down Bombata's rebellion back in 19o6. Magnificent stuff-'Get on with it. Sean found himself hating again. Dirk Courtney had a high skill at finding weakness or guilt, and exploiting it mercilessly. When he spoke like this of the manner in which Sean had been forced to discharge his duty, it shamed him more painfully than ever. Of course it was necessary to get the mines operating again. You do sell most of your timber to the gold mines, I have the exact sales figures somewhere. Dirk laughed lightly. His teeth were perfect and white, and the sunlight played in the shining curls of his big handsome head, backlighting him and making his looks more theatrically magnificent. Good on you, dear Papa. You always had a keen eye for the main chance. No future in letting a bunch of wild-eyed reds put us all out of business. Even I am utterly dependent on the gold mines in the long run. Sean could not bring himself to answer, his anger was choking him. He felt dirtied and ashamed. It's one of the many things for which I'm indebted to you, Dirk went on, watching him carefully, smiling and urbane and deadly. I am your heir, I have inherited from you the ability to recognize opportunity and to seize it. Do you recall teaching me how to take a snake, how to pin it and hold it with thumb and forefinger at the back of the neck?
Sean remembered the incident suddenly and vividly.
The fearlessness of the child had frightened him even then. I see you do remember. The smile faded from Dirk's face, the lightness of his manner was gone with it. So much, so many little things, do you remember when we were lost after the lions stampeded the horses in the night? Sean had forgotten that also. Hunting in Mopani country, the child's first overnight away from the security and safety of the wagons. A little adventure that had turned into nightmare, one horse killed by the lions and the other gone, and a fifty-mile walk back through dry sandveld and thick trackless bush. You showed me how to find water. The puddle in the hollow tree, I can still taste the stink of it. The bushmen wells in the sand, sucking it up with a hollow straw. It all came back, though Sean tried to shut his mind against it. They had gone wrong on the third day, mistaking one small dry stony river bed f or another and wandering away into the wilderness to a lingering death. I remember you made a sling from your cartridge belt, and carried me on your hip. When the child's strength had gone, Sean had carried him, mile after mile, day after day in the thick dragging sand. When finally his own great strength had been expended also, he had crouched down over the child, shielding him from the sun with his shadow, and had worked his swollen tongue painfully for each drop of saliva to inject into Dirk's cracked and blackening mouth, keeping him alive just long enough. When Mbejane came at last, you wept The stampeded horse had reached the wagons with the lion claw- marks slashed deeply across its rump. The old Zulu gunbearer, himself sick with malaria, had saddled the grey and taken a pack horse on the lead rein. He had back-tracked the loose horse to the lion camp, and then picked up the spoor of man and child, following them for four days along a cold wind-spoiled spoor.
When he reached them, they were huddled together in the sand, under the sun, waiting for death.
, it was the only time in my life I ever saw you cry, Dirk said softly. But did you ever think how often you made me weep? Sean did not want to listen longer. He did not want to be further reminded of that lovely, headstrong, wild and beloved child who he had reared as mother and father together, yet Dirk's quiet insidious voice held him captive in a web of memory from which he could not escape. Will you ever know how I worshipped you? How my whole life was based on you, how I mimicked every action, how I tried to become you?
Sean shook his head, trying to deny it, to reject it. Yes, I tried to become you. Perhaps I succeeded No. Sean's voice was strangled and thick.
Perhaps that's why you rejected me, Dirk told him. You saw in me the mirror-image of yourself, and you could not bring yourself to accept that. So you turned me away, and left me to weep. No. God, no, that's not true. It was not that way at all.
Dirk swung his horse in until his leg touched Sean's. Father, we are the same person, we are one, won't you admit that I am you, just as surely as I fell from your loins, just as surely as you trained and moulded me? Dirk, Sean started, but there were no words now, his whole existence had been touched and shaken to its very core. Don't you realize that every thing I have ever done was for you? Not only as a child, but as a youth and a man. Did you never think why I came back here to Ladyburg, when I could have gone to any other place in the world, London, Paris, New York, it was all open to me. Yet I came back here. Why, Father, why did I do that?
Sean shook his head, unable to answer, staring at this beautiful stranger, with his vital strength and his compelling disturbing presence. I came back because you were here. They were both silent then, holding each other's eyes in a struggle of wills and a turmoil of conflicting emotions.
Sean felt his resolve weakening, felt himself sliding slowly under the spell that Dirk was weaving about him. He heeled his horse, forcing it to wheel and break the physical contact of their legs, but Dirk went on remorselessly. As a sign of my love, of this love that has been strong enough to stand against all your abuse, against the denials you have made, against every blow you have dealt it, as a sign of that, I come to you now, and I hold out my hand to you. Be my father again, and let me be your son. Let us put our fortunes together and build an empire. There is a land here, a whole land, ripe and ready for us to take Dirk reached out across the space between the horses with his right hand, palm upwards, fingers outstretched. Take my hand on it, Father, he urged. Nothing will stop us. Together we will sweep the world from our path, together we will become gods. Dirk, Sean found his voice, as he fought himself out of the coils in which he had been trapped. I have known many men, and not one of them was all good nor completely evil. They were all combinations of those two elements, good and evil, that is, until I came to know you. You are the only man who was totally evil, evil unrelieved by the slightest shading of good. When at last I was forced to face that fact, then I turned my back on you. Father. Don't call me that. You are not mine, and you never will be again. There is a great fortune, one of the great fortunes of the worldNo, Sean shook his head. It is not there for either you or me. It belongs to a people, to many peoples, Zulu, and Englishman and Afrikander, not to me, but especially not to You. When I came to see you last, you gave me cause to believe, Dirk began to protest. I gave you no cause, I made no promise. I told you everything, all my plans. Yes, said Sean. I wanted to hear it, I wanted to know every detail, not so that I could help you, but so that I could stand in your way. Sean paused for emphasis, and then leaned across so his face was close to Dirk's and he could look into his eyes. You will never get the land beyond the Bubezi River. I swear that to you, he said it quietly, but with a force that made every word ring like a cathedral bell.
Dirk recoiled, and the high colour drained away from his face. I rejected you because you are evil. I will fight you with all my strength, with my life itself. Dirk's features changed, the line of the mouth and the set of the jaw altered, the slant and tilt of the eyes became wolfish. You deceive yourself, Father. You and I are one. If I am evil, then you are the source and fountain and father of that evil. Don't spout noble words to me, don't strike postures. I know you, remember. I know you perfectly as I know myself. He laughed again, but not the bright easy laughter of before. It was a cruel thin sound and the shape of the mouth did not lose its hard line. You rejected me for that Jewish whore of yours, and the bastard slut you spawned on her soft white belly. Sean bellowed, a low dull roar of anger, and the stallion reared under him, coming up high on his hindquarters and cutting at the air, and the bay mare swung away in alarm, milling and trampling as Dirk sawed at its mouth with the curb. You say you will fight me with your life, Dirk shouted at his father. It may just come to that! I warn you. He brought the horse under control, barging in on the stallion so he could shout again. No man stands in my way. I will destroy you, as I have destroyed the others who have tried it. I will destroy you and your Jewish whore. Sean swung back-handed with the sjambok, a polo cut, using the wrist so the thin black lash of hippo-hide fluted like the wing of a flighting goose. He aimed at the face, at the snarling vicious wolf's head of the man who once had been his son.
Dirk threw up his arm and caught the stroke, it split the woven tweed of his sleeve like a sword cut and bright blood sprang to stain the luxurious cloth, as he kneed the bay away in a wide prancing circle.
He held the wound, pressing the lips of the cut together while he glared at Sean, his face contorted with utter
