Ralph lay by the grave and wept. Bheka must have come to look for his master when Ralph did not return. He would have heard Marius’s pistol shot, and assumed it was Ralph’s rifle. Right up to the moment that Marius shot him, he would not have understood what he had found.

  Do I understand it?

  The conspirators meant to kill Shaka: that much was clear. Without him, Dingane would be king; and if any indunas or regiments remained loyal to the old regime, Marius’s guns would change their minds. In exchange for Marius’s support, the new king would bestow trading privileges and hunting rights.

  So why is Jobe with them? From his poise and conditioning, it looked as if he had thrived among the Chunus since leaving Nativity Bay, made himself a chief. What could induce him to make common cause with Marius, the man who had tried to enslave him, and branded him for life?

  If Shaka’s campaign was successful – if he extended his grip south of the Thukela – he would encroach on the lands the Chunus had settled. He would threaten Nativity Bay, too. That was what had driven Jobe and Marius together again. They would help Dingane take the throne, and in return he would leave them to build their own kingdoms.

  Ralph’s head throbbed and his arm was agony, but one thought overwhelmed everything.

  I must warn Shaka.

  Afterwards, Ralph could not fathom how he had managed to get back to the kraal. Every movement was excruciating, each step so difficult that he thought he could not go any further. But still he kept moving forward.

  By the time he caught the smell of woodsmoke, and saw the glow of fires from between the trees, dawn was not far away. The sentry who found him was amazed that Ralph was alive. He summoned three others, and between them they carried him to the hut he had been assigned in the kraal where they were staying. Ralph felt unconsciousness dragging him down, but he fought it back.

  ‘I must speak to Shaka,’ Ralph said.

  The king had retired for the night some hours earlier, appropriating for himself the headman’s hut at the top of the kraal. Ralph had to swear at the guards, using every Zulu curse he knew, before they dared wake Shaka. He came out of the hut, naked, his dark body gleaming almost blue in the moonlight.

  ‘I told you, one man hunting is dangerous,’ Shaka said, delighted to have been proved right. ‘I sent your boy to find you because you did not come back.’ The smile faded as his eyes adjusted to the dark, and he was confronted with Ralph’s mutilated body held up by two of his guards. ‘What have you done? Did you fight a lion?’

  ‘A lion and a crocodile. But they were not the most dangerous beasts in the forest.’

  ‘You need the sangoma.’

  ‘Later. The boy is dead. I must talk to you alone.’

  Waves of pain washed through Ralph; he spoke every word through clenched teeth. The urgency of what he had to say was plain.

  ‘Go,’ Shaka told his men.

  The guards laid Ralph down on the swept earthen floor of the kraal and retreated to the fence. Shaka knelt and put his head close to Ralph’s.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I saw your brother in the forest.’ Ralph told Shaka what he had witnessed. The king frowned.

  ‘He should not be there speaking with strangers. What foolishness! I will talk to him.’

  Ralph wondered if he had made himself clear. ‘He was not speaking with strangers. These men are your enemies. He plans to kill you and make himself king.’

  Shaka drew back. His eyes narrowed. ‘How could he do such a thing?’

  ‘It almost happened once before.’

  ‘And the ancestors protected me. No spear will pierce my heart.’

  ‘Dingane will bring white men with guns.’ Ralph had to make him understand. ‘They killed my boy, Bheka, because they feared he would betray them.’

  Shaka flicked his hand, as if to say a boy is nothing more than a fly. ‘Did Dingane say he would kill me? Did he say he would be king?’

  Ralph tried to remember the exact words. ‘No. But . . .’

  Shaka pointed to the long cut across Ralph’s scalp. His mouth twisted in mockery. ‘I think the lion cut out your brains.’

  Ralph wondered if Shaka was right – if loss of blood had made him lose his senses. At Shaka’s court, even the suspicion of treason meant certain death. He had seen men dragged away and executed because their attention had wandered during one of Shaka’s speeches, and that was enough proof of disloyalty. Yet now, Shaka acted as if what Ralph had seen was nothing.

  ‘Why do you not listen to me?’ Ralph asked. ‘Are you frightened to strike?’

  Shaka jerked away and stood, towering over Ralph. Light from the fire flickered over his gleaming torso.

  He turned to one of the guards, raising his voice: ‘Who do you say I am?’

  ‘Nkosi, you are the one who always leaves the battlefield unharmed. The one whose spear sheds more blood than all others,’ the guard said loudly, chanting the praises in a sing-song rhythm. The other guards repeated them, stamping and clapping.

  ‘Can one man overthrow me?’

  ‘No man can overthrow you.’

  Shaka looked back at Ralph. ‘You hear what they say? Who can come against me?’

  ‘Marius has guns,’ Ralph murmured – but quietly. He knew Shaka would not hear it.

  A commotion sounded by the kraal gate – raised voices. Shaka tensed; the guards readied their spears. For all Shaka’s bravado, perhaps Ralph’s words had made him think again.

  Dingane came hurrying into the compound, waddling so fast his enormous stomach wobbled like a flummery.

  ‘Bayete,’ he saluted the king. He gazed at Ralph’s wounds. ‘What has happened?’

  Shaka regarded his brother coolly. ‘umRalph went into the forest today.’

  At that, even Dingane’s inscrutable mask slipped. His eye twitched, and Ralph could almost see the thoughts racing in his brain. Where had Ralph been? What had he seen?

  ‘The forest is dangerous for a man by himself,’ Dingane said.

  ‘Impela.’ Indeed. ‘He fought three wild animals,’ Shaka said, and Ralph did not correct him. ‘A lion, a crocodile and a snake.’

  The two brothers’ eyes locked. Dingane took a half step back. ‘He is lucky to be alive.’

  ‘The three animals devoured one another.’

  Ralph lay on the ground and watched, forgotten.

  Shaka knows, Ralph thought. He understood me. So why did he argue with me?

  Did he think Dingane could be brought to heel? Was he hiding his knowledge, to keep Dingane off balance? Or was it that after all the bloodshed and murder that had put him on the throne and kept him there, Shaka at last recoiled from killing his own brother, his last family?

  Dingane’s cold gaze flitted back to Ralph. ‘Did he bring trophies from these beasts? I would like to see them.’

  ‘They drowned.’ Ralph’s voice came out as a hollow rasp. ‘I did not have the chance to skin them.’

  ‘It is easy to be a great hunter when you do not bring back evidence,’ Dingane sneered.

  ‘His wounds prove his story,’ said Shaka. ‘He has no reason to lie.’

  Dingane looked between Ralph and Shaka. Again, Ralph saw Shaka’s genius for manipulation. He would keep Dingane guessing about what he knew, dropping hints that might mean everything or nothing. This course of action offered Dingane an opportunity – whatever he had done or planned, he could still abandon it without penalty – but if he wanted to press forward with his plans it would also slow him down. He would be paralysed with doubt. What did Shaka really know? Which of his men were truly loyal? How was Shaka obtaining his information?

  It was a dangerous strategy.

  ‘I have reviewed my plans for the campaign,’ Shaka announced. ‘I will go with the army myself.’

  Dingane was caught off guard. ‘Is that wise?’

  ‘Am I so old that I cannot fight?’ Shaka gave his brother a severe look, then burst out laughing. ‘My soldiers have become fat and lazy. With their king watching, perhaps they will fight like warriors.’

  ‘I look forward to seeing it.’

  ‘You will go back to the capital.’ Shaka gave a grin. ‘Someone must keep the isigodlo in order.’

  In other words: your place is with the women.

  ‘I should be at your side,’ Dingane protested.

  ‘I know you are always with me, brother. In spirit.’

  With a nod, Shaka dismissed Dingane. The prince backed away and marched out of the kraal.

  Shaka watched him go, then turned to look down at Ralph, as if he had only just remembered him. Like sun chasing off a rain shower, his face softened into concern.

  ‘We have spoken too long while you are hurt. Bring me the sangoma,’ he ordered his guards. ‘We must heal his wounds. I will need my most loyal induna for the battles ahead.’

  You will, Ralph thought, but he was filled with fear. Shaka might think he could keep Dingane in his place, and Ralph had kept Marius away for four years, but if the two men made an alliance . . .

  What if the crocodile had not attacked the lion? What if, instead, they had both attacked me?

  Ralph felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to flee. The thought shamed him. He tried to ignore it, but it would not leave his mind.

  I could not even get myself out of this kraal right now, he told himself. And Shaka will never let me go while he is at war.

  But it was too late. He had seen the future, and it terrified him. Wheels were turning; events had been set in motion that even Shaka could not control.

  If I am to get out of here alive, I must go soon.

  TALALA KRAAL

  A

  nn examined her patient with dismay.

  ‘You have been in the wars again,’ she exclaimed. ‘Look at you! I do not know if I will be able to mend you this time.’

  Her patient squirmed. ‘We won.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it. But there is no point winning a victory if you hurt yourself so much you cannot fight again.’

  ‘Maphitha hit me on the knuckles,’ Harry complained. Ann knew that this was considered cheating. ‘Sothobe and I climbed the hill where they couldn’t see us. We charged and they ran away.’

  Ann half-listened as Harry prattled on, telling her in detail about the battles he had fought that day with his friends. She cleaned out his scrapes and grazes and rubbed a decoction of buffalo thorn leaves onto his bruises to ease the pain. Most of his cuts were already scabbing over, but one needed a bandage. She wondered why she bothered. Tomorrow, he would have new wounds. And again, she would tend them and bind them, and kiss them better. She could not do otherwise.

  In the beginning, she had tried to keep him in Ralph’s kraal. But the boy was not meant to be penned up. The first day they were there, he found a way to slip out of the gate when her back was turned. She found him halfway down the hillside chasing a cow, just as he had seen the herdboys do.

  After that, he went where he chose. Often, he disappeared with the first morning light, when the cattle went out to graze, and did not return until sunset. By the end of their first week living among the Zulus, he had become friends with a group of boys. They tended their cattle, trapped and hunted small game, and roamed the countryside fighting miniature battles. Ann fretted, but she could see it was good for Harry. It was the first time in his life he’d had the company of boys his own age, and he embraced their companionship, drinking it up like a desert plant after a drought. Every day, Ann could see the changes in him. He seemed to grow a foot taller, walking with a confident strut. He glowed with happiness. And if he came home with bruises on his arms and legs, or a cut on his knee, or a black eye, he never complained.

  Eight years old, she marvelled. It seemed impossible that the bawling baby she had pulled out of the boat at Port Elizabeth had grown into this strong, opinionated child. At night, when she read him stories from the battered volume of Daniel Defoe that Ralph had rescued from the Farewell, he would look into her eyes and tell her seriously: ‘When I am grown-up, I will go on adventures.’

  ‘You have already been shipwrecked like Robinson Crusoe.’

  ‘Then I will explore Africa, like Captain Singleton,’ he said.

  And she believed him.

  Of course, she worried about him. Not just about the scrapes and bruises, but about the boy he was becoming. She tried to school him in the things an English child should learn, but she had few resources and Harry was a poor pupil. From memory, she tried to teach him the kings and queens of England, and passages from the Bible, but he got distracted by the least thing – the hornbills that squabbled in the kraal, the lizards that scurried in the thatch – and was constantly slipping off the moment she looked away. She spent hours trying to get him to read, drawing letters in the dirt and getting him to sound them out, but each time they came back to them he seemed to have forgotten what he had learned in their previous lesson.

  ‘Don’t you want to be able to read Robinson Crusoe for yourself?’ she encouraged him.

  He looked at her as if she was mad. ‘But I know it all already.’

  He hadn’t seen the inside of a church since they had left Paradise Valley, and Ann did not know his birthday, even if she had kept a calendar.

  If he goes back to England, they will think he is a perfect savage, she worried.

  But what was England to him? He showed no interest in learning about it: it was no more real for him than the stories from the Bible, and considerably less real than the adventures of Daniel Defoe. Harry was perfectly content living with the Zulus: their country was his country, their ways his ways. Everything in his life was entirely normal and natural to him. And if he noticed that his skin and hair were different from those of his playmates, he never thought it worthy of comment.

  This cannot last, Ann thought. He cannot be what he is not. But she could not see how things would change.

  Perhaps she envied Harry his simple, certain place in the world. For though she lived in Ralph’s kraal, and Ralph played the part of the induna, Ann had no place in Zulu society. She was not a wife, or a grandmother, and she had no interest in getting married again. Ralph’s duties took him away for days or weeks at a time, hunting or at war, or visiting the kraals that Shaka had given him. That left Ann alone with Thabisa.

  To Ann, it was like being back at sea on the Farewell. She felt that she was useless and always in the way. She did not want the Zulus to wait on her like servants, but when she tried to help with the cooking, Thabisa glowered at her, so she retreated to her hut.

  Observing what the other women did, Ann noticed they spent much of their time weaving baskets. Their work was fantastically intricate and decorated with beautiful patterns – diamonds, triangles, whorls – created from palm leaves dyed in a riot of different colours.

  Ann had no palm fronds, and she did not dare ask Thabisa, so one day she picked rushes by the stream and left them in the sun. When they were dry, she began to plait them together as she had seen the other women do. The rushes constantly pulled apart, and she could not get them to hold their shape. After hours of labour, all she had to show was a misshapen ball of grass.

  Thabisa had come into the kraal, unnoticed, and looked at Ann’s handiwork. She had wrinkled her nose.

  ‘I am practising,’ Ann said.

  Thabisa had knelt beside her. She took a handful of the rushes, pinched them in a star shape and began to wrap them together. In less than ten minutes, she had created a loosely woven bowl.

  ‘I will learn.’

  Ann had wished Thabisa would go away. What did she want to prove by humiliating Ann?

  But Thabisa did not leave. Instead, she had unpicked her handiwork until the fibres were separated into a sunflower shape. She held it out to Ann.

  ‘Do like this.’

  Slowly, so that Ann could see, she wove one of the fronds in between two others. Then she passed it to Ann.

  ‘You try.’

  And so Ann had learned to weave. The two women could sit beside each other for hours working on their pieces. Thabisa’s were so tightly woven that they could hold gallons of beer or water without leaking a drop; for a long time, Ann’s creations would not take the weight of a mealie without falling apart. But eventually her hands learned how to twist the fibres so they held, how to bend the flat fronds to form curves, and how to shape those curves into baskets and bowls. In the same way, the cold silence between the women became a companionable silence; the few words they exchanged became sentences, and finally conversations.

  Though there were still many things they did not know about each other.

  ‘When you marry Ralph?’ Thabisa asked one day.

  Ann laughed, to cover her embarrassment. ‘I am not his wife.’

  ‘The boy?’

  ‘He is not Ralph’s son.’

  Thabisa shot her a disbelieving look. ‘Who is father then?’

  At last Ann understood her hostility. If Thabisa thought that Ann had arrived as the mother of Ralph’s child, his wife or – Ann shuddered at the word – mistress, no wonder she saw her as a rival. Though Ann was happy to be ignorant of what happened in the privacy of Ralph’s hut, she could draw her own conclusions from the fact that Thabisa had not borne a child in four years of marriage to Ralph. She could see how much it hurt Thabisa, both her pride as a wife and her maternal instincts. If Thabisa thought Ann had mothered a son for Ralph, that would make Ann both a rebuke and a threat.

  So Ann told Thabisa her story. Thabisa listened in silence, the only sound was the scratch and rustle of her fingers weaving the fibres of the basket she was making. She barely looked at it, but kept her gaze focused on Ann until her tale was complete.

  Was there a hint of sympathy in her eyes? Thabisa’s face, schooled by years as a slave in the isigodlo, was impossible to read. But Ann thought she detected a slight softening in the young woman’s attitude, perhaps an understanding.

  It was as close as she had come to friendship in months. She did not want to let the feeling go.