Birds of Prey (40 page)

‘Come down,’ he ordered. ‘Let me up.’

Through the bars he saw the state carriage parked at the foot of the broad staircase that led up to the Company offices and the Governor’s suite. The coachman’s name was Fredricus,
an elderly Javanese slave who belonged to Governor Kleinhans. According to Althuda, he was no friend. For thirty years he had been Kleinhans’ dog, and he could not be trusted. Althuda
suspected that he was the one who had betrayed him, and had reported his return from the mountains to Major Loten. ‘We will probably be rid of him when Kleinhans leaves the colony. He is sure
to take Fredricus back with him to Holland,’ Althuda told them.

There was a sudden stir as a detachment of soldiers hurried across the courtyard from the armoury and formed up at the foot of the staircase.

‘Kleinhans going out,’ Hal called, recognizing these preparations, and as he spoke the double doors swung open and a small party emerged into the sunlight and descended towards the
waiting carriage.

The tall, stooped figure of Kleinhans, with his sour dyspeptic face, contrasted sharply with the lovely young woman on his arm. Hal’s heart tripped as he recognized Katinka but his
feelings were no longer as intense as once they had been. Instead, his eyes narrowed as he saw that the Neptune sword hung in its chased and gold-encrusted scabbard at Schreuder’s side as the
colonel followed Katinka down the stairs. Each time he saw Schreuder wearing it his anger was rekindled.

Fredricus climbed stiffly from his high seat, folded down the steps, opened the carriage door, then stood aside to allow the two gentlemen to hand Katinka up and settle her comfortably.

‘What is happening down there?’ his father called and, with a guilty start, Hal realized that he had not spoken since he had laid eyes on the woman he loved. By now, though, she had
been carried out of his sight. The carriage rolled out smoothly through the castle gates, and the sentries saluted as Fredricus shook the horses into a trot across the parade.

I
t was a sparkling autumn day, and the constant sou’-easter of summer had dropped. Katinka sat beside Governor Kleinhans, facing forward.
Cornelius Schreuder sat opposite her. She had left her husband in his office in the castle, labouring over his reports for the Seventeen, and now she felt the devil in her. She flounced out her
skirts and the rustling crinolines covered the Colonel’s soft leather boots.

While still chatting animatedly to Kleinhans, she reached out one slippered foot under cover of her skirts and found Schreuder’s toe. She pressed it coquettishly, and felt him start. She
pressed again, and felt him respond sheepishly. Then she turned from Kleinhans and addressed Schreuder directly. ‘Don’t you agree, Colonel, that an avenue of oaks leading up to the
residence would look splendid? I can imagine their thick hard trunks standing up vigorously. How beautiful that would be.’ She opened her violet eyes wide to give the remark significance, and
pressed his foot again.

‘Indeed, Mevrouw.’ Schreuder’s voice was husky with double meaning. ‘I agree with you entirely. In fact the image you paint is so vivid that you should be able to see the
stem growing before your very eyes.’

At this invitation she glanced down at his lap and, to her amusement, saw the effect that she was having upon him. He is putting up a tent in his breeches for my sake!

Almost a mile beyond the forbidding pile of the castle, the Governor’s residence stood at the mountain end of the Company gardens. It was a graceful building, with dark thatched roof and
whitewashed walls, surrounded by wide shady verandas. Laid out in the shape of a cross, the gables at each of the four ends of the house were decorated with plaster friezes depicting the seasons.
The gardens were well established; a succession of Company gardeners had lavished love and care upon them.

Even from a distance Katinka was delighted with her new home. She had dreaded being lodged in some ugly, bucolic hovel, but this far surpassed her most optimistic expectations. The entire
domestic staff of the residence was drawn up on the wide front terrace to greet her.

The carriage rolled to a standstill and her two escorts hastened to help Katinka to earth. At a prearranged signal all the waiting manservants lifted their hats, and bowed so low as to sweep the
ground before her with their headgear, while the females dropped into deep curtsies. Katinka acknowledged their greeting with a cool nod, and Kleinhans introduced each of them in turn to her. Most
were merely brown or yellow faces that made no impression whatsoever on her, and she glanced vaguely in their direction then passed on, hurrying through this tedious little ritual as swiftly as she
could.

However, one or two caught and held her attention for more than a few moments.

‘This is the head gardener.’ Kleinhans summoned the man with a snap of his fingers, and he stood bareheaded before her, holding over his chest the high-crowned Puritan hat with its
silver buckled band and wide brim. ‘He is a man of some importance in our community,’ Kleinhans said. ‘Not only is he responsible for these beautiful surroundings,’ he
indicated the wide green lawns and splendid flower beds, ‘and for providing each Company ship that calls into Table Bay with fresh fruit and vegetables, but he is also the official
executioner.’

Katinka had been on the point of passing on, but now, with a small thrill of excitement, she turned back to study this creature. He towered above her, and she looked up into his strange pale
eyes, imagining what dread sights they had seen. Then she glanced down at his hands. They were farmer’s hands, broad and strong and calloused, the backs covered with stiff bristles. She
imagined them holding a spade or a branding iron, a pitchfork or the knotted coil of the strangling cord.

‘They call you Stadige Jan?’ She had heard the name spoken with fascination and revulsion, the way one speaks of a deadly, venomous snake.

‘
Ja
, Mevrouw.’ He nodded. ‘That is what they call me.’

‘A strange name. Why?’ She found his level yellow stare disquieting, as though he was looking at something far behind her.

‘Because I speak slowly. Because I never rush. Because I am thorough. Because plants grow slowly and fruitfully under my hands. Because men die slowly and painfully under these same
hands.’ He held up one for her to examine. His voice was sonorous yet melodious. She found herself swallowing hard with a strange, perverse arousal.

‘We are soon to have a chance to watch you work, Stadige Jan.’ She smiled slightly breathlessly. ‘I believe that the dungeon of the castle is full of rogues awaiting your
ministrations.’ She had a sudden image of those broad strong hands working on Hal Courtney’s slim straight body, the body she knew so well, changing it, gradually breaking it down. The
muscles in her thighs and lower belly tightened at the thought. It would be the ultimate thrill to see the beautiful toy of which she had tired being maimed and disfigured, but slowly and
slowly.

‘We must talk again, Stadige Jan,’ she said huskily. ‘I am sure you have many amusing stories to tell me, about cabbages and other things.’ He bowed again, replaced the
hat on his shaven head and stepped back into the line of servants. Katinka passed on.

‘This is my housekeeper,’ Kleinhans said, but Katinka was so engrossed in her thoughts that, for several seconds, she gave no indication that she had heard him. Then she threw an
idle glance at the female Kleinhans was presenting, and suddenly her eyes widened. She turned her full attention on the woman. ‘Her name is Sukeena.’ There was something in
Kleinhans’ tone that she could not immediately fathom.

‘She is very young for such an important position,’ Katinka said, to gain time in which to allow her instincts to have play. In an entirely different manner, she found this woman as
enthralling as the executioner. She was so exquisitely small and dainty as to seem an artist’s creation and not flesh and blood.

‘It is a characteristic of her race to appear much younger than their years,’ Kleinhans told her. ‘They have such small childlike bodies – you will observe her tiny waist
and her hands and feet, like those of a doll.’ He broke off abruptly, as he realized that he might have committed a solecism in discussing another woman’s bodily parts.

Katinka’s expression did not change to reveal the amusement she felt. The old goat lusts for her, she thought, and she studied the jewel-like qualities to which he had drawn her attention.
The girl wore a high collar, but the stuff of her blouse was sheer and light as gossamer. Like the rest of her, her breasts were tiny but perfect. Katinka could see the shape and colour of her
nipples through the silk: they were like a pair of imperial rubies wrapped in gossamer. That dress, although simple and of classical Eastern design, must have cost fifty guilders at the very least.
Her sandals were gold-embroidered, rich raiment for a house slave. At her throat she wore an ornament of carved jade, a jewel fit for a mandarin’s favourite. The girl must certainly be
Kleinhans’ pretty bauble, she decided.

Katinka’s first carnal fulfilment had been at the age of thirteen, on the threshold of puberty. In the seclusion of the nursery, her nurse had introduced her to those forbidden delights.
Occasionally, when her fancy dictated and opportunity presented, she still voyaged to the enchanted isles of Lesbos. Often she had found there enchantments that no man had been able to afford her.
Now as she looked up from the childlike body to the dark eyes, she felt a tremor of desire run down her own belly and melt into her loins.

Sukeena’s gaze smouldered like the lavas of the volcanoes of her native Bali. These were not the eyes of a subservient child slave but those of a proud, defiant woman. Katinka felt herself
challenged and aroused. To subdue her, and have her, and then to break her. She felt her pulse quicken and her breath come short as she pictured it happening.

‘Follow me, Sukeena,’ she commanded. ‘I want you to show me the house.’

‘My lady.’ Sukeena placed the palms of her hands together and touched her fingertips to her lips as she bowed, but her eyes held Katinka’s with the same dark, furious
expression. Was it hatred, Katinka wondered, and the idea increased her excitement.

Sukeena has intrigued her, as I knew she must. She will buy her from me, Kleinhans thought. I will be rid of the witch at last. He had been aware of that interplay of passions and emotions
between the two women. Although he did not flatter himself that he could fathom the slave girl’s oriental mind, she had been his chattel for almost five years and he had learned to recognize
many of the nuances of her moods. The thought of parting with her filled him with dismay but for his own peace and sanity he knew he must do it. She was destroying him. He could not remember what
it was to have a quiet mind, not to be plagued and tormented by passions and unfulfilled desires, not to be in the witch’s thrall. Because of her he had lost his health. His stomach was being
eaten away by the hot acids of dyspepsia, and he could not remember a night of unbroken sleep in all those long five years.

At least he was rid of her brother, who had been almost as great a torment to him. Now she, too, must go. He could no longer endure this blight on his existence.

Sukeena stepped out of the line of servants and fell in dutifully behind the three, her loathsome master, the boorish giant of a soldier and this beautiful cruel golden lady, who, she sensed
somehow, already held her destiny in those slim white hands.

I will wrest it from her, Sukeena vowed. This vile old man could not own me, although for the last five years he has dreamed of nothing else. Neither will this golden tiger woman ever own me. I
swear it on my father’s sacred memory.

They passed in a group through the high airy rooms of the residence. Through the green-painted shutters spilled the mellow Cape sunshine, casting stark zebra shadows on the tiled floors. Katinka
felt a lightness of the spirit in these sunny colonies. She felt a recklessness in herself, an eagerness for strange adventures and for unfathomed excitements.

In every room she encountered a subtle, delicate feminine influence. It was not only the lingering perfume of flowers and incense, but some other living presence that she knew could never have
emanated from the sad and sick old man at her side. She did not have to glance behind her to be aware of the girl who had created this aura, her silk clothing whispering and the susurration of the
golden sandals on her tiny feet, the scent of the jasmine blossom in her coal-dark hair and the sweet musk of her skin.

In counterpoint, there was the crisp staccato click of the Colonel’s heels on the tiles, the creak of his leather and the clink of his scabbard as it swung at his side. His scent was more
powerful than that of the girl. It was masculine and rank, sweat and leather and animal, like a stallion pushed hard, bounding between her thighs. In this emotional hothouse in which she found
herself, every one of her senses was fully engaged.

At last Governor Kleinhans led them out of the house and across the lawns to where a small gazebo stood, secluded beneath the oaks. An alfresco repast had been laid for them, and Sukeena stood
in close attendance, directing the service of the meal with a glance or a subtle, graceful gesture.

Katinka noticed that as each dish or bottle was presented Sukeena tasted a morsel or took a delicate sip, like a butterfly at an open orchid. Her silence was not self-effacing, for all three
seated at the table were intensely aware of her presence.

Cornelius Schreuder sat so close to Katinka that his leg pressed against hers whenever he leaned close to speak to her. They looked down towards the bay, where the
Standvastigheid
lay at
anchor, not far from the
Gull of Moray
. The galleon had come in during the night, fully laden with her cargo of recovered spices and timber. She would carry Kleinhans northwards on the next
leg of her voyage, so he was in haste to settle his affairs here in the Cape. Katinka smiled sweetly at the old man over the rim of her wine glass, knowing that she had him at a disadvantage in the
bargaining.