"Wilbur Smith - Courtney 03 - Blue Horizon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Wilbur)

Tim hunched his shoulders guiltily. "We were almost run down by a Dutch ship, damned nigh sunk us. Then we caught a red steenbras the size of a cart horse It took two hours to bring it in. We had to take it out to sell to one of the ships in the bay."

"By Jesus, boy, you've had a busy morning. Don't tell me the rest of your tribulations, let me guess. You were attacked by a French ship-of the-line, and charged by a wounded hippo." Tom roared with delight at his own wit. "Anyway, how much did you get for a cart horse-sized steenbras?" he demanded.

"Eight silver guilders."

Tom whistled. "It must have been a monster." Then his expression became serious. "Ain't no excuse, lad. I didn't give you the week off. You should have been back hours ago."

"I haggled with the purser of the Dutch ship," Jim told him. "He will take all the provender we can send him and at good prices, Papa."

A shrewd expression replaced the laughter in Tom's eyes. "Seems you ain't wasted your time. Well done, lad."

At that moment a fine-looking woman, almost as tall as Tom, stepped out of the kitchens at the opposite end of the courtyard. Her hair was scraped up into a heavy bun on top of her head, and the sleeves of her blouse were rolled up around her plump sun-browned arms. "Tom Courtney, don't you realize the poor child left this morning without breakfast. Let him eat a meal before you bully him any more."

"Sarah Courtney," Tom shouted back, 'this poor child of yours isn't five years old any longer."

"It's your lunchtime too." Sarah changed tack. "Yasmini, the girls and I have been slaving over the stove all morning. Come along now, all of you."

Tom threw up his hands in capitulation. "Sarah, you're a tyrant, but I could eat a buffalo bull with the horns on," he said. He came down off the veranda and put one arm around Jim's shoulders, the other round Mansur's and led them towards the kitchen door, where Sarah waited for them with her arms powdered to the elbows with flour.

Zama took the team of mules and led them out of the courtyard towards the stables. "Zama, tell my brother that the ladies are waiting lunch for him," Tom called after him,

I will tell him, oubaasl' Zama used the most respectful term of address for the master of High Weald.

"As soon as you have finished eating, you get back here with all the men," Jim warned him. "We have to pick and load a cargo of vegetables to take out to the Lucky Seagull tomorrow."

The kitchen was bustling with women, most of them freed house slaves, graceful, golden-skinned Javanese women from Batavia. Jim went to embrace his mother.

Sarah pretended to be put out, "Don't be a great booby, James," but she flushed with pleasure as he lifted her and bussed her on both cheeks. Tut me down at once and let me get on."

"If you don't love me then at least Aunt Yassie does." He went to the delicate, lovely woman who was wrapped in the arms of her own son. "Come now, Mansur! It's my turn now." He lifted Yasmini out of Mansur's embrace. She wore a long ghagra skirt and a coir blouse of vivid silk. She was as slim and light as a girl, her skin a glowing amber, her slanting eyes dark as onyx. The snowy blaze through the front of her dense dark hair was not a sign of age: she had been born with it, as had her mother and grandmother before her.

With the women fussing over them, the men seated themselves at the top of the long yellow-wood table, which was piled with bowls and platters. There were dishes of bobootie curry in the Malayan style, redolent with mutton and spices, rich with eggs and yoghurt, an enormous venison pie, made with potatoes and the meat of the spring buck Jim and Mansur had shot out in the open veld, loaves of bread still hot from the oven, pottery crocks of yellow butter, jugs of thick sour milk and small beer.

"Where is Dorian?" Tom demanded, from the head of the table. "Late again!"

"Did someone call my name?" Dorian sauntered into the kitchen, still lean and athletic, handsome and debonair, his head a mass of copper curls to match his son's. He wore high riding boots that were dusty to the knees, and a wide-brimmed straw hat. He spun the hat across the room, and the women greeted him with a chorus of delight.

"Quiet! All of you! You sound like a flock of hens when a jackal gets into the coop," Tom bellowed. The noise subsided almost imperceptibly. "Come on, sit down, Dorry, before you drive these women wild. We are to hear the tale of the giant steenbras the boys caught, and the deal they have done with the VOC ship lying out in the bay."

Dorian took the chair beside his brother, and sank the blade of his knife through the crust of the venison pie. There was a sigh of approval from all of the company as a fragrant cloud of steam rose to the high stinkwood beams of the ceiling. As Sarah spooned the food on to the blue willow-pattern plates the room was filled with banter from the

men giggles an spontaneous demonstrations of affection from the women

"What's wrong with Jim Boy?" Sarah looked across the table, and raised her voice above the pandemonium.

"Nothing," said Tom, with the next spoonful half-way to his mouth. He looked sharply at his only son. "Is there?"

Slowly silence settled over the table and everyone stared at Jim. "Why aren't you eating?" Sarah demanded with alarm. Jim's vast appetite was a family legend. "What you need is a dose of sulphur and molasses."