The Covenant: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  Among those who took a cupful was Aletta Naudé. Carefully adding a little milk, she dusted her portion with sugar, then, keeping the mug close to her lips but not eating, and with a spoon clutched in her right hand, she looked over the rim at Tjaart and smiled. Slowly, provocatively she lowered the mug, dug out a spoonful of the pudding and took it to her lips; she delicately tasted the stuff and smiled again.

  Tjaart was so entranced by Aletta, so held by the spell of her smile, that when he finally reached for his share of the pudding, there was none, but he could taste it whenever Aletta took a spoonful, and as she neared the end of her portion he moved toward her, and without speaking, indicated that she must accompany him.

  Once clear of the celebration, he guided her behind a set of wagons, and while the accordion filled the night with revelry, pulled her to the ground and hungrily tore aside her clothes. Never before had he known what an overwhelming thing sex could be, and he was so preoccupied with his own violent experience that he failed to notice that Aletta was merely smiling at his ridiculous performance.

  When it ended, and he lay back watching her impassive dressing, he made no attempt to reconcile his adulterous action in taking another man’s wife with his profound gratitude to God for having protected the Voortrekkers in their laager. These were two unrelated things, and he was not obligated to harmonize them, for as he said to himself: King David had the same problem.

  In April 1837 Tjaart encountered once again the man who was to become the memorable figure of the trek, Piet Retief, the frontier farmer with whom he had ridden so often on commando, and they talked of those heroic days: ‘Remember how we did it, Tjaart? Fifty of us, two hundred Xhosa, a skirmish, a retreat. I understand that with the Matabele, it was different.’

  Tjaart shivered. ‘Five thousand coming at once. Six thousand. And every man prepared to die. For hours we fired point-blank into their faces.’

  ‘That’s finished,’ Retief said. ‘You’re to come down into Natal with me. The Zulu will leave us alone. They have a sensible king. Dingane by name. We can deal with him.’

  ‘I would hate to leave the plateau. Mzilikazi remains a threat, but I still want to go north.’

  ‘The ones who did, they didn’t fare too well. I think they’re all dead.’

  Retief was right. The toll had been heavy, and he advanced so many other sound reasons in support of Natal that Tjaart wavered, but Jakoba stiffened his determination to cross the Vaal: ‘You’ve always wanted to search out that lake your grandfather spoke of. Do it. Natal is for weaklings like Bronk and Naudé.’ It was the first time she referred to the family with which her own was so sorely enmeshed, and she said no more.

  He accepted her counsel and informed Retief that the Van Doorn party would not go down into Natal, but that evening as he was heading back to his own tent, Aletta Naudé appeared mysteriously from behind a row of transport wagons, and almost before he knew what was happening, he was clutching at her, rolling with her in the stubble. When he lay exhausted, she ran her fingers through his beard and whispered, ‘We’re crossing over the mountains. Come down into Natal with us.’

  That night he informed Jakoba that Retief had convinced him; they were moving east. She said, ‘It’s a mistake,’ and in the morning she learned that Ryk Naudé and his wife were going, too.

  It was a journey into springtime and into some of the most difficult land the Van Doorns would traverse. In their slow migration from De Kraal they had climbed unnoticed from near sea level to well over five thousand feet, so that for some time now they had been operating on what the men called ‘the plateau.’ It was high land, dipping to lower levels where rivers passed through. But now they were required to climb toward eight thousand feet, then drop precipitously down to sea level. The upward climb would be easy, the downward plunge frightful.

  Eleven wagons gathered to make the attempt, and as they climbed the gentle western face of the Drakensberg they could not foresee the problems that awaited them, because Ryk Naudé assured them: ‘Retief has gone ahead to scout a safe pass down. It can be done.’

  But when they reached the summit and saw for the first time what lay ahead, even Tjaart blanched. To take a Voortrekker wagon down those steep slopes would be impossible, regardless of how many oxen a man had to help hold the wagons back. And when the beasts saw the cliffs they refused to go down them even without the wagons. On this route, Tjaart had to agree, descent was hopeless.

  So he and Theunis searched for other trails. They found them, plenty of them. They descended easily, ran along relatively flat ground, then boom! A sheer cliff two hundred feet high.

  Try the next trail. Fine descent, a reassuring spread of land sloping easily down, then a fairly sharp but negotiable stretch ending in another cliff.

  For three weeks, as spring continued to blossom—a wild assortment of mountain flowers and baby animals and birds all around them—the Voortrekkers tried fruitlessly to locate that one pass through the mountains that would allow them to reach the lush pastures they knew existed below. Always the enticing avenue, always the sheer cliff.

  In the fourth week Tjaart saw a lesser trail leading well to the north, and its conspicuous difference reassured him, for at no point was it inviting or easy; it was cruelly difficult, but as he descended, scraping shins, he gave a shout of triumph when he saw that the pass continued right down to level land. But could wagons traverse it? He thought so.

  Accordingly, he hurried back to his beleaguered group and told them, ‘We can go much of the distance in our present condition. But for about two miles we’ll have to take the wagons apart and carry them, piece by piece.’ Ryk Naudé thought this impossible, whereupon, with disgust, Jakoba pointed back over the route they had come: ‘Then go back.’ After much hemming and hawing, he decided to trust his luck with the others.

  For two difficult days eleven wagons slipped and slid down grassy inclines, then rattled over stony ones. Theunis Nel conceived the good idea of reversing wheels, so that the big ones were in front of the wagon, where they could be better controlled on the really steep slopes, and another man devised a trick for replacing the big aft wheels altogether, and substituting heavy timbers which would drag along the ground under the axletree, providing an effective brake: the oxen did not like this, and when they saw the heavy branches being moved into place, grew restless; the Coloureds talked to them by name, treating them as pampered individuals, each with its own catalogue of complaints. It was remarkable how a few soothing words gave the hard-worked beasts the encouragement they needed.

  But every yard that was successfully traversed brought the Voortrekkers closer to the low cliffs that could never be negotiated by any wagon. There the procession halted while Tjaart pointed out the grand and easy path that awaited them, once they cleared these cliffs, and when he had consoled them with his assurances, he led them off to the north to a prominence below which lay the rolling pasture lands that reached to the Indian Ocean. It was an introduction to a homeland that would never be excelled, a promise of grandeur and fruition: ‘There lies Natal. There rests your home.’ He did not, Jakoba noted, refer to it as their home, and for this she was grateful, for she remembered the cleaner, harder land of the Transvaal.

  It was a hellish nineteen days. Theunis discovered a footpath by which he could lead the oxen down to the pastures, where they flourished. Every man, woman and child, Boer and servant alike, strained and sweated on the horrendous descent of the berg.

  It was murderous work. Unpacking a heavy wagon and then disassembling it was difficult enough, but back-packing all items down the steep inclines where feet slipped on pebbles was exhausting. The Voortrekkers accepted the challenge; even Paulus de Groot, hardly as tall as a wheel, sought responsibility for guiding one of Tjaart’s wheels down the grade, but did not listen when Van Doorn warned him not to let it get going too fast. Before long Tjaart saw with dismay his precious wheel thundering down the grade and about to break to pieces. Fortunately, it stopped itself in bush
es, and Tjaart had to laugh as he watched the lad wrestling with it to get it back on the path.

  Ryk Naudé was less energetic. He complained of the route Tjaart had chosen, arguing that one farther south would have been better, and when he grudgingly carried an item down the cliff, he was most tardy in returning for another, and on one of his own trips Tjaart spotted Ryk and Minna kissing behind some rocks. He was turning out to be what Jakoba had predicted, a selfish, inconsiderate young man, and the older Voortrekkers were disgusted with him.

  Jakoba was indefatigable, slipping and sliding as she descended with baskets, puffing with determination as she climbed back. For all those days she worked harder than any of the oxen, supervising the passage not only of her own wagon but also those of her neighbors. When she saw Aletta shirking, she spoke harshly: ‘You needn’t linger so long down there. Work’s to be done.’ But Aletta only smiled at her with the knowing grin of a younger woman who has captivated an older woman’s man.

  When this part of the descent was accomplished, the Voortrekkers were so exhausted they rested for five days, during which Tjaart made a fortunate discovery. While checking the last portion of the trail, to satisfy himself that it would be as easy as he had judged at first, he came upon a place so majestic that he had to conclude that God Himself had set this aside for his weary travelers. Because of its cathedral shape, he named it Kerkenberg (Church-in-the-Mountain), and to it he led his people.

  It was a series of shallow caves and beautiful flat areas rimmed by towering granite boulders. From the outside it appeared to be a collection of mighty rocks assembled in accordance with some plan; from the inside it was a cathedral with the boulders inclining slightly toward the center and open to the sky; from every aperture the worshipper could look down to see the beautiful plains of Natal.

  When the Voortrekkers entered this sanctified place, they were overawed by its rough majesty and almost simultaneously they knelt in prayer, thanking God for His many deliverances, and while they were on their knees, Tjaart summoned Theunis Nel and uttered the words the little man had waited so long to hear: ‘Theunis, by your valor and devotion you have earned the title predikant. You are now our dominee, and you are to lead us in prayer.’ And this time no one tried to deny him.

  Nel, fifty-two years old, rose and stood with his blemished face looking upward; this was a church beyond his greatest hope, an ordination nobler than any he had dreamed of, for it came from the people in the heat of their travail. His prayer was short, an acknowledgment that these Boers could not have survived the regiments of Mzilikazi, the dangers of the veld, the descent of these hills without God’s assistance. The joy they felt at their deliverance was attributable to Him, and they thanked Him in advance for leading them into this land of peace and prosperity.

  ‘Amen!’ Tjaart cried, and when the people rose, he said, ‘We have missed many Sundays. Theunis, you shall preach to us.’ The crookbackt man looked apprehensively at the congregation and became unnerved for a moment when two older men led their families from the church in the rocks, for it was against their belief that a man so marked should serve as dominee. But when the noise of their departure subsided, Tjaart nodded quietly toward his little friend, and Theunis, set free at last, entered upon a sermon of transcendent power, and when he finished he left the worshippers and walked to where the dissident families stood beside tall rocks.

  ‘Please join us now,’ he said. ‘The preaching part has ended.’

  In November, Van Doorn terminated theological discussion; he was required to leave Kerkenberg and go alone to the lower levels, where he hoped to find a permanent home for his people. He was not happy about leaving, for Balthazar Bronk, the craven hero of the Fear Commando, had returned, and in Tjaart’s absence, would assume charge, and he was a man not to be trusted. But Tjaart had work to do, so he descended to the Tugela River, along whose banks Shaka had conducted so many of his battles, and there he met again with Piet Retief: ‘What a fearful descent we made over the mountains.’

  ‘Once down, never up,’ Retief said.

  ‘Has the king agreed to give us the land?’

  ‘No. And that’s why I am so pleased to see you here with me, because soon we shall go to see Dingane.’

  Retief was now fifty-seven years old, whip-thin, bearded, and eager to put a capstone to his life’s work: he would establish the Voortrekkers in a solid, fruitful home, then send to the Cape for predikants and watch the founding of a new nation obedient to God’s instructions. To accomplish this, he needed only the final approval of the King of the Zulu, who had already agreed in principle to the proposal which Retief had offered.

  The two men, accompanied by assistants, rode north from the Tugela River toward the Umfolozi, the historic river of the Zulu, and near its southern banks they came upon Dingane’s Kraal, the established capital town of the Zulu.

  Dingane was no black Napoleon like his half brother Shaka; he was a Nero, a tyrannical despot caring more for entertainment and intrigue than solid governance. His town was big, a dwelling place for forty thousand people. It contained row upon row of beehive huts, large parade grounds, a royal hut with ceilings twenty feet high and a reception hall with a vast dome roof supported by more than twenty pillars, each completely covered with intricate beadwork.

  Retief and Van Doorn were led to the cattle kraal, the center of Zulu life, but before they could enter it and stand in the presence of the king, they had to divest themselves of all arms and come as humble supplicants. They were astounded by the extent of the place and the obvious desire of the king to impress any visitors. ‘When the king appears, you must fall on your bellies and crawl like snakes to his feet,’ an attendant explained in good English, acquired from a mission station.

  ‘That we will not do,’ Retief said.

  ‘Then you will be killed.’

  ‘No. Because you will explain to the king that Boers do not crawl.’

  ‘But I could never address the king, unless he spoke first. He would kill me.’

  ‘And if you don’t, we will kill you.’

  The man began to sweat so copiously that Tjaart realized he could never bring himself to tell the king anything, so he was dismissed, and the two Boers remained standing.

  In a flurry of excitement, a score of lesser attendants rushed about the far end of the kraal, whereupon all the Zulu present fell to their knees while King Dingane entered, smiled at the Boers, whom he had expected to remain standing, and took his seat in a remarkable throne. It was an armchair ornately carved in Grahamstown and presented to the Zulu king by an English trader.

  It was now nine years since Dingane had murdered his half brother Shaka, and then his fellow conspirator and full brother, Mhlangana, and then his uncle, and his other full brother Ngwadi, and nineteen other relatives and counselors. The years had been good to him; he weighed some two hundred and sixty pounds, had over three hundred wives, and an insight and sense of what might happen next, which compensated somewhat for his treacherous ways, and it fell to him to confront the white men who kept coming over the Drakensberg.

  He had already mastered the art of dealing with the Englishmen who clustered at the seaside; since they had ships which kept them in contact with London and Cape Town, they had to be treated with respect on the one hand and harsh indifference on the other. As he explained to one of the head councillors, Dambuza, with whom he often shared responsibilities: ‘With the English it’s all right to kick them, so long as you salute their flag and speak well of their new queen.’

  The Boers were a much different problem. They owed no allegiance to any ruler in Europe, and apparently none to the government in Cape Town. They were self-ruled and obstinate. They did not wear badges like the English, and they did not summon ships from across the ocean to assist them in time of trouble. As he told Dambuza, ‘They are like their oxen, patient and pressing. I can live with the English, for I know what they will do next. But I am afraid of these Boers, who come at me from across the mountains that
you told me could not be passed.’

  When Dingane was seated in his great chair he signaled, and sixteen of his brides were brought in to arrange themselves at his feet. A dozen of the women were beautiful, dressed in silky garments which the king had personally designed, but the other four were tremendous women, weighing almost as much as their king; on them the garments seemed ridiculous.

  The king indicated that he was now ready to open his bargaining session, whereupon six older men were summoned to flank him, and while he smiled at the Voortrekkers these official flatterers, as they were called, poured forth their praises: ‘Oh, Great and Mighty Slayer of the Matabele, Wise Master Elephant of the Deepest Jungles, He Whose Footfall Causes the Earth to Tremble, Wisest of the Planners, He Who Orders the Wizards to be Impaled …’ The interpreter, in bored monotone rattled off an additional dozen descriptions, after which Dingane silenced the flatterers, who were prepared to go on all day if necessary; they knew how to keep a ruler happy.

  When Dingane finally spoke, Retief learned with disappointment that no real negotiation would occur that day; what the king had in mind was a series of displays calculated to impress the visitors with his power and their own insignificance, and to launch this exhibition, he used a device that had awed earlier visitors. In a compelling voice he cried, ‘Tell the warriors to appear.’ And then he raised his left hand to his mouth and spit upon his wrist. ‘And all is to be done before the spit dries on my wrist.’