Mama! My baby! She lifted one hand, and the stranger swung Shasa off his hip and placed him beside her on the cot.
Then he lifted Centaine's shoulders and propped her into a sitting position with a bolster behind her. His hands were brown and strong, yet the fingers were as elegant as those of a pianist.
Who are you? Her voice was a husky whisper, and there were dark smears below her eyes, the colour of fresh bruises.
My name is Lothar De La Rey, he answered, and Shasa clenched his fists and pounded his mother's shoulder in a gesture of overwhelming affection.
Gently! Lothar caught his wrist to restrain him. Your mama is not up to so much love, not yet. She saw how Lothar's expression softened as he looked at the child.
What happened to me? Centaine asked. Where am YOU were attacked and mauled by a lion. When I shot the beast, you fell out of the tree. She nodded. Yes, I remember that, but afterwards You suffered concussion and then the wounds from the lion claws mortified. How long? she breathed.
Six days, but the worst is past. Your leg is still very swollen and inflamed, Mevrou Courtney. She started. You use that name.
Where did you learn that name? i know that your name is Mevrou Centaine Courtney and that you were a survivor from the hospital ship Protea Castle. How? How do you know these things? I was sent by your father-in-law to search for you. My father-in-law? Colonel Courtney, and that woman, Anna Stok. Anna? Anna is alive? Centaine reached out and seized his wrist. is no doubt about that at all! Lothar laughed. ThereShe is very much alive. That is the most wonderful news! I thought she was drowned -Centaine broke off as she realized that she was still holding his wrist. She let her hand fall to her side and sank back against the bolster.
Tell me, she whispered, tell me everything. How is she? How did you know where to find me? Where is Anna now? When will I see her? Lothar laughed again. His teeth were very white. So many questions! He drew the stool to her cot. Where shall I begin? Begin with Anna, tell me all about her. He talked and she listened avidly, watching his face, asking another question as soon as one was answered, fighting off the weakness of her body to revel in the sound of his voice, in the intense pleasure of hearing glad tidings of the real world from which she had been so long excluded, of communicating with one of her own kind and looking on a white and civilized face again.
The day was almost gone, the evening gloom filling her little shelter when Shasa let out a demanding shout and Lothar broke off.
He is hungry.'I will feed him if you will leave us a while, Mijnheer.'No, Lothar shook his head. You have lost your milk.
Centaine's head jerked as though the words were a blow in her face, and she stared at him while thoughts tumbled and crowded in her mind. Up to that moment she had been so wrapped up in listening and questioning that she had not considered that there was no other woman in the camp, that for six days she had been entirely helpless, and that somebody had tended her, washed her and changed her, fed her and dressed her wounds. But his words, such an intimate subject spoken of in direct fashion, brought all this home to her, and as she stared at him, she felt herself begin to blush with shame. Her cheeks flamed, those long brown fingers of his must have touched her where only one other man had touched before. She felt her eyes smart, as she realized what those yellow eyes of his must have looked upon.
She felt herself burning up with embarrassment, and then incredibly with a hot and shameful excitement, so that she had difficulty breathing, and she lowered her eyes and turned her head away so that he could not see her scarlet cheeks.
Lothar seemed to be entirely unaware of her predicament. Come on, soldier, let's show mama our new trick. He lifted SHasa and fed him with a spoon, and Shasa bounced on his lip and said, Hum! Hum! as he saw each spoonful coming, and then launched himself at it with mouth wide open. He likes you, Centaine said.
We are friends, Lothar admitted, as he removed the heavy coating of gruel from Shasa's forehead and chin and ears with a damp cloth.
You are good with children, Centaine whispered and saw the sudden biting pain reflected in the darkening gold of his eyes.
Once I had a son, he said, and placed Shasa at her side, then picked up the spoon and empty bowl and went to the doorway.
Where is your son? she called softly after him, and he paused in the opening, then turned slowly back to her. My son is dead, he said softly.
She was ripe and over-ripe for love. Her loneliness was a hunger so intense that it seemed it could not be assuaged, not even by those long languid conversations under the awning of the wagon tent when, with Shasa between them, they talked away the hottest hours of those lazy African days.
Mostly they discussed the things she held dearest, music and books. Although he preferred Goethe to Victor Hugo and Wagner to Verdi, these differences gave them grounds for amusing and satisfying dispute. in those arguments she discovered that his learning and scholarship far exceeded her own, but she strangely did not resent it.
it merely made her more attentive to his voice. It was a marvelous voice; after the clicking and grunting of the San language, she could listen to it for the lilt and cadence as though it were music in itself.
Sing for me! she ordered, when they had for the moment exhausted a particular topic. Both Shasa and I command it.
Your servant, of course! he smiled, and gave them a mocking little bow, then he sang without any selfconsciousness.
Take the chick and the hen will follow you Centaine had often heard Anna repeat the old proverb, and when she watched Shasa riding around the camp on Lothar's shoulder, she realized the wisdom behind it, for her eyes and her heart followed both of them.
At first she felt quick resentment whenever Shasa greeted Lothar with cries of Da! Da! That name should have been reserved for Michael alone. Then with a painful stab she remembered that Michael was lying in the cemetery at Mort Homme.
After that it was easy to smile when Shasals first attempts at walking unaided on his own two legs ended with
