Nomvula

47. A Bridge Built

"I'm coming with you," Ndoda said.

Asanda set the golden ring she had been tinkering with down on the table. Ndoda stood in front of the roof garden's trap door, dangerously close to the hanging vines of a boneivy. Not that it would have done anything to him; from the neck down, he was coated in Wayfarer clay. His loinskin was black cloth, dyed deep with charcoal oil, but the colour seemed poor and off against his pure black skin. Only his face kept any colour, that characteristic deep red-brown that came alive against the runelights in the garden. 

"You can't." Asanda glanced at the moons. Near midnight. She needed rest for tomorrow. "You weren't even expected back before the whole thing was done."

"Well, I'm here now." He swallowed, frowned, then squared his shoulders. "I should have never left."

"You should have never broken Lifa's leg, but yes, here we are now."

"Don't do that. Please."

He didn't keep his voice low for proprieties sake. Asanda sensed the loss in him, of something deep and personal and bold. This was a sure man suddenly lost, desperately clutching at whatever purpose drifted past.

"I'm not mad at you, Ndoda, not anymore, but it's the truth." Asanda sighed. "In any case, Khaya and I were preparing to do this without you. You need not worry -- we'll be fine."

"You were preparing, but you are not prepared," Ndoda said, some life sparking into his voice. "You will be walking into the Elephant Plains."

"Yes, as guests."

"You will be surrounded by hundreds of enemies at all times."

"Enemies who are under the command of our host."

"Exactly." Ndoda strode towards the table, ghosting between the many plants without so much as looking at them. "Under Ndlovu's command."

"We'll perform the appropriate guestrite rituals," Asanda said. "For all there is to hate about Ndlovu, he loves his ancestors and honours all vows he makes before them."

Ndoda sat opposite her, a tall and lean figure draped in darkness. "And what was his foremost vow, big sister?"

Asanda winced at big sister. There was venom in it, as much as she had put in little brother when she had chastised him. But for all that, he brought up the one shard of glass in this plan that she could not smooth the jagged edges off. It would feel good to trick the Great Elephant, but before that, she would need to drink beer and commune with him as though she did not hate the very weight of his name in her mind. As though he had not vowed...

"That he would kill Papa," she said softly.

Ndoda shook his head. "His vow was that he would crush our father's skull with his bare hands. I know this because when they fought, he felled Papa and had a chance to stab him. Instead, he sat on his chest and wrapped those big hands--"

"Enough." Asanda put a whip in her voice, and Ndoda actually recoiled.

He stared at his own hands, twin shadows laid flat on the table. "They fought at the foot of First Hill. Mama tried to keep us hidden at home, but I told Anathi to help me escape the manse. I went and watched." That old twitch in his jaw again. "I saw him... I saw him."

Papa forgive me. "Which is why we'll do the ritual on the ship, in the middle of the river. Khaya and I will be safest there, and once guestrite is locked in, we will be safe."

"Until you steal away his daughter, at which point guestrite will be void, and you will be fair game stuck in the heart of his territory."

"That's why we have Athi helping us." Asanda took up the ring and the mortar of milkwater clay to give her hands something to do. She scooped a small blob and pushed it through the ring's tiny pressure holes. "He's arguably a more accomplished Long Walker than you."