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  “Oh I am fine with him as king,” Aksil stated. “The job is harder than they make it seem. People bring everything before the king while he has no one to take his problems to.”

  “Oh but the king does have people to bring his problems to,” the queen stated. “They have their family, but Gwafa is destroying his own and that is the reason behind his loneliness; not the crown.”

  “Either way, I am glad I can just watch the whole madness of running a kingdom from the sidelines and not the helm.”

  “Spoken like a true loyalist,” his mother praised him.

  “If I am not loyal to my family, who then?”

  “You took both mine and your father’s wisdom, Aksil; smart choice.”

  CHAPTER 02

  The next morning and Aksil was seated on the front steps of the palace. At his side sat a beautiful, young, ebony-dark lady with long hair which she had cut at the shoulders. She was dressed in a red, cotton tunic with golden strips along it. The golden rings on her fingers were more than ten in number and the blue-black paint on her lips made her look even more beautiful.

  “You look worried, Aksil,” the lady said, looking at the prince.

  “I am worried, Magani,” the prince admitted.

  “Your sister again?”

  “Yes, ma’isha,” he replied, turning to her and stroking her face. ‘Ma’isha’ was the word used when referring to a female lover.

  “I hate seeing you like this, Aksil.” She sounded very concerned.

  “Well she is my sister and I will always be concerned for her welfare. She came into the palace yesterday and Gwafa would not ask her to rise from greeting him. People were in the throne room and it was such an embarrassment for her, but Gwafa did not care. How can someone hate their own blood like that?”

  “I feel for Lunja too, but what can we really do?” Magani asked.

  “I wish I knew what to do.”

  “Let us forget our worries for now and think about our wedding,” Magani suggested, smiling now.

  “Wedding,” Aksil said, smiling also. “It will be big; Gwafa promised me that much.”

  “Europeans, Ottomans, Egyptians, Ghanaians, Malians and even the Songhai emperor will be in attendance,” the lady said, very excited.

  “The Songhai,” Aksil murmured. “I am not sure I want them here? I fear any move they make inside Kalari is one which will soon see them crush and conquer us.”

  “You cannot worry about that, Aksil. We beat the Songhai before and if they try again, we will beat them again.”

  “I hate war because it is uncertain. I only accept war when it is a necessity.”

  The lady rose to her feet and stood before him, bending over and placing her hands on his shoulders. “Aksil, we are betrothed. You worry too much about everyone else. I wonder if you will be able to make out time for me when we are married.”

  “Oh I will certainly make out time for this,” the prince said, reaching out and placing his hands on her hips.

  “Stop that!” she complained, slapping his hand away and looking around, embarrassed.

  Aksil laughed at the lady’s embarrassment. He grabbed her and pulled her down onto his laps.

  “Aksil, someone will see us!” she complained, trying to get away from him, but he held her in his laps and laughed.

  “Aksil, your mother could come out, or your brother. Aksil, the guards are watching!”

  The prince let go of the lady and she rose to her feet. He looked back at the guards before the front doors.

  “Did you see anything?” he asked.

  “Not at all, Shalua!” one of them said with a grin.

  “The sun is hot out here and we could have imagined anything, Shalua,” said another.

  All four guards were laughing sheepishly. They’d seen many, but they would not embarrass their ‘Shalau’ and his betrothed. Shalau being the Kalarian word for ‘Prince.’

  “See, Magani, they saw nothing,” Aksil looked forward at his lady once more.

  “I should report you to your mother,” she threatened.

  “And perhaps I should put you in my laps again,” he replied.

  “No!” she cried, running down the steps.

  Aksil laughed hard at her reaction. She looked silly to him. Women did not like being touched and handled in certain ways by a man who was not their husband. Elders frowned at it also and would preach tirelessly to the embarrassment of the duo if they caught them. Aksil however liked to play these naughty games with Magani. She was his betrothed, bonded to him at her birth, three years after his. She had grown into a perfect, black woman and Aksil felt the luckiest man in the desert.

  The palace gates opened now and everyone looked at it. Six young men were led in. They wore only their underwear and their hands were chained behind them.

  Magani stopped at the base of the steps and watched the men get led across the compound, towards the left side of the palace building. “The men who stoned a wajefa,” she said.

  “They have no right to call anyone by that name since that barbaric rule is yet to be reinstated,” Aksil corrected her.

  “What will happen to them?” The lady looked up at the prince as she asked the question.

  “They should be whipped and put to work in the mines for a half a year. They should be killed if the assaulted man dies eventually from his wounds, but Gwafa will not take action against them. He will lock them up and delay until his rule is reinstated then he will free them as people who acted according to tradition.”

  “You do not look happy, kelafa,” Magani spoke, coming up the steps once more. ‘Kelafa’ was the word for referring to a male lover. It was the masculine word to Ma’isha.

  Aksil rubbed his temples. “I am not happy, Magani. I fear we will be wed in a Kalari under old, savage rules. I know many deformed people. I would have wanted them at my wedding and if Gwafa has his way before then, they will not be around for it.”

  “Oh, kelafa,” said the lady, sitting down by his side and pulling him close so his head rested against her bosom. “There are things we cannot control and have no choice but to live with. Then there are those we can control and should simply be grateful we have them.”

  “Ma’isha is a philosopher now, is she?” the prince teased. “Perhaps after we are wedded I will take you to Greece so you teach their scholars a thing or two.”

  Magani laughed and the prince settled his head in her laps now.

  “I could fall asleep and just lay here forever so I don’t have to face the foolishness of the world,” he mumbled.

  Magani smiled and used her fingers to roll up strands of his hair. He liked when she did that.

  ****

  Lunja was before her hut on the compound. She had brought out a small stool and sat in the shadow of the mud structure. Aksil’s cheetah, Chi-Chi lay at her side. The princess watched people go about their daily affairs. Everything seemed to intrigue her.

  “All my life, I have lived in the palace incapable of seeing simple people go about simple things, but out here I see everything and everyone. Now I understand why some people are late about certain things. They have children to feed, people to please, several jobs to do at a time. Life is not easy for the commoner, Chi-Chi.”

  The Cheetah made a lazy growl in reply. The princess looked down at her.

  “Don’t give me that lazy growl, you lazy cat,” she said with a smile. “I will have Aksil make you into a jacket if you do it again.”

  The big cat replied with another lazy growl. Lunja laughed and looked ahead once more.

  “Is that not Magani?” she thought aloud, sighting the pretty, young girl coming out the backdoor of the palace.

  She rose to her feet.

  “Magani?!” she yelled, but the young lady did not seem to have heard as she descended the back steps and turned to walk towards the side of the building.

  “Magani?!”

  Still no reply.

  “Does she not hear me?” the princess wondered, looking d
own at Chi-Chi. The cheetah made no sound.

  “In-law?!” she screamed this time, laughing as she did so.

  “She likes when I call her that,” she said to Chi-Chi. Yes. Magani did like when Lunja addressed her by that title, but not today. The young lady did not turn once.

  Lunja’s laughter died down into a smile. People further away than Magani were looking at her, but the person she was hoping would look did not.

  “Perhaps she has much on her mind and is too lost in thought.” She sat down on her stool once more. “It is not easy planning such a grand wedding as Gwafa wants to give them after all.”

  She watched with a smile as Magani got to the side of the long, palace building and turned the corner.

  “She will make a wonderful wife for Aksil, no, Chi-Chi?” she asked the cheetah, but the animal just made a lazy growl.

  “Lazy girl,” Lunja teased, tapping her hide a bit hard.

  She looked out at the compound again.

  “Life at its simplest,” she murmured, resting her back against the wall.

  ****

  King Gwafa was seated in the Kalarian meeting hall in the middle of the capital; a long, low hut at the side of the town square. Inside was a long table, lined with ten chairs on either side and an ornate throne at each end. The walls were covered with weapons and masks. Several, small, rectangular holes allowed air flow in and out of the hall.

  At one end of the table sat the king and in the twenty chairs at the sides were the chiefs of the twenty Kalarian settlements and/or town. Most were above fifty years of age and only a few were under thirty-five.

  “The wajefa rule must be reinstated,” said the king. “I doubt anyone believes counter to that.” He looked at the council members and they were silent.

  “I am assuming your silence means you all accept.”

  “I cannot allow that barbarism be brought back to my settlements,” said one of the councilmen. He was a man of fifty six, with a full white beard and hair. His beauty was not marred by age and his carriage even in the chair was still regal. His entire head-wrap was of golden thread and his fingers bore rings with heavy jewels. He was Chief Meddur of the Gentali Settlements on the southern edges of Kalari.

  “You call our tradition barbaric, Chief Meddur?” asked the king.

  “The Muslims do not practice, or preach such acts and I believe that among several other reasons, was a contribution to the submission of our neighbors to the Songhai,” the old man stated.

  “So you do as the Songhai does now, do you?” Gwafa leaned back in his chair and stroked his chin.

  “I would never support the fall of my own state to invaders and you were not born yet, but my father and fifteen elder brothers died fighting the Songhai on the Kalarian border to the south.”

  “Oh chief Meddur, your family’s sacrifice to the war is well known by all, but if you do not like the Songhai, why then will you not encourage we uphold our traditions and not consider what the Muslims feel?”

  “Because these people you call wajefa did not wish to be born the way they are. They actually have to deal with the disability every day. We should help them, not kill them.”

  “And our ancestors to whom we pray. They killed wajefa. What makes you feel any different?” asked the king.

  “Development is constant in life, enukal. These disabled people are a great minority among us. They are so few they barely make up a population. We can ignore them at the worst, but killing them is just not something I can support.”

  “I believe Chief Meddur is making sense,” said another chief; one of the younger ones.

  “Is your sister not one of them, enukal?” Meddur asked the king.

  “That wajefa is not my sister, but a stain on the house of Anurabel. She will be removed as soon as possible.”

  “If for some reason you hate your sister then have her assassinated, enukal. Do not drag the entire kingdom into your scheme.”

  There were several gasps from the crowd. Meddur had been rather blunt in his reply.

  “Mind your tone, Chief Meddur,” Gwafa said coldly.

  “I meant no insult, but spoke honestly. Lunja is just as her name implies, a princess of fantasy. If you do not want her, then let me have her. She will make a good wife for any one of my sons,” the chief replied.

  “This meeting was not called to find a wife for your sons, Chief Meddur,” said the king.

  “No, it was called to decide how and why we should kill people who already suffer.”

  The other chiefs in the room were uneasy with Meddur’s brashness. He was almost challenging the king.

  Just then, the door of the hall opened and Prince Aksil walked in. Everyone looked at him and he forced a smile.

  “I apologize for my lateness,” he said as he hurried to his brother’s side.

  One of the soldiers standing against the wall came forward and brought an extra chair to the table, setting it at the king’s right hand side. Aksil sat and smiled at everyone.

  “Greetings and apologies to all,” he said.

  “Shalau!” the chiefs replied in unison.

  “So, where are we on the discussion?” Aksil asked his brother.

  “Chief Meddur was just insulting me for the second time since this meeting began.”

  “Insulting you?” asked Aksil, looking at the old Gentali Chief.

  “I did not insult enukal,” the chief said immediately, touching his left shoulder, then his chest and finally putting his hands together. This was one of the Kalari ways of warding off evil.

  Aksil looked at his brother.

  “He said I should have Lunja assassinated.”

  “I said to have her assassinated if he hated her so much instead of bringing back the wajefa law which would see many others killed just so he could kill her,” the chief said in his defense.

  Aksil let out a sigh and turned to his brother once more.

  “You are not playing this wisely, brother,” he whispered then looked at the chiefs again.

  “My brother and I would like to speak in private. If you would all just step outside.”

  The chiefs rose to their feet and moved towards the exit, the guards going with them also. Aksil waited until they were all gone and he was alone with Gwafa. He turned to his older brother.

  “This law of yours will ruin you more than you know!” he said sharply. “The chiefs are not eager to bring it back which is evident in the way they condone Meddur’s brash utterances. You need to stop this now. Allow the law be forgotten before you have rebellion on your hands.”

  * * *

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