Monsoon

by Wilbur Smith

  She was not the only square-rigged ship in the bay: there were four others, one larger and three smaller than the Minotaur. Dorian reasoned that these must also have been captured by the corsair from the convoys of the European fleets trading in the Orient. Five great ships loaded with precious cargo was an enormous booty. No wonder the name of al-Auf was so feared across the length and breadth of this ocean.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a cry of ‘Ready about!’ from Yusuf, the captain at the tiller, and the rush of bare feet along the deck as the crew leaped to tack the dhow. The long yard was run back then forward on to the opposite side of the mast. The single sail filled on the starboard tack and the captain steered into the narrow passage through the reef that guarded the entrance to the bay.

  ‘Take al-Amhara into the forward cabin. Hide him from the eyes of the watchers on the walls of the fort,’ Yusuf shouted, and two of the men took Dorian’s arms, led him gently to the small cabin on the foredeck and pushed him into it. Though the door was barred, there were portholes on both sides of the cabin. Dorian peered out: he had a good view of the bay as the dhow ran in.

  The channel took a dog-leg turn through the coral, then passed close under the walls of the fort. Dorian looked up at the cannon that poked through the embrasures and saw the brown faces of the gunners behind them. The faint blue smoke from their slow-match drifted along the top of the stone wall, and the faint welcoming cries of the garrison were answered eagerly by the crew of the dhow. The captain dropped anchor close to the stern of the Breath of Allah and called across the calm, clear waters to one of the skiffs drawn up on the beach below the fort. Three men paddled it out and tied up alongside the dhow. There was a long, heated argument among the crew, which Dorian could follow through the thin wooden partition of the cabin, as to who would accompany the captain and al-Amhara ashore. Finally Yusuf settled it by picking out three men and ordering them down into the skiff to act as an escort. Then he came into the cabin, and displayed his yellow teeth in that dreadful false smile. ‘We are going ashore to meet al-Auf.’

  Dorian stared at him dumbly, still giving no indication of having understood, so Yusuf signed and gestured his intention. ‘We must cover your beautiful hair. I wish it to astound al-Auf.’ He took down a grubby grey robe from a wooden peg beside the door, and signed for Dorian to don it. Though it stank of stale sweat and rotten fish, Dorian obeyed. Yusuf arranged the hood of the robe to cover his head and shield his face, then took Dorian’s arm and hustled him down into the waiting skiff.

  They were rowed to the beach, where they climbed out onto crunching white coral sand. The three Arabs closed in around Dorian, and Yusuf led them up into the palm grove and along the path towards the walls of the fort. They passed through a small cemetery in the midst of the grove. Some of the tombs it contained were ancient, the coral plaster cracked and peeling from their walls in chunks. The Christian crosses at the head were broken and fallen. At the far end there were newer graves, without headstones, the mounds of freshly turned soil marked only by white flags on short poles, covered with prayers and quotations in Arabic script. The grave flags fluttered in the streaming winds of the monsoon.

  They left the cemetery and the path was winding through the grove towards the fort when abruptly they stepped into another clearing. Dorian stopped in his tracks with shock and fear: naked human bodies were hanging on tripods of rough timber along both sides of the track. This was clearly an execution ground.

  Some of the victims on the tripods were still alive, They were breathing, making small painful movements. One stiffened his whole body and groaned loudly before slumping back against his bonds. Many of the others were dead, and some had been so for several days, their features frozen in the rictus of their last agony, their bellies bloated with gas, and their skins scorched pink and raw by the sun. All of them, both living and dead, had been cruelly tortured. Dorian stared in horror at one who had charred and blackened stumps instead of hands or feet. Others had empty sockets in their faces where their eyes had been put out with heated irons. Tongues had been hacked from mouths and flies swarmed in a blue cloud down gaping throats. Some of those still living called hoarsely for water, and still others called for God. One watched Dorian with huge dark eyes as he passed, repeating, in a monotonous whisper, ‘God is great, God is great.’ His tongue was so blackened and swollen with thirst that the words were barely audible.

  One of Dorian’s guards laughed and stepped off the path. He looked up at the dying man, and told him, ‘On your lips the name of Allah is blasphemy!’ He drew his curved dagger and, with the other hand, reached out and grasped the shrivelled bunch of the dying man’s genitals. With a single stroke of the blade he severed them, and thrust them into the victim’s open mouth. ‘That will keep you quiet!’ He chuckled. The tormented man showed no sign of pain, his anguish was already past bearing.

  ‘You were always the buffoon, Ishmael,’ Yusuf reprimanded him prissily. ‘Come, now, you are wasting time with your clowning.’

  Dorian’s guards dragged him on until they reached the doorway in the rear wall of the fort. It stood wide open and a few robed guards squatted in the shade of the arch, their jezails stacked against the wall.

  Tom had always impressed upon Dorian the need to notice and remember every detail of any new surroundings. His hood hid Dorian’s face but did not cover his eyes, and he saw that the main doors of the fort were ancient and rotted, the hinges almost eaten away by rust, but that the walls were very thick. They would be proof even against the heaviest bombardment.

  The guards were well acquainted with the dhow captain: they did not bother to rise to their feet but exchanged the customary florid greetings with him, then waved the party through. They entered the courtyard of the fort, and again Dorian looked around him keenly. He saw that the original buildings must be very old. The coral stone blocks were weathered and, in some places, had tumbled down. However, recent repairs had been made and even now a gang of masons was working on the staircase that led up to the battlements. The old roofs had been replaced with a thatch of palm leaves that were still only half dried. He estimated that close to two hundred men were loitering in the shade along the base of the walls. Some had spread their prayer-mats and were stretched out upon them. Others were gathered in small groups, playing dice or sharing tall hookahs, chatting together as they cleaned their muskets or whetted the edges of their scimitars. Some called the traditional greeting: ‘Salaam aliekum!’ which Dorian’s captors returned, ‘Aliekum ya salaam.’

  Under a thatched lean-to with open sides, which stood in the centre of the expansive courtyard, was a line of cooking-fires. Veiled women were working over them, baking bread on the iron griddles or stirring the contents of the black, three-legged pots that stood over the coals. They looked up as Dorian and his guards passed but their eyes were inscrutable behind their veils and they offered no greeting.

  There were rooms built into the outer walls of the fort, their doors opening out into the courtyard. Some were being used as storerooms or powder magazines, for there were guards at each. Yusuf spoke to his men: ‘Wait for me here. Perhaps you can beg food from the women to fill your ever empty bellies.’ He took Dorian firmly by the arm and dragged him towards the doorway in the centre of the fortifications.

  Two guards barred their way. ‘What is your business, Yusuf?’ one demanded. ‘What brings you uninvited to the door of Musallim bin-Jangiri?’

  They argued for a while, Yusuf protesting his right of access, and the guard exerting his power to deny it to him. Then, at last, the guard shrugged. ‘You have chosen an inappropriate hour. The master has already ordered two men to their deaths this very day. Now he confers with the traders from the mainland. But you have ever been a reckless man, Yusuf, one who likes to swim with the tiger shark. Enter at your peril.’ He lowered his sword and stood aside with a smirk.

  Yusuf took a firmer grip on Dorian’s arm, but his fingers trembled. He drew the boy through the door into the room
beyond and hissed in his ear, ‘Down! Down on your belly!’

  Dorian feigned ignorance of his meaning, and resisted the man’s efforts to pull him to the floor. They struggled for a while at the threshold, then Yusuf released him and allowed him to remain standing while he crawled across the room towards the group of four men seated at the far end.

  Still on his feet, Dorian tried to quell his uneasiness and gazed about him. At a glance he saw that although the walls of the room were of raw, unplastered coral stone blocks they had been covered with rugs of bright colours and pleasing designs. The other furnishings were sparse: the rough floor was well swept but bare, except for a single low table and an array of cushions on which the four men sat. They watched with apparent disdain as Yusuf crept towards them, chanting a litany of praises and apologies. ‘Great lord! Beloved of Allah! Sword of Islam! Slayer of the infidel! Peace be upon you!’

  Dorian recognized the man who sat facing him. He had last seen him upon the quarterdeck of the Minotaur. He knew that he would never forget that face.

  Under a green turban, it seemed carved from teak or some other hard, unyielding material. The skin was drawn tightly over the skull so that the man’s cheekbones seemed too close to the surface. His brow was high and smooth, his nose narrow and bony. The beard that hung to his waist was groomed into a forked shape, and dyed with henna to a bright ginger hue, but streaks of grey showed through the dye. Under the drooping moustache his mouth was a thin, tight line.

  This lipless reptilian mouth opened now, and the voice that issued from it was soft and melodious, its gentleness given the lie by the cruel tar-black eyes above. ‘You must have good reason to disturb our deliberations,’ said al-Auf.

  ‘Mighty lord, I am a piece of camel dung drying in the sunshine of your countenance.’ Three times Yusuf touched the stone floor with his forehead.

  ‘That at least is true,’ al-Auf agreed.

  ‘I have brought you a great treasure, Beloved of the Prophet.’ Yusuf raised his head long enough to indicate Dorian.

  ‘A slave?’ al-Auf asked. ‘I have filled the markets of the world with slaves. You bring me one more?’

  ‘A lad,’ Yusuf confirmed.

  ‘I am no pederast,’ said al-Auf. ‘I prefer the honeypot to the dung-heap.’

  ‘A lad,’ jabbered Yusuf nervously. ‘But no ordinary lad, this.’ He pressed his forehead once more to the stones. ‘A golden boy, but more precious than gold.’

  ‘You speak in riddles and circles, thou son of a diseased forest hog.’

  ‘May I have your permission to display this treasure to your benevolent gaze, O mighty one? Then you will see the truth of what I tell you.’

  Al-Auf nodded and stroked his dyed beard. ‘Swiftly, then. Already I grow weary of your inanities.’

  Yusuf rose to his feet, but with his back bent almost double and his head bowed with deep respect. He took Dorian’s hand and pulled him forward. He was sweating with terror. ‘Do as I tell you now,’ he whispered ferociously, trying to cover his own fear, ‘or I will have you gelded and give you to my crew as their whore.’ He dragged Dorian to the centre of the room, and stood behind him. ‘Great lord, Musallim bin-Jangiri, I will show you something you have never seen before!’ He paused to let the anticipation build up and then, with a flourish, he drew back the hood that covered Dorian’s head. ‘Behold! The Crown of the Prophet, foretold in the prophecy!’

  The four seated men stared at Dorian in silence. By this time Dorian had become accustomed to this reaction from any Arab who looked upon him for the first time.

  ‘You have dyed his head with henna,’ al-Auf said at last, ‘as I have dyed my beard.’ But his voice was uncertain and his expression awed.

  ‘Not so, lord.’ Yusuf was gaining confidence. He had contradicted al-Auf without a qualm, a trespass for which many men had died. ‘It is God alone who has dyed his hair, just as he dyed the hair of Muhammad, his one true Prophet.’

  ‘Praise be to God,’ the others murmured automatically.

  ‘Bring him here!’ ordered al-Auf. Yusuf seized Dorian by the shoulder and almost yanked him off his feet in his eagerness to obey.

  ‘Gently!’ al-Auf cautioned him. ‘Treat him with care!’ Yusuf rejoiced in this reprimand for it showed that al-Auf had not rejected outright the validity of his claims for the slave-boy. He pulled Dorian forward more carefully and forced him to his knees in front of the corsair.

  ‘I am an Englishman.’ Unfortunately his childish voice quavered, robbing it of its force. ‘Keep your dirty bloodstained hands off me.’

  ‘The heart of a black-maned lion in an unweaned cub.’ Al-Auf nodded with approval. ‘But what did he say?’ No one could answer him, and al-Auf looked back at Dorian. ‘Do you speak Arabic, little one?’

  An angry retort in the same language rose to Dorian’s lips, but he fought it back and spoke in English. ‘You can go straight to hell, and give the devil my compliments when you get there.’ This was one of his father’s expressions and he felt his courage return. He tried to rise from his knees but Yusuf held him down.

  ‘He does not speak Arabic,’ said al-Auf, and there was a drop of disappointment in his tone. ‘That was part of the prophecy of the holy St Taimtaim, may his name be blessed for ever.’

  ‘He can be taught,’ Yusuf suggested, with a hint of desperation. ‘If you leave him with me I will have him quoting the whole of the Koran within a month.’

  ‘It is not the same.’ Al-Auf shook his head. ‘The prophecy is that the child would come from the sea wearing the red mantle of the Prophet on his head, and that he would speak the language of the Prophet.’ He stared at Dorian in silence. The unlikely proposition was dawning slowly upon Dorian that none of the Arabs had ever seen red hair in their lives. He was beginning to understand that they looked upon it as some sacred religious stigmata: they spoke of their Prophet Muhammad having the same colouring. He had a vague recollection of Alf Wilson also mentioning this during one of his long lectures on the beliefs of Islam. Obviously al-Auf had dyed his own beard in imitation of the Prophet.

  ‘Perhaps his hair is only cunningly dyed after all,’ al-Auf said gloomily. ‘If that is so,’ he scowled suddenly at Yusuf, ‘I will send both you and the child to the execution ground.’

  Dorian felt fresh terror choke his breathing at the thought. The memory of the tormented wretches on the tripods in the palm grove was sickeningly fresh in his mind.

  Yusuf was down on his knees once more, blabbering his innocence, and trying to kiss al-Auf’s feet. The corsair kicked him away and raised his voice. ‘Send for Ben Abram, the physician.’

  Within minutes a venerable Arab came hurrying to make his obeisance before al-Auf. He had a silver-white beard and brows. His skin was eggshell pale and his eyes bright and intelligent. Even al-Auf spoke to him in a kindly tone. ‘Examine this Frankish lad, old uncle. Is his hair a natural colour or has it been stained? Tell me if he is healthy and well formed.’

  The doctor’s hands on Dorian’s head were gentle but firm, and Dorian submitted to his touch with bad grace, holding his whole body stiff and uncompromising. Ben Abram rubbed the silky red locks between his fingers, making sharp little sucking sounds between his teeth. Then he parted the hair and examined Dorian’s scalp closely, turning his head to catch the light from the high, barred windows. He sniffed at his head, trying to detect any odour of chemicals or herbs. ‘I have never seen any like it in fifty years of medicine, not on man or woman, though I have heard of peoples in the north of Parthia who are crowned thus,’ Ben Abram said at last.

  ‘It is not dyed, then.’ Al-Auf sat forward on his cushions, his interest reawakening.

  ‘It is his natural colour,’ Ben Abram confirmed.

  ‘What of the rest of his body?’

  ‘We shall see. Tell him to disrobe.’

  ‘He does not speak the language of the Prophet. You must undress him yourself.’

  Even with Yusuf holding him down, they could not carry out the or
der. Dorian fought them like a cat being forced head first into a bucket of cold water. He clawed and kicked and bit, and in the end they had to call two guards from the door to restrain him. At last he stood naked before them, a guard holding each wrist to prevent Dorian cupping his hands over himself.

  ‘See the colour and texture of his skin,’ Ben Abram marvelled. ‘It is as beautiful as the finest white silk, the same as the hide of the Sultan’s stallion. It is without blemish. It complements the red of his hair exactly, and proves beyond the last doubt that what I say is correct. His colouring is natural.’

  Al-Auf nodded. ‘What of the rest of his body?’

  ‘Hold him!’ Ben Abram told the guards. The bite on his wrist was still bleeding. He reached out warily and began to palpate Dorian’s small white genitals. ‘His eggs have not yet descended into their pouch, but they are intact.’ He took the childish white penis between his fingers. ‘As you can see, he is not yet circumcised, but—’ He drew back Dorian’s foreskin and the pink cherry-top popped out.

  Dorian writhed in the grip of the guards and all his resolutions of silence were swept away by his shame and humiliation. ‘You heathen pig!’ he screamed in Arabic. ‘Take your filthy hands off my prick, or I swear to God I will kill you.’

  Al-Auf recoiled on his cushions, shock and religious awe suffusing his gaunt features. ‘He speaks! It is the prophecy!’

  ‘Allah is merciful! Praise His Glorious Name!’ the men on either side of him chorused. ‘It is the prophecy of St Taimtaim.’

  ‘Deck!’ Tom screamed from his perch high on the foremast, cupping both hands around his mouth against the wind. ‘Sail-oh!’

  ‘Where away?’ Ned Tyler hailed back.

  ‘Fine on the port bow. Two leagues distant.’

  Hal heard the shouts in his cabin, and jumped to his feet so vigorously that drops from the ink-pot splattered his chart. He wiped them away quickly and ran to the door. He came on deck in his shirtsleeves.

  ‘Masthead! What do you make of her?’ he called up.