Nomvula

49. And On The Other Side

Noon found Asanda deep inside the Elephant Plains. Ndlovu led them through a stony passageway between two crags, shutting the sky off to a pale blue ribbon. The trail was barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast, so their contingent stretched: Ndlovu -- whose shoulders were wide enough for two anyway -- led the way, while Khaya and Jabulani guarded the rear. Well, Khaya guarded, Jabulani sulked. That left Asanda at the centre with the Elephant Princess. She would have been annoyed that the men had wordlessly worked to put her in the middle, but it at least put her between Ndlovu and Khaya, and gave her an excuse to observe the Chief's daughter up close.

And she was being watched too. She felt Buhle's gaze shift to her every now and again. It was always when Asanda inspected her bag, or looked down to mind the loose stones on the path. She would have never noticed had some strange instinct not told her to be most aware of those moments, a feeling she hadn't managed to shake since carrying her mother's spirit. It was a seed of distrust wrapped in cunning, left behind by a foreign weed.

I'll do my utmost to see you live long enough to hate your mother, Ndlovu had said. Hate didn't quite capture that lobsided thing sitting over her heart. It was too simple. Hate alone lacked the weight of helplessness she had felt in that commune, and the thorns that wrapped around memories that made you bleed when you tried to move them.

"Are you sick?" Buhle asked.

Asanda looked up at her. She had to, given her height. "Why?"

"It's a warm day and you're shuddering."

"Just a frightening thought."

When she stared down, Buhle had the weight of her father's gaze, and a hint of contempt all her own. "Who is frightened by thoughts?"

"A thinker," Asanda said. She tried to keep the words casual, but she saw the knots of muscle in Buhle's shoulders tighten.

The Elephant Princess pursed her lips and focused on the path in front of them. She navigated it a lot better than Asanda did, stepping lightly where she had to and not minding the gravel under her bare feet. It was a sore reminder that Asanda spent most of her days either on the paved floors of her mother's manse or the soft grass outside. Throbbing feet alone made her want silence, but then she'd have to listen to shifting rock followed by the smack of flesh on stone followed by Jabu's muttered curses. Even Khaya had stopped being amused by it.

"There's a city called Essar," Asanda said, drumming her satchel. "Far to the north and a little east. It's said they praise silence there and treat quiet reflection as communion with their gods. Ever since I read that, I've wondered why our people are so scared to spend time with their own thoughts."

"Silence doesn't mean you're smart," Buhle said. "It just means you're a bad talker."

She meant it as an insult, but Asanda shrugged. "I am a bad talker."

"Keep to your thoughts, then."

She slowed so that Asanda had to walk in front, and that was the end of that.

They cleared the tunnel to a landscape that wasn't much different from the Hundred Hills. Asanda caught the trick of her mind in the way she perceived the Elephant Plain hills to be rockier than the lush hillocks on the other side of the river. A small, subtle bias told her that the grass was sparser here, the gravel underfoot sharper, but after the joint tactics of the Chief and his daughter, it was a bias she cared very little to correct.

Ndlovu sat on a flat rock just left of the tunnel clearance, chewing on a marula. Buhle went to her father's far side, leaving Asanda at his right hand as Khaya and Jabu made their way out of the tunnel.