Текст книги "Birds of Prey"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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"I have the honour to be named for the famous seafarer," said Sir Francis softly.

"Then I have the even greater honour of passing sentence upon you.

I sentence you to death." Van de Velde waited for Sir Francis to show some emotion, but he stared back without expression. At last the Governor was forced to continue. "I repeat, your sentence is death, but the manner of your death will be of your own choosing." Abruptly and unexpectedly, he let out a mellow guffaw. "There are not many rogues of your calibre that are treated with such beneficence and condescension."

"With your permission, I shall withhold any expression of gratitude until I hear the rest of your proposal," Sir Francis murmured, and van de Velde stopped laughing.

"Not all the cargo from the Standvastigheid has been recovered. By far the most valuable portion is still missing, and there is no doubt in my mind that you were able to secrete this before you were captured by the troops of the honourable Company. Are you prepared to reveal the hiding place of the missing cargo to the officers of the Company? In that case, your execution will be by a swift and clean beheading."

"I have nothing to tell you," said Sir Francis, in a disinterested tone.

"Then, I fear, you will be asked the same question under extreme compulsion by the state executioner." Van de Velde smacked his lips softly, as though the words tasted good on his tongue. "Should you answer fully and without reservation the headsman's axe will put an end to your suffering. Should you remain obstinate, the questioning will continue. At all times the choice will remain yours."

"Your excellency is a paragon of mercy," Sir Francis bowed, "but I cannot answer the question, for I know nothing of the cargo of which you speak."

"Then Almighty God have mercy on your soul," said van de Velde, and turned to Sergeant Manseer. "Take the prisoner away and place him in the charge of the state executioner."

Hal balanced high on the scaffolding on the unfinished wall of the eastern bastion of the castle. This was only the second day of the labours that were to last the rest of his natural life, and already the palms of his hands and both his shoulders were rubbed raw by the ropes and the rough, undressed stone blocks. One of his fingertips was crushed and the nail was the colour of a purple grape. Each masonry block weighed a ton or more and had to be manhandled up the rickety scaffolding of bamboo poles and planks.

In the gang of convicts working with him were Big Daniel and Ned Tyler, neither of whom was fully recovered from his wounds. Their injuries were plain to see for all were dressed only in petticoats of ragged canvas.

The musket ball had left a deep, dark purple crater in Daniel's chest and a lion's claw across his back, where Hal had cut him. The scabs over these wounds had burst open with his exertions and were weeping watery blood-tinged lymph.

The sword wound crawled like a raw red vine around Ned's thigh, and he limped heavily as he moved along the scaffold. After their privations in the slave deck of the Gull they were all honed clean of the last ounce of fat. They were lean as hunting dogs, and stringy muscle and bone stood out clearly beneath their sun reddened skins.

Though the sun still shone brightly, the winter wind whistled in from the nor-"west and seemed to abrade their bodies like ground glass. In unison they hauled at the tail of the heavy manila rope and the sheaves screeched in their blocks as the great yellow lump of stone lifted from the truck of the wagon far below and began its perilous ascent up the high structure.

The previous day a scaffolding on the south bastion had collapsed under the weight of the stones and had hurled three of the convicts working upon it to their death on the cobbles far below. Hugo Barnard, the overseer, had muttered as he stood over their crushed corpses, "Three birds with one stone. I'll have the next careless bastard that kills himself thrashed within an inch of his life," and burst out laughing at his own gallows" humour.

Daniel took a turn of the rope end around his good shoulder and anchored it as the rest of the team reached out, seized the swinging block and hauled it onto the trestle. Between them they manhandled it into the gap at the top of the wall, with the Dutch stonemason in his leather apron shouting instructions at them.

They stood back panting after it had dropped into place, every muscle in their bodies aching and trembling from the effort, but there was no time to rest. From the courtyard below Hugo Barnard was already yelling, "Get that cradle down here. Swiftly now or I'll come up and give you a touch of the persuader," and he flicked out the knotted leather thongs of his whip.

Daniel peered over the edge of the scaffold. Suddenly he stiffened and glanced over his shoulder at Hal. "There go Aboli and the other lads."

Hal stepped up beside him and looked down. From the doorway to the dungeon a small procession emerged. The four black seamen were led out into the wintry sunshine. Once again, they were wearing light chains. "Look at those lucky bastards," Ned Tyler muttered. They had not been included in the labour teams, but had stayed in the dungeon, resting and being fed an extra meal each day to fatten them up while they waited to go on the auction block. This morning Manseer had ordered the four men to strip naked. Then Doctor Soar, the Company surgeon, had come down to the cell and examined them, probing and peering into their ears and mouths to satisfy himself as to the state of their health. When the surgeon had left, Manseer ordered them to anoint themselves all over from a stone jar of oil. Now their skins shone in the sunlight like polished ebony. Though they were still lean and finely drawn from their stay aboard the Gull, the coating of oil made them appear sleek prime specimens of humanity. Now they were being led out through the gates of the castle onto the open Parade where already a crowd had gathered.

Before he passed through the gates Aboli raised his great round head and looked up at Hal on the scaffold, high above. For one moment their eyes met. There was no need for either to shout a message, chancing a cut of the cane from their keepers, and Aboli strode on without looking back.

The auction block was a temporary structure that at other times was used as a gibbet on which the corpses of executed criminals were placed on public view. The four men were lined up on the platform and Doctor Soar mounted the platform with them and addressed the crowd. "I have examined all of the four slaves being offered for sale today," he stated, lowering his head to peer over the tops of his wire-framed eye-glasses. "I can give the assurance that all of them are in good health. Their eyes and teeth are sound and they are hale in limb and body."

The crowd was in a festive mood. They clapped at the doctor's announcement, and gave him an ironical cheer as he climbed down from the block and hurried back towards the castle gates. Jacobus Hop stepped forward and held up a hand for silence. Then he read from the proclamation of the sale, the crowd jeering and imitating him every time he stuttered. "By order of His Excellency the Governor of this colony of the honourable Dutch East India Company, I am authorized to offer for sale, to the highest bidder, four Negro slaves-" He broke off and removed his Hat respectfully as the Governor's open carriage came down the avenue from the residence, passing through the gardens and wheeling out onto the open Parade behind the six glossy greys. Lord Cumbrae and the Governor's wife sat side by side on the open leather seats facing forward, and Colonel Schreuder sat opposite them.

The crowd opened to let the carriage come to the foot of the block, where Fredricus, the coloured coachman, called the team to a halt and wound down the hand brake. None of the passengers dismounted.

Katinka lolled elegantly on the leather seat, twirling her parasol, and chatting gaily to the two men.

On the platform Hop was thrown into confusion by the arrival of these exalted visitors, and stood flushing, stammering and blinking in the sunlight until Schreuder called out impatiently, "Get on with it, fellow! We didn't come here to watch you goggle and gape."

Hop replaced his Hat and bowed first at Schreuder then at Katinka.

He raised his voice. "The first lot is the slave Aboli. He is about thirty years of age and is believed to be a member of the Qwanda tribe from the east coast of Africa. As you are aware, the Qwanda Negroes are much appreciated as field slaves and herdsmen. He could also be trained into an excellent wagon driver or coachman." He paused to mop his sweaty face and gather his tripping tongue, then he went on, "Aboli is said to be a skilled hunter and fisherman. He would bring in a good income to his owner from any of these occupations."

"Mijnheer Hop, are you hiding anything from us?" Katinka called out, and Hop was once more thrown into disarray by the question. His stammer became so agonized that he could hardly get the words out.

"Revered lady, greatly esteemed lady," he spread his hands helplessly, "I assure you-" "Would you offer for sale a bull wearing clothes?" Katinka demanded. "Do you expect us to bid for something that we cannot see?"

As he caught her meaning, Hop's face cleared and he turned to Aboli. "Disrobe!" he ordered loudly, to bolster his courage while facing this huge wild savage. For a moment Aboli stared at him unmoving then contemptuously slipped the knot of his loincloth and let it fall to the planks under his feet.

Naked and magnificent, he stared over their heads at the table-topped mountain. There was a hissing intake of breath from the crowd below. One of the women squealed and another giggled nervously, but none turned away their eyes.

"Hoots!" Cumbrae broke the pregnant pause with a chuckle. "The buyer will be getting full measure. There is no makeweight in that load of blood-sausage. I'll start the bidding at five hundred guilders!"

"And a hundred more!" Katinka called out.

The Buzzard glanced at her and spoke softly from the corner of his mouth. "I did not know you were intending to bid, madam."

"I will have this one at any price, my lord," she warned him sweetly, "for he amuses me."

"I would never stand in the way of a beautiful lady." The Buzzard bowed. "But you will not bid against me for the other three, will you?"

"Tis a bargain, my lord." Katinka smiled. "This one is mine, and you may have the others."

Cumbrae folded his arms across his chest and shook his head when Hop looked to him to increase the bid. "Too rich a price for my digestion," he said, and Hop looked in vain for a buyer in the rest of the crowd. None was foolhardy enough to go up against the Governor's wife.

Recently they had been given a glimpse of his excellency's temper in open court.

"The slave Aboli is sold to Mevrouw van de Velde for the sum of six hundred guilders!" Hop sang out, and bowed towards the carriage. "Do you wish the chains struck off, Mevrouw?"

Katinka laughed. "And have him bolt for the mountains? No, Mijnheer, these soldiers will escort him up to the slave quarters at the residence." She glanced across at Schreuder who gave an order to a detachment of green-jackets waiting under their corporal at the edge of the crowd. They elbowed their way forward, dragged Aboli down from the block and led him away up the avenue towards the residence.

Katinka watched him go. Then she tapped the Buzzard on the shoulder with one finger. "Thank you, my lord."

"The next lot is the slave Jiri," Hop told them, reading from his notes. "He is, as you see, another fine strong specimen-" "Five hundred guilders!" growled the Buzzard, and glared at the other buyers, as if daring them to bid at their peril. But without the Governor's wife to compete against, the burghers of the colony were bolder.

"And one hundred," sang out a merchant of the town. "And a hundred more!" called a wagoner in a jacket of leopard skins The bidding went quickly to fifteen hundred guilders with only the wagoner and the Buzzard in the race.

"Damn and blast the clod!" Cumbrae muttered, and turned his head to catch the eye of his boatswain who, with three of his seamen, hovered beside the rear wheel of the carriage. Sam Bowles nodded and his eyes gleamed. With his men backing him he sidled through the press until he stood close behind the wagoner.

"Sixteen hundred guilders," roared the Buzzard, "and be damned to ye!"

The wagoner opened his mouth to push upwards and felt something prick him under the ribs. He glanced down at the knife in Sam Bowles's gnarled fist, closed his mouth and blanched white as baleen.

"The bid is against you, Mijnheer Tromp!" Hop called to him, but the wagoner scurried away across the Parade back towards the town.

Kimatti and Matesi were both knocked down to the Buzzard for well under a thousand guilders each. The other prospective buyers in the crowd had seen the little drama between Sam and the wagoner and none showed any further interest in bidding against Cumbrae.

All three slaves were dragged away by Sam Bowles's shore party towards the beach. When Matesi struggled to escape a shrewd crack over his scalp with a marlin spike quieted him and, with his mates, he was shoved into the longboat and rowed out to where the Gull lay anchored at the edge of the shoals.

"A successful expedition for both of us, my lord." Katinka smiled at the Buzzard. "To celebrate our acquisitions, I hope you will be able to dine with us at the residence this evening."

"Nothing would have given me greater pleasure, but alas, madam, I was lingering only for the sale and the chance of picking up a few prime seamen. Now my ship lies ready in the bay, and the wind and the tide bid me away."

"We shall miss you, my lord. Your company has been most diverting. I hope you will call on us and remain a while longer when next you round the Cape of Good Hope."

"There is no power on this earth, no storm, ill wind or enemy which could prevent me doing so," said Cumbrae and kissed her hand. Cornelius Schreuder glowered. he could not stand to see another man lay a finger on this woman who had come to rule his existence.

As the Buzzard's feet touched the deck of the Gull he shouted to the helm, "Geordie, my Alod, prepare to weigh anchor and get under way."

Then he singled out Sam Bowles. "I want the three Negroes on the quarterdeck, and swiftly." As they were ranged before him, he looked them over carefully. "Does any one of you three heathen beauties speak God's own language?" he asked, and they stared at him blankly. "So it's only your benighted lingo, is it?" He shook his head sadly. "That makes my life much harder."

"Begging your pardon," Sam Bowles tugged obsequiously at his Monmouth cap, "I know them well, all three of them. We was shipmates together, we was. They're playing you for a patsy. They all three speak good English."

Cumbrae grinned at them, with murder in his eyes. "You belong to me now, my lovelies, from the tops of your woolly heads to the pink soles of your great flat feet. If you want to keep your black hides in one piece, you'll not play games with me again, do you hear me?" And with a swipe of his huge hairy fist he sent Jiri crashing to the deck. "When I talk, to you you'll answer clear and loud in sweet English words. We're going back to Elephant Lagoon and, for the sake of your health, you're going to show me where Captain Franky hid his treasure. Do you hear me?"

Jiri scrambled back onto his feet. "Yes, Captain Lardy, sir! We hear you. You are our father."

"I'd rather have lopped off my own spigot with a blunt spade than fathered the likes of one of you with it!" The Buzzard grinned at them. "Now get ye up to the main yard to clap some canvas on her." And he sent Jiri on his way with a flying kick in the backside. atinka sat in sunlight, in a protected corner of the terrace out of the wind, with Cornelius Schreuder beside her. At the serving table Sukeena poured the wine with her own hands, and carried the two glasses to the luncheon table with its decorations of fruit and flowers from Slow John's gardens. She placed a tall glass with a spiral stem in front of Katinka, who reached out and caressed her arm lightly.

"Have you sent for the new slave?" she asked with a purr in her voice.

"Aboli is being bathed and fitted with a uniform, as you ordered, mistress," Sukeena answered softly, as if unaware of the other woman's touch. However, Schreuder had seen it, and it amused Katinka to watch him frown with jealousy.

She raised her glass to him and smiled over the rim. "Shall we drink to a swift voyage for Lord Cumbrae?" "Indeed." He lifted his glass. "A short swift voyage to the bottom of the ocean for him and all his countrymen."

"My dear Colonel," she smiled, "how droll. But, softly now, here comes my latest plaything."

Two green-jackets from the castle escorted Aboli onto the terrace.

He was dressed in a pair of tight-fitting black trousers and a white cotton shirt cut full to encompass his broad chest and massive arms. He stood silently before her.

Katinka switched into English. "In future you will bow when you enter my presence and you will address me as mistress, and if you forget I will ask Slow John to remind you. Do you know who Slow John is?"

"Yes, mistress," Aboli rumbled, without looking at her. "Oh, good! I thought you might be tiresome, and that I would have to have you broken and tamed. This makes things easier for both of us." She took a sip of the wine, then looked him over slowly with her head on one side. "I bought you on a whim, and I have not decided what I shall do with you. However, Governor Kleinhans is taking his coachman home with him when he sails. I will need a new coachman." She turned to Colonel Schreuder. "I have heard these Negroes are good with animals. Is that your experience also, Colonel?"

"Indeed, Mevrouw. Being animals themselves they seem to have a rapport with all wild and domestic beasts." Schreuder nodded, and studied Aboli unhurriedly. "He is a fine physical specimen but, of course, one does not look for intelligence in them. I congratulate you on your purchase."

"Later, I may breed him with Sukeena," Katinka. mused. The slave girl went still, but her back was turned so that they could not see her face. "It might be diverting to see how the black blood mingles with the gold."

"A most interesting mixture." Schreuder nodded. "But are you not worried that he may escape? I saw him fight on the deck of the Standvastigheid and he is a truculent savage. A leg iron might be suitable costume for him, at least until he has been broken in."

"I do not think I need go to such pains," Katinka said. "I was able to observe him at length during my captivity. Like a faithful dog, he is devoted to the pirate Courtney and even more so to his brat.

I believe he would never try to escape while either of them is alive in the castle dungeons. Of course, he will be locked in the slave quarters at night with the others, but during working hours he will be allowed to move around freely to attend to his duties."

"I am sure you know best, Mevrouw. But I for one would never trust such a creature," Schreuder warned her.

Katinka turned back to Sukeena. "I have arranged with Governor Kleinhans that Fredricus is to teach Aboli his duties as coachman and driver. The Standvastigheid will not sail for another ten days. That should be ample time. See to it immediately."

Sukeena made the gracious oriental obeisance. "As Mistress commands, she said, and beckoned for Aboli to follow her.

She walked ahead of him down the pathway to the stables where Fredricus had drawn up the coach and Aboli was reminded of the posture and carriage of the young virgins of his own tribe. As little girls they were trained by their mothers, carrying the water gourds balanced on their heads. Their backs grew straight and they seemed to glide over the ground, as this girl did.

"Your brother, Althuda, sends you his heart. He says that you are his tiger orchid still."

Sukeena stopped so abruptly that, walking behind her, Aboli almost collided with her. She seemed like a startled sugar bird perched on a pro tea bloom on the point of flight. When she moved on again he saw that she was trembling.

"You have seen my brother?" she asked, without turning her head to look at him.

"I never saw his face, but we spoke through the door of his cell. He said that your mother's name was Ashreth and that the jade brooch you wear was given to your mother by your father on the day of your birth. He said that if I told you these things, you would know that I was his friend."

"If he trusted you, then I also trust you. I, too, shall be your friend, Aboli," she agreed.

"And I shall be yours,"Aboli said softly.

"Oh, do tell me, how is Althuda? Is he well?" she pleaded. "Have they hurt him badly? Have they given him to Slow John?"

"Althuda is puzzled. They have not yet condemned him. He has been in the dungeon four long months and they have not hurt him."

"I give all thanks to Allah!" Sukeena turned and smiled at him, her face lovely as the tiger orchid to which Althuda had likened her. "I had some influence with Governor Kleinhans. I was able to persuade him to delay judgement on my brother. But now that he is going I do not know what will happen with the new one. My poor Althuda, so young and brave. If they give him to Slow John my heart will die with him, as slowly and as painfully."

"There is one I love as you love your brother," Aboli rumbled softly. "The two share the same dungeon."

"I think I know the one of whom you speak. Did I not see him on the day they brought all of you ashore in chains and marched you across the Parade? Is he straight and proud as a young prince?"

"That is the one. Like your brother, he deserves to be free."

Again Sukeena's feet checked, but then she glided onwards. "What are you saying, Aboli, my friend?"

"You and I together. We can work to set them free." "Is it possible?" she whispered.

"Althuda was free once. He broke his jesses and soared away like a falcon." Aboli looked up at the aching blue African sky. "With our help he could be free again, and Gundwane with him."

They had come to the stableyard and Fredricus roused himself on the seat of the carriage. He looked down at Aboli and his lips curled back to show teeth discoloured brown by chewing tobacco. "How can a black ape learn to drive my coach and my six darlings?" he asked the empty air.

"Fredricus is an enemy. Trust him not." Sukeena's lips barely moved as she gave Aboli the warning. "Trust nobody in this household until we can speak again." the house slaves, as well as most of the furniture in the residence, Katinka had purchased from Kleinhans all the horses in his string and the contents of the tack room. She had written him an order on her bankers in Amsterdam. It was for a large sum, but she knew that her father would make good any shortfall.

The most beautiful of all the horses was a bay mare, a superb animal with strong graceful legs and a beautifully shaped head. Katinka was an expert horsewoman, but she had no feeling or love for the creature beneath her and her slim, pale hands were strong and cruel. She rode with a Spanish curb that bruised the mare's mouth savagely, and her use of the whip was wanton. When she had ruined a mount she could always sell it and buy another.

Despite these faults, she was fearless and had a dashing seat. When the mare danced under her and threw her head against the agony of the whip and the curb, Katinka sat easily and looked marvellously elegant. Now she was pushing the mare to the full extent of her pace and endurance, flying at the steep path, using the whip when she faltered or when it seemed as though she would refuse to jump a fallen tree that blocked the pathway.

The horse was lathered, soaked with sweat as though she had plunged through a river. The froth that streamed from her gaping mouth was tinged pink with blood from the edged steel of the curb. It splattered back onto Katinka's boots and skirt, and she laughed wildly with excitement as they galloped out onto the saddle of the mountain. She looked– back over her shoulder. Schreuder was fifty lengths or more behind her. he had come by another route to meet her in secret. His black gelding was labouring heavily under his weight, and though Schreuder used the whip freely his mount could not hold the mare.

Katinka did not stop at the saddle but, with the whip and -the tiny needle-sharp spur under her riding habit, goaded the mare onward and sent her plunging straight down the far slope. Here a fall would be disastrous, for the footing was treacherous and the mare was blown. The danger excited Katinka. She revelled in the feel of the powerful body beneath her, and of the saddle leather pounding against her sweating thighs and buttocks.

They came slithering off the scree slope and burst out into the open meadow beside the stream. She raced parallel with the stream for half a league, but when she reached a hidden grove of silver leaf trees she reined in the mare in a dozen lunges from full gallop to a wrenching halt.

She unhooked her leg from over the horn of the sidesaddle and in a swirl of skirts and laced under linen dropped lightly to earth. She landed like a cat, and while the mare blew like the bellows of a smithy and reeled on her feet with exhaustion, Katinka. stood, both fists clenched on her hips, and watched Schreuder come down the slope after her.

He reached the meadow and galloped to where she stood. There, he jumped from the gelding's back. His face was dark with rage. "That was madness, Mevrouw," he shouted. "If you had fallen!"

"But I never fall, Colonel." She laughed in his face. "Not unless you can make me." She reached up suddenly and threw both arms around his neck. Like a lamprey she fastened on his lips, sucking so powerfully that she drew his tongue into her own mouth. As his arms tightened around her she bit his lower lip hard enough to start his blood, and tasted the metallic salt on her own tongue. When he roared with pain, she broke from his embrace and, lifting the skirts of her habit, ran lightly along the bank of the stream.

"Sweet Mary, you'll pay dearly for that, you little devil!" He wiped his mouth, and when he saw the smear of blood on his palm, he raced after her.

These last days, Katinka had toyed with him, driving him to the frontiers of sanity, promising and then revoking, teasing and then dismissing, cold as the north wind one moment then hot as the tropical sun at noonday. He was dizzy and confused with lust and longing, but his desire had infected her. Tormenting him, she had driven herself as far and as hard. She wanted him now almost as much as he wanted her. She wanted to feel him deep inside her body, she had to have him quench the fires she had ignited in her womb. The time had come when she could delay no longer.

He caught up with her and she turned at bay. With her back against one of the silver leaf trees, she faced him like a hind cornered by the hounds. She saw the blind rage turn his eyes opaque as marble. His face was swollen and encarnadined, his lips drawn back to expose his clenched teeth.

With a thrill of real terror she realized that this rage into which she had driven him was a kind of madness over which he had no control. She knew that she was in danger of her life and, knowing that, her own lust broke its banks like a mighty river in full spate.

She threw herself at him and with both hands ripped at the fastenings of his breeches. "You want to kill me, don't you?"

"You bitch," he choked, and reached for her throat. "You slut. I can stand no more. I will make you-" She pulled him out through the opening in his clothes, hard and thick, swollen furious red and so hot he seemed to sear her fingers. "Kill– me with this, then. Thrust it into me so deeply that you pierce my heart." She leaned back against the rough bark of the silver leaf and planted her feet wide apart. He swept her skirts up high, and with both hands she guided him into herself. As he lunged and bucked furiously against her, the tree against which she leaned shook as though a gale of wind had struck it. The silver leaves rained down over them glinting like newly minted coins as they spun and swirled in the sunlight. As she reached her climax Katinka screamed so that the echoes rang along the yellow cliffs high above them. atinka came down from the mountain like a fury, riding on the wings of the north-west gale that had sprung so suddenly out of the sunny winter sky. Her hair had broken free of her bonnet and streamed out like a brilliant banner, snapping and tangling in the wind. The mare ran as though pursued by lions. When she reached the upper vineyards, Katinka put her to the high stone wall, over which she soared like a falcon.

She galloped through the gardens down to the stableyard. Slow John turned to watch her go by. The green things he had nurtured were uprooted, torn and scattered beneath the mare's flying hoofs. When she had passed, Slow John stooped and picked up a shredded stem. He lifted it to his mouth and bit into it softly, tasting the sweet sap. He felt no resentment. The plants he grew were meant to be cut and destroyed, just as man is born to die. To Slow John, only the manner of the dying was significant.

He stared after the mare and her rider and felt the same reverence and awe that always overcame him at the moment when he released one of his little sparrows from this mortal existence. He thought of all the condemned souls who died under his hands as his little sparrows. The first time he had set his eyes on Katinka van de Velde he had fallen completely under her spell. He felt that he had waited all his life for this woman. He had recognized in her those mystical qualities that dictated his own existence but, compared to her, he knew that he was a thing crawling in primeval slime.