The covenant - James A. Michener [302]
It was a fearful moment, with lives in balance, but the brothers had to risk it, for to succeed in their conspiracy, they must have this general: 'Would you be able to forget that we have spoken to you?'
'As a soldier I cannot act against my king, but I know he is destroying the nation. I will remain silent.'
When he left, the brothers smiled, for they were certain that Shaka would do some additional outrageous thing that would alienate even Nxumalo. The king was marked for murder.
Shaka sensed that the dynamics of the situation required him to keep his army on the move, so he advanced into new territories, well to the south toward the Xhosa, and for the first time his regiments gained only a modified success; he executed more warriors than ever before for cowardice. He allowed his regiments no rest, but sent them feverishly to new lands in the north, and again they encountered disaster.
'Where's Nxumalo?' the king cried in anguish one afternoon.
'He's with his regiment,' a knobkerrie said, not wanting to irritate Shaka further by reminding him that he had ordered Nxumalo to be confined.
'Never here when I need him. And Fynn fails to bring me the magic oil.' He almost whimpered. 'So much work remains, I must not die.'
And the executioners wailed, 'Deathless-Stomper-of-the-Rhinoceros, Fearless-Slayer-of-the-Leopard, you will never die.'
'What is death?' the tormented king asked. 'And before you answer that, what is life?'
Four attendants who were accustomed to nod gravely at everything he said were suddenly seized by the knobkerrie gang, and two were stood to the left of the king, two to the right. 'Kill those,' Shaka said, and the two on the left were slain. 'They are death,' the king said, 'and these are life. Tell mewhat is the difference?' And he kept this grim tableau in place for three hours, staring and pondering.
Then with a leap high into the air he roared, 'Fetch me the women who were pregnant before my edict,' and more than a hundred women in all stages of pregnancy were dragged before him. With sharp knives he began to slice open their bellies to see for himself how life progressed, and as he continued his studies with the later women, the first ones lay dying in a corner.
When word of this hideous experiment flashed through the kraals, disseminated by men whose wives had been taken, Dingane exulted: 'Now we'll have Nxumalo with us!' And he took his brother to the kraal where Nxumalo was being held and told him, 'Shaka has taken Nonsizi. He's going to cut her apart.'
'What!' Like a bull elephant crashing through trees, Nxumalo burst out of the kraal to save the lovely girl Mzilikazi had given him, and when he ran in maddened circles, Dingane said, 'Over there!' pointing to Shaka's kraal.
Nxumalo arrived in time to see the knobkerrie men pulling the hundred and sixth woman to Shaka's table, and it was as Dingane had warned Nonsizi of the Matabele. 'Shakashe is my wife!' he cried, but with an impatient shake of his head the king indicated that his helpers were to remove this interruption.
'Shaka!' Nxumalo repeated. 'That's Nonsizi, my wife.'
In a kind of stupor, the king looked up, failed to recognize his general, and said, 'She cannot be your wife. All women belong to me.' And while Nxumalo was pinioned, the king dissected Nonsizi, then hurried to the last three women, crying, 'Now I will know. I won't need the hair oil!'
In that awful scream-filled moment any vestige of allegiance or obedience vanished, and as soon as Nxumalo could break away, he sought the brothers and said, 'Shaka must be killed.'
'We knew you'd join us,' the king's brothers said, and they took him to their aunt, Mkabayi the Wild Cat, who said grimly, 'We must strike the tyrant now.' And it was her force of character, allied with Nxumalo's, that sealed the king's fate.
Had the plotting been left to Dingane, Shaka might have escaped, for when that shifty fellow realized that he might actually have to stab the king, he began to vacillate, until one night Nxumalo grabbed him by the strands