THE ROYAL SISTERS

The secret affair.

EPISODE 04

At the same time, he moves away from the princess, taking by the opposite direction to that taken, by the silhouette he has just seen to catch up with her.

- Euh… Euh… my prince, the princess wonders, but the prince is already very far away!

Unfortunately for princess Agossi, who could not escape the vigilance of the prince. The prince eventually caught up with her in her flight. Caught in fear, she tries to free herself from the hands of the prince who now maintains her. But the prince tells her:

- Please wait!

- Please let me go! Please let me go!

- Who exactly are you? The prince asks her.

- Let me go, please let me go. I am nobody. You did not see me. I am just an ordinary maid. Please let me go!

- You? You cannot possibly be a maid looking so majestic and glamourous. You look so adorable, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

- Please let me go, let me go I am begging you, begs the princess, crying.

She finally detaches herself from the prince’s grip to run up into her room.

The door to the living room where the princess’s parents as well as those of the princess are located opens. Princess Agôyi enters the living room with acceleration in the walk. Djêhami was coming down from the floor and crosses her as she heads towards the steps of the floor. Her mother notices change in her and calls her:

- My princess?

- I am not your princess!

- But, what does that mean?

- No, she refutes!

- Agôyi? What nonsense? Oh, the king is indignant! Th curse that lunacy rained upon you has yet not dried up. How dare you insult our royal guests?

- Father please! Please! Reserve your venom for that loose girl you call my sister.

- Agôyi? Agô… Agô …

In front of everyone, she goes upstairs even though her father calls her. Amazement and shamed ense everyone in the living room. Her mother cannot even channel her.

Indeed, she saw the prince talking with princess Agossi. This is what awakened the demons that sleep in her. She became extremely jealous of the scene.

The king all furious, takes the way out, leaving his visitors to go and see what would have happened in the courtyard. The queen follows him.

- Where is she? Wonders the king.

A crowd of maids formed in the courtyard. The reason of this gathering, they surprised prince Adeleke and princess Agossi on the balcony when it should not happen. As stubborn as he is, the prince did not let princess Agossi go up to her room just now, after princess Agôyi saw them without their knowledge.

- Let me go please. You will put me into trouble.

- Please tell me your name!

- You are causing me embarrassment. I have no name. Just let me go.

The prince’s parents also went to the palace courtyard and fell in the same way as the king and the other members of the royal court on the stage.

- What! Prince Adeleke! What, exclaims the king, all nervous!

The prince, all brave, confronts the king:

- Your highness! I did not know that you have another daughter, more beautiful and angelic. I hope you will not mind that I have changed my mind! I would rather make this jewel here, the future queen of Hôgbonou kingdom.

- You are very stupid, says the king. How I misjudged your pig-sty personality for royalty! No! Your filthy stench would make a pig smell like a rose. You step your filthy feet into my kingdom to cause enmity between my daughter? Says the king very angry, to the prince.

- Please calm down my good friend, intervenes the prince’s father.

- Hein? We are not friends! Our friendship ended the moment your stupid son opened his rotten mouth to fouled the fresh air of Agbomey kingdom.

- Enough of the insolence. If there is anyone whose stench is worse than that of a pig, it is your daughter. Sorry! Your daughters. You should be ashamed of yourself that you pride yourself with everything yet could not bring up your daughters to become worthy princesses.

- Now you get out of my kingdom. And i forbid the day you will ever step your feet in this kingdom. Now you get out of my kingdom. Let’s go!

- Get out! Guards!

- Come! We are going! We are going!

On these words of King Adetutu, he pulls the prince’s hand without saying a word, to leave the kingdom, accompanied by his wife and daughter.

Princess Agossi takes advantage of the argument that has just broken out to quickly reach her room. She is worried by the reaction of her mother but also that of her sister, not to mention her father.

After the departure of the visitors, king Agboliagbo will join princess Agossi to set the record straight. He seeks to know the reasons that might prevent him from stabbing her. Once in the princess’s room, he asks her with rage:

- Give me a raison why I should not slice open your throat and let life’s red fountain flow forth from your veins, said the king, with a sword in his hand that he brandished on the princess. Tell me!

- Go ahead father! Go ahead. Perhaps it will put paid to my misery and lay me to rest in my very elusive bliss, the princess tells him, losing all hope to life.

The king being a man with a big heart, he does not remain insensitive to the sincerity in the voice of the princess. Her words reach him and annihilate his anger. Suddenly, the sword and its case fall from his hands. He remains speechless for a few seconds.

- Why? Why? Asks the king in a calm and compassionate voice. Why mussy you disgrace me so Agossi? Why? I thought you would grow up to be more responsible than your sister. But you are turning out to be worse. What is it with you, that you cannot control your desire for men? What is it?

Unfortunately, she does not have the words to explain the true version of events to her father. She lacks the strength to vomit the truth. She lows herself to be dominated by sobs without giving any explanation to her father to defend her honor and prove her innocence. Disappointed, the king finally comes out of the room, very dejected and very ashamed.

END OF SOUL TRAVEL

On the courtyard of the palace, one of the maids finds one of the guards, busy doing laundry. A discussion begins between the two. The maid says to the guard:

- Sweetheart! You are still washing. I brought you your food, smiling. Should I drop it here?

- Assiba! Since when did you start serving me my food?

- My love from now on, I will personally serve you your food. What am I even? Let me help you with the washing.

- Stop! I would not want anyone to hear you calling me that in the palace. Ok? I am not interested in you. Leave me alone. Stop wasting your time.

- It is my time my love. I do not mind wasting it on you. Please just allow me. Let help you with the washing.

- Leave me alone! Stop!

- Please I insist! Please let me just help you. Please!

- Okay. You can have it your way.

- Ok no problem. My love, your food!

- I am not hungry. You can eat it.

He ends up leaving the laundry to Assiba after her insistence. He walks away to leave her alone. In the royal salon, the king sist alone. He thinks about everything that is going on around him. He was there, thinking when princess Agossi comes down from her room to talk to him. She is all pale. She kneels at the feet of her father, the king, and tells him:

- Please forgive me father. I had no intentions to ruin Agôyi’s relationship with the prince.

- You disobeyed your mother and I Agossi.

- The boredom, the loneliness, it was chocking me father. I just had to step out for the alluring of the evening breeze.

- Come sit down. Get up and sit down, says the king.

She executes. She sits next to her father. He speaks calmy and tenderly and tells her:

- It was not entirely your fault. I know. But why men keep flocking to your side in preference to your elder sister, is what i do not understand.

- I wish I could just go away. Maybe settle down somewhere far away from this kingdom so I do not keep coming in the way of my elder sister.

- You know why you cannot leave this palace just yet my daughter.

- I know! I know father.

- For you, your marriage is tied to your elder sister’s right of first passage and you know it.

- Sometimes, I wish I could just curse these traditions that has forced my heart into s*****y in my own kingdom.

- Come! Come here!

She approaches the king who squeezes her with his left arm before telling her:

- Your heart will grow wings again like a bird to caress the wind and flight once your elder sister is given out in marriage. She needs a lot of prayers because her situation is more complicated than she knows it. So, you do not worry my dear. It is well.

He touches her forehead to bless her. The rest of the day goes smoothly until nightfall. The day that followed was a quiet day. The queen, seated under the luxurious veranda at the entrance of the palace, she is helped by one of the maids to arrange her hair. As a great queen, she is dressed in local dress based on loincloth, adorned with cowries on both sides.

- Remove! Remove it. Remove the breads, orders the queen to the maid.

The maid carries out the queen’s orders. They were there when on off the guards approached them, to put himself in a surveillance position. The queen then asks him:

- Yes Dossou! Speak up! Leave us orders the queen to the maid.

- Tell me why you should not be punished for keeping mute, takes back the queen.

- My queen does me a great injustice, settling the maids Ayaba and Akuavi with so much wealth and freedom. Yet, I am abandoned here to languish in servitude.

- I have no powers to set you free. You are the king’s personal slave. You are not even elevated to the enviable status of palace attendant. He will raise eyebrows that I cannot defend.

- I know, your majesty. I am a debt paid to his highness by my late father for his unforgivable crime against Agbomey kingdom.

- You see! You cannot leave Agbomey kingdom.

- That leaves me double cheated my queen.

- You are in no position to complain about how you are treated in this palace. Does anyone treat you like a slave in this palace? Do we?

- No, your majesty but…

- So get out!

Amazed by the way the queen interrupted him and then sent him back, he looks at her and repeats:

- Your majesty!

- I say get out!

Reluctantly, he complies with what the queen has just said and exudes from her face. The king for his part is always concerned about the question of the marriage of his eldest daughter and all constraints that go with it. That morning, he is in the same way as the queen in local dress, well dressed and beautiful to admire. He is always carried away by his worries when one of the maids brings him breakfast and then greets him naturally:

- Greetings your highness!

He did not deign to respond to the greeting of the maid. She brings the small table on which she served the king closer to him. She then takes the glass of water he hands to the king, but he sends her a no by gesture, raising his hand to say stop. The maid understood the king’s message and placed the glass of water on the small table and withdrew from the living room. Shortly thereafter, the queen comes to meet her husband, the king, in the living room. She has the face of a person troubled by a situation. Once near the king, she sits next to him, in the same place where princess Agossi sat yesterday and says:

- My king! Please do not allow this event to weigh you down to avoid heart issues please.

- My heart has no control over the weight of these events, Djêtô. The chief priest just left here.

- The chief priest? What did he come here for?

- The princess turns thirty in two months time. And if she does not find a husband before then, the ancestral curse will be voked upon here.

- What ancestral curse?

- Some traditional facts were kept away from you, my queen. Who would ever thought it could ever come to this?

- What facts? What is going on my king?

- Have you ever wondered why your first daughter was not circumcised yet Agossi was?

- The priest said the gods forbid that the king’s first daughter to be circumcised.

- For a purpose.

- What purpose? Speak fast my king and stop prickly my senses.

- It is an ancient standing tradition of Agbomey. Only the rightful husband can circumcise the king’s first daughter on the night that she proves her virginity. Only her pure and unadulterated blood can quench the thirst of her ancestors.

- My daughter is a virgin. I can vouge my life on this.

- You do not understand this my queen. If this blood sacrifice is not done before she is thirty…she will become a sacrifice to the ancestors and no daughter of the king shall ever get married.

- What stupid tradition is this? Starts by shouting the queen and then suddenly gets up. What rubbish! No daughter of mine shall be used for sacrifice. No daughter of mine.

As soon as she finishes telling this to the king, she abandons him alone in the royal living room to rush up to her upstairs bedroom.

********

- Leave me alone. Leave me alone.

- Baby I am sorry ok?

- Leave me alone. I do not want to hear anything from you.

- Baby I will not leave you alone ok? Just hear me out. I beg you!

- There is no point Assuka. I loved you with all my heart and all you could do is just to hurt me in return.

- Baby I am sorry. Ok? You know how difficult princess Agôyi could be? She forced me into having an affair with her. What would you have me do? Report her?

- What about Assiba? Oh, you should have seen the way she and her friends brutalized and humiliated me the other day all because of you?

- Sweety I am sorry. Assiba? You know? She is not my type. I would never have anything to do with Assiba. I can never date her. Ok?

- What is this secrete idle meeting for? Do not you two have something important to do at your stations? Asks princess Agôyi to the guard and the maid.

- Sorry my princess! Both people say to apologize.

It is indeed a royal court guard and a maid who discuss about their troubled romantic relationship on the palace courtyard. They are surprised by bad lucky by the very arrogant princess Agôyi who did not hesitate to ask what the two, are doing standing, when they should each be occupied in his post at the time.

- Why are you still standing there? Asks the princess to the maid.

The maid apologizes and slips away. The guard is about to do the same when the princess orders him:

- And hey! Come back here.

- My princess, responds the guard with great confidence in the voice and in his posture.

- What were you discussing with that low life? I hope you have not spilled out our secret liase to her.

- No my princess.

As usual, she is all radiant again this morning with her royal clothing that reflects her charm and elegance…