Chapter Two

Title:GIVE US CHILD, OR GO

(Marriage With A Mandate)

Chapter Two

"Ehn, this talkative is here already?" "This is the 15th anniversary, yet she isn't tired," Queen Lati murmured.

She hates Princess Yemi and Princess Yemi equally hates her.

She watched her through the window coming, she was full of emotion, she did not know somebody was watching her.

"I dreamed of her today and she's here!" She hissed, "...bad example of a sister-in-law, with no husband, never for once married, but puts eyes on how her brother's wife dresses, cooks, and sweeps!"

"Is our Queen in?" Princess Yemi asked, having rung the bell.

"Welcome, Aunty." Queen Lati greeted her and prevented her from bending her knees. " You're like my mother-in-law, have said it often," she reminded her.

They chuckled and embraced one another.

"So, how are the Queen and King doing?" she asked, with a broad smile.

It was a fact-finding question but Queen Lati did not understand.

"As in…?" she asked her.

"Ah! As in man and woman affairs nau!" she said, thrusting a look at her.

"Still, can't understand, aunty," replied Queen Lati.

"Okay," she said and gestured what she meant.

"Okay, okay, ...that is in the hand of God," Queen Lati understood, and her face froze.

"In God's hand, yes," agreed Princess," but heaven helps those who help themselves." she quoted the scripture.

"Aunty, excuse me" Queen Lati dashed up and dashed down, squeezed the photocopies of her tests into her hand, and sat again, watching her browse through the tests.

She had done the two tests to be justified in any secret affair she is having or might have.

Why? Because since she came into the palace, she had not seen the first queen with pregnancy, only with one daughter and now she is two years plus in marriage, not recorded any pregnancy.

"Then, what's the problem if we don't have a child for over two years?" she asked.

"Ask your brother!" Queen Lati sounded provoked and paced about, not knowing when she paced away from the sitting room.

6: 30 pm the next day, Sade, the chief maid she calls Mama Sara ran in.

" Princess came with a lady!" she announced and gazed at her face.

"How is she?" asked Queen Lati, askance

"It's from the window I saw them, I didn't see her well?"

She blanked her face: King has only two sisters. Their lastborn, Ruth, can't be here without stopping first to see her or at least, put a call to her.

" How long now?" she asked, with a slant of the neck and a steady gaze at her countenance.

Mama Sara's answer will make her calculate right.

"Over thirty minutes," she told her.

She rummaged in her head through King's many female relations, ruling out Ruth." Let's go!" she rose without further delay, taking Mama Sara's hand, half running.

"Your Highness, wait, wait, Mama Sara hushed her "What are you going to say or do if…?"

She shook her fist as she paused.

"Don't be nervous yet," said Mama Sara.

She had been a long-time accomplice or mother-confessor to her.

She calls her mummy too and she calls Queen Lati's mum, her friend.

She was tall like Queen Lati and her bust was almost like Queen Lati's.

She was already working in the palace when Queen Lati was married.

"Young Queen," she would gush each time she saw her." just like when I was Sade," she would say.

" Mummy, how do you see this outfit, I see that you love my bust. Does it go well or is it tight?" Queen Lati asked her one day as she was cleaning the house for her.

"Your Highness, saying you are cute is an understatement." Mama Sara eulogized her, and that was what she loved.

Are you serious?" Queen Lati had asked.

She just needed confirmation and she said what she liked, and they became besties, she could ask her for anything and she does confess anything to her.

When her mum visited and saw how close a Queen and her maid were, she asked why and she explained.

Her mum asked Mama Sara how old and they became friends hearing they were of the same age.

"Let's go, don't worry!" Queen Lati took her hand again, they were jogging.

" This way!" she shoved Mama Sara into the flower hedge and went up alone.

She barged in, unfortunately, she saw the lady.

She was between, as she calculated, thirty-seven and forty and she did not need a soothsayer to know she was being introduced to King.

They were seated in the parlor taking some light drinks.

"His sister brought somebody for him." Queen Lati passed the message across to her mum.

"How sure?" her mum asked her.

"Am I a baby?" she responded.

"Keep whatever you are feeling pending till we come for the anniversary," said Deaconess Bimbo

* * *

"Your sister-in-law said she loves my headdress, I kicked her hand away!"

Deaconess Bimbo told her daughter, Queen Lati.

She had left the coronation high table to join her who had retired to her quarter and King had slept.

"Mum, Why?" Queen Lati glared surprised at her mum who was with caution, carrying a spoonful from her dish across the dining table to push into her mouth.

" Open your mouth!" she barked at her." You know anything?… somebody does not want your daughter, and you allow her to touch your head!"

Queen Lati mumbled, "True o!"

"Eat, eat!" she was carrying another batch of a spoonful from her dish across, more carefully this time because of the height of the heap.

"Mummy, okay nau, am watching….".

"Shh, eat the last….watching…if you want to be like a needle, all for you, but not that that idiotic is the cause… I will deal with her!"

"Hey!" Ethel, barged in "who is mum dealing with?" she asked, darting eyes at her sister and mum.

"Will you get back, naughty girl!... told you this girl is never like us, no respect! " she smashed her head with a murderous look.

If judged by Ethel's word, she was ninety percent right.

The only similarity she shared with her two daughters was her complexion.

Ethel and her senior sister, Queen Lati, were tall.

She was 1.70 m and Queen Lati was 1.74.

Both were blessed with bountiful breasts, the kinds that bring blessing to parents of the possessors of such breasts.

Deaconess Bimbo's similarity with them is in her chocolate color as we know.

They are pure chocolate, but she is short and round.

She had tried to talk sense into Ethel to marry the richest man she saw and continue with her education, but she refused, for that though she is the mother, she booked her name in the list of useless people.

Queen Lati, what her mum said about her approach to her worry was not comforting.

Her daughter is being pushed front and back that she should give her husband at least a child to show she was not a 'man' but 'cool down, cool down' all she says… never wants a divorce.

Will Queen Lati, like Caesar, remain silent for fear?

* * *

Queen Lati slipped out and three maids led her to King's quarter. Lots of merrymakers were scattered in the palace being the reason she was escorted for such a secret assignment she was going for.

She gestured for the maids to wait downstairs.

She climbed up.

Inside, tiptoed, tiptoed…like walking on eggshells.

King had slept but could wake up any moment.

She diverted into his office, took out a leather bag from the chest of drawers, unbuckled the brown leather bag, slipped out a sheet of paper with King's letterhead, and began to write on it.

She folded the paper into her bra, arranged the bag as she saw it, and out, tiptoed, more cautious.

It was like she was dancing out, holding herself not falling.

"...last risk, Lati, for the bastard!" she prayed in her heart and felt relieved as she returned to her apartment.

Thinking her mum will praise her, she showed her her accomplishment.

"If not that you're queen, I would have called you a fool!" her mum lambasted her, with a curious look that finished what she withheld.

Not done, she tore the letter into pieces and tore the pieces into more pieces and hurried for the packer and the broom.

"So, if left alone, you will end your marriage like this?" she steadied an angry look at her frowning face

If eyes could slap, Lati would have been wailing with red eyes, not frowning.

"If the prison authority releases him, and the king tells them to produce him, what will you say?...tell me!" she said.

* * *

At her vanity table, this was three days after the coronation. Sad, her attempt to get Fred out has failed, she was looking at the mirror, probing her face which was the meter she uses to measure the extent worries had accumulated in her heart and a call came, and she ignored the disturbance.

Because it continued to ring, she picked it up.

"Lati, Lati!" the caller eulogized her, and she felt the caller's excitement."It's Milfred, your man ooo!" said the caller.

"Who gave you my number?" she asked, hurt and overwhelmed with surprise.

"Lati, wait…fear of you killing me, made me not look for your number all these years. Please forgive!!!!"

"My question is, how did you get my number?"

Queen Lati did not want to talk further until he tells how he got her number.

This was a man, almost an ex-husband who disappointed her.

The reason: is that her mother whom he calls a witch was why they did not marry.

According to him, her mother said she will remain unmarried till eternity if not the girl she chose for him.

He married the mother's choice, and eight years passed, and then he was calling her line.

Could you imagine? Who would pick up such a call, knowing the caller?

"Milfred, who gave you my number?"

What was Milfred after? Would you date him if you were her, especially if your mum arranged the date?

Read on oooo! Quite an internet