The Sword And The Lovers

Chapter 4

The Seer of Bara and his son Chere were both dragged out of their cell and were taken to the block to execute them. Chere was no longer shedding tears as he had decided to hold his heart and watch whatever the future brought. The king of Kojo stood on his platform and said to the guards dragging Chere to stop and when they stopped and turned to look at him he said to them, "I tell you that he has gone nothing wrong. There is no reason to kill him alongside his father for he was not the one who offended me but the father, the father who made a joke of my manhood. I may be the king of Kojo but the village of Bara is still under my kingdom. What you will do with this young man is not to kill him but to take him to Aga to be given the cloth of slaves to put on. Yes, Aga will dress him up in slave regalia and then he will be forced to serve in the palace. He should not be allowed or given the right to what I eat or to what the Queen of this land eats. Instead he must be given a work outside the main building where he will be made to work thirteen hours a day. He must not be given enough food and must not be allowed to visit the grave of his father. He must be under guard at all times. This of course will teach this man called The Seer that it is not everybody that you speak rudely at. I am the king of Kojo and I deserve honor and respect

When he stopped talking he looked up and saw that Aboli; the Prime Minister had arrived and so he looked away from him. It was Onochie who approached him and stood before him, "What have you done?"

"I have not done anything yet Onochie" said the king.

"You have not but you are about to. You already did something grave the day you went into the village of Bara, abduct..."

"Arrest not abduct. I did not abduct my own subject rather I arrested my subject because he offended me. Now if you have nothing more to say Onochie it is time for you to leave my side" said the king.

"I have more to say to you my king. The words are going round now. The rumour is now everywhere. Some said that you not only took Chere's father but that you took five Seers from Bara and as I am talking to you there is a protest from Bara land heading to the palace. I beg you not to kill him. If you must kill him let it be that the Seer refuses to apologise in front of his people who will soon gather and then when you execute him in front of them for not being remorseful it will now be said that he is at fault. Wait please" Onochie stopped speaking and then the king of Kojo began to hear noises of people emanating from the gates and the king and everyone in the palace turned to look at the gates. The gate man ran forward and knelt before the king.

"My king and my lord, there at the gates are the people of Bara. They carry flags and have ashes on their bodies. They are angry and attempting to bring down the gates if you don't speak to him. Please I beg of you to come forth and speak to them. They are awaiting you to speak to them else they will force themselves in"

The king then turned to Onochie.

"Is that the people you are saying are going to see reasons behind my actions? Can you not see that they are showing what they are? Yes, they are people with no fear of the power that rules the land. They come here to make trouble. I can charge them with treason!!!"

Immediately the king mentioned the word treason the guards in the palace drew their swords and began to head towards the palace gates in order to stop the protesters from entering the gates. When the protesters saw what was about to happen they began to retreat from the gates. They were scared because it had been on record that the Kojo soldiers did not have pity for people who attempt to force themselves into the grand palace of Kojo. They were known to punish people with death, those who attempt to. The king did not take back his order as the soldiers headed towards the gates. The protesters began to shout on top of their voices, telling the king how cowardly he was. The king then turned to The Seer of Bara and said to him, "You see you ingrate. This is what your people are known for. They attack what they don't understand and they make me look responsible for their own poverty. You are one of them and you carry their blood, blood of haters"

The Seer then spoke for the first time and all attentions were drawn to him. There were those who wanted to hear what the Seer had to say and there were others who wanted to know if the Seer would unleash some of his powers on the king through his speech for it was told many years ago that the first attackers of the land of Kojo were men that carried fire in their tongue. They came from the Eastern Valleys and so they were called the Eastern Fire. They were in great numbers and their first time for coming in the land of Kojo was to overtake the land of Kojo. The king of Kojo asked his people to carry water instead of swords. It was a rare thing for people of a land to defeat the angry people of the Valleys but on that day the Eastern Fire as they were popularly called met their match. The water the soldiers carried in place of swords were splashed on them and they ran and fell. Most of them died because fire was their life and once that life was put off then came death in an agonising way. Death continued to strick on that day until the Eastern Fire went off. When some of the dead Easterners were examined it was said that the people called the Easterners were not actually from the east but from another planet.

The story of the Eastern Fire and how the Kojo soldiers defeated them sent fear to the hearts of all those who would dream to attack the land of Kojo for any reason whatsoever.

While the king of Kojo watched the soldiers near the palace he shouted, "Strick them down for they are terrorists!!!" Onochie's mouth was wide open in shock and Aboli who did not see it coming was shocked to the brim as he watched the soldiers attack the peaceful protesters at the gates. They began to strick them down with heavy swords and the protesters began to run helter skelter. It was not enough for the soldiers off the palace of Kojo for they decided that the best way to satisfy their blood thirsty swords was to go after the protesters and continue to strick them down. They followed them and continued to strick them to the ground. Aboli shouted the name of the king and the king looked at him angrily. Both men stood stating angrily into each other's eyes and awaiting the other to first speak. At that point the voice of The Seer of Bara was heard once again and he said to the king of Kojo; "You are not sure of yourself. You are not ready to be called a king and you will never be ready. You accused me of having insulted your manhood but you forget that what a mortal eye can not see a spiritual eye can see. The gods are watching and they are the ones who will fight for me. You already made a grave mistake and you won't be able to escape from it" The Seer having done talking was now ready to join his ancestors in the other world. He bent down his head awaiting the axe of the executioner to grace the back of his neck and cause his head to role on the ground like a big Orange. The king looked up and saw that the soldiers at the gates had finished with the protesters. Many of the protesters ran, some were captured while some were killed at the spot. At that time Aboli went up to the king and standing beside him he said, "Are you still going to kill the Seer?

"Yes Prime Minister. I will" he said and then the executioner brought down his sharp axe on the back of the neck of the great Seer of Bara and that was it. The Seer's head fell and rolled on the floor. That was the time everything became clear to Chere that his father was right about the king of Kojo. He looked up and said in his mind, "It is a pity that the king never understood what my father meant when he said he (the king) had made a terrible mistake that would hunt him forever. That mistake was not the people of Bara that he killed in cold blood. It was not the arrest of his father and putting him into the cell, it was not beheading of the father in front of the people in the palace, killing him like a chicken. It was not all of that rather his mistake was made when he decided to leave him alive and to make him a worker in the palace. He knew that such mistakes could not be ordinary or mistakes by chance, no, rather it was a mistake made to happen by the gods and as it had happened it was now time for the king of Kojo to await what the future had in store for him. Chere who refused to cry as he watched his father's head, as he was being led away to the site where other workers in the palace were working he kept thinking of all that his father told him inside the cell room and he made up his mind to avenge his death some day. As they were walking down the site Chere looked up and saw Kote, the princess of Kojo.