'Good gracious.' He sat abruptly upright in the bed.
'Who on earth is she in love with?'
'How many young men are there at Khami at the present time?'
In the morning, on the way to her clinic in the church, she stopped at the kitchen. The previous evening Clinton had slaughtered a pig, and now Salina and Jordan were making sausages. He was turning the handle of the mincing machine while she forced lumps of pork into the funnel. They were so absorbed, chatting so gaily together, that while Robyn stood in the doorway watching them they were unaware of her presence.
They made a beautiful couple, so beautiful indeed, that Robyn felt a sense of unreality as she watched them, and it was followed immediately by uneasiness, nothing in life was that perfect.
Salina saw her, and started, and then unaccountably blushed so that her pixie pointed ears glowed.
'Oh Mama, you startled me.'
Robyn felt a rush of empathy, and, strangely, of envy for her eldest daughter. She wished that she were still capable of that pure and innocent emotion, and suddenly she had the contrasting image of Mungo Sint John, lean and scarred and unscrupulous, and what she felt shocked her so her voice was brusque.
'Jordan, I have made up my mind. When mister Rudd arrives, I will go with you to Lobengula's kraal, and I will speak for your case.'
After a prolonged and unprofitable trading expedition as far as the Zambezi, Mungo had returned with Louise to the kraal at Gubulawayo, where they were kept almost seven months. But Lobengula's procrastinations worked in Mungo Sint John's favour.
Robyn Codrington had refused to speak to the king on Mungo's behalf, and consequently he was only one among dozens of white concession-seekers camped around Lobengula's royal kraal.
The king would not have let Mungo leave, even if he had wanted to.
He seemed to enjoy talking to him, and listened eagerly to Mungo's accounts of the American War and of Mungo's sea voyages. Every week or so he would summon Mungo to an audience and question him through his interpreter, for hours at a time.
The destructive power of cannon fascinated him, and he demanded detailed descriptions of sundered walls and human bodies blown to nothingness. The sea was another source of intense interest, and he tried to grasp the immensity of waters and the blast of storm and gale across it. However, when Mungo delicately hinted at a land grant and trading concession, Lobengula smiled and sent him away.
'I will call for you again, One Bright Eye, when I have thought on it more heavily. Now is there aught you lack in food or drink? I will send my women to your camp with it.'
Once he gave Mungo permission to go out into the hunting veld so long as he stayed south of the Shangani river and killed neither elephant nor hippopotamus. On this expedition Mungo shot a huge cock ostrich and salted and dried the skin with its magnificent plumage intact.
On three other occasions the king allowed him to return to Khami Mission Station when Mungo complained that his leg was paining him. Mungo's predatory instinct was that Robyn Codrington was disturbed and excited by these returns, and each time he was able to draw out the visit for days, gradually consolidating his position with her so that when he again asked her to intercede with Lobengula on his behalf, she actually thought about it for a full day before refusing once more.
'I cannot set a cat upon a mouse, General Sint John.'
'Madam, I freed my own slaves many years ago.'
'When you were forced to,' she agreed. 'But who will control you here in Matabeleland?'
'You, Robyn, and gladly would I submit to that.'
She had flushed and turned her face away from him to hide the colour.
'Your familiarity is presumptuous, sir.' And she had left him so that he could keep his revived assignations under the leadwood tree with the twins. His absence since those first encounters in his convalescence had not dimmed their fascination for him. They had become invaluable allies. Nobody else could have extracted from Juba the vital information he needed for his planning.
Mungo had expressed doubts as to the existence of the diamonds, and declared that he would only be convinced if the twins could tell him where Lobengula kept the treasure.
Juba never suspected danger from such an innocent pair, and in the late afternoon, when she had drunk a gallon pot of her own famous brew, she was always genial and garrulous.
'Ningi keeps the diamonds under her sleeping place, Vicky informed Mungo.
'Who is Ningi?'
'The king's sister, and she is almost as fat as King Ben is.'
Ningi would be the most trusted of all Lobengula's people, and her hut in the sanctuary of the forbidden women's quarters was the most secure in all Matabeleland.
'I believe you now. You are clever girls, both of you,' Mungo told them, and they glowed with pleasure. There was nothing he could not ask of them.
'Vicky, I need some paint. It's for a secret thing, I will tell you about it later, if you can get the paint for me.'
'What colour?' Lizzie cut in. 'I'll get it for you.'
'Red, white and yellow.'
In the end Lizzie stood guard while Vicky raided Cathy's paintbox, and they delivered their offering to Mungo and basked in his extravagant praise.
