Julius & Juliana

Duncan, King of a certain kingdom in Scotland, relaxed on his throne feeling so sad and depressed about his condition. He thought to himself " I'm married to three wives, yet there's no child from any of them, be it a son or a daughter. For how long shall I be without the voice of a crying baby in my palace? I simply can't continue like this". He stood up from his throne, removed his crown and scratches his head " I must find a way to secretly adopt a male child sooner or later if worse comes to worst.

I simply can't live to see no heir apparent to my throne." He sits back in his throne and remained in his thoughts. He has been told several times that he was the cause of his inability to impregnate his wives. He felt very sad and unhappy at this and would refuse to eat sometimes to show his grief.

One bright and cold winter morning, a strange looking sorceress came to visit the king from no where. She held in her right hand, a magic wand and she had a long and pointed nose. Her deep black eyes were as scary as hell and frightful to be seen. Her lips were painted red and her fingernails painted black, were very long and sharp. She knocked at the huge door to the palace and the guards attended to her. " Who do you seek? For I see no reason why the king will want to have a meeting with a sorceress" said the chief guard. "Son of man, I forbid you to deny me entrance to the palace because my message is of utmost importance to the king. Let me through at once!" She retorted. " I'm sorry but I don't think we can allow you in without you telling us the reason behind your quest to meet the king." He added. " I suggest you go and seek permission from your king to allow me in before deciding. Tell him that my message is of utmost importance to him." The sorceress had a mischievous look on her face and the guards didn't seem afraid or frightened by her appearance. They have been trained to be fearless. They once again asked about her mission and she told them that it was for king Duncan's ears alone. They asked her to wait while they go and seek the king's permission just as she's said before they can allow her come into the palace.

King Duncan was at first gobsmacked at the thought of a sorceress coming to visit him but he allowed her to come in. She went straight to the throne and asked for some privacy with the king. The king told his men to let them be. After the guards had left, king Duncan asked the sorceress to explain her mission. " I'm quite perplexed to behold a sorceress who has come from heaven knows where to come and deliver a message to me. Speak thus, for I'm all ears" said Duncan. He was full of excitement and inquisitiveness, seeing a sorceress standing before him to deliver a message to him. She glared at the king for sometime that made him begin to wonder what the message was all about. She was offered a seat by the king but she refused to sit down. She looked downwards and looked back again at Duncan then she began "oh great and powerful king Duncan, you shalt indeed have a child but it shalt be a daughter and not a son as thou halt desired. However, thy daughter shalt not be born by neither of thy wives but by a poor and mad widow who lives thus down the hills. Thy daughter shalt grow and become a beautiful princess and her mother will be cured of her illness. Thy daughter will become a renowned artiste and would fall in love with a stranger but you will not agree to their marriage which will lead to your death" she finally concluded.

After hearing this unbelievable and ridiculous prophesy by the sorceress, the king was mad with anger " How dare you! How dare you, you shameless old timer. You have the guts to stand before an all powerful king and utter these rubbish talks? I would rather die without a child of my own to succeed my throne than to impregnate a mad and dirty woman. Where did you come from? You had better leave my sight now or else, you will regret ever stepping a foot in my palace." He concluded in a rather harsh manner. "Oh Duncan, how mean and evil you are. Your wickedness and evil deeds have brought disaster to you that you can't have a child of your own to succeed your throne. The evil that men do surely lives after them and you will be a testimony to this fact in the future. Oh! How painful your death will be for the blood of those innocent lives you've taken in the past are crying for vengeance". The king couldn't take it anymore and his rage was as high as that of a hungry lion whose only meal has been eaten by another animal ."What nonsense!" Cried king Duncan. He called on his guards and ordered them to execute the sorceress at once and also bring her head to him so that he could confirm that she's really dead. " Execute her at once, bring me her head in a bowl and go to the hills in search of the mad widow and execute her too, so that this nonsensical prophesy won't come to pass" he said, looking at the sorceress with a grimace.

The guards made an attempt to grab the sorceress so that they could execute her but before they could, she turned around and disappeared from their midst, right in the presence of the king. The king and his guards were frightened at this. However, they still obeyed the king's command and they went to the hills in search of the mad widow that same day.

When they got there, they searched every nook and corner of the surrounding but they couldn't find the mad widow. They searched and searched but still couldn't locate her, so they grew tired of searching and decided to take a break. " We've been searching for long now and yet there's no sign of the mad widow or whoever it is that we came here to look for" said the chief guard, feeling so exhausted." I think we better start returning to the palace because I doubt we are ever going to see anyone in this lonely and empty place" said the second guard.

He brought out his own jar of water and drank some of it as he was also exhausted from searching for the mad widow. "Maybe she's not around today, we can check back some other time. Do any of you have a clue of what the meeting of the king and the sorceress was about?" Asked the chief guard. None of them knew about the meeting that was held behind closed doors and so they returned to the king and told him they couldn't find the mad widow. The king waited for three days to pass before sending the guards to go in search of the mad widow again. They went and yet again, their efforts were futile. The king began to think negative of the witch's prophesy after sending the guards to go in search of the mad widow for the third time after a week with yet another unsuccessful return. Each time they went in search of her, they usually spend the whole day, morning till night looking for her and they always came back empty-handed.

The king refused to continue searching for the mad widow and decided to forget about all that the witch had said was going to happen till one night in which he had a dream. In his dream, he was finding the mad widow all by himself by the hills and he eventually saw her. He woke up from the dream at that point and by morning, he decided to send his guards once again to go and find her but he didn't decide to go with them.

They went to the hills but were not happy that the king has decided to keep searching for her after all their futile efforts. They searched and searched as usual and by evening, they grew tired and frustrated and turned to go but just as they were leaving, they heard a woman's voice that sounded as if she was weeping. They hurried to the spot where she was and they met a mad woman that was about to stab herself with a broken bottle. "Hold it woman! Take it easy, put it away. You have no right to take away your life" said the chief guard. The insane woman hesitated to put the broken bottle down but as the guards slowly got nearer to her, they saw tears rolling down her cheeks whilst she was still smiling. And as they got very close to her, she stood up and began moving backwards. She started threatening them with the broken bottle as if to tell them that if they came further close to her, she would stab them one after the other with the broken bottle. The guards were smart and they intelligently gathered around her, seized the broken bottle and threw it far away. She started struggling with them but they overpowered her. They felt sorry for her and didn't wanted to execute her just as the king instructed them to do. They decided to take her to see him first before they could execute her at his command. They tied her legs and hands with ropes they had brought with them from the palace for capturing her if seen. They took her along with them in their horse but she was struggling to be free like someone who is being forced to his or her place of death.

They arrived at the king's palace and presented the mad widow before him. Duncan ran his eyes up and down at her for some time then he began asking her some questions "What is your name woman?" She didn't answer. "Where are you from? Are you married? Can't you speak?" She remained silent while biting her fingers and smiling mischievously as a result of her insanity. He continued running his eyes up and down the mad widow in admiration of her beauty and suddenly found himself falling in love with her. She was a young and beautiful woman. He realized she was more beautiful than his three wives and this made him restrain from executing her. The guards were surprised when he finally said "do her no harm, I pity her." "But you must execute her or the witch's prophesy comes to pass. Remember that she lives thus" said the chief guard. The king stared at the mad widow once again and saw how beautiful she was. He wished he could spare her life but he couldn't endure the shame that he married a dirty mad woman, even someone that have been married before to become his fourth wife.

He was mesmerized by her astonishing beauty and became bewildered at the thought of executing her or sparing her life. "She's innocent, look at her. She's just a poor mad woman who might have been married and may have lost her husband and her family" said the king. Then in order not to convince the guards that he was going to spare her life, he said "can't you see the tears in her eyes? It could be that she's still mourning her late husband and her lost family. Since you failed to execute her in the first place, I also feel sorry for her now but in order that the witch's prophesy don't come to pass, she has to be executed tomorrow. I do not want to set my eyes on her tomorrow so that I don't feel sorry for her again" concluded the king.

That fateful night, the mad widow slept in a room not too far from king Duncan's. She seemed to be a bit cured of her illness. The king was drunk with alcohol and could not stop thinking about her. He's fallen in love with her at first sight. She was still beautiful despite the dirty rags she wore on the day she was captured. She had all the sexual features that any man could ever wish of a lady.

The drunk king reflected on all these coupled with her enchanting beauty and he was slightly out of his senses. "What a beautiful woman" He thought to himself. " I've never been so attracted to any woman as much as I'm attracted to her. I don't know why I'm so obsessed with her. Tomorrow she is to be executed, let me just peep on her and enjoy staring at her body again because I won't enjoy doing this while the guards are present tomorrow" he concluded. He stood up from his bed, there was only one guard nearby who was deeply asleep and was snoring gently. " Ah! Look at the way he sleeps like someone who have been injected with sleeping drugs. I bet he won't wake up even to the sound of a bomb explosion in my palace. Let me just tip toe into her room and try to touch her...I will only try to touch her and nothing more" he finally concluded. The other guards were on duty at the palace entrance, so he walked like a robot to the room in which the mad widow was soundly asleep, far from those of his other wives. He was tired of sleeping with them as they never became pregnant anytime he slept with either of them.

The next morning, as early as 4am, the king woke up from sleep only to discover that he had slept in the same bed with the mad widow. He got up at once and carefully hurried away, hoping he hadn't done anything with her. The only guard nearby was still deeply asleep to even notice any movement past him.

During the day, he ordered his guards to go ahead and execute the mad widow. He has changed his mind and was back to his senses. He no longer felt sorry for her. He didn't expect her to be pregnant after all he knew he was impotent. As she was being carried away by the executioners, she pleaded to have a last word privately with the king. Everyone was surprised that an insane woman would want to talk to the king in private and they wondered what she was going to say to him. The king granted her request but insisted that she say whatever she wanted to say to the hearing of all as he thought she was going to say nonsense due to her condition.

Seeing that the king has refused to allow her talk to him in private, she went up to him and said silently in his right ear "oh king, do you not remember what you did to me last night? You crept into the room I was sleeping in and made me slug it out under your weight. You've planted a seed in my vineyard and now do you take my life and that of your unborn child?" The king was dumbfounded. He thought to himself " What did she just say? What have i done? Did i actually sleep with her last night? Was I under a spell? No, this can't be true. It can't happen. He ordered that she shouldn't be killed but instead she should be thrown into the dungeons. The guards were amazed at this.

After some months, the widow's screams were heard far away in the dungeons. When Duncan heard about this, he was a little frightened. He asked the guards to get her out of the dungeons and they did. When she came out, the guards discovered that she had a swollen tummy. The king thought of a quick idea and he got one. He accused the guards that one of them must have visited her inside the dungeons and impregnated her there. "You stand before me to tell me that the prisoner you kept for a long time is now pregnant? How hilarious that is. So tell me, who amongst you is responsible for her unborn child?" The guards denied one after the other with each of them swearing that he isn't the one responsible for her pregnancy. Duncan looked at each of them with a grimace and said " sooner or later the truth shall unfold and the father of the baby will be exposed. You had better admit that you are the one responsible for her pregnancy now because woe to any of you that is found guilty, he shall be executed. The guards kept asking themselves and trying to find out who among them had done this but no one admitted he was guilty. To their greatest dismay, the king was expected to punish them all if no one admitted or pleaded guilty but he didn't. Rather, he asked them to give the baby to him when she's been delivered of it and warned them never to tell anyone within and outside the royal house that he adopted a child from anybody. He stated his intentions to accept the forthcoming baby, be it a male or a female as his own child.

On hearing this, the guards became puzzled at the thought of the king wanting to keep the baby as his own and execute the mother. They asked him if they could go ahead and murder the mad widow after she had given birth to the baby but he replied " The witch's prophesy can't come to pass. As you can see, I'm not the biological father of her unborn child and moreover, I'm not going to get married to her. So once she gives birth, I will just let her go but without her child and if she demands to go with her child, then I will execute her and take care of her child as my own. I'm not going to get married to a mad woman...no! That can never happen" he said.