THE FACE OF A SLEEPING KING-3

THE FACE OF A SLEEPING KING-3

They did not waste a moment in putting them to work the very evening they arrived in the kingdom.

Demeaning labour

They were reduced to the base of all humanity. Slavery.

“Did you hear a word I said?”

Princess Yaba shifted her gaze to the woman who addressed her. The woman whose image the princess beheld was simply perfection. Although she was a head shorter than Princess Yaba, her full and round body did more than necessary to compensate for her height. In fact, it perfected her. Her skin was fair. From where the princess stood she could tell it was soft.

She must be getting her milk treatment without fail.

The thought made the princess wrinkle her nose. She had rejected that treatment countless times. Other times, her mother had to literally drown her in milk.

A princess must always be flawless.

Tears filled her eyes when she thought of her mother.

***Wham***

The princess did not even think before she reacted. She slapped the lady in return. Stunned, the woman clutched her cheeks and drew back.

What? Has nobody ever whacked you for throwing tantrums?

Tears stung the lady’s eyes.

“Yo-you were n-not paying attention and…” Suddenly she gained composure, “How dare you slap me?”

She charged at the princess who did not even flinch. Before she could come any closer for the princess to give her the beating of her life, one of her guards grabbed her from behind. As she tried to claw Princess Yaba’s face off she threatened, “You have no idea who you are messing with. I will show you that I am Nana Akua Danquah. You will regret ever laying your filthy eyes on me. You filthy slave.” She gave the guard the nastiest gaze and he immediately let go of her. She straightened and looked at the princess.

“You are scrubbing every surface of the royal kitchen. With the sand from the coast you are going to make sure every surface sparkles before morning.”

She now addressed the guard. “Get her on her knees”

The princess sized the guard up. She would not go down without a fight. That was when it hit her.

The kitchen, the royal kitchen!

Caught off guard the guard kicked her in the small of her back, immediately she was on the ground. She was flaming mad. But she decided to play the weak woman.

Nana Akua pulled at the princess’s hair, literally trying to tear it off her scalp. The princess bellowed in pain. Another day, she would have kept a stiff upper lip.

“I am Nana Akua Danquah, bethrothed to the King. Remember this name. It would be the last on your lips when you breathe your last, SLAVE!”

My name would be the last on yours when I take your betrothed to the land of your ancestors.

Nana Akua threw the princess’s head to the ground but she broke her fall with her elbow. The princess allowed herself to find tears that were farther than she could ever remember.

“Take her away!” Nana Akua commanded.

Princess Yaba began to slave away in the royal kitchen.

“Are you still getting yourself in trouble?” The missionary’s hoarse voice was filled with concern as he whispered into Princess Yaba’s ears. The slaves working in the kitchen stared as they considered the strange-skinned man.

“Do you still have those powdered leaves that put you to sleep?” The princess ignored his question.

“Why do you ask?” He did not need to ask. He knew the princess too well.

“Let me have it.”

“No.”

“I will have your throat if you don’t hand it over.”

“Young lady, don’t treat me like one of your maids. You should know better by now.”

She was frustrated. There was no threatening this man who had no regard for his life, who had almost no reason to live. But for a man he called Jesus, the missionary himself had nothing more to live for.

“I promised my ma. Don’t you understand that? I promised my ma!” Hysteria was quickly replacing her desperation as her whisper almost became a squeak.

The missionary cast his saddest look at her.

“You will regret doing this.”

“You are wrong. I will regret more if I do nothing.”

“Have it.” He untied a knot at the end of his clothe then withdrew from her, shaking his head sadly.

At that moment all the slaves from far and wide kingdoms also withdrew from the kitchen. They knew enough to not confront the cavalry.

Princess Yaba poured a sizeable amount into the soups and sauces that simmered in the pots and stirred.

“What trouble are you up to now?” The princess jumped more out of excitement than fear.

“I have been waiting for you.” She turned and the sight that met her was a total disappointment. He had sounded so much like the King.

“Well, have you?” His tone was no less menacing than the last time she heard it all though his lips were still badly injured. 

“It must be painful to talk.”

“O this pain? It will be nothing compared to what you’ll feel after I am done with you. You see, I spoke to the bastard and he seems to be infatuated with a dead girl from one of the villages we raided and destroyed. So he wanted to hear nothing of the choicest spoil.”

“You have no respect; not for yourself, not for women and not for your own king.”

“O who? That bastard brother of mine? I will soon have his crown on my head where it should be. Enough about him. Come and let me please myself with your fire. I hope you know how this goes. The more you struggle the more I enjoy this.” He breathed heavily down the princess’s neck. Desire pumping blood to only one part of his body.

He pressed into the princess pinning her to a table; between a pot of boiling soup and himself.

When the princess’s hand finally clutched on to her knife she whispered, “You’ll never forget today.”

Almost immediately she grabbed his manhood which was engorged in blood and squeezed.

“Today you will learn that women are powerful too.” He screamed. “You will learn to respect them. You will learn.” She squeezed even harder and pressed the knife to his manhood. His eyes widened in terror quickly replacing the pain that had filled his eyes.

“You have terrorized slaves because of this stick in between your thighs. You have become a slave to it. Now I aim to draw as much blood as you have drawn from between the thighs of virgins.” She gave a clean slice round his manhood. She controlled the knife so it would not go deeper than necessary. She aimed to torture but he immediately passed out.

She threw him into one of the kitchen cupboards and walked out confidently.

“You can now serve the food.” She announced to the petrified slaves who waited outside the kitchen.

***

She had waited till her patience began to wane. She woke all the slaves in the slaves’ quarters.

“Run. Don’t look back.” She commanded.

She grabbed her knife. Excitement sprung in her every step. All the guards were deep in sleep when she got to the royal quarters and it did not take long to find the king’s room. Her hands trembled slightly with delight.

Nothing could have prepared her for what she saw.

The king, the mighty king who took everything from her was lying down with the face of a vulnerable child. He moaned softly and in the dim light that had filled his room, the princess could tell that his face, beaded with sweat, held the deepest pain of one having a nightmare that was born from reality.

She had expected to react with anger and brute when she saw the king. She had not expected to want to soothe his pain, to tell him that it was nothing more than a bad dream. It made no sense to the princess who stood before the sleeping king confounded.

She hesitated.

“Ma, ma” The king moaned louder, growing all the more restless in his bed.

The pain that accompanied these two syllabi jarred at the princess’s heart. Then she thought of her own pain and it combusted any compassion that had begun to stir in her heart. She lifted her knife. A second more and she would be able to walk away from this. That was when the alarm sounded. A sharp piercing sound of a horn and a message quickly followed by the beat of a talking drum.

“The slaves are escaping.” The message was sent throughout the kingdom by the beat of what the princess had assumed was the largest talking drum ever made.

The king bolted up from his nightmare then. The princess in a last futile attempt tried to plunge the knife into the king’s heart. But it was too late. He held unto her hands.

“We meet again, princess.” He disarmed her and threw her his most charming smile.