Indaba, My Children: African Tribal History, Legends, Customs And Religious Beliefs. Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa
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.
‘. . .