Shaka the Great (81 page)

Jogging to overcome the gradient, his eyes on the fringes of soft sand on either side of the path, the Induna still finds himself pestered by the manner of Gudlo's murder. How different his death is to the others. If Njikiza (and Jembuluka before him) hadn't found tracks that indicated the passing of a limping man, he'd be more than willing to entertain the thought that Gudlo's killing had nothing to do with the other two.

But see how closely this clan has been involved in all three murders. Two of their number have been victims, while Vuyile witnessed the first killing. Could it be that they really are cursed?

The Induna pauses. Drops to his haunches, takes a closer look at an indentation in the sand to the right of the path.

Let us say they are cursed. Let us say they have done something to rile
Kholisa, and now he wants vengeance … And it could well be that Vuyile was his intended victim that night, the other poor boy who had died merely blundering into the wrong place at the wrong time.

Ndlela stands up, dusting his hands. That footprint is too old. He moves on.

Let us say this, then surely Shaka's concerns fall away. There is brutality and bad blood here, but it's hard to see that becoming a conspiracy to disrupt the First Fruits—or even a more ambitious one to overthrow the King.

Something else now to consider: the First Fruits are all but over. In what way have these murders disrupted the ceremony? There have been the rumors, certainly, but the spectacle itself has been too overwhelming. Was this a case of little Nompofo shaking the tree and fooling Jackal into thinking she was a monster, when she was something else? Was the conspiracy to disrupt the First Fruits merely a ruse, in other words? One that hid not a frightened little girl, in this instance, but something far more dangerous than the tree-monster had made herself out to be. And what might that be? The second option then; the one he's considered in passing, as a mere aside? That the real goal is to overthrow Shaka?

For there are the mutilations, and what they signify.

Doesn't that point to something that is more than a mere ruse, or some way of getting back at a clan that has angered a sangoma? And speaking of which, what had happened to turn Kholisa against the clan? Hadn't he actually tried to help first Zusi, and then Ntokozo?

The Induna pauses for breath. Below him are the bushes that hide the udibi from sight. On the hillside across the way, a herd of cattle grazes; so at least the herdboys are doing their duty. The sky remains cloudless.

He is missing something.

But what?

Suddenly the path leaps up at the boy. He's stubbed his big toe and has stumbled. Aiee! Has someone tried to trip him? No—he wheels
round—it was just that root. Shaking his head at his lucky escape, due to the acrobatic exertions he was able to employ to ensure his chin and nose didn't smack against the path, he turns again, ready to continue on his way. And that's when the pain hits him.

Even then he takes two, three steps, before he's fully aware there's something wrong with his left foot. And then he blunders on for a few more steps, before he thinks to look down.

He sees blood, slows his pace, but doesn't stop. His big toe ends in blood. It's sore, but not that bad. Still walking, still looking down. Blood … but not that bad … stupid. Fortunately nobody was around to see what happened. Still walking, looking up to make sure he doesn't stumble off the path, then looking down at blood … And what's that flapping at the end of his big toe?

He stops, and the pain that's been ebbing away catches up with him once more, as he realizes the nail of his big toe has been wrenched off the quick, and remains attached only by the merest fragment of skin.

He looks away, looks back. The nail is still lying there loose. A sense of dislocation, a jolt, a flutter of panic as when your tongue finds that a piece of tooth is missing. He fights a powerful urge to bend down and touch and pull, to make sure he's seeing what he's seeing. But he fights the urge, because he realizes that not only does his big toe not look right, it also feels odd. Moving his foot even slightly causes the nail to lift, and causes him to feel a slight chill as the air slips in.

Carefully he sits down at the side of the path. And it's in twisting to get a better look at his toe that he notices the footprints. There's a set of them right here next to him, though he's scuffed one of the prints. But there's another … and another …

Raising his head, he sees there's a faint path leading off the main trail. It cuts backward, moving through the bushes spreading up the slope, meaning he could have gone right past it, without seeing it. You'd have to be coming from the opposite direction to have a chance of spotting it, and even then you'd be likely to miss it.

Ducking low, his toe forgotten, the boy enters the bushes. And then the smell! The sickly sweet scent of rotting meat, stirred up by the flies. So many flies! Leaves crackle; slender branches brush against his head. Within a meter, he's able to straighten up in the fragmented shade, like one coming up for air, but the smell has now become of secondary importance. The boy's eyes are on the body and the man sitting next to it … and he doesn't see the half-buried root, and stubs the same toe a second time.

Ndlela is standing over the udibi, when the Induna arrives in answer to the latter's calls.

“It's over,” Ndlela says.

The boy's spear is nowhere to be seen, but the older man is holding an iklwa, with blood glistening on its blade.

He is changing.

He can feel it.

He feels stronger.

Even his limp has gone.

(Although, of course …)

Soon it will be time to shed this skin, this face …

Soon he will rise up, a king more powerful than the sun.

And they will suckle at his breasts and do his bidding, as his loins and his hard cock plant the seeds of future generations of followers.

See how he moves among them!

(He's changing; it's starting to work. He's growing stronger with every breath.)

See how he moves among them, able to choose the path that allows him to slip by, behind their backs, their chatter hiding him like long grass.

You'd think with so many people around … for this First Fruits … but Shaka has made it easier for him. So many strangers. So much movement. So many parties. How easy it is to vanish.

But do not forget the ancestors, for they have helped him, too. Getting in and out is easy, but finding those who suit his purpose—the right ingredients, you might say—has been a little more difficult.

But always, he has found the one he was looking for!

And he will thank them. Has already decided how: Shaka will be theirs.

When he is finished, the King will be a nobody to him. He will not waste his time crushing that beetle. Since Shaka has angered the ancestors so, they can have him.

Aiee, right now he would like to witness the torments Shaka will be made to endure, but he knows that's the residue in the gourd. Once he is
finished, the calabash will be shattered, and such things will no longer attract or amuse him.

And the change has begun.

He can feel it.

He moved to protect himself tonight, and it couldn't be helped. But it won't be long now.

Once he has eaten the old lady's brains, the transformation will be complete.

He was thinking all these things—as a kind of chant, a war song that carried him along—when he ducked into his special place amid the bushes, the isigodlo from which change would radiate outward into the world. And therefore it was a while before he'd spotted the man squatting in the shadows.

It is done.

Ndlela steps aside and the Induna enters the gap in the bushes, through the natural covering formed by interlocking branches, and moves on through the smell and the flies, the rustle of leaves telling him that Ndlela is following him.

“I was perturbed by these killings,” murmurs Mnkabayi's induna, after the younger warrior has had time to take in the scene. “Like you, I was haunted and taunted by these deeds that were so clearly more than they seemed. Although”—a wry chuckle, his left hand indicating all of this—“that was bad enough.”

“Truly, I have never seen the like before!”

“Neither have I, Nduna. Neither have I.”

Two or three skins have been spread out to form a floor in the center of the clearing. Hidden and protected by layers of branches, the space isn't very large. There is just enough room for a man to store a few supplies, some trophies—and his insanity. He can also stretch out and rest after his labors, or stand up to get changed …

“I knew we were in good hands, with you and your men watching over us,” says Ndlela. All the same, he himself hadn't joined in the festivities. He had retired early and spent a restless night, till rising before sun-up. “I had to do something,” he explains. After some prevarication, he'd armed himself and went out to roam around among the temporary huts. He realized that, in doing so, he ran the risk of making the Induna's task harder. What if he was spotted? Despite his rank, he would have been stopped and taken into custody while the Induna was summoned. An understandable precaution with all this talk of conspiracy, but one that would have needlessly distracted the Induna and his men, perhaps—another wry chuckle—
giving Kholisa the opening he was seeking. A shrug. But he had to do something.

The Induna waves away a fly that seems to prefer his face to the dead man's mask. “And you witnessed the killing of Gudlo?”

“So that's who he got,” murmurs Ndlela, in the tone of one thinking aloud. The distraction! But why him? (Not that it matters any more.) Realizing the Induna's watching him, he hastens on. “No, but I saw Kholisa.” The sangoma had clearly been fleeing; had clearly killed again. “But I didn't know who. I merely went after him.”

And a limping man, too. Hai, as old as he is, Ndlela could easily have caught him.

But he wanted to see where he was going.

And, of course, this was no limping man.

“I think you must have seen that for yourself, Nduna.”

As the Induna nods, Ndlela leans over, looking past him. Using the tip of his iklwa blade, he forces the mask higher, sliding Kholisa's lips and nose over Jembuluka's nose. And higher still, to reveal Jembuluka's staring eyes.

And the Skin Man wears “sleeves” and “leggings” made from the sangoma's hide, and tied in place by strips of Kholisa's intestines.

And hanging from his neck like a big bib, or like the breastcovering married women wear: a ragged rectangle of skin and Zusi's breasts.