“Make the stitches small you fool" Zizi winced as the long hair was drawn through her skin, binding the two sides of her gaping cut. She had sat regally while Sampanga had begun the process of tending to her wound.
Konjaru's knife had found their mark and drawn a bloody line as he had fallen head first to the ground. She had sat as a noble queen, directing the blubbering Sampanga up from the dark corner where he still cowered from the fire-fight. Clutching his own slightly bleeding neck, it had taken a while until he had found the strength to venture outside to get his needle bag from his own hut. Only the stinging rebukes and firm directions from Zizi had cleared his mind, enough for his own instinct of survival to finally kick in.
He had returned, meekly and without word as he began to minister to her wound.
Her mind raced back to the words Konjaru had spoken of his own son, laying poisoned by Sampanga's initiation knife, now under the watchful care of the Old Milk Eyed Woman.
All of their careful plans, formed years before, now lay spilled to the ground. The chief lay dying, yet it was not her own son that would lay claim to the craved throne once he had gone to his ancestors.
Etona had passed through the dark fields of his fever and lived.
Before her, the prostrate bound body of Konjaru lay quiet, his breathing shallow and even. Sampanga would not step over the prone body, but moved around it, fearing even in stillness, the great anger Konjaru was to have unleashed on him. He kept glancing over as he worked, the fear etched in his wide eyes. Droplets of perspiration forming on his brow, to pool and tumble over his eyes, causing the not so steady needle to periodically slip and pull, bringing on a new tirade of rebuke and scorn from Zizi.
It was clear, Sampanga was no longer in control of the events they had so carefully planned. He could feel his night filled dreams withering away, leaving only the hollow ring of defeat and scorn. The final sexual pleasure that had so filled his spirit, now empty. There would be no hot gourd in which to pour his passion. Ngai had blown out this newfound flame. The love matt carefully stitched of him and Zizi, now lay unraveled in the sand.
More than Zizi and her stinging rebukes, he feared a bloody death. A war club crushing his skull or spear driven through his chest. The elders would not pause as they pronounced their swift judgment. His bones would lay glistening by next nightfall. Blood and bone mingling into the sand, his sightless eyes forever open, plucked clean by a lucky scavenger bird or beast, past the outer compound, his body thrown away with the village waste.
He began to shiver as he finished the last of the stitches, small whimpers falling from his lips as his terror mounted.
"Shut up you little fool. I cannot think with your whining like a girl - Shut up!" Zizi hissed at him. Her foot raised and knocked him backwards where he tripped against Konjaru. With a shriek, Sampanga leaped over him and landed hunched over, his eyes searching for any clues he had stirred Konjaru out of his sleep.
"We must kill him" Sampanga begged. "We must do this quickly before he wakes up and kills me."
"You useless goat. I cannot carry a body out of here, cut as I am. I have to go back to the chief and be at his bedside. You cannot kill him, you are not a man. You would have to poison him, like a woman and that takes too long. Your own long hunting spear could never find the warrior's blood, for you are not a man. Even your long spear between your scrawny legs, cannot satisfy a woman. It is only as a long stick in the fire. It burns quickly and turns to ashes as nothing."
Her sneer burned deep into him and tore at his heart and his remaining strength as a man. Sampanga could feel the choking rise up in him as his mind tumbled and fell. The stuttering soul of a wounded boy, laughed and jeered at as his own young strength never matched any other of the boys. He had preferred the long hours dreaming of rounded hips and the carved throne, the genuflections of his people filling his soul and building his pride. Hours studying medicines and herbs had bored him. Sampanga had developed only a meager understanding of the arts, enough to give him some standing, but not enough to drive either wonder or fear into the villager's hearts.
"But we can leave him here when he is dead and cover him until it is all over. We can take him out in pieces and leave him out in the field" Sampanga pleaded. "No one knows he is here, no one will miss him! It is a perfect opportunity for us. We have to do something, before he rises up and then kills me"
"You fool, a dead man can make no deals. He does not know his father is dying and while he thinks his son is safe, it gives us time to think. Only a baboon runs for cover without thinking when a storm is coming."
"Don't you think…" Sampanga began again.
"Be quiet and give me time to think!" Zizi sat gazing at the still form of Konjaru. The pictures flashed through her mind, the knife to Sampanga's throat, his shriek as she sprayed them both with hot coals, and the slashing knife as it sought to find her. Her heart beat fast as her spirit relived the moments, hearing again his words that had crushed her plans, up to the final realization that all was lost.
Etona lay in the compound of the Old Woman, recovering from the poisoned knife that had cut him. The chief still lay dying in his own filth, spilling his life away. If Etona recovered, he would inherit the carved throne, making her own son, the next in line to succeed.
But at least he would be alive as the successor. Should Etona become ill again, or suffer some other misfortune of fate, her son would finally climb up onto the carved stool.
Next in line to inherit the throne. Better to still have a chance than none at all.
Much could still happen before Etona grew and had his own wives and bred more of his ancestor's blood.
If she could somehow convince Konjaru that she had was not part to any of these schemes. Sampanga had coerced her, or, somehow forcing her to work with him as her own son had been threatened. She had had no one to turn to, fearing her own child's safety, she had agreed.
She had known of the knife being the means of poisoning but she had not been the instigator.
She would tell him everything, how she had been shocked at Sampanga's treachery.
Somehow, Sampanga had found out. The chief had failed to give her womb, a royal child, and yes, she had lain with another warrior to make the chief a son, Gingwali.
This was before Konjaru had returned with his own child to replace her son as heir.
The People needed an heir and since Konjaru had left the village, she was only fulfilling the need of the chief and people.
It was after all, his fault that she had been forced to act like this.
If he had not left, she might not have had to resort to such desperate means.
Had Sampanga not he forced himself onto her like an animal, was this not proof enough?
Yes, the plan was slowly evolving. This story could be made to sound more plausible and real. It needed time only to build the details.
And who knows, Etona could still die, then, with Konjaru out of the way, stored safely but deeply under the doorway of her own hut, only the scar across her ribs would mark the trail of their schemes new direction by his late night arrival.
Etona - back at the compound! There was still a chance the original plan could be completed, and if it didn't, she would blame Sampanga. No one would believe the bleating of this stuttering fool. The more Sampanga grew afraid, the more pronounced his stuttering. He would not be able to speak her treason in this, his own words locked away from the ears of the village by his own impediment. He would be dragged away to be clubbed or speared, blubbering as he went.
Either way, she could win.
She turned to look at Sampanga, crouched on the other side of the fire. He had been watching her quietly whimpering, eyes pleading as his fear grew.
This fool was still the key to complete her plans. She had to return to the bedside of the chief until this was all over. If she heard he had been successful in killing Etona, then they could return to the hut and quietly kill the bound Konjaru. If Sampanga failed to kill him, she would unbind Konjaru as he woke from his sleep and tell him the terrible news of his father's approaching or final painful death at the hands of Sampanga.
Who knows, in his rage, he could kill Sampanga before he might have time to try to speak of her own involvement.
She looked at him, feeling the revulsion creep under her skin, remembering the whimpering sounds behind her as he fulfilled his own erotic dreams in her. She quietly nodded to herself as she made her final decision. There was no going back now. No matter what new direction their schemes had taken, they had to reach the bloody end, no matter how it was to be done.
Zizi suddenly smiled wide at him, broad with eyes flashing in the firelight. Words dripping again with honey and renewed sexual promise.
"Sampanga, now that the bleeding has stopped and I am less afraid, I am so sorry I spoke to you harshly. I was afraid of Konjaru and what might happen to us. I hope you can forgive me. I said terrible things to you that were not true." With that, she reached out her hand to him over the fire.
Like a cobra watching the mongoose, Sampanga stopped his low moaning, wide eyes now fixed on her, his mind reeling at this unexpected direction and intimate tone of her voice.
Zizi under the firelight was beautiful, the years had not marked her skin nor softened her muscles and no matter what the words where that had clawed at him as a man, the endless nights dreaming of her, of the long loving embraces and wet kisses to come, these began to form again in his mind, like flowing white mists before the sunrise.
"How can I trust you again?" he said, a minimal defense of his manhood, not wanting to upset her further and yet not give in too quickly, his face trying to hide his relief and sudden new found hope. "You have said many things a man should never hear," a frown growing above his eyes. "You were to be my woman and on our love matt you made fun of my spear? What now lies in your heart, what lays there that is real?"
"There is only one man I have trusted with my life and the life of my son? Is this not proof of my word?" Zizi now spoke in more hushed tones, not that she was afraid of being heard, but to draw him closer with her hushed tones.
"Perhaps it is I who should not trust you any more" Zizi's voice firm again, testing his resolve and hunger.
"No, no, I did not mean it quite that way. It is just so much has happened and I was not sure." His eyes became downcast again, looking at the still form between them both. Fear began to rise in him, light tremors rippling through him as he remembered the possible unpleasant outcome of this night.
"What can we do? What do we do now? He began to plead softly, now lo longer able to hold her gaze.
"Listen to me now. Everything will be OK, as long as you go back to the old compound, and finish what we had started.
"What? You must go to the Old Woman's hut and find Etona. The old woman will be no match for you if you find them all in the night."
"Find the old woman and then kill Etona while he sleeps."
The hair on Sampanga stood straight up on his neck. It was not the thought of killing that made him fear, it was going up against the old woman that had him petrified. Although he might have been a poor listener when they had tried to teach him of herbs and the way of the ancestors, he had no doubts as to the awesome abilities of the Old Woman.
"Are you mad? Have the birds plucked away your brains" The whites of his eyes growing "Even if I kill Etona, she will cast such an evil spell on me that I will not see the new day. She is the most powerful laiboni in the land. Nothing can go up against her. She can cast and break any spell. She truly walks with the ancestors and Ngai" Sampanga pleaded.
"Flesh will be torn from my bones, my eyes will be plucked, my insides turned to water. The Evil Ones will come and chop off my head, and eat my brains…" Sampanga was nearing hysteria as his mind raced with the images of his possible death.
"Stop it! Hide yourself inside a spell that even you can make, so she cannot see you coming. You will be like the air."
"Go to the side of her hut, block her entrance with stones and wood, then turn her home into a raging fire. No spell can push away the fire when it comes. After the fires have eaten the hut away there will only be ash for the winds to come and blow away. Scattered by the winds her angry spirit will never find you. Her name and face will be gone from the heavens, even to Ngai."
Sampanga listened carefully to her now, the pictures describing the old woman's death making clear this new possibility. What she could not see, even with her Milky Eye, the night would envelope in its folded darkness. Her hemp pipe would guarantee a slow and deep slumber that would drown out the rustle of stone and wood. Perhaps he could cast a spell to make her sleep even more deeply than the old crone was used to.
Zizi watched his face as its found strength and possibility. Better to remain silent now, allowing him to fill out the details, believing now it would be his strength and idea that would save them both. Better for him to feel the master of this new scheme than for her to take the praise.
"Sampanga! Can you do it? Are you a great laiboni to be feared or does the Milk Eye frighten you?" Zizi said in a voice filled with sarcasm, goading his newfound courage.
"I think you are stronger than the old woman! She only has the twins to help her. They are the last of her withered strength. See her when she stands, she is no higher than a small child"
Sampanga straightened a little, his eyes now fast on Zizi as she spoke. He was no fool, her words were meant to steer him to this new danger.
"We don't have a choice. I have to go back to the old chief now and while Etona lays sleeping and growing stronger with every breath. Our plans lay in the dust, as will our bones in a few hours when this one," pointed to the still sleeping form, "wakes to avenge his son."
"You have to kill them, there is no other choice." Zizi said with finality.
"I th-th-th-think I can do it. B-b-b-b-but what do we do with him?"
"Leave him for now. When you come back, we can deal with him. For now he can do nothing. If all fails, we can use him to leave the village together, he can be our protection from the Elders."
"If you ever want your spear to ride me again, then you must do this. There is no other way!" Zizi tilted her head back just a little, emphasizing her swollen lips and full eyes, just the tip of her tongue visible in the firelight.
"You spear has many nights still trapped within it. Make the fire to destroy them all so that you may ride me every night under the stars. You have just begun to enjoy these inner pleasures. Do not throw these nights away. I too have longed for this to come"
Zizi stood now beside him, her eyes fixed into his, holding him there in his spirit. He could feel her body heat and the aromas of her skin. As she turned to the entrance to leave, her hand brushed the front of his tunic, a moment to reconnect this time to their earlier encounter.
"Tell your spear to direct you. It has shown itself to be a powerful hunter. It can find my hidden place, even in the darkness. Its eye is strong!" she said teasingly.
On her knees before the entrance, she looked back at him with a silky smile, and with a look that could not be mistaken, she said, "I like it with you behind me. It is where you should be!" She let him dwell on that for a moment and then with a firmer voice, "Make sure he is bound well before you leave, he needs to be quiet until you return" And with that she slipped out into the darkness, returning once more to the bedside of the dieing chief.
She had to hold her side as she had bent to leave, no sound escaping her lips as she did. She could not show any wound, a sudden stiffening or catching her self would bring scrutiny, she could not easily dismiss.
Sampanga stared at Konjaru. He could smell the lingering scent of Zizi, her parting words still echoed in the air, the intimate promise of a future as he .
His wry grin showed he was still no fool. Zizi could wave her magic as it suited her. Still, better to venture this new trail and complete the end of the schemes, perhaps it would work after all.
The thought of combating the Old Milk Eyed Woman brought on a new shudder, but he knew as Zizi spoke, there was no other way. The Old Woman had stolen the confidence of the chief and of the people. Under her care the boy would heal and all their plans would be as dust.
If he was ever going to command the respect and fear of the village, she had to die.
He bent forward and left out the entrance of the hut and walked back over the compound to his own hut. Strong potions needed to be boiled, spirits invoked for direction and protection. If he was going to survive the night and the old crone, all he had ever known as a laiboni must be brought to bear.
Bold as he was trying to be, he knew any slip and his body and soul would be cast to the devils and spirits that stalked the land. His pain would last as long as there were stars and for times yet not created by God.
The Old Milk Eyed Woman had to die and disappear from the minds of man forever! In the same fire, Etona would be consumed, Konjaru then would have breathed his last breath and be buried under the entrance of Zizi's hut and he would be free to have his endless hungry dreams realized in the warm scented body of Zizi.
It was going to be a long night of blood and screams.
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