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You can’t do as you like on the yard either, you said. They’re human beings, remember, not cattle.

You stopped talking when the food was brought in. You put your finger on your lips to warn Jak not to talk further.

But he’d already said it.

You get the creatures accustomed to everything, Milla, he said, you’re the one who creates expectations, not me. Remember, give them the little finger and they’ll take the whole hand, don’t come and complain to me one day if they come to confront you with all kinds of demands. Mark my words, the Romans knew it long before us, give a hotnot a hard master and he’ll long for a soft master, give him a soft master and he’ll start dreaming of being his own master. Is that what you want? And then where do you think we’ll bloody well end up in this country?

It was the old pattern. The political justification of downright meanness.

Shooting at children as if they were baboons, you said, has nothing to do with politics, Jak.

And you teaching them the alphabet as if they were parrots? What does that have to do with? And then you think you can contain it afterwards? You may think you know all about farming, Milla, but you mustn’t come and tell me about politics.

What could you do? You couldn’t even stop him ranting for all the world to hear.

Let them hear who have ears to hear, Milla, he said when you tried to silence him, I won’t be shunted around in my own home. Not by a long shot.

That last while before Jakkie’s birth you couldn’t inform yourself at first hand, your legs were swollen and you no longer went out into the yard so often. But you knew in a matter of minutes if anything happened.

Who came to tell you about the fighting? That Jak first shoved Koos Makkelwyn because he gave him lip?

Initially it wasn’t clear to you what had happened. And you could get nothing from Jak himself. Bedraggled, his riding clothes full of dust and horse manure and his riding-helmet dented, he arrived at home in the middle of the afternoon to take a bath and then he left again in the bakkie without a word.

Makkelwyn was a sturdy, neat man in his fifties whom Jak had hired specially to look after his stable horses. He was a farrier and breaker-in of wild horses and in the mornings arrived, quite the dandy, on a dapple-grey ambler from The Glen, where he was stable-master. His people, the McCalvins, had since time immemorial been the farriers in the region.

You had Dawid called in when Jak had left. So then he brought along his father.

You can still see them standing there in the kitchen, the old man in his seventies, and his son, both with the Okkenel crooked mouths and light-green eyes, and with their oily khaki hats in their hands. In Dawid’s other hand the gleaming riding crop, incongruous against the dirty pants, the scuffed shoes.

What happened in the stable, Dawid? Spit it out!

You were irritated. Why had the old man come along? When OuKarel put in an appearance in the kitchen, you knew from childhood, then there was trouble. You were tired. You weren’t in a mood for trouble.

Dawid looked at his father.

Talk, the old man said to him, I’m here as your witness.

Dawid looked you straight in the eye. You didn’t like it.

Mister Makkelwyn ticked off the baas. He rubbed against the leg of his pants with the crop.

Over what?

Because the baas rides the horses through the piss and then Mister Makkelwyn has to struggle with foundered horses for days.

And then?

Then the baas shoved him in the chest and told him to shut his bloody trap.

And then?

Then Mister Makkelwyn said he wouldn’t shut his trap and he wouldn’t be sworn at and shoved around by a pipsqueak who had no respect for a noble animal.

Dawid shifted his weight.

Carry on, OuKarel said.

Then the baas whipped him across the face with the crop and then Mister Makkelwyn grabbed the tip of the crop and then the baas pulled Mister Makkelwyn down on the ground and wanted to kick him and then Mister Makkelwyn grabbed the baas by the leg and