Birds of Prey

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘Then I must concur.’ Hal smiled ironically, but received no encouragement to further levity from Nazet.

  ‘Any warlike stores or provisions you may capture will be purchased by the exchequer, and likewise any enemy vessels will be purchased by the navy.’

  She looked away from him as a scribe entered the chamber and bowed before handing her a document written on stiff yellow parchment. Nazet glanced swiftly through it then took up the quill that the scribe handed her, filled in the blanks in the script and signed at the foot, ‘Judith Nazet’, and added a cross behind her name.

  As she sanded the wet ink she said, ‘It is written in Geez, but I will have a translation prepared for you when next we meet. In the meantime, I give you my assurance that this letter sets out exactly the terms we have discussed.’ She rolled the document, secured it with a ribbon and handed it to Hal.

  ‘Your assurance is sufficient for me.’ Hal slipped the rolled document into the sleeve of his tunic.

  ‘I am certain you are eager to rejoin your ship, Captain. I will detain you no longer.’ With that dismissal, she seemed to forget his existence and turned her full attention back to her commanders and the clay panorama of the battlefield on the tabletop in front of her.

  ‘You spoke of a series of signals, General.’ Despite her uncompromising manner, Hal found himself strangely reluctant to leave her presence. He was drawn to her in the way a compass needle seeks the north.

  She did not look up at him again but said, ‘Admiral Senec will have a signal book sent out to your ship before you sail. Bishop Fasilides will see you to where your horses are waiting. Farewell, Captain.’

  As Hal strode down the long stone passageway alongside the Bishop he said quietly, ‘The Tabernacle of Mary is here in this monastery. Am I right in believing that?’

  Fasilides stopped dead in his tracks and stared at him. ‘How did you know? Who told you?’

  ‘As a devout Christian I should like to look upon such a sacred object,’ said Hal. ‘Can you grant me that wish?’

  Fasilides tugged nervously at his beard. ‘Perhaps. We shall see. Come with me.’ He led Hal to where Aboli still waited and then both of them followed him through another maze of stairways and passages, then stopped before a doorway guarded by four priests in robes and turbans.

  ‘Is this man of yours a Christian?’ he asked as he looked at Aboli, and Hal shook his head. ‘Then he must remain here.’

  The Bishop took Hal’s arm and led him to the door. He spoke softly in Geez to one of the priests, and the old man took a huge black key from under his robe and turned the lock. Fasilides drew Hal into the crypt beyond.

  Surrounded by a forest of burning candles in tall, many-branched brass holders, the Tabernacle stood in the centre of the paved floor.

  Hal felt an overwhelming sense of awe and grace come upon him. He knew that this was one of the supreme moments of his life, perhaps even the reason for his birth and existence.

  The Tabernacle was a small chest that stood on four legs, carved like the paws of a lion. There were four carrying handles. Its square body was covered with a tapestry of silver and gold embroidery that had the patina of great age upon it. On each end of the lid knelt a miniature golden statue of an angel, with head bowed and hands clasped in prayer. It was a thing of exquisite beauty.

  Hal fell to his knees in the same attitude as the golden angels. ‘Lord God of Hosts, I have come to do your bidding, as you commanded,’ he began to pray aloud. After a long while, he crossed himself and rose to his feet.

  ‘May I see the chalice?’ he asked deferentially, but Fasilides shook his head.

  ‘Not even I have seen it. It is too holy for the eyes of mortal man. It would blind you.’

  The Ethiopian pilot guided the Golden Bough southwards in the night under top sails alone. With a leadsman taking soundings they crept up into the lee of Dahlak Island off the mouth of Adulis Bay.

  Anxiously Hal listened in the darkness to the chant of the leadsman, ‘No bottom with this line!’ and minutes later, ‘No bottom with this line!’ and then the plop of the lead as it was swung out ahead of the bows and hit the surface. Suddenly the chant altered and the leadsman’s voice took on a sharper tone. ‘By the deep, twenty!’

  ‘Mr Tyler!’ Hal barked. ‘Take another reef in your top sails. Stand by to let the anchor go!’

  ‘By the mark, ten!’ The leadsman’s next cry was sharper still.

  ‘Furl all your canvas. Let go your anchor!’

  The anchor went down and the Golden Bough glided on a short distance before she snubbed up on the cable.

  ‘Take the deck, Mr Tyler,’ Hal said. ‘I am going aloft.’

  He went up the shrouds from deck to the top of the mainmast without a pause, and was pleased that his breathing was merely deep and even when he reached the canvas crow’s nest.

  ‘I see you, Gundwane!’ Aboli greeted him, and made room for him in the canvas nest. Hal settled beside him and looked first to the land. Dahlak Island was a darker mass in the dark night, but they were a full cable’s length clear of her rocks. Then he looked to the west and saw the sweep of Adulis Bay, clearly outlined by the fires of El Grang’s army encamped along the shoreline around the little port of Zulla. The waters of the bay sparkled with the riding lanterns of the anchored fleet of Islam. He tried to count those lights but gave up when the tally reached sixty-four. He wondered if one of those was the Gull of Moray, and felt his guts contract at the thought.

  He turned to look into the east and saw the first pale promise of the dawn silhouette the rugged peaks of Arabia, from which came El Grang’s transport dhows laden with men, horses and provisions to swell his legions.

  Then, below the dawn on the dark sea, he saw the riding lanterns of other ships winking like fireflies as they sailed in on the night breeze towards Adulis Bay.

  ‘Can you count them, Aboli?’ he asked, and Aboli chuckled.

  ‘My eyes are not as sharp as yours, Gundwane. Let us say merely that there are many, and wait for the dawn to disclose their true numbers,’ he murmured.

  They waited in the silence of old companions, and both felt the chill of the coming dawn warmed away by the promise of battle that the day must bring, for this narrow sea swarmed with the ships of the enemy.

  The eastern sky began to glow like an ironsmith’s forge. The rocks of the island close at hand showed pale through the gloom, painted white by the dung of the sea birds that for centuries had roosted upon them. From their rocky perches the birds launched into flight. In staggered arrowhead formations they flew across the red dawn sky uttering wild, haunting cries. Looking up at them Hal felt the morning wind brush his cheek with cool fingers. It was blowing out of the west as he had relied upon it to do. He had the flotilla of small dhows under his lee, and at his mercy.

  The rising sun flared upon the mountain tops and set them aflame. Far out beyond the low rocks of the island a sail glinted on the darkling waters, and then another and, as the circle of their vision expanded, a dozen more.

  Hal slapped Aboli lightly on the shoulder. ‘It is time to go to work, old friend,’ he said, and slid down the shrouds. As his feet hit the deck he called to the helm, ‘Up anchor, Mr Tyler. All hands aloft to set sail.’

  Released from restraint the Golden Bough spread her canvas and wheeled away. The waters rustling under her bows and her wake creaming behind her, she sped out from her ambush behind Dahlak Island.

  The light was bright enough by now for Hal to make out clearly his quarry scattered across the wind-flecked waters ahead. He looked eagerly for the piled canvas of a tall ship among them, but saw only the single lateen sails of the Arabian dhows.

  The closest of these vessels seemed unalarmed by the Golden Bough’s appearance, her high pyramid of sails standing right across the entrance to Adulis Bay. They held their course and, as the frigate bore down upon the nearest of them, Hal saw the crew and passengers lining the dhow’s side and peering across at them. Some had scampered up t
he stubby mast and were waving a greeting.

  Hal stopped beside the helm and said to Ned Tyler, ‘’Tis likely that they have seen only one other ship like ours in these waters and that’s the Gull. They take us for an ally.’ He looked up to where his topmastmen hung in the rigging, ready to handle the great mass of canvas. Then he looked back along the deck, where the gunners were fussing over the culverins and the powder boys were scurrying up from below decks with their deadly burdens.

  ‘Mr Fisher!’ he called. ‘Load one battery on each side with ball, all the others with chain and grape, if you please.’ Big Daniel grinned, with black and rotten teeth, and knuckled his brow. Hal wanted simply to disable the enemy vessels, not sink or burn them. Even the smallest and poorest of those craft must be worth a great deal to the exchequer of His Most Christian Majesty, if he could capture them and deliver them to Admiral Senec at Mitsiwa. The battery on each side loaded with ball would be held in reserve.

  The first dhow was so close ahead that Hal could see the expressions on the faces of her crew. They were a dozen or so sailors, dressed in ragged and faded robes and ha’ik turbans. Most were still smiling and waving but the old man at the tiller in the stern was looking about wildly, as if to seek some providential escape from the tall hull that was racing down upon his little vessel.

  ‘Break out our colours, if you please, Mr Tyler,’ Hal ordered, and watched the croix pattée unfurl alongside the white Coptic cross of the Empire on its royal blue ground. The dismay on the faces of the dhow’s crew as they saw the cross of their doom spread before their eyes was pathetic to behold and Hal gave his next order. ‘Run out your guns, Master Daniel!’ The Golden Bough’s gunports crashed back and the hull reverberated to the rumble of the guns as the culverins poked out their bronze muzzles.

  ‘I’ll pass the chase close to starboard. Fire as you bear, Master Daniel!’ Big Daniel raced to the bows and took command of the number-one starboard battery. Hal saw him move swiftly from gun to gun to check their laying, inserting the wedges to lower the aim. They would be firing almost directly down into the dhow as they swept past her.

  The Golden Bough rushed down silently upon the little craft, and Hal said quietly to the helm, ‘Slowly bring her up a point to larboard.’

  As they realized the menace of the gaping guns, the crew of the dhow fled from the rail and flung themselves down behind the stubby little mast or crouched behind the bales and casks that cluttered her deck.

  The first battery fired together in one smoking, thunderous discharge and every shot struck home. The base of the mast was blown away in a storm of white wood splinters and her rigging crashed down to hang overside in an untidy tangle of rope and canvas. The old man at the tiller disappeared, as though turned to air by a wizard’s spell. He left only a red smear on the torn planking.

  ‘Avast firing!’ Hal bellowed, to make himself heard in the ear-numbing aftermath of the gunfire. The dhow was crippled: her bows were already swinging away before the wind, the tiller shot away and her mast gone overboard. The Golden Bough left her rolling in her wake.

  ‘Hold your course, Mr Tyler.’ The Golden Bough tore straight at the flotilla of small craft strewn across the blue waters ahead. These had seen the merciless treatment of the first dhow and the Imperial colours flying at the frigate’s masthead, and now every one put his helm hard up and came around before the wind. Goose-winged, they fled before the Golden Bough’s charge.

  ‘Steer for the vessel dead ahead!’ said Hal quietly, and Ned Tyler brought the frigate around a point. The dhow Hal had chosen was one of the largest in sight, and its open deck was crowded with men. There must be at least three hundred packed into her, Hal estimated. It was a short voyage across the narrow sea, and her captain had taken a risk: she was carrying far more troops than was prudent.

  A thin shout of defiance reached Hal’s ears as they closed the range: ‘Allah Akbar! God is great!’ Steel war helmets glinted on the heads of the Omani troops, and they brandished their long, curved scimitars. There came an untidy volley of musket fire, aimed at the frigate, the popping of the jezails and puffs of gunsmoke along the dhow’s side. A lead ball thudded into the mast above Hal’s head.

  ‘Every man aboard her is a soldier,’ Hal said aloud. He did not have to add that if they were allowed to reach the western shore of the sea they would march against Judith Nazet. ‘Give her a volley of ball. Sink her, Master Daniel!’

  The heavy iron cannonballs raked the troopship from deck to keel and split her like kindling under the axe. The sea rushed in through her torn belly. She capsized and the water was suddenly filled with the bobbing heads of struggling, drowning men.

  ‘Steer for that vessel with the silver pennant.’ Hal did not look back but tore through the fleet like a barracuda into a shoal of flying fish. Not one could outrun him. With her mountain of white sails driving her, the Golden Bough flew upon them as if they were at anchor, and her guns crashed out in flame and smoke. Some of the little ships burst open and sank, others were left in the frigate’s wake with mast snapped away and sails dragging alongside. Some of the sailors threw themselves overboard at the moment that the culverins came to bear upon them. They preferred the sharks to the blast of guns.

  Several ran for the nearest island and tried to anchor in the shoal waters where the Golden Bough could not follow. Others deliberately ran aground, and their crews dived overboard to swim and wade to the beach.

  Only those ships furthest to the east and closest to the Arabian coast had the head start to run from the frigate’s charge. Hal looked astern and saw the water behind him dotted with the floundering hulls of those he had overtaken. Every mile he chased the survivors eastwards was a mile further from Mitsiwa.

  ‘None of those will come back in a hurry!’ he said grimly, as he watched them fly in confusion. ‘Mr Tyler, please be good enough to wear the ship around and lay her close hauled on the starboard tack.’

  This was the Golden Bough’s best point of sailing. ‘There is no dhow built in all Arabia that can point higher into the wind than my darling can,’ Hal said aloud, as he saw twenty sail to windward trying to escape by beating up into the west. The Golden Bough tore back into the scattered fleet, and now some of the dhows dropped their wide triangular main sail as they saw him coming and screamed to Allah for mercy.

  Hal checked the frigate as he came alongside each of these, bringing her head to the wind as he launched a boat and sent a prize crew, comprising one white seaman and six of his Amadoda, to board the surrendered ship. ‘If there is nothing of value in her cargo, take off her crew and put a torch to her.’

  By late that afternoon, Hal had five large dhows on tow behind the Golden Bough, and another seven sailing in company with him, under jury-rigging and with his prize crews aboard, as they headed back towards Mitsiwa. Every one of the captured vessels was heavily laden with vital provisions of war. Behind him, the sky was dulled with the smoke of the burning hulls and the sea was littered with the wreckage.

  General Nazet sat on her black Arabian stallion and watched from the cliff tops as this untidy flotilla straggled into Mitsiwa Roads. At last she closed her telescope and remarked to Admiral Senec beside her, ‘I see why you call him El Tazar! This Englishman is a barracuda, indeed.’ Then she turned away her face so that he could not see the thoughtful smile that softened her handsome features. El Tazar. It is a good name for him, she thought, and then, irrelevantly, another notion occurred to her. I wonder if he is as fierce a lover as he is a warrior. It was the first time since God had chosen her to lead his legions against the pagan that she had looked at any man through a woman’s eyes.

  Colonel Cornelius Schreuder dismounted in front of the spreading tent of shimmering red and yellow silk. A groom took his horse and he paused to look around the encampment. The royal tent stood on a small knoll overlooking Adulis Bay. Up here the sea breeze cooled the air and made it possible to breathe. On the plain below, where the army of Islam was bivouacked around the port of Zu
lla, the stones crackled in the heat and shimmered in the mirage.

  The bay was crowded with shipping, but the tall masts of the Gull of Moray dominated all others. The Earl of Cumbrae’s ship had come in during the night, and now Schreuder heard his voice raised in argument within the silken tent. His lips twitched in a smile that lacked humour, and he adjusted the hang of the golden sword at his side before he strode to the flap of the tent. A tall subahdar bowed to him. All the troops of Islam had come to know him well: in the short time he had served with them, Schreuder’s feats of daring had become legend in the Mogul’s army. The officer ushered him into the royal presence.

  The interior of the tent was commodious and sumptuously furnished. The entire floor was thickly covered with gorgeously coloured silk carpets and silken draperies formed a double skin that kept out the sun’s heat. The low tables were of ivory and rare wood, and the vessels upon them were of solid gold.

  The Great Mogul’s brother, the Maharajah Sadiq Khan Jahan, sat in the centre on a pile of silk cushions. He wore a tunic of padded yellow silk and striped pantaloons of red and gold. The slippers on his feet were scarlet with long, curling toes and buckles of gold. His turban was yellow and secured above his brow by an emerald the size of a walnut. He was close-shaven, with only a kohl line of fine moustache upon his petulant upper lip. Across his lap was a scimitar in a scabbard so richly encrusted with jewels that the sparkle of them pricked the eye. On one gloved hand he held a falcon, a magnificent Saker of the desert. He lifted the bird and kissed its beak as tenderly as if it had been a beautiful woman – or rather, Schreuder thought bleakly, as if it were one of his pretty dancing boys.

  A little behind him, on another pile of cushions, sat Ahmed El Grang, the Left Hand of Allah. He was so wide-shouldered as to seem deformed, and his neck was thick and corded with muscle. He wore a steel war helmet and his beard was dyed with henna, red as that of the Prophet. His massive chest was covered with a steel cuirass, and there were bracelets of steel upon his wrists. His brows beetled and his eyes were as cold and implacable as those of an eagle.