Wilbur Smith - C09 Birds Of Prey

by C09 Birds Of Prey(Lit)

  Mevrouw van de Velde, his hostess since she had taken over the residence, had been kind to him. She had even sent Sukeena out this morning to gather the special herbs that, when seeped and distilled with the slave girl's skillsi were the only medicine that could alleviate his agony for even a short while long enough at least to allow him to catch a few hours of fitful sleep. At Katinka's orders Sukeena would prepare enough of this brew to tide him over the long voyage northwards. He prayed that, once he reached Holland, the physicians there would be able to cure this dreadful affliction.

  Sukeena moved quietly through the scrub that covered the slopes of the mountain. Once or twice she looked back but nobody had followed her. She went on, stopping only to cut a green twig from one of the flowering bushes. As she walked she stripped the leaves from it and, with her knife, trimmed the end into a fork.

  All around her the wild blossom grew in splendid profusion, even now that winter was upon them, a hundred different species were on show. Some were as large as ripe artichoke heads, some as tiny as her little fingernail, all of them lovely beyond an artist's imagination or the powers of his palette to depict. She knew them all.

  Meandering seemingly without direction, in reality she was moving gradually and circuitously towards a deep ravine that split the face of the table-topped mountain.

  With one more careful look around she darted suddenly down the steep, heavily bushed slope. There was a stream at the bottom, tumbling through a series of merry waterfalls and dreaming pools. As she approached one, she moved more slowly and softly. Tucked into a rocky crevice beside the dark waters was a small clay bowl. She had placed it there on her last visit. From the ledge above she looked down and saw that the milky white fluid, with which she had filled it, had been drunk. Only a few opalescent drops remained in the bottom.

  Daintily she climbed cautiously into a position from which she could look deeper into the crack in the rock. Her breath caught as she saw in the shadows the soft gleam of ophidian scales. She opened the lid of the basket, took the forked stick in her right hand and moved closer. The serpent was coiled beside the bowl. It was not large, as slender as her forefinger. Its colour was a deep glowing bronze, each scale a tiny marvel. As she drew closer it raised its head an inch and watched her with black beady eyes. But it made no attempt to escape, sliding back into the depths of the crevice, as it had the first time she had discovered it.

  It was lazy and somnolent, lulled by the milky concoction she had fed it. After a moment it lowered its head again and seemed to sleep. Sukeena was not tempted into any sudden or rash move. Well she knew that, from the bony needles in its upper jaw, the little reptile could dispense death in one of its most horrible and agonizing manifestations. She reached out gently with the twig and again the snake raised its head. She froze, the fork held only inches above its slim neck. Slowly the little reptile drooped back to earth and, as its head stretched out, Sukeena pinned it to the rock. It hissed softly and its body coiled and recoiled around the stick that held it.

  Sukeena reached down and gripped it behind the head, with two fingers locked against the hard bones of the skull.

  It wrapped its long sinuous body around her wrist. She took hold of the tail and unwound it, then dropped the serpent into her basket. In the same movement she closed the lid upon it. iring Governor Kleinhans went aboard the galleon on the evening before she sailed. Before the carriage took him down to the foreshore, all the household assembled on the front terrace of the residence to bid farewell to their former master. He moved slowly along the line with a word for each. When he reached Sukeena she made that graceful gesture, her fingertips together touching her lips, which made his heart ache with love and longing for her.

  "Aboli has taken your luggage aboard the ship and placed all of it in your cabin," she said softly. "Your medicine chest is packed at the bottom of the largest trunk, but there is a full bottle in your small travelling case, which should last you several days."

  "I shall never forget you, Sukeena,"he said.

  "And I shall never forget you, master," she answered. For one mad moment he almost lost control of his emotions. He was on the point of embracing the slave girl, but then she looked up and he recoiled as he saw the undying hatred in her eyes.

  When the galleon sailed in the morning with the dawn tide, Fredricus came to wake him and help him from his bunk. He wrapped the thick fur coat around his master's shoulders and Kleinhans went up on deck and stood at the stern rail as the ship caught the north-west wind and stood out into the Atlantic. He waited there until the great flat mountain sank away below the horizon and his vision was dimmed with tears.

  Over the next four days the pain in his stomach was worse than he had ever known it. On the fifth night he woke after midnight, the acid scalding his intestines. He lit the lantern and reached for the brown bottle that would give him relief. When he shook it, it was already empty.

  Doubled over with pain, he carried the lantern across the cabin and knelt before the largest of his trunks. He lifted the lid, and found the teak medicine chest where Sukeena had told him it was. He lifted it out and carried it to the table top against the further bulkhead, placing the lantern to light it so that he could fit the brass key into the lock.

  He lifted the wooden lid and started. Laid carefully over the contents of the chest was a sheet of paper. He read the black print and, with amazement, realized that it was an ancient copy of the Company gazette. He read down the page and, as he recognized it, his stomach heaved with nausea. The proclamation was signed by himself It was a death warrant. The warrant for the questioning and execution of one Robert David Renshaw. The Englishman who had been Sukeena's father.

  "What devilry is this? "he blurted aloud. "The little witch has placed it here to remind me of a deed committed long ago. Will she never relent? I thought she was out of my life for ever, but she makes me suffer still."

  He reached down to seize the paper and rip it to shreds but before his fingers touched it there was a soft, rustling sound beneath the sheet, and then a blur of movement.

  Something struck him a light blow upon the wrist and a gleaming, sinuous body slid over the edge of the chest and dropped to the deck. He leapt back in alarm but the thing disappeared into the shadows and he stared after it in bewilderment. Slowly he became aware of a slight burning on his wrist and lifted it into the lamplight.

  The veins on the inside of his wrist stood out like blue ropes under the pale skin blotched with old man's freckles. He looked closer at the seat of the burning sensation, and saw two tiny drops of blood gleaming in the lantern light like gemstones as they welled up from twin punctures. He tottered backwards and sat on the edge of his bunk, gripping his wrist and staring at the ruby droplets.

  Slowly. an image from long ago formed before his eyes. He saw two solemn little orphans standing hand in hand before the smoking ashes of a funeral pyre. Then the pain swelled within him until it filled his mind and his whole body.

  There was only the pain now. It flowed through his veins like liquid fire and burrowed deep into his bones. It tore apart every ligament, sinew and nerve in his body. He began to scream and went on screaming until the end.

  Sometimes twice a day Slow John came to the castle dungeon and stood at the peep-hole in the door of Sir Francis's cell. He never spoke. He stood there silently, with a reptilian stillness, sometimes for a few minutes and at others for an hour. In the end Sir Francis could not look at him. He turned his face to the stone wall, but still he could feel the yellow eyes boring into his back.

  It was a Sunday, the Lord's day, when Manseer and four green-jacketed soldiers came for Sir Francis. They said nothing, but he could tell by their faces where they were taking him. They could not look into his eyes, and they wore the doleful expressions of a party of pall-bearers.

  It was a cold, gusty day as Sir Francis stepped out into the courtyard. Although it was no longer raining, the clouds that hung low across the face of the mountain were an ominous blue grey
, the colour of an old bruise. The cobbles beneath his feet were shining wetly with the rain squall that had just passed. He tried to stop himself shivering in the raw wind, lest his guards think it was for fear.

  "God keep you safe!" A young clear voice carried to him above the wild wind, and he stopped and looked up. Hal stood high on the scaffold, his dark hair ruffled by the wind and his bare chest wet and shining with raindrops.

  Sir Francis lifted his bound hands before him, and shouted back, "In Arcadia habito! Remember the oath!" Even from so far off, he could see his son's stricken face. Then his guards urged him on towards the low door that led down into the basement below the castle armoury. Manseer led him through the door and down the staircase. At the bottom he paused and knocked diffidently on the iron-bound door. Without waiting for a reply he pushed it open and led Sir Francis through.

  The room beyond was well lit, a dozen wax candles flickering in their holders in the draught from the open door. To one side Jacobus Hop sat at a writing table. There was parchment and an ink pot in front of him, and a quill in his right hand. He looked up at Sir Francis with a pale terrified expression. An angry red carbuncle glowed on his cheek. Quickly he dropped his eyes, unable to look at the prisoner.

  Along the far wall stood the rack. Its frame was of massive teak, the bed long enough to accommodate the tallest man with his limbs stretched out to their full extent. There were sturdy wheels at each end, with iron ratchets and slots into which the levers could be fitted. On the side wall opposite the recording clerk's desk, a brazier smouldered. On hooks set into the wall above it hung an array of strange and terrible tools. The fire radiated a soothing, welcoming warmth.

  Slow John stood beside the rack. His coat and his Hal hung from a peg behind him. He wore a leather blacksmith's apron.

  A pulley wheel was bolted into the ceiling and a rope dangled from it with an iron hook at its end. Slow John said nothing while his guards led Sir Francis to the centre of the stone floor and passed the hook through the bonds that secured his wrists. Manseer tightened the rope through the sheave until Sir Francis's arms were drawn at full stretch above his head. Although both his feet were firmly on the floor he was helpless. Manseer saluted Slow John, then he and his men backed out of the room and closed the door behind them. The panels were of solid teak, thick enough to prevent any sound passing through.

  In the silence, Hop cleared his throat noisily and read from the transcript of the judgement passed upon Sir Francis by the Company court. His stutter was painful, but at the end he laid down the document and burst out clearly, "As God is my witness, Captain Courtney, I wish I were a hundred leagues from this place. This is not a duty I enjoy. I beg of you to co-operate with this inquiry."

  Sir Francis did not reply but looked back steadily into Slow John's yellow eyes. Hop took up the parchment once more, and his voice quavered and broke as he read from it. "Question the first. is the prisoner, Francis Courtney, aware of the whereabouts of the cargo missing from the manifest of the Company ship, the Standvastigheid?"

  "No," replied Sir Francis, still looking into the yellow eyes before him. "The prisoner has no knowledge of the cargo of which you speak."

  "I beg you to reconsider, sir," Hop whispered hoarsely. "I have a delicate disposition. I suffer with my stomach."

  For the men on the windswept scaffolding the hours passed with agonizing slowness. Their -eyes kept turning back towards the small, insignificant door below the armoury steps. There was no sound or movement from there, until suddenly, in the middle of the cold rainswept morning, the door burst open and Jacobus Hop scuttled out into the courtyard. He tottered to the officers" hitching rail and hung onto one of the iron rings as though his legs could no longer support him. He seemed oblivious to everything around him as he stood gasping for breath like a man freshly rescued from drowning.

  All work on the walls came to a halt. Even Hugo Barnard and his overseers stood silent and subdued, gazing down at the miserable little clerk. With every eye upon him, Hop suddenly doubled over and vomited over the cobbles. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and looked around him wildly as though seeking an avenue of escape.

  He lurched away from the hitching rail and set off at a run, across the yard and up the staircase into the Governor's quarters. One of the sentries at the top of the stairs tried to restrain him but Hop shouted, "I have to speak to his excellency," and brushed past him.

  He burst unannounced into the Governor's audience chamber. Van de Velde sat at the head of the long, polished table. Four burghers from the town were seated below him, and he was laughing at something that had just been said.

  The laughter died on his fat lips as Hop stood trembling at the threshold, his face deathly pale, his eyes filled with tears. His boots were flecked with vomit.

  "How dare you, Hop?" van de Velde thundered, as he dragged his bulk out of the chair. "How dare you burst in here like this?"

  "Your excellency," Hop stammered, "I cannot do it. I cannot go back into that room. Please don't insist that I do it. Send somebody else."

  "Get back there immediately," van de Velde ordered. "This is your last chance, Hop. I warn you, you will do your duty like a man or suffer for it."

  "You don't understand." Hop was blubbering openly now. "I can't do it. You have no idea what is happening in there. I can't-" "Go! Go immediately, or you will receive the same treatment."

  Hop backed out slowly and van de Velde shouted after him, "Shut those doors behind you, worm."

  Hop staggered back across the silent courtyard like a blind man, his eyes filled again with tears. At the little door he stood and visibly braced himself. Then he flung himself through it and disappeared from the view of the silent watchers.

  In the middle of the afternoon the door opened again and Slow John came out into the courtyard. As always he was dressed in the dark suit and tall Hat. His face was serene and his gait slow and stately as he passed out through the castle gates and took the avenue up through his gardens towards the residence.

  Minutes after he had gone, Hop rushed out of the armoury and across to the main block. He came back leading the Company surgeon, who carried his leather bag, and disappeared down the armoury stairs. A long time afterwards the surgeon emerged and spoke briefly to Manseer and his men, who were hovering at the door.

  The sergeant saluted and he and his men went down the stairs. When they came out again Sir Francis was with them. He could not walk unaided, and his hands and feet were swaddled in bandages. Red stains had already soaked through the cloth.

  "Oh, sweet Jesus, they have killed him," Hal whispered as they dragged his father, legs dangling and head hanging, across the yard.

  Almost as if he had heard the words, Sir Francis lifted his head and looked up at him. Then he called in a clear, high voice, "Hal, remember your oath!"

  "I love you, Father!" Hal shouted back, choking on the words with sorrow, and Barnard slashed his whip across his back.

  "Get back to work, you bastard."

  That evening as the file of convicts shuffled down the staircase past the door of his father's cell, Hal paused and called softly, "I pray God and all his saints to protect you, Father."

  He heard his father move on the rustling mattress of straw, and then, after a long moment, his voice. "Thank you, my son. God grant us both the strength to endure the days ahead." from behind the shutters of her bedroom Katinka watched the tall figure of Slow John &-Fcoming up the avenue from the Parade. He passed out of her sight behind the stone wall at the bottom of the lawns and she knew he was going directly to his cottage. She had been waiting half the day for his return, and she was impatient. She placed the bonnet on her head, inspected her image in the mirror and was not satisfied. She looped a coil of her hair, arranged it carefully over her shoulder, then smiled at her reflection and left the room through the small door out to the back veranda. She followed the paved path under the naked black vines that covered the pergola, stripped of their last russet leaves by the
onset of the winter gales.

  Slow John's cottage stood alone at the edge of the forest. There was no person in the colony, no matter how lowly his station, who would live with him as a neighbour. When she reached it Katinka found the front door open and she went in without a knock or hesitation. The single room was bare as a hermit's cell. The floors were coated with cow dung, and the air smelled of stale smoke and the cold ashes on the open hearth. A simple bed, a single table and chair were the only furniture.

  As she paused in the centre of the room she heard water splashing in the back yard and she followed the sound.

  Slow John stood beside the water trough. He was naked to the waist, and he was scooping water from the trough with a leather bucket and pouring it over his head.

  He looked up at her, with the water trickling from his sodden hair down his chest and arms. His limbs were covered with the hard flat muscle of a professional wrestler or, she thought whimsically, of a Roman gladiator.