DANUSHIKI

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Don’t you wish the whole world trembled at your name, your glory, your splendour, your ruthlessness, and above all, your wealth? Don’t you wish you controlled the tiniest grain of sand under the waters?

Don’t you wish you were next after God,

Don’t you?

The Queen simply sat there like an infatuated teenage girl, who’d been listening to confessions of love from a teenage boy. She was helpless and unable to answer ‘no’ to General Whyte’s questions. The hall was now buzzing with murmurs and whispers, as its occupants in the hall seemed to agree with the General’s submission.

“Your majesty, ladies and gentlemen, diamonds are forever”.

General Whyte tilted his hat and walked briskly to his seat in the front row, after hurriedly rolling his late Uncle’s map into his jacket. The next moment, every occupant in the hall, excluding the Queen, stood up to applaud him for almost fifteen minutes. The General smiled as he pictured them, including the Queen as corpses whenever he must’ve completed his mission. Order was soon solicited for by the courtier while the Queen tried in vain to overcome her excitement. She had begun to picture the men and women in the hall as bags of diamonds.

“Is there anyone in this hall who feels or believes that the General’s request should not be granted?” The Queen asked in a voice which sounded like a harp being plucked underwater. An elderly man in the front row named Lord Richard Marner, who was a treasurer and a respected member of the Queen’s economic advisory council, stood up. He indicated his desire to say something, while adjusting his jacket and wig intermittently. Some persons in the hall who sat around him didn’t like the man due to his frank attitude in baring his mind at all times. He was never diplomatic or euphemistic, and was known to hit the nail on the head at all times. Due to his position as one of the ‘highly privileged’ citizens of the Empire who handled the Queen’s money, the Queen smiled and permitted him to speak.

Lord Marner thanked her profusely, tilted his hat and adjusted the end of his blue jacket again, while maintaining a deep frown on his face.

“If not for the deep reverence I have for her Majesty, I’d have gotten up, walked up to my carriage and ridden out of this place”. The Queen said nothing, as everyone looked at Lord Richard in horror.

“Lord knows I’ve waited all my life for a day like this to come, and now it has. Only a man who has his brains in his behind would say anything against the General’s proposal. If I was the Queen, I’d say take the Empire with you and bring me diamonds…”

He sat down and received a resounding ovation as some women heaved sighs of relief and fanned themselves vigorously.

“By the powers vested in me as the Queen of this Empire, I empower you with the authority of the Crown, witnessed by the Empire today this thirteenth day of September 1326…represented by the honourable people herein to grant all your requests, and also promise to offer any form of royal assistance you may solicit for in the near future, in pursuance and in fulfilment of your great quest and voyage”.

Everyone in the royal hall, including the General stood up as another royal assistant with heavily powdered face brought a jeweled mace before the Queen. She soon received it from him, held and thrust it towards General Whyte, who was already on his knees. She placed the heaof the mace atop his shoulders and head, and was followed by a bow from the audience. The next moment, the jeweled mace was slowly withdrawn by the same man who had brought it forward.

“General Kenneth Whyte, on behalf of the royal family, the royal court and the great Empire, I wish you luck on your mission…”

She later proceeded to drop a small amount of red wax on the bottom of a large parchment which was atop the writing table. She didn’t read any of the words scribbled on the parchment, before using her signet ring to make an impression on the wax. She soon stood up with the sealed parchment and raised it up with both hands over her head for all to see. General Whyte beamed as he beheld the royal decree with the Queen’s seal. Words could not possibly describe how happy he felt at that moment. He received the royal decree few moments later with a bow, followed by a leather satchel for the parchment, by a royal assistant. Moments later, he began to imagine how the Queen’s hands, which many knelt to kiss, would be chopped off to ‘set’ an example for the Empire.

The next day fifteen experienced captains were personally commissioned by Her Majesty for the fifteen special ships to be used by the General on his maiden quest. She was taking no chances, and as far she was concerned the General must be given the best and nothing more. She and the royal family would see to that. For the next three weeks, various supplies were purchased and supplied. These ranged from food, gunpowder, guns, cannons, cannonballs, a hundred stallions, swords with sheaths and many other things in large quantity. Any other thing suggested by the Royal Defense Council was also provided. The last object to be brought aboard General Whyte’s ship was a beautifully designed flag of the Empire, alongside a long pole with which it would be mounted upon the island whenever they arrived.

While they waited on this fateful day for the Queen and her entourage to bid them farewell, General Whyte sat in a small room with the fifteen captains holding fifteen reproduced maps. They were similar to the one Uncle Lyttleton had given him years ago. They were the only ones to hear what the General considered to be so secret, before their journey began. Half an hour later, they could finally understand why the ninety crew members for the fifteen ships were excluded. General Kenneth Whyte was pleased with the kind of men that were selected to be captains of the fifteen ships. They were, according to him men, who radiated nothing but greed from their blue, grey and brown eyes.

“Listen and listen very well all of you”, the General began with his ceremonial hat placed atop a small wooden table.

“Her Majesty’s neither daft nor stupid as I thought …” General Whytee began. He had to pause due to the noise being made by some soldiers outside who were yet to board their ships. Many of them had been ‘bored’ by the tranquillity in the Empire, and lack of wars to keep them ‘busy’.

“Look at the faces of those other Rear Admirals, Generals and members of the royal family…we all know that they won’t let us live once we successfully come back”.

Some of the captains looked confused, while poring over the maps. The General had called them, not to interact with them or entertain their questions, but to give orders which they had to obey.

“I’ll tell you this and you’d o well to let it sink inside your brains… the Queen will have us all executed the moment we get back”.

One Captain who could not bottle his confusion any longer soon cut the General short. “Why would she do that to us after all the diamonds we’ll be bringing back to her…that’d be barbaric for Gods -”

“Keep quiet and listen to me”. General Whyte snarled.

“I’ve personally studied the entire situation before telling the fifteen of you what I’m telling you right now”.

The General spoke while suppressing every nerve in his face to prevent any frown from ‘spoiling’ the cold powder that had been plastered on his well-chiseled face. The Captain who had spoken seemed unimpressed, as he folded his arms and crossed his legs.

“Why do you think I refused to show the map to the Queen or any member of the royal family? Why do you think the Queen didn’t bother to send any member of the royal family to be her representative in the quest? Why do you think my dear old Uncle died the way he died?”

General Whyte knew the last question was ‘unrelated’ to the task of convincing the fifteen men, but a lie was necessary every now and then to achieve one’s aim. As the men mumbled and began to see reason with the General, he decided to ‘answer’ only one of the questions he’d asked.

“We are all expendable to Her Majesty, that’s why she’s provided the best caliber of soldiers for this quest, and let me add -”

He stood up without warning and pulled out his sword from its sheath and waved it in their faces. The sword’s blade had been carefully honed the previous day.

“I would rather fight, die and betray a Queen, than let her betray me after doing this Empire a great service…”

Placing the ceremonial hat on his head, the cheers outside became louder as the Queen and her entourage were now approaching the seaport. He sheathed the glinting sword and walked towards the door, and pretended to leave their midst.

“You think three thousand soldiers is something? Before we return, there’ll be twenty times that number from around the Empire waiting to finish us off”.

He quickly summarized his ‘plan’ for the Empire to them, and promised them riches and royal titles if they swore an oath of secrecy. The Captains stood up one after the other and swore an oath upon the hilt of the sword. They soon filed out of the room, each with a reproduced copy of the map rolled into a special container. Some of the Captains harboured one resentment or the other for the Queen prior to the meeting with General Whyte. It ranged from her high-handedness in ruling the empire to excessive taxes and levies imposed on everybody and everything.

Upon her arrival, Her Majesty was not interested in giving any long speech as she commended the General for his bravery and his sacrificial acts for the empire. Amid the noise from human, animal and instrumental sources, the fifteen ships sailed away from the seaport one after the other almost two hours later. The Queen had the broadest smile until they were out of sight. On the fifth day of October 1326, fifteen ships sailed towards Shaingwa, with each carrying a Captain, six crew members, three small boats, several cannons, countless cannonballs and two hundred well trained soldiers, to bring as much diamonds as possible to the Empire.

His compound was the biggest in all of Shaingwa, and was located in the center of the island. It consisted of a large mud house with twelve rooms, built in a semi-circle design, with a large shed made of tree stems and thatch. A second shed was erected a few meters in front of the first. Though it was made from the same materials, it had a hundred wooden benches arranged into rows and columns.

This was the palace of Sharkoti, the High Chief of Shaingwa. He was a brown skinned man, who was a few inches shorter than Darjer, had never frowned a day in his life, and was known for his quiet nature. It was noonday as he walked from one room to the other in the palace. He kept looking for an invisible thing, thinking of nothing and believing there was no problem. He walked outside, past the bigger shed and stood for some seconds before walking back into the palace. He was the only one inside the palace at that time, while fifteen warriors constantly patrolled the edges of the compound.

He thought of his beautiful wife for a brief moment. She was currently at her farm tending to her millet plants. She was in her late sixties, and was still beautiful compared to several women in her age-grade who’d wrinkles or extra ‘layers’ of flesh on their bodies. He thought about his four children who were all married, and then thought of Shaingwa…