Two Moons by J. Raymond Ractliffe - Chapter 10

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 10

      Sampanga had moved unseen in the blue moonlit night to the edge of the sun baked mud and wooden wall of Zizi and her child's hut. Her hut was at the far corner of the compound beside the enclosure where the cattle were brought in nightly from their grazing. She had been for many years, the second wife of the chief despite the death of his first wife, who died while giving life to Etona.

The chief had not come to her sleeping matt for many years. Zizi had been looked at with scorn, derision and laughter by the other women of the village. Her belly no scented earth for his seed. It had remained empty of a child's laughter and young dreams.

She had worked long to find the perfect beer, his only joy in the evenings as he watched the young boys bringing in their tendered herds to their night home. The younger warriors returning from their hunts and territorial disputes, bringing bold stories of their courage to night time fires.

In time he had come to enjoy the strong pungent new brew. With extra herbs from the laibon Sampanga, she had slowly made his drink more and more pleasurable. The chief was able to fall into a deepl sleep, then she would then bring her matt to sleep beside him by his fire. He would arise in the morning heavy headed noticing her presence, in the end accepting it. In time the women of the village saw the chief had returned her to his side, the chides and scorn now gone from their mouths.

Then the chief had announced he was paid the customary price for a new wife who as he spoke was being prepared to join their village. Since the second wife had not produced another son and his third wife had died of a mysterious fever many years ago, the elders had long discussed the plight of the village and the succession of the great carved throne that marked the power and prestige of the people.

This absence of a male child to succeed caused great anguish for them all. His only son Konjaru, had been a great loss to the people when he had renounced the carved throne. The elders had looked at this as a bad omen for the people and had slaughtered a sacred cow to the ancestors to bring them peace to their village.

Zizi had given the chief more of his brewed beer and let him sleep. Long into the night she had used goats fat to stroke his spear, letting it glow in her hand with engorged blood. She looked at this great thing that had been kept away from her, bringing her empty womb disgrace. The dark beer would not allow the white seed to come but shriveled and soft manhood in the morning, proof that they had lain together.

Sampanga had spoken of this road and the accession of new blood that would be provided by them both. With a child on the throne they would have the love and respect of the village. No longer the scorn and ridicule of the women, they would bring Zizi her evening meals and bow low to her as she walked past them as mother to the young chief.

In the morning she had provided the chief with the evidence of his manhood having speared her, his by now dried white seed provided by Sampanga from an ox, visible on her black and ocher polished skin. Her well-rubbed nipples testament to his night's drunken desires.

This staged act produced on cue only when she knew the red moon no longer visited her. Sampanga had approached a senior warrior of one of the lessor clans, who had eagerly agreed to lay with her.

It would be the closest he would come to royalty and for a man whose ranking would never change, a chance to play with the destiny of the village. The elders and village people had long considered his own clan as lowly, his father had failed his initiation to manhood many years ago by flinching at the time of the shining knife. Now this man scorned by all, his bloodline was to be chief of the people.

Little he knew, by the time Zizi had missed her second red moon, he had drawn his last breath and walked the misty path to his own ancestors, his blood secret known only now by the conspirators and to God.

She had born the Chief a son, Gingwali, who had grown showing little wisdom or patience to sit and be instructed by the Elders. Silently ridiculed, this smiling idiot of a boy was held to be little more that a fool.

Since the arrival of his grandson Etona, the chief had announced that this strong and well built boy would become the hereditary chief after his passing and his name scattered to the winds.

All of Zizi's and Sampanga's schemes had come to nothing. Now they had a smiling idiot to hide from the people who openly showed their relief this simpleton was not to sit on the ancient carved throne.

No silent herb to remove the new claimant was going to be accepted. Too much a coincidence even for a superstitious people, it was Ngai and the ancestors who had heard their prayers and sacred offerings. Death of the returned child of their prayers would be suspicious and never accepted as not having come from the hands of a mortal.

They had waited many years until the coming of the young Etona's initiation to manhood, when the child skins would be cut away. Etona himself had been chosen to lead his Age-Group to be their natural leader - the olaiguenami, before his initiation ceremony. It was a life-long position held regardless of his crown as Chief. The young son Gingwali was also a member of this Age Group, much anticipated by the elders and great families of the village. Both grandsons were becoming men and this marked the beginning of the future for the carved throne.

Sampanga had named the Age-Group as was the tradition which would forever mark this time in the people's history. The elder families never knew what lay behind the meaning of this name 'New Blood River' thinking it only a sign of new time for the village and ancestors.

Sampanga paused a last time to consider what he was about to do. His mind had filled with cold water and his soul had screamed like a child when he had seen the old chief had brought to their village, the Old Milk Eyed Woman. Now he had lost the faith and sacred trust of the village. They would seek out the other lesser seers and prophets.

It was all he could do to remember the endless recipes his father had taught him. During instruction, he had sat as a young man, his mind enjoying scenes of young budding maidens with swaying hips that had stirred his spear endlessly in the nights.

His stuttered speech had long been a source of great pain as a child. It had caused many a potential bride to look away regardless of the cattle offered. It made them afraid, this stumbled speech that run like a faltering and wounded animal.

Like a stream coming from the far away tall blue mountains, it was time to reap what they had sowed many years ago.

He stopped outside the entrance of Zizi, he could hear the idiot child snoring at the back of the hut. It hid his movements well.

He went through the hut left open for him. There by the firelight Zizi had waited patiently, kneeling beside the warmth of the fire, looking into the smoke like a seer. Only the leather apron covered her. Like the hundreds of nights he had lain dreaming of her the sight of her close and warm stirred him. The danger of the night and the blood path before them aroused him, stirring his own leather coverings which could not mask his ardent desires in the darkness. What nature had taken away with his stutter it had replaced with a man spear greater than other warriors.

Ngai's gift to replace his speech loss only consumed him more as the laughter that came with the stuttering prevented him from ever enjoying his endowed manhood. Long empty hot nights alone, the burning fire in him never quenched. White seed spilled on his mat grew cold, unknown by love or dreams.

Zizi had long realized Sampanga's unfulfilled physical hunger and it had spurred her towards these dangerous waters. Helpless at the fires that raged within him, she had told him clearly and with husked voice dripping with sexual promise, with the removal of the chief and young claimant, she would be free to bring him to her sleeping matt where she would eagerly enjoy his long spear in their nights. This had consumed his mind with a fire that had burned brightly for years.

Squatting before her, Sampanga held up a small leather bag holding the small seeds that he had traded with an Arab before the last season's rains. Herbs and medicines were widely traded between the peoples who lived within the breast of Africa. One more leather bag had gone unnoticed in the long hot day of trading. The small seeds known to the Masai as well as the other peoples of the lands.

Ricinus communis or castor bean is known to all of the plains people. Originally brought down from Tanzania and the blue mountains area, heated medicinal oil is carefully extracted and used for many ailments as well as the containment and management of rodents who come to the homes of man and livestock. These colourful beans were used to decorate necklaces of children who found them in the fields and gardens. The seeds if swallowed could pass through them without harming them at all.

If the seeds are crushed, ricin is released which is a highly potent cytotoxin. Ingested, just a single milligram of it kills an adult. Within a few hours of ingestion, severe abdominal pains begin, vomiting and bloody diarrhea dehydrate the body. Within 3 days the victim dies a painful and prolonged death. The crushed seed husks that brought the death long since brushed aside by the cooking fire preparing the evening meal.

Zizi reached out and took the pouch from him, her hand brushing over his long spear beneath his front covering, stirring it to life, her eyes fixed on Sampanga as she did so. Her knees opened slightly revealing her inner treasure as she adjusted herself before the fire, her hips drawing down in gentle rhythm. She knew these little morsels drove the fire deep within him. Now was not the time for any faltering, she would be bold in her promises to release his long spear from his torments. Her own child was to sit on the carved throne. This was small price to pay for her upcoming revenge at the cruelty she had suffered at the hands of the other village women.

She leaned over again in the firelight, taking her time now to reach under his cloth, to stroke his growing pleasure. It felt burning hot in her hand, bobbing to and fro, the head searching for the moist source of his dreams and lonely torments. As she stroked, him making him grow hard in her hand, she let her tongue slide over her lower lip and with eyes full of mischief and daring, looked straight into his eyes over the firelight. Sampanga sighed deeply, relishing the final coming of this moment, his whole body shuddering with ecstasy and silky pleasure.

"Etona will be hot from fever now. When his ska-ska -ska skin was cut away, I had dropped the yellow sickness of an infected beast into his wo-wo-wo-wound. It will be raging now in his mind, his b-b-b-b-blood burning with the wild f-f-f-fever. Not knowing the river source of this -f-f-f-fire, even the old b-b-b-b-blind crone will not s-s-s-stop the sickness.

He will die." he said. Sampanga's smile and childlike rapture sickened her. The die was cast.