MAQWELA rushed down to his brother and called for help. The then head of palace security showed up.
The man was Collins’s father. He’d also served Chaka-Hulu before he died.
That man knew when the brothers’ talk turned a quarrel. As he’d been watching out for the king’s safety close by.
But the quarrel went so fast that before he could figure where things were headed, there was the mess.
So he rushed in while Maqwela cried, and called an ambulance.
In a while the ambulance arrived as it was one of those stationed for the palace. Now the man went with the victim and stood as his guardian through surgery.
The surgery went on for hours then the patient was turned to an intensive care. It was long weeks of sleeping comatose.
Now after the dead sleep, Zadeque came awake… and survived. But the prince didn’t live the sane fellow he used to be. He woke up a paranoid case.
And so, Zadeque began to live with paranoia from the age of 28. Well, so acute was it that he couldn’t bear to see anyone.
The case was that he’d hide away in dark dens. For when Maqwela hurt him, it seemed the world ended.
King Maqwela felt sawn and slaughtered severally times as he watched his brother hurt.
He’d cry and tremble and bang his head on walls. He’d seek Zadeque out each night and feed him till they both cry.
Now the monarch took responsibility of sheltering the sick man. He spent a fortune to move his palace from the interior of Basini to the coastal region of the islet.
Then he built a large villa there within the grand castle. There he kept his brother. With a cook that went in and out, nursing him.
But then the 25-year-old ruler soon caved in under the weight of guilt. And watching his brother hide, he became paranoid too.
He felt that his entire nation was out to kill him for Zadeque’s sake. Even when nobody knew of the hidden prince.
So whenever his illness peaked in crisis, he’d get up running in a fit of frenzy and then fetch stones to throw at the foes.
Yet the only foe that he’d got in his brain was his brother, his only brother.
So he’d reach Zadeque however he could, and stone him again and again until the madness washed off.
It was grief and something more. It was like death and even worse. Still it went on for 15 years.
Now this shared condition was what the king shared with the duo. And they left his place with burdens to kneel on.
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