house, dawn was not far away and in fact, the eastern sky was beginning to lighten. Three very tired slaves descended the stone steps leading down to the underground stalls where other slaves were sleeping.
‘Ka-whew!’ said Lubo. ‘Oh my doddering father! What a night we have had!’
‘Be quiet, my son, and sleep,’ said the old man Obu. ‘We shall soon have to get up, so try and get what sleep you can.’
But I could not sleep and dawn found me tossing and writhing in the vermin-infested grass piled on the damp floor of my sleeping stall. My mind was in turmoil and I could not think straight. But uppermost in my seething, troubled mind was the realisation that I was guilty of the worst crime any man can ever commit – the murder of my own parent.
Pictures, clear and astonishingly real, flashed like thunderflashes through my troubled brain: pictures of my childhood and my mother as I remembered her then – the silly sounds she used to make when I cried. But I recalled most clearly the little toy she had made for me out of wood – a puppet I used to play with in my lonely hours. I cried and moaned in incurable agony and remorse. But I knew that no matter how long and how loud I cried I could never, never bring my parent back again. I knew with a terrible finality that whether I lived a short life or a long one, I would carry my guilt to the grave.
I cursed the masters, I cursed the gods and I cursed myself bitterly for what had happened. But always present in the back of my mind was the realisation that all this would never bring my parent back again. I suddenly found myself longing for death.
Morning came and we all crawled out of our sleeping stalls – twenty male and sixteen female slaves in all – and followed Obu to the lake for our morning wash. As I bathed in the living water one of the younger female slaves Luluma waded up to me and laid her small hand on my chest, asking: ‘How do you feel today, Oh Lumukanda?’
‘I wish I were dead, Oh Luluma,’ I replied. ‘I really wish I were dead.’
‘Try and forget, Oh my brother-in-suffering,’ said the girl soothingly. ‘It was not your fault – it was their fault.’
‘I will never forget what happened last night for as long as I live,’ I said. ‘No water on earth can ever wash my parent’s blood off these guilty hands.’
‘Do not judge yourself, Oh Lumukanda. We are the playthings of fate and can never be responsible for all that we do or what happens to us any more than toys are responsible for what the playing child does with them.’
‘The Old Ones tell us there are gods somewhere,’ I said bitterly, ‘but I am afraid these so-called gods are but figments of some . . .’
‘No, Lumukanda!’ cried she. ‘Do not say that.’
‘I shall say what I please,’ I sneered. ‘If there are any gods, or if there is the Great Spirit, why in the name of all that is foul and rotten do they let such things happen to human beings? Why are we slaves and the Strange Ones our masters? Why is there so much misery, murder, theft and strife under the sun? I dare any of those non-existent, imaginary, somnolent, gods-so-called to . . . to . . .’
‘Lumukanda!’ gasped the girl. ‘You are blaspheming. You might regret your words one day.’
And she was right.
After finishing our morning wash we followed the old man Obu into the master’s house to present ourselves and to do obeisance before him as was the custom amongst slaves. As we entered the master’s great hall we found him sitting on his great couch with his two young concubines, one on either side. But there was also someone else with them in the hall, someone who did not belong there at all – who was a total and unusual and frightening stranger. This was a tall, well-moulded beautiful woman whose skin was almost as dark as my own and who looked like the daughter of a Strange One and a Black woman. This woman wore a tight-fitting garment that reached from her midriff to her ankles. On her arms and forearms she wore heavy, broad and skilfully engraved gold bracelets while around her shoulders she wore a great white cloak made of a woven, shiny material. Around her head she wore a broad golden band and she looked at the world through a pair of deep-set glittering eyes with lashes as long as the first joint of a man’s thumb.
I realised with a shock that she was the white-clad one whom we had seen the night before, climbing over the garden wall. So this was the sorceress – the feared witch Kadesi-Makira – the dreaded opponent of the Emperor Karesu!
From where she sat in the far corner of the hall she flayed us with her pitiless stare as we filed past our master and briefly prostrated ourselves before him and his concubines.
My turn came and I fell on my knees before our owner and crossed my forearms before my face as was the custom. Then I stood up and turned to go.
‘Wait!’
That one single command stung the silent hall like a slave-trainer’s whip-stroke and all eyes turned to the white-clad dark woman who had uttered it.
‘Where did you get that slave?’ she demanded of our master.
‘Your Highness?’
‘I asked you, where did you get that slave?’
‘I bought him as a pup, Oh Great One,’ he replied humbly. ‘Does your Highness know this slave from somewhere?’
‘No,’ said she grimly, ‘I have never seen the dog before in real life. But I do know what you must do to him immediately. Kill him!’
‘Kill him, your Highness?’ gasped my owner. ‘Pray why? He is my favourite fighting slave – he has won many prizes . . .’
‘Fool . . . fool, what a fool you are!’ cried Makira, rising to her feet. ‘Have you never heard of the prophecy about the Dark Destroyer?’
‘The Dark Destroyer!’ cried our owner, his eyes opening wide with horror and astonishment. ‘You mean . . .’
‘Yes, my dear White fool, I mean that this slave of yours is none other than the Dark Destroyer whom the old prophets said would be born one day and would, like the vulture of sunset, destroy our empire,’ the Queen Kadesi-Makira announced sharply. ‘Tell me, has he no strange birthmark somewhere shaped like some well-known thing?’
‘He has!’ cried one of the concubines. ‘A moonshaped mark above his left breast. I noticed it one day when he brought me some wine.’
‘I dreamt about this creature last night. I dreamt of the Sun-God telling me he was in this very house!’ cried Kadesi-Makira. ‘Seize him, you other slaves, seize him! Let me take a closer look at him before he dies. Seize him and bring him here!’
Obu and two other slaves seized my arms and pushed me towards the seated woman who rose and stared fixedly at me for a few moments and then lashed out with her open hand, hitting me hard on one side of the face.
‘Ha!’ she shrilled. ‘It has fallen to me to uncover the foul menace to our empire. We must kill this viper before its fangs can grow.’
They bound me securely hand and foot and they tied two heavy grindstones to my ankles. Then they left me in my sleeping stall under heavy guard until the sun had set and night had crept upon the land like a stealthy panther. I knew that at last death
