Blue Horizon

by Wilbur Smith

  “No, lad. It will be grisly work. You will not want to watch it.”

  “The Princess Yasmini was my mother,” Mansur said. “Not only will I watch but I shall delight in every scream he utters, and glory in every drop of his blood that flows.”

  Tom stared at him in astonishment. This was not the winsome child he had known from birth. This was a hard man grown to full maturity in a single hour. “Go with Batula and Kumrah then,” he agreed at last, “and note well the replies of Kadem al-Jurf.”

  They took Kadem in the longboat to the head-waters of the stream over a mile from the camp and found another tree to which to chain him. They tied a leather strap round his forehead, then back around the bole of the tree, twisting it tightly so that it cut into his flesh and he could not move his head. Mansur asked him his real name, and Kadem spat at him. Mansur looked at Batula and Kumrah.

  “The work we must do now is just. In God’s Name, let us begin,” said Mansur.

  “Bismallah!” said Batula.

  While Mansur guarded the prisoner, Batula and Kumrah went into the forest. They knew where to search, and within the hour they had found a nest of the fierce soldier ants. These insects were bright red in colour, and not much bigger than a rice grain. The glistening head was armed with a pair of poisonous pincers. Careful not to injure them and even more careful to avoid their stings, Batula picked the ants out of the nest with a pair of bamboo tweezers.

  When they returned Kumrah cut a hollow reed from the stream verge, and carefully worked one end of the tube as far as it would go into the opening of Kadem’s ear.

  “Regard this tiny insect.” In the jaws of the tweezers Batula held up an ant. “The venom of his sting will make a lion roll on the ground roaring with agony. Tell me, you who call yourself Kadem, who are you and who sent you to commit this deed?”

  Kadem looked at the wriggling insect. A clear drop of venom oozed out between the serrated jaws of its mandibles. It had a sharp, chemical odour that would drive any other ant that smelt it into an aggressive frenzy.

  “I am a true follower of the Prophet,” Kadem replied, “and I was sent by God to carry out His divine purpose.”

  Mansur nodded to Batula. “Let the ant whisper the question more clearly in the ear of this true follower of the Prophet.”

  Kadem’s eyes swivelled towards Mansur and he tried to spit again, but his mouth had dried. Batula placed the ant in the opening of the reed tube in his ear and closed the end with a plug of whittled soft wood.

  “You will hear the ant as it comes down the tube,” Batula told Kadem. “Its footsteps will sound like the hoofs of a horse. Then you will feel it walking in your eardrum. It will stroke the membrane of your inner ear with the sharp tips of its feelers. Then it will sting you.”

  They watched Kadem’s face. His lips twitched, then his eyes rolled back in their sockets until the whites showed and his whole face worked furiously.

  “Allah!” he whispered. “Arm me against the blasphemers!”

  The sweat burst out from the pores of his skin like the first drops of monsoon rain, and he tried to shake his head as the footfalls of the ant in his eardrum were magnified a thousand times. But the thong held his head in a vice-like grip.

  “Answer, Kadem,” Batula urged him. “I can still wash out the ant before it stings. But you must answer swiftly.” Kadem closed his eyes to shut out Batula’s face.

  “Who are you? Who sent you?” Batula came closer and whispered in his open ear. “Swiftly, Kadem, or the pain will be beyond even your crazed imagining.”

  Then, deep in the recesses of the eardrum the ant humped its back and a fresh globule of venom oozed out between its curved mandibles. It sank the barbed points into the soft tissue at the spot where the auditory nerve was closest to the surface.

  Kadem al-Jurf was consumed by waves of agony, and they were fiercer than Batula had warned him. He screamed once, a sound that was not human but something from a nightmare. Then the pain froze the muscles and vocal cords in his throat, his jaws clamped together in such a rock-hard spasm that one of the rotten teeth at the back of his mouth burst, filling his mouth with splinters and bitter pus. His eyes rolled back in his skull like those of a blind man. His back arched until Mansur feared that his spine would crack, and his body juddered so that his bonds cut deeply into his flesh.

  “He will die?” Mansur asked anxiously.

  “A shaitan is hard to kill,” Batula answered. The three squatted in a half-circle in front of Kadem and studied his suffering. Although it was dreadful to behold, none of them felt the slightest twinge of compassion.

  “Regard, lord!” said Kumrah. “The first spasm passes.” He was right. Kadem’s spine slowly relaxed, and although a series of convulsions still shook him, each was less violent than the one before.

  “It is finished,” Mansur said.

  “No, lord. If God is just, soon the ant will sting again,” Batula said softly. “It will not finish so swiftly.” As he said it, so it happened: the tiny insect struck again.

  This time Kadem’s tongue was caught between his teeth as they snapped closed. He bit through it, and the blood streamed down his chin. He shuddered and leaped against the chain. His bowels loosened with a spluttering rush, and even Mansur’s lust for vengeance faltered. The dark veils of hatred and grief parted and his instinct for humanity shone through. “Enough, Batula. End it now. Wash out the ant.”

  Batula withdrew the wood plug from the end of the reed and filled his mouth with water. Through the hollow reed he spurted a jet into Kadem’s eardrum, and in the overflow the drowned red body of the insect was washed down Kadem’s straining neck.

  Slowly Kadem’s tortured body relaxed, and he hung inert in his bonds. His breathing was rapid and shallow, and every few minutes he let out a harsh, ragged exhalation, half sigh and half groan.

  Once again, his captors squatted in a semi-circle in front of him and watched him carefully. Late in the afternoon, as the sun touched the tops of the forest trees Kadem groaned again. His eyes opened and focused slowly on Mansur.

  “Batula, give him water,” Mansur ordered. Kadem’s mouth was black and crusted with the blood. His torn tongue protruded between his lips like a lump of rotten liver. Batula held the waterskin to his mouth, and Kadem choked and gasped as he drank. Once he vomited up a gush of the jellied black blood he had swallowed, but then he drank again.

  Mansur let him rest until sunset, then ordered Batula to let him drink again. Kadem was stronger now, and followed their movements with his eyes. Mansur ordered Batula and Kumrah to relax his bonds to allow the blood to flow back, and to chafe his hands and feet before gangrene killed off the living flesh. The pain of the returning blood must have been agonizing but Kadem bore it stoically. After a while they tightened the leather thongs again.

  Mansur came to stand over him. “You know well that I am the son of the Princess Yasmini whom you murdered,” he said. “In the eyes of God and of men, vengeance is mine. Your life belongs to me.”

  Kadem stared back at him.

  “If you do not reply to me, I will order Batula to place another insect in your good ear.”

  Kadem blinked, but his face remained impassive.

  “Answer my question,” Mansur demanded. “Who are you and who sent you to our home?”

  Kadem’s swollen tongue filled his mouth, so his reply was slurred and barely intelligible. “I am a true follower of the Prophet,” he said, “and I was sent by God to carry out His divine purpose.”

  “That is the same answer, but it is not the one I wait for,” Mansur said. “Batula, select another insect. Kumrah, place another reed in Kadem’s ear.” When they had done as he ordered, Mansur asked Kadem, “This time the pain may kill you. Are you ready for death?”

  “Blessed is the martyr,” Kadem replied. “I long with all my heart to be welcomed by Allah into Paradise.”

  Mansur took Batula aside. “He will not yield,” he said.

  Batula looked dubious. His
tone was uncertain as he replied, “Lord, there is no other way.”

  “I think there is.” Mansur turned to Kumrah. “We do not need the reed.” Then, to both of them, “Stay with him. I shall return.”

  He rowed back down the stream. It was almost dark by the time he reached the encampment, but the full moon was already lighting the eastern sky with a marvellous golden glow as it pushed over the tops of the trees. “Even the moon hastens to assist our enterprise,” Mansur murmured, as he went ashore on the beach below the camp. He saw the lamplight shine in chinks through the thatched wall of his father’s hut and he hurried there.

  His uncle Tom and aunt Sarah sat by the mattress on which Dorian lay. Mansur knelt beside his father and kissed his forehead. He stirred but did not open his eyes.

  Mansur leaned close to Tom and whispered low, “Uncle, the assassin will not yield. Now I need your help.”

  Tom rose to his feet and jerked his head for Mansur to follow him outside. Swiftly Mansur told him what he wanted, and at the end said simply, “This is something that I would do myself, but Islam forbids it.”

  “I understand.” Tom nodded and looked up at the moon. “’Tis favourable. I saw a place in the forest close by here where they feed each night on the tubers of the arum lily plant. Tell your aunt Sarah what I am about, and that she is not to fret. I shall not be too long gone.”

  Tom went to the armoury and selected his big double-barrelled German four-to-the-pound musket. He drew the charge and reloaded the weapon with a handful of Big Looper, the formidable lion shot. Then he checked the flint and the priming, made sure that his knife was on his belt and loosened the blade in its sheath.

  He selected ten of his men and told them to wait for his call, but he left the camp alone: silence and stealth were vital to success. When he waded across the stream he stooped to take up a handful of black clay and smear it over his face, for pale skin shines in the moonlight and his quarry was stealthy and cunning. Although it was a huge creature he was hunting it was nocturnal in its habits, and for that reason few men ever laid eyes on it.

  Tom followed the far bank of the stream for almost a mile. As he came closer to the swamp in which the arum lilies grew his steps slowed and he paused every fifty paces to listen intently. At the edge of the swamp he squatted and held the big gun across his lap. He waited patiently, never moving even to flick away the mosquitoes that whined around his head. The moon rose higher and its light grew stronger so that the shadows thrown by each tree and shrub had sharp edges.

  Abruptly there came a grunt and a squeal from close at hand, and his pulse tripped. He waited, as still as one of the dead tree stumps, as the silence fell again. Then he heard the squelch of hoofs in the mud, more grunts, the sound of hog-like rooting and the champing of tusked jaws.

  Tom eased forward towards the sounds. Without warning they ceased as abruptly as they had begun, and he froze. He knew that this was the customary behaviour of the bush pigs. The entire sounder would freeze together and listen for predators. Although Tom was on one leg, he froze in that attitude, still as an ungainly statue as the silence drew out. Then the grunting and feeding started again.

  With relief he lowered his foot, his thigh muscles burning, and crept forward again. Then he saw the sounder just ahead of him: there were several dozen, dark hump-backed sows, with their piglets underfoot, rooting and wallowing. None was large enough to be a mature boar.

  Tom moved with infinite care to a mound of harder earth at the edge of the swamp and crouched there, waiting for the big boars to come out of the forest. A cloud blew across the moon, and suddenly, in the utter darkness, he sensed a presence close by. He turned all his attention upon it and vaguely made out massive movement so close that he felt he could touch it with the muzzle of his musket. He inched the butt-stock to his shoulder, but dared not cock the hammers. The beast was too close. It would hear the click as the sear engaged. He stared into the darkness, not sure if it was real or his imagination. Then the clouds overhead blew open and the moonlight burst through.

  In front of him loomed a gigantic hog. Along its mountainous back rose a mane of coarse bristles, shaggy and black in the moonlight. Its jaws were armed with curved tusks, sharp enough to rip the belly out of a man or to slice through the femoral artery in his groin and bleed him white within minutes.

  Tom and the boar saw each other in the same moment. Tom swept back the hammers of the musket to full cock, and the boar squealed and charged straight at him. Tom fired the first barrel into its chest, and the heavy leaden loopers thudded into flesh and bone. The boar staggered and dropped on to its front knees but in an instant it bounded to its feet and came straight in. Tom fired the second barrel, then smashed the empty musket into the pig’s face and dived to one side. One tusk hooked into his coat and split it like a razor, but the point missed his flesh. The beast’s heavy shoulder struck him a glancing blow, which was powerful enough nevertheless to send him rolling into the mud.

  Tom struggled to his feet with his knife clutched in his right hand, ready to meet the next attack. All around him there was the rush of dark bodies and squeals of alarm as the pigs scattered back into the forest.

  Silence fell almost immediately after they were gone. Then Tom heard a much softer sound: laboured gasping and snuffling and the convulsive thrashing of back legs in the reeds of the swamp. Cautiously he went towards the sounds, and found the boar down, kicking his last in the mud.

  Tom hurried back to the camp and found his ten chosen men where he had left them, waiting his summons. None of them was a Muslim, so they had no religious qualms about touching a pig. Tom led them back to the swamp and they lashed the huge evil-smelling carcass to a carrying pole. It took all ten to stagger with this burden along the bank of the river to where Kadem was still tied to the tree and Mansur was waiting beside him with Batula and Kumrah.

  By this time the dawn was breaking, and Kadem stared at the pig carcass as they dropped it in front of him. He said nothing but his expression clearly showed his horror and repugnance.

  The bearers of the carcass had brought spades with them. Mansur put them to work at once digging a grave beside the carcass. None of them spoke to Kadem, and they barely glanced in his direction while they worked. However, Kadem’s agitation increased as he watched them. He was again sweating and shivering, but this was not only the effects of the shock and agony of the ant stings. He had begun to understand the fate that Mansur was preparing for him.

  When the grave was deep enough, the men laid aside their spades at Tom’s order, and gathered around the carcass of the boar. Two stropped the blades of their skinning knives while the others rolled the boar on to its back and held all four legs widely separated to make the job of the skinners easier. They were expert, and the thick bristly hide was soon flayed away from pink and purple muscle and the white fat of the belly. At last it was free and the skinners stretched it open on the ground.

  Mansur and the two sea captains kept well clear, careful not to let a drop of the vile creature’s blood splatter them. Their revulsion was as evident as that of their captive. The stench of the old boar’s fatty flesh was rank in the early-morning air, and Mansur spat the taste of it out of his mouth before he spoke to Kadem for the first time since they had brought in the carcass.

  “O nameless one who calls himself a true follower of the Prophet, sent by God to carry out His divine purpose, we have no further need of you and your treachery. Your life on this earth has come to an end.” Kadem began to exhibit more distress than the agony that the insect’s sting had inflicted upon him. He gibbered like an idiot, and his eyes rolled from side to side. Mansur ignored his protests and went on mercilessly, “At my command, you will be stitched into this wet and reeking skin of the pig, and buried alive in the grave we have prepared for you. We will place the flayed carcass of this beast on top of you so that as you suffocate its blood and fat will drip into your face. As you and the pig rot your stinking bodily juices will mingle and you will beco
me one. You will be fouled, harom for ever. The faces of God and all his prophets will be turned away from you for all eternity.”

  Mansur gestured to the men who were waiting ready, and they came forward. Mansur unlocked Kadem’s chains, but left him pinioned at wrists to ankles. The men carried him to the open pigskin and laid him upon it. The ship’s sailmaker threaded his needle and donned his leather palm to sew Kadem into the winding sheet formed by the skin.

  As Kadem felt the wet and greasy folds embrace him, he screeched like a condemned soul cast into eternal darkness. “My name is Kadem ibn Abubaker, eldest son of Pasha Suleiman Abubaker. I came here to seek vengeance for the murder of my father and to carry out the will of my master Caliph Zayn al-Din ibn al-Malik.”

  “What was the will of your master?” Mansur insisted.

  “The execution of the Princess Yasmini and of her incestuous lover, al-Salil.”

  Mansur turned to Tom who was squatting close by. “That is all we need to know. May I kill him now, Uncle?”

  Tom rose to his feet and shook his head. “His life belongs not to me but to your father. Besides, we may have further need of this assassin yet, if we are to avenge your mother.”

  With his damaged eardrum Kadem was unable to keep his balance and he staggered and toppled over when they lifted him out of the folds of pigskin, cut loose his bonds and placed him on his feet. Tom ordered him to be strapped to the carrying pole on which they had brought in the pig’s carcass. The bearers carried him like dead game back to the beach of the lagoon.

  “It will be more difficult for him to escape from the ship. Take him out to the Gift,” Tom told Batula. “Chain him in the orlop, and see to it that he is guarded day and night by your most reliable men.”

  They stayed on in the encampment beside the lagoon during the forty days of mourning for Yasmini. For the first ten Dorian hung suspended over the black void of death, drifting from delirium into coma, then rallying again. Tom, Sarah and Mansur took turns to wait by his bedside.