Power of the Sword - Smith Wilbur - Страница 132

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in the afternoon they went to the zoo. Between feeding the monkeys and rowing on the lake, they discussed Shasa's plans for the future and she was delighted to learn that he had lost none of his determination to take up his duties and responsibilities with Courtney Mining and Finance as soon as he had obtained his Master's degree.

They arrived back at the Carlton with plenty of time to change for the boxing. Blaine, already in his dinner jacket, held a whisky and soda in his hand and he sprawled in one of the armchairs and watched Centaine complete her toilet.

She enjoyed that. It was playing at being married again, and she called him to hook in her ear-rings and then paraded for his approval, pirouetting to spread her long skirts.

I have never been to a boxing match before, Blaine. Aren't we terribly over-dressed? I assure you that black tie is de rigueur. oh God, I'm so nervous. I don't know what I'm going to say to him, even if I get a chance, she broke off. You did manage to get tickets, didn't you? He showed them to her and smiled. Front row, and I have arranged for a car and driver. Shasa drifted into the suite with a white silk scarf draped casually over the shoulders of his dinner jacket, and his black tie minutely and artfully asymmetrical so that it could never be mistaken for one of the modern clip-on monstrosities.

He looks so magnificent. Centaine's heart swelled at the sight of him. How ever am I going to preserve him from the harpies? He kissed her before going to the cabinet and pouring her customary glass of champagne.

Can I freshen your whisky, sir? he asked Blaine.

Thanks, but one is my limit, Shasa, Blaine declined, and Shasa poured himself a dry ginger-ale. That was one thing she didn't have to worry about, Centaine thought, liquor would never be one of Shasa's weaknesses.

Well, Mater, Shasa raised his glass, here's to your newfound interest in the gentlemanly art of boxing. Are you versed in the general objectives of the game? I think two young men get into a ring and try to kill each other, is that right! That, Centaine, is exactly right, Blaine laughed. He never used an endearment in front of Shasa, and not for the first time she wondered what Shasa thought of her and Blaine.

He must suspect, surely, but she had enough to worry about this evening without opening that dark door. She drank her champagne and then, gorgeous in diamonds and silks, on the arms of the two most important men in her world, she swept out to the waiting limousine.

The streets of the campus of the University of the Witwatersrand around the gymnasium were solid with parked vehicles and others moving nose to tail up the hill, while the sidewalks were packed with a jostling excited crowd of students and fight fans from the general public hurrying towards the hall, so their driver was forced to drop them off two hundred yards short of the entrance, and they joined the throng on foot.

The atmosphere in the hall was noisy and expectant, and as they took their reserved seats Centaine was relieved to see that everyone in the first three rows was wearing evening dress and that there were almost as many ladies as gentlemen in the crowd. She had had nightmares about being the only female in the hall.

She sat through the preliminary bouts, trying to appear interested in the lecture she was receiving from both Blaine and Shasa on the finer points of the contests, but the fighters in the lower weight divisions were so small and scrawny that they reminded her of underfed game cocks, and the flurry of action was fast enough to trick the eye. Besides, racing ahead to her first her mind and expectations were sight of the man she had come to see.

Another bout ended; the fighters, bruised and slick with sweat, climbed down from the ring, and an expectant hush fell on the hall, and heads began craning around towards the dressing-room.

Blaine checked his programme and murmured, This is it! Then a bloodthirsty roar went up from the mass of spectators.

Here he comes. Blaine touched her arm, but she found she could not turn her head.

,I wish I had never come, she thought, and shrank down in her seat. I don't want him to see me. The light heavyweight challenger, Manfred De La Rey, came down to the ring first, attended by his coach an two seconds, and the block of Stellenbosch students let out a roar and brandished their colour banners, launching into the Varsity war cry. They were immediately answered by the Wits students opposite with cheers and jeers and stamping of feet. The pandemonium was painful to the eardrums as Manfred climbed up into the ring and did a little shuffling dance, holding his gloved hands above his head, the silk gown swinging from his shoulders like a cloak.

His hair had grown longer and unfashionably it was not dressed with Brylcreem, but rippled around his head like a gilded cloud as he moved. His jaw was strong, stopping just short of heaviness, and the bones of forehead and cheek were prominent and cleanly chiselled, but his eyes dominated all his other features, pale and implacable as those of one of the big predatory cats, emphasized by his dark brows.

His shoulders were wide, descending in an inverted pyramid to his hips and the long clean lines of his legs, and his body had been pared of all fat and loose flesh, so that each individual muscle was visible beneath the skin.

Shasa stiffened in his seat as he recognized him. He chewed angrily, grinding his teeth together as he remembered the impact of those fists into his flesh and the suffocating slime of dead fish engulfing him as clearly as if the intervening years had never been.

I know him, Mater, he growled between clenched teeth.

He is the one I fought on the jetty at Walvis Bay. Centaine laid a hand on his arm to restrain him, but she did not look at him nor speak. Instead, she stole a single glance at Blaine's face, and what she saw distressed her.

Blaine's expression was grim, and she could feel the anger and the hurt in him. He might have been understanding and magnanimous a thousand miles from here, but with the living proof of her wantonness before him, he could only be thinking of the man who had made this bastard on her, and her acquiescence, nay, her joyous participation in the act.

He was thinking of her body which should be his alone, used by a stranger, by an enemy against whom he had risked his life in battle.

Oh God, why did I come? She tortured herself, and then she felt something melt and change shape inside of her and knew the answer.

Flesh of my flesh, she thought. Blood of my blood. And she remembered the weight of him in her womb, and the spasm of burgeoning life deep within her, and all the instincts of motherhood welled and threatened to choke her, and the angry birth cry rang again in her head, deafening her.

My son! she almost cried aloud. My own son. The magnificent fighting man in the ring turned his head in her direction and saw her for the first time. He dropped his hands to his sides, and he lifted his chin and stared at her with such concentrated venom, with such bitter hatred in those yellow eyes that it was like the blow of a spiked mace in her unprotected face. Then Manfred De La Rey deliberately turned his back on her and strode to his corner.

The three of them, Blaine, Shasa and Centaine, sat rigid and silent in the midst of the roaring, chanting, heaving multitude. Not one of the three looked at the others, only Centaine moved, twisting the corner of her sequined shawl in her lap and chewing on her lower lip to prevent it quivering.

The champion jumped up into the ring. Ian Rushmore was an inch shorter than Manfred, but broader and deeper in the chest, with long simian arms heavily muscled, and a neck so short and thick that his head seemed to ride directly on his shoulders. Thick, coarse black hair curled out of the top of his vest and he looked powerful and dangerous as a wild boar.

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