Rose was cold as she was seated before Ken. Ken who had already ordered in the restaurant where they had gone to for food kept staring at her and noticing that something was wrong somewhere.
"Are you okay?" he asked her and she looked at his face, his handsome face and then nodded with a forced smile. Even she herself knew that her own smile was not convincing enough and that he was going to ask her another question concerning her mood. "You don't look alright to me. What has happened to you?"
"I am alright Ken" she said, trying too hard to avoid the question.
"You don't look alright and so here I am concerned and demanding that you tell me what I need to know; what has gone wrong with you?" asked Ken.
"Ken" her hands were shaking as she was looking at his eyes. "I am in trouble" she said. Ken frowned and having seen that this could be something terrible held her by the hand and asked, "Are you being followed or monitored and she shook her head. "Go on and tell me exactly what it is that bothers you" he insisted.
"It has to do with my son...there is a man who is coming at me and requesting for my some. He is desperate and i...I am not sure how long I am going to keep hiding Abel from him" said Rose.
"Now this is getting serious but you see you need to always remember that you are working for, working in and working with a family that is ready to protect you at any time and any day. Who is this man that has put so much fear in your heart?" He wanted to know.
" I don't know his name but I know whom he is connected to and why he is insisting on my child and why also it appears my past is coming back to hunt me and you know Ken, i wanted to only have my son to myself and not have him taken from me just yet" He was almost shedding tears. At this point Ken held her hand and encouraged her.
"You need to hold yourself together. Nobody is going to take away what is yours or who is yours. You have nothing else left if you loose your son and also you see there are things you need to do so that things will work out. I will have to update the men we put in charge of making sure your son Abel is well secured where he is kept and then please you need to stop worrying your head. I have to put things in place but then I need you to focus and have trust in yourself. Do you understand what I mean?" When he had said this she nodded. He could see still that she wasn't totally convinced by the words he had just spoken to her.
"I have so much confidence in you Ken, I do but I want to be clear so you won't think I'm lying to you but I am scared and I just can't hide how scared I am. Meanwhile it does not matter if there is anything that can be done I still have confidence in you" when she had said this Ken stared at her for a while and there was pity in his eyes before he stood up and walked up to her where she as seated and held her by the shoulder before he brought his face closer to hers and gave her a slobbery kiss on the cheek.
"I am so happy" said Rose.
"I am even happier to have you here. Be strong, if not for anything but for your son and for me" said Ken and she smiled weakly.
*******
In the village where the Chief was sleeping on his bed he suddenly heard a sound and woke up. His waking up and the falling down of the guard that was meant to stand and watch over him and before he could spring up a palm came at his face and covered his mouth and then next thing he saw was a well sharpened knife coming close to his throat. He did not know what to say or what to do. He laid back calmly and just watched. He could not understand what was happening or who it was that had come to take his life. He looked carefully to see if he could recognize the face of the intruder but all to no avail. He then spoke as the killer had slowly adjusted his hand over his mouth in order to give him the room to speak.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" he was asking. The man then opened his face and said, "It would be good if you died knowing exactly who had come to kill you and why" he then used his right hand to remove the veil covering his mouth, which left only his eyes in the open and then the Chief still unable to recognise who it was said, "I do not know you and I don't think I have ever seen this face before"
"You haven't seen this face before because not everyone gets to see this face. Most people that get to see my face don't live to tell others how my face looks like. Now that you have seen it it is only good that I inform you what you need to know concerning me; I have been sent to kill you, I have been sent to ensure that you don't wake up tomorrow, which means by this time tomorrow you will be buried and you and I know whoever would want you dead can only be someone close to you; yes, they are your wives, your own very wives, they are the ones who are actually against you and they approached me because they want you dead. I am only here to do my job" When he was done he stood up right and looked at the Chief carefully.
"Who amongst my wives did this?" the Chief asked as if he was going to deal with the person if he was told which of the wives masterminded his downfall and his death. The stranger stared at him for a while and without uttering any further word bent down and cut his throat. His blood gushed out and he fell to the ground immediately. Immediately he fell down from the bed the killed cleaned his knife on his body and left the room. When he was done suddenly the guards who already began to notice that something had gone wrong ran in only to see the dead body of their Chief on the ground in the pool of his own blood. Alarm was raised and the palace was thrown into confusion.
The morning of the next day Kepa was sitting with the rest of the wives of the demised Chief and there were people who had gathered in the palace; the elders and the advisers. When the Advisers had spoken the elders did as well and then it came to the turn of the Chief Maker. He rose from his seat and looked about him before he then rested his eyes on the corpse of the dead body of the Chief and said, "It is a pity that we have lost one of the most important people in this land, our dear Chief. It is disheartening that we lost him too early and by the hands of a killer. What we are not aware of is who must have done this and it is a pity that we are unable to find out who did this. If we could we would have done the same or even worse to the person that did this. Having said this I have also decided that it is better we conducted investigations and do everything within our powers to search out the person or persons that perpetrated this act"
That same day the elders of the land alongside the advisers had a secret meeting and then the wives were invited to stand before them. The Chief Maker wasn't happy with the way things happened and so he stood up and spoke from where he was standing.
"I have come to understand that it is normal to see people who are not doing so well to also believe in themselves. Here are women who were not doing well for themselves but were picked up by our late Chief who considered them worthy even though they were not and he took them in and took care of them. Now I do not know and I am not going to be fully in support of how our Chief treated them but it could only be possible that they had a hand in his death. Now all of you are called here to stand before us and swear to us that you know nothing about the death of the Chief of this land"
When the man was done speaking the first person to speak was the eldest amongst them the wives of the late Chief and she stepped forward and stood before then before she then cleared her throat and began; "I have nothing against anyone, I never had anything against our Chief and I am not going to do so even in the future. There is nothing anyone can do about it. Whatever it is that must have happened needed to happen because of what the gods had destined to be. I do not think there is anything wrong with inviting us to stand before you my elders but what I deem wrong is accusing us already of being responsible for the death of the Chief. He was not just a Chief. he may be a Chief to the rest of the people of this village but to us he was not just a Chief, he was our husband and we honored him for it. I see nothing wrong with the way things have worked out since we became the wives of our late Chief upt till the time he died we were so close to him and we wanted him to always be fine. What else do you think could have happened to him; that we had a hand in his death? That we connived and had him killed and if that is what you think what do you think we could have thought would benefit us if we did kill him?" The eldest wife waited for an answer but then the elders were looking at one another and wondering what the First Wife wanted them to answer. "It is obvious you have nothing to say, it is clear that there is nothing for you to say but then it doesn't matter now does it?" At that moment the other wives turned to one another and were elated in their hearts that the eldest wife had spoken their minds. Shortly the elders while not knowing what else to say dismissed the woman and the Chief Maker who already had gotten tired of the whole thing turned to the rest and said, "It is obvious there is nothing else we will be able to do to unravel the secret behind the death of our lord but this does not mean we will not dig deeper to find out the truth behind his death, yet we will not keep him in the bed while we do so because he was human and if left dead without being buried he may decay and in his decaying alot of things might go wrong for us. Let us bury him and after we are done doing so we will then have a long discussion with his wives. They may have defeated us with words, their clever words but I am not yet satisfied with their answers. We will revisit this topic after Chief is laid to rest in his grave" The rest agreed with him.