sunlight. Centaine went to the big strong bay gelding Blaine had allocated to her and adjusted her stirrup leathers.
Mount up! Blaine Malcomess ordered, and while the sergeant and his four troopers swung up into the saddle, Centaine turned quickly to Twenty-man-jones.
I wish I was coming with you, Mrs Courtney, he said.
TWenty years ago nothing would have stopped me. She smiled. 'Hold thumbs for us. if we don't get those diamonds back you'll probably be working for De Beers again and I'll be doing needlework in the poorhouse. Rot the swine who did this to you, he said. Bring him back in chains. Centaine went up onto the gelding's back and he felt good and steady under her. She kneed him up beside Blaine's horse.
You can slip your hunting dogs, Mrs Courtney. He smiled at her.
Take us to the water, Kwi, she called, and the two little Bushmen, their bows and quivers of poisoned arrows on their naked backs, turned to face the east. Their small heads covered with peppercorns of dark wool bobbing their tight round buttocks bulging out from their brief loincloths and neat childlike feet flying, they went away. They were born to run, and the horses extended into a trot to hold them in sight.
Centaine and Blaine rode side by side at the head of the column. The sergeant and his four troopers followed in single file, each of them trailing two spare horses on lead reins. The spare horses carried water, twenty gallons in big felt-covered round bottles, three days supply if they used it with care, for men and animals were desert- hardened.
Centaine and Blaine rode in silence, though every once in a while she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.
impressive on his feet, Blaine was imperial in the saddle.
Mounted he had become a centaur, part of the horse beneath him, and she saw now how he had earned his international reputation as a polo player.
Watching him she found herself correcting little flaws in her own carriage and seat on the horse, bad habits which she had drifted into over the years, until she looked as good as he did in the saddle. She felt she could ride for ever across this desert she loved with this man at her side.
They crossed the ridge of weathered shale and Blaine spoke for the first time. You were right. We would never have got the trucks across there. It had to be on horseback. We haven't hit the calcrete yet, and then there is the sand. We'd be forever digging out the wheels, she agreed.
The miles drifted back behind them. The Bushmen bobbed ahead of them, never wavering but running straight and certain towards their distant goal. Every hour Blaine halted the column and let the horses blow while he dismounted and went back to talk quietly to his men, getting to know them, checking the panniers on the spare horses, making certain that they were not galling, taking precautions to avert fatigue and injury before they arose. Then when the five minutes was up he ordered them forward again at the trot.
They rode until it was fully dark before he halted them; then he supervised the issue of water and made sure the horses were rubbed down and knee-haltered before he came to the small fire at which Centaine sat. She had completed her own chores, seeing the Bushmen fed and settled for the night, and now she was preparing the meal for Blaine and herself. She handed him the mess tin as he squatted opposite her.
I regret, sir, that the pheasant and caviar is off the menu.
However, I can heartily recommend the bully beef stew. Strange how good it tastes when you eat it like this. He ate with honest appetite, then scrubbed the empty plate with dry sand and handed it back to her. He lit a cheroot with a twig from the fire. And how good a cheroot tastes with a trace of wood-smoke. She tidied and packed for a quick start in the morning and then came back to the fire and hesitated as she reached her seat opposite him. He moved over on the saddle cloth on which he was sitting, leaving half of it free, and without a word she crossed to it and sat with her legs curled up under her. Only inches separated them.
It's so beautiful, she murmured, looking up at the night sky. 'The stars are so close. I feel I could reach up and pluck them, and wear them around my neck like a garland of wild flowers. Poor stars, he said softly. They would pale into insignificance. She turned her head and smiled at him, letting the compliment he between them, savouring it for a moment before she lifted her face to the sky again. 'That is my personal star. She pointed out A crux in the Great Cross. Michael had chosen it for her. Michael, she felt a sting of guilt at his memory, but it was not so sharp now.
Which is your star? she asked.
Should I have one? Yes! she nodded. It's absolutely essential. She paused, then went on almost shyly, Would you let me choose one for you? I would be honoured. He wasn't mocking her, he was serious as she was.
There. She swivelled towards the north, where the path of the Zodiac was blazed across the sky. That star there, Regulus, in the constellation of the Lion, your birth sign. I choose that and I give it to you, Blaine. She used his given name at last.
And I accept it most gratefully. Every time I see it from now on, I will think of you, Centaine. it was a love token, given and accepted, both of them understood that and they were silenced by the significance of the moment.
How did you know that my birth sign was Leo? he asked at last.
I found out, she answered guilelessly. I thought it was necessary to know. You were born on 28 July 1893. And you, he replied, were born on the first day of the new century. You were named for that. I found out. I also thought it necessary to know. They were riding long before it was light the next morning, eastwards again with the Bushmen their harbingers.
The sun rose and its heat crushed down upon them, drying the sweat upon the horses flanks into white salt crystals.
The troopers rode hunched down as though under a heavy burden. The sun swung through its zenith and slid down into the west. Their shadows stretched out on the earth ahead of them and colour returned to the desert, shades of ochre and peachy rose and burnt amber.
Ahead of them Kwi stopped suddenly and snuffled the dry flinty air with his flattened nostrils. Fat Kwi imitated him, like a pair of gun-dogs scenting the pheasant.
What are they doing? Blaine asked, as they reined up behind. Before she could answer, Kwi let out a piping cry
