Birds of Prey

by Wilbur Smith

  Although he was exhausted and his head ached from the din of battle and the powder smoke, Hal was too wrought-up for sleep and his mind was in a turmoil of emotion and racing thoughts. He left the helm to Ned Tyler and went to stand alone in the bows to let the cool night air soothe him.

  He was still alone there as the dawn began to break and the Golden Bough headed in towards Mitsiwa roads, and the first to see the three red Chinese rockets soar up into the sky from the heights of the cliffs above the bay.

  It was a signal from Judith Nazet, an urgent recall. He felt his pulse quicken with dread as he turned and bellowed to Aboli, who had the watch, ‘Hoist three red lanterns to the masthead!’

  Three red lights was an acknowledgement of her signal.

  She has heard the guns and seen the flames, he thought. She wishes to have my report of the battle. Somehow he knew that it was not so but he hoped to quieten the sudden sense of dread that assailed him.

  It was fully light as they nosed in towards the shore. Hal was still in the bows and the first to spot the boat that darted out from the beach to meet them. From two cables’ length away he recognized the slim figure standing beside the single mast. He felt his heart leap and his sadness fall away, replaced by a sense of eager anticipation.

  Judith Nazet’s head was bare and the dark halo of her hair framed her face. She wore armour and a sword was buckled at her side, a steel helmet under her arm.

  Hal strode back to the quarterdeck and gave his order to the helm: ‘Round her up and heave to! Let the boat come alongside.’

  Judith Nazet came through the entryport with a lithe and graceful urgency, and Hal saw that her marvellous features were stricken. ‘I give thanks to God for bringing you back so swiftly,’ she said, in a voice that trembled with some strong emotion. ‘A terrible catastrophe has overtaken us. I can hardly find words to describe it to you.’

  They had muffled the horses’ hoofs with leather boots so they made little sound on the rocky earth. The priest rode close beside him, but Cornelius Schreuder had taken the precaution of securing a light steel chain around the man’s waist and the other end around his own wrist. The priest had a shifty eye and a ferrety face that Schreuder trusted not at all.

  They rode in double file along the narrow valley, and although the moon had risen an hour before the rocky sides still threw the sun’s heat into their faces. Schreuder had selected the fifteen most trustworthy men from his regiment, and all were mounted on fast horses. The tack had been carefully muffled and their weapons wrapped in cloth so they made no sound in the night.

  The priest held up his hand suddenly. ‘Stop here!’ Schreuder repeated the order in a whisper.

  ‘I must go forward to see if the way is clear,’ said the priest.

  ‘I will go with you.’ Schreuder dismounted and shortened his grip on the chain. They left the rest of the band in the bottom of the wadi and crawled up the steep side.

  ‘There is the monastery.’ The priest pointed at the massive square bulk that squatted on the hills above them, blotting out half the stars from the night sky. ‘Flash twice and then twice again,’ he said.

  Schreuder aimed the small lantern towards the walls of the monastery and flipped open the shutter that screened the flame. Twice, and then again, he flashed the signal, and they waited. Nothing happened.

  ‘If you are playing with me, I will hack off your head with the back of my sword,’ Schreuder growled, and felt the little priest shiver beside him.

  ‘Flash again!’ he pleaded, and Schreuder repeated the signal. Suddenly a weak speck of light glimmered briefly on the top of the wall. Twice it showed, and then was extinguished.

  ‘We can go on,’ whispered the priest excitedly, but Schreuder restrained him.

  ‘What have you told those within the monastery who will help us to enter?’

  ‘They have been told that we are spiriting away the Emperor and the Tabernacle to a safe place to save him from an assassination plot by a great noble of the Galla faction who seeks to take the crown of Prester John from him.’

  ‘A good plan,’ Schreuder murmured, and urged the priest down the bank to where the horses waited. Their guide led them onwards, and they climbed another deep ravine until they were beneath the massive, looming walls.

  ‘Leave the horses here,’ whispered the priest. His voice was tremulous.

  Schreuder’s men dismounted and handed their reins to two comrades, who had been delegated as horse-holders. Schreuder assembled the raiding party and led them after the priest to the wall. A rope-ladder dangled down from the heights, and in the darkness Schreuder could not see to the top of it.

  ‘I have kept my side of the bargain,’ muttered the priest. ‘Another will meet you at the top. Do you have the reward that I was promised?’

  ‘You have done well,’ Schreuder agreed readily. ‘It is in my saddle-bags. One of my men will see you back to the horses and give it to you.’ He passed the end of the chain to his lieutenant. ‘Look after him well, Ezekiel,’ he said in Arabic, so the priest could understand. ‘Give him the reward he has earned.’

  Ezekiel led the man away, and Schreuder waited a few minutes until there was a grunt of shock and surprise out of the darkness and the soft rush of air escaping through a severed windpipe. Ezekiel returned silently, wiping his dagger on a fold of his turban.

  ‘That was neatly done,’ said Schreuder.

  ‘My knife is sharp,’ said Ezekiel, and slid the blade back into its sheath.

  Schreuder stepped onto the bottom rung of the ladder and began to climb. Fifty feet up he reached a narrow embrasure cut back into the wall. It was just wide enough to squeeze his shoulders through. Another priest waited for him in the tiny stone cell beyond.

  One after the other Schreuder’s men followed him up and slid over the lintel, until all of them were crowded into the room.

  ‘Lead us to the infant first!’ Schreuder ordered the priest, and placed his hand on his bony shoulder. His men followed along the dark, winding passageways, each gripping the shoulder of the man in front.

  They twisted and turned through the dark labyrinth, until at last they descended a spiral staircase and saw a glimmer of light ahead. It grew stronger as they crept towards it until they reached a doorway, on either side of which torches guttered in their brackets. Two guards lay huddled on the threshold, with their weapons laid beside them.

  ‘Kill them!’ Schreuder whispered to Ezekiel.

  ‘They are dead already,’ said the priest. Schreuder touched one with his foot: the guard’s arm flopped over lifelessly and the empty bowl that had held the poisoned mead rolled from his hand.

  The priest tapped a signal on the door, and the locking bar was lifted on the far side. The door swung open and a nursemaid stood on the other side with a child in her arms, her eyes huge with terror in the light of the torches.

  ‘Is this the one?’ Schreuder lifted the fold of blanket and peered into the child’s sweet brown face. His eyes were closed in sleep, and the dark curls were damp with perspiration.

  ‘This is the one,’ the priest confirmed.

  Schreuder took a firm grip on the nursemaid’s arm, and drew her out beside him. ‘Now lead me to the other thing,’ he said softly.

  They went on, deeper into the maze of dark halls and narrow corridors, until they reached another heavy studded door before which lay the bodies of four priests, contorted in the agony of their poisoned deaths. The guide knelt beside one and groped in his robes. When he stood again he had in his hands a massive iron key. He fitted it to the lock and stood back.

  Schreuder called Ezekiel to him in a whisper and placed the nursemaid in his hands. ‘Guard her well!’ Then he stepped up to the door and seized the bronze handle. As it swung open, the traitorous priest and even the band of raiders shrank back from the brilliance of the light that flooded out from the stone-walled crypt. After the darkness the glow of a hundred candles was dazzling.

  Schreuder stepped over the threshold, the
n even he faltered and came to an uncertain halt. He gazed upon the Tabernacle in its suit of radiant tapestry. The angels upon the lid seemed to dance in the wavering light, and he was struck with a sense of religious awe. Instinctively he crossed himself. He tried to step forward to lay hold of one of the handles of the chest but it was as though he had encountered an invisible barrier that held him back. His breathing was hoarse and his chest felt constricted. He was filled with an irrational urge to turn and run, and he recoiled a pace before he could check himself. Slowly he backed out of the crypt.

  ‘Ezekiel!’ he said hoarsely. ‘I will take care of the woman and the child. With Mustapha to help you, do you take hold of the chest.’

  The two Muslims suffered from no religious qualms; they stepped forward eagerly and seized the handles. The Tabernacle was surprisingly light, almost weightless. They bore it effortlessly between them.

  ‘Our horses will be waiting at the main gate,’ Schreuder told their guide in Arabic. ‘Take us there!’

  They moved swiftly through the dark passages. Once they ran unexpectedly into another white-robed priest, who was shuffling around an angle in the corridor towards them. In the uncertain light of the torches he saw the Tabernacle in the hands of the two armed soldiers, screamed with horror at the sacrilege and fell to his knees. Schreuder had the woman’s arm in his left hand and the naked Neptune sword in his right. He killed the kneeling priest with a single thrust through his ribs.

  They all listened quietly for a while, but there was no outcry.

  ‘Lead on!’ Schreuder ordered.

  Their guide stopped again suddenly. ‘The gate is only a short distance ahead. There are three men in the guardroom beside it.’ Schreuder could make out the glow of their lamp falling through the open doorway. ‘I must leave you here.’

  ‘Go with God!’ said Schreuder ironically, and the man darted away.

  ‘Ezekiel, lay down the chest. Go forward and deal with the guards.’ Three of them crept down the passage, while Schreuder kept the nursemaid in his grasp. Ezekiel slipped into the guardroom. There was silence for a moment and then the clatter of something falling to the stone floor.

  Schreuder winced, but all was quiet again, and Ezekiel came back. ‘It is done!’

  ‘You grow old and clumsy,’ Schreuder chided him, and led them to the massive door. It took three of them to lift the great wooden beams that locked it, then Ezekiel wound the handle of the primitive winch wheel and the door trundled open.

  ‘Keep close together now!’ Schreuder warned, and led them in a running group across the bridge and out onto the rocky track. He paused in the moonlight and whistled once softly. There was the soft thudding of muffled hoofs, as the horse-holders left the rocks where they had been concealed. Ezekiel lifted the Tabernacle onto the pack saddle of the spare horse, and lashed it securely in place. Then each man seized the reins of his own mount and swung up into the saddle. Schreuder reached down and lifted the sleeping child out of the arms of his nursemaid. The boy squawked drowsily but Schreuder hushed him and settled him firmly on the pommel of his saddle.

  ‘Go!’ he ordered the nursemaid. ‘You are no longer needed.’

  ‘I cannot leave my baby.’ The woman’s voice was high and agitated.

  Schreuder leaned down again and, with a thrust of the Neptune sword, killed the nursemaid cleanly. He left her lying beside the track and led the raiding party away down the mountainside.

  ‘Two of the priests from the monastery were able to follow the blasphemers when they fled,’ Judith Nazet explained to Hal. Even in the face of disaster her lips was firm and her eyes calm and steady. He admired her fortitude, and saw how she had been able to take command of a broken army and turn it victorious.

  ‘Where are they now?’ Hal demanded. He was so shaken by the dreadful news that it was difficult to think clearly and logically.

  ‘They rode directly from the monastery to Tenwera. They reached there just before dawn, three hours ago, and there was a great ship waiting for them, anchored in the bay.’

  ‘Did they describe this vessel to you?’ Hal demanded.

  ‘Yes, it was the privateer that has the commission of the Mogul. The one we spoke of before, at our last meeting. The same one that has caused such havoc among our fleet of transports.’

  ‘The Buzzard!’ Hal exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, that is what he is called even by his allies.’ Judith nodded. ‘While my people watched from the cliffs, a small boat took both the Emperor and the Tabernacle out to where this ship was anchored. As soon as they were aboard the Buzzard weighed anchor and set out to sea.’

  ‘Which direction?’

  ‘When he was out of the bay, he turned south.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Hal nodded. ‘He will have been ordered to take Iyasu and the Tabernacle to Muscat, or even to India, to the realm of the Great Mogul.’

  ‘I have already sent one of our fastest ships to follow him. It was only an hour or so behind him and the wind is light. It is a small dhow and could never attack such a powerful ship as his. But if God is merciful it should still be shadowing him.’

  ‘We must follow at once.’ He turned away and called urgently to Ned Tyler. ‘Bring her around, and lay her on the opposite tack. Set all sail, every yard of canvas you can cram onto her. Course is south-south-east for the Bab El Mandeb.’

  He took Judith’s arm, the first time he had ever touched her, and led her down to his cabin. ‘You are weary,’ he said. ‘I can see it in your eyes.’

  ‘No, Captain,’ she replied. ‘It is not weariness you see, but sorrow. If you cannot save us, then all is lost. A king, a country, a faith.’

  ‘Please sit,’ he insisted. ‘I will show you what we must do.’ He opened the chart in front of her. ‘The Buzzard might sail straight across to the western coast of Arabia. If he does that then we have lost. Even in this ship I cannot hope to catch him before he reaches the other shore.’

  The early-morning sun shone in through the stern windows, and cruelly showed up the marks of anguish chiselled into her lovely face. It was a terrible thing for Hal to see the pain his words had caused, and he looked down at the chart to spare her.

  ‘However, I do not believe that that is what he will do. If he sails directly to Arabia, the Emperor and the Tabernacle would have a dangerous and difficult overland journey to reach either Muscat or India.’ He shook his head. ‘No. He will sail south through the Bab El Mandeb.’

  Hal placed his finger on the narrow entrance to the Red Sea. ‘If we can reach there before he does, then he cannot avoid us. The Bab is too narrow. We must be able to catch him there.’

  ‘God grant it!’ Judith prayed.

  ‘I have a long account to settle with the Buzzard,’ Hal said grimly. ‘I ache in every part of my body and soul to have him under my guns.’

  Judith looked up at him in consternation. ‘You cannot fire upon his ship.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ He stared back at her.

  ‘He has the Emperor and the Tabernacle on board with him. You cannot risk destroying either of those.’

  As he realized the truth of what she had said Hal felt his spirits quail. He would have to run down the Gull of Moray and close with her while the Buzzard fired his broadsides into the Golden Bough and he could make no reply. He could imagine the terrible punishment they would have to endure, the cannonballs ripping through the hull of his ship and the slaughter on her decks, before they could board the Gull.

  The Golden Bough ran on into the south. At the end of the forenoon watch Hal assembled all the men in the waist of the ship and told them of the task he demanded of them. ‘I will not hide it from you, lads. The Buzzard will be able to have his way with us, and we will not be able to fire back.’ They were silent and sober-faced. ‘But think how sweet it will be when we go aboard the Gull and take the steel to them.’

  They cheered him then, but there was fear in their eyes when he sent them back to trim the sails and coax every inch of speed out of
the ship in her flight towards the Bab El Mandeb.

  ‘You promise them death, and they cheer you,’ Judith Nazet said softly, when they were alone. ‘Yet you call me a leader of men.’ He thought he heard more than respect in her tone.

  Half-way through the first dog watch there was a hail from the masthead. ‘Sail ho! Full on the bow!’

  Hal’s pulse raced. Could they have caught the Buzzard so soon? He snatched the speaking trumpet from its bracket. ‘Masthead! What do you make of her?’

  ‘Lateen rig!’ His heart sank. ‘A small ship. On the same course as we are.’

  Judith said quietly. ‘It could be the one I sent to follow the Gull.’

  Gradually they gained on the other vessel, and within half an hour it was hull up from the deck. Hal handed his telescope to Judith and she studied it carefully. ‘Yes. It is my scout.’ She lowered the glass. ‘Can you fly the white cross to allay their fears, then take me close enough to speak to her?’

  They passed her so closely that they could look down onto her single deck. Judith shouted a question in Geez, then listened to the faint reply.

  She turned back to Hal, her eyes bright with excitement. ‘You were right. They have been following the Gull since dawn. Until only a few hours ago they had her top sails in sight but then the wind strengthened and she pulled away from them.’

  ‘What course was she on when last they saw her?’

  ‘The same course she has held all this day,’ Judith told him. ‘Due south, heading straight for the narrows of the Bab.’

  Though he entreated her to go down to his cabin and rest, Judith insisted on staying beside him on the quarterdeck. They spoke little, for both were too tense and fearful, but slowly there came over them a feeling of companionship. They took comfort from each other, and drew on a mutual reserve of strength and determination.