Читать книгу Granite - Jenny Robson - Страница 8

Yes, and so it was that very morning while we sat above the well of the commoners. Tshangani and I. All the pretty common girls had left now, back to their huts and compounds that spread far across the valleys. To perform their daily duties.

Tshangani was practising his Storykeeper craft.

“There is so much to remember, Mokomba,” he said. “Most especially with the forbidden stories that cannot be recited at feasts and festivals.”

“So tell me again about mad King Mudadi.” I whispered even though it was only the two of us there.

Tshangani whispered back the whole story. From a time four kings back. His words drew pictures before my eyes, so clear they were. How King Mudadi was frightened of dirt. How his servants must carry water up the steep steps of the hill-fortress. All the way up to his private chambers so that he might wash. Seven times daily!

I looked up towards the hill of the King, so high and still hidden by morning mists. With a hundred hundred steps that twisted and turned unevenly. Poor servants, I thought.

And then there was the episode of Mudadi and the moon.

King Mudadi decreed to his councillors, “The moon is so pure and so clean and without dirt. I want the moon collected and brought down here for my throne. Yes, I will only sit on the moon. No other cushion. Then I will be safe from dirt.”

And of course his councillors had no way to collect the moon. They begged and pleaded for royal reason. They asked the priests to petition on their behalf. But the King was without reason. So the councillors were punished for their disobedience, all of them. Flung down from the highest wall atop the hill-fortress, the wall of death. Flung down to lie broken and dying in the valley below.

“I am glad we don’t live in such bloody times,” I said.

And this is true. Or this was true. It was seldom that our King executed men. Maybe only seven times in my fifteen winters did I witness such a thing, and then only for fair reasons, when the King was betrayed or his orders were disobeyed. Or when treason was proven.

Shafiq says to me now, “I think you must continue with your own story while it is still light.”

So yes, there from the archway of the enclosure of nobles, my father ReDombo appeared. Walking towards us, with Tshangani’s father Chivhu at his side. They were both returning from the King’s early-morning council meeting, up there in the mist. And there was worry on both their faces.

I do not like it when my father seems worried. It makes me afraid.

And why should he be worried? Surely all was well?

The King was pleased with him, with our whole clan. The inner walls of the enclosure of the Queen were fully complete now. The most beautiful section of that whole structure. The most finely wrought masonry with stones so even and balanced. With each granite block so perfectly fitted to its neighbour that not a single strand of a princess’s hair could pass between! And so solid and steady that even the Queen’s strongest bodyguards were helpless as babes to sway it. Though they tried over several days, as was their duty.

My father and his slaves had worked with greatest care for many winters and summers. Setting the fires to the perfect heat, funnelling the water in perfect lines, for the cleaving of the granite slabs. Tapping with the sharpest chisels and the lightest hammers for back-breaking hours. I know because I stood by them, marvelling while I learned the craft of my clan.

Yes, the walls were safe and steady and immovable as a mountain from the beginning of time. There was no danger that they might topple onto the heads of the fine citizens of Zimba Remabwe. Nor onto the sacred heads of the queens and their princes and princesses.

“Who knows, Mokomba,” said my father in those final days of construction. “Who knows what building this king will demand from us next. But we will be ever ready.”

And yes, the King was well pleased. He gave a special feast of celebration with two of his royal herd slaughtered in my father’s honour. My mother received fine presents for our compound: bright-red cloths and thick karosses and a gold ankle-bangle. Even a delicate porcelain bowl brought from the land of China. She treasured the bowl especially and kept it safe in the far back section of her hut.

“There must be no touching. Only looking!” my mother warned us. “And only when you have permission!”

So then: why did my father ReDombo have such worry in his eyes, coming from the King’s meeting?

“We must make ready for a journey,” my father told me.

“A journey, ReDombo sir? But where are we headed?”

“It will be a long journey, my son. We will be gone from your mother for many round moons, I understand. We will first walk far past the outer villages of the Kingdom. And then we must cross the sunset sea. In a boat.”

“The sea? The sunset sea?” I was filled with dread. I knew the stories, even though the sunset sea was far away and I had never laid eyes on it. “But it is full of monsters and fish larger than elephants and fiercer than lions! And water that boils suddenly as if in a giant’s pot on a giant’s fire!”

“This is the King’s command,” said my father with stern warning in his voice. Even though only the four of us were present.

Tshangani’s father Chivhu spoke now. Wanting to comfort me. “The great Shumba will lead us. He is our finest and bravest explorer. He knows the wildest sea and the wildest land. He will find the way through.”

I kept silent then. But I was thinking: Shumba came back from his last expedition with half his slaves missing. And missing as well, half his left arm.

Beside me, Tshangani was smiling with hope and excitement. “And us too, father? Must we go too?”

Chivhu nodded. But he was not excited like his son. “Yes, the King wants a full report made of the travels.”

“But why?” I asked. “For what purpose?”

It was my father who explained.

The King had heard tales of tall buildings in faraway lands. Buildings that were far higher than my father’s walls. Buildings that stretched up to touch the very clouds. Buildings that were called by the name “cathedral”.

And the King wanted such a cathedral built here in Zimba Remabwe. My father must find out therefore how these buildings could be constructed in safety. He must investigate the methods of the Stonemason clans there in the lands of the Crusaders.

The lands of the Crusaders? Oh holiest god Mmwahhari! Was that our destination? It was more terrifying to me than crossing the sea!

And I saw that my father too was afraid. And Chivhu with him. Only Tshangani still stood with the light of excitement and adventure in his eyes.

But Tshangani did not know the stories about these people of the white bodies, these Crusaders. I had never passed them on to him. I could not bear such words to pass my lips.

Stories that you told, Shafiq.

To my father, do you remember?

But I heard them too, eavesdropping from my sleeping-mat in the sons’ hut. Yes, Shafiq, I confess to you. Those late nights when you and my father sat at the fire still talking, I was awake inside my hut and listening too. Unable to stop myself.

You told how the Crusaders came marching across the deserts to the Arab town of Jeru Salem. Marching all the long way from their own lands, a hundred hundred of them. With blood-red crosses on their banners and blood-red rage in their hearts. Because they said Jeru Salem was the home of their own god. And they slaughtered the women and the children and the babies until the streets of Jeru Salem were thick and slimed and slippery with blood. Scattered with severed heads and limbs.

And then the Crusaders would invade my dreams like a hundred hundred milk-coloured ghosts with blood-red teeth.

My father said, “It is the King’s command. We have no choice, Mokomba. Just as your grandfather had no choice when he was commanded by the King’s late father, MtotonyaTsi. Come. We will break this news to your mother. And we will ready ourselves.”

That was the evening my sister Raii caused such commotion. She is my twin sister and she has been always difficult and uncontrolled and with a wild tongue.

When she was a newborn baby, she survived the three days and nights left out in the forests and beside the waterhole of the lions. In midwinter. As instructed by the midwife because she was a twin and a girl.

And she has always been like this, loud and demanding, and forgetting at times that she is only a girl and of little importance.

*

This was my fault. Beneath it all I, Shafiq bin Fatmar, must bear the blame for this mad expedition.

It was late one night when I was summoned to the King’s chambers. His subjects knew well how he kept strange, unnatural hours. But willingly I climbed those many, many steps, slippery in the rain. Perhaps the King wanted to discuss further this matter of writing? And I was eager for that, eager to begin my teaching.

I had considered it deeply by then. Many sounds of the language of Zimba Remabwe were similar to sounds of my Arabic tongue. So therefore Arabic letters could be used. For the other sounds, I would need to create letter-shapes of my own. Yes, that would be the best way.

Because the nobles’ sons must surely learn to write in their own language?

And I was planning how I could teach them with sticks in the sand. At least until Mustapha’s papers and inks and pens arrived. That was how I learned first to write as a small boy, when paper was scarce and expensive.

So yes, I climbed the steepness of the hill willingly.

Guards posted along my way held torches that burned into the darkness. I was grateful for the light. Many of those steps were treacherous and narrow, particularly the steps closest to the summit.

But no. The King did not want to discuss writing. So of course I dared not mention it.

From behind his curtains of silk and gauzes, he said, “I cannot sleep, Shafiq the Arab. So tell me your stories of foreign places. Yes, your voice has a soothing quality.”

I spoke on and on, recalling the tales of my grandfather.

“Yes, and the Emperor of China has a giraffe there in his palace. A present from an Afrikan king from the land of the Jenz. This giraffe is a great wonder to the people of the Chinese court. Its droppings are collected for medicines and potions.”

Still the King did not sleep. So I moved on to the stories about the Crusaders, as told to me by my great-uncle.

I must be fair in my telling of facts. The Crusader massacres in Jeru Salem happened many, many years ago. More than a hundred, so my history tutor said. Yet still these people are known in my country as the Crusaders. I suppose it is easier than remembering their many tribal names: Germanics and Venice-dwellers and Franks and Englishers. And Bavarians and Austriars and Genoese. And more.

“Yes, your majesty,” I said through the gauzes. “Their bodies are white all over, white as the milk of your royal herds. And with strange colours in their long hair and long beards: yellow as the gold from your mines; red as the flowers of the flame trees. And with eyes blue as the sky, or green as the grass. It is a great strangeness and wonder to all.”

I spoke on and on, wondering if the King was now fallen asleep. Would his chamber-servants tell me? My throat grew dry and sore.

Then I heard the King’s voice. Even this close, it seemed to echo with his power and majesty. “These cathedrals you speak of, Shafiq. Is it the truth that they reach high as the very clouds?”

“So my great-uncle explained, oh Nameless One. I have not seen them with my own eyes.”

“Aaha!” said the King.

And a little later, the chamber-servant told me that the King was sleeping peacefully at last. And with a smile on his countenance.

It was the early-morning council meeting. In the mist, as Mokomba tells.

I sat on the long stone bench beside ReDombo. Most of the nobles were present. Shumba as well, the great explorer, newly returned from some insane journey across the sunset sea, and with his left arm only a stump and still healing.

From the rock-throne way above us, way above the eagle statues, the King’s voice echoed through the mist. “ReDombo, you will go to investigate these cathedral buildings. Shafiq the Arab, you will guide him to this land of the Milk people.”

The King’s word is a binding command. There is no arguing to be done. No heads may be shaken in disagreement. Even though his words struck terror in the hearts of those around me.

Not in my heart though. Like young Tshangani, the idea of travel was always delightful to me. Wanderlust runs through my body along with my blood.

So there in the sand of the council ground, I drew a map. Such as the map I have sketched for this chronicle. Hoping the King would see it through the dampness of the mist.

I said, “This is the best route, oh Nameless One. We walk eastward to Sofala with the merchants. In Sofala here, we will wait for the monsoon winds. Then a dhow will carry us northwards along the coast, through the waters of the sea of sunrise. To my home country, Egypt.”

I heard ReDombo’s gasp of anxiety behind me.

I said, “Your people will all be made welcome in my country. Welcome and treated with courtesy. We are a worldly-wise people, accepting of those who are different from us in looks or manners. Then my cousins will help guide us past Jeru Salem and westwards into the territories of the Crusaders – the Milk people. My cousins and I can speak the languages of these peoples. Even though they have many different tongues.”

And that was when Shumba took the drawing stick from my hand. Forceful as always, with his voice booming and echoing and filling the rocky council hall.

“No, no, oh Nameless One. I have a better way. It will bring us to the same destination. Yes. First we head westwards towards the sea of sunset. My boat lies waiting in the sands there at the village of the not-witches. We will board with my Arab sailors and sail northwards. Past the land of the Yoruba. Past the Kingdom of Adashanti. Then on until we reach the lands of these Milk people.”

And who can argue with Shumba? He is the hero of all Zimba Remabwe. He is the King’s beloved.

I looked down at the directions he had traced.

I wanted to ask him how far north he had in fact sailed on this sea of sunset. And what in fact had become of his missing slaves and his missing arm? But I had to hold my peace.

That was when my own heart began to quake with terror. I wanted to cut out my tongue forever speaking that word “cathedral”. Why had I not told the King about the pyramids instead? Those high, high structures left behind by the ancients of my own country. True, the pyramids did not touch the clouds. But in my country, in Egypt, there are few clouds in the sky.

And so I am to blame for the calamity which followed.

Allahu Akbar.