The covenant - James A. Michener [299]
'Nxumalo, if the Female Elephant dies, we'll be in great trouble.'
'But why should I lie to him? He will soon learn the truth.'
The matter was solved by the grieving king; he did not ask for Fynn's magic liquid. What he wanted was news of Mzilikazi. 'He has fled,' Nxumalo said bluntly. 'He feared you as the king and knew that he could not stand against you in battle.'
'I didn't want to fight him, Nxumalo. I wanted to enlist him as our ally.'
He had much more to say; with his mother's illness reminding him of his own mortality, the succession to his throne was uppermost in his plans, but at midafternoon all this was swept aside when a trembling messenger came with the awful news: 'The Female Elephant has died.'
'My mother? Dead?'
Shaka withdrew into his hut, and when he walked out an hour later he was in full battle dress. His circle of generals and the nation's elders watched anxiously, but he betrayed no sign of the titanic grief welling up inside him. For half an hour the great leader rested his head on his tall oxhide shield, keeping his eyes on the ground, where his tears fell in the dust. Finally he looked up, wild-eyed, to utter one piercing scream, as if he had been mortally wounded. That scream would later echo to the farthest reaches of his kingdom.
With Nxumalo and three generals close behind, he went to his mother's kraal, and when he saw her dead body, with one sweep of his arm he ordered every serving woman to be readied for her final journey: 'You could have saved her, but you didn't.'
When Nxumalo saw that his beloved wife Thetiwe was among those pinioned by the knobkerrie team he shouted, 'Mighty King! Do not take my wife.' But Shaka merely looked at him as if he were a stranger.
'They could have saved her,' he mumbled.
'Mercy, Companion-in-the-Battles.'
With a powerful hand Shaka gripped his advisor by the throat: 'Your wife cured my mother's eye. Why could she not cure her now?' And Nxumalo had to stand silent as lovely Thetiwe was dragged away. With nine others she would share Nandi's grave, but only after all the bones in her body were broken in such a way as to keep her skin intact, since the Female Elephant demanded perfection in her dark place.
Now word flashed along the riverbanks that Shaka's mother was dead, and almost as if they were being driven by unseen herdsmen, the Zulu came out to mourn. Wailings pierced the air, and lamentations filled the valleys. People threw away their bead adornments and tore their clothes, and looked askance at anyone whose eyes did not flow with tears. The world was in torment.
All the rest of that day and through the night the wailing continued until the earth itself seemed to be in anguish. Some men stood transfixed, their faces upturned, repeating over and over the shrieking dirges, and others spread dust over themselves, screaming all the while.
At noon next day, 11 October 1827, the awful thing began. It was never known exactly how it started, but one man, crazed by thirst and lack of sleep, seems to have stared at his neighbor and cried, 'Look at him. He isn't weeping,' and in a flash of hands the indifferent one was torn apart.
A man who sneezed was charged with disrespect for the great mother and was slain.
A woman coughed twice and was strangled by her own friends.
The madness spread, and whoever behaved in any conspicuous manner was set upon and killed by the mob. A woman who looked like old Nandi was accused of having stolen her countenance, and she perished. A man moaned his grief, but not loudly enough, and was clubbed.
On and on, throughout all that long afternoon, the grief-stricken citizens wailed their laments and watched their neighbors. Five hundred died near the hut of the