The Tiger’s Prey. Wilbur Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ had been. Tom hoped that his nature was also different. Black Billy had been hard, domineering and cruel.

      Tom counted back the years since he had last seen the squalling baby Francis on the stairs at High Weald. The boy must be seventeen by now – the same age Tom had been when he left home.

      Or rather when he had been forced to leave home, and never return to High Weald or to England. A wanted man with his brother’s blood on his hands and on his conscience. He would never forget the dreadful moment when he had lifted the brim of the hat from the face of the man who had attacked him murderously in a dark alley in the dock area of the Thames, and whom he had been forced to kill in self-defence … and found that it was his own half-brother.

      He picked up the decoration of the Order of St George, the gilded Lion cupping the world in his paws, and felt the weight of its magnificence. Though Tom had been dubbed a Nautonnier knight, he had never worn the decoration. William had seen to that.

      ‘Call me when he wakes,’ he told Aboli and Yasmini as he turned back to the door.

       I could not save the father. Perhaps I can redeem myself with the son.

      When Francis woke again, the woman had gone but the black man still guarded the door. He did not seem to have moved; Francis almost wondered if he might be carved from wood.

      He sat up, tentatively, and found that if he moved slowly the pain was tolerable. He swung his legs out of the bed and stood, leaning on the wall for balance. Aboli did not try to stop him.

      ‘Yasmini’s medicine is working,’ he observed.

      Francis stared at him, then at the small window. Was it big enough? He wore nothing but a borrowed nightshirt. He would look like a lunatic, running through Cape Town. Would he be arrested?

      Aboli indicated the corner of the room, where a shirt and a pair of breeches sat folded over a chair.

      ‘If you wish to go, you had better get dressed.’

      ‘You will not stop me?’

      Aboli stepped aside from the door. ‘You are safe, here. But if you are determined to leave …’

      ‘Safe?’ Francis echoed. ‘Tom Courtney killed my father.’ He had meant it to shock, but Aboli merely nodded. ‘You do not deny it?’

      ‘I knew your father from the day he was born,’ said Aboli in measured tones. ‘I can tell you from my heart, he was an evil man. A week before William died, Tom went to High Weald seeking help for their brother, and William attacked him. He would have killed Tom, but Tom was the better swordsman, and in the end it was he who had his sword at William’s throat. Yet when Tom tried to make the final blow, he could not do it. His hand would not obey him. A week later, in London, William ambushed Tom on the docks without provocation; he watched other men do his work, and when they failed he drew his pistol to shoot Tom dead himself. I was there. Tom would have died that instant if he had not put his sword through your father’s chest.’

      He went on, making no allowances for the impact his words had on the boy. ‘And even then, I think if your father had shown his face – if Tom had known who he really was – Tom would not have been able to strike the blow.’

      ‘Why are you saying this?’ Francis demanded. ‘To turn me against my father?’

      ‘It is the truth,’ said Aboli. ‘You may accept it, or not: it is your choice. But if you cling to a lie, eventually it will destroy you.’ He gave a small bow. ‘I will leave you to dress.’

      After he had gone, Francis sat a long time on the edge of the bed. The storms that had raged inside him had blown themselves out; he hardly knew who he was any more. He looked at the clothes on the chair, and was not sure he had the strength to put them on. Aboli’s words chased themselves around inside his head until he thought it would split open.

      There were some things he could not remember from the night before, but one fact was branded in memory. Tom could have killed him, but he had not done so.

      And that one fact had upended everything Francis believed in. He remembered what his mother had told him: Tom couldn’t have killed his brother in cold blood. He had not believed her. Now that he had been at Tom Courtney’s mercy, and lived, he had to consider that she could have been telling the truth.

      Sitting there, he saw himself with new eyes. Consorting with thieves and prostitutes, trying to murder a member of his own family: what had he become? And in return, Tom Courtney had repaid him with mercy and kindness.

       If you cling to a lie, eventually it will destroy you.

      But did he have the strength to let it go?

      When Francis came down, Tom was in the parlour sitting in his chair and staring at the Order of St George in his hands. Francis had dressed in a pair of Dorian’s breeches and a shirt of Tom’s which hung off him like a mainsail. He paused on the stairs; Tom thought he might flee at the very sight of him. But Francis knew he could not put this off. He swallowed his fear and continued down.

      He reached the bottom of the stairs. The two men stared at each other, uncertain of what to say.

      Tom broke the silence. ‘Sometimes it’s easier meeting a man with a sword in your hand,’ he said gruffly. ‘You don’t have to think what to say.’

      Francis nodded. Then, all of a sudden, words burst out of him, ‘I am grateful to you for your care. I … You would have been within your rights to send me to the authorities. Or worse.’

      ‘I am glad we can meet on more tranquil terms,’ said Tom. He stared at the boy as if he might disappear into thin air. ‘Are you really Billy’s son?’

      Francis straightened. ‘I am.’

      ‘Then how did you come to be in the Company gardens with scum like Jacob de Vries?’

      ‘We met in a tavern. A … a whore introduced us.’ Francis looked shamefaced. ‘Perhaps I should tell you the whole story.’

      Tom called Dorian and Aboli to join them. Francis stared in wonder at the two men, Aboli with his scarified face and Dorian in his turban and Arab dress. His real shock came when he learned who Dorian was.

      ‘Is everything I was told a lie? I always believed you were dead.’

      ‘It is a long tale,’ said Dorian. ‘Which you shall hear in its turn. But first, I think you were about to tell my brother how you came to find us here.’

      Sitting on the torn cushions, Francis told them everything. Tom paced; he cursed audibly when he heard how Sir Walter had ruined High Weald.

      ‘Poor Alice. Everything stems from the day I killed Billy.’

      ‘She would have been no happier with William,’ said Aboli. ‘You saw how he treated her. The way he beat her, he might have killed both her and Francis. No,’ he added, seeing Tom’s protest, ‘the boy must know the full truth about his father.’

      ‘I knew it already,’ said Francis. ‘Before I left, my mother told me about my father and the way he treated her. She said you acted to defend yourself.’ He shook his head, embarrassed. ‘I did not believe her.’

      ‘Aye,’ СКАЧАТЬ