PRELUDE
The 'Reunion Week' was still the happiest and busiest moment of the year among the Sudanese kingdoms. It was the most celebrated festive season full of events that lasted one week throughout the kingdoms.
The usual festivities in the week included special prayer sessions, alms giving, wrestling, boxing, drumming, dances, singing, visitation to family members and durbar. Each head of the household would buy no less than seven new clothes for every member of his household, so that they wore new clothes on every day of the week.
On the last day of the reunion week the reigning monarchs of all the kingdoms would assemble in the most central kingdom of Kagadama, to take the crucial administrative, economic and social decisions that would affect their kingdoms in the coming year.
Apart from her location, there was a historic reason why the monarchs assembled in Kagadama city. Kagadama was the place where the great grandparents of the monarchs accidentally met long ago and took most critical decisions that were still affecting the lives of every Sudanese citizen.
Today was the second day of the reunion week. After the prayer sessions, as usual, the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of Malam Rabs, one of the few centenarians in Garin Gita district who witnessed the great "Reunion Assembly", visited him in his house. Though Malam Rabs was very old, he was still strong enough to walk around without the support of any stuff, and his memory was still fresh too. He could be able to recall and vividly narrate stories of events that took place many years ago.
He was dressed maximally and sat down in his chair in front of his house eating and drinking, and pleasantly cracking jokes with his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren who paid him the traditional reunion week visit.
"Old one, I want to know the origin of the 'Reunion Week' celebrations. Who started it, and why?" asked Haidar, one of his inquisitive grandchildren.
"Yes, Kaka. Tell us the history of the week. Why was it celebrated all over the Sudan?" also asked another grandchild, Walid.
"If you want know, you must pay for the story I will tell you," said the centenarian jokingly.
"How much is your story, Kaka. We are ready to pay you, but what are you going to do with the money?" the grandchildren asked jokingly too, in chorus.
"I want to use the money to pay your dowry," Malam Rabs replied happily, pointing at Husna, one of his female visitors who was seated in front of him massaging his feet gently.
Everybody in the gathering burst into excessive laughter, except the old man who pretended to see nothing to laugh at. When normalcy returned, Malam Rabs spitted saliva, cleared his throat and then began his story, while his visitors listened attentively.
Day One
CHAPTER ONE
Long ago, there lived an extremely very rich king in the eastern Sudanese city of Maje, whose story had reached the whole of the Sudan and beyond. He was called Ahmad. King Ahmad was very famous because of his generosity, wisdom and foresight. His generosity blossomed into a radiant legacy that captivated hearts far and wide. He was very much loved by everybody in his kingdom and beyond.
People used to bring cases from near and far places to King Ahmad to judge, because of his objectivity and sound judgment. The hospitality and openness of King Ahmad attracted traders from all over Sudan and far places to the kingdom. Most of the traders got married and settled down in the kingdom. Within a short period Maje became the richest, most influential and populous kingdom among the Sudanese kingdoms.
In spite of all those virtues and greatness of King Ahmad, he was living a very unhappy life almost all the times, because of two things.
Ahmad's first and foremost problem was his inability to have his own child. After many years of marriage, he still had no child of his own to inherit his enormous wealth and power. Sometimes he could neither eat nor sleep when he remembered that if he died, his wealth and the kingship of Maje would go back to his step brothers and sisters, and their mother who had turned themselves to his archenemies.
Another issue which disturbed King Ahmad was the envious attitudes of his step mother, Alawiyya, and her children towards him. The enmity started after the death of his father, when he contested for the kingship together with one of his step brothers, Ajiru, the eldest son of Awaliyya. After a keen contest, the kingmakers decided to settle for the young Ahmad, even though he was the only son of his mother, Saudat, the king youngest wife. Ahmad was selected based on his good attitudes. His selection earned him additional unforgiving enemies, who included his step mother and some of her children. Those people had on so many occasions conspired against him, but every time they did that, Ahmad became triumphant over them.
In one of such occasions, his greatest adversary, Ajiru, went to the extent of secretly inviting their traditional enemy kingdom of Wayya to attack Maje, but despite his inadequate preparations, Ahmad repulsed them. Older people recalled how Ahmad was praise sung when he was chosen by the kingmakers to succeed his late father. It was over forty years ago, but it was still fresh in the mind of Jibrin, one of the elders who witnessed the occasion when it was sung.
"Ahmad, the younger, yet the elder,
Inheritor of his great grandfather,
You are the only God's choice,
Ahmad, the people's voice.
"Your adversary dies of envy
The conquerer of his enemy,
Ahmad, our king till eternity.
Generous! Provider of charity.
"In your absence, they lie to be men,
In your presence, they become women,
Ahmad, you are a hyena-spinster,
Not to be courted by a dog suitor."
On his childlessness, almost all the expert medicine men in the Sudan tried to find the cure to his childlessness, but they all failed. At a point, King Ahmad got tied of seeking for medical attention on that issue. He had concentrated on prayers, fasting and alms giving as the likely solution to his problem.
After spending so many years praying to see his own child and heir, one of the king's wives, Rakiya, missed her menstrual period, a sign she had conceived. The king thanked God for the pregnancy of his wife. He was very happy that at last he would see his own seed, and an heir to his wealth and throne.
After nine months, Rakiya gave birth to a bouncing baby girl. Even though he had preferred to have a baby boy, but the king was thankful to God for her birth. After seven days of the girl's birth, Ahmad named her Amira, meaning a female leader. His adversaries were very bitter about Amira's birth.
Amira was extremely very beautiful to the extent that people referred her as the most beautiful girl in the whole of the Sudan. She grew up as a beautiful angel who was loved by everybody in the city. There was no corner of the Sudan where the story of the princess' beauty had not reached. At a point, every beautiful woman in Maje city was called Amira.
When Amira grew up, King Ahmad started teaching her the art of administration. Sometimes he would ask her to represent him on some less complex state functions. When she reached eighteen, Amira was requested by her father to get a wealthy prince from another kingdom to marry, so as to become a more responsible woman and a future queen, especially since culture did not permit an unmarried person to rule. The king invited all the marriageable princes from other kingdoms to his palace for Amira to choose the one she loved and would like to marry.
Twelve princes honoured the king's invitation to come to Maje to try their luck in getting Amira's hand in marriage. Every prince dressed up maximally, smelling a specially expensive perfume of his own. They all got seated in special royal seats in the palace waiting for Amira to arrive. Suddenly, they started smelling some kind of perfume none of them had ever smelled before from the way Amira was expected to appear. Then entered a very beautiful, tall and young woman full of pride and charisma. That was Princess Amira! She walked majestically across the already seated princes with her beautiful female attendants following her. Amira sat on the only fully decorated chair at the opposite side, directly facing the princes. She observed each of the handsome and proud princes critically head to toe for some time.
She looked at the first prince on the right and said, "If not for your long neck, you would have been a very good husband, but what will I do with a giraffe in human dress?"
"You are handsome in your own right, but I can not live with a short man like a tortoise as a husband. God forbid!!" she said arrogantly looking at the direction of the next prince.
"You are good to go, but you do not know how to dress well. Which village is your kingdom?" she asked derisively, referring to the third prince on the row.
That was how Princess Amira criticized either the look or the appearance of each of the princes one after the other. Without further delay, she signalled her attendants stylishly, and all of them left the palace looking at the direction of the princes disdainfully.
The king called his daughter in his personal room to find out who was her lucky choice among the proud suitors. Amira told her father what had happened, and that she had not seen a prince that was her match among all of them.
"Your Highness, if all men are like these ones, I will prefer to stay unmarried forever. My future husband should be as beautiful as I am or even more," she told the king proudly, though respectfully.
The king was very disappointed in the manner Amira embarrassed the sons of his friends and colleagues by making loathsome comments against them. In annoyance, he ordered his bodyguards to arrest her and keep her in isolation in one of his country guest houses at his riverside garden. Bodyguards and female servants were deployed to the house to provide security and services to the beautiful princess.
After every three days, King Ahmad and the city mayor, Waziri, would visit the princess to find out if she had changed her stand, and agreed to marry, but there was no change of decision from the princess on every visit. That was how Princess Amira continued to live an isolated life.