The Monsoon (91 page)

“Your Prince is a mighty man and merciful,” Tom said, but he wanted to shout, “Where is he? Where is my brother? What price do you want for his release?”

“My lord the Prince found the boy to be comely and well favoured. He took him to his heart, and to show his favour and shield him from all evil he declared alAmhara his adopted son.” Tom started to rise from the cushion, his face displaying his alarm.

“His son?” he demanded, and foresaw the terrible obstacle that this had placed in his path.

“Yes, his own son. He treated him like a prince. I am given the task of educating the boy, and I also found him worthy of love.”

Al-Allama dropped his eyes and for the first time showed emotion.

“I rejoice that my brother has found such favour in high places,” Tom said.

“But he is my brother. I have the right of blood. The Prophet of God has said that the tie of blood is as steel and cannot be sundered.”

“Your knowledge of the Holy Words of Islam does you credit,” the mullah said.

“My lord the Prince acknowledges your right of blood and offers you the payment of blood money for your loss.”

Al-Allama summoned a servant who came forward carrying a small ebony chest inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl. He knelt in front of the two white men placed the box on the tiles and opened the lid.

Tom had not moved, and now he did not even look down at the contents of the chest. However, Guy leaned forward and stared at the golden coins that filled the box to overflowing.

“Fifty thousand rupees,” said al-Allama.

“A thousand of your English pounds. A sum that takes into account that alAmhara was a prince of the royal house of Oman.” At last Tom found his voice again and the power of movement. He started up, his hand on the hilt of the Neptune sword.

“There is not enough gold in Arabia to buy me off,” he roared.

“I came here to find my brother, and I shall not leave until he is delivered to me.”

“That is not possible,” said al-Allama, and his voice was low and heavy with regret. Your brother is dead. He died almost two years ago of the malarial fever. There was nothing any man could do to save him though, Allah knows, we who loved him tried.

Al-Amhara is dead.” Tom dropped back on the cushion, his face blanched with shock. His eyes were haunted as he stared at alA llama

He did not speak for a long time, and the only sound was the buzzing of a fat blue fly that bumped against the ceiling.

“I do not believe what you tell me,” he whispered, but his voice was hopeless, his expression desolate.

“I swear to you, as I love God and pray for his salvation, that I have seen alAmhara’s name on his tomb in the royal cemetery in Lamu,” at-Allama said, with infinite sorrow in his voice, so that Tom could no longer doubt him.

“Dorian,” he whispered.

“He was so young, so full of life.”

“Allah is kind. We can be sure that there is a place for him hereafter. My lord the Prince offers you consolation.

He shares your sense of loss keenly,” the mullah offered.

Tom rose to his feet. it seemed to require a great effort to make such a simple movement.

“I thank your master,” he replied.

“I beg your forbearance but I must leave you now, to be alone to mourn my brother.” He turned to the door.

Guy stood and bowed to the two Arabs.

“We thank your lord the Prince for his compassion. We accept his offer of blood money.” He stooped, closed the lid of the chest and picked it up.

“All debts between Prince Abd Muhammad alMalik and our family are discharge ding full.” He followed Tom to the door, hampered by the weight of the chest.

sarah was on her usual perch high on the walls of the old monastery, from where she could spot Tom as soon as he appeared on the path that led up from the beach.

“Tom!” she called, and waved gaily, coming to her feet and running down the crumbled walls with her arms spread wide to balance herself.

“You are late! I have been waiting for hours. I had almost given you up.” She jumped down to the ground and raced, barefoot, down the sandy path. Ten feet from where he stood she came up short and stared into his face.

“Tom, what is it?” she whispered. She had never seen him like this before. His features were haggard, and his eyes filled with a terrible sorrow.

“Tom, what has happened to you?” He took an uncertain step towards her, and held out his arms like a drowning man. She flew to him.

“Tom! Oh, Tom! Wwhat is it?” She held him with all her strength.

“Tell me, my darling. I want to help.” He began to shake, and she thought he was sick, overcome by some terrible fever. He made a choking sound, and tears streamed down his face.

“You must tell me!”

she pleaded. She had never imagined that he could succumb like this.

She had always thought him strong and indomitable, but here he was in her arms, broken, devastated.

“Please, Tom, speak to me.”

“Dorian is dead.” She went cold and still.

“It can’t be, she breathed, it just can’t be. Are you certain. Is there no doubt?”

“The man who brought the news is a mullah, a boll man. He swore on his faith,” Tom said.

“There can be no doubt.” Still holding each other, they sank together to their knees, and she was weeping with him.

“He was like an own brother,” she said, pressing her cheek against his so that their tears mingled, bathing their faces. After a while she sniffed, and wiped her face on the sleeve of her blouse.

“How did it happen?” He was still unable to speak.

“Tell me, Tom,” she insisted. She knew instinctively that she must make him talk about it: like a surgeon, she had to lance the boil, let the pus and poison out. At last he began the story, the words coming hard, seeming to tear his throat as he forced them out. It took a long time, but at last he had told her everything, and she knew it must be true.

“What are we going to do now?” she asked, and stood up. She kept tight hold of his hands, and forced him to his feet. She had to stop him giving in to the dark waves of sorrow into which he was sinking.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“I know only that Dorian is dead, that I could not save him. It was my fault. If only I had come to him sooner!”

“It is not your fault,” she said angrily.

“I will not even let you think that. You did all you could. No man could have done more.”

“I don’t care any more,” Tom said.

“Yes, you do. You owe it to yourself and to me and the memory of Dorian. He always looked up to you. He knew how strong you were. He would not want this from you.”

“Please don’t berate me, Sarah. I am exhausted with grief. Nothing else matters.”

“I will not let you give up. We must plan together.” She demanded, “What are we going to do now?”

(I

don’t know, he repeated, but he straightened his shoulders and dashed away the tears.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“We cannot stay here, and we can’t return to England. Where, Tom?”

“Africa,” he said.

“Aboli has found a man to guide us into the interior.”

“When do we leave?” she asked simply, not questioning the decision.

“Soon. A few days from now.” He had steadied himself, for the moment thrown off the debilitating sorrow.

“It will take that long to refill the water-barrels, to buy fresh provisions and to make the final arrangements.”

“I will be ready,” she said.

“It will be hard. A dangerous journey without end. Are you sure that is what you want? You must tell me now if you have any doubts.”

“Don’t be a big booby, Tom Courtney,” she said. “of course I am going with you! When she left the monastery, Sarah took a circuitous route back to the consulate, riding firstly along the track she had discovered that led to one of the small villages on the seaward side of the island.

She had gone only half a mile when she was seized by a certainty that someone was following her. She thought she heard hoofbeats on the track behind her so she reined in and swivelled in the saddle to look back.

The path was hemmed in on both sides by thick vegetation, the twisted sterns and glossy leaves of the velout ia and clumps of lantana.

She could not see further than the last turning in the path only a few paces behind her.

“Tom?” she called.

“Is that you!” There was no reply, and in the silence she decided that she was starting at ghosts and shadows.

“You are being foolish,” she told herself firmly, and rode on.

When she reached the village she bought a basket of vegetables from one of the old women there, her excuse for her long absence, then rode almost to the port so that she could return to the consulate along the main road.

She had much to occupy her thoughts. Her mood swung from excited elation, at the prospect of the adventure ahead of her, to deep sadness when she faced the necessity of leaving Caroline and little Christopher. She loved them both dearly. Caroline had come to rely on her strength and fortitude in the dark unhappiness of her marriage to Guy, and Sarah looked upon baby Christopher as though he were her own.

She worried how they would fare without her.

“Could they not come with us?” she wondered, and almost immediately knew that she was silly even to think it.

“I have to leave them.” She steeled herself.

“I love them both, but Tom is my man, and I love him more than life itself I must go with him.” She was so preoccupied with these thoughts that she rode into the stableyard without noticing Guy until he called to her sternly from the shade of the long veranda.

“Where have you been, Sarah?” She looked up in confusion.

“You startled me, Guy.”

“Guilty conscience?” he accused.

“I’ve been buying vegetables.” She touched the basket tied to the back of her saddle.

“I am about to elope with a cabbage!” She laughed merrily, but Guy did not smile.

“Come to my office!” he ordered, and she noticed his syce hovering in the doorway of the stable. The boy was Guy’s creature, a sly, pockmarked little fellow. His name was Assam. She had never liked or trusted him, and even less so now that she saw his grin was knowing and gloating.

With a sinking feeling, Sarah wished she had taken more care to cover her tracks when she went to her assignation with Tom, and that she had given more weight to her feeling that she had been followed that afternoon.

“I wish to bathe and change for dinner,” she told Guy, trying to brazen it out, but he scowled and slapped his riding-crop against his boot.

“This will not take long,” he said.

“As your guardian, I must insist that you obey me. Assam will take your mare.” With resignation she followed him down the veranda and into the cool gloom of his office. He closed the doors behind them and left her standing in the centre of the floor as he took his seat behind his desk.

“You have been meeting him at the old monastery,” he said flatly.

“Who? What are you talking about?”

“Do not bother to deny it,” he said.

“On my instructions, Assam followed you.”

“You have been spying on me,” she flared at him.

“How dare you?” She tried to whip up her indignation, but it was not convincing.

“I am pleased that you do not insult my intelligence by denying it.”

“Why should I deny the man I love?” She drew herself up, tall and truly angry now.

“You have made yourself into a sailor’s whore,” he said.

“Once he has had all he wants from between your legs, he will laugh and sail away, the way he did with your sister.”

“When he sails away, I will go with him.”

“I am your guardian, and you are only eighteen. You will go nowhere without my consent.”

“I am going with Tom,” she said, “and nothing you can say or do will stop me.”

“We will see about that.” He stood up.

“You are confined to your rooms, and you will not leave them again until after the Swallow has sailed from Zanzibar.”

“You cannot treat me like a prisoner.”

“Yes, I can. There will be a guard at the door of your quarters, and others at the gates.

I have given them their orders. Now go to your room. I will have your dinner sent up to U. Tom was so occupied with readying the Swallow for sea that he paid scant attention to the square rigged ship that limped into the harbour after sunset. Even in the poor light he saw that she had been damaged by storms. It was the season when the cyclones swept down the Indian Ocean, and she must have encountered one of these devil winds.

The name on her transom was the Apostle. She flew the tattered flag of the East India Company at her masthead, and once she had anchored Tom sent Luke Jervis across in the longboat to ask for the news.

Luke returned within the hour, and came to Tom’s cabin, where he was writing up the ship’s log.

“She is outward-bound from Bombay with a mixed cargo of cloth and tea,” Luke reported.

“She ran into a storm north of the Mascarenes. She intends to make her repairs here before resuming her voyage.”

“What news?”

“Most of it is stale, for the Apostle sailed from the Company dock months ago but the war against the French is going well. William is whipping their backsides. He is a good fighter, our Willy.”

“Great newsP Tom jumped up.

“Tell the crew and issue a good tot to every man to drink King Willy’s health.” What Tom could not know was that, apart from the news of the war, the Apostle carried a packet of letters and documents, sealed in a tarred canvas bag, from the Governor of Bombay and addressed to His Majesty’s Consul at Zanzibar. The captain sent the packet ashore the following morning, and Guy Courtney opened it at the luncheon table on the long veranda of the consulate. Caroline sat opposite him, but Sarah was still locked in her own quarters.

“There is a personal letter from your father,” Guy told Caroline, as he picked it out of the assortment of gazettes and sealed papers.

“It is addressed to me,” Caroline protested, as he broke the wax seal and began to read it.

“I am your husband,” he said complacently.

Suddenly his expression changed and the sheet shook in his hands.