Golden Lion - Wilbur Smith

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chatter, ‘that not a man-jack of you will walk away with less than fifty pounds, at the very least!’

      Hal grinned at the cheers his promise provoked, then raised his hand for silence again. ‘You all fully deserve your reward. No man could ask for better, braver, more loyal crewmates than you have been to me. You’ve proved your worth as sailors and fighters a hundred times over. You have pledged yourselves to me and now I make this pledge to you. I am going to lead you back home and give you all you need to lead a fine life when you get there. But first, gentlemen, I wish to propose a toast. Would you please raise your glasses to the woman that I will be taking back to my home, there to become my wife, my beloved Judith. Men, I give you: the future Lady Courtney!’

      When the toast had been drunk, along with several more proposed from various members of the crew, Hal and Judith were finally free to retire together to his quarters. Being the creation of a wealthy aristocrat, the Golden Bough did not lack for creature comforts. There was not a battleship in the Royal Navy that housed its skipper more comfortably than the cabin provided for the Bough’s master. An elegantly carved desk provided the perfect place for the captain to keep his logbook up to date, while fine Persian carpets were enough to make guests feel that they were in the drawing room of a gentlemanly country house or London pied-à-terre, rather than the lower deck of an ocean-going sailing ship.

      ‘I have made one significant improvement to our sleeping arrangements since you last sailed on the Bough,’ said Hal as he paused outside the door to his cabin. ‘It kept the ship’s carpenter busy for a good week. Now, close your eyes …’

      Judith did as she was told as Hal opened the cabin door then took her hand and led her into his personal domain. She took a few more blind steps until he said, ‘Stop!’ and a moment later, ‘You can open your eyes now.’

      Before her hung a sleeping cot, but this was twice the width of a normal berth and hung from four hooks instead of the usual two. Diaphanous white gauze curtains were gathered round the ropes on each corner, and a coverlet of silk damask whose pale grey and silver pattern glimmered in the light from the stern windows lay over sheets and pillows of finest Egyptian cotton.

      ‘Hal, it’s so beautiful,’ Judith gasped.

      ‘I found the linen aboard a dhow we captured,’ Hal said with a grin. ‘The captain said it was bound for a sheikh’s harem. I told him I had a better use for it.’

      ‘Oh, really?’ said Judith, teasingly. ‘And what use in particular did you have in—’

      She never had the chance to finish her question, for Hal simply picked her up and deposited her on the silken bedcover, thinking how wise he had been to make the carpenter test the hooks from which the cot was suspended to make sure they could handle any conceivable strain.

      

When the Buzzard had first sailed north to seek his fortune in the service of the Arab invasion of Ethiopia, caring not a jot for the religious or political issues at stake but choosing the side he believed most likely to pay him best, he barely spoke a word of Arabic. He considered it an ugly tongue, one beneath his dignity. He soon realized, however, that his ignorance was a great disadvantage since men around him could converse without him having the first idea what they were saying. So he began to study the language. His endeavours had continued during his convalescence so that it was now no difficulty for him to comprehend the Maharajah Sadiq Khan Jahan when the latter said, ‘I must congratulate you, your lordship, on your remarkable recovery. I confess, I had not believed you would ever rise from your bed. But now just look at you.’

      In his pomp, the Buzzard had been a master of sly condescension and insincere compliments and he was not inclined to believe that the haughty figure before him meant a single one of his honeyed words. The contrast between the Indian prince in his silk and gold-threaded finery, dripping with more jewels than a king’s mistress, and the Buzzard, a decrepit, one-armed Caliban, with his skin like pork crackling and a face uglier than any gargoyle ever sculpted was simply too great to be bridged by words. But the Buzzard was a beggar and could not afford to be a chooser, so he gave a little nod of his head and wheezed, ‘You’re too kind, your royal highness.’

      And, in all truth, his recovery, however partial it might be, was indeed the product of an extraordinary effort of will. The Buzzard had lain in bed and made an inventory of his body, concentrating on those parts of it that still functioned at least moderately well. His legs had not been broken, and though they were covered with burns and scar tissue, the muscles beneath the ravaged skin seemed to be capable of supporting and moving his body. Likewise, though his left arm was no more, his right arm was still whole and his hand could still grasp, so he might yet hold a sword again one day. He had the sight of one eye and hearing in one ear. He could no longer chew properly and his digestion seemed to have become unduly sensitive so that he could only eat food that had already been broken down into a soft, mushy porridge. But it was enough that he could still eat at all, and if his food was nothing more than a bland, tasteless porridge, it hardly mattered, since his tongue seemed unable to distinguish flavour any more, no matter how much salt, sugar or spice was added.

      Above all, however, the Buzzard’s mind was still sound. He had suffered terrible headaches and the pain in every part of his body – including, strangely, those that no longer existed – was unrelenting. Still he was able to think, and plan, and calculate, and hate.

      It was that hatred above all that drove him on. It had forced him to keep getting up when at first, unused to the imbalance of his body, he kept falling. It drove him through gruelling physical activities, in particular the building up of his surviving arm’s strength by the repeated lifting of a sack of millet, procured from Jahan’s kitchens, when with every single breath he took the air cut through his throat and lungs like caustic acid.

      The black, burning fire in the Buzzard’s soul seemed to fascinate Jahan. ‘Please, don’t let me interrupt you. Pray continue with your exertions,’ he said, and stepped right up to his guest, making no effort to disguise the mix of revulsion and fascination he felt in the presence of such a foul and monstrous distortion of a man.

      The Buzzard felt Jahan’s lordly eye upon him and the urge to defy him drove him on. He lifted the sack, which he held in his hand by the neck, again and again, though his exhausted muscles and scorched chest begged him to stop. He was feeling faint, lathered in a film of pus and bloodstained sweat and on the point of collapse when there was a knock on the door and one of Jahan’s functionaries entered. The man was unable to conceal the shock on his face when he set eyes on the Buzzard, who was bent almost double, his one good hand resting on his knee and his back heaving up and down. But he re-gathered his composure and spoke to Jahan. ‘There is a man at the gate who insists that you wish to see him, your sublime excellency. He says his name is Ahmed and he is a leather worker. It seems he has finished the task you set for him. When I asked him to explain himself he refused, claiming that you had sworn him to secrecy.’

      Jahan smiled. ‘That is indeed true. Send him in.’ Then he bestowed a particularly condescending smile upon the Buzzard, and said, ‘I have brought you a small gift, your lordship. Just a miserable thing, but I believe it may be of interest.’

      William Grey, His Majesty’s Consul to the Sultanate of Zanzibar, stood in the line of supplicants waiting to plead their case outside Maharajah Sadiq Khan Jahan’s palace, cursing the bad luck and even worse judgement that had brought him to this intolerable situation. Through all his years in Zanzibar, Grey had been welcomed as an honoured guest by Jahan, as he was by far the most powerful, wealthy and influential members of Zanzibar society. For Grey was not only the representative of one of Europe’s greatest monarchs, he was also a convert to Islam, a change of faith that had brought him much favour and granted him access to places and people beyond the reach of any Christian. Then that conniving Scots rogue Angus Cochran, titled the Earl of Cumbrae, but more aptly nicknamed the Buzzard, had arrived in Zanzibar, closely followed by an arrogant young pup called Henry Courtney, whereupon the life of ease and privilege that Grey had constructed over many years had fallen apart in the matter of a few short months.

      It

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