti
These are typical housing structures of the Bakoria, made of sun dried bricks and timber posts. Some of them may be
round, while others are rectangular in shape. Some of them may be roofed, while others, like those housing livestock, are not roofed.
Gourd
The guard plant was very important, and every home, bori, had more than a couple well tended for guard plants that produced guards of different sizes. Once full grown, the fruit would be plucked, and its insides scooped out to be eaten, which was normally a soft sweet mushy food when boiled, tasting a lot like pumpkin. Many grownups hated its taste, and it was a food most often fed to weaning babies and toddlers.
Unlike calabashes, this were used as a whole, with only the middle part of the plant scooped out. It is from guards that calabashes are made. Guards were used for various purposes, as they could range from various sizes. One of its most important uses is as water or milk bottles, as well as wine and mead stores.
Guards were also used to make music instruments like shakers, and because of their organic nature, were easy to decorate and paint, which they often were, especially in cases of shakers or those holding the famous banana wine from Irege.
Inchama
A special class of elders in the community consisting of both men and women that would perform spiritual duties, and are at times termed as priests and priestesses.
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 large water pots.
Maga
A Bakoria king. His prefix.
Maga Moguna
A Bakoria seer of royal blood, believed to be holy and to be in special commune with the spirits and the gods.
Mamei
Mother’s brother
Mbura Festival
A festival held right after the planting is done, in the height of the heavy rains season. The festival is held at the royal bori, to celebrate the gods and spirits so that they may bless their crops. The festival is characterised by the children, waiseke and young muras dressing up in costumes depicting various crops. Mothers of young children may also dress up in costumes, so as to support their children.