by Wilbur Smith
The Prince roused himself, gave the order, ‘Advance! Charge at them,’ the war drums boomed and the horns sounded an urgent, strident note.
With the Saar and the Awamir in the centre, the army of the south rolled forward, raising a towering cloud of dust to sully the high blue sky.
Dorian rode in the centre of the line, and his heart was singing. Right up to this last moment, he had not been certain that the sheikhs of the Masakara would hold true to their undertaking to turn upon the Ottoman. The fleet beast under him pulled ahead of the riders on each side of him, and only Batula could match him, riding hard a lance-length behind.
Ahead the Turks were in confusion, most still looking down the valley to where Prince al-Malik’s army was rolling forward; only those closest to the right flank had seen the danger and were turning to meet the charge.
With a clash and shock, of body to body and shield to shield, they struck the Ottoman flank, and ripped through it. Dorian selected a man from the ranks, bulky in his chain-mail and bronze helmet, dark face contorted with rage and dismay as he struggled to control his plunging steed. Dorian dropped the tip of his lance and leaned low in the saddle. Under Batula’s training he had learned to pick a thrown desert melon out of the air at full gallop. Now he aimed for the opening in the Turk’s chain-mail shirt, into his left armpit.
The lance jolted in his hand as the tip found the opening unerringly and slipped through the man’s chest until it struck the chain-mail on the far side, then the impact lifted the Turk clean out of the saddle and he hung on the supple lance, kicking.
Dorian dropped the tip and let him slide off the steel and roll in the dust, then he raised the lance again and picked out his next victim. This time the lance shattered in his hand at the force of the blow, but the steel head was firmly lodged in the throat of the man he had hit. The Turk gripped the stump with both hands and tried to pluck it out of his flesh, but he died before he could do so, then slipped down from the saddle to be dragged away by his fear-crazed horse.
Batula tossed the spare lance to Dorian, who caught it neatly and in the same movement couched the long shaft and dropped its bright head to the level of the next man’s belly.
In the first few minutes of the charge the ranks of the Ottoman were ripped wide open, charged from both flanks, and while they still reeled the main army of the south crashed into their disordered front.
The locked armies revolved like a mass of debris caught up in the vortex of a whirlpool, and the uproar was deafening as men hacked and shoved, shouted and died. It could not last long, for the conflict was one-sided and the fury of the attackers too fierce. Caught in flank and front, outnumbered at every point, the Ottoman line bulged and began to give. The Arabs sensed the victory and pressed forward, like wolves around a dying camel, tearing, howling, ripping into them, until at last they broke, and the battle turned into a bloody, broken shambles.
Dorian’s first charge had carried him deep into the mass of the enemy and, for a desperate while, he and Batula were cut off and surrounded. The second lance broke in his hands, so he drew out his sword and fought until his right arm was daubed with Turkish blood to the shoulder.
Then abruptly the fury of the enemy around him abated and they broke away, turning the heads of their mounts towards the rear. Dorian saw men throw down their weapons as the Arabs came racing through the gaps in their front. The Turks whipped their mounts into a gallop and fled. ‘Full chase!’ Dorian yelled. ‘Chase them! Cut them down.’
Mingled like oil and water, the two armies streamed back across the plain together, the Arabs were ululating and swinging their bloody swords, shouting their war-cries as the battle turned into a rout and the fleeing Turks made little effort to defend themselves. Some threw themselves from their horses and knelt in the path of the attackers, begging for mercy, but the Arabs lanced them casually as they rode by, then wheeled back to strip the corpses of gold and booty.
Dorian fought his way through to the rear. Ahead he saw that the Ottoman staff had long ago abandoned the battle, and were also in desperate flight across the plain. The general and every one of his officers had grabbed a horse or a camel and were fleeing back towards the city. In all this multitude there was only one man Dorian wanted.
‘Where is Zayn al-Din?’ he shouted to Batula. Dorian had seen him earlier that morning as the army had debouched through the gates of Muscat. Zayn al-Din had been with the Turkish staff, riding behind the Ottoman general, wearing half-armour and carrying a lance as though he were eager for the fight. With him had been Abubaker, his old crony and henchman from the zenana at Lamu. Abubaker had grown tall and lean, with long moustaches, and he also was dressed in the accoutrements of a warrior. Although his two old enemies had ridden within two lance-lengths of Dorian, neither had recognized him among the ranks of the Masakara, for Dorian had been mounted on a strange camel and his face and red hair had been swathed in the folds of a black turban.
‘Where is he?’ he shouted to Batula. ‘Can you see him?’ He jumped up and stood tall on the wooden saddle frame of the running camel, a careless feat of skill, and from the height he scoured the open plain ahead, which was covered not only with the fleeing enemy but also with bolting loose horses and unmounted camels whose riders had been hacked down.
‘There he is!’ Dorian shouted, dropped back easily into the saddle and urged his mount forward. Zayn al-Din was half a mile ahead, mounted on the same bay stallion that Dorian had seen that morning. His plump body was unmistakable, as was the golden head-rope around his blue headdress. Dorian pushed his camel to the top of its speed. He overhauled and passed many other Turks, some high-ranking officers, but he ignored them and, like a cheetah coursing the gazelle of his choice, bore down swiftly on Zayn al-Din.
‘Brother!’ he called to him, as he ran close behind the bay stallion. ‘Stay a while! I have something for you.’
Zayn looked back over his shoulder. The wind plucked off his headdress and his long dark hair and his beard fluttered. Terror turned his face the colour of rancid camel butter as he saw Dorian close behind him, saw the long curved sword in his hand, his face all speckled with other men’s blood, his grin savage and merciless.
Zayn al-Din seemed paralysed with fear, clinging to the pommel of his saddle, his eyes fixed on Dorian as he came alongside and raised the scimitar on high. Then, with a shriek, Zayn released his grip and fell out of the saddle. He struck the hard ground and rolled like a boulder down a steep hillside, until he lay still at last in a dusty heap, like a pile of old clothing.
Dorian wheeled his camel and stood over him as Zayn crawled up on to his knees. His face was white with dust, and there was a raw graze down one cheek. He looked up at Dorian and began to blubber. ‘Spare me, al-Salil. I will give you anything.’
‘Throw me your lance,’ Dorian called to Batula, without taking his eyes of Zayn’s abject face. Batula tossed it across to him. Dorian lowered the point and placed it on Zayn’s chest. Zayn began to weep, and the tears cut runnels through the dust that powdered his face. ‘I have a lakh of gold rupees, my brother. It is all yours, if you spare me, I swear it.’ His mouth was slack and his lips quivered and drooled with fear.
‘Do you remember Hassan at the Pass of the Bright Gazelle?’ Dorian asked grimly, leaning out from the saddle to stare into his face.
‘God forgive me,’ Zayn cried. ‘It was in the heat of the fighting. I was not myself. Forgive me, my brother.’
‘I wish only that I could bring myself to touch you, then surely I would cut out your testicles as you did to my friend, but rather would I touch a poisonous snake,’ Dorian spat with disgust. ‘You do not deserve the warrior’s death by the steel of the lance, but because I am a compassionate man I shall give it to you.’ He pressed forward with the long shaft and the bright point pricked Zayn al-Din’s fat chest.
Then Zayn saved his own life. He found the only words that could avert Dorian’s implacable wrath.
‘In the name of the man who is our
father. In the love of al-Malik, grant me mercy.’
Dorian’s expression changed, his gaze wavered, and he withdrew the lance tip an inch. ‘You ask for the judgement of the father you have betrayed. We both know it must be the garotte of the executioner. If that is the death you choose, over the clean death I offer you, so be it, then. I grant it to you.’
Dorian put up the lance, and rammed the butt down into the leather bucket behind his heel.
‘Batula!’ he called, and when his lance-bearer came up he ordered him, ‘Bind the arms of this eater of swine flesh behind his back and place a noose around his neck.’ Batula slipped down from the saddle and swiftly trussed Zayn’s arms, then dropped a running noose over his head. He passed the end of the rope up to Dorian, who made it fast to one of the loops on his saddle.
‘On your feet!’ Dorian barked, and gave the rope a yank. ‘I am taking you to the Prince.’ Zayn lurched upright, then staggered after Dorian’s camel. Once he lost his balance and rolled on the ground, but Dorian did not slacken the pace or even look back, and Zayn struggled up again, his robe ripped and his knees bloody. Before they had covered a mile of that sanguinary plain, on which the corpses of the Turks lay like seaweed on a storm-lashed beach, the golden sandals had been torn from Zayn’s feet and his soles were raw. His face was swollen and black as the rope half choked him and he was so weak he could no longer call for mercy.
As Prince Abd Muhammad al-Malik rode up to the gates of Muscat at the head of his retinue, the citizens of the city and the courtiers of the Caliph al-Uzar ibn Yaqub threw open the gates and came out to greet him. They had torn their garments and poured ash and dust over their heads as a sign of repentance, and they knelt in front of his horse, pleading for their lives, swearing allegiance to him and hailing him as the new Caliph of Oman.
The Prince sat impassively on his horse, a noble, magisterial figure, but when the vizier of his brother Yaqub came forward bearing a stained sack over his shoulder, al-Malik’s expression turned to sorrow for he knew what it contained.
The vizier emptied the sack into the dust of the roadway and Yaqub’s severed head rolled to the feet of the Prince’s mount, and stared up at him with dull, glazed eyes. His grey beard was matted and filthy, like that of a street beggar, and the flies settled in a humming cloud on his open eyes and bloody lips.
Al-Malik gazed down on him sadly, then looked up at the vizier and spoke softly. ‘You seek to win my approval by murdering my brother and bringing me this sad broken thing?’ he asked.
‘Great lord, I did only what I thought would please you.’ The vizier blanched and trembled.
The Prince gestured to the sheikh of the Awamir at his side. ‘Kill him!’ The sheikh leaned from the saddle and, with his sword, split the vizier’s skull down to the chin. ‘Treat my brother’s remains with all respect and prepare him for burial before the setting of the sun. I shall lead the prayers for his soul,’ said al-Malik. Then he looked at the cringing citizens of Muscat. ‘Your city is now my city. Its people are now my people,’ he told them. ‘By my royal decree Muscat is exempt from plunder. Its women are protected by my word of honour from rape and its treasures from pillage.’ He lifted his right hand in blessing and said, ‘After you have sworn the oath of fealty, all your trespasses and crimes against me shall be forgiven and forgotten.’
Then he rode on into the city, to the halls of Muscat, and took his place upon the Elephant Throne of Oman, carved from great ivory tusks.
A hundred noblemen clamoured for the new Caliph’s ear, and a hundred pressing affairs of state awaited his attention, but one of the first men for whom he sent was Sheikh al-Salil. When Dorian prostrated himself before the throne, al-Malik stepped down, lifted him to his feet and embraced him.
‘I had thought you dead, my son. Then when I saw your banner flying in the ranks of the Masakara my heart shouted aloud with joy. I owe you much, I shall never know just how much, for if you had not brought in the northern tribes under my flag the battle might have gone hard for us. Perhaps I might not be sitting on the Elephant Throne this day.’
‘Father, during the battle I took a prisoner from the army of the Ottoman,’ Dorian told him, and made a sign to Batula, who waited among the noblemen at the back of the throne room. He came forward, leading Zayn al-Din on the rope.
Zayn’s attire was ragged and filthy with dust and dried blood, his hair and beard white with dust and his bare feet raw and bloodied like those of a pilgrim. At first al-Malik did not recognize him. Then Zayn stumbled forward and threw himself at his father’s feet, and wept and wriggled his whole body like a whipped dog. ‘Father, forgive me. Forgive my stupidity. I am guilty of treason and disrespect. I am guilty of greed. I was led astray by evil men.’
‘How is this so?’ the Caliph asked coldly.
‘The Sublime Porte offered me the Elephant Throne if I would turn against you, and I was weak and stupid. I regret this with all my heart and if you should order me killed, I will shout my love for you to the heavens as the life flies from my body.’
‘You richly deserve such a death,’ the Caliph said. ‘You have had nothing but love and kindness from me all your life, and you have repaid me with treachery and dishonour.’
‘Allow me another chance to prove my love to you.’ Zayn slobbered on his father’s sandals and mucus streamed from his nose as the tears poured from his eyes.
‘This glad day has already been marred by the death of my brother, Yaqub. There has been enough blood spilled,’ said al-Malik thoughtfully. ‘Stand up, Zayn al-Din. I grant you pardon, but in penance you must make the pilgrimage to the holy places at Mecca and ask forgiveness there also. Do not show me your face again until you return with your soul cleansed.’
Zayn lumbered to his feet. ‘All Allah’s blessings upon you, Majesty, for your benevolence and your compassion. You shall find my love to be like a mighty river that flows on eternally.’ Still grovelling, bowing and mouthing protestations of loyalty and duty, Zayn backed away down the length of the throne room, then turned and pushed his way through the crowds and out of the tall carved-ivory doors.
Ten days after the triumphal entry into Muscat, and a week before the commencement of Ramadan, the coronation of the new Caliph was celebrated in the halls of Muscat and the streets of the city. Most of the tribal warriors had drifted back into the wilderness to their villages around the tiny oases scattered down the length of Oman, for they were desert dwellers and unhappy behind the walls of a city. They swore their oaths of fealty to al-Malik, then rode away on their camels, laden with the spoils of the Ottoman army that they had destroyed.
Those who remained joined the celebrations in the streets of the city where whole carcasses of camels and sheep were roasted on the bonfires in every souk and square. The rams’ horns sounded, the drums beat and men danced in the streets while veiled women watched from the upper floors of the huddled buildings.
The new Caliph walked in procession through the crowded streets, stopping every few paces to embrace one of the warriors who had fought in his army. The crowds ululated, fired joy shots in the air and fell at his feet.
It was well after midnight when the Caliph returned to the palace of Muscat, and Sheikh al-Salil was still at his side where he had been all that day.
‘Stay with me yet a while,’ the Caliph ordered, when they reached the door of his bedchamber. He took Dorian’s arm and led him through and out onto the high balcony, which overlooked the sea and the streets of the city. The music and the shouts of the revellers carried faintly up to them, and the flames of the bonfires reflected off the walls and lit the dancers. ‘I owe you an explanation for pardoning Zayn al-Din,’ said the Caliph at last.
‘You owe me nothing, Majesty,’ Dorian protested. ‘It is I who owe you everything.’
‘Zayn deserved harsher punishment. He was a traitor, and I know how he treated your comrades at the Pass of the Bright Gazelle.’
‘My concerns are nothing,’ Dorian replied. ‘It is what he d
id to you, and what he will one day do to you again, that angers me.’
‘You think that his repentance was a sham?’
‘He lusts for the Elephant Throne,’ said Dorian. ‘I would have been happier if you had taken a scorpion into your bosom and a cobra into your bed.’
The Caliph sighed sadly. ‘He is my eldest son. I could not begin my reign with his murder. But I have placed you in great jeopardy, for his hatred of you is implacable.’
‘I am able to defend myself, Father.’
‘That you have proved.’ The Caliph laughed softly. ‘But now to other matters. I have another task for you, a dangerous and difficult one.’
‘You have only to command me, Majesty.’
‘Our trade with the African interior is most important to the prosperity of our people. We, who once were only poor desert nomads, are becoming a nation of seafarers and traders.’
‘I understand that, Father.’
‘Today I received a messenger from the Sultan of Zanzibar. Our African trade is under a new and grave threat, the very existence of our bases at Zanzibar and Lamu is at stake.’
‘How is this possible?’
‘A band of marauders is savaging our caravan routes between the Fever Coast and the Great Lakes. Our African trade is in jeopardy.’
‘Are the black tribes rising in rebellion?’ Dorian asked.
‘Perhaps this is the case. We know that there are black tribesmen among the marauders, but there are also rumours that they are led by infidel Franks.’
‘From which country?’ Dorian asked.
The Caliph shrugged. ‘This is not known. All that is certain is that they are ruthless in their attacks upon our slave caravans. We have lost almost the entire year’s revenue from the sale of slaves, together with immense quantities of ivory and gold out of the interior.’