Trojian Horse
Chapter 1

“Must you go?”

“You know I have to. What would you have me do?” he asked, a vein began throbbing furiously on his forehead. He paused for an answer and when none was forthcoming he proceeded to provide a model answer. “Stay behind to tend to the cattle and take care of the women?!”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?” He stopped rummaging through his belongings in the hut and turned to face her, staring deeply into her bold brown eyes.

“I just can’t believe it’s come to this. That’s all I’m saying, and maybe that I would rather you didn’t go but I also know that you have to go. This is about more than just how I feel. I get that.” She lowered her gaze and lowered herself onto the stool behind her.

“I know, I know,” he stooped down, knees bent, till their eyes were level. “I understand your concern. You need to be strong, s’thandwa sami (my love). Our children need you, in case…” His eyes dropped to the floor.

“In case what?” her voice rising ever so slightly as she manoeuvred her head to replace his eyes again. “You better not be telling me goodbye. You better be coming back. It doesn’t end like this. It just doesn’t. Promise me!”

He smiled. A painful smile. They both knew what lay out there for him and what could be coming to knock on her doorstep if he failed. If they all failed.

“I promise. If there is any strength left in me, no matter the odds, I will replace my way back to you. S’thandwa sami.” He cupped her face in his hands and planted a kiss on her lips, savouring it, trying to memorise the taste of her lips, the sound of her breathing, the feel of her skin before letting her go.

“I want you to take this.” She handed him a doll made from beads and pieces of animal skin which held the uncanny resemblance to a Ndebele warrior. He took it from her and immediately responded to the inquisitive look on his face. “She said it would protect you and bring you back home to us.”

“Cebisa, you know I can’t be carrying this with me to battle. What would my regiment have to say about me if they saw this?” He could not help but giggle. The heavily charged emotional cloud that hung over the room seemed to dissipate with his infectious laughter.

“They would understand you have four daughters that you can’t possibly say no to.” She smiled, pressing the doll into his hand just as his hand tightened around hers and they sat for some time in that position, with no exchange of words but a perfect understanding between them. “If only Mzilikazi were alive today, we would be in a better position,” she said at last as a sigh escaped her.

“You don’t know what you are talking about” he said feeling a little twinge of disappointment that his wife would gravitate toward this topic yet again. Especially today.

“I do know something. Lobengula has been weak. That nyanga (witch doctor) Starr exposed his weak underbelly and now here we are, on the eve of a war we must win.” Her hazel eyes had been set ablaze yet again.

Her husband opened his mouth in retaliation but found that he did not have the words to counter her arguments today. Not today.

“We took what we wanted before. Cattle, women, children, land, whatever. Then when Mzilikazi died, we lost our way, forgot how we got here, how we became feared. And respected. They called it a time of peace but there is no peace for people like us, only war. Victory. Then the next battle. And the next.”

Magwegwe held his peace. He dared not admit it but his wife shared many of his own sentiments. The Ndebele had forgotten who they were, it seemed, as their young men had grown complacent in an age where their reputation was sharper than their spear.

“We shall be victorious. You’ll see,” he said forcing a smile and caressing her face. He ran his eyes longingly over her smooth ebony skin, her fiery brown eyes punctuated by her brilliant white teeth. Sensing the shift in the mood she pulled him closer then led him, by the hand, to the dried cow hide that served as their bed where they remained locked in a passionate exchange for the rest of the night.

Magwegwe, armed with his shield and both his spears, marched off to war with the rest of the able young men in his regiment, together with all the other regiments in the Ndebele army. She remembered watching him dress that morning. How majestic he looked. His leopard skin kilt wrapped regally around his waist, the tufts of feathers and porcupine quills strung around his neck, white cattle tails around his arms, augmented by a flowing cape of black ostrich feathers and hide with a similar headdress. He looked like the king she had always known him to be, the royal blood that flowed through their veins embodied in those designs. Then he was gone.

She remained in that hut for the rest of that day and the next, refusing to contemplate the life she could be forced to lead without him, should he not replace his way home as he had promised he would. Her eyes darted across the intricate weaving of grass that had created the roof of their hut, following each thread till it terminated at the base of the hut then picking a new one at the centre of the ceiling and repeating the exercise. Hours went by this way. Just for today the world did not have to make sense, she would take the time to remember her husband and pray earnestly for his safe return, and mostly importantly, for victory.

As days went by she developed the habit of staring at the horizon hoping to catch a glimpse of her returning victor. Time was cruel to her hope, squeezing a little more out of her with each passing day and replacing it with a numbing fear that threatened to overwhelm the little hope and happiness that remained. She understood why he had to go, but her heart would not see reason. Despair crept in like a hyena on unsuspecting prey.

One day though he did come back. It was with incredulous joy that she greeted him and the despair she felt over the past few weeks disappeared instantly. The rainy season, almost at the very moment of their return, descended in full on them as a forecast of the good times that lay ahead. How wrong she was.

She had led him into their hut, examined his many injuries, saw the hopeless void that occupied his eyes and cried that whole night with him on hearing the course the war had taken. They both knew what was coming next. Annihilation was marching toward the capital kwaBulawayo and there was nothing to stop the ominous swing of death’s axe. The Ndebele had been defeated on the Shangaani river and so the legacy of the Ndebele was in jeopardy. The pale men, or abelungu as they were otherwise known were marching on the capital kwaBulawayo with malice in their hearts eager to take the little the Ndebele had amassed for themselves and become the rulers of Mthwakazi. The pale men were armed with weapons that the Ndebele knew little about and from what she had heard from the numerous conversations that took place in the king’s kraal, with these weapons one of the pale men could kill five Ndebele warriors, maybe more. Five! The number seemed inconceivable to her. The Ndebele were not prepared for this. They knew how to fight with spears but this new form of warfare was destroying even their reputation. She could see from the lack of fight left in her husband that even he felt the war had virtually been won by the pale men.

He had one last mission he told her. They would rather burn the capital than to let those usurpers march into the city with smug faces and loaded rifles. The king Lobengula would flee to the south. He did not know where exactly but he would be of the party that went with him. Maybe he would come back to replace them but it seemed unlikely. This time there was no coming back except in the case of an unlikely victory. There was no hope just the stark barefaced reality before them. She had nodded in acknowledgement, she remembered, and they had spent that one last night together. In the morning, they had set fire to everything and watched their entire existence disappear in the flames.

She prayed constantly from that day onward that Mwali would protect their way of life. Her husband had suffered from a touch of unbelief but she felt confident that her prayers would be answered although lately her prayers had taken a more despondent tone. Perhaps they could not all be saved she thought but perhaps a select few would survive to continue the legacy, to recuperate and fight another day. One day, perhaps, the invaders would be driven out and this land would be theirs again she often prayed. Her daughters were constantly in her prayers as they adjusted to the new reality of living beyond the borders of their old home.

She did not know how she found the will to carry on. Many others had simply given up, walking around as shells of their former selves that feigned life in the world of the living. Her thoughts wandered often to her husband who she assumed had died in the cause having heard nothing of or from him for months now. How she wished they had more time and that there was something more than just memories that she could hold onto. In a very short space of time their world had changed and all she was left with were memories of a former life and less than a grain of hope for the future. Fate had one last cruel trick to play on her because before long she realised she was pregnant.