"Watch your blaspheming tongue, Jim Courtney," she said, but there was no fire in the rebuke. She was too tired to argue further, and the compliment had been a pretty one. As she turned away her head there was a weary half smile on her lips. Jim led Drumfire into the trees, and she followed them. After a few hundred paces, in a spot where the forest was thickest, he tethered the stallion and told Louisa, "Now you can rest a while."
This time she did not protest but sank down on the thick leaf mould on the forest floor, curled up, closed her eyes. In her weakened state she felt that she might never have the strength to stand up again. Hardly had the thought flashed through her mind than she was asleep.
Jim wasted a few moments admiring her suddenly serene features. Until then he had not realized how young she was. Now she looked like a sleeping child. While he watched her he opened the blade of the knife and tested the point on the ball of his thumb. At last he tore himself away, and ran back to the edge of the forest. Keeping well hidden he peered out across the darkening salt pan. Keyser was still coming on doggedly, leading the mare.
Will he never give up? Jim wondered, and felt a twinge of admiration for him. Then he looked around for the best place to hide beside the tracks that Drumfire had left. He picked a patch of dense bush, crept into it and squatted there with the knife in his hand.
Keyser reached the edge of the pan, and staggered out on to the firm footing. By this time it was so dark that, although Jim could hear him panting for breath, he was just a dark shape. He came on slowly, leading the mare, and Jim let him pass his hiding-place. Then he slipped out of the bush and crept up behind him. Any sound he might have made was covered by the hoof-falls of the mare. From behind he locked his left arm around Keyset's throat and, at the same time, pressed the point of the knife into the soft skin under his ear. "I will kill you if you force me to it," he snarled, making his tone ferocious.
Keyser froze with shock. Then he regained his own voice. "You can't
hope to get away with this, Courtney. There is no place for you to run. Give me the woman, and I will settle things with your father and Governor van de Witten."
Jim reached down and drew the sabre from the scabbard on the colonel's belt. Then he released his lock around the man's throat and stepped back, but he held the point of the sabre to Keyser's chest. Take off your clothes," he ordered.
"You are young and stupid, Courtney," Keyser replied coldly. "I will try to make allowances for that."
"Tunic first," Jim ordered. "Then breeches and boots."
Keyser did not move. Jim pricked his chest, and at last, reluctantly, the colonel reached up and began to unbutton his tunic.
"What do you hope to achieve?" he asked, as he shrugged out of it. "Is this some boyish notion of chivalry? The woman is a convicted felon. She is probably a whore and a murderess."
"Say that again, Colonel, and I will spit you like a sucking pig." This time Jim drew blood with the point. Keyser sat down to pull off his boots and his breeches. Jim stuffed them into Trueheart's saddlebags. Then, with the point of the sabre at the man's back, he escorted Keyser, barefoot and wearing only his undershirt, to the edge of the salt pan.
"Follow your own tracks, Colonel," he told him, 'and you should be back at the castle in time for breakfast."
"Listen to me, jon gen Keyser said, in a thin tight voice. "I will come after you. I will see you hanged on the parade, and I promise you it will be slow very slow."
"If you stand here talking, Colonel, you're going to miss your breakfast." Jim smiled at him. "You had far better start walking."
He watched Keyser trudge away across the salt pan. Suddenly the heavy clouds were stripped away by the wind and the full moon burst through to light the pale surface as though it were day. It was bright enough to throw a shadow at Keyser's feet. Jim watched him until he was only a dark blob in the distance, and knew that he was not coming back. Not tonight, at least. But it's not the last we've seen of the gallant colonel, he thought, we can be sure of that. Then he ran back to Trueheart, and led her into the forest. He shook Louisa awake. "Wake up, Hedgehog. We have a long journey ahead of us," he told her. "And by this time tomorrow we are going to have Keyser and a squadron of cavalry in full cry after us."
When she sat up groggily he went to Trueheart. A rolled woollen cavalry cloak was strapped on top of Keyser's saddlebags.
"It will be cold when we get into the mountains," he warned her. She was still half asleep and did not protest as he wrapped the cloak round
her shoulders. Then he found the colonel's food bag. It held a loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese, a few apples and a flask of wine. The colonel dearly loves his food." He tossed her an apple and she wolfed it down core and all.
"Sweeter than honey," she said, through a mouthful. "I never tasted anything like it before."
"Greedy little Hedgehog," he teased her and this time she gave him an urchin smile. Most people found it hard to be angry with Jim for long. He squatted on his haunches in front of her and, with the clasp knife, cut a hunk of bread and slapped a thick slice of cheese on top of it. She ate with ferocious intensity. He watched her pale face in the moonlight. She looked like a pixie.
"And you?" she asked. "Aren't you eating?" He shook his head. He had decided that there would not be enough for both of them: this girl was starving.
"How did you learn to speak such good English?"
"My mother came from Devon."
"My oath! That's where we're from. My great-great-grandfather was a duke, or something of that ilk."
"So, shall I call you Duke?"
"That will do until I think of something better, Hedgehog." She took another bite of bread and cheese so she could not reply. While she ate he sorted through the rest of Keyser's possessions. He tried on the gold frogged tunic, and held the lapels together.
"Space for two of us in here, but it's warm." The front flaps of the colonel's breeches went half-way again round Jim's middle but he belted them with one of the straps from the saddlebags. Then he tried the boots. "At least these are a good fit."
"In London I saw a play called The Tin Soldier," she said. "That's who you look like now."
"You were in London?" Despite himself he was impressed. London was the centre of the world. "You must tell me about it as soon as we have an opportunity."
Then he led the horses to the well on the edge of the pan where the cattle were watered. He and Mansur had dug it themselves two years ago. The water in it was sweet, and the horses drank thirstily. When he led them back he found Louisa had fallen asleep again under the cloak. He squatted beside her and studied her face in the moonlight, and there was a strange hollow feeling under his ribs. He left her to sleep a little longer and went to feed the horses from the colonel's grain bag.
Then he selected what he needed from Keyser's equipment. The pistol was a lovely weapon, and tucked into the leather holster was a
small canvas roll that contained the ramrod and all the accessories. The sabre was of the finest steel. In the tunic he found a gold watch and a purse filled with silver guilders and a few gold ducats. In the back pocket there was a small brass box that contained a flint and steel, and cotton kindling.
"If I steal his horse I might as well take the money too," he told himself. However, he drew the line at filching Keyset's more personal possessions, so he placed the gold watch and the medals in one of the saddlebags, and left it lying conspicuously in the centre of the clearing. He knew that Keyser would return here tomorrow with his Bushman trackers, and would find his personal treasures. "I wonder how grateful he will be for my generosity?" He smiled bleakly. He was carried along by a sense of reckless inevitability. He knew that there was no turning back. He was committed. He went to resaddle Trueheart, then squatted beside Louisa. She was curled into a ball under the cloak. He stroked her hair to wake her gently.
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. "Don't touch me like that," she whispered. "Don't ever touch me like that again."
&nb
sp; Her voice was filled with such bitter loathing that he recoiled. Years ago Jim had captured a wild-cat kitten. Despite all his loving patience he had never been able to tame the creature. It snarled and bit and scratched. In the end he had taken it out into the veld and set it free. Perhaps this girl was like that. "I had to wake you," he said. "We must go on." She stood up immediately.
"Take the mare," he said. "She has a soft mouth and a gentle nature, yet she is fast as the wind. Her name is Trueheart." He boosted her into the saddle, and she took the reins and wrapped the cloak tightly around her shoulders. He handed her the last of the bread and cheese. "You can eat as we go." She ate as though she were still famished, and he wondered what terrible privations she had been forced to endure that had turned her into this starved, abused wild creature. He felt a fleeting doubt at his own ability to help or redeem her. He thrust it aside and smiled at her in what he imagined was a placatory way, but which to her seemed merely supercilious. "When we get to Majuba, Zama will have the hunter's pot going. I hope he has filled it to the brim. I would place money on you in an eating contest with the good colonel." He sprang up on Drumfire's back. "First, though, we have something else to do here."
He set off at a trot in the direction of High Weald, but he circled well clear of the homestead. By now it was after midnight, but still he did not want to chance running into his father or Uncle Dorian. The news of his escapade would have reached their ears almost as soon as he had plucked the girl out of the sea. He had seen many of the family freed slaves and servants among the spectators on the beach. He could not face his father now. We will get no sympathy there, he thought. He will try to force me to turn Louisa over to the colonel. He rode instead to a cluster of huts at the east side of the paddock. He dismounted in a stand of trees and handed Drumfire's reins to Louisa. "Stay here. I won't be long."
He approached the largest mud-walled hut in the village carefully and whistled. There was a long pause, then a lantern flared behind the uncured sheepskin that covered the single window in place of a curtain. The reeking fleece was drawn aside, and a dark head poked out suspiciously. "Who's there?"
"Bakkat, it's me."
"Somoya!" He came out into the moonlight with a greasy blanket tucked around his waist. He was as tiny as a child, his skin amber in the moonlight. His features were flattened and his eyes had a curious Asiatic slant. He was a Bushman, and he could track a lost beast for fifty leagues over desert and mountain, through blizzard and storm. He smiled up at Jim, and his eyes were almost hidden in a web of wrinkles. "May the Kulu Kulu smile upon you, Somoya."
"And on you also, old friend. Call out all the other shepherds. Gather up the herds and drive them over every road. Especially all the paths heading towards the east and north. I want them to chop up the ground until it looks like a ploughed field. Nobody must be able to follow my tracks when I leave here, not even you. Do you understand?"
Bakkat cackled with laughter. "Oh, j'a, Somoya! I understand very well. We all saw the fat soldier chasing you when you ran off with that pretty little girl. Don't worry! By morning there won't be a single one of your tracks left for him to follow."
"Good fellow!" Jim clapped him on the back. "I am off."
"I know where you are going. You are taking the Robbers' Road?" The Robbers' Road was the legendary escape route out of the colony, travelled only by fugitives and outlaws. "Nobody knows where it leads, because nobody ever comes back. The spirits of my ancestors whisper to me in the night, and my soul pines for the wild places. Do you have a place for me at your side?"
Jim laughed. "Follow and be welcome, Bakkat. I know that you'll be able to find me wherever I go. You could follow the tracks of a ghost over the burning rocks of hell. But, first, do what you must do here. Tell my father I am well. Tell my mother I love her," he said, and ran back to where Louisa and the horses were still waiting.
They went on. The storm had blown itself out, the wind had dropped,
and the moon was low in the west before they reached the foothills. He stopped beside a stream that ran down from the hills. "We will rest and water the horses," he told her. He did not offer to help her dismount, but she dropped to the ground as lithely as a cat, and took Trueheart to drink at the pool. She and the mare seemed already to have established an accord. Then she went into the bushes on her own. He wanted to call after her and warn her not to go far, but he held back the words.
The colonel's wine flask was half-empty. Jim smiled as he shook it. Keyser must have been nipping at it since breakfast time yesterday, he thought and went to the pool to dilute what remained with the sweet mountain water. He heard the girl come back through the bushes and, still hidden from him by a pile of tall rocks, go down to the water. There was a splash.
"Damn me if the mad woman is not taking a bath." He shook his head, and shivered at the thought. There was still snow on the mountains, and the night air was chill. When Louisa returned she sat on one of the rocks at the edge of the pool, not too close to him nor again too far away. Her hair was wet and she combed it out. He recognized the tortoiseshell comb. He went over to her and passed her the wine flask. She paused long enough to drink from it.
"That's good." She said it like a peace-offering, then went on combing the pale hair that reached almost to her waist. He watched her quietly but she did not look in his direction again.
A fishing owl darted down on the pool on silent wings like a gigantic moth. Hunting only by the last rays of the moon it snatched a small yellow fish from the waters and flew with it to a branch of the dead tree on the far bank. The fish flapped in its talons as the owl tore chunks of meat out of its back.
Louisa looked away. When she spoke again her voice was soft and the faint accent appealing. "Don't think I'm not grateful for what you have done for me. I know you have risked your life and maybe more than that to help me."
"Well, you must understand that I keep a menagerie of pets." He spoke lightly. "I needed only one more to add to it. A small hedgehog."
"Perhaps you have the right to call me that," she said, and sipped from the flask again. "You know nothing about me. Things have happened to me. Things that you could never understand."
"I know a little about you. I have seen your courage and your determination. I saw what it was like and how it smelt on board the Meeuw. Perhaps I might understand," he replied. "At least, I would try."
He turned to her, then felt his heart break as he saw the tears running down her cheeks, silver in the moonlight. He wanted to rush to her and
hold her tightly, but he remembered what she had said: "Never touch me like that again."
Instead he said, "Whether you like it or not, I'm your friend. I want to understand."
She wiped her cheeks with the palm of one small dainty hand, and sat huddled, thin, pale and disconsolate in the cloak.
"There is just one thing I must know," Jim said. "I have a cousin called Mansur. He is closer to me than a brother could be. He said that perhaps you are a murderess. That burns my soul. I must know. Are you? Is that why you were on the MeeuwT
She turned slowly towards him and, with both hands, parted the curtain of her damp hair so that he could see her face. "My father and mother died of the plague. I dug their graves with my own hands. I swear to you, Jim Courtney, on my love for them and on the graves in which they lie, that I am no murderess."
He heaved a great sigh of relief. "I believe you. You don't have to tell me anything else."
She drank again from the flask, then handed it back to him. "Don't let me have more. It softens my heart when I need to be strong," she said. They sat on in silence. He was just about to tell her that they must go on deeper into the mountains when she whispered, so quietly that he was not sure that she had spoken, "There was a man. A rich and powerful man whom I trusted as once I trusted my dead father. He did things to me that he did not want other people to know about."
"No, Louisa." He held up his hand to stop her. "Don't tell me this."
"I owe
you my life and my freedom. You have a right to know."
"Please stop." He wanted to jump to his feet and run into the bushes to escape her words. But he could not move. He was held mesmerized by them, as a mouse by the swaying dance of the cobra.
She went on in the same sweet, childlike tones. "I will not tell you what he did to me. I will never tell anyone that. But I cannot let any man touch me again. When I tried to escape from him, he had his servants hide a packet of jewellery in my room. Then they called the watch to find it. They took me before the magistrate in Amsterdam. My accuser was not even in the court room when I was condemned to be transported for life." They were both silent for a long time. Then she spoke again. "Now you know about me, Jim Courtney. Now you know that I am a soiled and discarded plaything. What do you want to do now?"
"I want to kill him," said Jim at last. "If ever I meet this man I will kill him."
"I have spoken honestly to you. Now you must speak honestly to me.
Wilbur Smith - C11 Blue Horizon Page 13
