Little Suns (21 page)

‘The boys crept up on the old man while he slept and held him by the leg. And tickled the soles of his feet. He couldn’t resist laughing, and while he laughed and laughed, they kept their own laughter in their mouths, for they had been warned not to laugh. They spun him around and tossed him into the sky, where he remained spinning around and around and around with the sun forever peeking out of his armpit. The first people all sat outside awaiting the first dawn. The day broke, the sun shone, the world was covered in warmth. Everybody congratulated the boys for banishing the darkness. Only then could the laughter burst out of their mouths.’

He stands and laughs and dances in his shaky manner as he remembers her ‘try and better that one’ little dance after telling that part of the story. It is as vivid in his mind as if it was only an hour ago.

Mthwakazi continued her story: ‘But that’s not the end of it. Not everyone was happy. The sun found that she was not alone in the sky. The moon was there and was jealous that someone was trespassing on her territory. She attacked the sun, but the sun fought back. The sun cut the moon with a knife, leaving only the moon’s backbone for the sake of her children. Every time the moon grows the sun cuts her with a knife again.’

And then Mthwakazi giggled and tried to cut Malangana with an imaginary knife; Malangana jumped out of the way causing Mthwakazi to trip on her dress. She rolled on the ground which he found utterly hilarious. He let her roll down a slope for a while before running after her. She was stopped by a boulder and he was worried that she could be hurt. But she was tough and boasted that she was not moulded from the soft Mpondomise clay.

Malangana takes this road very slowly. He has no choice in his condition. But the past keeps him company. He savours the memory for that is all he has for now, until he finds Mthwakazi. His hope has been reignited. It had ebbed in the two months at Tsolo. Thanks to the blind former diviner the
umkhondo
on this road is stronger and fresher as he relives the stories of that walk.

People meet him on the road and look at him curiously. He does not seem to see them. He is too self-absorbed. Some think he is mad for occasionally he talks to himself. He responds quickly and absent-mindedly to those who care to greet him, for they have interrupted something compelling into which his mind has been transported.

When it was his turn to tell a story he remembers that he was still proud of the flames they had just left behind in Qumbu. Mhlontlo had shown his mettle. Many people, including Malangana himself, had forgotten just how much of a hero he had been in the past. As a king he had become mild and accommodating of the white man. So when he became resolute and led the war so bravely they said:
‘Ewe, nguye kanye uMhlontlo esimaziyo esakhula ke lo.’ Yes, this is the Mhlontlo we remember as a youth!

Malangana remembers how he told Mthwakazi Mhlontlo’s story of heroism when he was still an
umkhwetha
, a pupil in an initiation and circumcision school. It was during the rule of the regent Mbali after the death of Mhlontlo’s father Matiwane. Mbali was reputed to be a weak ruler and during his time amaMpondomise were always in danger of being conquered by other nations. His rule was reminiscent of Mhlontlo’s grandfather, Myeki, who was remembered for being weak and cowardly.

The story is always told of how the land of amaMpondomise was invaded by amaBhaca when Mhlontlo was in the school of the mountain being initiated into manhood. He was actually going through the circumcision ritual when amaBhaca soldiers attacked the initiates at the school and killed some. amaBhaca were led by Makhawula, the son of Ncayaphi – the very Ncayaphi whose wife, MamJuxu, had been given refuge by the regent Mbali in the land of amaMpondomise and granted the whole of what is Mount Frere District today for her and her people to settle after Ncayaphi was killed by Faku of amaMpondo. Now his son had turned against the hand that fed him and his mother and was attacking his erstwhile benefactors at the moment of their weakness.

Malangana remembers how Mthwakazi’s eyes were all agog at this saga. He also remembers how impressed he was with her because most amaMpondomise girls of her age in those days were not interested in stories of war and statecraft.

He recalls how he acted out some of these events, which prolonged their walk to Sulenkama. Sometimes Mthwakazi became a prop of war to her shrieking pleasure or dismay depending on whether victory or defeat was the outcome.

The amaBhaca had reinforcements from many other smaller wandering groups including stray Basotho clans under Serunyana and Lipina. When they besieged the land of amaMpondomise the regent Mbali said, ‘We cannot fight such a formidable force. Let us surrender. Let us take out all our cattle and parade them in the open so that they can capture them. Then they will leave us alone and not kill us.’

But Mhlontlo would have none of that. He and his fellow
abakhwetha
rallied the men to fight against amaBhaca. Mbali thought he was mad. He ordered that he be tied up with rope and that the cattle should be released at once. But Mhlontlo’s fellow initiates untied him. Using smoke and forest fires in a strategic manner Mhlontlo led amaMpondomise in a number of battles in Qumbu and Makhawula’s forces were decimated. ‘Kill them all,’ he said. ‘Do not come back here until they are all dead.’

‘Mhlontlo said that?’ Malangana remembers Mthwakazi asking incredulously.

‘Yes,’ he remembers answering. ‘He was merciless in those days. Not like today when he says we should let the white people go free. He was only a boy, an initiate, and yet he saved his people and their cattle. But, you know, even then when Makhawula conceded defeat and submitted himself to him Mhlontlo stopped the slaughter and accepted him as a vassal chief.’

After that war Mhlontlo returned to the initiation school to complete the ritual and came out as king. People honoured him as a hero king who was not afraid of war, unlike his grandfather, Myeki, who allowed amaZulu to devastate amaMpondomise because of his weakness.

It is dusk when he arrives on the outskirts of Sulenkama. He is exhausted from reliving the stories and the walk of the past and also from the walk of the present.

From the hill where Hamilton Hope had camped during the two-day stand-off Malangana can see Sulenkama. The smoke billows from the evening fires. Vaguely he can see trees in the vicinity of what used to be his house. A single tear drops from his eye, like the one that dropped on that day when he thought of Gcazimbane.

It was the month of Canopus; the brightest of all the stars of the southern skies. The amaMpondomise people called it Canzibe. The month was named EyeCanzibe after the star. It was the month of harvest, and therefore of brewing and of feasting. It was the month of plenty in most years, save for those cruel years of drought and famine. This was not one of those years though. For most people this was a good year.

Not for Mhlontlo. It had nothing to do with the capriciousness of the weather. He was missing Gcazimbane. He sat alone on a fallen trunk in a clearing deep in a forest in the Ntabankulu District in the land of amaMpondo. He wept. And broke into a song:

uGcazimbane
uZwe lezilingane
Ndingumntu nje
Intwehlal’ihlal’ifuduke
Ndingumntu nje
Intwemxhel’unge njenganstimbi
Ndakubonga ndihlel’iphi na
Gcazimbane
Zwe lezilingane

Gcazimbane/Land of equals/As an ordinary human being/I’ll have occasion to migrate/I am only human/I am not made of iron/From whose land will I sing your praises/Gcazimbane/Land of equals?

And then he wept again. He was all alone. It was safe not only to weep but to wail. He wailed for a long time, and then the wail became a whimper, a snivel and a sniffle. He felt much better after that.

His eyelids were heavy even though it was early morning. He and his men had walked the whole night without taking a rest. He lay on the dew-covered ground and placed his head on a mossy tree trunk. He slept. Not quite. He had to sleep like the proverbial hare, with one eye open. If the dogs of amaBhaca or of amaHlubi or amaMpondo sniffed him out he should be able to escape. Many nations of the world were after him.

He could not leave that spot until his men returned from a hunt. And they’d better not find him bawling like a baby.

For a few hours he would be safe here, he thought. Even if the
CMR
and their allies were coming in this direction they would be a day away. He had a good headstart.

Yesterday he attended their meeting in disguise in the village of Chief Mqhikela more than a day’s journey away. His men tried to stop him for fear that he would be recognised and arrested.

‘You are playing with your life and ours going to a white man’s meeting even while they are looking for you,’ Malangana had said.

But his king was stubborn as usual. He wore a knitted woollen cap and covered himself tightly with an old blanket. He took his spear and went to the
imbhizo
, of which the specific agenda was the hunt for Mhlontlo, at the chief’s
inkundla
. He joined the rest of the community members and listened to the Red Coats address them through an interpreter.

‘The white man says Mhlontlo is here, hiding in the land of amaMpondo,’ the interpreter was saying. ‘So you,
Inkosi
Mqhikela, should open up every part of your jurisdiction so that the Government can search for him.’

Mqhikela said, ‘Oh, no, Mhlontlo is not here. He can’t come here. He knows that amaMpondo are the allies of Government. I can’t let the Red Coats search all over my villages because they will disturb our children.’

Mhlontlo knew that Government was just following protocol asking the chief’s permission to search his villages so as not to alienate an ally. At the end of the day Government would do exactly what Government came to do.

‘We must search for him ourselves because if he is here there is nothing you yourself can do,’ said the officer. ‘You can’t arrest him.’

Mhlontlo stepped forward and, pretending to be one of Chief Mqhikela’s subjects, addressed the chief.

‘Allow the white men to search, my Nkosi, because if you don’t they will continue to bother you. Let them see for themselves that you are a man of your word.’

The chief considered this for a moment and consulted two of his councillors sitting next to him. He told the Red Coats to go ahead and search for Mhlontlo.

That gave Mhlontlo and his men a headstart. It would take the whole day for the Red Coats to search Mqhikela’s entire jurisdiction, by which time he and his men would have made it to a new hiding place.

Now, though his body was exhausted, his spirit refused to rest. The thought of Gcazimbane nagged him. He must be dead by now. No doubt, he must be dead. Once more tears rolled down his face on to the mossy trunk.

His ears were very sharp, particularly the one on the trunk lying on the ground. He heard footsteps at a distance and determined they were of men and not animals. Two men, to be exact. That was how skilful he had become in the art of survival as a fugitive in the forests, mountains and caves since losing the war.

He jumped to his feet, his spear at the ready, just in case these were not his men returning. He took cover behind a tree and waited. After a while Malangana and Feyiya approached, each carrying on his shoulder half a carcass of a sable bull, its majestic horns dragging on the ground behind Malangana.

Feyiya was another from a junior House of Matiwane, although much older than Malangana in years. His great affinity for Malangana on this road as escapees was because they were both lovelorn. Their hearts were in Sulenkama where their loved ones were waiting: Malangana’s by the river to take a walk with him to the top of the mountain; Feyiya’s at his homestead where she had just given birth to their first child, named Charles after Mhlontlo’s heir to the throne, on October 31, 1880, when the war started in earnest and the men had to leave and fight. As lovelorn men they could share sentiments that other men thought were foolish and womanish and soft and maudlin and not worthy of soldiers hardened by war and fleeing for their lives.

But softness came in other ways too, as Feyiya could immediately see on Mhlontlo’s face when he stepped on to the path to meet them.

‘Ah, you’ve been crying again,’ said Feyiya. ‘Please stop that.’

‘Gcazimbane was a very special horse,’ said Mhlontlo in a hoarse voice.

As Malangana was hanging the sable bull in a tree and cutting some of the meat into pieces for roasting he offered to go and search for Gcazimbane. He did not believe the horse was dead. He had survived two months being ridden by Mhlontlo in the heat of many battles and then more weeks of hide-and-seek in all kinds of terrain. He was bound to survive this latest capture as well.

He was captured only a few days ago; which was why Malangana believed he could still be retrieved. Fortunately Gcazimbane was not in his hands when he was captured, but in Mhlontlo’s; otherwise he would never have heard the end of it.

It had been evening when Mhlontlo and a bodyguard took what they thought would be a short horse ride from their hideout just to get a little bit of fresh air in the valley. They had not been aware that some amaBhaca men had been spying on the camp with the view of capturing Mhlontlo for the bounty that Government had placed on his head. Two men approached them and shouted ‘
Sinika!
’. Mhlontlo and his bodyguard relaxed, for that was the password of the amaMpondomise military intelligence. They responded ‘
Sinika!
’ and stopped to chat to the men who they thought would have news of the new positions of the enemy. The amaBhaca men pounced on them and stabbed the bodyguard to death. Mhlontlo rolled on the ground with the first Bhaca man and stabbed him repeatedly with his assegai. When he sprang to his feet to face the second Bhaca man, the latter had already mounted Gcazimbane and was riding away on him.