Mark, she whispered, but she did not seem surprised.
It was almost as though she expected him. Her face was completely drained of all colour, the lips seemed rimmd with frost, and her skin had an icy sheen to it. Why did you leave me? she asked.
Hesitantly, he crossed to her. He knelt beside her, looked down at her lower body and felt the scalding flood of vomit rise into his throat. I truly loved you, her voice was so light, breathing soft as the dawn wind in the desert, and you went away. He put out his hand to touch her legs, to spread them and examine the wound, but he could not bring himself to do it. You won't go away again, Mark? she asked, and he could hardly catch the words. I knew you'd come back to me. I won't go away again, he promised, not recognizing his own voice, and the smile flickered on her icy lips. Hold me, please Mark. I don't want to die alone. Awkwardly, he put an arm around her shoulders and her head lolled sideways against him.
Did you ever love me, Mark, even a little bit?
Yes, I loved you, he told her, and the lie came easily.
Suddenly there was a hissing spurt of brighter redder blood from between her thighs as the damaged artery erupted.
She stiffened, her eyes flew wide open, and then her body seemed to melt against him and her head dropped back.
Her eyes were still wide open and dark as a midnight sky. As he stared at it, slowly her face changed. It seemed to melt like white candle wax held too close to the flame, it ran and wavered and reformed, and now it was the face of a marble angel, smooth and white and strangely beautiful, the face of a dead boy in a land far away, and the fabric of Mark's mind pulled and tore.
He began to scream, but no sound came from his throat the scream was deep down in his soul, and his face was without expression, his eyes dry of tears.
They found him like that an hour later. When the first soldiers climbed cautiously up the iron staircase to the top of the steel tower, he was sitting quietly, holding the woman's dead body in his arms.
Well, said Sean Courtney, they've hanged Taffy Long!
He folded the newspaper with an angry gesture and dropped it on to the paving beside his chair.
In the dark shiny foliage of the loquat tree that spread above them, the little white-eyes pinkled and twittered as they probed the blossoms with sharp busy beaks and their wings fluttered like moths about the candle.
Nobody at the breakfast table spoke. All of them knew how Sean had fought for leniency for those strikers on whom the death sentence had been passed. He had used all his influence and power, but it had not availed against the vindictive and vengeful who wanted full measure of retribution for all the horrors of the revolt. Sean brooded now at the head of the table, hunched in his chair with his beard on his chest, staring out over the Ladyburg valley.
His arm was still supported by the linen sling; it had not healed cleanly and the bullet wound was still open and draining. The doctors were anxious about it, but Sean had told them, Leopard, and bullet and shrapnel and knife, I've had them all before. Don't twist a gut for me. Old meat heals slowly, but it heals hard. Ruth Courtney watching him now was not worried about the wounds of the flesh. It was the wounds of the mind that concerned her.
Both the men of her household had come back deeply marked by the lash of guilt and sorrow. She was not sure what had happened during those dark days, for neither man had spoken about it, but the horror of it still stalked even here at Lion Kop, even in the bright soft days, on these lovely dreaming hills where she had brought them to heal and rest.
This was the special place, the centre and fortress of their lives, where Sean had brought her as his bride. They owned other great houses, but this was home, and she had brought Sean here now after the strife and the turmoil. But the guilt and the horror had come with them. Madness, muttered Sean. Utter raving madness. How they cannot see it, I do not know. He shook his head, and was silent a moment. Then he sighed. We hang them now and make them live for ever. They'll haunt and hound us all our days. You tried, dear, said Ruth softly. Trying isn't enough, he growled. In the long run, all that counts is succeeding. Oh Pater, they killed hundreds of people, Storm burst out, shaking her shining head at him, with angry colour in her cheeks. They even tried to kill you! Mark had not spoken since the meal began, but now he lifted his head and looked at Storm across the table. She checked the other words that sprang to her lips as she saw his expression.
He had changed so much since he had come home. It was as though he had aged a hundred years. Though there was no new line or mark on his face, yet he seemed to have shed all his youth and taken upon himself the full burden of knowledge and earthly experience.
When he looked at her like that she felt like a child. It was not a feeling she relished. She wanted to pierce this new armour of remoteness that invested him. They're just common murderers, she said, addressing the words not to her father. We are all murderers, Mark answered quietly, and though his face was still remote, the knife clattered against his plate as he put it down. Will you excuse me, please, Mrs Courtney -'he turned to Ruth and she frowned quickly. Oh Mark, you've not touched your food. I'm riding into the village this morning. You ate no dinner last night. I want the mail to catch the noon train. He folded his napkin, rose quickly and strode away across the lawn and Ruth watched the tall, graceful figure go with a helpless shrug before turning to Sean. He's wound up so tight, like a watch spring about to snap, she said. rWhat's happening to him, Sean? Sean shook his head. It's something that nobody understands, he explained. We had so much of it in the trenches. It's as though a man can stand just so much pressure, and then something breaks inside him. We called it shellshock, for want of a better name, but it's not just the shelling, he paused. I have never told you about Mark before, about why I picked him, about how and when I first met him, and he told it to them. Sitting in the cool green shade of the loquat tree, he told them of the mud and the fear and the horror of France. It's not just for a single time, or a day or a week, but it goes on for what becomes an eternity. But it is worse for a man who has special talents. We, the Generals, have to use them ruthlessly. Mark was one of those, And he told them how they had used Mark like a hunting dog, and his two women listened intently, all of them bound up in the life of the young man who had gradually come to mean so much to each of them. A man gathers horror and fear like a ship gathers weed. It's below the waterline, you cannot see it, but it is there. Mark carries that burden, and at Fordsburg something happened that brought him close to the breaking-point. He is on the very edge of it now. What can we do for him? asked Ruth softly, watching his face, happy for him that he had a son at last, for she had long known that was what Sean saw in Mark. She loved her husband enough not to resent that it was not her own womb that had given him what he so desperately wanted, glad only that he had it at last, and that she could share it with him.
Sean shook his head. I don't know. And Storm made an angry hissing sound. They both looked at her.
Sean felt that soft warmth spreading through his chest, a feeling of awe that this lovely child could be part of him.
