Blue Horizon

by Wilbur Smith

  “Please assure His Excellency that no one is contemplating an act of war.”

  Dorian dared press the matter no further. “I much regret His Excellency’s sudden departure. I wish him a safe journey and a swift return to Oman. I hope I shall be allowed to ride in company with him upon the first mile of his journey?”

  “My father would be greatly honoured.”

  “I will leave you now to make your final preparations. I shall wait with a guard of honour on the perimeter of the camp.”

  Both men bowed to each other as the Caliph withdrew. As he left the tent Verity shot a single, anguished glance at Mansur. He knew that, at last, she was desperate to talk to him.

  Sir Guy and Verity, escorted by Captain Cornish and his armed seamen, rode up to where Dorian and Mansur waited beside the eastern road to escort them. Dorian had brought his anger firmly under control. They set out again in company. Although Mansur fell in beside her, Verity stayed close to her father, translating the polite but inconsequential conversation between him and Dorian. But as they topped the first rise, the wind off the sea blew into their faces, cool and refreshing. As though to adjust it, Verity loosened the scarf that held her high hat in place. She seemed to lose her grip on it, and the breeze snatched it from her head. It tumbled away down the hillside, rolling like a wheel on its stiff brim.

  Mansur turned his horse and raced after it. He leaned far out of the saddle and grabbed the hat from the ground without checking the stallion’s speed. He turned back and handed it to Verity as she rode to meet him. She nodded her thanks, and as she replaced it on her head she used the silk scarf to veil her face for a moment. She had contrived to separate them from the rest of the party by at least a hundred paces.

  “We have but a moment before my father becomes suspicious. You did not come last night,” she said. “I waited for you.”

  “I could not,” he replied, and he would have explained further, but she cut him off brusquely.

  “I have left a letter under the pedestal of the goddess.”

  “Verity!” Sir Guy called sharply. “Come here, child! I need you to interpret.”

  With her hat again firmly on her head, the brim tilted to a saucy angle, Verity kicked her mare forward and trotted up beside her father’s horse. She did not look directly at Mansur again, not even when, with an exchange of compliments, the two bands of horsemen parted. Sir Guy went on towards Muscat while the Caliph and his escort turned back to Isakanderbad.

  By the merciless light of midday the goddess’s expression was melancholy and her beauty marred by the ravages of millennia. With one last glance around the temple to make certain that he was unobserved Mansur went down on one knee before her. Windblown sand was piled along one side of the pedestal base. Someone had arranged five small chips of white marble in the shape of an arrowhead. It pointed at a spot where the sand had been recently disturbed, then carefully smoothed over again.

  He swept away the sand. There was a narrow crack between the marble base of the statue and the stone flags of the floor. When he lowered his face to floor level he saw that a folded sheet of parchment had been pushed deep into the crack. He had to use his dagger to prise it out. He unfolded the sheet and saw that both sides were written upon in an elegant, feminine script. He refolded the sheet, hid it in his sleeve, hurried back to his own tent and went into the inner room. He spread out the letter on his sleeping mat and pored over it. There was no salutation.

  I hope you will be there tonight. If you are not I will leave this for you. I heard the alarm a short while ago and the horsemen riding out, and I must believe that you went with them. I suspect that you are chasing the two men who came to my father this night. They are generals in the army of Zayn al-Din. One is named Kadem ibn Abubaker. The other is a renegade Dutchman whose name I do not know. They command the Turkish infantry who will lead the assault on Muscat. The news they brought my father is that, at this very moment, the fleet and the transports carrying Zayn’s army are no longer lying in Zanzibar roads. They sailed two weeks ago, and they are already at anchor off Boomi island. My father and I will return on board the Arcturus with all despatch so that we are not trapped in the city when the Turks attack. It is my father’s purpose to join Zayn’s fleet, so that he might be present when Zayn enters the city.

  Mansur felt his heart turn cold with dread. Boomi island lay a mere ten sea miles from the entrance to Muscat harbour. The enemy had come secretly upon them, and the city lay under a terrible threat. He read on quickly:

  Zayn himself is aboard the flagship. He has fifty great dhows and seven thousand Turkish soldiers on board. They plan to land on the peninsula and march on the city from the landward side, to surprise the defences and avoid the batteries of cannon on the seaward walls. By the time you read this, they may have already launched their attack. Zayn has another fifty dhows crammed with troops and the munitions of war following. They will be in Muscat within the next week.

  Mansur was so stricken that he could barely bring himself to read the rest of the letter before rushing out to warn his father.

  It is with deep sadness and guilt that I must tell you that my father’s offer of assistance to the junta was a ruse to lull them and to keep the desert sheikhs in Muscat until Zayn could fall upon them and capture all of them together. They will receive no mercy from him. Nor shall you and your father. I knew nothing of this until an hour ago. I truly believed that the offer of British protection my father made was genuine. I am ashamed by what he has done to his brothers, Tom and Dorian, down the years. I knew nothing of this either, not until you told me of it. I have always known he was an ambitious man, but I had no idea of the true extent of his ruthlessness. I wish there was some way in which I could make amends.

  “There is, Verity. Oh, yes, there is,” Mansur whispered, as he read on.

  There is more that it pains me to relate. I learned tonight that Kadem ibn Abubaker is the villain who assassinated your mother, Princess Yasmini. He boasted of the heinous murder. Tonight he wanted to kill your father and you also. My father prevented him doing so, not on grounds of compassion but lest the plot he has hatched with Zayn al-Din to recapture the city be jeopardized. If my father had not stopped him, I swear to you on my hope of salvation that I would have managed to warn you somehow. You cannot know how deep is my repugnance for the deeds my father has committed. In one short hour I have come to hate him. I fear him even more. Please forgive me, Mansur, for the hurt we have done you.

  “You are not to blame,” he whispered, and turned over the sheet of parchment. He read the last few lines.

  Last night you asked me if I did not feel anything between you and me. I would not answer you then, but I answer you now. Yes, I do.

  If we never meet again, I hope you will always believe that I never intended to cause you hurt.

  Your affectionate cousin, Verity Courtney.

  They drove the horses without mercy, riding in full force back to Muscat. They were still too late. As they came within sight of the city towers and minarets they heard the cannon fire and saw the dun smoke of battle sully the sky above the harbour.

  With Dorian, al-Salil, at the head of the troop they drove the exhausted horses through the palm groves, and now they could hear musket fire, shouting and screaming below the city walls. Onwards they raced, and the roadway ahead was crammed with women, children and old men fleeing the city. They turned off and galloped on through the groves, while the din of battle grew louder. At last they saw the glint of spearheads, scimitars and bronze Turkish helmets surging forward towards the city gates.

  They flogged the last ounce of speed from their horses, and in a tight column they raced for the gates. The Turks ran through the palm grove to head them off. The gates were swinging closed.

  “The gates will shut before we can reach them!” Mansur called to his father.

  Dorian ripped off his turban. “Show them who we are!” he cried. Mansur pulled off his own turban and they rode on with their bright red
hair streaming behind them like banners.

  A cry went up from the parapets: “Al-Salil! It is the Caliph!”

  The gates began slowly to open again as the men on the winches bent to the handles.

  The Turks saw that they could not cut them off on foot. Their cavalry had not yet arrived: it was following in the second fleet. They halted and unslung their short recurved bows. The first flight of arrows rose dark against the blue and hissed like a pitful of serpents as it fell among the racing horses. One was struck, and went down as though it had run full-tilt into a tripwire. Mansur turned back, hauled Istaph from the saddle of the floundering horse, swung him up on to his stallion’s withers and raced on. The gates started to close again the moment the Caliph had galloped through. Mansur shouted to the winchmen as he came through the storm of Turkish arrows. They seemed not to hear him and inexorably the gates continued to shut in his face.

  Then, suddenly, Dorian turned back into the opening and stopped his horse full in the path of the great mahogany gates, which creaked to a standstill. Mansur galloped through with inches to spare. The gates slammed as the wave of Turkish attackers reached them, and the defenders on the parapets above fired muskets and arrows down into them. They fled back into the palm grove.

  Dorian galloped at once through the narrow alleys to the mosque and climbed the spiral staircase to the top balcony of the tallest minaret. On one side he had a sweeping view over the harbour and peninsula, and on the other over cultivated fields and groves. Earlier he had devised a system of flag signals to communicate with the gunners on the parapets and his two ships in the bay so that he could coordinate their actions.

  From this height he could make out through his telescope the forest of masts of Zayn al-Din’s fleet showing above the high ground of the peninsula. He lowered the glass and turned to Mansur. “Our ships are still safe,” he pointed to the Sprite and the Revenge at anchor, “but as soon as Zayn brings his war dhows round the peninsula and enters the bay they will be exposed and vulnerable. We must bring them close in under the protection of the battery on the sea wall.”

  “How long can we hold out, Father?” Mansur lowered his voice and spoke in English so that bin-Shibam and Mustapha Zindara, who had followed them, could not understand him.

  “We have not had enough time to finish the work on the south wall,” Dorian replied. “They will discover our weak places soon enough.”

  “Zayn almost certainly knows of them already. The city is swarming with his spies. Look!” Mansur pointed at the corpses hanging on the outer wall like washing. “Although Mustapha Zindara is taking care of as many as he can lay his hands on, no doubt he has overlooked one or two.”

  Dorian surveyed the gaps in the defences, which had been hurriedly stopped up with timber balks and gabions filled with sand. The repairs were temporary, and would not withstand a determined attack by seasoned troops. Then he lifted his spyglass and ran the lens over the palm groves to the south of the city. Suddenly he stiffened and handed the glass to Mansur. “The first attack is gathering already.” They could make out the sparkle of sunlight on the helmets and spearheads of the Turkish troops, who were massing under cover of the groves. “Mansur, I want you to go aboard the Sprite and take overall command of both our ships. Bring them in as close to the shore as is safe. I want your guns to cover the approaches to the south wall.”

  Later, Dorian watched him being rowed out to the Sprite in the longboat. Almost as soon as he stepped aboard, both ships swung round as their anchor cables were hauled in. Under topsails they sailed deeper into the bay, Mansur in the Sprite leading Batula in the Revenge.

  In the light breeze they were barely under steerage way, and they loafed in over the sparkling water, their hulls dappled turquoise green by the reflection of sunlight off the white sand of the lagoon bottom. Then Dorian looked to the south, and saw the first wave of the Turkish assault swarming across the open fields towards the walls. He ordered a red flag hoisted to the pinnacle of the minaret: the prearranged signal to the squadron that an attack was imminent. He saw Mansur look up at the flag, waved down at him and pointed to the south. Mansur waved back in acknowledgement, and sailed on sedately.

  Then the ships turned in succession just below the harbour wall. Dorian watched the gunports fall open and the guns run out, like the fangs of a snarling monster. Mansur’s tall figure was pacing along the gundeck. He paused occasionally to speak to his crew as they gathered tensely around the gun carriages.

  The south wall and its approaches were still hidden by the angle of the tall stone ramparts, but as the Sprite cleared the range and angled in towards the beach the view opened before Mansur’s eyes.

  The Turks were bunched up as they carried in the long scaling ladders. Some of them looked across the narrow strip of water as the two pretty little ships emerged from behind the citadel walls. The Turkish infantry had never seen the effect of shot from a naval nine-pounder. Some even waved, and Mansur ordered his crews to wave back to lull their fears.

  It happened with dreamlike deliberation. Mansur had time to walk down his deck and lay each gun with his own hand, turning down the elevation screws. He found it difficult to convince some of his crew that the power of the guns was not enhanced when the screws were turned up to maximum. Closer and closer they crept in towards the beach and Mansur listened with one ear to the leadsman in the chains calling the soundings: “By the mark, five.”

  “Close enough,” Mansur murmured, and then to Kumrah, “Bring her up a point.”

  The Sprite settled on the new course parallel to the shore. “We will now serve out a taste of Mr. Pandit Singh’s very best,” he murmured, without lowering the glass. The Sprite’s guns began to bear by the bows. Still he waited. Mansur knew that the first broadside would do the most damage. After that the enemy would scatter into cover.

  They were so close that through the lens he could see the links in the chain-mail of the nearest Turks and the individual feathers in the plumed helmets of the officers.

  He lowered the glass and walked back down the battery. Every gun was bearing and the gun-crews were watching him, waiting on his command. He lifted the scarf of scarlet silk in his right hand, and held it high.

  “Fire!” he shouted, and snapped it down.

  Kadem ibn Abubaker and Herminius Koots, that unlikely couple, stood on a rocky eminence and looked across the open ground towards the southern ramparts of the city. Their staff were gathered around them, among them the Turkish officers whose authority they had usurped when Zayn al-Din had promoted them.

  They watched the assault troops moving forward in three columns of two hundred men each. They carried the scaling ladders, and on their shoulders were strapped the round bronze targes to defend them against the missiles that would rain down on them from the walls as soon as they were within range. Close behind them, in massed quarter columns, followed the battalions that would surge forward to exploit any foothold they won on the parapets. “It is worth the risk of losing a few hundred men against the chance of a quick break-in,” Koots said.

  “We can afford the loss,” Kadem agreed. “The rest of the fleet will arrive within days, another ten thousand men. If we fail today, we can begin the formal siege works on the morrow.”

  “You must prevail on your revered uncle, the Caliph, to bring his warships round to begin the blockade of the bay and the harbour.”

  “He will give the order as soon as he has seen the outcome of this first assault,” Kadem assured the Dutchman. “Have faith, General. My uncle is a seasoned commander. He has been waging war on his enemies since the day he ascended the Elephant Throne. The treacherous revolution of these pork-eating swine we see before us,” he pointed to the lines of defenders on the city wall, “was the only defeat he has ever suffered—through treason and betrayal within his own court. It will not happen again.”

  “The Caliph is a great man. I never said different,” Koots assured him hastily. “We shall hang those traitors by their own entrails
on the walls of the city.”

  “With God’s favour, thanks be to God,” Kadem intoned.

  The first tenuous bond between them had been tempered to steel links over the two years they had been together. That terrible journey, forced upon them after they were routed by Jim Courtney in the disastrous night attack, was one that lesser men could not have survived. They had braved disease and starvation across thousands of leagues of wild country. Their horses died of sickness and exhaustion, or had been killed by hostile tribesmen. They had covered the last stages on foot through swamps and mangrove forest before they reached the coast again. There they had come across a fishing village. They attacked it in the night and slaughtered all the men and children at once, but they killed the five women and the three little girls only after Koots and Oudeman had expended their pent-up lust on them. Kadem ibn Abubaker had kept aloof from this orgy. He had prayed upon the beach while the women screamed and sobbed, then gave one last shriek as Koots and Oudeman slit their throats.

  They had embarked in the captured fishing-boats that were nothing more than ancient, dilapidated outrigger canoes. After another arduous journey, they at last reached Lamu harbour. There they prostrated themselves before Zayn al-Din in the throne room of his palace.

  Zayn al-Din had welcomed his nephew warmly. He had thought him dead, and was delighted by the tidings he brought of Yasmini’s execution. As Kadem had promised, the Caliph looked with favour on Kadem’s new companion and listened to accounts of his ruthless warlike talents with attention.

  As a trial he had sent Koots with a small force to subdue the remaining strongholds of the rebels who still held out upon the African mainland. He expected him to fail, as all the others before him had done. However, true to his reputation, within two months Koots had brought all the ring-leaders back to Lamu in chains. There, with his own hands and in Zayn’s royal presence, he had disembowelled them alive. As his reward Zayn gave him half a lakh of gold rupees from the plunder, and his pick of the female slaves he had captured. Then he had promoted him to general and given him command of four battalions of the army that he was assembling to attack Muscat.