Power of the Sword - Smith Wilbur - Страница 127
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Manie. His father leaned closer, glancing around the cell like a conspirator before he tugged at Manfred's sleeve. The diamonds, have you still got your diamonds? he demanded, and immediately saw the answer in Manfred's face.
What happened to them? Lothar's distress was hard to watch. 'They were my legacy to you, all I could leave you.
Where are they? Uncle Tromp, he found them years ago. He said they were evil, the coin of the devil, and he made me destroy them. 'Destroy them? Lothar gaped at him.
Break them on an anvil with a sledgehammer. Crush them to powder, all of them. Manfred watched his father's old fierce spirit flare up.
Lothar leapt to his feet and raged around the cell. Tromp Bierman, if I could get my hand on you! You were always a 1stubborn sanctimonious hypocrite, He broke off and came back to his son.
Manie, there are the others. Do you remember, the kopjeZ the hill in the desert? I left them there for you. You must
go back.
Manfred turned his head away. Over the years he had tried to drive the memory from his mind. It was evil, the memory of great evil, associated with terror and guilt and grief. He had tried to close his mind to that time in his life. It was long ago, and he had almost succeeded, but now at his father's words he tasted again the reek of gangrene in the back of his throat and saw the package of treasure slide down into the cleft in the granite.
I have forgotten the way back, Papa. I could never find the way back. Lothar was pulling at his arm. Hendrick! he babbled.
Swart Hendrick! He knows, he can lead you. Hendrick. Manfred blinked. A name, half-forgotten, a fragment from his past; then suddenly and clearly an image of that great bald head, that black cannonball of a head, sprang into his mind. Hendrick, he repeated. 'But he is gone. I don't know where. Gone back into the desert. I could never find him. No! No! Manie, Hendrick is here, somewhere close here on the Witwatersrand. He is a big man now, a chief among his own people. How do you know, Papa? The grapevine! In here we hear everything. They come in from the outside, bringing news and messages. We hear everything. Hendrick sent word to me. He had not forgotten me. We were comrades. We rode ten thousand miles together and fought a hundred battles. He sent word to me, to set a place where I could find him if ever I escaped these damned walls. Lothar leaned forward and seized his son's head, pulling it close, placing his lips to his ear, whispering urgently and then drawing back. You must go and find him there.
He will lead you back to the granite hill below the Okavango river - and, oh sweet God, how I wish I could be there to ride into the desert with you again. There was the clink of keys in the lock and Lothar shook his son's arm desperately. Promise me you will go, Manie. Papa, the stones are evil. Promise me, my own son, promise me that I have not endured these captive years for nothing. Promise me you will go back for the stones. I promise, Papa, Manfred whispered, as the warder stepped into the cell.
Time is up. I'm sorry. Can I come and see my father again tomorrow? The warder shook his head. Only one visit a month. I'll write to you, Papa. He turned back to embrace Lothar.
I'll write to you every week from now on. But Lothar nodded expressionlessly; his face had closed and his eyes were veiled. Ja!
he nodded. You write to me sometime, he agreed, and shuffled out of the cell.
Manfred stared at the closed green door until the warder touched his shoulder: Come along. Manfred followed him to the visitors entrance in a tangle of emotions. only when he stepped out of the gates into the sunlight and looked up at the towering blue African sky of which his father had spoken so yearningly did one emotion emerge to swamp all the others.
It was rage, blind hopeless rage, and it grew stronger over the days that followed, seeming to climax as he marched down the aisle between the rows of screaming cheering spectators towards the brilliantly lighted ring of rope and canvas, dressed in shimmering silks with the crimson leather on his fists and bloody murder in his heart.
Centaine woke long before Blaine did; she grudged every second they wasted in sleep. It was still dark outside for the cottage was close under the precipice of the high tabletopped mountain and screened from dawn's first glow by its bulk, though the birds in the tiny walled garden were already squeaking and chirping sleepily. She had ordered tacoma and honeysuckle to be trained over the stone walls to attract them, and on her orders the feeding-boxes were replenished every day by the gardener.
She had taken months to find the perfect cottage. It had to be discreetly enclosed, with covered parking for her Daimler and Blaine's new Bentley, both vehicles that attracted immediate attention. It had to be within ten minutes walk of Parliament and Blaine's office in the wing of the imposing Herbert Baker building reserved for cabinet ministers. it had to have a view of the mountain, and must be set in one of the tiny lanes of an unfashionable suburb where none of their friends or business associates or fellow parliamentarians or enemies or members of the press were ever likely to stray.
But above all it had to have that special feel.
When at last she walked into it she did not even see the stained and faded wallpaper or the threadbare carpets on the floor. She stood in the central room and smiled softly.
Happy people have lived here. Yes, this is the one. I'll take it. She had registered the title deeds in one of her holding companies, but trusted no architect nor decorator with its renovation. She planned and executed the reconstruction entirely herself.
It's got to be the most perfect love nest ever built., She set her usual unattainable standard for herself and consulted with the builder and his carpenters and plumbers and painters every single morning while the work was in hand.
They tore down the walls between the four tiny bedrooms and fashioned them into a single boudoir with french windows and shutters opening onto the enclosed garden with its high wall of yellow Table Mountain sandstone and the view of the grey mountain cliff beyond.
She built separate bathrooms for Blaine and herself, his finished in ruby-veined cream Italian marble with gold dolphin taps and fittings, hers like a Bedouin tent draped in rose silk.
The bed was a museum piece, Italian Renaissance workmanship inlaid with ivory and gold leaf. We can always play polo on it in the off-season, Blaine remarked when first he saw it, and she placed her magnificent Turner, all sunlight and golden sea, so that it was in full view from the bed.
She hung the Bonnard in the dining-room and lit it with a chandelier which was a shimmering inverted Christmas tree of crystal, and placed the choicest pieces of her collection of Queen Anne and Louis Quatorze silver on the sideboard.
She staffed the cottage with four permanent servants, cluding a valet for Blaine and a full-time gardener. The In chef was a Malay who conjured up the most heavenly pilaffs and boboties and rest that Blaine, who had a spicy palate and was a connoisseur of curries, had ever tasted.
A flowerseller from her pitch outside the Groote Kerk near the parliament buildings had a contract to deliver huge bunches of yellow roses to the cottage each day, and Centaine stocked the small wine cellar with the noblest vintages from Weltevreden's own cavernous cellars and installed, at enormous expense, an electric walk-in cold room in the pantries to keep the hams and cheeses, the potted caviars and smoked Scotch salmon and other such necessities of life in prime condition.
Yet with all her loving attention to detail and lavish planning, they were lucky if they could spend a single night there in a month, although there were other stolen hours, garnered like diamonds, and hoarded by Centaine as though she were the stingiest of misers: a private luncheon when parliament recessed or a midnight interlude after the house had sat late; the occasional afternoon, and, oh sweet heavens, what afternoons, when his wife, Isabella, believed he was at polo practice or at a cabinet meeting.
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