Shaka the Great (45 page)

“Then he is a strange one, for a lie like that can lead only to the impalers!”

“No, he is lying to protect me!”

“He would do that? He would lie to protect you?”

“Yes!”

“As you would lie to protect him?”

“Yes. No!”

“Well, which one is it, Little Sister?”

“I killed him! Nyembezi had nothing to do with it. I killed my father.”

“No, no! It was I! I killed him!” shouted Nyembezi, trying to pull away from Mzilikazi. “I killed him, you fools.”

Gripping Zikihle's elbows, the Induna told her to look at him directly.

The authority in his voice, as much as the sudden pain, made her obey. “You will do this for me,” he continued. “You will stand here with my udibi, and you will be still. Do you understand?”

Zikihle nodded, and the Induna turned his attention back to Nyembezi. As he approached the Bead Man, the Induna extended his left arm and took the iklwa one of Mzilikazi's men proffered. Pressing the point of the blade against Nyembezi's chest he said: “And you … you will remain still.”

“But she—”

“You will calm down and tell me what you have neglected to tell me!”

“She didn't … She couldn't. I'm … I am the one who …”

“That is not what I am asking. Tell me what you have neglected to tell me.”

He arrived. There were greetings, and small talk, then Masipula went to fetch the beer. Is that what happened?

“Y-yes.”

“Yes, Nduna!” bellowed Mzilikazi.

“Ye-yes, Nduna.”

“No! Something happened before that,” said the Induna. “Before Masipula went to fetch the beer.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“Think! You told me once, now tell me again.”

“Nduna, I don't … oh!”

“Yes?”

The pot … Zikihle had seen one of the pots was chipped, and she wanted to change it. Masipula had shouted at her. “It was
like he was two people fighting each other,” said Nyembezi. “I could actually see him forcing down his anger. Then he smiled, tried to act as if nothing had happened, and went off to fetch his precious beer.”

“And then?”

“He returned, and …”

“And? You've remembered something else. What is it?”

“It's nothing important, Nduna. It's just that I remember then thinking how his whole face changed when he came out of the storage hut with the beer. He almost looked happy. Proud, even. But I do not understand what this has to do with anything, Nduna.”

“How long was he gone?”

“Nduna … ?”

“You heard me. How long was he gone, when he went off to fetch the beer?”

“I don't know!”

“Think! How long was he gone? Long enough for you to say a few words to Zikihle?”

“No.”

“Why? Was he back before you could even blink?”

“No, but I didn't get the chance to say anything to Zikihle.”

“Why? No, I know why. Because she was too busy, am I right?”

She was too busy being pulled apart. For here, pulling her in this direction, was a confused, fear-filled desire to please that, for reasons she couldn't begin to understand, felt like she was disobeying; while, on the other side, there was the inexorable pull of habit, the familiar this-and-not-that drummed into her by her father, where to obey was to win, if not praise, then at least a modicum of respite. Hesitant steps. Apprehensive glances toward the hut where her father kept his beer. Patting her skirt. Rubbing her neck. Another glance. Then, while Nyembezi looked on, mystified, she darted forward and picked up the cracked pot …

She replaced it and, when her father returned with the beer, she was on her way back to the cooking hut, for she had to finish preparing their meal.

It had been Masipula's death throes that brought her back out.

Masipula returns with the beer.

And his beer and the renown it's brought him, these are the only things that give him pleasure. All else had been tainted when the woman he loved couldn't bring herself to love him …

And he pours the beer, thrilled by the thought of how apt this is.

And they drink.

And Masipula smacks his lips in pleasure …

In what starts as pleasure, but soon becomes alarm.

A look of shock as he realizes the bowls have got mixed up somehow—
how did that happen?
—and he himself has swallowed the poisoned beer intended for Nyembezi …

“Get out your shells,” says the Induna, rising. “It was your game I thought of when I was told of two calabashes and two drinking pots. So much to remember! Better to mark one, not so?”

Stepping past their campfire, he sits down beside the boy. Picks up one of the shells. Shades of brown like the patterns in a semiprecious stone. “To everyone else these look alike—but not to you. Fill a kraal with screaming babies, and they will all look alike to us but not to their mothers. And it is the same with you and these shells.”

The udibi nods.

“I have seen you studying these shells,” says the Induna examining the one he's selected, holding it up and toward the fire as though checking to see if it's translucent.

After finding three shells that were similar in appearance, the boy had chosen one of them and studied it intently. Studied it until he knew it as well as he knew his own teeth. He can instantly tell which
of the three it is whenever the shells are arranged in a line—just as the Induna's doing now. The “special” shell, however, isn't the one the warrior picked up; rather it's the one to the boy's left.

The Induna reaches forward and straightens up again, his fingertip covered in ash from the fringes of the fire. “You do not need to do this, but I do,” he says, touching the ash to the shell in the center. “Let this one be
my
shell.”

Once he's identified where his shell is, in the line, the udibi asks someone to place a stone under any one of the shells while he is looking away. To complicate matters, the person can switch the two shells that do not house the stone.

“So,” continues the Induna, “I look away and you place the stone, and move the other two shells. I open my eyes when you tell me to, and I look for my special shell, which is this one,” he indicates the center shell, “and see it's still there, exactly where it was when I closed my eyes. That means
that's
where the stone must be!”

The position of the “special” shell reveals the position of the stone. If the shell was in the center but is now on the right, say, that means the stone must be under the shell on the left.

“That you thought of this …” The Induna shakes his head. “That is remarkable.” He has only a word of caution to add. The boy must be beware of performing this trick too often on the same occasion and before the same group of people, since the risk of someone spotting what he's doing is increased. “Because,” he says, “they cease being awed and start looking more carefully.”

And he was reminded of the udibi's trick when told the story of the beer. Masipula could ensure he knew which beer was which by putting the poison in the calabash that was half-full, but when it came to the drinking pots he needed a more discreet way of being absolutely certain that Nyembezi got the one with poison. So he used a chipped pot. That would be his own, the “safe” one. When he couldn't feel any chip on the rim of the first pot he handled, that was where he poured the poisoned beer. Then he reached for the second pot and, in his glee, he didn't bother to double-check to make sure this was the one with the chip. Instead he poured and
drank, hoping to get Nyembezi to follow suit with the same alacrity.

But his dutiful daughter had replaced the chipped pot.

“That's the only way it could have happened,” says the Induna. Nyembezi was nonchalant when the Induna started questioning him, positive he'd be the chief suspect and felt certain nothing could be proven, because he knew he wasn't the murderer. It therefore had to be Zikihle, and he was trying to protect her.

“When you said you wanted to question her, he got desperate …?”

“That's right,” says the Induna, resuming his seat on the other side of the fire.

“Because he thought her guilt might lead her to confess. Or give herself away.”

“Yes.”

“But then she also confessed, because she assumed the Bead Man had killed her father.”

The Induna nods, for Zikihle had been in the same quandary as Nyembezi. She knew
she
hadn't killed her father, which left only Nyembezi. It didn't matter what his motives might have been, because he'd rescued her and she resolved to protect him. What's more, knowing Nandi had taken an interest in this affair, she may even have reasoned that she could count on a degree of leniency.

“Two of them confess, then,” says the Induna, “each sincerely believing the other to be responsible, but both are wrong!”

“The Sky question.”

“Precisely! Ask me how I knew both were wrong, and I cannot tell you. But I knew there had to be someone else. And the only other person there was Masipula.”