Chapter 25 The Royal Palace, Royal Island, Kingdom of Oru
The Royal Palace, Royal Island, Kingdom of Oru
TOFA
Every morning at four light beads past midnight, all who lived in the Aláàfin’s palace journeyed from their beds to the gilded throne to bow before the crown.
The Lord Regent didn’t need to be present for this ritual.
Tofa couldn’t remember the last time his father was on the throne when the entire court came out to bow before him.
But now, as Tofa bowed before the throne, his forehead gently touched his father’s feet, and he knew something was wrong.
‘As long as the sun remains in the sky, so long shall the crown live,’ Tofa said quietly, allowing the voices of others crouched behind him to echo the prayers.
Tofa lifted his head and glanced back when he heard a familiar voice. A voice he hadn’t heard at the morning gatherings since the last time his father attended one.
ìyá-Ayé rose to her feet, dusting off her hands and raising her voice above others. She recited the old praise names for the throne, the Lord Regent, and even Tofa as crown heir. Pausing every other sentence for the room to say, ‘à??.’
What was she up to? How did she know the Lord Regent would sit on the throne this morning when he hadn’t for many blood moons?
Tofa returned his gaze to his father, who waved over the crowd three times, accepting their greetings and sending them off to start their days.
Slowly, the hall emptied. Even his mother and sisters left at the Lord Regent’s request, all bowing out one by one until only Tofa, K?ni, High Priestess à?á, àlùfáà-àgbà and ìyá-Ayé remained before the throne.
They all sat quietly at the bottom of the dais, waiting for someone to speak first. Tofa noticed his father’s slumped shoulders and reddened eyes, and at first, he’d thought it was because of the time of day, but as the silence stretched on, the Lord Regent’s gaze narrowed on àlùfáà-àgbà. Something was very, very wrong.
The sound of the hall doors cracking open broke the silence.
A palace guard marched in, and then another and another.
The last guard walked in with a long iron chain in his hand, leading in a man who, by the change in countenance on his father’s face, was someone the Lord Regent recognized.
Many first suns ago, Tofa had seen the man’s face on sand portraits hung all around the kingdom, reminding everyone who the coward was.
Still, the matted grey hair and bloody, bruised face did not disguise the only àlùfáà to have left the Holy Order and live to tell the tale: ?niìtàn – the one born with history on his lips.
àlùfáà ?niìtàn, as the man was once called, had done the impossible.
The rest of the council didn’t know, but àlùfáà-àgbà had once, in a bout of anger, mentioned to Tofa that after surviving the Red Stone, the man had been his choice for High Priest but he’d turned it down, rejecting the Elder Priest and their gods.
All priests would risk death to be chosen as High Priest and Lord Regent, but somehow, for some mysterious reason, this man chose a life of shame and humiliation instead.
That decision had put Tofa’s father on the throne and him in line to inherit the crown.
This man’s single decision was why Tofa would one day be the Aláàfin of Oru.
Tofa didn’t know if he was grateful or not.
Unfortunately, ?niìtàn’s actions helping this L’?r? of òtútù had given àlùfáà-àgbà reason to throw him into the dungeons, as he had wanted to for a very long time.
The Lord Regent’s voice cut through the air, sharp as a blade, ‘?niìtàn.’
The man raised his head, straining as the iron around his neck weighed him down. His eyes were bloodshot, and his lips cracked. He matched the Lord Regent’s steel gaze.
‘Tell me everything,’ the Lord Regent said, his voice softer after staring down the man.
Tofa imagined surviving the Red Stone together must have created some bond between them. They could easily have been friends.
Baba-ìtàn shifted where he stood. ‘Your guards stormed my house, destroyed everything I own, and dragged me here to your dungeons.’
‘You brought that upon yourself,’ the Lord Regent said, agitated. ‘I let you live, and you repay your Order by giving refuge to an enemy of Oru. Where in the world did you find that girl?’
‘Is that what he told you? That she’s your enemy?’ Baba-ìtàn said and scoffed, his chains rattling as he pointed to àlùfáà-àgbà.
‘?niìtàn, I want to help you. You’re my brother. For whatever that is worth, you know more than anyone the position I am in.’
Baba-ìtàn frowned. ‘We are not brothers, Babátúndé –’
‘è?w! Gods forbid,’ the members of the Holy Order present shouted in unison. They cursed the man for calling the Lord Regent by his first name.
The Lord Regent waved his horsetail again, excusing the blunder. Reluctantly, they quietened.
‘Maybe once, we were something of the sort, but as the dust never settles too long in our land, so also time has shifted whatever we were. We are not brothers. We cannot be. Not while you sit on that throne, and I rot away beneath it,’ Baba-ìtàn said, stretching his hands and allowing the chains that bound him to shake as he moved.
‘I don’t want you in chains, and you know that. But the evidence of your transgression is permanently imprinted in the memories of those present for the attack from your … daughter. I can’t justify your freedom.’ The Lord Regent paused. ‘Do you have nothing to say for yourself?’
‘If I wanted to answer to you or the Order, I would not have left,’ Baba-ìtàn said plainly.
‘And why did you leave? Was whatever you left your brothers for worth it?’
Tofa noticed the look that passed between àlùfáà-àgbà and Baba-ìtàn. His father may not know why his friend left the Order, but Tofa could bet the crown that àlùfáà-àgbà knew every single detail of the truth.
Baba-ìtàn, who looked like he was about to speak, withdrew after the glare from àlùfáà-àgbà. The Lord Regent must’ve missed it because he said, ‘I remember the night you left. I remember begging you to stay like a child losing a sibling. You were supposed to stay!’
‘Here? To be what? Your prisoner?’ Baba-ìtàn said.
‘You chose this life. The life of a prisoner was your choice. You could’ve had this crown, you could’ve had it all,’ the Lord Regent shouted.
Baba-ìtàn scoffed, ‘We’re both prisoners. I’m bound in iron and you in gold. You’re just too blind to see it.’
A guard struck Baba-ìtàn across the face, and he bent over, groaning in pain.
Tofa looked away as the man spat blood onto the golden floor.
The morning sun had begun to fill the room, beaming its rays through the skylight above the throne, making the Lord Regent look like a god on his dais.
His mouth formed a tight line, and his gaze darkened.
‘Where is the cursed girl of òtútù? Tell me now, and I’ll spare your life. Lie, and you’ll lose your tongue.’
‘She’s not cursed,’ Baba-ìtàn said.
Tofa almost gasped. Never in their history had their àlùfáà been executed, but even then, Baba-ìtàn did not seem to consider that these days, unprecedented things happened each new dawn.
àlùfáà-àgbà rose to his feet. ‘Enough of this,’ he said to Baba-ìtàn, then turned towards the Lord Regent.
‘My Lord, it is true that the gods forbid the death of an àlùfáà away from the Red Stone, but this man has done nothing but mock the gods from the moment he joined the Order. With a heavy heart, we, the Holy Order of Oru, call for his execution. The punishment for harbouring an enemy within our walls is death, my Lord.’
Beside him, ìyá-Ayé and High Priestess à?á nodded in agreement.
‘So you ask permission to kill one of your own?’ the Lord Regent asked.
‘Not permission, Lord Regent. We don’t need the permission of the Regency for this. He is one of us, and we’ll do with him as we please.’
‘He is a child of Oru and under the king’s command. You are under my command.’
‘You are not my king.’
‘è?w,’ the room echoed, passing nervous glances at each other. Abomination.
That didn’t stop the Elder Priest. ‘You are just a regent, and you do not have the right or authority to change our laws. Your word can’t override me on this.’
The guards in the room slammed their rods firmly against the floor, and the sound of metal on metal boomed throughout the hall. The Lord Regent rose, and the room bowed before him.
‘You forget I am still your High Priest, old man,’ the Lord Regent said.
Tofa sat upright again, watching as realization hit Baba-ìtàn. The law was a tool to be moulded in the hand of its beholder, and the fate of his life seemed to depend on who won the argument that played out before them. A battle of wills between the regent who once was and the one on his way out.
‘He will remain in the dungeon until the next first sun. Then my son will decide if he lives or dies,’ the Lord Regent replied. ‘As the words have left my lips.’
‘So let it be done,’ the room said after him.
Tofa’s heart dropped – another decision waiting for him when he took the throne. He locked eyes with Baba-ìtàn.
‘You dishonour your gods, Lord Regent! That girl he raised is an enemy of this kingdom!’ àlùfáà-àgbà said.
‘I have heard enough!’ Lord Regent Babátúndé said, slamming his staff into the ground. The guards moved in unison, pulling àlùfáà-àgbà away from the dais and forcing him back to his seat.
‘Take the prisoner back to the dungeons. Get the girl’s location,’ the Lord Regent said, sitting back on his throne. ‘I wish it hadn’t come to this, old friend.’
Baba-ìtàn said with a resolved expression, ‘I don’t care what happens to me.’
Tofa believed him. He knew the look of a man willing to die for something, making him even more curious to discover whatever secrets àlùfáà-àgbà was hiding.
Baba-ìtàn moved closer to the Lord Regent’s dais, ‘Who did àlùfáà-àgbà tell you the girl was?’
‘Don’t you dare!’ àlùfáà-àgbà shouted at Baba-ìtàn.
Tofa saw the Elder Priest’s mouth move silently and frowned.