Monsoon

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘I cannot let this happen,’ Dorian told her. ‘I will rescue you from that, even if I have to forsake everything in this life.’

  ‘No, Dowie, I will not let you do it. You will have many other wives in the years ahead, and you will win glory and happiness without me.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I do not care about the rest. I care only for you.’

  ‘Then I can never come out to you again along the Angel’s Road. Unless you promise me to put this madness out of your mind, this will be the last time we will meet, Dowie. You must swear to me.’

  ‘I cannot do that.’

  ‘Then I will never see you again.’

  He saw that she was determined. ‘Please, Yassie, you cannot be so cruel to both of us.’

  ‘Then make love to me for the last time.’

  ‘Yassie, I cannot go on without you.’

  ‘You are strong. You will go on. Make love to me. Give me something to hold on to, to remember through the years ahead.’

  So they parted at the entrance to the tunnel, and Yasmini ran back through the narrow passage, blinded with her tears. As she clambered out of the opening above the tomb of the saint, a huge hand closed on her arm and lifted her off her feet.

  As she struggled and kicked, Kush giggled into her face, holding her easily. ‘I have waited many years for this, my little harlot. I knew that one day you would place yourself in my power. You were always too bold and headstrong.’

  ‘Leave me!’ she screamed. ‘Put me down.’

  ‘No,’ Kush replied. ‘Now you are mine. Never again will you flout my rules. The other women will listen to your screams and they will quail in their beds, and think about the price of sin.’

  ‘My father,’ she cried. ‘My future husband. They will make you pay dearly if you harm me.’

  ‘Your father barely knows your name. He has many other daughters, and none of them is a whore. Your future husband would never accept rotten half-chewed fruit into his zenana. No, my little one, from now on you belong to Kush alone.’

  Kush carried her to the little cell beside the cemetery, in the rear of the gardens, screened from the rest of the zenana by a hedge of flowering thorns. Two of his assistants were waiting there, eunuchs also, big men, gone to fat, but powerful. They had performed this punishment many times before, and they had made all the preparations.

  Kush laid Yasmini on the hard wooden frame and carefully took off her clothing. All three were grinning with anticipation, stripped to loincloths but already sweating in the small hot cell. They touched her body as it was revealed, stroking her smooth limbs, sniffing her hair, pinching her small glossy breasts. Then, when she was naked, they strapped her wrists and ankles with leather thongs until she lay spreadeagled and pinioned. Then Kush stood between her legs and smiled down at her, in an almost avuncular fashion.

  ‘You have been taken in harlotry. We know the man, but it spites me that he is grown too powerful to bring to justice. His punishment will be to hear of your fate. The rest of the world beyond these walls will hear that you died of a fever. Many do, at this season of the year. However, I will make certain that your lover has the truth whispered in his ear. For the rest of his life he will live with the knowledge that he was responsible for your strange, particular death.’

  Still smiling he leaned forward and placed his fat hand on her private parts, gently stroking the soft nest of fine dark hair between her thighs. ‘I am sure you have heard what happens to all the bad girls who have come to this room. But, in case you are uncertain, I will explain it to you as we go along.’

  He nodded to one of the other eunuchs, who came to stand beside Kush holding a wooden tray. On it lay two small packets. They were wrapped in fine rice-paper, fish-shaped, as long as a finger and tapered at both ends. They gleamed in the lamplight, for they had been heavily greased with sheep fat.

  ‘These each contain five ounces of chilli powder. I grow the pods myself in my little garden. They are of the fiercest variety. The juice from my fruit will burn the skin and flesh from the mouth of a Mogul, fed all his life on the strongest curries. I have to wear gloves of dogskin to protect my hands when I grind the powder.’

  Suddenly he thrust his fat forefinger deep into her. ‘One for this pretty perfumed little hole in front.’ He grinned down at her as she screamed with shock, pain and humiliation. Then he pulled out his finger, and thrust it in again further back. ‘And the second packet for this other, darker cavern at the rear.’ He withdrew his finger, sniffed it, wrinkled his nose and pulled a face at the other two eunuchs. They tittered with delight.

  He picked up one of the packets from the tray. Yasmini stared at it in horror and struggled against her bonds. ‘Hold her legs,’ he grunted at the other two. One of them forced her knees as far apart as they would go. Kush spread the silky fur and the soft lips beyond. Then, with the expertise bred of practice, he slipped the greased packet into her body.

  ‘See how al-Amhara has opened the way for me and made my task easier,’ he said, then stood back and wiped his fingers on his loincloth. ‘The front end done. Now for the rear,’ he said, and picked up the other packet. His assistant reached under Yasmini’s body and took one of her small round buttocks in each hand and drew them rudely apart.

  She was gnawing her lips and her teeth were stained pink with her own blood. She whipped her lithe golden body back and forth as far as her bonds would allow, and tears ran back into her hair.

  With his free hand Kush groped between her buttocks. ‘Open it wider!’ he told the other man. ‘Yes, that’s better. So sweet and tight.’

  Yasmini’s sobs ended with a sharp high squeal. ‘Ah, yes,’ Kush gloated. ‘That’s it. All the way. As far as I can reach.’

  He stepped back. ‘Shabash! It is done. Bind her ankles and her knees together so that she cannot expel the sweetmeats.’ They worked swiftly, then stood back and surveyed their handiwork with satisfaction.

  ‘Now go out and finish digging the whore’s grave.’ They went out into the cemetery, and soon there came the sound of their spades biting into the sandy earth, their jovial banter as they worked.

  Kush came to Yasmini’s side. ‘Your bier is ready, and the sheet to cover you when we lower you into the earth.’ He pointed them out to her against the far wall. ‘And see, I have even carved your headboard with my own loving hands.’ He held it up for her to read. ‘It has the date of your death, and tells the world that you died of fever.’

  Yasmini was silent now, her body rigid. Her eyes, wide and glittering with tears, were fastened on his face as he bent over her.

  ‘You see, the chilli powder is so virulent that it will eat its way through the rice-paper, while from the outside the juices of your own body will moisten and weaken it further. Soon the packet will dissolve and the powder will be released into your secret places.’

  He stroked her hair back from her forehead, then with his thumb wiped the tears from her eyelids with feminine gentleness. ‘At first you will feel a tiny stinging, which will grow into a fire, a raging fire that will make you long for the lesser heat of hell. I have watched many whores die upon this wooden bed, but I do not think there are words to describe their suffering. It will eat out your womb and your bowels like a hundred rats burrowing into your softness, and your screams will carry to every woman in the zenana. They will remember you when next they are tempted to sin.’

  He was breathing heavily now, and his expression was rapt, deeply aroused by the picture of suffering he was painting. ‘When will it begin?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘We cannot be sure. In an hour, or two, or even longer, there is no way of telling. How long will it last? I cannot tell you. I have seen the weak ones die in a day, and the strong ones last four days, screaming to the end. I think you are one of the strong ones, but we will see.’

  He went to the doorway and called to the men who were digging the grave, ‘Are you not finished yet? You cannot come and watch the fun until you are finished.’

  ‘Soon.’ One p
aused and leaned on his spade. Only the top of his shaved head was visible above the rim of the excavation. ‘We will be finished before the first packet bursts open.’

  Kush went back into the hut, and settled his bulk comfortably on the bench against the far wall. ‘The waiting is the interesting part,’ he told Yasmini. ‘Some beg for mercy, but I know you are too proud for that. Sometimes the brave ones try to conceal from me the moment when the paper breaks open. They try to deny me my enjoyment, but not for long.’ He giggled. ‘Not for very long.’

  He folded his arms across his soft, womanly breasts, and leaned back against the wall. ‘I will be beside you to the end, Yasmini, to share each exquisite moment with you. And I shall probably shed a tear at your graveside, for I am a man of sentiment, and soft-hearted.’

  The word that Kush had taken another girl to the little hut beside the graveyard spread swiftly through the zenana, and the instant that Tahi heard the rumour she knew with dreadful certainty who the girl was. She also knew exactly what she must do. She did not hesitate but threw on a shawl and veil, and picked up the basket in which she always brought back her purchases from the town when she was sent on errands by one of the royal wives or concubines. As an ancient free woman, she could pass without check between the zenana and the open world beyond the walls, and among her duties was the daily trip into the markets. She left her dingy room at the rear of the kitchen block, and hurried along the cloisters. She was terrified that one of the eunuchs would stop her before she reached the gates.

  A deep, unnatural silence hung like a pall over the zenana and the gardens, and the cloisters were deserted. No child laughed, no woman sang, and the fires in the kitchen were dead and cold. Every inhabitant of the women’s world had locked herself and her offspring in her own quarters. It was so quiet that, when Tahi stopped to listen, all she could hear was her own blood pulsing in her ears.

  Only one of the eunuch guards was on the gate, but he knew her well. He was so distracted by the hushed air of drama that he hardly glanced at her face as she drew back her veil to identify herself. He waved her through with one pudgy, beringed hand.

  The moment she was out of sight of the gate, she flung away the basket and broke into a heavy run. Within a mile her heart felt so swollen with fatigue that she could hardly breathe. She fell on the verge of the track and could not force her legs to carry her another step.

  A slave-boy came out of the fields, driving two donkeys ahead of him, laden with bundles of mangrove bark, for tanning leather. Tahi staggered to her feet and hunted under her robes for her purse. ‘My daughter is dying,’ she called to the boy. ‘I must fetch the doctor to her.’ She held up a silver rupee. ‘Take me to him and there will be another coin for you when we arrive at the fort.’

  The lad ogled the coin then nodded vigorously. He untied one of the bundles of bark and let it fall on the verge. He boosted Tahi onto the donkey’s back then whipped the little animal into a trot and ran behind it, laughing and calling to Tahi, ‘Hold on tight, old mother. Rabat is swift as an arrow. We will have you at the port before you have time to blink twice.’

  Dorian sat on the terrace with Ben Abram at his side. They were drinking cups of black tarry coffee and were engrossed in compiling a list of the medical supplies that would be needed by the expedition to the mainland. The pair had joyously renewed their friendship at almost the same minute that Dorian had stepped ashore on the beach at Lamu. Every day Ben Abram had come to join him in the morning prayers, and afterwards they sat long together in the pleasant, easy conversation of old friends.

  ‘I am too old to leave the island,’ Ben Abram was protesting at Dorian’s insistence that he join the expedition to care for the health of the soldiers.

  ‘We both know that you are as strong and as spry as the first day we met,’ Dorian told him. ‘Would you let me die of some horrible disease in the interior? I need you, Ben Abram.’

  Dorian broke off as he heard a commotion at the end of the terrace. He stood up and shouted irritably at the guards, ‘What is this uproar? You have my strict orders that I am not to be disturbed.’

  ‘I am as dust under your feet, great sheikh. But there is an old crone here who kicks and scratches like a rabid wildcat.’

  Dorian exclaimed with annoyance, and was about to order them to send the woman off with a swat across her buttocks, when she screeched, ‘Al-Amhara! It is me, Tahi! In the name of Allah, let me speak to you of someone we both love.’

  Dorian went cold with dread. Tahi would never have been so indiscreet unless some terrible disaster had overtaken Yasmini. ‘Let her pass,’ he shouted to the guards, and hurried to meet the old woman as she tottered down the terrace, far gone with fatigue and worry.

  She collapsed at his feet and clung to his knees. ‘Kush knows about you and the girl. He was waiting for Yasmini as she came back to the zenana and he has taken her to the little room beside the graveyard,’ she blurted out.

  From his own sojourn behind the zenana walls, Dorian knew about the little room. Although it was strictly forbidden, the small boys of the zenana had dared each other to creep beyond the thorn hedge and go into it to touch the dreadful wooden frame. They terrified each other with horror stories of what Kush did to the women he took there. One of the most chilling memories of all Dorian’s days within the zenana were the shrieks of a girl named Salima who had been taken there, after Kush had discovered her love for a young officer of the governor’s guard. Those cries had lasted four days and three nights, growing slowly weaker all that time, and the silence at the end was more harrowing than the shrillest scream had been.

  For long moments he was unmanned by Tahi’s warning. He felt the strength go out of his legs so that he could not move them, and his mind went blank, as though trying to hide from the horror of it. Then, with a shudder, he threw off the weakness and turned to Ben Abram. The old doctor had come to his feet. His expression was filled with alarm tempered with compassion. ‘I should not have heard those words, my son. You must have been foolish, mad, beyond any reason. But my heart breaks for you.’

  ‘Help me, old friend,’ Dorian pleaded. ‘Yes, I have been foolish and I have committed a terrible sin, but it was the sin of love. You know what Kush will do to her.’

  Ben Abram nodded. ‘I have seen the fruits of his monstrous cruelty.’

  ‘Ben Abram, I need your help.’ By the sheer intensity of his gaze, Dorian tried to will him to it.

  ‘I cannot enter the zenana,’ the old man said.

  ‘If I bring her out to you, will you help us?’

  ‘Yes, my son. If you can bring her out to me, I will help you, if it is not too late.’ Ben Abram turned to Tahi. ‘When did he take her to the little room?’

  ‘I know not. Perhaps two hours ago.’ Tahi sobbed.

  ‘Then we have very little time,’ said Ben Abram briskly. ‘I have the instruments I need with me. We can go at once.’

  ‘You will never be able to keep pace with me, old father.’ Dorian strapped on his sword-belt. ‘Come after me as fast as you can ride. There is a secret way under the walls on the east side.’ Swiftly he described how to find the entrance to the tunnel.

  ‘I have ridden past there, and remember the old ruins,’ Ben Abram murmured.

  ‘Wait for me there,’ Dorian said, then raced down the staircase, three steps at a time, and into the courtyard. As he ran to the stables, he saw that one of the grooms was leading out his black stallion to curry it in the yard. The horse had a halter on its lean Arabian head, and was one of the fleetest in Dorian’s string of fine animals that the Caliph had pressed on him as a parting gift when he left Muscat.

  He snatched the single rein out of the startled groom’s hand and vaulted onto the stallion’s bare back. As he hammered his heels into the horse’s flanks the stallion jumped away, and before they reached the gates of the fort he was at full gallop.

  They raced through the narrow streets, scattering chickens, dogs and terrified people from their path. As the
y burst out of the narrow lanes into the open country, Dorian lay flat along the stallion’s neck and pushed him to the top of his speed. ‘Go!’ he whispered in his ear, and the stallion flicked back his ears to listen. ‘Run for the very life of my love.’

  There was a short-cut through the mangroves. Dorian turned the horse off the main road and they splashed through the mud for a hundred yards until they hit firm ground again then sped through the palm grove on the far side, saving almost half a mile.

  The high walls of the zenana were white through the boles of the palms, and he sheered off towards the beach to keep out of sight of the gate. Once he was clear, he swung back again and galloped along the base of the wall. He saw the mound of ruins just ahead and leaped down with one arm around the stallion’s neck, his feet skimming the earth. He let go before the horse had stopped and used the momentum to hurl himself up the side of the tumbled ruins and down into the saucer beyond.

  He dragged aside the trailing branches and ran into the dark opening. The interior was narrower and lower than he remembered it, and it was pitch dark. When the uneven floor started to rise under his feet he almost fell. At last he saw ahead the dim light from the exit hole and could go on even faster. He jumped up, caught the rim of the opening and with a single movement heaved himself through and out onto the sunlit terrace where, long ago, Yasmini and her little friends had played with their dolls. It was deserted. He crossed it with long strides and dropped down the staircase on which Zayn al-Din had injured his ankle into the garden below.