The Monsoon (101 page)

“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 alSalil. When Dorian prostrated himself before the throne, alMalik 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 alMalik 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 alMalik thoughtfully.

“Stand up, Zayn al Ding 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 alMalik, 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 sauk 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 alSalil 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 did 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.”

“What do you want me to do?” Dorian asked.

“I will give you a fiman of authority, a commission as a general in my armies and as many fighting men as you need, a thousand, two thousand? I want you to sail south to Lamu then cross the channel and march inland to put an end to these depredations.”

“When do you wish me to leave?”

“You must sail with the new moon that ends the fast of Ramadan.” The flotilla of Sheikh alSalil, the Drawn Sword, anchored off the beach of the island of Lamu in the full of the moon. It comprised seven large seagoing dhows, carrying twelve hundred troops of the caliphate.

Dorian went ashore in the dawn to call upon the governor, to present his fimian and to make arrangements for the reception and resupply of his army. He needed quarters for his men ashore to recuperate from the long voyage down the coast, and supplies of fresh food, horses and baggage animals.

The camels of the desert would not survive long on the humid, pestilent coast, and neither would Arabian horses from the north.

Dorian needed animals that had been reared on the coast and had developed an immunity to the African diseases.

It took three days to get all his men and his baggage train ashore, and Dorian spent much of this time at the landing or in the newly built camp above the beach. On the evening of the third day he was walking back through the streets of the town, accompanied by Batula and three of his captains. They were almost at the gates of the fort when he heard his childhood name called.

“Al-Amhara!” He spun round, for he recognized the voice, though he had not heard it in many years, and stared at the hearily veiled woman who crouched in the doorway of the old mosque across the narrow lane.

“Tahi? Is that you, old mother?”

“Praise be to God, my child, I thought you might not remember me.” Dorian wanted to rush to her and embrace her, but it would be a grave breach of decorum and etiquette to do so in a public place.

“Stay there, and I will send someone to bring you to my quarters,” he told her, and walked on.

He sent Batula back to bring her through the gates of the fort to the wing that the governor had placed at his disposal.

As soon as Tahi stepped through the door, she threw back her veil and rushed to him. She was weeping, almost incoherently.

“My little boy, my baby, how tall you have grown! The beard and the fierce eyes like a falcon, but I would have known you anywhere. What a great man you have become, and a sheikh also!” Dorian laughed, held her and stroked her hair.

“What is this silver I see here, old mother? But you are still beautiful.” 4I am an old woman, but your embrace makes me young again.”

“Sit down.” He led her to the pile of rugs on the terrace, then sent a slave for sherbet and a platter of honeyed dates.

“There is so much I want to hear from you.” She reached across to stroke his beard and his cheek.

“My beautiful baby, who has become a beautiful man! Tell me everything you have done since you left Lamu.”

“That would take a day and a night,” he protested, smiling fondly at the old woman.

“I have the rest of my life to listen,” she said, so he answered all her questions, in the meantime holding back his own, although it took all his restraint.

At last he came to the end of the recital.

“And thus the Caliph has sent me back to Lamu and the Fever Coast, and I praise God that he has for now I am able to look on beloved face again.” Her face was deeply lined with your care and hardship, and her hair steely grey, but he loved her as much as he ever had.

“Tell me how you have fared since I went away.” She told him how she had stayed on in the zenana, “At least I given menial duties by the head eunuch, Kush.

have had shelter and food in my mouth, for that I praise God’s Name.”

“You shall come to live with me now,” he promised her, “and I shall be able to repay all the love and kindness that you lavished upon me.” She wept again with happiness. Then, trying to make it sound casual, he asked the question, and waited for the answer he dreaded.

“What news of little Yasmini? She must be a woman by now, and long ago have been sent to India to marry her Mogul princeling.”

“He died of the cholera before she could go to him,” Tahi said, and watched his face shrewdly.

He tried to disguise his feelings from her, and sipped at the cup of sherbet.

“So they found another noble and important husband for her?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” Tahi agreed.

“The Emir of the at-Bil Khail in Abu Dhabi, a rich old man with fifty concubines, but only three wives, the eldest having died two years ago.” She saw the hurt and resignation in his green eyes.

“When was she married?” he asked.

She had to take pity on him.

“She is betrothed but not yet married. She will sail to meet her bridegroom when the winds change and the kusi blows again. In the meantime she waits sadly in the zenana here on Lamu.”

“Yasmini is still here on Lamu?” He stared at her.

“I did not know.”

“I was with her in the garden by the fountain this morning. She knows you are here. Everyone in the zenana knows it. You should have seen Yasmini’s eyes when she spoke your name.

They glowed like the stars of the great cross. She said, “I love alAmhara, as a brother and more.

I must see him one last time before I become an old man’s bride and disappear from the world for ever.”” Dorian jumped up from the rug and strode to the end of the terrace. He stood there, gazing over the bay where his dhows rode at anchor. He felt a strange sense of elation, as though the wheel of his destiny had made another turn.

During the hard years in the desert his memories of Yasmini had grown dim, but he had refused the offers of the sheikhs of the Soar to find him a wife from among 4 their own daughters. He had not known until now that he had been waiting for something or someone else, for the memory of the little monkey-faced girl with the mischievous smile.

Then he felt a touch of dismay. There was so much that stood in their way. She was imprisoned in the zenana and betrothed to another man. In the eyes of Allah she was his sister, and he knew that the penalty for incest was a hideous death. If he violated a royal virgin and defiled the sanctity of the zenana, even the Caliph could not save him from death by stoning or decapitation. And what would they do to Yasmini? He shuddered as he remembered the tales, repeated in whispers, of Kush’s treatment of any of his charges who strayed. They said that one girl had taken four days to die and that her screams had prevented anyone in the zenana from sleeping during all that harrowing time.

“I cannot let her take the risk he said aloud, and hugged shoulders, torn by emotions that swung him first one way then the other.

“And yet I cannot resist my heart’s urging.” He turned and smashed his bunched fist into the wall of rough coral ragging and revelled in the pain.

“What shall I do?” He strode back to where Tahi squatted patiently on the rug.

“Will you take a message back to her?”

“You know I will. What shall I tell her, my son?”

“Tell her that at moonrise tonight I will be waiting at the end of the Angel’s Road.”