Nobody's Slave Read Free Page A

these rare, slight shows of approval that he always tried so hard to do everything better than everyone else. He longed for Nwoye to notice him, feel a slight flush of pride that this was a boy of his family, if not his son.
    This year, the fact that Nwoye was in charge of manhood training had just made everything worse. He had only been given the post because no son of his was becoming a man, that year; so Madu felt the very choice of Nwoye as a slight. Yet it was Nwoye, or no-one, who would have to lead him before the elders at the Festival of the New Warriors. If he was not accepted then, he could never hope to be a warrior of the Mani. He would revert to being merely a social outcast, the son of a slave. One who could farm, but not bear arms by right. One who could never speak in the Council, never be a free man of the tribe, never lead or decide.
    The two boys shouldered the leopard, and began to hobble homewards, Madu in front, setting his own pace. As he walked, he tried to think of himself through his stepfather's eyes. Immediately he forgot the triumph, and thought how nearly it had all gone wrong. It could so easily have ended with the leopard dragging one or both of their limp, dead bodies up into a tree to eat. He remembered Nwoye's constant insistence on the wisdom of doing things safely, the value of not taking unnecessary chances. If only the trap had been stronger, the pit deeper!
    Nearer the village, they met a group of younger boys herding goats, who stared at them, open-mouthed with admiration. Temba persuaded two of them to carry the front of the pole; which they did, bursting with pride, while Madu gratefully hobbled alongside, his foot now swollen nearly as big as a gourd.
    At first, Madu was so sunk in his own thoughts that he did not notice the drums. Only when the boys began to chatter excitedly, and Temba snapped at them to keep quiet, did he pay attention to what the drumtalk was saying.
    The drums spoke most evenings, carrying news between the villages. At first, when he was young, Madu had thought it was just another sound, like thunder or the patter of rain on leaves. Then he had watched his mother and stepfather listening to it, and noticed how people talked excitedly before the drums of their own village answered; and he had realised the drums were talking, sending messages mile after mile through the jungle and across the plain. So he and his friends had begun to listen more carefully, and tried to understand; and recently, in the manhood training, they had been taught to go on long treks through the forest on the orders only of the drums, and learned to make up their own messages in reply, which they banged out to each other on the sides of trees and hollow logs. So now they could understand almost everything of what was being said.
    Usually it was news about some festival, or the visit of a travelling priest or tradesman, or a message for a particular family, but tonight it was different. The drums were beating all round them, far and near, one taking up the message hardly before the other had stopped. They were so loud and insistent that birds in the forest grew quiet, and the boys gradually came to a halt. They stared at each other in awe, their heads and bodies filled with the throb of the drums until it seemed they were listening to their own heartbeat, the heart of the tribe pulsing out its message to all its members.
    The message was War . War - sudden and urgent. Each village to gather its warband - now, at once - and take its women and children to Conga, the nearest Mani town, where they would be safe, and all the Mani could gather to resist the invasion.
    The village drums went rattling back: Who was invading? Where? Why must they gather so soon? From the east, came the answer, the Sumba, the mighty King Sheri and King Yhoma at the head of an army of thousands, nearly as big as half their tribe. They had already captured five villages, with great ...  horror … was all Madu could