Nomvula

3 - The Queen's Mother

Nomvula sat alone in the window seat of her drawing room. She looked out the misted pane and tried to enjoy the green of the hill that descended towards the village. The pillows packed underneath her drew some of the tension from her back, and though midmorning was still hours away, the throbbing in her ankles was rivalled only by the thunderstorm pushing against her temples. In all truth, she could have used a cup of coffee.

Someone threw the door open. No knock, just the slam of citruswood against the wall. Only one person in the entire manse never knocked.

"Upset?" Nomvula asked, not yet ready to look away from her favourite view.

Her mother muttered either a greeting or a curse, her cane tapping over the scuffle of her calloused feet.

"We're going to lose a kraal feeding the Inner Plainers." She settled into a groaning chair and clicked her tongue. "We're breaking our wrists kneading dough, and my greenhouse is just a house now."

"Potbread? Khaya will love that."

Ma grunted. "He'll have to love crumbs with those jackals around. Why aren't you helping in the kitchens?"

"I was attending to Prince Jabu."

"The hothead? Him and his uncles are sitting around a cask of dark malt, growing gills."

"By my instruction."

"By your-- Nomvula! If you showed up unannounced at my door, eyes and throat open, I'd give you yeast, sugar and instructions."

"Ma, please."

"They eat like they work hard." By the sounds of it, she was rummaging in her apron for something sweet. "What did the Prince have to say anyway?"

"He wants war."

Ma snickered. "Then he'll get it. War over what?"

Seekers find. A Sunland maxim.

"I turned down his proposal."

The rummaging stopped. "Nomvula." A deep laugh. "Surely you mean a trade proposal."

Nomvula turned to face her mother. "Ships and taxes would have been more charming."

"He took your refusal well, then?"

"So well he wants to make Ndlovu a better offer."

The lines around Ma's eyes deepened. Sunlight poured in from the giant window, deepening the ochre and calamine on her face. Gold bangles jingled as she pushed a finger under her headscarf and gave her scalp a scratch.

"That bodes ill for Ndlovu," Ma said.

"War bodes ill for all of us. I'm thinking about the grass, not elephants butting heads."

"What's an elephant to a war god?"

"A bad joke."

"Who's joking?" Ma pulled a tile of chocolat out of thin air. "Nomvula, you're not a descendent of the Sunspears, you are a Sunspear. This is your husband's land; it's made you soft."

Nomvula rubbed her face. "And I've made it rich in return. Crops and orchids and groves, the South's finest. A war, even one we can win, is the end of my life's work."

"Half your life's work." Ma absently crushed a fly on the armrest and went back to looking for chocolat. "The second half."

"That's the one with my books, garden and children."

"I'm not talking about the past with nostalgia. You're someone's child too."

Nomvula lowered her eyes, sighing. "What should we do about Jabu?"

"Get his uncles to smack him around, then ask them if they forgot you had a daughter his age."

"I still would have refused."

"Asanda would have saved you the effort and done it herself." Ma sunk back into her chair, chocolate balanced on her knuckles. "But that's the point, isn't it?"

"To waste our time?"

"To leave with an excuse," Ma said, licking her fist.

"Scorn alone won't mobilise an army, not even for a prince."

"Describe the boy like I've never met him."

"He a hothead with cold feet, and a glass heart."

"Patient and foresighted?"

Nomvula laughed. "He looks down his nose, not past it. What's your point?"

"That Jabu's too young to want anything as tedious as war. Young men can't wrap their minds around tomorrow without pulling their ears."

"He was sent to start it, then, but someone else is waiting at the end?"

"Someone else always is."

The room fell quiet.

"His father's a brute," Ma said, "but not the obvious sort."

...he will be ill, should I see fit.

Nomvula sighed. "We also supply most of his grain. We supply most things to most of our neighbours. Who could possibly want war with us?"

"My baby, you said it yourself, this land is rich — and you're a widowed pacifist." Ma flicked the dead fly off her armrest. "The answer is everyone ."