‘Your father had about thirty merino. The rest is mine.’

Roeloff turned to Hennerik.

‘Hennerik?’

‘Grootbaas had fifty merino. He didn’t cut holes in their ears as he was the only one with them in these parts.’

Roeloff turned back to the farmer.

‘I find it strange that my father would not have marked them, he must have been very ill. But, there you’ve heard Hennerik; he didn’t. I believe the merino are all ours. You would have marked them if you had any.’

Joubert kicked his boot against a post, more to give himself time to think than to rid it of dirt.

‘You’re taking the word of a Hottentot over mine?’

‘Yes.’

Joubert narrowed his eyes.

‘Take his word then, if you wish. You won’t put your hand to them. Take your thirty and leave.’

‘Take them, Kupido, and the other sheep,’ Roeloff said. ‘Hennerik, you and Twa get the horses.’ He turned back to Joubert. ‘It’s always better to see the enemy in its original clothing. The merinos are a small price to pay.’

Chapter Seventeen

Neeltje stood at the door of the voorkamer and watched him at the table, silhouetted against the circle of light. He’d been there all afternoon, bent over some papers, oblivious to the hours slipping away. She studied him from the back; his hair tied in a thong, his head tilted forward. Already the burden of charge sat in his shoulders. She didn’t know the nature of his concerns, but it had locked him away in this room.

Three days at Kloot’s Nek and she already knew the lay of the land. The new master wasn’t loved by all. Drieka acted one way in his presence, differently behind his back. Roeloff was responsible for her brother’s dispossession. She wasn’t going to forget it.

Neeltje came quietly into the room.

‘It’s time to come to bed, Roff. Tomorrow it will all look different again.’

He turned.

‘Sit with me for a while, Neeltje.’

She came in and sat next to him on the bench.

‘These papers must be very important to keep you in here like this.’

‘They’re the handwritten words of Anna Kloot, a hundred and sixty years ago.’ His eyes filled with tears. ‘You should read it. She tells how they came from the Fatherland in three ships and lived with the wind and the rain in their flimsy tents on the wild shores of Africa, and their encounters with the people with the brown skin and clucking sounds who roamed the land with their cattle and sheep. This necklace,’ he picked it up and handed it to her, ‘was Adriaan Kloot’s, the first Kloot born in the Cape, given to him by a Koi-na woman. Hear how she describes his birth:

‘Adriaan Kloot born on the 10th with the wind and rain competing with his screams in the tent. One of the Koi-na women, Vygie, sat with me throughout the night. She’s called Vygie after a desert flower,and said to have been fathered by one of the yellow-skinned men of the interior. She’s different from the other women, being smaller in physique, also yellower in complexion due to her Sonqua blood, although none of us have seen these mountain men of the interiorof whom they speak. She sang to me in a thin and childlike voice, dabbing my forehead with herb juice so that for whole stretches I would be unaware of the awful wrenchings in my belly. When the big pains came at the end, her hands were gentle. She wanted to rub the baby with cow dung to protect him, but Sven wouldn’t hear of it. These women know things. They’re not sick like us, their babies live. When Sven was in bed with a fever and the chief surgeon’s medicine didn’t help, I folded one of her powders into his food. Vygie also gave a leather necklace for Adriaan to wear. This will protect him from evil spirits.’

Neeltje felt the tiny markings on the faded leather with the tips of her fingers.

‘She kept it together with her notes. It’s wonderful, Roeloff, that you have these memories.’

‘I know.’

Neeltje looked at the necklace lovingly.

‘One of our children should have it.’

‘Which one?’

‘Harman.’

‘I agree.’

She gave the necklace back to him and took one of the pages delicately into her hand. The script was difficult to read, but she understood what it said.

‘She writes well, Anna Kloot, the way she describes things. It’s no wonder there’s a gift for writing in the family.’

‘There’s more than writing.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Vygie had a daughter, little Eva, the image of her mother. She and Adriaan played together as children. When they were older, they were caught in the grain field showing each other their private parts. Anna Kloot’s husband, Sven, gave both of them a good hiding. A few years later when little Eva became the wife of a chief, Adriaan went missing. A party went out and searched for him. They found him after several days with a party of Koi-na, his face smeared with grease, heading for the interior. It turns out he was upset about the marriage. He was possessed by these people and their ways. No manner of punishment could tame him.’

Neeltje smiled.

‘That’s not the worst. After leaving her parents and coming to this country as a new bride and enduring the harshnesses of a strange land, Anna Kloot suffered betrayal. She discovered her husband with Vygie. There was a child.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Things repeat themselves, Neeltje. Nothing’s changed. Not the Kloots, not the struggle for land.’

‘What happened to the child?’

‘He went with his mother into the interior. There’s no further mention of him. Sven went back to the Fatherland on an outgoing ship. Anna Kloot remained with her sons, Adriaan and Frederik. She married a farmer who had lost his wife. After everything she had suffered, she stayed. She says here, There is no wind like the wind that blows here, anywhere else, but also not mountains and oceans and God’s beauty all in one place.

He got up and put his arms round her waist.

‘We will stay on Kloot’s Nek, Neeltje.’

‘I know.’

‘When you are ready, I will tell you what happened between Soela and me.’

Neeltje reached up and ruffled the softness of his hair.

‘That’s over, Roff. We’ll have enough to do raising children and sheep to bother with scratching about in the past.’

He drew her close and kissed her.

‘I am lucky to have you, Neeltje.’

‘You’ve made your own luck, Roeloff Kloot. Did you think you had nothing to do with it?’

Behind a kopje far, far away, three hunters approached a waterhole and sniffed lightly at the air. As they leaned forward to drink, they moved back suddenly and knelt with their hands to their mouths. A torso, hollowed out, lay halfway under a bush a few feet away—a carcass of scarlet ribbons, the eyes sightless under a cascade of beads. They wondered at the identity of the woman. It was the work of lions, they knew, from the punctures in the neck and the kaross torn to shreds in the struggle. It was easy to see what had happened. She’d come to drink and not smelt them. Her spirit was tainted, she’d lost her skill.