Pristine, page 21
Binah Yakpani pierced him with a withering look.
“How can this mere mortal charm our great priestess?” he sneered. His blazing eyes slowly met that of the villagers at the fore of the circle. “Your precious priestess, Nnanke, has broken the rule of the spirits, and the punishment is death,” he declared with too much glee for such a sad situation.
“Uben is a true warrior and must be praised for his sacrifice. He risked a sojourn into the forbidden forest as the priestess has been slacking on her duties and discovered the abomination going on right under our noses,” he announced and glowed in satisfaction when he saw the elders jerk their shoulders in shock and disgust of the monstruous sin.
“This has been going on for some time. Uben, tell them what you saw,” Binah Yakpani encouraged.
Uben took uncanny relish in describing the completely carnal copulation he had witnessed in the forbidden forest and the largeness of Nnanke’s belly that meant she was pregnant.
Uben’s wife fidgeted uncomfortably in the crowd as her husband explained such intimate details about the priestess; she felt it was insulting to the woman who had helped them so much. Besides, she wasn’t stupid, contrary to what her husband might think. She’d been aware he was about to marry Nnanke before she was chosen by the spirits, and since then, he’d always had tender emotions for her. She just wondered why men were so quick to forget Nnanke’s works and unwilling to be lenient.
“Such sacrilege! And she knew what would happen to the village if she broke the rules of the spirits,” Binah Yakpani insinuated, liking that the elders were becoming necessarily incensed.
“It was probably what caused a mysterious rat to bite a chunk off Uben’s feet while he was on guard at the boundary.”
“Oh!”
“Oowoye!”
“Eya eh!”
The crowd reacted to the scary development.
“Eya eh! It is true. When the spirits get angry, they start causing strange illnesses in the village. Haven’t you people been experiencing unexplainable illnesses? So many boys have been hitting their big toes, even when they were not playing. Some of you men have complained pains inside your heads when you return from your farms.” Men nodded to this, encouraging his tirade. “The other day, somebody was shaking with cold while his body was hot like fire; strange illnesses,” he intoned, satisfied with the scary faces staring back at him.
“Why do you think she was the only one that knew how to cure these illnesses?” he insinuated, eagerly stoking their suspicion and distrust in Nnanke. “Hit him again and make him confess where the shameful priestess is hiding!” he commanded, and warriors, ready with huge sticks, began slamming Okoi one more.
It was an inhumane sight, and some women closed their eyes to shut off the violence. Okoi hung from his neck, his hands tied to his body with only his big toes on the ground. Even then, he had to stretch to touch those toes to the ground to create a balance and curb the tightening of the noose around his neck.
Nevertheless, when the warriors slammed those sticks on his back and belly, the control left his toes, and he swung from his neck, bearing the wounding pain and trying not to strangle. His legs scrambled in a wheeling motion trying to reach the ground and stop the swing of his body. He was completely battered, his eyes swollen shut from the beatings he’d received as they’d neared the village.
“Tell us where the priestess is, and we will make your death quick,” Binah Yakpani declared magnanimously and poked Okoi’s belly with his engraved staff.
The problem was, Okoi couldn’t talk, not with the tight noose around his neck. If he could, he would’ve argued and made sure the villagers knew that their binah was lying. He didn’t have to convince them—he just had to make them see a different perspective and be unsure of which to believe.
Okoi gagged and could do nothing when his wrapper fell from his waist, rendering him naked. He heard the crowd gasp, and some men covered their wives’ eyes from his impressive manhood. Soon, the beating stopped, and he was able to press the top of his toes on the ground, relieving the tightening around his neck.
His swollen left eye, the only one he could see with, though in a blur, caught an even scarier sight. The cannibal priest that’d burned him—he moved among the crowd with an obvious smirk on his face.
Okoi’s heart sank. Now he understood how this had happened. Nnanke had been right that he wouldn’t give up so easily. Okoi could see why Binah Yakpani was behaving out of character as opposed to his friend, Binah Ekori. It only meant one thing—the cannibal priest was compelling them with his dark powers.
He worried for Nnanke, even more so than before. He couldn’t help her or warn her about the danger. Binah Yakpani had no idea she was the last defence they had from the approaching war. Without her, the village would fall.
Tears dripped from his eyes at his helplessness. He might’ve been given a brief glance of paradise, but this was confirmation he was destined to die…violently. Okoi wished fervently Nnanke would hide when she returned and found him missing. He wished and prayed to the son of the white God that she would run away and not come in search of him.
He wished but knew it was useless, not when she’d ardently promised, “I would never let you die.”
He sobbed with bitterness, the sound so distinct and heart-wrenching that a hush fell on the crowd. Tears could be seen in the eyes of women and some young men. The warriors stood back, fidgeting uncomfortably with no idea what they should do next.
“I’ll die for you,” he sobbed. “I’ll die for you, Nnanke.”
The hanging man repeated his solemn promise, and the villagers couldn’t comprehend such a sacrifice. They stood in awe and discomfort, as they were unsure of the justification of his hanging.
Binah Umor saw the disintegration of his perfect manipulations as the villagers began to murmur among themselves. They were speaking of the dishonour of hanging a stranger without hearing him out. They muttered of the incredibility of a stranger liking their priestess to the point of sacrificing his life for her. The villagers were awed at the intensity of such emotion; they couldn’t understand it.
While they tried to make sense of the powerful emotion expressed by the hanging man and before they could make a unanimous decision, Binah Umor spoke a spell directed at the heart of Binah Yakpani and Uben, increasing their envy.
Uben was envious of Okoi for having a more impressive manhood and having used it on the woman he’d coveted all his adult life. Binah Yakpani was envious of the power Nnanke possessed and her popularity among the villagers. Both men boiled with the intensity of their envy, becoming extremely furious as the villagers hesitated.
“String him higher! The traitor must die or else we, our children, and our land will be cursed!” Binah Yakpani declared, bent on righteousness.
The other warriors hesitated, but Uben rushed to the remaining length of the rope around Okoi’s neck, tethered to a smaller tree. He cut it with the sharp edge of his spear, causing Okoi’s legs to stand on the ground.
But then, he dropped his spear, held the rope with both hands, and dragged downwards. Okoi was lifted from the ground, dangling from his neck. His body jerked as he gagged, his swollen eyes gorging out in his last struggle for life.
The villagers moaned as one at the terrible sight. Some elders sided with Binah Yakpani and grinned with him at the justice the hanging represented. Binah Ekori shook his head sadly, and the unseen Binah Umor cackled in delight.
Even as the darkness of death engulfed Okoi’s mind, his thoughts centred on his woman—his angel, his paradise.
In that moment, huts began emitting smoke, but the villagers were too captivated to notice that Umor warriors had arrived.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was like a punch to her gut. The piercing pain made her double over, falling on her knees, her hand momentarily loosening its hold on the flap of her wrapper.
Nnanke knew instantly what had happened; she knew what had been done to her man. She knew she had failed in her promise never to let him die. Still, she screamed, “No!” her voice echoing eerily in the forest, causing a flock of birds to take sudden flight into the sky while animals in the trees fled in a scramble.
The villagers turned in one accord at the eerie sound from the forest. They saw the raucous flight of birds from the trees, and their hearts thumped with terror, for the sound was of intense hurt, pain, and anger. It was unmistakably the voice of the priestess.
***
The spirits had taken her through seven rigorous rituals she didn’t understand. Nnanke had just been glad the overly bright beings didn’t seem angry and had actually welcomed her. But she couldn’t trust them until she’d left the depth of the river back to her forest, back to Okoi again.
Stranger things occurred under the river. She had seen a roaring fire in the water, and she’d had to walk through it seven times. Everything under the water had been performed seven times. By the time the goddess of fertility led her to the golden entrance and to the waiting spirit guides, Nnanke had been fagged out. The goddess, a glittering half fish woman with beautiful green shells covering her breasts, the green matching the hue of the lower fish side of her body, and long, dreadlocked hair draped alluringly over her pale skin, had reached out and touched her protruding stomach.
Nnanke had no idea what she had done, but she felt power flow through her veins, the surge so strong, she screamed and floated listlessly in the crystal water. Then, the beautiful goddess waved the spirit guides over, and the fish-like creatures took their places under Nnanke’s armpits and began the upward swim back to real life.
When they arrived, the sun had just begun its return journey. They deposited her naked body on the river bank and swiftly plunged back into the river, swishing their blue tails in the air before they disappeared.
Nnanke had lain there for a while, wondering why Okoi hadn’t seen her. He’d promised he would wait for her by the river even if it took her days to return. Groaning tiredly, for it felt like her pregnancy had doubled in weight, she twisted, turned, and placed her hand on the land, ready to lift herself to her feet. But the earth seemed to shift, covering her hands with soil, and then spoke to her.
She saw everything that had happened in the forest. Strange how the earth spoke to her as though they were old friends. She sank her hands into the muddy earth in appreciation even though her heart bled for what had been done to Okoi.
The earth hummed and vibrated around her, filling her with the strength she needed to get to her feet. As she made her way as fast as she could up the narrow path that led to the cave, she was shocked to find branches of plants leaning towards her as though welcoming her. Some with soft, curly branches wrapped around her wrist but loosened as she progressed up the path.
Her eyes widened at this wonder, but she had no time to think of it. She had to reach Okoi. She had to rescue him. She had to keep her promise of never letting him die.
Without waiting to properly tie her wrapper around her nakedness, she flung it over her shoulder, grabbed her staff, and raced into the forest. It took her a while to notice that brilliantly coloured butterflies, so many of them, followed her progress as she lumbered to the village.
But then, that piercing pain occurred, and she knew she’d lost her light.
Her scream scattered the butterflies in all directions but they fluttered back, surrounding her while she sobbed on the forest floor. Leaves grew where her tears dropped, plants reached out to her, flowers caressed her as though in commiseration.
Her hand touched the soil again, and she was shown his struggle behind the lids of her closed eyes. She could see the people, the ones who accused and the ones who didn’t. She saw when Okoi noticed the evil binah, and she heard his thoughts of concern for her.
More tears flowed as she staggered to her feet and continued towards the village. Anger bubbled as she considered abandoning them to the brutalization Umor warriors would descend on them.
***
The villagers stood as though stunned in place when Nnanke stumbled from the dark thickness of the forest. If they hadn’t just heard her scream or recognized the curly drape of her hair, they would’ve thought the hunched figure approaching them was an old woman.
Her white cotton wrapper draped from her shoulders over her body to her legs, the large flaps grasped together in one hand while the other stomped her staff on the ground as she staggered close.
Nnanke reached the square, a path magically opening in between the sea of gathered people, and finally, she looked up and beheld Okoi swaying from his neck.
Tears burned her eyes. Her face twisted. Her throat clogged. Fury built in her chest, and so did the wind. Dark clouds flew across the sky, and the villagers trembled in her presence but couldn’t move a limb.
She sobbed as she walked towards the still figure dangling from a rope around his neck like a thief. This wasn’t the man who had shown her life was more than what she’d known. This wasn’t the man who’d held her with warmth. She lifted her eyes and beheld his nakedness, his shame.
They shamed him. The spirits accepted him, but man shamed him.
Her sobs increased into wracking cries. Still, the villagers stood quietly. Nnanke reached out her hand to Okoi’s body, and a murmur broke out among the villagers, wondering what she was doing.
Before their eyes, the branch Okoi dangled from bent towards Nnanke, lowering his body. The ropes bounding him snapped, loosening his battered and broken body. The branch delivered him tenderly to the ground like a mother laying down her child.
Nnanke looked at Okoi’s lifeless body at her feet. The earth bubbled around his length, creating a bed of soil for him to the astonishment of the crowd. Her legs wobbled beneath her, and she fell to her knees in grief, placing her head on Okoi’s still chest.
“What did he do to deserve this?” she asked softly but was heard by all. “What did he do?” She sobbed. “My light,” she murmured tenderly as though he were alive to hear her. She looked lovingly upon his face and touched his bearded chin with tenderness like she would do when she lay with him in their cave.
“I failed you. I let you die,” she murmured, touching the wounds and bruises all over his body while tears flowed freely down her cheeks to soak into the soil bed he’d been laid.
Green sprouted like tiny shoots from the soil, all around Okoi. It grew rapidly into leafy vines that crawled all over his body, not just covering his nakedness but embalming his whole self. The leafy vines twisted like snakes, covering his face. Flowers sprouted on the vines, releasing sweet-smelling perfume into the air.
Nnanke struggled to her feet. Her heart broke in several irretrievable pieces as she watched the vine encompass Okoi’s body until no piece of his skin showed. Then, the earth boiled, slowly swallowing the vine-covered body.
She watched him sink, and a ragged sob wrenched from her throat.
***
Nkoyo woke with a stifled cry, dragging me back to her side. The room hummed with power, and I suspected the ring had dragged her back home. I looked into her consciousness and was shocked to see what had occurred in the past.
Her face was entirely drenched with tears. Except, listening to her thoughts, I realised her tears were not for what had happened to Okoi but the replay of the past currently unfolding with her husband as the sacrificial lamb.
As the ring forcefully returned her to the present, the dark hole held snatches of pictures of the same betrayal through time; Greed was totally invested in destroying Atam kingdom. But they could defeat it by simply loving each other. They could defeat the influence of Greed by being satisfied with the abundant resources Atam is blessed with.
Without wasting time on what should be, Nkoyo hurried from the bed as fast as her large stomach would permit. Her white kaftan seemed rumpled, but she couldn’t care less—she had to save her husband.
She shoved her swollen feet into flat, leather slip-ons, then grabbed her phone and car keys and hurried downstairs. Tears continued to stream down her face as she frantically called out for the gates to be opened.
Surprisingly, the security man, a jovial employee, didn’t bother showing concern in the form of asking what the problem was. He instead jerked as though controlled and speedily opened the gate. Exactly what she needed.
Nkoyo dialled Queen Jesam’s number, and the woman answered on the first ring.
“Darling!” she sobbed.
Nkoyo confirmed that what the ring had shown her was real. Onen was actually bound to a tree this moment.
She had to gasp several times to control her tears and fear. She had no idea what she would do, but she was sure of one thing, she was going to rescue her husband.
The queen rambled on about having called her several times but she hadn’t answered her calls. Well, she couldn’t have answered when she’s been buried in the past, I thought. The comment made Nkoyo feel guilty that her husband had been in trouble while she’d been playing around with powers she’d been asked to avoid.
“Meet me instantly at the roundabout turn off… I know where Onen is being held,” she announced and ended the call, unable to analyse why her voice didn’t sound like hers.
Nkoyo wiped her eyes with her left hand while she sped down the road, pressing down her horn insistently to get people out of the way. As usual, her eyes drifted to her ring finger and found it empty. Realization struck her instantly—the ring was still stuck on her forehead. It must be how she knew the exact direction to where Onen was held.
Probably also why the roiling fury in the pit of her stomach felt like a volcano ready to erupt. Why she was confident that though she was a heavily pregnant woman, she would face down an unknown army to protect the love of her life. Love burned in her heart like a fiery furnace, filling her body with a buzzing energy, the kind that made it seem as though the air had just picked up.
Nkoyo glanced at the weather and wondered if it would rain. She shook her head at her mundane concern and sped down the untarred road she had just turned into. It took a few minutes for her eyes flick to the rear-view mirror—the king and queen and their army hurtled down the earthy road behind her, raising dust around their convoy.
