by Wilbur Smith
It was Abubaker who had provided the bitter white powder that was doing the business for them. One of the physicians tending the sinking Caliph was Abubaker’s man. Administered in tiny doses, the poison accumulated in the body of the victim so that the symptoms became gradually more acute. Silently Abubaker agreed with his brother that it was time to give the Caliph the lethal dose that would end it.
Abubaker covered his face with the black headcloth, as if to hide his sorrow, and smiled. By this time tomorrow his elder brother Zayn al-Din would be seated on the Elephant Throne. He, ibn al-Malik Abubaker, would be commander of the armies and fleets of Oman. Zayn al-Din had promised him that, and the rank of imam and two lakhs of rupees from the royal treasury. Abubaker had always seen himself as a mighty warrior, and he knew that at last his star was rising and beginning to burn brightly. ‘All thanks to my sainted brother, Zayn al-Din. May Allah shower ten thousand blessings upon his head,’ he whispered.
At dusk the physicians gave the Caliph a potion to help him sleep and to strengthen him against the assaults of the night demons. Although al-Malik coughed, dribbled the medicine down his chin and rolled his head away, the doctors held him gently and spooned every last drop down his throat.
He lay so still and pale on the cushions that twice during the long, hot night the doctors opened his eyelids, held a lamp in front of his face and watched for the shrinking of the pupils. ‘In the love and kindness of Allah, the Caliph yet lives,’ they intoned each time.
Then, as the first coppery rays of dawn light pricked through the fretwork of the shutters of the east window, the Caliph started up suddenly and gave a strong, clear cry. ‘God is great!’ Then he fell back on the sweat-soaked cushions of his bed, and a slow trickle of blood ran from his nostrils and down his cheeks into the bed-linen.
The doctors rushed forward, forming a circle around the body, and though all his sons craned for a glimpse of their father, he was hidden from them. The chief surgeon whispered to the vizier of the court in lugubrious tones. Then the vizier faced the rows of seated princes and intoned, in a voice of heavy portent, ‘Abd Muhammad al-Malik, Caliph of Oman, is dead. Allah receive his spirit!’
‘In God’s Name,’ they replied in solemn chorus, many faces raddled with grief.
‘In accordance with his father’s wishes, Zayn al-Din is the successor to the Elephant Throne of Oman. May Allah bless him and grant him a long, glorious reign.’
‘In God’s Name!’ they repeated, but none showed any joy at the announcement. They knew that dark days were ahead.
Outside the city walls, jutting out into the sea, was a rocky headland. The cliffs on the point fell sheer into deep water, so clear that every detail of the coral below was etched like a marble mosaic. The new Caliph had ordered a pavilion of polished pink granite blocks built upon the lip of the precipice. He named it the Palace of Retribution. From his seat in the shaded colonnade he could look down to the surface of the sea and watch the long, dark shadows of the sharks gliding over the reef far below. There had been no sharks when first the palace was built, but now there were many, and they were well fed.
Zayn al-Din was eating a ripe pomegranate when they brought another of his father’s officers barefoot before him. They had shaved his head and beard, and placed a chain around his neck as a symbol of condemnation. ‘You were unkind to me, bin-Nabula,’ the Caliph said, ‘when I was in disgrace and out of my father’s favour, may Allah bless his sainted soul!’ He spat one of the pomegranate pips, which hit the proud old man in the face. He did not even blink but stared back coldly at his tormentor. Bin-Nabula had commanded the former Caliph’s army and fleet: he was a soldier proud.
‘You called me the fat puppy.’ Zayn al-Din wagged his head sorrowfully. ‘That was very cruel of you.’
‘It was a name that fitted you well,’ the condemned man replied. ‘And since then you have grown wider in girth and more repulsive in mien. I give thanks to Allah that your noble father cannot know what a plague he has visited upon his people.’
‘Old man, you were always garrulous, but I have a certain cure for that vice.’ Zayn al-Din nodded to the new general of his army. ‘My little friends down there are hungry. Do not keep them waiting.’
Abubaker bowed. He was dressed in burnished half-armour with a spiked helmet and embroidered silk neck flap. When he straightened he was smiling. The smile on that narrow face, with the snaggle teeth of a barracuda, was dreadful to look upon but bin-Nabula did not flinch. ‘Many good men have gone along this road ahead of me,’ bin-Nabula said. ‘I prefer their company to yours.’
The executions had been conducted daily over the last months since the accession of the new Caliph. Hundreds of once powerful and important men had gone over the cliff to the waiting shark pack. Zayn al-Din had a long memory for a slight or an insult and neither he nor General Abubaker tired of the sport.
‘Remove the chain,’ Abubaker ordered his men. He did not want bin-Nabula to sink too swiftly. They lifted the heavy links from his neck, and led him to the block.
‘Both feet,’ Abubaker commanded, and they placed his legs across the block. Abubaker had refined the punishment: with his feet gone, the condemned man could splash on the surface but not swim to the shore, and the blood in the water would rouse the shark pack and drive it into a feeding frenzy.
He drew his sword and slashed the blade through the air above bin-Nabula’s legs, smiling at him with those uneven teeth. The old general looked back at him steadily, without any sign of fear. Abubaker could have delegated this duty to any of his men, but he took pleasure in doing his brother’s work himself. He laid the edge of the curved blade against the old man’s ankle, judging his stroke with narrowed eyes.
‘A single clean stroke,’ Zayn al-Din encouraged him, ‘or I shall claim a penalty from you, my brother.’
Abubaker lifted the blade, paused at the top, then swung down. The steel hissed in the air, then sliced through flesh and bone and thudded into the wooden block. The white foot with its blue veins dropped on to the polished granite floor, and Zayn al-Din clapped his hands. ‘A fair stroke indeed. But can you do the same again?’
Abubaker wiped the blade on a square of silk that a slave handed him, then lined up on the other ankle. Hiss and clunk, the steel sank deep into the wood of the block. Zayn al-Din hooted with laughter.
The soldiers carried bin-Nabula to the edge of the cliff, leaving a wet red trail across the pink polished granite flags. Zayn al-Din jumped up from his cushions and limped to the low parapet that protected him from the drop. He leaned over the wall and looked down. ‘My little fishes are waiting for you, bin-Nabula. Go with God.’
The soldiers threw him over the edge and his robes ballooned around him as he fell, but he made no sound. Some of them screamed all the way down, and Zayn al-Din enjoyed that. Bin-Nabula struck the surface and was driven deep by the impetus of his fall. Then the disturbed water cleared and they saw him float up to the surface. He floundered there, trying to keep his head above the water but the water clouded red around him.
‘There!’ Zayn al-Din pointed down with a trembling finger and shrieked with excitement. ‘Look at my lovely fish.’
The dark shapes moved with agitation, speeding up as they rose towards the surface, circling the struggling old man.
‘Yes, my little ones, come! Come!’
Then the first shot in and bin-Nabula was plucked below the surface. But the water was so clear that Zayn al-Din could follow every detail of the banquet he had set.
When the sport was ended and there was nothing further to watch, he returned to the pile of cushions under the silk canopy and called for cold sherbet to drink. Then he beckoned his brother to come to him. ‘That was well done, Abubaker, but it is more satisfying when they scream. I believe the old shaitan remained silent merely to diminish my enjoyment.’
‘Bin-Nabula was always an obstinate old goat,’ Abu-baker agreed. ‘There were six hundred and twelve names on the list you gave me. It is
sad, Majesty, but bin-Nabula was number six hundred. We are almost at the end of the list.’
‘No. No, my dearest brother, we are not nearly at an end. One of the chiefs of all our enemies has not been dealt with yet.’
‘Give me the rascal’s name.’ Abubaker showed his uneven teeth in a grimace that was too savage to be a smile. ‘Tell me where to find him, and I will seek him out for you.’
‘But, my brother, you know him well. You also have a reckoning with him.’ Zayn al-Din leaned forward, his belly sagging into his lap, and drew up the hem of his robe. Tenderly he massaged the deformed joint of his ankle. ‘Even after all the years my foot still aches when there is thunder in the air.’ Understanding dawned in Abubaker’s dark eyes, and Zayn al-Din went on softly, ‘I did not enjoy being dragged on a rope’s end to the gates of Muscat.’
‘Al-Salil.’ Abubaker nodded. ‘The red-headed green-eyed devil. I know where to find him. Our sainted father, Allah bless his memory, sent him to Africa to reopen the trade routes for our caravans.’
‘Take as many ships and men as you need, Abubaker. Go to Africa. Find him and bring him back to me, broken, if you wish, but not dead. Do you understand me?’
‘Broken, but not dead. I understand you perfectly, Majesty.’
Yasmini waded out from the shore. She sucked in her already flat belly at the cold, and raised her hands above her head. Dorian lay on the crisp white sand and watched her. Although they had made love only minutes before, he never tired of looking at that cream and ivory body. She had bloomed since leaving the stultifying bounds of the zenana walls. Now she bubbled with interest and excitement for all the wonders around her, and when they were alone her sense of fun and mischief enchanted him.
Waist-deep in the lake, Yasmini scooped a double handful of the sweet water and raised it to her lips. As she swallowed, a few droplets spilled from between her fingers and dribbled on to her chest. They caught the sunlight and sparkled like a diamond necklace on her smooth skin. Her nipples puckered at the chill and stood out crisply.
She turned and waved at him. Then, with a shudder of protest at the cold water, she lowered herself until only her head showed. Her hair, shot through with the silver blaze, floated in a dark cloud around her lotus face.
‘Have courage, master! Come in!’ she invited, but he waved a lazy hand in refusal. This respite was so delightful after the months of hard marching up from the coast.
‘Is the great sheikh, the mighty warrior and victor of Muscat, afraid of a little cold water?’ she mocked.
He smiled at her and shook his head. ‘I do not fear the water, but you have exhausted all my strength, O brazen one.’
‘That was my purpose!’ She tinkled with laughter, and suddenly rose up and splashed a sheet of the cold water over him.
‘Wicked woman!’ He sprang up. ‘You have exhausted my forbearance also.’ He charged into the lake in a storm of spray and, though she tried to escape, he seized her and plunged both of them below the surface. They came up clinging together and spluttering with laughter. After a while, her expression became solemn.
‘I fear that you have not been truthful with me, lord,’ she said. ‘I am holding in my right hand that which proves your strength is far from exhausted.’
‘Is it enough that I ask your forgiveness for deceiving you?’
‘No, it is not nearly enough.’ She placed both slim arms around his neck. ‘This is how the fish and crocodiles punish their mates when they err.’ She hopped up and beneath the surface gripped his hips in the scissors of her legs.
A while later they waded back to the beach, still clinging together, and laughing breathlessly. They flopped down at the edge of the water, and Dorian looked up at the height of the sun. He murmured regretfully, ‘The morning is almost spent. We must go back now, Yassie.’
‘Just a little longer,’ she pleaded. ‘Sometimes I grow weary of playing the slave-boy.’
‘Come!’ he ordered, and pulled her to her feet. They went to where their clothing lay in an untidy heap, and dressed quickly. The little sailing dhow was drawn up on the sand, but before she stepped on board Yasmini paused and looked about her slowly, taking leave of this wondrous place where for an hour they had been happy and free.
On the top of the tallest tree of the island perched a pair of snowy-headed fish eagles, their sleek bodies black washed with cinnamon. One of the birds threw back its head and uttered a yelping chant. ‘I will never forget that cry,’ Yasmini said. ‘It is the very voice of this wild land.’
The hills on the far side of the lake were just an outline, paler blue than the water. A long line of pink flamingo flew low along the far shore. The head of the flight rose on a thermal of warm air then dropped again. Every following bird rose as it reached the same point in the air and then dropped exactly as the bird before it had. The effect was extraordinary, as though a long, pink serpent undulated above the azure waters.
‘Nor will I ever forget such beauty,’ Yasmini whispered. ‘I would like to stay here for ever with you.’
‘This is the country of God, where man counts for nothing,’ Dorian said. ‘But come. We cannot afford such a dream. Duty has me in its iron grasp. Tomorrow we must leave this place and begin the march back to the Fever Coast.’
‘Just a moment longer, lord,’ she begged, and pointed to a strange dark cloud, a mile out from where they stood, that rose from the surface of the lake, five hundred feet straight into the unsullied blue of the African sky.
‘What is that? It is as though the water is on fire and sends smoke into the air.’
‘Tiny insects,’ Dorian told her. ‘They breed on the bottom of the lake in their multitudes then rise to the surface and spin tiny sails of gossamer. On these sails they float into the air and are carried away.’
‘The ways of Allah are wonderful,’ she murmured, eyes shining.
‘Come,’ he urged again, ‘and remember that you are once more Yassie, the slave-boy, and that you must show me duty and respect.’
‘Yes, master.’ She bowed low with her palms together touching her lips, and her entire demeanour changed. She was a consummate actress, and when she straightened up she held herself like a servant, not a princess, and moved like a boy as she pushed the dhow out into the lake and scrambled in over the bows.
They sat apart as the tiny craft rounded the end of the island and came in full view of the village on the mainland a league away across the water. Even at that distance many eyes would be watching them.
Although these waters were so expansive as to seem like the ocean itself, they were months of travel from the Fever Coast, and the climate was drier and healthier up here on the high plateau of the continent. The village of Ghandu was spread along several miles of the lakeshore, for this was the centre of all Omani trade with the interior. From here the long slave road wound down to the coast. In sight now were a dozen or more canoes and sailing dhows, plying in towards the port of Ghandu. They had voyaged down hundreds of miles of lakeshore, and they carried cargoes of dried fish, ivory, slaves, hides and gum arabic they had gathered from the vast wilderness.
As Dorian and Yasmini sailed in towards the village, she wrinkled her nose with distaste. The sweet air was tainted with the stench of the fish racks and the slave barracoons. When Dorian stepped ashore Bashir al-Sind, his chief lieutenant, was there to meet him with the rest of the army staff. Yassie hung back self-effacingly while Dorian was plunged immediately into the duty and responsibility of his command, a duty he had escaped for those few precious moments on the island with Yasmini.
‘The women have arrived, lord,’ Bashir told him, ‘and the merchants have gathered to listen to your orders for the march.’
Dorian strode through the village, between the seething barracoons where the slaves were penned, through the squalor and misery that was in such bitter contrast to the beauty and serenity he and Yasmini had experienced a short while before. In the main souk, seated on their cushioned stools under their gaudy silk s
unshades, each surrounded by his own entourage of robed guards and house-slaves, the five merchants awaited him. These men controlled all trade coming through Ghandu. They were all pious, learned men; their speech was cultured and the compliments they paid him were florid. Their deportment was dignified and noble, and they were exceedingly rich. Yet Dorian had come to despise them in the short time he had been at Ghandu and exposed to the savagery of the trade that supported them.
Dorian had been a slave once, but al-Malik had never treated him as one. Slavery had been a constant fact of his adult life, but for this reason he had given it little thought. Most of the slaves he had ever known were tamed or born into captivity, resigned to it and, in almost every case, treated kindly as valuable chattels. But since arriving here at Ghandu he had been confronted by the raw, brutal reality. He had been forced to witness the bringing in of the freshly captured people, and it had not been a comfortable lesson.
He found himself torn by his own humanity, and his love and duty to his adoptive father, the Caliph. He understood how the prosperity and well-being of the nation depended on this trade. He would not shirk the duty of protecting it, but he took no pleasure in what he had to do.
It was the hour of the midday prayers, so they made their ablutions. Yassie poured water for Dorian to wash, and he prayed with the merchants as they knelt in a row on the silk rugs, facing the holy places in the north. When they resumed their seats under the sunshades Dorian felt a strong desire to forgo the elaborate opening speeches of the merchants, the further exchange of compliments, and to come to the business that had to be discussed. However, he was now so Arabic in his ways that he could not bring himself to such gaucherie. The sun was well past its zenith before one of the merchants mentioned, almost in passing, that they had two hundred female slaves ready for him as he had requested.