Nomvula

21 - The Pride of Elephants

They drank sorghum beer and ate cubes of meat on a grass mat spread over the planks of the upper deck. Well, Ndlovu drank, Dumani sipped to hide his sneer, and the two young royals stared into their respective drinking urns, not daring to look up lest they break the tenuous silence.

Nomvula drummed her fingers on the urn balanced on her thigh. "How are your cattle, Chief?"

Ndlovu's great head rose. He wiped beer froth from his beard with one hand and reached for a meat with the other. "Ask your Long Walkers, I'm sure they've been keeping count of how many they stole."

"Thirty in the last moon," the Queen said with a smile. "The turn before that was rather slow, though one of your prize breeding rams as a boon to our flock – sired the most beautiful lambs I've ever seen."

"Good to hear, Queen. I'll have to cross the Wayfarer and drive it home one of these days." There was no need to slip much of a threat under the words. Ndlovu was a man who was not afraid to sit on an enemy ship and drink.

"No need," Nomvula said, rubbing her eyebrow so she could look through her fingers at Dumani as she said, "you'll take it home in your belly."

The General lowered his beer to reveal lips on the verge of smirking. As Ndlovu took a breath through flared nostrils and swallowed hard, Dumani casually reached for a cube of meat.

Ndlovu's hand clamped around the General's wrist.

The two men eyed each other then, and every clang and whirr of the many activities of the ship stopped seemingly at once. The archers casually sitting on a row of barrels on the lower deck looked up. Even the Wayfarer paused to listen as Dumani's free hand slid to the knife on his woven belt; Ndlovu watched it all the way, but made no counter-move.

"Uncle," Jabu started, speaking for the first time since Ndlovu had come aboard.

Dumani drew the thick blade he had shaved with, and in one lazy motion, stabbed a chunk of meat and put it in his mouth.

"Ha, a firebrand!" Ndlovu released as he released Dumani. With one hand, he scooped up the grass platter and threw it over his shoulder. It made a plopping noise as it hit the water far below. "Your blood might be worthy of my daughter yet. And on that note, Mamkhonto, you've fed me and poured beer. I am satisfied." All mirth fell from his face. "Get on with your offer."

Nomvula paused dramatically, though only to give the tinderbox of Dumani's pride enough air for the spark to catch.

"Actually, Chief." The General stood and stretched, all the while looking down at Ndlovu. "In the Inner Plains, it is custom for men who are strangers to prove themselves with a show of strength."

Khaya, my boy, you will be a wicked man yet.

Ndlovu put a hand on his knee and looked up at the General with a look of condescension deep enough to shame the moon from the sky. "We are not in the Inner Plains, General."

"You are technically not in the Elephant Valley. Are you not still an Elephant?"

Even with the Great Elephant seated on the deck, that should have earned Dumani a broken leg. It would have, Nomvula suspected, but the General still had his knife in his hand, so she settled for the next best thing and watched Ndlovu slowly rise to his full height.

"An elephant is not questioned by jackals," Ndlovu said.

"And a man of the Inner Plains is not grabbed like some stolen bride."

Nomvula had dealt with more royals than she knew how to remember, most of them great in their own way, but while the lion could terrorise the beasts of the field it seldom came across another of its kind without turning the other way. But these were men, and neither turned.

"What is your idea of a show of strength, then?" Ndlovu asked.

Dumani dropped his knife. It thunked into the plank between him and the Great Elephant. "Get a club and a shield and I will show you."

This time, Ndlovu's smile cleared his beard. "No, General, you are not ready to die. Have at an easier challenge." Ndlovu whistled, and the one guard he had brought with him started marching across the lower deck towards them. "The fifth son a poor shepard of an edge tribe I hardly care to count. Of my thousand men here, I picked him on a whim. Don't let him embarrass you too much."