‘What the …’

He took a deep breath to calm himself. He didn’t want to go in. He couldn’t. Not one of his horses—not Boerhaan! He braced himself and stepped into the barn. A ribbon of pain shot across his chest. Boerhaan’s stall was spattered with blood, and the horse lay on his side, his throat slit and his eyes open in death.

‘Get Roeloff and David!’

Hennerik scampered up to the house.

Roeloff arrived first. ‘What’s wrong?!’ He looked at the blood, then entered the barn. The words died in his throat.

‘You promised you would look after him,’ Willem hissed.

Roeloff looked at his father in confusion.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You were drunk last night.’

‘Are you saying I did this?’

‘I’m saying there’s blood leading out of this stable. Hottentots don’t wear shoes.’

Roeloff was stunned by the accusation.

‘You think I did this to my own stallion?’

‘Someone did! Someone who’s sick in his head!’ He looked at the frightened faces of the Koi-na. ‘I want to know who committed this crime. Did you see or hear anything last night, or this morning?’

The Koi-na looked at one another.

‘Speak!’

‘It’s not us, Grootbaas,’ Sanna spoke on their behalf. ‘That’s a devil horse. He would make a noise if we came near him. You have to be strong to kill him.’

‘We should search the premises,’ David said, coming up behind them. ‘Two or more of them could have done it.’

‘Why would they want to kill Boerhaan?’ Roeloff asked.

‘Don’t ask me. You’re the one who knows what goes on in their heads. Maybe it’s you, Roff. You came out here last night.’

‘What?’

‘Didn’t you?’

‘He went straight to bed,’ Willem said.

‘No, Pa. He got up in the middle of the night to relieve himself from all that drinking he did. I saw him come out here myself.’

‘That’s a lie and you know it!’

‘And where were you if you saw him?’ Willem asked.

‘In bed. He woke me up with the noise he made.’

‘Did you come out here, Roff?’

‘You think I could do such a thing, Pa?’

Willem Kloot looked at Roeloff. There was a lot he could say—what Roeloff had done with Soela in the barn had spun round and round in his head all night, and still plagued him. To remind Roeloff would be to embarrass his other son. David could maintain his dignity if he thought no one else knew, and Willem wasn’t going to give anything away. But if Willem Kloot was stunned by one son’s behaviour, he was confused by the other’s. David had given no indication that he’d seen the girl he was to marry in the sexual act with his brother, and David wasn’t one to restrain himself.

‘Hennerik, you and Kupido search the barn. Sanna, check the huts and everyone’s clothes for anything that looks strange or out of place. You look around the grounds,’ he said to David. ‘Roeloff and I will check in here.’

There was no word between father and son as they examined the straw and the surrounding area for evidence. Roeloff was outraged by his father’s readiness to accuse him. Did he not know his own children? Had he no inkling of their character? He found nothing in the stall, and turned his attention to the stallion. Boerhaan’s coat glistened like alabaster in the morning light. He drew the eyelids over the open eyes, wrapping an old rag around the horse’s head to keep them closed. The crusted blood and the presence of insects in the nose and ears told him Boerhaan had been dead a long time.

‘He was killed at least eight hours ago.’

There was a commotion behind them, and they turned to see Hennerik in the doorway, holding something. The other Koi-na hovered nervously in the background.

‘We found it in the barn, Grootbaas.’

‘What is it?’

Hennerik put it down at his feet.

Willem looked at the bundle. It was the rag they used for the horses, caked with blood, wrapped around something.

‘What’s going on?’ David came up.

‘Open it,’ Willem Kloot instructed Hennerik.

Hennerik kneeled down and unrolled the rag. There was a murmur of disbelief—everyone knew what it was and who it belonged to. A soft sigh escaped Willem’s lips.

‘It’s the knife Oupa Harman gave you for your twelfth birthday, Roff.’

Roeloff looked at it. He couldn’t believe it.

‘David did this, Pa.’

‘How dare you!’ Willem struck him across the face. ‘To lie and then blame someone else!’

Roeloff got up from behind the stallion where he’d fallen when he lost his balance after his father’s blow. There was blood on his lip, the horse’s blood on his hands.

‘Tell Pa why you did it!’ he shouted at David.

‘You’re drunk. Why would I kill his horse?’

‘My horse,’ Roeloff charged. ‘You killed him because you saw me with Soela! And left the knife, so I would know you saw us, and so Pa would think it was I who did it!’

David punched him in the face.