Blue Horizon

by Wilbur Smith

  “Tom!” Sarah exulted. “It’s Tom!” Of course he had heard the wagons from a mile off, and he would choose the river crossing to ambush them.

  “Tom Courtney!” Guy shouted back. “I have your grandson, and my dagger to his throat. My men have your wife Sarah, and the other women of your family. Stand aside and let us pass if you want any of them alive.”

  To reinforce the threat he lifted George off his shoulder and held him up with both hands. “It’s your grandfather, child. Speak to him. Tell him you are safe.” He pricked George’s arm with the dagger. From behind Guy’s shoulder Sarah saw the blood start on the white skin, black and shiny in the moonlight.

  “Grandpapa!” George shrieked at the top of his lungs. “There is a horrid man hurting me.”

  “By God, Guy! You touch a hair of that child’s head and I’ll kill you with my bare hands,” Tom’s voice rang out with angry frustration.

  “Hear the piglet squeal,” Guy shouted back, and pricked George again. “Throw down your weapons and show yourselves, or I will send you your grandson’s guts on a silver tray.”

  Sarah drew the pistol from under her coat and cocked the hammer. She reached forward and pressed the muzzle into the small of Guy’s back at the level of the kidneys. She fired and the shot was muffled by Guy’s clothing and flesh. Guy’s back arched in his agony as the ball shattered his vertebrae. He loosened his grip and George fell out of his raised hands.

  “Now, Louisa!” Sarah screamed.

  But Louisa did not need the order. She leaned out of the saddle and caught George as he fell. She clasped him to her bosom and kicked her heels into Trueheart’s ribs. “Ha! Ha!” she shouted to the mare. “Run, Trueheart! Run!”

  Trueheart jumped forward. One of the Arabs reached out to seize her, but Louisa fired the second pistol into his bearded face, and he fell backwards out of the saddle. Verity turned her horse in behind Trueheart to screen George and his mother from any musket bullets fired by the escort. She was only just quick enough. One of the Arabs, more alert than his companions, threw up his jezail and the long flame of the discharge ripped through the darkness. Sarah heard the ball strike flesh. Verity’s horse collapsed under her, and she was thrown forward over its head.

  Sarah spurred forward just as Guy toppled backwards and fell limply from the saddle into her path. Her horse tried to jump over him, but one of the metal-shod hoofs struck Guy’s temple and she heard the brittle bone break like ice. Her horse recovered its balance and Sarah steered it towards where Verity was struggling to her feet.

  “I am coming, Verity!” Sarah called to her, and made an arm for her. Verity hooked hers through Sarah’s as the horse swept past her. Neither of them had the strength to swing Verity up astride, but she managed to throw her free arm over the horse’s withers and cling on desperately as they followed Trueheart down into the river ford.

  “Tom!” Sarah yelled. “It’s us. Don’t shoot!”

  The rest of the Arab escort had recovered their wits and were galloping after Sarah in a tight band. Suddenly a volley of musket fire erupted from the edge of the bank where Smallboy and the rest of Tom’s men were lying. Three horses went down in a tangle, and the rest of the Arabs reined in and turned back. They raced for the shelter of the wagons and huddled behind them.

  Tom jumped down from the bank and, as Sarah reined in, he seized her and Verity and dragged them down. He pulled them into safety behind the bank.

  “Louisa!” Sarah gasped. “Catch Louisa and George.”

  “No one can catch Trueheart when she has the bit between her teeth. But they are safe out there as long as we keep the Arabs pinned down here.” Tom embraced Sarah. “By God, I’m pleased to see you, woman.”

  Sarah pushed him away. “There’ll be plenty of time for that nonsense later, Tom Courtney. You still have work to do here.”

  “Right you are!”

  Tom ran back to the top of the bank, and called to the dark wagons behind which the Arabs were sheltering: “Guy! Do you hear me?”

  “He’s dead, Tom,” Sarah interrupted him. “I shot him.”

  “Then you beat me to it,” Tom said grimly. “I was looking forward to it myself.” He realized that Verity was standing beside him. “I’m sorry, my dear. He was your father.”

  “If I had had a pistol in my hand, I would have done it myself,” Verity said calmly. “What he has done to me over the years is of no account, but when he started torturing Georgie…No, Uncle Tom, he deserved that and more.”

  “You are a brave girl, Verity.” He hugged her spontaneously.

  “We Courtneys are made of rawhide,” she said, and hugged him back. Tom chuckled and released her.

  “Now, if you call those blackguards out from behind the wagons, I would be much obliged. You can tell them that we will not harm them and they will have free passage back to the coast as long as they abandon the wagons. Tell them I have a hundred men with me, which is a lie. If they don’t surrender we will attack and wipe them out to the man.”

  Verity called the message across to them in Arabic. There was a delay while they discussed what she had said. She could hear their heated voices and she caught some of the words. Some were arguing that the effendi was dead, and there was no reason to remain here. Others were talking about the amount of gold, and what Zayn al-Din would do when he learned that they had lost it. One loud voice reminded them of the sounds of battle they had heard coming from the bay. “Perhaps Zayn al-Din is dead also,” the speaker said.

  Guy Courtney’s body was still lying where it had fallen and the dawn light was strengthening so that Verity could see her father’s dead face. Despite her brave words she had to turn away her eyes.

  At last one of the Arabs called back their reply: “Let us go in peace and we will hand over our weapons and surrender the wagons.”

  Jim and Mansur pushed their horses hard, riding through the night. They were leading spare horses and when their mounts tired they changed saddles quickly and went on. They rode mostly in silence, locked in their own thoughts, which were darker than the night. When they spoke it was mostly in monosyllables or in curt sentences, and their eyes were fixed ahead.

  “Less than six miles to the laager at the gorge,” Jim said, as they climbed a steep rise. In the first light of morning he recognized the tree that stood on the skyline. “We will be there in an hour.”

  “Please God!” said Mansur, and they rode up on to the crest and looked ahead. They saw the river winding below them, but then the first rays of the sun touched the belly of the cloud and lit the valley with dramatic suddenness. They both saw the dust at the same moment.

  “Rider coming at the gallop!” Jim exclaimed.

  “Only a messenger rides like that,” Mansur said softly. “Let us hope he has favourable tidings.”

  They both reached for their telescopes, and for a moment were struck speechless as they picked up the rider in the lens.

  “Trueheart!” Jim shouted.

  “In the Name of God! It’s Louisa on her back. Look at her hair shine in the sunlight,” Mansur agreed. “She carries something in her arms. It’s Georgie.”

  Jim waited for no more. He turned loose the spare horse he was leading and shouted to Drumfire, “Run, my lovely! Run with all your heart.”

  Mansur could not keep pace with them as they raced down the track.

  George saw them coming and wriggled and twisted in Louisa’s arms like a fish. “Papa!” he screamed. “Papa!”

  Jim jumped down from Drumfire’s back the moment the horse slid to a halt, lifted them down from Trueheart’s saddle and hugged them both, crushing Louisa and George to his chest.

  Mansur rode up. “Where is Verity? Is she safe?”

  “At the ford of the river with the wagons. Tom and Sarah have her.”

  “God love you, Louisa.” Mansur spurred on, and left Louisa and Jim weeping with happiness in each other’s arms, and George tugging with both hands at Jim’s beard.

  They dug a grave
for Guy Courtney beside the wagon road, and wrapped his body in a blanket before they lowered him into it.

  “He was a vile bastard,” Tom murmured, in Sarah’s ear. “He deserved to be left for the hyena, but he was my brother.”

  “And my brother-in-law on both sides—and I was the one who killed him. That will be on my conscience for the rest of my life.”

  “Let it sit lightly, for you are without guilt,” Tom said, and they looked across to where Verity and Mansur stood hand in hand on the far side of the open grave.

  “We are doing the right thing, Thomas,” Sarah said.

  “It does not feel like it,” he grunted. “Let’s get it over with and head out for Fort Auspice. Dorian is wounded, and even if he is now a king, he needs us with him.”

  They left Zama and Muntu to fill in the grave and cover it with rocks to stop the hyena digging it open, and Mansur and Verity followed them down the hill to where Smallboy had the two gold wagons inspanned. Mansur and Verity walked hand in hand, but though her face was pale Verity’s eyes were dry.

  Jim and Louisa were waiting at the wagons. Both had refused to attend the burial. “Not after what he did to Louisa and Georgie.” Jim scowled when Tom had suggested it. Now Jim looked enquiringly at his father, and Tom nodded. “It is done.”

  They mounted and turned the horses’ heads down towards the coast and Fort Auspice.

  It took several weeks to repair the stranded war-dhow, the Sufi, and float her off the beach. Rahmad and his crew took her out and anchored her in the middle of the bay. Already the captured transport dhows were ready for the long voyage back to Muscat, their holds crammed with ivory.

  Dorian leaned heavily on Tom’s shoulder as he hobbled down to the beach. The wound he had received from Zayn al-Din was not yet entirely healed and Sarah was in close attendance on her royal patient. When they were settled in the longboat, Jim and Mansur rowed them out to the Arcturus. Verity and Louisa, with George chirping on her hip, were waiting to welcome them aboard. Verity had the farewell banquet laid out on trestle tables on the quarter-deck. They laughed and ate and drank together for the last time, but Ruby Cornish was watching for the turning of the tide. At last he stood up regretfully and said, “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but the tide and the wind stand fair.”

  “Give us one last toast, brother Tom,” Dorian said.

  Tom stood up just a trifle unsteadily. “A swift and safe voyage. May we all meet again, and that right soon.”

  They drank the toast and embraced, then those who were remaining at Fort Auspice went down into the longboat. From the beach they watched the Arcturus weigh anchor. Dorian was at the rail supported by Mansur and Verity. Suddenly he began to sing, his voice as strong and beautiful as ever:

  “Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies,

  Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain,

  For we’ve received orders to sail for old England,

  But we hope in a short time to see you again.”

  The Arcturus led the fleet of dhows out through the channel. When the mainland was a low blue outline on the horizon Ruby Cornish came to where Dorian sat against the windward rail. “Your Majesty, we have made good our offing.”

  “Thank you, Captain Cornish. Will you be good enough to lay the ship on course for Muscat? We have some unsettled business there.”

  The wagons were loaded and Smallboy and Muntu led the oxen in from the pasture and inspanned them. “Where are you going?” Sarah asked.

  Louisa shook her head. “Mother, you must ask that of Jim, for I know not the answer.”

  They both looked at him and he laughed. “Beyond the next blue horizon,” he replied, picking up George and placing him on his shoulder. “But fear not, we will be back soon enough with the wagons groaning under the weight of the ivory and diamonds they carry.”

  Tom and Sarah stood on the parapet of Fort Auspice and watched the wagon convoy wind away up the hills, heading into the hinterland. Jim and Louisa were in the van, with Bakkat and Zama riding a short distance behind them. Intepe and Letee were walking beside the lead wagon, the children clustered about their legs.

  At the crest of the hill Jim turned in the saddle and waved back at them. Sarah whipped off her bonnet and waved it furiously until they dropped out of sight over the far side.

  “Well, Thomas Courtney, it’s just you and I again,” she said softly.

  “I like it well enough that way,” he said, and placed his arm round her waist.

  Jim looked ahead and his eyes shone with wanderlust. Perched on his shoulders George yelled, “Horsy! Giddy-up, horsy.”

  “Hedgehog, you have given birth to a monster,” Jim said.

  Louisa leaned across and squeezed his arm, smiling secretively. “I shall hope to do better on my next attempt.”

  Jim stopped dead in his tracks, and stared back at her. “No, you aren’t! Are you?”

  “Oh yes, I am!” she replied.

  “Why did you not tell me before this?”

  “Because you might have left me behind.”

  “Never!” he said, with great force.

  First published in Great Britain by Macmillan

  BLUE HORIZON

  Copyright © 2003 by Wilbur Smith.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  ISBN: 978-0-312-99142-5

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.