Power of the Sword c-10

by Wilbur Smith

  Oh, Manie, you are going so far away. She tried to hide her tears in the angle of his neck. We have never been parted by such distance. Come on, monkey. People are looking at you, he chided her gently. Give me a kiss and I'll bring you back a present. I don't want a present. I want you, she sniffed, and then lifted her sweet face and placed her mouth over his. Her mouth seemed to melt in its own heat, and it was moist and sweet as a ripe apple.

  The contact lasted only seconds, but Manfred was so intensely aware that she might have been naked in his arms and he was shaken with guilt and self-disgust at his body's swift betrayal and at the evil that seemed to smoke in his blood and burst like a sky rocket in his brain. He pulled away from her roughly, and her expression was bewildered and hurt, her arms still raised as he scrambled up the steps onto the balcony of the coach and joined the noisy banter and horseplay of his team mates.

  As the train pulled out of the station she was standing a little apart from the other girls, and when they all turned and trooped away down the platform, Sarah lingered, staring after the train as it gathered speed and ran towards the mountains.

  At last a bend in the tracks carried him out of sight of her, and as Manfred drew his head back into the carriage he saw that Roelf Stander was watching him quizzically and now grinned and opened his mouth to speak, but Manfred flared at him furiously and guiltily: Hou jou bek! Hold your jaw, man! The Inter-Varsity Championships were held over ten days with five heats in each weight division; thus each contestant would fight every second day.

  Manfred was seeded number two in his division, which meant that he would probably meet the holder of the champion's belt in the final round. The reigning champion was an engineering student who had just graduated from the Witwatersrand University. He was unbeaten in his career and had announced his intention of turning professional immediately after the Olympics for which he was considered a certain choice.

  The Lion of the Kalahari meets the sternest test of his meteoric career. Can he take the same sort of punishment that he deals out? This is the question everyone is asking, and which Ian Rushmore will answer for us if all goes as expected,wrote the boxing correspondent of the Rand Daily Mail. There does not seem to be any contestant in the division who will be able to prevent De La Rey and Rushmore meeting on Saturday night, 20 December 1935. It will be Rushmore's Right hand, made of granite and gelignite, against De La Rey's swarming battering two-handed style, and your correspondent would not miss the meeting for all the gold that lies beneath the streets of Johannesburg. Manfred won his first two bouts with insulting ease. His opponents, demoralized by his reputation, both dropped in the second round under the barrage of slashing red gloves, and the Wednesday was a rest day for Manfred.

  He left the residence on the host university's campus before any of the others were up, missing breakfast to be in time for the early morning train from Johannesburg's Central Station. it was less than an hour's journey across the open grasslands.

  He ate a frugal breakfast in the buffet of the Pretoria station and then started out on foot with a leaden reluctance in his gait.

  Pretoria Central Prison was an ugly square building and the interior was as forbidding and depressing. Here all executions were carried out, and life imprisonments served.

  Manfred went into the visitors entrance, spoke to the unsmiling senior warder at the enquiries desk and filled in an application form.

  He hesitated over the question, Relationship to prisoner', then boldly wrote Son.

  When he returned the form to the warder, the man read it through slowly and then looked up at him, studying him gravely and impersonally. He has not had a visitor, not one in all these years, he said.

  I could not come before. Manfred tried to excuse himself.

  There were reasons. They all say that. Then the warder's expression altered subtly. You are the boxer, aren't you? That's right, Manfred nodded, and then on an impulse he gave the secret recognition signal of the OB and the man's eyes flicked with surprise then dropped to the form in front of him.

  Very well, then. Have a seat. I'll call you when he is ready, he said, and under cover of the counter top he gave Manfred the counter signal of the Ossewa Brandwag.

  Kill the rooinek bastard on Saturday night, he whispered, and turned away. Manfred was amazed but elated to have proof of how widely the brotherhood had spread its arms to gather in the Volk.

  Ten minutes later the warder led Manfred through to a green-painted cell with high barred windows, furnished only with a plain deal table and three straight-backed chairs.

  There was an old man sitting on one of the chairs, but he was a stranger and Manfred looked beyond him expectantly.

  The stranger stood up slowly. He was bowed with age and hard work, his skin wrinkled and folded and spotted by the sun. His hair was thin and white as raw cotton, wisped over a scalp that was speckled like a plover's egg. His thin scraggy neck stuck out of the coarse calico prison uniform like a turtle's from the opening of its carapace, and his eyes were colourless, faded and red-rimmed and swimming with tears that gathered like dew on his lashes.

  Papa? Manfred asked with disbelief as he saw the missing arm, and the old man began to weep silently. His shoulders shook and the tears broke over the reddened rims of his eyelids and shmed down his cheeks.

  Papa" said Manfred, and outrage rose to choke him. What have they done to you? He rushed forward to embrace his father, trying to hide his face from the warder, trying to protect him, to cover his weakness and tears.

  Papa! Papa! he repeated helplessly, patting the thin shoulders under the rough uniform, and he turned his head and looked back at the warder in silent appeal.

  I cannot leave you alone. The man understood, but shook his head.

  it is the rule, more than my job is worth., Please, Manfred whispered.

  Do you give me your word, as a brother, that you will not try to help him escape? My word as a brother! Manfred answered.

  Ten minutes, said the warder. I can give you no more. He turned away, locking the green steel door as he left.

  4 Papa. Manfred led the trembling old man back to the chair and knelt beside him.

  Lothar De La Rey wiped his wet cheeks with his open palm and tried to smile, but it wavered and his voice quivered. Look at me, blubbering like an old woman. It was just the shock of seeing you again. I'm all right now. I'm fine.

  Let me look at you, let me just look at you for a moment. He drew back and stared into Manfred's face intently.

  What a man you have become, strong and well favoured, just like I was at your age. He traced Manfred's features with his fingertips. His hand was cold and the skin was rough as sharkskin.

  I have read about you, my son. They allow us to have the newspapers. I have cut out everything about you and I keep them under my mattress. I'm proud, so proud. We all are, everybody in this place, even the narks. Papa! How are they treating you? Manfred cut him short.

  Fine, Manie, just fine. Lothar looked down and his lips sagged with despair. It's just that, for ever is such a long time. So long, Manie, so very long and sometimes I think about the desert, about the horizons that turn to distant smoke and the high blue sky. He broke off and tried to smile. And I think about you, every day, not a day that I don't pray to God "Look after my son." No, Papa, please, Manfred pleaded. Don't! You will have me weeping too. He pushed himself off his knees and pulled the other chair close to his father's. I've thought about you also, Papa, everyday. I wanted to write to you. I spoke to Uncle Tromp, but he said it was best if, Lothar seized his hand to silence him. Ja, Manie, it was best. Tromp Bierman is a wise man; he knows best. He smiled more convincingly. 'How tall you have grown, and the colour of your hair, just like mine used to be. You will be all right, I know. What have you decided to do with your life? Tell me quickly. We have so little time. I am studying law at Stellenbosch. I passed third in the first year. That is wonderful, my son, and afterwards? I am not sure, Papa, but I think I must fight for our nation.

>   I think I have been called to the fight for justice for our people. Politics? Lothar asked, and when Manfred nodded, A hard road, full of turns and twists. I always preferred the straight road, with a horse under me and a rifle in my hand. Then he chuckled sardonically. And look where that road has led me. I will fight too, Papa. When the time is right, on a battleground of my own choosing., Oh, my son. History is so cruel to our people. Sometimes I think with despair that we are doomed always to be the underdogs. 'You are wrong! Manfred's expression hardened and his voice crackled. 'Our day will come, is already dawning. We will not be the underdogs for much longer. He wanted to tell his father, but then he remembered his blood oath and he was silent.

  Manie. His father leaned closer, glancing around the cell like a conspirator before he tugged at Manfred's sleeve. The diamonds, have you still got your diamonds? he demanded, and immediately saw the answer in Manfred's face.

  What happened to them? Lothar's distress was hard to watch. 'They were my legacy to you, all I could leave you.

  Where are they? Uncle Tromp, he found them years ago. He said they were evil, the coin of the devil, and he made me destroy them. 'Destroy them? Lothar gaped at him.

  Break them on an anvil with a sledgehammer. Crush them to powder, all of them. Manfred watched his father's old fierce spirit flare up.

  Lothar leapt to his feet and raged around the cell. Tromp Bierman, if I could get my hand on you! You were always a 1stubborn sanctimonious hypocrite, He broke off and came back to his son.

  Manie, there are the others. Do you remember, the kopjeZ the hill in the desert? I left them there for you. You must

  go back.

  Manfred turned his head away. Over the years he had tried to drive the memory from his mind. It was evil, the memory of great evil, associated with terror and guilt and grief. He had tried to close his mind to that time in his life. It was long ago, and he had almost succeeded, but now at his father's words he tasted again the reek of gangrene in the back of his throat and saw the package of treasure slide down into the cleft in the granite.

  I have forgotten the way back, Papa. I could never find the way back. Lothar was pulling at his arm. Hendrick! he babbled.

  Swart Hendrick! He knows, he can lead you. Hendrick. Manfred blinked. A name, half-forgotten, a fragment from his past; then suddenly and clearly an image of that great bald head, that black cannonball of a head, sprang into his mind. Hendrick, he repeated. 'But he is gone. I don't know where. Gone back into the desert. I could never find him. No! No! Manie, Hendrick is here, somewhere close here on the Witwatersrand. He is a big man now, a chief among his own people. How do you know, Papa? The grapevine! In here we hear everything. They come in from the outside, bringing news and messages. We hear everything. Hendrick sent word to me. He had not forgotten me. We were comrades. We rode ten thousand miles together and fought a hundred battles. He sent word to me, to set a place where I could find him if ever I escaped these damned walls. Lothar leaned forward and seized his son's head, pulling it close, placing his lips to his ear, whispering urgently and then drawing back. You must go and find him there.

  He will lead you back to the granite hill below the Okavango river - and, oh sweet God, how I wish I could be there to ride into the desert with you again. There was the clink of keys in the lock and Lothar shook his son's arm desperately. Promise me you will go, Manie. Papa, the stones are evil. Promise me, my own son, promise me that I have not endured these captive years for nothing. Promise me you will go back for the stones. I promise, Papa, Manfred whispered, as the warder stepped into the cell.

  Time is up. I'm sorry. Can I come and see my father again tomorrow? The warder shook his head. Only one visit a month. I'll write to you, Papa. He turned back to embrace Lothar.

  I'll write to you every week from now on. But Lothar nodded expressionlessly; his face had closed and his eyes were veiled. Ja!

  he nodded. You write to me sometime, he agreed, and shuffled out of the cell.

  Manfred stared at the closed green door until the warder touched his shoulder: Come along. Manfred followed him to the visitors entrance in a tangle of emotions. only when he stepped out of the gates into the sunlight and looked up at the towering blue African sky of which his father had spoken so yearningly did one emotion emerge to swamp all the others.

  It was rage, blind hopeless rage, and it grew stronger over the days that followed, seeming to climax as he marched down the aisle between the rows of screaming cheering spectators towards the brilliantly lighted ring of rope and canvas, dressed in shimmering silks with the crimson leather on his fists and bloody murder in his heart.

  Centaine woke long before Blaine did; she grudged every second they wasted in sleep. It was still dark outside for the cottage was close under the precipice of the high tabletopped mountain and screened from dawn's first glow by its bulk, though the birds in the tiny walled garden were already squeaking and chirping sleepily. She had ordered tacoma and honeysuckle to be trained over the stone walls to attract them, and on her orders the feeding-boxes were replenished every day by the gardener.

  She had taken months to find the perfect cottage. It had to be discreetly enclosed, with covered parking for her Daimler and Blaine's new Bentley, both vehicles that attracted immediate attention. It had to be within ten minutes walk of Parliament and Blaine's office in the wing of the imposing Herbert Baker building reserved for cabinet ministers. it had to have a view of the mountain, and must be set in one of the tiny lanes of an unfashionable suburb where none of their friends or business associates or fellow parliamentarians or enemies or members of the press were ever likely to stray.

  But above all it had to have that special feel.

  When at last she walked into it she did not even see the stained and faded wallpaper or the threadbare carpets on the floor. She stood in the central room and smiled softly.

  Happy people have lived here. Yes, this is the one. I'll take it. She had registered the title deeds in one of her holding companies, but trusted no architect nor decorator with its renovation. She planned and executed the reconstruction entirely herself.

  It's got to be the most perfect love nest ever built., She set her usual unattainable standard for herself and consulted with the builder and his carpenters and plumbers and painters every single morning while the work was in hand.

  They tore down the walls between the four tiny bedrooms and fashioned them into a single boudoir with french windows and shutters opening onto the enclosed garden with its high wall of yellow Table Mountain sandstone and the view of the grey mountain cliff beyond.

  She built separate bathrooms for Blaine and herself, his finished in ruby-veined cream Italian marble with gold dolphin taps and fittings, hers like a Bedouin tent draped in rose silk.

  The bed was a museum piece, Italian Renaissance workmanship inlaid with ivory and gold leaf. We can always play polo on it in the off-season, Blaine remarked when first he saw it, and she placed her magnificent Turner, all sunlight and golden sea, so that it was in full view from the bed.

  She hung the Bonnard in the dining-room and lit it with a chandelier which was a shimmering inverted Christmas tree of crystal, and placed the choicest pieces of her collection of Queen Anne and Louis Quatorze silver on the sideboard.

  She staffed the cottage with four permanent servants, cluding a valet for Blaine and a full-time gardener. The In chef was a Malay who conjured up the most heavenly pilaffs and boboties and rest that Blaine, who had a spicy palate and was a connoisseur of curries, had ever tasted.

  A flowerseller from her pitch outside the Groote Kerk near the parliament buildings had a contract to deliver huge bunches of yellow roses to the cottage each day, and Centaine stocked the small wine cellar with the noblest vintages from Weltevreden's own cavernous cellars and installed, at enormous expense, an electric walk-in cold room in the pantries to keep the hams and cheeses, the potted caviars and smoked Scotch salmon and other such necessities of life in prime condition.

 
; Yet with all her loving attention to detail and lavish planning, they were lucky if they could spend a single night there in a month, although there were other stolen hours, garnered like diamonds, and hoarded by Centaine as though she were the stingiest of misers: a private luncheon when parliament recessed or a midnight interlude after the house had sat late; the occasional afternoon, and, oh sweet heavens, what afternoons, when his wife, Isabella, believed he was at polo practice or at a cabinet meeting.

  Now Centaine rolled her head carefully on the lace pillow and looked at him. The dawn light was silvery through the shutters and his features seemed carved in ivory. She thought that he looked like a sleeping Roman Caesar, with that imperial nose and wide commanding mouth.

  In all but the ears, she thought, and stifled a giggle.

  Strange how after three years his presence could make her still feel like a girl. She rose quietly, careful not to rock the mattress and disturb him, picked up her wrap from the couch and slipped through to her bathroom.

  Swiftly she brushed her hair into thick dark plumes checking for grey and then, relieved, went on to clean her teeth and wash her eyes with the little blue glass bath of lotion until the whites were clear and sparkling. Then she creamed her face and wiped away the excess. Blaine liked her skin free of cosmetics. As she used her bidet she smiled again at Blaine's mock amazement when he had first seen it.

  Marvellous! he had cried. A horse trough in the bathroom, how jolly useful! Sometimes he was so romantic he was almost French. She laughed with anticipation, snatched a fresh silk wrap from the wardrobe and ran through to the kitchen. The servants were all astir, bubbling with excitement because the master was here and they all adored Blaine.

  Did you get them, Hadji? Centaine demanded, using the title of respect for one who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and the Malay chef grinned like a butter-yellow gnome under his tasselled red fez and proudly displayed the pair of thick juicy kippers.