Birds of Prey c-1

by Wilbur Smith

  "No!" Hal screamed wildly.

  At the last instant before the child was impaled on the point the Buzzard flicked aside the sword and Iyasu fell back unscathed into his grasp.

  "Parley!" Hal shouted. "Give me the child unharmed and you can go free, with all your booty."

  "What a bargain! But my ship is burned and my booty with it."

  "Listen to me," Hal pleaded. "Let the boy go free."

  "How can I refuse a brother Knight?" the Buzzard asked, still spluttering with laughter. "You shall have what you ask. There! I set the little black bastard free. "With another mighty swing of his arm he hurled Iyasu far out over the ship's side. The child's shirt fluttered around his little body as he fell. Then, with only a soft splash, the dark sea swallowed him.

  Behind him Hal heard Judith Nazet scream. He dropped his sword to the deck and with three running strides reached the rail and dived head first over the side. He struck the water and knifed deep, then turned for the surface.

  Looking up from twenty feet deep, the water was clear as mountain air. He could see the weed-fouled bottom of the Gull drifting past him, and the reflection of the flames from the burning ship dancing on the surface ripple. Then, between him and the firelight, he saw a small dark shape. The tiny limbs were struggling like a fish in a net and silver bubbles streamed from Iyasu's mouth as he turned end over end in the wake of the hull.

  Hal struck out with arms and legs and reached him before he was whirled away. Holding him to his chest he shot to the surface, and lifted the child's face clear.

  Iyasu struggled feebly, coughing and choking, then he let out a thin, terrified wail. "Blow it all out of you," said Hal, and looked around.

  Big Daniel must have recalled his men, then cut the grappling lines to get the Golden Bough away from the burning hull. The two ships were drifting apart. The seamen from the Gull were leaping over her sides as the heat of the flames washed over them and her main sail caught fire. The Gull began to sail with flaming canvas and no hand on her helm. She bore down slowly on where Hal trod water, and he struck out desperately with one hand, dragging Iyasu out of her path.

  For a long, dreadful minute it seemed that they would be trodden under, then a fluke of the wind pushed the bows across a point and she passed less than a boat's length from them.

  With amazement Hal saw that the Buzzard still stood alone on the break of the forecastle. The flames surrounded him, but he did not seem to feel their heat. His beard began to smoke and blacken, but he looked down at Hal and choked with laughter. He gasped for breath then opened his mouth to shout something to him, but at that moment the Gull's foresail sheets burned clean through and the huge spread of canvas came floating down, covering the Buzzard. From under that burning shroud Hal heard one last terrible shriek and then the flames leapt high, and the stricken Gull bore away her master on the wind.

  Hal watched him go until the swells of the ocean intervened and he lost sight of the burning ship. Then a freak wave lifted him and the child high. The Gull was a league off, and at that instant the flames must have reached her powder magazine for she blew up with a devastating roar, and Hal felt the waters constrict his chest as the force of the explosion was transmitted through them. He watched still as burning timbers were hurled high into the night sky then fell to quench in the dark waters. Darkness and silence descended again.

  There was neither sight nor sign of the Golden Bough in the night.

  The child was weeping piteously, and Hal had no word of Geez to comfort him, so he held his head clear and spoke to him in English. "There's a good strong lad. You have to be brave, for you are born an Emperor, and I know for certain that an Emperor never cries." But Hal's boots and sodden clothing were drawing him down, and he had to swim hard to resist. He kept the two of them afloat for the rest of that long night, but in the dawn he knew that he was near the end of his strength and the child was shivering and whimpering softly in his arms. "Not long now, Iyasu, and it will be bright day," he croaked through his salt-scalded throat, but he knew that neither of them could last that long.

  "Gundwane!" He heard a well-beloved voice call to him, but he knew it was delirium and he laughed aloud. "Don't play tricks on me now," he said, "I do not have the stomach for it. Let me be in peace."

  Then, out of the darkness, he saw a shape emerge, heard the splash of oars pulling hard towards him, and the voice called again, "Gundwane!"

  "Aboli! his voice cracked. "I am here!" Those great black hands reached down and seized him, lifted him and the child over the side of the longboat. As soon as he was aboard Hal looked about him. With all her lanterns lit, the Golden Bough lay hove to half a league across the water but Judith Nazet sat before him in the stern sheets and she took the child from Hal and wrapped him in her cloak. She crooned to Iyasu and spoke soothingly to him in Geez, while the crew pulled back towards the ship. Before they reached the GoLden Bough Iyasu was asleep in her arms.

  "The Tabernacle?" Hal asked Aboli hoarsely. "Is it safe?" "It is in your cabin,"Aboli assured him, and then dropped his voice. "All of this is as your father foretold. At last the stars must set you free, for you have fulfilled the prophecy."

  Hal felt a deep sense of Mfilment come over him, and the desperate weariness slid from his shoulders like a discarded mantle, He felt light and free as though released from some long, onerous penance. He looked across at Judith, who had been watching him. There was something in her dark gaze that he could not fathom, but she dropped her eyes before he could read it clearly. Hal wanted to move closer to her, to touch her, speak to her and tell her about these strange, powerful feelings that possessed him, but four ranks of rowers separated them in the small, crowded boat.

  As they approached the Golden Bough her crew were in the rigging and they cheered him as the longboat latched onto her chains. Aboli offered Hal a hand to help him climb the ladder to the deck but Hal ignored it and went up alone. He paused as he saw the long line of canvas shrouded corpses laid out in the waist, and the terrible damage that the Gull's gunfire had wrought to his ship. But this was not the time to brood on that, he thought. They would send the dead men over side and mourn them later, but now was the hour of victory. Instead he looked around the grinning faces of his crew. "Well, you ruffians paid out the Buzzard and his cutthroats in a heavier coin than they bargained for. Mister Tyler, break out the rum barrel and give a double ration to every hand aboard to toast the Buzzard on his way to hell. Then set a course back to Mitsiwa roads."

  He took the child from Judith Nazet's arms and carried him down to the stern cabin. He laid him on the bunk, and turned to Judith who stood close beside him. "He is a sturdy lad, and has come to little harm. We should let him sleep."

  "Yes" she said quietly, looking up at him with that same inscrutably dark gaze. Then she took his hand and led him to the curtained alcove where the Tabernacle of Mary stood.

  "Will you pray with me, El Tazar?" she asked, and they knelt together.

  "We thank you, Lord, for sparing the life of our Emperor, your tiny servant, Iyasu. We thank you for delivering him from the wicked hands of the blasphemer. We ask your blessing upon his arms in the conflict that lies ahead. When the victory is won, we beseech you, Lord, to grant him a long and peaceful reign. Make him a wise and gentle monarch. For thy name's sake, Amen!"

  "Amen!" Hal echoed, and made to rise, but she restrained him with a hand on his arm.

  "We thank you also, Lord God, for sending to us your good and faithful Henry Courtney, without whose valour and selfless service the godless would have triumphed. May he be fully rewarded by the gratitude of all the people of Ethiopia, and by the love and admiration that your servant, Judith Nazet, has conceived towards him."

  Hal felt the shock of her words reverberate through his whole body and turned to look at her, but her eyes were closed. He thought that he had misheard her, but then her grip on his arm tightened. She stood and drew him up with her.

  Still without looking at him she led him out of t
he main cabin to the small adjoining one, closed the door and bolted it.

  "Your clothes are wet," she said, and, like a handmaiden, began to undress him. Her movements were calm and slow. She touched his chest when it was bared and ran her long brown fingers down his flanks. She knelt before him to loosen his belt and peel down his breeches. When he was completely naked she stared at his manhood with a dark profound gaze, but without touching him there. She rose to her feet, took his hand and led him to the hard wooden bunk. He tried to pull her down beside him, but she pushed away his hands.

  Standing before him she began to undress. She unlaced the chain-mail shirt, which fell to the deck around her feet. Beneath the heavy, masculine, warlike garb, her body was a paradox of femininity. Her skin was a translucent amber. Her breasts were small, but the nipples were hard, round and dark red as ripe berries. Her lean hips were sculpted into the sweet sweep of her waist. The bush of curls that covered her mount of Venus was crisp and a lustrous black.

  At last she came to where he lay, and stooped over and kissed deeply into his mouth. Then she gave an urgent little cry and with a lithe movement fell upon him. He was astonished by the strength and suppleness of her body as he reached up and cleaved to her.

  In the late afternoon of that hot, dreamlike day, they were aroused by the crying of the child in the cabin next door. Judith sighed but rose immediately. While she dressed she watched him as though she wished to remember every detail of his face and body. Then, as she laced her armour she came to stand over him, "Yes, I do love you. But, in the same fashion as he chose you, God has singled me out for a special task. I must see the boy Emperor safely installed upon the throne of Prester John in Aksurn." She was silent a while longer, then said softly, "If I kiss you again, I may lose my resolve. Goodbye, Henry Courtney. I wish with all my heart that I were a common maid and that it could have been otherwise." She strode to the door and went to wait upon her King.

  Hal anchored off the beach in Mitsiwa roads and lowered the longboat. Reverently Daniel Fisher placed the Tabernacle of Mary on its floorboards. Judith Nazet, in full armour and war helmet, stood in the bows holding the hand of the little boy beside her. Hal took the tiller and ten seamen rowed them in through the low surf towards the beach.

  Bishop Fasilides and fifty war captains waited for them on the red sands. Ten thousand warriors lined the cliffs above. As they recognized their general and their monarch, they began to cheer and the cheering swept away across the plain, until it was carried by fifty thousand voices to echo along the desert hills.

  Those regiments that had lost heart and were already on the road back to the mountains and the far interior, believing themselves deserted by their General and their Emperor, heard the sound and turned back. Rank upon rank, column upon column, a mighty confluence, the hoofs of their horses raising a tall cloud of red dust, their weapons sparkling in the sunlight and their voices swelling the triumphant chorus, they came pouring back out of the hills.

  Fasilides came forward to greet lyasu, as he stepped ashore, hand in hand with Judith. The fifty captains knelt in the sand, raised their swords and called down God's blessings upon him. Then they crowded forward and competed fiercely for the honour of bearing the Tabernacle of Mary upon their shoulders. Singing a battle hymn, they wound in procession up the cliff path.

  Judith Nazet mounted her black stallion with its golden chest armour and its crest of ostrich feathers. She wheeled the horse and urged him, rearing and prancing, to where Hal stood at the water's edge.

  "If the battle goes with us, the pagan will try to escape by sea. Visit the wrath and the vengeance of Almighty God upon him with your fair ship," she ordered. "If the battle goes against us, have the Golden Bough waiting here at this place to take the Emperor to safety."

  "I will be here waiting for you, General Nazet." Hal looked up at her and tried to give the words a special emphasis.

  She leaned down from the saddle and her eyes were dark and bright behind the steel nose-piece of her helmet, but he could not be sure whether the brightness was warrior ferocity or the tears of the lost lover.

  "I will wish all the days of my life that it could have been otherwise, El Tazar." She straightened up, wheeled the stallion away and went up the cliff path. The Emperor Iyasu turned in Bishop Fasilides" arms and waved back at Hal. He called something in Geez, and his high, piping voice carried down faintly to where Hal stood at the water's edge, but he understood not a word of it.

  He waved back and shouted, "You too, lad! You too!" The Golden Bough put out to sea and, beyond the fifty-fathom line with their heads bared in the stark African sunlight, they committed their dead to the sea. There were forty-three in those canvas shrouds, men of Wales and Devon and the mysterious lands along the Zambere River, all comrades now for ever.

  Then Hal ran the ship back into the shallow protected waters where he put every man to work repairing the battle damage and recharging the powder magazine with the munitions that General Nazet sent out from the shore.

  On the third morning he woke in the darkness to the sound of the guns. He went on deck immediately. Aboli was standing by the lee rail. "It has begun, Gundwane. The General has pitted her army against El Grang in the final battle."

  They stood together at the rail and looked towards the dark shore, where the far hills were lit by the hellish flashes of the battlefield and a vast pall of dust and smoke climbed slowly into the windless sky and billowed out into the anvil shape of a tall tropical thunderhead.

  "If El Grang is beaten, he will try to escape with all his army across the sea to Arabia," Hal told Ned Tyler and Aboli, as they listened to the ceaseless pandemonium of the cannon. "Weigh anchor and put the ship on a southerly course. We will go down to meet the fugitives as they try to escape from Adulis Bay."

  It was past noon when the Golden Bough took up her station off the mouth of the bay and shortened sail. The sound of the guns never ceased and Hal climbed to the masthead and focused his telescope on the wide plain beyond Zulla where the two great hosts were locked in the death struggle.

  Through the curtains of dust and smoke he could make out the tiny shapes of the horsemen as they charged and counter-charged, wraithlike in the dust of their own hoofs. He saw the long flashes of the great guns, pale red in the sunlight, and the snaking regiments of foot-soldiers winding through the red fog like dying serpents, their spearheads glistening like the reptiles" scales.

  Slowly the battle rolled towards the shoreline and Hal saw a charge of cavalry sweep along the top of the cliffs and tear into a loose, untidy formation of infantry. The sabres rose and fell and the foot-soldiers scattered before them. Men began to hurl themselves from the cliffs into the sea below.

  "Who are they?" Hal fretted. "Whose horses are those?" And then through the lens he made out the white cross of Ethiopia at the head of the mass of horsemen as they raced on towards Zutla.

  "Nazet has beaten them," said Aboli. "El Grang's army is in rout!"

  "Put a leadsman to take soundings, Mister Tyler. Take us in closer."

  The Golden Bough glided silently into the mouth of the bay, cruising only a cable's length offshore. From the masthead Hal watched the dun clouds of war roll ponderously towards the beach, and the rabble of El Grang's defeated army streaming back before the Ethiopian cavalry squadrons.

  They threw down their weapons and stumbled down to the water's edge to find any vessel to take them off, A motley armada of dhows of every size and condition, packed with fugitives, set out from the beaches around the blazing port of Zulla towards the opening of the bay.

  "Sweet heavens!" laughed Big Daniel. "They are so thick upon the water that a man might cross from one side of the bay to the other over their crowded hulls without wetting his feet."

  "Run out your guns, please, Master Daniel, and let us see if we can wet more than their feet for them," Hal ordered. The Golden Bough ploughed into this vast fleet and the little boats tried to flee, but she overhauled them effortlessly and her guns b
egan to thunder. One after the other they were shattered and capsized, and their cargoes of exhausted, defeated troops hurled into the water. Their armour bore them down swiftly.

  It was such a terrible massacre that the gunners no longer cheered as they ran out the guns, but served them in grim silence. Hal walked along the batteries, and spoke to them sternly. "I know how you feel, lads, but if you spare them now, you may have to fight them again tomorrow, and who can say that they will give you quarter if you ask for it then?"