‘You are a very silent young man.’ Dirk smiled that warm endearing smile again. ‘I like a man who can keep his own counsel, and respect the privacy of others.’ He turned to confront Mark, forcing him to meet his eyes.
Dirk reminded Mark of some glossy cat, one of the big predators, not the tabby domestic variety. The leopard, golden and beautiful and cruel. He wondered at his own courage, or foolhardiness, in coming here right into the leopard’s lair. A year ago it might have been suicidal to put himself in this man’s hands. Even now, without Sean Courtney’s protection, he would never have dared. Yet although it was logical to believe that nobody, not even Dirk Courtney, would dare touch him, now that he was Sean Courtney’s protégé with all that that implied, yet prickles of apprehension nettled his spine as he looked into those leopard’s eyes.
Dirk took his elbow, not giving him opportunity to avoid the touch, and led him through a gateway to the stud pens.
The two pens were enclosed with ten-foot high pole fences, carefully padded to prevent damage to the expensive animals that would be confined here. The earth within the rectangular enclosures was ankle-deep with fresh saw-dust, and though one was empty, there was a group of four grooms busy in the nearest pen.
Two of them had the mare on a double lead rein. She was a young animal, a deep red bay in colour, and she had the beautiful balanced head of the Arab, wide nostrils which promised great heart and stamina, and strong but delicate bones.
Dirk Courtney placed a booted foot on the bottom rail of the pen, and leaned forward to look at her with a gloating pride.
‘She cost me a thousand guineas,’ he said, ‘and it was a bargain.’
The two other grooms had the stallion in check. An old, heavily built animal, with grey dappling his muzzle. He wore a girdle, strapped under his belly, and up between the hindlegs, a cage like an old-fashioned chastity belt of woven light chain that was called the teaser. It would prevent him effectively covering the mare.
The grooms gave him rein to approach the mare, but the instant she felt his gentle nuzzling touch under her tail, she put her head down and lashed out with both back legs, a murderous hissing cut of hooves that flew within inches of the stallion’s head.
He snorted and backed away. Then, undeterred, he closed with her once more, reaching out to touch her flank, running his nose with a gentle lover’s touch across the glossy hide, but the mare made her skin shudder wildly, as though she were beset by bees, and she let out a screaming whinny of outrage at the importunate touch on her maidenly virtue. One of the grooms was dragged down on his knees as she flashed at the stallion with terrible yellow teeth, catching him in the neck and ripping open his old dappled hide in a shallow bloody cut before they pulled her off.
‘Poor old beggar,’ murmured Mark, although the injury was superficial; it was the indignity of the whole business that aroused Mark’s sympathy. The old stallion must endure the kicks and bites, until at last the temperamental filly was wooed and willing. Then he would be led away, his work done.
‘Never waste sympathy for the losers in this world,’ Dirk advised him. ‘There are too many of them.’
In the sawdust-covered arena, the filly lifted her tail, the long glossy hairs forming a soft waving plume, and she urinated a sharp spurt that was evidence of her arousal.
The stallion circled her, rolling back his upper lip, exposing his teeth, and his shoulder muscles spasmed violently as he nodded his head vigorously and reached out to her again.
She stood quietly now, with her tail still raised, and trembled at the soft loving touch of his muzzle, ready at last to accept him.
‘All right,’ Dirk shouted. ‘Take him out.’ But it required the strength of both grooms to drag his head around and lead him out of the tall gate that Dirk swung open.
‘Strangely enough, I don’t believe that you are one of this life’s losers,’ Dirk told Mark easily, as they waited by the gate. ‘That is why you are here at this moment. I only trouble myself with a certain type of man. Men with either talent, or strength or vision — or all of those virtues. I believe you may be of that type.’
Mark knew then that all this had been carefully arranged, the meeting with Peter Botes, Marion Littlejohn’s brother-in-law, outside the post office in Ladyburg, the urgent summons to Dirk Courtney’s estate he had delivered, so there was no opportunity to report to Sean Courtney and discuss the invitation, and now this erotic show of mating horses – all of it planned to confuse and unsettle Mark, to keep him unbalanced.
‘I think you are more like this,’ Dirk went on, as the grooms led in the stud stallion, an animal too valued to risk damaging by putting to an unwilling female, a tall horse, black as a rook’s wing, high-stepping and proud, kicking the soft sawdust with polished hooves, and then coming up hard and trembling on stiff legs as he smelt the waiting mare, and the great black root grew out of his belly, long as a man’s arm and as thick, arrogant, and with a flaring head that pulsed with a life of its own and beat impatiently against the stallion’s chest.
‘The -losers toil, and the winners take the spoil,’ said Dirk, as the huge beast reared up over the mare. One of the grooms darted forward to guide him, and the mare hunched her back to receive the long gliding penetration.
‘The winners and the losers,’ he repeated, watching the stallion work with glistening bulging quarters, and Dirk’s handsome face was flushed with high colour, and his hands gripped the poles of the fence until the knuckles blanched like marble.
When at last the stallion dropped back off the mare on to four legs, Dirk sighed, took Mark’s elbow again and led him away.
‘You were present when I spoke with my father of my dream.’
‘I was there,’ Mark agreed.
‘Oh good,’ Dirk laughed genially. ‘You have a voice – I was beginning to doubt it. But my information is that you have a good brain also.’
Mark glanced at him sharply and Dirk assured him, ‘Naturally, I have made it my business to find out all about you. You know certain details of my plans. I must be in a position to protect myself.’
They skirted the ornamental pond, below the homestead, the surface covered with flat lily pads and the smell of their blooms light and sugary in the afternoon heat, and they went on through the formal rose garden, neither of them speaking again until they had entered the high-ceilinged and overfumished study; Dirk had closed the wooden shutters against the heat, making the room cool and gloomy, and somehow forbidding.
He waved Mark to a chair across from the fireplace and went to the table on which stood a silver tray of bottles and crystal.
‘Drink?’ he asked, and Mark shook his head and watched Dirk pour from a black bottle.
‘You know my dream,’ Dirk spoke, still concentrating on his task. ‘What did you think of it?’
‘It’s a large concept,’ Mark said cautiously.
‘Large?’ Dirk laughed. ‘It’s not the word I would have chosen.’ He saluted Mark with the glass and sipped at it, watching him over the rim.
‘Strange how the fates work,’ Dirk thought, watching the slim graceful figure. ‘Twice I tried to be rid of the nuisance he could have caused me. If I had succeeded, I would not be able to use him now.’
He hitched one leg over the corner of his desk and set the glass aside carefully to leave both hands free, and he gesticulated as he talked.
‘We are talking of opening a whole new frontier, a huge step forward for our nation, work for tens of thousands of people, new towns, new harbours, railways – progress.’ He spread his hands, a gesture of growth and limitless opportunity. ‘That one wonderful word that describes it all – progress! And anybody who tries to stop that is worse than a fool, he’s a criminal, a traitor to his country, and should be treated as one. He should be brushed mercilessly aside, by any means that comes to hand.’
He paused now and glowered at Mark. The threat was barely concealed, and Mark stirred restlessly in his chair.
‘On the other hand,
’ Dirk smiled suddenly, like a flooding beam of sunlight bursting through the grey overcast of a storm sky. ‘Every man who works towards the fulfilment of this huge concept will be fully entitled to a share of the rewards.’
‘What do you want from me?’ Mark asked, and the abrupt question caught Dirk with his hands poised and the next flight of oratory on his lips. He let the hands drop to his sides, and watched Mark’s face expectantly, as though there was something still to come. ‘And what are the rewards you speak of?’ Mark went on, and Dirk laughed delightedly, those were the words for which he had been waiting – each man has a coin for which he will work.
‘You know what I want from you,’ he said.
‘Yes, I think I do,’ Mark agreed.
‘Tell me what I want,’ Dirk laughed again.
‘You want a report that recommends that the development of the Chaka’s Gate proclaimed area as a National Park is not practical.’
‘You said it, not me.’ Dirk picked up his glass again and lifted it to Mark. ‘But, none the less, I’ll drink to it.’
‘And the rewards?’ Mark went on.
‘The satisfaction of knowing that you are doing your patriotic duty for the peoples of this nation,’ Dirk told him solemnly.
‘I had all the satisfaction I need for a lifetime in France,’ Mark said softly. ‘But I found out you can’t eat or drink it,’ and Dirk laughed delightedly.
‘That really is choice, I must remember it. Are you certain you won’t have a drink?’
Mark smiled for the first time. ‘Yes, I’ll change my mind.’
‘Whisky?’
‘Please.’
Dirk stood up and went to the silver tray, and he realized that he felt a sneaking relief. If it had proved that this man had no price, as he had started to believe possible, it would have destroyed one of the headstones on which he had based his whole philosophy of life. But it was all right again now. The man had a price, and he felt a sudden contempt and scorn — it would be money, and a paltry sum at that. There was nothing different about this fellow.
He turned back to Mark.
‘Here is something you can drink.’ He gave him the crystal glass. ‘Now let’s discuss something you can eat.’
He went back to the desk, slid open one of the drawers, and took out of it a brown manilla envelope, sealed with red wax.
He laid it on the desk-top, and picked up his own glass. ‘That contains an earnest of my good will,’ he said.
‘How earnest?’
‘One thousand pounds,’ Dirk said. ‘Enough to buy a mountain of bread.’
‘One of your companies bought a farm from my grandfather,’ Mark spoke carefully. ‘He had promised that farm to me, and he died without leaving any of the money.’
Dirk’s expression had closed suddenly and his eyes were wary and watchful. For a moment he played with the idea of feigning ignorance, but already he had admitted he had investigated Mark thoroughly.
‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘I know about that. The old man wasted it all away.’
‘The price of that farm was three thousand pounds,’ Mark went on. ‘I feel that I am still owed that money.’
Dirk dropped his hand into the drawer again, and brought out two identical sealed envelopes. He laid them carefully on top of the first envelope.
‘By a strange coincidence,’ he said. ‘I just happen to have that exact amount with me.’
A paltry sum indeed, he smiled his contempt. What had made him suspect that there was something unusual about this man, he wondered. In the desk drawer were seven other identical manilla envelopes, each containing one hundred ten pound notes. He had been prepared to go that high for the report – no, he corrected himself, I would have been prepared to go further, much further.
‘Come,’ he smiled. ‘Here it is.’ And he watched Mark Anders rise from the chair and cross the room, pick up the envelopes and slip them into his pocket.
Sean Courtney’s beard bristled like the quills on the back of an angry porcupine, and his face turned slowly to the colour of a badly fired brick.
‘Good God!’ he growled, as he stared at the three envelopes on his desk top. The seals had been carefully split and the contents arranged in three purple blue fans of crisp treasury bills. ‘You took his money?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Mark agreed, standing in front of the desk like a wayward pupil before the head pedagogue.
‘Then you have the brass to come to me with it?’ Sean made a gesture as though to sweep the piles of bills on to the floor. ‘Take the filthy stuff away from me.’
‘Your first lesson, General. The money is always important, ’ Mark said quietly.
‘Yes, but what must I do with this?’
‘As patron of the Society for the Protection of African Wildlife, your duty would be to send the donor a letter of acceptance and thanks for his generous donation—’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Sean stared at him. ‘What society is this?’
‘I have just formed it, sir, and elected you patron. I am sure we will be able to draw up a suitable memorandum of objects and rules of membership, but what it boils down to is a campaign to make people aware of what we are going to do, to gather public support—’ Mark spoke rapidly, pouring it all out, and Sean listened with the brick colour of his face slowly returning to normal, and a slow but delighted grin pulling his beard out of shape. ‘We’ll use this money for advertisements in the press to make people aware of their heritage,’ Mark raced on, ideas tumbling out of him, and immediately spawning new ideas, while Sean listened, his grin becoming a spasmodic chuckle that shook his shoulders, and then finally a great peal of laughter, that went on for many minutes.
‘Enough!’ at last he bellowed delightedly. ‘Sit down, Mark, that’s enough for now.’ And he groped for a handkerchief to mop his eyes and blow the great hooked beak of a nose like a trumpet, while he recovered his self-control. ‘It’s indecent,’ he chortled. ‘Positively sacrilegious! You have no respect for money at all. It’s unnatural.’
‘Oh, yes, I have — but money is only a means, not an end, sir,’ Mark laughed also, for the General’s mirth was contagious.
‘My God, Mark. You are a prize, you really are. Where ever did I find you?’ He gave one last chuckle, and then grew serious. He drew a clean sheet of paper from the sidedrawer and began to make notes. ‘As though I haven’t enough work already,’ he growled. ‘Now let’s draw up a list of objects for this bloody society of yours.’
They worked for nearly three hours, and Ruth Courtney had to come and call them to the dinner table.
‘In a minute, dear,’ Sean told her, and placed a paperweight on the thick pile of notes he had made; he was about to rise when he frowned at Mark.
‘You have chosen a dangerous enemy for yourself, young man,’ he warned him.
‘Yes, I know,’ Mark nodded soberly.
‘You say that with feeling.’ He stared at Mark questioningly. Mark hesitated a moment and then he began.
‘You know my grandfather, John Anders, you spoke of him once before.’ Sean nodded, and sank back into the padded leather chair. ‘He had land, eight thousand acres, he called it Andersland—’
Sean nodded again, and Mark went on carefully, telling it all without embellishment, stating the facts, and when he had to guess or make conjecture, stating that it was so. Again Ruth came to call them to dinner, just when Mark was describing the night on the escarpment when the gunmen had come to his camp. She was about to insist they come before the meal spoiled, but then she saw their faces and came silently to stand behind Sean’s chair and listen, her face becoming paler and more set.
He told them about Chaka’s Gate, how he had searched for his grandfather’s grave and the men who had come to hunt him, and when he had finished the story they were all silent, until at last Sean roused himself, sighed – a gusty, sorrowful sound – before he spoke.
‘Why didn’t you report this?’
‘Report what? Who wou
ld have believed me?’
‘You could have gone to the police.’
‘I have not a shred of evidence that points to Dirk Courtney, except my own absolute certainty.’ And he dropped his eyes. ‘It’s such a wild, unlikely story that I was afraid to tell even you, until this moment.’
‘Yes,’ Sean nodded. ‘I can see that. Even now I don’t want to believe it is true.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mark simply.
‘I know it’s true – but I don’t want to believe it.’ Sean shook his head, and lowered his chin on to his chest. Ruth, standing behind him, placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. ‘Oh God, how much more must I suffer for him?’ he whispered, then lifted his head again.
‘You will be in even greater danger now, Mark.’
‘I don’t think so, General. I am under your protection, and he knows it.’
‘God grant that is enough,’ Sean muttered, ‘but what can we do against him? How can we stop this – ’ Sean paused, seeking the word, and then hissed it savagely, ‘this monster?’
‘There is no evidence,’ Mark said. ‘Nothing to use against him. He has been too clever for that by far.’
‘There is evidence,’ said Sean with complete certainty. ‘If all this is true, then there is evidence — somewhere.’
Trojan the mule’s broad back felt like a barrel under Mark, and the sun beat through his shirt so that his sweat rose in dark damp patches between his shoulder blades and at his armpits, as he jogged down the bank of the Bubezi with Spartan, the second heavily burdened mule, following him on a lead rein.
In the river bed on one of the sugary white sandbanks, he let the mules wade in knee-deep and begin to drink, sucking up the clear water noisily so that he could feel the animal’s belly swelling between his knees.
He pushed his hat on to the back of his head and wiped away the drops from his brow with one thumb as he looked up at the portals of Chaka’s Gate. They seemed to fall out of the sky like cascades of stone, sheer and eternal, so vast and solid that they dwarfed the land and the river at their feet.