by Wilbur Smith
‘I will teach you such a lesson that you will never steal my cakes again,’ Zayn promised him, and began to wind up for the throw. Round and round his head he swung the sling, building up speed until the thongs thrummed through the air, and then, at that exact moment, he released it. The pebble was a hissing white blur, too swift for Jinni to dodge. It struck the monkey’s left arm below the elbow, and the bone snapped.
Jinni screeched and sprang high in the air, his broken arm flapping. As he came down he tried to grab at a branch but the arm would not respond and he tumbled halfway down the tree before he could catch hold with his right paw.
The two boys were shouting and dancing with excitement. ‘You hit him, Zayn!’ Abubaker exulted.
‘I will kill you, you thieving shaitan!’ Zayn was fitting another stone into the pocket of the sling. Jinni clawed his way single-armed back up the tree. He was whining and gibbering with pain as he reached the long branch that extended out over the terrace.
Zayn launched the next stone, which sang through the air and hit the branch just under Jinni’s chest. He sprang in the air and raced towards the end of the branch with his broken arm dangling and swinging. He knew where he could find protection. Yasmini had heard his screams and, though she did not know what had caused them, she was calling him urgently. ‘Jinni! What is it, my baby? Come to your mama.’
From the end of the branch Jinni launched himself, and dropped into Yasmini’s arms, sobbing and chittering with pain and terror.
‘Come!’ Zayn shouted at Abubaker. ‘Find a stick! We will finish him off!’
At the foot of the staircase the gardeners had left a pile of bamboo stakes. Each of the boys grabbed one and ran up the staircase. Puffing and laughing, Zayn was the first to reach the terrace. He stopped short when Yasmini confronted him with Jinni in her arms. ‘Don’t come near me!’ she yelled at him. ‘Leave us alone, Zayn al-Din.’
For a moment Zayn was disconcerted by the fury of the small girl, but then Abubaker came up behind him and pushed him forward. ‘It’s only Yasmini. She is a baby. I will hold her. You grab the monkey.’
Yasmini retreated before them, clutching the terrified animal to her chest, but they followed her threateningly, brandishing the bamboo stakes, egging each other on. ‘The shaitan stole my cakes. I am going to kill him.’
‘I will kill you first,’ Yasmini shouted back at him, but her show of bravery was starting to crumble and tears welled in her eyes. She came up against the low wall of the rainwater cistern, and stood there, trapped and desperate. Her half-sisters had deserted her and run off at the first sign of trouble from their elder brother. Yasmini was alone. Her lips quivered, but she tried to keep her voice strong. ‘Leave us alone. I will tell al-Amhara. He will punish you for what you have done to Jinni.’
Zayn jeered, ‘You will tell al-Amhara? You frighten me! Al-Amhara is a pig-eating infidel.’ They crowded her up against the cistern. Suddenly Abubaker jumped forward and grabbed her around the neck.
‘Get the monkey!’ he shouted, and Zayn seized Jinni by the leg. The three struggled and staggered around the terrace fighting over the screeching animal. Yasmini was clinging to Jinni with all her strength, screaming through her tears. Abubaker prised her fingers free one at a time, until she lost her grip and Zayn snatched the monkey from her.
‘Give him back,’ she pleaded. ‘Please don’t hurt him any more.’
Zayn held Jinni up by the scruff of the neck. ‘Come and get him then, before I kill the filthy thing.’
Suddenly Jinni twisted in his grip and sank his teeth into Zayn’s wrist. Zayn let out a howl of pain and surprise, lifted Jinni over his head and hurled him into the rainwater cistern. The monkey disappeared beneath the water, then splashed to the surface and swam to the edge. Zayn held up his bleeding wrist and stared at it. Then his sallow face darkened with fury. ‘He bit me! Look at the blood!’ He ran to the edge of the cistern, reached out with the bamboo stake and pushed Jinni’s head under the water. As soon as it bobbed up again he thrust it under once more, now hooting with sadistic joy. ‘Let us see how well it can swim!’
Yasmini tore herself out of Abubaker’s grip and jumped on to Zayn’s back. She screamed as she pummelled his head and shoulders. Zayn kept on hooting and jeering, taking no notice of her screams and her attack. He went on drowning Jinni, ducking his head every time it reappeared.
Jinni was weakening swiftly and sneezing water, his fur sodden and clinging to his skull. He no longer had the strength or the air in his lungs to scream, but Yasmini’s voice rang louder and shriller. ‘Leave him! I hate you. Leave my baby!’
Dorian raced up the last few steps and stopped at the top of the staircase. It took him a moment to grasp the meaning of the confused scene before him. He had been overtaken by a wild panic at the prospect of finding Yasmini badly injured and dying, but his fear gave way to cold anger as he saw what the two big boys were doing to her and Jinni. He launched himself at them.
Abubaker saw him coming and spun round to face him. He lifted the bamboo to hit at his head but Dorian ducked under the swing and crashed his shoulder into the centre of the other boy’s chest, sending him reeling away. Abubaker struck the side wall of the terrace, and dropped the bamboo. Then he turned and fled to the head of the staircase and disappeared down it.
Dorian’s only concern now was to get at Zayn and rescue Yasmini. He flew at him, and Zayn turned to meet him, but he was hampered by the small girl straddling his back and his swing with the bamboo was clumsy. Dorian blocked it and seized the stake with both hands. They stumbled in a circle, both tugging and heaving at the stake.
‘Get Jinni!’ Dorian gasped at Yasmini, and obediently she jumped down off Zayn’s back and ran to the cistern. She reached in and grabbed the monkey as he floundered weakly. She dragged him out, sopping wet, coughing and sneezing water from his mouth and nose. She held him to her chest and crouched below the parapet of the cistern, trying to avoid the two boys who were struggling and pushing each other around the terrace.
Zayn was heavier than Dorian, and taller by two inches. He was starting to dominate this straight trial of strength. ‘I am going to drown you just like the monkey, you devil-eyed infidel,’ he threatened, and heaved with all his weight on the bamboo stave.
In his fury Dorian had forgotten everything that Tom had ever taught him, but now the insult steadied him and he let Zayn pull him in close. Then he released his grip on the stave and bunched his right fist. He shifted his feet, anchoring himself. ‘Use the turn of the body, and the swing of the shoulders,’ Tom had coached him. ‘Go for the nose.’
Dorian launched the punch, his hands hardened by riding and his shoulders conditioned by swimming. He caught Zayn flush on the nose, which squashed like an overripe plum in a flood of scarlet juice. Zayn dropped the bamboo and clutched with both hands at his injured face. His eyes flooded with tears of pain, and blood ran from between his fingers and dripped on to his white kanzu.
Dorian set himself up for the next punch. Tom had shown him how to find the point of the jaw, making him clench his teeth and feel for it under his own ear. Dorian let the next punch go with all his weight coming in behind it.
Zayn had never heard of this kind of fighting. Making a hammer out of the hand and using it to beat in an opponent’s face was something alien to his idea of combat. He had been taught to wrestle, but enjoyed it only when matched against a lighter, weaker boy.
The blow to his nose had flabbergasted him, the surprise even more crippling than the pain. He was unprepared for the next blow. It felt like a cannonball into the side of his face, and his senses tottered. Dorian did not yet have the weight or power to drop him senseless. But the punch struck exactly where he had aimed, and with enough force to send Zayn reeling backwards, unable to see through his streaming eyes, unable to defend himself, his legs turning boneless under him.
Then, to Zayn’s bewilderment, there came another blow, slamming into his fat lips. He felt one of his front teeth break
off, and the warm metallic taste of his own blood filled his mouth. With both arms covering his face he stumbled blindly to the head of the stairs.
Behind him Dorian picked up the bamboo, and belaboured his back and shoulders. Even through the pain of his mouth and nose, the sting of the bamboo made Zayn leap forward onto the top step.
Dorian swung the cane again, and Zayn yelled as though he had been stung by a scorpion and lost his footing. He went rolling in a tangle of arms and legs to the bottom, and crawled away sobbing wildly. Then he heard Dorian rushing down the stairs behind him, and looked back over his shoulder through swimming eyes.
The infidel’s face was contorted into a crimson mask of fury, those pale green eyes were blazing and he had the bamboo held high in both hands. Zayn hauled himself to his feet and spat out the broken tooth in a spray of blood. He tried to run, but something was broken in his right foot, and he hopped, limped and lumbered away across the lawn, in pursuit of the fleeing Abubaker.
Dorian dropped the bamboo and let them go. He took a few deep breaths to bring his rage under control, then thought of the little girl. He ran back up the steps.
Yasmini was still crouched under the parapet. She was shaking and sobbing, and holding the sodden body of the monkey to her chest.
‘Are you hurt, Yasmini? Did he hurt you?’
She shook her head and wordlessly held Jinni out towards him. The monkey’s fur was soaked and flattened against his body, so that he appeared to be half his normal size, as though the skin had been flayed off him.
‘His arm!’ Yasmini whispered. ‘It’s broken.’
Dorian took the dangling limb gently between his fingers, and Jinni whimpered but did not resist. He watched Dorian with huge, trusting eyes. Dorian tried to remember all he had learned from watching Dr Reynolds working with the injuries of a sailor who had fallen from the rigging of the Seraph, and another who had caught his arm in the spinning bars of the capstan. He straightened Jinni’s arm gently, using a short length of bamboo to secure it in that position, then bound it up with a strip of cotton torn from his keffiya headcloth. ‘I must take him to Ben Abram,’ he told Yasmini, and lifted the small body out of her arms.
‘I wish I could come with you,’ she whispered, but she knew that was not possible, and Dorian did not bother to reply. He made a cradle for Jinni out of a fold of his robe. Yasmini came with him as far as the gates of the zenana, and stood staring after him as he trotted off down the road through the palm groves heading for the town.
Within half a mile he caught up with one of the grooms from the stables leading a string of the Prince’s horses.
‘Mustapha!’ he shouted. ‘Give me a ride as far as the harbour.’
Mustapha took him up on the back of his mount and they galloped through the narrow streets of the town, down to the seafront.
Ben Abram was at work in his infirmary near the harbour. He came through from the small back room, scrubbing blood from his hands, and greeted Dorian and Jinni with astonishment.
‘I have brought you a patient, old father, one who is in sore need of your great skills,’ Dorian told him.
‘Will the beast bite me?’ Ben Abram peered at Jinni suspiciously.
‘Have no fear. Jinni knows he can trust you.’
‘The setting of bones is a skill that goes back into antiquity,’ Ben Abram remarked, as he peered closely at the limb, ‘but I doubt any of my forebears had such a patient as this.’
When he had finished, and the limb was splinted and bandaged, Ben Abram gave Jinni a draught of laudanum, and the monkey slept in Dorian’s arms for all the long walk back to the zenana.
Yasmini was waiting for them just inside the gate. She took the drugged monkey out of Dorian’s arms, and carried him tenderly to the living quarters where they found Tahi in a tearful turmoil of worry. ‘What have you done, you stupid boy?’ She attacked Dorian the instant he put his head through the doorway. ‘The whole zenana is in an uproar. Kush has been here. He is in such a terrible rage that he can hardly speak. Is it true that Jinni has bitten Zayn al-Din and that you have broken his tooth and smashed his nose, and that the bone in his foot is broken? Kush says that Zayn may never be able to walk again – at the least he will be crippled for life.’
‘He broke his foot with his own clumsiness.’ Dorian was defiant and unrepentant, and Tahi seized him and hugged him to her ample bosom. She broke down and wept loudly. ‘You do not know what danger you have brought on your own head!’ she sobbed. ‘From now onwards we must always be on the watch. You must never eat or drink anything that I have not tasted first. You must keep the bar on the door to your sleeping chamber.’ She reeled off the list of precautions that they would take against the vengeance of Kush and Zayn al-Din. ‘Allah only knows what the Prince will think of this when he returns from Muscat.’ She ended her tirade with morbid relish.
Yasmini and Dorian left her wailing and dreaming of horrors over her kitchen pots, and carried Jinni through to Dorian’s bedchamber. They laid him on the sleeping mat and sat over him side by side.
Neither spoke, but after a while Yasmini drooped like a fading blossom and fell asleep against Dorian’s shoulder. He put his arm around her, and much later Tahi found them asleep in each other’s arms. She knelt beside the pair and studied their faces. ‘They are so beautiful together, so young and so innocent. What a great pity that it can never be. They might have had red-haired children,’ she whispered, and lifted Yasmini out of Dorian’s protective arms to carry her back to her own mother’s splendid quarters near the main gate, where she handed her over to one of the nurses.
Kush came again, early the following morning, full of bluster and threats. Despite these it was apparent that he was not prepared to flout the strictures of al-Allama and Ben Abram, and to bring any real harm to Dorian, but his malevolence shimmered around him like an aura of evil. At the door he looked back at Dorian, his swollen features filled with hatred. ‘The day will soon come, if Allah is kind, when you will no longer be here in the zenana to trouble me.’
The atmosphere crackled like summer lightning with hostility towards Dorian. The other children, all except Yasmini, kept well away from him. As soon as they saw him they broke off their rowdy games and scuttled away tittering. The women covered their faces and drew the skirts of their robes aside as though contact with him would contaminate them.
Three days later he met Zayn as he came back through the gates from his lessons with al-Allama. Zayn was sitting with Abubaker and three other toadies. They were feasting on a dish of sweetmeats, but they fell silent as Dorian walked down the cloisters towards them, and watched him uneasily.
Zayn’s nose was still swollen and there was a black scab on his upper lip. Both his eye sockets were bruised even darker than their natural colour. His right foot was wrapped in bandages – perhaps it was true that he might be crippled for life, Dorian thought, but he never faltered, and he stared directly at Zayn. The bigger boy could not hold that cold green stare and turned away. He said something to Abubaker and both boys giggled nervously. Dorian strode past them and Zayn grew bolder as he walked away. ‘Skin white as pus,’ he said, and his breath whistled through the gap in his front teeth.
‘Eyes green as pigs’ pee,’ Abubaker agreed.
‘Only one who drinks it would know the colour so well,’ Dorian said as loudly, and walked on without looking back.
Over the following weeks the feeling of dangerous hostility subsided. Though Dorian had become the outcast of the zenana, now the others simply ignored him. Even Zayn and Abubaker no longer reacted to his presence, but behaved with exaggerated nonchalance whenever they met. Zayn was still limping and over time it became clear that the damage to his right foot might indeed be permanent.
However, Tahi was not placated by the hostile truce between the two boys, and she missed no opportunity to lecture Dorian on the dangers of exposing himself to poison, or other macabre methods of dealing death at a distance. ‘Always shake out your kanzu before do
nning it. Turn over your sandals. There is a small green scorpion that kills so swiftly that the victim does not have time to cry out after its sting. Kush knows well the ways of the scorpion, and all the other evil things.’
But none of this could dampen Dorian’s naturally ebullient spirits for long. He spent less and less time within the walls of the zenana. When he was there, Yasmini was his constant companion.
As a credit to Ben Abram’s skills, Jinni recovered rapidly, and though he favoured the undamaged limb he was soon scampering along the top of the outer wall or scaling the highest branches of the peepul trees.
The long month of Ramadan came and then the new moon ended the fast. Within days Zayn al-Din was gone from the zenana. He had reached puberty and manhood, and, still limping from the injury Dorian had inflicted on him, had entered the outside world. Dorian and Yasmini rejoiced at his departure. They heard that he had been sent to Muscat to join the court of his uncle, the Caliph.
Tahi sniffed when they told her. ‘He has been sent as a hostage to the Caliph to ensure the obedience of the Prince.’
This was not the first that Dorian had heard of the intrigues within the Omani royal family. However, Tahi repeated what he knew already. ‘The Caliph has executed six of his brothers for treason, and he does not trust those he has spared.’ She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘The Caliph is a cruel, evil man. Allah forbid that you should ever come to his notice as the child of the prophecy.’ She shivered at the thought.
Afew weeks after Zayn al-Din’s abrupt departure, Yasmini came to Dorian’s quarters before he was awake and shook his arm urgently. ‘Jinni did not come for his food last night and he was not in my bed this morning.’ She was drawn and shaky from grief and worry.
Dorian jumped up and flung on his kanzu while Yasmini lamented, ‘I think something terrible has happened to my Jinni.’
‘We will find him,’ Dorian promised her. ‘Come on!’ They started with all the most likely places, Jinni’s favourite haunts. The chief of these was the tomb of the saint, Abd Allah Muhammad Ali. They searched every inch of the ancient structure, calling Jinni’s name and offering cinnamon cakes. They knew that, if anything would, the aroma would bring him out of any hiding-place. When they failed there, they went systematically through the gardens, but with the same lack of success. By this time Yasmini was beside herself with grief. ‘You saved him once, Dowie. Now Shaitan has come back for him again. He may have taken him away as a punishment.’