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Like swift golden dust motes in the sunlight, Leon saw the flight of the bees homing in on the hive. Three-quarters of the way up, the trunk forked into two heavy branches and the crotch between them was split by a narrow, vertical cleft. A thin trickle of tree sap ran from the opening and congealed in translucent globules of gum on the bark around it. Into this opening the homecoming bees flitted, while those leaving the hive crawled out on to the lips of the opening and buzzed away. The image brought Verity O’Hearne to Leon’s mind with sharp, lubricious nostalgia. It was the first time he had thought of her in several days.

The others laid aside their burdens to prepare for the harvest of the hive. Manyoro cut a square of bark from the trunk of another tree in the grove and rolled it into a tube, which he tied into shape with a strip of bark string. Then he fashioned a loop of bark into a handle. Ishmael had started a small fire and was feeding it with dry twigs. Loikot girded the tail of his shuka around his waist, leaving his legs and lower body bare, then went to the base of the tree and tested the texture of the bark and the girth of the trunk with his arms while he gazed up at the hive steeling himself mentally for the climb.

Ishmael fed chips of green wood into the fire and blew on them until they glowed and emitted dense clouds of pungent white smoke. With the wide blade of his panga, Manyoro scooped the coals into the bark tube and took it to Loikot, who used the loop handle to sling the tube over his shoulder, then tucked the panga into the folds of his shuka. He spat on his palms and grinned at Leon. ‘Watch me, M’bogo. No other can climb as I can.’

‘It doesn’t surprise me to learn that you are brother to the baboons,’ Leon told him, and Loikot laughed before he sprang at the tree-trunk. Gripping alternately with his palms and the soles of his bare feet he shot up the trunk with amazing agility and reached the tree’s high crotch without a pause. He climbed into the fork and stood upright, with a swarm of angry bees buzzing around his head. He took the bark tube from his shoulder and blew into one end, like a trumpeter. A jet of smoke poured from the opposite end. As it enveloped them the bees dispersed.

Loikot paused to pick a few stings from his arms and legs. Then he hefted the panga and, balancing easily, ignoring the dizzying drop below him, he stooped and swung the heavy blade at the cleft between his feet. With a dozen ringing blows he made white wood chips fly. Then he peered into the enlarged opening. ‘I can smell the sweetness,’ he shouted to the upturned faces below. He reached into the hive and brought out a large thick comb. He held it up for them to see. ‘Thanks to the skills of Loikot, you will eat your fill today, my friends.’ They laughed.

‘Well done, little baboon!’ Leon shouted.

Loikot brought out five more combs, each hexagonal cell filled to the brim with dark brown honey, and sealed with a lid of wax. He packed them gently into the folds of his shuka.

‘Do not take it all,’ Manyoro cautioned him. ‘Leave half for our little winged friends or they will die.’ Loikot had been taught that when he was still a child and did not reply. Now he was a morani, and wise in the lore of the wild. He dropped the smoke tube and the panga to the base of the tree and slithered down the trunk, jumping the last six feet to land lightly on his feet.

They sat in a circle and divided the combs. In the branches above, the honeyguide hopped and chirruped to remind them of his presence and the debt they owed him. Carefully Manyoro broke off the edges of the combs where the cells were filled with white bee larvae and laid the pieces on a large green leaf. He looked up at the hovering bird. ‘Come, little brother, you have earned your reward.’ He carried the larvae-filled pieces of honeycomb a short distance away, and placed them carefully in an opening in the scrub. As soon as he turned away, the bird flew down boldly to partake of the feast.

Now that custom and tradition had been observed, the men were free to taste the spoils. Sitting around the pile of golden combs they broke off pieces, and stuffed them into their mouths, murmuring with pleasure as they chewed the honey out of the cells, then spat out the wax and licked their sticky fingers.

Leon had never tasted honey like this dark, smoky variety garnered from the nectar of acacia flowers. It coated his tongue and the back of his throat with such intense sweetness that he gasped at the shock, and his eyes swam with tears. He closed them tightly. The rich wild perfume filled his head and almost overpowered him. His tongue tingled. When he breathed he felt the taste drawn down deep into his throat. He swallowed and exhaled as sharply as though he had gulped down a dram of highland whisky.