Shaka the Great (76 page)

(Now, if you don't mind, he has some breasts to get back to … He must remember to find out the girl's name, hmm, yes.)

Mbopa? Her eyes seek out the prime minister. What does he really think? Not just about all of this, but of Shaka's shocking betrayal of his loyalty. Starting with his very life, the old cannibal owes Shaka a lot, though he's repaid the King many times over, in the role of diplomat, chamberlain, adviser, strategist. Yet see what Shaka has done. Pampata has told her of the King's anguish, but how does that compare with Mbopa's? “He didn't know she would be there,” she's told Mnkabayi, on numerous occasions—probably after each time his disgraceful deed came back to haunt Shaka, and he'd turned to his beloved, knowing that his justifications would be met with soothing caresses and tender kisses.

He didn't know.
Hai, that's like a man who, unprovoked (and unthinkingly), slaughters another's herd, then apologizes when he learns the man's best cow was among the herd, claiming, in effect, that he didn't mean to kill that cow. For how does that ameliorate the fact that he set out to slaughter the herd in the first place?

Mbopa. She wishes she could shake him, shake him like a tree until something drops out. Until she gets some inkling of how he feels, where he stands, whose side he might take …

But he's like a sandstorm, his feelings well hidden.

Mnkabayi shifts her attention to her induna. She's missed his counsel. Both she and Ndlela have duties and obligations during this time—and part of Mnkabayi still hopes she can take Nandi's place in Shaka's eyes—but she knows the pair of them will need to find a chance to speak. And soon.

He still has to consult his sangoma—a wise, wise old man who is probably even more powerful than the Lion and Nobela put together, but who has escaped Shaka's wrath because he is a hermit who prefers to concentrate on honing his own abilities. But, all the same, that's where Ndlela intends to start his search: on the ridge. And as soon as he can slip away unnoticed. Which may not be for a while, what with tomorrow requiring his constant presence as well.

Also, it won't simply be a matter of finding the hiding place and
putting the zombie out of its misery. The place will have to be watched, so he can see who else is involved.

Ndlela wonders if he should take the Induna into his confidence, but decides it's too early. If Mnkabayi's somehow involved, he can't put the Induna in a position where he has to choose between her and Shaka. Mnkabayi would never forgive him. If her old friend and retainer traced the spoor back to herself, she wouldn't think to accuse him of betrayal, or ask for mercy, or even a chance to flee. Instead, Mnkabayi would bare her breast to his blade, and would want Ndlela to be the one to deliver the killing blow. But she would never forgive him, indeed would die cursing him, if he did that to the Induna, and placed him in such an invidious predicament.

Since the Induna is about the only one he would want to take into his confidence, Ndlela will wait and see. And, if Mnkabayi isn't involved, well then …

The main party of White Men arrived last night, to be greeted by Mbopa, as Shaka was in seclusion with his inyangas. They comprise Farewell and his Dutch business partners, and King and his party—who are to be considered as separate entities, given King's underhand tactics back at the Cape and the moderate success he's had in charming Shaka. He and Nathaniel Isaacs and the others are only tolerated because members from the visiting side tend to stick together when the home team outnumbers them by something like five thousand to one. King's “reinforcements,” such as they are, also mean they have been able to leave a stronger contingent behind to guard the settlement at Port Natal. There, Mrs. Farewell has been tasked with keeping an eye on Jakot. Not that the Swimmer has any intention of leaving the bay just now.

Fynn, meanwhile, seems to have reached KwaBulawayo a few days before the others, for in his journal, written closer to the time of the events described in the (published)
Diary
, he tells of encountering “groups of warriors marching to the King's place, dressed in their best. Out of gorges and river beds, emerging from thickets and
mountain passes, they came—formidable fellows singing their war songs.” Their destination was, of course, Shaka's Komkhulu, or Great Place. Fynn mentions a continuous “roar and hum” of voices in the distance, and then seeing “temporary huts of green branches” being erected in the veld around Bulawayo. “Late into the night they'd sit around their campfires telling old stories and singing songs …”

Now, on the first day of the climax of the First Fruits, he turns his attention away from Shaka in order to watch as the praise singers retire, hoarse and close to collapse.

After a brief pause, a bull is herded into one the smaller kraals within the cattlefold. “There, with the eyes of the King and the army on them, a group of unarmed youngsters fought the bull,” writes Fynn in his journal. “I later learned the group was comprised solely of unmarried men, as they are believed to be ‘pure,' whereas married men are deemed ‘impure.' It was clearly a great honor to be chosen to fight the bull and these men went to it with gusto.” Several were injured, Fynn tells us, but that had no effect on the “enthusiasm of the others.” He admits he couldn't see exactly how the bull met its end. When the creature started to show exhaustion—or possibly had gored enough unmarried men—an inyanga entered the kraal, carrying a spear. The remaining warriors then threw themselves on the beast, bringing it down—“and I couldn't tell whether they broke its neck or whether the
coup de grâce
was delivered by the spearman,” writes Fynn.

The carcass is carried before Shaka. The inyangas skin the animal and remove the gall bladder. Then strips of meat are cut off the carcass. These are thrown on a fire made in the old way, by rubbing sticks together. When the meat has blackened, a strip is removed, dipped into a pot containing a watery medicine, and presented to Shaka. He bites into it and sucks out the juices, thereby absorbing the strength and courage of the bull.

The indunas leave the ranks and move forward to form two lines of three men abreast, so it's as if they become the horns of
the regiments. Each officer receives a strip of meat covered in muthi …

… she sees him and, momentarily, everything else is forgotten. And if her eyes admire his broad shoulders, his narrow waist, his muscular thighs, the yearning to hear his voice, to sit and listen to him, to prepare his food and bring it to him, to watch him eat … that yearning crushes her chest like the jaws of a hippo.

Back with his own section in his regiment, the officer bites off a small piece of meat, sucks out the juices, then throws the strip into the air. The warrior who catches it bites off a small piece, sucks out the juices, and passes the meat to the next man.

And so the process is repeated, as the army thus doctors itself, taking in the power of the bull, for the Umkhosi is also the time when the amabutho are fortified and strengthened.

While this is going on, other inyangas have been busy collecting the horns, bones, skin and offal—in fact everything that remains of the bull. Even the blood is scraped off the ground. These are all placed on a larger pile of wood specially prepared for this purpose, and set on fire. The ash will be placed in a large pot, for use later in the ceremony.

No trace of the bull must be left behind, as even the smallest part of it can be lethal to the King if it falls into the wrong hands.