Nobody's Slave (5 page)

Tom stared into the turbulent night, and wondered if he, too, might be such a man one day; so calm and steady, on such a hellish night. But that was an ocean of time away; for the moment, there was the joy of this night, this storm; and beyond that - beyond the luminous foaming spray bursting over the bowsprit - was the southern sea, and their goal: the legendary coast of Guinea. Africa!

T
HERE WAS a time when Madu began to feel he would have to stop; simply throw down his crutch and collapse on the hard beaten dust of the trail, and let the hundred bare feet of his people trample over him. All that long hot day they had been travelling, from dawn, when the first lemon-coloured spears of early light lanced their way between the trees to a chorus of birdsong, until late afternoon, when the white-hot silver glare of the sun was as hot and searing as a blacksmith's forge. Madu's head throbbed, and his eyes began to blur. The day was a terrible endless dream, from which he could escape only by closing his eyes and collapsing into black, exhausted sleep.

Only Temba, and the fear of shame, prevented him. Temba stayed with him, cheerfully carrying his own headbundle, the rolled-up leopardskin, and leading the kid behind him. His clowning never ceased. Once the kid escaped, and Temba, enraged, wrapped himself in the leopardskin and chased it, snarling, until he was stopped by a furious young mother who said he had frightened her baby. When he had caught the kid he stood waiting for Madu beside the trail, with the leopard’s tail between his legs, pretending to sulk and muttering about how it was hardly his fault if he was irresistible to women.

‘If that is what happens when one is attractive, then I am glad I am ugly,’ Madu mocked.

Temba sighed dramatically. ‘It happens all the time. It is a way women have of disguising their feelings. Don't you see how often they come, to ask how you are and admire your crutch and poultice? It is only to be near me, really, whatever they say.’

In fact, however, the only woman who came back to walk with them was Madu's little sister, Ekwefi, who was too young to interest Temba. But she lightened Madu's heart for a while with her innocent, excited chatter about the journey, the animals she had seen, and the stories she had heard about Conga. For her it was all an enormous adventure; and when she ran gaily back along the column to her mother, leaping into the air to try to catch a passing butterfly, Madu hoped fervently that Conga would be strong and safe, and that nothing in the war would harm her.

But that had been hours ago; now he longed only for the journey's end. He tried to shift his crutch to a more comfortable position, but his armpit was aching and beginning to bleed where it had rubbed him all day, and there was no better position to be found. He wondered what the warriors behind would do if he just gave up and lay down. Perhaps they would ignore him; perhaps they would kick him and laugh; perhaps they would pick him up and carry him like a child, a burden, as Nwoye had said. That would be the worst. But he was beginning to worry about it less than he had. Soon he would not worry about it all.

There was a sudden cry from the men at the top of the ridge. Someone was waving and pointing, and a new urgency rippled down the line. ‘What is it?’ ‘We're there ... Conga ... Conga's in sight!’ Even Madu felt a surge of new energy - perhaps he could make it after all. He hobbled forward a little faster, forgetting his pain, encouraged by the fresh cries of relief and excitement from the women and children reaching the top of the ridge ahead of him.

For a few minutes everyone stopped on the hilltop, glad of a rest, intrigued by the sight before them. Most, like Madu, had never seen the town before, had never seen anywhere bigger than their own village. To them it seemed huge. All around the town, for nearly a mile, was a timber wall, taller than a man, built on top of an earthen mound. At the foot of the wall were thorn bushes, and a ditch. As he stared, he saw, here and there along the wall, the heads of men carrying spears – some apparently staring back at him. And behind the men, a forest of huts, thatched with palm leaves, half-hidden by the haze of smoke from a thousand cooking fires. 

‘Where shall we put the goats?’ muttered Temba. ‘They'll go crazy with all these people.’

It was true. In between the hundreds of huts the place was swarming with people - little black figures hurrying everywhere like ants in a nest that had been uncovered.

‘Perhaps those great huts in the middle are for goats,’ said Madu. ‘Surely they're too big for a family.’

Ikezue, his elder stepbrother, heard and laughed scornfully. ‘You'd better not say that in the town, Madu. Those are the two Kings' houses, where they live with their wives and great warriors. The only way the goats will get in there is as part of a feast!’

‘There won't be much feasting now, with all these people here,’ said an older warrior, whose black curly hair was flecked with grey. ‘Not until we beat the Sumba, anyway. And by that time there may not be so many of us to feed.’

As the column wound its way down from the ridge into the curve of the valley where Conga lay, in the angle where two rivers joined, Madu saw another long line of people like themselves coming towards the town from the other side, and realised that villagers were coming in to the Kings' town from the forests all around, in answer to the urgent call of the drums.

The track wound its way though fields of yam and beans, in which men and women were hurriedly harvesting what they could, even though it was mostly far from ripe. A few of these people smiled and waved, but most ignored them, or looked up in despair, as though they were just another set of hungry mouths to feed.

At the main gate of the town they were met by a number of tall, proud warriors with ostrich feather tufts to their spears and shields fringed with leopardskin who gazed at their own warriors with impassive disdain.

‘That man’s going to tell Nwoye his spear's not sharp enough!’ giggled Temba. But after a brief conference the man led them through the streets to where they were to stay.

Madu had never imagined such swarms of people. In his life strangers appeared in ones or twos - here, suddenly, he was surrounded by hundreds. He listened, fascinated, to the different dialects of his own language. He could understand most of the words, but the ways of saying them were strange. It was the same with the looks of the people - even their smell. They were all from the Mani tribe, and yet each village, each group was slightly different. Some young warriors had blue feathers in their hair - what did that mean? - and some women had strangely long, thin noses and five rings round their necks. He saw an old man with a leopard tattooed on his arm - the leopard was a symbol of their tribe, but he had never seen one tattooed before. Then he began to notice how the strangers looked curiously at him, and the people of his village, as they followed the proud warrior through the streets. Perhaps we look strange to them as well, he thought. And yet we are all the same tribe, drawn together to face a common enemy.

They were led to a group of huts by the western wall, which had hurriedly been vacated by their owners. Ezinma, Madu's mother, sniffed scornfully at the abandoned pots and drinking gourds lying around in the one she was to have. They had to share two and even three families to one hut, while the men and young warriors slept outside. There was no special house for the boys of Madu's age, so they went back to their families. Madu heard the tall guide telling Nwoye haughtily that they must guard this section of the wall for now, until the Kings and their general had time to take notice of them.

Madu went to help with the goats, many of whom were quite exhausted, far more than the men. One or two looked as though they might be past recovery - they stood with their legs slightly splayed, heads hanging down, and sides panting quickly in and out, oblivious to everything around them.

Here at least Madu could help, even with his bad foot; he found a little water for them to drink, while the other boys went foraging for bushes and grass for the animals to eat.

He was glad to have something quiet to do, out of the way of the rest. All around him was the strange, exciting hubbub of the town, but for the moment he was too tired to think about it. Nearby, Ezinma, his mother, and all the other women were preparing the evening meal, unpacking the headbundles and fussing about the arrangements for the huts; behind him, Nwoye and the warriors were inspecting the wall, peering out beyond it and discussing where the enemy were most likely to attack.

For the moment Madu wanted none of this. He squatted by the earthen trough, quietly coaxing an exhausted nanny goat to drink, and feeling his muscles relax as the effort of heaving his useless leg along the trail receded. It had been harder than he had believed possible - he was sure that if they had not seen the town after that last ridge he would have collapsed. His foot throbbed, but it was not so much that; it was the strain on his arm and shoulder from walking in such a bent position, like a grandfather old before his time, or a man with a tree for a leg.

As he sat, he heard the deep voices of his stepfather and his uncle M'boko approaching, as they walked along beside the wall.

‘We must get more thorns for this section before tomorrow. It would be child's play to drag them aside as they are. And the ditch narrows there so a man could jump it.’

‘True. We should station the best bowmen here too. Perhaps young Ikezue - he's a fine shot. Not likely to fall asleep, either.’

‘No indeed. Did you hear him boasting to my wife's father? He thinks he's an elder already.’

‘Oh, come now, Nwoye. All young men are like that. You should be proud to have such a firebrand for a son.’

‘Hm. Perhaps. Anyway, we'll station him here tonight.’

Madu heard the voices fade as they moved away along the wall. He sat quite still, hoping they had not seen him. If only it had been him they had been talking about, instead of Ikezue! Today, if it had not been for the message of the drums, he and Temba would be curing their leopardskin properly, looking forward to the festival of New Warriors that would make them men. Instead, here he was, useless - a boy with a bad foot, condemned to sit with the goats like a child. He groaned with despair. If his foot did not heal quickly the war might be over before he had a chance to take part in it. He hunched himself gingerly to his feet, to try his weight without the crutch. It held for a moment, but then turned with a sickening stab of pain, and he collapsed sideways across a goat.

There were shouts and laughter as the other boys came back, Temba in the lead, flinging a huge bundle of leaves and branches down among the goats. Madu took up his crutch and hobbled over to meet them.

‘Here's the great hunter!’ laughed Temba, slapping him on the back. ‘The first wounded soldier of the war! We're the envy of the whole town, you know. The Kings want to see you!’

‘Oh, shut up, parrot-brain!’ Madu swung his crutch at Temba's shins, but missed and  sat down with a thud in the dust. There was great shout of laughter, and Temba bent down to give him a hand up.

‘Come on, let's look over the wall,’ he said. ‘We haven't seen it from here yet.’

He let the others go ahead, and stayed to give Madu a hand up the rough steps. At the top of the mud and timber wall, which was about ten feet high, was a wide path, and then another, smaller parapet the other side. On the outside the wall sloped downwards to a dry, empty ditch. There was a close-packed hedge of thorn bushes at its foot, some of them with hard spikes nearly two feet long.

‘Surely the Sumba could never climb up that,’ said Madu, looking down in awe. ‘It would take them ages to clear a way through those thorns. There'll be dead Sumba growing on those bushes like fruit.’

He remembered how he had once run into a bush like that; the spike had gone right through the flesh of his upper arm.

‘They won't even get to the ditch, with our archers shooting at them,’ said Temba confidently. ‘I wonder if it's the same the whole way round?’

‘It was stronger than this by the gate,’ said another boy, Hatin. 'The ditch was wider, and there were more bushes. I heard a man in the street say this was the weakest side.'

'Never!' said Madu indignantly, looking down in surprise. 'Nobody could climb in there! If this place is the weakest, we've got nothing to fear at all.'

‘Maybe they'll just turn around and go back home,' said Temba. 'Then we can chase them back to their own city, and ...’

At that moment the drums began. They came from the other side of the river, among the trees whose tops were beginning to be touched pink by the setting sun. As soon as the boys heard them they knew they were not the drums of their own tribe.

A flock of startled flamingoes flew up from the river, the pink of their wings glorious against the deep green of the trees behind. That green seemed to throb with menace, as though the sound of the drums were moving the very trees closer, to crowd on the far banks of the river a quarter of a mile from where they were standing. The drums grew louder, coming from all sides of the forest now - some straight ahead of them, some to the left and right, as though the enemy filled the forest for miles in every direction, like a plague of locusts rustling in a maize-field they were about to devour.

Madu glanced briefly at Temba and Hatin, seeing the same awed horror in the whites of their widening eyes that he felt himself. Beyond them, all along the wall, Nwoye and the other warriors were standing rigid, listening. Below, the chatter around the cooking fires was hushed, as the women stood around like statues, their heads on one side to hear.

The sound of the drums set Madu's teeth on edge, so that he ground them together in irritation. It was at once maddeningly similar to the sound of their own drums, and yet utterly alien: as though the voices of monkeys spoke their own language backwards. And there was a different drum too - a thin, very tightly strung one it must be - that seemed to lead the others with a brittle, bitter rattle which was echoed seconds later in the deeper, resonant growl of the rest.

Clearly it was a challenge. The sharp, insane chatter of the thin drum came from close ahead of them, just by the river, leading a war chant that rumbled louder and louder the longer it lasted, until Madu felt that whole valley and even the sky above them was a great gourd, on which a dozen Sumba drummers were pounding with all their might. He saw Temba's lips moving, but could not hear the words, and was about to yell out in defiance - something, anything, to vent his anger and frustration - when the drums stopped.