Chapter 48 - The Confession

The emissary turned to princess Nala to inform her of what her cousin, who is now the new king has said to be said to her, while she glances at him with a very ferocious look of pain and anger.

Everyone at the durbar ground is now looking steadily and carefully at the princess, waiting to know who the accomplice really is. The suspense and atmosphere at the durbar have taken a different turn so as the main theme of the event. The whole place has been engulfed in a compete murmur from almost every corner of the village to who was brave enough to put the only princess of the Ptolemaic Kingdom in the family unlawfully. And will the judgement passed by the new sworn in king be executed after the culprit has been found? These has been the questions of the people.

At this point after a long wait, the king, Masinissa Linette Duah II, finally approached his daughter, the princess, to quickly say the name of her accomplice without further keeping everyone waiting. At the beginning she resisted from saying the name of the man who got her pregnant out of the wedlock but then later decided to say something due to the pressure coming from both her father and the newly sworn in king of the kingdom, her cousin Akinidad Linette.

Emissary: (Turned to the princess) Our beautiful princess, the elders and the people are all ears waiting onto your speech.

Princess Nala: (Stepping forward boldly) Unfaithful cousin of mine. Do you on tis day, ask me to say to the world whose fruit I bear in this bulging flesh of mine? Need you ask me to tell you and the world? Don't you know? How quick have you forgotten cousin, just because you have been handed a throne, so your mind no longer remembers the fruit of who I bear in me? Have you soon forgotten?

With a huge expressing of confusion and lost, Akinidad, who is the only beloved cousin of the princess and the newly enstooled king of the Ptolemaic Kingdom, asked quickly to his cousin the princess

Akinidad: What are you talking about? What is it that I do not remember that I need you remind me before the whole kingdom?

Princess Nala: (Getting a big furious towards her cousin) Have you so soon forgotten the nights we shared together in my chamber when the dark takes over the lights of the day? The countless nights you sneaked…

Akinidad: That's a lie… that is a big fat lie… I have never…

Princess Nala: Be quiet! (Shouts at her cousin)

Has your mind set loose the sweet memories of those evenings? The evenings you sneaked into the women's quarters and…

Akinidad: Oh no, it's not true…

Princess Nala: Those silents nights you sneak behind the house and gave three gentle slaps on my window from where I allowed you entry and exit to my chamber? Have you forgotten all those nights so soon my dear cousin…or king if I should address correctly?

At this point, Akinidad, who has finally been sworn as the new king of the Kingdom and has finally fulfilled the wills and ambitions of his mother is left speechless as he does not know what to say against the allegations laid against him by his only cousin of whom he has trusted since steeping foot in the palace. He has been left with the shock of his life as his mother, Amanirenas, sits across from where he is seated watching out of helplessness, because she knows the time has come.

Akinidad looks directly to the direction of his mother and begins to cry to her for help.

Akinidad: Mother, save me… People of Ptolemaic, do not listen to her, its no true all that she is saying. I am not a…

Princess Nala: (Interrupts quickly) Do you deny me today? See, touch these… Feel them…hold them… Are those not the waist beads you folded whenever we lay together naked in my chamber, and bathed in the warmth of love and sweet affections? Have you gone blind to them all at ones?

The princess kept accusing her cousin without any remorse or constrains and she is determined to make sure he is penalised for what she knows he has nothing to do with.

Akinidad is now over frustrated and tried to make the attempt of revealing who he really is. He cried out to himself that only if he has stood on his grounds and not allow the greed of his ambitious mother get the best of him.

Akinidad: I…I…swear by the great oath of our fathers that all she is saying are lies. She just wants to compromise me in the mess she has gotten herself into just because I refused to do anything she has ever asked me to do. She is saying nothing but lie and I urge you all not to listen to her.

A voice from the crowd: Are you not a handsome looking prince of the land? Women have been tempted towards you since your arrival to Carthage so why should we believe you and not her.

Akinidad: Oh, gods of our father, it is not true… I am not a… (Turns to his mother who sits in total silence across from where his stool is seated) Mother, please save me.

Princess Nala: (Standing firm on her grounds) A noble king tells no lies cousin. You made me pregnant. It will do us both no good if you keep denying the pregnancy.

Akinidad: It is a lie. I couldn't have made you…

Princess Nala: I am bearing your child.

Akinidad: You lie! I am not a… Oh!...Mother!

Princess Nala: And you stand before an august gathering trying to disgrace me through and through. Oh men, I never knew men could be so ungrateful and deniable after all that women give them.

Akinidad: Believe her not people. it is not true. She lies through her teeth just to get me in trouble because I passed a judgment on her. I would never do such a thing, not to my cousin. (Turns to his mother again) Please mother, tell them I am not a…

Amanirenas: (Screams) That you are not what?... What do you want to tell the people you are not?

Akinidad: Help me prove my innocence that I am not a…

Amanirenas: That you are not what? What are you trying to say?

Akinidad: Tell them I am… I am…

Amanirenas: (Still being keen to her words) Tell them you are what?

Akinidad: That I am not guilty of your grave accusations.

Amanirenas: (Heaves a sigh of relief) That I may be able to do, but do not tell me to prove your innocence.

Akinidad: Oh Mother! Mother! Mother do not desert me. I need you. (He sobs)

Princess Nala: You slept with me.

Akinidad: I never slept with you.

Princess Nala: You had me

Akinidad: I never had you princess

Princess Nala: You enjoyed me

Akinidad: You are lying through the teeth, and you know it. Nala, my cousin, why are you doing this to me? Why do you wish to destroy me? People, believe her not for I am innocent.

Princess Nala: My people, believe me. Do not believe what he is saying. He is a traitor.

As the conversations keep going to and from, the great king, Masinissa Linette Duah II, shout at the princess and his nephew for a total silence. They are making him seem like a failed king who could not rule his people like the way his fathers and forefather had thought him to. He gets furious at this point since he is lost unto who is saying the truth and who is not.