Amanirenas: And Emissary…
Emissary : Yes, Your Highness
Amanirenas: Summon the Chief Messenger from my brother's palace into my presence immediately.
Emissary: It shall be done, Your Highness
Amanirenas: And ask my son to hurry up and join us
Emissary: Yes, Your Highness. (Exit Emissary and enters Emissary Boateng, the Chief Messenger from the King's palace)
Emissary Boateng: Your Highness, I understand you want to see me.
Amanirenas: Are you ready to depart?
Emissary Boateng: Yes, Your Highness.
Amanirenas: Were you well fed?
Emissary Boateng: Your Highness, I have run errands upon errands for my king, your brother. I have visited palaces, very far and near, but nowhere have I seen hospitality in its raw form, by women, than in your palace.
(Her Highness laughs)
Your Highness may the gods sprinkle years upon your age.
Amanirenas: I am flattered…All the same, thank you. I always try to do my best for my guests, especially from my brother's palace.
Emissary Boateng: And your best is the best of all. (General laughter)
Amaniresnas: I have spoken to my son, and he is ready to depart with you. He has gone up to change…Oh, there he comes…
(Akinidad enters in a male attire with the Emissary by his side)
Come over to me, my son.
(Sternly) I asked you to get…
Emissary : Yes, Your Highness, you asked me to get the Ahenkwaa and Abrafo ready to accompany our prince to the great Kings Palace at Carthage. That I have done. The are all ready waiting outside.
Amanirenas: Fine, Errm…my son,
Before your journey to my bothers palace, your uncle, begins, there is one more thing
(To Emissary and the Chief Messenger)
Will you two excuse us by turning your backs to us. (They obeyed) cover your ears with your two hands. (They obeyed)
(Amanirenas whispers some words of reminder into the ears of her sons once more)
Now son, listen carefully to what I am going to tell you. Over there in your uncle's palace at Carthage is a judgment stool on which the King sits to adjudicate serious maters affecting the Kingdom, don't EVER sit on that stool, unless you've been enstooled and sworn as king.
No woman, it is said, shall ever sit on that stool unless she's been sworn as queen. If you disobey this order by any chance your own blood shall be used in cleansing the stool…you needn't look so frightened.
Only be careful. Your identity is well protected. Do you understand?
Akinidad: Yes, I do, Mother.
Amanirenas: It's all for your own good child.
Akinidad: I shall take care mother
Amanirenas: Do, and may the gods be with us.
(Amanirenas and Akinidad go into a long farewell embrace)
Wake those two up
(Akinidad then goes to tap Emissary and the Chief Messenger on the shoulder)
Emissary Boateng: Thank you. (To Her Highness) Your Highness, what shall I tell your brother, the King?
Amanirenas: Tell him I greet him. Also tell him all that you have seen and heard. But if you should say that which you are not supposed to hear but have heard, and that which you must not see but seen, I swear by the death that killed my other that I shall drink the sacred wine from your skull.
Emissary Boateng: May the gods forbid that I do such a thing
Amanirenas: You may go now.
Akinidad: Goodbye, Mother.
Amanirenas: Goodbye, Son.
Let the gods protect you, and don't forget what I told you. Go in peace.
Akinidad: And may the same peace remain here with you.
Amanirenas: And greetings to your cousin, Nala
Akinidad: It shall be conveyed
Emissary : This way, please. (Exit Akinidad, Emissary Boateng and Amanirenas's Emissary )
Amanirenas: Oh spirits above, may you let me live to see the successful end of the wheel of change I've set in motion. A wheel of change that shall leave all men convinced that, in the alchemy of a woman's chest lies not only the annexation of breasts and a frail heart, but a flaming desire to process and use power.
(As evening at the palace of Masinissa Linette Duah II at Carthage descends. Amari, an elderly woman in the palace, sneaks in from a corner and tiptoes backwards. Zibo, also an elderly woman in the palace, sneaks in from the opposite direction walking in the same fashion as Amari. They bump into each other. They both start and jump in fright with the scream, but on seeing themselves, they break into hilarious laughter)
Amari: Zibo
Zibo: Amari
Amari: Only gossips meet this way.
Zibo: Thank God, at long last she has come to accept what they say in the palace that we are. And Amari, why not? By the way, what's wrong with being a gossip? Gossiping in no crime. As far as I am concerned, its only a communication channel that allows one access to the facts by word of mouth long before the Kings drum beater announces it.
Amari: And you do it in whispers…undertone! Secretly! Why don't you…
Zibo: How else would you want gossiping to be done? Perhaps you'd prefer that I stood on the rooftop and shouted my voice hoarse!
Amari: Perhaps yes, Zibo.
Zibo: That way it loses it delight, fun and interest. It ceases to be a meaningful female recreational activity.
Amari: Zibo.
Zibo: Oh yes…listen, Amari, what is more recreational and refreshing than when I come to you and whisper something into your ears like this… (Goes to whisper something into Amari's ears, then they all break into a laughter)
Amari: Zibo, you will kill me with laughter one of these days
Anyways I was coming over to see you…I am not kidding
Zibo: And I was also on my way to your place…I am not kidding either
Amari: Alright then, what is the delicious soup in your pot this evening…Lets have a taste of yours first.
Zibo: Why? Yours first.
Amari: No, yours first.
Zibo: You go first then I shall…
Amari: No, lets drink yours first and reserve mine for the desert
Ziboa: Well, if you say so… (Looks out furtively and begins to talk undertones) the Prince…
Amari: Which Prince?
Zibo: The baby leopard…
Amari: Which baby leopard?
Zibo: Amanirenas's Prince…Akinidad Linette… (Looks round)
Amari: You have seen him too, haven't you? Isn't he handsome?
Zibo: Handsome, you say…He is such a beautiful boy. What is such feminine beauty doing in the body of a masculine like that?
Amari: Are you implying that God Almighty, the creator made a mistake?
Zibo: Mmm…well, possibly. Perhaps after moulding a female body in the clay, God got up to attend to a call and before he got back, one of the assistants, an angel, had sneaked in to breathe into the clay a male breath.
Amari: (Teasingly) Yes, and when God returned, he saw what the angel had done, He became angry and gave the angel a sound flogging. Haahah (They both laugh)
Zibo: All jokes aside, the prince is very handsome. Handsome beyond compare.
Amari: For the six month he has been with us, I have always made it a habit to watch him from the rooftop when he is taking lessons in drum language.
In African culture, drum language serves as a communication method used by Kings and Queen in communicating affairs or messages to the people.
Zibo: And he seems to be having no difficulties with the royal dances.
Amari: Zibo, so you've been watching him too. I thought…
Zibo: You thought what? Perhaps you think as salves we can't tell beauty from ugliness. Even in my old age, I know that when the eye is blind it knows no sleep.
Amari: Zibo, well, for me it is his face that fascinates me! The way the eyes are set in their sockets, with the nose ridge running down into a beautiful open furnace of flesh above his upper lip…
And if you should see his smile…Oh God! it's as if you've had cold water poured on the very body after a tendinous work after the scorching sun.
You feel it right beneath your skin and if you are lucky, you could see the feeling running into your arteries and veins, going up to your heart…only his smiles send me crazy.
Zibo: I don't like his for his smiles. Smiles are never permanent. They fade away easily.
Amari: But don't forget that the body that causes the smile is always there, and he can smile again and again each time the smile fades out.
Zibo: Very good. So, I am going in for his whole body. The graceful way he walks and the lovely manner he gesticulates when he is talking, coupled with his soft voice. A voice so melodious. A voice that tickles the very ceiling of one's soul through the ears…Ohh…(Dreamingly) Not to mention the way he does the traditional dances, especially the Kizomba dance. You could see his whole body moving rhythmically, side-side-up-down…side-side-up down…side-side-up down…
(She begins to execute the basic movement in the Kizomba dance)