Men of Men b-2

by Wilbur Smith

  "This is a cruel thing for a good king to do," Robyn told Lobengula bitterly.

  "Nomusa, you are a wise woman, the wisest that I have ever known, but you do not understand the spirits and demons of Matabeleland."

  "I understand that the world is full of evil men, but that there are very few evil spirits."

  "The thing that entered my sister's hut came from the air. All the gates to the kraal were guarded by men unsleeping; they have sworn to me that they stood at their posts from dusk to dawn, with eyes wide and spears in their hands. Nothing passed them."

  "Even your best men can doze, and then lie to protect themselves."

  "Nobody dare lie to the king. It came from air, and it sprayed rotten stinking blood upon the portals of Ningi's hut., Lobengula shuddered despite himself. "On Chaka's scrawny buttocks, that is a Tokoloshe trick. No man can do that."

  "Except if he carry blood in a pot to hurl on the doorway."

  "Nomusa -" Lobengula shook his head sorrowfully.

  "My sister and her servants saw this great hairy thing black as midnight and stinking of the grave, with blood and not sweat oozing from its skin. Its eyes were like the full moon, and its voice that of lion and eagle, it had no hands and no feet, just hairy pads."

  Lobengula shuddered again.

  "And it stole diamonds," Robyn told him. "What does a demon want with diamonds?"

  "Who knows what a demon needs for his spells or his magic, or to please his dark master?"

  "Men lust after diamonds."

  "Nomusa, to black men diamonds have no value, so it could not have been a black man. On the other hand, if a white man had entered my sister's hut he would not have been satisfied with a few stones. A white man would have taken them all, for that is their way. So it could not have been either a white man or a black man, what is left but a demon?"

  "Lobengula, Great King, you cannot allow this thing to happen."

  "Nomusa, there has been a terrible witchcraft perpetrated within the royal kraal. An evil person or many evil persons have conjured up a black demon, and I would be no king at all if I allowed them to live.

  The evil ones must be smelled out, and my birds must feast before we are cleansed of this filthy thing."

  "Lobengula "Say no more, Girlchild of Mercy, words cannot divert my purpose, for you and your family and all the guests at my kraal are summoned to see justice done."

  It took ten days for the Matabele people to come in to Gubulawayo; they came in their regiments, warriors and maidens, ringed indunas and fruitful matrons, the toddlers and the greyheaded toothless old droolers, in their thousands and tens of thousands; and on the morning that Lobengula had appointed, the nation assembled, rank upon rank, regiment upon regiment, a black ocean of humanity that overflowed the great cattle stockade.

  There was a peculiar stillness over such an immense gathering, only the plumed headdresses moved softly in the small restless breeze, and a pall of fear hung over them, so palpable that it seemed to take the heat from the sun and dim its very rays.

  The silence was oppressive; it seemed to crush the breath from their lungs. Only once when a black crow flew low over the serried ranks and screeched its raucous cry into the silence, all their heads lifted and a soft sigh shook them, like the wind through the top branches of the forest. Before the gates of the royal kraal, facing this huge concourse, were drawn up the senior indunas of the Matabele, Somabula and Babiaan and Gandang and the lesser princes of Kumalo, while behind them again, their backs to the poles of the stockade, were Lobengula's white guests, almost one hundred of them, Germans and Frenchmen, Dutchmen and Englishmen, hunters and scholars and businessmen and adventurers, petitioners and missionaries and traders. Soberly clad in broadcloth, wearing hunting leathers and bandoliers or dressed in spangled and gaudy uniform, they waited in the sweltering silence.

  There were only two white women present, for Robyn had flatly refused to bring her daughters from Khami for the smelling-out ceremony, and Lobengula. had relented and made an exception for them.

  The king had given permission for the two women to be seated. Robyn sat beside the entrance to the stockade, and Clinton stood over her protectively while the members of mister Rhodes" deputation flanked her. mister Rudd, redfaced and whiskered, with his Derby hat set four square on his head, and Jordan Ballantyne, bare-headed and golden-haired at Robyn's other hand.

  Further down the line of guests, Louise Sint John sat on a Stool of leather thongs. Her thick sable plaits hung to the waist of her simple white dress, and the eyes of the men around her kept returning surreptitiously to her exotic high-cheeked beauty. Behind her stood Mungo Sint John, one eye hidden by the black patch, leaning easily on his cane and smiling to himself as he saw the direction of the eyes of the men about him.

  The nation surged like a slumbering black sea struck by a sudden gale of wind, and the plumes tossed like spume. There was a single clap of sound like the volley of massed cannon as every right leg was lifted shoulder high and brought down to stamp the hard earth, and every throat corded and strained to the royal salute.

  "Bayete!"

  The Great Black Elephant of Matabele came through the gateway, and behind him his wives led by Ningi swayed and shuffled and sang his praises.

  With the toy spear of kingship in his hand, Lobengula paced towards the mound of packed clay on which the bath chair, which had been his father's throne, was set, and Gandang and Babiaan, his brothers, came forward to help him ascend the steps.

  From his platform, Lobengula looked upon his people, and those closest to him saw the terrible sorrow in his eyes.

  "Let it begin," he said, and slumped into his chair.

  There was a ragged chorus of shrieks and whines and maniacal laughter from beyond the stockade walls, and through the gateway came a horrid procession of beldams and crones, of prancing hell-hags and gibbering necromancers.

  At their throats and waists were hung the trappings of their wizardry, skull of baboon and infant, skin of reptile, of python and iguana, carapace of tortoise, and stoppered horns, rattles of lucky bean pods and bones, and other grisly relics of man and animal and bird.

  Wailing and hooting they assembled before Lobengula's throne.

  "Dark sisters, can you smell the evil ones?"

  rwe smell their breaths, they are here! They are here!" One of the witches collapsed in the dust, with froth bubbling over her toothless gums; her eyes rolled back into her skull and her limbs twitched spasmodically.

  One of her sisters dashed the red powder from a snuffhorn in her face, and she shrieked and leaped into the air.

  "Dark sisters, will you bring forth the evil-doers?" Lobengula asked.

  "We will bring them to you, Great Bull of Kumalo. We will deliver them up, son of Mzilikazi."

  "Go!"ordered Lobengula. "Do what must be done!"

  Some of them went whirling and cavorting, brandishing their divining rods, one the tail of a giraffe, another the inflated bladder of a jackal on a staff of red tarnbooti wood, still another the stretched and sun-dried penis of a black-maned lion, the rods with which they would point out the evil ones.

  Others crept away, slinking and sly as the night-prow- in ling hyena. Others again crawled on all fours, snuffling the earth like hunting hounds quartering for the scent as they spread out amongst the rows of waiting people.

  One of the witches came down the line of white guests, hopping like an ancient baboon, her empty teats flapping against her withered belly, her skin crusty grey with filth and her charms clattering and jangling; and she stopped in front of Mungo Sint John and lifted her nose to sniff the air, then she howled like a bitch in season.

  Mungo Sint John took the long black hand-rolled cheroot of native tobacco from between his lips and inspected the ash on its tip. The crone hopped closer and looked up into his face, and he returned the cheroot to his lips and returned her stare without interest.

  She leapt up to thrust her face inches from his and noisily sniff the breath of his
nostrils, and then she danced away, until she faced him again, lifted the long giraffe tail above her head, shrieked like a stooping owl and rushed at Mungo, the tail raised to strike into his face.

  In front of him she froze in the act of striking, and Mungo Sint John took the cheroot from his mouth and he blew a perfect smoke ring, that spun upon itself until it broke in the witch's face and blew away in soft wisps.

  She cackled, wildly, madly, and passed on down the line to pause in front of Robyn Codrington.

  "You stink like the hyena that spawned you," Robyn told her evenly in perfect Matabele, and the witch whirled and raced away to where Juba stood in the front line of noble matrons; she raised the switch to strike and looked back at Robyn, gloating loathsomely.

  Robyn had gone white as bone, and came to her feet clutching her own bosom.

  "No," she whispered. "Please, fair sister, let her be."

  The witch dropped her arm and came back to strut and preen in front of Robyn; then again she shrieked, whirled and rushed at Juba, this time she struck, and the tail hissed and snapped on black flesh, but at the very last second the witch had diverted her aim, and the blow flew into the startled face of the young woman who stood beside Juba.

  "I smell evil," shrieked the witch, and the woman fell to her knees. "I smell blood."

  The witch struck again and again, the tail cutting stingingly into the woman's unprotected face until the tears started and ran down her cheeks.

  The executioners came forward and pulled her to her feet. The woman's legs were paralysed, so they dragged her unprotesting before Lobengula, and he looked down on her, saddened and helplessly compassionate, before he lifted the forefinger of his right hand.

  One of the executioners swung his war club, a full blow that stove in the back of the woman's skull. The bone crunched like a footstep in loose gravel, and the woman's eyes were driven from their sockets like overripe grapes by the force of it. When she fell face forward in the dust there was a bloodless depression in the back of her head into which a man could have placed his fist.

  The witch scurried away to continue the hunt, and Juba looked across at Robyn. Robyn had fallen back on her chair, trembling and pale, while Clinton put an arm around her shoulders to steady her.

  In the packed ranks there was another triumphant shriek, and the executioners dragged a fine-looking young warrior from his place. He threw off their hands and strode to drop on one knee before Lobengula's throne.

  "Father of the nation, hear my praises. Great Thunderer, Black Bull, let me die with your name on my lips.

  Oh Lobengula who drives like the wind The king lifted his finger and the club fell with the flute of a goose's wing.

  The chorus of howls and shrieks was unending now as the sisters warmed to their work, and the victims were dragged out and slaughtered, until their corpses were a high mound before the king's throne, a tangle of black limbs and shattered heads, that grew and grew.

  A hundred, two hundred, were added to the pile, while the sun reached its zenith and the dust and heat and terror formed a suffocating miasma, and the blue metallic flies swarmed in the staring eyes and open mouths of the dead, and the witches cavorted and giggled and struck with their rods.

  Here and there a maiden, overcome with the fear and the blazing heat, fell swooning from her place and the witches pounced upon this irrefutable evidence of guilt and rained blows upon her bare back or glossy breasts, and the executioners hurried to keep pace with their dreadful task.

  The sun began its slow descent towards the western horizon, and at last one at a time the witches crept back to the mountain of death they had created. They staggered with exhaustion, the dust had caked on their running sweat, but they bayed and whined like dogs as they pored over the corpses, selecting those they would take with them, back to their caves and secret places, a sliver of the womb of a virgin was a powerful fertility charm, a slice of the heart of a blooded warrior was a wonderful talisman in battle.

  "Is the work done?" Lobengula asked.

  "It is done, oh king."

  "Are all the evil ones dead?"

  "They are all dead, son of Mzilikazi."

  "Go then, and go in peace," Lobengula said wearily.

  "Stay in peace, Great King." They chuckled and hooted and, bearing their gruesome plunder with them, they shuffled away through the gateway of the stockade.

  Three times in as many weeks Mungo Sint John petitioned the king, asking him to "give the road" to the south, but each time the king chatted affably for an hour and then waved him away. "I will sleep on it, One Bright Eye, but are you unhappy here? Does the beef and beer I send you not fill your belly? Perhaps you would like to go once again on the hunt?"

  "I want to go south, oh King."

  "Perhaps in the next full moon, One Bright Eye, and then again perhaps after the rain has passed, or after the Chawala Ceremony, who knows? We will see in good season."

  Then one morning Louise rode out early, as had become her custom, but after she had been gone some hours Mungo realized that this time she had the rifle and bandolier of ammunition, her blanket roll and the gallon water bottle with her.

  He puzzled over her behaviour for the rest of that day, but he was not alarmed until night fell and she had not returned. He sat up beside the fire all that night, and at first light he took the second mule and crossed the river to where Rudd's party was camped in grand style in a pleasant glade of the forest. They had six wagons and as many tents made of best quality waterproof canvas, each with sun flysheets.

  The horses on the picket line were all blood Arabs, one of which would carry Mungo and his small bag of precious stones to the Shashi river in six days or less.

  He was eyeing them hungrily, when Robyn Codrington stooped out of one of the tents. She saw him and would have gone in again, but he called to her and jumped down from the mule.

  "Doctor Codrington, please, it is a matter of extreme urgency.

  Reluctantly she turned back.

  "My wife is missing, she did not come in last night."

  Immediately her distant expression changed to one of concern.

  "Did she say where she was going?"

  He shook his head. "I can only think that she might have ridden back to Khami, you know she was becoming friendly with your elder daughter, "

  "I shall send a servant to the mission."

  "Can you not ask the king to let me go?"

  "The king has gone in to his wives, nobody, not even I dare disturb him until he comes out from the women's quarters."

  "How long will that be?"

  "A day, a week, there is no way of telling. I shall send word to you as soon as I have news."

  That night Mungo waited again, and then in the dawn as he crouched, haggard and bleary-eyed, over the smoky fire, listening for the hoof beats of the mule or the sound of Louise's voice out of the darkness, he was struck instead by a thought that chilled his blood and made his guts slide with dread.

  He leapt up from the fire, ran into the hut and scrabbled frantically under the mattress. With a blessed soaring relief his fingers closed on the bag, and he pulled it out and fumbled the drawstring open. He poured the bright stones into the palm of his hand. They were all there, but with them was something that had not been there before. It was a folded sheet of paper, and he took it to the fire and held it to catch the light.

  "When you find this you will know why I have gone.

  Even as I write this the memory of those poor wretches who died in their hundreds to pay for your greed rises before me to torment me. With them died the last of my love for you.

  "I leave you those blood-spattered stones in the certain knowledge that they are accursed.

  "Do not follow me. Do not send after me. Do not think of me again."

  She had not signed it.

  Rudd's party was at breakfast under the open-sided dining-tent.

  It was a fresh and cool morning. The conversation around the table was intelligent, informed and yet qu
ick and witty, Robyn revelled in it.

  She sat at the head of the trestle table and the gentlemen deferred to her. mister Rudd had been very obviously taken with her from their first meeting, and addressed all his remarks to her directly.

  Jordan had supervised the preparation of a gargantuan q English breakfast, fresh eggs and grilled gammon, salted kippers and tinned pork sausage, potted shrimps and bloater paste, with freshly-chumed yellow butter and hot scones.

  Mister Rudd, quite carried away with the spontaneous festive mood, called for a bottle of champagne that had been hung overnight in a wet sack to cool.

  "Well," he lifted his glass to Robyn, "I am sure we shall be able to survive this rough life and rude fare until the good king makes up his mind."

  Despite Robyn's intercession, Lobengula had not yet ratified the concession that they sought. His senior indunas had been in secret conclave for weeks, but could not reach a consensus of agreement, while Lobengula vacillated and reacted to mister Rudd's insistence by retiring to his women's quarters where nobody could reach him.

  "It may take months yet." Robyn lifted her own glass and returned Rudd's salute. "I would not expect Lobengula to make a decision on such an important matter without going into the Matopos Hills to consult the oracle, the Umlimo."

  Suddenly Clinton looked down towards the river, frowned and whispered to Robyn. "It's that scoundrel Sint John, what does he want coming here?"

  Mungo Sint John had dismounted at the periphery of the camp, but he did not approach the company under the open-sided marquee.

  Robyn stood up quickly. "Please excuse me, gentlemen. General Sint John's wife is missing, and he is naturally worried."

  "Thank you for coming," Mungo said, as she hurried to him. "I have nobody else to turn to, Robyn."

  She tried to ignore the intimacy of his appeal, and the little jolt that his use of her given name always gave her.

  "Do you have news?" she asked.