In hindsight, Farhan was rather surprised that there had been no bloodshed. But Captain Lodi knew his crew of old and clearly had them tightly leashed. And after a fruitless hour of stomping about and banging on bulkheads, the disappointed Xi thugs took their leave and Lodi had ordered the crew to weigh anchor and set a course toward the west.
In a dozen hours or so they would dock at Istana Kush, the Gates of Stone, a mighty Federation fortress that guarded the narrow Straits to the north of Sumbu and controlled all shipping that came into the Laut Besar from that direction. At Istana Kush, by night, and as discreetly as possible to avoid Ongkara’s spies, they would embark a company of Dokra mercenaries—tough fighting men from one of the poorer, upland parts of the Federation who were permanently stationed there. Once the Dokra company was safely on board, it was away south and the long haul across the Laut Besar to the huge Island of Yawa.
Farhan had no fears of meeting any of the Lord of the Islands’ ships on the journey: no one but the King of Singarasam himself knew that he was supposed to be heading east to Ziran Atar—he had sworn the greedy old pirate to secrecy—and the flag fluttering above his head would ensure that any of Ongkara’s ships gave him a respectful greeting. He had secret letters and signs, too, that would ensure he was unmolested by any Federation shipping, and why not? He was working for their benefit, even if they did not know it. And the Han? Well, he could fight—or run from—any ship of the Celestial Republic that showed interest in him, except perhaps the new light cruisers that he’d heard the Republic was building. Besides, the Han these days had almost entirely given up the practice of piracy among the islands. If they met Han vessels, they would most likely be ignored. The Celestial Republic guarded its gum, obat and timber colonies with its own troops—usually stiffened with Manchu guardsmen or elite Legionnaires—and its transports, which took the goods north to the homeland, were slow and ponderous and the Mongoose could easily run rings around them.
The storm passed into the west and sunshine began to dry the water-glistening deck. Farhan remained half-naked at the prow, reveling in the heat on his skin. He glanced down at his belly, which bulged softly over the top of his wet sarong. Getting fat, he thought, getting old. He wondered what she would say if she saw his naked body now. Would she be disgusted? He thought not: she was not interested in boys—she had told him that—she wanted a man. A man of intelligence, wit and wealth. When he was installed as governor of that pretty little obat island, perhaps he would summon her and they would live there together, and be happy. For her, he would exercise more, drink less, give up his gambling.
“Had an enjoyable bath?” The captain’s voice jolted Farhan out of his delightful reverie. “Because if you are done with your ablutions, our esteemed guest says that she would like to speak to us both in the cabin immediately. We can eat while we talk.”
The “guest.” Yes. That had all the makings of a rather large squall on the horizon. But Farhan was confident that he could weather it.
* * *
• • •
The captain kept a good table. He usually fed half a dozen or so of his senior Buginese crew at a time, seated at the end of the board and encouraging them all to eat, drink and make merry. But on this occasion it was only Farhan and Lodi and the captain’s guest who gathered under the swaying fan at one end of the long table.
The guest was a huge woman of indeterminate age in a shiny cerise sari, appallingly tight over her arms, belly and thighs, topped with a wide golden scarf. She had a fat pearl mounted on a golden stud in her wide, fleshy nose and a huge blood-red bindi between her heavy, black eyebrows.
“I shall be traveling with you,” she had announced, as she waddled onto the deck of the Mongoose, a few minutes after the Xi bullyboys had left, accompanied by a tiny teak-colored maidservant who struggled under the weight of an enormous black-leather trunk and two smaller woven bamboo bags.
“Call me Mamaji, everyone does,” this vision in pink and gold had announced.
When Captain Lodi had begun to protest, she had seized his left ear between two powerful fingers and whispered into it, and he had collapsed like a pricked bladder and ushered her and her maid aboard, settling them and their luggage in the master cabin, and having the crew shift his gear into the lieutenant’s cubbyhole next door.
Farhan had watched her arrival and swift mastery of Lodi with amusement. A relative of some sort, he assumed, a bossy aunt, perhaps, who needed a free passage to the Federation base at Istana Kush. Well, it would not impede their mission. They had to stop there anyway to collect the Dokra troops. It might even be rather fun to see the priggish Captain Lodi being bullied by this formidable Mamaji person. He occasionally got too big for his boots around Farhan, scolding his old friend for his pastimes, questioning his good judgment—the merchant wondered if he might make an ally out of this amusing fat lady.
It was very hot inside the cabin, despite the cleansing rains. Mamaji sat beaming at Lodi and Farhan—she had appropriated the seat at the end of the table, traditionally the captain’s place, and Farhan smiled inside at Lodi’s loss of authority. The three of them said nothing, while grinning Buginese servants in crisp white jackets brought in a succession of platters of cold food and a pair of dewy bottles, along with plates, cups, knives and so forth, and then left them alone.
“Lord Madani,” said Mamaji, turning her huge head and twinkling at Farhan from beady black eyes. “I fear you must think I have been ignoring you since I came on board. No offense was intended, I assure you. I hope you can forgive me.”
Captain Lodi moodily picked up a hard-boiled egg, tapped it a few times on the tabletop and began to peel it.
“Not at all. And please, Mamaji—call me Farhan. The title is only a courtesy used in these waters for the head of a trading house; it’s really only for impressing the natives,” he said. And seizing a large plate, he continued, “Do have one of these pickled sea cucumbers—they are quite delicious, delicate in flavor but very rewarding to the connoisseur.”
“I think perhaps we should talk before we eat—if you don’t mind, Farhan dear,” said Mamaji. “And if you don’t mind, either, Cyrus,” she said, looking at his egg. “You can stuff yourself as much as you like in a few short moments. I won’t be long.”
Lodi, looking hunted, put down the half-peeled egg and folded his hands in his lap.
“I don’t know if Cyrus has told you yet, dear,” said Mamaji, smiling coquettishly at Farhan, “but I come here at the express orders of General Vakul himself.”
Farhan felt the floor of his stomach dissolve.
“The General has personally instructed me to join your mission—but purely in an advisory capacity. I see by the look on your face, dear, that Cyrus did not tell you.”
Farhan blinked once or twice but could find nothing to say. General Vakul was the legendary head of the Amrit Shakti. His ultimate chief in the huge intelligence and security organization. Neither Farhan nor Lodi had ever met the General. Very few people had. And neither was his image ever allowed to be seen, by strict order of the High Council. In the dark corridors of the Taj Palace, the sprawling home of the secret organization in Dhilika, his name was spoken only in terrified whispers. Some weaker souls said he did not truly exist, or that he was a ghost or a demon. But everyone knew someone who knew someone who had crossed his path. And there were a hundred stories about him, most of which chilled the listener to the bone. Some Shakti officers claimed that he would sometimes personally attend the interrogation of the most dangerous enemies of the state in the dank cells below the Taj, his face hidden by a black silk hood, and later he would return to his personal quarters with both arms bloody to the elbow. Whether these stories were true or not, no one could say. But no one denied his power. Some said he even dared spy on the Federation’s High Council itself, and was not above permanently removing an errant Council member who did not accord with his views. People who opposed Genera
l Vakul, or who spoke against him, or even obstructed his policies, swiftly disappeared—and those who asked too many questions about these sudden disappearances also soon vanished forever.
That was who this fat, seemingly jolly matron in the garish too-tight sari represented. That was why she sat at the end of the table in the captain’s place.
Farhan swallowed. “An advisory capacity, you say, madam?”
“Call me Mamaji, dear,” she said, leering at him, “but yes—I am here to offer advice, which I hope you will accept. I’m here to help. And to sing your praises in the Taj Palace when the mission has been accomplished. As it surely will be. I’m sure none of us wants to disappoint the General. But this is still your mission, Farhan—I couldn’t bear to think that I was treading on anyone’s toes. The glory will be all yours, dear.”
Farhan understood. She was in charge. Her advice had better be heeded—her advice was in effect a command from General Vakul himself. But if the mission was a failure, it would be his head on the block, not hers—and he would find himself chained in the black cells below the Taj awaiting the attentions of the interrogators. He doubted he would merit a personal visit from the silk-hooded General, though.
“Well, as long as we all understand each other,” said Mamaji, smiling happily at the two men. “Before we eat, I do have a tiny piece of advice for you—but please do tell me what you honestly think. I propose that we should blood these Dokra troops as soon as possible. We pick them up from Istana Kush tomorrow, yes? We are paying them a lot of the Federation’s gold, after all. Let us give them a chance to show us what they can do. Put them through their paces. I know it would greatly reassure the General. He does worry so. What do you think, Farhan dear? Does that sound as if it might be a sensible idea?”
* * *
• • •
Six days later the Mongoose nosed around a headland at the northern end of a wide bay near the southern tip of the Island of Sumbu. She came in under a single fan-shaped sail, wafted around the rocky point by a hatful of wind, barely enough to spread the Lion Standard of Singarasam, which alternately fluttered and flopped from the top of the mainmast.
Her unexpected arrival into Kulu Bay that morning caused a sensation. On the quay, Farhan could see Han soldiers in their blue padded-cotton tunics and nodding blue helmet plumes running here and there; he could faintly hear the sound of whistles blowing. Above the quay, on the walls of the town, pikemen and archers were gathering in their formations, their officers pushing men into place and shouting—silently at this distance. Above the walls, the town climbed up the slopes of a small hill culminating in a brick-built citadel at the summit. The blue-and-green flag of the Celestial Republic flew high above this citadel, alongside two black-and-white vertical banners of the Manchu guards. That didn’t mean much, Farhan thought. The Manchu were inordinately fond of banners. Two banners probably meant no more than a score of guardsmen. And coupled with a few hundred common Han foot soldiers in the town below, it was not such a formidable enemy as might be assumed. These were not Legionnaires, after all. The elite, indeed almost-legendary, assault troops of the Republic would never be left to molder away in a backwater like this.
The town of Kulu, for all its walls and banners, was not much more than a fortified trading post. For a generation it had served as a way station for Han ships traveling up the Sumbu coast to Singarasam before heading farther north through the Straits of Kalima to the Celestial Republic. It was a place of dwindling fortunes, because the Han merchants’ new heavy transports had no need of a stopping place this close to Yawa. These leviathans could hold enough stores and water in their vast holds to make the voyage directly across the Laut Besar, south to north, from Sukatan to Banjarput, rather than hopping along the coast like most shipping, and their great size meant they were immune to all but the severest storms.
It might have been an unimportant, provincial outpost—and Farhan had chosen it as a target for precisely this reason—but the merchant was still impressed at the speed at which they reacted to the sight of an alien, heavily armed war vessel cruising into their bay.
There were no other ships of a comparable size with the Mongoose in the harbor of Kulu—but then Farhan knew that already. His spy boat had made a thorough reconnaissance on the moonless night before. But a pair of swift schooners were hastily manned with troops, unmoored and darted out from the quay to challenge the far bigger Mongoose.
He nodded to Captain Lodi, who issued a string of brisk orders to the waiting Buginese, and six portholes on the landward side of the Mongoose popped open and the thick round muzzles of brass cannon appeared, wheeled out by the sweating crews beneath Farhan’s feet. It was a declaration of war. In response, on the walls of the town, a signal rocket was fired high up into the air, one of those multicolored Han devices that exploded in blue and green and red showers in the sky above their heads. The combination of colors giving the rocket message its meaning.
There is no turning back now, thought Farhan. The alarm has been raised. All along the Sumbu coast Han fortresses would be registering the signal rocket and passing it on. In a matter of hours, more powerful Han outposts to the north, and away south on the long Island of Yawa, would be sending men to investigate. Soldiers from the gum and obat factories inland would be ordered to march on Kulu in strength. Battleships of the Celestial Republic would be sliding down the slips and splashing into harbors hundreds of leagues away.
The nearest schooner was no more than a few score paces away now, and Farhan could see that it was packed with men in blue tunics, the thick fabric reinforced at chest and shoulder with small, square, iron plates, and armed with swords and that curious Han weapon called a Kwan Tao, which was like a short, fat scimitar on the end of a long pole. Fifty or sixty men aboard the lead schooner, and heading straight for the Mongoose.
“Destroy the shipping first, Captain, I would suggest,” said Farhan.
“You do not tell me how to fight my ship, Madani,” said Lodi from his shoulder. “That great grinning sow might have the authority to order me about like a cabin boy—but you do not. Let us be abundantly clear about that.”
But, despite his words, Captain Lodi gave a shouted command and there was a storm-like noise of bare feet stamping and running on the deck beneath them. And a few moments later, the foremost cannon roared, followed by the second in line an instant later.
The schooner disappeared in a burst of gray smoke and was replaced by a patch of sea littered with smashed timbers and the sodden blue bodies of men. A few had miraculously survived and were trying to swim in their heavy, waterlogged tunics, the weight of their armor dragging them down. Few of them would make it to the shore, Farhan knew. The ones heading for the second schooner would not fare much better.
A second pair of cannon fired from beneath his feet, and he felt the double pulse through his boot soles. The more distant schooner was hit by one ball that plowed through the packed ranks of Han soldiery on the deck, carving a bloody channel. The second ball missed by a pace and skipped across the blue waves to the boat’s right.
It was enough, though. The surviving schooner captain put the tiller about and wind spilled from the sail. As the smaller boat was beginning to turn, the final pair of cannon on the Mongoose’s starboard side fired and the schooner was turned to matchwood in the blink of an eye. In less than a score of heartbeats, Farhan had seen two ships utterly destroyed and more than a hundred men killed. He felt sick. It was not the first death he had seen but he’d always been better at the dry discipline of planning an attack than witnessing its execution.
The Mongoose had reached the far side of the bay by now and at Captain Lodi’s command the ship smoothly went about and began to cross the bay again, a little closer in to the harbor on the opposite tack. Farhan heard the crack of a cannon from the walls of the town and a dozen yards in front of the prow a waterspout kicked up. He glanced behind him at the bow, where Mamaji
was sitting in a vast wicker chair beside the Buginese wheelman, her maid holding a black silk parasol above her head to keep off the blazing sun. Neither woman looked at all perturbed at being in the midst of a sea battle; the maid had a face like carved stone—her habitual expression—and Mamaji wore her perpetual smile and was slurping something alarmingly yellowish from a crystal beaker held in one plump hand.
Another cannon fired from the town, just as Lodi gave the order for an adjustment to their course to bring them closer in to the harbor. The ball screamed through the air an arm’s length from Farhan’s head, severing a single backstay, a thin rope that helped to keep the mast in position, but otherwise passing over the deck without touching a thing.
“About now would be a good time to begin the bombardment, wouldn’t you say, Captain?” Farhan realized he was nervous. He talked when he was nervous. He was terrified, in truth. That enemy cannonball had passed so close to him that he had felt its wind on his cheek. One pace to the right and it would have taken his head clean off.
“You keep your damned mouth shut, Madani. Last warning,” growled the captain. He was staring ferociously at the town through a battered brass telescope. But he snapped the instrument shut and gave an order to the Buginese lieutenant beside him.
As Farhan looked on, the portside cannon began to fire, one after the other in a rippling broadside that sent the shot screaming across the bay to smash into the brick walls of the town, which was now not much more than two hundred paces away.
The damage done was far greater than Farhan had been expecting. Cannon were not his area of expertise—sometimes he wondered what exactly his area of expertise was, but he knew that it was not cannon. The balls must have been of a particular kind, fitted with an extra destructive element inside the solid iron casing, because, once the missiles had smashed through the brick wall that surrounded the town, they exploded and showered the interior of the fortification with hundreds of shards of white-hot metal.
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