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By Root 3408 0

feathers, elaborate collections of medicated beads and pebbles, and tangled clumps of precious herbs. But no single item arrested his attention like the crocodile six feet long, carved from hard wood in such reality that it seemed capable of devouring the holy man; when Nxumalo took his seat beside this monster, he found that its scales were made from hundreds of wafer-thin gold plates that moved and glistened when he disturbed the air.

Now from the interior of his hut the Mhondoro appeared, wearing a yellow cloak and a headdress of animal furs. It was the king who paid homage: 'I see you, Mhondoro of my fathers.'

'I see you, Powerful King.'

'This is the one who was sent,' the king said.

The Mhondoro indicated that Nxumalo must keep his gaze forward, lest his eyes fall upon the symbols of kings long dead and anger their spirits, who would be watching. The young man scarcely dared breathe, but at last the Mhondoro addressed him: 'What news from the mines?'

'The gold from the west declines.'

'It used to be copious.'

'It still is, to the north, but our men are afraid to go there.'

'Trouble, trouble,' the spirit-medium said, and he turned to the king, speaking softly of the problems overtaking their city.

Nxumalo appreciated their concern, for at times on his recent journeys he had felt as if the entire Zimbabwe hegemony were held together by frail threads of dissolving interests. He sensed the restlessness and suspected that certain provincial chiefs were entertaining ideas of independence, but he was afraid to mention these fears in the presence of the city's two most powerful men. There were other irritations too: wood, grazing rights, the lack of salt. And there was even talk that the Arabs might open their own trade links in areas beyond Zimbabwe's control.

The painful afternoon passed, and when fires appeared in the city below, the Mhondoro began chanting in a dreamy voice: 'Generations ago our brave forebears erected this citadel. Mhlanga, son of Notape, son of Chuda . . .' He recited genealogies back to the year 1250 when Zimbabwe's walls were first erected. 'It was the king's great-grandfather who caused that big tower down there to be built, not long ago, and it grieves my heart to think that one day we may have to give this noble place back to the vines and the trees.'

In the silence that followed, Nxumalo became aware that he was supposed to respond: 'Why would you say that, Revered One?'

'Because the land is worn out. Because our spirits flag. Because others are rising in the north. Because I see strange ships coming to Sofala.'

It was in that solemn moment that Nxumalo first glimpsed the fact that his destiny might be to remain always in Zimbabwe, helping it to survive, but even as he framed this thought he looked at these two men sitting beneath the beautiful carved birds and he could not conceive that these leaders and this city could be in actual danger.

When he accompanied the king down from the citadel, servants with flares led the way and stayed with them on their progress through the city. Out of deference to the king, Nxumalo volunteered to attend him to the gateway of the royal enclosure, but the king halted midway in the city and said, 'It's time you visited the Old Seeker.'

'I see him often, sir.'

'But tonight, I believe, he has special messages.' So Nxumalo broke away and went to his mentor's house beyond the marketplace, and there he found that the old man did indeed have special information: 'Son of Ngalo, it's time you took the next cargo of gold and rhino horns to Sofala.'

This was a journey of importance which only the most trusted citizens were permitted to undertake. It required courage to descend the steep paths lined with leopards and lions; it required sound health to survive the pestilential swamps; and it required sound judgment to protect one's property against the Arabs who bartered there.

'The Arabs who climb the mountain trails to visit Zimbabwe have to be good men,' the wise old fellow warned. 'But those who slip into a seaport and remain there, they can be ugly.'