Monsoon

by Wilbur Smith

  At last Tom found his voice again and the power of movement. He started up, his hand on the hilt of the Neptune sword. ‘There is not enough gold in Arabia to buy me off,’ he roared. ‘I came here to find my brother, and I shall not leave until he is delivered to me.’

  ‘That is not possible,’ said al-Allama, and his voice was low and heavy with regret. ‘Your brother is dead. He died almost two years ago of the malarial fever. There was nothing any man could do to save him though, Allah knows, we who loved him tried. Al-Amhara is dead.’

  Tom dropped back on the cushion, his face blanched with shock. His eyes were haunted as he stared at al-Allama. He did not speak for a long time, and the only sound was the buzzing of a fat blue fly that bumped against the ceiling. ‘I do not believe what you tell me,’ he whispered, but his voice was hopeless, his expression desolate.

  ‘I swear to you, as I love God and pray for his salvation, that I have seen al-Amhara’s name on his tomb in the royal cemetery in Lamu,’ al-Allama said, with infinite sorrow in his voice, so that Tom could no longer doubt him.

  ‘Dorian,’ he whispered. ‘He was so young, so full of life.’

  ‘Allah is kind. We can be sure that there is a place for him hereafter. My lord the Prince offers you consolation. He shares your sense of loss keenly,’ the mullah offered.

  Tom rose to his feet. It seemed to require a great effort to make such a simple movement. ‘I thank your master,’ he replied. ‘I beg your forbearance but I must leave you now, to be alone to mourn my brother.’ He turned to the door.

  Guy stood and bowed to the two Arabs. ‘We thank your lord the Prince for his compassion. We accept his offer of blood money.’ He stooped, closed the lid of the chest and picked it up. ‘All debts between Prince Abd Muhammad al-Malik and our family are discharged in full.’

  He followed Tom to the door, hampered by the weight of the chest.

  Sarah was on her usual perch high on the walls of the old monastery, from where she could spot Tom as soon as he appeared on the path that led up from the beach. ‘Tom!’ she called, and waved gaily, coming to her feet and running down the crumbled walls with her arms spread wide to balance herself. ‘You are late! I have been waiting for hours. I had almost given you up.’ She jumped down to the ground and raced, barefoot, down the sandy path. Ten feet from where he stood she came up short and stared into his face. ‘Tom, what is it?’ she whispered. She had never seen him like this before. His features were haggard, and his eyes filled with a terrible sorrow. ‘Tom, what has happened to you?’

  He took an uncertain step towards her, and held out his arms like a drowning man. She flew to him.

  ‘Tom! Oh, Tom! What is it?’ She held him with all her strength. ‘Tell me, my darling. I want to help.’

  He began to shake, and she thought he was sick, overcome by some terrible fever. He made a choking sound, and tears streamed down his face. ‘You must tell me!’ she pleaded. She had never imagined that he could succumb like this. She had always thought him strong and indomitable, but here he was in her arms, broken, devastated. ‘Please, Tom, speak to me.’

  ‘Dorian is dead.’

  She went cold and still. ‘It can’t be,’ she breathed, ‘it just can’t be. Are you certain. Is there no doubt?’

  ‘The man who brought the news is a mullah, a holy man. He swore on his faith,’ Tom said. ‘There can be no doubt.’

  Still holding each other, they sank together to their knees, and she was weeping with him. ‘He was like my own brother,’ she said, pressing her cheek against his so that their tears mingled, bathing their faces. After a while she sniffed, and wiped her face on the sleeve of her blouse. ‘How did it happen?’ He was still unable to speak. ‘Tell me, Tom,’ she insisted. She knew instinctively that she must make him talk about it: like a surgeon, she had to lance the boil, let the pus and poison out. At last he began the story, the words coming hard, seeming to tear his throat as he forced them out. It took a long time, but at last he had told her everything, and she knew it must be true.

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ she asked, and stood up. She kept tight hold of his hands, and forced him to his feet. She had to stop him giving in to the dark waves of sorrow into which he was sinking.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I know only that Dorian is dead, that I could not save him. It was my fault. If only I had come to him sooner!’

  ‘It is not your fault,’ she said angrily. ‘I will not even let you think that. You did all you could. No man could have done more.’

  ‘I don’t care any more,’ Tom said.

  ‘Yes, you do. You owe it to yourself and to me and the memory of Dorian. He always looked up to you. He knew how strong you were. He would not want this from you.’

  ‘Please don’t berate me, Sarah. I am exhausted with grief. Nothing else matters.’

  ‘I will not let you give up. We must plan together.’ She demanded, ‘What are we going to do now?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he repeated, but he straightened his shoulders and dashed away the tears.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked. ‘We cannot stay here, and we can’t return to England. Where, Tom?’

  ‘Africa,’ he said. ‘Aboli has found a man to guide us into the interior.’

  ‘When do we leave?’ she asked simply, not questioning the decision.

  ‘Soon. A few days from now.’ He had steadied himself, for the moment thrown off the debilitating sorrow. ‘It will take that long to refill the water-barrels, to buy fresh provisions and to make the final arrangements.’

  ‘I will be ready,’ she said.

  ‘It will be hard. A dangerous journey without end. Are you sure that is what you want? You must tell me now if you have any doubts.’

  ‘Don’t be a big booby, Tom Courtney,’ she said. ‘Of course I am going with you.’

  When she left the monastery, Sarah took a circuitous route back to the consulate, riding first along the track she had discovered that led to one of the small villages on the seaward side of the island. She had gone only half a mile when she was seized by a certainty that someone was following her. She thought she heard hoofbeats on the track behind her so she reined in and swivelled in the saddle to look back.

  The path was hemmed in on both sides by thick vegetation, the twisted stems and glossy leaves of the veloutia and clumps of lantana. She could not see further than the last turning in the path only a few paces behind her.

  ‘Tom?’ she called. ‘Is that you?’

  There was no reply, and in the silence she decided that she was starting at ghosts and shadows. ‘You are being foolish,’ she told herself firmly, and rode on.

  When she reached the village she bought a basket of vegetables from one of the old women there, her excuse for her long absence, then rode almost to the port so that she could return to the consulate along the main road.

  She had much to occupy her thoughts. Her mood swung from excited elation, at the prospect of the adventure ahead of her, to deep sadness when she faced the necessity of leaving Caroline and little Christopher. She loved them both dearly. Caroline had come to rely on her strength and fortitude in the dark unhappiness of her marriage to Guy, and Sarah looked upon baby Christopher as though he were her own. She worried how they would fare without her. ‘Could they not come with us?’ she wondered, and almost immediately knew that she was silly even to think it.

  ‘I have to leave them.’ She steeled herself. ‘I love them both, but Tom is my man, and I love him more than life itself. I must go with him.’

  She was so preoccupied with these thoughts that she rode into the stableyard without noticing Guy until he called to her sternly from the shade of the long veranda. ‘Where have you been, Sarah?’

  She looked up in confusion. ‘You startled me, Guy.’

  ‘Guilty conscience?’ he accused.

  ‘I’ve been buying vegetables.’ She touched the basket tied to the back of her saddle. ‘I am about to elope with a cabbage!’ She laughed m
errily, but Guy did not smile.

  ‘Come to my office!’ he ordered, and she noticed his syce hovering in the doorway of the stable. The boy was Guy’s creature, a sly, pock-marked little fellow. His name was Assam. She had never liked or trusted him, and even less so now that she saw his grin was knowing and gloating. With a sinking feeling, Sarah wished she had taken more care to cover her tracks when she went to her assignation with Tom, and that she had given more weight to her feeling that she had been followed that afternoon.

  ‘I wish to bathe and change for dinner,’ she told Guy, trying to brazen it out, but he scowled and slapped his riding-crop against his boot.

  ‘This will not take long,’ he said. ‘As your guardian, I must insist that you obey me. Assam will take your mare.’

  With resignation she followed him down the veranda and into the cool gloom of his office. He closed the doors behind them and left her standing in the centre of the floor as he took his seat behind his desk.

  ‘You have been meeting him at the old monastery,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Who? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Do not bother to deny it,’ he said. ‘On my instructions, Assam followed you.’

  ‘You have been spying on me,’ she flared at him. ‘How dare you?’ She tried to whip up her indignation, but it was not convincing.

  ‘I am pleased that you do not insult my intelligence by denying it.’

  ‘Why should I deny the man I love?’ She drew herself up, tall and truly angry now.

  ‘You have made yourself into a sailor’s whore,’ he said. ‘Once he has had all he wants from between your legs, he will laugh and sail away, the way he did with your sister.’

  ‘When he sails away, I will go with him.’

  ‘I am your guardian, and you are only eighteen. You will go nowhere without my consent.’

  ‘I am going with Tom,’ she said, ‘and nothing you can say or do will stop me.’

  ‘We will see about that.’ He stood up. ‘You are confined to your rooms, and you will not leave them again until after the Swallow has sailed from Zanzibar.’

  ‘You cannot treat me like a prisoner.’

  ‘Yes, I can. There will be a guard at the door of your quarters, and others at the gates. I have given them their orders. Now go to your room. I will have your dinner sent up to you.’

  Tom was so occupied with readying the Swallow for sea that he paid scant attention to the square-rigged ship that limped into the harbour after sunset. Even in the poor light he saw that she had been damaged by storms. It was the season when the cyclones swept down the Indian Ocean, and she must have encountered one of these devil winds. The name on her transom was the Apostle. She flew the tattered flag of the East India Company at her masthead, and once she had anchored Tom sent Luke Jervis across in the longboat to ask for the news.

  Luke returned within the hour, and came to Tom’s cabin, where he was writing up the ship’s log. ‘She is outward-bound from Bombay with a mixed cargo of cloth and tea,’ Luke reported. ‘She ran into a storm north of the Mascarenes. She intends to make her repairs here before resuming her voyage.’

  ‘What news?’

  ‘Most of it is stale, for the Apostle sailed from the Company dock months ago but the war against the French is going well. William is whipping their backsides. He is a good fighter, our Willy.’

  ‘Great news!’ Tom jumped up. ‘Tell the crew and issue a good tot to every man to drink King Willy’s health.’

  What Tom could not know was that, apart from the news of the war, the Apostle carried a packet of letters and documents, sealed in a tarred canvas bag, from the Governor of Bombay and addressed to His Majesty’s Consul at Zanzibar. The captain sent the packet ashore the following morning, and Guy Courtney opened it at the luncheon table on the long veranda of the consulate. Caroline sat opposite him, but Sarah was still locked in her own quarters.

  ‘There is a personal letter from your father,’ Guy told Caroline, as he picked it out of the assortment of gazettes and sealed papers.

  ‘It is addressed to me,’ Caroline protested, as he broke the wax seal and began to read it.

  ‘I am your husband,’ he said complacently.

  Suddenly his expression changed and the sheet shook in his hands. ‘By God! This passes all belief!’

  ‘What is it?’ Caroline laid down the silver spoon in her hand. It must be momentous news indeed to have that effect on her husband: Guy prided himself on his cool composure in even the most trying circumstances.

  He was staring at the letter, and slowly his expression changed from consternation to jubilation. ‘I have him now!’

  ‘Who? What has happened?’

  ‘Tom! He is a murderer. By God! Now he will pay the price on the gallows. He has murdered our dear brother, William, and there is a warrant out for his arrest. I intend to do my duty, and it will give me the greatest pleasure to cut him down to size.’ Guy leaped to his feet, knocking the teapot off its stand. It shattered on the tiles, but he scarcely glanced at it.

  ‘Where are you going, Guy?’ Caroline stood up, her face white with shock, swaying on her feet.

  ‘To the Sultan,’ he said, and shouted to the servants, ‘Tell Assam to saddle the grey, and to hurry.’ He turned back to Caroline, and punched his fist into the palm of his other hand. ‘At last! I have waited for this for so long. I will ask the Sultan for men from his guard. After the trouble Tom has caused him, he won’t quibble. We will arrest Master Thomas and seize the Swallow. When we sell the ship, she should bring in two thousand pounds at the very least. I deserve a reward for bringing a dangerous criminal to justice.’ He laughed triumphantly. ‘Master Tom will have a free berth on the Apostle back to London, in chains.’

  ‘Guy, he is your brother! You cannot do this to him!’ Caroline was distraught.

  ‘Billy was Tom’s brother also, yet the swine ran him through in cold blood. Now he will pay a high price for all his arrogance.’

  She ran to him and clutched at his sleeve. ‘No, Guy, you cannot do this!’

  ‘So!’ He rounded on her, his face darkening and seeming to swell with rage. ‘You plead for him. You still love him, don’t you? In a minute, you would pull up your skirts and open your legs for him like the dirty little slut you are.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘You would love him to plant another bastard in your belly.’ He struck her across the face, sending her reeling back against the low wall of the veranda. ‘Well, your lover is going to make no more bastards.’ He strode away down the terrace, bellowing for his horse.

  Caroline leaned heavily against the wall, clutching the angry red weal on her cheek, until she heard his horse gallop away through the gates and down the track towards the harbour and the fort. Then she dragged herself to her feet.

  When Guy had first told her of the liaison between Tom and her young sister, she had been horrified and torn with jealousy. Then last night she had gone to Sarah’s room and spent nearly two hours with her. Slowly she had come to realize how deeply her sister was in love. She had long been aware that her own feelings for Tom were hopeless, so she had thrust them aside, and though the pain of the sacrifice was intense, she had kissed Sarah and promised to help her and Tom to elope. ‘I have to warn them,’ she whispered aloud, ‘but there is so little time.’

  She picked up a tray from the sideboard, loaded it with a plate of food for Sarah, and carried it down the veranda, past the nursery where Christopher was sleeping, to the last door. One of Guy’s watchmen was squatting there, half asleep in the drowsy afternoon heat, with his musket across his lap. He started awake as she came towards him, then scrambled to his feet.

  ‘Salaam aliekum, Donna.’ He bowed. ‘The master has given strict orders that no one should pass this door, coming or going.’

  ‘I have food for the lady, my sister,’ she said imperiously. ‘Stand aside.’

  He hesitated; his orders had not covered this eventuality. Then he bowed again. ‘I am
as dust under your feet,’ he said, drew the big iron key from the folds of his robe and turned it in the lock. Caroline swept past him, but as the door closed she dropped the tray on the first table and ran through to Sarah’s bedchamber.

  ‘Sarah, where are you?’

  Her sister lay on the bed under the tent-like mosquito net. A light sheet covered her, and she seemed to be sleeping, but as soon as she heard Caroline’s voice she threw it back and sprang from the bed, fully clothed and wearing riding boots under her long skirts. ‘Caroline! I am so glad you have come. I did not want to leave without saying goodbye to you.’

  Caroline stared at her, and Sarah ran to her and embraced her. ‘I am leaving with Tom. He is waiting for me on the beach below the old monastery, but I am late already.’

  ‘How will you escape past Guy’s guards?’ Caroline asked.

  Sarah reached under her skirts and drew out the duelling pistols. ‘I will shoot anyone who tries to stop me.’

  ‘Listen to me, Sarah. A letter has come from Father in Bombay. Tom is accused of the murder of his elder brother, and there is a warrant issued for his arrest.’

  ‘I know that. Tom told me.’ She pulled away. ‘You cannot stop me, Caroline. It makes no difference, I know he is innocent and I am going away with him.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’ Caroline seized her arm again. ‘I have already promised that I will help you and Tom. I am not going back on my word. I came to tell you that Guy has ridden to the fort to inform the Sultan. They are going to arrest Tom, and send him back to England in chains, to his trial and execution.’

  ‘No!’ Sarah stared at her sister.

  ‘You have to warn him, but you will not escape unless I help you.’ She thought quickly. ‘This is what we will do.’ She spoke rapidly, filling out the plan as she went along. ‘Do you understand?’ she asked, when she had finished.