The Tiger's Prey

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘… in High Weald,’ said Francis.

  Tom gazed at the Neptune sword in the painting, the soft glow of the sapphire in the canvas. Frustration boiled inside him, to be confronted with the legacy that had been torn from him. As soon as he had rescued Sarah, he would return to Brinjoan and find the man who had the sword.

  But that was for another time. He put the thought aside. Francis had already begun to search Guy’s desk. He pried open drawers with his dagger, scattering papers to the floor. ‘The key must be somewhere.’

  Berry stared out of the window. ‘We do not have much time. They are bringing the fire under control.’

  Tom heard him. He knew he had to act. But the picture hypnotized him. To find his father and the sword here, in Guy’s office, brought such a collision of memories it left him dizzy.

  But he could not linger. Reluctantly, he tore his eyes away from the painting – and, as he did so, noticed something. He stepped up to it and ran his hand along the side of the heavy gilt frame. Two hard lumps bulged out of the line of the wood.

  ‘Hinges,’ he exclaimed. He felt the other side, running his knife up the crack between the frame and the wall. Halfway up, the blade caught.

  ‘There must be some kind of lock or mechanism.’ Tom jiggled the knife, prying and twisting to force the latch.

  Something gave with a crack. The knife blade fell and struck the floor, an inch from his foot.

  Francis had come up behind him. ‘Will it open?’ he asked.

  Tom showed him the broken hilt of his knife. ‘The lock is stronger than my blade.’

  He tried to work his fingers into the gap, but it was too narrow. Francis stood back and studied the frame.

  ‘Does Guy have a pen-knife or a letter-opener?’ Tom called to Merridew.

  Francis reached forward and took a firm grip on a piece of the frame’s gilded moulding. He twisted it in a half circle. With barely a whisper, the frame swung out on its hinges.

  Tom gave Francis an admiring look. ‘That was smartly done.’

  They all crowded round. Behind the painting a recess opened in the wall, piled with ledgers and papers. Tom took them out one by one, passing them back to Berry and Francis.

  Berry turned the pages in one of the books. ‘These are Guy’s secret accounts,’ he said in wonder. ‘All the transactions he makes to his own profit, away from the eyes of his masters in Leadenhall Street.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ said Tom in excitement. ‘This must be what we need.’ He held up a brass key, with many teeth that bespoke an intricate lock. ‘Now to find the vault.’

  ‘I can take you there,’ said Berry. ‘If we can find a way past the guards.’

  By the noises outside, Tom could tell the fire was coming under control. Soon the garrison would return to their duties. Tom took the pistol from his belt, and wished he had a better plan.

  ‘We may have to—’

  The door to the office slammed open. A dozen guards in the red coats and green facings of the Bombay army burst in. Before anyone could react, they made a line across the front of the room and levelled their muskets at Tom and his companions.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ bellowed their sergeant. ‘Nobody moves until Governor Courtney arrives.’

  All four men stopped where they stood. Looking at the sepoys, Tom saw they had not been called from fighting the fire. There was no soot on their faces or their gleaming white cross belts, no sense of haste or surprise. They had been waiting for him.

  Despair crawled down Tom’s spine. He glanced at Berry.

  ‘Did you betray us?’

  But one look at the fearful shock on Berry’s face told him it could not be true. He was as surprised as the rest of them – and even more terrified.

  It did not matter now. However Guy had learned it, he had them trapped. And he was coming.

  Tom started to back away. He reached his hands behind him and felt the pistol, tucked in his belt in the small of his back.

  ‘Stand your ground,’ the sergeant roared. Sweat beaded on his brow. He would not want to open fire before Guy arrived to see his prisoners – not unless he had to. Tom edged back another foot.

  The others took their cue from him and retreated in step. The sergeant looked angrily from one to the other. ‘If you move another inch, I will order my men to open fire and Governor Courtney’s orders be damned.’

  Tom kept his eyes locked on the sergeant’s, even as he moved again. Now he was behind Guy’s desk, almost against the back windows. The sergeant relaxed a fraction with the knowledge there was nowhere else for Tom to go.

  ‘Governor Courtney has a chamber in his dungeon for men like you,’ he told Tom. ‘By the time he has finished with you in there, you would eat your own shit if he ordered it.’

  Outside the door, a heavy footfall sounded on the stair. The sepoys stiffened, aiming their muskets straighter.

  ‘They are going to fire in a moment,’ Tom told his companions. ‘Be ready.’

  ‘The Devil you say,’ the sergeant snarled. ‘I would not give you so easy a death.’

  The footsteps reached the top of the stairs.

  Tom glanced at the others. What he intended was a desperate plan, but it was his only hope. If Guy caught them, he would visit a lifetime of hatred upon them, and Tom most of all. Worse, it would kill all hope of ever rescuing Sarah and Agnes – unless, in the torments of the dungeon, Guy discovered who they really were. He might ransom them purely so he could use them to torture Tom.

  And I will not kill Guy, Tom promised himself. I will not repeat the mistake I made with Billy.

  The feet approached the door: the ponderous gait of a heavy man in no hurry at all. He is savouring his victory, Tom thought. He edged the pistol out of the belt, trying to hide the movement. He would only have one shot.

  ‘Are they all there?’ Guy’s voice boomed down the hallway. ‘This is an acquaintance I have long waited to renew.’

  At the sound of the voice, Tom almost lost his nerve. The last time he heard it he had been sailing out of Zanzibar harbour in a small felucca, clutching Sarah, with a hundred of Guy’s musketeers firing on them. Guy’s parting words were still seared in his memory.

  One of these days you will pay what you owe in full. I will see to that. I swear it.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Tom. In a single, fluid movement, he raised the pistol and fired straight into the sergeant’s heart.

  The response was almost instantaneous. The sepoys were already on edge. At the sound of the pistol shot, they all fired their muskets in a furious fusillade.

  Tom had expected it. Even as he fired the pistol, he had already started to dive behind the desk. He landed on the floor as the musket balls sailed harmlessly over his head. To the deafening report of the guns was added the sound of glass shattering, as the balls struck the long windows overlooking the bay.

  Smoke choked the room. Tom shouted for Francis and Merridew, but with the shots ringing in his ears he could hardly hear himself speak. A figure came out of the smoke – Francis – bleeding from a cut on his face where a piece of glass had struck him, but otherwise unhurt. Merridew followed.

  Tom pointed to the window. He charged towards it and jumped, spinning in mid air so that his back went through first. The jagged glass tore at his shirt, but only for a split second before his momentum carried him through and out into mid air.

  When they had sailed into the bay that morning, Tom had studied the fort carefully. Now, the attention repaid itself. He had noted the high windows facing the harbour, and assumed that Guy would place himself where he could observe all traffic. But between the windows and the harbour stood the castle wall, low enough that it did not impede Guy’s view from the third storey, but high enough that the rampart ran only a few feet below the windowsill.

  Tom landed there in a shower of broken glass. He started his feet, and was promptly knocked down again as Francis came down on top of him. Merridew landed beside them.

  ‘Berry?’ Tom mouth
ed. Francis drew a line across his throat. Berry had reacted a moment too late, and paid the price.

  Tom glanced up at the window. Smoke billowed out; he heard shouts, then a shot. Without the sergeant to keep discipline, the sepoys must be shooting at shadows – or each other. But they would not be deterred for long. Tom looked along the wall for a stair or a ladder.

  They were trapped. Jealous of his privacy, fearful of being overheard by a sentry under his windows, Guy had caused this stretch of wall to be bricked up at either end. There was no way through.

  From above, Tom heard Guy bellowing orders. If the sepoys reached the window and looked down, they would find Tom and his friends trapped like rats in a barrel.

  ‘Into the sea,’ Tom shouted. ‘It is our only chance.’

  He clambered onto the embrasure between two battlements. Below, white surf frothed on the rocks where the sea lapped the foot of the wall. He did not know these waters. How quickly did they drop off?

  ‘I command you to halt,’ shouted a voice from the window. Tom did not even bother to look. He knew whose it was. He crouched, tensed his arms against the battlements on either side, then leaped, springing as far from the wall as he could.

  He fell for what seemed an age. The moment he hit the water, he was kicking and flailing upwards, terrified of breaking his legs on the submerged rocks. He broke the surface, unharmed, just in time to see Francis splash down behind him.

  Merridew followed. Fortunately, he was a strong swimmer, and together the three men kicked out into the bay. The tropical night had fallen sudden and complete, hiding them from the guards in the castle. Occasional musket shots sounded from the walls, but none came anywhere near them.

  Ahead, Tom heard the squeak of rowlocks. He pushed his head well out of the water and whistled the first few bars of ‘Spanish Ladies’.

  Ana’s voice came straight back out of the darkness. ‘What happened? Are you hurt?’

  Tom felt giddy with relief. According to their plan, Ana and the other survivors from the Kestrel were meant to stand off in the harbour until Tom and the others had stolen the gold from the strongroom. On a signal, the boat would have come in to the water gate in the castle walls and they would have made their escape. But Ana had heard the shots, and brought the boat in sooner.

  She steered the boat towards them. Tom let Francis and Merridew go aboard, then heaved himself over the gunwale. ‘Guy knew we were coming.’

  ‘Did Berry betray you?’ asked Ana.

  ‘If he did, he paid for it with his life.’ Tom shook his head to clear the water from his ears. ‘But I think otherwise. It was folly to think we could come to Bombay, right into the heart of Guy’s dominion, without him hearing of it somehow.’

  Tom looked back. The castle hid the pier from sight, but he did not doubt it would be busy. ‘Guy knows we went into the water. He will have boats looking for us, even if only to gloat over our corpses. We must make our escape while we can.’

  ‘What about the gold?’ said Francis.

  ‘Perhaps another time …’ said Tom. But even as he spoke, he knew it was futile. Guy would be waiting, and every man in Bombay would be watching for Tom and Francis. Even if they did penetrate the fort again, there would doubtless be a whole battalion of sepoys guarding the strongroom now.

  The boat had a small sail. Merridew and the men raised it, catching the evening breeze that blew off the sea.

  ‘We could try to rendezvous with Dorian and Aboli,’ suggested Ana. ‘If they have had a profitable voyage, they might have the gold to pay Angria’s ransom.’

  ‘That could take months,’ said Tom. ‘We do not have a ship to reach the Laquedivas Islands, and even if we did, we are later than we arranged. Dorian might have given us up and sailed for Cape Town already.’

  ‘Then what can we do?’ blurted Francis.

  Tom looked out across the water. Even now, the fire in the castle was not wholly tamed. It smouldered in the courtyard, filling the sky with a red glow that silhouetted the Governor’s house. Ahead, across the channel, the sea lapped the mangrove swamps and open beaches of the coast of mainland India. Somewhere along that coast, Sarah and Agnes were waiting for him to save them. He could not fail them.

  ‘We cannot buy their freedom,’ he mused. ‘Therefore, there is only one alternative.’

  ‘Free them by force?’ said Francis incredulously. ‘But Angria’s fort is impregnable.’

  Tom sat forward on the thwart. ‘Is it? Everybody says so, but how can they be sure? It is rumoured to be impregnable, so no one ever assaults it. No one captures it, so men continue to insist it is impregnable. The reputation sustains itself. But I have never yet seen a fortress that could not be taken.’

  ‘Maybe if we had an army at our backs,’ said Francis doubtfully.

  Tom clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Exactly.’

  He took the tiller from Ana, and steered the ship towards the dark Indian shore. Francis stared at him.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To find ourselves an army.’

  Though it was always night in the caverns beneath Tiracola castle, Lydia Foy had learned to infer the passage of time and the rhythm of the days by the faint sounds that reached her sharp ears. Even through the massive stone walls she could differentiate between the ebbs and flows of the castle coming to life, the activity of the days and the long stillness of the night hours.

  Now the castle was asleep. By the light that seeped in from a distant lamp, Lydia saw the two sisters lying together, Sarah with her head resting on Agnes’ chest. By now the bulge of Sarah’s belly was obvious, even in the gloom: she could not pretend to hide it any longer. Both women slept, breathing softly.

  It was time for Lydia to act now. She lifted her skirts and wrapped them around her manacles so that the chains would not rattle when she moved. Neither Agnes nor Sarah stirred when Lydia padded through the cave to the gate that barred the entrance to the dungeons. A lamp hung from a bracket on the outer wall. Through the grille, she saw the guard slumped on the stairs, snoring.

  She found a small pebble on the floor and threw it at him. It struck him on the forehead, and he started with a grunt; his hand jerked to the pistol musket propped on the wall beside him. He scowled at Lydia and waved her away with the gun, but with his other hand he rubbed his forehead. Lydia refused to move.

  ‘I must speak to your captain,’ she said in halting Portuguese.

  The guard inspected his fingertips for traces of blood, ignoring her. She could not tell if he had understood or not; she tried the few Indian words she knew. ‘Subadar? Jagirdar? Havaldar?’

  The guard shook his head and snarled at her persistence.

  Lydia reached a hand under her skirt. The guard’s expression changed to one of interest. Lydia felt around between her legs. The guard licked his lips and rose to his feet. He came to lean against the gate from where he could get a better view.

  Lydia brought her hand out from under her clothing with a bright golden pagoda held between her fingers. She had secreted the coin inside herself when capture by the pirates seemed inevitable. She wiped it on her skirt, and then proffered it to the guard. He grabbed for it, but Lydia snatched it back through the iron grille. The guard glared at her in frustration.

  ‘Havaldar,’ Lydia repeated. And then, in Portuguese, ‘I have something he must hear.’

  The guard hesitated, but the lure of her gold was irresistible. He took a ring of keys from the wall and unlocked the gate.

  He held out his hand for the coin.

  ‘Havaldar,’ Lydia insisted, keeping the coin clutched behind her back.

  The guard did not insist. He led Lydia up many flights of stairs. The construction of the walls changed from hewn rock to slabs of cut stone. The lamps were hung at more frequent intervals. Tapestries and cloths began to appear on the walls, so ornate and beautiful that they could only be plunder. Despite her predicament, Lydia found herself valuing them with a knowledgeable eye.

  Finally t
hey reached the guardroom, where half a dozen or so men were playing dice. Their captain had angry words for the guard when he saw Lydia, but she held herself erect and looked him firmly in the eye.

  ‘Can you understand me?’ she said in Portuguese. ‘I have important news for your leader.’

  The captain shrugged. Obviously he did not understand – and he did not care. He said something to his men, who laughed unpleasantly and the captain fondled his own crotch. Lydia subdued her own unease, and stamped her foot.

  ‘Does anyone here speak English?’ she said in a show of anger. ‘I have intelligence your captain must hear.’ She knew they would not understand her words, but hoped they could read the sense of them.

  The captain squinted at her and nodded. Then he snapped an order at his underlings.

  Two of his men sprang to their feet and grabbed Lydia’s arms. She started to scream, but the third man stepped behind her and clamped his hand over her mouth. The captain drew the curved dagger from his belt and held it to her throat.

  He ran the point of the knife down inside the neck of her dress. She went still, as she felt the steel cold against her skin. Then he drew the blade sharply downwards, her bodice fell open as far as her waist. Her breasts bulged out, heavy and pendulous. Her arms were pinned behind her, she could not cover herself. She stared at the captain, trying to shame him with her gaze.

  He smiled and ran the knife back into its sheath on his belt. Then he reached out and took one of her breasts in each cupped hand. He weighed them as though they were ripe papayas. Then he pinched one of her nipples so sharply that she winced. The captain reached down to his own crotch; and despite herself Lydia’s eyes followed his hand down as he began to massage himself. She could see the bulge of his cock swelling and stiffening under his dhoti.

  Lydia rocked back in the arms of the men who held her from behind. Instinctively they pushed her forward again, and she used the impetus to drive her right knee up into the captain’s crotch with all the savagery of her anger and outrage.