Part 1: Riches in Silence
Eluoma glistened beneath the morning sun like a woven basket of gold. The air smelled of roasted yams and burning palm oil, the scent rising with laughter from open compounds where children played freely and women sang as they ground egusi. From every path, traders moved with baskets heavy with smoked fish, dyed cloth, carved masks, and bundles of harvested yam. It was a village of abundance — not through conquest, but through craft, trade, and time.
At the center of this well-fed peace stood the palace of King Ebitu — tall, wide-shouldered, with eyes that had seen many seasons and a heart that had weathered far more. He stood that morning by the carved wooden balcony of the upper chamber, gazing across his kingdom not with pride, but with cautious gratitude.
He knew peace was not the absence of war, but the rejection of it — again and again, no matter the pressure.
"Eluoma shines today," came the voice of Elder Urum, approaching from behind. He was lean, gray-bearded, wrapped in a wrapper of ash-blue. His staff tapped softly on the wood as he joined the king.
"It always shines," Ebitu replied, his voice slow and thoughtful. "But there is thunder under the sun, Urum. I feel it."
Elder Urum grunted. "The tongues of Ezikpe grow bolder. You are not wrong to feel it. He speaks to the young ones of strength, of glory, of becoming the 'hammer of the east'."
Ebitu nodded but did not turn. "And yet they eat from full calabashes. Their mothers trade in far markets. Their fathers build homes with stone, not mud. What more do they want?"
"They want a name," Urum said quietly. "A name feared across the land. They want warriors, not farmers."
The king's jaw tightened. "I was raised during the era of fire and spear. I saw what fear brings — widows without sons, children raised on dust. I vowed that my people would eat before they fight. But now they call it weakness."
A silence stretched between them, broken only by the distant crow of a rooster.
"Ezikpe gathers the restless," Urum warned. "Some say he prepares a council challenge. If he succeeds—"
"He won't," Ebitu said, but there was a sadness in it.
In the days that followed, the murmurs grew.
You could hear it in the whispers beside palm-wine calabashes:
"This king hides behind yam barns.""We have no warriors.""Agboji mocks us. Says even their boys are braver."
You could hear it in the way Kalu, a young weaver, spat into the dust one morning and said to his friend, "My father says Ebitu hides his fear behind diplomacy. What peace comes without spears?"
Even Uzuma, the king's daughter, had begun to notice how people bowed less deeply. How fewer maidens came to sing at the courtyard. How the palace felt more like a shrine than a home.
Ebitu sat in his quiet chamber one night, staring into the oil lamp. The room was silent except for the rhythmic grind of a distant drum.
"Is it truly cowardice," he whispered aloud, "to love peace more than glory?"
Uzuma stood in the doorway. "Baba… you gave them a life many only dream of. They do not see that."
He gave her a long look, eyes full of fatherly sorrow. "They will see it, daughter. One day. But only after the fruit is eaten and the seeds are forgotten."
By the end of the week, Ezikpe had summoned a town gathering. Cloaked in fine leopard skin, flanked by young men with carved spears, he shouted what the restless had been thinking.
"A king who cannot fight, is not a king.""Shall we wait for our enemies to take our wives before we learn the taste of blood?""It is time we rise — not to trade, but to conquer!"
They cheered, many of them drunk on the dream of dominance. Even some elders nodded with unsure silence.
In the palace, King Ebitu heard the crowd roar. But he did not go out to silence them.
Instead, he placed his hand on his chest and whispered to the gods of his ancestors:
"Let truth defend me, even if man won't."