Men of Men (43 page)

His broad intelligent face was lightly seamed by the passage of the years, as though by the chisel of a skilled carpenter, forming a frame for the dark penetrating sparkle of his eyes; yet his
chest was covered with the elastic muscle of a man only just reaching his prime and his lean belly rippled with the same muscle as he moved forward.

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 simbird 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.’ And 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 Dr 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 from 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 hippopotamus. 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.’

F
or an hour they squatted opposite each other, occasionally 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 Matabeleland’s military provinces, listing those who had 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.

A
s 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 savannahs, 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 intimate 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?’