Inheritance

CHAPTER TWO:

And all the while Marta was still screaming, and screaming, and screaming.

***

That night I dreamt of her. I dreamt we were back on the farm, picking vegetables for dinner, and her blushing because Jan Niewenhoudt had asked if he could come visit later.

When I woke up, the sound of the night air whooshing through my window was almost too much for me to take.

The choke that escaped my throat would have surprised me, but then again, none of it really does anymore.

***

I heard the sound of a gun hitting something hard and the screaming stopped.

It was so quiet now. I could almost believe that this wasn't happening. That they had let her go, but I knew better.

"Finally, some bloody silence." A man in one with one of the more strange accents said, his voice taking on a strange tang. I heard them once describe these men as Cockney. "That one almost penetrated me brain with her screechin'."

I wanted to close my eyes against the horror of it all, wanted to hide in a hole somewhere and to act as if this wasn't happening. But with the weight of the man holding me, that would be impossible even if it was a question to leave Marta to these bloodthirsty wolves.

"If only this one would stop writhing now." the one holding me said, his voice strained.

"You want me to do her too, guv?" the other man asked him.

There was silence. Then,

"No. Captain Rochester asked for this one specifically to be brought to him. If she comes back injured there'll be hell to pay for us. He's waiting for us back at the farmhouse. We better get going now."

***

That night, as I lay in my bed, the bedclothes littered around me as I had struggled to find a comfortable position, for the first time, I let myself think of why.

Marta suffered, for the cause of men, for the simple fact that it would hurt my father.

They had thought they would make us weak, that we would give up.

But an Afrikaner never gives up. We keep going.

Virile, unconquerable, fierce.

But, I knew, what happened to my family, was also my fault.

***

Captain Jonathan Rochester had the fierce look of a tiger deciding when to pounce on his prey.

The officer who caught me and Marta earlier dragged me roughly into the farm's untouched backroom earlier. It was where my father used to store his tools. They still laid around the ground.

There was a gardening hoe by his feet, and a shovel in the corner of the small room.

They dragged Marta to one of the horses who stood at the side of the house. It looked almost like they were going to transport us somewhere else. I didn't know where, but I was scared.

The man standing in front of me nodded to the officer to let go of me.

"Leave us." he commanded, and the officer let go of me, turning around and walking out of the room, closing the wooden half door on his way out. I heard a lock turning.

I turned around and looked at the man assessing me from behind a makeshift desk with papers littering it.

After an uncertain amount of time passed, he nodded and came around the desk, approaching me fast and steady.

"What's your name?"

I didn't answer.

Only took a step back and lifted my chin in defiance.

He smiled then, his head quirking to the side.

"I see you still haven't lost that Afrikaner spirit you people wield so proudly." He said, letting out a half laugh. "Do you understand what is happening, Miss? You are not in control here. That honour belongs to me."

He came closer, and as he came closer and closer, the more I refused to break.

I will not be a figure of weakness to my sister, even if she weren't there to see it.

His eyes narrowed as he drew near.

"My officers tell me you have a younger sister out there." He commented, as if in conversation over the weather.

He paused as if waiting for me to answer. I held my tongue.

"This can go one of two ways. Either you open that pretty stubborn little mouth of yours and she stays safe in our custody, or I get one of my officers to bring her in the room and shoot her right in front of you. Though, I can't promise they won't do worse. They haven't been around the civilized world in a while. They might have forgotten their gentlemanly English manners on the ship to this Godforsaken country."

He lifted his eyebrows as I pretended to consider his offer. He knew the moment he spoke those words that I would have chosen my sister's life over my own.

"Elisabet La Ponte." I retorted, as Afrikaans as I could muster.

He looked at me with a look of satisfaction then.

"Well, Elizabeth, seeing as we have established this understanding of ours, I have an offer for you." He said, again in that casual manner. I didn't miss how he made my name English to suit his own need.

"And what would that be?"

A smile came upon his lips. Looking at him like this, I could almost see him as handsome.

His hair, black as a raven's, fell across his forehead, clearly in dire need of a comb. There seemed to be some of the pomade the English liked so much stuck in the strands. He looked like a man trying to stay a gentleman in the middle of a world that did not allow him these luxuries.

For a small moment we just stood there, assessing each other. His gaze flicked from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet and back again, hesitating at my somewhat female parts.

"You will cooperate with whatever I tell you to do in the time you, and your family, are under my supervision. If you do this, I will not harm either your mother or your sister. The officers of my regiment will not touch a hair on your heads without my permission."

He paused to see if I understood. I nodded for him to go on.

"If you do not cooperate, I will rip into each and every one of you. I will torture your mother and your sister until they look barely human and then I will kill them both as you watch."

My breath caught in my throat. The look on his face was the look of a man who would do anything to get what he wanted.

He wasn't bluffing.

"I understand." I whispered, my voice sounding tiny even to my ears.

He smiled again then, his mouth twisting cruelly.

"Good."