Was Thabisa one of Shaka’s courtesans?

  That was a question to which Ralph did not want to know the answer.

  In the hut, as the fire began to die, Ralph realised that he had lost all sense of time. He looked across at Thabisa, who was asleep on a grass mat, her breathing slow and steady.

  Ralph thought about the differences between them. Both had seen their families die in violence. But while he had dedicated his life to revenge, she simply accepted her fate.

  He wondered who was more free.

  Suddenly a girl entered with fresh water, and daylight spilled through the door. Desperate for light and fresh air, to be away from the metallic stink of Shaka’s blood and the pungent odour of the king’s shit, Ralph crawled outside.

  The scene in front of him was terrifying. Shaka’s women had gathered around the hut, confined so tightly by the surrounding fences that they could barely move. They must have been grieving all night. The few clothes they wore were torn, their bodies bruised and scratched. Some bled around their eyes from rubbing them so much, as if they had shed all their tears and were now forced to cry blood.

  Ralph struggled to his feet. He was starving – it had been twenty hours since he had last eaten – and exhausted. He needed to eat and sleep, but he could not leave Shaka’s side. His life was now bound to the king’s. And although he had done his best to attend to Shaka’s wounds, there were other ways that the king could yet die. Ralph doubted that the would-be assassin had acted alone. There were certainly other conspirators waiting for an opportunity to finish what the assassin had begun. If they could be discreet, who better to blame than the white wizard who had been treating the king?

  Was it a coincidence that the assassination had been attempted the day after Ralph’s party arrived? Maybe they meant to blame me all along.

  A shudder went through the crowd. Shouts rose above the wailing as a troop of Zulu guards entered the compound, pushing the women aside until they had cleared a passage to the hut.

  A man appeared and started to make his way towards Ralph, a phalanx of bodyguards following him. It was Dingane, waddling with the weight of his fat belly, his eyes half-closed, seemingly oblivious to the women around him. He approached the door of the hut as if he meant to enter.

  Ralph stood in his way. He planted his feet and squared his shoulders, so that even if the prince did not understand what Ralph said, his body language was unmistakable.

  ‘You cannot come in.’

  Dingane hesitated. It was beneath his dignity to acknowledge Ralph, but he could not ignore him. His scowl deepened. He snapped a command to one of his guards, a huge captain with a string of claws around his neck. The man stepped towards Ralph, lifting his spear while more men fell in behind him.

  Ralph could not fight Dingane’s entire entourage. Besides, he had no right to: Dingane was Shaka’s half-brother. Who was Ralph to keep him from the king’s sickbed? Yet still he would not yield. Dingane was the heir to the kingdom. To Ralph’s mind, that made him the most likely man to have planned the assassination – and most likely to want to finish the job.

  The flap covering the door behind him lifted as Thabisa crawled out. Hamu had also heard the commotion and the induna emerged from one of the other small huts in the compound. He appraised the situation in a single glance and spoke firmly to the guard captain. The captain answered fiercely and Dingane’s guards fingered their weapons. The women around the enclosure ceased wailing as the voices of the two men became loud and aggressive, watching to see what would happen next. The only person unmoved by it was Dingane, who acted as if he had not even noticed the confrontation happening in front of him.

  Ralph glanced at Thabisa. As a slave, she had more to fear than anyone. Ralph had seen only the previous morning how casually Dingane could order a person killed. Yet Thabisa stood tall, her face as calm and impassive as ever.

  The argument between Hamu and his opponent grew more heated. But as brave and loyal as he was to Shaka, Hamu could not defy a prince.

  Ralph was certain that if Dingane reached Shaka’s bedside, the king would die. And after that, those who had tried to save him would not live long.

  ‘I must speak to Dingane,’ he said to Thabisa. ‘Tell him what I have to say.’

  Thabisa stepped forward.

  ‘The medicine I have used is very strong,’ Ralph said. Thabisa translated. ‘If they go inside, it may make them sick.’

  Dingane’s lip curled. Ralph could see he did not believe him. But could he be sure? Even on the march to KwaBulawayo, Ralph had learned that the Zulus had a powerful reverence for magic. They believed it was everywhere, always waiting to enchant or curse the unwary.

  Dingane took a step away from the hut. He and the captain spoke to each other in low voices, then addressed Hamu.

  ‘He say, want see spear hurt Shaka,’ Thabisa translated.

  ‘What for?’

  Ralph had examined the weapon and seen no marks or special decoration. What could Dingane discover from it?

  Dingane spoke again.

  ‘Bad ones put magic on spear,’ said Thabisa. ‘Dingane take bad magic from Shaka.’

  Maybe the prince believed that, or maybe there was something on the spear that might identify the conspirators. Something that Dingane did not want to be found.

  Ralph glanced at Hamu. In the induna’s eyes, he saw the same calculation: that there was nothing to be gained from refusing Dingane a second time. Hamu nodded to Thabisa, who fetched the spear from the hut and presented it to one of the guards.

  The prince examined it. He ran his finger over the blade, which Ralph noticed had been wiped clean. With a venomous look at Ralph, he turned and waddled away. The guards followed in his footsteps.

  You have just made a very dangerous enemy, Ralph thought as he watched Dingane make his way out of the compound. It reminded Ralph of the words he had spoken to Marius and Jobe: Whatever bad blood there is between the brothers, we cannot take sides.

  Despite his best intentions, he had chosen where he would stand.

  There had been a time when the most important substance in Ralph’s life was opium. Every day had revolved around the pipe and the wait to feel the drug curling through his lungs into his veins. It had begun as a release from his pain; by the end, the opium itself was far crueller than what it was meant to cure.

  Ralph had broken the habit, but the process had plunged him into a black hole of infinite depth and anguish. A part of his soul had stayed trapped there forever.

  The days following Shaka’s stabbing were an echo of that dark time. He could not eat – the nausea was unbearable. Sleep, too, was impossible – he was haunted by visions and apparitions every time he closed his eyes. His hands began to tremble so much that he could hardly tie the bandages.

  Yet he never left Shaka’s side.

  Shaka awoke on the morning of the third day convinced that he was dead. He remembered the assassin standing over him and stabbing down with his iklwa, remembered Hamu and Ralph carrying him away from the crowd, but whatever medicine the sangoma had given him after the attack, to keep him sedated, had filled his head with vivid dreams. He had ascended to sit with the ancestors, and this could only mean one thing – he was dead.

  But the more vehemently the king proclaimed that he had joined the ancestors, the more Ralph began to hope. There was no longer any blood in Shaka’s mouth and the wound in his side had begun to heal. The spear tip must have missed the king’s lungs and heart, perhaps by no more than the thickness of a blade of grass. It was nothing short of a miracle.

  The sangoma’s drugs were strong and took many hours to leave the king’s body. On the fourth day after the assault, Shaka managed to sit upright. On the fifth day, having realised that he was still alive, he pronounced that he might, after all, continue to live.

  ‘You save me,’ he said to Ralph. Thabisa squatted in the corner and translated. ‘Good medicine.’

  Gunpowder and camomile tea, Ralph thought.

  He had probably done more to save Shaka by distracting the assassin. The split second that the killer hesitated, as Ralph charged towards him, might have been the fraction of an inch between the spear tip and Shaka’s heart.

  Ralph had come here to make his fortune. He had arrived at the court empty-handed – and he had saved Shaka’s life. The fates that had brought him here had given him an extraordinary opportunity.

  ‘You powerful doctor,’ Thabisa translated, her voice sweet and mellifluous. ‘You great man.’

  It would be easy to accept Shaka’s compliment. But Ralph was wary: he knew he was walking a knife-edge. Saving the king’s life had earned him gratitude, but it had also put Shaka in his debt, and that was an uncomfortable place to be. Even in his short time in KwaBulawayo, Ralph had glimpsed Shaka’s way of interacting with the world. Anything that limited his power, anyone he could not control, was a threat. And the king would not tolerate threats.

  ‘I am not great,’ Ralph said humbly. ‘I have merely helped a great man.’

  The answer pleased Shaka. The king looked emaciated, but the power in his eyes when he fixed them on Ralph was overwhelming.

  ‘Why you come see Zulus?’

  There was no reason for Ralph to lie. ‘To get rich.’

  This, too, pleased Shaka. He could understand that desire. It gave him power over Ralph.

  ‘And your friends? Big man like sea cow.’

  ‘Sea cow?’

  Ralph needed a moment to realise that the king was talking about Marius. For five days he had been so consumed by Shaka’s wellbeing that he hadn’t thought of his companions at all.

  ‘Do you know what has happened to him, and my other friend?’ He turned to Hamu. ‘Are they safe?’

  Hamu gave him a crooked look. ‘Safe.’

  ‘What they want?’ Thabisa asked, reminding him he had not answered Shaka’s question. ‘Your two friends.’

  ‘They want to get rich like me.’

  He saw the doubt on the king’s face. Shaka had seen the way that Marius talked and behaved. The sneering condescension would have needed no translation.

  ‘Only this?’

  ‘Only that.’

  A week after the attack, they moved Shaka back to the great hut. As his strength returned, so did the trappings of power. More attendants moved in and took over his care; Ralph was pushed back to the edge of the room, where the domed walls came down to the floor. The intimacy of those first days receded like a dream.

  Ralph still did not leave the king. He waited at the fringes, eyes hollow with exhaustion. He could not pretend to himself that he was safe: any relapse, any sudden change in Shaka’s health, would be laid on him. So he watched.

  The king talked earnestly to his indunas for hours.

  ‘What are they talking about?’ Ralph asked Thabisa. She had become his shadow, always by his side.

  ‘Fightings.’

  He presumed that she meant that they were swapping old war stories. Nothing to do with Ralph.

  ‘Why don’t you go to your quarters and get some rest?’ Her eyes had dark rims, and her skin had turned sallow and dull.

  She shook her head. ‘Stay here. Stay with you.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  He thought she was being obstinate. Then, as her arm brushed his, he realised she was trembling.

  She is as bound to my fate as I am to Shaka’s. And she did not even have a choice.

  He put his arm around her and cradled her to him. Her body was rigid, but after a few minutes in silence he felt her soften into him. Her head touched his shoulder. Soon, he heard gentle snoring.

  The next day, Shaka arose from his sickbed. The attendant Zulus exclaimed with praise and delight.

  The king seemed to have aged ten years in a week. Standing naked, his skin was grey and his shoulders bent; his once-powerful legs were thin and slack. He tottered on his feet. Even when Hamu handed him his knobkerrie, Ralph feared he might collapse.

  But Shaka wanted to show his people that he was still alive. They had seen him killed, had seen the assassin stab him in the heart, and yet he lived. He had awoken thinking that he had joined the ancestors; now he was going to make his people believe he was a god. Leaning on the knobkerrie, Shaka looked for Ralph. Their eyes locked, and though Ralph knew just how much the wound had weakened the king, the light in his eyes was strong. His head seemed to tilt at a defiant angle as he said a few words.

  ‘He go out,’ Thabisa translated.

  ‘You should rest,’ Ralph warned him. ‘You are still very . . .’ Weak was the word he meant to say, but you did not call a king weak. ‘. . . sore.’

  ‘Shaka strong. Need go out. People see, people not afraid.’

  Young women came with water and bowls. One held a lumpy orange paste. Shaka scooped up a handful and began scrubbing himself with it.

  ‘What is he doing?’ Ralph whispered to Thabisa.

  ‘Washing.’

  ‘What is he using?’

  Instead of cleaning Shaka’s skin, the paste left streaks of fat across it.

  ‘Cow.’

  ‘He washes himself with beef?’

  Another servant poured water into a black stone basin. Shaka dipped his hands, then began washing off the beef paste. When he was clean, he took reddish ointment from a bowl and rubbed it all over himself. As he worked it into his body, his skin took on a new, healthy lustre. Finally, he took fingerfuls of grease from a third bowl. It was butter, Ralph realised, thick and rancid, with such a terrible smell that he struggled not to gag. But as he slathered it over himself, it made Shaka’s skin shine like polished metal.

  Shaka walked to the door, still naked, and crawled out. Everyone followed. The floor of the inner courtyard had been polished to a sheen like green jade. Shaka stood in its centre, while attendants dressed him. First came the kilt of monkey tails, then a string of billowing ox-tails that they fastened around his chest. Ralph saw him wince as they tied it over the wound. He had obviously requested the ox-tails to hide the bandage.

  More ox-tail bands were added to his arms and legs. A necklace of lion claws and red beads was fastened around his neck, and copper bracelets on his forearms. The attendants fitted his headdress, which bristled with bunches of scarlet and green lourie feathers, and two tall blue crane feathers rising above them all.

  Shaka was invincible again. Even the knobkerrie he leaned on carried menace, a weapon rather than a sick man’s crutch. Shaka’s shoulders straightened, his head tipped back, and he cast an imperious glance around the courtyard. As one, the attendants and indunas squatted low and bowed their heads.

  ‘Bayete,’ they murmured – the royal acclamation.

  On the far side of the enclosure, Ralph saw Dingane among a knot of indunas. The prince was so fat that when he bowed he had to lean on one of his men for balance. As Dingane straightened up again, Ralph saw him glance in his direction. Even from across the courtyard the hatred on his face was obvious, his eyes hooded like a cobra’s.

  If he was not my enemy before, Ralph thought, he is now.

  Shaka processed to the main gate of the isigodlo, where the palace complex opened into the great enclosure. As he stepped out in front of his people, Ralph heard an eruption of noise, a roar of victory followed by a wave of ululation.

  People see, people not afraid. Was it a shout of delight, or of terror?

  The crowds which had gathered after the attack had not gone away during Shaka’s convalescence. In fact, they seemed to have grown. The people filled the main enclosure, swaying and singing with hoarse voices, songs of grief that turned to shouts of jubilation as soon as Shaka emerged.

  Shaka took his place at the head of the enclosure. The earth at the top end had been embanked slightly to create a dais, elevating the king above the crowd. The indunas and attendants filed in behind the king, arranging themselves in the lee of the embankment.

  Shaka began to address the crowd. The feathers in his hair rippled in the breeze, his furs swung as he swayed and moved. Everything proclaimed: I am alive. But he spoke in a low tone, almost mumbling, creating a vacuum that seemed to suck in his audience.

  Every other sound in the kraal ceased; no one moved. Even the cattle were silent.

  ‘What is he saying?’ Ralph whispered to Thabisa as she came up behind him.

  ‘He say, umGeorge send abelumbi help him.’

  ‘He is thanking me?’ Ralph felt a surge of relief, though when he checked the crowd, he realised that no one was looking at him. The aura of strangeness he carried as a white man still seemed to frighten them.

  A group of boys came out from the palace compound carrying a heavy burden between them. It was a pair of elephant tusks, each one so big it needed four youths to carry it. They climbed the embankment and laid them on the ground before Shaka.

  They must be a hundred pounds each, thought Ralph, marvelling at their size.

  Shaka beckoned Ralph forward. Ralph made his way up to the dais and squatted, Zulu fashion, in front of the king, while Shaka spoke over his head.

  Shaka pointed to the tusks, then to Ralph.

  ‘These for you,’ said Thabisa, who had accompanied him. ‘He make you rich man.’

  Ralph forgot his exhaustion. He glanced at Thabisa.

  ‘How do you say “thank you” in Zulu?’ he whispered.

  ‘Ngiyabonga.’

  ‘Ngiyabonga,’ he repeated, bowing low to Shaka.

  His reaction – and his attempt to speak Zulu – delighted the king. He is like a father who spoils his children so he can glory in their gratitude, thought Ralph, though he guessed that there was another side to Shaka for those the king deemed ungrateful.