An earthenware jug, a battered tin cup and a length of rope had been placed by the head of the goat. Gitiri poured a small measure of thick, dark, viscous liquid from the jug into the cup, before replacing both vessels in their original position.

Minutes earlier, Gitiri had removed one of the goat’s legs with a single blow from his panga. He had skinned the severed limb, cut the muscles away from the bone and diced the uncooked flesh into twenty cubes, which he piled in a wooden serving bowl. This, too, sat on the floor beside the animal’s body.

Kabaya glanced at Gitiri to ensure he was prepared.

Gitiri nodded.

Kabaya said, ‘Repeat these words after me . . . I speak the truth and vow before God, and before this movement of unity . . .’

‘I speak the truth and vow before God, and before this movement of unity,’ came the response, like a parishioner following his pastor’s lead.

The oath-taking began as Kabaya spoke and the young man repeated the next lines:

That I shall go forward to fight for the land,

The lands of Kirinyaga that we cultivated.

The lands which were taken by the Europeans

And if I fail to do this

May this oath kill me . . .

Gitiri stood, holding the tin cup in one hand and the wooden serving bowl in the other. He held out the bowl. Kabaya took a piece of raw, bloody meat and offered it to the young man, saying, ‘May this meat kill me . . .’

The young man, whose eyes kept darting towards Gitiri as if he dared not leave him out of his sight, hesitated. Kabaya glared at him, his eyes fiercer, more demanding this time. The young man took the meat, repeated, ‘May this meat kill me,’ and put it in his mouth. He chewed twice, grimaced, then downed it in one swallow.

Gitiri held out the cup. Kabaya took it from him and said, ‘May this blood kill me . . .’

The young man repeated the words and drank a sip of blood from the tin cup.

The other Kikuyu tribespeople in the hall looked on in awed, horrified fascination as two separate strands in their culture were woven into a single binding cord.

Solemn blood-oaths had long been central to Kikuyu life, though in the past they had been restricted to elders rising to the highest councils of the tribe. Within the past seventy years they had been converted to Christianity and were familiar with the rite of Holy Communion: the blood of Christ and the flesh of Christ, expressed in wine and wafer. This was a darker, deeper, more African communion. It spoke to the very core of their being and everyone, from the youngest child to the most snowy-haired grandparent, knew that any oath taken under such circumstances was a sacred, unbreakable vow.

Kabaya intoned the last lines of the oath, and the young man repeated after him . . .