Shaka the Great by Walton Golightly

allegiance to the Bloodline that had seen her stand up and declare: here is no usurper, merely the eldest son come to take what is rightfully his.
    But now that same allegiance has her wondering how Shaka can be stopped.
    And to think I wanted him to come!

    And then—with almost all their foes vanquished, the pot boiled over, the hut collapsed, the gourd of the calabash shattered. But it wasn’t the gourd used during the First Fruits—death had been Shaka’s Uselwa Man, and destruction the harvest.
    Shaka took to slaughtering whole villages that he felt weren’t showing sufficient sadness after the passing of his mother. He forbadefornication, and had holes torn in sides of huts so that his slayers could come round at night and make sure the new law was being obeyed. Another decree conceded that cows had to be milked, but no one was then allowed to drink the milk; instead, it must be thrown on to the ground.
    Everyone’s still trying hard to forget the madness that erupted after Nandi’s death, but Mnkabayi’s not sure that Shaka himself has recovered. To her the King seems like a screaming man who has suddenly fallen silent. A cessation, yes, but also perhaps the beginning of a new kind of madness.
    Doesn’t Kholisa’s report confirm this? What other explanation can there be for Shaka allowing these the izilwane from the sea to attend the First Fruits? Such a dangerous move!
    A new kind of madness—but not the sort that heralds yet another loss of control.
    Mnkabayi believes things aren’t that simple. She suspects Shaka’s madness has changed from unfettered rage into cold cunning.
    And they must act soon to end his reign.
    Or who knows where he will take them next!

4
Mgobozi
    Interlude
    Shaking his head, Shaka lowers himself on to a large flat-topped stone. Sitting on a log at right angles to the King, the old general patiently waits for surprise and shock, incomprehension and anger to work their way across his friend’s visage—like swirling cold fronts and cyclones, low pressure systems and battered butterflies.
    â€œWho would … ? This is … I don’t know what to say.” Shaking his head. “Mnkabayi?”
    Mgobozi shrugs.
    â€œShe …” Shaka frowns, shadows darkening his eyes. “I saved her.” He seems to be addressing the flames at his feet: orange fronds andwhite wood. “I could have …” His hands lift from his knees, drop back down again. “I could have ensured she joined Mduli on the Great Journey. He at least had …”
    â€œBalls?”
    Shaka turns his head, as if only now becoming aware of Mgobozi’s presence. His old friend.
    They stood shoulder to shoulder in the ranks of Dingiswayo’s Izicwe legion: the mad Mthetwa who constantly refused promotion and the much younger Zulu who had some crazy notion about going into battle barefoot—less chance of slipping that way—and carrying a broken spear. For he claimed that a weapon you wielded like a Roman broadsword was a better proposition than one you threw away—in fact, threw to the very people who were trying to kill you.
    â€œI thought she … Well, wasn’t she one of the few women who showed my mother any kindness?”
    Mgobozi nods …
    â€¦ while Shaka frowns, momentarily distracted by the thought that something is not quite right here. It is like a civet lying high in the branches of a tree, this notion; for you know it’s there—the barking of the dogs tells you that—but you strain to spot its form amid the greenery.
    â€œAnd it’s not as if she has any good reason to mourn the passing of the old ways,” says the general.
    Something is there: now you see it, now you don’t. The creature is all tail, easy to mistake for part of a branch.
Something to do with his mother?
    But Mgobozi is speaking.
    â€œWhat was that?” Shaka asks him.
    â€œI said she had little