“It’s time your highness”
She gave him the “don’t touch me look” and entered the badly lit room. It had been lit like that because of the occasion to add some sick kind of essence to it. As she walked in they began to raise the blinds one by one and light burst into the room exposing the faces of the people in the room. They were all seated around a glass table that spanned the length of the room, everyone with a different expression on their face.
The only time the family gathered in such numbers was during monthly financial reports, and even then some were always absent, content with anything the Queen handed down to them. She saw her late husband’s first cousin, the quiet Mrs. Tolu, who had never stepped a foot in the building since Bola became Queen, she was supposed to be in Moscow. Seated beside Mrs. Tolu were the Owerri twins, nicknamed so because their mum her late husband’s aunt married an Owerri man. They too had come for the meeting dressed in suits looking like lawyers who had just lost a court case. As she walked down to her seat at the head of the table, she silently scanned the room for Tega hoping he was alive and well. Beside the Owerri twins was a pregnant lady, the light didn’t shine much on the lady as she kept her head in the shadows. Bola paid little attention to her because she hadn’t seen her before. She just assumed the woman was one of the wives in the family.
“Someone tell me what is going on and why you all will dare to summon your Queen. We have rules in this family and I still remain the head and will be treated with the respect of the head,” she said trying to gather some courage. She could notice one or two doubts in various faces. The room contained about sixty family relatives and a few were beginning to sweat as she spoke. She was the Queen and she wasn’t going down easily.
She noticed her chair at the head of the table was faced backwards, so she assumed that whatever coup they planned must have failed as her seat was still vacant. She continued talking.“I want to see Tega now or someone will be ostracized from this family. I am the Queen and till I am no more, I will be treated as such.”
A commanding voice at the head of the table answered her. It could only have come from one person. As her supposed chair turned, she saw the person in it but could not register the meaning of what he was doing on her throne.
“New wives could be so noisy, I will advise you seat down and listen to the proceedings of this meeting.” It was Tega and he was seated on her chair. “It couldn’t be that he was the mastermind of all this”, she thought.
Olu Billions spoke and others chorused, “Listen to your husband the king, he knows what is best.” It was too much for her to comprehend and she burst out in tears. “The only husband I ever had is six feet below, I don’t know what is going on here but I don’t like it at all”. She was sure if she and Tega had married she would have at least remembered right? A big ceremony to shut down the town, dignitaries, the governor would be there with his foul mouthed wife and his concubines well-disguised as protocol officers right? She sure would have remembered the ceremony.
“The moment your parents took kola, drink and money from Tega they had consented to your relationship and that is good enough for us.” Olu Billions was leading the rebellion. He had always hated Bola and had planned this for so long, this was his moment to relish. “If you want a ceremony, I personally will sponsor the biggest wedding the city has ever seen just for my king and his newly wed wife.” The toothpaste commercials had nothing on the smile on his face. “You know the rules. The king supersedes us all, including you his wife so I suggest you sit down and do what our king says.”
She couldn’t believe it, she had been played by a kid. She had been so blinded by love and she knew the rules alright. If there is a king they cannot be a queen; this was one of the reasons she never remarried. Now she had been relegated to the background. She sat down and could barely hear what her supposed husband was saying for the voice that once made her go crazy with mixed emotions was now making her crazy with mental problems for real. She couldn’t leave, it would be rude to the new KING. She didn’t want to slump further, she knew she had to pull herself together and plan her revenge. Yes she had a plan already – she was pregnant with the new king’s child. She had the heir to the throne growing in her.
She listened quietly as they reassigned positions to the faction of the family loyal to her brother in-law. The empire she had built was being shared before her very own puffy eyes. The hotels which were the most lucrative legal businesses went to Olu Billions. Other smaller companies were shared accordingly, the Owerri twins got the car shops and the only thing they left for her was the bottled water company she had interned for about two decades ago. That was where she met her late husband. It was a practical joke but she was the only one not laughing. The only thing on her mind was protecting the child in her; the new heir was going to reclaim everything. She knew it was a boy, without scanning she knew it was a boy. The stakes were just too high for any other outcome.
After the meeting they filed out and left the room. No one talked to her, as if she had Ebola. She wasn’t surprised. They were too busy kissing the new king’s ass. The pregnant lady she had met walked up to her and said
“Hello mummy”
Yes it was her daughter Omawunmi that sat there all along. The series of unfortunate events did not allow her recognize her daughter. Contrary to what most family members thought, she didn’t faint because of the teenage pregnancy or all that moral bullshit. What made her faint was the fact that her daughter was now carrying the new heir of the family as she was obviously far ahead with her own pregnancy.
The family members couldn’t care less. Teen pregnancy or bastard child, he was going to be their heir (they had done the scan). She was in the ruling cartel and this could only mean the former Queen would never have claims to power ever again. She would be kept in oblivion for the rest of her life. No one cared who the father of Omawunmi’s child was. It really didn’t matter. The better if he didn’t show up and start making demands. Someone should have asked; it would have saved them the disaster that followed as mother and daughter were pregnant and in a secret race to deliver first.
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