Shaka the Great (8 page)

I wanted him. I wanted him to come …

Her noble upbringing had seen Mnkabayi treat Nandi far better than her brother's other wives had done. Doubtless this had saved her from an impaling when Shaka became king. But it had been good manners, not foresight, that guided her actions then, in a willingness to grit her teeth and endure Nandi's tantrums. Besides, who could have known! Aiee, even the sangomas' bones had been strangely reticent. Certainly none of them she's aware of had foretold the coming of a great warrior king.

Neither had her support of Shaka once he assumed power—which had gone far in helping assuage the concerns of the people—been driven merely by self-preservation. Far from it! It was her allegiance to the Bloodline that had seen her stand up and declare: here is no usurper, merely the eldest son come to take what is rightfully his.

But now that same allegiance has her wondering how Shaka can be stopped.

And to think I wanted him to come!

And then—with almost all their foes vanquished, the pot boiled over, the hut collapsed, the gourd of the calabash shattered. But it wasn't the gourd used during the First Fruits—death had been Shaka's Uselwa Man, and destruction the harvest.

Shaka took to slaughtering whole villages that he felt weren't showing sufficient sadness after the passing of his mother. He forbade
fornication, and had holes torn in sides of huts so that his slayers could come round at night and make sure the new law was being obeyed. Another decree conceded that cows had to be milked, but no one was then allowed to drink the milk; instead, it must be thrown on to the ground.

Everyone's still trying hard to forget the madness that erupted after Nandi's death, but Mnkabayi's not sure that Shaka himself has recovered. To her the King seems like a screaming man who has suddenly fallen silent. A cessation, yes, but also perhaps the beginning of a new kind of madness.

Doesn't Kholisa's report confirm this? What other explanation can there be for Shaka allowing these the izilwane from the sea to attend the First Fruits? Such a dangerous move!

A new kind of madness—but not the sort that heralds yet another loss of control.

Mnkabayi believes things aren't that simple. She suspects Shaka's madness has changed from unfettered rage into cold cunning.

And they must act soon to end his reign.

Or who knows where he will take them next!

Interlude

Shaking his head, Shaka lowers himself on to a large flat-topped stone. Sitting on a log at right angles to the King, the old general patiently waits for surprise and shock, incomprehension and anger to work their way across his friend's visage—like swirling cold fronts and cyclones, low pressure systems and battered butterflies.

“Who would … ? This is … I don't know what to say.” Shaking his head. “Mnkabayi?”

Mgobozi shrugs.

“She …” Shaka frowns, shadows darkening his eyes. “I saved her.” He seems to be addressing the flames at his feet: orange fronds and
white wood. “I could have …” His hands lift from his knees, drop back down again. “I could have ensured she joined Mduli on the Great Journey. He at least had …”

“Balls?”

Shaka turns his head, as if only now becoming aware of Mgobozi's presence. His old friend.

They stood shoulder to shoulder in the ranks of Dingiswayo's Izicwe legion: the mad Mthetwa who constantly refused promotion and the much younger Zulu who had some crazy notion about going into battle barefoot—less chance of slipping that way—and carrying a broken spear. For he claimed that a weapon you wielded like a Roman broadsword was a better proposition than one you threw away—in fact, threw to the very people who were trying to kill you.

“I thought she … Well, wasn't she one of the few women who showed my mother any kindness?”

Mgobozi nods …

… while Shaka frowns, momentarily distracted by the thought that something is not quite right here. It is like a civet lying high in the branches of a tree, this notion; for you know it's there—the barking of the dogs tells you that—but you strain to spot its form amid the greenery.

“And it's not as if she has any good reason to mourn the passing of the old ways,” says the general.

Something is there: now you see it, now you don't. The creature is all tail, easy to mistake for part of a branch.
Something to do with his mother?

But Mgobozi is speaking.

“What was that?” Shaka asks him.

“I said she had little reason to miss the old ways—or her brother.”

“My father.”

“Your father, yes. And then there's her great love for sangomas.”

“This is so.” A grin. “The three of us had that in common. Then again,” he adds, “maybe the sangomas were right … About twins being a curse, I mean. She was allowed to live, and now see what
she's up to! I saved her, gave her more than she dared dream of, and yet still she turns against me! Is that not a sign of one who is both cursed and a curse?”

“Aiee, old friend, no. I'd take my chances with twins, even albino twins … better, at least, that than those hyenas who claim to speak for the ancestors.”

“So why, then? Why this betrayal? Why
her
among all of them?”

“You would have me speak plainly?”

“I expect nothing less, Mgobozi.”

“Do not think I know more! Please, do not think that.”

Shaka frowns. “I don't understand.”

“You will. But since you have asked me about Mnkabayi, I can simply tell you what I think. I do not know anything more!”

“You are like a man calling to me in a gale, old friend. I cannot make out what you are trying to say to me.”

Mgobozi holds up a calming hand. “Do not let the wind blow us further apart, then. You ask me why I think Mnkabayi moves against you, and I say it is due to this business of the First Fruits.”

“But, old friend, this is something we have often discussed.” Shaka pauses briefly as another twinge of unease shimmers through his mind, as lightly as the brush of Jakot's shoulder on the beach. “It makes sense,” continues the King, forcing himself to focus on the matter to hand. “Let the First Fruits be celebrated by the King, and solely by the King at his royal kraal!”

What better way of drawing the nation together! What better way of emphasizing the king's power! Has he not protected his children? Has he not brought them glory? Has he not brought them wealth, measured in cattle (which is to say
catel
, also both “chattel” and “capital”)? Well, now, let him be the one to feed them!

“That's not what I refer to,” says Mgobozi. “Your aunt is after all of the blood, so she would understand your reasoning, even applaud it.” Up to a point, Shaka's power is Mnkabayi's power—and has he not elevated her even above his brothers?

“Then what is it about the First Fruits that causes her to contemplate betrayal?”

Mgobozi spreads his arms. “This, old friend.”

“This?”

“Yes, old friend, it is
this
that makes her afraid.”

Mnkabayi afraid? That's hard to imagine.

Precisely, says Mgobozi; and that she should decide to move against the King is a sign of just how strong that fear must be.

“Hai! Feared, yes, but afraid—no! Even Nobela, that old lizard, never dared to cross her!”

“And again I say to you: read the spoor, Majesty! You are right, but listen to what you are saying! And ask yourself this: what about Shaka?”

“What about Shaka?” asks Shaka.

“Even Shaka!”

“Even Shaka?”

“Even Shaka, Majesty. Even Shaka does not frighten her!”

The Zulu King grins. “This is so.”

“She knows you intend to revive certain aspects of the First Fruits that have lain dormant over the seasons. As indeed you have for, see, here we are! And she knows you intend to include those savages washed up at your feet by the Great Waters. Aiee, old friend, do you wonder that she intends to move against you?”

Shaka scratches his chin, spreads his fingers and holds his hands above the flames. The izilwane have been coming and going for generations, but what's different about this bunch is that they have sought him out and built a kraal so that they might trade with the People Of The Sky. This doesn't seem to have bothered his children, though. Which isn't surprising because for one thing, the savages are small in number, and that alone makes it difficult to be afraid of them. For another, their presence means the Zulus no longer have to rely on the Portugiza in distant Delagoa, as the men from King Jorgi are closer and pay more for ivory and gold. Add to this the fact that they've settled in healthier environs, and don't rely on middlemen the way the Portugiza do with the Maputos. And they have little to fear from their Zulu hosts—although, if they don't seem to realize that themselves, so much the better.

Shaka slides his palms over his knees and arches his back, stares up at the thatch. It's his own advisers who have urged circumspection when dealing with the savages. Some have pointed to the Maputos and the way a few sickly Portugiza have turned them into vassals. The Maputos might not acknowledge that, and at times it might seem as if they are the masters, but they are fooling themselves.

The graybeards who point this out are right. But the same thing will never happen to the Zulus—of that Shaka is certain.

However, others of Shaka's izilomo, his inner circle, those a little wiser, a little more perceptive, have spoken of having misgivings harder to substantiate or even articulate. A vague sense of unease, apprehension, disquiet. Even Mbopa, his prime minister, has admitted to feeling somewhat concerned.

“Even Mbopa …” whispers Shaka.

Mbopa.

He's staring into the night and so doesn't see Mgobozi's stricken expression, doesn't hear his old friend whisper, “No, Shaka!”

“You remember how he said they were coming? How he believed their arrival to be inevitable? And how, when you said, ‘Let them come, and we'll kill them on the beach,' he urged caution, spoke of a need for cunning?”

Mgobozi's look of relief becomes a smile as Shaka glances toward him. “I remember,” says the general.

Shaka frowns.
But he changed.

Mbopa changed. And more than just his mind.

A sudden searing pain. An explosion of fire spreading like a baobab tree. The King recoils, toppling backward, his arms raised to protect his face, his eyes.

Then, just as he's about to scrabble away, hurl himself into the safety of the darkness, he realizes he's still sitting on the rock, while the flames remain docilely within their stone circle.

Shaka swallows, not daring to face Mgobozi.

But if the general has noticed anything, he's too loyal a friend to let on. “You were saying, Majesty?” he asks mildly.

You were saying …

Shaka sighs, glances upward, toward stars twinkling in a midnight blue veld: the armies of the ancestors on the move.

He frowns, thinking he shouldn't be able to see any stars.

“Even Mbopa,” he says, returning to the orange flames and the face of his old friend. “Even Mbopa, who said to expect their coming, has grown uneasy of late.”

Because they are of his izilomo, Shaka knows the fears of his inner circle can't be dismissed as silly remnants of old superstitions, or a natural suspicion of strangers, exacerbated by their experience with the double-dealing Portugiza—and by the arrogance evinced by these particular savages who would remain Jorgi's men despite Shaka's blandishments.

At the same time, though, this feeling of apprehension is a form of witchcraft—and one he has to be particularly wary of. Look how even those who would later become his most trusted generals cringed and quaked when he spoke of throwing away the ill-fitting sandals Zulu soldiers had always worn and of teaching them how to use the iklwa! Remember the barely contained rage that ran through what was then more a clan than a tribe, when he had the older recruits remove the isicoco and march across thorns!

How tempting had their warnings and complaints been! Concubines calling him to the comfort of warm thighs! How subtle the poison infecting him with doubt: those long, sweaty, sleepless nights when even the mighty Shaka—slayer of all who insulted his mother—would find himself asking the darkness
What if they are right?

So many things could have gone wrong before his new regiments even caught their first glimpse of the enemy—and where would he be now if he hadn't been able to suck out that poison? Where would he be if he hadn't been able to bite down on the doubt and continue chasing his mutinous men across the thorns, and devising exercises to prove to them the wisdom of fighting with a weapon you didn't throw away, and convincing them of the great strength the Way of the Bull could bring to out-numbered regiments?