Read Online Little Suns by Zakes Mda - Free Book Online Page B

and then a sharp wail. She knew immediately that what the nation dreaded had finally happened. She had been waiting for it. She hastened the tempo. One wail became two. And then three. Soon there was a wave of wails, relayed from the Great House to the Right-hand House; from the Right-hand House to the Left-hand House; from the Left-hand House to the Iqadi House. Until the whole of Mhlontlo’s Great Place was drenched in wails. The animals in the kraals, in the stables, in the pounds, joined in their various voices.
    By the time these sounds reached Malangana in an adobe rondavel where he slept, dreamed of Mthwakazi and played with himself to her spectre, they had swirled into a vortex of hollow howls. He knew without anyone telling him that they were announcing the death of the Queen of amaMpondomise, daughter of Sarhili, King of amaGcaleka, they who descended, together with amaRharhabe, from an ancestor called Xhosa, and were therefore also known as amaXhosa.
    The howls were relayed from one household to the next, until they assumed a life of their own. They were echoed by the hills and the cliffs and the caves, across the streams to the rest of Qumbu, and across Itsitsa River to Tsolo. Those who were sleeping could not but wake up and the owls of the night stopped their labours and added to the howls with their hoots, making the vortex fatter and fatter. As it gathered volume it also gained force, sweeping the land, uprooting trees in its path and hurling emaciated cattle across the valley as if they were dry leaves.
    Its sheer rudeness silenced Mthwakazi’s drum. She held tightly to it nonetheless, and buried her face on its taut cowhide drum-head. She wept quietly. Even the most powerful herbs of her abaThwa people had failed to save the queen. She had given up long before the diviners had, and had whispered her opinion to those who would listen that the daughter of King Sarhili should be released so that her spirit might find its path in peace from the land of amaMpondomise to the land of her amaXhosa ancestors. It was a long way for a spirit to travel and ceremonies would be held by both nations to ease its journey and to welcome it in the dimension of the dead and the unborn. But that would be for the coming days, and none of those rituals would have anything to do with her except as a drawer of water and carrier of wood. For now she wetted the cowhide drum with her tears.
    Malangana’s first thought after cursing death for stealing the beloved queen was of Gcazimbane. He rose to his feet, put on his pants and a blanket over his shoulder and struggled against the momentum of the howls to the Great Place. He headed straight to the kraal where Gcazimbane was snorting and squealing in turn among bellowing bulls. He embraced the horse tightly around its neck until it gradually calmed down and began to snicker. He led it out of the kraal but once there he did not know what next to do with it.
    The howls were now a distance away, leaving deathly silence in their wake. Mthwakazi resumed beating the drum. Its tempo went back to slow and tired.
    ‘What are you doing here?’ Malangana was startled by Mhlontlo. He had not heard him approach; his face had been buried in Gcazimbane’s neck.
    Mhlontlo’s voice was shaky and he was sniffling.
    ‘I caught a cold,’ he said.
    Although Malangana couldn’t see his eyes in the dark he knew that a cold had nothing to do with it. He was crying. He was a man and a king, yet he was crying. The queen had been his partner, companion and adviser. Having been raised in the court of King Sarhili, regarded as the greatest of all the monarchs in the region, she had been wise in all matters of statecraft.
    ‘Take him back to the kraal,’ said Mhlontlo. ‘What has happened has happened. We cannot undo it.’
    Malangana led Gcazimbane back to the kraal and secured the gate of tree trunks. He hesitated when he saw that Mhlontlo was waiting. Then he joined him and they quietly walked towards