King Manjolo's Guest

By Urriah Livingstone Mereka

When Jacobus, a scheming psudo itinerant missionary arrives in the resource endowed Bang’anja Kingdom, King Manjolo and his subjects are euphoric. Soon, death would be a scourge of the past for them. Jacobus has convinced them he is on his God’s mission to unravel the secret to eternal life for their king.
Manjolo believes knowledge of this secret will elevate his status to that of a god, and neighbouring kings and their subjects will supplicate before him for eternal life.
To unravel the secret, Jacobus requests unfettered access into the kingdom’s sacred carven shrine with diamond studded walls to harmonize his God’s endeavours with the Bang’anja’s.

Many before him have tried ingenious ruses to establish the location of the shrine and failed. Will the devious Jacobus succeed?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Aug 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781984594358

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Copyright © 2020 by Urriah Livingstone Mereka.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Certain characters in this work are historical figures, and certain events portrayed did take place. However, this is a work of fiction. All of the other characters, names, and events as well as all places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.If there are only a few historical figures or actual events in the novel, the disclaimer could name them: For example: Edwin Stanton and Salmon Chase are historical figures… or The King and Queen of Burma were actually exiled by the British in 1885. The rest of the disclaimer would follow:However, this is a work of fiction. All of the other characters, names, and events as well as all places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 08/14/2020

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

To my wife Thokozile, and my children Dennis and Nasha.

Without your nagging, I wouldn’t have awakened.

CHAPTER

1

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T he din coming from the touting of wares in the adjacent market was deafening. Jumbe had to shout to alert the occupant of the hut of their arrival. Bwana Yakubu! Bwana Yakubu! It’s us: Jumbe and Galafa! We are back!

Several measured backward strides from the rickety door took him back to where his colleague was waiting in the soft warmth of the rising sun. He was sure Jacobus had heard him.

Inside the hut, the creaking of a wooden bed was followed by the shuffling of unshod feet on a reed mat. Someone drowsy was coming to answer the door.

Clink, clink, clink, clink. The iron chain securing the door to one of its posts clinked as shaky hands fumbled with it in the darkness. The door opened just wide enough for a lanky, unkempt Jacobus to squeeze out of the hut. He did not want men with shifty eyes like the duo’s peering into his hut.

After closing the door behind him, he yawned, raxed, and fumbled with the drawstring of his knee-length pantaloon before stooping out of the palm frond eaves.

We are back, bwana, Jumbe stated unnecessarily as he stepped forward to meet Jacobus. Jacobus could see it was him. Everything went well, well, Jumbe continued.

Jacobus knew what the well, well meant. So without saying anything, he squeezed back into the hut and closed the door behind him.

They heard him murmur something to someone who giggled in response.

Galafa cupped his hands and used them to create breast-like shapes on his broad, hirsute chest. Woman! he whispered in surprise.

And they simultaneously cupped their mouths to stifle the giggles that ensued.

After a while, Jacobus shuffled back to the door and stooped out. This time, perhaps because of the pouch whose string he was loosening, he did not stoop out of the eaves. Jumbe and Galafa had to step forward. How did you find him? Gullible? Jacobus asked as he shoved his hand into the weighty pouch.

Gullible! You can say that again, bwana. You should have seen the look of wonderment on his face when we told him you have knowledge of the secret to eternal life! If we were mongooses and he a fowl, we would be picking strands of his royal flesh from our teeth right now, Jumbe bragged.

Seeing the string of cowries that Jacobus had produced, Galafa did not want to be outdone by his friend. His royal plumage would have been garnishing my caked scat behind a thicket or anthill in the forest right now. We mesmerised him with fables of your prowess in healing the sick and wounded. We were so convincing that he drooled so copiously you would be forgiven for mistaking him for a royal imbecile!

They had Jacobus beaming from ear to ear. Very well done, he congratulated them. But I won’t go there yet. I will wait until he starts blabbing my name when he sleeptalks! I might as well wait until he sends emissaries to plead for my visit. Here, you can share this for the time being. He wiggled the string of beautiful, gently sheened cowries before handing it to Jumbe. You will be rewarded a hundredfold once the ventures I have in mind start blooming, he added as they turned to leave.

As if he had forgotten something, Jumbe froze in midstep and executed an about-turn to come face to face with the beaming Jacobus. Bwana Yakubu, I would advise you not to procrastinate paying Manjolo the visit. He took a couple of steps closer to Jacobus and spoke in a hushed tone. We have heard there is another bwana approaching from the west. It is said he is also claiming to have come to make people live forever. So you had better make haste, for while a leopard must haul its prey to the highest bough on a tree before it starts feeding, the hyena starts feasting when its prey is still kicking and bellowing.

He waited until he thought Jacobus was out of earshot before continuing. What makes you think with your enchiridion you will succeed where others like the scheming Mustafa failed with their subterfuge?

The smile had slowly disappeared from Jacobus’s face as he entered his hut. Who is this spoilsport? he wondered audibly. Anyway, the Grey Mist has anchored, and I have confirmed my consignment of gin, sugar, checked calicoes, and medicines is on board. Tomorrow, I will break camp and head for the Bang’anja kingdom. He watched the two elephant hunter guides stride down the length of his camp and disappear into the throng of the morning market.

From where he stood, the market resembled a log with both ends smouldering and its heterogeneous creepy-crawlies scurrying around for a less smoky escape route. Touts were running around trying to outshout each other. There were men who looked more menacing than the animals whose body parts they had used to adorn themselves. Others had their bodies painted to match the porcupine quills they had bridged their nostrils with and woven into their matted hair. And there were men who seemed more concerned with finding good bargains than covering their bare crotches that impaired their dignities.

There were women with grotesquely sized lip and ear plates that left them looking like shoebill storks. And women with bands of tribal marks that purposefully peaked above the skimpy bark-cloth skirts. And women who were carrying themselves effortlessly despite appearing encumbered with their loads of alate ant-like posteriors. And women with spent breasts from which children with distended bellies were trying to suckle sustenance.

Had the two rascals told him the truth? Jacobus wondered. He shrugged before turning to disappear into his hut.

Back inside the dimly lit hut, he deliberately closed the door behind him, loosened the pantaloon’s drawstring, and let them drop around his ankles before stepping out of them. Naked, he waltzed towards the wooden bed where a pair of chubby arms opened to welcome his lanky frame back into a warm embrace.

T wo young men who had been watching the hut from the edge of the market turned and made a beeline for a woman who was brewing tea in a large, sooty earthen cauldron. Phaka and Pananji had watched the white man from sunrise to sunset for the past three days and were now convinced he was indeed endowed with some mystical powers.

They had seen clouds of smoke—puff, puff, puff—issue out of his facial orifices as if he had a fire smouldering in his head! Because of his strangely hued eyes, they thought nothing, including deep-seated thought, escaped his steady gaze during the day. When night fell, the sky-blue eyes turned into two embers that seemed to burn two glowing holes into the recesses of the human mind. They had thus avoided his gaze at any cost for fear of compromising their mission.

Also of wonder was how his habiliments had been stitched together. Like the Bongo antelope’s coat, they were so fitting, he seemed to have been born in them. His servants wore loincloths in which the beautiful rain forest colours had been replicated. Phaka and Pananji had wanted to get acquainted with them, but they seemed magically tethered to an invisible tree around which they milled throughout the day. Though not yarded, except for the fat one, they never ventured into the adjacent open market. On a day like this, it seemed so paradoxical that young men in their prime could not wander into the market to flaunt their colourful loincloths to the maidens with ripened mango-like breasts who were leering at them.

A queue of men and women bearing gourds and earthenware drinking vessels of all shapes and sizes had already taken shape in front of her. A stride to her right was a basket full of greasy mandazi. A young, wide-eyed, innocent-looking girl with breasts that had started germinating was busy cursing and swatting away the stubborn flies that seemed to be engaged in endless skirmishes for prime space on the contents of her ilala palm leaf basket.

They joined the queue at the same time as a woman with a voluptuous behind stepped out of the crowd and purposefully slipped in ahead of Phaka. Pananji thought it was the third or fourth time he had seen her that morning but brushed it aside as mere coincidence. People seemed to be wandering in circles in the packed market, and the probability of two people bumping into each other several times was high.

As step by step they pressed forward, Phaka sensed her bottom press into his crotch and wiggle. Oh no! Not another one again! he mused.

His propagator was still limp and sore from the previous night’s extortionate romps with another Oyambo harlot. He was relieved his loins had not stirred and decided to give the wiggle a pass. However, he nudged Pananji with his elbow and grinned to himself.

Pananji looked around him but saw nothing worthy of note to justify the nudge and the bemused grin on Phaka’s face.

The wiggling stopped as abruptly as it had started, allowing Phaka to salivate at the prospect of savouring a gourdful of invigorating tea and the accompanying mandazi again.

They did not have long to wait before the bottom wiggler’s turn came. Instead of handing her gourd to the woman tending the cauldron, she purposefully turned around to face Phaka. A mocking sneer creased the corners of her large mouth as she thrust her gourd into the bemused Phaka’s hand and said something in one of the many languages of the settlement. Although Phaka did not understand her, the twang in her voice sounded familiar.

It suddenly dawned on him that she was the woman in whose disreputable lodgings he had endured a night of Oyambo hospitality! He was not mistaken; it was the same voice that had welcomed him into the seedy hut. "Karibu, kama katika, she had said while maneuvring him to a raffia mat spread in one corner of the hut. Don’t be shy," she had chided him coyly as she spread-eagled herself on the mat.

The experience was far below what common belief amongst his age-mates back home had phyched him up for. The night was still young, but the anti-children herbs with which she had barricaded the entrance to her eggs nest had bruised his manhood. Disappointed, he had wanted to leave after the first romp, but she had poignantly asked him whether or not he valued his one and only Bang’anja life. And when he hesitated because the question had taken him aback, she had chillingly reminded him of the corpse with gory wounds that had been found on one of the paths leading to the market the previous morning, and he had returned to her side on the mat resignedly.

He remembered the voice irritatingly insisting the cowry he had placed in her plate-sized hand was not adequate compensation for her waist-breaking antics when he was laboriously dipping into her honey pot during the night. She had been incensed when he turned his pouch inside out and told her that was the only cowry he had.

What do you take me for? she had roared. One of your father’s cows that you mount and nonchalantly walk away from? Were you not told there are no freebies in this settlement? By his loincloth’s girdle, she had singlehandedly pushed and pulled him around the hut threatening to pulverise him with her naked fists. After subjecting him to an orifice search and satisfying herself that he had nothing of value left on him, she had bundled him out of the hut and continued haranguing him for the benefit of a shadowy crowd which her swearing had attracted.

Bang’anja crook! she had fumed as she stabbed him in the face with a finger as hard as teak. Although it was relatively dark outside, he had made out Pananji’s figure watching him being humiliated from the back of the crowd. Look at him, he mused, standing there unconcerned like he is one of them. Cynical as he has always been, I have no doubt he is laughing at my predicament inwardly, yet he is the one who brought the pimp that orchestrated this woe! He had wanted to shout at him to come to his aid but thought doing so would be folly, as the frenzied harlot would get an idea as to who was keeping his wealth. He had quietly thanked his ancestral spirits for having given him the wisdom to entrust the bulk of his means with Pananji.

There was no way he could have mistaken the Oyambo tinged coastal twang, in which, as a parting shot, she had sworn she would pack her belongings and leave the settlement and never return if she failed to make him weep before the end of the day.

After she had shoved him away, he had slunk into the twilight relieved and suppressing a guffaw believing his ordeal had come to an end, but alas, here she was again, mischief written all over her face. The tea vendor grabbed both gourds from Phaka and, using her own gourd as a measure, decanted the turbinado sugar–sweetened tea into them. "Malipo yangu." She nonchalantly stretched her other hand towards Phaka for the cowries.

Behind him, Pananji tried in vain to suppress laughter which had been building up in him since the dawn incident. "Pay for your wife’s tea and five mandazi. He burst into laughter. Have you forgotten already? We don’t want any more trouble."

Phaka scowled at him and reluctantly fumbled for the pouch that he had stashed under his loin patch earlier on. The telltale bulge had, besides making walk with an awkward gait, given him the appearance of a man suffering from ballooned testicles. He let out a loud wail. My cowries and glass beads are gone! The rawhide thong with which he had secured it to his girdle had been cut clean. This wretched settlement’s thieves have finished me! He drew laughter from the bystanders when he inadvertently flashed his limp manhood as he lifted his loin patch to visually check his groin area. He had not seen the harlot pass it to the girl tending the mandazi basket, who had, in turn, tucked it under the basket.

He remembered Simbi, one of the king’s courtiers back home, warning them against blinking when Oyambo women were around. It’s in between her legs, under her skirt, Pananji whispered into his ear. What are you waiting for? Show her no sleight of hand can fool a dyed-in-the-wool Bang’anja hunk.

His means had just been stolen right under his nose. Throwing caution to the wind, he angled his hand towards her groin, grabbed her skimpy raffia skirt, and lifted it. There was nothing except the dense and coarse unshaven pubic hair. He hadn’t imagined it was this dense during their earlier ill-fated encounter.

Without the warning rumble, there was a loud thunderclap which sent him sprawling to the ground. For a while, he saw the inside of his own head. But for the zig-zagging streaks of light, it was the darkest void he had ever peered into. When light was eventually restored to the void, he was barely able to make out the blurred bottom of a woman standing astride his shoulders. A torrent of hot and rancid urine came splashing onto his face. She was humiliating him, the way the Oyambo were famed for humiliating their fist-fight victims! There was a roar of laughter from the bystanders. That is the tea we brew for foolish people here! one of them shouted.

When she allowed him to totter up again, he looked around for Pananji, but he had long vanished. Unbeknown to Phaka, Pananji was running towards the forest as fast as his bandy legs could carry him. It was for his dear life. He had managed to outdistance his pursuers, but the fist-sized rocks were still thudding and popping dangerously close around him.

He knew he was out of danger as soon as he entered the forest. The only thing they could hurl and hit him with were their harmless invectives. They had given up the chase. It was his pouch of glass beads they had been after. Thieves! Shameless thieves! Baboons bent on harvesting what they did not sow! he cursed as he came to a stop in the undergrowth. He could make out their doubled-over figures through the foliage. They were regaining their breaths. Unsure of their next move, he waited, and he was relieved to see them turn and head back towards the market.

After establishing his bearings and worried about Phaka’s wellbeing after the thunderous clap, he half-walked and half-ran to a rocky outcrop on the entrance to the settlement, where he dug a hole, buried the pouch, and marked the spot with rocks. From there, he skirted the market’s environs and returned to their lodgings, where he found a sobbing and distraught Phaka waiting for him.

F or security reasons, the Grey Mist had ghosted into Penga’s natural harbour the previous night. Captain Peterson, who did not believe in leaving anything to chance, had decided to drop anchor about a knot away from shore. Four sailors with primed muskets placed at the bottom of the lifeboat had rowed ashore. A lot could have changed since their last stopover. Two years was a very long time in Africa. In that time, the settlement could have been wiped out by a pestilence or taken over by a hostile tribe from the interior.

Uncertain of the type of reception Penga would afford them, they had, with heightened senses and muskets at the ready, cautiously trodden the sandy beach towards the settlement. The breeze changed direction and blew reassurance—the familiar vibrant sound of percussion instruments and the singing of a dance troupe—in their direction. Relaxed, they shouldered the muskets