Hussein ordered his soldiers to drop their weapons. Resistance was futile. The angry mob was behaving like a horde of mindless sleepwalkers who were ready to do anything they were ordered to do, without questions.
Hussein was their captive. One of the crowd bellowed, ‘Let’s take him to Suleiman Pasha! He’s waiting for us on his ship!’
The crowds marshalled a bloodied Hussein and his guards in front of them. They were stripped of their clothes save for their undergarments. They had been beaten until their faces were swollen. The mob and the humiliated prisoners reached the port.
On the Ottoman flagship, a sailor rushed to get Suleiman Pasha to the deck to see what was happening. Suleiman came quickly and saw the angry crowds, but he could not quite see what was going on.
‘What’s happening? What do they want?’
The officer standing near him replied, ‘It’s the rebels, Suleiman Pasha. They have Hussein, if you can see him from this distance, the naked man standing on the edge of the wharf. We don’t know what they want. I think they’re trying to hand him over to us.’
Blood rushed to Suleiman’s head. ‘I agreed with the ringleaders to hand him over unharmed! Why would they do this to him? Where are they now?’
‘We could not get in touch with any of them, sir. The city is in complete disarray,’ the officer bumbled.
Suleiman kept his eyes trained on the mobs, then ordered his men to rush to the shore and rescue Hussein from their clutches.
A small boat was dropped slowly from the flagship. When it hit the water, the officer and four armed escorts jumped in.
On the coast, the mindless hordes were now in a state of blind, frenzied rage. As they clamoured and quarrelled, a voice at the back yelled, ‘What are you waiting for! Kill them! No one seems to want them!’
As the crowds drew their swords to carve up and behead the captives, another voice screamed, ‘Throw him off the wall that he tormented us with. Tie him to stones from it and drop him in the sea and let’s be done with him!’
Hurriedly, people broke off the mob to get large rocks that had fallen off the wall during the turmoil. They placed them at the feet of the doomed captives and tied them to the rocks tightly. The captives’ hands were bound behind their backs.
Hussein and his men began to say their last prayers. Their limbs were paralysed but they did not weep.
The boat carrying the Ottoman soldiers was moving closer to shore. The officer urged the rowers to hurry up before it was too late. Back on the ship, Suleiman Pasha could no longer shout, and was paralysed as he watched the slow execution unfold.
The officer on the boat stood up and shouted to the sailors to row harder. ‘Faster! Faster! Come on!’
On the coast, the stones were pushed into the water, dragging the victims swiftly behind them. A few moments later, bubbles emerged from the depths of the sea. It was done.
Silence fell on the angry crowd, as if the murder had drained their energy and exhausted them. They dropped their blood-spattered swords, daggers and clubs and dispersed.
The officer on the boat sat down helplessly after he saw what had happened. On the Ottoman flagship, Suleiman first screamed in agony, and then was hit with a wave of nausea and sobbing. He had lost a friend whose blood, he felt, was on his hands.
– 38 –
Bahrain
Attar heard a sound from inside the house. He ordered his men to identify and surround the source quietly. A few moments later, Jawhar came out skulking, carrying a huge bag on his back. The soldiers caught him and brought him back to Attar, who was still standing near Farah’s grave.
One of the guards snatched the bag from Jawhar and opened it, revealing many valuables. He laid them out at Attar’s feet. The Hormuzi vizier glared at Jawhar and snarled, ‘Who are you?’
Jawhar answered in a proud tone, ‘My name is Jawhar. I am Emir Nasser’s slave.’
Attar recognised Jawhar’s name from the letter his daughter had sent him, informing him of Farah and Bin Rahhal’s deaths and explaining Emir Nasser and his slave’s involvement in their demise. The man kneeling before him was the cause of Farah’s death and Halima’s ordeal and a part of the plot she had told him about.
Attar gestured with his foot toward the stolen items. ‘What are these?’
Jawhar’s boastful tone disappeared. ‘The house seemed to be abandoned. As you know, Your Excellency, the war has displaced many people. The Portuguese have been looting homes in the city, so I decided to take what I could from the house before anyone else came.’ Jawhar tried to come up with further excuses. ‘If I hadn’t taken them from the house someone else would have. As you know, my lord—’
Attar did not let him finish his sentence. ‘Where is your master Nasser?’
‘I don’t know. The last time I saw him, he was near the wall before he surrendered. I have not seen him since.’
‘Do you know who is buried in this grave?’ Attar asked, pointing at Farah’s tomb.
Jawhar gulped in fear and surprise. ‘It belongs to a maid who worked in this house. I don’t know how she died, my lord.’
Attar signalled his men to restrain Jawhar before he spoke again. ‘Let me tell you about this maid, Jawhar.’
He approached the grave and wiped the tombstone. ‘This is the grave of my daughter Farah. I raised her as if she was my own, alongside my real daughter Halima. This is the grave of the woman you lied to and forced to steal the dagger from her mistress to give to you, and which you then gave to your master Nasser to blackmail my daughter! You have caused Farah’s death by making her sacrifice her honour to protect Halima from your master!’
Jawhar tried to wriggle out of his restraints to escape. The man standing in front of him was Halima’s father, who knew everything about the house, the dagger and the plots. The words coming out of his mouth suggested he had a score to settle with him. Jawhar was struggling to undo his ties to no avail. When he realised he wasn’t going to escape, he fell on his knees and tried to appeal to Attar to show him mercy.
‘My lord, all I know is that Farah killed herself after she gave me the dagger out of guilt and regret, for having betrayed Halima. I had nothing to do with what happened after!’
Attar returned to Farah’s grave, removing the dry twigs and leaves and wiping the dust off the tombstone meticulously. It was as though he thought the tombstone was a portal to Farah’s soul, and he wanted her to listen to what was being said. Attar turned back to Jawhar.
‘The dagger you gave to your master was used to blackmail Halima, but Farah was able to trick him and rescue her mistress from disgrace. Farah cut her wrists because she could not cope with the shame of what she had done!’
Attar paused. He seemed pensive, like he was carefully weighing the situation. Attar then looked straight into Jawhar’s eyes.
‘Your blood must be spilled on Farah’s grave so she can find peace in her final resting place. She died sad and angry, and her soul will not rest until she knows that she has been avenged. In Hormuz, we have a traditional way of exacting revenge. Do you know what it is, Jawhar?’
Jawhar knew he was dead if he did nothing. He tried to make a run for it but the guard grabbed him violently by his arm.
Attar did not want the charade to last much longer. He gave the signal to his guards, who shoved Jawhar to a spot near the grave and forced him to kneel.
Jawhar started squealing and wriggling again. One of the guards took out a dagger and sliced his Achilles tendon to prevent him from standing up and moving. Jawhar’s hysterical screaming was silenced abruptly when a sword sliced off his head, which rolled away from the grave. His lifeless body slumped to the ground near the tombstone. Silence fell save for the sound of blood squirting out of his severed arteries onto the dry sand.
Attar waited for several minutes until the corpse stopped twitching and the blood stopped gushing onto the ground around the grave. Attar ordered his men to place the severed head in the bag along with the loot, and to bury the body away
from Farah’s grave.
The posse rode back toward the coast, to where the battle had taken place a few days earlier. The area had been turned into the headquarters of the invading force, and now received supply ships from Hormuz on a daily basis. The soldiers were resting and enjoying themselves on the sands there, having finished burying the dead.
António Correia sat with Emir Nasser under the ruins of the mosque that the Jabrid had used as a field hospital during the battle. It was clear the two men had reached an agreement, and that all that was left for the emir to do was to demonstrate a little more loyalty before he was chosen to rule the island on behalf of the Portuguese.
Attar and his men approached the mosque. Attar asked them to get Jawhar’s head out and show it to Emir Nasser, whose face suddenly assumed an expression of shock and horror.
Attar addressed António. ‘This is the head of a slave belonging to Emir Nasser, who sent him to loot King Salghur’s home. We caught him in the act. These are the stolen items that were in his possession.’
One of the guards tossed the sack containing the loot found with Jawhar at António’s feet. The sack hit the ground, and precious stones, large pieces of amber, daggers with ivory handles, kohl containers and other valuable items spilled out.
António glared at the emir and asked him to explain.
‘This is a baseless accusation, Admiral Correia. He was acting alone. Would I dare rob King Salghur’s home? Absolutely not!’
António ordered his men to take the stolen goods to his ship. Emir Nasser did not want the incident to spoil his relationship with the Portuguese, and continued his protests. ‘As you must be aware, Admiral Correia, there was widespread looting after your victory and Sultan Muqrin’s death. It would be impossible for me to control what all my servants and slaves were doing!’
Nasser turned his eyes to Attar, who was still standing in front of them. ‘What I think is that Attar has an interest in tarnishing my reputation in front of you. His daughter is the widow of Bin Rahhal, Sultan Muqrin’s vizier. She is still in Al-Ahsa as far as I know.’
The look in Emir Nasser’s eyes turned more sinister. ‘His daughter has a bad reputation. He stands to gain if he gets rid of me because I know many things about him and his daughter. Ask him, Admiral Correia, why did he go to the king’s farmstead to begin with, if his daughter no longer lives there?’
Blood rushed to Attar’s face, which turned bright red. He was about to do something he might regret, as this was the first time in his life that he had been insulted in this way. António was waiting for him to explain, but Attar was still thinking about the caustic words that came out of the Arabian emir about his daughter and her honour.
Attar stuttered a little before saying, ‘I went to visit the grave of my adoptive daughter Farah, who is buried there!’
Emir Nasser was waiting for those exact words to come out of Attar’s mouth, and retorted, ‘Your Excellency, ask him how she died. I know that she did not die a natural death.’
António was enjoying this quarrel between the two men, which he felt he had to feed and exacerbate. He knew that if these two leaders worked together, the Portuguese ships, if not the entire Portuguese presence in the Gulf, would be in grave danger; sowing the seeds of mistrust among the occupied prevented them from ever joining forces against the invaders.
Attar understood, from one look at António’s face, that he was enjoying this feud that revolved around his family’s honour. He wanted to put an end to the subject that Emir Nasser was trying to drag him into.
‘She committed suicide, Admiral Correia, because she could no longer bear living in a corrupt and rotten world!’
Emir Nasser roared with an obnoxious laughter that everyone around heard, before he suddenly fell silent. ‘Are you sure about that? You have slain my slave Jawhar because he knew the whole story. Farah sold herself to him in return for cheap promises, and your daughter sold herself to me because she was jealous of her maid and did not want to be left out! They were both cheap women!’ Nasser turned to António, who was smiling, and added, ‘But very beautiful ones.’
With his eyes still on the Portuguese commander, he pointed at Attar and said, ‘This man has a grudge against me and you, commander. He is a danger to us both. He will not hesitate to stab you in the back if he can.’
Listening to the squabble, António became certain that there was no threat of these men ever agreeing on anything. He made a decree appointing Emir Nasser governor of Bahrain and representative of the kingdom of Portugal, and left for Hormuz with Attar. Attar felt weak and had a profound pain in his chest, having been insulted in a way that his body and soul could not cope with.
– 39 –
Al-Ahsa, Eastern Arabian Peninsula
As news of Sultan Muqrin’s death spread, a painful sense of bereavement pervaded Al-Ahsa. Halima in particular was stricken with both grief and guilt, as she felt she was the cause of his death.
The Portuguese were now a stone’s throw away from Al-Ahsa, and everyone felt it was only a matter of time before their legions appeared on the horizon. Sultan Muqrin and his army were now history, the realm had disintegrated and even the Bedouin tribes were now mounting daring attacks on the edges of the city, which had descended into lawlessness. People were barricading themselves in their homes and inside the forts scattered around the area.
Halima became panic-stricken after the sultan’s death. She blamed herself for his and his men’s demise, and for the fall and sacking of Bahrain at the hands of the Portuguese, and she hated the world and herself for it.
Halima wandered around aimlessly, recalling her life as a pampered princess with her father in Hormuz, her marriage to Bin Rahhal who treated her like a queen, and then his murder, leading up to the wretchedness and misery she was now living. She often had bouts of rage and sobbing, with feelings of utter loss and despair, throwing sand on her head and shrieking in terror and distress. These bouts would last for a few minutes until she fell unconscious. Sometimes, when children saw her in this state, they summoned the sheikh’s wife, who would rush to Halima with wet cloths to wipe her face and rouse her. The older woman would escort her back home and help her clean herself, and waited with her until the sheikh returned and consoled her with some verses from the Quran.
People thought jinn had possessed Halima. But what she was going through, dreadful as it was, was not the result of some supernatural entity. She felt that she had lost every reason to live, that there was nothing beautiful left in the world to endure for. She felt her soul had been shattered into a million pieces, and that everything she had taken for granted had been violently overturned. Death seemed to her to be the salvation, and spells of madness a way out of her painful reality.
There was little Halima could enjoy in life now, and happiness was to her like a deeply buried memory. All food tasted bitter to the forlorn woman, who neglected her body. Halima felt a trace of cheerfulness near graves and envied the dead for their departure. She was on the brink of insanity, rebounding between the dismal reality and the long lost, blissful past.
The days passed like weeks, and weeks passed like months, but by now Halima’s shock had started to wear off, and her misery had begun to fade. Her emotional state improved, and the bouts of mad grief were not as frequent as before.
She had no one left but her father now, but she was too ashamed to return to him. How could she return having lost her husband and her fortune, and having caused Sultan Muqrin’s death and the occupation of Bahrain? Halima did not know what she wanted in life, or what life wanted from her, and she wished her soul would depart her weary body.
Sheikh Jamal al-Din Tazi decided to return to his home in Morocco. Life in Al-Ahsa had become difficult and unpredictable. Since Halima did not want to remain by herself in a city where she had no one else, she decided to travel with them as far as Mecca, the Holy Land.
Halima remembered that she still had the Bahmani dagger in her possession when she was packing. Sultan M
uqrin, she recalled, had promised the Indian king who gave it to him to deliver it to the caliph. Halima realised that this promise had to be fulfilled, even after Muqrin’s death.
She turned the dagger over in her hand, then took it out of its sheath. She had cleaned Farah’s blood from the blade. No one else could fulfil Sultan Muqrin’s wishes but her now. Halima set her mind on delivering it to the caliph by any means. She packed it with her luggage without having a clear plan of how she was going to do it, and placed it in the same box as the ring the sultan had bought from the Banyan merchant, also as a gift to the caliph. She had managed to keep both precious items safe, but it was now time to pass them on.
Sheikh Tazi’s wife was helping her pack and sort out her belongings when she suddenly asked, ‘And just where do you intend to go after Mecca, Halima?’
‘I don’t yet know. I may remain in Medina until I die. Al-Ahsa does not want me any more, nor do I want it.’
‘Why don’t you go back to your father in Hormuz?’
Halima sighed. Any mention of her father still rattled her and made her pine for her childhood. ‘I have no one else in the world but him. I sent him a letter telling him I am going to the Hajj but he did not approve. May God forgive me! I will not return to Hormuz before I perform the pilgrimage and visit the tomb of the Prophet. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I will not find in the whole world a better company than yours. I will stay in Medina for some time, and fulfil Sultan Muqrin’s wishes to deliver his dagger to the caliph.’
‘Who will you stay with there, Halima? I fear for you staying alone after we leave!’
‘Do not worry yourself. Calamities have befallen every land around us. Even my country has become inhospitable after the Portuguese took it. The things my father has told me in his letters are heartbreaking. If I go there, I will be happy to see him for a few hours but then I will have to live in a crucible of fear and pain like him. No, I will carry out my religious duty and then let God guide my path from there on. I don’t care whether I live or die afterwards.’
The Holy Sail Page 33