Aysha had been running and hiding for two days, and still they followed her relentlessly. Now laying under a thorn bush, she was quivering. Her once sleek body was emaciated, a pale grey colour, her eyes seemed to take up her whole face, a beaten look in them.
The hunters found her the next morning, dragging her out and they set off for the krall. She had to be returned. They placed her in the care of the wise woman who set about treating her wounds, purging her of the parasites that she had swallowed in the river water, feeding her honey water and thin gruel. She slowly recovered .
Knowing her fate, she begged the old woman to give her something to end her misery. Shying away, the old woman began mixing a potion for her. Drinking it, Aysha felt suddenly at peace.
The wise woman started to talk to Aysha.
”You knew that once you became our chieftain’s wife you must follow him into the afterlife. It was not your fault that he died on your wedding night. He had been unwell, the excitement was too much for him.”
Aysha nodded a tear falling down her cheek.
”As his youngest wife you are to travel with him so that he can have offspring with you.”
Days passed as they prepared his body, and the cave, his final resting place, was filled with the things he would need in the afterlife. A low bed at his side was for Aysha with a small table set to one side. On the morning of the funeral Aysha was dressed in her bridal wear, following the body with her eyes cast down, now resigned to her fate.
She lay down on the bed, as the tribesmen sealed the cave. Now with only an oil lamp to see by, tears fell. How unfair it was as the marriage had never been consummated; but the elders had decided that as she was the only one of his wives who could still bear children, she had to be sacrificed.
Noticing a flask on the table with the wise woman’s herbs alongside, Aysha began to drink it. Immediately she felt woozy with no way out; she slipped into a deep sleep from which she would never wake.
