Nomvula

38 - Peace Only To The Flesh

The bed groaned as Nomvula slid her legs over the edge. An afternoon wave of heat pushed sweat through her pores; she could feel it dampening the roots of her hair, making her shift stick to her shoulders, pooling in the crevices under breasts. Now back in her own body, every heartbeat was a thunderclap, every joint an unoiled hinge; she took a deep breath and heard the air rasp against the inside of her nostrils. 

A spasm in her back made her jolt as she put her bare feet on the mountainstone floor.  The stone was cool and coarse, alchemically altered to cool in summer and warm in winter. Nomvula closed her eyes and grabbed a fistful of beading to steady herself. She wanted to sink into the coldness of the floor, to res, to sleep and not wake up. Even the dark, old thing inside her was tired. 

"Apologise."

The bones in her neck grated as she lifted her head and turned to look at Asanda over her shoulder. "Name my offences, and I will beg forgiveness for each of them. Lay them all at my feet now and don't you dare spare a single one."

"No." Asanda's look was as dark as the bruise beneath her eye and the stubble on her shaved scalp. The weight was there behind her eyes, the weight of walls that could crush bones if they crumbled. " If I list them like tangible things, you will think an apology is enough."

"So you want an apology even though you are unwilling to offer forgiveness?"

"Is what you did forgiveable?"

Nomvula stood up straight, earning a stab of pain in her gut. She faced her daughter. The discarded chains of black iron pooled between them, and Asanda had a knife in her hand. The flat of it was dirtied with fibres of hair, and the edge had the stain of blood. As Nomvula's eyes adjusted, she saw the nicks in her daughter's scalp.

"I apologise."

Asanda bowed formally and cast her eyes down, a servant's gesture. "And what more do you need from me?"

Nomvula winced. Asanda's ears were clumsy. When she had been trapped inside her, she could only pick out the most basic textures in voices, but the dismissal in her daughter's voice was a hammer to a fractured bone. 

"Someone struck you based on Dumani's incitement. It's not grounds to have him cast out, but it is ground to call the councils." Despite herself, Nomvula leaned on the bed again. "I need you to help me cast that dog out before your brother's fight."

"I know that," Asanda said, anger folding a crease into her brow. "You were inside my mind, I know how you think, how you see people. Stop trying to justify yourself and tell me what I need to do."

"Be very careful with your tone, Asanda. I am your mother."

Asanda tossed the knife onto the bed. "Something you have never needed to remind me of until today--"

"Child. And I mean that -- child. You have every right to your anger but do not even begin to..." Nomvula forced herself off the bed and swallowed the nausea pooling under her tongue. "Your mother throws herself at your heels with all the guilt in the world but your Queen looks to her advisor in expectation. Of that, you should hope I am never forced to remind you."

Asanda took a step back, runelight flashing across the sheen of her eyes. "You're a monster."

Nomvula stepped over the chains. They burned her ankles like ice but she stepped over them all the same and took Asanda's fists into her own hands. The stench of burnt hair hung between them.

"Monster. Mother. Matriarch." Nomvula almost drew her daughter in, but if she did, she knew she would weep. Instead, she looked her in the eye and did not flinch. "Of the three, only one truly keeps the wolves far from the Hundred Hills. Now, Advisor, will you hear my plan?"

** 

"Mumzo!"

Nomvula leaned on the walking staff she had taken from Lifa's bedside. Though she didn't turn, she heard Khaya's footfalls coming up the corridor and her head bowed a little. He wrapped a heavy arm around her shoulders and leaned down to look into her face. He was freshly washed, wrapping her in the smell of olives and polished leather. 

"Why do you look so old?" His smile brought her lemongrass, but his eyes were searching. "Look at that, you even have a hair on your chin."

Nomvula's own smile reminded her of carrion. "Don't worry, you still have three times the facial hair."

He straightened and rubbed the kernels of stubble around his fleshy jaw, his grin dimming. "Ma. Ha-a, Ma, we don't play like that."

Bakhonto be thanked, one of you still plays. All my offspring are alive but I am running out of children. 

Her eyes fell to the club and shortspear strapped across his lower back. As the youngest, Khaya had never had to endure the crisis of the middle child that Ndoda had undergone, but he was in the middle all the same: a level below Asanda with books but the only person other than her tutors capable of entertaining her mentally; too heavy in muscle and fat to be the great fighter his balance and ambidexterity warranted, but Ndoda's only real rival in the practice arenas. His ancestors had given all the gold to his siblings and compensated by loading him with silver on all sides.

"Who are you training with now that Ndoda's left?"

He looked down at the iron tip of his shortspear and his grin faded a little more. "Oh, this isn't for sparring."

Nomvula shut her eyes. Mercy. She looked up at her son with all pleading. "I've seen no sweeter gesture, but I beg you, Khaya, leave me to protect you and your sister."

"I can protect myself and if knives had ears, Asanda could trick them into stabbing their masters." If he had had his father's eyes, there would have been hot fury in them. Instead, she saw the reflection of her own determination. "These are for Dumani. I'm going to take Ndoda's place."

"You will do no such thing."

"Ma, he dragged every conflict of the last few days through our gates when he came here. Ndoda's fled -- no, you say he is training but two weeks alone has never made anyone a better fighter, he fled, Ma. The ruckus in the drinking yard, poison in the buna, and now Asanda... The sooner his challenge is done, the sooner he leaves."

Nomvula shook her head. "You know he would kill you." And you will try to kill him. 

"He won't. I just need to cut him. Ndoda's quicker but my technique is better."

"If I ever wanted this to ever come down to an actual fight, I would have asked Qaqamba to step in on your brother's behalf. I only wanted time, Khaya, time and people who were willing to trust me." She leaned into him and pulled his arm back around her shoulders. "Of all the people in the world, please be the last person I should every have to beg trust from."

His gut was muscle and hard suet. She felt him tense then relax. "Yes, Ma."

"Thank you." She sighed. "Now come, put down your pride and help your mother.."

"Where are we going?"

"To the cells. Dumani is a violent coward, but even he deserves a cup of koffee."