Chapter Two

 

Tinu was visiting Ife at the grove and she tip-toed around. Yeye welcomed her with a smile and indicated where she was to sit. A large baobab tree had benches arranged around it and there was also a large pot of water with the regular scrubbed calabash on the cover. It was not really a gate but it was regarded as such as everyone tended to take a seat first at the foot of the big baobab tree that predated the village. The place had an ambience that tended to make people speak in soft tones to each other. In times past villagers tended to think that there were eyes watching them from the branches of the big tree.

It was always kept clean by devotees who would sweep the place clean. Big clay pots stood at strategic corners of the place with calabash cups placed on mats. It was really a reception room out in the open. Tinu was wondering what she was going to do next when Ife appeared and gave her a smile. Tinu sensed that there was something different about her friend.

It was a relaxed grace and something she really couldn’t place; she returned the smile and instinctively curtsied. That curtsy shocked both of them and there was momentary silence as they acknowledged that something had changed in their friendship, their relationship.

 Two weeks after Oba Adeolu ascended the throne, Tinu had received summons from Ife to meet her at the grove. As part of the tradition, Numen had to be formally welcomed to the palace. In addition to that tradition, in this incarnation, the Lion and the Princess were going to get married, so what was going to be more than the average nuptial was coming up. Tinu just could not contain her excitement particularly when she learned that the formal giving of the ASHE to the king by Numen would be the climax of the festivities.

“Looks like some things are changing right?” Ife whimsically said.

“I think so, Princess,” Tinu replied, her eyes full of pride and friendliness.

“I want to thank you for so many things. I don’t know how to start but I will get round to it one way or the other. But I need you now because I have a wedding to prepare for and I definitely can’t handle so many things. The lion wants to know what date he might send emissaries to my home and a thousand other things. I don’t relate very well with most members of my family as you know and…”

Tinu smiled. “I hope you don’t expect me to understand what you are talking about either.” Her old irreverence surfaced and they collapsed in a fit of giggles, relieved that they could be just friends.

Ife sighed. “Honestly I was getting ready to give you a shove if you continued in that officious nonsense. Now that we have gotten that out of the way, what the heck am I going to be doing with twenty-one maidens!”

“What”?

“Don’t act deaf, I understand from Yeye that I will need twenty-one virgins. Now listen, the stress is on virgins and Babamogba has been clucking like a monk that I will need to ensure that all of them are virgins. In this village can you raise that number?”

“If they are all under seven, Princess,” Yeye offered timidly from the back of the bench that the girls were seated on, making them jump.

“What do you want with that number anyway and why virgins?” Ife asked Yeye, as she turned round.

“They would precede you as you enter the palace and bear your things in white calabashes.”

“Wow,” Tinu said with wide eyes.

Yeye explained that while the formal traditional wedding was at an advanced stage before the coronation, this particular wedding was a once in a lifetime experience for the whole village and as such, it was now grander.

Ife sighed as she wondered how she was going to juggle that with her job at the city.

Tinu was surprised to learn that Ife was still going to work. “I thought you resigned just like Kabiyesi.”

“So I can sit here and ogle him?” Ife snapped. “Besides, I didn’t hear of a salary for the Olori.”

“Your temper has not been sweetened by your new office lady,” Tinu said with a smile.

Ife smiled back, “That is something I seriously need to learn how to handle. Babamogba almost passed out yesterday when I went to the palace and met that young queen sitting next to Lion.”

“What? Who do you mean?”

“That old queen who messed around with the chief when the former king was still on the throne.”

Tinu was alarmed and quickly looked around. She asked that Ife could ask Babatunde to banish the former queen.

Ife smiled and said even though she might welcome such a move, it was not a possible thing for her to ask, and Babatunde would have been surprised if she did. Tinu puzzled over that for a while and finally shook her head seeming to have come to a decision about it. Ife watched her for a few minutes and shrugged that particular subject from her mind. Not an easy thing to do, more so when the lady had been just as startled as she was when she walked in that evening. Babatunde seemed to have been the only person who was oblivious to what was happening. Ife wondered if he was just cloaking his thoughts for the benefit of the queen.

Ife had not known what to make of it. One surprised look and she had quickly dropped a veil over her thoughts, and smiled serenely at the agitated queen. Traditionally all the former wives of the past kings were required to remain in the palace and live their days out in the palace. Unlike with other widows, there was no such thing as divorce from the king. A wife may be retired but she is never divorced even after the death of the king.

Ife recognized that, so she knew she was expected to be civil and even respectful to the older queen and it would be natural for the queen to seek the audience of the new king. However Ife was uncomfortable with the notion of seeing the woman around and suddenly she became aware that she did not like thinking of it, and mentally noted that fact.

“Are you here now or still wool gathering?” Tinu’s voice broke into her thoughts and Ife blinked.

“Did you say something?”

Tinu laughed. “As usual, you were somewhere else, right?”

Ife did not bother to reply, but invited Yeye to inform any household interested in being part of the festivities to present any girl between seven and ten years old to the grove by the following week.

Ife also asked Yeye to ensure that the groves were kept clean before the girls arrived and that Tinu help teach the girls some fresh songs.

There was a glow around her as she gave the instructions. She told them she wanted all types of fruits that they could lay their hands on from the markets and said she would bring some from the city a few days before the wedding. Her sudden enthusiasm infected the women and they responded with eagerness as they earnestly started making a list, which they would use as a guide and check off when that requirement had been met.

The chiefs and princes were going to come to Ife’s family home; the family would be expected to tell them that the flower they had come to seek was at the grove of Numen, so the procession would be led to the grove. Yeye had decided that for economic convenience, they would merge the airegbe festival of the maidens with the formal nuptial of Numen and the Lion. It would be a formal closing of the cycle when Numen many years ago chose her groom at the top of the sacred hill.

Ife tried not to feel daunted by the sheer weight of what she would have to go through. She felt a sense of purpose and love for the Lion glow and throb within her being for him. She also sensed a higher level of responsibility for the village and trembled in anticipation. One thing she sensed was the need to see a larger picture of what she had to do. Ife felt she was leaving her innocence behind and she would need to dig deeper into her vision of what is right and what she must stand on duty for.

She prayed for long hours as she explored her inner intuition in order to understand what and who Numen is, and what she must stand for. It was not just a soul search but a search for conviction. She would sit for long periods in the courtyard of the grove contemplative, asking questions within her soul. It was no longer an easy acceptance of herself, but a search for her soul.

“When you take up the responsibility to lead, you must know within you the task to be humble and be the least amongst your people. You must sleep only after all have slept, eat only after all have eaten and never seek to serve yourself. You must assume nothing for yourself, ask not to be loved but teach about love for one another. You must seek the strengths and inherent qualities of those you serve. Open wide the gates of your soul and seek God in all the open and secret places. Let the rhythm of the Earth tell you of its name and seek from the Supreme Queen of heaven that which is meant and is to be.”

Numen was alone as those words fell like pebbles into her consciousness. The lights around her shimmered in light waves and washed over her. Her eyes were closed in silent supplication and there was radiance all about her.

Adura, her host, was still speaking. “To serve is to hand over totally to your highest concept of the Creator who is neither male nor female. We know him as Olodumare. A consciousness that is has no substance and uses a sea of fire as the closest proximity to that concept. You must dig into your soul, and bring forth from deep within you a semblance of that which gives you life. He is nameless but Olodumare is.”

Numen sighed and opened her eyes into the gentle equivalent of Adura. There was a sense of peace. Adura smiled and asked if she felt better. Numen nodded and her eyes softened making them look like pools.

“Each time I open my eyes in the material plane I am beset with doubts. I was beginning to worry and wonder if this is real.”

“Will you like to pinch me to be sure?” Adura invited.

Numen laughed. “I had better pinch myself first.”

“Procreation is an act ordained by Olodumare, my friend,” Adura said abruptly and Numen stared.

“Did I bring that baggage here too?”

“It was the first thing you dropped; must have been heavy on your mind just like sex.”

Numen went a deep pink and Adura laughed again.

“Humans were given permission to expand their realm, develop it and create a paradise for themselves. Some of us who requested to help with the basics of paradise building were granted permission to incarnate amongst them, so we could be messengers of their petitions. No race is abandoned. Those who imposed their concepts of Olodumare on others carry the burden of the failure and injustice of that race on their own people. You must impress that on your subjects, Numen. That is the essential message of the Supreme Mother. Don’t forget that we want you to burn that into your consciousness when you open your eyes into matter, ‘the material plane’.”

Numen saw the seriousness in Adura and paid close attention to what she was receiving into her being.

Adura informed her that she had been moved to a new residence on a provisional basis. She learnt she would be able to make it a permanent home according to the level and consistency of her volition.

“You will be seen as a bit remote in your being when you return but that is how it is to be. What you can see will be more from within but your speech will be more deliberate. You should seek truth inwardly and never make hasty conclusions because you will be an inner initiate of the collective wisdom of experience.”

Numen bowed her head in a deep gratitude and humility. Her being sent a song of gratitude up and she closed her eyes. A young girl approached her where she sat and it was several heartbeats before she realized that it was Raingirl, her former Grandma.

Raingirl smiled and told her she was now her usher at the East Mountain for a short while. Numen was entranced. They chatted like old friends.

Raingirl tapped her fingers on a tablet-like object she carried and a door opened seemingly out of the sheer curtain of light. She parted the lights and invited Numen in.

The room was furnished in her colors of cream and light green. It had a seam of red running round the edges and her window looked out to the Blue Mountains.

“The red seam is to remind you that you are serving also on Red Island. Never been to that place, as the Red Island belongs to the Lion in the pillar of AKODA.”

“I have met only the servers of AKODA but never been to Red Island myself,” Numen said, looking at her surroundings.

Raingirl raised her eyebrows at Numen. “You were not thinking you could ever get to the pillar of AKODA were you? Even those gate keepers have no idea about it as we are told.”

“We know about it when AKODA went past with the thousand Irunmoles. Remember all the excitement we all felt when the ASEDAS told us that AKODA HIMSELF was passing by His own Pillar towards the material plane?”

Raingirl laughed and said she had been testing Numen out and both of them laughed.

Raingirl said she had other duties elsewhere and told her to come to Adura’s place after the bells.

Numen said she might want to explore her new place and would definitely be in Adura’s vicinity after the bells.

Raingirl left.