Drum (3 page)

His own brother had done this to him! Of this he was sure; or, if not his brother, then certainly his brother's wife or son. He was now an outcast from his own village, branded with the mark of a coward, for he had not faced the knife. But crowding out the resentment and hatred which he felt for his brother and the bitch Zarassa and the mewling Bansu was the crowning disappointment that he had not reached his long-hoped-for man status. Now, he was certain, he never would. Not only was Iba left behind, imtried and untouched, but never, during his whole life, would he ever taste the de-Ughts of any woman, for no woman would ever have him.

His homesickness was as nothing compared to the terror that a lifetime of unsatisfied desires engendered. A whole vicious circle of thoughts whirled in his head—his grief at not being a man, his homesickness, his fear, his hatred and his pain— combining, twisting and growing into new thoughts that almost erased the pain, the heat and the flies.

The horse plodded on, until the striped shadow of Tam-boura's head was directly beneath his body. Suddenly the slow motion of the horse ceased and he heard a word in a tongue with which he was unfamiliar but which he could somehow understand. Then a hand, with long, black bony fingers and spatulate nails reached inside the tent and rested for a moment on the flesh of his thigh. It was removed and soon his legs were free. The hand reached inside again, this time followed by a deformed cranium, covered with thick black moss, growing low over a forehead which shadowed small, squinting yellow-white eyes and a pair of large nostrils like two black holes gaping above thick, rubbery lips. A quick slice of a steel knife severed the leather thongs and tixe hand developed into an arm, long and powerfully muscled, which grasped Tamboura around the waist and slid him off the saddle onto the ground. The long confinement of his legs had made them useless and he was unable to stand. He crumpled to the ground.

The ground I He remembered old Kanili's teachings. If he could but lie there, flat on his back for a few moments, he would regain his strength. He was allowed to remain while the big Negro prodded him with the thick, homy nail of a dirt-encrusted big toe.

"You stay here, boy. Don' you run 'way. I go fetch Ama-jallah."

"No need!" a voice called. Tamboura could see the finely made slippers of yellow leather coming across the dusty beaten trail. "I saw you take him down, Akeem. Has he come to himself?"

"He wake, great lord." The rubbery lips parted in a grin. "He wake but he no stan'."

"He'll stand quick enough." A hand disengaged itself from the folds of the white robe and a thin whip curled through the air to wrap itself around Tamboura's belly. "He'll stand and in an hour, when the cattle have been fed, he'll walk along with the rest. Get him up! Feed him! If he refuses to eat, pry his jaws open, put a stick between his teeth and cram the food down his throat. He looks to be in prime con-

dition and I want to keep him that way. Then tie him into the caffle."

"Yes, great lord." The Negro prodded Tamboura again with the same offensive toenail. "Great Emir say get up, stand on feet and eat. You come along by me. I get you food. You eat. Then we go. Get up."

"Yes, up!" The thin whip snaked out again. "We have a schedule to meet. Can't be delayed because of one half-grown whelp. We must reach the river before sundown. The canoes will be waiting."

Tamboura looked up to see the hand that held the whip. It was a delicate hand, blue-veined on a dark skin that was not black but a deep olive, with almond-shaped nails that were carefuly pared. He looked up from the hand, across the folds of the white robe to the face above it. He saw a youthful face with a beauty that was marred by cruelty. Its main feature was a prominently aquiline nose that seemed to stretch the skin so tightly across the bridge that the effect was almost painful. Dark eyes, under even darker lashes, looked down at Tamboura. The thin, moist lips parted and the Hausa words came slowly, for although Hausa was the language spoken for intercommunication between most of the tribes of interior Africa, its pronunciation was always difficult for one not bom to it.

"You are Tamboura. I am Ama-jallah, the son of the Sultan of Zinder. This is my slave caffle and you are now a slave. You are no longer the brother and heir to King Mandouma. Here you are nothing but an animal, less in value even than the horse you were riding. Obey me and come peacefully and you will not be hurt. Try to escape, try to kill yourself, try to stop eating or any of the other tricks your people know that bring self-destruction and you will be punished. I will have you flogged until your flesh falls from your bones in chunks of raw meat and I will leave you on the ground for the ants to devour."

Tamboura managed to get to his knees and the big black hands of Akeem reached down and lifted him up. The delicate brown hands of Ama-jallah felt Tamboura's body, sliding over the streaked clay and the sweat. They gauged the muscles, the framework, the chest, the belly and the thighs. They lifted and weighed the genitals and noted the hood of skin, forcing it back, then releasing it.

"It is well your tribe are not true believers. When will Ihey learn that conversion to Islam will protect them from

being slaves?" The hands left Tamboura's body. "Prime condition. Better than we usually get." He seemed to be speaking to himself,

"AkeemI" Ama-jallah beckoned the black close to him and wiped the sticky clay and sweat from his fingers onto the broad back of the Negro. "To work!" He turned and started back to where the hands of the slaves were being untied so that they could feed themselves. At a distance of about three paces, he turned. Once again the whip sang through the air and Tamboura felt its sting as it wrapped around his shoulders. But he did not heed it, for suddenly pain, discomfort, heat, everything he might feel was consumed in the flame of his anger. He watched the elegant ripples of the white robe leave without a change of expression.

"You come, boy," Akeem motioned to him. "You come, eat."

Tamboura followed him mechanically, sat where Akeem pointed for him to sit, dumbly accepted the mess of boiled yams and cassava that was placed before him on a broad leaf. He had no desire for food but he recognized strength in the meal, so he ate, slopping the food into his mouth with dirty fingers, chewing and swallowing without tasting. After the food there was water, a small cup of it, hot, greenish and stinking of the goat skin in which it had been carried, but he drank it greedily. His haunches were on the. ground and he knew his earth spirit was helping him because he could feel his strength returning. Suddenly there was a crash in the underbrush and he saw the tawny flesh of a lioness, awakened from her midday sleep by the halt of the caravan and now prowling as near as she dared to scent these strange invaders. The brief glimpse he had of her hindquarters as she leaped through the underbrush gave him further reassurance. His spirit was following him and protecting him. For the first time, he squared his shoulders and looked aroimd.

Seated not far away from him was a face he recognized. It was that of Sabumbo, the young hunter from his own village. He had been orphaned and lived with his uncle, and now his uncle, in his senile desire for a young wench from a neighboring village, had sold Sabumbo into slavery to pay the price of his young bride.

His own hands and feet both untied, Tamboura crept down the line, glad of a face that he knew and a mind that encompassed his own village and knew the familiar names and

the gossip about them all. He squatted on his heels beside Sabumbo, whose feet were bound with a grass rope. Sabumbo looked up at him, recognized him and spat on the ground before turning his face away. |

"Coward!" Sabumbo spat again. "Afraid of the knife!" :

"What mean you that I am a coward?" Tamboura's anger so very near the surface met the other's words. "Say that again and I will. . . ." His rage exploded into wordlessness.

Sabumbo, like all the young men of the village, was a tall, muscular young buck, perhaps a year or so older than Tam-boura. He turned his vapid and rather stupid face toward Tamboura and laughed with derision.

"My feet may be bound but my hands are not. I suppose you would hit me and then run as you did from the knife last night."

"Now you say it a second time. I did not run from the knife last night. Think you that if I had run I would be here?"

Sabumbo considered Tamboura's question and saw some logic in it. His thick lips pressed closely together and, as imderstanding came, he nodded slowly.

"A slave caffle would be a strange place to run to, but perhaps it would be better than being a renegade. For myself, I do not mind too much being here. But for you! Had you been afraid, you would have run to the bush and joined up with the renegades. No, I do not think you would have sold yourself into slavery."

"And I did not. I remember nothing after I drank the millet beer in my brother's hut. Bansu, my brother's son, gave it to me."

"And then your brother came to the group at the fire with downcast eyes and beating his chest. He said that you had fled, afraid of the knife. He said that your blood had turned to water and that you had disgraced him. Ah, Tamboura, it begins to make sense. It was they who drugged your beer and sold you into slavery to get rid of you."

"So that Bansu may be the next king." Tamboura crept closer to Sabumbo. "I think you are right. I know if, Sabumbo! And now?" He gazed around him. "What now?"

"Now we are slaves. We're heading down the river and we'll be sold like so many head of cattle."

"It's bad, Sabumbo?"

The hunter nodded. "Squat here, boy." He edged over to make room for Tamboura. "When they tie us again, theyH

not notice and they'll tie you behind me. That means we can be together on the march. We're from the same village and it makes us like brothers. We can help each other."

Tamboura squatted beside him and they continued to talk. Soon Akeem came along, knotting the rope that led from neck to neck. He recognized Tamboura, but merely proceeded to secure him behind Sabumbo. He slipped a wide hoop of woven bamboo over Tamboura's shoulders and tied his hands to it, letting it fall free around the hips. The big black was not unkind. When he saw the raw cuts the thongs had made, he tied Tamboura's hands loosely, and when he looped and fastened a length of grass rope around each ankle he allowed enough slack for a normal step.

The brief rest had renewed Tamboura's strength and the assurance of seeing the lion in the brush, and being with Sabumbo, had renewed his courage. He had never known Sabumbo well as he was in a different age group but now, in truth, he felt as close to him as to a brother. Although the anger in his heart had not died, he began to feel better. Up in front of the long line of slaves, he saw them striking the awning which had been set up for Ama-jallah's meal and he watched the Arab mount the horse which had been brought for him. Tamboura turned and regarded the young slave who was tied behind him. The fellow grinned back at him with a row of white teeth. At the rear of the line of slaves, perhaps some two hundred in all, there were horses and riders.

Ama-jallah rode down the line of the kaffle, flicking his whip idly at the standing men. Tamboura stood out from the rest because of the remnants of white clay which still adhered to his body. The Arab checked his horse briefly and glanced down appraisingly at the boy. The dark Arab eyes approved. His lips curled in a half-smile. All of his male slaves were fine muscular specimens but this one was different. He was the brother of King Mandouma; generations of selected blood lines had produced this rich young body with its promise of prodigious strength, its long clean limbs, its powerful arms and the face of classic barbaric beauty. Ama-jallah's love for a bargain was satisfied. This, the best slave of the whole lot, had cost him nothing, not even a single bead. The boy was a Hausa, what's more a Royal Hausa, and the Hausas along with the Mandingos and the Fantis were the best breed for slaves. Strong, powerful, but gentle if they were gentled, almost doglike in their devotion to a master who treated them well! And this boy

would be a breeder—one could be sure of that; breeders were what they wanted in the big market across the sea. It was whispered along the slave coast that soon there might be a law prohibiting the transport of slaves across the water, so the foreign owners were breeding them themselves against that day. This boy would bring a good price. One had only to look at him to know that there were a thousand sons in his loins.

The thin whip curled out gently and fell across Tam-boura's shoulders but there was no sting in the lash. It was more of a caress.

Ama-jallah turned his horse and rode to the head of the line. Somewhere up front a drum began to beat with a slow, monotonous rhythm that started the men in the caffle moving their feet in time to its beating. There was a shout and the drum spoke with a series of hard blows. Tamboura saw the man in front of Sabumbo step ahead, then Sabumbo, and he timed his step>s to those of his brother from the village. One step, then another and another and another. He did not know where he was going, but somehow it did not matter. He walked along, carrying the burden of his grief and anger which rested far more heavily on his shoulders than the antelope of yesterday. He walked. The drum beat and he walked and all he saw was the rope that led from Sabumbo's neck to his own and the drops of sweat that oozed from the skin of Sabumbo's back, gathered, joined and trickled down the deep channel to spread out over his buttocks and fall to the ground of Africa.

chapter iii

The sun was spreading a palette of purple, gold and flame, just before sinking out of sight, when they reached the river. It was not like the shallow, sandy-shoaled little stream which circled about Tamboura's village. That was hardly a river; during the dry season, the crocodiles had scarcely enough water to cover their backs. This was the big river, the one Tamboura had heard about but never expected to see. This was Africa's river of mystery, the mighty Niger, which flowed slowly down to the sea like a stream of viscous oil in a tunnel of verdigris.