❝In a world of games, lies and death, only those with heart made of bone can survive.❞
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The Prime Minister is dead, The fight for the apex seat in the Confederacy has begun. In a game of Grand mi...
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TEN HELLS BROKE LOOSE the day the erudite chancellor of University of Yaba resigned. Rumors trickled from different corners. Soon, it flooded the town. Who suddenly resigns at the peak of their career? Ije, the wonky hairdresser beside Iyabo's depleting house, believed the chancellor had eventually ran mad from grieving his beloved son.
The market woman who sold unripe tomatoes to Iyabo had said he was taking another wife, Iyabo guessed it was her daughter. Iyabo didn't waste her time to figure out a reason, she would ask the old boy herself but first she must get him a gift.
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She let out the whisper like a snake passing its venom, so much that the boothman had to strain his ears to hear her.
"What do you think?" She asked a male grocer in brown tunic and black kembe trousers, his cap and accent revealed to Iyabo that he was a lesser citizen, someone whose right could be trampled upon.
"A fair deal, my lady," the grocer said.
"Good," Iyabo smiled, the kind of charming smile that put even a revered warriors at ease, she had successfully hidden the dubious game she was about to play.
She watched the grocer put the fruits into a brown bag, one that was reserved for the grandest citizens, guilt panged her for a moment but she immediately let it sink into the abyss it came from, she was doing this because she had no options, she reminded herself.
What was the essence of being a grand citizen without money, using her position to get things she needed was the best she could do with it.
The grocer handed her the bag, she checked the inside of the bag to make sure what she ordered was complete, she then dropped thirteen Yar into the payment jar instead of fifteen Yar, she left the booth hastily, before the boothman could figure out she had dubbed him, even if he knew, there was nothing he could do.
A deal is a deal, especially when it involves a Grand citizen like her.
Even though Iyabo never looked back, she knew the grocer was cursing her in his savage language of Aboki, the language of the damned lakesiders, a language Iyabo shouldn't understand but she did.
Iyabo smiled, the grocer was a wise one, if he had pursued her, he would have spent the rest of his night at Yaka Sheriff Station.
Iyabo wished the man could know about her curse as a Wahala child, a confusion and mistake of the caste system Yaba had successfully built. Being born by parents who were never meant to fall in love or adopted by an insider house was Wahala like the coastsiders would say.
She pulled her shawl above her head, plunging into the chaotic street of Metropolitan Market, her Makara - a gold beaded shoulder collar necklace with corsets glistening in the late afternoon sun.
