by Wilbur Smith
Of course, Hal knew, as did Aboli, that it would have been far safer still if he had not gone ashore, but left Rivers to buy Judith and bring her back to his ship. But he could not bear to think of her facing the ordeal of being sold into slavery without the comfort of his presence, nor did he trust Rivers not to pull some kind of trick. He was a thief by profession, after all. It would be foolish not to assume that if he could steal Judith he would.
And then, after one poor wretch after another had been sold, the auctioneer was calling out the last and finest item for sale that day, and naming Judith, describing her in ways that defamed and maligned her, even citing Hal as the father of the child … and there she was, atop the block, a rope around her neck and hands tied behind her back so that she had no way of covering herself or protecting her modesty from the leering eyes of the men who saw her as nothing more than an object to be traded and then used.
Hal was filled with a rage more powerful than any he had ever known. His blood was pounding in his temples, his vision seemed to blur as the red mist descended and his breathing became heavy and hoarse. He was close to the berserker, fighting madness that had on very rare occasions come over him in the heat of battle and was just on the verge of charging the stage single-handed, when he felt a strong hand grip his right arm, just above the elbow.
‘Don’t!’ Tromp hissed at him, and then again, ‘Don’t! I know what you are feeling. I know you want to fight them all. But you must be patient. Let Rivers do what must be done. If you draw attention to yourself now, all will be lost.’
Hal barely heard a word of what Tromp said. But the physical restraint and the sound of his voice were enough to hold him back until the fury had subsided just a little.
So Hal held his body and voice in check. He told himself not to panic when the bidding began and the price raced upwards without so much as a nod at the auctioneer from Rivers, for the pirate had said he would bide his time before making his play. But with his eyes Hal stared straight at Judith and in his mind he screamed out, I am here, my darling. Don’t worry. All will be well. I am here!
There were street urchins at the slave auction as there were everywhere in Zanzibar: trying to sell filthy pieces of fruit to hungry spectators, or picking those same men’s pockets, or simply indulging their curiosity, for only a public beheading rivalled a great slave auction as an attraction for any born-and-bred Zanzibari.
One of the urchins, however, made no attempt to extract any money from anyone, either through commerce or theft. Nor was he engrossed by the sale, though he did cast occasional, sad-eyed looks in the direction of Judith Nazet. Instead he devoted his full attention to one man. For he had his orders and they were clear. ‘Whatever he does and wherever he goes, follow him. And do not take your eyes off him until he, or you, or both of you cast off from the harbour and sail away from this island.’
And one look into the eyes of the man who had given him his orders was enough to convince the urchin – even if he had not been so inclined to begin with – to follow his orders to the letter.
Grey had persuaded Prince Jahan that he should be the one who searched for Courtney in the crowd. ‘It is true that the Buzzard knows Courtney even better than I,’ he said. ‘But the sight of that masked monster will be enough to distract the crowd, cause men to talk and perhaps even draw attention to our true purpose. I am known to be a man who is always interested in the finest human flesh. I have traded for many years and no one will be surprised to see me. I certainly know Courtney well enough to recognize him. And even if I do not it does not matter. For I plan to spot our target without even looking into the crowd.’
So now he was seated in the front row of the covered stand, with the captain of the sultan’s guard by his side, watching the Nazet woman as the bids for her went higher and higher. Grey was half-tempted to put in an offer himself, for by Allah she was a fine-looking woman and almost enough to tempt a man to abandon the pleasures that young boys could bring. But he was not looking at her as either a buyer or a would-be lover. He had a very specific purpose in mind and for that he had to keep his eyes fixed firmly on her pretty face.
Judith refused to let herself be brought low by men who were little better than animals. She was of noble blood and held a general’s rank. She would maintain her dignity and her spirit, no matter how hard these beasts tried to strip them from her. But, oh, how badly she needed to see Hal and know that he had come to be with her and rescue her from this torment. For he would come, she knew that. No matter how great the danger, he would be there. But where?
He will be disguised, she told herself. So look for those things that cannot be hidden. The deep, sea-green of his eyes; the proud curve of his nose; the way he cannot help but carry himself like a young king. Look for the things you love in your man.
And then she saw him. Out there in the crowd, two eyes that had caught hers and held them and she knew right away, because she felt it in the very depths of her being that they could only belong to the man she loved. So she looked back, and she smiled, just a very little, because she could not hide the joy she felt in her heart.
And that was when Consul Grey smiled too, and followed Judith Nazet’s eyes across the crowded enclosure and saw a tall, swarthy, unkempt man dressed in an inappropriately smart coat, the clothes of a nobleman on the body of a savage. Then he saw the man’s profile and the look in his eyes as he stared back at Judith and he turned to the captain of the guard and, making every effort to seem as though he were engaged in nothing more than casual conversation, said, ‘There is your man. That is Captain Courtney. Now tell your men to go and get him.’
The Buzzard, standing at the back of the prince’s enclosure with the slave who now accompanied him everywhere, hiding in the shadows so that the public should not be alarmed by his presence, had also spotted Hal Courtney in the crowd. But then, he and Hamish Benbury had been well aware of Courtney’s whereabouts, and deduced the plan he had in mind within hours of the Achilles sailing into Zanzibar on yesterday evening’s tide.
Benbury and the Buzzard had been deep in conversation with the proprietor of the Tres Macacos late the previous night when Rivers had walked in and ordered a bottle of rum. The three captains, all of whom knew one another, for they were all cut from the same cloth, got into conversation and as Rivers moved on to a second bottle and then a third, they established that he had come to Zanzibar to buy a slave. And not just any slave, but the sultan’s prize fancy.
But Rivers was a pirate rather than a slave-trader, just as a man might be a carpenter rather than a printer. If he was suddenly moving from one occupation to another, there had to be a reason for it and when Benbury sent two of his most trusted men to sit on the dockside, in view of the Achilles, and mark who appeared on deck, that reason became apparent.
So now, as the auction reached its climax and Rivers finally entered the bidding, the Buzzard stepped a few paces forward, so that he was briefly visible to anyone watching Prince Jahan’s private box, gave a single nod of his masked head and retreated back into the shadows. Then, without saying a word, he slipped through the door at the back of the box and down the steps that led back down to the ground, with his slave following him as surely as his own shadow just a few paces behind. The guards who were posted at the foot of the steps made way to let him pass between them, for they knew that he was the prince’s creature and obeyed their master in every way. So they thought nothing of it as the Buzzard turned to his right and walked past the enclosure where the public were standing and into the private area behind the block itself.
Rivers had read the auction perfectly. There was only one other bidder left against him now and the price had reached the dizzying heights of three lakhs of silver, a sum far, far greater than any ever paid for a single slave. Courtney would have to sell his ship, give up all his family’s wealth and mortgage his balls to raise the money, but that wasn’t Rivers’s problem.
He was just about to make what he felt sure would be the winning bid
when he felt both his arms being grabbed from either side, and the prick of a knife, cutting through his coat and into the skin at the small of his back. ‘Begging your pardon, Captain,’ a voice growled in his ears. ‘But Captain Benbury sends you his compliments and says that if you walk away, right now, and go back to your ship, all nice and peaceful like, we won’t be obliged to kill you.’
‘Well, you can tell your damn captain …’ Rivers began. Then he stopped and thought and considered the fact that the Delft was already in his possession and he would much rather be alive to enjoy the added firepower it would bring to his private fleet and so he concluded, ‘Tell him I wish him a good day and I’d be obliged if you’d let me pass, for I believe my presence is required aboard ship.’
Grey was watching the auction with one eye, while at the same time casting discreet little glances in Courtney’s direction. The captain of the guard had secreted a group of his men dressed in civilian clothes to one side of the enclosure. It said much for their disguises that he was unable to spot them making their way towards Courtney, even though he knew that they were doing so. And if he, being aware of their plans, could not distinguish the men in the crowd, how could their prey possibly do so?
Hal’s entire attention was concentrated on the auction block. The tension created by the bidding process was unbearable. As the price rose higher and higher he stopped worrying about whether he could afford it. He would be impoverished, that much was obvious. He might well be in debt for years to come, perhaps even the rest of his life. But if he had Judith and his son – for surely she was bearing him a boy – by his side, that would be riches enough.
He turned to Tromp, just for a brief moment of moral support, but the Dutchman wasn’t there. Hal thought nothing of it. The movement of men in the public enclosure was much like water against a shore – a continual pattern of ebbing and flowing and eddying and it was all too easy for two men to become separated in the confusion.
He turned back to look at the auction. It took him a second to register that the bidding had stopped. The auctioneer was calling out to ‘the English gentleman’ asking him if he wished to raise his bid. That’s Rivers, Hal thought. What the hell is he up to?
And then something hit him in the stomach, driving the breath from his body and causing him to double up in pain. Then he was hit again on the back of the head.
And that was the last Hal Courtney knew of the slave auction.
he men who had shoved their way into the enclosure when the entrance gate had first been opened had known that they faced a goodly wait before proceedings began, followed by a lengthy sale. Many had therefore brought canteens of water, assorted items of food to keep hunger at bay and even the odd tot of rum. One group of half-a-dozen tars, who established a little camp in front of the covered enclosure, had arrived with a regular feast of ship’s provisions, freshly bought produce and even two wooden casks containing small beer, or watered-down ale, which was traditionally drunk as a means of making water palatable and less risky to one’s health. One of the casks was soon drunk dry. The other, however, rolled under the first row of seats in the pavilion. What with all the people milling around, it would have taken a very sharp eye indeed to see the black line of gunpowder that ran from the open bunghole at the top of the cask just a few feet to where the tars were standing, eating, drinking and even smoking pipes of tobacco as they followed the proceedings on the auction block.
But one of the sailors was not watching the block at all. He had his eye on the prince’s enclosure. And when the Buzzard came to the front and nodded his head he puffed on his pipe to get a nice glow, stuck a piece of paper into its bowl and waited until it caught fire, then applied that flame to the line of powder.
The flame ran along the line and into the cask and ignited the pitch-covered rags that had been bundled into it. Then they went up too and seconds later the cry went up from the stands, ‘Fire! Help! Fire!’
The sale had not been concluded, but the auctioneer wasn’t waiting for the final bid. He grabbed Judith, almost threw her down from the block and then he and his trusties dragged her back into the pen from which she’d been led not so many minutes earlier.
The man in the mask was waiting for them. ‘I’m taking her,’ he said.
The auctioneer hesitated. His trusties were wide-eyed at the sight of that mask with its evil eyes and jagged teeth. ‘But my money,’ he protested. ‘I was assured that I would be paid a commission, even though there would be no sale.’
‘Go to the palace in the morning. You’ll get your money. But I’m taking her,’ the Buzzard said. Then he grabbed the rope to which Judith was tethered and said, ‘I can drag you by this or you can run like a human being, but I’m getting you out of here, come what may.’
Judith could hear the panic coming from the auction enclosure. ‘Are you taking me back to the palace?’ she asked.
The Buzzard nodded. She followed him through the barracoon, moving further away from the chaos caused by the fire to a gate at the far end of the complex. The prince’s carriage was waiting there, the one with the blanked-out windows. ‘Get in,’ the Buzzard said. ‘You’ll be safer if no one can see you.’
Judith did as she was told, seeing the sense in his words. Even before the fire, she’d been able to sense the strange tension in the air. There were so many men, so much pent-up lust, and greed and raw male energy. She’d spent enough time around armies to know that those ingredients exploded all too easily into violence.
Dear God, please bring Hal safely out of harm’s way, she prayed. And then she consoled herself with a simple thought. If he is safe, and I am still in the prince’s palace then we may not be together, but at least there is still hope.
Only when she was sitting in the carriage did she stop to wonder why she still had her hands bound behind her back and the rope and halter round her neck. She had never been treated like that when she was the prince’s prisoner. So why was the Buzzard leaving her bound and helpless now?
The Buzzard saw Judith into the back of the carriage and pushed his own slave in there too. Then he walked around to the front and held up his arm towards the driver. ‘Can you help me up please?’ he asked, nodding his beak at the empty space on the seat next to the driver.
The carriage driver reached down to pull the Buzzard up.
The Buzzard took the other man’s hand in his and then, without the slightest warning, pulled with all his strength, catching the driver off-guard and off-balance and pulling him right off his seat and down onto the ground.
Even as the driver was falling, the Buzzard had let go of him. Then he pulled out his sword and brought it in a backhanded arc that sliced right across the driver’s throat.
As the other man lay on the ground, asphyxiating in a pool of his own blood, the Buzzard pulled himself up onto the seat of the carriage, grabbed the reins in his three-fingered hand and screamed at the horses to go. The animals heard the anger and urgency in his voice and all but bolted, sending the carriage racing away down the street.
Grey had only been a few paces from the spot where the fire started. He was one of the first to sound the alarm and then the first to make good his escape. The captain of the guard’s first priority was to organize the prince’s safe evacuation. But once he knew that his master was safely aboard a carriage, heading back to the palace, he returned to the auction site to supervise matters there.
Grey found him a few minutes later. Having established, for form’s sake, that the prince was unharmed, Grey asked the question that was his real concern. ‘Have you got Courtney?’ he asked.
The captain shook his head. ‘No. My men spotted him standing just where you said. They went to the place. But then the fire broke out. By the time they reached where Courtney had been standing, he had disappeared.’
‘So he must have escaped with everyone else who was leaving the enclosure.’
The guards’ captain shook his head. ‘No. My men have been looking. They have been watching the crowd �
�� while they were still in the enclosure, as they were leaving, in the streets afterwards. They cannot find El Tazar anywhere.’
‘Then I will have to find him,’ said Consul Grey, and thought, but did not add aloud, For my future prosperity depends upon it.
The carriage rattled to a halt, the door was flung open and the Buzzard was standing there. ‘Get out,’ he growled.
Judith frowned. The Buzzard was blocking most of her view of the outside world, but what she could see bore no relation to the palace.
‘Where am I?’ she asked.
The Buzzard did not reply. Instead he just said, ‘Get her.’
He stepped aside to reveal two other men, one white, the other African, standing there. They made a move to get into the carriage. Judith scuttled away from them, opened the opposite door and threw herself out …
Straight into the arms of another man. He caught her and held her as if she were no more of a burden than a baby. She screamed in alarm, but he simply threw her over one of his shoulders and holding her fast started running across an area of large paving stones, down a wooden pontoon that Judith could see was floating on the water. Then the man was jumping through the air and landing on the small planked area, like a miniature deck at the stern of a longboat. The moment his feet hit the boat the man was shouting, ‘Pull, you bastards, pull!’
Grey went back to his house; summoned his servants; gave them each a list of names, belonging to everyone from respectable carpet sellers to downright criminals; told them where the names on their lists were likely to be found and then sent them out across Zanzibar City. Then he too took to the streets, although the men whom he sought were the highest in the city, rather than the dregs whom his servants sought.