Empress Dosha

Chapter 28

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"Warji! Warji!? Hafsatu? Warji?" The woman said the name with so much disgust.

"Yes. The Warjawa or Sirzakwai empire." She answered.

"Does the name matter? What took him all the way there? To that accursed empire? What happened to all the women here? And you are just telling me now? A week after he has left? When he must've almost, if not, arrived there?" Zulai asked in anger.

"Are you expecting me to tie a grown man down?" Hafsatu spat back.

"Oh, but you are his mother!"

"I am a mother who lets her children make decisions for themselves."

"I had thought he was going for one of his meetings when I saw him leaving. I never guessed he was going to get a Warji witch." Zulai said.

"Watch what you say, Zulai. There might be punishments for those words if you were in the midst of Warjawa."

"I am not in the midst of them, am I? So I can say whatever nonsense thing I want to say about them. You sound as if you are siding them when whoever the woman is bewitched him. In some time now, your son would go against you. They have a strong witchcraft within their reach I tell you." Zulai commented.

"And I must assume you have gone there and discovered it yourself, right!? You are saying all those in what now? That I had the power to stop him? Or I control his life?" Hafsatu asked.

"I always tell you that you give your children much freedom and independence and look now, it is backfiring. If you had had him under your clutches, he would abide by anything you had said."

"Coming from a woman who has a child. Are you trying to say I didn't bring them up well? You stand there talking back at me with no respect saying I give them independence? Do you have any idea what I had gone through raising five children singlehandedly?" Hafsatu asked menacingly, matching slowly towards her, "I gave you much privilege, that is why you talk back at me anyhow. I should have punished you for those words but I can't and I won't and I can change my mind right now if I want to." She gritted calmly, but her voice was noxious.

"I am glad you said you can't. Because you know our secret. And you cannot afford to make a single slip." Zulai told the already angry mother whom she just touched her weak points.

"You always speak as if you know everything and it isn't good for you I tell you," Hafsatu scoffed, "Get out!" Zulai quivered at her voice.

Zulai knew more than to say anything else, she quietly left, jamming the door in the process.

Hafsatu took breaths momentarily to calm her nerves, she was heating up. One thing she hated to hear is someone badmouthing or telling her how she brought up her children in this or that way. She knew what she went through in the hands of distant family members from her husband's side, telling her what to do and what not to do with herself and children when she was a Queen and could order for all of them to be exiled, coupled with the fact that her first son went wayward. Thankfully, she never quivered to their words. They all thought she was still that young teenager when her husband died, but her husband was a strong man and within the years of their marriage coached her and moulded her to be rigid and stand strong within oppressors.

She herself gave Rashid her blessings to go marry the woman of his choice because she knew he wouldn't fail her. He deserves the best after all and from his words, the said woman must be wise and a King needs a wise and intelligent woman besides him not some kind of dumb girl (Hannatu) who only knew how to dress up and chatter all day long foolishly. She doesn't even know ten of the council men in the Kingdom.