by Wilbur Smith
“Then he is no friend of mine. His master has tried on many occasions to kill me and my wife. It was Zayn who drove us into exile. He is my mortal enemy, and he has sworn a blood feud against us.”
“All this I know well, lord,” Batula replied, “for I have been with you since that happy day when the man who then was Caliph, your sainted adoptive father al-Malik, made me your lance-bearer. Do you forget that I was at your side when you captured Zayn al-Din at the battle of Muscat and you roped him behind your camel and dragged him as a traitor to face the wrath and justice of al-Malik?”
“That I will never forget, as I will not forget your loyalty and service to me over all these years.” Dorian’s expression became sad. “Pity it is that my father’s wrath was so short-lived, and his justice too heavily tempered with mercy. For he pardoned Zayn al-Din and clasped him once again to his bosom.”
“By God’s Holy Name!” Batula’s anger matched that of his master. “Your father died from that show of mercy. It was Zayn’s effeminate hand that held the poisoned cup to his lips.”
“And Zayn’s fat buttocks that sat on the Elephant Throne when my father was gone.” Dorian’s handsome features were marred by an expression of ferocity. “Now you ask me to accept into my camp the minion and minister of this monster?”
“Not so, Highness. I said that this man was once all those things to Zayn al-Din. But no longer. Like all who know him well, he became sickened to the heart by the monstrous cruelty of Zayn al-Din. He watched while Zayn tore the sinews and the heart of the nation to shreds. He watched helplessly while Zayn fed his pet sharks with the flesh of good and noble men, until they were almost too bloated to swim. He tried to protest when Zayn sold his birthright to the Sublime Porte, to the Turkish tyrants in Constantinople. In the end he was one of the chief conspirators in the plot against Zayn that overturned his throne and drove him out through the gates of Muscat.”
“Zayn is overthrown?” Dorian stared at Batula in astonishment. “He was Caliph for twenty years. I thought he would stay in power until he died of old age.”
“Some men of great evil possess not only the savagery of the wolf but also that beast’s instincts of survival. This man, Kadem al-Jurf, will tell you the rest of the story if you will allow it.”
Dorian glanced at Tom, who had been following every word with intense interest. “What do you think, brother?”
“Let us hear the man’s story,” Tom said.
Kadem al-Jurf must have been awaiting their summons for he came within minutes from the crew’s encampment at the edge of the forest. They all realized that they had seen him often during the stormy voyage up from Good Hope. Although they had not known his name, they had understood that he was Batula’s newly hired writer and purser.
“Kadem al-Jurf?” Dorian greeted him. “You are a guest in my camp. You are under my protection.”
“Your beneficence lights my life like the sunrise, Prince al-Salil ibn al-Malik.” Kadem prostrated himself before Dorian. “May the peace of God and the love of his last true Prophet follow you all the days of your long and illustrious life.”
“It is many years since any man has called me by that title.” Dorian nodded, gratified. “Rise up, Kadem, and take a place in our council.” Kadem sat beside Batula, his sponsor. The servants brought him coffee in a silver cup and Batula passed him the ivory mouthpiece of his pipe. Both Dorian and Tom studied the new man carefully while he enjoyed these expressions of hospitality and favour.
Kadem al-Jurf was young, no more than a few years older than Mansur. He had a noble face. His features reminded Dorian of his own adoptive father. Of course, it was not impossible that he was a royal bastard. The Caliph had been a man indeed, and prolific with his seed. He had ploughed and sowed wherever the ground pleased him.
Dorian smiled faintly, then put aside the thought, and once more regarded Kadem with his full attention. His skin was the colour of fine polished teak. His brow was deep and wide, his eyes clear, dark and penetrating. He returned Dorian’s scrutiny calmly and, despite his protestations of loyalty and respect, Dorian thought he recognized in his gaze the disconcerting gleam of the zealot. This is a man who lives by the Word of Allah alone, he thought. Here is one who places scant value in the law and opinions of men. He knew well how dangerous such men could be. While he composed his next question he looked at Kadem’s hands. There were telltale calluses on his fingers and his right palm. He recognized these as the stigmata of the warrior, the gall of bowstring and sword hilt. He looked again at his shoulders and arms and saw the development of muscle and sinew that could only have been built up during long hours of practice with bow and blade. Dorian let none of these thoughts show in his own eyes as he asked gravely, “You were in the service of Caliph Zayn al-Din?”
“Since childhood, lord. I was an orphan and he took me under his protection.”
“You swore a blood oath of loyalty to him,” Dorian insisted. For the first time Kadem’s steady gaze shifted slightly. He did not reply. “Yet you have reneged on this oath,” Dorian persisted. “Batula tells me you are no longer the Caliph’s man. Is that true?”
“Your Highness, I swore that oath nearly twelve years ago, on the day of my circumcision. In those days I was a man in name only, but in reality I was a mere child and a stranger to the truth.”
“And now I can see that you have become a man.” Dorian went on appraising him. Kadem was supposedly a writer, a man of papers and ink, but he did not have that look. There was a latent fierceness about him, like a falcon at roost. Dorian was intrigued. He went on, “But, Kadem al-Jurf, does this release you from a blood oath of fealty?”
“My lord, I believe that fealty is a dagger with two edges. He who accepts it has a responsibility towards he who offers it. If he neglects that duty and responsibility, then the debt is cancelled.”
“These are devious semantics, Kadem. I find them too convoluted to fathom. To me an oath is an oath.”
“My lord condemns me?” Kadem’s voice was silky, but his eyes were cold as obsidian.
“Nay, Kadem al-Jurf. I leave judgement and condemnation to God.”
“Bismallah!” Kadem intoned, and Batula and Kumrah stirred.
“There is no God, but God,” said Batula.
“God’s wisdom surpasses all understanding,” said Kumrah.
Kadem whispered, “Yet I know that Zayn al-Din is your blood enemy. That is why I come to you, al-Salil.”
“Yes, Zayn is my adopted brother and my enemy. Many years ago he swore to kill me. Many times since then I have felt his baleful influence touch my life,” Dorian agreed.
“I have heard him relate to his courtiers how he owes his crippled foot to you,” Kadem went on.
“He owes me much else besides.” Dorian smiled. “I had the great pleasure of placing a rope around his neck and dragging him before our father to face the Caliph’s wrath.”
“Posterity and Zayn al-Din remember this deed of yours well.” Kadem nodded. “This is part of the reason that we chose to come to you.”
“Before it was ‘I,’ but now it is ‘we’?”
“There are others who have repudiated their oaths of fealty to Zayn al-Din. We turn to you, for you are the last of the line of Abd Muhammad al-Malik.”
“How is that possible?” Dorian demanded, and suddenly he was angry. “My father had countless wives who bore him sons, and they in turn had sons and grandsons. My father’s seed was fruitful.”
“Fruitful no longer. Zayn has harvested all his father’s fruits. On the first day of Ramadan there was such a slaughter as to shame the Face of God and astound all Islam. Two hundred of your brothers and nephews were gathered up by Zayn al-Din’s reapers. They died by poison, that coward’s tool, and they died by steel and rope and water. Their blood soaked the desert sands and tinted the sea to rose. Every person who had a blood claim to the Elephant Throne in Muscat perished in that holy month. Murder was compounded ten thousand times by sacrilege.”
Dorian stared at him in horrified disbelief, and Yasmini choked back her sobs: her brothers and other kin must be among the dead. Dorian put aside his own shocked grief to comfort her. He stroked the silver blaze that shone like a diadem in her sable locks, and whispered softly to her before he turned back to Kadem. “This is hard news and bitter,” he said. “It takes great effort for the mind to encompass such evil.”
“My lord, neither were we able to treat with such monstrous evil. That is why we repudiated our vows and rose up against Zayn al-Din.”
“There has been a rising?” Although Batula had already warned him of this, Dorian wanted Kadem to confirm it: all this seemed too far beyond the frontiers of possibility.
“A battle raged within the walls of the city for many days. Zayn al-Din and his adherents were driven into the keep of the fort. We believed that they would perish there but, alas, there was a secret tunnel under the walls that led down to the old harbour. Zayn escaped by this route, and his ships bore him away.”
“Whither did he flee?” Dorian demanded.
“He sailed back to his birthplace on Lamu island. With the help of the Portuguese and the collusion of the minions of the English East India Company at Zanzibar, he has seized the great fort and all the Omani settlements and possessions along the Fever Coast. Under the threat of the English guns his forces in those possessions have remained loyal to him, and have resisted our efforts to cast down the tyrant.”
“In God’s name, you and your junta in Muscat must be preparing your fleet to exploit these successes and to attack Zayn in Zanzibar and Lamu, is that not so?” Dorian demanded.
“My lord prince, our ranks are riven by dissent. There is no successor of royal blood to head our junta. Thus we lack loyal support from the Omani nation. In particular the desert tribes are hesitating to declare against Zayn and join our standard.”
Dorian’s expression became wooden and remote as he realized where Kadem’s protestations were heading.
“Without a leader our cause grows weaker and more divided each day, while each day Zayn regains his stature and strength. He commands the Zanzibar coast. We have learned that he has sent envoys to the Great Mogul, the Supreme Emperor in Delhi, and to the Sublime Porte in Constantinople. His old allies are rallying to support him. Soon all of Islam and Christendom will unite against us. Our victory will drain away into the sands, like the ebb of the spring tide.”
“What do you want from me, Kadem al-Jurf?” Dorian asked softly.
“We need a leader with a rightful claim to the Elephant Throne,” Kadem replied. “We need a tried warrior who has commanded the desert tribes in battle: the Saar, the Dahm and the Karab, the Bait Kathir and the Awamir, but most of all the Harasis who hold within their sway the plains of Muscat. Without these there can be no ultimate victory.”
Dorian sat quietly but his heart had beaten faster as Kadem recited those illustrious names. In his mind’s eye he saw again the battle array, the glint of steel in the dustclouds and the banners unfurled. He heard the war-cries of the riders, “Allah Akbar! God is great!” and the roaring of the ranks of camels racing onwards across the sands of Oman.
Yasmini felt his arm tremble under her hand, and her heart quailed. I believed in my heart that the dark days were past for ever, she thought, that I might never again hear the beat of the war drums. I hoped that my husband would always stay beside me and never again ride away to war.
The company was silent, each of them thinking their own thoughts. Kadem was watching Dorian with that glittering, compulsive stare.
Dorian shook himself back to the present. “Do you know these things are true?” he asked. “Or are they merely the dreams born of desire?”
Kadem answered straight, without lowering his eyes: “We have been in council with the desert sheikhs. They who are often divided all speak with a single voice. They say, ‘Let al-Salil take his place at the head of our armies, and we will follow wherever he leads.’”
Dorian stood up abruptly and left the circle around the campfire. None of the others followed him, neither Tom nor Yasmini. He paced along the edge of the water, a romantic figure in his robes, tall and shining in the moonlight.
Tom and Sarah whispered together, but the others were silent.
“You must not let him go,” Sarah told Tom quietly, “for Yasmini’s sake and ours. You lost him once. You cannot let him go again.”
“And yet I cannot stop him. This is between Dorian and his God.”
Batula packed fresh tobacco in the bowl of the hookah, and it was almost consumed to ash before Dorian came back to the fire. He sat cross-legged with his elbows on his knees and his chin cupped in both hands, staring into the leaping flames.
“My lord,” Kadem whispered, “give me your answer. With the trade winds standing fair, if you sail at once you can mount the Elephant Throne in Muscat at the beginning of the Feast of Lights. There can be no more propitious day than that to begin your reign as Caliph.”
Dorian was silent still, and Kadem went on—his tone was not wheedling, but strong and sure of his purpose: “Your Highness, if you return to Muscat, the mullahs will declare jihad, a holy war, against the tyrant. God and all of Oman will be at your back. You cannot turn aside from your destiny.”
Dorian raised his head slowly. Yasmini drew a long slow breath and held it. Her nails sank into the hard muscles of his forearm.
“Kadem al-Jurf,” Dorian replied, “this is a terrible decision. I cannot make it alone. I must pray for guidance.”
Kadem fell forward, prostrating himself on the sand before Dorian. His arms and legs were spread wide. “God is great!” he said. “There can be no victory without His benevolence. I shall wait for your answer.”
“I will give it to you tomorrow night at this same time and place.”
Yasmini let out her breath slowly. She knew that this was only a reprieve, and not a pardon.
Early the next day Tom and Sarah climbed to the top of the grey rocks that guarded the entrance to the lagoon, and found a sheltered nook out of the wind but full in the sun.
The Ocean of the Indies was spread beneath them, raked with creamy furrows. A sea bird used the wind to hang like a kite above the green waters. Suddenly it folded its wings and plunged from on high, hitting the surface with a tiny splash, rising again almost immediately with a silver fish wriggling in its beak. On the rocks above where they lay, the hyrax sat in the sun, rabbity brown balls of fluff watching them with huge, curious eyes.
“I want to have serious speech with you,” Sarah said.
Tom rolled on to his back and locked his fingers behind his head, grinning at her. “Fool that I am, I thought you had brought me here to have your wicked way with me, to ravish my tender flesh.”
“Tom Courtney, will you never be serious?”
“Aye, lass, that I will, and I thank you for the invitation.” He reached for her, but she struck away his hand.
“I warn you, I shall scream.”
“I will cease and desist, for the moment at least. What is it that you wanted to discuss with me?”
“’Tis Dorry and Yassie.”
“Why does this not come as any great surprise to me?”
“Yassie is sure that he will sail to Muscat to take up the offer of the throne.”
“I am sure she would not hate the thought of becoming a queen. What woman would?”
“It will destroy her life. She explained it all to me. You can have no conception of the intrigues and conspiracies that surround an Oriental court.”
“Can I not?” He raised an eyebrow. “I have lived twenty years with you, my heart, which has given me good training.”
She went on as though he had not spoken: “You are the elder brother. You must forbid him to leave. This offer of the Elephant Throne is a poisoned gift, which will destroy them and us also.”
“Sarah Courtney, you do not truly believe that I would forbid Dorian anything? It is a decision that only he can make.”
“You
will lose him again, Tom. Do you not remember how it was when he was sold into slavery? How you thought he was dead, and part of you died with him?”
“I remember it well. But this is not slavery and death. It’s a crown and power unbounded.”
“I think you begin to relish the thought of him going,” she accused him.
Tom sat up quickly. “No, woman! He is blood of my blood. I want only what is best for him.”
“You think this may be best?”
“It was the life and the destiny for which he was trained. He has become a trader with me, but I have known all along that his heart is not truly in our enterprise. For me it is meat and wine, but Dorry hankers after more than we have here. Have you not heard him speak of his adoptive father and the days when he commanded the army of Oman? Do you not sometimes see the regret and longing in his eyes?”
“Tom, you look for signs that are not there,” Sarah protested.
“You know me well, my love.” He paused, then went on, “It is my nature to dominate those around me. Even you.”
She laughed, a gay pretty sound. “You do try, I grant you that.”
“I try with Dorry too, and with him I succeed better than I do with you. He is my dutiful younger brother, and over all these years I have treated him like that. Perhaps this summons to Muscat is what he has been waiting for.”
“You will lose him again,” she repeated.
“No, there will be only a little water between us, and I have a fast ship.” He lay back in the grass and pulled his hat down over his eyes to shield them from the sun. “Besides, it will not be bad for business to have a brother able to issue licences for my ships to trade in all the forbidden ports of the Orient.”
“Tom Courtney, you mercenary monster. I do truly hate you.” She leaped on him and pummelled his chest with clenched fists. He rolled her easily on to her back in the grass and lifted her skirts away from her legs. They were still strong and shapely as those of a girl. She crossed them firmly.