Chapter Eleven
"Your Highness, you traveled!" she enquired.
It sounded like a reminder, but it was a question, a curious one.
They are besties, yes, but a bestie may not always disclose her mind to a bestie.
Mama Sara wanted to know more but also wanted to respect her choice.
She was not a nose poker, in the first place. Her problems had been hers but it beats her imagination why she traveled without her or without informing her.
To Lati, traveling alone and without announcement was special.
First, though, she has not been able to do anything with Jackson, she had said over and over, even at gunpoint, she will keep the secret to herself if eventually, she starts an affair with Jackson. No bestie in that.
While she was traveling too, she had thought of traveling with her or telling her she would be traveling but, she shook her head.
" One's bestie could be her enemy any time, even tomorrow." she had reasoned, avoiding a situation where one could one day falsely try to figure out how she got the pregnancy that must come.
The person could say 'Oh, there was a day she traveled blah blah.'
"How did you know ?" she asked her.
" I came around and I saw the gardener, he said madam traveled"
"I went for a seminar, knowing King will need you for the BD. How did you people go?"
"Your Highness, have you not seen what we bought? Okay, when you want, I will take you around to see our efforts."
She hissed.
Mama Sara looked at her face bewildered." What is it, Youngest." she asked.
" Stop calling me all those things, I have told you…I'm crudest Lati," she told her.
"Why?"
"Just that, anything that will make me remain in this comfort zone, not to aim and get my goal, I discard," she said.
" Okay, Crudest. What is the point now?"
"What is the point? Okay, you want me to be happy on his birthday without a child? King will be 57 now. What will her sister say? The people too?"
"Just that? Are they God? What will you do now? The other day, you said if you give them the child, you go…go and leave all these things? Just look at wealth all over!"
"They are the comfort zone. If they would hinder my goal from manifesting. I jettison them. That's why I'm starting now, taking up a name that will move me. 'Crudest'. "
She forwarded her photo with Mirabel to Elder Mary when she was free.
"Queen, what are you planning with Princess Abigail?" Elder Mary asked, despite her tiny voice, it was clear she would hardly believe Lati.
"Ma."
"No, don't Ma me," she retorted and said," because you're not giving us a child, then you want to set the palace on fire before you go?"
Lati was surprised at what the old woman she believed loved her said.
But why would she not react negatively? When she saw Mirabel,didn't she pinch herself? Now, another person pinched herself and is finding it hard to believe that what she saw was not Princess Abigail.
It is to her advantage then.
She must convince her that Mirabel is Princess Abigail's sister and from there, build the story with the evidence she has gathered.
Fortunately, she just did that. "Ma, it was not Princess Abigail but her sister."
Elder Mary cried with greater disbelief. " What are you saying!?"
She did not let her explain, she went on, " Queen Sabina has secondary infertility and has only one child. She has tried, hasn't she? Where is yours?" she went on, " King did what he did because of annoyance, not that the paternity of the Princess was in doubt, okay?"
She was saying everything Lati wanted to say or hear but she would end in the opposite direction if Lati did not insist on her finding.
She let her end venting her anger on her and began her story.
Her story was one of those truths that when padded with imagination still remain true.
" She was Princess Abigail's younger sister," she said." Their father was the Late Mr Peter who died in 2005. Princess Abigail is 18 now, and her sister is 13–the two dates are no guesswork–the story was that the Late Mr Peter dated Queen Sabina when they were not married and she was pregnant for him. She married King with the pregnancy around 2004, is it not true? In 2005, Princess Abigail was born and the Late Mr Peter took another wife after two years and a half who bore him Mirable. Princess and Mirabel are the real vomit of their father."
"Are you through with your conspiracy theory?" asked Elder Mary.
She was the king's aunt, was 77- years old, a school proprietress.
" Ma, not so… ." Lati tried to make her believe her.
She cut Queen Lati short, asking her," So, is this why you don't want to give us a child? Till I come, I'll be there on the birthday." she ended her line.
Lati carried her baby and danced about," Baby baby. When are you opening the door to remove my reproach?" she asked him, passion in her eyes as she looked hard at his face.
She fed him his favorite cake. The shepherd said she should treat him well as the shadow of what is to come, that the angel will bless her with a human child.
Ruth's call came in. They were very close friends though, sisters-in-law to each other.
" Complemento," she said," Who is that, Princess Abigail?"
"That's Princess Abigail's sister." Lati, or Crudest Lati, said.
She told her about her journey and her findings.
"Okay, we're coming for the birthday but it will be scary to approach the king with this evidence. It could be a conspiracy theory as Aunty said, but then."
"Hehe-hey! Lati, your fate? Never!" she said assuredly, " I am fertile, just to find the right person."
She remembered Mama Sara and Jackson. "What a betrayal! Or isn't it? Was she sympathetic to the extent of saying all that? It is pure gossip but I will not ask her. I need companions and she had been a dependable ally, she and Ruth now,"
She went to the window to look for Jackson. "Tonight, I'll grab him.
"Sure?"
"Yes, by 'cause and effect,' " she assured her doubting mind.
When there is a necessity, nothing matters more.
She nodded slightly, reconciling with her past. She had wondered why some rich ladies or some people's wives do have affairs with people they can't in normal situations shake hands with.
"Now, the mandate is running like an electric meter. Who knows what they will be up for? Lati will not be here, arms folded, holding herself like a virgin while the facilities that will make two willing hearts produce a child are available right here."
She carried her two voluptuous breasts in her palms before the mirror, stimulating herself in an abstract romance.
How a girl blessed with bountiful breasts, curvy everything that make people insane is going to submit herself to one lucky boy, tonight. "No need to reserve anything. Take me and my breasts, put my nipples into your mouth and eat. O Gawd!"
She was breathing hard now, just because of her imagination.
She hung at the window, it was 7:34 pm.
The lights were on but the cloud was rumbling.
"Oh, before this rain where is he? A night of rain with a guy in a duplex. Hehe-hey, Latifah! You can't deny nothing didn't happen!"
Mehn, she has said it all.
Let's watch it!!!