Darkest England (22 page)

On Fox Wednesdays, he became the Master of Hounds.

Early one morning I was set in a tower of the castle to watch this ancient ritual. His wifelings began preparing glasses of strong drink to fortify the hunters. I saw the horses, neatly groomed, being led from the stables. I saw the hunters meet in the misty hour and mount their horses. I was entranced, at first, to notice that they wore red coats, not unlike the coats that the English wore when they came to the aid of our people and kicked the arses of the Boers from the Snow Mountains to Murderer's Karoo.

It was beautiful, the tongue-pink beauty of the coats, the black, pod-like peaked helmets of the huntsmen, the sun bright on their little bugles, strange instruments that give off a sad cracked tootle, not unlike the harsh croak of the blue crane, though nothing like as lovely.

The hounds, once unleashed, boiled like newly made tea, their nostrils seeking the scent which hung in the air in tiny droplets. The hunters carried no arms, and I wondered how they planned to dispatch the prey. Suddenly, skipping through a hedge like a red shadow, the quarry was sighted, and hounds and hunt were off in hot pursuit. The fox is regarded as being very clever, and they need to make sure he has little chance of escaping them. He will use any hole to go to earth, they say. And so they stop all those he might think of using.

To some extent they see this creature as a mystical animal, blessed with the cunning we attribute to the divine joker, Kaggen, the mantis. From my captors talk of the Zulus, I realized that it was part of their religious sense to believe that nothing more dignifies your adversary than having sport with him. Unless, of course, it is killing him.

I saw from my tower the hunters slipping like pink smoke across the damp green fields. I felt the fox's heart beat inside my breast. And I remembered my home and my mission. I heard the little cracked bugle ring out, and the excited baying of the hounds, and I had no need to ask what had caused the excitement far across the fields.

And I heard the song of my red brother. He sang an old truth. That among these people the saving of life is death. And the preservation of dying species, and the keeping of wifelings, and the celebration of brother warriors, and the admiration of Bushmen – all is death. And the salvation of miners, and the redemption of clerics,
and the costumes and the customs and the life of the True Pulse are all of them – death.

The song of my red brother woke me from a fatal dream. I had travelled in England to find freedom, a new life, a living faith. I had found those who wished to help me, hold me, advise me, guide me, teach me, save me – but all their helping, holding, advising, guiding, teaching and saving amounted to was a tearing of living flesh, the small cry, the long darkness.

All this the fleeing Red Man sang. His death was our death, this other Red Man, running before the hunters' dogs. Our fate was to be chased from
kopie
to
kranz
by soldier and farmer and traveller and collector. Driven from our water-holes. Robbed of our honey. Smoked out of our caves. Parted from our children. Cursed for our tricks. Feared for our arrows. Shot down in our hundreds.

They say of the fox that he is very cruel. And so it was said of us. That he will take what he cannot eat, six lambs at a time. And so they said it of us. That he kills for the fun of it. And so, they said, did we. That he is cunning, dangerous, dirty. So, they said, were we. That the hunter who destroys him is friend to all.

These memories and pains sat heavy in my heart as I watched from the tower and heard the fading screams of the dying fox as the hounds tore him to pieces.

By the time the Lord and his party returned, jubilant from the kill, I had remembered my manners sufficiently. It was only right, surely, that an explorer in a foreign land should not stand in judgement but try wherever possible to understand their native customs? But it was right, too, that a traveller in this antique land should be aware of the dangers, lest he be killed by custom, or kindness.

Chapter Eight

I was that evening alone in my room, shaking my head with astonishment at the strange turn of events when, without so much as a knock at the door – carried, as it seemed, within a thunderstorm of giggles, whistles, blushes and flashing eyes – there burst into my room a gang of immensely cheerful wifelings, which introduced itself ‘collectively' as the ‘Goodlove Science Group' and individually as Beatrice, Jade, Victoria and Tracy.

Beatrice was a buxom matron whose ankles I had heard the Lord speak of with adoration; Jade, very petite, but somewhat faded; Victoria, dark, full-lipped and, I thought, sharp as a jackal; Tracy, a heavy-bosomed, sleepy blonde, who had performed, in some relief agency, a form of manual labour by which she ‘helped' men in some way I did not quite understand; one day the Lord had chanced upon her and taken her on because she was very good with her hands. I looked at her small, smooth, pale fingers and found it hard to believe Tracy had ever been a manual worker.

The Goodlove Science Group, explained Beatrice, their spokeswoman, wished to offer me a deal and to ask a favour. One hinged upon the other. I would have noted the demeaning confinement of the Lord's wifelings. They, in turn, had noted my servile status, the tag around my neck, the suffering in my eyes and perceived I was not enjoying the iron hospitality of their Lord. Well – here was the deal: do them a good turn, and they would help me to escape. The favour she had to ask of me was related to the offer of freedom. But it was such a small favour she would not even mention it, since she felt sure that I would find their offer far too tempting to baulk at the little service they asked in return.

Naturally their offer was very interesting, but I told them that I desired to know the favour before I considered the deal.

Very well, said Victoria, the Science Group wished to carry out an experiment.

For I seemed to them, declared Beatrice, to contradict one of the essential laws of physics.

That what went up, smiled Jade – except in my case it didn't – must sooner or later come down.

Now the four women fixed their eyes upon my
qhwai-xkhwe
with such passionate interest that I began to understand why people of the New World have a reputation for scientific advancement. They believe all must be put to the test.

Proceedings must be strictly confidential, Victoria continued. The Lord had forbidden any close inspection of my endowment.

Jealousy, Beatrice opined. Plain and simple.

Absolutely typical, said Victoria.

Until I had arrived, declared Jade, the Lord had felt
himself to be a seeder without rival, an inseminator extraordinary, father of half the damn country. Suddenly here was a creature, only half his height, who appeared eternally primed for seeding purposes.

His Lordship's instrument – declared Tracy – was, in fact, flaccid, slow, unwilling and required patient stimulation before it ventured forth, as the schoolboy, creeping, like the snail, unwilling to school. Then, no sooner had it appeared than it performed, and vanished, shy as the tortoise that pulls its head into its shell. But now they had found a horse of a different colour! And Tracy reached out a hand.

But this was altogether too sudden for me. I was still considering their offer. To win a little more time, I now asked how they could be sure that the Lord would not arrive home at any moment and disturb their experiment. Or turn murderous, as jealous men can be.

Jade laughed and declared, mysteriously, that the biter was bit.

Just as puzzling was Victoria's gleeful remark that the fox was not in the chicken coop that night; he was detained elsewhere.

And serve him right! cried Jade.

So there was plenty of time to conduct the experiment undisturbed and in fine detail – as true science demanded, said Tracy, rubbing her soft, pale hands.

It was the matronly Beatrice, of the ankles, who took pity on my confusion at their mysterious remarks. For years, she explained, Lord Goodlove had deserted his ladyloves at night. By long-established custom he ranged through the countryside like a hungry wolf, seeking fresh pickings. All were regarded as his property. There was scarcely a barn, a hedge, a hayrick where he had not tumbled some village maiden; not a byre, a bed or a barn where he had not
tupped some local matron; not a cellar or a stable where he had not spent his noble seed. He took all and any: single women, old wives, and ailing grandmothers.

Or, at least, so he boasted, Victoria explained.

They saw scant signs of it closer to home, sighed Jade.

It was as if, said Tracy, their Lord could unfurl only in foreign parts a flag he seldom flew at home.

The women of Goodlove Castle said they hated these nightly gallivantings. And these raids were also detested throughout the region, from Little Musing to Much Musing, from Much Musing to the Black Mountains.

Sometimes a maddened lover, father, brother waited with a horsewhip at the gates of Goodlove Castle, threatening to thrash the errant Lord within an inch of his life. But the bearded old reprobate merely laughed in their faces and vanished into the fastness of his castle, crying that indeed he deserved horsewhipping – but first they must catch him!

A feeling of helplessness spread far and wide. By what spell had he turned farmers' wives and post-mistresses and village policewomen into bewitched slaves into whose willing wombs he nightly deposited a cargo of little lords a-leaping?

None could answer this question. Or prevent their own humiliation.

Not the wifelings sequestered in their quarters.

Not the angry husbands and fathers, and brothers, and lovers with the horsewhips, itching to thrash him within an inch of his life.

Not even, it seemed, the Lord himself, who, though proud of his nocturnal prowlings, was just as puzzled as to the motives behind his predatory raids. On the one hand, in a show of candid soul-searching, he confessed that his morality was perhaps not everyone's. But then he was not
everyone. He was the Lord of Goodlove Castle, and the glimpse of a well-turned ankle, a delightful bosom, excited him. He grew excited often: in barns and taxis, in trains and in foreign parts. And, being honest, and vigorous, and in touch with the life of the True Pulse; being the only White Zulu in England; soldier, philosopher, hunter, gambler, curator – he let no shadow fall between desire and action. He took as he chose – and a good thing too!

And so it might have gone on for ever, sighed matronly Beatrice, but I had arrived – the pygmy from Heaven.

Their Lord, praise be the Lord, was hunting that night, as usual. They had come to take advantage of his absence, confided Jade.

And to offer me the hospitality of the Castle, said Tracy.

And to satisfy their scientific curiosity, declared Victoria.

Before I could stop myself, I had given my agreement.

Cheering and applause greeted my acceptance.

Would I please recline so as better to facilitate their examination? Beatrice asked. And, without waiting for a reply, she lifted me in her strong arms and, raising my loincloth to facilitate their view, laid me tenderly in the middle of my acre of a bed.

The women took up positions around me, and the experiment began with a barrage of questions. Tracy, stirred perhaps by some dim memory of her former trade, took hold of my
qhwai-xkhwe
in practised hands, and presented it for inspection by her colleagues. Victoria was intrigued by the little holes, one on either side of the head. What did they signify? Beatrice asked if it stayed unflagging, even while I slept? Little Jade simply stared.

It is a wonderful – God wot! – to address an audience aflame with scientific curiosity.

I explained that my permanent semi-erection was a
perfectly normal phenomenon among the San, whether the People of the Eland, or the river Bushmen, or the mountain Bushmen; this sturdy dependability was a celebrated fact in Bushmanland. And was often shown in our paintings. To demonstrate the purposes of the shafts through the crown, I took from behind my ear a needle of porcupine quill and threaded it through the flesh. What a commotion ensued! What a chorus of screams, a throwing up of hands! And a burst of applause when the needle successfully negotiated the narrow gateways and emerged on the far side of my
qhwai-xkhwe
, and yet that valiant stalwart did not slacken in the least.