Just as he said this, Reza gave a whoop and shouted down at them from his perch. “They are fleeing! Look, they run!”
The crew stopped what they were doing and stared in amazement as the third ship turned away, leaving them and abandoning its erstwhile allies to their fate. It appeared that its captain had no stomach for a fight with the Sea Eagle. The crew roared with excitement and jumped about on the center deck with glee, waving fists, shouting abuse at the departing ship, and hugging one another. The steersmen shouted praises to Allah and chattered excitedly with relief but dared not leave their place with the captain glowering at them.
Talon turned towards the two women, who were standing on the upper deck. He ran up to Rav’an and, ignoring custom, seized her in a bear hug. “You were both magnificent! You distracted them so well they completely overlooked us. We could not have done it without you!” he shouted, and grabbed Jannat to hold her tightly as well. Jannat was shaking with reaction and weeping with relief.
“I have never been so frightened in my life!” she declared through her sniffles.
“Are you not forgetting your escape through the tunnels, Jannat? You are a brave woman, while our Rav’an here has known much worse in her time.” Talon grinned affectionately down at Rav’an, who turned a strained white face up to him and sniffed, wiping the tears away with a shaking hand as she smiled at him.
“I have not forgotten, my warrior, my fox. Now Jannat and I must go below and stop making a spectacle of ourselves. I don’t know what the crew must think of us!”
Talon grinned and gave her a light kiss in front of everyone. “I am quite sure that they will worship the deck upon which you walk from this moment on, my Lady,” he assured her. Indeed, as they descended the stairs to go below, the men shouted and cheered them until they were out of sight.
At last, we have a ship and a crew! Talon thought to himself as he greeted the exuberant Reza, who embraced him and forced him to do a little dance, to his acute embarrassment.
“The captain of the ship on our starboard side was so agile and skinny that I kept missing him!” Reza complained.
Talon choked with laughter. “Did you succeed in the end?” he demanded.
“What do you think, Brother?”
The sun began to sink into the western horizon as a bright red ball of fire, but it was not the only fire on the horizon that evening. As they sailed on a calm sea towards Kulam Mali, the burning pyre of two pirate ships stayed with them for many hours, lighting up the horizon long into the night.
“How did you know what to do, Brother?” Reza asked Talon as they stood together with Rostam and Rav’an, watching the fire that night.
“This is not the first time I have been attacked by pirates, Reza. Surprise and fire are the best weapons against them. How are our horses faring after all the excitement?”
“Well enough. The noise bothered them, but the men have calmed them and given them food and water, so they are fine for the present,” Reza said. “I have to go and comfort Jannat. She is still very upset. Are you coming?”
Talon smiled in the darkness and gripped Rostam’s shoulder and Rav’an’s hand a little harder. “Yes, we will be there in a moment. Goodnight, Brother.”
Charcoal black tip of arrowhead
among these ancient, stones—stained red,
Heartbeats feel rhythms of ghostly drums,
Winds carry haunting, chanting hums,
I feel your blood flow here with mine,
outlasting even decaying time,
I've been told the stories, told by you,
I know we're just spirits, passing through.
—Indian Poet
Chapter Nine
Kalam Mali
The clouds came up rapidly from the South and West like tumbled mountains of black, menacing vapor that roiled into the sky to impossible heights. The warmth of the sun was replaced by gusts of hot wind that made the stays of the ship hum. Captain Safa al-Dandachi glanced up at the sails with a concerned expression on his face as they rattled and bellied, forcing the ship to heel.
He cast a worried look behind him at the oncoming storm and shouted at the crew to take down the main sail. The more experienced of the crew comprehended the urgency and shouted at the others to get a move on, as the storm would wait for no man.
Talon, who was on the after deck with the captain, noted his expression and asked, “Is there cause for concern?”
The captain nodded his head and wiped perspiration from his face with the tail end of his turban. The heat of the wind was fierce.
“We will know very soon, Master Talon. If the cold winds follow, they will tell us a great deal about what we see brewing on the horizon. I think we are in for a rough passage. You must inform the womenfolk to stay below, as well as Rostam, and you yourself should take shelter.”
“I shall stay right here with you, Safa al-Dandachi. I own the ship, and I have a responsibility to remain with you,” Talon said. “We cannot outrun it, I suppose?”
The captain shrugged and gave a dry laugh. “The storms of this sea come and go faster than an army of galloping horses. No, we cannot outrun it; we have to live through it. As you wish, Master Talon, stay, but the women and boy must go below.”
Talon nodded and ran down the steps to the main deck, where he found Reza walking towards him along the waist deck, avoiding the sudden activity as the crew hurriedly lowered the main sail, which was billowing and snapping in the gusts of wind.
“Reza, the captain is worried. Rav’an and Jannat must remain below with the servants. Where is Rostam?”
Reza looked back at the busy crew. “I left him near the front of the ship with Jannat. I’ll go and tell them to go to the cabin at once. Is the captain concerned about the darkness over there?” He pointed towards the black swirling cloud mass heading towards them.
“Yes, and it is urgent that we hurry,” Talon said.
Reza nodded and ran back the way he had come, while Talon took the stairs down to the main aft cabin to talk to Rav’an.
He knocked on the door leading to the women’s cabin and was answered by one of the maids, Salem, who opened the door .”I wish to speak to Rav’an,” he told her.
“I am here, Talon,” Rav’an called from the back of the cabin, where she was seated on some cushions watching the wake of the ship. A book lay nearby that she had been reading.
“My Rav’an, we are in for a storm. I suspect that it will be a bad one, as the captain seems more anxious than usual. He has asked that you and Jannat as well as Rostam and the servants all stay below.”
“But the sea is calm, my Love. How can it be?” she asked.
“Look to the South and West and you will see that the Djins are about to loose their wrath upon us, my Love. The sea here is not telling us the truth,” he responded, leaning over her to stare out at the heaving water below. There was something ominous about the oily behavior of the sea at that moment.
“I would ask that you shut all the panels and keep the cabin well closed to prevent water from coming in until we are out of this.”
She nodded. “Where are Jannat and Rostam?”
“Reza went to get them and—” just at that moment Jannat opened the door and ushered Rostam into the room, with Reza in attendance.
“Uncle Reza says that we are about to have a storm, Mama! I want to see it.”
“You must stay with us below, my darling. It is too dangerous to be on deck at present.”
“It does not seem to be, Mama. Papa, may I not be with you up there? Please!”
Talon grinned at him and knelt in front of the pleading boy. “I am informed by the captain, who is most wise about these things, that this is a very bad storm and will be too dangerous for you. I want you to stay and protect Mama and Jannat and the maids. Dar’an will be here too.” He glanced up at Dar’an, who reluctantly nodded. It was clear that he wanted to be up on deck where all the excitement was going to be.
“I need you here, Dar’a
n, with my family, just in case,” Talon said, to make him feel better.
“But you are going up there, Papa?” Rostam asked him, staring up at him with wide open eyes.
“Yes. Reza and I will be right above you, helping the captain,” Talon told him, standing up.
He looked over at Rav’an, who blew him a kiss and mouthed, “Be careful, God protect.”
He strode through the open door with Reza right behind him, and then they were out on the waist deck, climbing the stairs to the long afterdeck.
“You have been in storms before, Talon. What do you think?”
“Each time it has been the will of God that we survived. The first time, I was one of only three who lived, Reza, and... I lost Jabbar. Truthfully, storms terrify me, as it is only the skill of the captain that can save us, and then not all the time. Boulos himself told us that many ships have perished in these seas.”
“I shall pray to God that we are not among them,” Reza said fervently, as they joined the captain and the steersmen. Talon’s mind went back to the reason they were here in this part of the ocean at all, so far from any safe haven.
They had made landfall comfortably at Kalam Mali two days after the incident with the pirate ships. Five horses had died for one reason or another along the way, leaving them 25. The captain had been phlegmatic about it. “Everything is at risk on long journeys, and horses are no exception. I think we were lucky; we had enough rainfall on the journey to keep most of them alive.”
Kalam Mali was a bustling port, full of shipping when they arrived. They unloaded the horses and had them penned in an area under guard while they negotiated with the Indian merchants. The Indians had been very eager to pay them the asking price. The amount they were prepared to pay for a good horse had astonished Talon and Reza. The horses more than paid for their keep, and Talon was left with a nice profit from that transaction. He was glad, because there was a tithe for trading in the port of 1,000 dirhams, which the captain considered excessive to the point of robbery, but there was nothing they could do about it.
They spent a week at the port. There was a fort on a hill overlooking the harbor, which was busier by far than the languid ports of Oman and Lamu. The crew were allowed ashore, under the watchful eyes of Umayr and Waqqas, whose responsibility it was to prevent them from getting into fights or lost in the labyrinth of narrow streets where the whores were waiting for them.
The region had been just as Imaran described it. The air was so thick that at times it felt suffocating. When it was not raining it was baking hot, and the ground dried out so fast that by the second day the air was heavy with a red dust. The flies were everywhere and the port was crowded. The Indians enjoyed noisy music that seemed to go on all day; reed pipes wheezed, cymbals clashed and drums rattled with music that was alien to the visitors’ ears. The Indians loved parades and colorful religious events, when the cacophony of noise increased to the point where a person wanted to place hands over ears as the garlanded processions walked by.
There were temples to a myriad of gods, major and minor, animal and human in form. Most prominent of all was the elephant God. Talon learned that he was named Ganesha and that he was very important. All of them were painted in garish colors, and their often tiny temples were managed by half-naked priests, surrounded by beggars and supplicants.
They had seen their first elephant lumbering slowly down the main street, ridden by a mahout who sat behind the huge animal’s ears. They had all stopped and stared in silent awe as it walked slowly past them.
Many of the locals chewed a whitish paste they called Betel nut that caused their mouths to become bright red, and they would spit out in a red stream onto the ground, caring little where it fell. The food was deliciously scented and spicy, but so hot that Reza said it was the fare of the Devil, which seemed to be confirmed when they all spent far too long over the toilet hole in a cupboard-like room off from the main cabin.
Talon had automatically looked for good grass for the horses on the outskirts of the city but had found none. Only a stiff-bladed grass like weed. It did not take a lot of reasoning to understand why horses did so poorly here, he decided.
Word had quickly spread about the successful engagement with the pirates, so the Arabs they met were effusive with their praise. They begged his small entourage to stop and share some tea and tell them for the hundredth time how the battle had gone. They also warned Talon that he needed to stay vigilant, because the pirates might well be in the port watching them at that very moment, waiting for revenge. There was nothing to distinguish them from any other ship that came into port, and in any event, there were no port authorities capable of apprehending them.
One aspect of Kalam Mali had proved a major disappointment. The man to whom they sold the horses told them, “There are fewer and fewer China ships these days.”
Talon had asked why. The man had shrugged. “We don’t know. The storms can be very bad or not so bad, but there are no ships here that are going to Kalah Bar this month or the next, which means that you might have to sell your other cargo here in India. If you want to do better, I would advise you to go to Kalah Bar yourself, and then you can come home with spices for Oman which alone will pay for your journey.”
“How long would it take to get there?” Talon had asked unhappily, his heart sinking.
“About a month, God willing. If all goes well.”
He had boarded the ship in a foul mood that day. When asked by Rav’an why he was scowling and fretting so much, he replied, “I am beginning to wonder about this merchant thing. It is fraught with problems at every turn.”
“What do you mean, Talon?” she asked, taking his hand as they stared out at the forest of masts all around them. As she gazed around, both Jannat and Reza joined them on the deck.
“What do you see here?” he asked her, waving his free arm wide.
“Why, I see ships of every kind. Is that not a good thing?” she replied.
“Yes, it should be, but one kind of boat is missing, and it has to be this year of all years,” he responded, his tone bitter.
Rav’an sighed. “Tell me what it is. I have not seen you as frustrated as this for some time.”
“There are no Chinese ships! They have not come. Normally they are here by now, and we could have made deals through their agents and unloaded our cargo to be sailing back to Oman within a week. Now we have to decide what to do.”
“Could we not sell our goods here and depart as planned?” she asked him with a frown.
“We could, but the agent I talked to told me that the prices would be very low. The Indians wanted our horses, from which we did make a decent profit, but we still have a cargo of other goods which they don’t want so much, as they have most of what we are selling already. I was told to sail on to a place called Kalah Bar, which is across another wide sea.”
“How long would that take?” Jannat asked.
“About another month,” Reza told her.
There was a collective sigh from the two women. “Did the man who bought the horses assure you that the Chinese ships would be there to trade?” Rav’an asked the two grim-faced men.
“He told me that the ships of the Omani and the Chinese have been meeting here and in Kalah Bar for generations. They did warn me that even there the trade is sometimes not so good. Trade in general has fallen off, and no one is quite sure why. But he said that it is Kalah Bar where we have the best chance of making a great profit for the kind of goods we have on board.”
They spent the better part of the evening considering this option, and even brought the captain into the discussion. Much to their surprise, he was willing enough.
“I will sail there for you, Master Talon. Not just because of the possibility of a much greater profit—and of course I have an investment in that—but because you have demonstrated that you know how to fight off pirates. So many ships perish because of that scourge alone.”
What about the men?” Reza asked.
“Mas
ter Reza, the men admire you and Master Talon.” He turned to the women with a smile on his rugged face. “They also admire the Mistresses Rav’an and Jannat, especially after the incident with the pirate ships. They will sail with you.”
Talon sighed. He was torn between going back to Oman or trying for more. Being a ship owner and merchant in these seas brought responsibilities and problems he had not anticipated; however, he hated the idea of arriving home at Muscat with his tail between his legs, their journey largely unfulfilled. He finally nodded his head. “Then we sail. Thank you, Captain. I am grateful for your support.”
*****
Talon thought back. Kalam Mali was a long way back to the West of their present position. Three weeks previously, they had stopped briefly at the island of Ceylon, known to all as the Isle of Rubies, where they had purchased some of these precious stones, but it was Rav’an who had discovered that it was really the island of Sapphires and had persuaded Talon to let her purchase a few. Then they had continued Eastward towards Kalah Bar. Now they were being stalked by a nasty looking storm that had the captain very worried. He shook his head and gazed out at the evil-looking sky above them, which had turned an ugly shade of yellow.
The warm gusts of wind abated, leaving an ominous calm and little wind to fill the after lateen sail and the foresail. The huge mainsail was down and secured, leaving the great mast bare. The ship was wallowing, but making some headway. The men on deck were uncharacteristically silent, sending apprehensive glances to the Southwest where the monstrous black cloud bank moved relentlessly towards them. Talon suspected that some among them knew what was to come. The captain kept them busy, shouting at them to double lash down everything, including the two boats in the waist of the ship. They complied willingly.
“Make sure the cook has contained the fire brands in the metal pot, lest we perish from fire within!” he called down to Tarif, who was in the waist of the ship. Tarif rushed off to pass the word.
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