“We will come to Romoke’s matter yet,” he promised, following her into the inner sanctum.  They sat down on rocks, facing each other.  Mist hung around them like a silent witness.  “But you mustn’t remain this angry with me, Aboni.  The river goddess that made you leave me back then has long run dry.”

         “Well, you were bound to end up high and dry with that one anyhow,” she sniggered.

         But they got talking about Romoke soon enough.  The goddess was adamant that nothing should happen to her and the god was inclined to agree.  Still, a female may not enter into the presence of Akoni and, now that Romoke had broken that taboo, how could some natural order be restored in Karele?

         “How to restore the pride of the men, you mean?” Aboni queried, getting up.

         “Well, you have to admit that this has been quite traumatic for them,” said the god, with some feeling.  “Not only have they had to suffer the indignity of being seen in women’s clothes, Romoke is in possession of the magic bottle.  I, as an orisa, a god to whom they are devoted, cannot but be moved.  She has their manhood in her hand!”

         “Oh, I see,” said the goddess gleefully.  “This is about clawing some face saving arrangement for the men, abi?”

         “Well, she’s got them by the balls, Aboni,” the god said pleadingly, looking up at her.

         “The perfect place to get hold of some men, if you ask me.  Your men brought this upon themselves.  If they had let Romoke be, none of this would have happened.  It was not her intention to break your code; anger made her forget, and for this I blame the people of Karele, especially the men.  Nothing must be done to the child.”

         “Nothing?”

         “I have spoken,” said Aboni.

         Getting up to leave, Akoni asked what would become of himself and the goddess, now that they had met up again. 

         “See to it that Romoke is safe first, then we’ll see.”  Aboni watched the god dissolve in mist as he departed.  “A god in heat,” she chuckled to herself.  “Some things never change.”

         Akoni descended back into his grove to find Romoke still raging.  Raging like an incandescent spirit, raining abuse on the men.  Unfazed by talk of a taboo and some terrible fate awaiting her, she waved the bottle in the men’s faces, walking up and down as she washed them down with her rampant mouth.

         “Eyin okunrin pangolo!”

         “You Tin Men!” Rodorodo echoed her words, as though the men were hard of hearing.

         “Eyin oko inu igo!”

         “Husbands Bottled Up!”

         Akonila could bear Rodorodo’s chorusing no more.  “Shut up!’ he commanded his assistant with a wave of the hand.  Romoke’s words were wounding enough heard once, not to mention twice.  “Romoke, you will not get away with breaking the sacred code of this shrine,” the priest vowed.  “You shall pay for it.  Akoni the god will see to it.  You will begin to see the repercussions of your foolishness, three days hence.”

         “Three days my foot!  I go my own way, work on my farm and sell for a decent asking price, and you are all hot and bothered.  You think I cannot be trusted with my own affairs unless I’m coupled with one of you sorry people?  Heaven forbid!”

         “If we say you should have a husband, we are only concerned for your welfare.  Why are you so haughty?  Your time is running out, you know,” Akonila said.

         “True,” Babaloja cut in.  “A woman’s day darkens quickly.”

         “My day is bright enough for me, thank you!” Romoke spat.  “I am warning all of you.  If I see your feet on the path to my house, I will cut them off!’

         “Did you hear what Rodorodo called the path to your house?” Babaloja hissed.  “A beaten track - leading to the house of a beaten woman.”

         Romoke's eyes bulged in anger as she threw her hands up.  Without warning, she smashed the magic bottle hard on the grove floor.  The thick potion inside spilled its unfulfilled secret onto sacred ground.

         “Let me see any of you up my track and we will see then, who is the beaten one.”  She stalked back to her house.

         “That Romoke, she is truly her father’s daughter,” Akonila said, failing to hear the grudging admiration that had crept into his own voice.  “Stubborn as a goat.”

         Akoni the god watched bemused as Akonila - under pressure from men seeking restitution - performed ritual upon ritual in the grove for the wrath that failed to find Romoke.  Then after seven days, the priest gave up and went back to his house. 

         It would be a long, long while before another man picked up the courage to walk up the beaten track to seek Romoke’s face.  And he was a man indeed.

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"The Beaten Track" was originally published in Farafina vol. 7, Oct 2006