Текст книги "Men of Men"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

Соавторы: Wilbur Smith
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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 41 страниц)

The grass cloaked the undulating earth, thick and sweet, so that the bullocks fleshed out after the enervating heat of the lowlands, and they stepped out with a new will against the yoke.

This was cattle country, the heartland of the Matabele, and they began to encounter the herds. Huge assemblies of multi-coloured animals, red and white and black and all the combinations of those colours. Smaller than the big Cape bullocks, but sturdy and agile as wild game, the bulls with the hump and heavy dewlap of their Egyptian forebears.

Isazi looked at them covetously, and came back to Ralph at the forewheel of the wagon to say: "Such were the herds of Zululand, before the soldiers came."

"There must be hundreds of thousands, and they would be worth twenty pounds a head."

"Will you never learn, Little Hawk." Isazi still returned to the diminutive when one of Ralph's stupidities exasperated him. "A man cannot place a value on a fine breeding cow or a beautiful woman in little round coins."

"Yet, as a Zulu you pay for a Wife."

"Yes, Little Hawk." Isazi's voice was weary with Ralph's obtuse arguments. "A Zulu pays for a wife; but he pays in cattle, not in coin, which is what I have been telling you all along." And he ended the discussion with a thunderous clap of his long trek whip.

Small family kraals dotted the wide savannabs, each built around its own cattle stockade and fortified against predators, or against marauders. As they passed the settlements of thatched beehive-shaped huts, the little naked herd boys scampered to alert the kraals, and then the women came out, bare-legged and naked-breasted, balancing the clay pots and hollowed gourds upon their heads, an exercise that gave them a stately dignity of movement.

Then Ralph's bodyguard of warriors from Gandang's regiment paused to refresh themselves on the tart and bubbling millet beer or on the delicious soured milk, thick as yoghurt. The young women examined Ralph With bold and curious eyes. Totally unaware that he spoke the language, they speculated about him in such ntimate terms that his ears turned bright red, and he challenged them: "It is easy to speak the lion's name and question his size and his strength when he is hidden in the long grass, but will you be so brave when he raises himself in his rage to confront you face to face?"

The silence, stunned and incredulous, lasted only a second, then they covered their mouths and shrieked with delighted laughter, before the bravest came to wheedle coquettishly for a strip of ribbon or a handful of pretty beads.

As they drew closer to the stronghold of Lobengula, so they passed the great regimental kraals. Each of them was fifty miles from its neighbours, a day's travel at the rate of a marching impi, the ground-devouring trot that they could maintain for hour after hour.

Here there was no exchange of greeting and banter.

The warriors came swarming from the kraal like bees from a disturbed hive, and they lined each side of the track and settled into a deathly stillness, watching Ralph's wagon pass in total silence. There was a blankness in their eyes, the inscrutable gaze wich the lion watches his prey before he begins the stalk.

Ralph passed between the massed ranks at a measured walk, sitting very upright on Tom's back, without deigning to glance left or right at the silent menacing ranks; but when they had passed out into the open grasslands again, his shirt was wet under the arms and between his shoulder blades, and there was a catch in his breathing and a chill in the pit of his belly.

The Khami was one of the last wide rivers to cross before reaching the king's kraal at Gubulawayo.

As soon as Ralph saw the denser and greener growth of mimosa trees that marked the river course, he threw the saddle on Tom's back and trotted ahead to survey the drift.

Ports had been cut into the steep sides of the river banks to enable a wagon to enter the watercourse, and the sandbank between two tranquil green pools had been corduroyed with carefully selected branches, cut to length and laid side by side across the softer going to prevent the narrow ironshod wheels from sinking.

Whoever had travelled this road ahead of Ralph had saved him a great deal of trouble. Ralph knee-haltered Tom on a patch of good grass and went down into the riverbed to check the crossing. It was obviously many months since the last wagon had crossed, and Ralph worked his way slowly over the corduroyed pathway, repairing the damage that time had wrought, kicking the dried branches back into place and refilling the hollows scooped by water and wind beneath them.

It was furnace-hot in the riverbed and the white sand bounced the sun's rays back at him so that by the time he reached the far bank he was sweating heavily, and he threw himself down in the shade of one of the trees and wiped his face and arms with his scarf moistened in the waters of the river pool.

Quite suddenly he was aware of being watched, and he scrambled quickly to his feet. There was someone standing on the bank above him at the head of the roadway.

With a shock of disbelief, he realized that it was a girl a white girl, and she was dressed all in white: a loose cotton shift that reached to her ankle just above her bare feet. It was caught in at the waist with a ribbon of blue, and she was so slim that Ralph felt he could lift her with one hand.

The dress was buttoned with mother of pearl to the throat and the sleeves reached to her elbows; but the cotton had been washed, ironed and bleached so often that it seemed to have less substance than gossamer, and the light was behind her.

Ralph could clearly see the outline of her legs under the skirt, and it shocked him again so his breathing tripped. Her legs were long and so delicately shaped that he had to exercise his will to tear his eyes from them. With his heart still pounding he looked at her face.

It was pale as bone china, and seemed almost translucent, so that he thought he could see the sheen of fragile bone beneath the skin.

Her hair was pale shining silver blond, brushed into a fine cascade that flowed over her shoulders, and shimmered and shook with each breath that lifted the tiny girlish breasts under the thin cotton.

There were flowers on her brow, and a garland of them over her shoulders and about the brim of the wide straw hat that she held in her hands at the level of her narrow hips, and Ralph felt a sense of unreality. The flowers were roses. The girl and the flowers seemed not to belong in this wilderness but in some gentle and cultivated English garden.

She came down the cutting; her bare feet were silent and seemed to glide over the sandy earth. Her eyes were huge and luminous blue in her pale face, and she was smiling. It was the sweetest smile that Ralph had ever seen, and yet it was neither shy nor simpering.

While Ralph still stood, self-conscious and gawking, the girl lifted her slim smooth arms and stood on tiptoe to kiss him full upon the mouth. Her lips were cool and soft, delicate as the roses petals at her brow.

oh Ralph, we are so glad to see you. Nobody has talked of anything else since first we heard that you were upon the road."

"Who, who are you?" Ralph blurted, his surprise and embarrassment making him boorish; but she seemed unaffected by the gauche question.

"Salina" she said, and slipped her hand into the crook of his "elbow to lead him up the bank. "Salina Codrington."

"I don't understand." He pulled against the hand so that she had to turn to face him again.

"Salina -" she repeated, laughing now, and her laughter was warm and sweet as her smile. "I'm Salina Codrington." And then when it was apparent that the name meant nothing, "I'm your cousin, Ralph. My mother is your father's sister, Robyn Codrington, but she was Robyn Ballantyne., "Good God" Ralph stared at her. "I didn't know Aunt Robyn had a daughter."

suppose not. Uncle Zouga never was a good correspondent." But suddenly the smile was no longer on Salina's lips, and Ralph remembered abruptly that he had never taken the trouble to unravel the tangled skein of family history, except to comprehend vaguely that there was ill-feeling and unsettled scores between Zouga and his Aunt Robyn. Then it came back to him, he had overheard his father recalling bitterly how Robyn had taken unfair advantage by publishing her own version of their joint expedition to the Zambezi months before Zouga's Hunter's Odyssey, thereby robbing Zouga of his fair share of critical acclaim, and royalties.

Ralph's touching on the family enmities must account for Salina's quick change of mood, but it was fleeting.

She took his arm again, and was smiling as they came up the bank.

"Not one daughter, Ralph. We Codringtons will not let you off so lightly. There are a whole tribe of us, four of us, all girls." And she stopped, lifted the straw hat to shade her eyes and looked down the winding overgrown track that meandered away across the grassy savannah.

"Oh dear!" she exclaimed. "I came ahead to warn you and I was only just in time!"

Down the track towards them pelted three small figures, jostling one another for advantage, their faint squeaks of excitement gaining rapidly in volume, long hair flying wildly, fluttering skirts of faded and patched cloth lifted high above the knees so that bare legs flashed, faces freckled and flushed, contorted with exertion and excitement and recrimination.

"Salina! You promised to wait!"

They bore down on where Ralph stood with the lovely blond girl on his arm.

"Good God!" Ralph whispered again, and Salina squeezed his elbow.

"That's the second time that you have used the Lord's name, Cousin Ralph. Please don't." So that was the reason for her faint displeasure.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry." And he remembered too late that Salina's parents were pious missionaries. "I didn't mean -" Again he was thick-tongued, for suddenly this girl's opinion was the most important thing in all the world. "I won't do it again. I promise."

"Thank you," she said softly, and before either of them could speak again they were surrounded by what appeared to be an ocean of small females, every one of which was bobbing up and down with remarkable rapidity, competing vocally for Ralph's attention and at the same time shrieking accusations at their eldest sister.

"You cheated, Salina. You told us "Ralph, Cousin Ralph, I'm Victoria, the eldest twin."

"Cousin Ralph, we prayed God to speed you to us."

Salina clapped her hands, and there was a barely noticeable reduction in the volume of sound.

"In order of age!" she said calmly.

"You always say that because you are the eldest!"

Salina ignored the protest and picked out a dark-haired child with a hand on her shoulder.

"This is Catherine." She drew her forward to face Ralph. "Cathy is fourteen."

"And a half, almost fifteen," said Cathy, and her manner changed with this declaration, becoming ladylike and controlled.

She was thin, and as flat-chested as a boy, but the young body gave the immediate impression of strength and suppleness. Her nose and cheeks were peppered with freckles, but the mouth was full and frank, her eyes the same Ballantyne green as Ralph's own, and her thick dark brows were a frame for their bright intelligent gleam. Her chin was a little too large, as was her nose, but they had a determined set and thrust. Her thick dark hair was plaited and piled on top of her head, leaving her ears expose small and pointed and lying flat against her head.

"Welcome to Khami, Ralph," she said evenly, and bobbed a small curtsey, holding her skirts up as she had obviously been coached; and Ralph realized that the skirt was made of old flour bags that had been stitched together and dyed a muddy green. The lettering still showed through: "Cape Flour Mills".

Then Cathy reached up and kissed him quickly, and it left a little wet spot on Ralph's lips. Kissing was obviously the accepted family salutation, and Ralph glanced with trepidation at the eager but grubby faces of the twins.

"I'm Victoria, the eldest., "And I'm Elizabeth, but if you call me "baby", I shall hate you, Cousin Ralph."

"You won't hate anybody," Salina said, and Elizabeth hurled herself at Ralph's neck, got a fair grip and hung on as she plastered her mouth to Ralph's.

"I was teasing, Ralph. I shall love you," she whispered fiercely.

"Always! Always!"

"Me!" howled Victoria indignantly. "I'm older than Lizzie. Me first."

Salina led them with that gliding walk which did not move her shoulders and barely ruffled the white-gold curtain of her hair, and every once in a while she turned to smile at Ralph, and he thought he had never seen anything so lovely.

The twins each had hold of one of Ralph's hands, and they gabbled out all the things they had saved up for weeks to tell him, and skipped to keep pace with his stride. Cathy came up behind them all, leading Tom. She and the pony had formed an immediate accord.

oh, he's beautiful, Ralph," she had said and kissed Tom's velvety muzzle.

"We don't have a horse," Victoria explained. "Daddy is a man of God, and men of God are too poor to have horses."

The small party straggled over the first low rise beyond the river, and Salina stopped and pointed down into the shallow basin ahead of them.

"Khami!" she said simply, and all of them looked to Ralph for approbation.

There was a notch in the next line of granite hills, a natural divide and shed for underground water, which accounted for the spread of lush grass that carpeted the valley.

Like chickens under the hen, the small huddle of buildings crouched beneath the hills. They were neatly laid out, thatched with yellow grass and painted dazzlingly white with burnt limewash. The largest building had a wooden cross set proudly on the ridge of the roof.

"Daddy and Mummy built the church with their own hands. King Silly Cat would not allow any of his people to help them," Victoria explained.

"Silly Cat?" Ralph asked, puzzled.

"King Mzilikazi," Salina translated. "You know Mama does not like you using fun names for the kings, Vicky," she rebuked the child mildly; but Victoria was shaking Ralph's hand excitedly and pointing to a distant figure in the valley below them.

"Daddy!" shrieked the twins in unison. There's Daddy!"

He was working in the precise geometrically laid out gardens below the church, a lanky figure whose shoulders remained stooped even when he stood upright and looked towards them, stabbed his spade into the earth and came striding up the hill.

"Ralph!" He swept off the sweatstained hat, and he was bald, like a monk, with just a fringe of silky hair forming a halo around his pate at the level of his ears. It was immediately apparent from whom Salina had inherited her glorious white-gold tresses.

"Ralph," the man repeated, and he wiped his right hand on the seat of his pants and then held it out. Despite the stoop, he was as tall as Ralph, his face deeply tanned, his bald dome as shiny as if it had been waxed and polished, his eyes pale blue as a summer sky, washed out by heat haze; but his smile was like Salina's, calm and tranquil, so that as he took the hand Ralph realized that this was the most contented and deeply happy man he had ever met in his life.

"I'm Clinton Codrington," he said. "And I suppose I must count as your uncle, though goodness knows I do not feel that old."

"I would have known you anywhere, sir," said Ralph.

"Would you indeed?"

"I have read Aunt Robyn's books, and I have always admired your exploits as a Royal Naval officer."

"Oh dear." Clinton shook his head in mock dismay. "I thought to have left that all far behind me., "You were one of the most illustrious and courageous officers in the African anti-slavery squadron, sir." Ralph's eyes shone with a still boyish hero worship.

"Your Aunt Robyn's account suffered a dreadful list to port, I'm afraid."

"Daddy is the bravest man in the world," Victoria declared stoutly, and she released Ralph's hand and ran to her father.

Clinton Codrington gathered her up and held her on his hip.

"And yours, young lady, is probably the most unbiased opinion in Matabeleland," he chuckled, and Ralph was suddenly sharply jealous of this palpable aura of deep affection and love which welded the little group, from which he felt himself excluded. It was something beyond his experience, something he had never missed until that moment. Somehow Salina seemed to sense his pang of melancholy, and she took the hand that Victoria had relinquished.

,"come," she said. "Mama will be waiting. And there is one thing you will soon learn, Ralph. in this family, nobody keeps Mama waiting."

They went down towards the church, passing between the beds of growing vegetables.

"You didn't bring any seed?" Clinton asked, and when Ralph shook his head, "Well, how were you to know?"

and he went on to point out with pride his flourishing crops. "Maize, potatoes, beans, tomatoes do particularly well here."

"We divide it this way," Cathy told Ralph, teasing her father. "One for the bugs, two for the baboons, three for the bushbuck, and one for Daddy."

"Be good to all God's creatures." Clinton reached out to niffle her dark hair, and Ralph realized that these gentle people were always touching and kissing one another. He had never experienced anything like it.

Squatting patiently on the shady side against the wall of the church were twenty or more Matabele of all ages and sexes, from a skeleton-thin ancient with a completely white cap of wool on his bowed head and both his eyes turned to blind orbs of milky jelly by tropical oph thalmia to a new-born infant held against its mother's milk-swollen breasts with its tiny dark face screwed up with the terrible colic of infant dysentery.

Catherine tethered Tom beside the church door, and they all trooped into the cool interior, insulated by thatch and thick walls of unbaked brick from the outside heat. The church smelled of homemade soap, and of iodine. The pews of rough-hewn timber had been pushed aside to make way for an operating table of the same material.

There was a girl at work over the table, but as they came in she tied the last knot in a bandage and dismissed her semi-naked black patient with a word and a pat then, wiping her hands on a clean but threadbare cloth, she came down the aisle of the church towards them.

Ralph was certain that she was Cathy's twin, for though she was a little taller, she was as slim and as flat-chested; her hair had the same dark brown colouring, though shot through with tones of russet and chestnut, her skin the same youthful lustre, and her nose and chin the same forceful size and thrust.

Then as she came closer, Ralph realized that he had been mistaken and that she was older than Cathy, perhaps even older than Salina, but not much.

"Hello, Ralph," the girl said. "I'm your Aunt Robyn."

Ralph felt the blasphemy of surprise leap to his lips again, conscious of Salina's hand in his he suppressed it.

"You are so young," he said instead.

"Bless you for that," she laughed. "You turn a prettier compliment than your daddy ever did." She was the only one who made no effort to kiss him; instead she turned to the twins.

"Right!" she said. "I want ten pages of copperplate written out before Evensong, and I don't want to see a single blot., "Oh Mama!

Ralph "Ralph has been your excuse for two weeks. Go, or you will eat in the kitchen hut tonight."

Then, to Cathy: "Have you finished the ironing, young lady?"

"Not yet, Mama." Cathy followed the twins "Salina, your baking."

"Yes, Mama."

Then there were three of them alone in the little church, and Robyn ran a professional eye over her nephew.

"Well, Zouga has bred a likely boy," she gave her opinion. "But I never expected anything else."

"How did you all know I was coming?" Ralph voiced his bewilderment at last.

"Grandpa Moffat sent a runner when you left Kuruman, and Induna Gandang passed here two weeks ago on his way to King Lobengula's kraal.

His eldest son was with him, and Bazo's mother is an old friend of mine."

"I see."

"Nothing moves in Matabeleland but the whole nation knows of it immediately," Clinton explained.

"Now, Ralph, how is your father? I was terribly distressed to hear of the death of Aletta, your mother. She was a lovely person, so good and gentle. I wrote to Zouga, but he never replied."

Robyn seemed determined to catch up on the doings of a decade in the first ten minutes, and her questions were quick and incisive; but Clinton soon excused himself and left the two of them alone in the little church to return to his gardens.

Ralph replied dutifully to all her questions, while he reassessed his first impression of his aunt. Youthful she looked, but childlike she was not. Now at last he could understand the remarkable achievements of this forceful woman. How she had enrolled at a famous London hospital, one which would never accept a female on its student body, by impersonating a man. Dressed in breeches, she had kept her terms and been granted her doctorate when she was twenty-one years of age. The scandal which attended the discovery that a female had invaded an exclusive male preserve had rocked all England.

Then she had accompanied Zouga to Africa, equal partners in the expedition to find their father Fuller Ballantyne, who had been missing in the unexplored interior for eight years. When she and Zouga had fallen out over the conduct of the expedition, she had pushed on, a white woman alone with only primitive black tribesmen as companions, and achieved the main object of the expedition on her own.

Her book describing the expedition, entitled Africa in My Blood, had been a publishing phenomenon and had sold almost a quarter of a million copies, three times as many as Zouga Ballantyne's A Hunter's Odyssey published six months later.

Robyn had signed over all her royalties from the book to The London Missionary Society, and that august body had been so delighted by the donation that they had reinstated her as a society officer, had ordained her husband as her assistant, and had approved her heading a mission to Matabeleland.

Her two subsequent publications had not enjoyed the same success as the first. The Sick African, a practical study of tropical medicine, had contained ludicrous theories that had earned her the derision of her medical peers she had even dared to suggest that malarial fever was not caused by breathing the foul night airs of tropical swamps, when this fact had been known since the time of Hippocrates.

Then her further account of her life as a medical missionary, Blind Faith, had been too homely in style and too prejudiced in championing the indigenous tribes.

She had firmly embraced the beliefs of lean-Jacques Rousseau and had added her own refinements to them. Her round condemnation of all settlers, hunters, prospectors and traders, and of their treatment of the noble savages, had been too salty for her European readers.

Indeed, scandal and contention seemed to follow Robyn Codrington as vultures and jackals follow the lion, and at each new provocation all her previous adventures would be recalled: What decent female missionary would provoke men sufficiently to make them fight a bloody duel over her?

Robyn Ballantyne had.

What God-fearing lady would sail aboard a notorious slaver, unchaperoned and with only slavers for company?

Robyn Ballantyne had.

What lady would choose for husband a man who had been court-martialled, stripped of his naval rank and imprisoned for piracy and dereliction of duty? Robyn Codrington had.

What loyal subject of the Queen would hail the terrible reversal of British arms at Isandhlwana, the bloody death of hundreds of Englishmen at the hands of the savage Zulus, as a judgement of God, Robyn Codrington had, in a letter to the Evening Standard.

Who, other than Robyn Codrington, would write to Lord Kimberley demanding that half the profits of the diamond fields that bore his name should go to the Griqua captain, Nicholaas Waterboer?

Only Robyn Codrington would demand of Paulus Kruger, the newly-elected President of the little Transvaal Republic, that he return to Lobengula, King of the Matabele, the land below the Cashan mountains from which the Boer commandos had driven Mzilikazi, his father.

She spared no one. Nothing was sacred to her except her God, whom she treated rather like a senior partner in the business of running Africa.

Her enemies, and they were legion, hated her fiercely, and her friends loved her with equal passion. It was impossible to be unmoved by her, and Ralph found himself fascinated as she sat beside him on the church pew and subjected him to an exhaustive catechism that covered every aspect of his life and that of the family.

"You have a brother," she seemed to know it all.

"Jordan? That is his name, isn't it? Tell me about him."

It was a comnand.

"Oh, Jordie is everybody's favourite; everybody loves him."

Ralph had never met anybody like her. He doubted he could ever bring himself to like her, she was far too prickly. That was the exact word to describe her, but he would never doubt her strength and her determination.

Clinton Codrington came back into the church as the light outside was mellowing into late afternoon.

"My dear, you really must let the poor fellow go now."

He turned to Ralph. "Your wagon has come up. I showed your driver where to outspan. He seems a first-rate chap, I must say."

"You will sleep in the guest house," Robyn announced as she stood.

"Cathy has taken your soiled clothes from the wagon, and she has washed and ironed them," Clinton went on.

"You will want to put on a fresh shirt before Evensong," Robyn told him. "We shall not begin the service until you return."

He had liked it better on the open road, Ralph thought sourly; then he had made his own decisions as to when he made his ablutions, as to how he dressed and where he spent his evenings, but he went to change his shirt as he was bidden.

The distaff side of the Codrington family filled the front pew. Clinton Codrington faced them from the pulpit. Ralph was between the twins; there had been a brief but ferocious competition between Victoria and Elizabeth to decide who should sit closest to him.

Apart from the family, there was nobody else in the church, and Victoria saw his glance and explained to Ralph in a penetrating whisper, "King Ben won't let any of his people come to our church."

"King Lobengula," Salina corrected her sweetly, "not King Ben."

Despite the full attendance, Clinton delayed the commencement of the evening service, finding and losing his place in the Book of Common Prayer half a dozen times and glancing repeatedly towards the rear of the tiny church.

From this quarter there was a sudden commotion. A "iretinue of Matabele women had arrived outside church. Clearly they were servants, house slaves and the ladies-in-waiting to the imposing female figure in their midst. She dismissed them with a royal gesture and came in through the doors of the church. Every one of the Codringtons turned their heads and their faces lit with pleasure.

The way in which this matron paced majestically down the aisle left not a doubt as to her high breeding and her place in the aristocracy of Matabeleland. She wore bangles and bracelets of beaten red copper, strings of highly prized sam-sarn beads that only a chief would afford. Her cloak was of beautifully tanned leather, ornamented with feathers of the blue jay and worked with designs of chipped ostrich shell.

"i see you, Nomusa," she declared.

Her huge naked breasts shone with an ointment of fat and red clay; they pushed out ponderously from under her tanned cloak and dangled weightily to the level of her navel.

Her arms were thick as a grown man's thigh, her thighs as thick as his waist. There were rolls of fat around her belly, and her face was a black full moon, the glossy skin stretched tightly over her abundant flesh.

Her merry eyes sparkled from between creases of fat, and her teeth flashed like the sunlit surface of a lake as she smiled. All this size was evidence to the world of her station, of her amazing beauty, of her fecundity. It was also unassailable proof of the high regard of her husband, of his prosperity and importance in the councils of Matabeleland.

"I see you, Girlchild of Mercy," she smiled at Robyn.

"I see you, Juba, the little dove." Robyn answered her.

"I am not a Christian," Juba intoned. "Let no evil one bear false tidings to Lobengula, the Black and Mighty Elephant."

"If you say so, Juba," Robyn answered primly, and Juba pinioned her in a vast embrace while at the same time she called to Clinton in the pulpit.

"I see you also, Hlopi. I see you, White Head! But do not be deceived by my presence here, I am not a Christian." She drew an elephantine breath and went on, "I come merely to greet old friends, not to sing hymns and worship your God. Also I warn you, fflopi, that if you read the story tonight of a man called the Rock who denied his God three times before the call of the cock, I shall be displeased."

"I shall not read that story," Clinton answered. "For by now you should know it by heart."

"Very well, Hlopi, then let the singing begin." And led by Juba in a startlingly clear and beautiful soprano, the entire Codrington family rollicked into the first verse of "Onward Christian Soldiers", which Robyn had translated into the Matabele vernacular.

After the service Juba bore down on Ralph.

"You are Henshaw?" she demanded.

"Nkosikazi!" Ralph agreed, and Juba inclined her head to acknowledge the correct style of address to the senior wife of a great chief that Ralph had employed.

"Then you are the one whom Bazo, my first-born son, calls brother," Juba said. "You are very skinny and very white, Little Hawk, but if you are Bazo's brother, then you are my son."

"You do me great honour, Umame!" Ralph said, and Juba took him in those mammoth arms. She smelled of clarified fat, and ochre and wood-smoke, but the embrace was strangely comforting, not at all unlike the feeling, only half remembered, that he had once experienced in Aletta's arms.