Monsoon

by Wilbur Smith

  In the vault, the ceremonials of the Order had been set out in the crypt. The mosaic design on the floor was in the shape of the five-pointed star and in the centre were three bronze cauldrons containing the ancient elements of fire, earth and water. The flames from the brazier danced on the stone walls and cast weird shadow shapes in the corners beyond the lines of stone tombs.

  Hal’s chair stood ready to receive him at the door of the chapel. Once he was seated in it, his brother knights carried him down the steps into the vault and set down the chair in the centre of the pentacle, with the three cauldrons surrounding him.

  Tom, wearing the simple white robes of an acolyte, waited alone in the nave of the chapel above, praying before the altar in the light of the torches in their brackets set high on the walls. He could hear the voices of the knights murmuring and echoing softly from the vault below, as they opened the Lodge in the first degree. Then there was a heavy footstep on the stone stairs as the Earl of Exeter, Tom’s sponsor, came up to summon him.

  Tom followed him down the stairs, to where the other knights were waiting for him within the sacred circle. Their swords were drawn and they wore the gold rings and chains of their offices as Nautonnier knights, the navigators of the first degree of the Order. Tom knelt at the border of the pentacle and begged for entrance. ‘In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost!’

  ‘Who would enter the Lodge of the Temple of the Order of St George and the Holy Grail?’ his father challenged him, in a gusty voice, like a man saved from drowning.

  ‘A novice who presents himself for initiation to the mysteries of the Temple.’

  ‘Enter on peril of your eternal life,’ his father invited him, and Hal’s gentle tone made the warning more poignant. Tom rose to his feet and stepped over the mosaic marble pattern that marked the boundaries of the mystic circle. He had not expected to feel anything, but suddenly he shivered as though an enemy had marked his grave with the thrust of a sword into the earth.

  ‘Who sponsors this novice?’ Hal asked, in the same reedy voice. The Earl spoke up boldly. ‘I do.’

  Hal looked back at his son, and his mind wandered away to the hilltop in the savage, untamed land far below the equator where he had made his own vows so long ago. He looked out of the circle to the stone sarcophagus, which at last held his own father’s body. He smiled almost dreamily as he considered the continuity, the enchanted chain of the knighthood that linked one generation to the next. He felt his own mortality creeping towards him like a man-eating beast stalking him from the darkness. It will be easier to meet the dark one when I have placed the future firmly in the hands of my sons, he thought, and it seemed then that he could see that future merging with the past and evolving before his eyes. He saw shadowy figures he recognized: the enemies he had fought, the men and women he had loved and who were long dead, mingling with others whom he knew had not yet passed into the mist of days to come.

  The Earl reached out gently and placed a hand on Hal’s bowed shoulder to call him back to the present. Hal roused himself and looked at Tom again. ‘Who are you?’ He began the long catechism.

  ‘Thomas Courtney, son of Henry and of Margaret.’

  Hal felt the tears rise in his eyes at the mention of the woman he had loved so dearly. The melancholy was deep in his soul. He felt an exhaustion of the spirit, and he wanted to rest, but he knew he could not until he had completed the tasks appointed to him. He roused himself once more and offered Tom the blade of the blue Neptune sword, which he had inherited from his own father. The light of the torches danced on the gold inlay of the blade and glowed in the depths of the sapphire on the pommel. ‘I call on you to confirm the tenets of your faith upon this blade.’

  Tom touched the blade and began the recital: ‘These things I believe. That there is but one God in Trinity, the Father eternal, the Son eternal and the Holy Ghost eternal.’

  ‘Amen!’ said the Nautonnier knights together.

  The question and answer continued, while the torches guttered. Each question adumbrated the code of the Order, taken almost entirely from that of the Knights Templar.

  The catechism outlined the history of the Templars. It recalled how in the year 1312 the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon had been attacked and destroyed by the King of France, Philippe Le Bel, in connivance with his puppet Pope Clement V of Bordeaux. The Templars’ vast fortune in bullion and land was confiscated by the Crown, and their master was tortured and burned at the stake. However, warned by their allies, the Templar mariners slipped their moorings in the French Channel harbours and stood out to sea. They steered for England, and sought the protection of King Edward. Since then they had opened their Lodges in Scotland and England under new names, but with the basic tenets of the Order intact.

  At last all the questions had been asked and answered. Tom knelt, and the knights formed a circle around him. They laid one of their hands on his bowed head, the other on the hilt of the Neptune sword. ‘Thomas Courtney, we welcome you into the Grail Company, and we accept you as a brother knight of the Temple of the Order of St George and the Holy Grail.’

  They lifted him to his feet and one after the other embraced him. This was all part of the ancient ritual, but as Tom stooped to kiss his father, Hal departed from the time-honoured form. He placed the hilt of the Neptune sword in Tom’s hand and closed his fingers over it. ‘It is yours now, my son. Wield it with courage and honour.’

  Tom knew that the beautiful blade was one of his father’s most prized possessions. He could find no words then to express his gratitude but he stared deep into Hal’s eyes. He saw that his father indeed understood the silent message of love and duty he was trying to send him.

  After the funeral guests and the four knights of the Order had left, High Weald seemed silent and deserted. Alice spent most of her days in her private apartment. Tom saw her once, riding alone on the moors, and though he watched her from a distance he remembered the consequences of their last brief encounter and did not approach her.

  William was engrossed in the management of the estate, and passed his days at the offices of the tin mine, conferring with his steward, or riding around the estate making unannounced appearances, with the object of catching malingerers and wrong-doers among his servants. Misdemeanours were punished with the whip and instant expulsion from the estate. He returned to the house in the evenings to spend an hour with his father before the punctual eight o’clock supper. He ate alone, for Alice did not join him and Tom found excuse to eat in his room or at one of the local taverns where, with Aboli and Luke Jervis, Ned Tyler and Alf Wilson, he could find more convivial company.

  As the months passed Tom grew increasingly restless and impatient. While William was out of the house he spent the greater part of each day with his father. He carried Hal down to the library and sat him on his chair at the head of the long oak table, then brought down from the crowded shelves the books and maps for which Hal asked. They spread them on the table and pored over them earnestly, discussing the details of the voyage that Tom knew his father would never make.

  Master Walsh, with a pair of newly purchased spectacles perched on his nose, sat at the far end of the table and took down the notes Hal dictated to him. They drew up detailed inventories of the stores and equipment they would need, and watch-bills for the men who would crew the ships of the expedition back to the Indian Ocean.

  ‘Two ships,’ Hal decided. ‘Not as large as the Seraph or the Minotaur. Fast, handy vessels, but well armed, for we will certainly have to fight the pagan again. Not too deep a draught, as we will probably have to take them up the estuaries and rivers of the Fever Coast.’

  ‘I will send Ned Tyler and Alf Wilson to look for ships that will suit us,’ Tom cut in eagerly. ‘They can ride along the coast and call in at every harbour between Plymouth and Margate. But with war raging on the Continent, the right ships will not be easy to find.’

  ‘If you have gold to pay for them, you will be amazed at how easy
they will be to find,’ Hal demurred. ‘If I have to spend every farthing of the prize we took from al-Auf to win back Dorian from the Arabs, it will be money well spent.’

  ‘We could put a notice in a broadsheet,’ suggested Master Walsh.

  ‘A good suggestion!’ Hal said.

  ‘We could also ask Lord Childs for a Company ship.’ Tom looked up from the chart.

  ‘No!’ Hal shook his head. ‘If Childs knows we are taking a squadron back into the domain of John Company, he will do his best to prevent us. The Company is strongly opposed to what they call interlopers trading, or even sailing, into their territory.’

  Day after day they continued with the planning and discussions. Then, fifteen days after Tom had despatched them along the coast, Ned Tyler and Alf Wilson returned with news that they had found a ship. It was ideal for the task, but the owners were asking the criminally exorbitant sum of seven thousand pounds for her. They had with them a letter of acceptance for Hal to sign, and a request from the owners that they be paid by a banker’s draft.

  Hal questioned the pair keenly on the condition and standing of the ship, then closed his eyes and sat in silence for so long that Tom became alarmed. ‘Father!’ He jumped up from his chair, and went to Hal’s side. He touched his cheek and found that it was burning with fever. ‘His lordship is not well. Give me a hand, lads. We must take him up to his bed.’ Even Master Walsh grabbed a handle of the chair, and between them they rushed Hal up the stairs.

  Once he was safely laid in the big bed, Tom sent Aboli down to Plymouth to summon Dr Reynolds from his lodgings in the town. Then he dismissed Ned Tyler and the others, and sent them to wait below. When they were gone he locked the doors to the bedchamber to be alone with his father. He turned back the bedclothes and, with trepidation, began to unwrap the bandages from the stumps of his legs.

  By this time Hal was flushed with the sudden fever in his blood, and muttering incoherently in delirium. When Tom lifted off the last cloth he saw that the scar had burst open again, and that the discharge was pouring yellow from the open wound. The familiar cloying odour filled the chamber, and Tom knew that, once again, the deep corruption had flared up, but this time more virulently than ever before. The entire stump was riven with scarlet lines as though it had been lashed with a whip. Dr Reynolds had warned him of this symptom, and now he groped with trembling fingers in his father’s groin, afraid of what he might find. The glands were swollen hard and lumpy as walnut shells, and Hal moaned in agony when Tom touched them.

  ‘It is the gas gangrene,’ Dr Reynolds confirmed when he arrived. ‘This time I cannot save him.’

  ‘Can you not cut it away?’ Tom shouted at him. ‘Can you not drain the corruption like you did before?’

  ‘It has gone too high.’ Reynolds traced, with his fingertips, the furious red lines that were appearing over Hal’s lower belly even as they stared at it.

  ‘You must be able to do something,’ Tom pleaded.

  ‘It burns through all his body like a fire in dry grass. Your father will be dead by morning,’ Reynolds told him simply. ‘You should send for your elder brother to pay his last respects.’

  Tom sent Aboli to find William, but he was down the main shaft of the tin mine at East Rushwold. Aboli waited until evening when Hal’s eldest son returned to the surface. When he heard of his father’s sudden turn for the worse, William galloped back to the house. He burst into Hal’s bedchamber with such a show of concern that Tom thought it might readily be mistaken for eagerness.

  ‘How is he?’ William demanded from Dr Reynolds.

  ‘It grieves me to tell you, but his lordship is sinking fast.’

  William ignored Tom, and went to kneel at the far side of the bed. ‘Father, it’s William. Can you hear me?’ Hal stirred at the sound of his voice but did not open his eyes.

  ‘Speak to me,’ William insisted, but Hal’s breathing was shallow and light.

  ‘He is going,’ William said.

  Tom looked up at him sharply. He thought he had detected a note of satisfaction in his tone. ‘Not long to wait now, Billy,’ he agreed, his tone expressionless. ‘By morning you should be Lord Courtney.’

  ‘You are a despicable little toad,’ William snarled. ‘I will make you pay for that gibe in heavy coin.’

  Neither spoke again for an hour, then suddenly William rose from his knees. ‘It’s eight of the clock, and I am famished. I have not eaten all day. Will you come down to supper?’

  ‘I will stay here.’ Tom did not look at him. ‘He may wake and need us.’

  ‘Reynolds will call us. It will take only a minute to come up from the dining room.’

  ‘You go, Billy. I will call you,’ Tom promised, and William went stiffly to the door.

  He was back within half an hour wiping his lips with the napkin he carried. ‘How is he now?’ he asked, with a touch of diffidence in his voice.

  ‘He has not missed you,’ Tom answered. ‘Do not worry, Billy. He cannot disinherit you for taking a good supper.’

  They settled down for the long vigil, one on each side of the bed and Reynolds stretched out fully dressed on the bed in the dressing room, snoring softly.

  The big house seemed to be holding its breath, and outside the night was so still and quiet that Tom could hear the clock in the steeple of the chapel on the hill chiming the passage of the hours. When it struck one in the morning he looked across at William on the opposite side of the four-poster. His head had slumped forward onto the bedcover, and he was breathing heavily.

  Tom laid a hand on his father’s brow. It’s a little cooler, he thought. Perhaps the fever is receding again as it has so often before. For the first time that night he felt a small lift of hope.

  His father stirred at his touch and opened his eyes. ‘Are you there, Tom?’

  ‘Here I am, Father,’ Tom replied, trying to make his tone joyous. ‘You are going to be well. We will sail together again as we planned.’

  ‘I will not be coming with you, lad.’ Hal had admitted at last what Tom had known all along. ‘This is a voyage you will have to make on your own.’

  ‘I wish—’ Tom began, but his father groped for his hand.

  ‘Don’t waste time denying it,’ he whispered. ‘There is little time left. Give me your word you will find Dorian for me.’

  ‘I give you my word, as I gave my solemn oath to Dorry.’

  Hal sighed and closed his eyes again. With a flare of alarm Tom thought the worst, but then he opened them again. ‘William? Where is William?’

  The sound of his own name roused William, who lifted his head. ‘I am here, Father.’

  ‘Give me your right hand, William,’ Hal demanded. ‘And you, Tom, give me yours.’ They gave them to him, and he went on, ‘William, you know what terrible fate has befallen your youngest brother?’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘I have charged Tom with the duty of finding him, and rescuing him. Tom has accepted that duty. Now I charge you also. Are you listening, William?’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘I lay on you the solemn duty that you will do all in your power to help Tom with his quest to rescue Dorian. You will provide him with the ships he needs. You will pay for the crews, the stores and all else. You will not stint him, but you will make good the manifest that Tom and I have drawn up together.’

  William nodded. ‘I understand what it is you wish, Father.’

  ‘Then swear it to me,’ Hal insisted, his voice rising. ‘There is little time left.’

  ‘I swear it,’ William said, quietly and sincerely.

  ‘Thank God for that,’ Hal murmured. He lay for a while as if gathering his strength for one last effort. But he clung to their hands with surprising strength. Then he spoke again. ‘You are brothers. Brothers should never be enemies. I want you to forget the old disputes that have torn you apart and, for my sake, become brothers in the full sense.’

  William and Tom were silent, neither looking at Hal nor at each other
.

  ‘It is my dying wish. Please grant it to me,’ Hal begged.

  Tom spoke first. ‘I am ready to forget what is past. In the future I will give William the respect and affection he deserves.’

  ‘I can ask for no more,’ Hal gasped. ‘Now it is your turn, William. Swear it to me.’

  ‘If Tom keeps to that promise, I will return the same respect and affection,’ William said, without looking across at Tom.

  ‘Thank you. Thank you, both,’ Hal whispered. ‘Now stay with me this little time that we have left together.’

  The night was long. More than once Tom thought Hal was dead, but when he listened at his father’s lips he heard the soft sigh and hiss of his breathing. Then he must have dozed for the next he heard was the crowing of the cocks in the stableyard. He started guiltily and looked across at William and saw that he was slumped half across the bed, snoring softly. The lamp had burned out, but the first pale glimmer of dawn showed beyond the curtains.

  Tom touched his father’s face and, with a terrible stab of grief, felt that the skin was cold. He moved his fingers to search his throat for the pulse of the carotid. There was nothing, no flicker of life.

  I should have stayed awake. I failed him at the last. Tom leaned over and kissed his father’s lips. Tears coursed down his cheeks, and dripped on to Hal’s face. He used a corner of the sheet to wipe them away, and kissed him again.

  He waited for almost half an hour, until the light in the bedchamber was stronger. Then he examined his own face in the mirror on the far wall, to make certain that he had full control of his grief. He did not want Black Billy to see him so unmanned. He reached across and shook his elder brother. ‘Wake up, Billy. Father is gone.’

  William lifted his head and stared at him, dazed. In the dim light of dawn his eyes were bleary and unfocused. Then he looked down at Hal’s pale face. ‘So it’s over at last,’ he said. He stood up stiffly and stretched. ‘Sweet Jesus, but the old rogue took his time. I thought he would never move over for me.’