by Wilbur Smith
You are Matabele? " Robyn demanded. I am Angoni, the woman put in hastily, for there was rivalry and hostility between even the closely related tribes of the Nguni.
Her tribe, the Angoni, had swept northwards from their origins in the grassy hills of Zululand, and crossed the Zambezi river thirty years before, she explained in her lilting musical dialect. They had conquered the land along the northern shores of Lake Marawi. It was from there that the woman had been sold to one of the Omani slave-masters, and had come down the Shire river in chains.
Unable to keep up with the slave caravan, reduced by starvation, and the fevers and hardships of the long journey, she had been freed of her chains and left for the hyenas beside the slave road. It was there that Fuller Ballantyne had found her and taken her into his own small camp.
She had responded to his rough nursing and when she was recovered, Fuller had baptized her with the Christian name of Sarah. So my father's detractors are mistaken, Robyn laughed, and spoke in English. "He made more than one convert."
Sarah did not understand but laughed in sympathy. By now it was almost dusk and the two women, followed by the half-naked child, , left the little cemetery and started back along the footpath, with Sarah still telling how when Robyn's mother, summoned at last by Fuller Ballantyne, arrived in Tete with other members of the Kaborra-Bossa expedition, Sarah had been presented to her by Fuller as a personal servant.
By now they had stopped at a fork in the path, and after a moment of hesitation Sarah invited Robyn to her village which was only a short way off the path. Robyn glanced up at the sun and shook her head, it would be dark in an hour and Zouga would be certain to turn out the camp to search for her if she had not returned by then.
f She had enjoyed the hours spent with the young woman and the bright sweet child, and when she saw Sarah's obvious disappointment, she said quickly, Although I must go, I will return tomorrow at the same time. I wish to hear all you can tell me of my mother and my father."
Sarah sent the little boy with her as far as the buildings of the village. and after the first few yards Robyn quite naturally took the boy's hand, and he skipped along beside her, chattering gay childish nonsense, which helped to lift her sombre mood until Robyn laughed and chattered with him.
Before they reached the outskirts of Tete, Robyn's fears were confirmed. They met Zouga and Sergeant Cheroot. Zouga was armed with the Sharps rifle and angry with relief the moment he saw her. Damn me, Sissy, but you have had us all beside ourselves. You've been missing for five hours."
The child stared at Zouga with wide eyes. He had never seen anything like this tall lordly man with the imperious manner and sharp commanding voice. He must be a great chief, and he slipped his hand out of Robyn's, retreated two paces, then turned and darted away like a sparrow from the circling hawk.
Some of Zouga's anger left him as he watched the child go, and a small smile touched his lips. For a moment I thought you'd picked up another stray. "Zouga, I found Mama's grave. " Robyn hurried to him and took his arm. "It's only a mile or so."
Zouga's expression changed again and he glanced up at the sun that was already on the tops of the acacia trees and turning deep smouldering red. We'll come back tomorrow, " he said. "I don't like to leave the camp after dark, there are too many jackals lurking about, two legged jackals. " Firmly. he led her back towards the village, continuing his explanation as they walked. We are still having a great deal of difficulty obtaining porters, despite the fact that the Governor in Quelimane assured me they would be readily available, and the good Lord knows there are any amount of able-bodied men hereabouts. Yet that strutting poppinjay Pereira finds obstacles at every turn. " The frown made him look much older than his years as did the full beard which he had allowed to grow since disembarking from Black fake. "He says that the porters refuse to contract until they know the direction and duration of the safari. "That seems logical, Robyn agreed. "I know I wouldn't carry one of those huge packs, unless I knew where I was going. "I don't think at all that it's the porters, there is no reason why the destination should worry them. I am offering top wages, and not a single man has come forward. "What is it, then? "Pereira has been trying to wheedle our intentions out of me, ever since we left the coast. I think this is a form of blackmail, no porters until I tell him. "Then why don't you tell him? " Robyn asked, and Zouga shrugged. Because he is too damned insistent. It's not a casual interest, and instinct warns me not to trust him with any information which it is not essential for him to know."
They walked on in silence until they reached the perimeter of the camp.
Zouga had laid it out on the lines of a military base, with an outer stockade of acacia thorn branches, a Hottentot guard at the gate and the boma for the porters separated from the stores depot by the tent lines. It looks like home already, Robyn congratulated him, and would have left him for her own tent when Camacho Pereira hurried forward. Ah! Major, I wait for you with good news."
That's a pleasant change, Zouga murmured drily. I find man who has seen your father, not eight months ago."
Robyn turned back instantly, her excitement matching that of the flamboyant Portuguese and she spoke directly to him for the first time since the incident in her tent. Where is he?
Oh, this is wonderful news. "If it's true, " qualified Zouga, with considerably less enthusiasm. I bring the man, damned quick, you see! " Carnacho promised, and hurried away towards the porters" boma, shouting as he went.
Within ten minutes he returned dragging with him a skinny old man dressed in greasy tatters of animal skins, and with his eyes rolling up into his head with terror.
As soon as Camacho released him, the old man prostrated himself before Zouga who sat in one of the canvas camp chairs under the awning of the dining tent, and gabbled replies to the queries that Carnacho shouted at him in hectoring tones. What dialect is that he speaks? " Zouga interrupted within the first few seconds. Chichewa, Camacho replied. "He no speak other."
Zouga glanced at Robyn, but she shook her head. They had to rely entirely on Camacho's rendition of the old man's replies.
It seemed that the old man had seen "Manali', the man with the red shirt, at Zimi on the Lualaba river. Manali had been camped there with a dozen porters, and the old man had seen him with his own eyes.
How does he know it was my father? " Zouga asked.
Everybody knew "Manah', the old man explained, he was a living legend from the coast to "Chona longa', the land where the sun sets. When did he see Manali?
One moon before the coming of the last rains, which made it in October of the previous year, as Camacho had said, about eight months previously.
Zouga sat lost in thought, but his gaze fixed with such ferocity on the unfortunate who grovelled before him that the old man suddenly burst out on a plaintive note that made Carnacho's handsome face darken with anger and he touched the skeletal ribs with the toe of his boot, a threatening gesture that quieted the old man instantly.
What did he say? " Robyn demanded. He swears he speak the truth only, Camacho assured her, resurrecting his smile with an effort.
What else does he know of Manali! Zouga asked. He speak with the porters of Manah, they say they go follow the Lualaba river."
It made some sense, Zouga thought. If Fuller Ballantyne was indeed seeking the source of the Nile river to recover his lost reputation, then that is where he would have gone. The Lualaba, which was reputed to run directly northward, was one of obvious choices for the source river.
Camacho questioned the old man for another ten minutes, and would have taken the hippo-hide whip to jog his memory, but Zouga stopped him with a gesture of annoyance. It was obvious that there was nothing further to learn from him. Give him a bolt of merkani cloth and a khete of beads and let him go, Zouga ordered and the old man's gratitude was pathetic to watch.
Zouga and Robyn sat later than usual beside the camp fire, while it collapsed slowly upon itself in spasmodic torrents of rising sparks and the murmur of sleep
y voices from the porters" boma died into silence. If we go north, Robyn mused, watching her brother's face, "we will be going into the stronghold of the slave trade, from Lake Marawi northwards. From that area into which no white man, not even Pater, has ever ventured must come all the slaves for the markets of Zanzibar and the Omani Arabs-'What about the evidence of the trade to the south, Zouga glanced across the clearing at the silent figure of Juba, waiting patiently by the entrance to Robyn's tent.
"That girl is the living proof that a new trade is flourishing south of the Zambezi. "Yes, but it seems to be nothing compared to the activity north of here. "The northern trade has been fully documented.
Father reached Marawi and followed the slave caravans down to the coast fifteen years ago, and Bannerman at Zanzibar has written a dozen reports on the Zanzibar market, " Zouga pointed out, nursing a precious tumbler of his fast-dwindling supply of whisky, and staring into the ashes of the fire. "Whereas nobody knows anything about the trade with the Monomatapa and the Matabele south of here."
Yes, I acknowledge that, Robyn admitted reluctantly. However, in his Missionary Travels father wrote that the Lualaba was the source of the Nile and he would one day prove it by following it from its headwaters. Besides which, he has been seen in the north."
Has he, though? " Zouga asked mildly.
That old man. . Was lying. Somebody put him up to it, and I don't need more than one guess, Zouga finished.
How do you know he was lying? " Robyn demanded. If you live long enough in India you develop an instinct for the lie, Zouga smiled at her. "Besides why would father wait eight years after he disappeared to explore the Lualaba river. He would have gone there directly, if he had gone north. "My dear brother, Robyn's voice was stinging, "it would not be the legend of Monomatapa that makes you so stubbornly determined to go south of the river, would it? Is that gleam in your eye the gleam of gold? "That is a mean thought, Zouga smiled again. "But what does intrigue me is the determination of that great guide and explorer, Camacho Pereira, to discourage any journey to the south, and instead to lead us northwards."
Long after Robyn had disappeared into her tent and the lantern within was extinguished Zouga sat on beside the fire, nursing the whisky in the tumbler and staring into the fading coals. When he reached his decision he drained the last drop of precious golden brown spirit in the glass and stood up abruptly. He strode down the lines to where Camacho Pereira's tent stood at the furthest end of the camp.
There was a lantern burning within even at this late hour, and when Zouga called out, a squeak of alarm in feminine tones was quickly hushed with a man's low growl and a few minutes later Camacho Pereira pulled the fly aside and peered out at Zouga warily.
He had thrown a blanket over his shoulders to cover his nudity, but in one hand he carried a pistol and relaxed only slightly as he recognized Zouga. I have decided, Zouga told him brusquely, "that we'll go north, up the Shire river to Lake Marawi, and then on to the Lualaba river."
Camacho's face shone like the full moon as he smiled. That is very good. Very good, much ivory, we find your father, you see, we find him damn soon."
Before noon the following day Camacho, with a great deal of shouting and swishing of the kurbash, marched a hundred strong healthy men into the camp. "I find you porters, " he announced. "Plenty porters, damn good, hey? " The Christian girl Sarah was waiting beside the grave again when Robyn came down through the acacia forest the following afternoon.
The child saw her first and ran to greet her, he was laughing with pleasure, and Robyn was struck once again by the familiarity of his face. It was something about his mouth and his eyes. The resemblance to somebody she had known was so forcible that she stopped dead and stared at him, but could not recapture the memory before the boy took her hand and led her to where his mother waited.
They went through the little ritual of changing the flowers on the grave and then settled side by side on a fallen acacia branch. It was cooler in the shade and in the branches above their heads a pair of shrikes hunted little green caterpillars. The birds were black and white across the back and wings, but their breasts were a striking shade of crimson that glowed like the blood of a dying gladiator, and Robyn watched them with rare pleasure while she and Sarah talked quietly.
Sarah was telling her about her mother, how brave and uncomplaining she had been in the terrible heat of the Kaborra-Bossa where the black ironstone cliffs turned the gorge into a furnace. It was the bad season, Sarah explained. "The hot season before the rains break. " Robyn recalled her father's written account of the expedition in which he had laid the blame for the delays upon his subordinates, old Harkness and Commander Stone, so that they had missed the cool season, and entered the gorge in the suicide month of November. Then when the rains came, the fever came with it, Sarah went on. "It was very bad. The white men and your mother became sick very quickly. " Perhaps her mother had lost much of her immunity to malaria during the years in England while she waited for her husband's summons. "Even Manali himself became sick. it was the first time I had seen him sick of the fever. He was filled with the devils for many days, the expression described vividly the delirium of malaria] fever, Robyn thought. "So he did not know when your mother died."
They were silent again. The child, bored by the interminable talk of the two women, threw a stone at the birds in the acacia branches above their heads, and with a flash of their marvelous crimson breasts the two shrikes winged away towards the river, and again the child engaged Robyn's attention. It was as if she had known that face all her life.
My mother? " Robyn asked, still watching the child. Her water turned black, " said Sarah simply. The blackwater fever, Robyn felt her skin prickle. When malaria changed its course, attacking the kidneys and transforming them into thin-walled sacks of clotted black blood, that could rupture at the patient's smallest movement.
The blackwater fever, when the urine changed to dark mulberry-coloured blood, and few, very few victims, ever recovered. She was strong, Sarah went on quietly. "She was the last of them to go. " She turned her head towards the other neglected graves. The curly pods of the acacia were scattered thickly over the unadorned mounds. "We buried her here, while Manali was still with his devils.
But later, when he could walk he came with the book and said the words for her. He built the cross with his own hands."
Then he went away again? " Robyn asked.
No, he was very sick, and new devils came to him.
He wept for your mother. " The thought of her father weeping was something so completely alien that Robyn could not imagine it. "He spoke often of the river that had destroyed him."
Through the acacia trees there were glimpses of the wide green river, and both their heads turned towards it naturally. He came to hate that river as though it was a living enemy that had denied him a road to his dreams. He was like a man demented, for the fever came and went. At times he would battle with his devils, shouting his defiance the way a warrior giyas at the enemy host. " The giya was a challenge dance with which the Nguni warrior baits his adversary. "At other times he would speak wildly of machines that would tame his enemy, of walls that he would build across the waters to carry men and ships up above the gorge. " Sarah broke off, her lovely dark moon face stricken with the memory, and the child sensed her distress and came to her, kneeling on the earth and laying his dusty little head in her lap. She stroked the tight cap of curls with an absentminded caress.
With a sudden little chill of shock Robyn recognized the child. Her expression changed so drastically that Sarah followed the direction of her gaze, looking down with all her attention at the head in her lap, then up again to meet Robyn's eyes. It did not really need words to pass, the question was posed and answered with silent exchange of feminine understanding, and Sarah drew the child towards her with a protective gesture. It was only after your mother. . . " Sarah began to explain and then fell silent, and Robyn went on staring at the little boy. It was Zouga at the same age, a d
usky miniature Zouga. It was only the colour of his skin which had prevented her from seeing it immediately.
Robyn felt as though the earth had lurched beneath her feet, then it steadied again and she felt a strange sense of release. Fuller Ballantyne was no longer the godlike figure hewn from unforgiving, unbending granite that had overshadowed her entire life.
She held out both her hands to the child and he went to her unhesitatingly, trustingly. Robyn embraced him, and his skin was smooth and warm as she kissed him.
He wriggled against her like a puppy, and she felt a deep glow of affection and of gratitude to the child. He was very sick, said Sarah softly, "and alone. They had all gone or died, and he was sad, so that I feared for his life."
Robyn nodded understanding. "And you loved him? "There was no sin in it, for he was a God, said Sarah simply. No, thought Robyn with intense relief. "He was a man, and I, his daughter, am a woman."
In that moment she knew that she never need again feel shame and guilt for her body and the demands and desires which sprang from it. She hugged the child who was proof of her father's humanity, and Sarah smiled with relief.
For the first time in her life Robyn was able to fate the fact that she loved her father, and she understood part of the compulsion that over the years had grown stronger rather than dwindling.
The longing she had felt for the father had been submerged completely by the awe and majesty of the legend.
Now she knew why she was here, on the banks of this majestic river, on the very frontier of the known world.
She had come not to find Fuller Ballantyne, but to discover rather the father and the self that she had never known before. Where is he, Sarah, where is my father? Which way did he go? " she demanded eagerly, but the woman dropped her eyes. I do not know, she whispered. "I woke one morning and he was gone. I do not know where he is, but I will wait for him, until he returns to me and his son. " She looked -up quickly. "He will come back? " she asked pathetically. "If not to me then for the child? "Yes, Robyn answered with certainty that she did not feel. "Of course he will come back."