by Wilbur Smith
Tom crashed into him from behind. He was a strapping lad for his age, not much shorter in height or less in weight than his older brother, and he was strengthened by his outrage and his hatred, by the injustice and cruelty of what he had watched, and by the memory of a thousand hurts and insults he and his brothers had suffered at Black Billy’s hands. And he had the advantage this time of complete surprise.
He struck William in the small of the back, just as he was balanced on one leg, in the act of kicking the girl into a better position to receive the next blow from the riding-crop. He was flung forward with such force that he tripped over his victim and went sprawling, rolled over once and crashed head first into the bole of one of the apple trees. He lay there stunned.
Tom bent down and yanked the trembling, blubbering girl to her feet. ‘Run!’ he told her. ‘As fast as you can!’ He gave her a push. Mary needed no urging. She went off down the path, still weeping and howling, and Tom turned back to face the wrath of his brother.
William sat up in the grass. He was not yet certain who or what had knocked him down. He touched his scalp, pushing two fingers into the dark wavy hair, and brought them out smeared with blood from the small cut where he had hit the tree. Then he shook his head and stood up. He looked at Tom. ‘You!’ he said softly, almost pleasantly. ‘I should have known you’d be at the bottom of this devilry.’
‘She’s done nothing.’ Tom was still too buoyed up by his anger to regret his impulse. ‘You might have wounded her sorely.’
‘Yes,’ William agreed. ‘That was my purpose. She deserved it well enough.’ He stooped and picked up the crop. ‘But now she’s gone, it’s you I shall wound sorely, and take the deepest pleasure in doing my duty.’
He cut left and right with the weighted crop, which made a menacing hum in the air. ‘Now tell me, little brother, what it was that you and that little whore were playing at? Was it something foul and dirty that our father should know about? Tell me now, before I have to whip it out of you.’
‘I’ll see you in hell first.’ This was one of their father’s favourite expressions, but despite his defiance Tom was bitterly regretting the chivalrous impulse that had propelled him into this confrontation. Now that he had lost the element of surprise he knew himself hopelessly outmatched. His elder brother’s skills were not confined to his books. At Cambridge he had wrestled for King’s College, and all-in wrestling was a sport without rules, except that the use of deadly weapons was frowned upon. At the fair in Exmouth last spring Tom had seen William throw and pin the local champion, a great ox of a man, after kicking and punching him half out of his mind.
He considered turning and running. But he knew that on those long legs, even wearing riding-boots, William would catch him within a hundred yards. There was nothing for it. He took his stance and raised both fists, the way Big Daniel had taught him.
William laughed in his face. ‘By Peter and all the saints, the little cockerel wants to make a fight of it.’ He dropped the riding-crop, but let his hands hang at his sides as he moved forward lazily. Suddenly he shot out his right fist. He had given no warning of the blow, and Tom only just managed to jump back. However, the fist grazed his lip, which swelled and immediately leaked the salty slick taste of blood into his mouth. His teeth were stained as though he had been eating raspberries.
‘There we go! The first drop of claret spilt. There will be more, I warrant you, a cask of it before we’re finished with this business.’ William feinted with the right again, and when Tom ducked away he hooked at his head with the other hand. Tom blocked, as Big Daniel had shown him. William grinned. ‘The monkey has learned a few tricks.’ But his eyes narrowed: he had not expected that. He fired the same fist again, and Tom ducked under it then seized his brother’s arm at the elbow in a desperate two-hand grip. Instinctively William pulled back, and Tom used the momentum to spring forward instead of resisting and, at the same time, to kick out wildly. Again he caught the other off balance, and one of his flying kicks landed squarely in his crotch. The breath went out of William in a whoof of pain, and he doubled over to clutch his injured parts with both hands. Tom swirled round and ran off down the path towards the house.
Although his dark features were still contorted with pain, when he saw the younger boy go, William straightened, forced himself to ignore the pain and launched himself after him. He was hampered by his injury, but even so he bore down inexorably on the fleeing Tom.
When Tom heard the racing footfalls coming up on him, he glanced over his shoulder and lost a yard. He could hear his brother grunting, and imagined he could feel his breath on the back of his neck. There was no escape, he could not run away from him. Instead he dropped to the ground and rolled himself into a ball.
William was so close, and coming on so fast, that he could not stop. The only way he could avoid Tom was to jump over him. He cleared him easily, but Tom rolled on to his back in the middle of the muddy path, and reached up to grab William’s ankle while he was in mid-air. He held on with the strength of terror, and the man crashed down in the path on his face. For that instant he was helpless, and Tom scrambled to his feet, was on the point of racing away again, when his anger and hatred took over from his good sense.
He saw Black Billy sprawling in the mud. The temptation was too much for him to resist: for the very first time in his life his elder brother was at his mercy. Tom pulled back his right leg and took a full swing of the boot. He caught William in the side of the head just in front of his ear, but the result was not what he had expected. Instead of collapsing, William let out a roar of rage and clutched at Tom’s leg with both hands. With a heave, he flung the boy into the bracken beside the path then hauled himself to his feet and launched himself at Tom before he could recover.
He straddled his younger brother’s chest, then leaned forward to pin his wrists to the ground above his head. Tom could not move, and could hardly breathe as William’s full weight crushed his ribs. William was still gasping and wheezing, but slowly his breathing eased, and he began to smile again, a twisted, painful smile.
‘You’re going to pay for your fun, puppy. You’re going to pay in a heavy coin, that I promise you,’ he whispered. ‘Just let me get my breath back and then we’ll finish this business.’ The sweat dripped from his chin onto Tom’s upturned face.
‘I hate you!’ Tom hissed up at him. ‘We hate you. My brothers, everybody who works here, everybody who knows you – we all hate you!’
Abruptly William released his grip on one of Tom’s wrists and slashed him across the face with a vicious backhanded blow. ‘For all these years I’ve been trying to teach you manners,’ he said softly, ‘and you never learn.’
Tom’s eyes filled with tears of pain, but he still managed to gather a mouthful of saliva and spit it at the swarthy face above him. It splattered across William’s chin, but he ignored it. ‘I’ll get you, Black Billy!’ Tom promised, in a painful whisper. ‘One day I’ll get you.’
‘No.’ William shook his head. ‘I think not.’ He smiled, ‘Have you not heard of the law of primogeniture, little monkey?’ He landed another full-blooded, open-handed blow against the side of Tom’s head. The boy’s eyes glazed, and blood appeared below one nostril. ‘Answer me, brother.’ William swung back with the other hand, knocking Tom’s head across. ‘Do you know what it means?’ He hit him again, right-handed. ‘Answer me, my little beauty.’
The next swing was left-handed, then right-handed again, and the blows settled into a rhythm. Slam, with the right. Slam, with the left. Tom’s head rolled loosely from side to side. He was swiftly losing consciousness, and the succession of blows never let up.
‘Primogeniture – ’ Slam! ‘ – is the – ’ Slam! ‘ – right – ’ Slam! ‘ – of the – ’ Slam! ‘ – first-born.’ Slam!
The next blow came from behind Black Billy’s back. Dorian had followed them down the path and had seen what was happening to his favourite sibling. The blows raining down on Tom hurt Dorian just as pain
fully. He looked around desperately for a weapon. There was a thick accumulation of fallen branches along the edge of the path. He picked up a dry stick as thick as his wrist and as long as his arm and crept up behind William. He had the good sense to give no warning of what he was about to do, just quietly lifted the branch with both hands high above his head. He paused to take aim, gather all his strength, then brought down the branch on top of William’s head with such force that the stick snapped in his hands.
William’s hands flew to his pate and he rolled off Tom’s chest. He looked up at Dorian, and let out a bellow. ‘The whole stinking litter!’ He came to his feet, and swayed unsteadily. ‘Even the youngest cur.’
‘You just leave my brother be,’ Dorian threatened, white-faced with terror.
‘Run, Dorry!’ Tom croaked dazedly, from where he lay in the bracken, without the strength to sit up. ‘He’ll kill you. Run!’
But Dorian stood his ground. ‘You leave him alone,’ he said.
William took a step towards him. ‘You know, Dorry, that your mother was a whore.’ He smiled, soothingly, and took another step forward, dropping his hands from his injured head. ‘That makes you the son of a whore.’
Dorian was not certain what a whore was, but he answered furiously, ‘You are not to speak of my mama like that.’ Despite himself he took a pace backwards, as William advanced menacingly upon him.
‘Mama’s baby,’ William mocked him. ‘Well, your whore mama is dead, baby.’
Tears flooded Dorian’s eyes. ‘Don’t say that! I hate you, William Courtney.’
‘You, too, must learn some manners, Baby Dorry.’ William’s hands shot out and locked around the child’s neck. He lifted Dorian easily into the air, kicking, clawing.
‘Manners maketh man,’ William said, and pinned him against the trunk of the copper beech under which they stood. ‘You must learn, Dorry.’ He pressed carefully on the child’s windpipe with both fingers, staring into his face, watching it swell and turn purple. Dorian’s heels kicked helplessly against the tree trunk, and he scratched at William’s hands, leaving red lines on his skin, but he made no sound.
‘A nest of vipers,’ said William. ‘That’s what you are, asps and vipers. I’ll have to clean you out.’
Tom heaved himself out of the bracken and crawled to where his elder brother stood. He clutched at his legs. ‘Please, Billy! I’m sorry. Hit me. Leave Dorry alone. Please, don’t hurt him. He didn’t mean anything.’
William kicked him away, still holding the child against the tree. Dorry’s feet were dancing two feet above the ground.
‘Respect, Dorry, you must learn respect.’ He relaxed the pressure of his thumbs and allowed his victim to draw a single breath, then clamped down again. Dorian’s silent struggles became frantic.
‘Take me!’ pleaded Tom. ‘Leave Dorry alone. He’s had enough.’ Tom pulled himself to his feet, using the tree trunk to support himself. He tugged at William’s sleeve.
‘You spat in my face,’ William said grimly, ‘and this little viper tried to brain me. Now you may watch him choke.’
‘William!’ Another voice, rough with outrage, cut in from close at his side. ‘What in the name of the devil do you think you’re playing at?’ A heavy blow fell across William’s outstretched arms. He let the child drop to the muddy earth and whirled to face his father.
Hal Courtney had used his scabbard to strike his eldest son’s hands off the child, and now it seemed he might use it to knock William off his feet.
‘Are you mad? What are you doing to Dorian?’ he asked, his voice shaking with rage.
‘He had to be – it was only a game, Father. We were playing.’ William’s own rage had miraculously evaporated, and he seemed chastened. ‘He has taken no harm. It was all in good part.’
‘You have half murdered the lad,’ Hal snarled, then went down on one knee to pick his youngest son out of the mud. He held him tenderly against his chest. Dorian buried his face against his father’s neck and sobbed, coughed and choked for air. There were livid scarlet fingermarks on the soft skin of his throat, and tears were smeared across his face. Hal Courtney glared at William. ‘This is not the first time we have spoken about rough treatment of the younger ones. By God, William, we will discuss this further, after dinner, this evening in the library. Now get you out of my sight, before I lose control of myself.’
‘Yes, sir,’ William said humbly, and started back up the path to the chapel. As he left, though, he shot Tom a look that left no doubt in the boy’s mind that the matter was far from settled.
‘What happened to you, Tom?’ Hal turned back to him.
‘Nothing, Father,’ he replied staunchly. ‘It’s nothing.’ He wiped his bloody nose on his sleeve. It would have been a violation of his own code to carry tales, even of such a hated adversary as Black Billy.
‘Then what happened to make your nose bleed and your face swell and turn red as a ripe apple?’ Hal’s voice was gruff but gentle: he was testing the lad.
‘I fell,’ Tom said.
‘I know that sometimes you’re a clumsy clod, Tom, but are you sure someone didn’t push you?’
‘If I did, then it’s between him and me, sir.’ Tom pulled himself up to his full height to disguise his aches and injuries.
Hal placed an arm around his shoulder. With the other he clasped Dorian to his chest. ‘Come, boys, we’ll go home now.’ He took the pair down to where he had left his horse at the edge of the woods, and lifted Dorian up onto its neck in front of the saddle before he swung up behind him. He slipped his feet into the stirrups then reached down to take Tom by the arm and haul him up behind.
Tom placed both arms around his father’s waist and pressed his swollen, bruised face into the small of his back. He loved the warmth and smell of his father’s body, the hardness and strength of him. It made him feel safe from all harm. He wanted to cry but he forced back the tears. ‘You’re not a child,’ he said to himself. ‘Dorry can cry, but you can’t.’
‘Where is Guy?’ his father asked, without looking around.
Tom almost said, ‘He ran away,’ but he stopped the disloyal words before they were spoken. ‘He went home, I think, sir.’
Hal rode on in silence, feeling the two warm bodies pressed gratefully against him, and hurting for them as he knew they were hurt. Yet he felt a sense of angry helplessness. This was far from the first time he had been sucked into this primeval conflict of siblings, the children of his three wives. He knew it was a competition in which the odds were heavily loaded against the youngest, and from which there could be only one possible outcome.
He scowled in frustration. Hal Courtney was not yet forty-two – William had been born when he was only eighteen – yet he felt old and weighed down with care when he confronted the turmoil of his four sons. The problem was that he loved William as much, if not more, than even little Dorian.
William was his first-born, the son of his Judith, that fierce, beautiful warrior-maid of Africa, whom he had loved with deep awe and passion. When she had died under the flying hoofs of her own wild steed she had left an aching void in his existence. For many years there had been nothing to fill the gap except the beautiful infant she had left behind.
Hal had reared William, had taught him to be tough and resilient, clever and resourceful. He was all those things now, and more. And in him there was something of the wildness and cruelty of that dark, mysterious continent that nothing could tame. Hal feared that and yet, in all truth, he would not have had it any other way. Hal himself was a hard, ruthless man, so how should he resent those qualities in his own first-born son?
‘Father, what does primogenital mean?’ Tom asked suddenly, his voice muffled by Hal’s cloak.
He was so in step with Hal’s own thoughts that his father started. ‘Where did you learn that?’ he asked.
‘I heard it somewhere,’ Tom mumbled. ‘I forget where.’ Hal could guess very well where it had been but he did not press the boy, who had been hurt eno
ugh for one day. Instead he tried to answer the question fairly, for Tom was old enough now. It was high time that he began to learn what hardships life held in store for him as a younger brother.
‘You mean primogeniture, Tom. It means the right of the first-born.’
‘Billy,’ said Tom softly.
‘Yes. Billy,’ Hal agreed frankly. ‘In accordance with the law of England, he follows directly in my footsteps. He takes precedence over all his younger brothers.’
‘Us,’ said Tom, with a touch of bitterness.
‘Yes, you,’ Hal agreed. ‘When I am gone, everything is his.’
‘When you are dead, you mean,’ Dorian bored in, with indisputable logic.
‘That’s right, Dorry, when I am dead.’
‘I don’t want you to die,’ Dorian wailed, his voice still hoarse from the damage to his throat. ‘Promise me you won’t ever die, Father.’
‘I wish I could, lad, but I can’t. We’re all going to die one day.’
Dorian was silent for a moment. ‘But not tomorrow?’
Hal chuckled softly. ‘Not tomorrow. Not for many a long day, if I can help it. But one day it will happen. It always does.’ He forestalled the next question.
‘And when it does, Billy will be Sir William,’ Tom said. ‘That’s what you’re trying to tell us.’
‘Yes. William will have the baronetcy, but that’s not all. He will have everything else as well.’
‘Everything? I don’t understand,’ said Tom, lifting his head from his father’s back. ‘Do you mean High Weald? The house and the land?’