Yesterday's Promise (24 page)

She also saw Darinda Bley. The young woman was up and dressed
impeccably in a stylish riding outfit, her dark hair smoothed back and perfectly coiled.

Arcilla grudgingly admired her cousin. Whatever was driving her certainly made her a bold and stark contrast to herself. Darinda was carrying her bedroll, a rifle, and a gunbelt draped flatteringly around her hips, Arcilla noticed and felt disdain twist her mouth. Whose attention was she trying to get besides poor Parnell's? Every male eye seemed to survey Darinda as she came walking up.

“I'll be perfectly safe,” Darinda's voice carried. “Someday I'll want to write my book about the expedition north. I want to see Lobengula for myself.”

Rogan all but shook his head in amusement, but Parnell looked sullen as he sat reluctantly on horseback. So he had decided to join the negotiators. That was curious. He'd told her last night he had no wish to go to Bulawayo. Something had changed his mind.

“You must stay here, Darinda,” Sir Julien said, and after some protestation, Darinda gave up and walked over to Parnell, seated on his horse.

Parnell leaned down to hear her words. Arcilla was surprised when her brother lifted Darinda's hand to his lips and kissed it. Were things progressing between him and Darinda at long last?

Arcilla's gaze strayed to Captain Retford, who rode beside Peter. He, too, had something of an amused smile as he watched Darinda and Parnell saying good-bye.

Arcilla thought Captain Ryan Retford a handsome young man, and she believed that Darinda thought the same. He had flinty blue eyes and sandy hair. His confidence and strength of purpose reminded her of Rogan, though they looked nothing alike.

Her eyes swerved to Peter, and her guilt returned. Then Darinda walked up to Peter and said something, and they both laughed. Arcilla stared hard.
Why, that little tart! How dare she flirt with my husband!

She swallowed hard.
I'll make Peter a good wife yet
, she decided. She grabbed her clothes and scrambled into them, then brushed her hair. There was no time to put it up in any dignified fashion, but this would
do. She pulled on her boots and climbed down from her wagon and ran toward the horses—

Arcilla stopped. “Drat!” She watched the small procession disappearing through the laager gate.

Darinda wore a cool expression as she sauntered closer. Her eyes twinkled as she said, “You're too late now.”

She strolled past Arcilla toward her own wagon. Arcilla turned and glared.

Bulawayo lay in the middle of a grassy plain dotted with mimosa trees. Lobengula's kraal was a large oval circle of mud and thatch huts plastered with cow dung. Twelve miles to the south, the Matopos Mountain Range, focus of superstition to the Ndebele and Zulu alike, thrust its reddish-brown rock formations above the horizon, overlooking a vast and majestic but otherwise empty expanse.

Dr. Leander Jameson and Frank Thompson had conducted the earlier meetings with Lobengula, which resulted in the concession paper, giving Rhodes what he needed to present in London to receive the Royal Charter. Now the two men once again headed the team of negotiators to reconvince Lobengula of their right to pass through his land.

Rogan accompanied Peter and his aide, Captain Retford, and Parnell had joined them at the last hour. Derwent had come along to help with the cooking, and Mornay rode beside him, silent as usual. Three more of Cecil Rhodes's men came along in the party, as well as a small number of Bantu.

Near Bulawayo they made camp by a baobab tree, a strange specimen with swollen trunk and branches that reminded Rogan of a tree planted upside down with gnarled roots reaching hopelessly toward the sky. Like himself, Mornay was interested in the fauna and flora of Africa, and that had bonded them into a kind of friendship.

“The trunks are often hollowed out and used for a variety of
purposes,” Mornay said as they rode along. “The young leaves can be eaten as a vegetable, and the seeds can be roasted and eaten.”

They made camp and prepared to move out to approach Lobengula's kraal. They were already under watchful eyes from behind trees and rocks, and Parnell appeared to shudder.

“A cat walked over my grave.” He hunched his shoulders as though prickled by goose bumps.

It was necessary to move with caution, to show no action that could be construed as belligerent or proud behavior.

“No brandishing of weapons can be tolerated,” Peter told them gravely. “The indunas are already riled. Any misunderstanding of our intentions, and we will find ourselves hopelessly surrounded by impis with sharpened assegai pointed at us.”

“I hope we're not blundering into something we'll be sorry for later,” Parnell complained.

“Why'd you decide to come? You surprised me,” Rogan said amiably.

Parnell avoided his brother's gaze and busied himself with the cinch on his saddle. “If I hadn't, Darinda would think me a coward,” came his quiet reply. He looked toward Captain Retford, who didn't seem to notice them as he wrote something into his log. “I don't trust him,” Parnell said in a low voice.

Rogan glanced at Retford. “Seems all together to me. I rather like him. Looks like a man who'd stay beside you in a fight.”

“Looks can be deceiving, my good brother.”

Rogan smiled. He turned his reins and rode ahead to Captain Retford. Rogan thought it was more jealousy that troubled his brother than any issue with Retford. Rogan had heard of the brevet he'd earned in Sudan in the heat of battle.

“What do you know about the Ndebele?”

Retford squinted against the hot sun. “Lobengula has one of the most feared armies of any African kingdom. Some fifteen thousand Ndebele warriors are organized in impis like their Zulu cousins, who also carry the dreaded assegai.

“The tribe lives mainly by raising cattle—and raiding cattle from other, weaker tribes. Especially the Shona in the north. They broke away from the Zulu.”

Captain Retford looked at him with hard blue eyes and said, “Though my business is to follow orders and leave politics to others, I've also questioned the BSA's motives. But it's fair to say that Lobengula controls Mashonaland because he, too, invaded and subjugated the Shona tribe.”

They slowly approached the chieftain's kraal, dismounting and waiting until they were approached by the indunas.

Dr. Jameson and Frank Thompson led the procession toward the oval circle of mud huts.

The tall, chocolate brown warriors watched them with immobile faces, but it was clear to Rogan that the associates of the BSA were not liked here.

A fixed guard of indunas came forward and stared at them one by one, as if trying to smell out their evil intent.

Thompson and Dr. Jameson were the key spokesmen. Thompson, an explorer, spoke Sethuana, which was understood by the Ndebele and Lobengula.

Mornay murmured, “Monsieur Thompson has a loathing for the Ndebele. When he was a boy he saw his father killed by some of their warriors. They forced a ramrod down his throat.”

Parnell made a choking sound and stepped farther back. Rogan walked slowly ahead beside Peter and Captain Retford, with Jameson and Thompson in the lead. They entered a second circle.

“This is the royal enclosure,” Peter said.

With avid interest Rogan looked about. Lobengula had set up his palace here, made out of a trader's covered wagon. His throne, constructed of wooden crates, had once stored tins of condensed milk.

After a considerable wait, Lobengula finally appeared. By some who had dealt with him in the past, he was considered “a shifty customer.” He looked to be about Rogan's height, six feet, but weighed around two
hundred and eighty pounds. He was naked except for a small loincloth and a Zulu ringed headband. He wore what seemed to be a monkey-skin cape. A gold chain hung across his broad chest with an array of diamonds, and leather bands that sported fringes were tied around each of his calves.

Peter had already warned about the severe customs extracted from any visitor to the king, so Rogan expected the meeting to be tense. But when he saw Thompson, Jameson, and the others go down on all fours in the dust, a wave of revulsion swept over him.

Being the only one standing, he immediately felt like the three Hebrew children refusing to bow before Nebuchadnezzar's golden image.

The viciously sharp iron tips on the assegai threatened as the sullen eyes of all the indunas singled him out. Rogan felt Derwent yanking at his trouser cuffs urging him down.

Rogan stooped reluctantly, hot dust beneath his sweating hands. Insects buzzed near his face and ears, and he wanted to wave them away. He felt annoying, stinging bites.

“Crawl forward,” Peter whispered, “and don't swat the flies.

Thompson and Dr. Jameson were creeping ahead toward the wooden crate throne. Now Rogan, Peter, and Retford moved forward on all fours, slowly following. Mornay, Parnell, and Derwent crawled behind.

They waited in the hot dust until Lobengula stepped onto his throne above them. Not permitted to stand, they squatted before him in the broiling sun while insects continued to pester them. After several minutes, Dr. Jameson began talking in a quiet voice, and Thompson translated into the Sethuana language. The long parley with the primitive king had begun, with cajoling, dickering, and endless flattering.

“The mighty king should know,” Dr. Jameson was saying slowly so Thompson could translate, “how Mr. Rhodes has the blessing of the great White Queen across the sea. King Lobengula must honor the paper he signed with his great elephant seal. This agreement will protect the king and his tribe from the Boers and other gold seekers who can't be trusted.”

Rogan could see the suspicion in Lobengula's eyes as his gaze pinned Jameson to the spot where he sat cross-legged.

“The tongue of the white doctor sent by the queen speaks many languages. All do not say the same thing.” His lips spread into a mocking smile. “What language should I believe?”

Rogan was not surprised; the man was shrewd. He must have known how the Swazi ruler, to whom he was related, had lost most of his land by concessions to the Europeans. And he for certain knew about the humiliating defeat of the Zulus in 1879.

“It's all a bundle of wicked lies, what our enemies are telling you. All we want to do is dig for gold, just ten men as it was told to you. We want no land. We have no designs on Mashonaland.”

Rogan looked at Peter. Peter kept his eyes ahead.

Rogan noticed one of the indunas staring at him. He was tall and lean with tight muscles. He wore a short leopard-skin cape and the head ring of the Zulus. Why had he singled Rogan out from the others, or was he imagining it? Rogan looked back, and the induna slowly looked away.

“You lie,” Lobengula told Jameson and Thompson. He flashed a malicious smile. Then he pointed to Frank Thompson, pronouncing his name “Tomoson.”

“Tomoson has rubbed fat on your mouths. All you white men are liars. Tomoson, you have lied least. I said to your White Queen across the waters, ‘A king gives a stranger an ox, not his whole herd of cattle. Otherwise, what would other strangers have to eat?' There will be no road to Mashonaland. You white men are troubling me much about gold. If the queen thinks that I have given away the whole country, it is because you lie.”

Rogan glanced casually at the indunas and impis. The atmosphere was hot and tense, thick with danger that seemed to be growing by the minute. He caught Peter's eye.

Peter nodded faintly. The kraal was alive with menace. The induna who had been looking at Rogan earlier appeared to notice it as well.

Another induna stepped forward, spear in hand and an angry look on his hard-boned, sweating face. He lifted the spear, and a stir arose among the impis like a sigh, then it turned into a long, low moan. Then—

“White men lie. We will push the white man into the sea!”

Again the sucking in of breath as one man, the exhaling as a low, frightening growl.

Dr. Jameson raised a hand. “We do not want Ndebeleland. Only a road to Mashonaland to find and haul the gold. The mighty king has given his word to let us build the road from Bulawayo north. The elephant seal does not lie.”

“Jee!” hissed the lead induna, the deep, drawn-out war chant of the fighting impis. Some of the others took up the cry and began to move from side to side under the force of the chant, their faces suffused with a fighting madness.

Lobengula stood and spoke sharply to the induna, and those following him grew quiet, then silent.

The induna Rogan had noticed watching him stepped forward and faced Lobengula. He raised his spear. “Bayete!” came the familiar royal salute, and the other indunas all turned as one man. “Bayete!” they shouted, and suddenly the angry murmur fell to a strained silence.

Rogan saw Lobengula looking evilly at the induna who had started the protest.

It was Lobengula who ended the meeting. He would rest. Dr. Jameson explained that his sickness was troubling him again.