Power of the Sword

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘I had to chat to the boy,’ Blaine excused himself. ‘Are you feeling better?’

  ‘Thank you. The laudanum is working now.’ She smiled up at him, so tragic and brave that he stooped once more and kissed her forehead. Then as he straightened he glanced guiltily in Centaine’s direction, hoping that she had not noticed that spontaneous gesture of tenderness; but she was watching him, and she looked away quickly.

  ‘Papa, the teams are coming out.’ Tara tugged him down into his seat. ‘Come on, Weltevreden,’ she shrieked, and Blaine could concentrate on the match rather than his own dilemma.

  Changing sides Shasa led his team past the grandstand, cantering easily down the sideline, standing in the stirrups to adjust the chinstrap of his cap and searching for Blaine in the stand. They caught each other’s eye and Shasa grinned as Blaine gave him a laconic thumbs up. Then he dropped back into the saddle and swung Tiger Shark around to face the Natal team as they rode out in their white breeches and caps, black boots and black short-sleeved shirts, looking tough and expert.

  Max Theunissen frowned as he realized that Shasa had changed sides, and he circled out and flashed a hand signal to his number two on the far side of the field and then came back around again just as the umpire trotted to the centre and dropped the white bamboo root ball.

  The last chukka opened with a confused scrappy mêlée, with hacked shots missing and the ball trampled and rolling under the ponies’ hooves. Then it popped clear and Bunty leaned out of the saddle and hit his first good shot of the match, a high forehand drive that lofted well up-field and his pony went after it instinctively, bearing Bunty along on the line whether he liked it or not.

  It was Bunty’s shot, so he had the right of way and his pony came in perfectly to set him up, but Max Theunissen wheeled Nemesis and the black stallion was at full gallop within two strides. Max’s father had not paid £1,000 for nothing, and the big powerful horse came down on Bunty like an avalanche.

  Bunty looked over his shoulder and Shasa saw him blanch.

  ‘Your line, Bunty,’ Shasa screamed to encourage him. ‘Stay on it!’ But at the same time he saw Max deliberately press his toe into the back of the stallion’s gleaming shoulder, and Nemesis altered his angle. It was a dangerous and menacing attack, and if Bunty had stood up to it, it would have been a blatant foul. But these tactics of terror worked yet again and Bunty sawed his pony’s head frantically and broke away, giving up the line. Max swept onto it triumphantly, gathering himself and leaning out of the saddle, lifting his stick high in the foreswing and concentrating all his attention on the white ball that jumped and kicked over the turf directly ahead of him, setting up to take it on the backhand.

  He had overlooked Shasa on his nearside, and was unprepared for the blazing burst of speed with which Tiger Shark responded to the drive of Shasa’s heels as he came in at a legitimate angle for the ride off.

  Neither of them had struck the ball last; it was therefore fair ball, each of them with equal right of way. But as they came together, both horses at full gallop, Tiger Shark just a head behind the big black stallion, Shasa gave him the toe signal behind the shoulder and Tiger Shark responded joyously. He changed angle sharply and barged with all the power of his great misshapen shoulders. The collision was so unexpectedly violent that Shasa was almost unseated himself and was thrown up onto Tiger Shark’s neck.

  However, Blaine had been right, it was Max Theunissen’s weak side, the one he had so assiduously protected all along, and Tiger Shark had timed the exploitation of his weakness perfectly. Nemesis reeled away and stumbled, his head going down between his front knees, and Max Theunissen was airborne, thrown high over his pony’s head, somersaulting in mid-air but with the reins still in his hands, and for a terrible panicky moment Shasa knew he had killed him.

  Then with an agility born of fear and natural athletic ability, Max switched around like a cat in the air and landed awkwardly, heavily but on his feet on the turf. For a few moments he was still too terrified and shocked to speak, and Shasa hauled himself back into the saddle and got Tiger Shark in hand as the whistles of the two umpires shrilled from both sides of the field. Max Theunissen started to scream hysterically.

  ‘He fouled me, a deliberate foul. He crossed my line. I could have been killed.’ Max was white and shaking, droplets of spittle flying from his quivering lips, and he was jumping up and down on the same spot like a petulant child, wild with frustration and fright.

  The umpires were conferring in the middle of the field, and Shasa had an impulse to try and influence them with his own protestations of innocence, but good sense prevailed and he turned Tiger Shark back with all the dignity he could assemble, looking straight ahead, ignoring the roar of the crowd, but sensing that the roar was more an appreciation of justice, a bully caught in his own snare, than the expression of outraged sense of sportsmanship.

  The umpires could not agree. They turned and trotted across the field to speak to the referee who came down from the grandstand to meet them.

  ‘Good shot, Shas!’ Bunty rode up to him. ‘That will give the beggar something to write home about.’

  ‘They might send me off, Bunty,’ Shasa replied.

  ‘You never crossed his line,’ Bunty defended him hotly. ‘I saw it all.’

  But the fire in Shasa’s blood was cooling and suddenly he thought what his grandfather would say, and even more unpleasant how his mother would react if he were sent off in front of her guests, bringing disgrace to their house. He looked nervously across at the stands, but it was too far to make out the expression on Blaine Malcomess’ face. High in the stand he saw the yellow fleck of his mother’s hat, and to his fevered eye it seemed to be set at a disapproving angle – but now the umpires were cantering back, one of them coming directly towards Shasa and reining in before him, his expression severe.

  ‘Mr Courtney!’

  ‘Sir!’ Shasa straightened in the saddle, ready for the worst.

  ‘This is a formal warning, sir. You are officially warned for dangerous play.’

  ‘I acknowledge your warning, sir.’ Shasa tried to match his expression to the forbidding countenance of the umpire, but his heart was singing. He had got away with it.

  ‘Play on, Mr Courtney,’ said the umpire, and just before he turned away, Shasa saw the twinkle in his eye.

  There were three minutes left in the final chukka as Max rode down to drive the ball deeply into their territory with his penalty shot; but there to pick it up was Shasa’s number three and he hit a wobbling, bouncing ball out to the left field.

  ‘Good oh, Stuffs!’ Shasa was delighted. Thus far Stuffs Goodman had done nothing to distinguish himself. The relentless Natal attack had dispirited him, and more than once he had been the victim of Max Theunissen’s robust play. This was the first time Stuffs had completed a pass and Shasa moved in to receive, then took the ball up field. But Bunty was hanging back again, and without support Shasa’s attack was ridden down by a phalanx of Natal riders and the game reverted to an untidy mêlée while the seconds ticked away. The umpire blew up the mêlée and gave the shot to Natal.

  ‘Dashed if we aren’t going to hold them to a draw.’ Bunty looked at his wristwatch and called across to Shasa as they fell back to receive the next Natal shot.

  ‘Draw isn’t ruddy good enough,’ Shasa retorted furiously. ‘We’ve got to win.’ It was bravado, of course. They hadn’t seriously attacked the Natal goal in five chukkas. But Bunty’s limited ambitions angered Shasa, and Max Theunissen had definitely faded since his spill, no sign of his old dash and fire, and twice he had fallen back avoiding contact when Shasa brought the ball up field, leaving it to his backs to challenge.

  ‘Only half a minute left!’ Despite Shasa’s boast, Bunty looked delighted at the term upon their sufferings, but at that moment the ball came to him hard and straight. He missed it and before he could turn the Natal attack swept past him and there was only Stuffs Goodman between them and the goal. As Shasa raced back to try a
nd support him, his heart sank. It was all over. It was too much to hope that Stuffs could hit two clean shots in succession, but despite Shasa’s misgivings, Stuffs came in, right into the heart of the Natal attack, white-faced and terrified but game, and he made a wild swing at the ball which never came within two feet of it. But his pony was a crafty old stager, clearly exasperated at the standard of his rider’s play, and he trampled down the ball, and kicked it clear, right into Bunty’s line. Bunty hit another corker, and chased it up field; but the Natal right back was there, driving in furiously, and the two of them ended up in another untidy waltz, swinging around each other, leaning out and hacking wildly, typical junior league play, neither man strong enough, or with sufficient experience to get another attack under way. The muddle gave both teams time to reorganize themselves and the opposing captains were howling at their men for the ball.

  ‘Let me have it, Bunty!’ On the left side of the field Shasa was standing in the stirrups, and Tiger Shark was prancing sideways with nervous anticipation, watching the ball with eyes rolling until the whites showed.

  ‘Here, Digger, here!’ howled Max, lying back deep but ready to race up when the ball came clear.

  Then Bunty hit his third and last scorcher of the day, right in the sweet spot of the hardwood mallet head, but the ball flew only a few feet before it hit the fore hoof of the Natal back’s pony and rebounded under Bunty’s stirrups, kicking back into the Weltevreden deep field, right out in the open.

  Shasa had anticipated almost instantly and sent Tiger Shark away. He tapped the ball to change its direction and then wheeled Tiger Shark so sharply that the pony went down on his haunches.

  ‘Ha!’ Shasa put his heels in and the pony launched himself into full stride with the ball dribbling along just ahead of him.

  Shasa leaned out, concentrating all his attention on the little white ball as it popped and flicked erratically, and he got the head of his mallet to it again, putting top spin on the ball so that it came under control and flew low across the turf, aimed at the Natal goal two hundred yards ahead.

  Tiger Shark followed it beautifully, easing out to precisely the right distance for Shasa to get a full shot at it. Plum Pudding couldn’t have judged it better, and Shasa hit it again with a neat click of wood on wood, and the ball skipped obediently ahead of him. He looked up over the ball and there was the Natal goal dead ahead, only one hundred and fifty yards away, and a kind of savage joy filled him as he realized that instead of merely holding Natal to the draw, they really did have a chance to win.

  ‘Ha!’ he called to Tiger Shark, ‘Ha!’ And the big animal plunged forward under him. At the same moment Max Theunissen on Nemesis wheeled onto the line ahead and rode directly at him.

  ‘Down the throat,’ was the term that described this most hazardous of all interception angles. On two powerful and swift animals they were charging each other down the throat; the roar from the grandstand faded into a horrified hush, and the spectators rose to their feet in unison.

  Shasa had only once before witnessed a head-on collision between two big horses at full gallop. That had been at the trials before the Argentinian test match the previous year. He had been in the top row of the stand and he had heard the bones break clearly from there. One of the riders had burst his spleen and died later in hospital; the other had broken both legs. Afterwards they had shot the ponies as they lay in the middle of the field.

  ‘My line!’ he yelled at Max Theunissen as they swept towards each other.

  ‘Damn you, Courtney!’ Max yelled back defiantly. He had regained his courage, and he glared at Shasa over his pony’s head; Shasa saw in his eyes that he was going to force the collision and he shifted slightly in the saddle. Tiger Shark felt it and flinched. They were going to give way – and then without warning Shasa was overwhelmed by the berserker’s deadly passion.

  Even from the stand Blaine Malcomess sensed it. He recognized that what had seized Shasa was not ordinary courage, rather it was a type of madness – the same madness that had once driven Blaine himself out into no man’s land, alone with only a grenade in his hand, straight into the winking red eyes of the German Maxim guns.

  He saw Shasa check Tiger Shark’s turn and instead force him the opposite way, heading him directly at the black stallion, moving across the line of the ball in a deliberate challenge. It seemed that time slowed for Shasa. His vision was suddenly concentrated to brilliant clarity; he could see the wet pink mucous membrane deep in the flared nostrils of the great stallion in front of him; he could define each minute bubble in the froth that foamed from the corners of his mouth around the snaffle irons, each stiff black bristle in the charcoal velvet of his muzzle, each blood vessel in the lacework that covered the bloodshot corners of the stallion’s eyes and each individual lash that surrounded them.

  Shasa looked over the black stallion’s head into Max’s face. It was contorted with fury. He saw the tiny blisters of sweat on Max’s chin, and the gap between his square white incisors as his lips were drawn back in a rictus of determination, and he looked into Max’s brown eyes and held their gaze.

  It was too late, Shasa judged; they had left it too late to avoid the collision, and as he thought it he saw the sudden shock in Max’s face, saw his lips crumple and the flesh of his cheeks frost over with terror and watched him jerk back in the saddle and drag Nemesis’ head around, pulling him off the line, breaking away right, only just in time.

  Shasa swept past him, brushing him aside almost contemptuously, and with the passion still upon him he rose in the stirrups and struck the ball hard and true, driving it between the centre of the posts.

  Blaine was still on his feet in the stand as the teams came in, and Shasa was flushed with triumph looking up at him for approbation, and though Blaine gave him only an airy wave and friendly smile, he was almost as exultant as Shasa.

  ‘By God, the lad has the makings,’ he told himself. ‘He really has got it.’ And he sat down again beside Isabella. She saw his expression; she knew him so well. She knew how desperately he had wanted a son – and the reason for his interest in the boy. It made her feel inadequate and useless and angry.

  ‘That child is reckless and irresponsible.’ She could not help herself, even though she knew that her censure would have the opposite effect on Blaine. ‘He doesn’t give a fig for anybody else, but then the Courtneys have always been like that.’

  ‘Some people call it guts,’ Blaine murmured.

  ‘An ugly word for an ugly trait.’ She knew she was being shrewish; she knew there was a limit to his forbearance, but she could not help this self-destructive urge to try and hurt him. ‘He is like his mother—’ and she saw the anger snap in Blaine’s eyes as he rose to his feet, cutting her off.

  ‘I’ll see if I can get you some lunch, my dear.’ He strode away, and she wanted to cry after him:

  ‘I’m sorry – it was only because I love you so!’

  Isabella ate no red meat, for it seemed to aggravate her condition, so Blaine was contemplating the display of prawns and crayfish, clams and mussels and fish which formed the centrepiece of the buffet, a pyramid taller than his head, such a veritable work of art that it seemed sacrilegious to make the first inroad upon it. He was not alone in his reluctance; the display was surrounded by an admiring cluster of guests exclaiming with delight and admiration so that Blaine was not aware of Centaine’s approach until she spoke just behind his shoulder.

  ‘Whatever did you say to my son, Colonel, that turned him into a savage?’ And he turned quickly, trying to cover the guilty delight that he felt at her closeness. ‘Oh yes, I saw you talking to him before the last chukka,’ she went on.

  ‘Man talk, I’m afraid, not for tender ears.’

  She laughed softly. ‘Whatever it was, it worked. Thank you, Blaine.’

  ‘No need for that – the lad did it himself. That last goal was as plucky an effort as I’ve seen in a long time. He is going to be good – very good indeed.’

  ‘Do
you know what I thought as I watched it?’ she asked softly, and he shook his head, leaning closer for her reply.

  ‘I thought Berlin,’ she told him softly, and he was perplexed for a moment. Then it dawned upon him.

  Berlin 1936. The Olympic Games, and he laughed. She must be joking. From junior league to the seniors was the distance to the moon and the stars. Then he saw her expression and he stopped laughing.

  ‘You really are serious!’ He stared at her.

  ‘Of course, I won’t be able to afford to keep his ponies. But his grandfather loves to watch him play. He will help, and if he had the advice and encouragement of a really top man—’ She gave a graceful little shrug, and it was a moment before he could recover from his astonishment sufficiently to reply.

  ‘You never fail to amaze me. Is there nothing you won’t reach for?’ Then he saw the sudden, sly, lascivious gleam in her eye, and he went on hurriedly, ‘I withdraw the question, madam.’ For a moment they looked at each other with the veil stripped aside, their eyes and their love naked for anyone to see. Then Centaine broke the contact.

  ‘General Smuts has been asking for you.’ She changed direction again in that disconcerting mercurial fashion of hers. ‘We are sitting under the oaks behind the stand. Why don’t you and your wife join us there?’ She turned away from him and the throng of her guests opened before her.

  Blaine wheeled Isabella slowly across the smooth carpet of mown Kikuyu grass towards the group under the oaks. The weather had blessed Centaine’s tournament; the sky was heron’s-egg blue with a silver burst of cloud hanging stationary over the peak of Muizenberg and another thick mattress laid over the massif of Table Mountain that standing cloud known as ‘the table cloth’.

  It was windy, of course. It was always windy in December, but Weltevreden was tucked into a protected corner of the Constantia valley; passing overhead, the south-easter frou-froued the top leaves of the oaks, barely flickering at the women’s skirts, but alleviating what would have been oppressive heat, and sweetening the air to earn its nickname ‘the Cape doctor’.