Title:GIVE US CHILD, OR GO
(Marriage With A Mandate)
Chapter Three
"Ehn! Is this talkative already here? She can't be tired of celebrating, this is the 15th anniversary." Queen Lati, murmured and hissed.
She dislikes Princess Yemi as Princess Yemi dislikes 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!...bad example of a sister-in-law, no husband, never even once married but puts eyes on how her brother's wife dresses, cooks, and sweeps." Queen Latifah was murmuring.
"Is our Queen in?" asked Princess Yemi, 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 Latifah 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 Latifah.
"Okay," she said and gestured to what she meant.
"Okay, okay, ...that is in the hand of God," Queen Latifah understood, and her face froze.
"In God's hand, yes," agreed the Princess," but heaven helps those who help themselves." She quoted the scripture.
"Aunty, excuse me" Queen Latifah 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, and has not recorded any pregnancy.
"Then, what's the problem if we don't have a child for over two years?" Princess Yemi asked.
"Ask your brother!" Queen Latifah 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 Latifah, 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 last born, 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 (Latifah)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."
Are you serious?" Queen Lati had asked.
She just needed confirmation and she said what she liked and she can ask her anything, confess anything to her.
When her mum visited and saw how close a Queen and her maid were, she asked why. She explained and asked Mama Sara how old and they became friends knowing they were of the same age.
"Let's go, don't worry!" Queen Lati took her hand again, and 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 parlour 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." Do 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 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, any respect! " she smashed her head with a murderous look.
If judged by her word, she was ninety per cent 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 colour.
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.
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. She never wants a divorce.
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 and 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 to fall
"...last risk...for this bastard!" she prayed in her heart and felt relieved as she returned to her quarter.
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 said, her look alone called her what she withheld.
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, will you 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–three days after the coronation–she was probing her face in the mirror, her four and five.
She was highly sad her attempt to get Fred out of the prison yard was thwarted by her mum.
She did not want any disturbance. She just wants to look at herself closely in the mirror to know how ugly she has become because of worry 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, 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 told her how he got her number.
This was a man, almost an ex-husband who disappointed her.
The reason… 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 later, 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 interesting!