Monsoon

by Wilbur Smith

  Closer still, and from the light of the lantern, he recognized through the darkening mists the open stone steps of the river landing.

  ‘This is the right place,’ he said softly so that only Aboli would hear. ‘Look, there is a ferry-boat waiting, and the boatman.’

  The boatman was a tall dark figure at the head of the landing. A wide-brimmed hat hid his eyes, and the collar of the cloak covered his mouth. His boat was moored from one of the iron rings set into the wharf. He had placed his lantern on the top step, and it cast his long shadow upon the stonework of the bridge behind him. Tom hesitated. ‘I like it not. This has the feel of a set stage, with an actor waiting to speak his lines.’ He spoke in Arabic so that no hidden listener could follow what he said. ‘Why is the boatman waiting, unless he knew we were coming?’

  ‘Softly, Klebe,’ Aboli warned him. ‘Don’t let the boatman hold your eye. He is not the danger. There will be others.’

  They walked on steadily towards the solitary figure, but their eyes flitted through the shadows that crowded in upon them. Suddenly another figure detached itself from the darkness and stepped into their path just beyond reach of a sword blade. The figure lifted the cowl from its head and let it drop back over her shoulders, revealing a head of thick golden curls that sparkled in the dim light.

  ‘Good night and good cheer, lovely gentlemen.’ The woman’s voice was husky and enticing, but Tom saw the repellent patches of rouge on her cheeks and the thick paint on her broad mouth, which was blue as a corpse’s lips in the poor light. ‘For a shilling I will give you both a sight of heaven’s gate.’

  She had forced them to halt in a narrow part of the towpath, where they were cramped, and now she swung her hips and leered at Tom in a dreadful parody of lust.

  ‘Behind!’ Aboli breathed in Arabic, and Tom heard the soft slither of a footfall on the cobbles. ‘I will take him, but you watch the whore,’ Aboli warned, before Tom could turn, ‘for by the sound of her she has a fine set of balls under her skirt.’

  ‘Sixpence for the two of us, darling,’ Tom said, and stepped towards her, bringing her into sword reach. At that moment he heard Aboli whirl, but did not take his eyes from the whore. Aboli lunged smoothly at the first of the two men who were closing in on them out of the darkness from behind. It was so swift that his victim did not even raise his blade to meet the thrust. The point went in under his ribs, and came out of his back at the level of his kidneys. He screamed.

  Aboli used the buried blade and the strength of his left arm to swing him like a gaffed fish and hurl him into the man behind him. His sword blade slipped out of the man’s belly, and the assailants staggered back, clutching at each other, the wounded man still screaming, a wild, eerie sound in the night, but he was blocking his comrade’s sword arm. Aboli sent his next thrust over his shoulder, full into the face of the man behind him.

  Struck full in the mouth, the man dropped his weapon and covered his face with both hands. The blood squirted out between his fingers, black and thick. He staggered away, and fell backwards over the edge of the wharf. There was a single splash as he hit the dark waters below and sank immediately under the surface.

  The other man dropped to his knees holding his stomach, and toppled forward on to his face. Aboli whirled to help Tom, but he was too late.

  The whore had drawn a sword from under the cloak and as she sprang at Tom the wig dropped off and revealed her cropped head and coarse, masculine features. Tom was ready for him and jumped forward to meet his charge. The assassin was taken by surprise: he had not expected such a swift response and he had not given himself the time to take his guard.

  Tom went high in the natural line, the quick kill to the base of the throat where there is no bone to turn the stroke. His blade went through the windpipe and the great arteries of the neck to grate on the spine. He recovered and thrust again, an inch lower. This time the steel found the joint of the vertebrae and went clear through.

  ‘You are learning, Klebe,’ Aboli hissed as the whore dropped and lay without a twitch, his skirts pulled up over thin hairy white legs. ‘But we are not finished yet. There will be others.’

  They came out of the dark doorways and the shadows like pariah dogs smelling offal. Tom did not bother to count them, but they were many.

  ‘Back to back,’ Aboli ordered, and changed his sword to the stronger side. Now the narrow neck of the pathway, which had seemed to be a trap, became their stronghold. The river guarded their one flank, and the blank window-less wall of a triple-storeyed house the other.

  Tom guessed that many more assailants were crowding in upon them from both ends of the path. But they could only attack one at a time. The next man to come at Tom was armed with an iron-tipped stave, and as he swung at Tom’s head it was instantly apparent that he was an expert with this ugly weapon. Tom was thankful for all the hours that Aboli had forced him to use one in the practice yard at High Weald. He ducked under the long, heavy staff, not risking the delicate blade of the Neptune sword against such a brutal blow, but he was ready for the reverse, which he knew would be a thrust to his head. He could not give ground for Aboli’s broad back was pressed to his. The six-foot length of the staff had kept the attacker out of reach of the blue blade until he thrust with the iron tip. The sharp iron tip came at Tom’s head like an arrow from a longbow, but Tom rolled his head at the last moment and let it fly past his cheek. Then, with his left hand he grasped the oaken shaft, and let the man pull him forward within sword range. He reached forward, the blue blade sighed in the air and flickered, like summer sheet lightning.

  Clean as a straight razor it opened the man’s throat under his jaw-line, and the air rushed from his open windpipe with a squeal like a piglet denied the teat.

  The man behind him stared at the dreadful sight, as the dying man staggered in a circle. He was so entranced that he was slow to meet Tom’s next lunge. Tom went high again, for the base of the throat, but at the last moment his victim jerked aside and the point went in through his shoulder. The weapon he carried fell from his hand and clattered on the cobbles. He clutched his wound and shouted, ‘In the name of God, I am killed,’ turned and blundered into the men coming up behind him. They formed a dark, struggling bunch of humanity, so closely packed that it was difficult for Tom to pick out a clear target. He stabbed three times fast and hard into the pack, and with each stroke there was another agonized screech. One staggered backwards and toppled over the edge of the path, arms swinging wildly as he fell from sight and hit the water in a flash of spray. The others scrambled back, holding their injuries, their faces dirty grey in the dull light.

  Tom heard sounds behind him, somebody moaning hollowly and another sobbing with agony. A third person was flopping and kicking on the ground like a horse down with a broken leg. Tom dared not take his eyes off the men who still confronted him, but he must know that Aboli still covered his back.

  ‘Aboli, are you hit?’ he asked quietly.

  At once there was a deep voice close behind him filled with scorn. ‘These are apes, not warriors. They defile my blade with their blood.’

  ‘Be not so fastidious, I beg you, old friend. How many more are there?’

  ‘Many, but methinks they have lost stomach for the fare we are serving.’

  A knot of men was hovering in front of Aboli, just out of sword-play. He saw their first backward paces, and suddenly he threw back his head and let forth such a cry that even Tom was startled. Despite himself he turned his head to look back.

  Aboli’s mouth was a great red cavern, and the tattooed features were convulsed in a mask of animal ferocity. The cry he gave was the bellow of a great bull ape, a sound that shocked the ears and stunned the senses. The men before him were racing away into the darkness while the echoes rang across the dark river. The same panic seized those facing Tom: they whirled away and ran. Two were limping and weaving with their wounds, but they straggled away up a side-street and the sounds of their running feet dwindled into the silence of the
encroaching mist.

  ‘I think you will have summoned the watch.’ Tom stooped and wiped his blade on the skirts of the dead whore. ‘They will be on us in a minute.’

  ‘Then let us go,’ Aboli agreed, in a voice that seemed mild and soothing after the terrible cry that had preceded it.

  They stepped over the crumpled bodies, and ran towards the head of the steps. Aboli raced down to where the ferry-boat was moored, but Tom turned aside and went to the boatman. ‘A gold guinea for your hire!’ Tom promised, as he ran to meet him. He was less than ten paces from him when the boatman threw open the folds of his cloak and raised the pistol he had concealed beneath it. Tom saw that it had twin barrels arranged side by side, and that the muzzles were like a pair of black eyeless sockets.

  As he stared into those blank eyes of death, the passage of the seconds seem to freeze. Everything took on an unreal, dreamlike quality. Although his eyesight seemed sharpened, and every sense was heightened, yet his movements were slowed as though he were wading through clinging mud.

  He saw that both hammers of the pistol were at full cock. From under the brim of the wide hat a single dark eye glittered over the barrels at Tom, and a pale forefinger was hooked through the trigger guard, tightening inexorably.

  Tom watched the hammer on the left barrel drop, the puff and flash of the priming as the flint struck the steel. He tried to hurl himself aside but his limbs obeyed only lazily. The boatman’s pistol hand was thrown head high and the weapon fired with a shattering blast. A cloud of blue gunsmoke filled the air between them. At the same instant Tom was struck a heavy blow in the body that threw him backwards. He went down heavily and lay on his back on the stones. I am hit, he thought, with surprise, as he sprawled on the top step. He felt the numb heaviness in his chest. He knew what that presaged. Perhaps I am killed, was his next thought and it made him angry. He glared up at the man who had shot him.

  He still had the Neptune sword in his right hand, as he saw the pistol coming down, like a fatal basilisk, levelling its terrible blank gaze upon him. If I am killed then I can no longer move my sword arm. The thought fumed in his brain, forcing him to pour every ounce of his strength and determination into his right arm.

  To his astonishment the arm had lost none of its force. It whipped forward and the sword flew from his fingers, thrown like a javelin. He watched its flight, point first, unwavering and true, the lantern-light sending golden sparks from the precious inlaid metal as it flew.

  Standing over him, the boatman’s cloak had opened to expose his chest. He wore only a black silk shirt beneath it, laced at the throat. Before the second barrel of the pistol fired, the steel pierced the soft material under the raised pistol arm, and Tom watched its full glistening length disappear magically into the man’s torso.

  The boatman stood rigid, locked in a mortal spasm, his heart cloven by the blade. Then he swayed backwards and his long legs, booted in polished black leather, gave way under him. He fell backwards, lay and writhed against the agony of the blade. Then swiftly his movements stilled.

  Tom lifted himself on one elbow, and saw Aboli come bounding up the steps. ‘Klebe! Where are you struck?’

  ‘I know not. I feel nothing.’

  Aboli pulled aside the folds of his cloak, then ripped open the cloth of his shirt. He groped the hard young flesh beneath, and Tom exclaimed, ‘By God, gently! If I am not dead already you will soon see to it.’

  Aboli seized the lantern, which still burned on the top step, and opened the shutter fully. He shone the beam on to Tom’s naked chest. There was blood, much blood. ‘Low in the right side,’ he muttered, ‘not the heart but perhaps the lungs.’ He shone the light into Tom’s eyes, and watched the pupils contract. ‘Good! Now cough for me.’

  Tom did what he ordered, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘No blood!’ he said, as he studied his unsullied palm.

  ‘Thank all your gods and mine, Klebe,’ Aboli grunted, as he pushed Tom back. ‘This will hurt,’ he promised. ‘Shout if you will, but I must gauge the track of the ball.’

  He found the opening of the wound, and before Tom could brace himself slipped one long thick finger full length into it. Tom arched his back and screamed like a virgin being rudely deflowered.

  ‘It has struck a rib, and glanced aside.’ Aboli pulled his bloody finger out. ‘It has not entered the cavity of your chest.’ He ran his hand, slippery with warm blood, around the side of Tom’s chest under his arm, and felt the lump of the ball near his shoulder-blade. ‘It has run between the bone and the skin. We will cut for it later.’

  Then he lifted his great tattooed head as a shout echoed from the mouth of the dark lane that led down to the landing. It had the tone of harsh authority. ‘Stand and yield, villains, in the name of the King!’

  ‘The watch!’ Aboli said. ‘They must not take us here, surrounded by dead men.’ He hauled Tom to his feet. ‘Come, I will help you to the boat.’

  ‘Unhand me!’ Tom snapped at him, shrugging himself free. ‘I have lost my sword.’

  Doubled over to favour his wounded side, Tom hobbled to where the boatman lay on his back. He placed his boot on the dead man’s chest and pulled free the long, shining blade. He was about to turn away and go down the steps but, on an impulse, he used the point of the blade to flick the wide-brimmed hat off the corpse’s head.

  He stared at the dark, handsome face, surrounded by the garland of Nubian black hair that shone in the lamplight. The mouth was slack, no longer cruel, and the eyes stared into the night sky, blank and unseeing.

  ‘Billy!’ Tom whispered. He stared in horror at the face of his dead brother, and for the first time his legs went weak under him. ‘Billy! I have murdered you.’

  ‘There was no murder.’ Aboli’s great arm closed around his shoulders. ‘But if the watch take us here, there might well be.’

  He swept Tom half off his feet, and down the steps. Then he tumbled him into the ferry-boat and leaped in beside him. With a slash of his sword he severed the painter that secured them to the iron mooring ring in the stone wharf and seized the oars. The boat leaped forward with the strength of his stroke.

  ‘Stop! Surrender yourselves,’ a hoarse voice shouted from the shore. In the mist there was the sound of running footsteps and the voices of more men. ‘Stop, or I will fire upon you! This is the King’s watchman!’

  Aboli pulled with both oars, grunting with the effort, and the mist banks closed around them. The dark stones of the wharf disappeared in the swirling silver clouds. Then there was the heavy detonation of a blunderbuss, and the hum as a swarm of lead shot cut through the mist. It fell like hail on the surface of the river around them and a few pellets struck the woodwork of the boat. Tom crouched on the floorboards, hugging his injured side. Aboli heaved on the oars, sending them further out on the broad waters. The shouts of the watch faded swiftly behind them and Aboli stopped rowing.

  ‘Please do not piss on me. Keep that black python locked in your breeches,’ Tom pleaded, in mock terror of Aboli’s infamous treatment for all wounds.

  Aboli grinned as he tore a strip of cloth from his undershirt. ‘You do not deserve such pleasures. What stupidity to walk up to an enemy offering him money!’ Aboli altered his tone to mimic Tom. ‘“A gold guinea for your hire!”’ He chuckled. ‘He surely gave you your guinea’s worth.’

  Aboli folded the piece of cloth into a pad and placed it over the bullet wound. ‘Hold that there,’ he told Tom. ‘Press hard to staunch the bleeding!’ Then he seized the oars again. ‘The tide is with us. We will be at Eel Pie before midnight.’

  They were silent for an hour, rowing on quietly in the mist banks. Aboli found his way along the dark, hidden river as though it were broad day. Tom spoke at last. ‘He was my brother, Aboli.’

  ‘He was also your enemy to the death.’

  ‘I swore to my father on his deathbed.’

  ‘You spared him once. All oaths to your father were discharged.’

  ‘I will h
ave to answer for his death at Judgement Day.’

  ‘That is long hence.’ Aboli spoke in rhythm with the swinging oars. ‘Let it wait until then, and I will bear witness for you, if your God will listen to the testimony of a heathen. How is your wound?’

  ‘The bleeding is staunched, but it hurts.’

  ‘That is good. When a wound does not hurt, you are dead.’

  They were silent again, until Tom heard the chimes of a church clock on the riverbank strike eight. He roused himself, and winced at the pain of the wound. ‘Nicholas Childs must have sent word to Billy where to find us,’ he said softly. ‘In the middle of our discussion, he suddenly left the room. He was gone for a long time, time enough to send word to him.’

  ‘Of course. He sent us out of our way in the carriage to afford your brother time to welcome us with his friends at the landing,’ Aboli agreed.

  ‘Childs will point to us as the murderers. The magistrates will send their bailiffs to take us. Childs will have many witnesses against us. The watchmen on the landing probably saw our faces. We will end up on the gallows tree, if they lay their hands upon us.’

  This was so obviously the truth that Aboli made no comment.

  ‘Childs wanted the Swallow. That is why he warned Billy where to find us. I thought the swine had resigned himself to our bargain, but he wanted it all from me – the cargo and the ship.’

  ‘He is fat and greedy,’ Aboli agreed.

  ‘Childs knows where to send them. I told him the Swallow was moored at Eel Pie.’

  ‘You are not to blame. You could not see the harm in it.’

  Tom moved restlessly, trying to ease the pain of the stiffening wound. ‘Billy was a peer of the realm, an important man with powerful friends. They will be like bulldogs. They will not let us go.’ Aboli grunted, but never interrupted the rhythm of the oars.

  ‘We must sail tonight,’ Tom said firmly. ‘We dare not wait until morning.’