Chapter Nine

It was late in the night before the second Queen was emancipated from the temple with the new prince. The sacred sword given to her, she buried it beneath the pillar at the front of her room. She did so because she knew the first Queen would come after it. No one knew she had left the temple though, everyone thought she would return the succeeding day including the first Queen. It was only the guards at the front of her room that knew she had returned and other guards who saw her when she was walking unhurriedly with her maids carrying the new prince. She thought all day what her fate would be as the birth of a new prince would thicken the line of hatred which the first Queen had for her. Her nerve was soothed when she recalled that the king and Diye were in support of her. Mixed thoughts ran through her psyche the night she returned to her room. She soliloquised all day standing and sitting concurrently. She had been in a worried mood since she had given birth to the new prince. She thought what the death of the king would be for her. She thought if the first Queen could allow her son to rule as destined by the gods. She feared for the life of her son if the first Queen eventually found out. The moment she buried the sacred sword came to her psyche again, she recalled if anyone saw her. She wasn't in the right frame of mind as the thought of how the new prince could survive the hatred of the first Queen crowned her psyche. She thought of escape if eventually, things didn't go as planned, but there wasn't a safe place she could go, because her hometown Huye, the throne had been seized from their lineage due to the fact that her father didn't have any male child before his demise. She peeped through the window till the morning. She couldn't sleep as her psyche wasn't at peace.

It was early in the morning. The king was still lying willy-nilly in her room after hitting the bottle yesterday. Commonly, early in the morning, he would have risen from his bed and took some strolls around the palace, it had become his routine activity which most of the palace denizen had known him for. He would have been strolling around with his two hands behind like a vagrant, sometimes probably with a bottle of alcohol, he did call it "morning coffee". She did reiterate that her strength and her life was in alcohol that if she flunked it a day, he might cease to exist. Even before being reinstated as the ruler of Woyoe most of the kingmakers were against the fact that he should be made the king, but they didn't have any other alternative because he was the only son of the late king. Even the northerners that did come to pray in the temple knew him. 

Most of those that did come to the temple early in the morning wasn't seeing him as usual. All morning activities had begun. The maids had woke up early enough so they could clean all the specks of dirt on the floor after yesterday ceremony. The king supposed to have the weekly meeting with the ministers yesterday but it was suspended due to the ceremony which took place. People began to question the king's whereabouts. Some thought maybe, he had gone to the shore, because most times if not seen around the palace in the morning, he would be at the shore. What the inhabitant of Woyoe and aliens knew most about him was about his addiction to alcohol and itinerancy. He could spend a whole day scouting the kingdom. He rarely read and if eventually, he made up his psyche to read, he wouldn't go to the library, because he didn't know how the books were arranged, he did call on Yongo to help him out. 

The first Queen was nervous because the king hadn't come out. While the second Queen was sleeping owed to the fact that she stayed up late in the night. She initially thought he had gone to the shore as usual when she didn't see him, but when she sighted that his horse was still in the palace she became apprehensive. Varied thoughts began to run through her psyche. She chose to visit his room. 

"Is His Majesty in the room?", she asked one of the guards who stood by the left side of the entrance.

"His Majesty is still sleeping", replied the guard with her head bowed like someone who wanted to use her mouth to remove something from his chest.

She compromised in her psyche that the king must be tired due to the stress he went through yesterday, she then returned to her room. Till afternoon the king hadn't come out. The Queen decided to visit her room again but chose to enter this time around. 

"What!!!!!", She screamed with her two hands up in the sky.

The guards who stood at the entrance requested for approval to enter but the Queen didn't retort. The condition she met the king wasn't decent. She groped and palpated his body and noticed a slight uneasiness. She strode out of his room to the large dome to order one of the maids to go and call on the nurse so they could scan the king's temperament. When the first Queen was about to step out through the door she collided with the second Queen at the entrance. The second Queen just woke up after a long kip since morning, she decided to also come and check on the king since she hadn't seen him for weeks except for the day before the ceremony and on the ceremony day, though she didn't have any serious discussion with him on those two days. The second Queen was surprised and bow her head for the first Queen to pass. The first Queen yelled at her but she didn't say anything. She had got used to her incessant holler.

One of the nurses entered and met the second Queen seated beside the king on the bed. She stood up when the nurse entered so she could check what's wrong with the king. The nurse noticed that the king's condition wasn't better. She had to go to their department to call on the nurse master. The nurse master who was the head of the nurse department had to come and verify what she was told by the initial nurse. Some minutes later the first Queen entered after the nurse master entered, she twisted her eyes, she saw the second Queen. The second Queen decided not to peek at her face to avoid further embarrassment. After several scanning by the nurse master, she didn't get the exact malady of the king but she noticed that her condition wasn't any better.

"What did he eat yesterday?", asked the nurse master.

"I can't say because after the ceremony was concluded he wined and dined with other kings till it was twilight before he came in to sleep", replied the first Queen.

The nurse knew he must have taken excessive alcohol yesterday. She began packing her pieces of stuff. And used the fabric on the bed to cover the king very well. She told the two Queens that a physician would be needed to check on the king's health because they didn't have the exact apparatus that could be used to examine his health adequately. The two Queens were worried and accompanied the nurse master to the entrance as she was talking to them.