daily duties.
Tshangani was practising his Storykeeper craft.
“There is so much to remember, Mokomba,” he said. “Most especially with the forbidden stories that cannot be recited at feasts and festivals.”
“So tell me again about mad King Mudadi.” I whispered even though it was only the two of us there.
Tshangani whispered back the whole story. From a time four kings back. His words drew pictures before my eyes, so clear they were. How King Mudadi was frightened of dirt. How his servants must carry water up the steep steps of the hill-fortress. All the way up to his private chambers so that he might wash. Seven times daily!
I looked up towards the hill of the King, so high and still hidden by morning mists. With a hundred hundred steps that twisted and turned unevenly. Poor servants, I thought.
And then there was the episode of Mudadi and the moon.
King Mudadi decreed to his councillors, “The moon is so pure and so clean and without dirt. I want the moon collected and brought down here for my throne. Yes, I will only sit on the moon. No other cushion. Then I will be safe from dirt.”
And of course his councillors had no way to collect the moon. They begged and pleaded for royal reason. They asked the priests to petition on their behalf. But the King was without reason. So the councillors were punished for their disobedience, all of them. Flung down from the highest wall atop the hill-fortress, the wall of death. Flung down to lie broken and dying in the valley below.
“I am glad we don’t live in such bloody times,” I said.
And this is true. Or this was true. It was seldom that our King executed men. Maybe only seven times in my fifteen winters did I witness such a thing, and then only for fair reasons, when the King was betrayed or his orders were disobeyed. Or when treason was proven.
Shafiq says to me now, “I think you must continue with your own story while it is still light.”
So yes, there from the archway of the enclosure of nobles, my father ReDombo appeared. Walking towards us, with Tshangani’s father Chivhu at his side. They were both returning from the King’s early-morning council meeting, up there in the mist. And there was worry on both their faces.
I do not like it when my father seems worried. It makes me afraid.
And why should he be worried? Surely all was well?
The King was pleased with him, with our whole clan. The inner walls of the enclosure of the Queen were fully complete now. The most beautiful section of that whole structure. The most finely wrought masonry with stones so even and balanced. With each granite block so perfectly fitted to its neighbour that not a single strand of a princess’s hair could pass between! And so solid and steady that even the Queen’s strongest bodyguards were helpless as babes to sway it. Though they tried over several days, as was their duty.
My father and his slaves had worked with greatest care for many winters and summers. Setting the fires to the perfect heat, funnelling the water in perfect lines, for the cleaving of the granite slabs. Tapping with the sharpest chisels and the lightest hammers for back-breaking hours. I know because I stood by them, marvelling while I learned the craft of my clan.
Yes, the walls were safe and steady and immovable as a mountain from the beginning of time. There was no danger that they might topple onto the heads of the fine citizens of Zimba Remabwe. Nor onto the sacred heads of the queens and their princes and princesses.
“Who knows, Mokomba,” said my father in those final days of construction. “Who knows what building this king will demand from us next. But we will be ever ready.”
And yes, the King was well pleased. He gave a special feast of celebration with two of his royal herd slaughtered in my father’s honour. My mother received fine presents for our compound: bright-red cloths and thick karosses and a gold ankle-bangle. Even a delicate porcelain bowl brought from the land of China. She treasured the bowl especially and kept it safe in the far back section of her hut.
“There must be no touching. Only looking!” my mother warned us. “And only when you have permission!”
So then: why did my father ReDombo have such worry in his eyes, coming from the King’s meeting?
“We must make ready for a journey,” my father told me.
“A journey, ReDombo sir? But where are we headed?”
“It will be a long journey, my son. We will be gone from your mother for many round moons, I understand. We will first walk far past the outer villages of the Kingdom. And then we must cross the sunset sea. In a boat.”
“The sea? The sunset sea?” I was filled with dread. I knew the stories, even though the sunset sea was far away and I had never laid eyes on it. “But it is full of monsters and fish larger than elephants and fiercer than lions! And water that boils suddenly as if in a giant’s pot on a giant’s fire!”
“This is the King’s command,” said my father with stern warning in his voice. Even though only the four of us were present.
Tshangani’s father Chivhu spoke now. Wanting to comfort me. “The great Shumba will lead us. He is our finest and bravest explorer. He knows the wildest sea and the wildest land. He will find the way through.”
I kept silent then. But I was thinking: Shumba came back from his last expedition with half his slaves missing. And missing as well, half his left arm.
Beside me, Tshangani was smiling with hope and excitement. “And us too, father? Must we go too?”
Chivhu nodded. But he was not excited like his son. “Yes, the King wants a full report made of the travels.”
“But why?” I asked. “For what purpose?”
It was my father who explained.
The King had heard tales of tall buildings in faraway lands. Buildings that were far higher than my father’s walls. Buildings that stretched up to touch the very clouds. Buildings that were called by the name “cathedral”.
And the King wanted such a cathedral built here in Zimba Remabwe. My father must find out therefore how these buildings could be constructed in safety. He must investigate the methods of the Stonemason clans there in the lands of the Crusaders.
The lands of the Crusaders? Oh holiest god Mmwahhari! Was that our destination? It was more terrifying to me than crossing the sea!
And I saw that my father too was afraid. And Chivhu with him. Only Tshangani still stood with the light of excitement and adventure in his eyes.
But Tshangani did not know the stories about these people of the white bodies, these Crusaders. I had never passed them on to him. I could not bear such words to pass my lips.
Stories that you told, Shafiq.
To my father, do you remember?
But I heard them too, eavesdropping from my sleeping-mat in the sons’ hut. Yes, Shafiq, I confess to you. Those late nights when you and my father sat at the fire still talking, I was awake inside my hut and listening too. Unable to stop myself.
You told
