Women Of Steel | ✔

XXXVII: TADENIKAWO

I'm done with exams now! Phew, here's an update for you guys. Enjoy, the next one probably won't come for a while.

"Your Highness, the rider you sent has not returned and it is nightfall already," Kosoko says to the king, looking up with cunning eyes. "There was a struggle and he was taken."

Tadenikawo blinks, half dazed from weariness. The king and his troops have been riding for two days, nearing the boundaries of Odum, the forest king's kingdom. Tadenikawo knows it will take a few more days to near the village but he also knows that Amadi likes to set out guards even far away from the village to sight intruders before they set foot in his kingdom. Tadenikawo grudgingly admires his wisdom. It seems they have been spotted.

Yesterday, the king send out a rider to scout ahead and bring back news but he has since not returned, his capture is the only explanation.

The battle has not began but Amadi continues to outwit him at every turn, it brings a bitter taste to the king's tongue. An unwanted memory resurfaces, while Tadenikawo was a boy, he had been an impulsive child, never thinking but diving head first. One day, he had accused a member of his father's cabinet of plotting regicide simply because he had caught the old man talking in hushed tones and slipping something in the pockets of a servant. He had been wrong and Kabiyesi Gbadamosi had him flogged publicly.

It took weeks and several herbalists for the pain in his back to cease. But it wasn't the physical pain that continued to haunt Tadenikawo, it is the words his father whispered after the beating in his ears; wisdom is not your strong suit, and its absence will be your downfall.

Tadenikawo grits his teeth at the memory and sits up straighter atop his stallion as if his father were right besides him and judging him. His back is stiff and hurts from riding for so long without rest and he can barely feel his feet, one glance at the battalion behind him, tells him that his men feel the same pain.

Tadenikawo blinks again, swallowing a yawn.

"Send out another man, but let him go on foot." Tadenikawo orders his right hand besides him.

"No man is willing to volunteer, they are weary and unprepared, I think it'd be best if you call for a rest and we resume in the morning. The dark is enough to mislead any man." Kosoko advises with a stiff shrug.

Tadenikawo's eyes blaze with anger and he welcomes it, it is a distraction from the words ringing in his head; wisdom is not your strong suit and its absence shall be your downfall. He clenches the reins of his stallion tighter.

"You dare question my command, do you think I am not wise enough to lead you?" Tadenikawo snaps, his voice echoes in the void of the night and he winces at it's sharpness. His men bristle and recoil.

The weary king takes a good look at his small army of three hundred men. The aid he requested from the other Yoruba kingdom remains unanswered, his hold and power is crumbling to pieces little by little. He has lost all respect in the sight of other kings and in the sight of his subjects.

What does a man who has all lost control do? He careens whatever is left of his pride and power down the river of destruction.

He can hear the grumbles under their breaths, he sees the doubting glances and the plotting gazes. He is fighting a losing battle but he has nothing left to lose again. One last fight for the one person he has loved all his life. So he bids his time and heaves a sigh of defeat under his breath.

Tadenikawo returns his subdued gaze to his right hand. Tadenikawo cannot recalling Kosoko ever looking so serious minded.

"Tell them we are stopping for the night, we resume at dawn."

***

Tadenikawo jolts awake from a nightmare, sweating and shaking in the cold midnight air. When he opens his clenched palms, he finds his fingers as claws caked with dried blood. His clothes are in tatters and he feels an ache in his teeth.

The king lifts a shaky hand to his teeth and they return equally bloody. A shudder racks through the king and he lets his head fall between his legs in shame. He knows if he looks to his right or left, he will find a mauled body and a trail of blood that leads to him.

This is the fifth episode he has had since Amadi took his kingdom and his wife. All roads leads back to Demilade, his destruction and saviour.

Tadenikawo calls them episodes because they happen sporadically and irregularly, it grips him and when he wakes, he has no memory of what happened while he blacked out. But the blood is there to remind him.

Human by day, beast by night.

Tadenikawo had the his first episode the night he married Demilade, they have plagued him ever since. Not even the wise Ifatunji can find a cure. Tadenikawo does not think of his beastly episodes as a misfortune, he likes to think of it as a reward, a malevolent reward for all the evil from his father to him.

Tadenikawo raises his head and screams suddenly into the trees, into the orange sky. Pouring grief, pain and suffering into the shout. He screams until his throat is raw and cheeks damp. For the first time in his life, he damns his father to a thousand hell and curses the day he was born, he curses his mother and her gentle spirit. The crown has never felt more heavy on his head.

Turn around now and save yourself and whatever is left of your dignity and kingdom, his reasonable side screams. He ignores it.

Then he rises, the tattered and broken king in all his fallen glory. He spies the body hidden behind a shrub of plants, the scent of blood heavy in the head. He turns to the left and is almost not surprised to see another corpse. This is not the first episode that he kills more than one person, sometimes he is lucky only to have killed a wild animal but his luck has been gone a long time ago.

The king sets to his work, digging the brittle soil with his bare fingers, he digs until his fingers are blistered and sore but the pain is welcome, anything is welcome from the abyss in his chest. When his task of burying the bodies is done, he stumbles to his feet, feeling a thousand years older and a thousand times more battered.