Golden Lion (35 page)

So Judith endured and kept silent. She looked out for Hal in the crowd, not knowing whether she really wanted him to be there, just to know that he was coming for her, or whether it would simply be too much to take, for both of them, to see her degraded in this way. But it was hard, so bitter hard, and what made it worse was that though the men who examined her talked freely about what they were seeing, as if she were just another dumb animal, she understood too many of them all too well.

As a girl, Judith had accompanied her father on diplomatic missions not just to Venice, but to many of the other great courts of Europe also. Being young, with a natural gift for languages, she had picked up smatterings or in some cases a considerable degree of fluency in several European tongues as well as the Amharic and Arabic that were part of her birthright. Now, though, her comprehension was a curse, for she knew when a Dutchman told his friend, ‘Did you know that this cow is carrying a calf?
Ja
, and a white man’s brat, too.’

One Portuguese merchant asked another, ‘Why is the sultan selling a black jewel like that? If she were mine I’d keep her tied to my bed!’

‘I heard a rumour that it’s some kind of revenge,’ came the reply. ‘You can tell she’s high-born, look at her pretty hands, not a callus on them anywhere. The word is, her identity’s going to be revealed when she’s put on the block. They say her name alone will put ten thousand silver rupees on the price.’

‘Who is she then, the Queen of Sheba?’

‘I don’t care what her name is, I’d give her one any day of the week.’

And then, on one of the times when she was bent double and utterly exposed, there came an Arab voice saying, ‘She has not been cut, look at her lips and her bud still intact. So she still feels pleasure.’ And another replying, ‘It is shameful and impure when they scream and moan, but women like that are desperate for a man. The more often they are taken, the happier they are.’

‘So will you bid for her?’

‘Why spend money? A woman like that will give herself to you for nothing!’

She spent a terrified, restless, often tearful night. In the morning she was given a bowl of millet porridge then a bucket of water was thrown over her and a bored, fat, middle-aged African woman slapped fat on her skin to make it shine in a way that suddenly made Judith feel almost grateful for the gentle care the girls had taken to ready her for the prince.

The hours dragged by. Slowly the holding pen where she was being kept, directly behind the sale-block itself, was emptied as one slave after another was led away to be sold. She could hear the Omani auctioneer’s voice speaking in Arabic as he described each new piece of merchandise and urged customers to up their bids. Then an African, himself a slave of the auctioneer, came up to her, grabbed the rope that was hanging between her breasts and led her towards the block. Suddenly she realized that the auctioneer was talking about her, saying, ‘And now, respected gentlemen, I have a jewel beyond price to offer you, the property of the Sultan Sadiq Khan Jahan himself, whom he captured when she was foolish and proud enough to believe that she could spy in secret on Zanzibar. This woman is General Judith Nazet!’

A gasp went up from the crowd of bidders and spectators, followed by an excited buzz of chatter so that the auctioneer had to shout to make himself heard as he went on, ‘She is the pride of the infidel people of Ethiopia, the scourge of the faithful, the killer of those who love God … but our great prince has humbled her and now, in his infinite generosity, he offers her to any man who will have her.’

A huge cheer broke out and the auctioneer had to wait for it to subside before he went on. ‘But there is more. This woman is not just a vengeful she-demon. She is a whore, a slut who has opened her legs to a man and taken his seed inside her. Now she is bearing a child, who is sold with her … the child of the English sea captain Henry Courtney, whom men called El Tazar, for, like a barracuda, he killed without mercy as he struck at the ships of the faithful. Gentlemen, the next item in the auction is General Judith Nazet!’

And thus, to the sound of cheers, catcalls, obscene suggestions being shouted in a myriad tongues, Judith was taken from the pen and led out onto the block to be sold.

Hal wiped the sweat from his forehead and did his best to bring his racing heart under control. There was a covered stand along one side of the market, two rows of benches, raised high enough for the wealthiest buyers to watch the proceedings in some degree of comfort. Halfway along that stand a special box had been built for the sultan and a few chosen guests to sit, screened from the public view. Hal meanwhile, had hidden himself among the common folk and riff-raff, a crowd of several hundred people, crammed into an unshaded, outdoor enclosure in the full glare of the noonday sun, all shouting, jostling and barging as they did their best to get a better view of the slaves when they came up for sale. Facing the unruly mob, the actual slave block looked like a short flight of four steps, viewed side-on. The slave who was being sold was led up to the top step, to give the buyers the best possible view. The auctioneer stood on the second step, occasionally moving up to the third if he needed to see a bidder at the very back of the crowd. At the bottom were two of the auctioneer’s largest, most heavily muscled slaves, trusties who both carried long, heavy clubs with which to beat anyone on the block who was foolish enough to jump off and try to escape.

Hal was about two-thirds of the way back from the front. He had not shaved since he’d left Zanzibar on the night that Judith was taken and had also let his hair hang lank and loose about his face. At the same time he was dressed in the most splendid finery he possessed, the intention being to suggest a man of squalid behaviour and morals who nevertheless had the cash to spend on expensive tailoring. Someone like a slave-trader, in other words.

To his great fury, Aboli had been left behind on Rivers’s ship the
Achilles
, along with Big Daniel and enough bloody-minded
Golden Bough
men to prevent the pirate and his crew doing a runner and leaving Hal stranded, should anything go wrong.

‘I’m sorry, old friend,’ Hal had said, ‘but you are too recognizable and our association is too well known. If you are spotted then my presence will immediately be inferred. Mister Tromp will be my companion on this occasion. It will be safer that way.’

Of course, Hal knew, as did Aboli, that it would have been far safer still if he had not gone ashore, but left Rivers to buy Judith and bring her back to his ship. But he could not bear to think of her facing the ordeal of being sold into slavery without the comfort of his presence, nor did he trust Rivers not to pull some kind of trick. He was a thief by profession, after all. It would be foolish not to assume that if he could steal Judith he would.

And then, after one poor wretch after another had been sold, the auctioneer was calling out the last and finest item for sale that day, and naming Judith, describing her in ways that defamed and maligned her, even citing Hal as the father of the child … and there she was, atop the block, a rope around her neck and hands tied behind her back so that she had no way of covering herself or protecting her modesty from the leering eyes of the men who saw her as nothing more than an object to be traded and then used.

Hal was filled with a rage more powerful than any he had ever known. His blood was pounding in his temples, his vision seemed to blur as the red mist descended and his breathing became heavy and hoarse. He was close to the berserker, fighting madness that had on very rare occasions come over him in the heat of battle and was just on the verge of charging the stage single-handed, when he felt a strong hand grip his right arm, just above the elbow.

‘Don’t!’ Tromp hissed at him, and then again, ‘Don’t! I know what you are feeling. I know you want to fight them all. But you must be patient. Let Rivers do what must be done. If you draw attention to yourself now, all will be lost.’

Hal barely heard a word of what Tromp said. But the physical restraint and the sound of his voice were enough to hold him back until the fury had subsided just a little.

So Hal held his body and voice in check. He told himself not to panic when the bidding began and the price raced upwards without so much as a nod at the auctioneer from Rivers, for the pirate had said he would bide his time before making his play. But with his eyes Hal stared straight at Judith and in his mind he screamed out
, I am here, my darling. Don’t worry. All will be well. I am here!

There were street urchins at the slave auction as there were everywhere in Zanzibar: trying to sell filthy pieces of fruit to hungry spectators, or picking those same men’s pockets, or simply indulging their curiosity, for only a public beheading rivalled a great slave auction as an attraction for any born-and-bred Zanzibari.

One of the urchins, however, made no attempt to extract any money from anyone, either through commerce or theft. Nor was he engrossed by the sale, though he did cast occasional, sad-eyed looks in the direction of Judith Nazet. Instead he devoted his full attention to one man. For he had his orders and they were clear. ‘Whatever he does and wherever he goes, follow him. And do not take your eyes off him until he, or you, or both of you cast off from the harbour and sail away from this island.’

And one look into the eyes of the man who had given him his orders was enough to convince the urchin – even if he had not been so inclined to begin with – to follow his orders to the letter.

Grey had persuaded Prince Jahan that he should be the one who searched for Courtney in the crowd. ‘It is true that the Buzzard knows Courtney even better than I,’ he said. ‘But the sight of that masked monster will be enough to distract the crowd, cause men to talk and perhaps even draw attention to our true purpose. I am known to be a man who is always interested in the finest human flesh. I have traded for many years and no one will be surprised to see me. I certainly know Courtney well enough to recognize him. And even if I do not it does not matter. For I plan to spot our target without even looking into the crowd.’

So now he was seated in the front row of the covered stand, with the captain of the sultan’s guard by his side, watching the Nazet woman as the bids for her went higher and higher. Grey was half-tempted to put in an offer himself, for by Allah she was a fine-looking woman and almost enough to tempt a man to abandon the pleasures that young boys could bring. But he was not looking at her as either a buyer or a would-be lover. He had a very specific purpose in mind and for that he had to keep his eyes fixed firmly on her pretty face.

Judith refused to let herself be brought low by men who were little better than animals. She was of noble blood and held a general’s rank. She would maintain her dignity and her spirit, no matter how hard these beasts tried to strip them from her. But, oh, how badly she needed to see Hal and know that he had come to be with her and rescue her from this torment. For he would come, she knew that. No matter how great the danger, he would be there. But where?

He will be disguised,
she told herself.
So look for those things that cannot be hidden. The deep, sea-green of his eyes; the proud curve of his nose; the way he cannot help but carry himself like a young king. Look for the things you love in your man.

And then she saw him. Out there in the crowd, two eyes that had caught hers and held them and she knew right away, because she felt it in the very depths of her being that they could only belong to the man she loved. So she looked back, and she smiled, just a very little, because she could not hide the joy she felt in her heart.

And that was when Consul Grey smiled too, and followed Judith Nazet’s eyes across the crowded enclosure and saw a tall, swarthy, unkempt man dressed in an inappropriately smart coat, the clothes of a nobleman on the body of a savage. Then he saw the man’s profile and the look in his eyes as he stared back at Judith and he turned to the captain of the guard and, making every effort to seem as though he were engaged in nothing more than casual conversation, said, ‘There is your man. That is Captain Courtney. Now tell your men to go and get him.’

The Buzzard, standing at the back of the prince’s enclosure with the slave who now accompanied him everywhere, hiding in the shadows so that the public should not be alarmed by his presence, had also spotted Hal Courtney in the crowd. But then, he and Hamish Benbury had been well aware of Courtney’s whereabouts, and deduced the plan he had in mind within hours of the
Achilles
sailing into Zanzibar on yesterday evening’s tide.

Benbury and the Buzzard had been deep in conversation with the proprietor of the Tres Macacos late the previous night when Rivers had walked in and ordered a bottle of rum. The three captains, all of whom knew one another, for they were all cut from the same cloth, got into conversation and as Rivers moved on to a second bottle and then a third, they established that he had come to Zanzibar to buy a slave. And not just any slave, but the sultan’s prize fancy.

But Rivers was a pirate rather than a slave-trader, just as a man might be a carpenter rather than a printer. If he was suddenly moving from one occupation to another, there had to be a reason for it and when Benbury sent two of his most trusted men to sit on the dockside, in view of the
Achilles
, and mark who appeared on deck, that reason became apparent.

So now, as the auction reached its climax and Rivers finally entered the bidding, the Buzzard stepped a few paces forward, so that he was briefly visible to anyone watching Prince Jahan’s private box, gave a single nod of his masked head and retreated back into the shadows. Then, without saying a word, he slipped through the door at the back of the box and down the steps that led back down to the ground, with his slave following him as surely as his own shadow just a few paces behind. The guards who were posted at the foot of the steps made way to let him pass between them, for they knew that he was the prince’s creature and obeyed their master in every way. So they thought nothing of it as the Buzzard turned to his right and walked past the enclosure where the public were standing and into the private area behind the block itself.