He had been napping on the floor. As soon as he heard Tsitsi’s voice he sprang up and ran to embrace her.

She pushed him away gently with both hands.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked her concernedly.

‘What is this I hear about you beating up Va Mutasa?’

‘So the dog has a name?’ Farai spoke casually.

Tsitsi on the other hand looked devastated. ‘Do you know what that man is?’ she asked him.

‘A fool?’

She sighed in anger, ‘Va Masimba...that was the chief’s royal advisor!’

The reality banged him on his head. ‘Ad…visor?’

She clapped her hands on her thighs, ‘You beat up the man who molded the chief from since he was a child!’

He was now speechless. ‘Let’s leave. L…L…Let’s leave…all of us!’ he grabbed her wrist.

She snatched it from him. ‘You don’t understand, do you? I am no longer your wife! I am no longer a Masimba! I am a Mbada.’

This statement was enough to crush Farai’s soul. A tear rolled down his cheek like it was long overdue.

Tawana had been sleeping and watched from a distance as he sat at the far end of the hut with his arms wrapped around his knees rocking back and forth as this drama unfolded.

‘So…’ Farai let loose another tear, ‘So…’ he made a brief chuckle, ‘So…what am I to you now? Am I nothing to you now, Tsitsi?’

‘I could never forget you, Farai, but…’ she gulped, ‘…as from now onwards to me, you’re just a stranger I will never forget.’

‘Wow.’ He placed one hand on his forehead and the other on his hip. ‘So you terminated the love you had for me so quickly?’

Now she was speechless.

‘All we’ve been through is all just a joke to you?’

‘What is it that you want me to do, Farai?!’ she wrung her hands, tears streaming down her eyes. ‘I am the chief’s wife now. There is nothing I can do about it…there is nothing anyone can do about it.’

‘Oh, no,no,no,no,no…’ he pulled out his knobkerrie. ‘This shall bring death to that nasty chief!’

‘Do you really think that stick is enough to end the life of the most elite war hero of all the Shona villages?’

‘You’d be surprised at the strangest of places you could find a weakness on a hero.’

‘But that is just a stick, Farai!’

‘Are you forgetting what my father said?’

‘Not this again.’

‘This knobkerrie has claimed the lives of many warriors over the years when his father fought some of their chiefs.’

‘But you don’t actually believe that, do you? How does a stick fare against a spear and a shield?’

He became silent.

‘Even if that folktale were true, as soon as your grandfather died, you and your father have only used it for domestic purposes. You’re not a fighter, Farai. You do not know how to take a life besides an animal’s…you have never been in combat! The chief is angry and if you do not leave now, he will kill you!’