‘What wonderful treasures I’ve put aside for you,’ the round man cried as the Arabs moved forward to greet him. He was about to disclose more, intimating that as in the past, he had secreted a private hoard of goods to be exchanged for his personal gain, but at sight of Old Seeker his voice lost its animation, for the old man was a court official who sat in judgment on such illegal trading. Punishment was lifetime banishment, so the little merchant, much deflated, ended lamely, ‘I’m sure you’ve brought many good things.’
‘I’m sure the king will be pleased with our gifts,’ the taller Arab said.
Mention of this august and mysterious figure caused Nxumalo to tremble, for in the months he’d been here, only twice had he glimpsed the king and even then not properly, for it was the law that when the great lord of Zimbabwe passed, all must fall upon the ground and avert their eyes.
‘It’s wise of you to double your gifts,’ Old Seeker told the Arabs as he watched them put aside the goods they intended to present the king. ‘Last season your gifts were scarcely fit for this fat one here.’ And he noticed the signs of worry that crossed the short man’s face.
When the Arabs had their gifts prepared, Old Seeker surprised Nxumalo by handing him the iron staff of office: ‘This day, son, you shall enter the great place with me.’
The young man who had so valiantly defied the rhinos looked as if he would faint, but the old man placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder: ‘It’s time for the grandeur I promised you, Nxumalo, son of Ngalo.’
There were no guards at the narrow northern entrance to the Grand Enclosure, for no mortal would dare cross that threshold unless eligible to do so. Since it was the custom for councillors to sponsor young men of promise, Old Seeker had been granted permission to introduce the able young fellow from the south.
They all halted just outside the entrance, for here the slaves must deliver their burdens to the court attendants. The Arabs themselves were not permitted more than three paces inside the austere walls, but as the visitors stood at attention Old Seeker moved forward to lead them into a smaller walled-in section of the enclosure.
‘We shall wait here,’ the old man said. ‘We must follow every order with care.’ To Nxumalo he whispered, ‘Do what I do.’
The boy said nothing, for he was awed by what was being revealed. He had labored on walls such as these which surrounded him but had never guessed the grandeur they hid. The area subtended by the sturdy granite encirclement seemed to stretch to the heavens, and indeed it did, for no attempt had been made to cover the walls or the rooms with a roof.
A group of elder councillors filed into the meeting place and stood to one side. Then came three spirit-mediums attached to the king’s person; they squatted against a wall and seemed to disapprove of everything. When an imposing figure in a blue robe appeared from within, Nxumalo assumed this must be the king and started to fall upon his knees, but Old Seeker restrained him.
‘Lo, he comes!’ the figure cried, and from all present the exciting message was repeated: ‘Lo, he comes!’
This was a signal for everyone, and especially the Arabs, to sink to the smooth mud-packed floor. Nxumalo went down quickly, forehead pressed against the hard surface, eyes squeezed shut, and knees tightly pressed to still his trembling.
He was still in that position when he heard laughter, but he dared not move.
The first gust was followed by a chorus of laughter. Everyone in the reception area seemed to be roaring, and then he heard a quiet voice saying, ‘Come, little bird, onto your legs.’
It was a kindly voice, and seemed to be directed at him. A sharp nudge from Old Seeker caused him to look up, and he found himself staring directly into the thin handsome face of the king, who looked down at him and laughed again.
Instantly everyone else in the area did likewise, and from outside the walls came the sound of hundreds laughing, for it was a law in Zimbabwe that whatever the king did had to be imitated by everyone in the city. A laugh, a cough, a clearing of the throat—all had to be repeated.
Pleased with the laughter, the king indicated that the Arabs might rise, and as they did, Nxumalo noticed that whereas all those in attendance on the king wore expensive cloth woven with metals, he wore stark-white cotton, completely unadorned. Also, he moved with kingly grace and never timidly like the others.
When he reached the Arabs he nodded and spoke easily with them, inquiring about their journey up from the sea and asking them to share any intelligence they might have acquired concerning troubles to the north. He was interested to learn that traders from Sofala no longer deemed it profitable to risk travel into that agitated area, and he listened attentively as the Arabs reported the staggering victory their people had enjoyed at a place called Constantinople, but he could make little of the information except to observe that the Arabs seemed to think that this strengthened their hand in dealings with him.
‘And now the gifts!’ the tall Arab said, whereupon he and his companion unwrapped their bundles, one after another, gracefully turning back the cloth bindings until the treasures were revealed: ‘This celadon, Mighty One, was brought to us by a ship from China. Observe its delicate green coloring, its exquisite shape.’ The dazzling ceramics were from Java, to which gold would be sent. The fabrics, finer than anyone in Zimbabwe could weave or imagine, came from Persia; the filigreed silver from Arabia; the heavy glazed pottery from Egypt; the low tables of ebony from Zanzibar; and the exciting metalware from India.
At the end of the presentation the Old Seeker leaned toward the king, heard his wishes, and told the Arabs, ‘The Mighty One is pleased. You may now trade in the marketplace.’ They bowed respectfully and backed off, and Nxumalo started to follow them, assuming that his visit to Zimbabwe had ended; soon he would be on his way back to his village.
But the king had other plans for this promising lad, and as Nxumalo moved off, a regal command halted him: ‘Stay. They tell me you work well. We need you here.’ Old Seeker could not mask his joy at this recognition of his protégé, but Nxumalo showed that he was bewildered. Did the king’s command mean that he would never see his brothers or Zeolani at her spinning?
It was the king who answered that unspoken question: ‘Show the young man these buildings. Then find him a suitable place to stay.’ With that he strode away while Old Seeker and a score of others fell in the dust to honor his passing.
‘Well!’ the old man cried as he brushed himself off. ‘Honors like this come to only a few, believe me.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘That you’re to live here now … to become one of us.’
‘But Zeolani …’
The old man ignored this question that had no honorable answer. ‘You’ll see things which ordinary mortals …’ His eyes glowed as if the triumph were his, and with fast, busy steps he started Nxumalo on their tour of the Grand Enclosure.
They entered a narrow passageway parallel to the high outer wall, and Nxumalo feared it might never end, so long and sweeping was it, but finally it opened into a courtyard so grand that he and the old man intuitively fell to their knees. They were in the presence of a mighty royal scepter, unlike any symbol of majesty seen in Africa before or after. It was a soaring conical tower, eighteen feet in diameter at its base, thirty feet high and tapering sharply as it rose. At the top it was adorned by a chevron pattern built into the stone, and as a whole it represented the majesty of the king. On a raised platform next to the tower stood a collection of handsome unadorned monoliths, each symbolizing some achievement of the king and his forebears.
‘Beyond lie the king’s chambers,’ Old Seeker said. ‘His wives and children live there, and no man may enter.’ Then briskly he moved toward the exit, beckoning Nxumalo to follow him. ‘We must see what the Arabs are accomplishing in the marketplace.’
When they rejoined the traders, Nxumalo studied the two strangers in disbelief, keeping as close to them as possible, watching all they did. Their hands were white and their ankles, and
he supposed that if he could see their skin below the exposed neckline, it would be white too. Their voices were deep, displaying an accent unlike any used by workmen from distant regions. But what impressed Nxumalo most was that they exhibited a self-assurance as proud as that of the king’s councillors; these were men of importance, men accustomed to command, and when they lounged in the courtyard of the depot, as they did now, waiting for the exchange of goods, it was they who determined what should happen next.
‘Spread the gold here, where the light falls,’ the taller man directed, and when attendants brought in the precious packages and began to turn back the corners of the cloth, everyone showed excitement except the two Arabs. They expected the gold to be of high quality; they expected a copious amount.
‘Look at this!’ the round man cried, his voice rising. And from the packages emerged a score of ingots of pure gold, wrenched from mines a hundred miles away, and rings carefully fashioned, and pendants for officials, and a great plaque with a rhinoceros rampant.
‘By the way,’ the chief Arab interrupted, pushing the gold aside. ‘Did you get the rhinoceros horn?’
‘We did,’ the round man said, clapping his hands, whereupon servants brought in three large bundles. When opened, they produced an accumulation of three dozen horns, which excited the cupidity of the Arabs, who hefted them approvingly.
‘Very good. Really, very good.’ Rupturing the exchange of pleasantries, the principal Arab barked at one of his waiting slaves, ‘See that these are handled properly,’ and from the way all treated the horns, it was obvious that they were of great value.
‘And what else?’ the Arabs asked.
There followed a small parade of Zimbabwe men bringing to the Arabs a treasure of ivory tusks, copper wire and artifacts carved from soapstone. With each new disclosure the Arabs nodded and ordered the goods moved outside for packing by their own men. Then the leader coughed and said evenly, ‘And now you will want to see what we bring you?’
‘Indeed,’ the round man said, his voice betraying his eagerness. He then did a strange thing. Taking Nxumalo by the hand, he introduced him to the Arabs, saying, ‘This is the young fellow who brought you the best horns.’
Nxumalo felt the white man’s hand touch his, and he was face-to-face with the stranger. He felt the man’s hand press into his shoulder and heard the words spoken with heavy accent: ‘You bring excellent horns. They will be well received in China.’
Proudly, as if they owned the goods, the slaves undid the bales, producing fine silks from India and thousands of small glass beads—red, translucent blue, green, golden-yellow and purple. These would be sewn into intricate patterns to enhance garments, necklaces and other finery. The Arabs were pleased to obtain gold, which they would use to adorn their women; the blacks were just as gratified to get these beads for the adornment of theirs. So far as utility was concerned, it was a just exchange.
The Arabs also brought a collection of special items for bartering with vassal chiefs, and among these was a small metal disk on which an elephant and a tiger had been carved. This came from Nepal and was not worth much, so the Arab leader tossed it in his hand, judged it, and threw it to Nxumalo: ‘For the fine horns you brought us.’ This disk, with its filigree chain, would be sent south to where Zeolani waited, and fifty years later when she died it would be buried with her, and five hundred years later it would be found by archaeologists, who would report:
Indubitably this disk was make in Nepal, for several like it have been found in India. It can be dated accurately to 1390. Furthermore, the tiger which shows so plainly never existed in Africa. But how it reached a remote hill east of Pretoria passes explanation. Probably some English explorer whose family had connections with India carried it with him during an examination of the region and lost it. As for the fanciful suggestion that the disk might have reached some central site like Zimbabwe as an article of trade in the 1390–1450 period and then drifted mysteriously to where we found it, that is clearly preposterous.
The mines of Zimbabwe were scattered across an immense territory, Zambezi to Limpopo north to south, seashore to desert east to west, and it became Nxumalo’s job to visit each mine to assure maximum production. Gold, iron and copper had to flow in to Zimbabwe and lesser marketplaces throughout the kingdom so that the Arabs would continue to find it profitable to pursue their trade. His work was not arduous, for when he reached a mine, all he did was check the accumulated metal; rarely did he descend into an actual mine, for they were small and dangerous affairs with but one responsibility: to send up enough ore to keep the furnaces operating, and how this was achieved was not his concern.
But one morning at the end of a journey two hundred miles west of the city he came upon a gold mine where production seemed to have ceased, and he demanded to know what slothful thing had happened. ‘The workers died, and I can find no others,’ the overseer said plaintively.
‘I saw many women …’
‘But not little ones.’
‘If the mine’s so small, get girls. We must have gold.’
‘But girls can’t do the work. Only the little brown people …’
In some irritation Nxumalo said, ‘I’ll look for myself,’ but when he saw the entrance to the mine he realized that he could not climb into that crevice. Since he insisted upon knowing how the production of a mine could be so abruptly terminated, he ordered the overseer to summon men who would widen the entrance, breaking away enough rock to permit his descent.
When he lowered himself to the working level, holding a torch above his head, he saw what the overseer meant: there at the face of the goldbearing rock lay seven small brown figures, dead so long that their bodies were desiccated, tiny shreds of their former being. Four men, two women and a child had died, one after the other over a period of months or even years, and when the last was gone, no further ore had been sent aloft.
He remained in the mine for a long time, endeavoring to visualize the lives of these seven little people. Because the mine was so cramped, only they could work it, forced one time into the narrow opening, condemned thereafter to live underground for as long as they survived, eating whatever was thrown down to them, burying their dead in a pile beside the rock, living and dying in perpetual darkness.
Nxumalo remembered what Old Seeker had said about the wandering bands of small brown people with their poisoned darts. ‘Jackals,’ he himself had termed them. Prior to visiting this mine he had never before seen them rounded up and enslaved, and certainly the councillors at Zimbabwe would not have sanctioned it, but on this far frontier, out of all touch with the capital, any mine overseer could act as a law unto himself.
‘How long do they survive?’ Nxumalo asked when he climbed out.
‘Four, five years.’
‘The children?’
‘If the old folk live long enough, the children learn to mine. One family, maybe fifteen, eighteen years?’
‘And if the old ones die too soon?’
‘The children die with them.’
‘What do you propose doing about the mine?’
‘Our men are out hunting for some new brown workers. If they find any, we’ll be able to mine again.’
‘Will you find them?’
‘Hunting them is dangerous. They use poisoned arrows, you know.’
‘Put your own women to work down there. That’s how we do it at other mines.’
‘Our women prefer the sun and the fields,’ the overseer replied, and in conspiratorial whispers he added, ‘You’re a man, Nxumalo. You know what fat beauties are for.’
‘You opened the entrance for me to go down. A little more, and they can squeeze in.’
‘What use could we men have of them if they came home exhausted from laboring underground? Tell me that.’
‘When you have the hunger for them, let them rest a day or two.’
‘I tell you, sir, our women would refuse to work as miners. You must bring me people from outside.’
Stern
ly Nxumalo said, ‘I shall return next season, and I will expect to see this mine operating at capacity. We must have gold.’
This ultimatum would be met, for as Nxumalo marched back toward Zimbabwe, the mine overseer, who loved his five fat wives, was relieved to see a band of warriors returning from the desert with nine small brown people. They would fit nicely into the mine; they would eat what was tossed down to them; and never again would they see daylight.
As Nxumalo visited the distant mines he often recalled that moment when he first saw the Limpopo and when he first climbed down into the mine: It was a premonition. I spend my life crossing rivers and descending shafts. Wherever he traveled through the vast domains of Zimbabwe he came upon the old treasured mines, and in time learned how to predict where new ones might be found, and although nine out of his ten guesses proved barren, that tenth repaid all efforts. Each new find, each old mine that increased its output enhanced his reputation.
Although he had made himself familiar with thousands of square miles of the kingdom, there remained one place he had not visited: the citadel atop the Hill of Spirits at Zimbabwe itself, but now as he returned from his latest trip he was summoned to the king’s residence to deliver his report in person to the ruler and his councillors. He was guarded about what he said concerning the enslavement of the small brown people at that frontier mine, but he spoke boldly of the problems in the north, and when he finished, the senior councillor indicated that the king wished to speak with him alone.
After the assembly left, this councillor led Nxumalo through a maze of passages to the inner court, where, in a small roofless enclosure, he waited for his private audience. Soon the king appeared in his austere white robes, hastened directly to Nxumalo and said, ‘Son of Ngalo from the lands my people do not know, I have never seen you at the citadel.’