by Wilbur Smith
His legs were long and straight under the kilt of black spotted civet tails, and the war-rattles bound about his ankles rustled softly at each pace.
"I come in peace," Ralph called, hearing the catch in his own voice.
"Peace is a word that sits as lightly on the tongue as the sunbird sits upon the open flower, and as lightly does it fly., There was movement beside Ralph, and Bazo came from his bed under the wagon.
"Baba!" Bazo said reverently, and clapped his hands softly at the level of his face. "I see you Baba! The sun has been dark all these years, but now it shines again, my father."
The tall warrior started, took a swift pace forward, and for an instant a wonderful smile bloomed upon the sculptured ebony of his face; then he checked himself, and drew himself up to his full height again, his expression grave, but the feathers of his headdress trembled and there was a light in his tar-bright eyes that he could not extinguish. Still clapping his hands, stooping with respect, Bazo went forward and knelt on one knee.
"Gandang, son of Mzilikazi, your eldest son, Bazo the Axe, brings you the greetings and the duty of his heart."
Gandang looked down at his son, and at that moment nothing else existed for him in all the world.
"Baba, I ask your blessing."
Gandang placed his open hand on the short cropped fleecy cap of the young man's head.
"You have my blessing," he said quietly, but the hand lingered, the gesture of blessing became a caress, and then slowly and reluctantly Gandang withdrew the hand.
"Rise up, my son."
Bazo was as tall as his father, and for a quiet moment they looked steadily into each other's eyes. Then Gandang turned, and flirted his war-shield, a gesture of dismissal, and instantly the still and silent ring of warriors turned their own shields edge on, so that they seemed to fold like a woman's fan, and with miraculous swiftness they split into small platoons and disappeared into the forest.
Within seconds it seemed as though they had never been. Only Gandang and his son still remained at the edge of the camp, and then they too turned and slipped away like two shadows thrown by the moving branches of the mopani trees.
Isazi came out from under the wagon, naked except for the sheath of hollowed gourd covering the head of his penis, and he spat in the fire with a thoughtful and philosophical air.
"Chaka was too soft," he said. "He should have followed the traitor Mzilikazi, and taught him good manners. The Matabele are upstart bastards, with no breeding and less respect."
"Would a Zulu induna have acted that way?" Ralph asked him, as he reached for his shirt.
"No," Isazi admitted. "He would certainly have stabbed us all to death. But he would have done so with greater respect and better manners."
"What do we do now?" Ralph asked.
"We wait," said Isazi. "While that vaunting dandy, who should wear the induna headring not on his forehead but around his neck like the collar of a dog decides what should become of us." Isazi spat in the fire again, this time with contempt. "We may have long to wait, a Matabele thinks at the same speed as a chameleon runs., And he crawled back under the wagon and pulled the kaross over his head.
in the night the cooking fires from the camp of the Matabele impi down the valley glowed amber and russet on the tops of the mopani, and every time the fickle night wind shifted, the deep melodious sound of their singing carried down to Ralph's outspan.
in the grey dawn Bazo appeared again, as silently as he had disappeared.
"My father, Gandang, induna of the Inyati Regiment, summons you to indaba, Henshaw."
Ralph bridled immediately. He could almost hear his father's voice. "Remember always that you are an Englishman, my boy, and as such you are a direct representative of your Queen in this land."
The reply rose swiftly to Ralph's lips: "If he wants to see me, tell him to come to me." But he held the words back.
Gandang was an induna of two thousand, the equivalent of a general. He was a son of an emperor and half brother of a king, the equivalent of an English duke, and this was the soil of Matabeleland on which Ralph was an intruder.
"Tell your father I will come directly., And he went to fetch a fresh shirt and the spare pair of boots, which he had taught Umfaan to polish.
"You are Henshaw, the son of Bakela," Gandang sat on a low stool, intricately carved from a single piece of ebony. Ralph had been offered no seat, and he squatted down on his heels. "And Bakela is a man." Arid there was a murmur of assent and a rustle of plumes as the massed ranks of warriors about them stirred.
"Tshedi is your great-grandfather, and in the king's name has given you the road to Gubulawayo. Tshedi has the right to do so, for he is Lobengula's friend and he was Mzilikazi's friend before that."
Ralph made no reply. He realized that these statements about his great-grandfather, old Doctor Moffat, whose Matabele name was Tshedi, were for the waiting warriors rather than for himself. Gandang was explaining his decision to his impi.
"But for what reason do you take the road to the king's kraal?"
"I come to see this fair land of which my father has told me."
"Is that all?" Gandang asked.
"No, I come also to trade, and if the king is kind enough to give me his word, then I wish to hunt the elephant."
Gandang did not smile, but there was a sparkle in his dark eyes. "It is not for me to ask which you desire most, Henshaw. The view from a hilltop, or a wagonload of ivory."
Ralph suppressed his own smile, and remained silent.
"Tell me, son of Bakela, what goods do you bring with you to trade?"
"I have twenty bales of the finest beads and cloth."
Gandang made a gesture of disinterest. "Women's fripperies," he said.
"I have fifty cases of liquor, of the kind preferred by King Lobengula and his royal sister Ningi."
This time the line of Gandang's mouth thinned and hardened. "If it were my word on it, I would force those fifty cases of poison down your own throat." His voice was almost a whisper, but then he spoke again in a natural tone. "Yet Lobengula, the Great Elephant, will welcome your load., And then he was silent and yet expectant. Ralph realized that Bazo would have reported to his father every detail of his little caravan.
"I have guns," he said simply, and suddenly there was an intense hunger in Gandang's expression. His eyes narrowed slightly and his lips parted.
"Sting the mamba with his own venom," he whispered, and beside him Bazo started. It was the Umlimo's prophecy that his father had repeated, and he wondered that Gandang could have uttered it in the presence of one who was not Matabele.
"I do not understand," Ralph said.
"No matter." Gandang waved it away with a graceful pink-palmed hand. "Tell me, Henshaw. Are these guns of yours of the kind that swallow a round ball through the mouth and place the life of the man that fires them in more danger than the man who stands in front?"
Ralph smiled at the description of the ancient trade muskets, many of which had survived Wellington's Iberian campaign and some of which had seen action at Bull Run and Gettysburg before being shipped out to Africa in trade; the barrel worn paper thin, the priming pan and hammer mechanism so badly abused that each shot fired threatened to tear the head off any marksman bold enough to press the trigger.
"These guns are the finest," he replied.
"With twisting snakes in the barrel?" Gandang asked, and it took Ralph a moment to recognize the allusion to the rifling in the barrel.
He nodded. "And the barrel opens to take the bullet."
"Bring me one of these guns," Gandang ordered.
"The price of each is one large tusk of ivory," Ralph told him, and Gandang stared at him impassively for a moment longer. Then he smiled for the first time, but the smile was sharp as the edge of his stabbing spear.
"Now," he said. "I truly believe that you have come to Matabeleland to see how tall stand the trees."
"I am leaving you now, Henshaw," Bazo said, without lifting his eyes fr
om the thick yellow tusk that he had brought from his father in payment for the rifle.
"We knew it was not for ever," Ralph answered him.
"The bond between us is for ever," Bazo replied, "but now I must go to join my regiment. My father will leave ten of his men to escort and guide you to Gubulawayo where King Lobengula awaits you."
"Is Lobengula. not at Thabas Indunas, the Hills of the Chiefs?" Ralph asked.
"It is the same kraal, in the days of Mzilikazi it was Thabas Indunas, but now Lobengula has changed the name to Gubulawayo, the Place of Killing."
"I see," Ralph nodded, and then waited for it was clear that Bazo had more to say.
"Henshaw. You did not hear me say this, but the ten warriors who will go with you to the king's kraal are not only for your protection. Do not look too closely at the stones and rocks along the road, and do not dig a hole, even to bury your own excrement, else Lobengula will hear of it and believe that you are searching for the shiny pebbles and yellow metal. That is death."
"I understand."
"Henshaw, while you are in Matabeleland, give up your habit of travelling at night. Only magicians and sorcerers go abroad in the darkness, mounted on the backs of the hyena. The king will hear of it, and that is death."
"Yes."
"Do not hunt the hipopotamus. They are the king's beasts. To kill one, is death."
"I understand., "When you enter the presence of the king, be sure that your head is always below that of the Great Elephant, even if You must crawl on your belly., "You have told me this already."
"I will tell you again" Bazo nodded. "And I will tell you once more that the maidens of Matabeleland are the most beautiful in all the world. They light a raging fire in a man's loins, but to take one of them without the king's word is death for both man and maiden."
For an hour they squatted opposite each other, casionally taking a little snuff or passing one of Ralph's cheap black cheroots back and forth, but always with Bazo talking and Ralph listening.
Bazo spoke quietly, insistently, reciting the names of the most powerful indunas, the governors of each of atabeleland's military provinces, listing those who had M the king's ear and should be treated with care, explaining how a man should conduct himself so as not to give offence, advising how much tribute each would ask and finally accept, trying to give it all to Ralph in these last minutes, and then finally glancing up at the sky.
"It is time." He stood. "Go in peace, Henshaw." And he walked out of Ralph's camp without looking back.
As Ralph's wagon, with its escort of warriors, climbed out of the low veld, so the heat abated. The air was so sweet and clean that it made Ralph feel as though the blood sparkled and fizzed in his veins.
Isazi was infected by the same elation. He composed new verses to sing to his bullocks, lauding their strength and beauty, and occasionally he slipped in a reference to a "feathered baboon" or some other fanciful and unlovely creature, while rolling his eyes significantly in the direction of the bodyguard of Matabele warriors that preceded the wagon.
The forests thinned as they climbed, becoming open woodlands of shapely mimosa trees, the paper-thin bark peeling away to reveal the clear smooth underbark, and the branches loaded with the fluffy yellow flower heads.
The grass cloaked the undulating earth, thick and sweet, so that the bullocks fleshed out after the enervating heat of the lowlands, and they stepped out with a new will against the yoke.
This was cattle country, the heartland of the Matabele, and they began to encounter the herds. Huge assemblies of multi-coloured animals, red and white and black and all the combinations of those colours. Smaller than the big Cape bullocks, but sturdy and agile as wild game, the bulls with the hump and heavy dewlap of their Egyptian forebears.
Isazi looked at them covetously, and came back to Ralph at the forewheel of the wagon to say: "Such were the herds of Zululand, before the soldiers came."
"There must be hundreds of thousands, and they would be worth twenty pounds a head."
"Will you never learn, Little Hawk." Isazi still returned to the diminutive when one of Ralph's stupidities exasperated him. "A man cannot place a value on a fine breeding cow or a beautiful woman in little round coins."
"Yet, as a Zulu you pay for a Wife."
"Yes, Little Hawk." Isazi's voice was weary with Ralph's obtuse arguments. "A Zulu pays for a wife; but he pays in cattle, not in coin, which is what I have been telling you all along." And he ended the discussion with a thunderous clap of his long trek whip.
Small family kraals dotted the wide savannabs, each built around its own cattle stockade and fortified against predators, or against marauders. As they passed the settlements of thatched beehive-shaped huts, the little naked herd boys scampered to alert the kraals, and then the women came out, bare-legged and naked-breasted, balancing the clay pots and hollowed gourds upon their heads, an exercise that gave them a stately dignity of movement.
Then Ralph's bodyguard of warriors from Gandang's regiment paused to refresh themselves on the tart and bubbling millet beer or on the delicious soured milk, thick as yoghurt. The young women examined Ralph With bold and curious eyes. Totally unaware that he spoke the language, they speculated about him in such ntimate terms that his ears turned bright red, and he challenged them: "It is easy to speak the lion's name and question his size and his strength when he is hidden in the long grass, but will you be so brave when he raises himself in his rage to confront you face to face?"
The silence, stunned and incredulous, lasted only a second, then they covered their mouths and shrieked with delighted laughter, before the bravest came to wheedle coquettishly for a strip of ribbon or a handful of pretty beads.
As they drew closer to the stronghold of Lobengula, so they passed the great regimental kraals. Each of them was fifty miles from its neighbours, a day's travel at the rate of a marching impi, the ground-devouring trot that they could maintain for hour after hour.
Here there was no exchange of greeting and banter.
The warriors came swarming from the kraal like bees from a disturbed hive, and they lined each side of the track and settled into a deathly stillness, watching Ralph's wagon pass in total silence. There was a blankness in their eyes, the inscrutable gaze wich the lion watches his prey before he begins the stalk.
Ralph passed between the massed ranks at a measured walk, sitting very upright on Tom's back, without deigning to glance left or right at the silent menacing ranks; but when they had passed out into the open grasslands again, his shirt was wet under the arms and between his shoulder blades, and there was a catch in his breathing and a chill in the pit of his belly.
The Khami was one of the last wide rivers to cross before reaching the king's kraal at Gubulawayo.
As soon as Ralph saw the denser and greener growth of mimosa trees that marked the river course, he threw the saddle on Tom's back and trotted ahead to survey the drift.
Ports had been cut into the steep sides of the river banks to enable a wagon to enter the watercourse, and the sandbank between two tranquil green pools had been corduroyed with carefully selected branches, cut to length and laid side by side across the softer going to prevent the narrow ironshod wheels from sinking.
Whoever had travelled this road ahead of Ralph had saved him a great deal of trouble. Ralph knee-haltered Tom on a patch of good grass and went down into the riverbed to check the crossing. It was obviously many months since the last wagon had crossed, and Ralph worked his way slowly over the corduroyed pathway, repairing the damage that time had wrought, kicking the dried branches back into place and refilling the hollows scooped by water and wind beneath them.
It was furnace-hot in the riverbed and the white sand bounced the sun's rays back at him so that by the time he reached the far bank he was sweating heavily, and he threw himself down in the shade of one of the trees and wiped his face and arms with his scarf moistened in the waters of the river pool.
Quite suddenly he was aware of being watc
hed, and he scrambled quickly to his feet. There was someone standing on the bank above him at the head of the roadway.
With a shock of disbelief, he realized that it was a girl a white girl, and she was dressed all in white: a loose cotton shift that reached to her ankle just above her bare feet. It was caught in at the waist with a ribbon of blue, and she was so slim that Ralph felt he could lift her with one hand.
The dress was buttoned with mother of pearl to the throat and the sleeves reached to her elbows; but the cotton had been washed, ironed and bleached so often that it seemed to have less substance than gossamer, and the light was behind her.
Ralph could clearly see the outline of her legs under the skirt, and it shocked him again so his breathing tripped. Her legs were long and so delicately shaped that he had to exercise his will to tear his eyes from them. With his heart still pounding he looked at her face.
It was pale as bone china, and seemed almost translucent, so that he thought he could see the sheen of fragile bone beneath the skin.
Her hair was pale shining silver blond, brushed into a fine cascade that flowed over her shoulders, and shimmered and shook with each breath that lifted the tiny girlish breasts under the thin cotton.
There were flowers on her brow, and a garland of them over her shoulders and about the brim of the wide straw hat that she held in her hands at the level of her narrow hips, and Ralph felt a sense of unreality. The flowers were roses. The girl and the flowers seemed not to belong in this wilderness but in some gentle and cultivated English garden.
She came down the cutting; her bare feet were silent and seemed to glide over the sandy earth. Her eyes were huge and luminous blue in her pale face, and she was smiling. It was the sweetest smile that Ralph had ever seen, and yet it was neither shy nor simpering.
While Ralph still stood, self-conscious and gawking, the girl lifted her slim smooth arms and stood on tiptoe to kiss him full upon the mouth. Her lips were cool and soft, delicate as the roses petals at her brow.