The Covenant: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  He did not know where he was running to, but he was certain that there would be a welcome for a sturdy lad who showed promise of becoming a good warrior. But he wanted his new home to be at a safe distance from the Sixolobo, because he knew that if they ever found him fighting against them, he would receive a much harsher punishment than his father had suffered. Traitors were punished with four bamboo skewers.

  He was headed for a river whose fame he had always known, the Umfolozi, which drained some of the most handsome land in Africa, tumbling out of the great mountains and running almost eastward to the sea. It marked a division between the tribes of the north and those to the south. It was not a massive river; few of the rivers of southern Africa compared to the great waterways of Europe or America, but it brought richness to all who lived along it, for its fields yielded good crops and its banks were crowded with animals of all description.

  When moist and heavy winds blowing in from the south warned Nxumalo that he was approaching water, he concluded that he had come to the legendary Umfolozi, and he began to look for kraals to which he might report his presence, but there were none, and for two nights he patrolled the land well back from the river; on the third morning he came upon a group of nine boys his own age, naked like him and herding cattle.

  With trepidation, but also a determination to protect himself regardless of what the boys attempted, he warily picked his way among the rocks guarding the pasture where the cattle grazed, and from a fair distance, prepared to announce himself. But at this moment the herders launched into a cruel game of throwing one of their younger companions into the center of a circle, while they kept a tough round tuber the size of a ball away from him, tripping him as he lunged for them and kicking him when he fell.

  ‘Little penis!’ they screamed at him. ‘Little penis! Can’t do anything!’

  The boy in the center was himself not little; he was quite handsomely proportioned in all but his genitals, and probably able to handle any one of his eight tormentors taken alone; but when the entire group conspired against him, shouting words that wounded, he could only stand them off in a kind of blind rage.

  His fury gave him added strength, and the incessant jibes about his penis drove him to extraordinary efforts; at one point he leaped high in the air, almost intercepted the ball, and did succeed in driving it off course and over the fingertips of his enemies. He, seeing its flight, was able to break through the circle of bullies and leap for it before any of them could change direction.

  The ball rolled directly to Nxumalo’s feet, and when the abused lad reached it he found a stranger handing it to him. In this way Nxumalo, a voluntary outcast from the Sixolobo, met Shaka, an involuntary exile among the Langeni.

  With Nxumalo as his ally and ready to defend him, Shaka, a twelve-year-old, moody, difficult boy, received less tormenting. True, the entire Langeni clan continued to make fun of his undersized penis, and there was no way this particular abuse could be halted, but whenever rough play was involved, the newcomer and the moody one formed a resilient companionship. Yet, strangely, they were not friends, for Shaka would admit no one to that privileged position.

  Yet he must have someone to talk with, and one night, his voice bursting with pride, he told Nxumalo, ‘I’m a Zulu.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  The tormented one could not mask his disgust at such ignorance: ‘Zulu will be the most powerful tribe along the Umfolozi.’

  ‘In the north we haven’t heard of them.’

  ‘Everyone will hear when I’m chief.’

  ‘Chief! What are you doing herding cattle in this small tribe?’

  ‘I was cast out of the Zulu. I’m son of their chief, and he banished me.’ Then, with a bitterness Nxumalo had never witnessed before, Shaka unfolded his account of the intrigue which had driven him from the tiny, inconsequential tribe of the Zulu:

  ‘My mother Nandi—you’ll meet her one day. Look at her well. Remember her face, because before I die she’s going to be proclaimed Female Elephant. People will bow down to her. [His voice trembled.] She was the legal wife of the chief, and he rejected her … cast us both out of his kraal, but I’ll go back, and take my mother with me. [He clenched his fists.] I’m an outcast. You hear them make fun of me. Remember their names. Nzobo, he’s the worst. Mpepha, he’s afraid to hit me. He uses a club. Mqalane, remember him. I will always remember Mqalane. [He named the other five, repeating some.] They laugh at me. They refuse me permissions. But most of all, Nxumalo, they ridicule my mother. [Here he began trembling furiously.] I tell you, Nxumalo, one day she will be the Female Elephant. [Silence, and then the real burden.] No, the worst isn’t that. It’s the way they make fun of me. [It was impossible for this boy, tenser than the string of a bow, to weep, but he did tremble, grinding his heel in the dust.] They make fun of me.’

  The simple sentence that Nxumalo uttered next would save his life on the day of retribution, but now it seemed only a gesture of decent friendship. He reached out, touched Shaka on the arm, and said, ‘Later it will grow bigger.’

  ‘Will it?’ the older boy cried impetuously.

  ‘I’ve often seen it happen.’ He had no authority for what he was saying, but he knew it must be said.

  Shaka said nothing more, just sat there in the grass, pounding his fists against his knees.

  Like any confused boy his age, Shaka had shaded the truth, so far as he was able to understand it. Senzangakhona, chief of the Zulu clan, had impregnated Nandi, a virgin of the Langeni. When the elders of the latter tribe heard of this shocking breach of tribal custom, they insisted that Senzangakhona do the proper thing and accept her as his third wife, which he did, but she proved more disagreeable than sand in the mouth. Her son was worse, and at the age of six allowed one of his father’s favorite animals to be slain, a mistake which precipitated banishment. Shaka was no longer a Zulu; he and his mother must take refuge in the kraals of the despised Langeni.

  On the day they left, Senzangakhona was most pleased; they had given him nothing but trouble, and he recalled what his councillors had said that first day when Nandi claimed she was pregnant: ‘She had no baby in her. It’s only the intestinal insect they call iShaka.’ The king agreed, and now watched with undisguised pleasure as his unwanted wife disappeared, taking her ‘insect’ with her.

  * * *

  In 1802 famine swept the valley of the Umfolozi, the only time that men could remember when the richest of rivers betrayed her children, but now the lack of food was so critical that the chief of the Langeni began to drive unwanted persons out of his kraals, and among those who had to leave were Nandi, mother of Shaka, and her son, who was liked by no one in the clan. As they were departing southward, using a ford that crossed the river, the outcast boy Nxumalo overtook them, saying that it could not be long before he, too, would be forced out and asking permission to join them in their exile. Nandi, a powerful woman who wasted little effort in sentiment, said, ‘Stay behind.’ But her son, remembering various behaviors of the younger boy, said, ‘Let him come.’ And the exiles moved south.

  In time they straggled into the lands of Dingiswayo, most important of the southern chiefs, and when he saw the two stalwart fellows he wanted them for his regiment: ‘You look like warriors. But can you fight?’

  Long-shafted assegais were produced, but when Shaka hefted his he disliked its balance and demanded a replacement. ‘Why?’ asked the chief, and brusquely Shaka said, ‘A warrior must have confidence.’ And not until he had a spear he liked did he say, ‘I’m ready.’

  Dingiswayo laughed at his impudence, saying to his attendants, ‘He looks like a warrior. He boasts like one. Now we’ll see if he can fight.’

  Hearing this implied insult, Shaka pointed to a distant tree: ‘There is your enemy, Great Chief.’ And with a short run he launched his assegai far and true, so that Dingiswayo laughed no more. ‘He fights like a warrior, too.’ To the young man he said, ‘Welcome to my regiment.’

  For the next years Shaka and
Nxumalo shared a wild experience. As members of the region’s greatest regiment, the iziCwe, they helped fortify their tribe’s position, participating in the vast raids that kept the territory pacified and augmented. Nxumalo was content with his good fortune in gaining a position, however menial, in the land’s finest fighting unit, but Shaka was as disconsolate and irritable as ever: ‘There’s a better way to fight. There’s a much better way to organize a regiment than this. If they made me commander for one month …’

  For example, in the great battle against the Mabuwane he was outraged, even though it was judged that he had been the foremost warrior. What happened was a standard battle, which, in Nxumalo’s opinion, the iziCwe regiment had dominated.

  Four hundred of Dingiswayo’s troops marched north in noisy stages, announcing at every stop that they were about to engage the Mabuwane. Two hundred women, children and old men trailed behind, throwing a cloud of dust that could be seen for seven miles. In the meantime, the Mabuwane, who had known for two weeks that a battle was to be fought, had been scouting not the enemy, whose dispositions they always knew, but for a suitable spot on which to fight. One of the major considerations was that on the Mabuwane side at least, and on both sides if at all possible, there be commodious hills from which the audience could watch, and a comfortable and level place on which to place the chief’s chair as he followed the ebb and flow of the battle.

  The Mabuwane did their job well, and an ideal battleground was selected, a kind of pleasant amphitheater with exactly the kind of sloping sides the spectators preferred. When the two armies lined up, there were dances, formations, shouted insults and a good deal of foot-stamping. Then from each side four men moved forward, brandishing their shields and shouting fresh insults. The mothers of the opposing warriors were excoriated, the condition of their cattle, the poor quality of their food, and their known history for cowardice.

  Each warrior carried three assegais, and at maximum distance each threw one that came so far in such good light that the big shields had ample time to deflect them. Unfortunately, one of the Mabuwane warriors shunted a spear aimed at him right onto the foot of one of his own men. It didn’t pierce the foot, but it did bring blood, whereupon the multitude on Shaka’s side cheered wildly. Nxumalo was especially excited, dancing up and down until Shaka, standing beside him, grasped his arm in a terrible grip. ‘Stop that! This isn’t warfare.’

  Then, from a distance almost as great as the first, a second flight of assegais was released, again with no consequences. At this point it was obligatory for the four warriors on each side to run forward and to throw their last spears from a distance of about twenty-five feet. Again they could be fended off easily.

  Now the main bodies of the two armies were required to mingle; however, they did so under carefully understood rules: vast flights of assegais, thrown from far distances so they could be easily deflected, and when both armies were thus disarmed, a fragmentary melee without weapons in which one side pushed a little harder than the other and took a few captives. The observers could readily see which side had won, and when this was determined the other side fled, leaving its cattle to be captured and a few women to be taken home by the victors. Of course, in the scuffling some warriors were injured, and now and then some inept fighter would be killed, but in general the casualties were minimal.

  A convenient feature of such a battle was that when it ended, each side could pick up about as many assegais as it had carried at the beginning, but of course they were not the same ones.

  Disgraceful! Shaka brooded. This is no way to fight. Imagine! And he kicked his right foot in the air, sending his cowhide sandals in a wide arc: Men fighting in sandals. It slows them down. They can’t maneuver. And it was after this fight that he began running up and down hills barefooted, until his feet were tougher than sandals and his breath inexhaustible. He also required Nxumalo to stand in the sun hour after hour, holding a big shield in his left hand, an assegai in his right.

  Forty times, fifty Shaka told Nxumalo, ‘I am your enemy. You must kill me.’ And with a wild leap Shaka sprang forward, bringing the left edge of his shield far to his right. When Nxumalo tried to throw his assegai, as warrors were supposed to do, Shaka suddenly swept his own shield-edge brutally to the left, hooked Nxumalo’s shield and half-spun him around so that the entire left side of his body stood exposed. With one swift lunge, Shaka thrust his spear at Nxumalo’s heart, halting it inches from the skin.

  ‘That’s the way to kill,’ he cried. ‘In close.’

  One afternoon, when he had slain Nxumalo many times, he took his own assegai and in a rage broke the shaft, kicking the halves in the dust. ‘Spears are not the weapons for a fight. We need stabbers.’ And in fury he grabbed Nxumalo’s spear and shattered it, too.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Nxumalo asked.

  ‘So stupid!’ Shaka cried, kicking at the spears. ‘Two armies approach, like this. You throw your first spear. I throw mine. Second spear. Third spear. Then when we have no weapons we rush at each other. It’s madness.’

  Retrieving only the metal points of the two spears, he went with Nxumalo to the best iron forger along the river and asked him whether he could combine these two points into one—a massive, heavy, blunt stabbing sword. The artisan said that might be possible, but where would Shaka find a haft heavy enough for such a spear.

  ‘It’s no longer a spear,’ Shaka said. ‘It’s something quite different.’ And he worked with all the blacksmiths, trying to find the man who could make the terrible weapon he visualized.

  In these days, when the two were still living in mutual exile, Nxumalo noticed several unusual aspects of his friend’s behavior, and once when they talked idly of their possible futures in this alien chiefdom, where warriors were respected but where real warfare was unknown, Nxumalo was goaded into telling Shaka of those obvious curiosities.

  ‘For one thing, you cleanse yourself more than anyone I’ve ever known. Always under the bowl of thrown water.’

  ‘I like to be clean.’

  ‘I think you like to stand naked before the others. To show them that your penis is now big, like theirs.’ Shaka frowned, but said nothing. ‘And with girls, you’re not like the rest of us. You often avoid the pleasures of the road.’

  This was a lovely euphemism for one of the most gracious of the local customs. Since among these clans premarital intercourse was severely forbidden, the habit had evolved of ‘taking the pleasures of the road,’ meaning that youngsters were permitted to reach out for a likely love and take her into the bushes for any imaginable kind of frolic so long as pregnancy did not result. The men in the iziCwe were notorious for their gentle debauches, and none enjoyed them more than Nxumalo, but he had noticed that Shaka was indifferent to this love-play.

  ‘No,’ Shaka said reflectively on this particular day, ‘I am destined to be a king. And it’s perilous for a king to have children. They fight for his throne. When he grows old they kill him.’ He was in his mid-twenties when he said this, and so far as Nxumalo could remember—and he knew this moody warrior better than anyone else—Shaka had never once boasted of his sexual exploits as other young men did. Nxumalo suspected that his friend had never lain with a woman, even though he was six foot three, with no fat about his middle, and the target of many eyes.

  ‘When it’s time to marry,’ Nxumalo predicted, ‘watch out! You’ll be the first.’

  ‘No,’ Shaka said quietly. ‘For me no children.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Nxumalo said, whereupon Shaka gripped him by the shoulder: ‘You say I lie?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Nxumalo replied, brushing his hand away. ‘But you love women more than any man I’ve ever known. Your mother.’

  In a rage so violent that the grass trembled, Shaka leaped up, sought madly for a stone, and would have crushed Nxumalo’s head had not the latter slithered away like a frightened snake.

  ‘Shaka!’ he cried from behind a tree. ‘Put that down!’

  For several moments th
e warrior stood there, gripping the stone till his dark hands showed pale at the knuckles.

  As the routine of army life absorbed them, disclosing no alternatives for the years that loomed, Nxumalo saw with some anxiety that his friend was becoming almost suicidal, dreaming hopelessly of goals he could never attain, and he felt that he must help him assuage this corrosive bitterness: ‘When you said, “One day I’ll be chief”—of what? There’s no chance here. There’s no chance of returning to the Langeni.’

  ‘Oh! Wait!’ Shaka said with fiery determination. ‘One day I will return to the Langeni. There are men there I want to see again.’ And he began to recite the names of the boys who had tormented him in the pastures: ‘Nzobo, Mpepha, Mqalane.’

  ‘You want to become chief of the Langeni?’

  ‘Chief of them?’ He laughed, and began to stride back and forth. ‘I want to be king of a real tribe. And with my men to march upon the Langeni. And ask them about their laughter.’ Suddenly he changed completely and asked Nxumalo, ‘Wouldn’t you like to go back and be chief of the Sixolobo?’

  ‘I don’t even remember them.’

  ‘Don’t you want to meet the men who killed your father?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know them. My father broke a rule. He was executed.’

  ‘But if we could take the iziCwe and march into Langeni land one year, then Sixolobo the next …’ His big hands had their fingers extended and slowly he brought them together. ‘There’s only one clan I want to lead,’ Shaka said. ‘The Zulu.’

  Nxumalo grew grave: ‘You must forget the Zulu. They banished you. Your father hasn’t seen you in years, and he has many other sons. What are the Zulu but a tiny flea compared to this clan?’