by Joseph Pryce
Akuna watched Malon’s pregnant mousy looking wife Despera, return to the table and take her seat with the assistance of a female hall servant. Lady Despera was a dour looking woman with a grey mournful disposition.
Sitting at the same table with mother…. Akuna thought. Lady Despera must feel like an ugly duckling next to a beautiful swan.
He noticed Ukan slouched down in his seat and promptly ordered him to sit up straight. “You are the king’s son”, Akuna admonished his youngest brother. “You must always look the part”.
Akuna’s eyes fell on the ten Uhuru children. Besides the breathtaking Tamanni and the aloof Nasak, there four younger boys, Horapollo, Rosett, Saqat and Dalon, as well as four other younger girls, Hoteppa, Dahshar, Abydha and Pathea. The young prince sipped thirstily on his lemon water with crushed ice. As far as he knew, he and his father were the only two members of the Shaka family that did not drink alcohol. Even the youngling Ukan occasionally drank some wine with his supper and he was only twelve years old. He found it hard to look away from Nasak, the way Malon’s oldest child held his head so high and utterly ignored everybody in the hall.
He looks more the prince of Summerhill than do I or Gambolt. Akuna thought ironically to himself.
His older brother Gambolt held up his wine cup to a passing servant, who immediately filled it to the brim.
“What say you, brother?” Gambolt asked he playfully nudged his younger sibling in the ribs with his elbow.
“I am bored, brother”, Akuna replied with his eyes fixed on Tamanni who was in conversation with his sister Kadilla. He wanted her so much that it made his heart ache.
Gambolt noticed and grinned sneakily. “Do not moon over Lord Malon’s daughter too much, Akuna. Remember you are a prince of Summerhill. You can have a dozen virgin maidens lined up to spread their firm brown legs before you, if you so desired”, Gambolt slurred.
“Are you in your cups already?” Akuna asked. “It is not even sunset”.
“Life is for us to enjoy, my brother. What other reason have we been put here for?” Gambolt said with a laugh as he ran a hand through his short dreadlocks. The king’s first born had been permitted by his Majesty to start growing the locks, the day that he turned twenty-one years of age. Akuna still had three years to go before he would be allowed to start growing his. It was the king’s law.
“Do yourself a favour, Akuna. Slip out of the hall with Tamanni Uhuru. Take her up to your bedchambers and give that spoiled rich girl some heavy hard strokes”.
Akuna felt his cheeks get hot. “What do you know about it?!”
“I know that you have been swooning over that girl for years. Just take her and get it over with, brother…..She cannot say no to the prince”, Gambolt laughed as he swigged his wine. “Even if you are second to me”, he finished.
Akuna took another sip of his lemon water through clenched teeth. His brother never missed an opportunity to remind him that he was the king’s favoured son and heir.
“I have no feeling for Tamanni. You forget that father has already betrothed me to Lady Kanaya of Sunbush?” Akuna replied haughtily.
“And the king has promised me to Lady Ahmossa of Summertown. What of it?” Gambolt shot back drunkenly. “Will that stop me from taking some flesh when I desire it? Do yourself a favour, brother and bed Tamanni before father marries you off”. With that Gambolt rose and made his way across the hall. Akuna watched him exchange a contrite greeting with the snobbish Nasak, before joining a table of minor lords, who happened to be trading stories of young virgin maidens that they claimed to have deflowered.
The prince caught Tamanni’s eye as she looked away from Kadilla for a moment. The current between them became electric. The alluring twenty-year old woman excused herself from Princess Kadilla’s presence and made her way down the long table to Akuna. “You are staring at me like a hungry man stares at food”, she pointedly told him.
If Akuna’s dark skin could reveal blush it would have surely given him away. “I am sorry. I did not realize that I was staring”, Akuna countered self-consciously.
“Well you were, my prince”, was all Tamanni said with a very seductive smile. “Take a stroll with me?”
Prince Akuna of Summerhill was more than thrilled that the Lady Uhuru had asked him but he did well to contain his excitement. “Of course, my lady”, he replied casually.
The two of them excused themselves from the dining table and walked out of the great hall. They strolled along the black marble mezzanine that was immediately outside of the hall. Tamanni took Akuna’s arm and gently wrapped it around her own. They walked that way for a moment in a comfortable silence. Many passer-by’s smiled handsomely at the prince. It was very obvious that he was the most well-liked member of the royal family.A young male servant stopped and offered them some colourful fruit from a gold plated serving tray, smiling grandly at the prince. Tamanni plucked two plump strawberries from the tray but Akuna took nothing and gentlemanly waved the servant away.
“How have you been keeping, Akuna?” Tamanni asked lightly.
“Fine. Everything is quite good with me, Tamanni. And yourself?” Akuna’s heart beat ever faster. Why does she make me feel this way?
He glanced sidelong at Tamanni’s statuesque profile. She even looks like a queen. As pretty as mother. He thought.
“The king looks very well”, she said in polite conversation.
The son of a famous arch-senator returning from the privy bowed his head as he passed by the prince.
“Yes he does”, Akuna answered politely but wanted nothing more than to gather Tamanni up in his arms and carry her upstairs to his bedchambers, just like his older brother had suggested. But there was honour to consider and he very much wanted Tamanni to want him to love her.
The two of them walked through a set of ornate gold plated sliding doors that had images of the royal family carved into its frame. The doors lead to an outside balcony, overlooking the palace gardens. The evening stars twinkled in the skies above and they were completely alone except for a bored looking palace guard slouched against the parapet at the other end of the balcony. The guard stood up straighter and immediately bowed when he caught sight of Akuna. Tamanni glanced up at the orange moon for a moment. “What were the king and queen doing at moon base today?” She asked informally.
Akuna thought it was an odd question and that for some reason that Tamanni was forcing conversation but he answered the question anyway.
“Father and mother met with the King’s Cabinet to discuss the recent rash of planet tremors affecting the Coldlands”. But that was only a part of the truth, Akuna knew the real reason his parents met with the cabinet was to discuss the last operable Trans-Dimensional Transporter. The dimension spanning star-craft was one of six that were used to transport the survivors of First World to this planet.
Not even the Grand Vizier knows what happened to other five transporters. Akuna remarked to himself. Father must be more worried about the planet tremors than he is revealing.
Akuna knew from the history lessons that he learned from his professors. That his ancestors and the ancestors of the other two kingdoms, Sandstorme and Ocean Imperial had used the Transports to come to this planet after First World was obliterated after its sun went supernova.
“Akuna? Are you alright?” Tamanni asked him.
“Of course. Why do you ask?”
“You just got very quiet for a moment”, she replied.
“I Was thinking about that afternoon in Summertide a few year ago when I….” Akuna paused in embarrassment. “When I said what I said”, he finally finished.
Tamanni turned to face Akuna and moved in closer to him. “You said that you loved me. I still remember”.
Akuna could not bring his eyes to meet hers. “I always wanted to apologize for that”, he told her softly.
Tamanni took his hand in her own. “Apologize? But why?” She asked honestly.
“I did not mean you any dishonour. But I just wan
ted you to know…..I wanted you to know how I felt about you”, Akuna found the words sticking to the roof of his mouth and his face felt uncomfortably warm.
Tamanni silently placed her index finger on his lips and leaned forward to kiss him but before she could a gold plated domestic droid rolled onto the balcony on its roller pad. “Please pardon the interruption, my prince”, it started in a mellow male voice. “But her grace, the queen has requested that you return to the great hall”.
Annoyed at the interruption before he and Tamanni could kiss but not wanting to take it out on the droid, Akuna just sighed quietly and replied, “Thank-you, Perkins. Please advise my mother, that I will be there in one moment”.
Perkins bowed his egg-shaped mechanical frame at Akuna in response. “Of course, my prince. I take my leave”. Perkins rolled away as silently as he appeared.
Tamanni smiled seductively and ran the back of her hand across Akuna’s left cheek. “I guess it’s just not our time, my prince”, she said.
“Maybe someday”, Akuna responded with a smile.
“Maybe someday”, Tamanni agreed with a smile of her own.
QUEEN ZARIA
Zaria knew what she was doing was extremely dangerous yet she did not care. The more she thought about Bornu cheating on her with Anath is the angrier she became and the angrier she became is the harder that she rode Nasak. The two of them were having furious sex on the floor of a linen closet located in the lower levels of the royal palace. The entire palace was constantly under surveillance, there were security digi-cams and bio-metric scanners and ultra-sound monitors on every floor and in every room. Not to mention the human and droid palace guards, that performed their daily rounds. The king was extremely diligent about the security of his house, but Zaria’s cousin-in-law, a young lad named Kipofu who just happened to be head of computer operations in the palace security office, owed her a major favour. Zaria had caught the ambitious youth in the middle of a conspiracy to sell palace security blueprints to a colonel in the Sandstorme army. Sandstorme was one of the Three Kingdoms, which Summerhill had been at war with for the last century. If Zaria had decided to report Kipofu to the king he would have been summarily executed as traitor to the crown, cousin or no cousin.
So, the queen had Kipofu in her back pocket and could order him anytime that she pleased to deactivate certain digi-cams at certain times of the day when she needed some privacy like at this very moment. She climaxed for the third time and the force of her pelvic convulsions caused the young Nasak to reach his own climx as well. He came with loud grunt and shudder.
“Bloody hell, Zaria!” He exclaimed with a laugh. “You are going to kill me one day!” He appeared much more relaxed in Zaria’s presence that anyone else’s.
“Oh please, Nasak Uhuru. You are half my age. You should have twice as much stamina as I do”, Zaria replied. She snatched a clean white towel from the closet shelf and used it wipe clean the wetness between her legs.
“I should, shouldn’t I?” Nasak said as he reached for her right breast and squeezed her large black nipple. I cannot believe how firm they still are at her age. He was already erect again and wanted to make love one more time but Zaria pulled away from him. “You should return to the guest rooms before you are missed”, she told him.
The queen picked up her one sleeved orange and black dress from the floor and climbed quickly into it. “Pass me my boots, please. They are right behind you”, she commanded Nasak.
The young lad pouted. “I do not want to leave yet”, he complained but did as she bid and passed Zaria her long high heeled boots that reached the top of her thighs.
“We have to be discrete, Nasak. If the king were ever to discover us?” Zaria pulled the boots over her supple legs instead of finishing the sentence. There was really no need, as they both knew it would be certain death for them if King Shaka knew of their affair.
“Besides that, there is a meeting taking place in the King’s Chambers in a few minutes that I must attend”.
Nasak’s eyebrows rose slightly. “The King’s Chambers? Why? What is going on? Will my father be attending?” He asked a little too excitedly. But for good reason, he knew that only the most serious matters of state were discussed in the chambers and unfortunately his father left him mostly in the dark about his meetings with the king.
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with”, Zaria responded and patted him loftily on his bare ass. “Now get dressed. We must go”. She knew inside that Kipofu was able to keep the surveillance equipment inactive in this area for a short time without raising suspicion and that time was almost up.
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Twenty minutes later Zaria was seated in the King’s Chamber at the end of an extremely long ebony boardroom table alongside her husband. She has changed out of her colourful dress into a serious looking black turtleneck maxi-dress with an elaborate gold pendant around her neck. The dress covered her from head to toe but it was form fitted and lovingly accentuated her curvy figure. The king was dressed in a long black suit of leather that bore the Shaka family insignia hand stitched onto the chest of his jacket and tall orange leather boots. Seated at the middle of the table were Malon and Grand Vizier Thoth Ananzi, a very tall thin man dressed in a long black cloak with golden sleeves that had intricate First World hieroglyphics imprinted on their cuffs. On his head he wore an extended golden velvet cap with black tassels that sat pontifically on his hairless head. His plate of fruit and chocolate sweets sitting in front of him remained untouched. The Vizier was part of an ancient order that was thousands of years old and followed many ancient rules, one such being that viziers were only permitted to eat food at the week’s end. At the other end of the table stood the leader of the Volgags known as the Chrine. Clanhead Nash Chrine was his name, he was a barrel chested man with orange coloured eyes, a long pointy orange haired beard and short orange hair on his head, that happened to balding in the middle. The Clanhead was wearing a crisp white business suit and tie. He had diamond and colourful gemstone jewellery dripping from his neck, wrists, and ears and had gold rings on every finger.
In her head Zaria was laughing at Clanhead Nash Chrine’s rage. Rage on you Volgag scum. She chuckled inwardly. One day this arrangement that you have prospered from so much will be over. And my people will grind you and the rest of your kind into dust!
“This is prosperous King Shaka! Absolutely prosperous!” Nash shouted and banged his meaty pale skinned fist on the table in protest.
“Calm yourself, Clanhead Crine”, Thoth warned him. “And mind your tone in the king’s presence”. As the Grand Vizier was not only the kingdom’s foremost scientist, he was also King Shaka’s chief advisor and head of the Royal Privy Council, which gave him authority to speak on the king’s behalf.
Nash’s large moon like face went as red as a tomato and he surely appeared as if he would continue his tirade but he chose to choke back the rest of his words.
Thoth turned to Bornu and respectfully bowed his head, “Your Majesty?” Opening the floor for the king to now speak.
“Thank-you, Grand Vizier”, Bornu replied fixing his stern eyes on the Chrine tribe leader. “Sit down, Nash”, the tall broad shouldered king told the shorter Clanhead.
Nash reluctantly took his seat at the table.
“Keeping my daughter hostage was not part of our arrangement, King Shaka”. Nash snapped between gritted teeth.
“Oxana is not our hostage. She is guest of the palace”, Bornu replied. “And she is treated as such”.
“And are all of your guests forced to sing for their supper as my daughter is?”
Thoth interrupted Nash by loudly clearing his throat. “To sing in the royal palace’s great hall, in the presence of the king and queen, is considered a significant honour, Clanhead Chrine. Not to mention that your daughter has a magnificent singing voice”.
Nash’s voice rose once more. “Oxana is not some playthi
ng for you lot to trot out for your amusement, when it pleases you! Not to mention she was not part of our original deal!”
Zaria glanced slightly at her husband and noticed that he had a imperceptible grin on his face. Why is he smiling? Bornu should have this Volgag savage’s tongue ripped out for speaking that way to him! Unless…..Unless…. he already has initiated the energy pipeline project and is just keeping this Chrine alive to serve some other purpose?
“The original deal also did not include a suicide bomber detonating an explosive in downtown Heatone either, Nash”, Bornu kept his voice steady but allowed some fire in it, so that the Volgag knew he was indeed serious. “A KRG commander was gravely injured and the officer flying her to a military debriefing lost his life”, he continued.
