The Queen With The Frozen Heart 12

Outside a feast was prepared.

The women had tended large banana leaves on the ground and top of them delicious foods were served.

Everyone, the warriors, the elderly, the children and the women, had large cups of chicha to enjoy.

There was chonta chicha, yuca chicha and even maize chicha.

The pekari's meat was tender and it melted in the mouth.

The yuca was well cooked, tender and without grain, grown in the sandy beaches of the river.

There was mazamora, cream of banana and patasuchu, white cacao stew with little red chili peppers that burned your mouth and made your eyes water.

- Uchu, the men called, and the chili sauce travelled from one to another, everyone smearing their food with a generous portion of the spicy salsa.

From time to time, someone would suck a mandarine or an orange or drown their thirst with a mighty gulp of herbal tea.

The women snickered and looked at the prince shyly from under their hair.

- It will make your manhood grow more, the men laughed and offered him another pilche.

For dessert Amarun was offered a cacao fruit.

He sucked the pulp from around the seeds and enjoyed the fine aroma that rose from the fruit. 

 

What a feast, surely fit for a prince, and he was one to know, he chuckled alone.

It was time for the dancing to begun.

The women danced first, moving their bodies in sinuous forms like a snake, inviting the men with their hips and the movement of their waist.

They danced the preparing ceremony of chicha and the search and preparing of the fat and delicious chontakuru worms that everyone loved to eat.

Group of unwed young women and men danced together the proceedings of a fishing trip and how each had their own responsibility to hold.

Then it was the time for the young warriors.

Together they danced the hunt for pekari and the kill.

At the end the older men stood up.

They were the warriors and each carried a heavy chonta spear.

It was the time to dance the hunt of the jaguar to bring good luck to prince's quest.

In the end, when the jaguar lay dead, the prince stood up and nodded.

- Thank you for your help, he told them, tomorrow we must leave so that we can find Iluku on time.

Quietly everyone stood up, the women and older children running off to leave the sleeping little children inside the huts.

After a little while, they returned to clean the village’s center from the leftovers.

The men spoke quiet in little groups to each other's about the trip they were going to embark.

Sisa stole small glances at the prince but he had not looked her, once, during the whole night.

- Do not bother yourself with him; her mother warned her, he has promised to marry the daughter of the boa to tie the two nations together. He is a prince. He must marry for his people, not for love.

To be continued...

This is the twelth part of the story.

If you want to read the first part of the story go to The Queen With The Frozen Heart 1  

To read the second part, go to The Queen With The Frozen Heart 2 

To read the third part, go to The Queen With The Frozen Heart 3. 

To read the fourth part, go to The Queen With The Frozen Heart 4. 

To read the fifth part, go to The Queen With The Frozen Heart 5.

To read the sixth part, go to The Queen With The Frozen Heart 6

To read the seventh part, go to The Queen With The Frozen Heart 7

 To read the eight part, go to The Queen With The Frozen Heart 8

To read the ninth part, go to The Queen With The Frozen Heart 9

To read the tenth part, go to The Queen With The Frozen Heart 10

To read the eleventh part, go to The Queen With The Frozen Heart 11