Nyumbani Tales

by Charles R. Saunders

“Do not weep,” said Pomphis. “I think I can help you.”

  The poor man’s incredulity showed in his watery eyes.

  “Listen, I do not like Ogwambi Nuru,” the Bambuti continued. “He doesn’t laugh at my jokes in the Sha’a’s throne room. And the Sha’a doesn’t like him, either. Now, listen to me ...”

  UNANNOUNCED, POMPHIS entered the most private of the Sha’a’s personal chambers. The monarch of Azania lay on a pile of fur-covered cushions. His royal form was unclad, as were those of the ten women who shared the cushions with him. The Sha’a looked up, spotted his mjimja, and scowled.

  “Pomphis!” he bellowed. “I left explicit orders not to be disturbed! I’ll ...”

  “O Mighty Sha’a,” the Bambuti interjected. “How would you like to put a handful of fire-ants into the crotch of Ogwambi Nuru?”

  Immediately, the Sha’a became more attentive.

  THE COURT SQUARE WAS ablaze with excitement. Never in the memory of anyone in Mavindi had the Sha’a exercised his right to hear an appeal of a judge’s decision in a case of so lowly a subject as Kakanja. The poor man stood humbly, his goat at his side. Visibly fuming, the resplendently clad Ogwambi Nuru crouched in the bamboo-barred witness cage while Pomphis paced somberly and silently before him. The pygmy wore the monkey-tail regalia of a sheria – a lawyer, a station to which the Sha’a had appointed him for the day, much to the disgust of the other sherias.

  “Let’s get on with it, then,” snapped Ogwambi Nuru.

  Whirling, Pomphis thrust his head forward and said: “Do you agree that the smell of your food is not the same as its substance?”

  “Well, uh, I don’t ...” the rich man stammered. “What is the point of your question?”

  “I only want to confirm that you don’t see, hear, touch, or taste a smell,” Pomphis said. “You only smell it. Therefore, the smell of an object, which utilizes that sense only, is not the whole substance of said object. Agreed?”

  “Well, er ... yes,” said Ogwambi Nuru.

  “And furthermore, do you concur that you accused Kakanja of stealing only the smell of your food, not its substance?”

  “Yes,” Ogwambi Nuru agreed. Then he caught himself, and turned to the Sha’a, who was acting as judge.

  “What is the point of all this?” the rich man sputtered. “Are you going to allow this – jester – to make a mockery of...”

  At that point, Pomphis nodded to Kakanja, who proceeded to plant a hard kick into the ribs of his goat. Immediately, the startled beast let out a bleat of pain.

  “Did you hear that, Ogwambi Nuru?” cried Pomphis.

  “Yes, but ...”

  “Then you must accept the sound of the goat’s bleat as payment for the smell of your food!”

  Amid the ensuing, stunned silence, the Sha’a intoned: “I think he has you, Ogwambi Nuru. Kakanja, you may keep your goat.”

  Overjoyed, Kakanja flung his arms around the neck of his goat, which was by now thoroughly confused. The crowd in the court square burst into laughter and applause, for Ogwambi Nuru was not a popular man.

  And, as the chagrined rich man clambered out of the witness cage, Pomphis said to him: “I trust you now realize that even though I am small in size, I do have influence in high places.”

  THE NUNDA

  TWO EAST AFRICAN FOLKTALES inspired this story. One was about a creature called the nunda, which is variously described as a great cat decidedly different from the lion or leopard; or a supernatural creature of the demonic kind. The other was about a shady character named Majnun. I ended up liking Majnun so much that I found a place for him in the Imaro novels.

  “The Nunda” was first published in 1976, in a long-running small-press magazine called The Diversifier, which lived up to its name because imaginative fiction of all kinds could be found in its pages. You might say I provided some “diversity” of my own to The Diversifier. I did a bit of editing on “The Nunda so that it would conform to the Imaro novels.

  Stretching languorously, Prince Majnun of Kitwana allowed his thoughts to wander as he as he reclined amid disarranged silken coverlets and lissome feminine limbs. There were indeed worse fates, he mused, than that of being the youngest son of Al-Imamu, King of Kitwana. It was true that his preference for women and wine over statecraft and ceremony sometimes drove Al-Imamu into fits of rage so fearsome that they were the talk of Mlongo, the Kitwanan capital. But the young prince’s courage in battle, coupled with his quick wits, had thus far kept him safe from the beatings of his father and the jealousy of his ambitious brothers.

  Lately, though, Mzikala, the most obnoxious of his brothers, had been filling Al-Imamu’s ears with pernicious retellings of Majnun’s nocturnal exploits. Mzikala, the fawning jackal, Majnun reflected before he dismissed his brother from his mind.

  Absently, his hand caressed the soft, bare flesh of the young woman lying beside him. She was one of the three daughters of the newly arrived ambassador from Mpemba, a rich northern kingdom. It did not matter which one’s flesh he was now fondling; all three were sprawled haphazardly on his huge, round bed.

  Suddenly, the sound of heavy, hurrying footsteps snapped Majnun out of his sated reverie. With gasps and muffled shrieks of consternation, the three daughters of the ambassador attempted to crawl out of the bed. But in their haste, they succeeded only in entangling themselves to such an extent that a ludicrous scene was presented to the blazing torches of the men who burst into the Prince’s chamber.

  In the flickering torchlight, their ebony faces took on an orangey sheen and their eyes glared like those of demons in a fire pit. One of the faces belonged to Mzikala. Its expression was not calculated to inspire fraternal affection. Another, which bore a look of utter shock, belonged to the ambassador of Mpemba. Behind them were the grim faces of the leather-clad spearmen who served as the ambassador’s personal guard.

  As the ambassador’s expression commenced to transform from shock to outrage, his daughters frantically attempted to conceal their nudity behind handfuls of silken cloth. Slender, dark-skinned, narrow-faced, the Mpemba women were difficult to tell apart. Even the tears now rolling down their high cheekbones seemed to flow in identical patterns.

  As for Majnun, he sat quietly, disregarding the guardsmen’s spears. On his almost-delicate face, a sardonic expression lingered. Then the tableau was broken by the ambassador, who had at last recovered his ability to speak.

  “You damned degenerate!” he thundered. “Do you not know that each of my daughters is of the Chosen of Ajike, sworn to virginity until they receive a sign from the Goddess?”

  “B-but Father,” one of the sisters blubbered. “Prince Majnun said that he had the sign. He showed it to us, and it was like nothing we’d ever seen before ...”

  “Enough!” roared the ambassador. “I will deal with you when we return to Mpemba. And we are leaving tonight!”

  He turned to the guards.

  “Prepare our ship for immediate departure,” he ordered.

  Then he returned his attention to Majnun.

  “I should order my spearmen to impale you for this,” he grated.

  “My good sir,” Mzikala interrupted smoothly. “Reprehensible as my brother’s conduct may be, such an action would be certain to provoke warfare between our two countries.”

  “You are, as usual, correct,” the ambassador agreed grudgingly. “But when I return to Mpemba and inform King Mansuruwe of what has happened here this night, trade between my country and Kitwana shall soon amount to nothing!”

  Within moments, the sacred sisters had gathered up their strewn clothing and departed, casting tearful glances back at prince Majnun. As for the latter, he simply sat unclad amid his rumpled sheets, listening to the receding footsteps of the Mpembans and the dire mutterings of their ambassador.

  Prince Mzikala lingered momentarily.

  “Doubtlessly, our father will be wishing to speak with you very shortly,” he said, malevolence masking his dusky features.

  “Doubtlessly
,” repeated Majnun. “Then, you hope, he will do to me what he did to our brother Kimanu. Kimanu was exiled from Kitwana when he was discovered practicing sorcery. It was said that your gold supply diminished on the day Kimanu was found out. Did it diminish again tonight?”

  At Majnun’s thinly veiled accusation, Mzikala half-drew his sword from its golden scabbard. Then he turned and stalked away, followed by Majnun’s mocking laughter.

  KING AL-IMAMU OF KITWANA sat motionless as a statue upon his throne of onyx and gold. Due to the lateness of the hour, he was clad simply, in a red-and-white robe, rather than his ornate garments of state. Still, every line of his proud bearing and his regal black face bespoke power and authority. Though the rest of his features were carefully composed, his dark eyes radiated the kind of anger that had more than once caused strong soldiers to quail in undisguised terror.

  Prince Majnun, however, did not quail. He was clad in loose-fitting white trousers and a tightly wrapped, jewelled turban. From the waist up, he wore nothing other than a jewelled pendant hanging from a thick gold chain. Every muscle in his lean body stood out in low relief, in contrast to his smooth, almost girlish face.

  Mzikala, in contrast, was attired as if he were attending a state ceremony, even though he, Majnun and Al-Imamu were the only occupants of the throne room. The princes remained silent, waiting for the king to speak. When he did, his words came so suddenly that someone unfamiliar with his ways would have been startled.

  “You,” he said to Majnun, “have had but one desire for the past few rains. That desire is freedom from the responsibilities and duties of the rank of Prince. You want to provoke me into exiling you as I did Kimanu, he-who-was-once-my-son. In his case, such a course was proper and necessary, for the practice of sorcery is forbidden to those of royal blood.

  “But you ... you have so much more ability than any of the others. Indeed, more than the entire sorry lot put together.”

  Al-Imamu stopped then, realizing that his normally even voice had begun to rise. Majnun affected not to notice the glare of hatred Mzikala shot at him in the wake of their father’s latter observation.

  “You indulge in outrageous escapades, such as the one tonight, because you know it is forbidden to pronounce death upon a Royal One,” the grave-faced king continued. “The only Royal Punishment, from time immemorial, has been exile. Yet despite what you have done this time – which could very well endanger the economy of Kitwana – I do not intend to exile you.”

  “What, then, is your pleasure, my-father-the-king?” Majnun asked with typical effrontery.

  Al-Imamu’s reply was cryptic.

  “Strange things have been occurring in the province of Kantaro,” he said. “It is said that the nunda, the eater-of-men, prowls the grasslands once again.”

  “But no nundas have been seen in Kitwana since the days of your grandfather’s boyhood,” Mzikala protested.

  “Yet the stories exist, told by reliable herdsmen,” the king retorted.

  He turned back to Majnun.

  “You, Majnun, are to go to Kantaro and determine whether or not there is truth to these tales. Kantaro has some of the kingdom’s best farmland, and it would be bad for Kitwana if their crops were not harvested because of this nunda. If the nunda exists, you will bring its head to the foot of this throne. If there is no nunda, you will bring in the Kantaro headman to verify that truth, as well as the heads of those responsible for spreading the lie.”

  He paused.

  “Fail, and you will be forever banished from Kitwana.”

  Mzikala could not repress a grin of triumph at the words of Al-Imamu. This was a mission of death for Majnun. If there were a real nunda ravaging the province, it would probably kill his brother. If there were not, then the conspirators in the hoax would slay him equally well.

  But the king had not finished his pronouncement.

  “And, to make certain you carry out the deed instead of slipping into a neighboring kingdom, Mzikala will accompany you on your mission. You will both leave Mlongo tonight.”

  Majnun laughed aloud at the consternation with which his brother reacted to Al-Imamu’s additional instructions. The king said nothing more, and the two princes bowed respectfully before exiting the throne-chamber.

  Watching them leave, Al-Imamu muttered, “Three at one time! That Majnun is, indeed, my son.”

  Then he put his energies to work weighing alternatives for a course of action to repair the damage Majnun had done to Kitwana’s diplomatic and trade relations with Mpemba.

  THE ATTACK CAME WITH sudden, fierce swiftness even as Majnun and his escort were within sight of the chief-village of Kantaro. From the scrub-forest beneath the jagged crags of the Rock Lands, a horde of painted fighting-men appeared. Without fear, they charged into the spears of the picked troops guarding the two princes.

  With a characteristic display of valor, Mzikala retreated to the center of a knot of mail-clad soldiers. But Majnun, as always disdaining such protection, whipped out his sword and leaped to the forefront of the battle. The valley in the shadow of the Rock Lands became the scene of a whirlwind of blood and clashing weapons, and the hot Nyumbani sun flashed blindingly on polished steel.

  Though the squat, stocky attackers were half-naked and armed with crudely worked weapons of iron and stone, their numbers and sheer ferocity nearly breached the wall of spears formed by the soldiers. The attackers were black in color, like the defenders. But their faces and bodies were garishly painted. Eyes glaring madly, the wild men hacked at the oblong shields and long spears of their foes. Heavily muscled arms dealt numbing blows that penetrated fine East Coast chain-mail.

  As one, the horde of attackers shouted their battle cry: “Nunda! Nunda! Nunda!”

  Slashing furiously, Majnun cut his way through a trio of barbarians and dispatched one whose gnarled hands were locked around the throat of a soldier. The prince’s blade was crimson to the hilt, and his chain-mail was cut through in several places. Still, Majnun laughed as he fought, spurring his men to greater efforts with his daring and recklessness.

  But the contingent from Mlongo was greatly outnumbered, and despite the growing pile of squat, hairy bodies before the soldiers, they were slowly being driven back. Just as the attackers’ seemed about to overwhelm the beleaguered soldiers’ defenses, a great shout arose in the distance.

  Roaring like angry lions, a large body of armed men was charging rapidly from the chief-village. So close were the combatants that the sounds of battle had aroused the men of Kantaro, and now they were descending in a mass of steel and rage.

  Despite the nearly mindless savagery of their attack, the men from the Rock Lands were neither blind nor fools. Seeing plainly that they could not stand against the rapidly approaching reinforcements, they hurled a final defiant shout of their peculiar battle-cry and hastily retreated toward the forbidding hills that were their homeland.

  Using the scrub-forest for cover, they soon disappeared, leaving their dead and wounded behind. Sweating heavily beneath their mailed armor, the soldiers did not pursue their retreating foes.

  As the headman of Kantaro approached, Majnun was studying some of the hill-dweller dead. Glazed eyes stared sightlessly beneath heavy brow ridges, and blood congealed on thick, matted hair and smashed skulls. Knotted masses of muscle bulged beneath dark skin covered only by crude garments of goat-hide.

  “They are demons, these mkali,” the headman muttered, using a pejorative term for the hill-dwellers. “Every day, they grow bolder.”

  Majnun smiled briefly the superstition of the headman, who was tall and lean, and had a care-worn face. From his wide reading of scholarly works, he knew that the hill-dwellers were not demons at all. They were the last remnants of an elder race, now reduced to herding goats on the harsh slopes of the Rock Lands.

  But, diplomatically, he only said: “They have never attacked this close to the village before?”

  “No, O Prince,” the headman replied. “They usually attack only those fo
olish enough to stray too near to their country. But that was before the ... nunda.”

  “What has the nunda to do with these hill-dwellers?” Mzikala broke in.

  He had survived the battle, and now approached with his personal retinue of guardsmen. The headman noted contemptuously that Mzikala’s sword was unblooded, and his armor unscratched.

  “The mkali seem to think that because the nunda attacks only us, the creature must be their god,” the headman explained. “They feel that the nunda will help them to regain the lands we took from them centuries ago.”

  “Between the nunda and the hill dwellers, you must be having more than your share of troubles,” Majnun observed.

  “You are so right, O Prince,” the headman said, flashing Majnun a smile of gratitude.

  Then, as the Kantarans and the contingent from Mlongo proceeded to march to the chief-village, the headman – whose name was Mbiyu – told a long tale of stolen infants, hideously mangled corpses, slaughtered cattle and bold hunters who went out to slay the nunda, but never returned ...

  “There are a few who claim to have seen the nunda and lived,” Mbiyu said. “They all tell the same tale: a huge cat, bigger than a lion, with a spotted hide and huge fangs hanging like swords beneath its jaws. It is, indeed, a nunda – an eater-of-men. Before now, none had been seen even in the time of our grandfathers.”

  “What does your waganga – your witch-woman – have to say about this?” Majnun inquired.

  After a meaningful pause, Mbiyu said: “Our waganga, Damali, has not been seen since the first coming of the nunda.”

  NIGHTFALL FOUND MAJNUN lying thoughtfully in the dim semi-darkness of the thatched kibanda provided by Mbiyu. With some satisfaction, he noted that his kibanda was larger and better-appointed than the one given to Mzikala. Though it was nothing like the sumptuous chambers he occupied in the vast palace of Al-Imamu, the kibanda was suitable for his needs.