by Wilbur Smith
"In God's Name, make ready!" Rahmad called.
Jim and Mansur lifted the loose robe over Dorian's head. He wore only a white loincloth under it. Where the sun had not touched him his skin was smooth and white as cream in a jug. At the same time his escort helped Zayn remove his robe. Now he wore only a loincloth, and his skin was the colour of old ivory. Dorian knew that Zayn was his senior by only two years. They were both in their middle forties, and the effects of age were becoming apparent on their bodies. There were streaks of grey in their hair and beards, and a fleshiness round their waistlines. However, their limbs were clean and hard and their movements were lithe as they stepped into the ring. Even the impediment in Zayn's step seemed more sinister than inhibiting. They were matched in
height but Zayn was the heavier man, bigger boned and wider in the shoulder. Since childhood both had been trained in the warrior's way, but they had matched against each other once only before this day. However, they had been children then, and they and the world about them were altered.
They stood just out of arm's reach of each other. Neither spoke, but they assessed each other carefully. Rahmad stepped between them. He carried a length of silken cord, light as gossamer and strong as steel. He had measured its length and cut it precisely five paces shorter than the diameter of the ring.
Rahmad went to Zayn first. Though he knew full well that he was left-handed, Rahmad asked formally, "Which hand?"
Disdaining a reply Zayn proffered his right hand. Rahmad tied the end of the cord round his wrist. He was a sailor and the knot would neither tighten nor slip, yet it would hold like a steel cuff. Rahmad came to Dorian with the other end of the cord. Dorian gave him his left hand and he tied it with the same type of knot. The two combatants were linked together: only the death of one could part them now.
"Mark your swords!" Rahmad ordered them, and they glanced back at the scimitar that stood behind each man on the perimeter of the ring. The silk cord was too short to allow them simultaneously to reach a weapon.
"A blast on the ram's horn will begin this contest, but only death will end it," intoned Rahmad. He and the four headmen left the ring. A terrible silence descended on the field. Even the breeze seemed to still, and the gulls ceased their mewing cries. Rahmad looked to the trumpeter on the parapet and raised his hand. The trumpeter lifted the curled horn to his lips. Rahmad dropped his hand and the blast sobbed and echoed off the cliffs of the bluff. A huge wave of sound swept over the ring as every man in the convocation shouted together.
Neither contestant moved. They faced each other still, leaning back on the cord, keeping it taut, taking the strain, assessing each other's weight and strength, the way a fisherman feels a heavy fish after the strike. Neither could reach his scimitar unless he could force the other to give ground. They strained silently. Suddenly Dorian darted forward, and Zayn reeled back as the cord went slack. Then he whirled and ran for his sword. Grimly Dorian noted the slight clumsiness as he turned; into his crippled side. Dorian ran after him and gathered in a double arm's length of the slack in the cord. He gained the centre of the ring, and shortened the length of cord between them by almost half. From this position he dominated the ring, but he had sacrificed precious ground for that. Zayn was reaching out for the hilt of his scimitar.
Dorian took a turn of the cord round his wrist and planted his feet. He anchored the cord and Zayn came up hard against the end of it with such force that it snapped him round on to his bad side. For a moment he was off-balance and Dorian heaved him backwards and gained another arm's length of the cord.
Abruptly Dorian changed the angle of his pull. He made himself the fulcrum around which Zayn pivoted. Like the stone on the end of a slingshot, Dorian used the impetus to launch Zayn towards the white ash line, straight at one of the executioners who waited with drawn sword to meet him. As it seemed he must be hurled backwards out of the ring, Zayn found purchase with his stronger leg and checked the slingshot effect. He teetered on the line and raised a puff of white ash, but he managed to stop himself going out. The executioner stood behind him with the blade raised to make the stroke. Now there was slack in the cord and Dorian had lost the leverage. He raced forward to crash into Zayn with his shoulder and drive him that last yard across the line. Zayn saw him coming, braced his legs and dropped his shoulder to meet him.
They came together with a force that jarred every bone in their bodies, and stood like a carving in marble, straining and grunting. Dorian had the heel of his right hand under Zayn's chin and forced his head back. Slowly Zayn's spine arched over the line, and the executioner moved forward a pace to meet him as he stepped over it. Zayn drew a hissing breath and summoned the last vestige of his strength. His face seemed to darken and swell with the effort, but slowly his back straightened. He pushed Dorian back a step.
The noise was deafening. A thousand voices joined in, and the Beshwayo warriors were dancing and drumming on their shields. A hurricane of sound swept over the ring. Zayn exerted his greater weight and gradually worked his shoulder down under Dorian's armpit, then suddenly heaved upwards. He took the weight off Dorian's legs and forced him to lose traction and grip. The bare soles of his feet skidded in the dust, and he was driven back a yard, then another. Dorian was pitting all his strength against Zayn's thrust. Abruptly Zayn jumped back. Dorian staggered forward off-balance. Swift as a lizard on his crippled foot Zayn darted away, straight back to where his sword was pegged into the earth.
Dorian tried to snatch up the slack in the cord to restrain him again, but before he could bring it tight Zayn had reached the weapon and had a firm grip on the hilt. Dorian jerked him backwards, but Zayn came willingly, rushing at him with the point of the blade levelled at Dorian's throat. Dorian ducked under it and they circled each other. They were still linked by the umbilical cord of silk.
Zayn was laughing silently, but it was a sound without joy. He mock charged at Dorian, forcing him to dodge back, and as soon as he had made slack in the cord for the move Zayn darted to where Dorian's scimitar was still standing at the far end of the circle. Before Dorian could bring the rope tight, Zayn had grabbed the second weapon out of the ground. Now he turned to face Dorian with a blade in each hand.
A silence fell over the multitude and they watched in awful fascination as Zayn stalked Dorian round the ring, while the executioners shadowed him from behind, waiting for him to step out of the ash circle. Watching him carefully, Dorian realized that though he favoured his left hand Zayn was almost as dexterous with his right. As if to demonstrate this he rushed forward and cut right-handed at Dorian's head. When Dorian ducked out of the stroke he thrust with his left and Dorian could not avoid it. Although he twisted aside, the point scored his ribs and the crowd howled to see blood spurt.
Mansur clutched at Jim's arm with such strength that his fingernails cut through the skin. "He is hurt. We must stop it."
"No, coz," Jim said softly. "We cannot intervene."
The pair in the ring kept turning, as though the cord that linked them was a spoke of a wheel. Dorian still held the slack of the line between his hands.
Zayn was quivering with eagerness for the kill, his mouth working, his eyes burning darkly. "Bleed, pig, and when you have shed your last drop, I will hack your carcass into fifty pieces and send each bit to the furthest corners of my empire so that all men will know the penalty for treachery."
Dorian did not reply. He held his end of the cord lightly in the fingers of his right hand. With total concentration he watched Zayn's eyes for the signal that he would charge again. Zayn feigned a move with his bad leg, then sprang forward off his strong side. It was exactly what Dorian had anticipated. He flicked out the bight in the cord, and then, with a snap of his wrist, shot the loop forward like a whiplash. The silk cord slashed across Zayn's right eye with such force that the ; blood vessels burst, the pupil and the cornea shattered, and in an instant the eyeball was transformed into a fragile pink sack of jelly.
Zayn screamed, high-pitched
and shrill as a girl. He dropped both swords and cupped his hands over his injured eye. He stood blind and shrieking in the centre of the ring. Dorian stooped and picked up one of the scimitars. As he came upright again, as gracefully as a dancer, he drove the point into Zayn's belly.
The shriek was cut off from Zayn's lips. One hand was still clasped over his eye but with the other hand he groped down and found the
gaping wound in his guts from which blood, intestinal gas and detritus bubbled. He sank forward on to his knees and bowed his head. His neck was stretched forward. Dorian raised the scimitar on high, then swung it down. The air fluted, softly as the call of a mourning dove, over the steel, which found the joint of the vertebrae and sheared through. Zayn's head jumped from his shoulders and thumped on to the hard-baked earth. His trunk remained kneeling for a moment, with the severed arteries pumping, then toppled forward.
Dorian stooped, took a handful of the silver-streaked hair, then lifted high the severed head. The eyes were wide open and darted from side to side with a louche expression.
Thus I avenge the Princess Yasmini. Thus I claim the Elephant Throne of Oman," Dorian shouted in triumph.
A thousand voices joined in the cry: "Hail to al-Salil! Hail to the Caliph!"
Beshwayo's imp is leaped to their feet and, led by the king himself, thundered out the royal salute: "Bayete, Inkhosil Bayetel'
Dorian dropped the head, and reeled from the effects of his wound. The blood was still streaming down his flank and he might have fallen, had not Mansur and Jim rushed into the ring and supported him at each side. They half carried him into the fort. The rooms had been stripped of every stick of furniture, but they took Dorian to his own bedroom and laid him on the bare floor. Mansur ordered Rahmad to call Zayn al-Din's personal surgeon, who had been waiting at the door for this summons. He hurried in at once.
While he bathed the wound and stitched it closed with catgut, Dorian spoke softly to Mansur and Jim. "Tom made me give my word that I would not tell you this until the fighting here was over. Now I am released from that promise. As soon as our defenders abandoned the fort, our brother Guy came ashore with a squad of armed men. They stormed into the fort. When Guy found that we had emptied the treasury, he came out on to the parapet and saw the wagon tracks. He must have realized we had sent the gold away. Zayn had already landed his horses on the beach by this time. Guy commandeered mounts for himself and twenty of his men, and rode out along the wagon road. There can be no doubt that he intends to capture the wagons." The two young men stared at him aghast.
Jim found his voice first. "The women! Little Georgie!"
"As soon as we realized what was happening, Tom took Smallboy and his musketeers. They chased after Guy."
"Oh, God!" Mansur groaned. "That was yesterday. There is no way of telling what has happened since then. Why did you not tell us before?"
"You know why I could not, but now I am freed of my promise to Tom."
As he turned to Mansur, Jim's voice cracked with anxiety for his family Sarah, Louisa and Georgie: "Are you with me, coz?"
"Will you let me go, Father?"
"Of course, my son, and all my blessings with you," Dorian replied.
Mansur sprang to his feet. "I am with you, coz!" They ran to the door.
Jim was already shouting for Bakkat: "Saddle up Drumfire. We ride at once."
In addition to being at a safe distance from the coast, the gorge was a lovely place. Sarah had chosen it as the campsite for that reason. The river came down out of the mountains in a series of cascades and waterfalls. The pools below each of these were clear and placid, filled with yellow fish. Tall trees shaded the site of their laager. Flowering fruits in the leafy canopy attracted birds and vervet monkeys.
Although Tom had prevailed on Sarah to cache most of the furniture and her other possessions within a few miles of the fort, in the same hiding-place as some off the ivory, Sarah had insisted on loading all her real treasures on to the wagons. She did not look upon the chests of gold bars that Tom had foisted on her as being of especial importance. When they reached the campsite she had not even bothered to have them unloaded. When Louisa and Verity politely queried the wisdom of this, Sarah laughed. "Wasted effort. We will just have to load them all up again when it's time to go home."
On the other hand, she spared no effort in providing the camp with all the comforts of home. Chief of these was a fine mud-walled kitchen and refectory. The roof was a masterpiece of the thatcher's art. The floor was plastered with clay and cow dung. Sarah's harpsichord had pride of place in the centre of the room and every evening they gathered around it to sing while Sarah played.
During the days they picnicked beside the pool, and watched George swim like a naked little fish, and applauded as he jumped in from the high bank with the loudest splash he could make. They painted and sewed. Louisa gave George riding lessons, perched up on Trueheart's back like a flea. Verity worked on her translations of the Qur'an and the Ramayana. Sarah took George with her to collect wild flowers. Back in the laager she sketched the plants and wrote descriptive notes of them to add to her collection. Verity had brought a box of her favourite books from her cabin in the Arcturus, and she read aloud to the other women.
They marvelled over James Thomson's Seasons and giggled together like schoolgirls over Rage on Rage.
Some mornings Louisa left George in the care of Sarah and Intepe, the lily, while she and Verity went out riding. This was an arrangement that suited George very well. Grandmama Sarah was an unending source of biscuits, toffee and other delights. She was also a captivating raconteur. Gentle Intepe was in George's thrall and obeyed his lordly instructions without quibble. She was now Zama's wife and had already borne him one lusty son. The baby was still at her breast, but her older boy was George's liege man. Zama had made for each of them a miniature bow, and a sharpened stick to use as a spear. They spent a great amount of time hunting around the perimeter of the camp. To date they had only achieved one kill: a fieldmouse had made the mistake of running under George's feet and, in an effort to avoid it, he had stood on its head. They cooked the tiny carcass in the flames of a large fire they built expressly for the purpose, and devoured the scorched, blackened flesh with relish.
These seemed idyllic days, but they were not. A dark shadow hung over the camp. Even in the midst of laughter the women would fall suddenly silent and look back along the wagon track that led down to the coast. When they mentioned the names of the men they loved, which they did often, their eyes were sad. In the night they started up at the whicker of one of the horses, or the sound of hoofs in the darkness. They called from one wagon to the other: "Did you hear aught, Mother?"
"It was only one of our own horses, Louisa. Sleep now. Jim will come soon."
"Are you well, Verity?"
"As well as you, but I miss Mansur as much as you miss Jim."
"Do not fret, girls," Sarah calmed them. "They are Courtneys and they are tough. They'll be back soon."
Every four or five days a rider came up from Fort Auspice with a leather satchel over his shoulder that contained letters for them. His arrival was the highlight of their lives. Each of the women seized the letter addressed to her and rushed to her own wagon to read it alone. They emerged much later, flushed and smiling, filled with ephemeral high spirits to discuss the news they had received. Then they began the long, lonely wait until the rider came again.
Intepe's grandfather, Tegwane, was the night-watchman. At his age he slept little and took his duties seriously. He prowled endlessly around the wagons on his stork thin legs with his spear over his shoulder. Zama was the camp overseer. He had eight men under him, including the
wagon drivers and the armed ask ari Izeze, the flea, was growing into a robust youth, and a fine musket shot. He was the sergeant of the guard.
On Jim's orders Inkunzi had moved all the cattle herds up from the coast into the hills where they would be safe from any incursion by Zayn al-Din's expeditionary force. He and all
his Nguni herders were close at hand if any emergency arose.
After twenty-eight days in the river camp the women should have felt secure, but they did not. They should have been able to sleep soundly, but they were not. The premonition of evil hung over them all.
That particular night Louisa had not been able to sleep. She had hung a blanket over George's cot to shield him from the light, while she lay on the car dell bed propped up on her pillows and read Henry Fielding by the light of the oil lamp. Suddenly she cast aside the book and rushed to the afterclap of the wagon. She pulled open the curtains and listened until she was certain, then she called, "Rider coming. It must be the mail."