Women Of Steel | ✔

XXXII:TARA

The princess is missing.

Ile Wura is short of crumbling to the ground after taking so many blows, the battle that happened merely a week and some days ago, the plague and illnesses. And yesterday, strange birds attacked the villagers leaving their marks of death, the princess was also discovered missing.

Like the village, its ruler is crumbling too and the final push is his sister. Kabiyesi Tadenikawo has decided to go to war, he has decided to push himself over the final unreturnable edge much to the chagrin and disapproval of his cabinet. It is springtime, the village should be celebrating her annual the festival of blossoms, the flowers should be brightening the streets and the crops should be ripe. Spring is a time for happiness and celebrations but there is nothing to celebrate.

The village is polluted and dirty, even nature has begun to desert them. Now, the king wishes to push whatever is left into a fruitless war. Tara overheard the impromptu cabinet meeting last night, the cabinet is in disarray and is fast losing trust and faith in the leadership of Tadenikawo. They want to question Tara to reverse the curse she supposedly caused, they want answers and they are not getting any, instead, the king shoves the command of war in their mouths like a mother threatening a toddler to eat his greens.

It is clear to Tara that there is no chance in the heavens and the hells that Ile Wura will win a war, more than half of the army that used to win victories is dead and the lot left is in no shape for any battle. Tadenikawo is deaf to all of these concerns, he is certain that she is in the hands of the forest people.

It is a common saying; when a man is on the path of destruction, nothing can sway his ears.

Tara spends most days sitting in this spacious chamber, doing nothing but suffering visions that have no happy ending. However today, the visions do not come and the day is quiet, the tension still hangs in the air but it is almost bearable, Tara finds herself humming to a tune. She used to sing before, before her husband died and before she was an outcast. She was not very pretty compared to the beauty of the village maidens, they often said her skin was too dark, her waist too small and that she was not as voluptuous,like the soft Sade. But her voice drew suitors like a siren song.

Out of them all, she had chosen Olamilekan. Her brave and kind husband. She had loved him and lost him and it still hurt like hell.

Memory is too bitter too dwell on and before she can draw herself out of it's deep, sucking pit, someone else or something else snaps her out of it. A growl echoes through her chambers and Tara jumps slightly.

Again, the sound echoes from the outside, from the palace grounds. There is the sound of commotion of stumping feet, Tara dare not breath. As soon as it begins, it fads, the quiet returns with unusual tension.

Tara knows better than to poke her face outside, she has been given strict orders to remain in her chambers. While the anger of the people have shifted back to their king, Babatunde told her, one glimpse of her face and she is a dead woman.

So she wallows in her curiosity until the guards that usually guard her door step inside and tell her the king has summoned her. She awaits their usual look and sneers but instead, they shift on their weight and glance nervously outside.

Tara lets them take her to the king, she tries to ignore how dirty the grounds look, the sticky moulds of food carelessly disposed and the feathers. Hundreds of them line the ground like confetti. Not even the palace was spared from the crows, Tara is only lucky that she was indoors when it happened, unless, she would sport the bright red spots on her skin. The cacophony of the caws still ring in her skull, the sound of their beaks pecking on the raffia roof still haunt her. She raises a hand to her line of sight to block the glare of the afternoon sun.