‘Where is your mistress?’ Leon asked, and they exchanged a glance, giggled a little more and shrugged, but did not reply. He left them and went to his own tent, ducked in through the fly and found the princess sitting on his bed. His campaign bureau was open and the contents were spread around her. His game book was open on her lap.
‘Princess.’ He bowed stiffly. ‘I regret we were unable to find your jewel.’
She touched the locket, which now hung at her throat. The single large diamond set in the lid glinted in the subdued light. ‘No matter,’ she said. ‘One of my maids found it under my bed. I must have dropped it there.’
‘I am relieved to hear that.’ He looked pointedly at the game book. ‘Is there anything in particular Your Royal Highness was looking for?’
‘No, nothing, really. I was bored in your absence so I was passing the time. I was diverted by your accounts of my prowess . . .’ she paused significantly and stared into his eyes ‘. . . in the chase.’ She closed the book and stood up. ‘So Courtney, how are you going to amuse me today? What is there for me to kill?’
‘I have found a formidable leopard for you.’
‘Take me to it!’
The leopard was in its prime, beautiful even in death. The fur on its back was burned gold alloyed with copper that shaded to fluffy cream under the belly. It was dappled with clusters of starkest black as though it had been touched repeatedly by the bunched fingertips of Diana, the goddess of the hunt. The whiskers were stiff and glassy white, the fangs and claws perfect. There was very little blood. The princess’s single shot had struck the heart squarely as it ran from one of the warthog carcasses. As they loaded it on to the back of a mule, Manyoro whispered to Loikot, just loudly enough for Leon to hear, ‘Will she send the mate of the
Leon ignored him, pretending not to have heard. Manyoro followed the mule with a dramatically exaggerated limp.
That night at dinner the princess commanded Leon to open a bottle of 1903 Louis Roederer Cristal vintage champagne from her store. Twice during the meal she touched him intimately beneath the table, something she had never done before. Against his will his body responded to the skill of her fingers. When she felt it, she smiled and released him. Then she whispered something to Heidi that he could not catch, but both her handmaidens dissolved into unbridled fits of giggles.
Later that evening the Luger shot through the roof of the royal tent summoned Leon before he had completed the entry in his game book for the leopard hunt. As he set it aside he felt himself succumbing to the perverse arousal she was able to evoke in him so readily. ‘She could corrupt St Peter and all the angels of heaven,’ he told himself, as he went to do her bidding.
The following morning when they rode out to continue the chase for warthogs she spurred up alongside Leon’s horse and chatted as gaily as a young girl. Once more Leon was disconcerted by the mercurial change in her mood and wondered what it foreshadowed. He did not have to wait long to find out.
‘Oh, how I love to kill pigs,’ she remarked, ‘and these African ones are amusing, but they do not match up to our German wild boar.’
‘We have other pigs that are bigger and more dangerous,’ Leon protested. ‘The giant forest hog that live in the bamboo forests of the Aberdare mountains can weigh more than a thousand pounds.’
‘Poof!’ She dismissed his statement with a wave of her hand. ‘There is only one variety of game that truly thrills me beyond all others.’
‘Which is it? Is it a very rare species?’ he asked, with interest, and she laughed lightly,
‘Not at all. In the Polynesian islands they call them “long pigs”.’ He stared at her in disbelief. ‘Ah, so! Now at last you understand.’ She laughed again. ‘I have killed many, but the thrill never palls. Shall I tell you of my first one, Courtney?’
‘If you so wish.’ His voice was hoarse with horror.
‘He was a young gamekeeper on one of the royal estates. I was thirteen. Although I was still a virgin, I wanted him, but he was married and he loved his wife. He laughed at me. When I was alone with him in the forest hunting capercaillie, I sent him forward to pick up a bird I had shot. When he had gone ten paces I shot him in the back of his legs with both barrels of my shotgun. The blast tore away the bone and his legs were held by only strings and tatters of flesh. There was much blood. I sat beside him and talked to him as he lay bleeding to death. I explained why I had had to kill him. He pleaded for mercy, not for himself, he said, but for his slattern of a wife and the miserable brat she carried in her belly. He wept and begged me to fetch a doctor to save him. I laughed at him, as he had once dared to laugh at me. He took almost an hour to die.’ Her expression was dreamy. They rode on in silence for a while, and then she asked innocently, ‘You would never disappoint me as the gamekeeper did, would you, Courtney?’
‘I hope not, ma’am.’
