Shaka the Great by Walton Golightly Page B

doesn’t seem to have bothered his children, though. Which isn’t surprising because for one thing, the savages are small in number, and that alone makes it difficult to be afraid of them. For another, their presence means the Zulus no longer have to rely on the Portugiza in distant Delagoa, as the men from King Jorgi are closer and pay more for ivory and gold. Add to this the fact that they’ve settled in healthier environs, and don’t rely on middlemen the way the Portugiza do with the Maputos. And they have little to fear from their Zulu hosts—although, if they don’t seem to realize that themselves, so much the better.
    Shaka slides his palms over his knees and arches his back, stares up at the thatch. It’s his own advisers who have urged circumspection when dealing with the savages. Some have pointed to the Maputos and the way a few sickly Portugiza have turned them into vassals. The Maputos might not acknowledge that, and at times it might seem as if they are the masters, but they are fooling themselves.
    The graybeards who point this out are right. But the same thing will never happen to the Zulus—of that Shaka is certain.
    However, others of Shaka’s izilomo, his inner circle, those a little wiser, a little more perceptive, have spoken of having misgivings harder to substantiate or even articulate. A vague sense of unease, apprehension, disquiet. Even Mbopa, his prime minister, has admitted to feeling somewhat concerned.
    â€œEven Mbopa …” whispers Shaka.
    Mbopa.
    He’s staring into the night and so doesn’t see Mgobozi’s stricken expression, doesn’t hear his old friend whisper, “No, Shaka!”
    â€œYou remember how he said they were coming? How he believed their arrival to be inevitable? And how, when you said, ‘Let them come, and we’ll kill them on the beach,’ he urged caution, spoke of a need for cunning?”
    Mgobozi’s look of relief becomes a smile as Shaka glances toward him. “I remember,” says the general.
    Shaka frowns.
But he changed.
    Mbopa changed. And more than just his mind.
    A sudden searing pain. An explosion of fire spreading like a baobab tree. The King recoils, toppling backward, his arms raised to protect his face, his eyes.
    Then, just as he’s about to scrabble away, hurl himself into the safety of the darkness, he realizes he’s still sitting on the rock, while the flames remain docilely within their stone circle.
    Shaka swallows, not daring to face Mgobozi.
    But if the general has noticed anything, he’s too loyal a friend to let on. “You were saying, Majesty?” he asks mildly.
    You were saying …
    Shaka sighs, glances upward, toward stars twinkling in a midnight blue veld: the armies of the ancestors on the move.
    He frowns, thinking he shouldn’t be able to see any stars.
    â€œEven Mbopa,” he says, returning to the orange flames and the face of his old friend. “Even Mbopa, who said to expect their coming, has grown uneasy of late.”
    Because they are of his izilomo, Shaka knows the fears of his inner circle can’t be dismissed as silly remnants of old superstitions, or a natural suspicion of strangers, exacerbated by their experience with the double-dealing Portugiza—and by the arrogance evinced by these particular savages who would remain Jorgi’s men despite Shaka’s blandishments.
    At the same time, though, this feeling of apprehension is a form of witchcraft—and one he has to be particularly wary of. Look how even those who would later become his most trusted generals cringed and quaked when he spoke of throwing away the ill-fitting sandals Zulu soldiers had always worn and of teaching them how to use the iklwa! Remember the barely contained rage that ran through what was then more a clan than a tribe, when he had the older recruits remove the isicoco and march across thorns!
    How tempting had their warnings and