Текст книги "Rage"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

Соавторы: Wilbur Smith
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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 53 страниц)

Victoria was accustomed to extravagant male attention, for she was the very essence of Nguni female beauty, and when the driver of the vehicle whistled softly, she did not glance in his direction but lifted her chin an inch and assumed a haughty expression.

The driver whistled again, more demandingly, and from the corner of her eye she saw the van was blue with the sign EXPRESS DRY CLEANERS – SIX HOUR SERVICE painted on the side. The driver was a big man, and although his cap was pulled low over his eyes, she sensed he was attractive and masterful. Despite herself her hips began to swing as she strode on, and her large perfectly round buttocks oscillated like the cheeks of a chipmunk chewing a nut.

'Victoria!" Her name was hissed, and the voice was unmistakable.

She stopped dead and swung round to face him.

'You!" she whispered, and then glanced around her frantically.

For the moment the sidewalk was clear and only light traffic moved down the highway between rows of tall bluegum trees. Her eyes flashed back to his face, almost hungrily, and she whispered, 'Oh Moses, I didn't think you'd come." He leaned across the front seat of the van and opened the door nearest her, and she rushed across and threw herself into the moving van.

'Get down,' he ordered, and she crouched below the dashboard while he slammed the door closed and accelerated away.

'I couldn't believe it was you. I still don't – this van, where did you get it? Oh Moses, you'll never know how much – I heard your name on the radio, many times – so much has happened –' She found that she was gabbling almost hysterically. It had been so long since she had been able to talk freely, and it was as though the painful abscess of loneliness and longing had burst and all the poison was draining in the rush of words.

She began to tell him about the nurses; strike and the banning, and hid of J hei no. ks ulu. had. can.*zted, her– or, qcthe e was– going-rffbe a march by a hundred thousand women, to the government buildings at Pretoria, and she was going to defy her banning order to join the march.

'I want you to be proud of me. I want to be part of the struggle, for that is the only way I can truly be a part of you." Moses Gama drove in silence, smiling a little as he listened to her chatter. He wore blue overalls with the legend 'Express Dry Cleaners' embroidered across his back and the rear of the van was filled with racks of clothing that smelled strongly of cleaning solvent. She knew he had borrowed the van from Hendrick Iabaka.

After a few minutes Moses slowed the van and then turned off sharply on to a spur road which swiftly deteriorated into a rutted track, and then petered out entirely. He bumped the last few yards over tussocks of grass and then parked behind a ruined and roofless building, the windows from whmh the frames had been ripped out were like the eyes of a skull. Victoria straightened up from under the dashboard.

'I have heard about the nurses' strike-and your banning,' he said softly as he switched off the engine. 'And yes, I am proud of you.

Very proud. You are a wife fit for a chief." She hung her head shyly, and the pleasure his words gave her was almost unbearable. She had not truly realized how much she loved him while they had been separated, and now the full force of it rushed back upon her.

'And you are a chief,' she said. 'No, more than that – you are a king." 'Victoria, I do not have much time,' he said. 'I should not have come here at all –' 'I would have shrivelled up if you had not – my soul was droughtstricken –' she burst out, but he laid his hand on her arm to still her.

'Listen to me, Victoria. I have come to tell you that I am going away. I have come to charge you to be strong while I am away." 'Oh, my husband!" In her agitation she lapsed into Zulu. 'Where are you going?" 'I can tell you only that it is to a distant land." 'Can I not journey by your side?" she pleaded.

'No." 'Then I will send my heart to be your travelling companion, while the husk of me remains here to await your return. When will you come back, my husband?" 'I do not know, but it will be a long time." 'For me every minute that you are gone will become a weary day,' she told him quietly, and he raised his hand and stroked her face gently.

'If there is anything you need you must go to Hendrick Tabaka.

He is my brother, and I have placed you in his care." She nodded, unable to speak.

'There is only one thing I can tell you now. When I return I will take the world we know and turn it on its head. Nothing will ever be the same again." 'I believe you,' she said simply.

'I must go now,' he told her. 'Our time together has come to an end." 'My husband,' she murmured, casting down her eyes again. 'Let me be a wife to you one last time, for the nights are so long and cold when you are not beside me." He took a roll of canvas from the back of the van and spread it on the grass beside the parked van. Her naked body was set off by the white cloth as she lay upon it like a figure cast in dark bronze thrown down upon the snow.

At the end when he had spent and lay weak as a child upon her, she clasped his head tenderly to the soft warm swell of her bosom and she whispered to him, 'No matter how far and how long you travel, my love will burn away time and distance and I will be beside you, my husband." Tara was waiting for him, with the lantern lit, lying awake in the cottage tent when Moses returned to the camp. She sat up as he came through the fly. The blanket fell to her waist and she was naked. Her breasts were big and white and laced with tiny bluish veins around the swollen nipples – so different from those of the woman he had just left.

'Where have you been?" she demanded.

He ignored the question as he began to undress.

'You have been to see her, haven't you? Joe ordered you not to." Now he looked at her scornfully, and then deliberately re-buttoned the front of his overalls as he moved to leave the tent again.

'I'm sorry, Moses,' she cried, instantly terrified by the thought of his going. 'I didn't mean it, please stay. I won't talk like that again. I swear it, my darling. Please forgive me. I was upset, I have had such a terrible dream –' she threw aside the blanket and came up on her knees, reaching out both hands towards him. 'Please!" she entreated.

'Please come to me." For long seconds he stared at her and then began once more to unbutton his overalls. She clung to him desperately as he came into the bed.

'Oh Moses – I had such a dream. I dreamed of Sister Nunziata again. Oh God, the look on their faces as they ate her flesh. They were like wolves, their mouths red and running with her blood. It was the most horrific thing, beyond my imagination. It made me want to despair for all the world." 'No,' he said. His voice was low but it reverberated through her body as though she were'the sounding box of a violin trembling to the power of the strings. 'No!" he said. 'It was beauty – stark beauty, shorn of all but the truth. What you witnessed was the rage of the people, and it was a holy thing. Before that I merely hoped, but after witnessing that I could truly believe. It was a consecration of our victory. They ate the flesh and drank the blood as you Christians do to seal a pact with history. When you have seen that sacred rage you have to believe in our eventual triumph." He sighed, his great muscular chest heaved in the circle of her arms and then he went to sleep. It was something to which she could never grow accustomed, the way he could sleep as though he had closed a door in his mind. She was left bereft and afraid, for she knew what lay ahead for her.

Joe Cicero came for Moses in the night. Moses had dressed like one of a thousand other contract workers from the gold-mines in a surplus army greatcoat and woollen balaclava helmet that covered most of his face. He had no luggage, as Joe had instructed him, and when the ramshackle Ford pick-up parked across the road from them and flashed its lights once, Moses slipped out of the Cadillac and swiftly crossed to it. He did not say goodbye to Tara, they had taken their farewells long ago and he did not look back to where she sat forlornly behind the wheel of the Cadillac.

As soon as Moses climbed into the rear of the Ford, it pulled away. The tail lights dwindled and were lost around the first curve of the road, and Tara was smothered by such a crushing load of despair that she did not believe she could survive it.

Franois Afrika was the headmaster of the Mannenberg coloured school on the Cape Flats. He was a little over forty years old, a plump and serious man with a carb all lait complexion and thick very curly hair which he parted in the middle and plastered flat with Vaseline.

His wife Miriam was plump also, but much shorter and younger than he. She had taught history and English at the Mannenberg junior school until the headmaster had married her, and she had given him four children, all daughters. Miriam was president of the local chapter of the Women's Institute which she used as a convenient cover for her political activities. She had been arrested during the defiance campaign, but when that petered out she had not been charged and had been released under a banning order. Three months later, when the furore had died away completely, her banning order had not been renewed.

Molly Broadhurst had known her since before she had married Franqois, and the couple were frequent visitors at Molly's home.

Behind her thick spectacles Miriam wore a perpetual chubby smile.

Her home in the grounds of the junior school was clean as an operating theatre with crocheted antimacassars on the heavy maroon easy chairs, and a mirrorlike shine on the floors. Her daughters were always beautifully dressed with coloured ribbons in their pigtails and like Miriam were chubby and contented, a consequence of Miriam's cookery rather than her genes.

Tara met Miriam for the first time at Molly's home. Tara had come down by train from the expedition base at Sundi Caves two weeks before her baby was due. She had booked a private coup compartment and kept the door locked the entire journey to avoid being recognized. Molly had met her at Paarl station, for she had not wanted to risk being seen at the main Cape Town terminus. Shasa and her family still believed that she was working with Professor Hurst.

Miriam was all that Tara had hoped for, all that Molly had promised her, although she was not prepared for the maternity dress.

'You are pregnant also?" she demanded as they shook hands, and Miriam patted her stomach shyly.

'It's a cushion, Miss Tara, I couldn't just pop a baby out of nowhere, could I? I started with just a small lump as soon as Molly told me, and I've built it up slowly." Tara realized what inconvenience she had put her to, and now she embraced her impulsively. 'Oh, I can never tell you how grateful I am. Please don't call me Miss Tara. I'm your friend and plain Tara will do very well." 'I'll look after your baby like it's my own, I promise you,' Miriam told her, and then saw Tara's expression and hastily qualified her assurance. 'But he will always be yours, Tara. You can come and see him whenever, and one day if you are able to take him – well, Francois and I won't stand in your way." 'You are even nicer than Molly told me!" Tara hugged her. 'Come, I want to show you the clothes I've brought for our hah ' 'Oh, they areall blue." Miriam ,v.in: ..... Y' are going to have a boy.9' – ......... ,,mcu. you are so sure you 'No question about it – I'm sure." 'So was I,' Miriam chuckled. 'And look at me now – all girls!

Though it's not too bad, they are good girls and they are all expecting this one to be a boy,' she patted her padded abdomen, 'and I know they are going to spoil him something terrible." Tara's baby was born in Molly Broadhurst's guest room. Doctor Chetty Abrahamji who delivered it was an old friend of Molly's and had been a secret member of the Communist Party, one of its few Hindu members.

As soon as Tara went into labour, Molly telephoned Miriam Afrika, and she arrived with bag and bulging tummy and went in directly to see Tara.

'I'm so glad we have started at last,' she cried. 'I must admit that although it was a difficult pregnancy, it will be my quickest and easiest delivery." She reached up under her own skirt and with a flourish produced the cushion. Tara laughed with her and then broke off as the next contraction seized her.

'Ouch!" she whispered. 'I wish mine was that easy. This one feels like a giant." Molly and Miriam took turns, sitting beside her and holding her hand when the contractions hit her, and the doctor stood at the foot of the bed exhorting her to, 'Push! Push!" By noon the following day Tara was exhausted, panting and racked, her hair sodden with sweat as though she had plunged into the sea.

'It's no good,' the doctor said softly. 'We'll have to move you into hospital and do a Caesar." 'No! No!" Tara struggled up on an elbow, fierce with determination. 'Give me one more chance." When the next contraction came she bore down on it with such force that every muscle in her body locked and she thought the sinews in her loins must snap like rubber bands. Nothing happened, it was jammed solid, and she could feel the blockage like a great log stuck inside her.

'More!" Molly whispered in her ear. 'Harder – once more for the baby,' Tara bore down again with the strength of desperation and then screamed as she felt her flesh tear like tissue paper. There was a hot slippery rush between her thighs and relief so intense that her scream changed to a long drawn-out cry of joy, that joined with her infant's birth cry.

'Is it a boy?" she gasped, trying to sit up. 'Tell me – tell me quickly." 'Yes,' Molly reassured her. 'It's a boy -just look at his whistle.

Long as my finger. There's no doubt about that – he's a boy all right,' and Tara laughed out aloud.

He weighed nine and a half pounds with a head that was covered with pitch black hair, thick and curly as the fleece of an Astrakhan lamb. He was the colour of hot toffee, and he had Moses Gama's fine Nilotic features. Tara had never seen anything so beautiful in all her life, none of her other babies had been anything like this.

'Let me hold him,' she croaked, hoarse with the terrible effort of his birth, and they placed the child still wet and slippery in her arms.

'I want to feed him,' she whispered. 'I must give him his first suck – then he will be mine for ever." She squeezed out her nipple and pressed it between his lips and he fastened on it, snuffling and kicking spasmodically with pleasure.

'What is his name, Tara?" Miriam Afrika asked.

'We'll call him Benjamin,' Tara said. 'Benjamin Afrika. I like that – he is' truly of Africa." Tara stayed with the infant five days. When finally she had to relinquish him, and Miriam drove away with him in her little Morris Minor, Tara felt as though part of her soul had been hacked away by the crudest surgery. If Molly had not been there to help her through, Tara knew she could not have borne it. As it was Molly had something for her.

'I've been saving it until now,' she told Tara. 'I knew how you would feel when you had to give up your baby. This will cheer you up a little." She handed Tara an envelope, and Tara examined the handwritten address. 'I don't recognize the writing." She looked mystified.

'I received it by a special courier – open it up. Go on!" Mo ordered impatiently, and Tara obeyed. There were four sheets cheap writing paper. Tara turned to the last sheet and as she re the signature her expression altered.

'Moses!" she cried. 'Oh I can't believe it – after all these months.

had given up hope. I didn't even recognize his handwriting." TaJ clutched the letter to her breast.

'He wasn't allowed to write, Tara dear. He has been in a vel strict training camp. He disobeyed orders and took a grave risk t get this note out to you." Molly went to the door. Tll leave you i peace to read it. I know it will make up a little for your loss." Even after Molly had left her alone, Tara was reluctant to begi reading. She wanted to savour the pleasure of anticipation, but a last she could deny herself no longer.

Tara, my dearest, I think of you every day in this place, where the work is very hard am demanding, and I wonder about you and our baby. Perhaps it has alread, been born, I do not know, and I wonder often if it is a boy or a little girl Although what I am doing is of the greatest importance for all of us for the people of Africa, as well as for you and me– yet I find roysell longing for you. The thought of you comes to me unexpectedly in the night and in the day and it is like a knife in my chest.

Tara could not read on, her eyes were awash with tears.

'Oh Moses,' she bit her lip to prevent herself blubbering, 'I never knew you could feel like that for me." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

When I left you, I did not know where I was going, nor what awaited me here. Now everything is clear, and I know what the difficult tasks are that lie ahead of us. I know also that I will need your help. You will not refuse me, my wife? I call you 'wife' because that is how I feel towards you, now that you are carrying our child.

x It was difficult for Tara to take it in. She had never expected him to give her this kind of recognition and now she felt humbled by it.

'There is nothing that I could ever refuse you,' she whispered aloud, and her eyes raced down the sheet. She turned it over quickly and Moses had written: Once before I told you how valuable it would be if you used your family connections to keep us informed of affairs of state. Since then this has become more imperative. Your husband, Shasa Courtney, is going over to the side of the neo-fascist oppressors. Although this fills you with hatred and contempt for him, yet it is a boon we could not have expected or prayed for. Our information is that he has been promised a place in least ten years junior to Tara, barely into her twenties, but with an unusual maturity for one so young.

'My name is Victoria Dinizulu,' she introduced herself. 'My friends call me Vicky. I know you are Mrs Courtney." 'Tara,' Tara corrected her quickly. Nobody had used her surname since she had left Cape Town and it sounded a jarring note in her own ears.

The girl smiled shyly in acknowledgement. She had the serene beauty of a black madonna, the classic moon face of the high-bred Zulu with huge almond eyes and full lips, her skin the colour of dark amber, her hair plaited into an intricate pattern of tiny curls over her skull.

'Are you related to the Courtneys of Zululand?" she asked Tara.

'Old General Sean Courtney and Sir Garrick Courtney of Theuniskraal, near Ladyburg?" 'Yes." Tara tried not to show the shock she felt at the mention of those names. 'Sir Garrick was my husband's grandfather. My own sons are named Sean and Garrick after them. Why do you ask, Vicky? Do you know the family well?" 'Oh yes, Mrs Courtney – Tara." When she smiled, the Zulu girl's face seemed to glow like a dark moon. 'Long ago, during the last century, my grandfather fought at General Sean Courtney's side in the Zulu wars against Cetewayo who stole the kingship of Zululand from my family. It was my grandfather, Mbejane, who should have been king. Instead he became General Courtney's servant.

'Mbejane!" Tara cried. 'Oh yes. Sir Garrick Courtney wrote about him in his History of Zululand. He was Sean Courtney's faithful retainer until his death. I remember they came up here to the gold-' fields of the reef together and later went on to what is now Rhodesia, hunting ivory." 'You know all about that!" Vicky laughed with pleasure.

'My father used to tell me the same stories when I was a little girl. My father still lives near Theuniskraal. After my grandfather, Mbejane Dinizulu, died my father took his place as the old general's body servant. He even went to France with the general in 1916 and worked for him until the general was murdered. In his will the general left him a section of Theuniskraal for his lifetime and a pension of a thousand pounds a year. They are a fine family, the Courtneys. My old father still weeps whenever he mentions the general's name –' Vicky broke off and shook her head, suddenly perplexed and saddened. 'Life must have been so simple in those days, my grandfather and my father were hereditary chieftains and yet they were satisfied to spend their lives subservient to a white man, and strangely they loved that man and he, in his way, seemed to love them. I wonder sometimes if theirs was not the better way –' 'Do not even think that,' Tara almost hissed at her. 'The Courtneys have always been heartless robber barons, plundering and exploiting your people. Right and justice are on the side of your struggle. Never entertain the slightest doubt of that." 'You are right,' Vicky agreed firmly. 'But sometimes it's nice to think of the friendship of the general and my grandfather. Perhaps one day we could be friends again, equal friends, both sides stronger for the friendship." 'With every new oppression, with every new law passed, the prospect fades,' Tara said grimly, 'and I become more ashamed of my race." 'I don't want to be sad and intense tonight, Tara. Let's talk about happy things. You said you have sons, Seen and Garrick, named after their ancestors. Tell me about them, please." However, the thought of the children and Shasa and Weltevreden made Tara feel guilty and uncomfortable, and as soon as she could she changed the subject again.

'Now tell me about yourself, Vicky,' she insisted. 'What are you doing in Johannesburg, so far from Zululand?" 'I work at Baragwanath Hospital,' Vicky told her.

Tara knew that was one of the largest hospitals in the world, certainly the largest in the southern hemisphere, with 2400 beds and over 2000 nurses and doctors, most of them black, for the hospital catered exclusively for black patients. All hospitals, like schools and transport and most other public facilities, were strictly segregated by law, true to the grand concept of apartheid.

Vicky Dinizulu was so modest about her own achievements that Tara had to draw out of her the fact that she was a qualified theatre sister.

'But you are so young, Vicky' she protested.

'There are others younger,' the Zulu girl laughed. Her laughter had a pleasing musical lilt.

'She really is a lovely child,' Tara thought, smiling in sympathy, and then corrected herself. 'No, not a child – a clever and competent young woman." So Tara told her about her clinic at Nyanga, and the problems of malnutrition and ignorance and poverty they encountered, and Vicky related some of her experiences and the solutions they had found to the terrible challenges that faced them in caring for the physical wellbeing of a peasant population trying to adapt to an urban existence.

'Oh, I have enjoyed talking to you,' Vicky blurted out at last. 'I don't know when I have ever spoken to a white woman like this the cabinet of that barbarous regime. If you were in his confidence, it would afford us a direct inside view and knowledge of all their plans and intentions. This would be so valuable that it would be impossible to put a price upon it.

'No,' she whispered, shaking her head, sensing what was coming, and it took courage for her to read on.

I ask you, for the sake of our land and our love, that when the child has been born and you are recovered from the birth, that you return to your husband's home at Weltevreden, ask his forgiveness for your absence, tell him that you cannot live without him and his children, and do all in your power to ingratiate yourself with him and to earn his confidence once more.

'I cannot do it,' Tara whispered, and then she thought of the children, and especially of Michael, and she felt herself wavering.

'Oh Moses, you don't know what you are asking of me." She covered her eyes with her hand. 'Please don't make me do it. I have only just won my freedom – don't force me to give it up again." But the letter went on remorselessly: Every one of us will be called upon to make sacrifice in the struggle that lies ahead. Some of us may be required to lay down our very lives and I could well be one of those 'No, not you, my darling, please not you!'

However, for the loyal and true comrades there will be rewards, immediate rewards in addition to the ultimate victory of the struggle and the final liberation. If you can bring yourself to do as I ask you, then my friends here will arrange for you and me to be together – not where we have to hide our love, but in a free and foreign land where, for a happy interlude, we can enjoy our love to the utmost. Can you imagine that, my darling?

Being able to spend the days and nights together, to walk in the streets hand in hand, to dine together in public and laugh openly together, to stand up unafraid and say what we think aloud, to kiss and do all the silly adorable things that lovers do, and to hold the child of our love between usIt was too painful, she could not go on. When Molly found her weeping bitterly, she sat on the bed beside her and took her in her arms.

'What is it, Tara dear, tell me, tell old Molly." 'I have to go back to Weltevreden,' she sobbed. 'Oh God, Molly, I thought I was rid of that place for ever, and now I have to go back." Tara's request for a formal meeting to discuss their matrimonial aJ rangements threw Shasa into a state of utmost consternation. H had been well enough satisfied by the informal understanding b tween them, by which he had complete freedom of action and contrr of the children, together with the respectability and protection of th marriage form. He had been happy to pay without comment the bill that Tara forwarded to him, and to see that her generous allowanc was paid into her bank account promptly on the first of each month He had even made good the occasional shortfall when the bani manager telephoned him to report that Tara had overdrawn. On on, occasion there was a cheque made out to a second-hand mota dealer, for almost a thousand pounds. Shasa did not query it. What ever it was, it was a bargain as far as he was concerned.

Now it looked as if all this was coming to an end, and Shas immediately called a meeting of his principal advisors in the board.

room of Centaine House. Centaine herself was in the chair ant Abraham Abrahams had flown down from Johannesburg, bringin with him the senior partner of a firm of renowned but very expensive divorce lawyers.

Centaine took over immediately. 'Let us consider the worst possible case,' she told them crisply. 'Tara will want the children and she'll want a settlement, plus a living allowance for herself and each of the children." She glanced at Abe who nodded his silver head, which set the rest of the legal counsel nodding like mandarin dolls, looking grave and learned, and secretly counting their fees, Shasa thought wryly.

'Damn it, the woman deserted me! I'll go to hell before I give her my children." 'She will claim that you made it impossible for her to remain in the conjugal home,' Abe said, and then when he saw Shasa's thunderous expression, tried to soothe him. 'You must remember, Shasa, that she will probably be taking the best available legal advice herselfi' 'Damned shyster lawyers!" said Shasa bitterly, and his counsel looked pained, but Shasa did not apologize nor qualify. 'I've already warned her I won't give her a divorce. My political career is at a very delicate stage. I cannot afford the scandal. Very soon I'll be contesting a general election." 'You may not be able to refuse,' Abe murmured. 'Not if she has good grounds." 'She hasn't any,' said Shasa virtuously. Tve always been the considerate and generous husband." 'Your generosity is famous,' Abe murmured drily. 'There is many an attractive young lady who could give you a testimonial on that score."

'Really Abe,' Centaine intervened. 'Shasa has always kept out of trouble with women –' 'Centaine, my dear. We are dealing with facts here – not maternal illusions. I am not a private detective and Shasa's private life is none of my concern. However, completely disinterested as I am, I am able to cite you at least six occasions in the last few years when Shasa has given Tara ample grounds –' Shasa was making frantic signals down the table to shut Abe up, but Centaine leaned forward with an interested expression. 'Go ahead, Abe,' she ordered. 'Start citing!" 'In January two years ago the leading lady in the touring production of the musical Oklahoma,' Abe began, and Shasa sank down in his chair and covered his eyes as though in prayer. 'A few weeks later the left-winger, ironically, in the visiting British women's hockey team." So far Abe was avoiding mentioning names, but now he went on. 'Then there was the female TV producer from North American Broadcasting Studios, pert little vixen with a name like a fish – no a dolphin, that's it, Kitty Godolphin.

Do you want me to go on? There are a few more, but as I have said already, I'm not a private investigator. You can be sure that Tara will get herself a good one, and Shasa makes very little effort to cover his tracks." 'That will do, Abe,' Centaine stopped him, and considered her son with disapproval and a certain grudging admiration.

'It's the de Thiry blood,' she thought. 'The family curse. Poor Shasa." But she said sternly, 'It looks as though we do have a problem after all,' and she turned to the divorce lawyer.

'Let us accept that Tara has grounds of infidelity. What is the worst judgement we might expect against us?" 'It's very difficult, Mrs Courtney–' 'I'm not going to hold you to it,' Centaine told him brusquely.

'You don't have to equivocate. Just give me the worst case." 'She could get custody, especially of the two younger children, and a large settlement." 'How much?" Shasa demanded.

'Considering your circumstances, it could be –' the lawyer hesitated delicately '– a million pounds, plus the trimmings, a house and allowance and a few other lesser items." Shasa sat up very straight in his chair. He whistled softly and then murmured 'That is really taking seriously something that was merely poked in fun,' he said, and nobody laughed.