The covenant - James A. Michener [281]
The ball rolled directly to Nxumalo's feet, and when the abused lad reached it he found a stranger handing it to him. In this way Nxumalo, a voluntary outcast from the Sixolobo, met Shaka, an involuntary exile among the Langeni.
With Nxumalo as his ally and ready to defend him, Shaka, a twelve-year-old, moody, difficult boy, received less tormenting. True, the entire Langeni clan continued to make fun of his undersized penis, and there was no way this particular abuse could be halted, but whenever rough play was involved, the newcomer and the moody one formed a resilient companionship. Yet, strangely, they were not friends, for Shaka would admit no one to that privileged position.
Yet he must have someone to talk with, and one night, his voice bursting with pride, he told Nxumalo, 'I'm a Zulu.'
'What's that?'
The tormented one could not mask his disgust at such ignorance: 'Zulu will be the most powerful tribe along the Umfolozi.' 'In the north we haven't heard of them.' 'Everyone will hear when I'm chief.'
'Chief! What are you doing herding cattle in this small tribe?'
'I was cast out of the Zulu. I'm son of their chief, and he banished me.' Then, with a bitterness Nxumalo had never witnessed before, Shaka unfolded his account of the intrigue which had driven him from the tiny, inconsequential tribe of the Zulu:
'My mother Nandiyou'll meet her one day. Look at her well. Remember her face, because before I die she's going to be proclaimed Female Elephant. People will bow down to her. [His voice trembled.] She was the legal wife of the chief, and he rejected her . . . cast us both out of his kraal, but I'll go back, and take my mother with me. [He clenched his fists.] I'm an outcast. You hear them make fun of me. Remember their names. Nzobo, he's the worst. Mpepha, he's afraid to hit me. He uses a club. Mqalane, remember him. I will always remember Mqalane. [He named the other five, repeating some.] They laugh at me. They refuse me permissions. But most of all, Nxumalo, they ridicule my mother. [Here he began trembling furiously.] I tell you, Nxumalo, one day she will be the Female Elephant. [Silence, and then the real burden.] No, the worst isn't that. It's the way they make fun of me. [It was impossible for this boy, tenser than the string of a bow, to weep, but he did tremble, grinding his heel in the dust.] They make fun of me.'
The simple sentence that Nxumalo uttered next would save his life on the day of retribution, but now it seemed only a gesture of decent friendship.
He reached out, touched Shaka on the arm, and said, 'Later it will grow bigger.'
'Will it?' the older boy cried impetuously.
'I've often seen it happen.' He had no authority for what he was saying, but he knew it must be said.
Shaka said nothing more, just sat there in the grass, pounding his fists against his knees.
Like any confused boy his age, Shaka had shaded the truth, so far as he was able to understand it. Senzangakhona, chief of the Zulu clan, had impregnated Nandi, a virgin of the Langeni. When the elders of the latter tribe heard of this shocking breach of tribal custom, they insisted that Senzangakhona do the proper thing and accept her as his third wife, which he did, but she proved more disagreeable than sand in the mouth. Her son was worse, and at the age of six allowed one of his father's favorite animals to be slain, a mistake which precipitated banishment. Shaka was no longer a Zulu; he and his mother must take refuge in the kraals of the despised Langeni.
On the day they left, Senzangakhona was most pleased; they had given him nothing but trouble, and he recalled what his councillors had said that first day when Nandi claimed she was pregnant: 'She had no baby in her. It's only the intestinal