by Tim Severin
Hector interrupted him rudely. ‘Do you know where Maria is being kept?’
The chamberlain was unruffled. ‘If she is being considered as – how do you say? – a governess for His Royal Highness Prince Jainalabidin, she will be lodged with the Sultan’s women. You should not worry. They live very comfortably.’
‘And how long am I supposed to wait until I can see her?’ Hector snapped.
‘There may come a moment when a discreet meeting can be arranged . . . or perhaps the circumstances will change,’ the chamberlain murmured.
‘What do you mean?’ Hector demanded. He resented the bland way Mansur deflected his questions.
‘His Majesty is increasingly forgetful. One day he issues an order, the next day he no longer remembers what he has commanded. Or he contradicts what he has said previously. It is part of my duties to smooth over any inconsistencies.’
‘And what if I simply found my way to wherever it is that Maria is being held?’
The chamberlain looked at him in open disbelief. ‘Enter the women’s quarters? That would not be easy or sensible.’ Noting the stubborn expression on Hector’s face, he went on, ‘His Majesty has only one son, but he has a number of daughters. They too live in the female quarters until the time comes when they are to be married off to neighbouring rulers. That is how Omoro builds its alliances. The virtue of the princesses is of state importance and jealously protected. The guards would deal harshly with an intruder.’
In glum silence they descended the path that led down to the town. Arriving at the warehouse where they were lodged, Hector noted that the number of sentries at the door had been doubled. Inside, the crew of the Westflinge were picking over the remains of another meal. They were only interested in knowing when they would be allowed to leave Pehko. It was Jezreel who tried to raise Hector’s flagging spirits.
‘I’d take the chamberlain’s word that no harm will come to Maria,’ he said. ‘These people don’t seem to be nasty. They’ve looked after us well so far, and the truth is we really have no choice but to do what the Sultan wants. But that won’t stop us from trying to get you and Maria together again.’
SO ANOTHER WEEK dragged by. Dan set up a workshop in one of the empty rooms within the warehouse. There, with help from Jacques and Jezreel, he set about repairing the dozens of rusty, damaged weapons that were delivered by the Sultan’s men.
Whenever Hector stepped outside the building, he looked up towards the palace on the hill and wondered if the Sultan’s women ever spent any time in the open air so that he might catch a glimpse of Maria. Once or twice he tried walking up the footpath to the Kedatun sultan, but was intercepted by the guards and turned back. As he agonized about Maria, Hector also began to fear that he and his companions were sinking into the same slow torpor he’d sensed on the first day they arrived in Pehko. It was obvious that Vlucht and his crew were content to do very little. They loafed around the building, the invalids visibly returning to health, and Stolck preferred to spend much of his time with his countrymen.
Meals were delivered with admirable regularity, though the menu of rice, sago cakes, fish stew and fruit never varied. In fact there was little to distinguish one day from the next. Each cool dawn was followed by a hot and humid morning as thunder clouds swelled inland before advancing on the town, delivering a sudden downpour and then drifting out over the sea. The puddles they left behind steamed in the returning sunshine and disappeared by the time the swift tropical dusk fell, and the inmates of the warehouse lay down to sleep with the certain knowledge that the pattern would be repeated the following day.
The arrival of a foreign ship was the only break in the monotony. On the fifth day after the interview with the Sultan, a vessel came gliding into the creek on the tide and dropped anchor directly in front of the warehouse. According to Vlucht, the newcomer’s twin side rudders and boxy shape identified her as a small jong, a merchant ship from Malacca, and that evening Hector met her captain on the jetty as he returned from presenting his compliments at the palace.
Musallam Iskandar was a man of indeterminate age. He was running to fat, with slightly bulging eyes, greying stubble and a scattering of pockmarks on a face whose features hinted at Arab rather than oriental ancestry. He greeted Hector cheerfully in passably good English.
‘Mansur told me that there were foreigners in Pehko,’ he said. ‘I noticed that little jolly boat of yours tied up in the harbour, but I do not see your vessel.’
‘We were forced to run our ship aground farther along the coast,’ Hector explained. ‘The Omoro found us cast away and brought us here.’
‘You were fortunate. The Omoro don’t venture far nowadays.’
‘That big kora kora came across us,’ said Hector, nodding towards the outrigger vessel, which had not stirred since their arrival.
‘On their way back from hongi-tochten against the Sugala, I expect,’ observed Musallam. ‘It’s an annual ritual. The Sultan of Omoro quarrels with his neighbour, the Rajah of Sugala, over who owns the forest and the right to harvest the wild birds. Every year Sultan Syabullah sends a war party to menace his rival, but the raid never solves anything. The Sugala know what’s coming, and they built a palisade around their capital years ago. So they retreat within their defences, the Omoro fire off a few shots and then come back home.’
‘You seem to know a lot about these people,’ Hector observed.
The merchant captain shrugged. ‘I trade in the bird skins. It’s the only item that makes the long voyage here worthwhile, and the forests in this region are the prime sources for God’s Birds, whoever controls them. So I alternate. One year I go to Sugala and collect up all the skins they have in stock. The next year I come here and do the same.’
‘But I was told that the Ternate Sultan has taken control of the trade.’
The shipmaster gave a dismissive wave. ‘My family has been coming to Omoro for more than three generations. My grandfather and father both did business with the old Sultan, and I’m not about to give up the contact.’
Behind the Malaccan captain, Hector could see cargo being ferried ashore from his ship.
‘How long will you stay here?’ he asked.
Musallam rolled his eyes. ‘As long as it takes. The Sultan gets to meet very few foreigners, and likes to talk with them. They are a diversion for him. So the negotiations will drag on for a month at least. They always do.’
‘When you leave, would it be possible that my companions could sail with you? There are about a dozen of them.’
‘Only with the Sultan’s permission. I need his authority if I am to take any passengers.’ The shipmaster gave Hector a shrewd glance. ‘What about you? Do you plan to stay on in Pehko?’
‘There is a woman without whom I cannot leave.’
‘And where is this woman now?’
‘She is living at the palace.’
The captain drew a sharp breath. ‘Meddling in the Sultan’s affairs is ill advised. He may be old, but he resents any interference with his royal prerogatives.’
He turned to watch a dugout approaching the jetty. The canoe was piled with so many bales of cloth that it had taken on an alarming list and looked about to capsize. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘I must attend to the unloading of my vessel. There is much to be done. Doubtless we will meet again. Pehko is a small place.’
IT WAS ON the third morning after that encounter that Jezreel woke Hector half an hour after sunrise, shaking him out of a deep sleep.
‘Hector,’ the big man was saying, ‘the Hollanders have gone.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Hector. He sat up, struggling to shake off his drowsiness. Jezreel was squatting down beside him. The dim light filtering through the shuttered window highlighted his friend’s look of exasperation.
‘Vlucht and the others. They’ve done a flit.’
Now Hector was wide awake. He scrambled to his feet. ‘Show me,’ he said.
They went to the room that the Westflinge’s crew used as a
dormitory. The sacks on which the men had slept lay scattered on the floor, but there was no one there.
‘Maybe the guards took them away in the night,’ Hector ventured.
‘I don’t think so. They’ve cleared off. Look here.’ In the flimsy thatch wall facing the harbour someone had ripped a large hole. Hector went across and peered out through the gap. Directly opposite him the Malacca trading jong rode quietly at anchor. There was no one to be seen on her deck. He craned his neck and looked in the opposite direction and noticed at once that something was missing. The Westflinge’s skiff, which had been towed into harbour behind the kora kora when they first arrived, was no longer where it was usually moored against some pilings.
‘They made off with the jolly boat,’ he said. ‘Must have taken it during the night and dropped down on the tide.’
‘And left us in the shit,’ growled Jezreel. ‘The Sultan will fly into a rage when he finds out.’
Hector’s stomach churned at the thought of how this might affect Maria’s situation.
‘We’ve no time to waste. We have to explain to Mansur that we knew nothing about this.’ A sudden thought struck him. ‘Where’s Stolck?’
Together they returned to their own room to find Dan and Jacques both awake. But the corner where Stolck usually slept was empty. He too had left with his countrymen.
‘WHAT WILL HAPPEN to Vlucht and his men if they are caught?’ Hector asked Mansur an hour later. The chamberlain had hurried to the warehouse in response to a message from Hector. For the first time the courtier was genuinely perturbed, and an expression of distaste crossed his face. ‘Traditionally the punishment for defying the authority of the Sultan is death by strangulation. But in this case I fear the culprits are likely to be thrown off a cliff in his presence.’
‘Why the difference?’ asked Jacques, who was listening.
‘That is how the Dutch executed some rebel princes some years ago. The Sultan has said that, given the chance, he is keen to return the compliment.’
‘And what happens if the fall isn’t fatal?’ asked Jacques glumly.
The chamberlain grimaced. ‘If the victim survives, he’s carried up half-alive and thrown over a second time.’ He looked around the little group. ‘His Majesty will want to know exactly how many of you are still here. I think that all of you should appear before him.’
As they made their way across the bazaar to reach the footpath to the palace, Hector noticed a change in the reaction of the market traders. Usually they were friendly and curious, but today they avoided his eye and seemed frightened and wary.
The same tension was palpable when Mansur brought them into the audience chamber in the palace. The courtiers hovered at the outer fringes of the room, clearly reluctant to come near to the Sultan, who was in his usual place, seated among the cushions. It was as if everyone was waiting for a storm to break. Hector looked anxiously about him, searching the farthest corners of the hall, still hoping to catch a glimpse of Maria. But there were no women present. The clock with the hen-and-chicks was now displayed prominently on a tall stand. Clearly the gadget had caught the Sultan’s fancy.
At the Sultan’s right-hand side sat his only son, Prince Jainalabidin. The youngster was dressed even more gorgeously than before, in a dazzling robe of white cotton striped with yellow, embroidered slippers on his feet, and a yellow turban with a small spray of jewels pinned to it. He was staring fixedly in their direction. Hector found it impossible to guess what was going on in the boy’s mind, but he had the uncomfortable feeling that, whatever it was, it was tinged with dislike.
Mansur bowed and made the customary introduction, but this time the Sultan did not invite the newcomers to share betel nut. Instead he sat silently for a long interval, blinking his rheumy eyes and staring malevolently at the foreigners. When eventually he spoke, Mansur translated in a low, obsequious voice.
‘His Majesty has been informed that your colleagues have stolen away in the night like thieves.’
‘We knew nothing of their plans,’ Hector answered.
‘You must have overheard them plotting this act of disobedience.’
‘They are not of our people. When they speak among themselves in their own language, neither I nor any of my companions know what they are saying.’
The Sultan shifted irritably on his cushions, crossing and recrossing his legs. He swayed back and forward slightly as if suffering from stomach cramps, then beckoned to one of his attendants, who came forward with a metal cup of water. The Sultan took a sip. Hector sensed the courtiers in the room behind him were holding their breaths, waiting for an outburst of royal rage. Seconds passed and the atmosphere grew more and more tense. Prince Jainalabidin was totally still, but stared at the visitors, his eyes glittering. Hector was reminded of a small, very poisonous viper about to strike.
Abruptly the Sultan let out a high-pitched cackle. The sound was unsettling, a demented gleeful noise, which ended in a series of watery coughs before the old man delivered his next pronouncement.
‘His Majesty says he is delighted that the Hollanders have gone,’ Mansur translated. Relief was evident in his tone. ‘His Majesty states they were useless mouths, expensive to feed, idlers who did not do any work.’
The Sultan’s eyes were streaming, the tears trickling down the grooves in his wrinkled face. An attendant hurried forward with a cloth. When the coughing had subsided and the Sultan had wiped his face, Prince Jainalabidin leaned across and whispered something in his father’s ear. The Sultan flapped the cloth towards Jezreel and wheezed a few words.
‘His Majesty says the big man is to join his troops. He is a skilful soldier, and Omoro needs good warriors,’ Mansur translated.
‘My companion has done some sword fighting in the prize ring, but he was never in the army,’ Hector answered. He was puzzled at how the Sultan had come to the idea that Jezreel was a professional military man. The Sultan’s next remark provided the answer.
‘That is not what my son tells me.’
Hector glanced at the young prince. Maria must have told the youngster that Jezreel was a soldier, he thought. She’d probably been trying to impress the lad with the importance of their captives, hoping they’d be better treated. The prince had been staring at them out of curiosity and boyish admiration, not with dislike.
The Sultan spoke again. ‘His Highness Prince Jainalabidin has asked to lead another hongi-tochten against Sugala,’ translated Mansur. ‘He says that our men now have muskets that work properly and the Sugala will not be expecting a second attack this season. He will take them by surprise and teach them not to trespass on our forests.’ The old man glanced down at his son indulgently. ‘The prince is clever. He knows that the more bird skins we have to sell, the more traders will come to Omoro and the richer we will become. That way our kingdom will regain its former glory.’ The Sultan hawked into the cup from which he had been drinking. A lackey hurried forward to remove it from his shaking hand.
Hector thought quickly. A successful campaign against Sugala, with Jezreel taking a leading part, was the obvious chance to obtain the Sultan’s favour. He stole another look at the boy sitting beside the Sultan. He could see that Prince Jainalabidin was agog at the idea of leading another attack on Sugala. His eyes were shining with anticipation. It occurred to Hector that the youngster’s eagerness might just as quickly turn to disappointment and blame. It was more than likely Jezreel and his colleagues would be made the scapegoats if the new expedition was a failure. He recalled what the Malaccan trader had said: all previous campaigns against the Sugala had achieved nothing. Jezreel’s presence would make no difference.
He worded his answer carefully, hoping to discourage the idea of the new expedition, without contradicting what he thought were Maria’s claims about Jezreel’s prowess.
‘Your Majesty, I am sure my friend Jezreel is eager to serve you. I have been told that the Sugala are fearful of the Omoro and hide behind their walls.’
The Sultan reached
out and laid a wizened hand fondly on his son’s shoulder.
‘His Majesty says his son is clever. He has already asked to take with him our lantaka to destroy their defences. Never before have our lantaka left Omoro, but His Majesty has given him permission to use them on this campaign.’
Hector hadn’t the slightest idea what the Sultan was talking about.
‘His Majesty says you and your companions will prepare the lantaka for the hongi-tochten,’ Mansur continued. ‘You will also be responsible for their safe return, so that they stand before the palace as proof of the high regard in which His Majesty is held by distant peoples.’
For a moment Hector could think only of the bizarre four-wheeled vehicle parked outside the palace. He failed to see how it could be used against the Sugala. Then he recalled the two bronze cannon on their wooden gun carriages. His heart sank. In his boyish enthusiasm, Prince Jainalabidin had come up with the notion of using these guns to batter down the Sugala defences. His idea was utterly impractical. The two guns were showpieces, presented a generation ago by foreigners seeking to gain favour with the Sultan. The weapons looked impressive, but they were little better than popguns. They might be good for firing a salute, or a shower of small shot that would tear into human flesh. But they had never been meant for serious warfare and certainly not as siege weapons.
He caught the gleam of triumph in the prince’s eye. The lad was feeling very pleased with himself, and Hector realized that he’d insult the youngster if he dismissed the ill-judged scheme out of hand. ‘An inspired suggestion,’ he said, then added what he hoped would be a practical objection. ‘We would need gunpowder of very good quality.’
The Sultan positively beamed at this new opportunity to boast of his son’s intelligence. ‘Prince Jainalabidin has told His Majesty that the jong from Malacca brought a dozen kegs of the best powder to exchange for our bird skins. His Majesty has given him permission to take as much of the gunpowder as he wants to make his attack on Sugala a success.’
