This is a fantasy fiction story I'm playing around with (I put emphasis on 'playing', because I'm really just having fun with this, which means I'm not taking this as seriously as my previously posted works...which in all honesty may or may not affect how far the story goes, but we can have fun together in the meantime ). A couple things to note:

1) THIS CONTAINS ADULT CONTENT. If you are below the age of 18 please don't read I cannot be held responsible for spoiling someone's child
2) This is FICTION that contains characters engaged in SAME SEX RELATIONSHIPS (f/f and m/m in all combinations) if this type of material is offensive to you, please don't read.
3) To those who've read the Marked series:
This is in no way related to the Marked series.


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Copyrighted material
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1

The Nuri slave girls danced like cats in heat. Muscled thighs rubbed wet nether lips, and pebbled nipples brushed frantically against each other. Sharp notes from the drum master’s talking drum, struck in tune with their gyrations, accompanied by a chorus of half-dressed instrumentalists. They blew on flutes, slapped palms against shekere beads and plucked on metallic tines. The music was adequate. The drumming acceptable. And the slave girls quite pleasing. Watching the teasing of their oiled bodies, trained for this type of display, stoked at all my voyeuristic tendencies. My nipples stirred to life underneath my velvet dress. I leaned my head to the side and watched the entertainment. Their hips swung in alternation, one girl pushed forward, stroking herself against the other, and her partner retaliated.

Theirs was a special type of torture.

Their eyes were partially closed, and their lips slightly parted. They let out soft pants of arousal.

All around them, nobles lounged idly. Some had pleasure slaves of their own seeing to their needs. A cursory glance revealed bald slave scalps held in place over erect phalluses and between shapely thighs. I moved my hand slightly and my slave rushed to place a bowl of cubed mangoes within my grasp. The slave boy was new. He was all slim grace, with a sculpted chest and arms slightly bulging with muscles. His cock stood tall and proud. He, like everyone else in my court, seemed to be enjoying the dancing slaves.

I let my fingers toy absently with the yellow cubes in the golden bowl proffered. The slave boy’s eyes rose to mine. His lips parted and a red tongue darted out, sliding leisurely over his plump lower lip, leaving a trail of moisture in its wake. For a fleeting second, I wondered how that tongue would feel travelling up my thighs and lapping up the wetness starting to form between my legs. Then the moment passed and I plucked a cube from the bowl. I fed the slave, a small cube first. He closed his eyes and chewed slowly as if he was savoring every bit. Then his eyes opened, he stared up at me and blinked. I trailed the back of my fingers over his long lashes and fed him another cube. This time he sucked on my fingers as I pulled them out of his mouth.

I smiled and took my focus back to the dancing girls.

They were gifts from the Eze of Nuri, beautiful girls with honey brown skin, rounded curves and full breasts. They had the light skin and short, curly, hair of the Nuri people, much different from my people, the Isan, with our darker skin and longer kinky hair. Nuri slaves were allowed to keep their hair. They did not need to sheer their curls to show their servitude, the brand on their skin did that for them. These dancing girls were branded on their finely shaped buttocks.

The barbarity never failed to shock me. It was not that they had slaves, the Isan had slaves too, it was that their bonds of slavery were permanent. A brand like the Nuris fashioned could not be removed. A Nuri slave would always be known as one who’d been owned. In Isan, our slaves made a choice. They cut their hair when they wished to be enslaved and let it grow out when they desired freedom. Some did it simply because they felt it best suited their natures. They liked to be kept, they were told by the Oracle that service was their calling and they exalted in it. Some did it for a period of time for moneys earned, some in reparation for crimes committed, and some to gain political favor. But slaves could reenter society as free and have no permanent signs to show what they’d been. It was the civilized way of handling such business.

The thud of sandaled feet tore my attention from the dancing girls. I turned slowly to stare at the marbled steps that led up to the dais. Only my family would dare climb without first seeking permission. Tiwo smirked at me from a face that bore an eerie resemblance to mine. His long hair was braided like mine, but only two of his braids were woven with gems. He wore royal beads around his waist, neck, wrists and ankles. He was dressed in the Isan custom, with a velvet wrapper tied around his waist and his chest left bare.

The guards bowed to him as he walked by.

He ignored them with the cool air of an aristocrat placed far above their station.

He strolled up to me, bent, and whispered into my ear, “say whatever you want about the Nuri, their girls have nice tits.” Then he kissed me on my cheek and stood, waiting. Moments later, palace servants in khakis rushed up the dais, carrying a short leather couch. They placed the couch on the ground and descended the stage walking backwards, with their heads bowed.

No one walked with their back to me.

No one but my arrogant twin brother.

He turned his back on me, flaunting our customs with a casual disregard that drew gasps of outrage from my personal guard. They glared at him, but Tiwo was indifferent. I just shook my head. My gaze turned to the rest of the court. Tiwo’s presence had drawn attention away from the ardent labors of the Nuri dancers. Now the nobles frowned their censure at Tiwo, and by extension, me. It was a mark against me that I allowed him to disrespect me. What they couldn’t understand was that I didn’t care.

“Pretty boy,” Tiwo commented, his gaze was on the dancing girls not the ‘pretty’ slave boy who’d frozen up at Tiwo’s words. “Mangoes, boy.” He snapped his finger. The slave didn’t move. Tiwo’s lips tightened. He stared at me over the kneeling boy’s head. “Where did you get him?”

I passed a cursory glance over the finely scraped scalp. “A gift from our mother.”

Tiwo scuffed. “Who did she Bleep this time?”

“Tiwo,” I scolded.

“What? You know she only sends you gifts when she’s in trouble.” Tiwo’s gaze turned to the boy who still knelt stiffly. He hadn’t moved since Tiwo made his comment. Tiwo stretched out his hand slowly. I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he ran his knuckles across the side of the boy’s face.

The slave’s jaw clenched.

“Ah, I see,” Tiwo pulled his hand back, “my apologies.” His lips quirked in a mocking smile. “Will you feed me anyway?” The slave didn’t move. “No?” Tiwo shrugged. He bent forward and scooped out a handful of mango cubes. Then he draped himself back over the couch, his right arm tossed over the back and his left leg thrown over the armrest.

The slave’s jaw ticked. I tended to think of all male slaves as boys and females as girls. It just made it easier, and the ones I enjoyed seemed to like it that way. This ‘boy’ was at least four years older than Tiwo and I, old enough to know better than to openly disrespect a royal. Tiwo was like me, he found pleasure in both sexes as I did, and he was not ashamed of it. I was not perverse enough to share slaves with my brother, but I could not stand them being rude to him.

I flicked my fingers at the slave boy in clear signs of dismissal. His lips tightened and he glared at Tiwo. Then he fixed me with a doe-eyed stare.

“Do I not please you, revered?” he asked. His voice was like saccharine, sweet in a way that was sickening.

Tiwo tsk-ed. “My sister does not like to be disobeyed. You should leave before she punishes you.”

The slave drew up and rounded on Tiwo. He opened his mouth, but I cut him off. “Leave,” I snapped, “and make sure I never see you again.”

He jumped to his feet and hurried away, walking sideways.

Tiwo stared at his muscled backside and whistled. “Mother spoils you with the best gifts.”

Not really. It was just like her to send me a slave that was outwardly pleasing but whose character repulsed me. Besides, I preferred to play with slaves in pairs, like the Nuri dancing girls. Now those two were a matched set. They were so close to the brink, it was obvious in the frenzied way they stroked themselves with their thighs.

“Please put them out of their misery, Tan.”

“Softy,” I teased.

“I look at their fine derrieres and I am instantly aware of the brand that was used on them. Don’t you wonder how they came to be enslaved? Were they stolen from lives they loved and branded? Were they trained to torture themselves with their own sexual frustrations at the end of a whip?”

I turned to glare at my twin. “I could have done without those images in my head.”

He shrugged. It was easy to underestimate Tiwo, when he’d so thoroughly perfected the act of a spoilt, debauched, noble. But underneath that pretense lived a mind as sharp as my sword and a tongue as skilled.

I clapped my hands together. One strike of my palms and the music stopped. The Nuri slaves showed the extent of their training. As soon as the music ended, the hall filled with music of a different sort. The girls groaned. They alternated, high notes followed low ones. Then they bent backwards, their chests lost contact, and they arched, bringing those breasts and their standing nips to a mouth-watering focus.

All the nobles leaned forward, their attentions fixated on the girls who now stroked upwards and downwards, along each other’s thighs, in perfect synchronicity. Then their cries stopped alternating and mingled together instead, in a perfect blend that led up to a mind-blowing crescendo when they erupted in an orgasmic wail. Their chests rose and fell, and they bent even further back, and hung with their legs spread wide, exposing their juices.

“Wow,” Tiwo breathed out.

I stood and picked up my goblet of Nuri chapman.

The hall fell silent.

I turned to the high table on the right side of the room. The Nuri designation sat there. They were headed by an Oza, the highest rank of the Nuri peerage. The Oza that led this designation was the fraternal uncle of the Eze of Nuri. The Oza had served as Umeze, regent to the current Eze after his parents died. He’d been too young then to ascend to the throne. If rumors could be believed, the Oza had raised the Eze as a son.

“We are pleased by this gift,” I said, lifting my goblet, “and look forward to many more years of prosperous trade with the Nuri.”

The Oza stood and bowed to me. “The Nuri are grateful, revered.”

I took a sip of the chapman and let the alcoholic beverage burn down my throat. The liquor in it was light, a Nuri slight to my gender? I ignored the suspicion, sat, and beckoned the slave girls closer.

“You want them,” I said.

Tiwo’s hungry gaze turned to me. “They are yours,” he said.

I had been briefly aroused by their performance, a twitching of my nipples, a little dampness, but I shook my head. The perks of royalty had since left me too well sated. I was not so enamored with them that I would take them for myself when my brother wanted them more. Besides, Tiwo’s words still echoed in my head. If they’d been Isan slaves, I would know they were willing, Nuri slaves…who knew what they thought, or what they’d been sent to spy out in Isan court.

“I see no need to slight the Nuri, so I will excuse myself and take the girls with me. Wait a few minutes and then go to your rooms. They’ll be waiting there for you.”

Tiwo smiled at me. “They are yours, Tan, truly, I can find willing company easy enough.”

“I do not want them.” There was something about this visit from the Oza that did not sit well with me. The news coming from the Nuri-Bono borders these days were troubling. Stories of noble Bono children stolen by Nuri slavers and branded. The Bono people prided purity of the flesh too high to accept a slave as descendant of a noble line. Those children, once branded, were forever lost. There were whispers of a war brewing between our neighbors. The Bono bordered us on the East and the Nuri on the West. Their lands rounded the River Nulin and met at the rivers end, making them neighbors as well. In the event of a war between their nations, ours would be forced to pick sides.

The Isan and the Bono people were tightly bound. My father’s mother was Bono, my mother was currently remarried to a Bono, and chances were that I would marry the youngest Bono prince. If war broke out between the Nuri and the Bono, the Isan would side with Bono. I did not want two Nuri slaves, no matter how delectable, in my bed in the event that happened.

“Ah,” Tiwo said. At times it was as if we shared one mind. His eyes narrowed on the naked slaves who knelt at the foot of the dais. “Have no fear sister, I will take one for the great Isan nation, and suffer myself to coax their true nature out of them.” His devouring gaze scoured over their flesh. I scoffed, suffer indeed.

If it was anyone else, I would feel the need to remind them that the Nuri slaves belonged to me now, which made them Isan slaves, subject to our laws and our deference to the calling that bound them. But it was Tiwo, and my brother and I were of one mind when it came to servitude.

I stood. “Yes, I am sure fucking beautiful women will be a real hardship for you,” I teased dryly. Then I walked off the dais and left the hall, the Nuri slaves crawling silently in my wake.

2

It was cool for a midweek night, cool enough to enjoy an outdoor swim. I pulled my tunic off and jumped into the water. I waded through it, letting the coolness of the liquid seep through my skin. Midnight exercises were a rare occurrence for me, but tonight I had found myself in the gym, pounding my stick against Mede’s intransigent ones. The water wiped off the last of my sweat.

I swam around the edges of the pool in a single lap and then climbed out.

“Towel,” I said.

The rustling of leaves greeted my request. The stream was ensconced by palm trees and shrubs, two kilometers behind my suite of rooms. I glanced up and peered at the white moon. The Oracle taught that my ancestors all lived in that moon. We were descended of the Egbabonelimwin, the dancing masquerade, whose spirit lives on in the moon. When I died, I would join them and gaze upon the work of my descendants as the moon stared down at me.

“Revered?”

My lips tightened, my eyes narrowing at the familiarity of the voice. I did not like to beat slaves, well, I did not like to beat slaves who did not enjoy getting beaten. For this boy though, I could make an exception. I swiveled, hoping that my ears had been playing tricks on me.

They hadn’t. It was the slave boy from the hall, the one who’d been rude about spurning my brother’s attentions. It was his right to refuse my brother’s advances, but did he have to do it so discourteously? And these were the gifts mother gave me.

He knelt on the ground, naked, with his head bowed and his hands extended, palm up, holding out my towel.

I regarded him coolly. I should strike him, I should. I’d ordered him to make sure I never saw him, and he’d disobeyed me. No one disobeyed me.

I plucked the towel from his fingers. “From where do you hale?”

“Bono, revered.”

My hands froze in the process of raising the towel. That was not the answer I’d expected. His skin was dark, much too dark for the Bono, who of the three Nulin nations had the lightest skin. I’d thought he would mention an Isan village. Well, a slave from Bono, that would explain why he reacted to my brother the way he did. The Bono people saw all forms of homosexuality as unclean, and the act violated their ruling tenet of verdure.

My anger towards the daring slave lessened.

“And you came to Isan because?”

The boy kept his bald head bowed. “Service is my calling, revered, and Isan is the only nation I could find freedom in slavery.”

I sighed. It was the perfect answer. Perhaps not perfect for others, but perfect for me. Nothing was more enticing than a slave who luxuriated in service. My fingers, of their own accord, found the curve of the boy’s earlobe and stroked. He inhaled sharply and his breathing became erratic. My lips twitched.

“I did not know that the Bono sought their calling.” In fact, I knew it was the opposite. The Bono were ruled by the tenet of verdure. It was only in Isan that the tenet of calling was honored. It was due to that tenet that I was Oba instead of my brother. Tiwo was born a day earlier than I was. His older age made him, by Bono standards, fresher, and rightful heir. The fact that he was male would have made him rightful heir in Nuri, whose tenet of stratum put males above females. But the oracle proclaimed the calling of service and erudition for Tiwo. My calling was better suited for leadership.

My fingers trailed from his earlobe to his neck and he leaned his head slightly in the other direction, giving me better access. A glance downwards showed that he was already semi erect. When I ran the pad of my thumb across his face I felt the brush of trimmed whiskers. I stepped in closer, close enough that he could smell my arousal.

His eyes snapped to mine.

“Answer me,” my voice was lower.

He swallowed. “I am the eldest son of wealthy sugar merchants, but no matter how hard I tried, I failed in all ventures to further my parents’ wealth. Then I heard tales of the Isan way of living, of how following one’s calling helped one achieve their fullest potential, and so I visited the shrine of Egbabonelimwin and asked for my calling.”

“Do you want to taste me?”

His lips parted and I saw a glimpse of tongue. Would he dare stick that tongue out and run it along my folds without permission? I thought of how I would punish him if he did, and my arousal heightened. His nostrils flared.

“Answer me, pretty boy.” I wondered if he recognized the endearment my brother had given him. Then I tipped my leg forward and stroked him with my toes, till he hardened and a bead of precum poured out of him.

His tongue came out then, but only to wet his lips. “Yes, please, revered.”

That was all I needed to hear. I stepped back from him. He made a sound of protest and stared dazedly at me, as if he was suddenly unable to place his surroundings. “Please, revered,” he begged.

I liked begging.

I didn’t like him.

It wasn’t his fault. He was Bono, he’d been raised from birth with the belief that homosexuality was an insult to their Eyo masquerade. So, it only made sense that he’d reacted to my brother the way he did. What annoyed me wasn’t that he refused Tiwo, but that he’d been belligerent and scornful. A slave should know how to say no without being rude.

I spread my towel out on the grass and lay on it. Then I parted my legs and stroked myself.

“Please, revered, please, use me.”

I stopped and turned to face him with my wet fingers resting idly on my outer lips. “You insulted me when you insulted my brother,” I said, “until Tiwo forgives you, I do not want to see you again. The next time you come into my presence without my permission, I will not treat you so leniently. Now get out.”

He stared at me, and for a second, I saw the flash of something in his eyes. In that moment his gaze hardened, his jaw clenched, and his eyebrows pulled together. His hands tightened into fists and the muscles in his biceps flared. He had more muscles than I did, but I was taller, I was taller than most men. Even if I wasn’t taller, I would still be able to beat him. I wondered if he would dare attempt to strike me. I could see that he wanted to. This was the result of the Isan way of servitude. Our slaves made the choice to serve, we did not force it on them. It was their decision to end that slavery whenever they pleased. It was their choice and so they fought their own internal battles. I got more aroused watching this boy fight his. Then the moment passed, and he bent, bowing till his forehead touched the ground.

“I am grateful for your mercy, revered.” He crawled backwards, away from me, waiting till he reached the cover of the trees to rise. It was not a form of abasement I required of anyone. It was actually the kind of thing that a Nuri slave would do. That thought cooled my desire, but I kept my fingers where they were and rubbed languidly. My eyelids pulled together.

“Shall I fetch a slave to help you, revered?”

I smiled. “Why fetch a slave when you can help me yourself?”

Then I turned my head to the side and opened my eyes. Mede stood with her body facing me but her gaze respectfully averted. She was dressed in her tumbler uniform, a tight red girdle that extended from her neck to her midthighs. She held her spear in her left hand.

I chuckled at the effort she exerted to keep her eyes off me, and rose. Mede was on the list of people I derived no pleasure in unnerving. It was a short list with only three names: my mother, Tiwo and Mede. Once upon a time, I would have said that Mede and I were a hot Bleep just waiting to happen. She was thirty now, ten years my senior, but we’d been together since my tenth birthday, when the Oracle read my calling and my father named me his heir. She was my trainer, my servant, my guard, my tutor, my friend, whatever role I needed her to play, she played, except for the role of lover. I put on my tunic.

“It is safe to look now,” I drawled.

She turned and our eyes met. Ten years ago, when she’d been chosen as my companion, my heart had leaped at the sight of her. Her oval-shaped face, her curvy body, which she’d trained to a fatless perfection, her heart-shaped lips, her long lashes. I sighed. Some women were just made to be admired.

“Did you want something?” I asked.

“I saw Tiwo walking unaccompanied along the southern edge of the palace. I attempted to accompany him, but he refused. I don’t think he should be walking around unescorted when we have foreign visitors.”

I nodded. It was funny, I was the Oba, but Tiwo was the one that needed protection. My foolish brother could barely wield a cutlass, but that didn’t stop him from making enemies wherever he could. No Isan would dare harm Tiwo, but with the Nuri delegation in the palace…I’d hoped those Nuri girls would keep him distracted. I sighed and let Mede lead me away. She walked a step behind me.

“Did I mention that you look particularly good tonight?” I asked.

“I could say the same thing to you.”

I froze. Then I swiveled. Mede’s eyes bubbled with mirth. Mine narrowed. “Are you teasing me?”

“Can’t take what you dish out?”

“I usually follow through.”

“That Bono slave boy might disagree.”

“So you saw that.”

She nodded. “Interesting tactic, for one who’d disobeyed you. He’ll do it again. Men are hardheaded dolts.”

She didn’t like men. I knew enough of Mede’s history to understand why. “I’ve never had problems disciplining my slaves. I don’t think he’ll do it again, but if he does, he will regret it.” I turned and we continued walking. The night was mostly silent. We wove around trees and came across palace guards standing at several posts throughout the grounds. None of them were tumblers. They bowed, and I acknowledged them with a nod they couldn’t see with their heads bowed. But I did it anyway. My father had taught me to always acknowledge another’s service. By acknowledging their service, we acknowledged their calling, and honored our masquerade.

“Oga abeg!” The cry came from our left. We both turned towards it and ran. “Abeg!” the voice pleaded. ‘Abeg’ was a slave’s prerogative, it was their cry that the act of service being requested went beyond their calling. No Isan person would push a slave beyond that point. But this slave kept crying, ‘oga abeg’. I used my tumbler training and climbed up a tree. Then I jumped from that tree, to another, and then another, until I was standing close enough to see the tableau. It wasn’t just any slave being assaulted, but my Bono slave. A man in a white lace agbada, with a bag mask over his head, had forced the Bono slave to the ground and was climbing on him, deaf to his cries of ‘abeg.’

I looked down and cursed at the wall of thick shrubs beneath me and the lack of trees in the enclosure they stood in. I jumped back, to another tree, and then climbed down, jumping when I was close enough to the ground. I rolled to my feet and raced towards the wall.

“Revered!” I heard Mede screaming for me, “wait for me!” It was obvious that she’d chosen to discard her spear and climb the trees after me. I ignored her calls and ran towards the shrubs. I had to run around it to find an opening. Who’d designed this?

I stormed into the enclosure and found the slave boy kneeling to the side, heaving, while my brother fought against the masked man in the agbada. My brother had zero skill as a fighter. The masked man punched him across the face, and he fell. I ran to the man and pulled him backwards as he moved towards my brother. He was as tall as I was, which was rare, but he was bulky, much bulkier than me. His stomach was rounded and his arms and thighs big. He had the look of a person with muscles underneath all his fat. I aimed my feet at the back of his knees and kicked him, hard.

He stumbled. And then turned around to face me, swinging. He stopped when he saw me. “Woman,” he spat out. I saw his eyes narrow through the slits in the bag he wore over his face. “Get away!” he snapped. His Isan was heavily accented, but it was still clear enough to understand. He turned back towards my brother. I punched him in his side. Then he turned back to face me and sent the back of his left hand swinging towards my face.

I dodged his slap and punched him twice in his fat belly.

The man growled, giving me his full attention as I danced back, away from his swinging hand. He lashed out, I bent and punched him underneath his arm. His growling got louder.

“I do not fight women!” he yelled at me.

“Then I feel sorry for you.” I smashed my elbow into his face, exulting in the solid contact of my bones against his nose.

He yelled. He slammed his forehead against mine. The contact was hard, it blurred my vision and made me stumble. I caught myself before I could fall, but as I turned back to face him, I saw his meaty fist approaching my face. I reared back but not fast enough. The punch made solid contact with my cheek. I spat blood. He reached for the collar of my tunic and I ducked and drove my smarting head into his stomach. He grunted, but he didn’t stop. He absorbed the blow, grabbed my unadorned braids, and pulled. Then he shoved me to my knees on the ground and bent over me.

I could tell the moment he realized who I was.

His hand stopped, mid swing, and he froze. His eyes widened and I saw terror in his eyes, as if he realized the enormity of the mistake he’d made. He shook his head and his accented words came out pleading, “Revered…” Whatever he was about to say was cut off.

The rounded edge of a cutlass stuck out of his neck.

“Revered!” Mede came bursting into the scene.

Tiwo pulled his cutlass out of the man’s neck and he fell, taking me with him. I was crushed underneath the man’s bulk and wetted by his blood. “Jugga trader, tell nunu, the doubles...” he whispered into my ear and then he stopped speaking and I could tell that he was dead. The awkward slant of our bodies forced my head to the side. I pushed at him and then rolled out from underneath his large body.

“Tan?” Tiwo ran towards me. “Are you alright?” He extended his hand and drew me to my feet. Then he ran his fingers over the bruise on my face, where the man punched me. I was more concerned with the blood that had plastered my tunic to my body.

“Revered,” I could tell from the tone of Mede’s voice that something was wrong. Very wrong.

I turned around.

Mede had taken the mask off the man.

Suddenly, his reaction to seeing that I was the one he was fighting made more sense. He wouldn’t have struck me any further. He’d been pleading with me for mercy.

I walked forward and bent over the corpse of the Oza, the head of the Nuri delegation. This man was said to be as a father to the Eze of Nuri. I thought of what I would have done if someone murdered my father. My mind reeled with the political implications of killing such a prominent member of another nation’s royal family. He’d ignored a slave’s cries for him to stop. He’d insulted that slave’s calling and defied our governing tenet. By Isan law I had every right to kill him, especially after he attacked me. By Isan law I had every right to order his execution, but diplomacy mandated that I communicate with the Eze of Nuri before seeking such drastic terms. If I’d killed him in self-defense though…no nation could argue against that.

I turned to face my brother. Tiwo’s eyes were wide with shock and he looked sickened by the revelation of who he’d killed.

“I killed him.” I declared.

I turned my gaze on Mede first. She nodded.

“No,” Tiwo shook his head, “no, I did this. I will travel to Nuri, I will explain myself to the Eze of Nuri.”

“And he will kill you,” I snapped at him. “Slaves are less than nothing in Nuri. Their tenet is stratum and slaves don’t even fall on any level of their strata. He will not understand how you could kill a noble to defend a slave. I killed the Oza in self-defense. I ran into the clearing, I saw you fighting and then I took him on. He knocked me around, I found your cutlass and I shoved it into his neck. I killed him Tiwo.”

“No,” Tiwo’s eyes rounded on me, “I cannot let you…”

“Let me?” I cut him off. “I grant you a lot of leave but don’t forget that I am your Oba. You will obey me brother.”

His head hung. He nodded.

I turned to the Bono slave, kneeling to the side, his eyes soaking up all that was happening. Our eyes met and we shared another moment. I saw the surge of power that colored his features. The corners of his lips tipped upwards and his eyes shone in triumph, as though he was already planning all the ways that he could use this knowledge against me. Then the moment faded, and he bowed to me.

“Your brother saved me, revered, he fought for me when all I’d done was insult him. He had no reason to protect me, yet he risked his life to do so. I will not cause him any harm.” The slave’s words should have comforted me, but after the look we’d shared, they did not.

I turned my back on him and shifted my focus to the Oza’s corpse. “Fetch the Nuri delegation,” I said. It was Mede who left to do my bidden.

Jugga trader, tell nunu, the doubles.

The Oza had whispered those words to me with his dying breath. They made no sense. I massaged my throbbing head and waited for the consequences of this night to come crashing in on us.

I've literally spent a good amount of time today trying to see if this story will violate NL posting regulations and then I just decided to just post. So, if for some reason during the duration of this I'm unable to keep posting here, and the interest exists, I've prepared my blog so that I can move the story over there.

Enjoy!

See who is back. Our own Obehid
Following bumper to bumper.

Hello guys. This promises to be interesting.
No need to thank me. Y'all are welcome.

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Bring it on OP.

tunjilomo:
Hello guys. This promises to be interesting.
No need to thank me. Y'all are welcome.
Yemike

the maestro strikes again

Thanks for the mention, although I couldn't find my username

Looking forward to more of this ObehiD!
Thanks for the mention Tunjilomo e-kissesss!

Tunjilomo..... I acknowledge you

Yo!!! Obehid is back... This promises to be a bumpy ride....

Obehid abeg come update

Following

Where is this girl/woman/lady called Obehid?
We are waiting...

I'll only be able to post updates once a week. I'm thinking this time (Saturday mornings) would be best

3

The Nuri delegation filled one half of the enclosure. They were all men, they all wore white agbadas, and they all tried very hard to school their features into emotionlessness. No one but the palace guards and the royal family was allowed to wield weapons in the palace, but I could tell from how often the Nuris reached for their waists, that they were fighting men and that they wished for their weapons just then.

I let the gender of the delegates distract me. There were no women. I’d never been to Nuri, and I never wished to go there, but I’d heard of how they kept their woman. I imagined myself as a Nuri woman and swallowed down the gag reflex that thought invoked.

“For a slave,” one of the Nuri men spat out. There were thirteen of them, the total number of the Nuri delegation, excluding the newly deceased Oza. The man that made the comment stared at my brother and spat.

They’d tried, unsuccessfully, to find fault with the Oza’s death. They couldn’t blame me for rushing into a scene and defending my brother, and they couldn’t blame me for taking the life of one who’d attacked me and showed no signs of stopping – I’d edited the last part a bit, choosing to hide the Oza’s reaction to discovering my identity – the only fault they could find was in my brother starting the fight in the first place.

Tiwo stood tall. The both of us were of a height, and we both towered over the men in the Nuri delegation. He stood beside me, and so the only people who could tell how nervous he was, were the ones who could see the hands he held behind him, shaking. I was the only one close enough to see it. My personal guard, all tumblers, stood by my right and my brother’s left. There were seven of them, Mede included. We’d also summoned a number of our nobles, who lived at court. It put the odds strongly in our favor, with two Isans for each Nuri.

“Here, a slave is one who answers their calling to serve. It is an insult to our Oracle, and our Oba, to refuse an Isan slave’s ‘abeg’ cries. I would not be a person of honor if I did not intercede. It was your Oza who was in the wrong. He wore a mask to hide his identity while he performed the shameful act of raping an Isan slave.”

I groaned. Tiwo’s words showed how troubled he was by what he’d done. My brother was usually too smart to make the sort of blunder he’d just made.

All of the men in the Nuri delegation reared back. They gasped and then muttered amongst themselves, speaking in Nuri, and shaking their heads. The biggest one amongst them, pushed himself from the background and stepped forward. He pointed at Tiwo. “Me. Challenge. You. Fight.” He spoke the Isan words with a heavy Nuri accent.

Tiwo’s hands clenched behind him. He kept his face straight, but I saw his coloring change imperceptibly. He was starting to look a little grey.

I cleared my throat and the Nuri muttering stopped. Their gazes on me were insulting. They eyed me, and their lips pursed with disgust. The Oza was the only Nuri person I’d met who wasn’t instantly repulsed by the idea of a woman empowered to lead others, including men. He’d seemed decent to me, for a Nuri. But then, I’d also seen him attempting to rape a slave, so, obviously, looks could be deceiving. Perhaps he was just better at hiding his true nature.

I let the silence hang, giving the Nuri men the time to compose themselves. They may not like that I was a leader, but I was, and there was nothing they could do about it.

“There will be no challenge,” I pronounced. “We are deeply aggrieved by the crime that was committed here, against our person.” I pulled the corner of my lip backwards, drawing attention to my bruised cheek. My skin smarted, but I ignored the pain. “Our brother misspoke. Of course, he acknowledges that the Nuri people wear masks when they seek communion with the Ijele masquerade. The Oza was no doubt returning from prayer when he fell upon our slave. We sincerely regret that the exchange that occurred led to the loss of such an exalted personage, but the Oza struck us, which is a crime punishable by death.” I turned my attention to the man who’d tried to challenge my brother. “We understand that you will need time to return to Nuri and bury the Oza. We will send, with you, a formal missive to the Eze and moneys of reparation.” The Nuri men inhaled sharply, as if the suggestion that any amount of money could make up for the lost life, offended them. “If the Eze of Nuri does not accept our reparations, then he is invited to come here and discuss such matters with us in person.”

My Isan nobles nodded. To them it was a fair exchange, but the Nuris disagreed. Instead they bore the pinched expressions of people who’d just been insulted. It must pain them that there was nothing they could do. Of the three Nulin nations, Isan was the most powerful. We had the strongest armies, the fullest coffers and the most bountiful land. If the Eze of Nuri wished to declare war on Isan, when he was already facing the possibility of war with Bono, then he would be crushed by the combined might of both of our nations, and the Nuri delegation knew it.

Affronted though they were, they walked over to pick up the body of their dead Oza.

“Nuri. Isan. Fight!” The Nuri man who’d challenged my brother spoke. I ignored him. If he was stupid enough to think that his Eze would declare war on Isan, then he was simply foolish, and there was nothing I could do about that.

Then they dealt me the insult of turning their backs to me.

My nobles gasped.

“Stop!” They kept going but were forced to stop when they came face to face with the tumblers who’d rushed to block their exit. The Nuri man who’d issued the challenge seemed to be spoiling for a fight. He threw the first punch.

It was easy to underestimate the Isan tumblers, dressed in their red girdles, if you’d never had the privilege of seeing them fight. They were the ones, like me, who the Oracle had declared had a calling for motion, blessed with the same dancing skills as our Isan Egbabonelimwin masquerade. Men and women with this calling, trained day and night, for years, to turn their natural limber into deadly accuracy. They could throw a spear, or fire an arrow, from five kilometers away and hit their target. When they moved their body, it was as if they had no bones in it.

The Nuri man’s hand came forward and the tumbler, dropped his spear, grabbed the man’s hand and then turned him over his body, till he was on his back on the ground. Then, in a single motion, he rose with his spear, placed his feet against the man’s throat and the sharp point of his spear against his side. The tumbler turned to me for permission to kill the Nuri man.

“Should we order his execution too?” I asked, in a bored tone, “or will you show us the respect we deserve?”

“First you kill our Oza, then you insult us!” One of the Nuri men spat out.

“Your Oza struck us and we killed him to save our life. Would you rather he lived, and we died? Was that the true purpose of this visit? Did the Eze of Nuri send a delegation to kill us?”

The Nuri man who’d spoken stared at me with wide eyes. He was much older than I was, old enough for grey hair to form and mix with his black curls. I imagined he was in his sixties. He saw a woman of my age and his automatic response was to be belittling. What he didn’t understand was that I was neither young, nor a woman. I did not have the privilege of being those things. I was Oba.

“Well?” I snapped. “Did the Eze of Nuri send a delegation to Isan to execute us? Is this an act of war?”

Every person seemed to stop breathing. All the men in the Nuri delegation had turned now to face me. They were all much older than I was. A delegation like this would only be composed of elderly men. Age was one of the deciders of the levels in the Nuri strata.

“Of course not, revered, of course not.”

“Then let us remind you that you stand on Isan soil. You will not disrespect us and live to tell the tale.”

The man in the lead, the one who’d spoken to me, turned ashen. He bowed. “Forgive us, revered.”

“Leave.” I flicked my fingers in dismissal. Then I turned to the tumbler still waiting for permission to execute the Nuri man, and I shook my head. He stepped off the man’s throat and pulled his spear away from his body. This time, when the Nuri delegation walked out, they did it without turning their backs to me.

I turned to my nobles. “Thank you for bearing witness. You may leave now.”

The nobles bowed and then they backed out of the enclosure, leaving me alone with my brother, my tumblers, and the kneeling slave. As soon as the last of the nobles was gone, Tiwo dropped to his knees and threw up. I stared at the area of sand that was now soaked with the Oza’s blood, only then allowing myself to think about what we’d done. It had to be done. I’d lied. That lie, the one I’d told about the Oza attacking me, even though he knew I was the Oba, it ate at me.

Motion and guidance, those were my callings, and the first lesson my father taught me on the calling of guidance was honor. The lie of me taking the Oza’s life was not dishonorable, I had done it for my brother. But the lie of the Oza’s nature, acting like he was the sort to knowingly attack a leader in their own nation, discredited the Oza’s memory. I tried to tell myself that he was a rapist, and so he did not have any honor to erode, but it was my honor that had been affected by the lie.

I forced my mind away from it even as my eyes rose to the full moon. The spirit of Egbabonelimwin looked down on me, and I knew that my father lived on as a part of the masquerade. My gaze turned from the moon to my brother, who was still retching. I dishonored myself for him and I would do it again, just as I knew that he would do the same for me.

Perhaps our father had been wrong to keep Tiwo from war. He’d been so bad at fighting and it was not in his calling and so no one had seen any purpose for it. Now though, I couldn’t help but wonder if he would do better if he’d seen death before. I’d seen death, perhaps too much. Our father had started taken me to war with him, from the moment the Oracle declared my calling.

The night was quiet again. Tiwo had finally stopped heaving. I focused on him and noticed that the slave boy had moved over to him and was now soothing him. He’d cushioned Tiwo’s head on his shoulder, and ran his fingers through his braid with one hand, while the other hand stroked Tiwo’s back. My eyes narrowed. Could I have read the situation with the slave wrong? Had he reacted so strongly to Tiwo’s advances because he was interested and despised himself for it? I did not know and I was too tired to try to contemplate slave behavior.

I walked over to my brother and knelt by his side. “Let me take you to your room. I’ll spend the night with you in case you need me.”

He turned to me and smiled. His eyes had the wet look of one who’d either just cried, or was struggling against tears. He was about to nod, but the slave spoke up before he could.

“Please, let me take care of him, revered, I owe him at least that much.”

I frowned at the slave, then turned back to my brother. “Tiwo?”

He grunted. “I’ll choose a slave in my bed over my sister any day.”

The appearance of Tiwo’s wit showed that he was coming out of the haze that killing the Oza had put him in. I nodded. Then I bent to kiss his cheek.

I stood, then turned my attention to the slave supporting my brother. I stroked his neck. He closed his eyes and made a purring sound. I couldn’t help it, something about the slave just didn’t sit right with me. But it was Tiwo’s choice and I could not take that away from him. “Take care of my brother,” I said to the slave.

“Yes, revered, it would be my honor,” and he sounded like he meant it too.

I walked out of the enclosure and went far enough away that I wouldn’t be heard. Then I beckoned for Mede and Eghe, the tumbler who’d put the Nuri man on his back. “Stay with my brother. I don’t want him alone with that slave. I don’t care if that means you have to watch them Bleep.”

“Yes, revered.”

I turned my back on them and made my way to my suite with the rest of my tumbler guard marching behind me. I needed wine, not Nuri chapman, but heavily fermented Isan palm wine. My thoughts kept drifting back to the Oza as we walked the grounds.

Jugga trader, tell nunu, the doubles.

Did I care about that dying message? I remembered his voice whispering that in my ear, and how imperative it had sounded. He’d realized he was dying, and he’d whispered it to me. But why? How could he possibly think that I would be able to decipher anything he said? And why did I care? He was a rapist. Not in Nuri though. In Nuri, what he’d tried to do to my slave was the right of a free man of his strata. Slaves in Nuri were considered so low that their gender was determined irrelevant. Things that a free man wouldn’t consider doing to a free man or woman, he could do to his slaves, and the slaves had absolutely no choices in the matter. They took the gift of service and spat on it. I took that and added it to how they treated women, and then purged my thoughts of the Oza’s dying words. Hopefully, this would be a much-needed lesson to the Nuri.

Cold seeped into my feet as I climbed up the stairs to my suite. Four palace guards stood at attention there, holding their cutlasses in their hands. They bowed when they saw me. My tumblers rushed forward to open the walking gate. It was an art, how they managed to release the lock without once turning their backs on me. I walked through and then sent the tumblers to their beds. I did not need the escort in my suite. I barely needed it in the palace.

A visiting dignitary from the city-states of the Iyo empire told me once that my suite was the size of a palace of a monarch in his nation. I thought about the man and smiled at the memory of the night we’d spent together. Iyo was close enough to go visit, they were our closest neighbors outside the Nilun nations. No, I’d enjoyed his company but not that much.

A marble courtyard greeted me. The buildings in my suite were arranged around the courtyard. I had guest rooms in the building closest to the gate. There was a shrine, at the back of the compound, an entire bungalow that was a parlor, just for entertaining, a building with a kitchen and a dining room, and the biggest building, the pleasure chamber. There were over twenty rooms in that building, and I’d been told that my parents had kept it full of pleasure slaves. I didn’t even want to think of how they’d manage to see to all of them. I only had six pleasure slaves at the moment, including the Bono and the Nuri dancers. I had to think of what to do about those Nuri girls.

I looked away from that building and turned back to my personal one. It was a large bungalow with three rooms. Mede slept in one, Tiwo owned another, even though he had his own suite in the palace. Mine was the master. I walked into the building and headed straight for my room.

I opened the door and found a candle burning on my desk and a naked body in my bed.

He was a light sleeper. As soon as I walked in, he stirred. I closed the door and his eyes popped open. He sprang up.

“Revered.”

“Not tonight sweetheart.”

The slave climbed out of the bed and walked towards me. He stopped. “You’re bleeding.” His fingers brushed lightly over my cheek and an adorable frown fell over his face. “Someone hurt you.”

“He’s dead.” He blanched, and then reared back with his mouth agape. I rose my fingers to his scalp. “Your hair is starting to grow. How much longer?”

His gaze dropped. “The Imperial slave master told me the hair would be grown enough to see in a week.” He was silent. “I would stay longer, but my parents need me. I cannot put my pleasure over their needs anymore. I…”

I placed my finger over his lips. “Shh, you don’t need to explain yourself. I will miss you.”

He looked up at me and smiled. “I’m still here for one week.”

I let my hand trail over his flat belly, down to his lazy cock. “Yes, you are, and I will give you a sendoff to remember. But not tonight.”

“Let me take care of you,” he said in a rush. I opened my mouth to speak, but he forged on. “No sex, just a bath, some food if you desire. A drink perhaps?”

I smiled at him. “Thank you, I wouldn’t say no to a glass of palm wine, but I’m too tired for a bath.”

He bowed and walked out of the room.

My fingers moved to my temple and rubbed absently. I would miss the boy when he left, he had a magic tongue, and his stamina wasn’t bad either. I walked over to my dressing room. A few steps through this room and I’d be in the pool which palace servants kept full of nice, warm, water. I’d left the door open so that faint rays from the candle burning in my bedroom lit my way. I stopped in the middle of the dressing room and took off my tunic. Then I left it resting on the wide backless sofa in the middle of the room.

When I walked back into the bedroom, the boy was kneeling on the bed, holding a glass cup in his hand. I could see through to the milky liquid within it. He’d only filled half the cup, even though he knew I liked my glasses of palm wine filled to the brim. I sat on the bed and frowned at him. “I’m too tired to beat you.”

He smirked. “I know.”

I plucked the glass from his hand and downed half of its content in a single gulp. “I won’t be tomorrow.”

“Do you promise?”

I chuckled and emptied the glass. He took it from my loose grasp.

“Just leave it on the table and come back to bed.” I pulled down the covers, waited for him to climb in, then I climbed in and let him snuggle close to me.

Sleep came easily.

“Revered,” an angelic voice whispered into my ear. The voice was accompanied by light shaking. I groaned. How long had I been asleep? I opened my eyes and was instantly aware of sunlight drifting into the room. The servants drew back my curtains at the same time every morning. I sat up, careful not to disturb the boy sleeping beside me. Then I turned to Mede.

“What is it?” She wouldn’t have come to wake me herself if something wasn’t wrong. I focused my jumbled thoughts on the events of last night. The pieces came back to me like a slowly forming jigsaw puzzle. “Is it Tiwo?” I asked, once the full picture came into focus.

Mede stepped back. “It’s the slave he took to bed.”

I jumped up and marched towards the dressing room. “What happened?” I barked out. “Didn’t I tell you to watch them?” There were racks of clothes. I rarely dressed myself, but I knew enough of my dressing room to fetch a new tunic. I put the tunic on and Mede had still not answered my question. “Well?”

Mede kept her head bowed. “The slave hung himself from the balcony of your brother’s room.”

I stopped midstride. “What?”

“Your brother asked for privacy while he slept. Eghe and I waited until they were both asleep before leaving the room. We did not think that that would disobey your orders.”

“You could have just sent the slave packing when they were done.”

“Your brother wanted to sleep with him.”

I groaned and forced my feet forward. “And he hung himself?”

“Yes,” Mede bowed when I reached her, “he left a note.”

I walked out of my room without waiting to see if Mede followed. She’d follow. It didn’t make any sense. I’d expected the slave to make demands, to use his knowledge of what happened in the enclosure for favors, money, maybe even position. Why would he kill himself? I rushed to the stables. Tiwo’s suite wasn’t so far that I could not walk, but I wanted to get there as quickly as I could.

“Sandals,” I ordered. There were three servants in the stables when I walked in. They all stopped and bowed. The one closest to me found my sandals and knelt to put them on my feet. “Saddle two horses.” The other two servants rushed to prepare my horses. I turned to find Mede standing behind me. As soon as the horses were saddled, I jumped on top of one and rode out. Servants pushed the gates open. I tightened my legs around the horse, urging it to move faster. This wasn’t my regular horse, but it knew me well enough to pick up speed.

We made it to Tiwo’s suite in a matter of minutes.

I tossed the reins of my horse to a servant and rushed to Tiwo’s personal rooms. His were in a three-bedroom building, with the master bedroom on the top floor. I ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, until I got to Tiwo’s room.

He was half dressed, in khaki bottoms, leaning against a desk, with a glass of juice in his hand.

“Tan,” he greeted. “How was your night?”

He was too put together. I glared at him, ignoring his carefree appearance. The window that led to the balcony was open and hanging from one of the rails in that bedroom, was the Bono slave.

“Pull him up.”

Eghe and Mede came to do my bidden. I’d been in so much of a hurry that I had not even seen Eghe standing by the door. I turned my back on them and faced my brother. His eyes held mine. He lifted the cup to his lips and drank. Tiwo’s attitude was wrong. I stopped beside him.

“Is that the note he left?” I gestured to the piece of paper on the desk.

Tiwo nodded.

I picked it up. There was a lot of rambling in the note about the tenet of verdure and how he’d broken that tenet by sleeping with another man. He was careful to explain that he’d consented to sex with Tiwo, and that he’d enjoyed it. It wasn’t till after he was done, that he realized how much he’d failed the Eyo masquerade of the Bono people. He hoped his parents wouldn’t be ashamed of him, but he’d done what he thought best. He rambled on some more. The note was perfect for Tiwo, seeing as it made sure to document that Tiwo was completely blameless.

I glared at my brother.

The note was a piece of crap.

“Leave us.”

Mede and Eghe left, taking the body with them.

“You wrote this,” I said, as soon as they were gone.

Tiwo’s eyes widened. He shook his head. “Sister, I would never…”

I slammed the sheet of paper onto the table. “Cut the crap.”

He sighed. He put the glass down, took a few steps away from me, and then stood with his arms folded. “That is not my writing.”

“It’s a very good attempt at not looking like your writing.”

“Let it go Tan.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“Let it go.”

“I swear on the masquerade, Tiwo, if you don’t tell me what happened I will have you tortured.”

He glared at me. Then he walked over to his bed and lifted his pillow. He pulled out another sheet of paper, an exact replica of the one that Tiwo wrote the slave’s fake suicide note on. He walked back and held the sheet out to me. “We bleeped. I fell asleep and woke up to the slave scrawling that.”

To his majesty, the Eze of Nuri, if you want to know what really happened to your fraternal uncle, the Oza you sent to Isan, meet me at…

I tore my gaze from the note. This was what I expected from the slave, but I’d expected him to try to get something from me. Was he going to use this note to blackmail me? I eyed my brother. “This still doesn’t explain why you killed a slave in my kingdom.”

He sighed. “I value the calling of service just as much as you do, Tan, but this slave wasn’t normal. When I touched him in front of you he flinched, as if he was repulsed, but when he came to my room last night…let’s just say I wasn’t the first man he’d been with.”

“So, you killed him for acting repulsed?”

“Tan!” He groaned. “I saw him writing that note and I tried to reason with him. I promised him wealth, I told him we could make him an Isan noble, I even said you would let him Bleep you if he wanted. Nothing I said got to him, Tan. He was set on sending the note to the Eze.”

“So, then, you killed him?”

He threw his hands in the air. “Don’t act like I’m a murderer! I didn’t kill him expecting you to come in here and cover it up for me. I told the slave that I wouldn’t let him do anything to hurt your reputation, or this nation, and he said I’d have to stop him. We fought, I pushed him, and his head hit the table. He bled out. That’s the truth.”

My eyes scanned his body, watching every feature in his face, every incline of his eyebrows, every blink of his eyes, every movement of his lips, every flexing of his hands. “You fought, you pushed him, he died?” I couldn’t help but notice that he’d taken the time to scrub his room clean of the boy’s blood.

His eyes held mine. “Yes, Tan, I swear.” He gestured to the balcony, and the rope the slave had been hanging from. “I panicked and did that because I thought it would look bad if the Nuri delegation found out that I killed the slave we told them I fought the Oza to defend.”

“What will I do with you Ti?”

He looked away. “I’m sorry, I was just trying to make up for the problems I caused with the Nuri. I thought I could reason with him. I swear Tan, there was something off about him.”

“No,” I shook my head, “there was nothing off about him. Because, if there was something off about him, then we may not have seen what we thought we saw with the Oza.”

Tiwo’s eyes widened. He shook his head. “It’s not possible Tan, I walked in on the Oza pressing his face to the ground while he thrashed around, screaming ‘abeg’. I told the Oza to release him, he refused. What other interpretation could there be?”

“None.” I ignored the voice in my head reminding me of what I’d thought about the Oza before that incident and the way he’d whispered those words into my ear, like he was desperate for me to remember.

“Let the suicide stand Tan. It’s the best thing for all of us.”

No. I could not fail my calling again. I was called to guidance, and the moment that slave accepted his calling to service, he became a child of Egbabonelimwin. Not to mention the fact that he was my slave. He was mine to protect.

“Mede!”

The door opened and she came in. They’d been standing outside, close enough to hear. I trusted them both with my lives. The tumblers were a special breed, their loyalty to the Oba was absolute.

“Revered,” she bowed.

“Send a message to our mother, tell her that we will be coming to Bono. Also, have someone find the boy’s family. He mentioned that they’re wealthy sugar merchants. We will be taking his body back to them.”

Mede bowed. “Yes, revered.” She walked out.

“You’re making a mistake Tan.” Tiwo muttered.

“No!” I snapped at him. “We will go to Bono and we will do the honorable thing and tell the family what happened. They deserve better than to think their son killed himself. We will pay whatever reparation they demand.”

“What if they demand my life?”

“You fought, so his death was an accident, they do not have the right to demand your life in payment.”

“But they have the right to demand reparation in service. Will you give me to his family as a serf?” His bottom lip shook. “Please Tan, just let the suicide stand. Please.”

“Don’t you understand? He forsook the Eyo masquerade when he answered his calling. To then kill himself out of shame for fulfilling his calling, it is an insult to Egbabonelimwin. If they think he affronted both masquerades, his family will not give him an honorable burial. They will be shamed by his death, Tiwo, we cannot let that happen.” I walked over to him and sat on the bed beside him. “We will go to Bono,” I said, pulling him into my arms, “and we will make reparations. I will not let anything bad happen to you, Ti, but we will make reparations.” I held him till his fears subsided.

Ok.

Beautiful work

I'm thinking that the slave had something else with the Oza......

@dawno2008 thank you

@cassbeat hmmm, maybe you're right...or maybe you're wrong

obehiD:
@dawno2008 thank you

@cassbeat hmmm, maybe you're right...or maybe you're wrong

I leave it to you Revered

Thanks for the update

Ann2012:
Thanks for the update

Thanks for reading

Chapter 4

We arrived in the capital village of the Bono nation like a splash of color on a plain canvas. A troop of fifty warriors, all dressed in red velvet wrappers, marched to our sides, and behind the procession. I rode in front, and was surrounded by my personal guard, fifteen Isan tumblers in their red girdles, white shoes, and black and red painted faces. It was our custom, on formal occasions, for the tumblers to paint their faces to resemble that of our Egbabonelimwin masquerade, with red and black vertical lines. Tiwo, dressed in his formal embroidered velvet wrapper, rode beside me. Behind us, in horse-drawn carriages, were the court nobles who’d chosen to accompany me. The Bono slave’s preserved corpse rode in a place of honor between the nobles.

It had been five years since I’d last visited this nation, but everything seemed to be as it was back then. The roads were still pure white, the houses pure white, the people, dressed in white. There was just something about Bono that made me feel like I had to tiptoe around the place, so that I didn’t stain anything. If you ask me, they took their tenet of verdure to a wholly unnecessary level.

We’d been in the Bono nation for two days now, but I already missed Isan. My nation was colorful. Our roads were the natural red of the clay soil we were blessed with. There were no color mandates to stop our Isan people from designing their houses in whichever way they pleased. I was sure somewhere, in some back village in this nation, there had to be a cream-colored house.

The white houses fell away as we drew closer to the palace. We were still half an hour’s march away, but I could already see the pointed spikes at the top of the gate. Finally, the scenery changed, and greens emerged. There was no grass, just trees sprouting from bleached white sand beds. I saw pawpaw trees, coconut trees, palm trees, the stems had been painted white, but the fronds were left in their natural state of lush green.

“I hate this place,” Tiwo said. He spoke loud enough that the tumblers riding closest to us would have no difficulty hearing.

I glanced at him. He held his reins in such a tight grip that the veins in his hands stood out.

“Didn’t I say that nothing bad will happen to you?”

Our eyes met, then he snapped his head away, his braids whipping through the air, before settling down against his neck. “If you remember, I hated this place the last time we were here, and that was before my sister decided to make me a serf.”

I clenched my jaw and chose to ignore him. I could reassure him, but nothing I said would change his mood. He didn’t like things he couldn’t control. He would fret about this visit until the confrontation with the slave’s parents was done.

“Mede, did you find the slave’s family?”

She turned to me and drew her horse closer to mine. We all rode Bono horses in deference to their tenet. The Bono only rode on white horses.

“Yes, revered. At the Ooni’s invitation, they will come to the palace tomorrow.”

I nodded. That meant I only had one full day to put up with my brother’s shitty mood. Lucky me. “And our mother?”

“Will be waiting to greet you at the palace.”

“Did you tell her to come to the palace? We would have gone to her husband’s village to visit with her there.”

It was hard to read Mede’s face underneath all of that paint. She paused, then, “your mother has been living at the palace for the last year,” she said.

I pulled back in shock, drawing the horse’s reins with me. The animal’s head reared up and it neighed in complaint. I relaxed my fingers on the silver leather and ran my hand through the horse’s mane. It quieted.

“Did you know this Tiwo?”

Tiwo grunted. “Did you think that a single village would be enough to contain our mother? I’m sure she ran out of men to Bleep and so she went for bigger prey.”

“That’s enough!” I snapped at him. I could count on one hand the number of times that I’d raised my voice to my brother. I wasn’t surprised when painted faces turned to gape at me.

“What do you want from me?” he snapped back at me. He didn’t yell, so only Mede and I could hear him. “I’m here, I’m riding at your command, I’m preparing myself for years of service to a sugar merchant, when all I did was try to protect you. What more do you want?”

I closed my eyes, forcing myself to breathe in slowly and then exhale at the same speed. Then I opened my eyes and turned my back on Tiwo.

The tumblers shaved all hair from their face before they painted it. I could not see Mede’s eyebrows, but I’d been with her long enough to know that she was frowning.

“You should not let him speak to you like that,” she scolded. She kept her voice low, just as my brother had kept his low when he snapped at me.

I smiled. “Have I mentioned how good you look today? Not even paint can hide your beauty.”

“You’re impossible,” she responded with a smile of her own.

“I try.”

She chuckled.

“Why is my mother living at the palace?” We’d been educated in Bono from an early age. Tiwo and I had learned the language from our father’s lips, and it had been his milk tongue, the language his mother had spoken to him. Our father had made sure to teach us our Bono lineage, a lineage that extended to the Alake of Ikeja, the man our mother married, less than a month after our father died. The Alake was first cousins with the Ooni of Bono. The Alake had been set to inherit when the late Ooni’s marriage had no issue. Then the current Ooni had been born, a miracle baby. In Isan the Alake and Ooni would have been raised as brothers, but then, the Isan court did not have the kind of political scheming that infested Bono. It’s that scheming that turned the Alake and the Ooni into rivals for the throne. Now, they smiled at each other in public, but deep down, I didn’t know two men who loathed each other more. Why would the Alake move his family to the palace?

“You’ll have to ask her that,” Mede replied, “but, as much as it pains me to agree with your brother, I think the reason he gave is not far off the mark.”

Mede was basically echoing Tiwo’s sentiments that our mother slept around. A lot. I did not like it when people insulted my mother. I knew that she had her shortcomings, and her failures, but she was still my mother. Besides, I found it highly hypocritical for anyone to judge her for taking the same pleasures that the men she married did. I loved my father, but he hadn’t exactly been faithful. And from what I remembered of the Alake, and his wandering eyes, I doubted he was a one-woman man. If he enjoyed women outside his marital bed, my mother had the right to claim the same.

“Still, it would be an insult to the Alake for her to leave his home for the palace. Say whatever you want about my mother, she would not slight the man she chose to marry.”

“The man she chose to marry not even a month after our Oba died,” Mede’s voice was bitter. For a woman who didn’t like men, she’d adored my father. Perhaps that was why I liked her so much.

“Well, I suppose we’ll find out her reason soon enough.” I said.

We kept up our pace, moving the horses slowly enough that the warriors marching with us had no difficulty keeping up. It was a sign of respect and trust that the Ooni allowed a contingent of Isan soldiers to march into Bono, as I allowed the same of the Bono when their royals came visiting. It was not a relationship that I shared with the Nuri.

As soon as my thoughts drifted to the Nuri, I remembered the tenseness that had followed our last encounter. The men’s lips pinched together and their eyes glaring hatred of me. I’d sent them with a handwritten letter to the Eze and with enough money to buy a small Iyo city-state. They had been offended when they loaded the chests into their wagons, and offended as they stood still, watching me leave, and offended as they departed on their journey.

“What are you thinking about?” Tiwo’s voice broke into my thoughts.

I turned to my annoying brother and quirked an eyebrow. Now he wanted to talk?

He sighed. “I’m nervous, okay, I’m sorry for speaking to you like that.”

“I told you that nothing bad will happen to you. Why can’t you just believe me?”

He looked me squarely in the face. “I hate this place,” he said, “and you are not quite as powerful as you think.”

I shook my head, but I couldn’t help smiling at that. He smiled back and the tension between us eased. “I’m powerful enough to have you beaten to death.”

He laughed. “You’ll beat me to death, but you won’t let a slave’s death pass without making reparations in person. Have you stopped to think of how the Eze of Nuri will react to this?”

I smiled, I actually had stopped to think of it. While it wasn’t my intention to insult the Nuri, I couldn’t help but feel a little frisson of joy at the fact that it had happened anyway. I could see how the Eze could see this as an affront, the fact that I had chosen to take the corpse of a slave back to his family in person, while I sent his uncle’s corpse back with money. What the Nuri didn’t understand was that as Oba, I took the callings very seriously. I hadn’t liked the slave very much, but he’d answered Egbabonelimwin’s calling to serve, and his service brought him to me.

“There is a world of difference between the death of a slave who’d answered his calling, and an Oza who’d insulted our callings by trying to rape a slave.”

“I know, I just don’t think the Eze will see it the same way.”

I shrugged. “What can he do about it?”

Tiwo’s seriousness chased some of my apathy away. A gem on his braid caught a ray of light from the sun and reflected it at my face. I had to look away.

“Do you know how old the Eze is?” Tiwo asked.

“Seven years older than we are. Why?”

“The men were scared.”

“What?”

“The men in the delegation, they were scared. I know you thought they acted the way they did because they’re Nuri and all Nuri act badly towards women leaders, but I think they were scared.”

“Scared of what?”

I looked back at my brother when the blinding beam moved. He’d shifted his head. My gaze met his dark, intent, one. “That’s a good question.”

I scoffed. “You can’t honestly expect me to believe that those arrogant men, who were all well passed forty, by the way, were afraid of their twenty something year old king.”

“I’m thirty years old and I’m afraid of you.”

I smirked at Mede. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.

I shifted closer towards her. “You know,” I began, Tiwo chuckled, he knew me too well, “there are a lot of things we can do with your fear. I mean, it’s not that big of a distance between fear and arousal.”

She groaned. “Please stop.”

I laughed. Horns blared and bells chimed, breaking the relative silence of the day. We’d reached the large white gates of the Ooni’s palace. Palace guards in white long-sleeved shirts and trousers, wielding white painted cutlasses, pulled the gates open. The majority of the Bono were albinos, but the ones that weren’t bleached their hair and skin white. That’s why it had been so strange to hear the slave boy, with the dark Isan complexion, say that he hailed from this nation.

My warriors fell into their lines in front of the gates. They would not be entering the palace with me. My tumblers would be my only guards in there.

“Seriously, revered,” Mede said as the gates creaked open, “I don’t think I would be able to face you if you left your brother in my care and I brought him back to you dead.”

I turned to face her. “What are you saying Mede?”

“You see the world in a certain way, but you have to understand that your views are not shared by the Nuri. Your brother is right, they will see this is an insult.”

I gritted my teeth. Did I have blinders on when it came to the Nuri? It was no secret that I did not like them. They branded their slaves. They made a mockery of service. They took, by force, what should only be freely given. And that wasn’t even considering how they treated their women.

“I will not go to Nuri.” I said, “but if the Eze is displeased, perhaps we can meet in an Iyo city-state and discuss.”

“It will not be enough,” Tiwo warned as the gates drew fully open.

A roadway of white stone led to a large white building that spread out at least ten kilometers. In front of that building, there was a tent with white pillars and a white tarp roof. Several people stood underneath the tent. The Ooni stood in front, and to his left, his wife and to his right…

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Tiwo sounded appalled.

What was our mother doing standing so close to the Ooni? And where was her husband, the Alake?

Tiwo’s eyes bulged as we drew closer. He swore. “She’s pregnant,” he said, unnecessarily. I could see the rotund stomach she cradled in her hands. I groaned. What was mother up to now?

Chapter 5

Mother was fifty-six. Women her age had already had their menopause. Not our mother though, she looked like she was fifty-six going on thirty. Her brown face was inexplicably devoid of wrinkles. She’d started greying years ago, but her Isan hair was still full, and the grey did nothing to make her look younger. Instead it just added a tinge of mystery to her looks. Our father had been three years her senior, but he’d aged so poorly that he’d looked almost thirty years older. I smiled thinking of how he’d teasingly call her a mami wata, a servant of the Ekpe masquerade, who was known to give youth, beauty, and special supernatural powers, to any willing to sell their soul in the bargain.

While father only joked, Tiwo truly believed that she was.

Several young Bono men came forward, carrying short white steps, seemingly to aid us in dismounting. I jumped down before they arrived. Tiwo would wait, but the rest of us on horses had tumbler training. Mounting and dismounting was a game we played.

The Bono welcoming party spread out beside the Ooni’s tent. I glanced around and saw several faces devoid of the classical Bono pigmentation. They stood out. Just as mother stood out as the only person with a dark skin underneath the white tent.

“Welcome, my daughter,” the Ooni called out. He stepped off his dais and approached me, his arms spread out and a deeply jovial smile on his face. The Ooni was a classical Bono. He was an albino dressed in the traditional Bono iro, which for males was a white shirt worn over a white wrapper with a white gele wrapper tied around their necks, and for females was a white buba tucked into a white wrapper, with a white gele tied on their heads. And, as if the white clothing wasn’t enough, he also carried a white walking stick with a jeweled knob.

“Your highness,” I greeted with a nod.

The old man threw his arms around me and pulled me in for a hug. “Uncle,” he chided. He was a few inches shorter than I was, so I had to turn my head so that my chin wasn’t sitting on his white-cream hair. He smelled faintly of sweet spices. I grew misty eyed inhaling it. My father had smelled the same way. My gaze turned to my mother and my mouth tightened. She stood serenely underneath the tent, cradling her belly, and smiling down at me as if there was nothing wrong with her presence here. And why hadn’t she told me she was pregnant?

The Ooni released me.

I remembered that he’d been a close friend to my father, close enough to take my mother in because she was having troubles with her husband? He started walking forward, and I was so distracted by thoughts of my mother that I didn’t realize he was holding onto my wrist until I found myself dragged forward in his wake.

He led me up the dais, passed the bowed heads of Bono nobles, passed my mother’s serenely smiling figure, passed his wife, to the man standing right beside her. He appeared to be in his thirties. He had the white skin and hair of someone who bleached, not an albino. He was a bit taller than the Ooni, which still put him about an inch shorter than me. He stood tall, his back ramrod straight, and his poise that of one who was used to being obeyed. His features showed little emotion. Beside him, stood a woman, with bleached skin and hostile features. She seemed to loathe me, which was interesting, coming from a woman I had never seen before.

“This is my eldest son, Taiso, the Alaafin of Bono,” the Ooni boomed. The natural cadence of his voice seemed to be a bellow. The Alaafin regarded me coolly, moments passed in which we did nothing but stare at each other. His eyes narrowed on me.

I waited.

He bowed. “You are welcome revered.” I inched my head down by the barest fraction. “Allow me to present Neka, my Olori.” He gestured to the woman standing beside him, the one who glared hatred at me. Her reaction to me was needling. It was not my experience to be loathed on sight. It usually took me opening my mouth to elicit this kind of reaction. I learned something interesting about the woman then. As soon as her husband and the Ooni turned to her, her face became a mask of humble pleasure. She averted her gaze from me as though she was shy.

“You are welcome, revered,” she bowed and curtsied.

The Ooni pulled me along. He had a large grin on his face, as if he couldn’t wait to make the next introduction.

It was to the man standing beside the Alaafin’s wife. He appeared to be a man in his mid-twenties. An albino, like the Ooni. He was dressed in the iro of a young man, who by Bono tenet was still ‘intact’, which meant he was supposed to be a virgin, not yet married. The Bono virgins had wrappers that only reached their knees, unlike the married whose wrappers swept the floor. The Bono tenet of verdure renounced all forms of intercourse until marriage, and even during marriage, the only form of intercourse acceptable was vaginal. There was a reason why I’d held off so long on formalizing my betrothal to the Ooni’s youngest son.

“This is Debisi, my youngest, the Alake of Ibadan,” the Ooni announced with a grin.

He bowed to me. “Welcome, revered.”

I stared at him. I’d met him before, once ten years ago, he looked different. He was the same height as his brother, only an inch shorter than me, which for some reason I found oddly pleasing. When he rose his head, I could tell how uncomfortable he was. He wore glasses, and his hair, though cut short, was in an interesting state of disarray. He certainly didn’t have the natural confidence of his brother. I could see this man kneeling to me, worshiping me as my slaves did. That thought made me smile.

“Well,” the Ooni said, “this is my youngest son.” He released my hand and turned to stare at me. “You’re intended.” The emphasis he put on the word explained the gleam of excitement in his eyes. While I was aware that my father and the Ooni had discussed the union of our families, I was not aware that those talks had risen to the point of ‘intension’. I was just about to voice my thoughts when I saw the adorable flush on Debisi’s neck.

I smiled and walked over to him. The red on his neck deepened the closer I got. When I bent to kiss him on his cheek, right beside his lips, his face filled with color. I’d never played with someone who could blush before. I usually stayed with my people, and our dark skin made blushing impossible to see. I could have a lot of fun with him.

“Hello,” I whispered into his ear. The red crept up his cheeks to his ears. He cleared his throat and opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

The Ooni laughed.

“You see, I told you they would get along well!” He declared to everyone.

I stepped back, aware of the watchful eyes of my ‘intended’ crawling over my skin.

“Didn’t I say it?” He turned to his right and the direction of his gaze pointed towards his wife. I found it interesting that he’d introduced me to his children before his wife. He walked back in that direction and I followed, fully expecting to be introduced to his Olori. “Didn’t I say it?” he asked, again, but I frowned when I realized the question was directed at my mother, not his wife.

“Yes, Baba, you said it,” she smiled at him.

His laughter was so loud I wouldn’t have been surprised if the tent shook. “I don’t need to introduce you two,” he said.

My mother smiled at me. “No,” she shook her head, “but perhaps you should introduce your wife…”

The Ooni’s eyes widened and his lips rounded into an O. Then he threw his head back and laughed. He walked back to stand beside his wife and he placed his hand behind her waist. “I forgot,” he said candidly. I frowned at the man. I didn’t know what to make of him. It was one thing to forget to introduce your wife, it was another entirely to confess to that fact. “My Olori,” he said.

The woman was small. She was short, with a thin frame. An albino.

“Your highness,” I greeted her.

“Welcome, my daughter,” her voice was so small, I could barely hear what she said. But she smiled kindly at me. I smiled back.

“My dear,” my mother’s voice in contrast was loud and rich. She cupped my face in her hands. “It is good to see you Tanose.” She kissed me on my cheek. “Tiwosa,” she smiled at my brother, who was standing on the ground, “my beautiful twins.” Tiwo did not smile back.

There were many things I wanted to discuss with my mother. Like why she hadn’t told me she was pregnant. But the Ooni, in his booming voice, declared other plans.

“Come,” the Ooni said, “let us eat and drink as a family reunited.”

A family reunited? There was politics involved in this. There was always politics, and now I found myself digging through my brain to find it. I longed for Isan and the beautiful neutrality of my nation. I did not know why the Nuri and the Bono always seemed to be close to war, but whenever they fought, we inadvertently got dragged into it. Once upon a time all three of our nations had been one, one Nulin nation, with five masquerades. Now we were divided, and the fighting never stopped.

The Ooni led the way down the dais. Mother wrapped her arm around Tiwo when we walked by and Tiwo stood stiffly in her embrace. I wanted to go to them, but I could not, not when the Ooni seemed determined to occupy me with talk of the feast he’d had prepared and the entertainment. He mentioned dancers and my mind went to the Nuri dancing girls. I knew that the Bono would not provide similar entertainment. Their tenet of verdure would forbid such an unclean spectacle. I chuckled to myself.

We made our way through white metal doors, to a white-tiled corridor, and into a large white parlor. The room was like my great hall in the Isan court, except there was no dais, just a circular room, with a long white couch in the front, and many more couches facing that one. There was space between the couches to walk around, and a space in the middle for what I assumed would be the entertainment.

The Ooni led me to the couch in the front of the room, then he sat in the middle of it, gesturing for me to sit beside him. “Debisi, sit by your intended,” he bellowed.

The poor boy’s face turned red as he rushed to obey his father. Taiso and his wife sat on a couch facing us. I was surprised to see my mother sit beside the Ooni. There were no signs of his wife. Slowly, the people trickled in. Several of my tumblers stood at positions around the room, their spears in hand. Only Eghe and Mede stood behind me. Tiwo looked very uncomfortable, sharing a couch with Taiso and his wife, who’d gone back to affecting the look of harmless amiability.

“Bring the food!” The Ooni declared. Then he started coughing. I frowned when my mother stroked his back, saying, “calm down, you know you need to be careful of your health.”

The Ooni coughed. Worried gazes locked on the old man’s shaking frame. He’d seemed so animated, I found it hard to believe that he was anything less than in perfect health. But the scared glances showed otherwise.

“Maybe you should go and rest,” Taiso suggested.

The Ooni flicked his hand at him. “It’s just cough,” he sounded irritated. He heaved when the coughing stopped.

“I think Taiso is right, Baba.” The soft, pleading, tone of my mother’s voice made my frown deepen. I’d only heard her speak that way once before, to my father. Her eyebrows were pulled together in concern.

The Ooni chuckled. “You see how your mother spoils me,” he said. “Okay, iyawo, let’s go.”

I reeled. My confused gaze stopped on Tiwo. He looked disgusted, but not surprised.

I found myself turning to Debisi, simply because he was the only one close enough to ask. “Did he just call my mother Iyawo?”

Debisi nodded.

“Why?”

He looked at me as if I was stupid, and then he covered up the expression. “She is his mistress.”

“The child?”

“Is my father’s.”

I felt like I was going to be sick.

But the party went on. The Ooni left, supported by my mother, and trailed by guards. Taiso stood, walked over, and took his father’s place by my side, with the ease of one who’d grown accustomed to doing so. His wife glared her hatred of me. Servants came in carrying trays of food and behind them came the dancers, dressed in white iro and musicians in white tunics.

This is good.... very good

Wonderfully done, great link of known Nigeria tribes with a twist of some "should be" elegance. Added with nice conversation and good description and total raw African ingenuity.

Good work,Pls keep it flowing.

ObehiD please naw update more than once a week naw
Please nawww

@movmentish yay, I'm glad you like it!

@dawno2008 Thank you, I'm happy you think so That's exactly what I'm aiming for in terms of the Nigerian heritage and using that

@GeoSilYe I'm sorry, I can only post once a week for now, but I'm really happy you're enjoying it so far