The covenant - James A. Michener [33]
'Nxumalo, son of Ngalo,' a voice said, 'this is to be your home.' It was the Old Seeker, come to rescue the boy in whose future he had taken such a deep interest. 'You are to work on the walls.'
'But I am the son of a chief!'
'Since when does the smallest calf run with the bulls?'
Nxumalo did not reply, for he was learning that this old man was far more than a dreamy wanderer exploring the Ridge-of-White-Waters. In Zimbabwe he was a full-fledged councillor at the king's court, and now he told his young protege, 'In Zimbabwe you do not force your way, Nxumalo. Our walls are built by the finest men in the city. They will not tolerate fools at their side. Satisfy them, and you will gain entrance.' And he pointed to the stone towers in the valley and the walls of the mountaintop citadel.
Zimbabwe in the year 1454 was certainly no duplicate of a European city like Ghent or Bordeaux. Its architecture was much ruder; it contained no Gothic cathedral; and its palace was infinitely simpler. Although its principal ritual and royal centers were made of stone, its houses were of clay-and-thatch construction. No one in the city could read; the history of the place was not written; there was no nationwide system of coinage; and society was less complex by many degrees than that in Europe.
It was, however, a thoughtfully organized, thriving community with a brilliant business capacity, evidenced by the teeming marketplace to which a network of producers and traders gravitated. A mild, healthful place with a fine water supply, it enjoyed the most advanced amenities of that day, right down to an ingenious system of drains. It had a particularized work force and a government which had been more stable than most of those in Europe. But even as it stood supreme over this heartland of southern Africa, dangerous undercurrents threatened the continuance of the place, for it was stretching its control and resources to the limit at a time when other regional forces were in movement, and no one could predict how much longer this great capital would continue to prosper.
It was into this center of grandeur and uncertainty that Nxumalo was projected, and as he labored on the wall, tapping into place rocks like those he had transported, he watched all things.
He saw how a constant stream of porters arrived from the compass points, each man bearing whatever valuable goods his district contributed to the capital, and he began to detect the variations that marked the different regions. There were, for example, noticeable shades of blackness among the men: those from the north, where the great rivers flowed, being darker; those from the west, where there had been more of the little brown people to mate with, being shaded toward brown. And one tribe from the east sent men who were conspicuously taller than the others, but all seemed capable.
They spoke in various tongues, too, when they were among themselves, but the variations in language were not great, and all could manage the speech of Zimbabwe, with amusing dialect differences betraying the fact that some were of the swamps and others from the empty plains. It was the residents of the city who attracted Nxumalo's principal notice, for they moved with an assurance that he had previously seen only in his father. They were in general a handsome people, but among them moved a cadre of officials who were outstanding. Usually taller than their fellows, they wore uniforms made of the most expensive imported cloth into which had been woven strands of gold and silver; they were never seen carrying anything except staffs indicating their office, and even these they did not use as walking sticks but rather as formal badges. Ordinary people moved aside when they approached, and one of these officials came each day to inspect the work being done by the stonemasons.
He was a considerate man who wanted to like the work for which he was responsible; only rarely did he order any section torn down and rebuilt, and one day when he was standing over Nxumalo,