Shaka the Great (84 page)

Then the beat changes, becomes a breeze that shapes and reshapes bodies in graceful contortions, the tread of those honoring hallowed ground, the rhythmic pointing of the spears. Next the umphendu,
slow-motion movement with the upper body, then an interval of sorts, the lines making a right face, becoming a single file, handing their spears and shields to the waiting udibis. A full circle and they're facing the King once more. The umgebhulo: sinuous smooth, an entwining of hands and arms climbing to the sky.

Tired, so tired
… He is a man who thinks he's reached the end of a journey only to discover the path continues. The ceremony of First Fruits has concluded, and here we are! But, before you know it, Mbilini KaZiwedum's son will make his appearance with the tamboti moth again. He has destroyed the Thembus and Qwabes, but now he hears that Zwide's heirs are aching for vengeance. He stamps on one, and another pops up. And the path never ends. Always another bend, another valley beyond this one.

Fresh air.

He needs fresh air.

He's rising, just as the Induna passes by, and the warrior extends his arm so that Shaka might regain his feet with as much dignity as he can muster under the circumstances. For a moment, doubtless waiting for the world to stop spinning, Shaka eyes the pot he's knocked over, watching the beer darken the sand, then signals for a serving boy to pick it up.

“Where—?” The Induna interrupts himself to wave away a cadet from one of the new regiments. In his zeal to assist the King, the youngster doesn't realize he's come close to getting himself killed, for he's darted forward still holding his dancing assegai. Although regarded as a toy, its blade is real and it's not something one wants to be brandishing when one makes a sudden move in the King's direction.

“Where to, Majesty?” asks the Induna, after the youth has backed away.

“To piss, Nduna. Let us go and piss!”

The hut has an eastern and western doorway, and the Induna leads Shaka to the former. Outside, Shaka stops. “Mbuyazi! Where is Mbuyazi?” Dropping his voice, so the Induna has to strain to hear him, he murmurs, “Where is my weakness?”

Noting the Induna's alarmed expression, he indicates they should continue walking. “Oh, yes,” he adds, “save your surprise and your erstwhile denials, for I know what some say.”

“Must I have him fetched for you, Majesty?”

“Who?”

“Mbuyazi, Father.”

Shaka lays a hand on the Induna's shoulder, and again it's as if his surroundings withdraw. Only this time, the Induna is with him.

“It's not that I am beguiled by their promises. Their sangomas are no different from ours. Let anyone say otherwise and they can meet my Slayers, for someone that stupid shouldn't be allowed to live!”

It's as if they're alone in the King's council hut; or sharing a campfire together.

Wagging a finger: “And, another thing, you were wrong, Nduna. As was I. All this talk of other skies and other huts … it sounds clever, but it's misleading. For we have always known there is an out-there.”

“Other huts?” The Induna frowns. How does the King know?

“An out-there, Nduna. We have always known! We have always known there were others.”

And why should they be any different? These ones, he means. A snigger. “Our ones!” Why should they be any different, even Fynn?

“I know the worth of their promises,” says Shaka, slurring his words. “I know they will seek to use me, as if such a thing were possible. But so what.” Staggering away from the Induna, he throws up his right hand. “So what!” Drawing closer again, dropping his voice into a drunkard's whisper. “Because I fully intend to use them, in turn.”

And, even as he reaches under his kilt, the mood of sullenness hits him, the sagging, deadening remembering. So far, he's failed there, led astray by the old stories of the true potency of Imithi Emnyama,
the Black Medicine, muthi of the dead moon, isifile, and ngolu mnyama namhla, the dark day thereafter.

Aiee, and to think the White Men are eager to lead him astray! He's been betrayed enough by his own ways.

A grunt. Why should he be surprised, given how often he has trampled on the old ways and mocked the superstitions of his children.

“Majesty?”

“It is nothing, Nduna. Let us piss.”

“Yes, another hut! And when these people emerge, they turn out to be like us in so many ways, but they are also different. And that … that, Nduna, is what I wish to discover. Their difference. It's not the similarities that count, but how different they are.”

The analogy has its limits, but tonight it might still contain some value. Or, then again, maybe not. Shaka's hands come away from his knees in a gesture of helplessness, for how impotent words can be.

Does the Induna understand? It is the uncharted terrain of their
difference
he wishes to explore; the secret geography of cause and effect. What it is exactly that makes them different.

And where that road will lead.

For he is tired now, so tired …

Shaka grips the Induna's arm. “It never ends,” he hisses, “never! Once I dreamt of stones on a plain”—walls and chambers lying there like lizards in the sun—“and I thought I understood, and I sent you, but maybe I was wrong.” These savages value stone so maybe the path was leading to them.

The King's hand drops away. “You know what happened then. You know how the stones called me on. And, whether I was right or wrong, it didn't matter. The path didn't end there. It continued past the stones!”

That's why he has to be right about the White Men, why he is eager to concede that his initial interpretation was wrong. Because of that path leading on and on and on …

The Induna nods. He, too, has been haunted by a dream of late …

“I reached them,
you
reached them—and see the outcome!”

… rain falling as a depthless blur … tighten your grip on your iklwa …

“See what has changed? Nothing!” He is nodding to himself, muttering like a drunk old man. “So I had to be wrong. I had to … I had to.”

… and the rain is falling sideways, a swarm of mosquitoes stinging your skin, and there is a man lying in the mud …

Squeezing the Induna's shoulder: “Do you understand?”

Snatched from his own reverie, the Induna nods, understanding nothing.

“We showed them. We showed these barbarians from the sea, didn't we, Nduna?”

“Yes, we did, Majesty.”

Ensuring the White Men were taken the long way round, so that they might marvel at the size of the kingdom … Having the same regiment march past them three, four times a day, so that they might quail at the size of the Zulu army … Having groups of men already sentenced to death standing there among the ranks that received the White Men at KwaBulawayo, so that the barbarians would be awed by Shaka's cruelty, the way he could summon slaughter with the merest nod … These and other games dreamt up by Shaka and Mgobozi, to keep their guests rattled.

“We showed them, Nduna, we showed them. Now they must show us!”

“I'm not sure I understand, Majesty.”

Shaka waves aside the Induna's words: “You will see, Nduna. You will see!”

And he will! Suddenly Shaka realizes what's been bothering him about this conversation. The Induna has somehow joined him. At
the time he went to save the Bead Man, Fynn and the others hadn't yet arrived (and Nandi was still alive). But somehow the Induna has joined him, and is able to talk about things he shouldn't know anything about.

Strange?

But, then again, not so strange when you consider that Shaka shouldn't be able to converse with him in the first place (because he is not dead).

They stare at the fire, its flames like leaves; a plant that grows as it dies, and dies as it grows. The boy sighs, shifts under his isiphuku. Stars overhead, and a moon fragment.

For once, in what Fynn might term his “nocturnal peregrinations,” Shaka feels at ease, feels as if he can relax a little and not fear he'll find himself back in the hut of his seclusion, cursing the vagaries of this Night Muthi.

Perhaps this is why he tries again. “I want you to understand, Nduna,” he says, shifting his position, and easing a little closer to the warrior. “Earth knowledge
is
involved here, but these things are mainly of the Sky.”

The same distinction the Induna had discussed with the boy. Earth knowledge: aspects one can see and point to, debate and discuss.

“So many similarities, Nduna. They eat and breathe, they sweat and bleed, they speak a language of sorts and they feel, can laugh and cry, grow tired and irritable, as we do.”

So many similarities, but one signal difference. Sky knowledge: something he knows, without being able to explain how he knows.

“It is this I would learn, Nduna. This is the goal of the campaign I wage, while my advisers stand with slack jaws and my enemies sharpen their blades. This is the secret I would learn, for there is power there, great power. I just know it.”

Shaka chuckles. “But I know something else, Nduna. I don't think they understand it. I would take something from them they don't even know they have.”

African night—and the veld stretches, sighs, wallows. The night is scarcely much cooler than the day, but for now it's enough simply not to have the sun blaring out of the sky. A screaming that will never stop; a ceaseless, relentless nagging. But the sun has been caught by the mountains, and for now there is a silence of sorts, the relief of sweat at last being allowed to cool against the skin.

“Majesty?”

It is Mbopa come looking for the King. A quizzical glance at the Induna; a shrug in response. Are they heading for a relapse, and a King who would kill everyone in sight? The Induna's not sure.

“Come, Majesty, let us return to where your new warriors wait to impress you,” says the prime minister, although the drums haven't stopped during the King's absence.

The two have just entered the hut, when the udibi moves out of the darkness. Acting under the Induna's orders, he has been keeping watch over Mnkabayi's compound and has just seen Ndlela enter the queen's hut.

The Induna thanks him. They have already discussed this, and the boy knows the Induna must confront Mnkabayi and Ndlela alone. Nonetheless, he tells the Induna that he and Njikiza will be at the other entrance to the big hut, free of the drunken tangle and therefore ready to assist the Induna should he need their help.

The Induna thanks the udibi once more and moves off into the darkness.

Shaka and Mbopa have praised the Induna, the boy, Njikiza and the other Fasimbas for the role they played in ending Jembuluka's madness. All have been well rewarded, with the Induna insisting that Ndlela be given the credit he was due, and thus the largest portion of the livestock Shaka presented them with.

The irony is that it's precisely Ndlela's involvement that continues to pester him, even though Shaka and Mbopa consider the matter concluded.

Given Ndlela's status, and the many responsibilities he had during the First Fruits, why did he take the time off to become so involved? The Induna can understand him being deeply troubled by what was going on, and wanting to stay apprised of developments—but to become an active participant?

Fine, so he was acting under Mnkabayi's orders. Or he felt his expertise would be useful. Or he was a loyal subject doing his bit to protect the King. Or just a nosy old man who was bored with the matters of protocol and diplomacy associated with the First Fruits.

Fine, but even more serious is the matter of the footprints. As it was with Jembuluka, so it was with Ndlela.

As the Induna has explained to Njikiza and the boy: “Gudlo is murdered. There is spoor. Jembuluka has gone after the killer. We follow, still believing we are after Kholisa.” But not only did the limping sangoma stop limping after a while, they found no trace of Jembuluka's tracks.

“I remember now,” said Njikiza, “you were worried he would spoil the killer's spoor.”

This was so, agreed the Induna. He and the boy had been so intent on following what they still thought of as Kholisa's tracks, it was only later the Induna realized they hadn't seen any indication that someone else had been following the sangoma. It was something that would have aroused his suspicions, even if Ndlela hadn't caught the monster in his lair and exposed him as the Skin Man.

“And, as with Jembuluka, so with Ndlela,” mused the boy.

“Yes, we were the only ones to follow that spoor!”

Ndlela had lied. But why?

Now, making his way to Mnkabayi's hut, the Induna can imagine the older man's response.

So easy to use the Induna's own words against him. He and the boy had been so intent on not losing Kholisa's spoor, they could
easily have missed Ndlela's. Especially when you considered how he tried to keep off the path whenever possible, so as to preserve the trail for the Induna. Or so he might allege.