Authors: Mercedes Keyes
"She is my daughter! She will not defy my word!! I will say what is to be with her!! Or I will strike her down where she stands should she dare stand up to me!!"
Tears streamed from Lena's eyes as she tried to get back in front of Manny but he held her firmly aside not letting her. She couldn't stand to see her father and the man she loved faced up against one another, all because of her.
"LuMaden – stand aside
, I wish to take my wife and leave!"
"You will not take my daughter anywhere!!"
"Then you had better call your men, because I will not stand here and let you - father or not - strike her!"
"You are a fool Maynard Webster! I can have you cut in half at the snap of my fingers! She is nothing more than a slave to you! Cease your lies in calling her wife!"
"LuMaden, we aren't getting anywhere! What is it going to be?"
"Manny - no!" Lena screamed in fear.
"Unhand her now!!" LuMaden demanded.
"No – call your men or let me by!!" Manny challenged.
"Manny – Dauda! Don't do this…I beg you!" Lena pleaded, feeling her entire world was about to crumble around her.
"Do not force my hand Maynard Webster!!" LuMaden warned moving toward his daughter.
"Lena, I tried, but I'm not leaving here without you!"
"Yes! You will leave –
and without my daughter!!" LuMaden grabbed hold of Lena to snatch her from Manny. "Dauda! Don't do this to me – I beg you – I beg you!!" She sobbed knowing Manny would not give her up, which could cost him his life. She would sooner die than for him to be killed by her father because of her. Her father held her one wrist and upper arm, tugging and ordering Manny, "Take your hands from her I tell you!" Manny, angry beyond control, reacted by reflex and yanked her back to him with the same firm hold as her father, bitterly retorting, "You waste my time LuMaden! Call your men to aid you now! I swear you will need them if you do not let her go!!"
LuMaden snatched her even harder barking, "I need no men to handle one man!! Especially you! Release her and go while you still can!!"
"Call – your - men LuMaden - I mean it!!" Manny’s voice rose in equal volume, losing his temper completely and snatching Lena equally as hard.
Blinded by pouring tears, the world around her spinning, Lena felt as if she was literally being torn between the two. At that place where she could stand no more, with her head shaking as she was tugged back and forth, the last straw was delivered when her husband bellowed, "So be it LuMaden!!"
Lena knew it had already gone too far, horrified at what was about to take place, she dropped to her knees, yanking her arms from both of them screaming. "Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it!! It is enough, it – is - enough!!!" She scrambled back from them on the floor. In her haste, she knocked over the food trencher and its contents spilled over the floor. A bejewelled dagger lay at her feet; Lena snatched it up as she distanced herself from both men, hystericaly she cried out, straining her throat, "Will the two of you tear me apart that each may have a half!?! It is enough – I simply cannot take any more!! I cannot!!" She sobbed, her hands grabbed at her hair as if she would tear it out by the roots, the dagger in her hand above her head in plain sight. Both men froze. "I cannot simply stand by and watch the two of you, kill each other over me!! I cannot, I will not!!!”
Manny and LuMaden's eyes widened in the face of her hysteria. Immediately LuMaden sobered, feeling his gut twist seeing his daughter so distraught.
"Esa…now…now come - calm down my daughter-…"
"No! I won’t calm down!! I’m tired!!" She cried. “I’m so – so tired, I can’t do this anymore –
it never ends – it – never ends!
” She shook with the heat of her words and the bleak state she found herself in.
"Lena…please honey, calm down-…" Manny started, panicking with his eyes on the dagger.
"No Manny…don't you see ... it's all been in
vain…everything, it has all come - to - to this!"
"No it hasn't Lena-…" He murmured moving towards her.
"Stop Manny! Please ... just - stay there!"
"Esa stop this nonsense!! Put down that dagger!!"
"Stop yelling at her!!" Manny warned, afraid that they'd pushed her too far. "This is your fault!!" LuMaden blamed Manny, who ignored him, giving his wife his full attention.
"Come on darlin'. I'm sorry okay? I lost my temper and I shouldn't have." Manny conceded. Lena shook her head. "No, it's not you-…"
"Esa! What is wrong with you girl?! Why are you acting this way?!"
"I've tried to tell you! But you don’t listen! You don’t care!!"
"Stop that yelling! Of course I care-…"
"About this kingdom! Your rule! Your word! Your way! But not about me, nor about my feelings! Or anyone elses for that matter!"
LuMaden sighed dramatically, "Esa please! Stop this silly woman's nonsense and give me that dagger before you hurt yourself! Haven't you shamed me enough this day?!"
Lena began laughing, "I'm sorry I ever came back here! Do you understand
that
father? No regrets are bigger than my own for returning to this place-…"
LuMaden rolled his eyes to the ceiling.
"-...oh forgive me King LuMaden! I am boring you aren't I? Why should you, a mighty king, be subjected to, the silly ramblings of a woman!"
"Aah Esa, what has happened to you? Acting this way – for what?"
"What has happened to me is the best thing ever; my brother sold me away from here!! Silly fool of a woman that I am, I came
back
!!"
LuMaden had heard enough and tried to rush her snapping, "I don't have time for this nonsense! Give me that dagger girl!!"
Lena jumped back gripping the handle with both hands placing the sharp tip at the center of her rib cage screaming, "Must I drive it into my heart father before you will hear me?! Must my blood stain your hands before my words carry any meaning for you – at all?!!"
"LuMaden – get away from her damn it!!" Manny bit out.
"Why would you do such a thing?!" LuMaden asked in their language, trying to cut Manny out. Lena returned in English. "Because I would prefer death rather than the life you are trying to force upon me!"
"Esa that is crazy! This has been your life since the day you were born! It is our way!"
"A
nd I –
hated
it! I
detested
it! Today, I hate it -
even more!
" She protested with such impassioned derision it shocked LuMaden to see it.
LuMaden paused to stare at his daughter,
'This is not my little Esa. The one child who has always done all I've commanded of her, never talk back, accepting my plans for her as her lot in life. This woman is not her, surely not?'
"You still don't understand do you? I don't want this…
this
– all of it, is yours! Yours! I don't want it…I have never - ever -
wanted it
." She shook with the force of anguish that went through her, at the point in her life when she no longer cared, if she were to die that night, she would expose the full extent of what her father had done to her, his children, his wives, the people in his charge.
Blown away by her manner and words, it was as if once blind he was suddenly given sight at the worse time ever, to see something no man wanted to face after building all that he had. "That is not true! You were happy before your brother sold you away to
them
!"
"I was miserable, I was – so – incredibly miserable and I was your puppet on a string!"
"That is a lie! You were never a puppet! Were you not educated? Taught to speak three different languages!"
"For what? Why? Do you not see what a contradiction that is! You brag to have filled my head with knowledge, but refuse me the right to speak what I know! Not once, not one time have you ever considered asking me, what I feel? What I want? Not once! King LuMaden I am a human being! I think, I feel, I reason, I can judge and I can choose – my life, for myself! If in doing so, I do it wrong; I will then suffer the consequence with no one to blame but myself! However dear father, I did not choose wrong!"
"He is a white man, he is your master, you are his slave…how can you want this? Why would you choose him over freedom?!"
"You are wrong again! I have only known freedom, since my enslavement to
him – it was not until I became his slave that I was made
free
!
"
"What has he done to you Esa? Have I not loved you with all I have!? More so than any other child I have sired!? Have I not given you everything you can ever need and want!? Does this kingdom not lie at your feet? Surrounded by people who love and cherish you?"
"My father, few here love me. Catamon, he loves me. Austeao, she loves me, and you – you
think
that you love me…yet, because of you, I am hated and despised here. I am loved by more people in a world that hates me, than I have ever been loved here. You gave all, but with a price…what you have done here father…is wrong!"
"
Wrong?!
You say I am wrong! Yet you my daughter chose a man who holds you as his slave!?"
"My father – everyone here on this island is your slave, from me - down!! Every woman within your kingdom is capable of nothing but spreading her thighs to receive your seed, then once again to expel it, and for that she must feel blessed! For her to say how she would like to live her life, is not permitted. She cannot say what makes her happy or sad. We have not the right to say ...I will marry this man or not! Then she must bite down on her pain and watch her husband freely take another to his bed! She must stand to share her home with as many women as he feels he can impregnate while she moves aside that he may do so!"
LuMaden's mouth dropped open, "You've - gone –
ma-a-ad!
"
"Why does that make me mad!? You know what makes me mad Dauda? That every possession we have is never truly ours! It does not matter that we have earned it! From the moment we marry, all that is ours goes to our lord, our head ... our
master
! No difference – be that master, black or white! Tis slavery none the less! Even as a princess, which is only a title that says I have more for a man to gain once I have been passed from your hands to his! I then go from being your slave, to being his! A slave is a slave! I have no control of my life in your kingdom. If I must have a master, then
damn it,
I
will do the choosing of him!"
LuMaden stood shocked and silent. He had never heard such things come from a woman's mouth, to hear them from his very own daughter, hurt and stunned him.
'My God, has the learning I allowed her brought her to this end?'
"Well father, say something. Admit, the very things you accuse the white man of, you did first, to your own, you are guilty as he, you share his crime, his sin. You see, I have eyes, and you have slaves, servants…
men
whom are not treated as your equal. You have elevated yourself above them, as well your own sons and daughters! How
dare you
offer my own flesh and blood sisters to my husband!
How dare you!
Did you ask them father if that is what they wanted? I don't even think you know their names…do you?"
He stood frozen staring at her, his mind reeling in disbelief.
"Have you nothing to say in your defense? Can you not see that one form of slavery is no better than the other? You have chosen for me, Prince Bauok, a man who possesses slaves. He, like the white man, has taken away the right for another man to decide how he might live his life. To say what makes him happy or sad, to choose who will be his mate! If the king has selected the same woman as his slave, guess who will not have her!? He must work and toil for the satisfaction of his master, never to be rewarded with the earnings of his toil!”
“
Why? Because all he has done and produced belongs to his master… no matter - what!" Her hand opened, she let the dagger drop at her feet. "I want no part…of this world. I have chosen, for
myself
…the man whom I shall look up to…and my father… title or no… he is more than worthy. I cannot live my life without him, and I won't. I'm asking you… no, I beseech you,
let me go
– let – me go."
LuMaden looked back at her after staring off and away, reeling from her words, hurt by them – mainly because – the truth - hurt.
"And what of all of this, my daughter, what am I to do with it?"
"You have in your midst, among your sons, a true king! How can you not know that? I feel for you my father…truly I do – nothing more tragic and painful than a man who has power, yet – he cannot see – even worse, refuses to see. Please my father, I beg you – don’t let that - be
you
."