'Very well, Hlopi, then let the singing begin.' And led by Juba in a startlingly clear and beautiful soprano, the entire Codrington family rollicked into the first verse of 'Onward Christian Soldiers', which Robyn had translated into the Matabele vernacular.
After the service Juba bore down on Ralph.
'You are Henshaw?' she demanded.
'Nkosikazi!' Ralph agreed, and Juba inclined her head to acknowledge the correct style of address to the senior wife of a great chief that Ralph had employed.
'Then you are the one whom Bazo, my first-born son, calls brother,' Juba said. 'You are very skinny and very white, Little Hawk, but if you are Bazo's brother, then you are my son.'
'You do me great honour, Umame!' Ralph said, and Juba took him in those mammoth arms. She smelled of clarified fat, and ochre and wood-smoke, but the embrace was strangely comforting, not at all unlike the feeling, only half remembered, that he had once experienced in Aletta's arms.
The twins knelt side-by-side at the low truckle cot, both in long nightdresses, their hands clasped before their eyes which were so tightly closed that they seemed to be in pain.
Salina, also in her nightdress, stood over them to supervise the last prayer of the day.
'Gentle Jesus meek and mild Cathy was already in her own bed, hair ribboned for the night, writing the day's entry in her diary by the light of the guttering candle made from buffalo fat and cloth wick.
pity my simplicity -' gabbled the twins, at such a speed that it came out as, 'Pretty mice, and pretty me!'
Arriving at the 'Amen' in a dead heat, the twins leaped into the bed that they shared, pulled the blanket to their chins and watched with fascination as Salina began to brush her hair, one hundred strokes with each hand, so that it rippled and flamed with white fire in the candlelight. Then she came to kiss them, blew out the candle, and the thongs of her bed squeaked from across the small thatched hut as she climbed into it.
Tina?' whispered Victoria.
'Vicky, go to sleep.'
'Just one question, please.'
'All right then, just one.'
'Does God allow a girl to marry her own cousin?'
The silence that followed the question seemed to hum in the darkened bedroom like a copper telegraph wire struck by a sword.
Cathy broke the silence.
'Yes, Vicky,' she answered quietly. 'God does allow it.
Read the Table of Kindred and Affinity on the last page of your prayer book.'
The silence was contemplative now.
Una?'
Uzzie, go to sleep.'
'You allowed Vicky to ask a question.'
'All right then, just one.'
'Does God get cross if you pray for something just for yourself, not for Daddy or Mama or your sisters, but just for you alone?'
'I don't think so,' Salina's voice was becoming drowsy.
'He might not give it to you but I don't think He will be cross. Now go to sleep, both of you.'
Cathy lay very still, on her back with her hands clenched at her sides, staring at the lighter oblong across the hut where the moon defined the single window.
'Please God,' she prayed. 'Let him look at me the way he looks at Salina, just once. Please.'
'What do you think of Zouga's boy?' Robyn took Clinton's arm as they stood together on the darkened stoep and looked out at the star-pricked black velvet curtain of the African night.
'He's a powerful lad, and I don't mean merely muscle.' Clinton took his pipe from between his teeth and peered into the bowl. 'His wagon is loaded with cases, long wooden cases from which the markings. have been burned with a hot iron.'
'Guns?' Robyn asked.
'I think so.'
'there is no law against trading guns north of the Limpopo Robyn reminded him. 'And Lobengula needs all the power he can get to defend himself.'
'Still, guns! I mean, it does go against the grain.' Clinton sucked at his pipe, and each puff of smoke he exhaled was denser and ranker. They were both silent for a while.
'He has a hard and ruthless streak, like his father Robyn judged at last.
'A man needs that to survive in this land.
Robyn shivered suddenly, and hugged her own arms.
'Are you cold?' Clinton was immediately solicitous.
