Secret of the Sands (25 page)
The emir sits on the cushions and motions for the slavers to join him. Zena stands frozen, just inside the tent flap. Her face is expressionless and she casts her eyes down over the jumble of worn rugs that cover the sand beneath her dusty feet. The tent is lit by
naft
lamps and the emir motions the girl into the pool of light before him. As she moves towards him he sighs.
‘A treasure,’ he says.
Zena wants to curl up on the ground so he cannot look at her with such lazy desire but she forces herself to stand still. Ibn Mohammed and Kasim stay silent. They know the sight of Zena is more compelling than any words they may care to hazard.
‘You are right,’ the emir comments squarely, stroking his beard in contemplation of her beauty. ‘She brings the night to life.’
Ibn Mohammed licks his lips and lets Kasim seal the deal. The men have already discussed a price with the emir for the release of Jessop and Jones, and the figure they have come to is surprisingly low. The emir has not let the slavers inspect the white men. ‘We have held them for months now,’ he admits frankly, ‘and they smell like the dogs they are. It will put you off your dinner.’
This in itself is not unexpected. The white men must be in a terrible state and a good salesman will not let the customer have sight of shoddy goods. However, each time it has come to shaking hands, the emir has evaded concluding matters. Twice now the slavers have tentatively offered more money (for the deal they have done comes in well below the
soultan
’
s
budget) and twice the price has increased, but each time when it comes to the moment, the emir will not give his word. There is something holding him back and since more money does not seem to bring matters to agreement, Ibn Mohammed instinctively came up with something to help seal the deal.
‘We keep a dancer with us,’ he said. ‘The desert nights are very long. Why don’t we have some entertainment?’
The slavers generally enjoy the challenge of long negotiations. Even in the
souk
over a parcel of goods worth less than a
taler
it is the custom to haggle for an hour. Every trade is a discussion in Arabia. Now with the girl at his feet they capitalise on it.
Kasim coughs. It is time to decide. ‘My friend,’ Kasim says, as if it is a peccadillo – a small consideration – the nothing he considers Zena to be, ‘when we leave tomorrow with the white men you can have this girl. A parting gift.’
The emir’s eyes gleam. There is a lascivious pause during which, there is no doubt, he is considering what he would do with this woman if he were to own her. A bead of sweat appears under his nose. Zena’s stomach turns. Her fingers feel suddenly clammy as if they are soiled. There is nothing she can say or do to stop this and she knows Ibn Mohammed will kill her outright if she runs from the tent. She is frozen with terror and humiliation, her mind racing. The idea of doing what she did only the night before with her master with this old goat is unthinkable. It is not only her body that is possessed by her master it is her spirit too. A mere day ago she had no idea – she might have tried – but now, it is simply impossible. She holds her breath. Where is Wellsted? Where is he?
The emir smiles. He inclines his head and touches his heart. ‘Yes. It is all settled, my friends. And with honour. You may have your
Nazarene
.’
The atmosphere in the tent explodes into conviviality around the still figure of the dancing girl as the men celebrate the agreement. They clap each other on the back in congratulations.
‘Dinner! Dinner!’ the old man orders.
The very idea of Zena knocks ten years off him. He grins enthusiastically and quaffs a glass of coffee that has appeared at his elbow. As the emir’s men enter the tent and the food arrives on large ashettes, the girl is pushed to one side. She wants to scream. She curses that the
khandjar
knife is outside with the rest of her clothes. She’d hack them to pieces if she could, or die trying.
‘Wait outside,’ Ibn Mohammed waves a languid palm and the men settle to their meal completely unware of the girl’s fury.
As Zena emerges into the fireside, the music has started again and there is a babble of excitement. The children are screaming. Dinner is ready and piles of bread are being passed from one to another as the people of the emir’s encampment and the slavers’ party mill about finding their places.
‘Dance again! Dance again!’
The men poke at her. The women merely stare. Some of these women, she thinks, must be the emir’s existing wives. One leans over gracefully and whispers in another’s ear, bringing up her henna-painted hand elegantly to cup the words towards her sister. A movement of the veil (perhaps laughter?) and then they all stare again. From the recesses of the family tents two heavily pregnant women emerge, their curiosity so piqued that they will risk being seen by strangers. Zena declines the order to continue dancing. Still, in the rush, the music plays and some of the men strut to the beat while the first of the food is served.
Then out of the chaos, Wellsted appears. She is as glad to see him as she has ever been to see anyone in her life. He herds Zena away, hands over her
burquah
and secures a tent in which to change
.
‘Have they freed Jessop?’ he asks, his eyes blazing. ‘What happened?’
Zena stares at him blankly. Of course, his friends are his first concern. The master said, after all, less than an hour ago, that the only thing that mattered was their freedom. She is sure that to babble her distress will not help. To scream her intention of hacking out Kasim’s heart and removing Ibn Mohammed’s eyes will not bring the master over to her side. In fact, it occurs to her slowly, the master might not be on her side.
If he is forced to choose,
she wonders,
where will his allegiance really lie?
Slowly, she bites her lip and shakes her head.
‘What happened?’ he insists.
Zena is shaking now; she does not want to cry in front of him, but her mind is made up. Somewhere in the jumble of thoughts she realises that she cannot trust Wellsted to help her. He has other concerns. Everything she had hoped for is dashed yet her resolve is steely. She has had enough. They have stolen her, sold her, gambled her and profited by it. Whatever it costs her this time she will not comply.
‘I need to get dressed.’ The girl grabs her clothes and covers herself gratefully in the
burquah
.
‘Zena,’ Wellsted entreats, as if she is being unreasonable. ‘Tell me! Why did they make you dance? Are they freeing Jessop? What is going on?’
‘I think they have arranged to free him,’ she replies carefully.
In the sleeve of her
burquah
she finds the
khandjar
knife in its place and she holds onto it tightly. Her mind is running through her options. Her eyes jerk to one side, in the dir ection of Jessop’s tent to ask him what he has found. It will give her time to think it through.
Wellsted smiles. ‘Yes. They are there. Well, one of them. You should see him, Zena, he is a skeleton. Thank God we arrived in time.’
She flinches. Wellsted puts his hands on her shoulders. He moves the veil to one side.
‘You’re safe now,’ he tries to comfort her. ‘I’m here.’
Zena masks the rush of fury that is taking her over and calls every fibre of her being into check. She runs through everything Wellsted has ever said to her.
If I tell him,
she thinks,
he’ll watch me like a hawk. If I tell him, I won’t be able to do anything for myself. I’m sick of being at the beck and call of others.
Wellsted knows something is wrong. The girl is distracted and he can’t get a proper answer to any of his questions. ‘Zena!’ he raises his voice, and lays a hand on her arm, to shake a response out of her. ‘Don’t ignore me!’
Zena steels herself. She will keep her own counsel. It is the best chance she has of making up her own mind about what to do. She pauses a moment, her hand on the blade of the knife. An idea is forming. It is the biggest decision of her life.
‘Sorry’ she says. ‘Everyone was staring at me. Let’s go back to the fireside.’
Wellsted’s blue eyes are alight. ‘Thank God,’ he grins. ‘For a moment, you had me worried.’
As they emerge back into the company, Zena remains the focus of the party’s attention. The questioning of the children continues, as the emir’s men eye her with sullen interest. She sits it out until the camp falls to rest with Wellsted like a faithful dog by her. He fetches food, but she cannot eat it. As the evening winds down, she forms her plan until one by one, everyone settles to sleep. The silence and the darkness feel like a relief.
The emir lightly dusts Ibn Mohammed and Kasim with rosewater from an etched, silver shaker and motions forward one of his slaves to waft the burning frankincense. Ibn Mohammed cups his hand as if he is swimming in the trail of smoke and Kasim simply lets the musky fragrance rise through his clothes. It is late and outside in the camp there are only a few stragglers left by the fire.
The emir rises, for no one shall sit after the incense is lit – that is the custom. He breathes in deeply and pats his belly, still sated after the fulsome feast. His wife prepared his favourite Moroccan recipe that came from her mother as part of her dowry along with some livestock, a set of
Tuereg
jewellery and the slave that went with it. The emir thinks that he will visit this lady to round off his evening. Zena has put him in the mood for some activity in the marital line and she will not be his until tomorrow.
Still, it has been a most gratifying day. The emir has enjoyed the slavers’ company. Perhaps, he thinks, it is time that he set out again for the fellowship of the city, where there are men such as these with whom to dine. His father was from the ancient capital of Nizwa. He will return there. He smiles as the thought comes to him. Yes he will return, for a time, at least. There is a camel market and copious water supplied by the
falaj daris –
one of the most ancient waterways on the Peninsula. This business of Jessop’s release will soon be done. In the morning he will tell the slavers that Jones is dead. He will tell them that the infidel simply passed away unexpectedly in the night. Such an event is surely the will of Allah. They will shake hands again, perhaps make a small renegotiation and the slavers will be waved off for Muscat. Then it will be easy to pack up the camp and set out for the dusty, palm tree-strewn streets he remembers as a child. He is in the mood to make the journey south as soon as possible.
‘Thank you for your hospitality, brother.’ Kasim and Ibn Mohammed bow. ‘The
soultan
will be pleased. He will extend you a thousand thanks more,’ they swear as the tent flap drops into place behind them.
Outside, the fires are dimming and the moon is a mere sliver in the dark, velvet sky. A child coughs and one of the horses whinnies and pulls at its traces. The slavers walk in a cloud of scent, among the sleeping bodies. It takes only a second to spot Wellsted, who is lying awake with Zena next to him, huddled silently in her
burquah
. He jumps to his feet.
‘What happened?’ he asks. ‘What took so long?’
Ibn Mohammed motions towards the darkness beyond the confines of the camp. They will only talk once they are out of earshot. Zena turns on her side so she cannot watch their figures disappear into the blackness. She does not want the slavers to see the fire in her eyes, but she need not worry for, delighted with their efforts, they are focussed on giving the good news to Wellsted that the deal is concluded and the next day they can start the long journey back to Muscat.
Out of sight on the dunes, the men huddle together so no one will hear.
‘Good tidings, my friend. He will release the men.’ Kasim puts his arm around Wellsted’s shoulder. He announces his success in a jubilant whisper. ‘We leave at dawn.’
Wellsted corrects Kasim. ‘He will release the man, you mean. There are no longer two of them.’
Kasim’s eyes open wide. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Jones is dead. I saw his corpse myself. They are held in a tent on the other side of the camp. I spoke to Jessop not two hours since and he is frail, I’d say, but alive and in good spirits. Still, there is now only one of them.’
Kasim freezes. Ibn Mohammed’s hand moves to his knife. ‘You are sure the other one does not live?’
‘I am. Jones died today – more or less as we arrived. The doctor told me. I felt his body myself for they have left them bound together. To my knowledge, the man’s corpse is still there. I have not seen anyone go to fetch it. What happened in the tent?’ he repeats. ‘Zena seems . . .’ he is not sure how to put it, ‘. . . perturbed.’
There is a short silence. Ibn Mohammed works through what has happened, and recognises that the deal they have done now makes more sense to him. It seemed all along that the price was too low. If the emir has lost one of his prisoners, the truth is that he could not in good faith, hold out for more money.
‘Well,’ Ibn Mohammed shrugs his shoulders, ‘the emir will surely give us the body. He did not mention the death, but it is no matter now. We have one alive and he will be freed, my friend. We have completed the mission.’
‘It matters to Jones, I’m sure,’ Wellsted insists. Even in the darkness he can tell that a shadow has crossed the slavers’ faces.
‘You do not wish to have your friend’s body. To bury him with respect?’ Kasim asks, solemnly.
Wellsted drops his head. ‘Sorry. I did not mean that. I want to bury him. Of course. Only he did not tell you, did he? The emir held it back. Don’t you find that suspicious?’
‘How did the man die?’ he asks.
‘Starvation, I expect. The doctor is very thin. I fed him a little.’
‘So they did not kill him in violence?’
‘No. No, I expect not. I felt no blood and there was none on my clothes when I came out of the tent. Jessop would have told me, I’m sure. I think the poor fellow simply could not last the conditions.’
Ibn Mohammed shrugs. The white men never understand how to haggle or the process of making a deal. They have no concept of how his people view their honour and what is shameful to admit to and what is easy. He is unsure how to convey to Wellsted that it is a tricky situation for the emir to explain to two esteemed guests who have travelled so many miles on account of the prisoners that one of the men is dead. Especially when they didn’t kill him, as such, he simply died. It strikes him that the deal they have struck makes better sense now – if anything, Jones’ demise illuminates the situation. Still, how to frame that to the lieutenant is a mystery and even if he does, he can see Wellsted taking a damn note in his damn book about it. The infidel never will understand.
There is a pause, the silence broken only by a tinkle of goats’ bells in the distance. Wellsted sits down on the dune. He wants to know why Zena is so upset. He wishes he could see her from here. ‘What is the price?’ he asks.
‘A thousand
taler
dollars and a slave,’ Kasim gestures, clearly delighted. ‘Less than we had anticipated. The
soultan
said we could go to five times that. To secure them we would have gone higher still out of our own pockets. For the
soultan’s
pleasure, of course.’
The penny drops. Wellsted’s stomach lurches as a wave of nausea rises in his gullet. ‘It is the girl, isn’t it? The slave? It’s Zena.’
Kasim feels himself growing angry. They have done an admirable job in only a few hours. For a start, no one has been killed and that is a feat in itself. Yet Wellsted has not congratulated them and does not seem even mildly pleased by their achievements. The emir told them that his daughter is dead and he is letting go the man responsible and for a sum far less than they were prepared to pay. This is possibly on account of the second man dying and the embarrassment it has caused him. Still, what more could Wellsted possibly wish for? What is he thinking?
‘Of course it’s the girl,’ Kasim spits. ‘It was the least we could get away with. But now you and your friend will be free to return to Muscat and dine with the
soultan
. Do you think that Ibn Mudar gave the girl to you for any other reason?’
Wellsted’s hand shakes. It’s only a slight tremor but he can feel it reverberate through his entire body. He feels suddenly rather hot and thinks he might be sick. He knows his duty and it is as hateful as it is unthinkable. Despite the baking heat, the ire of his companions, the
Wahabi
attack, it has been, if not exactly easy, certainly too simple up till this point. Adventures are not as they are portrayed in stories around the captain’s table or late at night in the mess. They are fearsome, sickly, wicked things and heroes are brave men for a host of reasons for which, no doubt, they should rightly be ashamed. His head has been on the matter of maps and glory, he realises, and now his stomach flips at the mistake he’s made.
‘She was not yours to bargain with. You should have given him two thousand dollars. Three thousand. All five. But not—’
Kasim strikes the lieutenant hard across the face. ‘He didn’t want more money. He wanted the girl,’ he says simply, jabbing his finger at Wellsted’s chest to make the point.
Ibn Mohammed looks back towards the camp. He cannot bear to look the lieutenant in the eye. He is tired and the man is a fool. They will not sleep tonight, for they will have to watch over him. Who knows what the white man might do with the darkness for cover if he cannot even hide his emotions from those to whom he should be grateful and respect as friends? Despite all his promises, the slaver wonders fleetingly if he should slit the lieutenant’s throat. It would be easier and his commission, after all, is to return with the hostages. As long as he does that, will the
soultan
really blame him if the blue-eyed one falls by the wayside? Kasim will cover for him – some story about a brawl, perhaps. He considers it.
Wellsted rises to his feet before Ibn Mohammed can make a decision. He looks up at the stars and pushes down the instinct to scream loudly. ‘Damn,’ he says. ‘I should thank you. I know. I am sorry. The girl has gone to my head. How can I blame the emir for desiring her?’
He does not mean a word of it, but he knows he must play for time. He glances towards the caravan, trying to catch sight of Zena. No wonder she wouldn’t speak.
If I leave her and get Jessop to port I can come back and rescue her, buy her back, surely. Jessop will not survive much longer and has to be freed,
he thinks. His head is swimming with possibilities, but it is an impossible situation. All he wants is to hold her. He has the whole night to come up with something. Anything. Did Mickey know that this would be part of the deal? Can it be reneged upon?
‘We should sleep,’ he says.
Uneasily, the men tramp back in silence to Wellsted’s place by the fire. On the ground there is an empty indent where Zena lay and a mess of felt blankets, hastily put aside. As one, they look to the fire, for she often cannot sleep and stokes the flames in the night, but there is no figure in a
burquah
crouching among the ashes. The camp is absolutely silent. Kasim gestures vaguely towards the latrine quarter but Ibn Mohammed lifts the blankets. It is he who first understands.
‘Where is her bag?’ he spits angrily.
The men sleep with their saddlebags at the head, like a pillow. If Zena has taken hers it is proof that she has flown. Runaway slaves always provoke irrepressible anger in Ibn Mohammed. He cannot bear insubordination. The enslavement of his prey is inevitable and runaways are simply fighting nature. They are an abomination and one that he takes personally. He peers into the darkness.
‘She has gone,’ he says as if the realisation is a decision. ‘Did you do this, Wellsted?’
There is a fearsome edge in his voice and he looks taut, as if he will lash out at any moment.
‘No,’ Wellsted replies honestly. ‘She didn’t even tell me what happened.’
From the edge in Wellsted’s voice, though, it is clear he is glad she has made an escape. There is no time to deal with that now. The slavers must find the girl.
‘Check the camels,’ Ibn Mohammed hisses. ‘She cannot have got far.’
They head first for the tethered animals. With the emir’s livestock jumbled with their own in the darkness, it is impossible to tell if one is gone. The supplies, however, are easier to trace. Two goatskins of water and a bag of flour and fat have disappeared.
‘How dare she?’ Ibn Mohammed radiates fury, his words dripping venom. ‘The stupid, ungrateful . . .’ He has been known to behead runaway slaves for his own amusement. Once, he buried two women up to their necks in sand and left them to die slowly in the searing heat. In this case, neither of these solutions is in any way helpful (however satisfying) and Kasim is more pragmatic. He has no feelings to speak of, only strategy.
‘Dawn is four or five hours away,’ he thinks out loud. ‘Can she navigate?’
The lieutenant shrugs his shoulders. He does not want to catch her.
Good girl,
he thinks,
good girl.
Zena constantly surprises him. He feels a flood of hope, of love even. He would not have suggested she run, but now she has he is delighted. He only wants to help in any way he can.
‘I should kill you now,’ Ibn Mohammed spits for he is sure that Wellsted must have known of this mutiny. The man is not the least distressed.
Kasim lays a hand on his friend’s arm. ‘Holster your blade,’ he counsels. ‘We might need him.’
Kasim stares at the ground. The situation is impossible. Damn the girl. Damn her. Kasim struggles to think of an honourable way out or at least a way to salvage the situation. He makes a quick calculation. If they fly in the night, they can at least make good the
soultan’s
wishes, he decides. They must take action.
‘Where are they holding your friend?’
Wellsted points in the direction of the tent.
‘And you think he can travel? We have no litter – can he ride a camel?’
Wellsted nods. ‘With some help,’ he admits.
Kasim motions the others towards him. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘we can’t find the girl in the dark. She has shamed us all in this for we have given our word to hand her over. In the morning, the emir will be furious. He may allow us to track her and bring her back. He may agree to that, but we have no certainty that we will find her before she dies and, in truth, we do not know what he may decide to do in anger. He has the reputation of a man who might take drastic action. In any case, with the girl gone and the deal broken, he has every right to kill your Jessop if he wants to. We’ll be most fortunate if that is all he does. We cannot run tonight with our whole party. That would raise the whole camp and even if we succeed in sneaking all our men and camels away, he will have the right to pursue us. We have made a deal with him and reneged on it. In daylight, his men know this terrain well and they have horses rather than camels. We will stand little chance. If we could get away, I’d say to do that. If I knew we could find her, I surely would. But there are no certainties, so here is what I propose.’