by Wilbur Smith
Leon relayed the order to the kitchen tent, and minutes later Ishmael hurried in with a steaming porcelain coffee pot on a silver tray. He set it down, poured a cup of the brew and placed it in front of her. Then he stood to attention behind her chair, waiting to be dismissed.
The princess raised the cup to her lips and sipped. She pulled a face of utter disgust and hurled the cup with its contents at the far wall of the tent. ‘Do you think I am a sow that you place such pig swill before me?’ she screamed. She seized her riding whip from the table and leaped to her feet. ‘I will teach you to show me more respect, savage.’ She drew back her whip arm to strike at Ishmael’s face. He made no effort to protect himself but stared at her in terrified astonishment.
Behind her, Leon sprang from his chair and grabbed her wrist before she could launch the blow. He swung her around to face him. ‘Your Royal Highness, there are no savages among my people. If you want this safari to continue you should bear that firmly in mind.’ He held her easily until she stopped struggling. Then he went on, ‘You should go to your tent now and rest until dinner time. You are clearly overwrought by the excitement of the lion hunt.’
He released her and she stormed from the tent. She did not reappear when Ishmael rang the dinner gong and Leon dined alone. Before he retired he checked her tent surreptitiously and saw that her lantern was still burning. He went to his own quarters and filled in his game book. He was about to add a comment about the incident in the mess, but as he started to write he remembered Penrod’s caution. Instead of relieving his feelings he wrote, ‘Today the princess proved once more that she is a remarkable horsewoman and rifle shot. The cool manner in which she despatched the magnificent lion was extraordinary. The more I see of her, the more I admire her skills as a huntress.’
He blotted the page, put the game book back in his campaign bureau and locked the drawer. Then, for half an hour, he read the book his uncle Penrod had written on his experiences during the Boer War, entitled With Kitchener to Pretoria. When his eyelids drooped he set it aside, undressed and climbed under the mosquito net. He blew out the lantern and settled down contentedly to enjoy a good night’s rest.
He had barely closed his eyes before he was startled awake by the loud report of a pistol shot coming from the direction of the princess’s tent. His first thought was that some dangerous animal, lion or leopard, had broken into it. He fought his way out of the folds of the mosquito net and grabbed the big Holland, which stood fully loaded beside the bed, ready for just such an emergency. Clad only in his pyjama bottoms he ran to her tent. He saw that her lantern was still burning.
‘Your Royal Highness, are you all right?’ he called. When he received no reply he pulled open the canvas fly and ducked inside, rifle at the ready. Then he stopped in amazement. The Princess stood facing him in the middle of the floor. Her silver hair cascaded over her shoulders and down to her waist. She wore an almost transparent rose pink nightdress. The lantern was behind her so every line of her long lean body was revealed. Her feet were bare but surprisingly small and shapely. She held the riding whip in one hand and the 9mm Luger pistol in the other. The smell of burned nitro powder still hung in the air. Her face was blanched with fury and her eyes blazed like cut sapphires as she glowered at him. She lifted the Luger and fired a second shot through the canvas roof. Then she tossed the pistol on to the enormous bed that filled half the floor space.
‘You swine! Do you think you can treat me like rubbish in front of all your servants?’ she demanded, as she took a step towards him, swinging the whip menacingly. ‘You are no better than the creatures who work for you.’
‘Kindly control yourself, ma’am,’ he warned her.
‘How dare you address me thus? I am a royal princess of the House of Hohenzollern. And you are a commoner of a mongrel race.’ Her English was perfectly enunciated. She smiled icily. ‘Ah, so! Now at last you grow angry, serf! You want to fight back but you dare not. Your bowels are too soft. You do not have the courage. You hate me but you must suffer any humiliation I might choose to heap on you.’
She threw the whip at his feet. ‘Put away that rifle. You cannot use it to bolster your flabby manhood. Pick up the whip!’ Leon laid the Holland on the groundsheet below the entrance wall of the tent and scooped up the whip. He was quivering with rage. Her insults had raked him cruelly and brought him to the brink of abandoning all restraint. He was not certain what to do with the whip, but it felt good in his right hand.
‘M’bogo, is all well? We heard shots. Is there trouble?’ Manyoro called softly through the canvas wall, and the princess drew back a few paces.
‘Go, Manyoro, and take the others with you. None of you must return until I call you,’ Leon shouted back.
‘Ndio, Bwana.’
He heard their soft steps retreating, and the princess laughed in his face. ‘You should have asked them to help you. You do not have the courage to stand up to me on your own.’ She laughed. ‘Ja, now you grow angry again. That is good. You want to strike me but you dare not do so.’ She leaned towards him until their faces were only inches apart.
‘You have a whip in your hand. Why do you not use it? You hate me, but you are afraid of me.’ Suddenly and unexpectedly she spat in his face. Instinctively he lashed out at her and the whiplash snapped across her cheek. She reeled back, clutching the red weal, and wailed piteously, ‘Yes! I deserved that. You’re so masterful when you’re angry.’ She flung herself at his feet, and clung to his knees. He was trembling with disgust at himself and threw the whip across the tent.
‘I wish you good night, Your Royal Highness.’ He tried to turn away to the door but, with surprising strength, she tripped him. The instant he was off balance she landed on his back with all her weight and he fell across the bed, the princess on top of him. ‘Are you mad?’ he demanded.
‘Yes!’ she replied. ‘I am crazy for you.’
It was only an hour short of dawn when she allowed him to leave her tent. On the way to his own bed he noticed that the tents of her staff, her secretary and handmaidens, were in darkness - despite the cries of the princess, which had made the long night clamorous. It seemed that all of them must have become inured long ago to the princess’s peccadilloes.
The next morning at breakfast she acted as though nothing had changed. She snapped shrewishly at her handmaidens, was cruelly sarcastic to her secretary, and ignored Leon, not even acknowledging his polite greeting until she had finished her second cup of coffee. Then she stood up and announced, ‘Courtney, today I have a great desire to kill pigs.’
Leon had devised a series of small game drives, which gave the princess endless pleasure. He and the trackers would corner a sounder of warthog in a patch of thick scrub, then place the princess in a commanding position over the open ground beyond the thicket, and beat the pigs towards her. As soon as they broke from cover she would wade into them with the Mannlicher. She had trained Heidi, the prettier of her handmaidens, to reload the spare magazines. Each held six rounds, and the princess could change an empty one in an instant. She pressed the release catch and let it drop. Heidi caught it as it fell and reloaded it with her deft pink fingers, trained by relentless needlework since childhood. Then the princess would slip a fully charged magazine into the breech and keep shooting with barely a pause. Her rate of fire was almost as staggering as her accuracy. She could get off twelve shots in as many seconds. Often the warthog would not co-operate with the beaters: they might break from cover in an unexpected direction or double back through the line of beaters, not offering Her Royal Highness a single shot. When this happened she either flew into a coldly furious rage, railing at Leon and his team, or retreated into an icy silence from which she could only be drawn by the prospect of spilling more blood.
Late that afternoon Leon and his beaters, their ranks strengthened by the inclusion of Max Rosenthal, Ishmael and the skinners, managed to pull off their most spectacular battue of the safari. They drove twenty-three warthogs, boars, sows and piglets
, past the princess and her loader. She managed to kill twenty-two. The one that escaped was a lean old sow that changed direction just as she fired. The bullet flew wide and the sow doubled back between the princess’s legs when she was least expecting it, sending her flying. She sat up with her skirts above her knees and her hat over her eyes. ‘You dirty little cheat!’ she screamed, as the sow disappeared into the thicket, tail held high and straight as a pennant.
That evening at dinner she was almost genial and expansive, but not entirely so. She urged Leon to take another glass of the excellent Krug, and peeled a grape with her long white fingers before placing it between plump Heidi’s lips.
‘Eat, my darling! You did fine work today,’ she urged. But immediately afterwards she shrieked at her secretary and ordered him to leave the table for his ill manners in taking up a warthog chop in his fingers without excusing himself to her. When she had finished, she stood up without another word and stalked away to her tent.
It had been a long, hot, hard day and Leon was hoping for a full night’s sleep. He had just finished scrubbing his teeth and was buttoning his pyjama jacket when he heard the dreaded pistol shot.
‘For king and country!’ he grumbled, as he went to her tent, but he was intrigued to discover what entertainment the princess had planned for the evening.
The princess was stretched out languidly on the big bed. However, she was not alone. Her maid, Heidi, knelt in the middle of the floor. She was stark naked except for a miniature saddle on her back and a gold bit in her mouth. The tiny golden bells on the reins tinkled as she tossed her head and whinnied.
‘Your steed awaits you, Courtney,’ said the Princess. ‘Would you like to take her for a little trot?’
When she had exhausted her imagination, she sent Heidi away, but when Leon started to follow the girl the princess stopped him. ‘I did not say you could leave, Courtney.’ She moved over on the bed and patted the mattress beside her. ‘Stay awhile, and I will tell you interesting stories of the wicked and wonderful things that I do with my friends in Berlin.’
The goosedown mattress was wondrously soft and warm. Leon stretched out on it. At first he listened idly to her anecdotes. They seemed so far-fetched that they must be fairy-tales, the kind that the devils of hell must spin to their offspring. They were about witchcraft and Satan worship, obscene and sacrilegious rituals.
Then, with a creepy sensation that made the hair at the back of his neck rise, he began to realize that she was naming well-known personages from the upper reaches of the German aristocracy and military. What she was relating as amusing titbits of scandal was political cordite - and sweating, unstable cordite at that. What would Penrod make of such volatile information? Would he believe a single word of it?
The following evening, as he filled in his game book after a hard day’s hunting, he tried to recall every name the princess had mentioned. He started recording them on one of the back pages. There were sixteen on his list when he had completed it. He was about to lock away the book when he became uneasy.
Nobody, except Penrod, will ever read this, he thought. But the niggling doubt remained at the back of his mind as he prepared for bed. Finally he unlocked the bureau and took up his straight razor. He spread open the game book and carefully cut out the incriminating page. He held it over the lantern flame and let it burn to a black crisp. Then he crushed the ashes to dust, and climbed into bed to await the summons of his client. However, that night no pistol shot sounded before he fell asleep.
He woke with the dawn light creeping into his tent, feeling fresh and bright after a full seven hours’ sleep.
Before the company had finished breakfast Manyoro came to the mess tent and squatted outside the opening where only Leon could see him. As soon as they made eye contact Manyoro rose to his feet and slipped away. Leon excused himself and followed him. Manyoro was waiting for him in the servants’ compound.
‘What ails you, brother?’ Leon asked him.
‘Swalu has been bitten by a snake.’
Swalu was the head skinner. ‘Did he see what manner of snake it was?’ Leon asked, with consternation.
‘It was futa, M’bogo.’
‘Are you sure?’ Leon clutched at the faint hope that it had not been a black mamba, the most venomous serpent in Africa.
‘It came into his bed. After it had bitten him three times he killed it with his skinning knife. I have seen the snake. It is futa.’
‘Is Swalu yet dead?’
‘No, M’bogo. He waits for your blessing before he goes to his ancestors.’
‘Take me to him swiftly.’ They hurried to one of the grass huts in the compound and Leon stooped through the low doorway. Swalu lay on his sleeping mat. The other three skinners sat in a circle around him. The body of the snake lay close by. Its head had been hacked off, but a single glance confirmed Manyoro’s identification. It was a black mamba, not a particularly large specimen, only about four feet long, but its single bite would have contained sufficient venom to kill twenty men. Swalu had been bitten thrice.
Swalu lay on his back, naked except for his loincloth. His head was supported by a carved wooden pillow. There were two double fang punctures on his chest, and one on his cheek. His eyes were wide, but glazed and sightless. White froth bubbled out of his mouth and nostrils.
Leon knelt beside him and took his hand. It was cold, but the fingers twitched. ‘Go in peace, Swalu,’ Leon whispered in his ear. ‘Your ancestors wait to welcome you.’ Barely perceptibly Swalu’s cold fingers squeezed his hand. Then Swalu smiled faintly and died. Leon sat with him awhile, then leaned forward and closed his staring eyes.
‘Dig his grave deep,’ Leon told the other skinners. ‘Place rocks above him so that the hyena cannot reach him.’
‘Why would she wish to kill Swalu?’ Manyoro asked, of nobody in particular. The skinners stirred uneasily.
‘No more of that!’ Leon snapped as he stood up. ‘The futa was a futa and nothing else. It was not a witch’s thing!’
‘As the bwana says,’ Manyoro agreed, with studied politesse, but he did not look at Leon.
Leon stood up and went back to the mess tent. The princess was finishing a cup of coffee. She greeted him coldly. ‘Ah, so! You have made time to take care of your client’s needs. I am gratified.’
‘Forgive me, Your Royal Highness, a small matter demanded my attention. What can I do for you?’
‘I have lost one of my gold lockets. It contains a strand of my mother’s hair. It is of paramount importance to me.’
‘We will find it,’ he assured her. ‘When and where do you remember last having seen it?’
‘After the pig battue yesterday. I sat under that tree while I waited for you and your men to butcher the animals. I remember rubbing the locket between my fingers. I must have dropped it there.’
‘I will go to recover it immediately.’ Leon bowed to her. ‘I shall return before noon.’ She waved him away and he strode from the tent, calling to the syce to bring his horse.
When Leon and the trackers reached the area of the warthog drive they found a large and splendidly dappled tom leopard feeding on the remains of the carcasses. It raced away and disappeared into the tall grass. Leon and the trackers went to where the princess had sat and searched the entire surrounding area.
‘Hapana.’ Manyoro admitted defeat at last. ‘There is nothing.’ They returned to the camp.
The princess’s handmaidens were sitting in the mess tent, working on their embroidery frames, drinking coffee, whispering and giggling together.
‘Where is your mistress?’ Leon asked, and they exchanged a glance, giggled a little more and shrugged, but did not reply. He left them and went to his own tent, ducked in through the fly and found the princess sitting on his bed. His campaign bureau was open and the contents were spread around her. His game book was open on her lap.
‘Princess.’ He bowed stiffly. ‘I regret we were unable to find your jewel.’
She touched the lo
cket, which now hung at her throat. The single large diamond set in the lid glinted in the subdued light. ‘No matter,’ she said. ‘One of my maids found it under my bed. I must have dropped it there.’
‘I am relieved to hear that.’ He looked pointedly at the game book. ‘Is there anything in particular Your Royal Highness was looking for?’
‘No, nothing, really. I was bored in your absence so I was passing the time. I was diverted by your accounts of my prowess...’ she paused significantly and stared into his eyes ‘... in the chase.’ She closed the book and stood up. ‘So Courtney, how are you going to amuse me today? What is there for me to kill?’
‘I have found a formidable leopard for you.’
‘Take me to it!’
The leopard was in its prime, beautiful even in death. The fur on its back was burned gold alloyed with copper that shaded to fluffy cream under the belly. It was dappled with clusters of starkest black as though it had been touched repeatedly by the bunched fingertips of Diana, the goddess of the hunt. The whiskers were stiff and glassy white, the fangs and claws perfect. There was very little blood. The princess’s single shot had struck the heart squarely as it ran from one of the warthog carcasses. As they loaded it on to the back of a mule, Manyoro whispered to Loikot, just loudly enough for Leon to hear, ‘Will she send the mate of the futa tonight to visit one of us?’
Leon ignored him, pretending not to have heard. Manyoro followed the mule with a dramatically exaggerated limp.
That night at dinner the princess commanded Leon to open a bottle of 1903 Louis Roederer Cristal vintage champagne from her store. Twice during the meal she touched him intimately beneath the table, something she had never done before. Against his will his body responded to the skill of her fingers. When she felt it, she smiled and released him. Then she whispered something to Heidi that he could not catch, but both her handmaidens dissolved into unbridled fits of giggles.