kept swinging and despite himself Shasa glanced down at her calf and exquisitely turned ankle.
'Of course, that was ludicrous,' he went on, still watching her foot in the Italian leather court shoe. 'I realize now that I should have considered at least half a million.' He was trying to find her price, and he looked back at her face, searching for the first glint of avarice, but it was hard to concentrate.
Sapphire and amethyst, forsooth, Garry's hormones must be boiling out of his ears - and Shasa felt a stab of envy.
'Naturally, I was thinking in pounds sterling. I haven't adjusted to this rand business yet.' 'How fortunate, Mr Courtney,' she said, 'that you decided not to insult us both. This way we can be friends. I'd prefer that.' All right, that didn't work out the way he had planned. He set down his sherry glass. 'Garry is still a child,' he changed tack.
She shook her head. 'He's a man. It just needed somebody to convince him of that. It wasn't difficult to do.' 'He doesn't know his own mind.' 'He is one of the most definite and determined men I have ever met. He knows exactly what he wants and he will do anything to ge it.' She waited a moment to let the challenge contained in thost words become clearer, then she repeated softly, 'Anything.' 'Yes,' he agreed softly. 'That's a Courtney family trait. We will dc anything to get what we want - or to destroy anything that stands ir our way.' He paused, just as she had done and then repeated quietly 'Anything.' 'You had three sons, Shasa Courthey. You have one left. Are yoL willing to take that chance?' He reared back in his chair and stared at her. She was unprepared for the agony that she saw in his expression and for a moment she thought she had gone too far. Then he subsided slowly. 'You fight hard and dirty,' he acknowledged sadly.
'When it is worthwhile.' She knew it was dangerous with an opponent of this calibre, but she felt sorry for him. 'And for me this is worthwhile.' 'For you, yes, I can see that - but for Garry?' 'I think I owe you complete honesty. At the beginning it was a little bit of daring. I was intrigued by his youth - that in itself can be devastatingly appealing. And by the other obvious attractions which you have hinted at.' 'The Courtney empire and his place in it.' 'Yes. I would have been less than human if that hadn't interested me. That's the way it started, but almost immediately it began to change.' 'In what way?' 'I began to understand his enormous potential, and my own influence in developing it fully. Haven't you noticed any change in him in the three months since we have been together? Can you truly tell me my influence on him has been detrimental?' Despite himself Shasa smiled. 'The pinstripe suits and the hornrimmed glasses. They are a vast improvement, I'll admit.' 'Those are only the unimpo?tant outward signs of the important inward changes. In three months Garry has become a mature and confident man, he has discovered many of his own strengths and talents and virtues, not the least of which is a warm and loving disposition. With my help he will discover all the others.' 'So you see yourself in the role of architect still, building a marble palace out of clay bricks.' 'Don't mock him.' She was angry, protective and defensive as a lioness. 'He is probably the best of all the Courtneys and I am probably the best thing that will ever happen to him in his life.' He stared at her, and exclaimed with wonder as it dawned upon him. 'You love him - you really love him.' 'So you understand at last.' She stood up and turned towards the door.
'Holly,' he said, and the unexpected use of her first name arrested her. She wavered, still pale with anger, and he went on softly, 'I didn't understand, forgive me. I think Garry is a fortunate young man to have found you.' He held out his hand. 'You said we might be friends - is that still possible?'
Table Bay is wide open to the north-westerly gales that bore in off the wintry grey Atlantic. The ferry took the short steep seas on her bows and lurched over the crests, throwing the spray as high as the stubby masthead.
It was the first time Vicky had ever been at sea and the motion terrified her as nothing on earth had ever done. She clutched the child to her, and stared straight ahead, but it was difficult to maintain her balance on the hard wooden bench, and thick spray dashed against the porthole and poured over the glass in a wavering mirage that distorted her view. The island looked like some dreadful creature swimming to meet them, and she recalled all the legends of her tribe of the monsters that came out of the sea and devoured any human being found upon the shore.
She was glad that Joseph was with her. Her half-brother had grown into a fine young man. He reminded her of the faded photograph of her grandfather, Mbejane Dinizulu, that her mother kept on the wall of her hut. Joseph had the same broad forehead and wide-spread eyes, and although his nose was not flattened but high-bridged, his clean-shaven chin was rounded and full.
He had just completed his law degree at the black University of Fort Hare, but before he underwent his consecration into the hereditary role of Zulu chieftainship, Vicky had prevailed upon him to accompany her upon the long journey down the length of the subcontinent. As soon as he returned to the district of Ladyburg in Zululand, he would begin his training for the chieftainship. This was not the initiation to which the young men of the Xhosa and the other tribes were forced to submit. Joseph would not suffer the brutal mutilation of ritual circumcision. King Chaka had abolished that custom. He had not tolerated the time that his young warriors wasted in recuperation, which could better be spent in military training.
Joseph stood beside Vicky, balancing easily to the ferry's agitated plunges, and he placed his hand upon her shoulder to reassure her.
'Not much longer,' he murmured. 'We will soon be there.' Vicky shook her head vehemently, and clutched her son more securely to her bosom. The cold sweat broke out upon her forehea, and waves of nausea assailed her, but she fought them back.
'I am the daughter of a chief,' she told herself. 'And the wife of king. I will not surrender to womanly weakness.' The ferry ran out of the gale into the calm waters in the lee of t island, and Vicky drew a long ragged breath and stood up. Her le were unsteady, and Joseph helped her to the rail.
They stood side by side and stared at the bleak and infamous si houette of Robben Island. The name derived from the Dutch war for seal, and the colonies of these animals that the first explorers ha discovered upon its barren rocks.
When the fishing and sealing industries based upon the islan failed, it was used as a leper colony and a place of banishment fc political prisoners, most of them black. Even Makana, the prophe and warrior, who had led the first Xhosa onslaughts against th white settlers cross the great Fish river had been sent here after hi capture, and here he had died in 1820, drowned in the roaring sea that beat upon the island as he tried to escape. For fifty years hi people had refused to believe he was dead, and to this day his nam was a rallying cry for the tribe.
One hundred and forty-three years later, there was another prophe and warrior imprisoned upon the island, and Vicky stared out acros the narrowing strip of water at the low square unlovely structure the new high-security prison for dangerous political prisoners when Moses Gama was now incarcerated. After his stay of execution Moses had remained on death row at Pretoria Central Prison lo almost two years, until finally mitigation of the death sentence to life imprisonment at hard labour had been officially granted by the stat president and he had been transferred to the island. Moses wa, allowed one visit every six months, and Vicky was bringing his son to see him.
The journey had not been easy, for Vicky herself was the subject of a banning order. She had shown herself an enemy of the state by her appearances at Moses' trial, dressed in the colours of the African National Congress, and
