The Beggar's Crown

An adventure for Mombasa PCs, working for Hassan’s Emporium.

Benny Kaplan. Johannesburg pawnbroker.

Skinny. Gold ring on smallest finger. Born in Riga. Seven years in South Africa. Believes he’s seen it all.

Fordsburg shop caters to struggling tradesmen. Cantonese tailors. Malay curry-shop cooks. Gujarati law clerks. Yiddish-speaking cobblers from the Pale of Settlement. Scottish railway engineers. African mine workers from all over the country commuting from Sophiatown - shebeens, matchbox houses, overcrowded corrugated-iron shacks.

Swazi jazz bands. Zulu a cappella groups. Tswana gardeners. Xhosa housemaids. Parks, train cars, lavatories, cinemas all segregated. Black people required to carry passes - only allowed in the city to serve white people’s economic needs. Curfew on their movements aggressively enforced by Boer and British police.

Smear of civilisation over roaring gold-rush town. Department stores. Streetcars. Mansions of the Randlords. Mine dumps - gigantic flat-topped conical mountains of windblown yellow dust. Old Boers in ox wagons with chinstrap beards and long-bowled pipes, clucking their tongues, bemoaning the pace of change.

Communist Party organising under the slogan “Workers of the world, unite and fight for a white South Africa!”. Brawls in the streets. Syndicalists in bars reminiscing about the 1922 uprising, when union snipers and dynamite-wielding saboteurs almost conquered the city. Commandos with fond memories of the Orange Free State.

Zulu battle-axe hanging from wall above shop counter behind Kaplan’s head.

Old coats. Boots. Stacks of hats. Fountain pens. Cracked pocket watches. Battered violins. Carbide mining lamps. Pickaxes. Revolvers. Martini-Henry rifles. Elephant guns. Afrikaans Bibles. Adventure novels. Maps. Candlesticks. Shields. Wooden masks.

Giraffe-hide rug. Leopard-skin cloak. Ostrich-feather fan. Crocodile-leather wallet. Porcupine-quill lampshade. Elephant’s-foot umbrella stand. Comically posed stuffed monkeys. Four-metre black mamba preserved in huge jar.

Sawn-off shotgun under the counter next to small impregnable iron safe. Peanut-sized gold nuggets. Rough Kimberley diamonds. Mexican silver dollars. Bearer bonds issued by the Belgian Congo and De Beers. Small packages of cocaine, taduki, black lotus powder. Massive black ledger detailing dozens of small loans.

Salt-white crystal fragments. Rainbow sheen at edges. Not diamonds, or any other mineral known to science. Crumble into dust on exposure to strong sunlight.

Reproduce if fed on drops of blood. Can bond with flesh - grow into muscle fibres. Infiltrate nervous systems. Soothing. Peaceful. You like having them on you.

Sold for half a pound by Lesego. Out-of-work Sotho miner. Said he was given them by preacher at Zion Kingdom Church. Told to sit in the dark and count them while he prayed. Didn’t like the sound of it. Needed the money more.

Industrial wasteland on town outskirts. Abandoned machinery. Tin shacks. Sickly streams. Holes dug in the dirt. Tools cast down in disappointment. Secretarybird picking over rubble. Baboons squatting balefully on mine heaps, fur matted with yellow dust.

Africans in blue, green, white robes. Peace-symbol badges. Sashes. Fur headbands. Shirts and ties. Shepherd’s crooks. Crosses in circles mounted on top of wooden staves.

Bonfires. Columns of smoke. Dancing. Singing. Chanting Christian hymns. Occasional speaking in tongues. Greet you with big smiles and cries of “Peace!”

Barnabas Raphela. Pentecostal prophet.

Casts out demons. Heals the blind and sick. Invests glasses of water, sheets of paper, cups of coffee with curative powers - sells them at bargain prices. Explains how polygamy is fully sanctioned by the Bible. Promotes exciting new concept of “sexual confession”. Baptises new followers in big tub of water under flapping tent.

Struck by lightning on mountaintop. Studied in America. Walks on water. Pacifies lions. Immune to bullets. Reads one thousand books a day. Personally converted Mahatma Gandhi to Christianity. Never lies.

Founder of Zion City.

Sacred Drakensberg valley. Somewhere in Basotholand. Workers’ commune where people can live in style of ancient Christians. Only most loyal and virtuous devotees allowed to go there. Leads yearly pilgrimage. Nobody returns.

Half-built church on the highveld.

Distant mountains. Rocky kopjes. Lion-coloured plains. Farmhouse standing alone on hilltop. Bare against blue sky.

Creaking rust-brown windpump. Rotting barbed-wire fences. Cows have all wandered off. Meerkat holes. Zebras grazing in middle distance. Lake at base of hill - water trickling through cracks in dam.

Peter Pienaar. Boer War scout. Hunter. Smuggler. Traitor - sold his countrymen out to the British. Nothing ever proven against him.

Steady hands. Mild blue eyes. Long lined sorrowful face. Sits on porch smoking pipe, reading newspapers, watching clouds scud across horizon. Eats wife’s roast chicken. Boerewors on braai with monkey gland sauce.

Way station on road to Zion City.

Pilgrims on foot welcomed in for meal. Shown altar in church overgrown by crystals. Shafts of light from incompletely tiled roof. Old fat Zulu evangelist Siphosethu reclines in shadow. Shambling human geode. Sparkles in a dozen colours where he’s struck by the light.

Selects the strongest pilgrims. Demands proof of their faith. Gives them sticks and makes them fight among each other. Failures’ bodies fed to crystals. Huge mineral deposit under farmland - visible if you scrape away the earth.

Strangely intelligent wildlife. Meerkats watch you pass - chatter to each other. Warthogs scratch at dirt. Vultures leap from grass - surprised in act of picking over unrecognisable corpses. All neighbours for miles have packed up and moved away.

Lost city of Zu-Vendis.

Snow-capped Maloti Mountains. Eroded escarpments. Layered pinnacles of rock. Sheba’s Breasts - round twin nipple-topped peaks with startling resemblance to their namesake. Green valley between them impregnable to outsiders unless you know the way.

Sotho highland horsemen in conical straw hats. Thatched rondavel huts. Colourful woolen blankets. Potion pouches attached to leather bandoliers. Hunt for lost cattle. Watch pilgrims from a distance. Warn you the Breasts are cursed by ancient ghosts. Don’t think it’s funny. Curious Englishmen died trying to scale them in the days of King Moeshoeshoe I.

Climb through narrow rock defile leads to black marble balcony with spectacular view. Flight of stairs descends into valley. Domes. Bridges. Lily-sprinkled bathing pools. Lion sculptures. Red granite palaces overlooking farm-terraced hillsides, deep mountain lake.

Underground rivers. Sacred hippopotami. Flower-garnished temples to the sun. Priests with golden trumpets. Sacred flames in stone bowls lit by prisms. Law code values property over human life.

Twin queens Sorais and Nyleptha sharing single throne. Linen dresses. Golden torcs. Each has one breast bare - Sorais left, Nyleptha right. Speak with one voice on formal occasions. Despise each other. High priest Agon has full-time job preventing civil war.

Proto-Zulu all-female warrior caste with assegai. Dignified. Formal. Unimpressed by cheap tricks. Enforce royal decisions. Sleep on stone beds in austere barracks. Harden selves by wrestling crocodiles, drinking poison, walking barefoot on thorns.

Ancient stronghold of King Solomon. Built into mountainside. Piled high with treasure - Egyptian gilded jackals, alabaster lamassu, Nimrud ivories of winged genies and griffins, Assyrian bronze lions biting out men’s throats. Diabolical traps. Heavy stone doors that suddenly slam closed. False floors over bottomless shafts.

Built over lost mine. Workers toil in depths. Convinced this is Zion. Not allowed to see the sun. Flesh eaten away by crystals until nothing’s left. Ambulatory skeletons encrusted with parasitic jewels. Still digging by torchlight.

Xipehuz. Intelligent alien mineral. Deposited in veins under highveld by Vredefort bolide impact. Malevolent. Hungry. Wants to be dug up. Sold to rich eccentrics. Use their wealth and power to reproduce.

Cackling crone Gagool. Wizened beyond belief. White hair ornamented by puffed bladders of cave-fish. Can smell out and magnify grief, regret, despair. Leads whole cabal of witches. Oversees miners. Dreams of reigning over barren, bone-white mineral world.

Frederick Selous. Aged, white-bearded hunter. Forty years in Matabeleland, contacting new tribes, shooting game. Small. Quiet. Patient. Self-effacing. Talks to himself. Lives to collect specimens. Deadly with bolt-action rifle. Almost impossible to spot in tall grass.

Founder of Shikar Club - international huntsman’s brotherhood based in London hotel. Famous in his circles. Trusted by the government. Presidents, aristocrats, hotel managers everywhere owe him favours.

Travelled world in pursuit of prey. Transylvania. Caucasus. Wyoming. Codename “Galahad” in Cecil Rhodes’ Round Table conspiracy for universal British rule. Mistakenly believed shot dead by Tanganyika Germans during Great War.

Rediscovered Zu-Vendis in last couple of years. Married to Gagool. Small translucent crystal lodged in back of neck.

Solomon Joel. Randlord. Owns dozen gold mines. Son of Whitechapel publican. Married to beautiful young actress. Suspected of throwing diamond-magnate uncle Barney Barnato off boat near Madeira in 1897. Stalked for years and threatened with death by mad anti-semitic blackmailer and conman Ludwig von Veltheim. Dozens of enemies. Could be gunned down at any moment. Affects not to care.

Throws wild parties in his ridgetop Parktown mansion. Champagne. Jacarandas. Views of sprawling veldt. Spends extravagantly. Champion racehorse breeder - ongoing rivalry with his brother Jack.

Approaches by Selous to handle crystal business. Hands them out as party favours. In over his head.

Hermann Kallenbach. Architect. Gandhi disciple. Devoted to principles of non-violence, celibacy and universal peace.

Runs Tolstoy Farm ashram. Meditation retreat for disaffected young Johannesburgers - failed accountants and pop-eyed Theosophists who’ve dropped out of life. Satyagrahis training themselves to full knowledge of Truth. Revolutionaries of the soul.

Communal living. Kitchen rosters. Vegetarian cooking. Fruit trees. Spinning wheels. Rough blue cloth. Homemade bread, marmalade, sandals. Lectures from local gurus. No guns allowed. Residents explicitly banned from killing poisonous snakes.

Crystals supplied by Joel. Gifted to acolytes. Kallenbach believes they’re a gift from the universal consciousness - hold secret to world enlightenment. Technically correct.

Jan van Hunks. Table Mountain warlock.

Beat the Devil in a smoking contest. Stole his power. Outgambled Van der Vecken, captain of the Flying Dutchman, and won from him three favours. Wrestled Adamastor, the Giant of the Cape. Moustache. Wide-brimmed hat. Red nose. Fat. Jolly.

Ancient feud with Gagool. Interferes with her plans just to annoy her. Interested in crystals - want to see if he can bend them to his own evil will.