Trojian Horse

She remembered hearing the insects that habitually made it a point of announcing their presence in the darkness. The owls hooted, the grass blew gently in the wind under the watchful presence of a dirty brown moon rising over the landscape.

It was a warm summer night though the nights were getting cooler. Autumn was drawing closer. The harvest was already under way ensuring there would be plenty to eat through the harsh winter months. The weather seemed perfect for the arrival of their baby. After a series of girls, Cebisa desperately hoped it was a boy.

In her dreams she would amend the memory slightly and Magwegwe would be pacing anxiously outside the hut. The midwives offered occasional words of comfort but she was not really listening to them. All she could accommodate was the growing, swelling and angry pain coursing through her body. The contractions got closer and closer as the baby edged closer to making his introduction to the world. Having had four daughters before she felt she would have been used to the process of childbirth now but this felt different. Hopefully it did not mean anything was wrong.

Several hours later a beautiful bouncy baby boy made his entrance into the world with loud cries that pierced the night. For his sake, she often thought how he would have been better off staying away from this cruel world but she was always going to be grateful to have him. The exhaustion was evident on her face, as if she had spent a week without any sleep. In her dream Magwegwe would creep into the hut when the midwives called him into the hut then he would hold his boy in his arms for the first time, a look of pride beaming from his face.

“It is the boy we have been waiting for my love,” he would say.

As it happened she had simply smiled and took the boy into her arms when the midwives had told her she had a boy. She looked him over, studying every little inch of her perfect baby boy, kissed his forehead, and held him closer to her bosom, then she noticed the odd birth marks on the inner part of his left thigh. One perfectly shaped circle surrounded by several other equally perfect circles of varying sizes with lines around the biggest circle in the middle as if the other circles revolved around the larger one. It was certainly a very odd mark, as evidenced by the disconcerted looks the midwives gave her when they noticed the marks. More than one had muttered about some sort of witchcraft under their breath. She did not care, she had the baby boy who would carry on the legacy of her beloved Magwegwe.

There were times she would just stare at him for hours, while he slept waiting until he awoke so she could hold him in her arms, watch him play, study the way his lips curled up when he smiled and fall more in love with him every day. He was born in a period when the world they had known was changing. If she could she would have protected him from it but at best she could only hope that disaster would not catch up to them and somehow they could win the war. At least then he would have a chance to live up to his legacy and carry on his father’s name, do all the things that his father couldn’t do and wouldn’t be able to do. She knew he was not part of the lineage to inherit the throne of the Ndebele but she prayed that he would have a higher calling in this life.

Her prayers floated into the heavens every night for all her children. For her daughters she prayed that they may find suitable husbands one day with plenty of cattle, mighty warriors who would ensure their wealth and posterity. Zibulo, she hoped, would have a grander calling than the world in which they had grown accustomed to as he was untainted by all this suffering, and the senseless slaughtering. It was odd, she thought, that she would pray for his freedom from their world considering she was at the forefront of the call to fight any who encroached on their land and would gladly have wielded an assegai as a show of her resolve. She hoped for something different for Zibulo, which is the name Magwegwe had suggested for any son they would have, a son which she never thought she would be able to give him.

Lately, thoughts of Zibulo’s birth had begun to occupy her mind. She thought about it often early in the morning before eventually forcing herself out of bed. It was clear that Cetshwayo had shown the same disconcerted look when he noticed Zibulo’s birth mark. Something about the way he looked at it was different from the look the midwives had given him. He looked almost exultant though he tried desperately to hide it. For some reason, he was looking specifically for Zibulo but she could not understand why. Enquiries about the stranger had yielded no results. Nobody knew who he was only that he drifted in and out of the camp and had been looking for this specific baby and his mother. Maybe she had this all wrong, maybe he was interested in her. It seemed unlikely but it gave her some sort of comfort if she assumed her son would be safe. Memory of her dream remained vividly alive in her mind and no amount of consultation provided her with satisfactory answers so all she could do was hope that somehow, someday it would all make sense.

It was late in the day and the sun was well on its way to its hiding place beyond the horizon. She walked solemnly for an hour to the medical encampment where she often assisted with tending to the wounds of the soldiers. The medical area was much closer to the battlefront and many times she thought she could hear the screams of the soldiers, and weapons being fired.

Several soldiers who had retired from the battlefront for the night were sitting by the entrance around a crackling fire talking in whispers. She could make out a few words suggesting that something had been tried and it had failed. It wasn’t immediately clear whether she was supposed to be happy it had failed or to be disheartened. A few women were milling around a few injured and moaning soldiers who lying on some skins laid out on the floor of the cave where the camp was located. This was the area whether the most gravely injured soldiers were kept and the women were there to tend to their wounds and feed them.

“Sawubona Mam’ Cebani,” she said to an elderly lady who was sitting in a corner of the cave carefully grinding some herbs to use for the soldiers’ wounds. “It doesn’t seem like there are too many badly injured ones today.”

“Yebo, it’s a better day. You should tend to him. The one facing the wall over there.” Mam’ Cebani pointed at one soldier lying on the cave floor facing the wall a few steps away from where she was. He seemed in a pensive mood, rocking back and forth every now and then stopping again and maintaining a distance gaze into the abyss. Cebisa nodded in acknowledgement and walked over to the young man placing herself between the wall and him.

“He told us you know. He knew what was coming, somehow,” the young man said. He immediately acknowledged her presence and his stares focused on her instead.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Bongani.”

“Okay, Bongani, and who told you what?” she asked wondering what was wrong with him as she could not immediately see what his injuries were in the dim light.

“We had a chance to stop it back then, or at least send a very strong message. Who knows how different things would be if we had listened then. Back then they feared us.”

“I don’t really understand what you are saying. How can I help you? I can’t see what the problem with you is.”

“I fell.”

“Fell?”

“Yes, I fired a gun from on top. They fired back, narrowly missed and as I moved from there to a different position I slipped and fell, back first into some rocks in the ground. I can’t feel my legs.” His eyes were locked with hers as he related his problem. She was surprised at how lucid he seemed considering he had been rambling nonsense only a moment ago.

“Do you feel any pain?”

“Yes, but more than you could possibly treat. I think I won’t walk again. I just know it.” There was a pain in his eyes that seemed to transcend his present position.

“You don’t know that for sure. Mam’ Cebani has had a lot of succ--”

“I know I won’t,” he said interrupting her. “It’s okay, I deserve what has happened to me.”

“What do you mean?” Cebisa asked looking puzzled.

“We could have stopped this. I knew your husband, admired him. We let him down. Our instructions were to attack them as they crossed the river. I only understood the wisdom of it when we attacked them after they had crossed.”

“You, you knew my husband? When was the last time you saw him?” Cebisa asked tears welling up in her eyes as she expectantly awaited an answer.

“I wasn’t part of the group that went with him and Lobengula. I wanted to be though, I never got my chance but we all knew that to make into the Imbizo regiment was the highest honour short of guarding the king himself.” The young man covered his face with both hands.

“We all were taken by surprise. Their weapons were superior. Maybe we never had a chance,” she said placing a hand on the young man’s head.

“You don’t understand. They attacked the caravans once the white men crossed the river. I wasn’t one of those men. I ran. I was a coward. And just when I thought that my chance to redeem myself had come I have not been allowed to carry on. It was my first day on the battlefield.”

Cebisa was horrified. Cowardice was punishable by death by Ndebele law. She was conflicted as to whether she should continue to try to comfort him or chide him further still.

“Why?” she managed to ask at last.

“I was afraid. Haven’t you seen what their weapons can do? Thoughts of my young wife and my son overcame me. She begged me to come home to her. I couldn’t disappoint her.”

“And where is she now?” Cebisa felt a lump forming in her throat as the young men related his mind-set on the day of the attack along the river Umguza.

“She died. When they came and ran us over in Bulawayo she died in the initial struggle, carrying my assegai. She was shot. I fled with my son. We found a place to live in a village not far from here.”

Cebisa sat next to him in silence. He began to sob softly at first then gradually in what seemed like fits brought on by emotion.

“It was supposed to be me,” he said. “I should have been the one killed then. This was my chance to redeem myself and I failed.”

There was no more that Cebisa could say. It was clear there was little she could do to help the young man and after covering his superficial wounds with salve she soon made her way back to the main camp, towards her children. She thought long about the young man’s story. A story of a young man seeking redemption and haunted by his initial cowardice. What she would have given to convince Magwegwe not to have been among those who left with Lobengula that night, to have him stay and care for his family. With that thought in mind she realised she could not judge the young man, he was only doing what he thought was right especially against the odds they were facing. Now she had a young baby boy to care for and she had no idea how she could spare him from the brutality of the war, especially if they lost. Her greatest hope then was that he would not share a similar story to the young broken man that lay down before her.

The children were already asleep when she made it back to the cave where they slept. Khulu Zwangedwa was not around but judging by the sound of laughter that floated around the camp it was clear he could only be at one place, doing only one thing. Zibulo was fast asleep and she lay herself down next to him staring into his peaceful face until she drifted off into a deep dreamless slumber.