Wilbur Smith - C09 Birds Of Prey

by C09 Birds Of Prey(Lit)

  "What is the spirit of the men you took with you to the mountains?"

  "They are brave men and women too, for there are three girls with the band. Had they been less brave they would never have left the safety of their captivity. But they are not warriors, except one."

  "Who is he, this one among them?"

  "His name is Sabah. He was a soldier until the Dutch captured him. Now he is a soldier again."

  "Could we send word to him?"

  Althuda laughed bitterly. "We could shout from the top of the castle walls or rattle our chains. He might hear us on his mountain top."

  "If I had wanted a jester, I would have called on Daniel here to amuse me. His jokes would make a dog retch, but they are funnier than yours. Answer me now, Althuda. Is there no way to reach Sabah?"

  Though his tone was light, it had an edge of steel to it, and Althuda. thought a while before he replied. "When I escaped I arranged with Sukeena a hiding place beyond the bitter-almond hedge of the colony, where we could leave messages for each other. Sabah knew of this post, for I showed it to him on the night I returned to fetch my sister. It is a long throw of the dice, but Sabah may still visit it to find a message from me."

  "I will think on these things you have told me, "Hal said, and Daniel, lying near him in the dark cell, heard the power and authority in his voice and shook his head.

  "Tis the voice and the manner of Captain Franky he has now, Daniel marvelled. What the Dutchies are doing to him here might have put a lesser man UP on the reef but, by God, all they have done to him is filled his main sail with a strong wind. Hal had taken over his father's role, and the crew who had survived recognized it. More and more they looked to him for leadership, to give them courage to go on and to counsel them, to settle the petty disputes that rose almost daily between men in such bitter straits, and to keep a spark of hope and courage burning in all their hearts.

  The next evening Hal took up the council of war that exhaustion had interrupted the night before. "So Sukeena knows where to leave a message for Sabah?"

  "Naturally, she knows it well the hollow tree on the banks of the Eerste River, the first river beyond the boundary hedge," Althuda replied.

  "Aboli must try to make contact with Sabah. Is there something that is known only to you and Sabah that will prove to him the message comes from you and is not a Dutch trap?"

  Althuda thought about it. "Just say "tis the father of little Bobby," he suggested at last. Hal waited in silence for Althuda to explain, and after a pause he went on, "Robert is my son, born in the wilderness after we had escaped from the colony. This August he will be a year old. His mother is one of the girls I spoke of. In all but name she is my wife. Nobody inside the bitter-almond hedge but I could know the child's name."

  "So, you have as good a reason as any of us for wanting to fly over these walls," Hal murmured.

  The content of the messages that they were able to pass to Aboli was severely restricted by the size of the paper they could safely employ without alerting the gaolers, or the sharp, hungry scrutiny of Hugo Barnard. Hal and Althuda spent hours straining their eyes in the dim light and flogging their wits to compose the most succinct messages that would still be intelligible. The replies that returned to them were the voice of Sukeena speaking, little jewels of brevity that delighted them with occasional flashes of wit and humour.

  Hal found himself thinking more and more of Sukeena, and when she came again to the castle, following behind her mistress, her eyes went first to the scaffold where he worked before going on to seek out her brother. Occasionally, when there was space in the letters that Aboli placed in the crack of the wall, she made little personal comments, a reference to his bushing black beard or the passing of his birthday. This startled Hal, and touched him deeply. He wondered for a while how she had known this intimate detail, until he guessed that Aboli had told her. He encouraged Althuda to talk about her in the darkness. He learned little things about her childhood, her fancies and her dislikes. As he lay and listened to Althuda, he began to fall in love with her.

  Now when Hal looked to the mountains in the north they were covered by a mantle of snow that shone in the wintry sunlight. The wind came down from it like a lance and seemed to pierce his soul. "Aboli has still not heard from Sabah." After four months of waiting, Hal at last accepted that failure. "We will have to cut him out of our plans."

  "He is my friend, but he must have given me up," Althuda agreed. "I grieve for my wife for she also must be mourning my death."

  "Let us move on, then, for it boots us not to wish for what is denied us," Hal said firmly. "It would be easier to escape from the quarry on the mountain than from the castle itself. It seems that Sukeena must have arranged for your reprieve. Perhaps in the same fashion she can have us sent to the quarry."

  They dispatched the message, and a week later the reply came back.

  Sukeena was unable to influence the choice of their workplace, and she cautioned that any attempt to do so would arouse immediate suspicion. "Be patient, Gundwane, she told him in a longer message than she had ever sent before. "Those who love you are working for your salvation."

  Hal read that message a hundred times then repeated it to himself as often. He was touched that she should use his nickname, Gundwane. Of course, Aboli had told her that also.

  "Those who love you?" Does she mean Aboli alone, or does she use the plural intentionally? Is there another who loves me too? Does she mean me alone or does she include Althuda, her brother? He alternated between hope and dismay. How can she trouble my mind so, when I have never even heard her voice? How can she feel anything for me, when she sees nothing but a bearded scarecrow in a beggar's rags? But, then, perhaps Aboli has been my champion and told her I was not always thus.

  Plan as they would, the days passed and hope grew threadbare. Six more of Hal's seamen died during the months of August and September. two fell from the scaffold, one was struck down by a falling block of masonry and two more succumbed to the cold and the damp. The sixth was Oliver, who had been Sir Francis's manservant. Early in their imprisonment his right foot had been crushed beneath the iron-shod wheel of one of the ox-wagons that brought the stone down from the quarry. Even though Doctor Soar had placed a splint upon the shattered bone, the foot would not mend. It swelled up and burst out in suppurating ulcers that smelt like the flesh of a corpse. Hugo Barnard drove him back to work, even though he limped around the courtyard on a crude crutch.

  Hal and Daniel tried to shield Oliver, but if they intervened too obviously Barnard became even more vindictive. All they could do was take as much of the work as they could on themselves and keep Oliver out of range of the overseer's whip. When the day came that Oliver was too weak to climb the ladder to the top of the south wall, Barnard sent him to work as a mason's boy, trimming and shaping the slabs of stone. In the courtyard he was right under Barnard's eye, and twice in the same morning Barnard laid into him with the whip.

  The last was a casual blow, not nearly as vicious as many that had preceded it. Oliver was a tailor by trade, and by nature a timid and gentle creature, but, like a cur driven into an alley from which there was no escape, he turned and snapped. He swung the heavy wooden mallet in his right hand, and though Barnard sprang back he was not swift enough and it caught him across one shin. It was a glancing blow that did not break bone but it smeared the skin, and a flush of blood darkened Barnard's hose and seeped down into his shoe. Even from his perch on the scaffold Hal could see by his expression that Oliver was appalled and terrified by what he had done.

  "Sir!" he cried, and fell to his knees. "I did not mean it.

  Please, sir, forgive me." He dropped the mallet and held up both hands to his face in the attitude of prayer.

  Hugo Barnard staggered back, then stooped to examine his injury. He ignored Oliver's frantic pleas, and peeled back his hose to expose the long graze down his shin. Then still without looking at Oliver, he limped to the hitching rail on the far side of the courtyar
d where his pair of black boar hounds were tethered. He held them on the leashes and pointed them at where Oliver still knelt.

  "Get him!" They hurled themselves against the leashes, baying and gaping with wide red mouths and long white fangs.

  "Get him!" Barnard urged, and at the same time restrained them. The fury in his voice enraged the animals, and they leapt against the leashes so that Barnard was almost pulled off his feet.

  "Please!" screamed Oliver, struggling to rise, toppling back, then crawling towards where his crutch was propped against the stone wall.

  Barnard slipped the hounds. They bounded across the yard and Oliver had time only to lift his hands to cover his face before they were on him.

  They bowled him over and sent him rolling over the cobbles, then slashed at him with snapping jaws. One went for his face, but he lifted his arm and it buried its fangs in his elbow. Oliver was shirtless and the other hound caught him in the belly. Both held on.

  From high on the scaffold Hal was powerless to intervene. Gradually Oliver's screams grew weaker and his struggles ceased. Barnard and his hounds never let up. they went on worrying the body long after the last flutter of life had been extinguished. Then Barnard gave the mutilated body one last kick and stepped back. He was panting wildly and sweat slimed his face and dripped onto his shirtfront, but he lifted his head and grinned up at Hal. He left Oliver's body lying on the cobbles until the end of the work shift when he singled out Hal and Daniel. "Throw that piece of offal on the dung heap behind the castle. He will be more use to the seagulls and crows than he ever was to me." And he chuckled with glee when he saw the murder in Hal's eyes.

  When spring came round again only eight were left. Yet the eight were tempered by these hardships. Every muscle and sinew stood proud beneath the tanned and weathered skin of Hal's chest and arms. The palms of his hands were tough as leather, and his fingers powerful as a blacksmith's tongs. When he broke up a fight a single blow from one of his scarred fists could drop a big man to the paving.

  The first promise of spring dispersed the gale-driven clouds, and the sun had new fire in its rays. A restlessness took over from the resigned gloom that had possessed them all during winter. Tempers were short, fighting among them more frequent, and their eyes looked often to the far mountains, from which the snows had thawed or turned out across the blue Atlantic.

  Then there came a message from Aboli in Sukeena's hand. "Sabah sends greetings to A. Bobby and his mother pine for him." It filled them all with a wild and joyous hope that, in truth, had no firm foundation for Sabah and his band could only help them once they had passed the bitter-almond hedge.

  Another month passed, and the wild flame of hope that had lit their hearts sank to an ember. Spring came in its full glory, and turned the mountain into a prodigy of wild flowers whose colours stunned the eye, and whose perfume reached them even on the high scaffold. The wind came singing out of the south-east, and the sun birds returned from they knew not where, setting the air afire with their sparkling plumage.

  Then there was a laconic message from Sukeena and Aboli. "It is time to go. How many are you?"

  That night they discussed the message in whispers that shook with excitement. "Aboli has a plan. But how can he get all of us away?"

  "For me he is the only horse in the race," Big Daniel growled. "I'm laying every penny I have on him."

  "If only you had a penny to lay." Ned chuckled. It was the first time Hal had heard him laugh since Oliver had been ripped to pieces by Barnard's dogs.

  "How many are going?" Hal asked. "Think on it a while, lads, before you give answer." In the bad light he looked around the circle of heads, whose expressions turned grim. "If you stay here you will go on living for a while at least, and no man will think the worse of you.

  If we go and we do not reach the mountains, then you all saw the way my father and Oliver died. "Twas not a fitting death for an animal, let alone a man."

  Althuda spoke first. "Even if it were not for Bobby and my woman, I would go."

  "Aye!"said Daniel, and'Aye!"said Ned.

  "That's three," Hal murmured, "What about you, William Rogers?"

  "I'm with you, Sir Henry."

  "Don't test me, Billy. I have told you not to call me that." Hal frowned. When they used his title he felt himself a fraud, for he was not worthy of the honour that his grandfather had won at the right hand of Drake. The title that his father had carried with such distinction.

  "Your last chance, Master Billy. If your tongue trips again I'll kick some sense into the other end of you. Do you hear?"

  "Aye, I hear you sweet and clear, Sir Henry." Billy grinned at him, and the others roared with laughter as Hal caught him by the scruff of his neck and boxed his ears. They were all bubbling over with excitement all, that was, but Dick Moss and Paul Hale.

  "I've grown too old for a lark such as this, Sir Hal. My bones are so stiff I could not climb a pretty lad if you tied him over a barrel for me, let alone climb a mountain." Dick Moss the old pederast grinned. "Forgive me, Captain, but Paul and me have talked it over, and we'll stay on here where we'll get a bellyful of stew and a bundle of straw each night."

  "Perhaps you are wiser than the rest of us." Hal nodded, and he was not saddened by the decision. Dicky was long past his glory days when he had been the man to beat to the masthead when they reefed sail in a full gale. This last winter had stiffened his limbs and greyed his hair. He would be non-paying cargo to carry on this voyage. Paul was Dicky's ship-wife. They had been together for twenty years, and though Paul was still a fury with a cutlass in his hand he would stay with his ageing lover.

  "Good luck to both of you. You're as good a pair as I ever sailed with," Hal said, and looked at Wally Finch and Stan Sparrow. "What about you two birds? Will you fly with us, lads?"

  "As high and as far as you're going." Wally spoke for both of them, and Hal clapped his shoulder.

  "That makes six of us, eight with Aboli and Althuda, and it'll be high and far enough to suit all our tastes, I warrant you." here was a final exchange of. messages as Aboli and Sukeena explained the plan they had worked out. Hal suggested refinements and drew up a list of items that Aboli and Sukeena must try to steal to make their existence in the wilderness more certain. Chief among these were a chart and compass, and a backstaff if they could find one.

  Aboli and Sukeena made their final preparation without letting their trepidation or excitement become apparent to the rest of the household. Dark eyes were always watching everything that happened in the slave quarters, and they trusted nobody now that they were so close to the chosen day. Sukeena gradually assembled those items for which Hal had asked, and added a few of her own that she knew they would need.

  The day before the planned escape, Sukeena summoned Aboli into the main living area of the residence where before he had never been allowed to enter. "I need your strength to move the carved armoire in the banquet hall," she told him, in front of the cook and two others of the kitchen staff. Aboli followed her submissively as a trained hound on a leash. Once they were alone, Aboli dropped the demeanour of the meek slave.

  "Be quick!" Sukeena warned him. "The mistress will return very soon. She is with Slow John at the bottom of the garden." She moved swiftly to the shutter of the window that overlooked the lawns, and saw that the ill-assorted couple were still in earnest conversation under the oak trees.

  "There is no limit to her depravity," she whispered to herself, as she watched Katinka laugh at something the executioner had said. "She would make love to a pig or a poisonous snake if the fancy came upon her." Sukeena shuddered at the memory of that ophidian tongue exploring. the secret recesses of her own body. It will never happen again, she promised herself, only four more days to endure before Althuda will be safe. If she calls me to her nest before then I will plead that my courses are flowing.

  She heard something whirl in the air like a great bird in flight and glanced back over her shoulder to see that Aboli had taken one of the sword
s from the display of weapons in the hallway. He was testing its balance and temper, swinging it in singing circles around his head, so that the reflections of light off the blade danced on the white walls.

  He set it aside and chose another, but liked it not at all and placed it back with a frown. "Hurry!" she called softly to him. Within minutes he had picked out three blades, not for the jewels that decorated the hilts but for the litheness and temper of their blades. All three were curved scimitars made by the annourers of Shah Jahan at Agra on the Indian continent. "They were made for a Mogul prince and sit ill in the hand of a rough sailor, but they will do until I can find a cutlass of good Sheffield steel to replace them." Then he picked out a shorter blade, a kukri knife used by the hill people of Further India, and he shaved a patch of hair off his forearm.

  "This will do for the close work I have in mind." He grunted with satisfaction.

  "I have marked well those you have chosen," Sukeena told him. "Now leave them on the rack or their empty slots will be noticed by the other house slaves. I will pass them to you on the evening before the day."