Chapter Three:The Wedding

The trumpet was blown signaling the beginning of the ceremony. "Ladies and gentlemen today we are gathered here to witness the expansion of the kingdom's family. I present to you princess TT of our great kingdom and his spouse Mr.Katonde ."The herald officially introduced our presence.

We were separated, she followed the king and I followed my father as we started to descend the stairs. When we were close to the bottom I  noticed that the singing and chattering was diminishing slow by slow as we approached the bottom. I looked around and all the eyes were directed at me.

Their faces displayed a mix of surprise, awe, wonderment, and jealousy. We stopped upon reaching the ground bottom. In informal English mixed with the local dialect, my father spoke :

"Dear guests, gentleman, and lady . I wholeheartedly present to you my only son Katonde to get married to princess TT and brought us, grandchildren".

The guest applauded despite all. I felt overwhelmed. My betrayal ship was sinking deep and deep. Nothing was changing for the better, my love was losing herself day in day out hanging around with wild creatures with the hope of finding me, and nowhere am being married to somebody I don't love. This was my first time in Devils Island and now I was the point of reference even more than the princess.

We were handed over to the presiding chief priest to bless and officiate the illegal ceremony as our parents exchanged handshakes, smiled at each other, hugged one another, and retreated to their respective sitting positions.

I dared not to look into the princess's eyes by myself I appeared to be the shyest between us.

I thought to myself, I was very good-looking, but I was getting married and did not have the luxury to look at other women of my choice. Indeed the princess turned me to be a woman. She and her family subjected me to situations that pushed me to behave act like a woman.

I regretted being handsome! Many traditional royal weddings I had witnessed before used to follow a particular procedure and every part of the ceremony had clear and outlined activities but for this one, things lacked order. Even the normal village weddings on the streets were better off than ours.

“What do you have in store for the Isambo ceremony?’’

Oh no! I didn't have a proper answer to her question as I kept on talking with word fillers that didn't mean anything specific.

"Mmh mmh mmh I mmh I mmh know"I gambled on the proper words to give that won't offend her emotions. Mambo ceremony was the traditional part of the royal wedding where the princess(bride) has to show one of her talents to entertain the guests and impress the groom. I didn’t want to impress anyone, especially not my betrayers. Besides, this was a humiliation of the highest order since it was a role played by the bride and not the groom. After a short while of words gambling, my tongue finally gained stability and courage in coordination with my brain to answer her question. 

I smiled and replied,” It is a surprise, my lady.”

Soon after a short break, it was my time to showcase my talent. I requested for the musical set and it was brought; I had to choose what to utilize to bring out my best and above all not to fail my princess who had delegated her mandate on me publicly. What a shame! Anyway, I was sitting in a coach in the middle of the room, everyone’s attention directed at me. I knew I was good at playing the piano so I choose to do some traditional instrumental accompanied by little freestyle breakdance moves that took the whole guest applauding and imitating the same.

When I was done I found her smiling and she gave me a side-hug and said “well-done hubby, I love it,” “thank you my queen “I replied and sat down.

Now it was time to go to our new residential castle where we could spend the night. I developed a knot in my stomach that I felt like throwing up. The goldish made carriage was waiting outside the venue. The princess, now my wife led the way and I followed. Through the palace we rod in silence, not talking to each other. I didn’t like the experience since the whole time I was just thinking of what is going to happen once we reach our destination and the evening was fastly approaching. I thought of the wedding consummation and I almost grew numb and dump at the same time but I had no otherwise but to accept the challenge before me. Most women could fear the wedding consummation but in this instance, I was the one in fear. The princess was comfortable!