Chapter Three
Title:GIVE US CHILD, OR GO
(Marriage with A Mandate)
Chapter Three
"You know when we didn't marry, your mum hated me?"
"Oh! she did? and was she wrong?" asked Queen Lati
"That's why it's the will of God, for her to tell me to talk to you. Please, without you I am empty."
Queen Lati was silent, trying to figure out something.
"Mum, gave you my number?"
"Yes, Lati. Let that not be the issue but let's see our coming together as the will of God."
"Don't ever mention God, you serpent!" She burst into tears.
* * *
The next day, her mum told her Milfred had agreed that under no condition will he say ' this child resembles me,' or at any time, alive or dead, come to lay claim to the child should a child come out of the relationship.
"Listen, he will come to Lagos and take Oath." said her mum, encouraging her to accept the arrangement and stop agitating.
"Mum, why? Why did you sell me like this?" cried Queen Lati.
"Listen," she explained something she did not know." I don't want you to spoil your marriage because no room for a divorced daughter. Therefore, my hen and my neighbor's cock mating under my watch is not bad."
"Mummy, what kind of analogy is this?"
She crashed the phone and rolled on the bed crying.
Not up to three days, Milfred began to call like somebody who wants to book an appointment with heaven.
"I won't pick!" She shook her head. " till I know what mum discussed with him."
She did not pick up the call.
"Why are you not picking when you have indirectly agreed?"
"...directly agreed or not, I can't be a cheap article!" she told the tiny voice.
"Or isn't this the only way to your target?"
"No, I can't, I will ask mum, what she told him."
"But you can agree?"
"Oh God!" she jerked her fist because of the tiny voice making her pace about.
"Mummy, what did you tell him?" she asked thickly.
"Again? You didn't hear me?" asked her mum.
"Not that, what did you tell him?" she asked and her mum was not forthcoming, she crashed the phone on the wall again whining, rolling on the bed.
When she recovered, she sat down.
"I will ask him 'did my mum tell you to impregnate me that I need a child?' " She scrutinized the mock question and yelled, 'no no no no no no!'
She sat at her vanity table and turned herself this way and that way.
"Beautiful Lati, why?" she asked."Had I known comes last. I would have remained single," she said and cast her mind back to how this wahala marriage started:I was doing my usher work o, after law school with other girls o, somebody said King is calling me. "Which King," I asked, and he said ' ...of Ile Ife'
It was in Lagos, I told my mum, and she said 'yes, yes whether married or not, men are scarce.'
So, the journey began and everything was sweet until wahala rose by nose-pokers.
" Even if I will go out with Milfred, I will fix it when my fertility window is open. I can't just naked myself again without benefit and must ask him crucial questions and mum must tell me what she told him." she finally decided.
She had seen uncle Pat with King.
"Gat to go greet him, otherwise, hehe-hey!" Her laughter, she laughed.
Mr. Pat, with the known sharp mouth, was in his seventies, the traditional Prime Minister. He lived in Lagos but had retired back home. He seldom comes out unless to discuss with King.
Seeing Lati in her elegance, he purred and purred, "Our queen!" he called her with nods of approval and a wide smile expanding his face.
Rising to prostrate, Queen Lati said,
"Uncle, no no no!" and bending her knees to prostrate, he too prevented her and both hugged face to face.
"King Shina you are enjoying o," he said because of the current that passed from her into him.
He took Queen Lati by the hand and led her some centimeters away and whispered into her ear.
" No, it's not something of laughter." he insisted.
Queen Lati, lips gripped in, nodded," If it was King that told him this, I will show him, thinks am happy they brought a wife for him and am quiet…just cuz I don't want a problem."
She took sway of dance." Beautiful Lati" she enthused herself, twisted and twisted before the mirror.
Satisfied, she sat back and uncorked her choice of wine.
" Epicurean baby, nothing do you," she said assuredly.
In the evening, she asked," King, you told Uncle Path that the Kingdom needs an heir?"
" I, King Shina, will tell him to tell you we need a child?" King Shina asked, feeling highly insulted, nose twitching.
"Who then told him?"
"What do you mean?" reacted King, the more.
" You don't know we need an heir for the throne?"
King repeated the same thing about why they held meetings and gave her a mandate for six months.
"King, I am withholding a child from you, is it?" she replied and left.
King wanted to chase her but stopped...love has limits in situations like this.
It is no longer about two of them. A king is a public institution. He obeys the kingdom more than himself.
The kinsmen and his family want an heir to the throne that was fought with might, and besides, King is an only son. Should the king die today, the kingdom will relapse into another fight and Princess Yemi
will be the loser more than her sister.
Her younger sister is married with children. She is a spinster, going to 54, and occupies the whole late King Raphael's old house without a child.
"What is the matter, Your Highness.?" asked Mama Sara as she came in.
She knows whenever her lips were gripped in her mouth, she is worried, and not just an ordinary worry.
"Mummy, this childless issue. Am I barren? No…am not!" she said.
Mama Sara, each time she went for a test, accompanied her. She had told her they will go 'somewhere' and when they come back, she will do something for her to pocket him.
"There is a way to pocket a husband who gives his wife a problem," she told her but she does not believe in black power and where she does, it was not wholehearted.
"Mummy, King was talking as if I did not want to give him a child"
"When we go the place and come back, be patient now."
"Mummy, my patience is running out. I didn't want trouble but if he provokes me further he will see the other side of Lati."
"For my sake, let there be peace, without you here, I will not be here, please. Biko."
She muffled her smile."You want me to die here?"
"Ahh! No.Your Highness. But am being frank" Mama Sara said.
Since she paid Sara's school fees to enter the University, she could die for her.
"See mummy, my target is to get pregnant and get a child this year. It will not pass!"
"Not because of them you put yourself in a fix."
"Don't you hear the slogan? Give us a child or go?"
"Your Highness, don't challenge God because of human beings, my point."
"I have to since he is my hope. My problem is King, speaking harshly to me, never even cares if I exist."
"He is doing so to edge you out."
"Yes, he didn't want to go for divorce by himself but I can only leave after childbirth to prove to them that am okay!"
Hahaha. Mama Sara laughed."...think when King sees a child, he will ever allow his Youngest Wife to even go outside the gate?"
"True?" she smiled, "Why?" she asked, interested to know.
" You know why he married you, huh?".
The two females clashed their palms.
"Mummy, please, forget that. Men are funny," said Lati
"You see one thing in life," Mama Sara began, it was her own story when she was in a similar situation she wants to tell her.
"My man hated me and even asked me ' to fuck you nah by force?' "
"You felt ashamed?" Queen Lati asked her and smiled.
"No, but his people were the ones who shamed me."
"How?" asked Queen Lati, curious.
"If I pass, they will laugh and murmur 'can a child come out of this kind waist?' "
"Why?"
"Cuz doctor said I have a narrow pelvic bone or whatever."
"Oh!"
"That's what I passed through, my daughter."
"So?"
"I left! But as God wished, just one hand my former boyfriend touched me, the result was this your sister…Sara."
Queen Lati exhaled.
She discharged Mama Sara and ran up to think of Milfred and herself.
" I must indirectly ask him something to know what mum told him, one…ask him if he has a child, two…emm, many things I'll ask him," she said." But, to tell Mama Sara am having an affair with him, never!"
She called Milfred, and before he picked up the call, she settled on a date… 2nd February.
"Yes…my fertility window starts then," she said." …and should pregnancy come, Lati, shift it to King. Period!...no one will hear of this affair and the king, with his prank, must fulfill his conjugal duty, I'll not give him the chance he craves"
It has set! Can Milfred satisfy her? If Milfred impregnates her, how possible to write King's name on it?