Blue Horizon

by Wilbur Smith

  “Sarah Courtney, show me how much you really hate me.” He held her down with one hand while he unbuckled his belt.

  “Stop this at once, you lecherous knave. They’re watching us.” She struggled but not too hard.

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Them!” She pointed at the ring of staring rock rabbits.

  “Boo!” Tom shouted at them, and they shot down the entrances to their burrows. “They aren’t watching now!” said he.

  Sarah uncrossed her legs.

  The gathering at the campfire that night was solemn and fraught with uncertainty and anxiety. No one in the family knew what Dorian had decided. Yasmini, sitting beside her husband, answered the silent question that Sarah flashed to her across the firelit circle with a resigned lift of her shoulders.

  Tom alone was determinedly cheerful. While they ate grilled fish with chunks of new baked bread, he retold the story of their grandfather Francis Courtney, and the capture of the Dutch East India galleon off Cape Agulhas nearly sixty years before. He explained to them where Francis had hidden his booty, in a cave up at the head waters of the stream that ran into the lagoon, near where Mansur had shot the buffalo the previous day. Then he laughed as he pointed out the trenches and overgrown excavations all around their encampment that the Dutch had dug in their efforts to find and retrieve the plundered treasure. “While they sweated and swore, our own father, Hal Courtney, had spirited away the booty long before,” he told them, but they had heard the story often enough not to be amazed by it. In the end even Tom was defeated by the silence, and instead of regaling them further he addressed himself to the bowl of spiced buffalo stew that the women had served after the fish.

  Dorian ate little. Before the silver coffee-pot was brought from its cradle over the coals he told Tom, “If you agree, brother, I will speak to Kadem now and give him my decision.”

  “Aye, Dorry,” Tom agreed. “’Twould be best to have done with the whole business. The ladies have been sitting on a nest of ants since yesterday.” He shouted for Batula. “Tell Kadem he might join our council, if he has a mind.”

  Kadem came striding down the beach. He walked like a desert warrior, lithe and long-limbed, and prostrated himself before Dorian.

  Mansur leaned forward eagerly. He and Dorian had left the camp earlier that day and passed many hours alone together in the forest. Only they knew what they had discussed. Yasmini looked at her son’s shining face and her heart sank. He is so young and beautiful, she thought, so bright and strong. Of course he pines for such an adventure as he sees here. He knows only the ballad singers’ romantic vision of battle. He dreams of glory, power and a throne. For, depending on the choice Dorian makes this evening, the Elephant Throne of Oman might one day be his.

  She drew the veil over her face to hide her fears. My son does not understand what pain and suffering the crown will bring him all the days of his life. He knows nothing of the poison cup and the assassin’s blade. He does not understand that the caliphate is a slavery more oppressive than the chains of the galley slave or those of the worker in the copper mines of Monomatapa.

  Her thoughts were interrupted when Kadem greeted Dorian. “The Prophet’s blessing upon you, Majesty, and the peace of God. May he bless our undertakings.”

  “It is early to speak of Majesty, Kadem al-Jurf,” Dorian cautioned him. “Wait rather until you have heard my decision.”

  “Your decision has already been made for you by the prophet and saint Mullah al-Allama. He died in his ninety-ninth year, in the mosque on Lamu island, praising God with his last breath.”

  “I did not know he was dead,” Dorian said sadly, “though, in all truth, at that venerable age it could not have been otherwise. He was a holy man indeed. I knew him well. It was his hand that circumcised me. He was my wise counsellor, and a second father to me.”

  “In his last days he thought of you, and made a prophecy.”

  Dorian inclined his head. “You may recite the words of the holy mullah.”

  Kadem had the gift of rhetoric, and his voice was strong but pleasing. “The orphan from the sea, he who won the Elephant for his father, shall sit upon its back when the father has passed, and he shall wear a crown of red gold.” Kadem spread his arms. “Majesty, the orphan of the prophecy can mean no other than you. For you are crowned now in red gold, and you were the victor of the battle that gave the Elephant Throne to your adoptive father, Caliph Abd Muhammad al-Malik.”

  A long silence followed his ringing speech, and Kadem stood with arms outspread like the Prophet himself.

  Dorian broke the silence at last. “I have heard your pleas, and I will give you my decision that you must take back to the sheikhs of Oman. But first I must tell you how I have reached it.”

  Dorian placed his hand upon Mansur’s shoulder. “This is my son, my only son. My decision touches him deeply. He and I have discussed it in every detail. His fierce young heart is hot for the enterprise, just as mine was at the same age. He has urged me to accept the invitation of the sheikhs.”

  “Your son is wise far beyond his years,” said Kadem. “If it please Allah, he shall rule in Muscat after you.”

  “Bismallah!” cried Batula and Kumrah together.

  “If God pleases!” cried Mansur in Arabic, his expression rapt with joy.

  Dorian held up his right hand, and they fell silent again. “There is another who is touched deeply by my decision.” He took Yasmini’s hand. “The Princess Yasmini has been my companion and my wife all these years, from childhood to this day. I swore an oath to her long ago, a blood oath.” He turned to her. “Do you remember my marriage vows to you?”

  “I remember, my lord husband,” she said softly, “but I thought you might have forgotten.”

  “I swore two vows to you. The first was that, even though the law and the prophets allow it, I would take no other wife than you. I have kept that vow.”

  Yasmini was not able to speak, but she nodded. At the movement a tear that trembled on her long eyelashes detached itself and splashed upon the silk that covered her bosom, leaving a wet stain.

  “The second oath I swore that day was that I would not cause you pain if it was in my power to prevent it.” Yasmini nodded again.

  “Let all of you here present know that if I were to take up the invitation of the sheikhs to the Elephant Throne, it would cause the Princess Yasmini pain more poignant than the pain of death itself.”

  The silence drew out, tingling, in the night, like the threat of summer thunder. Dorian stood up and spread his arms. “This is my reply. May God hear my words. May the holy prophets of Islam bear witness to my oath.”

  Tom was amazed by the transformation that had overtaken his younger brother. Now he looked like a king indeed. But Dorian’s next words shattered that illusion. “Tell them that my love and admiration is with them still, as it was at the battle of Muscat and every day since then. Despite this, the burden they would place upon me is too heavy for my heart and my shoulders. They must find another for the Elephant Throne. I cannot take up the caliphate and keep true to my oath to the Princess Yasmini.”

  Mansur gave a small involuntary cry of distress. He leaped to his feet and ran into the night. Tom jumped up and might have chased after him had not Dorian shaken his head. “Let him go, brother. His disappointment is sharp, but it will pass.” He sat down again and turned to smile at Yasmini. An expression of adoration shone upon her lovely face. “I have kept both my oaths to you,” Dorian said.

  “My lord!” she whispered. “My own heart.”

  Kadem stood up again, his face expressionless. He bowed deeply to Dorian. “As my prince commands,” he agreed softly. “Would that I could call you ‘Majesty.’ It saddens me, but that is not to be. God’s will be done.” He turned and strode away into the darkness, heading in the opposite direction to that taken by Mansur.

  It was the time of the evening prayers and the man who called himself Kadem al-Jurf performed his ritual ablutions in the salt water
s of the lagoon. Once he was cleansed, he climbed to a high place on the rocks above the ocean. He spread his prayer mat, recited the first prayer and made the first prostration.

  For once neither the act of worship nor submission to the will of God could calm the anger that seethed within him. It required all his self-discipline and dedication to complete the prayers without letting his unruly emotions mar them. When he had finished, he built a small fire from the faggot of wood he had gathered on the way up the hill. When it was burning brightly Kadem sat cross-legged on the mat in front of it and gazed through the curtain of shimmering heat at the glowing wood.

  Rocking slightly, as though he were riding a racing camel across the desert, he recited the twelve mystical sura of the Qur’an, and waited for the voices. They had been with him since childhood, since the day of his circumcision. Always they came to him clearly after praying or fasting. He knew they were the voices of God’s angels and of his prophets. The first to speak was the one he dreaded most.

  “You have failed in your task.” He recognized the voice of Gabriel, the avenging archangel, and quailed before the accusation.

  “Highest of the high, it was not possible that al-Salil could spurn the bait that was so carefully prepared for him,” he murmured.

  “Hear me, Kadem ibn Abubaker,” said the angel. “It was your overweening pride that led you into failure. You were too certain of your own powers.”

  The angel used his true name, for Kadem was the son of Pasha Abubaker, the general Dorian had slain in the battle on the banks of the river Lunga twenty years before.

  Pasha Abubaker had been the half-brother and boon companion of Zayn al-Din, the Caliph of Oman. They had grown up together in the zenana on Lamu island, and it was there that their destinies had first become entangled with those of Dorian and Yasmini.

  Much later, in the palace at Muscat, when their royal father was dead and Zayn al-Din was caliph, he had appointed Abubaker supreme military commander and a Pasha in the service of the caliphate. Then he had sent Abubaker with his army to Africa to hunt down and capture Dorian and Yasmini, the incestuous runaway couple.

  At the head of his cavalry squadrons Abubaker had caught up with them as they were trying to escape down the river Lunga and reach the open sea in Tom’s tiny ship, the Swallow. Abubaker had attacked them while they were stranded on the sandbar at the mouth of the river. The battle was fierce and bloody, with Abubaker’s cavalry squadrons charging through the shallows. But the ship had been armed with cannon and Dorian had touched off the blast of grape-shot that blew off Pasha Abubaker’s head and drove off his troops in disarray.

  Although Kadem had been an infant at the time of his father’s death, Zayn al-Din had taken him under his protection and shown him the favour and preference he offered his own sons rather than treating him as a nephew. In doing so he made Kadem his liege man, his blood bondsman. He fettered him with chains of steel that could never be broken. Despite what Kadem had told Dorian at the campfire, the strength of his oath to Zayn al-Din was matched only by his awareness of his duty to take vengeance on the man who had slain his father. This was a holy duty, a blood feud imposed on him by God and his own conscience.

  Zayn al-Din, who loved few men, loved Kadem, his nephew. He kept him close, and when he became a true warrior he made him the commander of the royal bodyguard. Only Kadem, of the possible heirs to the caliphate, was spared from the Ramadan massacre. During the uprising that followed, Kadem had fought like a lion to protect his caliph, and in the end it was Kadem who had led Zayn al-Din through the maze of underground passages, under the palace walls to the ship waiting in the harbour of Muscat. He had carried his master safely to the palace on Lamu island off the Fever Coast.

  Kadem was the general who had overwhelmed the forts along the coast that attempted to rise in support of the revolutionary junta in Muscat. Kadem had negotiated the alliance with the English consul in Zanzibar, and Kadem had urged his master to send envoys to Constantinople and Delhi to garner support. During these campaigns along the Fever Coast, Kadem had captured most of the leaders of the factions who opposed Zayn. As a matter of course, the prisoners were handed over to his inquisitors so that they could extract from them all the information and intelligence they could.

  In this way, by the intelligent and judicious application of the bastinado, the screw and the garotte, the inquisitors dredged up a precious gem: the whereabouts of al-Salil, the murderer of Pasha Abubaker and the sworn blood enemy of the Caliph.

  Armed with this knowledge, Kadem pleaded with Zayn al-Din to allow him to be the instrument of retribution. Zayn consented, and Kadem would entrust his sacred duty to none of his underlings. He alone devised the stratagem of luring al-Salil into the Caliph’s realm and power by impersonating an envoy of the rebel junta who still held the capital city of Muscat.

  When Kadem revealed his plan to Zayn al-Din, the Caliph was delighted and gave the enterprise his blessing. He promised Kadem the title of pasha, like his father before him, and any other reward Kadem could ask for, if he succeeded in bringing al-Salil and his incestuous wife Yasmini back to Lamu island to face his wrath and retribution. Kadem asked only one reward: that when the time came for al-Salil to die, Kadem should be given the honour of strangling him with his own hands. He promised Zayn that the garotting would be slow and agonizing. Zayn smiled and granted this boon also.

  Kadem had learned from the inquisitors that the trading ship, Gift of Allah, which called often at the ports of the Fever Coast, belonged to al-Salil. When next it arrived in the port of Zanzibar Kadem inveigled himself into the confidences of Batula, al-Salil’s old lance-bearer. Kadem’s plot had unfurled smoothly, until now, with the prize almost within his grasp, when he had been thwarted by al-Salil’s unfathomable refusal to accept the lure. Now Kadem had to answer the accusation of God’s angel.

  “Highest of the high, I have indeed committed the sin of pride.” Kadem made the sign of penitence by wiping his face with open hands, as though washing away the sin.

  “You believed that without divine intervention, you alone could bring the sinner to justice. This was vanity and foolishness.”

  The accusations thundered in his head until it felt that his eardrums must burst. Kadem bore the pain stoically. “Merciful one, it did not seem possible that any mortal man could spurn the offer of a throne.” Kadem prostrated himself before the fire and the angel. “Tell me what I should do to make amends for my arrogance and stupidity. Command me, O highest of the high.”

  There was no reply. The only sounds were the crashing of the high surf on the rocks below and the mewing of the gulls as they circled overhead.

  “Speak to me, holy Gabriel,” Kadem pleaded. “Do not desert me now, not after all these years when I have done as you commanded.” He drew the curved dagger from his belt. It was a magnificent weapon. The blade was of Damascus steel and the hilt was rhinoceros horn covered with pure gold filigree. Kadem pressed the point of the blade into the ball of his own thumb, and blood flowed out.

  “Allah! Allah!” he cried. “With this blood I entreat you, give me guidance.”

  Only then, through his pain, the other voice spoke, not the thunder of Gabriel but calm and measured, melodious. Kadem knew that this was the very voice of the Prophet, terrible in its quiet simplicity. He trembled and listened.

  “You are fortunate, Kadem ibn Abubaker,” said the Prophet, “for I have listened to your confession and been moved by your cries. I will allow you one last chance of redemption.”

  Kadem threw himself down on his face, not daring to answer that voice. It spoke again. “Kadem ibn Abubaker! You must wash your hands in the heart blood of the murderer of your father, the traitor and heretic, the sinner who wallows in incest, al-Salil.”

  Kadem beat his head against the earth, weeping for joy at the mercy the Prophet had shown him. Then he sat back on his heels and held up his hand with fingers and thumb spread. The blood still dribbled from the self-inflicted wound. “God is gr
eat,” he whispered. “Show me a mark of your favour, I beseech you.” He stretched out his hand and held it in the leaping flames, which engulfed it. “Allah!” he chanted. “The One! The Only!”

  In the flames the flow of bright blood shrivelled and dried. Then miraculously the wound closed like the tentacled mouth of a sea anemone. His flesh healed before his eyes.

  He lifted his hand out of the flames, still chanting God’s praises, and held it aloft. There was no mark where the wound had been. There was no redness or blistering from the flames. His skin was smooth and flawless. It was the sign he had asked for.

  “God is great!” he exulted. “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his last true Prophet!”

  After they had eaten the evening meal with the rest of the family, Dorian and Yasmini took their leave. Yasmini embraced Sarah first, then her own son, Mansur. She kissed his eyes and stroked his hair, which gleamed in the firelight like molten copper poured from the melting pot.

  Tom hugged Dorian so hard that his ribs creaked. “Damn my eyes, Dorian Courtney, I thought we had got rid of you at last, and could pack you off to Oman.”

  Dorian hugged him back. “Are you not the unlucky one? I will be here to plague you for a while yet.”

  Though Mansur embraced his father briefly, he did not speak or look into his eyes, and the line of his lips was hard with bitter disappointment. Dorian shook his head sadly. He knew that Mansur had set his heart on glory, and his own father had snatched it from him. The pain was still too intense to be assuaged by words. Dorian would console him later.

  Dorian and Yasmini left the campfire, and started down the beach together. As soon as they were out of the ruddy light of the flames Dorian placed his arm round her. They did not speak, for they had said it all. The physical contact expressed their love more than words ever could. At the turning of the sandbar, where the deeper channel ran close in to the beach, Dorian stripped off his robes and unwound his turban. He handed his clothing to Yasmini and waded naked into the water. The tide was flowing strongly between the rocky heads and the water was chilled with the memory of the open ocean. Dorian dived into the deep channel and surfaced again, gasping and snorting with the cold.