One Virgin, Many Deaths

A Stageplay

By Geoff Adeleye (Nigeria)

Act 2, Scene 1

        

                                

ACT II
                                                       Scene I
                                                      Palace
                      Enter BADERO, BADEDIRAN and KEYISODE
KEYISODE [To BADERO]: Look, we’re startled at your newest state
   of mind. Never in this mood you’d been known to be greatly down
   in mouth; and for this, we’re moved by care to ascertain what
   things went awry.
BADEDIRAN: We would like to know what happened. [no response
   from BADERO] Can’t you speak?
KEYISODE: What! You’ve got to speak!         
BADEDIRAN: Don’t be sullen! Please, make your voice heard.
KEYISODE: How unexpected is this gruesome mood!
BADEDIRAN: Please, don’t keep us in suspense. Just tell us what
   had happened. We’ll take an instant action to better your mood.
KEYISODE: Good heavens! Who can divine what gave him a gyp?
BADEDIRAN: He’s in one of his awful quirks again.
KEYISODE: I detest this preposterous behaviour, not with a flash of
   cheer to reward us breaking sweat all day.
BADEDIRAN: With all we’ve done I think we’ve exhausted all
   the endearments the world would afford.  Damn him with his
   heaviness. [releases  himself to the backrest of his throne]
KEYISODE: It’s impudent, Prince, you’ve made king exasperated.
   [stands up, trying to go to BADERO]
BADERO [ordering her very ridiculously]: Hi, stop there! Get back
   at once! Aren’t you behind my trouble?
DADEDIRAN: What’ve we done?
BADERO Keep quiet feeble king!
BADEDIRAN [beating his chest]: I?
BADERO [boldly]: Yes! Are you more than a ceremonious king – a
   pack of frailties?
BADEDIRAN [startled]: I, king of Betuda?
BADERO: A statue on the throne!
KEYISODE: Oh, no! What devilry of a child! What enormity of folly
   in scorn! What on earth could’ve happened to you to traduce your
   father like this?
BADEDIRAN: He has grazed my heart upon serrated words behold how
   it bleeds! [sobs]
KEJYISODE: So you finally reduce him to tears. See; just see how
   he hangs his head enervated of sorrow. He deserves nothing of
   this nature; he loves you no ends, and cares no a second.
BADERO: Is he bleeding? No, he isn’t! [licks his broken lower lip
   and spits] Who bleeds? Badero bleeds!
 KEYISODE [shocked and heart-crushed, undoes her headscarf, winds
   it around her waist]: Oh, I’m doomed! Your Majesty, be quick off
   the mark, the issue s greatly consequential. Danger looms large!
   This’s just the tip of iceberg of insurgence, which the indulgent
   subjects intend to unleash. How shall we do?
BADEDIRAN [stands up, struts high and low]: Who in this kingdom,
   so audacious, so sordid, so demon-induced, and wouldn’t be chilled
   of my dire power but with gay abandon touched the apple of my
   eyes? Shall my sword not be stained, looking thoughtfully into
   this bestiality?
KEYISODE: It’s got to be!
BADEDIRAN: When I growl, horror hangs in the air, and when I
   stretch my sword, men faint for fright!
KEYISODE: Your Highness, I’m too impatient to slowness!
   Get something done now!
BADEDIRAN [stands akimbo, his eyes fastened to the roof]: Will
   my leniency lose into severity? How helplessly I watch my
   placidity getting lost in irascibility! Now to be bloody, though
   touched, is injurious to my stands! I just have to do otherwise. Where
   did it happen?
BADERO: Chief Belaru’s house. 
KEYISODE: Ah, my head! A chief! A sore suspicion! Oh, the throne
   is besieged!
BADEDIRAN: Oh, yes, there’s conspiracy – inimical machination,
   no doubt, is a foot.
KEYISODE: With all your generosity and simplicity, is it how they
   are going to repay you? This’s betrayal! Oh, insurgence of the
  ungrateful elements!
DADEDIRAN: Chief Belaru, of all people – for that matter –
   I’m brutalised!
BADERO: All for his daughter, Renate.
BADEDIRAN: Rubbish! Rubbish! That shouldn’t make you run
   my heart into my mouth. 
KEYISODE: Look, Prince, beauty doesn’t all alone make a woman.
   I wonder at your blind chase, a travesty of love, after her.
BADEDIRAN: Even alternatives litter.
BADERO:  I don’t commend your timidity to reasonableness. Let
    my heart be enforced and nothing more. And if you can’t get me her,
    then, there’s big assurance that your kingship is played out.
BAEDIRAN: No! I still hold leverage on whatever things in this kingdom.
BADERO: That’s story. It’s either she or I end it all.
KEYISODE: Foul words! You can’t mean it.
BADEDIRAN: As for this delicate issue, chariness is vital – you see,
   I can’t afford to taint my image.
BADERO: When then I said that you were a feeble king you felt very bad.
   Am I not justified now? Not in this world can anything outstretches
   what comfort afforded getting married to her. Death is her
   alternative. [begins to go]
KEYISODE: Prince!
BADERO: Stop shouting my name. I’ve concluded with you. You’ve
   the burden to select what suit you better.                       [Exit BADERO
KEYISODE: What monumental challenge!
BADEDIRAN: We’ve got to meet. Go; send the guards to summon
   the prominent chiefs here, now. Everything has rolled to crucible.
                                                                                   [Exit KEYISODE
                 Enter SOBADE, BAWURA and BELARU, remove their
   hats, prostrate and greet the king and BADEDIRAN wags his fly
  whisk at them in reciprocity
BADEDIRAN: I’m glad to receive your prompt response. Though
   in nature of things, its urgency imports substance.  Now I can
   breathe freely.
BAWURA: I was dumbfounded when the message was delivered to
   me – in fact, I became restive thereafter.
BADEDIRAN: You never take the issues of the kingdom with levity.
BAWURA: Your Majesty, I hope the matter won’t be murder to trash out.
BADEDIRAN: It may seem taxing but banking on your
   flamboyance, you’ll definitely tide me over.
BAWURA: The kingdom, great as it’s, had never with you dragged,
   so nothing should get on your wick. Yours are ours; and ours are
   yours. Your pains are our pains, your joy our joy. Are there things
   so prized to us that we can’t forgo for your happiness? Nothing,
  Your Majesty!
BADEDIRAN: Is there any one like you?
BELARU [coughing derogatorily]: Good! Go ahead, I give leave,
   divide and rule!
BADEDIRAN: What Chief?
BELARU: Are we child-chiefs or do we beg to be made chiefs? This
   idea of individual plaudits is suspicious, bilious, and monstrous;
   therefore, it should be questioned.
SOBADE: Better you speak for yourself alone. I don’t take part with you.
  Your reaction is vindictive. After all, he didn’t talk down to
   you. Shouldn’t I also be grieved to whine as you’d wrongly done?
BELARU: You know if a man is blind, he shouldn’t be deaf. His
   wording testified.
SOBADE: Oh, worried soul compacted with trifles! I think you ought
   to be reprimanded for your unsavoury parade of plastic hurt.
BAWURA: Let him alone. A covetous heart is an abyss of desires!
SOBADE: You’re right. It can never be filled!
BAWURA: But he should be sure that he can’t sabotage this gathering
   in its solicitude.
BELARU: Tell me, why wouldn’t you be like a cat that’s got the
   cream with such accolades? Nevertheless, that isn’t a cause for gladness.
   Having bogus quality ascribed to you is nothing endearing.
BAWURA: Please, let’s attend to what brought us here. Your
   Royal Highness, what is the problem? My hands were full when
   the message arrived.
BADEDIRAN: Except for the gods’ intervention, Badero would’ve
   hanged himself.
SOBADE: For what on earth?
BADEDIRAN: Very dishearteningly, he was beaten to bleeding in
   Chief Belaru’s house.
BAWURA: That’s terrible!
SOBADE: No wonder, he’s as aggressive as a hungry cobra. He
   has proved himself a bad lot.
BAWURA: What a stain!
SOBADE: A horrific shock!
BADEDIRAN: Words will fail me to explain how I felt about the incident.
SOBADE: Take ease, please. We appreciate your forbearance.
BAWURA: For what?
BADEDIRAN: I wouldn’t know if there is any sin, other than his love
   for her daughter. Prince is obsessed of her. He needs her badly.
BAWURA: That isn’t a problem. He has her forthwith. No negotiation!
   He has the kingdom and everything therein, unquestioned,
   unrestrained – he’s as you’re.
BELARU [shakes his head]: Your daughter or my daughter?
BAWURA [with flamboyant smile]: Your daughter, of course.
BELARU: You missed it. He’s engaged to a man more than beloved
   of me.
BAWURA: Now that Prince is involved, that’s scuttled already.
  Unanimously, not unilaterally, on behalf of all other chiefs, including
   you yourself Belaru, I declare that Prince is her new, legal husband.
BELARU [To BAWURA]: Can’t you talk sense a while?
BAWURA: Go to hell, she gets married to Prince!
BELARU [beating his chest]: You shall burn your brain, drain your
   blood; yet, I promise, you can’t attain it.
BADEDIRAN [To BELARU]: Should I prostrate?
BELARU: You’ll just prostrate for zilch!
BAWURA: That’s impossible! Who hears that? We’ll use force on him.
BELARU [confidently]: No one gets married to my daughter but Sadalo.
SOBADE: What barefaced, fatuous rogue is this?
BAWURA: We’ll make you regret this arrogant opposition against
   the kingdom’s wish. And that your Sadalo shall’ve her neither.
BELARU: Is she your daughter? How got you the gut to interfere in my
   familiar matter? You’re a major chief so I’m, except you come
   second and I fourth.
BAWURA: Look, at your presence or absence, pleasure or displeasure,
   consent or discord, Prince gets married to her soonest.
BELARU: Nonsense! What do you say to a child jumping up in an
   attempt to pull down the firmament to crush his father for rebuking him?
BAWURA: Uncalled for, sir!
SOBADE [To BELARU]: This evil that you set your heart to is
   grievous and consequential, unless you’re ruled to withdraw it, you
   shall find it difficult embracing its denouement.
BADEDIRAN [comes down from his throne]: Chief Belaru, please,
   accept our pleading. [suddenly prostrates, and before he could utter
   a word, BAWURA quickly runs to him,  lifts him                                                         
BAWURA: Abomination!
SOBADE: Beyond the pale!
BAWURA: Transcend what the kingdom could bear!
SOBADE: It’s time to fight1
BAWURA: No mercy! We’re going to deal terribly with him.
SOBADE: Physically, we’ll fight him!
BAWURA: Socially, we’ll fight him!
SOBADE: We’ll root out his family!
BAWURA: We’ll demolish his house!
SOBADE: One option is left for him.
BAWURA: He may as well pass it up.
SOBADE: Do you agree now?
BELARU [unruffled]: No way!
SOBADE: You seize to be a chief.
BAWURA: Remove the strings of beads on your neck and your hands,
   and walk yourself out.
BELARU [composed]: What a minute menace with all your deafening
   noise – trifling inadequate in its force, it can effect anything – and
   it’s nothing but gaucherie of the ill mannered. Oh, no! Do you think
   I’m flaccid or suggestible? You’d rather stop mounting insignificant
   pressure, which can’t scare a cockroach. The child Sadalo, whom
   I’d promised, given him assurance of accomplishment: on whose behalf
   I always fight, putting my soul on my palm, had given so much and
   is still giving, I can’t sell him behind. No, I can’t underwrite this
   dire risk! And if being a man of his words is anything to go by, then
   I forgo your chieftaincy. [begins to remove the string of beads]
SOBADE [very much worried]: Friend, you can’t do that to us, you’ve got
   to allow us some considerations. Our relation shouldn’t hook
   in something of coldness; I think we’re to complement one another
   in unrestrained happiness.
BELARU [now holding them in his hand, shakes his head and globs
   of tears tumble down his cheeks]: No, gadfly, you can’t talk me out
   of my conscience: I still hold on to my conviction. Prince won’t
   marry my daughter.
SOBADE: I plead with you; don’t hold this meeting to stasis. Repent
   and be submissive to have back the bonhomie.
BELARU: Believe me, I’ve given the final verdict.
SOBADE: No, that will be too abysmal – be no more adamant, for
   this action isn’t born out of sagacity.
BAWURA: We’re sorry for trying to intimidate you. Let’s make our
   king happy, as did our fathers to theirs.
BELARU [after a jiffy of dense thinking, begins to put on the strings
    of beads, and forthwith BADEDIRAN’s face beams with immeasurable
    joy]: Though against my will, I condemn myself given to a reason not
   a quarter value of my promise.
BAWURA [To BADEDIRAN]: Hearty congratulations, Your Majesty!
BELARU [not satisfied with himself, tears roll down his cheeks]:
   Amidst tears I lost my conscience making a choice!
BADEDIRAN: By reasoning, there should be no remorse over
   this glorious decision. [walks up to him and they exchanged
   pleasantries, others join them hugging and embracing one another]
   Oh, what a feat of brevity! Now, Prince shall live again!
BAWURA: I never thought to be made of sterner stuff, though
   seemingly – no, it wasn’t I – oh, no, it behoves us to stick up for
   the king’s interest.
SOBADE: Thrilling tick it has all been, though not as designed it
   was made; at least our solidarity thrives!
BAWURA: What? Sufficiency of bliss!
BADEDIRAN: Thanks. I’m grateful.                            [Exeunt]