When Rashid promised to bring grain from Kizinga, he did not explain that he would have to buy it from traders who had already heard about Mbuyuni's hunger.
Neema decided to go with him. The Chifu objected, Mama Naliaka objected even more, and Bi. Rehema remained silent until they had all finished.
“If the agreement is being made in the granary's name,” Neema said, “someone from the granary must see the grain, the price, and the road.”
Hamisi volunteered to go as guard and guide. Pendo, who knew parts of the caves and the herders' paths, asked to travel with them but was refused because she was too young. Instead, she gave them a map drawn on goatskin, showing two springs that Jabali's men did not know about.
They left with three donkeys. On the first day, they found tree barricades on the main road, so they followed a dry stream through the hills.
That night they slept without a fire. Rashid, who usually seemed surprised by nothing, admitted that he had lost two caravans to thieves during his years in business.
“You kept going,” Neema said.
“Good profits make a person interpret fear as caution.”
“And losses?”
“They teach at a high price.”
Kizinga was larger than Mbuyuni, with two markets, guesthouses, and stone granaries. The price of grain had already risen. Traders wanted cash immediately. The women's granary had enough money to buy only half the amount they needed.
Rashid used his name to gain time for payment, but his associates wanted the members' land as collateral.
Neema refused.
“Then your people will die because of your principles,” one trader said.
“If they live by losing all their land, they will die slowly next year.”
“What choice do you have?”
Neema produced the members' register, the record of their previous sales, and Rashid's contract. “We have business in the years ahead. Pay for your risk with the price, not by taking our lives.”
The negotiations lasted two days. In the end, they obtained cassava, millet, and beans from three traders instead of one. That reduced one person's ability to squeeze them. Rashid put part of his own property up as collateral for the first half. The granary promised extra sales, not land, for the second half.
On the night before they left, Rashid took Neema to Bakari Mkubwa's guesthouse.
The man was stout, with a scar on his cheek and two copper rings. When he heard Juma's name, his face changed.
“I knew this day would come,” he said.
Neema sat before him.
“Where did my father die?”
Bakari glanced at the door. “Not now.”
“We have traveled two days on a road that was closed.”
“If I speak, my people will lose everything.”
“My people are already dying.”
Bakari poured liquor into a cup but did not drink. “Juma discovered that the farmers' sacks were being recorded as lost. He threatened to send a copy to the ruler of the coast. When we reached Miamba, he quarreled with Mtemi's men. He fell and struck a rock.”
“He fell?”
“He was pushed.”
Rashid's face tightened. “And you were the caravan master.”
“I let them continue. I left Juma in the cart with a fever and a wound. He died the next day.”
“Where was he buried?” Neema asked.
Bakari named a valley south of the road, near a split fig tree.
“Who pushed him?”
Bakari looked at his rings. “A guard of Mtemi's named Sudi. He died two years later. But the order to take the copy came from Mtemi.”
“Can you say that before the council?”
“Not without protection and having my debts to him erased.”
Neema felt hatred rise.
“You want a price for the truth about my father's death?”
“In this world, every truth has a cost.”
“No,” she said. “Every coward tries to put a cost on it.”
She left without an agreement.
Rashid followed her. “We need his evidence.”
“We will get it, but I will not buy it with the money of hungry children.”
“Then why will he speak?”
Neema looked at Kizinga's granaries. “Because Mtemi and Jabali have closed the road. If Bakari owes them, they will begin with his property. We will make him choose the side that can protect him without owning him.”
In the morning, they left with carts of grain. Before they reached the gorge, they saw the smoke of a camp of armed men.
The road was closed.
But now Neema knew that more than grain lay on the other side.
Her father's evidence had also begun to move.
---
Neema did not want to wait fourteen days while people died.
She gathered the granary leaders at night. They met inside Mzee Salim's house, using one small lamp.
“Mtemi has grain in the caves,” she said. “His document is false, but the Chifu is afraid to break it. If we raid the caves, we will be called thieves.”
“Then what should we do?” Mama Naliaka asked.
“Make him open them himself.”
The plan was dangerous.
The following morning, Neema announced in the market that the women's granary had completely run out. She said the last porridge would be distributed that day. She added that Rashid had failed to bring grain because the roads were blocked.
Mtemi heard the news and raised his price again.
That evening, one of Neema's people secretly went to him, pretending to represent a distant village.
“We have sixty goats,” he said. “We will exchange them for grain before the people of Mbuyuni find out.”
Mtemi agreed. He planned to have the sacks brought out of the caves at night so they would not pass through the market.
Neema had informed the village elders, Mama Naliaka, and several people from the council. She did not tell the Chifu because she was not sure the news would not reach Jabali.
At night, six carts left Dry Mountain. When they entered the open plain, torches were lit on every side.
More than two hundred people stood in the road.
Mtemi, who was riding a donkey at the front of the small caravan, pulled on the reins.
“This is my property!” he shouted.
Neema stepped out of the crowd. “You told the council you had no grain.”
“I sold some and bought other grain.”
“In four days? While the roads were closed?”
Mtemi waved to his guards. But when the guards saw how many people there were, they did not move.
Jabali appeared behind the last cart with men carrying spears.
“Everyone go home,” he said. “This caravan has permission from the Chifu's family.”
An elder from the council asked him, “With which seal? The one you used after being removed from power?”
Jabali drew a short sword.
That was when Chifu Baraka arrived.
Neema had not called him. Mama Naliaka had sent a child to fetch him a few minutes before the carts left.
The Chifu looked at his nephew, Mtemi, and the sacks.
“Open one,” he ordered.
Jabali said, “Uncle, do not let the crowd force you.”
“Open it.”
The first sack held millet. The second held maize. The third held millet grain.
Several sacks still bore the erased marks of the burned council granary.
Chifu Baraka closed his eyes for a moment.
“Jabali,” he said, “put down the sword.”
“You will humiliate me for these people?”
“These people are what make me Chifu.”
Jabali did not obey. He raised the sword and stepped toward Neema.
Mama Naliaka struck his wrist with a measuring stick. The sword fell. Two men seized him.
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then one person laughed. Another followed. Laughter spread, not because the event was funny, but because the man who had threatened them for so long had been brought down by a market stick.
The Chifu ordered the sacks taken to Mbuyuni and counted in public.
There were five hundred and thirty-two measures.
Some was stolen council grain. The rest had been bought cheaply from farmers during the panic. All of it was distributed through the food program, while Mtemi's legitimate portion was recorded as a debt the council would repay after the disaster—at the usual price, not the famine price.
Mtemi shouted that he had been robbed.
Neema told him, “You will be paid for what is yours. You will not be paid for what you wanted people to pay with their lives.”
Jabali was confined in the guards' house until the envoys of the high ruler arrived.
For the first time, Chifu Baraka agreed that his seal would be checked by three people before it was used.
The seal was no longer the voice of one person.
---