Arrogance of Destiny Ep.1 By XBX

ARROGANCE OF DESTINY

EPISODE 1
BINI KINGDOM(Modern day Edo state of Nigeria)
CIRCA YEAR 4981

The two huts behind  Oba Ozolua’s throne-room were busy with the movement of women and maidens, going and coming, with anxious faces.

Meanwhile, inside the throne-room was full of celebration; chorused laughter sounded again and again from the room.

The Iyase, chief Nosakhere, stood up. “Umogun will last and live long,” he greeted the king, hitting a clenched fist on an open palm. The other chiefs responded accordingly with joy swimming in palmwine under their belly.



 “This is a day of Joy for us all and for our great king. The kingdom rejoices for their king is expecting the arrival of joy. We should put our mind down, for it is in the presence of witches and wizards that kings are born. It is God that brings children.

“My king, may your reign continue to bring prosperity and things of joy to our great kingdom of Bini.” He put his kola nut back into his mouth and gestured one of the manservant to refill his cup.

“May you live long my king… the king that owns all lands from here to the end of the world. They say the tree planted by the river side can never lack nutrient. The gods is on our side. What is better than one blessing if not two? Osanobua (God) has promised us two. May it never slip our hands,” in turn, Chief Egharevba added.

During all of this merriment in faith for the promised fortunes, the Oba remained stoic. He had had a dream last night.

He was not one that is easily scared, he was not called the warrior king for playing sake, but he was scared, though he would never let it show on his face.

Last night, he was dying of thirst and then rain started falling, he had thanked the gods and came out of his royal hut with relief but then the concomitant wind had blew off his roof. When he turned, all the huts in his palace were roofless. He awoke.

He had gone to the shrine, that morning, where the ancestral staffs were to throw kola on the sand and sputter out gin from his mouth on the ancestral staff.

“Osanobua the father, it is in you I have put my strength and you that has held my hands to build. I pray you don’t forsake me now. Don’t sit back and watch that the devil destroy what I have built. My Ancestors back me that I and my household not fall.”

He had feared it was the white men, the Portuguese, that this omen warns against. But that morning, his two wives had entered into labour at once. He knew things were shifting.

Inside the second hut, Edugie, the midwife, was sitting beside a scrawny baby boy, crestfallen; he had four fingers and four toes but a prince all the same.

It is forbidden to sent words to the king about a newborn that didn't cry; that the lion refuse to roar. Queen Ohonwin, the mother was resting as instructed by Edugie on the bed at the far end of the room.

Birth without birth cry is not birth to begin with. She had pinched the infant prince and slapped him, yet he refuse to cry.  She had even pricked the baby prince with thorns from an orange tree.

You cannot bath and take a new born back inside the mother’s hut without the first cry touching the tongue. Destiny was right around the corner, smiling. Mischievous and all knowing.

The skein of the young deformed prince was tangled and twisted in different ways and place fate come possibly imagine.

She heard a tiny cry from the other hut; the room Queen India was, and as she came out to see, a maid ran towards the throne room.

And then, she heard another cry from her back. Now he crys, too bad.

And as custom demands the first baby cry that reaches the king is the first baby that was born. The first cry that reverberates around the world and back.

What would have become a simple story, destiny has made it long and wrong. This is not the end. It has no end.

XbX