Читать книгу Indaba, My Children: African Tribal History, Legends, Customs And Religious Beliefs - Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa - Страница 24

THE STORY OF LUMUKANDA

THE WHISPERING NIGHT

Night had fallen, but the feasting in the house of the man who owned me went on without pause. The great hall was one blaze of light from the many torches burning steadily inside. The sounds of merriment were loud in my ears as I stood guard at the gate with my friend Lubo.

Many were the masters who came into the gate, but few were those who went out – and they left only because they were so full of good food and so drunk they could eat and drink no more.

Some left our owner’s house on gilded stretchers carried by slaves because they had passed into the dark valleys of unconsciousness as a result of the vast quantities of beer and wine they had consumed. One of them came out in the most un-masterly fashion, being dragged out by the hair by no less a person than our owner’s son, and flung head over heels down the clay steps of the great house into the dust. We learnt later that this worthy had been treated in such a fashion because he had heatedly told the owner of the house that rather than see the mad and unnatural Karesu ruling the Empire, he would have Kadesi on the throne. That was treasonable talk and Lubo and I agreed that the offending master had got off very lightly indeed.

The moon rose and its eerie light gave the white-painted houses of the great city a delicate, ghostly quality that had to be seen to be believed. Beyond the brooding stockades that guarded the city like a crocodile’s jaws, the huge expanse of water that was Makarikari became one fantastic sheet of living silver. A few stars sparkled faintly in the heavens, fighting a losing battle against the grey soft light of the sacred orb of the night and the song of thousands of crickets was loud.

There were no thoughts of what the future held for me; I had no speculations over what was in store for me. I, and the rest of my shackled race, led our lives like the beasts of burden we were; it was of no use for us to speculate or to dream, because daydreams make a slave’s life more intolerable than the chains around his ankles and neck.

A rasping voice rang out from the top of the steps behind us: ‘Lumukanda, the second slave, the master calls for you.’

It was the old man, Obu, the first slave, who was in charge of all of us younger slaves in the master’s house and grainfields. I turned and ran up the short flight of steps and then stood with bowed head just inside the door of the great hall. The masters and their females lay, or reclined, on gilded wooden couches along the three walls of the great high-roofed hall. Along the fourth wall, on either side of the door, stood cup-bearer slaves. Female slaves were carrying big baskets loaded with fruit, meat and corncakes, all ready to replenish the cup or the plate of any of the masters who might so wish.

There were small ivory-legged tables near each couch. On one stood the shining beer-cups while on the other stood the cake trays and meat plates. I could not help noticing that most of the masters now paid more attention to the beer cups than to the meat trays. The masters wore nothing save golden necklaces and bracelets, and white cloaks which they had only thrown around their waists because of the humidity. The females wore only light skirts and many golden bracelets and necklaces. A few even had broad golden bands around their heads. Their hair, ranging in colour from red to brown and to jet black, cascaded about their smooth shoulders like living smoke. Through the ringing of loud laughter and buzz of talking came my owner’s voice from the far corner of the hall:

‘You there, at the door, come to the middle of the hall.’

‘As you command, Master,’ I called out, drawing myself erect and stepping into the open space in the centre of the great hall.

‘Look at him,’ roared my owner to the rest of the masters. ‘Look at that tall black brute – only sixteen and yet as tall as an adult and just as heavily muscled. I am willing to wager two big elephant tusks full of gold dust that none of your slaves can beat him in a sword fight.’

‘Taken,’ shrieked one of the others – a White woman. ‘I have a female slave who can tear that brute of yours to pieces!’

‘What do you wager?’ demanded a chorus of excited voices.

‘Four cups of gold and two golden plates,’ snapped the black-haired female.

‘Taken!’ cried my owner. ‘Go and fetch your bitch and let us have a good fight tonight.’

The woman snapped a command to one of her slave boys and he flew out of the hall into the night. Then my owner ordered a bronze helmet and a sword brought and given to me to arm myself with. The helmet was shaped like a human head and had a nose and two holes shaped like eyes; it covered my face completely. The sword was of iron with a bronze hilt and was both sharp and very heavy, with a needle-sharp point. It was the same sword I had used in six previous fights – fights between me and fellow slaves in which I always had the doubtful honour of being the winner.

‘Fight well and win, second slave,’ roared my owner. ‘Fight well and win or, by the demons of hell, I shall cut your dirty black throat and fling your smelly carcass to the dogs!’

I drew myself up with pride and raised my sword high in salute. ‘I shall fight and win, Oh Master, I shall win as I have always won before.’

‘Insolent pig,’ hissed the White female whose slave I was due to fight. ‘We shall see about that.’

Putting women fighters against men was one of the new ways of entertainment the Strange Ones had invented. But I had never had to fight a woman before and also, as I stood there waiting, a strange feeling of uneasiness began to grow within me – so much so that at one time I almost felt like dropping my sword and running out of the hall.

A few moments later, my tall female opponent came striding through the door wearing, like myself, a helmet and carrying a long sharp sword. Like me, too, she was naked save for a green loincloth around her broad womanly hips. She went to where her mistress lay on the couch like a glittering snake and prostrated herself in salute. Then she saluted everybody else in the hall by raising her sword.

‘Fight,’ snapped her mistress. ‘Kill him, quick!’

Like a striking mamba, the fighting woman whirled upon me, her sword thrusting viciously at my stomach. But I sidestepped and the flashing sword only gave me a slight, though painful, cut in the side. Then I closed with her and our blades flashed and whirled in the torchlight, both of us fighting like the trained killers we were. Twice she wounded me with the darting point of her blade and twice I returned the compliment. For a while neither of us gained any advantage, then at last I forced her to give way by wounding her deeply in the thigh and above the left breast.

By this time the hall was in uproar, and none of the masters and their females was sitting any more; all were on their feet like so many bloodthirsty children and shouting encouragement to first one and then the other of us. Wagers flew back and forth and the owner of the female slave, stung to anger by my owner’s vicious taunts, shrieked angrily that if I defeated her fighting woman, she would become my owner’s wife for the night.

‘Not for the night only,’ cried my owner. ‘Not for tonight only, but for ten more nights!’

‘Yes,’ snarled the female, ‘if your slave wins.’

My adversary began to press me savagely now. She seemed anxious to end the fight as quickly as possible by killing me. Her sword was nothing less than a hissing silvery blur and only my skill saved me from being fatally wounded. Then at last I struck a blow at her that all but cut off her left breast. She fell with a loud cry of agony and my sword point entered her chest.

Loud cheers rang through the hall as I knelt down and removed her helmet to take to my owner as a trophy.

As I removed the helmet, the woman’s agony-clouded eyes opened and a look of great puzzlement and surprise spread over her dark beautiful face. She was looking at something on my chest, the black, moonshaped birthmark that stands out against the dark-brown of my body. She could not see my helmet-masked face and she could not see the tears that came welling into my eyes as I recognised her. She was the woman whom I had known most intimately once upon a time – sixteen years ago when she carried me in her womb, brought me forth, and suckled me.

‘It is your mother,’ whispered the old man Obu unnecessarily.

Sixteen years before, as a young girl, herself born in slavery, she had been mated to a young slave by the Slave Breeders, and had conceived and given birth to me. Like all slaves with suckling young, she had spent two years in the underground slave stalls where breeding took place, nursing her baby – me. After another year, when I was three, they took me away from her and I had never seen her again until this fateful night.

But she had not forgotten me and she particularly remembered the strange crescent-shaped birthmark on my chest, the birthmark that had excited the other slave mothers so many years ago.

Blind with tears I tore my helmet off and threw it to the floor. With great difficulty she opened her mouth and said: ‘My son . . . you are my son . . . Lumukanda!’

‘Forgive me, mother . . . Oh, forgive me . . .’ I cried.

‘Dear child,’ she said with a strange pitying smile, ‘I forgive you. You did not know – I could have killed you too. I am glad it is I, not you, who die.’

‘Mother, don’t die, don’t die,’ I cried.

Her eyes closed as I held her tightly, madly and desperately to my tear-bedewed chest. I looked up briefly to find that the hall was fast emptying of people. The masters were leaving in groups of threes and fours with their females, their laughter ringing loudly as they went into the moonlit night. My owner had already retired to his room with my mother’s mistress and soon only my friends, Lubo and Obu, were left with me in the silent hall. Then my parent’s eyes opened for the last time and once again she smiled. Her hand reached up and stroked my cheek briefly before dropping limply to the floor. Faintly she said: ‘My child, you . . . great deeds . . . someone great . . . loves you. Be brave . . . strong, my son . . .’

And with that strange smile of incredible tenderness and pride on her lips she died. I could have killed myself with grief such as I have never known, before – or since.

Obu, Lubo and I laid my slain parent to rest in a deep grave on the shores of the silvery lake. We buried her in the way the Strange Ones buried their dead, lying on her back with her hands at her sides. Her helmet was on her head and her sword was in its scabbard beside her tall body.

‘Farewell, my parent . . .’

I could hardly stand, let alone walk, and Obu and Lubo had to support me as we went back into the moonlit city. As we approached the great gates, over the bridge spanning the deep water-filled ditch, a loud cry tore the quiet night and a body came hurtling down from the top of one of the great towers that flanked the city gate, plunging into the moat with an unbelievable splash – immediately sinking like a stone.

‘Another murder,’ cried Obu. ‘It is the second one in three days. What is this city coming to?’

‘I know who that was who fell in there,’ said Lubo. ‘It is the male wife of the High Emperor Karesu. Gods – great immortal gods, now there is going to be trouble!’

A harsh voice called out to us as we entered the gate, the voice of the leader of a troop of bronze-clad White guards who had come running to investigate the scream and the splash.

‘Ho there, slave dogs. Halt! Who was that who fell into the moat? Answer!’

‘We do not know, Master,’ replied Obu, bowing low.

‘What are you dogs doing outside the city walls this time of night?’ snarled the commander of the guard.

‘They went out to bury a dead fellow-slave, Commander,’ replied one of the guards. ‘I saw them as they went out past the guard house.’

‘Where did the one who uttered the cry fall from?’ demanded the commander.

‘He fell from the top of this tower, Master,’ replied Obu, pointing to the tower on the left side of the gate.

‘What race was he?’

‘He was one of the master’s, Master.’

The guard commander turned to his men and shouted: ‘Some of you get up there quick. You, slaves, stay here and do not move.’

The guards went pelting up the long flight of steps that went up the solid stone tower. Suddenly a white-clad figure came running down the steps of the other tower and flew like a mad ghost up the main street leading to the centre of the city. The commander, together with two of the guards who had remained behind, turned with a loud shout and gave chase.

‘Come on, my sons,’ said Obu to Lubo and me, ‘let us get to our owner’s home quickly. But do not run; these streets will soon be crawling with soldiers.’

He was right; we were only a few blocks away from our owner’s house when squads of fully armed soldiers came clanking past us on their way to the gate and alarm horns sounded in the silver night, calling all available warriors to man the towers and the stockade around the city.

‘I wonder if they caught whoever it is that was running up the street,’ mused Obu.

‘I would not like to be in his place, whoever it was,’ laughed Lubo, as he went up to the tall gates of our master’s house.

Suddenly Lubo pointed excitedly to our right. ‘Look, look there.’

‘Where?’ cried Obu.

‘Over there, on the corner of the garden wall, look.’

We turned and, following his pointing finger, saw a sight that sent shivers of excitement along our spines. A tall white-clad figure had just climbed the high wall surrounding our owner’s garden and was about to leap within.

‘It is the fugitive who ran away from the tower,’ said Obu grimly. ‘Let us get into the garden quickly and seize him.’

Like stalking wild cats we entered our owner’s well-tended grounds and began our search for the white-clad fugitive whom we felt sure had pushed the male consort of our city’s male Emperor into the moat. We all knew that if we let this fugitive hide himself in the gardens it would mean death for all of us and for our owner as well.

It fell to me to be the one who found the assassin, and a great surprise it was as well. I had gone well ahead of both Lubo and Obu when I heard people talking in low voices just round the corner of our owner’s house. I dropped on my knees and crawled along the grass slowly and carefully until I could see around the corner of the great house. To my great surprise I saw the thickset, bearded man who owned us standing on the steps of the back door of the house and talking to the veiled white-clad figure of our quarry who stood on the ground looking up at him. I caught the last words of my owner’s address to the fugitive.

‘. . . well indeed, but you must come into the house before someone sees you, your Highness.’

‘Your Highness . . .’ The words struck me like a blow! Who, then, could the midnight fugitive and murderer be? In the whole of the empire there were now only two people left alive to whom the title of ‘Your Highness’ could be applied. The first of them was, of course, the High Emperor himself; the other was his dead brother’s widow whom I had never seen, but about whom I had heard a lot of fantastic rumours.

The visitor entered the house like a white ghost. Then came the next surprise of that memorable night. Loud shouting in three different voices erupted within our master’s house and the voices were those of our owner himself, his son, and the woman who had been my mother’s mistress. Then the blood-curdling sounds of a murderous sword fight, punctuated by the crash of breaking furniture, reached our shocked ears as we turned and ran to the front to get the long spears we carried when guarding our owner’s house at night. A loud, quavering scream split the night air as we reached the front entrance. Then we heard the voice of my mother’s former mistress shrieking loudly and accusingly:

‘You killed him . . . you killed your own son, you foul murderer! But I am going out to tell the Emperor that you are plotting against him. You false traitor . . . you are trying to play a double game. I shall tell the soldiers you are hiding this bitch in your house!’

The door burst open and the woman came running out, wrapped in a blue cloak, with her hair flying behind her. Our owner was close behind her, bleeding from a cut above one eye. ‘To me, slaves, seize her . . . kill her . . . quick!’