Nyumbani Tales Read online

  But Walukaga’s huge, calloused hand nearly crushed the fragile feather before he remembered that he would be required to present it at his royal audience.

  The red-turbaned Summoner had taken a backward step when he saw Walukaga’s fingers flex. The relaxation of the dark hand reassured the functionary.

  “I’m sorry, Walukaga,” the Summoner said. “But the Sha’a must have found a way to snare you. Otherwise, he would never have sent for you like this. By the way, I am instructed to inform you that the Sha’a expects your presence within the hour.”

  “One hour?” the blacksmith bellowed. “But what about the hoe-blades I promised Keino Kamau?”

  “Whose wrath would you rather face?” the Summoner asked. “Keino Kamau’s, or the Sha’a’s?”

  Briefly, Walukaga contemplated those alternatives.

  “Oh, all right,” he grumbled. “I’ll be there.”

  The Summoner breathed a deep sigh of relief as he walked out of the shop’s door to return to the palace. Had the blacksmith refused to comply with the Sha’a’s bidding, the Summoner would then have been obliged to bring Walukaga by force – a prospect at once ludicrous and improbable, given the Summoner’s spindly frame and Walukaga’s burly bulk.

  As he stalked like a white-robed stork through the streets of Mavindi, Azania’s capital, the Summoner sincerely regretted that in all probability, Walukaga would no longer be seen pounding hot iron at his forge. Still, the Summoner began to wonder who would eventually take the place of the taciturn craftsman.

  Meanwhile, in the square structure that was his shop, Walukaga muttered curses to all the gods and demons he could think of as he snuffed out the fire in his forge and sent his apprentice home. A heavily muscled, ebony-skinned man of medium height and middle age, Walukaga was considered the best blacksmith in Mavindi – which meant he was also the best in all of Azania.

  Among the common people of the city and its surrounding villages, he was popular because the implements he made worked well and lasted long. He made hoe-blades and picks for the farmers who tended the shambas; swords, spears and armor for warriors and hunters; axes to cut back the forests that encroached on the kingdom’s frontiers.

  But Walukaga also shaped metal into wonderful likenesses of birds, animals, and people – all so lifelike that it seemed amazing that they did not breathe. The latter skill was the cause of his current predicament.

  Walukaga exhaled heavily. Why must the Sha’a, the wealthiest monarch on the East Coast, be so greedy? Why had the Sha’a collected all the figurines Walukaga had made for the nobles and merchants of Mavindi? And why had the Sha’a previously sent a message proposing that Walukaga close his shop and come to work at the palace, making figurines exclusively for the royal collection?

  Anyone else would have been thrilled at that prospect. But not Walukaga. A simple, practical man, he gained a great deal of satisfaction from the demonstrable value of a hoe or spear. Even the jointed toys he made for children brought the pleasure of play. The figurines were little more than a pastime for him, made on impulse during the time he spared from practical work. And that was all he cared for.

  Thus, he had turned down the Sha’a’s offer.

  The Sha’a had not appreciated Walukaga’s refusal. The monarch was puzzled and perturbed that Walukaga would forgo the chance for a life of luxury and ease in the palace. Yet for all his life-and-death authority, the Sha’a could not force the blacksmith to comply with his wishes. Like all artisans in Azania, Walukaga was free by law to ply his trade wherever he wished.

  But the Sha’a was clever, ruthless and resourceful. Under his regime, Azania had gained ascendance over Zanj, its rival, neighboring kingdom. If the Sha’a was sufficiently confident to issue a Royal Summons, then he must have found a way to secure Walukaga’s services that even the Guild Judges would not be able to challenge.

  Reluctantly, Walukaga removed his sweat-stained leather apron and began to pull his best clothes onto his heavy frame. He would honor the Royal Summons and hope for the best ... while anticipating the worst.

  THOUGH THE SHA’A CHOSE to hold Walukaga’s audience in the shade of an outdoor pavilion erected in the garden of his palace, the pomp and splendor of his court was undiminished. Regal, imperious, aloof, the monarch sat on a throne carved from a single block of obsidian. A voluminous, azure-blue kanza swathed the royal form, and the cloud-white sleeves of his shati reached from his elbows to his wrists.

  On his head, the traditional diadem of Azanian monarchs rested. It was a brocaded cloth headpiece that extended from his forehead to his chin. A dozen golden quills sprouted from the top of the headpiece. From its bottom and sides, the ndevu, a beard-like decoration made from the hair of the tails of gereza monkeys descended almost to his waist.

  The face the headpiece surrounded was umber in hue, with dark eyes holding a steady, regal gaze and full lips turned downward in a frown of impatience. A man of advanced rains, the Sha’a disliked petty annoyances – such as Walukaga’s obduracy. He intended to settle this matter once and for all.

  This purposeful attitude had communicated itself to the rest of the court. Nobles high in the ranks of the Sha’a’s council stood solemnly according to rank on both sides of the obsidian throne. Their kanzas were of every shade other than the royal blue, and unlike the Sha’a’s, the ndevus beneath their headgear reached only a short distance past their chins. Close to the throne stood six stalwart young men. These were the Sha’a’s designated heirs.

  Seated on woven raffia mats at the Sha’a’s feet were his seven senior wives, and fifteen of his daughters. Jeweled ornaments winked like stars in their high-piled bushes of black hair, and a sheen of perfumed oil glistened on their bare brown shoulders. Silken gowns patterned with geometric designs cascaded from breast to ankles circled by coils of gold.

  Other than the Sha’a himself, only the yellow-skinned ambassador from Kwan Yang sat in a chair. Kwan Yang was a country beyond the Bahari Mashiriki – the Eastern Ocean – with which Azania pursued a profitable trade. Thus, its envoy was given a privilege denied even to the Sha’a’s sons.

  Dispersed at strategic intervals throughout the assemblage were spearmen of the Imperial Guard, accoutered in conical helmets, chain-mail armor, and capes made of leopard hide.

  Clad in the white turban, shati and suruali of the common classes of Mavindi, Walukaga looked and felt out of place amid the magnificence of the Sha’a’s pavilion. The company of the wealthy and highborn was not for the likes of him. Sullenly, the blacksmith looked at the ground between his bare toes as he waited for the Sha’a to speak.

  But before the monarch could another member of the court made his presence known. Of all the people thronged under the pavilion, this new arrival was the most arresting in appearance.

  It was Pomphis, the mjimja or court jester. Other than a skirt and leglets fashioned of yellow grass, and a straw hat shaped like a flattened cone, the Bambuti was naked, revealing a stocky, well-proportioned physique. His skin was a bit lighter than that of most Azanians, and his impish face was distinguished by a broad, bulbous nose.

  Pomphis made his entrance in an uncourtly manner. He repeatedly took five shuffling steps forward, then thrust out his grass-covered rump on the sixth. Before the mjimja progressed more than halfway to the throne of the Sha’a, nearly everyone under the pavilion was laughing uproariously.

  Only the Sha’a and the blacksmith were not amused. Neither man was in any mood for merriment.

  “Stop that, Pomphis!” the Sha’a shouted in annoyance. “This is no time for your antics.”

  “As you wish, O Mighty Sha’a,” the mjimja said in a squeaky falsetto tone.

  And at the end of a flawless series of forward somersaults, Pomphis seated himself cross-legged at the monarch’s feet.

  “Now, Walukaga,” the Sha’a said after decorum had been restored. “I wish to make a wager with you. It will involve a major test of your skill. Are you willing to match your skill as a blacksmith agai
nst any conceivable odds?”

  For all his impressive array of work-hardened muscles, Walukaga was a diffident man. But when his skill at his art was questioned, the blacksmith had the confidence of a lion.

  “I am willing, O Mighty Sha’a,” he said.

  “Excellent!” the Sha’a said enthusiastically, a smile forming above his ndevu. “Then you will have no objection to the following test: I want you to make for me a man of iron. And I am not talking about a mere figurine. I want you to make me a man who can walk, talk and fight. I want a man who has knowledge in his head and feeling in his heart. Make such a man, and I will never again ask you to come and work in the palace. But if, within five days, you have not succeeded in this task, your services will be mine, exclusively.”

  The monarch’s gaze bore directly into that of Walukaga.

  “Do you agree to this wager?”

  Walukaga’s shoulders slumped, and his head hung disconsolately. He knew now that the Sha’a had easily outwitted him. The blacksmith was bested the moment he accepted the Sha’a’s challenge. Even so, a core of stolid stubbornness caused him to return the Sha’a’s penetrating stare.

  “In five days, as Mulungu wills, O Mighty Sha’a,” the blacksmith said.

  After Walukaga bowed respectfully, the Sha’a gave him permission to depart. Ordinarily, the Sha’a’s devious triumph would have served a cue for a witticism from the mjimja. For once, however, Pomphis remained silent. He gazed thoughtfully at the powerful figure stalking out of the shade of the pavilion.

  FOR TWO DAYS, WALUKAGA’S forge lay cold and silent. He had sent word to his apprentice that he need not come back to work. Indeed, it would be better if the younger man planned on learning his trade from someone else. The few people who sought out Walukaga came away with sad faces. For they despaired that Walukaga would do anything but sit on a stool and stare at his motionless bellows until the Royal Summoner visited him again.

  Then came a visitor who would not be turned away.

  Entering the doorway without announcing himself, Pomphis walked directly toward the brooding blacksmith.

  “Yambo, Master Blacksmith,” the Bambuti said. “I’m here to help you solve your problem.”

  “Go away, toto,” Walukaga muttered, using the Azanian word for child. “I am not making toys anymore.”

  “Toto, indeed!” the Bambuti huffed. “I am no child. Do you not recognize me, you big buffalo?”

  Walukaga looked more closely at his visitor and saw that it was, indeed, the mjimja. But Pomphis was now clad in the garments of an ordinary Azanian. Though the Bambuti was about the height of an average ten-year-old, the mature proportions of his physique belied his diminutive size. Even his voice sounded more like that of an adult now.

  “Sorry,” Walukaga apologized. “You do not look the same without your ... uh ... costume.”

  Pomphis laughed heartily.

  “Oh, the Sha’a insists that I wear that get-up in court because he thinks that’s what the Bambuti are supposed to look like,” Pomphis said. “He could be right or wrong; I was taken from the forest when I was too young to remember.

  “Back to the business at hand, though. The Sha’a has presented you with a problem that is insoluble, right?”

  ‘Right.”

  “Well, I’ve always believed there is no such thing as an insoluble problem, and I am going to help you find the solution to this one.”

  “How?”

  “My, my,” Pomphis said, head cocked at an inquisitive angle. “Succinct, aren’t we? To answer your question, if the Sha’a is asking you to do the impossible, then you should ask no less of him.”

  Walukaga stared in bewilderment.

  “What do you mean?” he demanded.

  “We’ll talk details later,” Pomphis responded.

  The Bambuti looked around the blacksmith’s cluttered shop.

  “Forgive my presumption,” Pomphis said, “But it looks as though your wives aren’t very particular about housekeeping.”

  “I don’t have any wives,” said Walukaga.

  “No wives?” Pomphis said with a stunned expression on his face. “Why, with all the farmers and herdsmen in the outlands bringing their daughters to the city to look for wealthy husbands, there must be five women for every man in Mavindi.”

  “Guess somebody’s got my five,” Walukaga muttered.

  He was an introverted man who slipped from taciturnity to absolute silence in the presence of a woman ... especially one who coveted a share in the profits of his metal-working establishment.

  “Hmm,” Pomphis said, shrewdly eyeing the blacksmith. “That’s a problem to be dealt with later. But now ...”

  “Wait,” Walukaga interjected. “Why are you offering me aid? What is it you want from me?”

  “I see you’re becoming more inquisitive,” Pomphis said as he pulled up a stool and sat down. “That’s a quality I like.”

  SENTIMENTAL BENEATH his gruff exterior, the blacksmith nodded in sympathy as Pomphis recounted how he had been captured as a child by Komeh slavers raiding at the edge of the great Ituri Kubwa forest. The Komeh sold the young Bambuti to the Sha’a as a curiosity, for only rarely did a Bambuti survive when removed from the forest. It was the idea of the Sha’a’s third-ranking wife to have Pomphis trained to be a mjimja. No other East Coast monarch, from Kilawa to Kitwana, could boast of having a Bambuti in such a role.

  “So, Walukaga, I am only a slave – and a ridiculous one at that,” Pomphis said. “Had I been left in the Ituri Kubwa, I would have lived free among my people, hunting bongo and okapi. Here in Mavindi, I exist as a mere toy, a living plaything to amuse others. And so I live to amuse myself ... usually at my masters’ expense.

  “This time, you, my burly friend, are helping me at my game. Or have you not guessed that it was I who suggested to the Sha’a the most foolproof way of acquiring your services ...”

  “You ...” Walukaga cried, jolted from his mood of empathetic understanding and catapulting from his stool.

  Huge hands shot toward Pomphis’s throat. But the mjimja executed a deft back-flip, and landed well out of the big man’s reach.

  “Careful, Master Blacksmith,” Pomphis cautioned as he fastidiously smoothed his shati. “You know the penalty for damaging the property of the Sha’a.”

  Having little desire to be publicly impaled, Walukaga made no further move toward the Bambuti. But the anger in the blacksmith’s eyes would have given pause even to the barbarian warriors of the hinterland.

  “Be calm, Walukaga,” Pomphis said. “The best part of the game isn’t getting you into this mess; it’s getting you out of it. Now, listen closely ...”

  Walukaga listened. There was little else he could do.

  “O MIGHTY SHA’A, HOW can you tell if a gorilla is in your bed?” Pomphis asked.

  “I do not know,” the Sha’a replied. “How can you?

  “You can smell the bananas on its breath.”

  An equal measure of groans and guffaws greeted Pomphis’s jest. The Sha’a simply shook his head and smiled.

  “That was not one of the mjimja’s better witticisms,” a noble remarked to a silk merchant.

  “True,” the merchant replied. “But at least it’s better than the giraffe jokes he was telling last week.”

  Sagely, the noble nodded, while absently stroking the ndevu on his chin.

  On this day, the retinue of the Sha’a was gathered in the Audience Chamber of the sprawling palace. Much more magnificent than the outdoor pavilion, the Audience Chamber featured a gigantic throne made from blocks of pink-veined marble inlaid with panels of ivory, silver and gold. For the Kwan Yang ambassador, there was a seat of polished granite.

  The huge expanse of tiled floor was sufficient to accommodate a small army of the Sha’a’s guardsmen. To complete the chamber’s grandeur, a double row of elongated ebony sculptures led from its entrance to the foot of the Sha’a’s throne.

  Pomphis was in the midst of explaining the outcom
e of a highly improbable mating between a gorilla and a gazelle when the trumpet of the Captain of the Door sounded a series of ear-splitting blasts signaled the arrival of an un-Summoned individual.

  “Walukaga the blacksmith desires audience with the Sha’a,” the Captain of the Door bellowed.

  “Then by all means, let him in,” said the Sha’a. Glancing at Pomphis, he added: “It seems the blacksmith’s obstinacy is overrated. After only three days, he comes to capitulate.”

  “As the she-elephant said when propositioned by the mosquito – perhaps,” the Bambuti murmured.

  Nervous perspiration beaded Walukaga’s brow as he walked down the aisle of statues and executed his obligatory bow at the foot of the throne. His lips moved as she struggled to remember exactly what Pomphis had told him to say.

  “So, Walukaga, have you completed my iron man ahead of schedule?” the Sha’a inquired with thinly veiled mockery.

  “No, O Mighty Sha’a, I haven’t.”

  “Indeed. Then you wish to admit your failure, and agree to work only for me?”

  “No, O Mighty Sha’a, I don’t.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Uh ... well ... in order to make your living man of iron, I ... uh ... need special materials. I must have a certain kind of fuel ... and ... uh ... special water ... to bring such a man to life.”

  “Just what do you need, Walukaga?” the Sha’a asked. “Whatever it is, I am certain I can provide it. After all, I am the Sha’a.”

  No one noticed Pomphis’s suppressed snort of laughter as Walukaga gulped, dug his finger into the neck of his shati, and went on.

  “O Mighty Sha’a, to heat the iron I must have one thousand loads of ... uh ... dried hearts of the aardvark. For aardvarks are ... tenacious beasts and ... er, uh ... only tenacious fuel can bring life to cold iron. And ... uh ... also ... to keep the fire from burning to fiercely, I need one hundred pots of ... rhinoceros tears. Only such tears could ... uh ... slake such a fire.