Power of the Sword - Smith Wilbur (электронная книга TXT) 📗

God knows how we need good men. She sighed with pleasure and relief, and he went on more easily. Sean Courtney was an able minister in my government. Centaine started at the name. It brought back so many memories, so much intense pleasure, and deep sorrow, so many dark and secret things. But the old man appeared not to have noticed her consternation as he went on. He was also a dear and trusted friend. I would like to have another Courtney in my government, someone to trust, a good friend, perhaps one day another Courtney in my cabinet. He stood and helped her to her feet. I'm as hungry as Shasa, and the smell of food is too good to resist. Yet when the food was offered, the general ate most frugally, while the rest of them, led by Shasa, attacked the food with ravenous appetites sharpened by the climb. Sir Garry carved from the cold cuts of lamb and pork and the turkey, and Anna dished out slices of the pies, Melton Mowbray, ham and egg, minced fruit and cubes of pigs trotter embedded in delicious clear gelatine.

One thing is certain, Cyril Slaine, one of Centaine's general

managers, declared with relief. The basket will be a sight lighter on the way down. And now, the general roused them from where they sprawled, satiated, on the bank of the tiny burbling stream, land now for the main business of the day. Come on everybody. Centaine was the first on her feet in a swirl of skirts, gay as a girl. Cyril, leave the basket here. We'll pick it up on the way back. They skirted the very edge of the grey cliff, with the world spread below them, until the general suddenly darted off to the left and scrambled over rock and through flowering heather and protea bush, disturbing the sugar birds that were sipping from the blooms. They rose in the air, flirting their long tail feathers and flashing their bright yellow belly patches with indignation at the intrusion.

Only Shasa could keep up with the general, and when the rest of the party caught the pair of them again, they were standing on the lip of a narrow rocky glen with bright green swamp grass carpeting the bottom.

Here we are, and the first one to find a disa wins a sixpence, General Smuts offered.

Shasa dashed away down the steep side of the glen, and before they were halfway down he was yelling excitedly.

I've found one! The sixpence is mine! They straggled down from the rough rim and at the edge of the swampy ground formed a hushed and attentive circle around the graceful lily-stemmed orchid.

The general went down on one knee before it like a worshipper. 'It is indeed a blue disa, one of the rarest flowers on our earth. The blossoms that adorned the stern were a marvelous cerulean blue, shaped like dragon's heads, their gaping throats lined with imperial purple and butter yellow.

They only grow here on Table Mountain, nowhere else in the world. He looked up at Shasa. Would you like to do the honours for your grandfather this year, young man? Shasa stepped forward importantly to pick the wild orchid and hand it to Sir Garry. This little ceremony of the blue disa was part of the traditional birthday ceremony and they all laughed and applauded the presentation.

Watching her son proudly, Centaine's mind went back to the day of his birth, to the day the old Bushman had named him Shasa, Good Water', and had danced for him in the sacred valley deep in the Kalahari. She remembered the birth song that the old man had composed and sung, the Bushman language clicking and rustling in her head again, so well remembered, so well loved: His arrows will fly to the stars And when men speak his name

It will be heard as far

the old Bushman had sung,

And he will find good water, Wherever he travels, he will find good water.

She saw again in her mind, the old long-dead Bushman's face, impossibly wrinkled and yet glowing that marvelous apricot colour, like amber or mellowed meerschaum, and she whispered deep in her throat, using the Bushman tongue.

Let it be so, old grandfather. Let it be so.

On the return journey the Daimler was only just large enough to accommodate all of them, with Anna sitting on Sir Garry's lap and submerging him beneath her abundance.

As Centaine drove down the twisting road through the forest of tall blue gum trees, Shasa leaned over the seat from behind her and encouraged her to greater speed. Come on, Mater, you've still got the hand brake on! Sitting beside Centaine, the general clutched his hat and stared fixedly at the speedometer. That can't be right. It feels more like one hundred miles an hour. Centaine swung the Daimler between the elaborately gabled white main gates of the estate. The pediment above, depicting a party of dancing nymphs bearing bunches of

famous sculptor Anton Anreith. The name of the estate was blazoned in raised letters above the sculpture:

WELTEVREDEN 1790

Well Satisfied was the translation from the Dutch, and Centaine had purchased it from the illustrious Cloete family exactly one year after she had pegged the claims to the H'ani Mine. Since then she had lavished money and care and love upon it.

She slowed the Daimler almost to walking pace. I don't want dust blowing over the grapes, she explained to General Smuts, and her face reflected such deep content as she looked out on the neatly pruned rows of trellised vines that he thought how the estate had been aptly named.

The coloured labourers straightened up from the vines and waved as they passed. Shasa leaned from the window and shouted the names of his favourites and they grinned with huge gratification at being singled out.

The road, lined with mature oaks, led up through two hundred acres of vines to the chAteau. The lawns around the great house were bright green Kikuyu grass. General Smuts had brought shoots of the grass back from his East African campaign in 1917 and it had flourished all over the country.

In the centre of the lawn stood the tall tower of the slave bell, still used to toll the beginning and end of the day's labours. Beyond it rose the glacial white walls and massive Anreith gables of Weltevreden under its thatched roof.

Already the house servants were hurrying out to fuss around them as they spilled out of the big yellow machine.

Lunch will be at one-thirty, Centaine told them briskly.

Ou Baas, I know Sir Garry wants to read his latest chapter to you. Cyril and I have a full morning's work ahead, she broke off, 'Shasa, where do you think you are off to? The boy had sidled to the end of the stoep and was within an ace of escaping. Now he turned back with a sigh. Jock and I were going to work out the new pony. The new polo pony had been Cyril's Christmas present to Shasa.

Madame Claire will be waiting for you, Centaine pointed out. We agreed that your mathematics needed attention, didn't we? Oh Mater, it's holiday time Every day you spend idly, there is someone out there working. And when he meets you he is going to whip you hollow. Yes, Mater. Shasa had heard that prediction many times before, and he looked to his grandfather for support.

Oh, I'm sure your mother will allow you a few hours to yourself after your maths tuition, he came in dutifully. As you pointed out, it is officially holiday time. He looked hopefully at Centaine.

Might I also enter a plea on my young client's behalf? General Smuts backed him, and Centaine capitulated with a laugh.

You have such distinguished champions, but you will work with Madame Claire until elevenses. Shasa thrust his hands into his pockets and with slumped shoulders went to find his tutor. Anna disappeared into the house to chivy the servants and Garry led General Smuts away to discuss his new manuscript.

All right. Centaine jerked her head at Cyril. Let's get to work. He followed her through the double teak front doors down the long voorkamer, her heels clicking on the black and white marble floors, to her study at the far end.