Birds of Prey

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘I’d rather have lopped off my own spigot with a blunt spade than fathered the likes of one of you with it!’ The Buzzard grinned at them. ‘Now get ye up to the main yard to clap some canvas on her.’ And he sent Jiri on his way with a flying kick in the backside.

  Katinka sat in sunlight, in a protected corner of the terrace out of the wind, with Cornelius Schreuder beside her. At the serving table Sukeena poured the wine with her own hands, and carried the two glasses to the luncheon table with its decorations of fruit and flowers from Slow John’s gardens. She placed a tall glass with a spiral stem in front of Katinka, who reached out and caressed her arm lightly.

  ‘Have you sent for the new slave?’ she asked with a purr in her voice.

  ‘Aboli is being bathed and fitted with a uniform, as you ordered, mistress,’ Sukeena answered softly, as if unaware of the other woman’s touch. However, Schreuder had seen it, and it amused Katinka to watch him frown with jealousy.

  She raised her glass to him and smiled over the rim. ‘Shall we drink to a swift voyage for Lord Cumbrae?’

  ‘Indeed.’ He lifted his glass. ‘A short swift voyage to the bottom of the ocean for him and all his countrymen.’

  ‘My dear Colonel,’ she smiled, ‘how droll. But softly now, here comes my latest plaything.’

  Two green-jackets from the castle escorted Aboli onto the terrace. He was dressed in a pair of tight-fitting black trousers and a white cotton shirt cut full to encompass his broad chest and massive arms. He stood silently before her.

  Katinka switched into English. ‘In future you will bow when you enter my presence and you will address me as mistress, and if you forget I will ask Slow John to remind you. Do you know who Slow John is?’

  ‘Yes, mistress,’ Aboli rumbled, without looking at her.

  ‘Oh, good! I thought you might be tiresome, and that I would have to have you broken and tamed. This makes things easier for both of us.’ She took a sip of the wine, then looked him over slowly with her head on one side. ‘I bought you on a whim, and I have not decided what I shall do with you. However, Governor Kleinhans is taking his coachman home with him when he sails. I will need a new coachman.’ She turned to Colonel Schreuder. ‘I have heard these Negroes are good with animals. Is that your experience also, Colonel?’

  ‘Indeed, Mevrouw. Being animals themselves they seem to have a rapport with all wild and domestic beasts.’ Schreuder nodded, and studied Aboli unhurriedly. ‘He is a fine physical specimen but, of course, one does not look for intelligence in them. I congratulate you on your purchase.’

  ‘Later, I may breed him with Sukeena,’ Katinka mused. The slave girl went still, but her back was turned so that they could not see her face. ‘It might be diverting to see how the black blood mingles with the gold.’

  ‘A most interesting mixture.’ Schreuder nodded. ‘But are you not worried that he may escape? I saw him fight on the deck of the Standvastigheid and he is a truculent savage. A leg iron might be suitable costume for him, at least until he has been broken in.’

  ‘I do not think I need go to such pains,’ Katinka said. ‘I was able to observe him at length during my captivity. Like a faithful dog, he is devoted to the pirate Courtney and even more so to his brat. I believe he would never try to escape while either of them is alive in the castle dungeons. Of course, he will be locked in the slave quarters at night with the others, but during working hours he will be allowed to move around freely to attend to his duties.’

  ‘I am sure you know best, Mevrouw. But I for one would never trust such a creature,’ Schreuder warned her.

  Katinka turned back to Sukeena. ‘I have arranged with Governor Kleinhans that Fredricus is to teach Aboli his duties as coachman and driver. The Standvastigheid will not sail for another ten days. That should be ample time. See to it immediately.’

  Sukeena made the gracious oriental obeisance. ‘As Mistress commands,’ she said, and beckoned for Aboli to follow her.

  She walked ahead of him down the pathway to the stables where Fredricus had drawn up the coach and Aboli was reminded of the posture and carriage of the young virgins of his own tribe. As little girls they were trained by their mothers, carrying the water gourds balanced on their heads. Their backs grew straight and they seemed to glide over the ground, as this girl did.

  ‘Your brother, Althuda, sends you his heart. He says that you are his tiger orchid still.’

  Sukeena stopped so abruptly that, walking behind her, Aboli almost collided with her. She seemed like a startled sugarbird perched on a protea bloom on the point of flight. When she moved on again he saw that she was trembling.

  ‘You have seen my brother?’ she asked, without turning her head to look at him.

  ‘I never saw his face, but we spoke through the door of his cell. He said that your mother’s name was Ashreth and that the jade brooch you wear was given to your mother by your father on the day of your birth. He said that if I told you these things, you would know that I was his friend.’

  ‘If he trusted you, then I also trust you. I, too, shall be your friend, Aboli,’ she agreed.

  ‘And I shall be yours,’ Aboli said softly.

  ‘Oh, do tell me, how is Althuda? Is he well?’ she pleaded. ‘Have they hurt him badly? Have they given him to Slow John?’

  ‘Althuda is puzzled. They have not yet condemned him. He has been in the dungeon four long months and they have not hurt him.’

  ‘I give all thanks to Allah!’ Sukeena turned and smiled at him, her face lovely as the tiger orchid to which Althuda had likened her. ‘I had some influence with Governor Kleinhans. I was able to persuade him to delay judgement on my brother. But now that he is going I do not know what will happen with the new one. My poor Althuda, so young and brave. If they give him to Slow John my heart will die with him, as slowly and as painfully.’

  ‘There is one I love as you love your brother,’ Aboli rumbled softly. ‘The two share the same dungeon.’

  ‘I think I know the one of whom you speak. Did I not see him on the day they brought all of you ashore in chains and marched you across the Parade? Is he straight and proud as a young prince?’

  ‘That is the one. Like your brother, he deserves to be free.’

  Again Sukeena’s feet checked, but then she glided onwards. ‘What are you saying, Aboli, my friend?’

  ‘You and I together. We can work to set them free.’

  ‘Is it possible?’ she whispered.

  ‘Althuda was free once. He broke his jesses and soared away like a falcon.’ Aboli looked up at the aching blue African sky. ‘With our help he could be free again, and Gundwane with him.’

  They had come to the stableyard and Fredricus roused himself on the seat of the carriage. He looked down at Aboli and his lips curled back to show teeth discoloured brown by chewing tobacco. ‘How can a black ape learn to drive my coach and my six darlings?’ he asked the empty air.

  ‘Fredricus is an enemy. Trust him not.’ Sukeena’s lips barely moved as she gave Aboli the warning. ‘Trust nobody in this household until we can speak again.’

  As well as the house slaves, and most of the furniture in the residence, Katinka had purchased from Kleinhans all the horses in his string and the contents of the tack room. She had written him an order on her bankers in Amsterdam. It was for a large sum, but she knew that her father would make good any shortfall.

  The most beautiful of all the horses was a bay mare, a superb animal with strong graceful legs and a beautifully shaped head. Katinka was an expert horsewoman, but she had no feeling or love for the creature beneath her and her slim, pale hands were strong and cruel. She rode with a Spanish curb that bruised the mare’s mouth savagely, and her use of the whip was wanton. When she had ruined a mount she could always sell it and buy another.

  Despite these faults, she was fearless and had a dashing seat. When the mare danced under her and threw her head against the agony of the whip and the curb, Katinka sat easily and looked marvellously elegant. Now
she was pushing the mare to the full extent of her pace and endurance, flying at the steep path, using the whip when she faltered or when it seemed as though she would refuse to jump a fallen tree that blocked the pathway.

  The horse was lathered, soaked with sweat as though she had plunged through a river. The froth that streamed from her gaping mouth was tinged pink with blood from the edged steel of the curb. It splattered back onto Katinka’s boots and skirt, and she laughed wildly with excitement as they galloped out onto the saddle of the mountain. She looked back over her shoulder. Schreuder was fifty lengths or more behind her: he had come by another route to meet her in secret. His black gelding was labouring heavily under his weight, and though Schreuder used the whip freely his mount could not hold the mare.

  Katinka did not stop at the saddle but, with the whip and the tiny needle-sharp spur under her riding habit, goaded the mare onward and sent her plunging straight down the far slope. Here a fall would be disastrous, for the footing was treacherous and the mare was blown. The danger excited Katinka. She revelled in the feel of the powerful body beneath her, and of the saddle leather pounding against her sweating thighs and buttocks.

  They came slithering off the scree slope and burst out into the open meadow beside the stream. She raced parallel with the stream for half a league, but when she reached a hidden grove of silverleaf trees she reined in the mare in a dozen lunges from full gallop to a wrenching halt.

  She unhooked her leg from over the horn of the sidesaddle and in a swirl of skirts and laced underlinen dropped lightly to earth. She landed like a cat, and while the mare blew like the bellows of a smithy and reeled on her feet with exhaustion, Katinka stood, both fists clenched on her hips, and watched Schreuder come down the slope after her.

  He reached the meadow and galloped to where she stood. There, he jumped from the gelding’s back. His face was dark with rage. ‘That was madness, Mevrouw,’ he shouted. ‘If you had fallen!’

  ‘But I never fall, Colonel.’ She laughed in his face. ‘Not unless you can make me.’ She reached up suddenly and threw both arms around his neck. Like a lamprey she fastened on his lips, sucking so powerfully that she drew his tongue into her own mouth. As his arms tightened around her she bit his lower lip hard enough to start his blood, and tasted the metallic salt on her own tongue. When he roared with pain, she broke from his embrace and, lifting the skirts of her habit, ran lightly along the bank of the stream.

  ‘Sweet Mary, you’ll pay dearly for that, you little devil!’ He wiped his mouth, and when he saw the smear of blood on his palm, he raced after her.

  These last days, Katinka had toyed with him, driving him to the frontiers of sanity, promising and then revoking, teasing and then dismissing, cold as the north wind one moment then hot as the tropical sun at noonday. He was dizzy and confused with lust and longing, but his desire had infected her. Tormenting him, she had driven herself as far and as hard. She wanted him now almost as much as he wanted her. She wanted to feel him deep inside her body, she had to have him quench the fires she had ignited in her womb. The time had come when she could delay no longer.

  He caught up with her and she turned at bay. With her back against one of the silverleaf trees, she faced him like a hind cornered by the hounds. She saw the blind rage turn his eyes opaque as marble. His face was swollen and encarnadined, his lips drawn back to expose his clenched teeth.

  With a thrill of real terror she realized that this rage into which she had driven him was a kind of madness over which he had no control. She knew that she was in danger of her life and, knowing that, her own lust broke its banks like a mighty river in full spate.

  She threw herself at him and with both hands ripped at the fastenings of his breeches. ‘You want to kill me, don’t you?’

  ‘You bitch,’ he choked, and reached for her throat. ‘You slut. I can stand no more. I will make you—’

  She pulled him out through the opening in his clothes, hard and thick, swollen furious red and so hot he seemed to sear her fingers. ‘Kill me with this, then. Thrust it into me so deeply that you pierce my heart.’ She leaned back against the rough bark of the silverleaf and planted her feet wide apart. He swept her skirts up high, and with both hands she guided him into herself. As he lunged and bucked furiously against her, the tree against which she leaned shook as though a gale of wind had struck it. The silver leaves rained down over them glinting like newly minted coins as they spun and swirled in the sunlight. As she reached her climax Katinka screamed so that the echoes rang along the yellow cliffs high above them.

  Katinka came down from the mountain like a fury, riding on the wings of the north-west gale that had sprung so suddenly out of the sunny winter sky. Her hair had broken free of her bonnet and streamed out like a brilliant banner, snapping and tangling in the wind. The mare ran as though pursued by lions. When she reached the upper vineyards, Katinka put her to the high stone wall, over which she soared like a falcon.

  She galloped through the gardens down to the stable-yard. Slow John turned to watch her go by. The green things he had nurtured were uprooted, torn and scattered beneath the mare’s flying hoofs. When she had passed, Slow John stooped and picked up a shredded stem. He lifted it to his mouth and bit into it softly, tasting the sweet sap. He felt no resentment. The plants he grew were meant to be cut and destroyed, just as man is born to die. To Slow John, only the manner of the dying was significant.

  He stared after the mare and her rider and felt the same reverence and awe that always overcame him at the moment when he released one of his little sparrows from this mortal existence. He thought of all the condemned souls who died under his hands as his little sparrows. The first time he had set his eyes on Katinka van de Velde he had fallen completely under her spell. He felt that he had waited all his life for this woman. He had recognized in her those mystical qualities that dictated his own existence but, compared to her, he knew that he was a thing crawling in primeval slime.

  She was a cruel and untouchable goddess, and he worshipped her. It was as though these torn plants he held in his hands were a sacrifice to that goddess. As though he had laid them on her altar and she had accepted them. He was moved almost to the point of tears by her condescension. He blinked those strange yellow eyes and for once they mirrored his emotion. ‘Command me,’ he breathed. ‘There is nothing that I would not do for you.’

  Katinka spurred the mare at full gallop up the driveway to the front doors of the residence, and flung herself from its back before it had come fully to rest. She did not even glance at Aboli as he sprang down from the terrace, gathered up the reins and led the mare away to the stableyard.

  He spoke gently to the horse in the language of the forests. ‘She has made you bleed, little one, but Aboli will heal your hurt.’ In the yard he unbuckled the girth and dried the mare’s steaming sweat with the cloth, walking her in slow circles, then watering her before he led her to her stall.

  ‘See where her whip and spurs have cut you. She is a witch,’ he whispered, as he anointed the torn and bruised corners of the horse’s mouth with salve. ‘But Aboli is here now to protect and cherish you.’

  Katinka strode through the rooms of the residence, singing softly to herself, her face lit with the afterglow of her loving. In her bedchamber she shouted for Zelda then, without waiting for the old woman to arrive, she stripped off her clothing and dropped it in a heap in the middle of the floor. The winter air through the shutters was cold on her body, which was damp with sweat and the juices of her passion. Her pale pink nipples rose in haloes of gooseflesh and she shouted again, ‘Zelda, where are you?’ When the maid came scurrying into the chamber she rounded on her, ‘Sweet Jesus, where have you been, you lazy old baggage? Close those shutters! Is my bath ready, or have you been dozing off again in front of the fire?’ But her words lacked their usual venom and when she lay back in the steaming, perfumed waters of her ceramic bathtub, which had been carted up from the cabin in the stern of the galleon, she was smiling warmly
and secretly to herself.

  Zelda hovered around the tub, lifting the thick strands of her mistress’s hair out of the scented foam and pinning them atop her head, soaping her shoulders with a cloth.

  ‘Don’t fuss so! Leave me be for a while!’ Katinka ordered imperiously. Zelda dropped the cloth and backed out of the bathroom.

  Katinka lay for a while, humming softly to herself and lifting her feet one at a time above the foam to inspect her delicate ankles and pink toes. Then a movement in the steam-clouded mirror caught her attention and she sat up straight and stared incredulously. Quickly she stood up and stepped out of the tub, slipped a towel around her shoulders to soak up the drops of water that ran down her body and crept to the door of her bedroom.

  What she had seen in the mirror was Zelda gathering up her soiled clothing from where she had dropped it on the tiles. The old woman stood now with Katinka’s underlinen in her hands examining the stains upon it. As Katinka watched, she lifted the cloth to her face and sniffed at it like an old bitch scenting the entrance to a rabbit warren.

  ‘You like the smell of a man’s ripe cream, do you?’ Katinka asked coldly.

  At the sound of her voice Zelda spun about to face her. She hid the clothing behind her back and her cheeks went pale as ash as she stammered incoherently.

  ‘You dried-up old cow, when did you last have a sniff of it?’ Katinka asked.

  She dropped the towel and glided across the floor, slim and sinuous as an erect female cobra and her gaze as icy and venomous. Her riding whip lay where she had dropped it and she scooped it up as she passed.

  Zelda backed away in front of her. ‘Mistress,’ Zelda whined, ‘I was worried only that your pretty things might be spoiled.’

  ‘You were snuffling it up like a fat old sow with a truffle,’ Katinka told her, and her whip arm flashed out. The lash caught Zelda in the mouth. She squealed and fell back on the bed.

  Katinka stood over her, naked, and plied the whip across her back and arms and legs, swinging with all her strength, so that the layers of fat wobbled and shook on the maid’s limbs as the lash bit into them. ‘This is a pleasure too long denied,’ Katinka screamed, her own fury increasing as the old woman howled and wriggled on the bed. ‘I have grown weary of your thieving ways and your gluttony. Now you revolt me with this prurient trespass into intimate areas of my life, you sneaking, spying, whining old baggage.’