“You see!” Ono screeched smacking her thigh for effect. “Even you, and we all know the Oba thinks highly of you.” A smattering of light gathered at their feet before breaking up to plunder more interesting things.
“All I’m saying is she has to learn her place, not cheat and jump to the front of the line. She is a lot cleverer than we gave her credit for. Before you know it Oba will be giving her even more consideration than the rest of us.” A pair of panicked wings fluttered. Omotole stroked the tender lobe of her ear and the snakeskin amulet just beneath.
If the truth was told, and the palace crier told it with slight reservations to his wife, all was not well in the palace. On appearances, things ran well but underneath, tiny cracks were beginning to appear. Oba Odion had debts, owed to white men from foreign lands and they did not loiter when it came to collecting what was due to them. Hearsay circulated that the Oba may have to sell some of his land or indeed some of his people. Even if they were just prisoners whose captured lives had been reduced to the worth of animals, the rumours both terrified and soothed the courtiers. Councilmen were seen coming out of meetings with the Oba wearing worried expressions. Palace officials hung around their superiors subtly to catch coded sentences. And the cooks were ordered to watch rations carefully, though all meals for the Oba were still to be of the highest standard.
In the north of Benin there was spreading unrest; increasingly dissatisfied with the Oba’s rule, people were claiming that the palace got richer while some of the Oba’s people starved, yet fees for inhabiting land were still being collected. Oba Odion was robbing broken people. These people wanted to put their cases forward, take their legs, hollow with disappointment, all the way to the palace gates to complain. But they knew what awaited them was a punishment more severe than they already suffered. Some of the Oba’s army were dispatched on palace grounds poised to attack at the first sign of trouble. They were strong and lean and wore hammered shields that hugged their upper bodies so closely the men appeared to be made of metal. They carried long, well-sculpted wooden staffs with angular tips. Their eyes roamed not just about the palace and its flock of odd people but over it, as though they were waiting for something way beyond the palace and its high gates.
It was inevitable that Filo, the Oba’s fifth wife would develop an unusual interest in Adesua. The novelty of becoming the king’s fifth wife had long gone; the shine dulled by the harsh reality of life as just another piece in the Oba’s collection of wives. Filo liked new things; when things were new for a brief moment in time they possessed an air of invincibility, of endless possibilities. This was how she saw Adesua, like soft new skin before it started to leather and toughen. Filo studied her discreetly, as though she were a rare butterfly and saw the way Adesua hummed to herself with innocent abandon. How she practiced unusual hunter-like stances she must have imitated from her father or the other men from her village, crouching down low on her haunches as if ready to pounce on any living, breathing thing should there be a need to.
She watched Adesua walking through the palace with an expression of barely concealed boredom. It was clear that becoming a king’s wife was not the exciting life this unusual young woman had envisioned for herself. Filo admired her for her gumption, which she allowed to bubble through to the surface. She knew how it was to feel out of place. She understood. She too was walking around with a big hole inside her. She knew the others could see it because they winced when she stood before them, as if it wasn’t only her words that caused offence but her very presence. The other wives were uncomfortable near her, their silences told her this loudly.
These were the thoughts swimming in her mind when Filo sneaked into Adesua’s chamber, drawn mainly by the sweet energy of the king’s new wife and the fact that she seemed as out of place as Filo herself felt. She had not really intended to take anything, but once inside her eyes alighted on the brass head and it seemed to call to her. Once she had seen it, she could not un-see it. She picked it up and touched it tentatively at first before boldly rubbing her hands on it. It seemed to know her sorrow, to offer itself as her saviour. It was difficult to keep thinking of ways to fill a hole that was too big for your chest. She decided then that if she were caught she would tell the truth.
In another corner of the palace, a gift lay in wait for Oba Odion. He had discovered white oval seeds with cracked edges and a soft centre that throbbed strewn over the floor of his private room. People were questioned but the Oba never found the guilty party. He did not throw the seeds away either, instead, he called for some of the most experienced farmers in Benin to study them. Nobody knew what sort of seeds they were, where they had come from or what they would grow into. Intrigued, the Oba offered a reasonable reward to the farmer who was willing to grow them. Several accepted but nothing happened. It was as though the seeds they buried were dead. Finally Oba Odion instructed that they be planted in the palace garden. Soon, the soil began to rumble. Small blue bulbs popped their eager heads out, simmering while they gulped on leftover dew and tiny embers of dissent.
Queenie, London 1970
At Victoria station the train screeched to a halt, jerking Queenie back in her seat. She paused momentarily to catch her breath, then stood, wide-eyed and excited. She’d just turned twenty and had promised herself on her eighteenth birthday that by the age of twenty she’d be in London. She wanted to reach back in time and pinch her eighteen-year-old self. Instead, she pressed her face closer to the slightly dusty, finger-printed window on her right, swallowing the sights of people milling about. Aah ah!
She’d never seen so many white people. They dispersed like rats into every direction wearing long winter coats, dark colours and guarded expressions. Their eyes looked like pieces of pale sky and their even paler skin seemed thin and fragile. Of course she’d seen white people back home in Lagos. There were the white businessmen her father had entertained in their beautiful, old house. And most of the nuns at Our Lady of Lourdes secondary school were white. Sister Wilhelmina who had a perpetually grey tinge to her skin had a fondness for telling her, “Queenie, you have the disposition of a cockroach! Why are you always where you’re not supposed to be?” And she’d smile back as though she’d been paid a compliment. “Thank you Sister, cockroaches are great survivors.” And Sister Wilhelmina would reply, “Not if you have the correct insecticide.” But secretly, despite her severe nun’s outfit, she was charmed. She’d shake her head at Queenie and smile.
Queenie grabbed her medium-sized black suitcase and two outsized red checked bags, and waited behind a small group of people. She followed them out of the carriage, marvelling at the smoothness and ease of her journey so far. Even eating on the train had been an experience. They didn’t have transport like this back home. Uniformed stewards pushing trolleys containing sandwiches, chocolates, bottled water and doughnuts amongst other things approached and asked if you wanted a drink. Queenie had longed to try the Queen of England’s tea! She’d ordered a cup and drank it daintily, imagining her girlfriends from home gathered around her, ooohing and aaahing at the sophisticated way she sipped, saying very loudly, “Nah wah oh! You have truly come a looong way!”
Queenie dragged her bags along, imagining British angels filling her pockets with pound sterling! She was so lost in her reverie she nearly bumped into another one of those uniformed station guards. This one had a whistle in his mouth and held his hand up to signal her to stop.
“Watch your step dear,” he said, eyeing her as though she was an imbecile. “The way out is through the barriers and then down to your right.”