Though the Nubala women wore no more clothing than the men, they did not share the practice of shaving their heads. Instead, they grew their hair in tight rows and plaits, threaded with beads, wire, and ornaments of wood and bone. Like the men, their skin carried the marks of Besu Jusa. Only pre-pubescent children went smooth-skinned. The markings, which were created by placing bits of ash beneath tiny cuts in the skin, were the culmination of the many rituals that ushered the Nubala from childhood to adulthood.
“Hiyee! “Hiyoo!” the children shouted as they rushed to greet the men who had returned from the borderland. Even though they knew they could someday become part of the Gift to the Jijiwi after they received their skin-marks, the children’s exuberance could not be contained by forebodings of the future.
The women and men were more reserved in demeanor. But the greetings of the children were so spontaneous that Tuatat, Achok, and the others with them were able, if only for a moment, to allow their gloom to lift.
Tuatat smiled as he held the children who happily gripped his legs and waist. His eyes caught and found those of his wife and daughter. He knew they were glad to see him, despite the reality that so many Nubala had gone to the borderland, and few had returned.
Thus far, his family had been spared from becoming part of the Gift. He also knew their luck would eventually desert them, as it had for all the Children of Besu Jusa many rains in the past ...
His gaze wandered to the pastures of the Nubala cattle and the fields of grain that grew beyond the grazing-land, and the sun-sheened lakes that provided the water his people needed. He looked at the thatch-topped clay cylinders that were the dwellings of the Nubala, perched amid the spires of rock that had served as a natural defense for his people since the time their ancestors arrived in this land.
Then Tuatat focused on a lone Nubala man who was laboriously lifting boulders and lowering them back to the ground. The rows of mbama-marks that covered his skin could not conceal the muscles that bunched and knotted as the man grimly applied himself to his task.
Tuatat made no attempt to catch the man’s attention. Better to allow him to focus on his rock-lifting.
I do not envy you, Guguk, the wachik thought. Then a shout interrupted his grim musings.
“Tuatat!” cried one of the watchers who guarded the approaches to the Nubala dwellings. “Someone is coming!”
Tuatat turned to the sentinel, who was slightly out of breath from his rapid running.
Have they decided, at last, to break the Accord? the wachik thought darkly. Already, some of the men were snatching up iron-bladed spears.
“Is it the Jijiwi?” Tuatat demanded, his tone tense.
“No,” the sentinel responded. “It is one man – a man who is not like us, and not like the Jijiwi.”
“One man,” Tuatat repeated. He was not reassured.
A boy pressed a spear-shaft into Tuatat’s hand. Like the others who had accompanied the Gift, he had gone weaponless to the border, as the Accord stipulated. He had slain leopards and cattle-raiders with the spear he now held. Though he did not doubt that he could kill a lone foe, he wondered what a stranger could be doing in a land that had remained remote for such a long time.
The Nubala men gathered quickly at Tuatat’s side. They were warriors now, freed from the constraints of the Accord. Like the teeth of a crocodile, their spears pointed outward – none steadier-handed than that of Guguk, the hard-muscled lifter of boulders.
With deceptive speed, the outlander approached. He had been loping, but now that he was within sight of the Nubala, his pace slowed to a walk. He was close enough that the Nubala could see that he was, indeed, unlike them or the Jijiwi. His umber skin was not as dark as the Nubalas’, but it was darker than that of the camel-riders. His broad features were not as blunt as those of the Nubala, but they were fuller than the Jijiwis’. Unlike Nubala men, this one’s head was not shaven. His black hair covered his skull like a wooly helmet.
The stranger’s only garment was the skin of a lion wrapped around his waist. His height and hard-muscled breadth surpassed even that of Guguk. His weapons were a huge, straight sword and a long dagger, both belted across his garment. He kept his hands away from both weapons.
He stopped a few paces from the gathered Nubala. He was the first to break the stiff silence.
“Who are you?” the stranger asked. His words were barely understandable to the Nubala.
“We are the Nubala,” the wachik said in response. “I am Tuatat. Who are you, outlander?”
“Imaro,” the stranger replied.
* * *
The warrior waited for the usual reactions to the sound of his name: fear, awe, uncertainty, incredulity, desperation. But he saw none of those emotions on the faces of the Nubala. All he saw was curiosity, as well as the apprehension that was to be expected from an isolated people meeting an outlander.
At last, Imaro thought. I have finally come among people who do not know who I am ...
“Where do you come from . . . Imaro?” Tuatat asked. “And why are you in our land?”
Imaro struggled to make out all of Tuatat’s words. When the warrior had first spoken, he had used a trade-tongue common among the people closest to this far-off country. He had hoped that the herders’ speech was similar. He now understood that the languages were related, but distantly so.
“I come from ... beyond,” the warrior said, gesturing toward the escarpment to the south. “I am here because
