Little Suns

by Zakes Mda

  ‘Then he will have prevailed on me,’ said Hope. ‘No native will ever obey me after that.’

  ‘Anyway, this Gxumisa is an old man,’ said Henman. ‘How’s he going to survive a war with a ferocious tribe like Basotho?’

  ‘Mhlontlo is an old man himself. He is fifty-three.’

  Hope looked at Davis for a long time.

  ‘Are you this man’s advocate, Captain?’

  ‘No, sir, I am advising you, as is my role.’

  ‘Thank you, but I am not taking your advice on this one. I want you to get on your horse right now and go down that hill and tell Umhlonhlo that tomorrow afternoon I am moving my camp to just outside his Great Place. He should have his warriors ready. I will be addressing them. The next morning he will be leading them to war. If the chief won’t ascend the hill the magistrate will descend, and you can be sure it is the last time the magistrate does that.’

  That was the end of the stand-off and the beginning of the preparations for iindwendwe in Sulenkama, though they were of the unwelcome variety. Mahlangeni, despite himself, followed Tsitwa to grind and boil the concoctions that were going to strengthen the soldiers and Malangana dawdled to his house to get Mthwakazi’s sacred drum. Nzuze left the adobe stoep and went to join his brother at the Great Place to find out what exactly was happening. The joys of the snake’s visit were all forgotten as the matters of statecraft became the focus.

  Malangana sat on a stool and stared at the drum. He did not know where to find Mthwakazi in order to return it. He certainly would not make himself a laughing stock carrying it all over the village and asking people where he could find her. By now he was sure gossipmongers knew that he had been sued for theft and would be making silly jokes about him. What was Mthwakazi thinking, accusing him of theft, besmirching his name like that? The right thing of course would be to take it to Gxumisa since he was the elder who had summoned the inkundla for the case. He would know how to get it to the silly girl. That’s what he should do and get it over with. He would have liked to hand it to the girl personally though and give her a piece of his mind too.

  A horse whinnied outside. Malangana went to the door and looked at Gcazimbane swooshing his tail impatiently. This was a new habit, this of trotting in from the veld and routing his groom out of his quarters when days had gone by without seeing him. Not that Malangana’s attachment to him had diminished. These days his time was occupied mostly by the affairs of the Great Place. The nation was still in bereavement and Mhlontlo spent all his days in seclusion mourning his beloved queen. Malangana was therefore the one who was always around for errands. He was the trusted messenger who was sent, sometimes with Charles or with Nzuze or with any other of Mhlontlo’s kin, to other chiefs in the region or to the white traders or missionaries about matters, often disputes, that had to be postponed until the period of mourning was over. Gcazimbane would be taken by the herdboys in the morning to graze with the cattle in the valleys. It was from there that he would sometimes escape to look for Malangana at his house. He would whinny outside. On most occasions Malangana would not be there and the horse would finally wander away and in the evening the herdboys would be whipped by the men in charge of the royal herds for their carelessness. Malangana would only hear from neighbours that his horse, as it was now called, was looking for him. During those days of grieving Malangana would get to see Gcazimbane only in the evening. He would walk to the cattle kraal where Gcazimbane slept with the cattle, let him out, and brush his neck and his mane, while singing the horse’s praises, or sometimes his own. Occasionally he threw glances at familiar pathways hoping to see the puny figure of Mthwakazi. On some errands Malangana would beg Mhlontlo to let him ride Gcazimbane: ‘You’ve not been riding him since you’ve been mourning. He’ll get lazy.’ Mhlontlo would reluctantly agree: ‘But don’t get used to it. Gcazimbane is my horse, not yours.’

  For most errands Mhlontlo insisted that Malangana use one of the Basotho ponies that were a gift from his late friend King Moorosi of the Baphuthi people. So, Gcazimbane went grazing with the cattle and played his tricks on the herdboys and occasionally disappeared to look for his groom and friend.

  Today, unlike most other days, he found him. Gcazimbane held his tail high and snickered and blew. Malangana broke out laughing. The horse started prancing around with excitement and Malangana clapped his hands, singing its praises. A few of the neighbours who were outside sweeping the grounds or tending to umhlonyane herbs in front of the rondavels started ululating and waving the brooms and clapping their hands and dancing around and singing along in the chorus: ‘Nanko ke, nankok’uGcazimbane; ngobuhle bakhe bonke, nankok’uGcazimbane.’ There he is, there he is, Gcazimbane in all his beauty.

  Malangana ran into the house and raced out with Mthwakazi’s drum. He continued to sing Gcazimbane’s praises accompanied by the drum and the women’s ululation. Gcazimbane neighed and stood on his hindlegs, and circled around his worshippers in a canter. Malangana jumped on him and settled bareback as the horse continued with the dance unabated. He prodded Gcazimbane with his feet and the horse took off at full gallop. Malangana controlled him only with his heels and knees as there were no reins and his hands were fully occupied with beating the drum while singing not only the horse’s praises but his own as well. The neighbours were left laughing and applauding in admiration of the king’s wily horse and its devoted groom.

  It was as though a whirlwind was carrying them through the village pathways. And Gcazimbane was ignoring all the protocol of slowing down whenever they passed one or more adults so that Malangana could greet them and enquire after their health, and maybe exchange a few titbits of what the return of the rains after such a long and vicious drought meant to the crops in the fields and to the welfare of the nation. Some looked at the dustless whirlwind and merely shook their heads as they rearranged their izikhakha skirts and karosses disturbed by its force. Others muttered something about the recklessness of youth; it was high time Malangana got married so that his blood could be calmed by a good woman.

  ‘Even the school of the mountain and the prison of the white man could not tame his wildness,’ observed an elderly man to his elderly wife. ‘That is why he is now even stealing sacred drums from inzalwamhlaba, those whose womb-home was the earth.’

  As he said this he spat on the very ground from which the autochthon was supposed to have emerged.

  These words did not bother Malangana because he heard none of them. His whirlwind raised its invisible dust-storm until it slowed down at Mhlontlo’s Great Place. This was Gcazimbane’s home turf, yet today there were strange sights and sounds in the place where he was often harnessed under the umsintsi trees waiting to take the king on his trips. Malangana willed him to a halt as he marvelled at the changed scene before him. Under the coast coral trees were three wagons and two Scotch carts forming a half-moon – not quite the laager of the Trek-Boers – and two tents pitched at one end. Hamilton Hope had come down from the hill and had made himself comfortable a few yards from the entrance to the Great Place. A number of villagers had gathered and were already feasting their eyes on the iindwendwe. The eager but shy spectators were all standing at a distance, fearful of attracting the wrath of the white man and his cohorts. It became obvious to Malangana that the crowds he denied due protocol on the pathway – not a result of any bad upbringing, but because when Gcazimbane was possessed of the rapscallion spirit he tended to trample etiquette under his hoofs – were on their way to the Great Place to see with their own eyes these men whose ears reflected the rays of the sun and to hear for themselves about this war with the Basotho into which all the menfolk of arms-bearing age were being conscripted.

  Outside one of the tents Malangana could see Nzuze talking animatedly with two white men, perhaps Davis and Henman, although he couldn’t be sure about that. He prodded the horse to flee lest he be roped into the meeting or be given some chores before he disposed of the silly matter of the sacred drum.

  Malangana and Gcazimbane
stole away in the direction of Gxumisa’s homestead.

  Nzuze trudged into the Great Place as if his feet were weighed down with granite rocks. He was becoming increasingly exercised as this was his third trip between Mhlontlo’s quarters and Hamilton Hope’s tent, and the magistrate was immovable. So was Mhlontlo. The king was insisting he shouldn’t be appearing in public because he was in mourning, and now Hope had sent Nzuze with a final warning: if Umhlonhlo did not come out, Hope would march in with his officers and rout him out. Nzuze had warned the magistrate that if he did that he would be creating bad blood between the Government and amaMpondomise people. Hope said his patience had run out and therefore bad blood was the least of his worries.

  ‘Basotho chiefs out there are shedding real rather than figurative blood,’ he had said blowing smoke into Nzuze’s face. ‘I’m talking of Lehana of Batlokwa and Lebenya of Bakwena.’

  Nzuze stared at him blankly. Hope had explained to him slowly, as if to a child, for he wanted him to make the urgency of this matter clear to Mhlontlo that those two Basotho chiefs had joined Magwayi’s rebellion and were causing problems for Government forces.

  ‘“Problems” is an understatement,’ Hope had added and Davis had translated as he had been doing throughout Hope’s tirade. ‘They have unleashed untold savagery, killing white people and our allies, the Fingoes, in Mooiterie’s Kop in Matatiele. They are killing traders and looting their stores. And I am sitting here begging a native chief to be man enough to come out of his bedroom.’

  There was a buzz among the crowd that had gathered. The king would be coming out. A number of armed men formed into a guard of honour and soon Mhlontlo, Nzuze, the doctor Tsitwa and three other elders walked out of the Great Place led by the royal imbongi, the bard, reciting the king’s panegyrics, focusing on his genealogy and the heroic deeds of his ancestors, and how their greatness was flowing in his blood, and reminding the audience that this was the king who, when still a young umkhwetha initiate, led amaMpondomise forces against ferocious amaBhaca, who had invaded the land, and swiftly routed them.

  Hamilton Hope, Warren, Henman and Davis stood next to the wagon loaded with arms to meet him.

  ‘You see,’ said Hope as he extended his hand to greet him, ‘these are the guns you asked for.’

  Mhlontlo did not return the gesture but glared at him.

  ‘Ndi-zi-li-le,’ said Mhlontlo, emphasising each syllable. I am in mourning.

  Davis did not interpret it that way though. He gave it a very polite spin that came out as the chief begs to be allowed to mourn. Hope was no fool; he saw the man’s expression and responded with similar belligerence.

  ‘The British Empire will not grind to a halt because of one man’s mourning. Surely you understand that?’

  Mhlontlo listened to Davis’ translation. Instead of responding to Hope’s question he broke into a smile and asked him about his family. How was his brother the missionary doing? Both the Davis sons had taken after their father and had turned out to be fine upstanding men.

  ‘Tell your brother next time you meet him that my son Charles has told me he is well looked after at the mission school,’ said Mhlontlo. ‘I am ever grateful for that.’

  Davis did not want to leave Hope out of the conversation; he explained what the ‘chief’ was saying. This broke the tension as all the white men joined to praise the great work that the mission station at Shawbury was doing to educate young Christian converts into teachers and nurse aids and domestic science practitioners and carpenters who would build a strong, healthy God-fearing native nation.

  Hope suggested that they should sit down under the wagon and share a meal and a few drinks while they thrashed out their differences. They had to leave early the next morning for Matatiele. There was no time to waste.

  ‘Where is Malangana?’ asked Mhlontlo as he took his place under the wagon. Davis was a good man, but he needed his own man to interpret into his ear as well. Bangamhlebi kaloku.

  ‘I was with him this morning,’ said Nzuze. He then turned to the crowd and yelled, ‘Has anyone of you seen Malangana?’

  The crowd yelled back with various answers: He was spotted galloping around irresponsibly on Gcazimbane. He was last seen singing and dancing with the king’s horse to the singing and clapping of idle women. Some pointed him in the direction of old Gxumisa’s compound where the wind blew him like the leaves of a tree in autumn, holding high as if in triumph a stolen sacred drum with a horse snorting at his heels.

  The message was relayed to Mhlontlo with relish and further ornamentation. He could only shake his head and say, ‘Send someone to search for him. He seems to think that my horse is his plaything.’

  ‘That is always the problem when you have to depend on a bachelor for serious matters of state,’ muttered Nzuze. He was quite fed up with his brother from the junior-most Iqadi House.

  ‘It is true,’ said Mhlontlo. ‘A man does need at least one woman in the house to wean him of immaturity.’

  The men were seated on rocks and stools and all seemed to be relaxed. The spectators were at ease. But Hope stood up again and invited Mhlontlo and his entourage to follow him to the wagons. The other white men followed as well. Hope took pride in showing Mhlontlo the guns. Henman and Warren were quite eager to demonstrate with some of them, aiming at the spectators to their screeching discomfort and urging Mhlontlo to touch them and aim as well. But the king shook his head; he would not touch arms of war at that time.

  And then they uncovered the ammunition.

  ‘You see,’ said Hope smiling at Mhlontlo as he led everybody back to their seats, ‘I kept my side of the bargain. You must keep yours.’

  Mhlontlo sent out for Gxumisa and the rest of the elders of amaMpondomise, the commanders of the various amabutho regiments and the herdboys who had to round up fourteen cattle to be slaughtered for feasting. Women who had any beer in their homestead were asked to donate some in the ukuphekisa tradition. There was no time or inclination to brew any beer at the Great Place since it was a homestead of mourning.

  That evening Hope and Mhlontlo sat under the wagon and broke bread together, though Mhlontlo refused to partake of the white man’s umkhupha, not because he was snubbing it, but for the reason that he knew it was most likely salted. As a royal man in mourning he had to avoid salt. Even the meat that he ate was specially roasted for him by his own men on an open fire. They made certain that it was not seasoned with salt or with anything else as there was no guarantee that the seasoning would have no traces of salt. Hope and his men watched all this with interest.

  ‘You are quite serious about this mourning business,’ observed Henman.

  ‘We said no one is going to mention that word again,’ Hope admonished. ‘From now on it is business as usual. We are talking of nothing but our war plans.’

  Davis did not translate any of this and everyone continued to chew in silence for a while. Mhlontlo shifted on his seat uncomfortably. He did not want anything that was said in his presence to pass him by. He turned to Gxumisa, who had now joined his king, and asked him what had happened to Malangana because he was reported to be the last person to see him that evening.

  ‘I settled his case with Mthwakazi. It was just a misunderstanding really,’ said Gxumisa. ‘He brought back the sacred drum. Apparently the young woman was so overwhelmed by the death of our queen she forgot her drum at ebaleni of your Great House. He was on his way from grooming Gcazimbane when he picked it up.’

  ‘I am not interested in a silly case, Uncle Gxumisa,’ said Mhlontlo. ‘Where is Malangana now?’

  ‘I don’t know. I left him talking with the girl at ebaleni of my homestead.’

  Nzuze decided to send not just an ordinary messenger but a group of elders from the House of Matiwane to search for Malangana so that when found he would understand the seriousness and urgency of the king’s summons.

  There was a festive atmosphere that evening and men were singing and dancing. Hope’s servants kept themselves entertained
on their own close to the wagons. A number of fires were burning, with men roasting meat. When a few men arrived with a message that King Mditshwa of the amaMpondomise of Tsolo would give his word the next day about supplying more men, Hope was satisfied that his plan was coming together well. The next day the march northwards would undoubtedly begin.

  Mhlontlo would be supplying the bulk of the army, Hope said.

  ‘It looks as if this is my war now,’ Mhlontlo said to Davis.

  ‘That’s what it means to be the paramount chief,’ said Davis, without taking the question to Hope first. ‘It comes with responsibilities.’

  As they enjoyed the victuals and the brandy Hope outlined the strategy that would outwit the Basotho. Both Davis and Warren were military men, Captains in the newly established Cape Mounted Riflemen, formerly officers of the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police. Hamilton Hope would lead the force with their assistance. Henman would continue his usual role as his clerk. Mhlontlo would lead his Pondomise warriors, and by implication all native warriors who would be under their own chiefs would be answerable to him as the paramount chief. This force led by Hope would approach from the southern side of the region. A force of European volunteers led by Thompson, the magistrate of Maclear, would approach from the direction of Maclear and meet Hope and his regiments at Chevy Chase.

  From there the forces would proceed to Matatiele to slaughter Magwayi’s rebels.

  Mhlontlo listened to all these plans in silence. His opinion was not sought. It was a done deal. He was to lead the amaMpondomise regiments. The white men raised their mugs and cheered Hope for a great plan and wished him Godspeed.

  ‘I’m only a Government servant and must do the work of the Government,’ said Hope, nevertheless acknowledging the praise.

  Mhlontlo laughed mockingly and, pointing at Hope, said to his people, ‘There is your God. I am only a dog.’