The Monsoon (102 page)

He would not let Batula accompany him, but at nightfall he took a horse and, heavily robed and veiled, rode out of the town towards the north.

He remembered every track, stream, clump of forest and stretch of mangrove swamp.

He circled back through the palm groves and saw the walls of the zenana ahead, tall, massive and dark before the moonrise. He found the old ruin and tethered his mare in a patch of bush near by, where she would be hidden from anyone using the woodcutter’s track. He did not expect any islander to be abroad at this hour, for they were superstitious and terrified of the forest djinns.

He climbed over the piles of fallen masonry and pushed his way through the thicket of bush and scrub until he stepped down into the hidden saucer in the centre. The entrance to the tunnel was overgrown and he could see that no one had used it in all the years that had passed.

He found a seat on a block of coral where he could watch both the entrance to the tunnel and keep an eye open for intruders. He did not have long to wait for soon the moonglow filled the eastern sky, and then, as it rose above the tops of the palms, it struck down into the saucer with a silver light.

He heard a soft sound, light footstep and a whisper from the entrance of the tunnel.

“Dowle? Are you there?” Her voice was more husky than he remembered, and goose pimples rose along his forearms, stirred the fine hairs at the back of his neck.

“I am here, Yassie.” The branches that screened the entrance parted and she stepped out into the moonlight. She wore a simple white robe and a cloth over her head. He saw at once that she had grown inches taller, but her body was still slim and supple as a vine, her step quick and alert as a frightened gazelle. She saw him and stopped dead, then slowly reached UP and drew aside the veil that covered her face.

He gasped. In the moonlight she was beautiful.

Although no longer a child, her face was delicate and still elfin in quality, with high cheekbones and huge dark eyes.

When she smiled her lips were full, her teeth white and even.

He stood up, and pulled back his own veil. She started.

“You have grown so tall, and the beard-” She broke off and stood, uncertain.

“And you have grown into a lovely woman.”

“Oh, I have missed you so,” she whispered.

“Every single day-2

Suddenly she ran to him, and he held out his arms.

She was trembling and sobbing softly against his chest.

“Don’t cry, Yassie. Please don’t cry.”

“I am so happy,” she sobbed.

“I have never been so happy in all my life.” He drew her down on the coral block and she stopped weeping, pulled back at arm’s length to gaze into his face.

“I have heard news of you even in the zenana, how you have become a mighty warrior, how you won a great fight in the desert and rode with our father to Muscat and won another fierce battle there.”

“Not single-handed.” He smiled and traced the line of her mouth with his fingertip. They talked quickly and eagerly, breaking in upon each other and leaving much only half said, before flitting on to another idea.

“What happened to your pet monkey, Jinni?” he asked.

Tears welled up into her eyes, sparkling in the moonlight.

“Jinni is dead,” she whispered.

“Kush found him in his precious garden and beat him to death with a spade. He sent his little body to me as a gift.” Dorian changed the subject then, distracting her with other more pleasant childhood memories and soon she was laughing again. Then they both fell silent, and she lowered her eyes shyly. Without looking at him she whispered, “Do you remember how you took me to swim in the sea when we were children? That was the first time I ever remember leaving the zenana.”

“I remember.” His voice was gruff.

“Will you take me again tonight?” She looked up at him.

“Please, Dowle.” They went down through the trees hand and hand, and found the beach deserted and glistening in the moonlight. The shadows of the palms were purple-black on the sands and the water shone with the oily luminescence of a black pearl.

Since last they had been here, the cave in the sandstone had been excavated deeper by the wave action of the high tides. They paused at the entrance and turned to each other.

“Is what we are doing a sin?”

she asked him.

“If it is I do not care,” he replied.

“I know only that I love you and that being with you does not feel to me like a sin.”

“I love you also,” she said.

“I could not love anyone or anything more, though I live a hundred years.” She untied the ribbon at her neck and let her shift drop onto the sand. She wore only pantaloons of silk.

Dorian could not breathe as he gazed at her. Her breasts had swelled, and the tips were dark and pointed.

Her skin was smooth and gleamed like the lining of an oyster shell.

“You used to tease me that I looked like a monkey,” she said, half defiant and half timid, fearing his rejection.

“Not any more.” He had caught his breath.

“I have never seen anything more beautiful.”

“I was so afraid I would not please you. I want you to like me, Dowle. Tell me that you like me, please.”

“I

love you,” he said.

“I want you to be my woman and my wife.” She laughed with joy, took his hands and placed them on her breasts. They were warm and pliant, and the nipples hardened as he rolled them gently between his fingers.

“I am your woman. I think I have always been your woman.

I do not know how it is done but I want to be your wife here tonight.”

“Are you sure, my darling? If others learned of this, it could mean disgrace and a terrible death.”

“To be without you would be a death far worse than anything that even Kush could contrive. I know that it cannot be for ever, but give me this one night to be your wife.

Show me how, Dowle, please, show me how.” So he spread his robes on the sand and laid her down upon them, and slowly, with infinite gentleness, small sounds of love and wonder, gasps of surprise and, in the end, a single long shuddering spasm of pain that was soon lost in the transport of joy that followed, they became lovers.

ver the days that followed, Dorian was embroiled in the planning of his coming campaign on the mainland across the channel. He purchased most of the draught animals and horses that were available on Lamu, and sent one of his captains with three dhows south to Zanzibar to do the same thing there. He also bought up much of the available grain stocks and trade goods in the markets.

Then he spent hours each day talking to the caravan masters, and the Arab traders who had been in the caravans the marauders had attacked and looted. He tried to find out the identity of the bandits, their numbers, how they were armed and the methods they used to carry out the attacks. He tallied the losses these men had suffered and the totals shocked him. Over three lakhs of gold dust had been stolen, twenty-seven tons of new ivory and almost fifteen thousand freshly captured slaves. The Caliph had every reason to be worried.

As to the marauders themselves, the reports were vague and contradictory. Some said there were white men, Franks, with black archers and spearmen. Another said they were but savages who fought with spear and arrow.

One said that they carried out their raids only during the night when the caravans were encamped. Another told how they ambushed his long files of slaves and porters during the day, and murdered all the Arab escorts, and that he alone escaped. Another merchant told how they had spared him and all his men and set them free after stripping them of all their possessions. Dorian realized that there was no agreement as to who they were, and no clear pattern to their methods.

Only one thing was clear: the marauders appeared like forest djinns out of the southern wilderness and disappeared back the same way.

“What do they do with the slaves they capture?” he asked, and the Arabs shrugged.

“They must sell them somewhere?” he insisted.

“They would need a fleet of large ships to transport such numbers.”

“There has been no sighting of such a fleet along the Fever Coast,” they told him, and Dorian’s puzzlement increased.

He had so little certain information on which he could base his plans. All he could concentrate on was protecting the caravans and getting them moving again, for the trade had almost dried up. Faced with such heavy losses, few of the Arab merchants on Lamu and Zanzibar would take the risk of financing further expeditions.

His other planning revolved around taking the war to the bandits, following them into their fastnesses, tracking them down like the wild animals they were and destroying them. For this purpose he recruited all the scouts and caravan guides who had been left idle by the cessation of trade.

He could not begin the campaign until the weather on the mainland changed, for this was the season of the Big Wet, when the coastal lowlands were inundated with the rains and the Fever Coast lived up to its fearsome reputation. However, he must be ready to sail as soon as the rains ceased and the kusi wind started to blow again.

Thinking of the start of the kusi always brought his mind back to Yasmini. That same wind would carry her ship north to the Gulf and her marriage. The thought made his guts sour with anger and frustration.

He thought of writing to the Caliph in Muscat and asking him to cancel the marriage plans. He even considered confessing his love to his adoptive father and asking him for dispensation to marry Yasmini.

They met each evening after dark, but when he broached this idea to her, Yasmini was terrified and trembled with fear.

“I think not about myself, Dowle, but if our father even suspects that there is the love of a man and a woman between us, no matter how much he loves you, he will be honour-bound to place your case before the mullahs to be judged by the Shari’ah laws. There could be only one verdict for both of us. No, Dowle, there is no escape that way. Our destiny is with God, and He is not always merciful.”

“I will take you away,” Dorian declared.

“We will take one of the dhows and a few of my best men and sail away, find some place where we can live out our love.”

“There is no such place, Yasmini told him sadly.

“We are both of Islam, and there would be no place in Islam for us. We would be outcasts and wanderers for ever. Here, you are a great man, soon to be greater.

You have the love and respect of our father and of all men. I will not let you throw all that away for me.” They spent much of their precious time together discussing their terrible predicament. They lay in each other’s arms in the moonlight and whispered endlessly.

When they saw that there was no escape or release for them, they made love with an almost savage passion, as though to divert the fate that loomed before them.

Before dawn each morning, Dorian led her back to the entrance tunnel, where she kissed him as if for the last time, and took the Angel’s Road back into the zenana.

During the days the girl who had once been playful and happy, loved by all in the zenana, was now pale, silent and lethargic. Her friends and all the servants gradually became alarmed. And there was nothing that happened in that little enclosed world that did not come at last to the ears of Kush.

Their flawed idyll of love and desperation lasted through the months leading up to the change of the monsoon winds. The expeditionary force to the mainland was almost ready to sail, and the final preparations for Yasmini’s wedding were complete. Her dowry had been sent from Muscat to her bridegroom in Abu Dhabi, her trousseau was packed and ready to go aboard the dhow that would carry her away to her new home thousands of miles to the north, and the confines of another royal zenana, in which she would pass the rest of her life.

“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, Dowle, 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, Dowle. 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.” ush 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.