"In-laws," said Ndlovu, his face hard, voice filled with the pressure of low-hanging clouds, "now get me off this ship before I break the back of every man on it."
Nomvula's hands flexed then balled up as she watched Dumani wipe his thumb in the dead boy's hair. "I'll take you back."
The skiff that rowed towards the Elephant Plains side of the river was silent. Ndlovu sat at the bow. Nomvula stood at the stern. Buhle bowed her head between them, her eyes on the water so she would not have to look at the dead boy that shared her bench. Nomvula had wrapped him from his neck to his feet in her own royal blanket, but his face had to be visible as he re-entered the land of his ancestors, so they would know who he was and guide him home.
The men on the opposite bank were silent, but they exchanged looks when they saw that Nomvula was with their Chief. Some started to crowd closer to the natural jetty the lone Kemite on board rowed towards.
"The boy died following my command," Ndlovu said just before they were too close to the bank for private conversation. "It will be a four-day journey to his father's house and back, but I will go, and observe all three days of mourning."
"And after that?" Nomvula asked.
"We'll have less week to observe the rituals of marriage. I will handle the negotiations myself, and they will not go easy for your lands."
"Ndoda has no living uncles to negotiate on his behalf, so I will–"
"You will not," Ndlovu said. "Queen or no, you are still a woman."
Nomvula exhaled her frustration and finished. "–I will ask some respected men in the village to negotiate on his behalf."
"So be it."
"Chief." Nomvula tapped her forefinger against her thumb; she couldn't scour how wide the boy's eyes had gone just before... Deep breath. "Marriage negotiations are conducted in the bride's home. I trust that my people..."
"...will be treated as if they were mine," Ndlovu said.
"Thank you."
Nomvula unfastened the bead-and-brass anklet on her left leg and handed it to Ndlovu. "Wait a day before you go to the boy's home. I will send Long Walkers with three cattle."
"And what is this for?" Ndlovu asked, holding the anklet between his fore and middle finger.
"Give it to his mother." And beg her to accept it, if you must. "The beads carry my mark, and so long as they can show that to my Long Walkers when they come, I will send an ox every year as compensation for the wealth and work they have lost with their son."
Ndlovu placed the anklet on his daughter's lap and said nothing more. When the skiff hit the shore, the Elephant Plainers made no move towards it because Ndlovu had not instructed them to. His feet splashed into the water as he exited the boat, and no man spoke when the Chief put his hands on his daughter's waist and hoisted her to the bank. He did it in one easy motion, but Nomvula still felt like someone had dropped a stone on her guts.
"When I am back, you will know," the Great Elephant said, then disappeared into the throngs of his silent army.
Nomvula sat where the Chief had on the trip back, her fingertips slicing the water of the Wayfarer, daring the crocodiles and hippos hiding under the mirrored surface to swim up and swallow her burdens whole. Killers avoid killers, the saying went.
She ordered the rower to drop her off on the bank and started walking back towards Third Hill on her own, blanket-less but wrapped in a heavier sort of silence. If Dumani or any of the dozen other troubles at her back wanted to follow, they knew the way home.
Nestled between the many valleys of the Hundred Hills, Nomvula passed olive groves and orchards heavy with lemons on her way back to the manse. There were farmers driving ploughs of yoked oxen through fields that needed to be turned for the winter crops. Shepard boys who didn't yet know ten winters lounged in the shade of a goatleaf tree, playing a game of stones as their fathers' goats butted aside twisting thorn branches to get at the plump leaves they protected. The boys sat up as they saw the Queen crossed between the Seventeenth and Twenty-First Hills, but she heard the clack of their stones echoing in the valley once she had passed.
The manse was suddenly before her, then the grass of the drinking yard was beneath her, then the smell of dried cow stool told her that she was headed towards the kraal. The need to pray was urgent, but so was the little boy who ran to block her path.
The Queen stopped, then almost lurched forward with the momentum she had carried from the banks. "Move, Yanga."
He bowed his head much lower than he needed to. "Sorry, Queen, the Chief Diviner has been here all morning. She yelled at the prince and princess and took over their counselling duties. Prince Khaya said to call you as soon as you came back."
Nomvula could see the empty kraal where her ancestors rested. She could feel their attention the way one felt the weight in the air before a storm, calling her, but she was already turning towards the council room. She had guilt to confess to the Suns, and anger to lay at the feet of the Spears, but it would have to wait. As she crossed the drinking yard again, she felt that ancestral weight sliding from her shoulders, and she fought every urge to turn and run into the kraal like a daughter scorned. It was the first time in fifteen years that the Old Ones had pulled away from her.