iron might be suitable costume for him, at least until he has been broken in.'
'I do not think I need go to such pains,' Katinka said. 'I was able to observe him at length during my captivity. Like a faithful dog, he is devoted to the pirate Courtney and even more so to his brat.
I believe he would never try to escape while either of them is alive in the castle dungeons. Of course, he will be locked in the slave quarters at night with the others, but during working hours he will be allowed to move around freely to attend to his duties.'
'I am sure you know best, Mevrouw. But I for one would never trust such a creature,' Schreuder warned her.
Katinka turned back to Sukeena. 'I have arranged with Governor Kleinhans that Fredricus is to teach Aboli his duties as coachman and driver. The Standvastigheid will not sail for another ten days. That should be ample time. See to it immediately.'
Sukeena made the gracious oriental obeisance. 'As Mistress commands, she said, and beckoned for Aboli to follow her.
She walked ahead of him down the pathway to the stables where Fredricus had drawn up the coach and Aboli was reminded of the posture and carriage of the young virgins of his own tribe. As little girls they were trained by their mothers, carrying the water gourds balanced on their heads. Their backs grew straight and they seemed to glide over the ground, as this girl did.
'Your brother, Althuda, sends you his heart. He says that you are his tiger orchid still.'
Sukeena stopped so abruptly that, walking behind her, Aboli almost collided with her. She seemed like a startled sugar bird perched on a pro tea bloom on the point of flight. When she moved on again he saw that she was trembling.
'You have seen my brother?' she asked, without turning her head to look at him.
'I never saw his face, but we spoke through the door of his cell. He said that your mother's name was Ashreth and that the jade brooch you wear was given to your mother by your father on the day of your birth. He said that if I told you these things, you would know that I was his friend.'
'If he trusted you, then I also trust you. I, too, shall be your friend, Aboli,' she agreed.
'And I shall be yours,'Aboli said softly.
'Oh, do tell me, how is Althuda? Is he well?' she pleaded. 'Have they hurt him badly? Have they given him to Slow John?'
'Althuda is puzzled. They have not yet condemned him. He has been in the dungeon four long months and they have not hurt him.'
'I give all thanks to Allah!' Sukeena turned and smiled at him, her face lovely as the tiger orchid to which Althuda had likened her. 'I had some influence with Governor Kleinhans. I was able to persuade him to delay judgement on my brother. But now that he is going I do not know what will happen with the new one. My poor Althuda, so young and brave. If they give him to Slow John my heart will die with him, as slowly and as painfully.'
'There is one I love as you love your brother,' Aboli rumbled softly. 'The two share the same dungeon.'
'I think I know the one of whom you speak. Did I not see him on the day they brought all of you ashore in chains and marched you across the Parade? Is he straight and proud as a young prince?'
'That is the one. Like your brother, he deserves to be free.'
Again Sukeena's feet checked, but then she glided onwards. 'What are you saying, Aboli, my friend?'
'You and I together. We can work to set them free.' 'Is it possible?' she whispered.
'Althuda was free once. He broke his jesses and soared away like a falcon.' Aboli looked up at the aching blue African sky. 'With our help he could be free again, and Gundwane with him.'
They had come to the stableyard and Fredricus roused himself on the seat of the carriage. He looked down at Aboli and his lips curled back to show teeth discoloured brown by chewing tobacco. 'How can a black ape learn to drive my coach and my six darlings?' he asked the empty air.
'Fredricus is an enemy. Trust him not.' Sukeena's lips barely moved as she gave Aboli the warning. 'Trust nobody in this household until we can speak again.' the house slaves, as well as most of the furniture in the residence, Katinka had purchased from Kleinhans all the horses in his string and the contents of the tack room. She had written him an order on her bankers in Amsterdam. It was for a large sum, but she knew that her father would make good any shortfall.
The most beautiful of all the horses was a bay mare, a superb animal with strong graceful legs and a beautifully shaped head. Katinka was an expert horsewoman, but she had no feeling or love for the creature beneath her and her slim, pale hands were strong and cruel. She rode with a Spanish curb that bruised the mare's mouth savagely, and her use of the whip was wanton. When she had ruined a mount she could always sell it and buy another.
Despite these faults, she was fearless and had a dashing seat. When the mare danced under her and threw her head against the agony of the whip and the curb, Katinka sat easily and looked marvellously elegant. Now she was pushing the mare to the full extent of her pace and endurance, flying at the steep path, using the whip when she faltered or when it seemed as though she would refuse to jump a fallen tree that blocked the pathway.
The horse was lathered, soaked with sweat as though she had plunged through a river. The froth that streamed from her gaping mouth was tinged pink with blood from the edged steel of the curb. It splattered back onto Katinka's boots and skirt, and she laughed wildly with excitement as they galloped out onto the saddle of the mountain. She looked- back over her shoulder. Schreuder was fifty lengths or more behind her. he had come by another route to meet her in secret. His black gelding was labouring heavily under his weight, and though Schreuder used the whip freely his mount could not hold the mare.
Katinka did not stop at the saddle but, with the whip and -the tiny needle-sharp spur under her riding habit, goaded the mare onward and sent her plunging straight down the far slope. Here a fall would be disastrous, for the footing was treacherous and the mare was blown. The danger excited Katinka. She revelled in the feel of the powerful body beneath her, and of the saddle leather pounding against her sweating thighs and buttocks.
They came slithering off the scree slope and burst out into the open meadow beside the stream. She raced parallel with the stream for half a league, but when she reached a hidden grove of silver leaf trees she reined in the mare in a dozen lunges from full gallop to a wrenching halt.
She unhooked her leg from over the horn of the sidesaddle and in a swirl of skirts and laced under linen dropped lightly to earth. She landed like a cat, and while the mare blew like the bellows of a smithy and reeled on her feet with exhaustion, Katinka. stood, both fists clenched on her hips, and watched Schreuder come down the slope after her.
He reached the meadow and galloped to where she stood. There, he jumped from the gelding's back. His face was dark with rage. 'That was madness, Mevrouw,' he shouted. 'If you had fallen!'
'But I never fall, Colonel.' She laughed in his face. 'Not unless you can make me.' She reached up suddenly and threw both arms around his neck. Like a lamprey she fastened on his lips, sucking so powerfully that she drew his tongue into her own mouth. As his arms tightened around her she bit his lower lip hard enough to start his blood, and tasted the metallic salt on her own tongue. When he roared with pain, she broke from his embrace and, lifting the skirts of her habit, ran lightly along the bank of the stream.
'Sweet Mary, you'll pay dearly for that, you little devil!' He wiped his mouth, and when he saw the smear of blood on his palm, he raced after her.
These last days, Katinka had toyed with him, driving him to the frontiers of sanity, promising and then revoking, teasing and then dismissing, cold as the north wind one moment then hot as the tropical sun at noonday. He was dizzy and confused with lust and longing, but his desire had infected her. Tormenting him, she had driven herself as far and as hard. She wanted him now almost as much as he wanted her. She wanted to feel him deep inside her body, she had to have him quench the fires she had ignited in her womb. The time had come when she could delay no longer.
He caught up with her and she turned at bay. With her back against one of the silver leaf trees, she faced him like a hind cornered by the hounds. She saw the blind rage turn his eyes opaque as marble. His face was swollen and encarnadined, his lips drawn back to expose his clenched teeth.
With a thrill of real terror she realized that this rage into which she had driven him was a kind of madness over which he had no control. She knew that she was in danger of her life and, knowing that, her own lust broke its banks like a mighty river in full spate.
She threw herself at him and with both hands ripped at the fastenings of his breeches. 'You want to kill me, don't you?'
'You bitch,' he choked, and reached for her throat. 'You slut. I can stand no more. I will make you-' She pulled him out through the opening in his clothes, hard and thick, swollen furious red and so hot he seemed to sear her fingers. 'Kill- me with this, then. Thrust it into me so deeply that you pierce my heart.' She leaned back against the rough bark of the silver leaf and planted her feet wide apart. He swept her skirts up high, and with both hands she guided him into herself. As he lunged and bucked furiously against her, the tree against which she leaned shook as though a gale of wind had struck it. The silver
