Wilbur Smith - B3 The Angels Weep

by B3 The Angels Weep(Lit)

  "She is eager to do so. It is her own prophecy that she must cross the great waters before the spears of the nation prevail."

  Tungata made an impatient gesture, and Leila St. John interpreted it.

  "You do not set any store by the Umlimo, and her predictions, do you, Comrade?" "Do you, Doctor?" he asked.

  "There are areas which our sciences have not yet penetrated.

  She is an extraordinary woman. I don't say I believe everything about her, but I am aware of a force within her." "It is our estimate that she will be extremely valuable as a propaganda weapon. The great majority of our people are still uneducated and superstitious. You still have not answered my question, Doctor. Can she travel?" "I think she can. I have prepared medications for her to take on the journey.

  I have also made out medical certificates, which should'e sufficient to see her safely through any security checks as far as the border with Zambia. I will provide one of my best medical orderlies, a black male nurse, to travel with her. I would go myself, but it would attract too much attention." Tungata was silent for a long time, his hard handsome features rapt in thought. He had such a presence of command and authority that Leila found herself waiting almost timidly for his next words, eager to respond whether they were command or question.

  However, when he spoke, it was to muse softly. "The woman is as valuable dead as alive, and dead she would be easier to handle, I presume you could preserve her body in formaldehyde or something of that nature." Despite herself, Leila was shocked, and yet strangely awed by the ruthlessness, excited by the man's deadly resolve.

  "I pray that won't be necessary," she whispered, staring at him.

  She had never met a man like this.

  "I will see her first, then I will decide," Tungata said quietly.

  "I wish to do so immediately." There were three weird crones squatting outside the door of the private, ward on the top floor in the south wing of the hospital. They were dressed in the dried skins of wild cat and jackal and python, and hung about the neck and waist with bottles and gourds and stoppered buckhoms, with dried goat-bladders and bone rattles, with phials and the leather bags that contained their divining bones.

  "These are the old woman's followers," Leila St. John explained, "they will not leave her." "They will," said Tungata softly, "when I decide that they will One of them hopped towards him, whining and snivelling, reaching out to touch his leg with filth-encrusted fingers, and Tungata spurned her aside with his foot, and opened the door to the private ward. He went in, and Leila followed him and closed the door behind them. It was a small room with bare tiled floor and the walls were painted with a white gloss paint. There was a bedside locker with a stainlm-steel tiny of medicines and instruments upon it. The bed was on castors with an adjustable handle and screw at the foot. The head of the bed-frame was raised and the frail figure under the single sheet seemed no larger than a child. There was the glass bowl of a drip suspended above the bed, and a transparent plastic tube snaked down from it.

  The Umlimo was asleep. Her un pigmented skin was a dusty pinkish grey, crusted with dark scabs that extended up over the pale bald scalp. The skin that covered her skull was so thin and fragile that the bone seemed to shine through it like a water-worn pebble beneath the surface of a mountain stream, but from her brow down to the edge of the white sheet beneath her chin, the skin was impossibly wrinkled and folded, like that of some prehistoric relic from the age of the great reptiles. Her mouth was open, the scabbed lips trembled with each breath, and there was a single yellow worn tooth left in the desiccated grey gums. She opened her eyes. They were pink as those of a white rabbit, sunk deeply in folds of grey skin, swimming in their own gummy mucus.

  "Greetings, old Mother." Leila went to her and touched the age-ravaged cheek. "I have a visitor for you," she said in perfect Sindebele.

  The old woman made a small keening sound in her throat, and she began to shake, her entire body taken by convulsions, as she stared at Tungata.

  "Calm yourself, old Mother." Leila was concerned. "He will not harm you." The old woman lifted one arm from under the sheet. it was skeletal, the elbow-joint enlarged "and distorted by arthritic processes, the hand was a claw, with lumpy knuckles and twisted fingers. She pointed them at Tungata.

  "Son of kings," she wailed her voice surprisingly clear and strong, "father of kings. king that will be, when the falcons return.

  Bayete, he that will be king, Bayete!" It was a royal salute, and Tungata went rigid with shock. His own skin-tone changed to dark grey, and little blisters of sweat burst out upon his brow. Leila St. John fell back until she was against the wall. She stared at the frail old woman in the high steel bed. Spittle frothed on the thin scabbed lips, and the pink eyes rolled back into the ancient skull, yet the wailing voice rose higher.

  "The falcons have flown afar. There will be no peace in the kingdoms of the Mambos or the Monomatopas until they return. He who brings the stone falcons back to roost shall rule the kingdoms." Her voice rose to a shriek. "Bayete, Nkosi nkulu. Hail, Mambo. Live for ever, Monomatopa." The Umlimo greeted Tungata with all the titles of the ancient rulers, and then collapsed against the soft white pillows.

  Leila hurried back to her side, and placed her fingers over the sticklike wrist.

  "She's all right," she said after a moment, and looked up at Tungata. "What do you want me to do?" He shook himself like a man awakening from deep sleep, and with the sleeve of his white coat, wiped the icy sweat of superstitious dread from his forehead.

  "Look after her well. Make sure she is ready to leave by morning. We will take her north across the great river," he said.

  Leila St. John backed up her small Fiat into the ambulance bay beside the casualty department, and screened from curious eyes, Tungata slipped through the back door and crouched down between the seats.

  Leila spread a mohair travelling-rug over him and drove down to the main gates. She spoke briefly to one of the guards, and then swung the Fiat onto the branch road that led to the superintendent's residence.

  She spoke without looking back or moving her lips.

  "No sign of security forces, not yet. It looks as though your arrival has gone unnoticed, but we will take no chances." She parked in the lean-to garage which had been added to the old stone-walled building, and while she unloaded her valise and a pile of files from the seat, she made certain they were still not observed. The garden was screened from the road and the thatched church by trellised creepers and -flowering shrubs.

  She opened the side door to the house, and said, "Please keep low, and go in as quickly as you can." He ducked out of the Fiat, and she followed him into the living-room. The shutters and curtains were drawn and it was half-dark.

  "My grandmother built this house after the original was burned down during the 1896 troubles. Fortunately she took precautions against the troubles of the future." Leila crossed the floor of sawn Rhodesian teak, the highly polished surface of which was strewn with tanned animal skins and hand-woven rugs in bold patterns and primary colours.

  She entered the walk-in stone fireplace and drew aside the black grate. The floor of the fireplace was of slate flags, and she used the fire irons to prise and lift one of these. When Tungata stepped up beside her, he saw that she had exposed a square vertical shaft, into one wall of which were set stone steps.

  "This was where Comrade Tebe was hiding that night?" Tungata asked. When the Scouts, the kanka, could not find him?" "Yes, he was here. It would be best if you went down now." He dropped nimbly down the shaft and found himself in darkness. Leila closed the slate hatch and came down beside him. She groped along the wall and turned a switch. A bare electric bulb lit on the roof of the tiny stone cell.

  There was a deal table on which were stacked a few well-thumbed books, pushed beneath it was a low stool and there was a narrow truckle-bed against the far wall. A chemical toilet stood at its foot.

  "Not very comfortable," she apologized. "But nobody will find you here." "I have
had less luxurious accommodation," he assured her. "Now let us go over your arrangements." She had the medical certificates ready on the table, and she sat on the stool and wrote down his requirements for the transportation of the Umlimo as he dictated them.

  When she had finished, he said, "Memorize that and destroy it."

  "Very well." He watched while she went over the list carefully and then looked up.

  "Now, there is a message for you to take to Comrade Inkunzi,"she said. "It is from our friend in high places." "Give it to me,"he nodded.

  "Ballantyne's Scouts, the kanka, they are planning a special operation. It is to destroy Comrade Inkunzi and his staff. Your own name is high on their list." Tungata's expression did not change.

  "Do you have any details of their plans?" "All the details," she assured him. "This is what they will do-" She spoke slowly and deliberately for almost ten minutes, and he did not interrupt her.

  Even when she had finished, he was silent for many minutes, lying flat on his back on the bed, staring up at the electric bulb. Then she saw that his jaws clenched and that a smoky red tide seemed to have spread over his eyeballs. His voice, when he spoke, was thick with loathing.

  "Colonel Roland Ballantyne. If we could get him! He is responsible for the deaths of over three thousand of our people he and his kanka. In the camps they speak his name in whispers, as though he were some sort of demon. His name alone turns our bravest men to cowards. I have seen him and his butchers at work. Oh, if we could only take him." He sat up and glared at her. Perhaps. His voice was choked and slurred as though he was drunk with hatred. "Perhaps this is our chance." He reached out and took Leila by the shoulders. His fingers dug deeply into her flesh and she winced and tried to draw away. He held her without effort.

  "This woman of his. You say that she will fly from the Victoria Falls? Can you get me the date, the number of the flight, the exact time?" She nodded, afraid of him now, terrified by his strength and fury.

  "We have somebody in the airway booking-office," she whispered, no longer trying to escape the agony of his grip. "I can get it for you."

  "The bait," he said, "the tender lamb that will lure the leopard into the trap." She brought him food and drink down the stone shaft and waited while Tungata ate.

  For a while he ate in silence, then abruptly he returned to the subject of the Umlimo.

  "The stone falcons, he started, "you heard what the old woman said?" She nodded and he went on, "Tell me what you know of these things." "Well, the stone falcons are the emblem on the flag. They are minted on the coinage of this country." "Yes, go on." "They are ancient carvings of bird figures. They were discovered in the ruins of Zimbabwe by the early white adventurers, and stolen by them. There is a legend that Lobengula tried to prevent them, but they were taken south." "Where are they now?"Tungata demanded.

  "One of them was destroyed by fire when Cecil Rhodes" house at Groote Schuur was burned down, but the others, I'm not absolutely certain, but I think they are at Cape Town in South Africa."

  "Whereabouts?" "In the museum, there." He grunted and went on eating steadily. When the bowl and mug were empty he pushed them aside and stared at her again with those smoky eyes.

  "The words of the old woman, "he began and then paused. "The prophecy of the Umlimo," she went on for him, "that the man who returned the falcons would rule this land, and that you were that man."

  "You will tell nobody what she said do you understand me?" (I will tell nobody, "she promised.

  "You know that if you do, I will kill you." "I know that," she said simply, and gathered the bowl and mug and replaced them on the tray.

  She stood before him waiting, and when he did not speak again, she asked, "Is there anything else?" He went on staring at her, and she dropped her eyes. "Do you wish me to stay?" "Yes,"he said, and she turned to the light switch.

  "Leave the light," he ordered. "I want to see your whiteness."

  The first time she cried out, it was in fear and pain, the second time and the uncounted times after that was in mindless, incoherent transports of ecstasy.

  Douglas Ballantyne had selected a dozen of the finest slaughter-beasts from the herds of King's Lynn and Queen's Lynn. The prime carcasses had hung in the cold room for three weeks until they were perfect. They were being barbecued whole on the open coal pits at the bottom of the gardens. The kitchen servants of Queen's Lynn worked in relays, turning the spits and basting the sizzling golden carcasses amidst clouds of fragrant steam.

  There were three bands to provide continuous music. The caterers had been flown in with all their equipment from Johannesburg, and paid suitable danger-money for entering the war zone. The gardens of every homestead for fifty miles around had been ransacked for flowers and the marquees were filled with banks of floral decorations, of roses and poinsettia and dahlia in fifty blazing shades of colour.

  Bawu Ballantyne had chartered a special aircraft to bring the liquor up from South Africa. There was a little over four tons" weight of fine wines and spirits. After searching his political conscience, Bawu had even decided to suspend his personal sanctions against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland for the duration of the wedding festivities, and had included one hundred case's of Chivas Regal whisky in the shipment. This was his most valuable contribution to the preparations, but there had been others.

  He had transferred some of his most potent and cherished Claymore mines across from the King's Lynn de fences and added them to the decorations in the Queen's Lynn gardens.

  "You can never be too careful," he explained darkly, when taxed with it. "If there is a terr attack during the ceremony-" He made the motion of pressing a button, and the entire family shuddered at the thought of a mushroom-shaped cloud hanging over Queen's Lynn. It had taken all their combined powers of persuasion to get him to remove his pets.

  He had then sneaked into the kitchens and added an extra six bottles of brandy to the mix for the wedding cake. Fortunately Valerie had made a final tasting and when she got her breath back, ordered the chef to bury it and start a new batch. From then on Bawu was banned from the kitchens in disgrace, and Douglas had drawn up a roster of family members to keep him under surveillance during the great day.

  Craig had the first shift from nine in the morning when the two thousand invited guests started arriving until eleven when Craig would hand over to a cousin and assume his other duties as Roland's best man.

  Craig had helped the old man dress in his uniform from the Kaiser's war. A local tailor had been brought out to King's Lynn to make the alterations, and the results' were surprising. Bawu looked dapper and spry with his Sam Browne belt and swagger stick and the double row of coloured ribbons on his chest.

  Craig was proud of him as he took up his position on the front veranda, and looked over the crowded lawns, lifting his swagger-stick in acknowledgement of the affectionate cries of "Hello, Uncle Bawu', brushing out his gleaming silver moustaches and tipping the peak of his cap at a more debonair angle over one eye.

  "Damn me, boy," he told Craig. "This whole business makes me feel quite romantic again. I haven't been married myself for nearly twenty years. I have a good mind to give it one last whirl." "There is always the widow Angus," Craig suggested, and his grandfather was outraged.

  "That old crow!" "Bawu, she is rich and only fifty." "That's old, boy. Catch "em young and train "em well. That's my motto." Bawu winked at him. "Now how about that one?" His choice was twenty-five years old, twice divorced already, wearing an unfashionable mini-skirt and casting a bold eye about her.

  "You can introduce me." Bawu gave his magnanimous permission. -I, think the prime minister wants to see you, Bawu." Craig searched desperately for a distraction, before the pert little bottom under the mini-skirt was soundly pinched. Craig had seen the old man flirting before. He left Bawu, gin and tonic in hand, giving Ian Smith a few tips on international diplomacy.

  "You have to remember that these fellows, Callaghan and his friends, are working class,
Ian, my boy, you cannot treat them like gentlemen. They wouldn't understand that-" And the prime minister, worn and tired and wan with his responsibilities, one eyelid drooping, his curly sandy hair receding, tried to hide his smile as he nodded.

  "Quite right, Uncle Bawu, I'll remember that." Craig felt safe to leave him for ten minutes, sure that the old man's opinions of the British Labour government were good for at least that long, and he made his way swiftly through the crowds to where Janine's parents stood with a small group at the end of the veranda.

  He insinuated himself unobtrusively into the circle, and studied Janine's mother out of the corner of his eye. It gave him a hollow aching feeling to recognize the same features, the jawline and deep forehead blurred only marginally by the passage of time. She had the same slanted eyes with the same appealing cat-like cast to them. She caught his gaze and smiled at him.