Power of the Sword c-10

by Wilbur Smith

  I don't know when I will be back at Weltevreden, cheri.

  I have so many things to see to. We never recovered the diamonds, I'm afraid. There will have to be talks with the bank and I'll have to make new arrangements. No, of course not, silly boy! Of course we aren't poor, not yet, but a million pounds is a lot of money to lose, and then there will be the trial. Yes, he is an awful man, Shasa, but I don't know if they will hang him. Good Lord, no! They won't let us watch- TWice that first day of their separation she telephoned the residency in the forlorn hope that Blaine would answer, but it was a woman, either a secretary or Isabella, and each time she hung up without speaking.

  They met again at the administrator's office the next day.

  Blaine had called a press conference and there was a crowd of journalists and photographers packed into the ante-chamber.

  Once again Isabella was there in her wheelchair, with Blaine attentive and dutiful and unbearably handsome behind her.

  it took all Centaine's acting ability to shake hands in a friendly fashion, and then to joke lightly with the members of the press, even posing with Blaine for the photographs, and at no time to allow herself to moon at him. But afterwards as she drove herself back to the offices of the Courtney Mining and Finance Company, she had to pull off into a side road and sit quietly for a while to compose herself. There had been no opportunity for a single private exchange with Blaine.

  Abe was waiting for her the moment she walked in through the front doors and he followed her up the stairs and into her office. 'Centaine, you are late. They have been waiting in the boardroom for almost an hour. I can't say with any great display of patience either. Let them wait! she told him with bravado she did not feel. 'They had better get accustomed to it., The bank was her single largest creditor.

  The loss of the stones has frightened ten different shades of yellow out of them, Centaine. The bank directors had been demanding this meeting since the minute they heard she had arrived back in town.

  Where is Dr Twenty-man-jones? He is in there with them, pouring oil on the troubled waters. Abe laid a thick folder in front of her. 'Here are the schedules of the interest repayments. She glanced at them. She already knew them by heart. She could recite dates and amounts and rates. She had already prepared her strategy in detail but it was all dreamy and unreal, like a children's game.

  Anything new that I should know about before we go into the lions den? she asked.

  A long cable from Lloyds of London. They have repudiated the claim. No armed escort. Centaine nodded. We expected that. Will we take them to court? What do you advise? I am taking silk's opinion on that, but my own feeling is that it will be a waste of time and money. Anything else? De Beers, he said. A message from Sir Ernest Oppenheimer himself. Sniffing around already, is he? She sighed, trying to make herself care, but she thought of Blaine instead.

  She saw him bending over the wheelchair. She pushed the image from her mind and concentrated on what Abe was telling her.

  Sir Ernest is coming up from Kimberley. He will be arriving in Windhoek on Thursday. By some lucky chance, she smiled cynically.

  He requests a meeting at your earliest convenience. He has a nose like a hyena and the eyesight of a vulture, Centaine said. He can smell blood and pick out a dying animal from a hundred leagues. 'He is after the H'ani Mine, Centaine. He has been lusting after the H'ani for thirteen years. They are all after the H'ani, Abe. The bank, Sir Ernest, all the predators. By God, they'll have to fight me for it. They stood up and Abe asked, Are you ready? Centaine glanced at herself in the mirror over the mantel, touched her hair, wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, and suddenly it all clicked into crisp focus again. She was going into battle, her mind cleared, her wits sharp, she smiled a bright, confident, patronizing smile at herself.

  She was ready again.

  Let's go! she said, and as they marched into the long boardroom with its stinkwood table and the six huge magically lyrical Pierneef murals of the desert places decorating the walls, she lifted her chin and her eyes sparkled with assumed confidence.

  Do forgive me, gentlemen, she cried lightly, attacking immediately with the fall force of her personality and sexual allure and watching them wilt before it, but I assure you that you now have me, and my full attention, for as long as you want me. Deep inside her there was still that empty aching place which Blaine had filled for a few fleeting moments, but it was buttressed and fortified, she was impregnable once again, and as she took the leather upholstered chair at the head of the table she recited silently to herself like a mantra: 'The H'ani belongs to me, no one shall take it from me. Manfred De La Rey moved as swiftly through the darkness as the two grown men who led him northwards. The humiliation and pain of his father's dismissal had invoked within him a new defiance and steely determination. His father had called him a blubbering ninny.

  But I am a man now, he told himself, striding onwards after the dark figure of Swart Hendrick. I will never cry again. I am a man, and I will prove it every day I live. I will prove it to you, Pa. if you are watching over me still, you will never have to be ashamed of me again., Then he thought of his father alone and dying upon the hilltop, and his grief was overwhelming. Despite his resolution, his tears rose to swamp him and it took all his strength and his will to thrust them down.

  I am a man now. He fixed his mind upon it, and indeed he stood as tall as a man, almost as tall as Hendrick, and his long legs thrust him forward tirelessly. I will make you proud of me, Papa. I swear it. I swear it before God. He neither slackened his pace nor uttered a single complaint throughout that long night, and the sun was clear of the treetops when they reached the river.

  As soon as they had drunk Hendrick had them up again and moving northwards. They travelled in a series of loops, swinging away from the river during the day, hiding out in the dry mopani, and then turning back to slake their thirst and follow the riverbank all the hours of darkness.

  it was twelve of these nights of hard marching before Hendrick judged them clear of any pursuit.

  When will we cross the river, Hennie? Manfred asked.

  Never, Swart Hendrick told him.

  But it was my father's plan to cross to the Portuguese, to Alves De Santos the ivory trader, and then to travel to Luanda. That was your father's plan, Hendrick agreed. But your father is not with us. There is no place for a strange black man in the north. The Portuguese are even harder than the Germans or the English or the Boers. They will cheat us out of our diamonds, and beat us like dogs and send us to work on their labour gangs. No, Manie, we are going back, back to ovamboland and our brothers of the tribe, where everyone is a friend and we can live like men and not animals. The police will find us, Manie argued.

  No man saw us. Your father made certain of that. But they know you were my father's friend. They will come for you. Hendrick grinned. In Ovamboland my name is not Hendrick, and a thousand witnesses will swear I was always in my kraal and knew no white robber.

  To the white police all black men look the same, and I have a brother, a clever brother, who will know how and where to sell our diamonds for us. With these stones I can buy two hundred fine cattle and ten fat wives. No, Manie, we are going home. And what will happen to me, Hendrick? I cannot go with you to the kraals of the Ovambo. There is a place and a plan for you. Hendrick placed his arm around the white boy's shoulders, a paternal gesture.

  Your father has entrusted you to me. You do not have to fear. I will see you safe before I leave you. When you go, Hendrick, I will be alone. I will have nothing. And the black man could not answer him. He dropped his arm and spoke brusquely. It is time to march again; a long, hard road lies ahead of us.

  They left the river that night and turned back towards the south-west, skirting the terrible wastes of Bushmanland, keeping to the gentler, better watered lands, striking a more leisurely pace but still avoiding all habitation or human contact until, on the twentieth day after leaving Lothar De La Rey on his fatal hilltop, they followed a wood
ed ridge through well-pastured country and at last in the dusk looked down on a sprawling Ovambo village.

  The conical huts of thatch were built in haphazard clusters of four or five, each surrounded by an enclosure of woven grass matting, and these were grouped around the big central cattle kraal with its palisade of poles set into the earth. The smell of wood-smoke drifted up to them on pale blue wisps, and it mingled with the arnmoniacal scent of cattle dung and the floury smell of maize cakes baking on the coals. The cries of children's laughter and the voices of the women were melodious as wild bird calls. They picked out the gaudy flashes of the skirts of bright trade cotton as the women came up in single file from the water-hole with brimming clay pots balanced gracefully upon their heads.

  However, they made no move to approach the village.

  Instead they lay concealed upon the ridge, watching for strangers or any sign of the unusual, even the smallest hint of danger, Hendrick and Klein Boy quietly discussing each movement they spotted, each sound that carried up from the village until Manfred grew impatient.

  Why are we waiting, Hennie? Only the stupid young gemsbok rushes eagerly into the pitfall, Hendrick grunted. We will go down when we are certain. In the middle of the afternoon a small black urchin drove a herd of goats up the slope. He was stark naked except for the slingshot hanging around his neck, and Hendrick whistled softly.

  The child started and stared at their hiding-place fearfully.

  Then, when Hendrick whistled again, he crept towards them cautiously. Suddenly he crinkled into a grin too big and white for his grubby face and he rushed straight at Hendrick.

  Hendrick laughed and lifted him onto his hip, and the child gabbled at him in ecstatic excitement.

  This is my son,Hendrick told Manie, and then he questioned the child and listened to his piping replies with attention.

  There are no strangers in the village, he grunted. The police were here, asking for me, but they have gone. Still carrying the child, he led them down the hill towards the largest of the clusters of huts, and he stooped through the opening in the matting fence. The yard was bare and swept, the circle of huts facing inwards. There were four women working in a group, all of them wearing only loincloths of coloured trade cotton; they rocked on the balls of their feet, singing softly in chorus, stamping and crushing the raw dried maize in tall wooden mortars, their bare breasts jerking and quivering with each stroke of the long poles they wielded as pestles in time to their chant.

  one of the women shrieked when she saw Hendrick and rushed to him.

  She was an ancient crone, wrinkled and toothless, her pate covered with pure white wool. She dropped on her knees and hugged Hendrick's thick powerful legs, crooning with happiness.

  My mother, said Hendrick, and lifted her to her feet.

  Then they were surrounded by a swarm of delighted chattering women, but after a few minutes Hendrick quieted them and shooed them away.

  You are lucky, Manie, he grunted, with a sparkle in his eyes. 'You will be allowed only one wife. At the entrance to the farthest hut the only man in the kraal sat on a low carved stool. He had kept completely aloof from the screeching excitement, and now Hendrick crossed to him. He was much younger than Hendrick, with paler, almost honey-coloured skin. However, his muscle had been forged and tempered by hard physical labour, and there was a confidence about him, that of a man who has striven and succeeded. He had also an air of grace, and fine intelligent features with a Nilotic cast like those of a young pharaoh. Surprisingly he held a thick battered book in his lap, a copy of Macaulay's History of England.

  He greeted Hendrick with calm reserve, but their mutual affection was apparent to the white Boy watching them.

  This is my clever young brother; same father, but different mothers. He speaks Afrikaans and much better English than even I do, and he reads books. His English name is Moses. I see you, Moses. Manie felt awkward under the penetrating scrutiny of those dark eyes.

  I see you, little white boy. Do not call me "boy", Manie said hotly. I am not a boy The men exchanged glances and smiled. Moses is a bossboy on the H'ani Diamond Mine, Hendrick explained in placatory fashion, but the tall Ovambo shook his head and replied in the vernacular.

  No longer, Big Brother. I was sacked over a month ago. So I sit here in the sun drinking beer and reading and thinking, performing all those onerous tasks which are a man's duty. They laughed together, and Moses clapped his hands and called to the women imperiously.

  Bring beer, do you not see how my brother thirsts? For Hendrick it was good to divest himself of his western European clothing and dress again in the comfortable loincloth, to let himself drift back into the pace of village life.

  It was good to savour the tart effervescent sorghum beer, thick as gruel and cool in the clay pots, and to talk quietly of cattle and game, of crops and rain, of acquaintances and friends and relatives, of deaths and births and matings. It was a long leisurely time before they came circumspectly to the pressing issues which had to be discussed.

  Yes, Moses nodded. The police were here. Two dogs of the white men in Windhoek who should be ashamed to have betrayed their own tribe.

  They were not dressed in uniform, but still they had the stink of police upon them. They stayed many days, asking questions about a man called Swart Hendrick, smiling and friendly at first, then angry and threatening. They beat a few of the women, your mother, He saw Hendrick stiffen and his jaw clench and went on quickly, She is old but tough. She has been beaten before; our father was a strict man. Despite the blows, she did not know Swart Hendrick, nobody knew Swart Hendrick, and the police dogs went away. They will return, said Hendrick, and his half-brother nodded.

  Yes. The white men never forget. Five years, ten years.

  They hanged a man in Pretoria for killing a man twenty-five years before. They will return. They drank in turn from the pot of beer, sipping with relish and then passing the black pot from hand to hand.

  So there was talk of a great robbery of diamonds on the road from the H'ani, and they mentioned the name of the white devil with whom you have always ridden and fought, with whom you went out on the big green to catch fish. They say that you were with him at the taking of the diamonds, and that they will hang you on a rope when they find you. Hendrick chuckled and counterattacked. I also have heard stories of a fellow who is neither unknown nor unrelated to me. I have heard he is well versed in the disposal of stolen diamonds. That all the stones taken from the H'ani Mine pass through his hands. Now who could have told you such vile lies? Moses smiled faintly, and Hendrick gestured to Klein Boy. He brought a rawhide bag from its hiding place and placed it in front of his father. Hendrick opened the flap and, one at a time, lifted out the small packages of brown cartridge paper and laid them on the hard bare earth of the yard, fourteen in a row.

  His brother took up the first package and with his sheath knife split the wax seal. This is the mark of the H'ani Mine, he remarked, and carefully unfolded the paper. His expression did not change as he examined the contents. He placed the package aside and opened the next. He did not speak until he had opened all fourteen, and studied them.

  Then he said softly, Death. There is death here. A hundred deaths, a thousand deaths. Can you sell them for us? Hendrick asked, and Moses shook his head.

  I have never seen such stones, so many together. To try to sell these all at once would bring disaster and death upon us all. I must think upon this, but in the meantime we dare not keep these deadly stones in the kraal. The next morning in the dawn the three of them, Hendrick and Moses and Klein Boy, left the village together and climbed to the crest of the ridge where they found the leadwood tree that Hendrick remembered from the days when he roamed here as a naked herdboy. There was a hollow in the trunk, thirty feet above the ground, which had been the nesting hole of a pair of eagle owls.

  While the others stood guard, Klein Boy climbed to the nesting hole, carrying the rawhide bag.

  It was many days more before Moses gave his ca
refully considered summation.

  My brother, you and I are no longer of this life or this place. Already I have seen the first restlessness in you. I have seen you look out to the horizon with the expression of a man who longs to breast them. This life, so sweet at first, palls swiftly. The taste of beer goes flat on the tongue, and a man thinks of the brave things he has done, and the braver things which wait for him still somewhere out there. Hendrick smiled. You are a man of many skills, my brother, even that of looking into a man's head and reading his secret thoughts. We cannot stay here. The death stones are too dangerous to keep here, too dangerous to sell., Hendrick nodded. I am listening, he said.

  There are things which I have to do. Things which I believe are in my destiny, and of which I have never spoken, not even to you. 'Speak of them now. I speak of the art which the white men call politics and from which we as black men are excluded. Hendrick made a dismissive scornful gesture. You read too many books. There is no profit or reward in that business. Leave it to the white men. You are wrong, my brother. In that art lie treasures which make your little white stones seem paltry. No, do not scoff. Hendrick opened his mouth and then closed it slowly. He had not truly thought about this before, but the young man facing him had a powerful presence, a quivering intensity which stirred and excited him although he did not understand fully the implication of his words.

  My brother, I have decided. We will leave here. It is too small for us. Hendrick nodded. The thought did not disturb him. He had been a nomad all his life, and he was ready to move on again.

  Not only this kraal, my brother. We will leave this land. 'Leave this land! Hendrick started up and then sank back on his stool.

  ,We have to do this. This land is too small for us and the stones. Where will we go? His brother held up his hand. We will discuss that soon, but first you must rid us of this white child you have brought amongst us. He is even more dangerous than the stones. He will bring the white police down upon us even more swiftly.