Two Moons by J. Raymond Ractliffe - Chapter 19

Two Moons is a new novel by J. Raymond Ractliffe that explores the inner spirit life of Africa, her people and their powerful faith in the world of the Unseen.

The Mark of the Two Moons
Chapter 19

      Zizi stoked the fire in her hut, pushing the low coals back to life as she considered the next moments to come. She had taken off her clothing to cool herself from the heat of the day, only an apron and her ornaments remaining. This moment stolen under the pretext of her need for her own toilet, Zizi had left the side of the chief and returned to her hut. For a night and now a day and evening, she had watched the Chief begin the lower cramping, then the severe pain and retching as the poison brought by Sampanga had filled his belly.

The elders had nodded their approval of her comings and goings. Tirelessly, she had shown her devotion, not sleeping at all but seeing to her Lord through night and day.

Although deeply tired, the adrenaline coursing through her veins kept her mind clear and focused to the final culmination of years of careful planning. Sampanga had come with the powder of the crushed beans which she had diluted in the special broths prepared to ease the abdominal pains.

The Chief now lay feverish and unable to control the emptying of his bloodied bowls. Zizi had had to wipe and clean him like a child after he has missed his chamber pot. His stools raining like water to the ground. Now he lay unable to move, his bloody stools streaming from his body where he lay. She had not told the Elders of the colour changing in his stools, to bright red as blood poured from him. The darkened hut kept the severity of the illness away from prying eyes, the low fire bringing only warmth. Special herbs smoldering on the coals filled the air with pungent aromas designed to cover the tell tale signs of approaching death.

Zizi considered the previous night when she had finally given Sampanga the seal of her commitment to their schemes. She had held his firm desire in her hand, stroking him until his seed had spilled to the ground before her. At the swift climax he had almost cried out, tears streaming down his face at the delirium and sexual opiate finally filled his spirit. The covenant between them now sealed, Sampanga could now allow himself to dream of the coming nights when he would no longer be alone on his mat. His long spear spent by the heat of Zizi's body beneath him

She had been sickened at the stuttering fool. He had whimpered like a child as she held him. Ngai might have given him a great spear but he would never be able to satisfy her as a woman. His spear she knew would always flow quickly with his seed. No time for her own fires to be stoked until her own blood fire satisfied and released. Like a monkey after the act, he had stuttered for a while, pouring out his heart and rapture of the moment. Tumbling words rolling over themselves, he spoke like a young girl, all words and simple thoughts.

For now, this a small price to pay for her son and her becoming the mother of the chief. Time still for her own plans to be put into play, releasing her of this pact until her own life be fulfilled.

A rustle behind her, she turned swiftly from the rising fire. Sampanga had come in low through the doorway, his cloak folded high over his lower face, eager eyes finding her.

"What are you doing here? Are you mad? Do you want us to be caught?" she hissed at him.

"If any one sees us I will say only I brought fresh herbs to be given to the chief" Sampanga said, the light dimming briefly from his yes.

"You fool, we said we would see as little as possible of each other until the chief was dead, even then, we would be careful not to be seen too closely for fear any one would consider our closeness as being more than dutiful."

"I could not wait, I watched from the outer compound until you had had come from the chief. No one has watched me in the darkness. All are waiting outside the chief's hut or tending to their own families needs." Sampanga eyes now brimmed again, hopeful of his next request as he feasted himself on her exposed body in the firelight.

"All day I have relived the moment of our coming together. Now the chief is truly dying, there is nothing to stop it." Here Sampanga paused, unsure of himself. The fire had raged all day in his veins,and like the coming of a storm it held him, caught like a child in the winds. The fire lust that burned brightly now, directed his every thought.

"I want you, calling my name while I am a man in you" he said finally. She could see his eyes wide in hope, darting to and fro over her. "I have waited too long. I need it. Now! I cannot wait any longer"

His tongue licked his lips, spittle drooling off his lower lip. Crouched as he was before her, she was in no doubt, the stuttering fool could now destroy their plans with his cocked spear that seemed to burn without end.

She peered into his eyes seeing for the first time his crazed blood lust that had truly long tormented him, pushing him now to the edge of real danger. Like a raging river during the rainy season, this force would not be calmed by words or threats. Better to release him of it all and have him continue the night, finishing their schemes.

"Then come here. Just do it quickly and be off, you fool, before any one comes!,” she said. No time to do anything else except feed his lust before it undid all of their plans.

"Tthththth-thank you. This is wa-wa-wa-wonderful. Finally!" Sampanga pulled at the thong from his waist to release his apron. It was not needed as his spear was already peering out from beneath, pointing at her.

On her knees, she reached over to her son's sleeping mat. A tug at a raised corner and brushing her hand to smooth the folds, this gave her time to prepare her mind for what was to come. This was the price she had agreed to pay.

From behind, Sampanga had come closer. With his hand directing his spear, he had not waited for her. She could feel it on her buttocks, probing, looking for her opening, searching for her. She could hear him whimpering like a child again and it sickened her. He rose too high and tried to spear her hard.

"Wait!" she shrieked as she leaned yet more forward to escape his probing. She used her hand to swat him away and felt him hard behind her. "Wait a moment - it is lower!"

The stinging pain of her hand swatting him brought him to levels unknown to him. Coupled with the danger of their schemes, the sudden pain and ecstasy merging in his mind brought him to delirious open fields of almost unlimited pleasure.

"Don't fight me, I know you like it" Sampanga said, pulling her roughly back. He had grabbed her hips on either side and pulled her hard to him. Like the animals he had seen all his life, Sampanga reared up behind her and mounted her. Cleanly driving himself deeply into her, he felt as is he had fallen into an endless sensuous well of the most indescribable pleasure. Still he slid deeper and deeper into her softness until his own stomach slapped against her bare skin.

With a gasp, Zizi caught his hand on her hip and held tightly. Unable to catch her breath, she held tightly as the spasm of pain slowly drained from her. One arm before her, holding herself up off the ground, the other holding his hand on her hip.

Zizi could hear him whimpering now, thrusting himself into her while on her knees. A few more strokes and already she could feel the coming trembling.

As the fire raged in Sampanga, his one hand slipped from her tightly held hip and he tumbled to the side of her. She had just moved to adjust to his pressure and thrusts, when he slid out of her with a wail. She could feel it now hot and wet on her thigh.

"Oh - oh - oh no" he said. "No!" he whimpered with a cry of a child. She looked back over her shoulder. He was reaching down now, trying to redirect himself back into her. She reached back again, this time taking careful aim and slapped him hard across his long spear.

Like a snake fighting off the advances of a mongoose, Sampanga held it back away from her in his hand. The pain of her slap mingling with the coming of his rush and while he held it there in his own hand, his eyes rolled back and in the fire that had consumed him for the day, it let forth all the pressures and ecstasies of his day dreams. His white seed rained from him onto her dark thigh and buttocks. There seem to end to it, in the firelight it came without end.

Zizi's own anger now rose up, she had by now turned around on her haunches and crouching low she hissed at him. "You stuttering fool, you are not even a man, don't ever do that to me again, ever!"

Sampanga was still in the throes of his rapture, hand on his spear, riding what seemed to be unending waves of sexual bliss when a knife blade found its way across his neck and he was held fast. Struggling to find his mind through the mists of his sexual delirium, enough of the adrenaline from the sudden danger made him pause without flinching.

"If you move, I will slit your worthless throat like a goat" came the voice behind him. Sampanga could feel the hand as someone pressed a cold blade against his neck. The moment of final sexual triumph has exploded into fear and desperation at the unknown intruder. Zizi's own eyes were wide and fixed behind him. Whoever it was, she held their gaze unblinking, afraid herself to move.

"What kind of monkey is it, who spears his woman, yet completes this task of a man with his own hand? Is he not enough of a man, or is she not enough of a woman?" The mocking voice asked behind him, the hand on his neck moved tighter, the blade drawing its first drop of blood as a measure of his threat.

"Who are you and what do you want" Sampanga croaked, afraid to move. Zizi moved slightly to the side, hoping the firelight from the side would allow her to see who had come into her hut.

Sampanga looked the idiot that he was. Frozen on his knees, his spear in his hand now shriveled and lifeless. He did not release it to slip down between his legs, he held it like a stick ready for the fire.

"I came to find the one responsible for poisoning my son."

Now Sampanga steadied his own gaze and looked to Zizi for direction. Could she see who was behind him and what son was this, that he had poisoned?

"Do not move Zizi, I know the crawling snake that you are. My father mistrusted you and left you outside of his royal house. You and that stupid boy of yours must somehow be connected with this worthless piece of cow dung."

Zizi had looked closely over the fire, the slow voice prickling her memory of the distant past. Her heart was beating faster than she could have remembered. Here before her was the one piece of their schemes she had not considered. Here before her, the one person who could thwart the ascension of her son to the carved throne. The one who had brought his own son and placed him in the chiefs arms to be the future chief of the people. Here stood absolute failure of all their plans and dreams. Her heart sunk and the spirit seemed to leave her body in a rush.

"Konjaru!" Zizi spat at him. Sampanga eyes flew wide, a cry held in his throat.

"Konjaru! What? How can that be?" Sampanga asked now, fear gripping his heart.

"I do not know what ancestors or spirits drove me to a compound to the east. But while there, I brought a sick white boy to the Milk Eyed Woman , there I find my own son delivered, by the orders of my own father the chief, dying of a fever, which you Sampanga had delivered to him with the blade of a knife!"

Now Sampanga's eyes grew wide with horror. No one except Zizi, knew of the method the poison had been administered to the child and the plans for the killing of the chief. How as all this possible?

Zizi glared at Konjaru over the firelight, the anger and loathing clear in her eyes.. "If your son is sick with the fever from him becoming a man, when his skin was cut away from him, how do you think we had anything to do with it" Zizi groped to find how he had come to know of their plot. If she could stall for time she could think of something to do.

"I did not say that the poison knife had come from his becoming a man. How did you know this?" Konjaru whispered.

At this, Sampanga let out a simpering whine, his neck straining at the knife held tightly, drawing yet another dark blood offering that ran down to his chest.

"Your own worthless mouth condemns you. How stupid you are. You were useless as the wife of a chief. Your belly empty of a healthy child of royal blood, only breeding with a simpleton could have caused the birth of that idiot child you call your son. The people and elders know of this, but do not speak for the sake of the old chief. Even now as you are faced with your own evil, you are too stupid to cover your own trail of lies."

Konjaru had now passed the absurdity of their sexual encounter and his anger now filled his low voice as he spoke.

"You have tried to poison my son and with him gone, you thought the path to my fathers throne was open. You have underestimated the healing power of the Old Milk Eyed Woman." He looked directly into Zizi's eyes, and held it there as he struck her plans with the death blow.

"My son is well, his fever is broken and he rests by her fire. Whatever your plans Zizi, they have come to nothing."

"I am going to take this worthless piece of cow droppings before me and take him to my father. This worthless stuttering fool will no doubt explain all this in his own words. Then he will be taken to the fields where his his arms and legs will be crushed with knop-kerries - war clubs, and then left on the open fields to die. You he would have been betrayed long before the first clubs broke his bones. Your stupid son will never sit on the carved throne."

"You will once again be known for the nothing that you are."

Gripping him close now, Konjaru began to move Sampanga up, holding the knife closely as he knew given any chance, Sampanga would dart away like a snake in the tall grass.

"Come, we will go and speak to the chief. Now!" he said.

Zizi reached down to the fire in front of her and with her open palm scooped a handful of hot red coals and threw them up at the smiling determined face behind the terrified Sampanga.

The coals flew into his wide eyes, searing them, causing him to flinch and pull back his arms. As he did so, the blade drew across the stretched neck of Sampanga drawing deep blood.

With one hand trying desperately to sooth and hold his burning and blind eyes, the other held the knife, Konjaru kept slashing at the air back in forth, calling both their names as the pain gripped him. Sampanga now rolled away under the arc of the probing knife to the sidewall of the hut.

"Get him! Get him" Sampanga squealed like a frightened child. He had by now rolled himself into a ball, covering his head with his arms..

Zizi stood now out of harms way, her one hand blistered, taking in this scene. Her co-conspirator to their schemes all but useless, now huddled by the side of the dark hut. Her arch enemy before her, momentary blind and slashing at the air hoping to find her blood. She must move in and change the course and direction of their earlier plans and schemes, or she would be fleeing the compound by morning with her son, or worse, her body thrown on the garbage heap behind the compound, to the delight of the whooping and laughing scavengers and large dark birds that lived there.

She reached down once more to the fire, grasped a log as thick as her wrist from the flames. She stood there, waiting for an opening while Konjaru continued blindly slashing at the open air with his knife. Measuring the time between his thrusts, Zizi suddenly held the log with both hands and lunged at Konjaru, striking him hard on the side of his head.

Sparks flew in all directions as the last and final arc of the blade came back and split her skin over her ribs down to the bone as she had lunged forward. It caught her under the armpit and ribs, and drew down across to her hip.

The blood came instantly, glistening dark against her skin. Zizi sat down with the log falling from her hand. There was no pain, just a numbness that came as a surprise.

"Get up! You little man, help me, I am cut and bleeding. Get up you stuttering fool." Zizi hissed at Sampanga in an attempt to reach him through the fog of his cowardice and fear.

Konjaru had fallen as he was struck, the glancing blow had knocked him out. No time to feel the layers of his mind dissolve, only the sudden darkness that had ended the pain in his eyes.

Here in the deep darkness, Konjaru could not protect his son or find the source of the poison sent to kill him. Outside the darkness of his mind the conspirators went about their business, no one to hold them in check.

He could feel the presence of his ancestors here in this dark world. They had watched, eyes winked at each other here in the darkness, hidden smiles and nodding approval.

Konjaru could only wait until the dark mists had ended. That he could still draw breath and have time to protect his father and son, once out of this place, was unknown.

Silently he prayed while they all watched here in the silent darkness. Then Konjaru waited for the light to return here between the worlds.