Page 56 of Firstborn of the Sun
‘No, she’s not,’ Milúà said. ‘At least I don’t think so.’
‘But you’ll take it if she offers,’ Bùnmi said.
Milúà thought back to the boys who gave up their agbára to join the Holy Order and wondered what she’d give up for power.
‘I just wish she’d let me die,’ Bùnmi said defeatedly.
‘She won’t,’ Milúà said plainly. For reasons such as this, Milúà had found it difficult to extend pity to the boys who died on the Red Stone. They got to die. Dying was easy; living with their mother after such a blunder was a fate worse than death. Even as she watched the stripping ceremony, which filled her ears with shouts and cries, all she could think of was how it wasn’t much different to the screams and cries she heard growing up. Sometimes, from her very own mouth. So even though Bùnmi hid her fear of their mother in an angry and stern face, Milúà knew that beneath the maiden’s blood-red exterior was a young, terrified child.
She supposed Bùnmi had been fortunate to have known a mother other than Ìyá-Ayé. At least her birth mother had wanted her – if only for a little while. Milúà, meanwhile, had been born into Ìyá-Ayé’s hands, that much the woman had told her. Milúà knew nothing about her parents, so she’d assumed she was an orphan, and no one ever told her otherwise. Until now, after the records she’d found in the library had given her the truth she’d searched for her whole life.
Her mother was a maiden.
Milúà hadn’t seen a death record, or any order for execution, and she hated the hope that bloomed inside her. What if her mother was still alive?
Another light bead later, they arrived at the entrance to the House. The maidens’ home was a collection of single-floored bungalows spread across the large compound.
Bùnmi’s legs nearly buckled at the sight and Milúà moved to hold her up. ‘Don’t let her know your thoughts. Protect yourself. Protect your mind,’ Milúà said in a low voice. ‘Don’t give her the satisfaction of breaking you, sister. Remember your training.’ Bùnmi nodded briskly and blinked away her tears.
Inside, Milúà and Bùnmi fell to their knees in unison before their mother, who sat in the centre of the room, waiting. The room smelled of smoke and crushed herbs, which meant someone had been burned and healed and burned again. Milúà kept her head down, but every single corner of the room was a fixed image in her mind. She knew exactly how many paces their mother was from her seat on the elevated dais. And the feel of the carpet she knelt on. Many of her childhood tears had soaked deep into its depths. Milúà even knew how hard the granite walls were. Her fingers instinctively moved to the scar on her head, remembering where her mother had crashed her head into it. Ìyá-Ayé had said then that since Milúà was as stubborn as a rock, it was worth testing which would break first. Milúà dared a glance at the stone and was proud of its crack.
When Ìyá-Ayé didn’t speak, they bowed deeper until their heads touched the floor and chorused, ‘Ìyá-Ayé, mother of life, we greet you. May your reign be like the sun.’
‘Now tell me, my children, why you’ve brought disgrace to this house that has never been seen or heard of since the birth of our beloved kingdom.’
Bùnmi jumped in first. ‘Ìyá, it wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t even there. The boy in my charge, the foolish boy, tried to escape the temple and got himself killed.’
‘Got himself killed?’ Ìyá-Ayé tilted her head and asked, ‘Where were you, his maiden, his shadow, when he was,’ she chuckled, ‘getting himself killed?’
‘Ìyá, please,’ Bùnmi tried begging, getting her pleas in as quickly as possible.
‘You interrupt me,’ the older woman hissed. Her tone didn’t change, but Milúà felt a chill run down her spine.
‘Ah! w – gods forbid. Ìyá, I just –’ Bùnmi said.
Milúà grabbed Bùnmi’s hand, pulling her back and stoppingthe words from pouring out. Bùnmi still didn’t know Ìyá-Ayé well enough to know when she wanted words and when she wanted subservience.
Ìyá-Ayé rose, and the maiden guards that stood behind her followed suit. These were sisters of the House who were not assigned temple duties. The role of house maiden was one they all prayed not to have growing up. The black-clothed maidens never got to wear red or gold. They moved from white to black, sealing their fate and swearing allegiance not to priests or the Holy Order but to Ìyá-Ayé and Ìyá-Ayé alone. Who in the world wanted to be trapped at home with their mother? Withthismother? Her ever-wandering eyes were always watching, piercing, burning.
Ìyá-Ayé walked straight to Bùnmi and lifted her chin with a single finger, staring right into her glassy eyes.
‘My child. Bùnmi ?m? ìyá mí.’ Child of my mother. That was what Ìyá-Ayé called all the girls she trained because she was once like them, answering to a woman she’d also called mother.
‘I can’t show you mercy, my child. The Order has called for blood. Of course,’ Ìyá-Ayé said, pulling out a cowrie shell from her cleavage and placing it in Bùnmi’s open palm, ‘while you did the right thing avenging the death of your Àlùfáà, you still killed a daughter of mine. So you see that your sin is unforgivable.’
Bùnmi let out a loud cry and held on to Ìyá-Ayé’s feet, begging.
Ìyá-Ayé bent over and lifted the crying girl up to her feet. ‘Wipe your tears, my daughter. Your sisters will take you now, but I give you my strength. Whatever happens, don’t die – I am especially fond of you and will welcome you back with open arms,’ she said, smiling.
Milúà closed her eyes to the screams as they dragged her sister out of the room.
‘Now you,’ Ìyá-Ayé said as she returned to her seat, and a new set of maiden guards dressed in black stood behind her, replacing the ones who dragged Bùnmi away to the place no one speaks of.
Milúà, still on her knees, bowed again, ‘Ìyá.’
‘Tell me your side of the story. I am particularly interested in how you defied the abomination.’
Milúà smelt the trap. She chose her words carefully, telling as close a story to Bùnmi’s version as she could. As she spoke, Milúà tried to read Ìyá-Ayé’s face for any sign that she believed the words she heard, but nothing. The priestess hid all her emotions behind the wrinkles on her face.
