by Robi, Carol
The girl looks disappointed when her eyes flash towards her princess and she realizes she holds no chance against that kind of competition. But Matinde does have a mean streak of humour, as I mentioned before, and she’s not about to let Chacha off the hook with this one.
“I cancelled, Chacha Renchoka. Don’t you remember?” She says, her eyes wickedly gleaming with humour at the look of desperation in Chacha’s eyes. “The prince is to teach me now,” she adds, turning towards me and leaning closer, but not close enough that we touch. Unmarried men and women rarely touch, unless absolutely necessary. Well, in public, that is. No one’s to know what happens in private.
“Yes, of course,” I choose to say, enjoying seeing Chacha squirm, glaring at us with eyes that say he’s sure to revenge against us, while we and Muiya burst out laughing, promptly swimming away, leaving him to his new interest.
Chapter 6
My father’s throwing a party for me tonight to celebrate my coming out to society. Everyone is excited about it. It’s all my saro members have been talking about for days on end, now that the dry summer season has given way to the short rains season.
The party was originally to be held during the dry summer season, but father got ill again, his heart, and the whole family was in sombre moods. I’d nursed father, and completely refused any mention of the party for my honor, even though he’d kept insisting that it ought to be held while the nights still promised to remain dry.
He’d gotten better again, thank the spirits, but the rainy season would soon be knocking on our doors, and with it the planting season. The planting seasons are one of our busiest times, as busy as the harvesting seasons. All warriors over twelve and all married women in our kingdoms work on the lands. First they tile it for days before the onset of the long rains, so as to loosen the soils. Then the day the rains first pour down, the planting begins, and the overall planting tends to take place during the first two or three days at most, as this is the short rains season and not much planting is done. The main planting is done during the long rains season which can take about three to five days, depending on the size of the family and how much they depend on their crops for food and livelihood.
After the first busy days of the short rains season, the family is generally idle again, as the only thing left to do is herd livestock, a job left to the men. The women have settled to free time activities like molding pots, tending flower and vegetable farms and weaving or repainting their houses, while we run around sweeping the compound, and keeping clean the kitchen and main dining hall that we now eat in because of the rains.
People soon get bored of their meaningless tasks, free afternoons spent with my saro as is customary are lazily spent doing nothing but talking, as the weather does not allow for much else. It’s not a season typical for partying, and that is why father’s idea to hold a party is most welcomed.
He’s the only one with a hall large enough to hold the number of young warriors and maidens that shall be in attendance, the large royal gooti at the end of the royal courtyard, as a party like this is of open invitation to all eligible, and the fact that it’s a king’s invitation will see to it that most if not all maidens and young unmarried warriors in the four brother kingdoms attend.
I hate the fuss being made about it. I knew father would do something like this as he did the same for Matinde and Weigesa. In fact he’ll make no stops as I’m his youngest daughter, and this is the last of such parties he shall hold.
The best musicians in the kingdom have been commissioned, as well as a visiting harpist from a Northern kingdom in the region, the Moreno Kingdom, shall be performing with our musicians, and has been training with the band of Bakoria musicians for days now. The best of Bairege banana wines have arrived, as well as the best matured millet mead that warriors seem to prefer.
Neighbouring women have helped to offer our family help in preparing enough food to serve the couple hundreds of youth that shall be in attendance. All water tanks have been filled with the help of neighbouring children, despite the fact that it has been drizzling all morning.
The band starts to play at midday a lively jig, and me, my sisters, my cousins and nephews and nieces of our age-set of initiated but yet unmarried youth start off the party dancing around the band in the royal gooti, as it’s wet outside and no one wants to smudge their painted feet with mud.
Our neighbours are soon to arrive next, and mother once again does a sweep to chase our way my youngest of relatives that oughtn’t be here. My younger brothers get spanked a few times, and my young cousins get threatened, and with that we are left alone to our party.
I hate being a host, mainly because I have to remain close to the door, and welcome each and everyone that attends. The large building we are in acts as the kingdom’s assembly hall where it’s leaders made up of the council of elders and military leaders like the Wasacha and Isamura meet with the King to discuss matters pertaining to ruling the kingdom. It’s also in here that father meets with his warriors whenever they are called to assembly, right before they set out on their training drills together.
Although they live furthest from us, the Bairege are the first to arrive after members of my kingdom. As usual, they frighten me, their aloof nature disconcerting. We may be one people, speaking one language and of one culture, but we also have our own underlying differences.
I’m glad for my elder sister Weigesa that remains permanently by my side until all have arrived. Matinde left my side as soon as the first handsome warrior walked in, and hasn’t stopped working the room since.
The Nyabasi are the last to arrive, despite the fact that they directly neighbour my kingdom. I’m not surprised, for the Nyabasi seem to think that they are the most important of all Bakoria people, despite the fact that they are mere farmers and hunters. We are the richest, being principally traders, and our gold funds the forging of the Bakoria army’s weapons, and the maintaining of the kingdom’s important institutions like the Inchama, holy places, bridges, royal gooti’s of other kingdom’s and the spirit spear atop the holy mountain Mogosu.
The other royal families are financially indebted to us, but that information is top secret. I only heard of it because father prefers that it’s I that serves millet mead or the wine during assemblies in here with the other members of the kingdom’s high council. When I’m around serving, he never shushes them against speaking as he knows I’d never repeat a single word of what I hear to others. It is from such occasions that I know this proud kingdom is deeply indebted to my family.
They are marshalled in by their crown prince, who as always manages to stun most of the room as people turn around to watch as he makes his entrance.
“Princess, you’re as beautiful as ever,” he says, bowing his head slightly at my elder sister.
“Prince of Nyabasi, you’re as charming as ever,” she says, slightly embarrassed. She wouldn’t embarrass him by telling him he’s as handsome as ever now, would she now? No self respecting Bakoria warrior wants to hear that he’s handsome, however handsome he may be.
And by gods, Prince Makena is handsome!
“And you, princess, are just as beautiful,” he says, turning to me and bowing.
Liar! I think in my head.
“Prince of Nyabasi,” I start with a bow, my voice cracking a little from my nerves, and not because I’m attracted to him as his confident smile seems to assume. “Thank you,” I quickly add.
“It’s a fine fete your father has held for you,” he goes on to add, seeming to enjoy how much I squirm and twitch in my feet, needing this exchange to be over.
“My father is a loving man,” I say, looking everywhere but at those confident eyes.
Luckily he does move on, having seen Matinde, my other sister. I turn and greet the rest of the Nyabasi attendees in tow, glad that they do not linger and ask me endless silly questions.
I’m tired of the party even before nightfall, so I know that it shall be a long night. Luckily people seem to forge
t about my existence soon enough, giving in to dancing and talking the night away, gourds of millet mead and banana wine getting empty fast, but father had seen to it that they’d be more than enough.
I get a slight headache at some point, leave the royal gooti, and decide to sit myself on a low bench at the wide expanse that is the royal courtyard that extends for miles from the foot of the royal gooti to the giant spearheads in the far distance ahead.
The ground is still wet but the rain has stopped, and the night is still and calm. It’s thus that he finds me, he and that friend of his that one would think they are attached to the hip.
The two young warriors are laughing cheerfully, as though something rather very interesting has just happened and they’ve witnessed it all. They light a pipe with one of the torches standing upright on the royal courtyard, and I frown at it. They shouldn’t be smoking at this age. Where did they get the pipe from, anyway? Only elders who’ve lived over sixty consider smoking, and even then, many of them decide against it. Some deluded young warriors seem to think it a good practice, and it’s clear the Nyabasi prince is one of them.
“Oh, sorry!” The prince says when he stumbles near the bench I’m sitting on. I cough slightly because of the thick smoke, which seems to amuse him, for one reason or other.
“Does our smoking affect you?” He taunts, his friend guffawing as he does.
“As a matter of fact it does,” I say firmly, but quietly.
“My my, haven’t we a fiery one today, Chacha!” He says to his friend, and the two young warriors develop into cheerful laughter again.
“Then I must apologise, miss,” the prince says moving to kneel before me as a mocking gesture, reaching out his hand as though wanting to touch me.
He must be very drunk to have forgotten the rules of propriety!
Chapter 7
“It’s princess to you!” I tell him curtly, my words clipped.
That’s the moment I realize the two hadn’t known who I was exactly. They must have assumed me just another maiden that had been newly initiated.
“Pardon princess, I had no idea,” it’s his friend that apologises, the obnoxious prince still on his knees before me, looking up at me with laughing eyes.
“Yes,” he says as an after thought. “We sincerely apologise.”
“Get away from me,” I ask of him, my voice still firm, but my courage leaving me, now that my anger is dissipated.
“I’ve heard reports about you, princess,” he chooses to say, not in anyway moving away from me. “I’ve had reports that you’re timid, and never say a word. Yet here you seat disputing those reports..” his voice breaks away as I choose that moment to stand and walk away. If he won’t leave me alone, then I’ll leave.
“Princess,” I hear him start behind me, hastening his footsteps after me.
“I think you should leave her alone,” his friend councils.
“And I think you overstep yourself, Chacha. We’re good friends, but don’t attempt to tell me what I ought or oughtn’t do.”
“Apologies, my prince.” I roll my eyes as I hear this exchange, hastening my footsteps to make some distance between me and the two drunk young warriors.
“Wait up princess!” He calls, fast coming after me, and soon overtakes me and turns around so as to block me from proceeding. I try walk around him on either side, but he moves quickly to stop me.
And that is when I begin to panic for the first time in a long while.
It starts with my heart, just a quickening pace at first. And then I begin to sweat, despite the cool breeze and the fact that I’m barely dressed.
“I’m just wondering why you’d step out on your own party?” He proceeds to ask, not at all aware of what I’m feeling inside.
I look around me with despair, and in that moment question myself on why I walked towards the gates rather than towards the royal gooti, as behind it is my home. Now I’m far away from anyone that can help me. Father is asleep, mother most definitely too. Only one uncle of mine would be awake, the one keeping watch tonight. Or is it one of my brothers. My brothers, where are they? I need them now.
As my body heat rises, my heart rate rises too, so much so that I almost think the raging of blood in my ears is deafening.
I see the prince’s lips move, but I don’t hear anything. I look around me, turning slowly, my mind in a confused state as I take in the darkness, other than the low glow from the torches around. Music comes from somewhere, so do the bright lights. There’s reprieve there- my sister, Weigesa. She’ll help me. I can’t go there though. They’ll all see me. They’ll think me mad. I’ll hurt Matinde’s’ chances of marriage, as she’s yet to be attached.
Now I’m having slight difficulty in breathing, and it’s getting rather hard to hold my head up. I bend forward, but when the prince attempts to get closer to me, concern covering his dark face, I step back, shake my head in what I know must appear as maniac movements, as I try the slow breathing mother always teaches me to resort to in such cases.
“..I’ll go get your sister!” The prince of the Nyabasi seems to be saying, his voice slightly panicked, as he runs off.
Not Matinde! I want to call after him, but I’m unable to. I turn to find his friend left behind, looking at me confused as though unsure whether he ought to stay with me or run after his prince. He opts for the latter, and is soon running off, spear in hand, shield strapped to his back, and the image of two great warriors running away from only little me is a little humorous, and it works to sober me up a little. I’d laugh, if my chest didn’t hurt each time I tried breathing.
I hesitate for just a moment, but then the image of Matinde coming here and yelling at me for daring to hurt her chances by showing my affliction sets my feet to action.
I cut across the courtyard to it’s darkened areas, from where I catch sight of Matinde running out with the prince in tow.
“Nyangi!” Matinde calls out, her voice rings clear with anger. No way I’m facing her at this moment. She’ll tear into me like a jackal.
I choose instead to turn, keeping to the shadows, and run noiselessly around the royal gooti. I’m yet unsure of where I’m going until I burst through my mother’s doors, barely knocking.
I startle father and mother, as I do my youngest brothers. I’d not even stopped to think that father may be visiting mother tonight.
“Who’s there?” I here father ask from the inner room of mother’s gooti.
“Nyangi?” Mother calls surprised, seeing my silhouette at the door. Soon both my parents are rushing to my side, worry written on their faces in the dim light provided by the fire in here and the torches around the kingstead behind me. Mother’s fingers find my face, tracing it, while father reaches his hands for my inner arms and thighs, where he knows I dig my nails and draw blood whenever I get so terrible anxiety attacks that I can’t let myself breathe.
“I’m fine,” I reassure them quickly, though their hands keep prodding me anyway. “I almost had an attack, but I managed to shake it off and run here. I didn’t shame the family..” I’m speaking rapidly, but my mother is shushing me once again, cupping my face with her hands to force my eyes to find her shining ones.
“Good, good you gained control in time. But now you have to go back..”
“Mama..” I start to say in distress.
“A party is going on in your honor. It’s rude of you to leave it, and leave your peers.” Father says this firmly, in that way of his that I know I won’t be getting my way.
“Do I have to?” I ask with failing hope.
“Yes, you have to,” mother says, more kindly. “And you know better than to come running into my house,” she adds further, and I hear the pain it takes her to say those words.
Yes, I do know it. I’m not a child anymore. I’m not to come into my mother’s house anymore to seek solace at night. I’m a maiden now. I have no excuse to run from my responsibilities, social or otherwise. As a child, I could hide away. I can’t do that anymore
, I realise with a sinking feeling, and it only gets worse from here. While at my father’s house, I can still expect preferential treatment. After this though.. I shudder just to think what that entails. Marriage, womanhood, motherhood, being a wife..
“You have to go back,” father is saying again, cupping my cheek with his hand, his eyes kind but firm in his instructions.
“Nyangi!” I hear Matinde’s voice calling from behind the royal gooti. She’s coming this way. She’s figured the fool that is me has probably run to mama for help because a couple drunk muras spoke to me.
“You don’t have to talk to anyone,” mother says kindly, brushing my curls back from my face. “Just be there, stay among your saro members..”
“Be visible,” father tells me.
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“Nyangi?” Matinde’s voice calls again, much lower now that she can see our silhouettes.
“What if they talk to me..?”
“You talk back, you silly..”
“That’s enough, Matinde!” Father retorts. “You know your sister has sensitive nerves!”
“But father.. she’ll spoil my chances..”
“She’ll not spoil your chances of anything because she cares enough for you to ensure she doesn’t have an attack in public. You however do not make it any easier for her- shouting at her all the time, making her nervous and so aggravating her.. I tell you Matinde you better change, if you expect me to fill wagons with presents for your future family upon your marriage!”
Matinde is silent now, her mouth having fallen agape. We are all surprised, mama as well.
“Muniko..” mother starts, her voice questioning though respectful. What he threatens is every girl’s nightmare.
For our people, it is men that pay dowry, and Matinde would fetch about fifty herds of cattle, near as many goats, and about a handful zorse foals. However as an unsaid rule, the bride’s family out to send her to her new home with presents. Silks and cottons, jewellery and great basketry, patterned pottery and beautifully weaved mats. To send a bride to her new home without presents is.. unheard of.
