Power of the Sword

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘Is it Sir Garry’s birthday again so soon? What happened to the year?’ he hedged.

  ‘Oh, Blaine, you did forget,’ she accused. ‘You can’t let me down. It will be a double celebration this year – the birthday, and Shasa’s selection for the Games. Promise you will be there, Blaine.’

  He hesitated an instant longer. He had already promised to take Isabella and the girls to her mother’s home at Franschoek for the weekend.

  ‘I promise, my sweeting, I’ll be there.’ She would never know what that promise would cost him, for Isabella would make him pay with exquisite refinements of cruelty for the broken pledge.

  It was the drug which had wrought this change in Isabella, he kept assuring himself. Beneath it she was still the same sweet and gentle person he had married. It was the unremitting pain and the drug which had ravaged her so, and he tried to maintain his respect and affection for her.

  He tried to remember her loveliness, as delicate and ethereal as the bloom on the petals of a new-blown rose, but that loveliness had long since disappeared and the petals of the rose had withered, and the smell of corruption was upon her. The sweet sickly smell of the drug exuded from every pore of her skin and the deep never-healing abscesses in her buttocks and at the base of her spine gave off an odour, faint but penetrating, that he had come to abhor. It made it difficult for him to be near her. The smell and the sight of her offended him but at the same time filled him with helpless pity and corrosive guilt at his infidelity to her.

  She had wasted to a skeleton. There was no flesh on the bones of those frail legs, they looked like the legs of one of the wading water birds, perfectly straight and shapeless, distorted only by the lumpy knots of her knees and the useless disproportionately large feet at their extremities.

  Her arms were just as thin, and the flesh had receded from the bones of her skull. Her lips had drawn back so that her teeth were prominent and exposed, and looked like those of a skull when she tried to smile or more often grimaced with anger, and her gums were pale, almost white.

  Her skin also was pale as ricepaper, and as dry and lifeless, so thin and translucent that the veins of her hands and forehead showed through it in a blue tracery and her eyes were the only living things in her face. They had a malicious glitter in them now, as though she resented him for his healthy lusty body when her own was destroyed and useless.

  ‘How can you, Blaine?’ she asked the question with the same accusing high-pitched whine that she had used countless times before. ‘You promised me, Blaine. God knows, I see little enough of you as it is. I’ve been looking forward to this weekend since—’ It went on and on, and he tried to shut it out, but he found himself thinking of her body again.

  He had not seen her unclothed in almost seven years, then only a month previously he had walked into her dressing-room believing that she was in the gazebo in the garden where she spent most of her day, but she was laid out naked on the white sheet of the massage table with her uniformed day nurse working over her and the shock must have shown clearly on his face as the two women looked up at him, startled.

  Every rib stood out of Isabella’s narrow chest and her breasts were empty pouches of skin that drooped under her armpits. The dark bush of her pubic hair was incongruous and obscene in the bony basin of her pelvis below which those sticklike legs protruded at a disjointed angle, so shrunken that the gap between her thighs was wider than the span of his hands.

  ‘Get out!’ she had screamed at him, and he had torn his eyes from her and hurried from the room. ‘Get out! Don’t ever come in here again!’

  Now her voice had the same ring to it. ‘Go to your picnic then, if you must. I know what a burden I am to you. I know you can’t bear to spend more than a few minutes in my presence—’

  He could not stand it any longer, and he held up a hand to quieten her. ‘You are right, my dear. It was selfish of me to even mention it. We won’t speak of it again. Of course I will go with you.’ He saw the vindictive sparkle of triumph in her eyes, and suddenly for the very first time he hated her, and before he could prevent himself, he thought, ‘Why doesn’t she die? It would be better for her and everybody about her if she were dead.’ Instantly he was appalled at himself and guilt washed over him so that he went to her quickly and stooped over the wheelchair, took that cold bony hand in both of his and squeezed it gently as he kissed her on the lips.

  ‘Forgive me, please,’ he whispered – but unbidden the image of her in her coffin appeared to him. She lay there, beautiful and serene as she had once been, her hair once again thick and lustrous auburn spread on the white satin pillow. He shut his eyes tightly to try and drive the image away, but it persisted even when she clung to his hand.

  ‘Oh, it will be such fun to be alone together for a while.’ She prevented him pulling away. ‘We have so few opportunities to talk any more. You spend so much time in Parliament, and when you aren’t about your cabinet duties you are out on the polo field.’

  ‘I see you every day, morning and evening.’

  ‘Oh, I know, but we never talk. We haven’t even discussed Berlin yet, and the time is running out.’

  ‘Is there much we should discuss, my dear?’ he asked carefully as he disengaged her grip and returned to his own chair on the opposite side of the gazebo.

  ‘Of course there is, Blaine.’ She smiled at him, exposing those pale gums behind shrunken lips. It gave her a cunning, almost ferrety, expression which he found disturbing. ‘There are so many arrangements to make. When is the team leaving?’

  ‘I may not travel with the team,’ he told her carefully. ‘I may leave a few weeks earlier and stop off in London and Paris for discussions with the British and French Governments before going on to Berlin.’

  ‘Oh Blaine, we must still make the arrangements for me to go with you,’ she said and he had to control his expression for she was watching him carefully.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It will need careful planning.’

  The idea was insupportable. How he longed to be with Centaine, to be able to get away from all pretence and fear of discovery. ‘We shall have to be very certain, my dear, that travelling will not seriously impair your health further.’

  ‘You don’t want me with you, do you?’ Her voice rose sharply.

  ‘Of course—’

  ‘It’s a wonderful chance for you to get away from me, to escape from me.’

  ‘Isabella, please calm yourself. You will do yourself—’

  ‘Don’t pretend you care about me – I’ve been a burden on you for nine years. I’m sure you wish me dead.’

  ‘Isabella—’ He was shaken by the accuracy of the accusation.

  ‘Oh, don’t play the saint with me, Blaine Malcomess. I may be locked into this chair, but I see things and I hear things.’

  ‘I don’t wish to continue like this.’ He stood up. ‘We’ll talk again once you have control—’

  ‘Sit down!’ she screeched at him. ‘I won’t have you running off to your French whore as you always do!’ He flinched as though she had struck him in the face, and she went on gloatingly, ‘There, I’ve said it at last. Oh God, you’ll never know how close I’ve been to saying it so many times. You’ll never know how good it feels to say it – whore! Doxy!’

  ‘If you continue, I will leave,’ he warned.

  ‘Harlot,’ she said with relish. ‘Slut! Jade!’

  He turned on his heel and went down the steps of the gazebo two at a time.

  ‘Blaine,’ she screamed after him. ‘Come back!’

  He continued walking up towards the house, and her tone changed.

  ‘Blaine, I’m sorry. I apologize. Please come back. Please!’ and he could not refuse her. Reluctantly he turned back, and found that his hands were shaking with shock and anger. He thrust them into his pockets and stopped at the top of the steps.

  ‘All right,’ he said softly. ‘It’s true about Centaine Courtney. I love her. But it is also true that we have done everything in our power to
prevent you being hurt or humiliated. So don’t ever talk like that about her again. If she had allowed it, I would have gone to her years ago – and left you. May God forgive me, but I would have walked out on you! Only she kept me here, only she still keeps me here.’

  She was chastened and shaken as he was, or so he thought, until she raised her eyes again and he saw that she had feigned repentance merely to lure him back within range of her tongue. ‘I know I cannot go to Berlin with you, Blaine. I have already asked Dr Joseph and he has forbidden it. He says the journey would kill me. However, I know what you are planning, you and that woman. I know you have used all your influence to get Shasa Courtney into the team merely to give her an excuse to be there. I know you are planning a wonderful illicit interlude, and I can’t stop you going—’

  He spread his hands in angry resignation. It was useless to protest and her voice rose again into that harrowing shrillness.

  ‘Well, let me tell you this – it isn’t going to be the honeymoon that the two of you think it is. I’ve told the girls, both Tara and Mathilda Janine, that they are going with you. I’ve told them already, and they are beside themselves with excitement. It will be up to you. Either you are heartless enough to disappoint your own daughters, or you will be playing baby-sitter and not Romeo in Berlin.’ Her voice rose even higher, and the glitter of her eyes was vindictive. ‘And I warn you! If you refuse to take them with you, Blaine Malcomess, I will tell them why. I call on God as my witness, I will tell them that their beloved daddy is a cheat and a liar, a libertine and a whoremaster!’

  Although everybody, from the most knowledgeable sports writers to the lowliest fight fan, had confidently expected Manfred De La Rey to be on the boxing squad to go to Berlin, when the official announcement of the team was made and he was indeed the light heavyweight selection, but in addition Roelf Stander was the heavyweight choice and the Reverend Tromp Bierman was given the duties of official team coach, the entire town and university body of Stellenbosch erupted in spontaneous expressions of pride and delight.

  There was a civic reception and parade through the streets of the town, while at a mass meeting of the Ossewa Brandwag the commanding general held them up as an example of Afrikaner manhood and extolled their dedication and fighting skills.

  ‘It is young men such as these who will lead our nation to its rightful place in this land,’ he told them, and while the massed uniformed ranks gave the OB salute, the clenched right fist held across the chest, Manfred and Roelf had the badges of officer rank pinned to their tunics.

  ‘For God and the Volk,’ their high commander exhorted them, and Manfred had never before experienced such pride, such determination to honour the trust that had been placed in him.

  Over the weeks that followed, the excitement continued to build up. There were fittings at the official team tailor for the gold and green blazers, white slacks and broad-brimmed Panama hats which made up the uniform in which they would march into the Olympic stadium. There were endless team briefings, covering every subject from German etiquette and polite behaviour to travel arrangements and profiles of the opponents whom they were likely to encounter on the way to the final.

  Both Manfred and Roelf were interviewed by journalists from every magazine and newspaper in the country, and a half an hour on the nationally broadcast radio programme ‘This is your Land’ was devoted entirely to them.

  Only one person seemed unaffected by the excitement.

  ‘The weeks you are away will seem longer than my whole life,’ Sarah told Manfred.

  ‘Don’t be a silly little duck,’ he laughed at her. ‘It will all be over before you know it, and I’ll be back with a gold medal on my chest.’

  ‘Don’t call me a silly little duck,’ she flashed at him, ‘not ever again!’

  He stopped laughing. ‘You are right,’ he said. ‘You are worth more than that.’

  Sarah had taken on herself the duties of timekeeper and second for Manfred’s and Roelf’s evening training runs. On flying bare feet she took short cuts up the hillside and through the forest to wait for them at prearranged spots with her stopwatch, borrowed from Uncle Tromp, a wet sponge and a flask of cold freshly squeezed orange juice to refresh them. As soon as they had sponged down, drunk and set off again she would race away, cutting over the crest of the hill or through the valley to wait for them at the next stage.

  Two weeks before the sailing date, Roelf was forced to miss one of the evening runs when he was obliged to chair an extraordinary meeting of the students’ representative council and Manfred made the run alone.

  He took the long steep side of the Hartenbosch mountain at a full run, going with all his strength, flying up the slope with long elastic strides, lifting his gaze to the crest. Sarah was waiting for him there, and the low autumn sun was behind her, crowning her with gold and striking through the thin stuff of her skirts so that her legs were silhouetted and he could see every line and lovely angle of her body almost as though she were unclothed.

  He pulled up involuntarily in full stride and stood staring up at her, his chest heaving and his heart pounding, not only from his exertions.

  ‘She is beautiful.’ He was amazed that he had never seen it before, and he walked up the last angle of the slope slowly, staring at her, confused by this sudden realization and by the hollow hunger, the need that he had kept suppressed, whose existence he had never admitted to himself but which now suddenly threatened to consume him.

  She came to meet him the last few paces; barefoot she was so much smaller than he was and that seemed only to increase this terrible hunger. She held out the sponge to him, but when he made no move to take it from her, she stepped up close to him and reached up to wipe the sweat from his neck and shoulders.

  ‘I dreamed last night we were back in the camp,’ she whispered as she worked, swabbing his upper arms. ‘Do you remember the camp beside the railway tracks, Manie?’

  He nodded. His throat had closed, and he could not reply.

  ‘I saw my ma lying in the grave. It was a terrible thing. Then it changed, Manie, it wasn’t my ma any more, it was you. You were so pale and handsome, but I knew I had lost you – and I was so eaten by my own sorrow that I wanted to die also and be with you for ever.’

  He reached out and took her in his arms and she sobbed and fell against him. Her body felt so cool and soft and compliant and her voice shook.

  ‘Oh, Manie. I don’t want to lose you. Please come back to me – without you I don’t want to go on living.’

  ‘I love you, Sarie.’ His voice was hoarse and she jerked in his arms.

  ‘Oh Manie.’

  ‘I never realized it before,’ he croaked.

  ‘Oh Manie, I have always realized it. I loved you from the first minute of the first day, and I will love you until the last,’ she cried, and turned her mouth up to his. ‘Kiss me, Manie, kiss me or I will die.’

  The touch of her mouth ignited something within him, and the fire and the smoke of it obscured reason and reality. Then they were under the pines beside the path, lying on a bed of soft needles, and the sultry autumn air was soft as silk upon his bare back, but not as soft as her body beneath his nor as hot as the liquid depths in which she engulfed him.

  He did not understand what had happened until she cried out, in pain and intense joy, but by then it was too late and he found himself answering her cry, no longer able to draw back, carried along on a swirling tidal wave to a place he had never been before – nor had he even dreamed of its existence.

  Reality and consciousness returned slowly from far away, and he drew away from her and stared at her in horror, pulling on his own clothing.

  ‘What we have done is wicked beyond forgiveness—’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head vehemently and, still naked, reached for him. ‘No, Manie, it’s not wicked when two people love each other. How can it be wicked? It’s a thing from God, beautiful and holy.’

  The night before Manfred sailed for Europe with Uncle T
romp and the team, he slept in his old room at the Manse. When the old house was dark and quiet, Sarah crept down the passage. He had left his door unlatched. Nor did he protest as she let her nightdress fall and crept under the sheet beside him.

  She stayed until the doves in the oaks outside the stoep began fluttering and softly cooing. Then she kissed him one last time and whispered:

  ‘Now we belong to each other – for ever and always.’

  It was only half an hour before sailing and Centaine’s stateroom was so crowded that the stewards were forced to pass the champagne glasses over the heads of the guests, and it required a major expedition to get from one side of the cabin to the other. The only one of Centaine’s friends who was not present was Blaine Malcomess. They had decided not to advertise the fact that they were sailing on the same mail ship, and had agreed only to meet once they were clear of the harbour.

  Both Abe Abrahams, bursting with pride, his arm hooked through David’s, and Dr Twentyman-Jones, tall and lugubrious as a marabou stork, were in the party around Centaine. They had come all the way down from Windhoek to see her off. Naturally, Sir Garry and Anna were there, as were the Ou Baas General Smuts, and his little fluffy-haired wife with her steel-rimmed spectacles making her look like an advertisement for Mazzawattee tea.

  In the far corner Shasa was surrounded by a bevy of young ladies, and was in the middle of a story that was being followed with shrieks of amusement and gasps of incredulous wonder, when suddenly he lost track of what he had been saying and stared out of the porthole beside him. Through it he had a view out onto the boat deck, and what had caught his attention was a glimpse of a girl’s head as she passed.

  He couldn’t see her face, just the side and back of her head, a cascade of auburn curls set on a long slim neck, and a little ear sticking out of the curls at a jaunty angle. It was a fleeting glimpse only, but something about the angle and carriage of that head made him lose immediate interest in the females in front of him.

  He went up on his toes, spilling champagne, and stuck his head through the porthole, but the girl had passed by and he only had a back view of her. She had an impossibly narrow waist but a cheeky little rump that switched from side to side and made her skirts swing rhythmically as she walked. Her calves were perfectly turned and her ankles slim and neat. She went round the corner with a last twitch of her bottom, leaving Shasa determined that he must get a look at her face.