Nshesha Nyaloti lay on her back in the tall grasses and dreamed. Her decision was made: when her grandfather, Vusama Nyaloti, High Inyanga to Chief Ziko, returned to his ancestors, she would become the new High Inyanga. But that was not enough. She would also become First Royal Wife to Mzimba, Son-of-the-Chief, and she would learn the secrets of the Lovedu Queen, Ayesha, She-Who-Was-Immortal. She would have it all, or she would have nothing, for it was not in her to take second place to anyone.
As if to fortify her resolve, the piercing whistle of a reed flute cut through the African night. A xylophone rattled, then another, calling out through the moonlight to the drummers and to the Elders who guarded the Great Hut of the Chief. The sounds are not gentle, she thought. But then why should they be? They are meant to awaken the Elders and the Moon Goddess, and even the crocodiles who sleep hundreds of miles away, in the mud of the Limpopo.
Rolling over onto her side, so that she could see beyond the grasses into the village square, Nshesha watched two young drummers. They stood at the grassy edges of the clearing, poised for their part in the ritual that signalled the beginning of a night of homage to Tharu, the python, father of her tribe.
"My fate lies in your hands, Tharu my Father," she whispered, though she knew that was not entirely true. Her grandfather had taught her the value of helping herself. "Show me that the way I have chosen is the way I must go."
She looked across at her friends the drummers, sticks balanced inches from the water-lizard hide stretched taut over their drums. Then she glanced across at one who stood slightly apart from the rest. He was Chi-wara, named for the springbok whose hide graced his ceremonial drums. Less patient than the others, he ran his fingertips lightly over the skin that stretched across the largest of his nine wax-tuned drums. He did not use sticks, for he had the true gift of music and preferred to hear through his hands the falling notes produced by the wax he had rubbed into the center of the drum's tightly stretched hide.
I am more like you, Chi-wara, Nshesha thought. Obedience does not come easily to us.
When it was believed that no creature of man or spirit remained asleep, the flute spoke to the drummers who began to play. As the heat of the old summer had moved their dying Chief to take one last wife and make her beautiful with child, so the beat of their drums entered the bodies of each man, woman, and child in the village.
The musicians played softly at first. Slowly. But they did not hold back for long. As the rhythms became more powerful, they stirred warriors and weaklings alike. The hearts of lovers sang out to one another of a night that was yet new, and the flesh of married couples burned with the knowledge of what was to come when the moon sank low. Adulterers grew careless of punishment. Ancient crones with toothless gums oiled the memories of aged white-haired men.
Most affected of all by the music were the Rainbow Indunas, apprentice warriors to whom random pleasures of the love-mat were forbidden. Nshesha grinned, knowing how their blood churned, even though they were too young to have tasted blood or passion. Their experiences, forced upon them at thirteen, immediately after circumcision, were limited to skilled older women who were not of their own choosing. And certainly the virgins with whom the Indunas would one day be allowed to lie, did not understand why their pulses sounded loudly in their ears, or why their loins seemed to have taken on the fire of the Lightning Bird.
The drumbeat quickened, and the music entered Nshesha. She allowed it to surround her with desire for the Son-of-the-Chief. Somewhere out there in the darkness he surely waited for her. She sighed. She would meet him this one more time, bed him this one more time. Then she would refuse him one more time, for nothing could persuade her to become his second wife.
She had made her choice. What she needed now was a sign from the gods that they approved her plans--
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