Keepers of the House

by JH Fletcher

  A raised eyebrow again questioned her. ‘Getting rid of a traitor. Where’s the sacrament in that?’

  Still he moved. Softly, deeply in. And out. Her will fought him, even as her body flowed.

  ‘It must be. Or we are no better than he.’

  ‘And that’s why you’re here? Because it’s a sacrament?’

  Gently he mocked her. She was losing her thoughts now, losing everything, but it was important that he understood.

  ‘I am myself. One. Yourself one, also. Separate. But like this we are united. We have become one. That is how it must be.’

  Was that indeed what she felt? Truly, in her heart and womb? That she should be one with this man?

  His shoulders hunched. He drew her closer. She felt his scalding length. Probing. She knew he still did not understand but could speak no more, lost in heat. She was no longer sure of what she had been trying to say.

  So the two became one, as she had said, and she believed herself content. And later became two again.

  She thought that Dominic must think he had saddled himself with a mad woman, not because she had come here, he would know better than that, but because war did strange things; she had heard how some men, faced with the prospect of death, needed sex to prove to themselves that they had not turned their backs on life. The sexual act in itself did not mean much, probably had not even surprised him particularly, but she had seen from his expression how confused he had been when she had started talking about sacraments …

  While all the time they were holding themselves tight, working to bring themselves to the boil together; feeling the nerves starting to skitter in their bellies.

  One and one make one.

  What a moment to choose.

  It worked out right in the end. Anneliese felt her eyes roll back and the shudder begin, deep within her. Yet the truth of what she had been trying to explain to him remained; as soon as their breathing was back to normal she began to talk again, to herself as much as to him, impelled by her secret frenzy to go on and on about rites and sacraments and the healing hand of death, as though killing a man were ever more than simply that.

  It made her wonder how she’d behave later, with all this nonsense bubbling away inside her.

  The way it turned out, she needn’t have worried.

  There was no moon, the night velvet-black. Crouching side by side in the bushes, eyes fixed on Henning’s store, Anneliese could hear the river’s liquid voice as it flowed down the valley. The store itself was dark, but light showed through a heavily barred window at the rear of the building.

  She could smell uneasiness like sweat on Dominic’s skin, even before he put his mouth to her ear.

  ‘Sure you want to go on with it?’

  She stared at him. She could see the outline of his face, his eyes shining in the starlight. She laid the whole weight of her eyes upon him.

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Maybe we should talk to him first, give him the chance to clear out. That’s all we want, isn’t it? Only that?’

  She was willing to be furious. ‘Lost your nerve, have you?’

  ‘All I’m saying is we need to be sure.’

  ‘We’ve already talked about it.’

  ‘Talking and doing are two different things. Kill someone, it leaves a taste.’

  ‘I have also tasted death,’ Anneliese said. ‘You think I can’t take it again?’

  The light in the window went out.

  Now was the time for action, not for yapping about what was already agreed.

  ‘Come on!’

  The track glowed faintly in the starshine but nothing moved. Even the trees held their breath. Dominic picked up the can of coal oil they had brought with them. Side by side, they sprinted across the road together. In the shadow of the building they paused. The window of the store reflected darkness.

  Dominic put the can on the ground and unscrewed the cap. The oil’s pungent odour lanced the air. ‘Ready …’

  Anneliese was carrying a steel bar. Around her neck hung a canvas bag containing kerosene, a wad of cotton material, matches.

  ‘Now!’

  She swung the bar with all her strength.

  At once everything was fluid, movement and noise blending in a rush of frenzied action. The crash of glass. A shout of alarm from the rear of the shop. For a fraction of a second Dominic hesitated. Anneliese whirled towards him, screaming in frenzy.

  ‘Do it!’

  The shattered window gaped. He swung the can, spraying oil as far into the shop as it would reach. Anneliese was holding the cotton cloth soaked in kerosene. Fingers fumbled as she struck a match, held the flame to the cloth. Its abrupt brilliance punched their eyes. Dominic flung the can through the window. Anneliese threw the blazing cotton after it. There was a dull thud as the fuel ignited. At once the interior of the store was lit by a cascade of violet and yellow flame.

  They fled, pausing at the bend of the lane to look back. Shadows flared across the night. Flames roared, licking through the shattered glass, reaching for the roof.

  A second thud. The air shuddered, heat slapping their faces, as somewhere in the chaos of flame a drum of fuel exploded. A column of sparks soared into the darkness. There was a scream, barely audible above the roar of the flames, then another. A chorus of screams.

  Mouth open in shock, Dominic turned to Anneliese.

  ‘You told me he was alone! You promised —’

  She ignored him. Patterns of orange and black flared across the walls of the building as she raised exultant arms, shaking her clenched fists to the stars.

  ‘See how you like that, you bastards!’

  She ran, hearing Dominic following behind. The flare and crackle of the flames faded behind them.

  They reached the communion field, silent beneath the stars. Beyond the trees the grey shape of Oudekraal loomed against the darkness. Briefly Anneliese remembered the wagons sleeping here beneath their hooped canvas covers, but at once the image vanished, erased by the evening’s work, and she knew that henceforth her memories of the valley would no longer be of peace.

  Behind them, beyond the stark shapes of trees, a red glow stained the sky.

  ‘Henning’s family …’ Dominic accused.

  Her mind was still filled with the blood-red images of distant flame. She looked at him, dazed, as though waking from a dream.

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘They were there all the time.’

  Puzzlement faded. She smiled. ‘Where else should they be?’

  ‘You told me they were away. If I’d known —’

  ‘As well you didn’t, then.’

  ‘So now we wage war on children, is that it?’ Anguished tears shone on his face. ‘I could strangle you for this! Making me responsible —’

  ‘Why don’t you, then?’ She threw the challenge in his face, contemptuously.

  At once he changed his tune, although anguish remained. ‘Murdering children …’

  She denied nothing. A gust of wind shook the trees. Beyond their clutching branches, a fresh explosion of sparks flew like orange stars.

  She said, ‘We agreed what had to be done.’

  ‘But children …’

  His fingers raked his face, as though trying to scrape away horror. Anneliese was cold, unmoving. ‘Other children have died.’

  There was nothing more to be said. She turned her back on him and walked with slow and measured steps towards the house.

  Breath tight in his throat, heart pounding, Dominic walked on down the lane to his cottage. Nausea and disbelief walked with him. When he reached the cottage he found it empty; Miriam had not come back.

  He was thankful, did not think he could have put up with her questions after all he’d been through that night.

  He went to bed, slept intermittently, brief moments of oblivion islanded between recurrent images of horror. The fire snatching breath from the children’s mouths. The screams. He had warned Anneliese that killing left a taste
; now the taste was in his own mouth, while Anneliese had seemingly felt nothing. He remembered her expression, the fists raised in triumph, and dreaded the morning.

  ‘Mary, Mother of God.’ Again and again he repeated the incantation, as though somehow it would make everything right. ‘Mary, Mother of God …’

  Daylight came. He dragged himself off the bed, stuffed food into his mouth with dirty hands, went to work as usual. He willed his face to show nothing. He laughed, talked, all the time believing that no one was answering him, that eyes watched knowingly wherever he went. Finally, mid-morning, Deneys arrived.

  Deneys was barely out of bed when he heard the news; he knew at once that he would have to get the police in. It would be risky but worse by far if he did nothing. He knew people would suspect Anneliese of being involved with the murders; sit on his hands and they would be sure of it. In any case, silence would serve no purpose. The English had eyes and ears everywhere. They would be certain to hear about it; try to cover it up and they would think he had something to hide. They would descend on the valley and turn everything upside down in their determination to track down the killers of the man who had fought for them during the war. In the country, unseen eyes saw everything that happened; a word in the wrong place would bring ruin on them all.

  Their only chance was to report the killings and hope the authorities would take it as a sign of innocence.

  He told Anneliese so.

  She laughed at his anxiety. ‘Are you saying I had something to do with it?’

  ‘There’s bound to be talk —’

  ‘Let them talk.’

  ‘Everyone knows how you felt about Sarel Henning —’

  ‘I wanted him out of the valley. That’s no crime.’ Her brazen smile mocked. ‘Bring in the English police, by all means, if it makes you feel better. I’ve nothing to hide.’

  Deneys knew something she did not, but did not want to confront her with it if he could avoid it.

  ‘If it wasn’t you it has to be Riordan.’

  Storm clouds gathered in her eyes. ‘Nonsense!’

  ‘No one else had any reason to kill him.’

  ‘You would never point your finger at Dominic Riordan —’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You rode with him in the war, for God’s sake!’

  Anneliese would always assess a man’s worth by the side he had fought on, but Deneys could not afford such sentimentality; he had other responsibilities.

  ‘Dominic Riordan hated Henning, just as you did. He recognised him, told me we had to do something about him.’

  ‘And you would tell the police that?’

  He watched her in silence.

  ‘I can’t believe you would do such a thing.’

  ‘I shall do whatever is necessary to protect this family. Yourself included.’

  ‘How many times do I have to tell you?’ A hail of furious spit. ‘I had nothing to do with it.’

  It would have to be the truth, then.

  ‘Elizabeth saw you leave the house. What she saw others may also have seen.’

  She stared at him, expression defiant. ‘All right. I did go out. It had nothing to do with Henning.’

  Deneys was losing patience with her nonsense. ‘Anneliese —’

  ‘You want to know why?’

  ‘You’re talking rubbish —’

  She smiled as a viper, if a viper could smile. ‘I was going to see Dominic.’

  Like an axe, striking him down. He pretended, to himself as well as to her, not to understand.

  ‘Why should you do that?’

  She laughed in his face. It was something he would always remember, how his sister paraded her shame with a laugh.

  ‘So I could fuck him.’

  The word brought blood to his face. Which was why she had used it, no doubt.

  Again she laughed. ‘That plain enough for you?’

  He came so close to striking her, yet did not, knowing she would welcome it. There was only one thing he could do.

  ‘I shall go and see him. You will stay in the house.’

  Even now she mocked. ‘What if I don’t want to stay in the house?’

  ‘Then I shall have you locked in your room.’

  That wiped the smirk from her face. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

  But he would and she could see it. Pleading replaced mockery. ‘You won’t kill him?’

  Deneys laughed bitterly. ‘You think that would help?’

  She made no attempt to follow when he rode over to Amsterdam. As well; had she forced him, he would have made good his threat.

  He found Riordan in the workshop working on a wagon, a handful of labourers about him. Deneys gave the men a look, and they edged towards the door. Not fast enough to please him.

  ‘Get rid of them.’

  Dominic jerked his head and they took off. Deneys was alone with the man who, by Anneliese’s own words, had dishonoured her. On his way to Amsterdam he had been thinking what to say; now his mind was as clear and hard as crystal.

  ‘Tell me why I should not let them hang you,’ he said.

  Dominic stared, thinking that his last hour had come. Tried to put a bold face on it, all the same.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  Deneys clenched his big fists. ‘Sarel Henning and his family were burnt to death in their store last night.’

  ‘I heard about it. Terrible thing to happen. Terrible.’ The words tumbled over each other in their hurry to get out of his mouth. ‘I’d no time for him, as well you know. All the same, an accident like that —’

  ‘Be silent.’

  Dominic saw there was no point in lying; Deneys clearly knew the truth of what had happened. Besides, they had ridden together; they owed each other more respect than that.

  ‘I didn’t know about the kids,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t care about the kids.’

  Which was the last thing he’d expected to hear. He almost said so; managed to keep his mouth shut for once.

  ‘I’m getting the police in,’ Deneys said.

  Dominic was shocked; where he came from they settled their own arguments, and it had not occurred to him that here things might be different.

  ‘Why would you be doing that?’

  ‘If they think I’m trying to cover things up —’

  Deneys would be under suspicion, too. Of course; he should have thought of it.

  ‘Who might have seen you?’ Deneys asked.

  ‘Miriam will have guessed, but she’ll say nothing.’

  ‘I’ll speak to her.’

  Dominic did not want Deneys Wolmarans scratching about in his affairs. ‘I’ll deal with her. It’s my neck.’

  Deneys turned on him savagely. ‘Not only yours.’

  They went to the cottage. Miriam wasn’t there but Dominic knew where to find her. She made a fuss but he was in no mood for her nonsense and in the end she came quietly enough. He pushed her ahead of him into the house. When she saw Deneys she tried to bolt, but Dominic was holding her too tightly for that. She stood there, shaking and moaning, tears everywhere.

  ‘Oh baas. Oh baas …’

  ‘Be silent,’ he said.

  The same words he had spoken to Dominic. They worked, too, as they had with him. ‘Look at me,’ he said.

  She stared up at him, mesmerised, as at a snake.

  ‘Are you listening?’

  She nodded, terrified, eager to please.

  ‘Be sure you are. I shall tell you once. The only way you can get out of this alive.’

  Dominic watched as Deneys instructed the girl quietly, not seeking to panic her; when he had finished, he made her say it back to him so that he was sure she knew what had to be said.

  ‘You spent the night here with the baas. He never went out and neither did you. You knew nothing of what had happened at the Henning place until someone told you this morning.’

  He scowled, trying to frighten her into remembering what she had to say. ‘Got it?
’

  ‘Oh yes, baas. I got it.’

  ‘I think she has,’ he said to Dominic, as he mounted his horse to return to Oudekraal. ‘The best we can do, in any case.’

  ‘I’m grateful.’

  Deneys stared coldly down at the Irishman. ‘If you think I’m doing this for you, you’re very much mistaken.’

  And cantered off, leaving Dominic with the girl like a sodden rag at his side.

  Keeping the police happy proved difficult. An inspector and three men were sent all the way from Cape Town, an ominous sign.

  Inspector Hardcastle sat at his ease in Oudekraal, booted legs crossed, knee cocked insolently. His lips were full and red beneath a black moustache as smooth as paint. A plaited leather crop dangled from one hand. Everything about him oozed power and the awareness of power and the contempt that that awareness brings. Christiaan and Deneys faced him. Christiaan, master of Oudekraal, and Deneys, his heir, both of them the scions of a family that had held this place for more than a hundred and fifty years. Inspector Hardcastle, recently arrived from England, the smell and arrogance of England upon him, had them standing before him like children before a master, and it was as a master that he spoke to them.

  ‘It is a question of loyalty,’ he said.

  Christiaan said, ‘You have no reason to doubt the loyalty of anyone in this valley.’

  ‘Don’t we?’ The red lips smiled, yet the black eyes remained as hard and expressionless as jet. Hardcastle was enjoying himself. ‘There is not a single Englishman in this valley. Two members of this household,’ — he did not honour Deneys with as much as a glance — ‘took up arms against the Crown —’

  ‘One,’ Deneys said.

  The black eyes sparked; Hardcastle was not a man to be interrupted. By defeated enemies, in particular.

  ‘Your sister’s husband —’

  ‘Was never a member of this household.’

  ‘He died in rebellion against his Queen.’

  ‘Some would question that.’

  ‘Some would question whether we have not been too tolerant of traitors.’ Hardcastle pointed his crop at them in turn. ‘My sources tell me there’s another man in the valley. An Irishman. Or Australian. Who also fought. No doubt about his treason, at least.’

  ‘The terms of the Peace,’ Christiaan said, ‘said there would be no talk of treason.’