Nomvula

4 - The Children

Nomvula paced a new grain into the citruswood floor. "You'd think they weren't my children, where are they?"

"Asanda, her conservatory. Khaya, a bowl of broth. Ndoda... who knows." Ma squinted. "Actually, last I saw, Ndoda was talking to Jabulani's uncles. Why not just call your actual advisors?"

"Because I trust the council I raised." Nomvula reached for her mother's apron before recoiling at a sharp slap.

"Why? I don't."

Nomvula sat on Ma's armrest. "That's different. You don't even trust your own gut."

"Because it only talks when it's empty," Ma said. "But you'd do well to listen to yours when it rumbles."

Nomvula said nothing, and the drawing room echoed back.

How many negotiations had been held here? How many treaties signed? There, on the goatskin couch, the chiefs of White Rock and Shoal had settled a legendary feud over figs and fish. Her husband had slept here for three days, haggling for citrus saplings from morning to midnight.

But her finest memory in this room was of a thirteen-year-old Asanda, dazzling Illiriot delegates with a lineage recital seventy-three generations deep. They left so impressed they sent back a master scholar to tutor her in runescript, mathematics, and alchemy; along with half the books in Nomvula's library.

Everything that happened in this room was to avoid this.

Three sharp knocks on the doorframe, not the door. Asanda strolled in without waiting for a response.

She looked distractedly around the room before Nomvula could meet her eyes: honey-speckled, deep brown, and rarely focused on something they could see.

"Anathi said you called."

"When?" Nomvula said, only a little irritated.

"She only told me you called, not when."

Ma laughed for both of them.

At nineteen, Asanda was already a little taller than Nomvula. Her round face and soft arms were from her father's side, but she wore her twisted locs in the Sunland style. The dark, brooding look she carried would have been Nomvula's... if it didn't unsettle her too at times.

"Oh, this is for you." Asanda held out a tiny stone tablet.

"What's this?" Nomvula asked.

"Anket's contract. I want him released from service."

"Did he do something?"

"No, he's a fine tutor," Asanda said. "But he's running out of things to teach."

"Run out of... Anket taught at the Library of Iller for twenty years."

"And he's a good teachers," Asanda said, then stopped. "He's getting old, and the journey back to Iller isn't going to get shorter with time."

Nomvula sighed. "I'll discuss it with him later." And I'm sure a hint of enrolling at the Library won't come up, either. "Sit down, Asi."

Asanda's eyes sharpened. "What's wrong?"

Longthinkers could be fervent readers, but rooms were rarely good material. Her daughter had learned, though, because people were cruel teachers. This morning came with another lesson.

"Most things," Nomvula said. "I'll explain in a moment, but where are your broth–"

They burst to the drawing room together.

Ndoda was lathered from throat to foot in the pure black clay of a ranger, which almost hid the drops of blood on his collarbone. He cursed from a cut lip, swaying on his brother's shoulder. Khaya had the stocky strength to keep him upright until they collapsed on the couch.

Nomvula stood. "What happened?"

"Nothing," Ndoda hissed through red teeth.

Nomvula marched to the couch. "Khaya?"

Her youngest straightened, rubbed his temples and  laughed like an old man. "Ma, this child of yours got into a fight with one of Jabu's uncles. He snapped the old man's leg right there in front of the other elders."

Nomvula stopped two steps short, too stunned to keep her face from twisting at the corners.

"Lifa started it," Ndoda protested.  He was tall and long, with limbs like braided iron, but he shrunk under her gaze. "Ma, I swear."

"Lifa did start it," Khaya said, helping.

Nomvula was halfway to the door when turned and levelled a finger at her sons. The words got lost on their way out. "Later. Asanda, go fetch your healing kit."