Shaka the Great (19 page)

The Induna nods, his eyes fixed on the hut before him.

Noticing this, Kholisa hastens to add that if he'd had any idea
of how the boy was treated, he would have told Zusi—gently but firmly—that she was wasting her affections. Some captives become accepted into a clan after a period of servitude, but that would never happen here.

The sangoma's hands come up to indicate the hut. “But I didn't know, and she never told me,” he says.

“But how came you to be here?”

“Well, if she told you she had come to me for help, she would also have told you that the muthi I gave her to give to her father, so that he might grow more amenable to a savage courting his daughter, only made him more bad-tempered. She came back to me, but Ntokozo got even worse, and I had to see for myself what was going on.”

Indicating the ragged hut once more: “And I soon saw why my muthi wasn't working—was having the opposite effect, in fact. This love match could never be. And clearly the ancestors were trying to warn us that the savage could never be trusted.”

Did Ntokozo know why he was there?

“Of course, not, Nduna! And I was made to feel most unwelcome.” Jembuluka and Melekeleli were a little more hospitable, though.

“Did
they
know why you had come?”

Kholisa shakes his head. “They too thought something was seriously wrong with Ntokozo, and believed my coming was testament to divinatory powers I have never claimed to possess.” He let them think that, because it was definitely not the time to reveal to the Uselwa Man the relationship that had sprung up between his daughter and the isilwane Vala …

The sangoma shrugs. As things turned out, it was just as well he had been there. There was, after all, the matter of the burial. He had overseen that, performed the ritual the circumstances required. Does the Induna wish to see … ?

The warrior shakes his head. Instead they return to the ibandla tree, where the Induna strides over to Vala, grips his chin between the fingers of his left hand and twists the youth's head this way and that, all the while watching Vala's eyes.

When he's done, he orders two of Mhlangana's men to take Vala to his hut so that he might collect his sleeping mat. They are then to return here. It is late in the afternoon, so they will be forced to spend the night in this accursed place. Mbuyazi—Fynn—on the other hand, can go about his business.

“You say your master has been out seeking cattle for his umuzi,” says the Induna, addressing Jakot.

“He is not my master, but this is so,” says the interpreter.

Very well: the Induna knows of a village where the White Man can find cattle. This is the son of that village's unumzane, he says, indicating the youngster who served as his udibi on the way here. He will guide them. If they leave now and hurry, they should reach the umuzi by nightfall.

Having dismissed Fynn and Jakot, the Induna turns to watch Vala and his escort moving along the path.

He has looked into the boy's eyes, and Vala is clearly not a simpleton. Why therefore would he kill someone, then hide the weapon he used in a hut so small and bare?

“I have something in mind,” says Shaka again.

“Although dead, I, of course, cannot tell you what will be the outcome of any plan you might have.”

Shaka lays a hand on Ngwadi's shoulder. “I know this.”

“And reawakening this other aspect of the First Fruits …” Ngwadi shrugs. “Well, who knows what the consequences might be.”

“The same thing could be said before any of the campaigns I've embarked upon,” murmurs Shaka, his eyes on Fynn now. So close. Out there, right now. Not down there, but beyond the walls of the hut of his seclusion. And yet I am here. This Night Muthi can be unpredictable, but he will subvert it to his will!

“This is true,” says Ngwadi, and chuckles. “Even with Dingiswayo's help, your campaign to take the Zulu throne was, shall we say, fraught …”

In the brief moment it takes for Shaka to consider his brother's
words … it's night and the drums are beating, and they are somewhere else.

He knows this place. It's vaguely familiar.

Turning to Ngwadi, he sees, in the special light created by the Imithi Emnyama whose mask he wears, that his brother is smiling.

Ngwadi's hands come away from his sides, his gaze pointing Shaka's to the firelight in the clearing in the center of the huts a few meters away, where the sounds of raucous, drunken laughter can be heard even over the drums.

“See where we are?”

“I was only here to witness its destruction,” murmurs Shaka.

Then, conscious of Ngwadi moving away, receding, he raises his voice: “One more thing, Brother.”

Ngwadi doesn't so much pause as seem to hover. “What is it?” he asks, his voice already distant.

“I didn't kill you, did I?”

A chuckle. “No, it was the trembling sickness that got me.”

“Yes, I remember now. But you were happy … I mean, I rewarded you amply for your services this night?”

“Of course! Now go—see!”

Nodding to himself, Shaka turns and makes his way to the firelight.

He stands on the fringes, watching the strutting, swaggering, beer-swilling young men.

Now which one is your king?
he wonders.

In his diary, Fynn says the “frightfully, forbidding” induna's name is “Msika.”

He is wrong.

“Why did you let the prince come? Is he the one?”

“He came because he had to. Because to do otherwise would have aroused suspicion.”

“But even one more means one more to betray us!”

“Keep your voice down! He'll hear us!”

“Cha! He sleeps up there, with the others.”

“And you know he is there? You know he isn't wandering around somewhere? Do not worry about others—let us be sure we do not betray ourselves!”

“Well and good, but we are talking about someone who, when the wind changes direction, might decide he fears Shaka more.”

“And I say that will not happen. Besides, he had to come here to ensure order was restored—you know that.”

“The Induna—”

“Hai, we weren't to know he would be nearby.”

“Do you think he suspects something?”

“I do not know. It's hard to tell. And, even if he does, who is to blame?”

“Seek you to chastise me now?”

“Well, you told me you would throw the stick away.”

“It is better this way.”

“Think you that?”

“Yes.”

“I do not see that. I see only that you have added ingredients to the beer that might give the Induna pause for thought.”

“It is better this way.”

“So you say.”

“How is he?”

“Who? Our friend?”

“Who else, Brother?”

“I had to feed him some more muthi.”

“Some more?”

“Yes.”

“But you said he can't have too much …”

“I know when too much is too much, Brother. Besides we must wait until the Induna departs. And tomorrow night will be too late. It'll have to be during the coming day.”

“I will help you.”

“You know that cannot be. Do not keep pestering me.”

“Yet you pester me, because you did not answer my question.”

“Which question?”

“Is the prince the one we serve?”

“Cha! He merely obeys this other calling we have all received.”

The Earth turns, freeing the sun, and the khehla feels a warm caress on the side of his face. Rays slant through the bush, turning dew into diamonds. There is a blur of orange above charcoal mountains. It's still cool in the mornings, but … The old-timer pauses, tilts his head. Fingers splayed, palm outward, he wipes the air. The older you get the more you seem to feel the cold, yet … If your sleeping mat and your coverlets and even your skin feel thinner than they were, and seem to grow thinner with each passing year—well, doesn't that mean you're also likely to notice a change sooner than others do? And while the air is indeed cool this morning, it lacks the bone-scouring chill it had only yesterday.

He inhales deeply …

Yes, yes, it even smells differently this morning. When winter reigns the air is as sharp as Zulu steel, but now it's heavier—the old man grins—and
riper
…

Then he sees it, fluttering low: a white moth.

His heart beating faster, he casts around, about to call for his stick. But here's his son, handing him his trusty iwisa, and opening his right hand.

Resting on his palm is another of the white moths.

The old man peers at it. It's not just any moth—see those double wings, that plump body—it's the moth that emerges from the tamboti seed.

The khehla feels a surge of paternal pride. His boy, who will one day inherit this sacred task, has done well to spot and capture this little messenger.

Behind the boy hovers a handful of his younger brothers. Beyond them, keeping a more respectful distance, notes the old man, the
villagers have also begun to gather. Which is as it should be. He is merely the headman, and the whole clan shares the burden and the honor of this commission.

Conscious of those eager, expectant faces, Mbilini KaZiwedum, unumzane of the EmaCubeni clan, solemnly lays his free hand on his son's right shoulder and the two set off at a stately pace. A command from the son ensures that his brothers—and therefore the other villagers—will keep their distance as the two of them move between the domed huts, around the cattlefold, and out through the main gate.

Like most Zulu villages, the umuzi has been built on a slope, for better drainage. To the east extends a plain of grassland. The soft pressure of fingers curling around his collarbone, and Mbilini's son stops so the old man might gaze upon this vista. The grass has sloughed off its winter-brown coloring, and the marula and acacia trees have begun to don their leaves, like amasoka, courting men slowly and carefully—and with almost feminine finesse—adorning themselves in their finery.

Mbilini nods and they move on, taking a path that peels off from the main track, and leads west.

A tangle of greenery, wider, vaster and denser than the plain that lies to the east; a tempestuous sea to the plain's tranquil lake. The slope steepens rapidly, and soon it's as if they're beneath the surface, or are about to be swallowed by an arboreal tidal wave.

The mighty Nkandla, the forest where Shaka's impis ambushed the Ndwandwe invaders, and one of the nation's special places. A fastness at the core of it, offering strength and sanctuary. Muthi ingredients are especially powerful when gathered from here and this was where Shaka sent Nandi, Pampata and the other women and children, when Zwide dispatched his son Nomahlanjana and his army to die at Gqokli Hill (for that was by no means a certainty at the time, and if his plan failed Shaka was willing to fight a holding action and sacrifice himself to give his people a chance to escape north). But it's more than that. There's awe, a sense of wonder. Children are taught to respect the forest, for, as ominous as it might seem, the forest will reward such respect by offering one shelter and sharing its secrets.

Could it be it's precisely because the towering yellowwoods and cabbage-trees invariably block out the sky that the Sky People are so fascinated by this and other forests in their kingdom? Whatever the case, it's to this particular forest, the mighty Nkandla, that the People Of The Sky turn when the tamboti moth emerges, the grass changes, the leaves return to the trees, and various other signs are observed. And Mbilini KaZiwedum is their representative in this matter, as was his father and his father's father, and all of the other headmen of the EmaCubeni clan for as long as anyone can remember.