Taghri's Prize

by Peter Grant

  “Very well.” Hamid reached for a small bell and tinkled it loudly.

  A sentry put his head around the door. “Your excellency?”

  “Summon the officer of the guard.”

  “Aye, your excellency!”

  A detachment of the guard set to work clearing the area, and stationing sentries far enough away that they could not overhear what was said in the office. While they were waiting, Taghri asked, “Your excellency, one thing’s been bothering me. Why did Sidi Reis attack that caravan? It was foolish. He might have been sure there were no coastal patrols nearby, but what about Army patrols? He couldn’t have known there were none on hand. Why take such an unnecessary risk, particularly when he didn’t have enough men for a serious fight?”

  Hamid shrugged. “Judging from what Princess Gulbahar told us, and what we’ve learned from some of his former slaves, it seems he was a young hothead. He wasn’t supposed to be raiding at all. His father didn’t trust him to command a ship yet. He had him sail with his brothers and take their orders, to learn the trade. He apparently wanted to show his father that he was as good a raiding skipper as they were, so while his father and brothers were away, he commandeered the galley and set off on his own.

  “He seems to have fallen in with the Princess’ ship by accident. He sold the rich pickings he got from her at Quwain, but kept the Princess, probably to demand a rich ransom from her father. She scorned him and scoffed at his manhood, according to the slaves, who heard the argument. While he was still screaming at her, the caravan came into sight. He decided to attack it on the spur of the moment, to impress her.” Hamid sniggered. “It turned out to be a very bad idea for him, and a very good thing for the Princess and his slaves.”

  The officer of the guard knocked at the door. “All secure as ordered, sir.”

  “Thank you,” the Governor replied. They watched as the officer closed the door, and listened to his footsteps hurry away. “That should be secure enough. Now, what did you have to say?”

  “Your excellency, after our meeting this morning, I sent some of my guards to make inquiries in the city, with enough money to persuade closed mouths to open. They’re still doing that, so what I say now is only the beginning of what I hope I’ll learn. May I ask you to join me at the map table?”

  “Of course.” They rose and walked over to the table against the far wall.

  Taghri selected a map of the province, showing its borders and nearby lands. “First, your excellency, raiders have left tracks coming from, or going to, three villages in the land of Talima.” He pointed to the map. “Bodah, Shirah and Qisha are close enough to our caravan routes to be convenient, but far enough away that they can’t be watched from within our borders. They’re also near the caravan route from Bahil, capital of Talima, to the port of Quwain. Both would be logical places to send their plunder for sale. Quwain is sometimes used by Abu Reis to dispose of captured ships and their cargoes, too. There may be a connection there.”

  “I agree,” Hamid said thoughtfully, studying the map. “Sadly, I can’t send my garrison beyond our borders to teach those villages a lesson. That’s strictly forbidden by the Sultan.”

  “True, your excellency. You can’t do anything officially.” Hamid’s eyes widened at Taghri’s emphasis on the word as he continued, “I presume you’ve protested to Talima about the use of their territory to raid the Sultanate’s caravans?”

  “Yes, of course. They denied all knowledge of the matter, and pointed out that thieves and raiders are a problem everywhere, that no-one can fully control. They can’t stop them sneaking through their territory from time to time.”

  “If that’s the case, your excellency, wouldn't it apply in reverse, too? If they can’t be expected to control foreign raiders attacking our territory from Talima, surely you can’t be expected to control foreign raiders attacking Talima’s territory from Samha?”

  Hamid gazed at him, eyes narrowed, fingers stroking his chin. After a moment he said, “Go on.”

  “Why not use the recent raid to our advantage, your excellency? Abu Reis’ outrages against us are widely known, including the recent kidnapping of Princess Gulbahar.” His finger traced up the coastline to the very top of the map, where the bulge of the peninsula that sheltered Abu Reis’ pirate harbor at Gaidah could be seen. “It would not seem out of place if another band of his raiders were to hit towns in Talima. If a raid like that hit those villages, it might teach them, and Talima, a lesson they’ll never forget.”

  “Hmmm… It might, but how could it be arranged?”

  “I could be hired by local merchants to train escorts for their caravans. They hire them all the time, so there’d be nothing unusual about that. It wouldn’t be nearly as expensive as raising and equipping a squadron of cavalry, your excellency. That takes thousands of diracs over time. A troop-sized unit could be formed, trained and equipped for a few hundred diracs, given a little help here and there. That might be raised from local merchants as an investment, not a tax, to be repaid with interest, using loot taken from Talima once the ‘caravan escorts’ were trained. They wouldn’t know about, and couldn’t be held responsible for, anything else those ‘escorts’ did.”

  The Governor tapped his fingers on the table, clearly thinking hard. “How could the merchants be sure enough loot would be captured to repay them in full?”

  “They’d have to understand it’s a speculative investment, your excellency, just like a trading caravan. It may pay off, or they may lose their money. That’s a chance they’ll have to take. On the other hand, I’m told they’ve lost at least five hundred diracs to raiders every year for the past five years – I didn’t look further back than that. Even if the loan isn’t repaid, if the raiders can be stopped, the merchants will save enough to get their money back over a year or two.”

  “A good point. What about the men?”

  “Veterans, perhaps some of the freed slaves, and others. They’d need a month or so of intensive training before being turned loose in a rapid series of short, sharp attacks, before the raiders grasp what’s happening. I don’t think it could go on more than a month or two before Talima troops, responding to the attacks, would make it too dangerous to continue.”

  “But despite that, you think it might put a stop to the immediate threat?” Hamid’s voice was dubious.

  “For a few years at least. If they suffer several bloody reverses, and the villages responsible for hosting them are taught a lesson, the raiders will be disorganized. They’ll realize that future attacks will be much more costly than in the past. It’ll take time for them to forget the lesson – and if and when they do, they can be taught it again. Perhaps by then you’ll have a larger garrison, or more money, or the Sultan will give you greater freedom to act.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Ah… if this is to work, your excellency, it would have to be divorced from any official contact or control.” Taghri’s voice was deferential, but firm. “As far as you’re concerned, I’m training caravan guards, nothing more. No loot will be sold in Alconteral’s markets, even though the ‘caravan guards’ and I might come back with a lot more money than when we left. If I paid off the loan to the merchants, it would be out of ‘trading profits’. No-one else will have any official knowledge of what the ‘guards’ or I have been doing, except for rumors and third-hand reports. You’d accept as true any evidence we offered that we weren’t involved.”

  “I understand. I suppose the loan from our merchants would be raised on the same terms – an informal arrangement, with no official accountability by anyone to anyone.”

  “Yes, your excellency. Oh – there are a few more things. In the harbor, you have seven or eight vessels captured from pirates or smugglers. I need to buy all of them from you, please, at the lowest possible price, on a note to be repaid out of my ‘trading profits’.”

  Hamid’s eyebrows rose. “Why? The villages you pointed out are land-locked, far from the sea.”

  “Yes, your excellen
cy, but I still need a cover story, and if I ‘trade’ using the ships, that’ll provide one. Besides, you never know when a ship might come in handy.”

  “Oh. They’re not in very good condition, you know. Some are close to sinking.”

  “Yes, but they can be repaired. If I can find men to do the work, will the merchants who provide the loan also provide the tools and materials needed at the lowest possible cost?”

  “That may be possible, but they may expect a share of your ‘trading profits’ to cover that.”

  “I can discuss that with them, sir. The thing is, time is very short if this problem’s to be dealt with before the end of the raiding season. That means there’ll be no time to buy and train animals. The ‘guards’ will need to borrow trained riding and pack horses and mules from the provincial garrison. Can you order them to make available a couple of hundred of them, including their tack, fodder and other needs, for the rest of the summer? They’ll have to be good animals, too, not old or worn-out or sick. You could use the excuse that the ‘caravan guards’ will reduce the need for Army escorts, so it’s to your advantage to help train them.”

  “I suppose so. The Army will object, of course. What if some of the animals are lost?”

  “Perhaps enough can be captured from the raiders to make up for any losses. If not, I’ll have to pay for them. The unit will also need weapons, and someone in Alconteral will have to serve as the unit’s go-between with the city’s merchants, to ensure good prices and fast delivery. As an incentive to those making the loan, the unit could buy its needs from them.”

  Hamid was silent for a long moment, then nodded. “Very well. If a few merchants agree to your proposal, I’ll send the money to you tomorrow afternoon. It’ll be strictly and officially an investment in your private project, which won’t be specified. As for a base, there’s an old fort on the coast at Barkah.” He indicated it on the map. “It’s dilapidated and run down, but still usable, and it’s at the end of our patrol lines. Barkah is a small fishing village in a sheltered bay. It’s close enough to the three Talima villages to be convenient. I can order our garrison to halt their patrols some way short of Barkah for the next couple of months, if your ‘caravan guards’ can look after that area. You can take the ships and repair materials to the bay, where they can be worked on without any awkward questions being asked. The local fishermen can be hired to help. You’ll need to use at least one ship to shuttle back and forth to Alconteral, bringing supplies and anything else the unit needs.”

  He looked hard at Taghri. “Understand that all this is on the condition that I officially know nothing about your plans. My understanding is that you want to train and equip caravan guards, nothing more. I can legitimately help you do that, but not invade a neighboring state. If anything goes wrong, you’re solely responsible for whatever happens.”

  “I understand, your excellency.”

  “Very well. You’ll have a yes or no tomorrow, depending on whether the money’s available.”

  “Thank you, your excellency. I must find a weapon seller in town, too. I lost my pedrenyal to the raiders, and I need to replace it.” Taghri sighed. “It was a battlefield capture, one of a matched pair. The man who owned them got careless, and double-charged the other pistol in the heat of a fight. He tried to shoot it at me, but it blew up in his face as I charged him, which saved my life and allowed me to end his. I’ve had the other one since then. It was a fine weapon. I hated to lose it. There won’t be any at Barkah, so I’ll have to buy one or two pistols to take with me.”

  Hamid smiled. “I’ll have the officer of the guard take you to the palace armory. Apart from the guard detachment’s weapons, there are several boxed sets of handguns and dozens of individual firearms, plus hundreds of swords, daggers and the like. A few were official gifts, but most were captured from enemies or confiscated from smugglers. Take whatever you need. I’ll tell the officer to write out a deed of gift for them, and bring it to me for signature. Since you so generously gave away the gold we tried to give you, I see no problem in rewarding you with weapons instead.”

  “Thank you very much, your excellency. If they’re not marked as official property, may I also set some aside for the ‘caravan escorts’?”

  “Yes, of course, as many as you need.”

  “I’ll put them to good use, your excellency.”

  “And I hope they’ll take good care of you and your men.”

  5

  Taghri was up with the sunrise the following morning. There was so much to organize, he dared not wait until the loan was arranged. He dressed, and ordered breakfast in his room, inviting Sergeant-Major Hadi to join him.

  “This is all speculative until the money’s confirmed,” he told him through a mouthful of food, “but I think it will be, later today. I need to hire forty to fifty men at once, to serve for three months, all veterans if possible. They’ve got to be fit, strong, disciplined, able to ride, and know how to keep their mouths shut. Officially, they’ll be training as ‘caravan guards’. Unofficially, we’re taking the fight to the raiders – but they can’t talk about that, of course.

  “We’ll start with about a month’s training, at a place a long way out of town. There’ll be no liberty, just hard work. After that, we’ll have a month or more of tough fighting. Pay will be at army rates. There’ll be danger, but also good prospects for loot, which we’ll divide among the troops in the usual proportions. Everyone will get their fair share. I want men you’d be willing to trust with your own life. Can you find them for me within a week?”

  Hadi frowned, and shook his head. “No, sir, not at once. I might find a score, or two dozen if I’m very lucky, but not that many. Where will they be fighting?”

  “I can’t say yet, but I’ll be in command.”

  The former sergeant-major perked up at once. “That’ll attract some people, sir. They’ll have heard of your reputation. Ah… what about us, sir, the guards you’ve already hired?”

  “You’ll all be involved. I can’t take you on operations with that peg-leg, but you’ll be my strong right arm and command our base. You’ll be doing the same sort of thing as you did with your regiment, handling all the administration and training. The rest of my guards will help with training and base functions. Recruit as many good former corporals and sergeants as you can. They’ll train the men, then command elements of our unit when we go into battle. In particular, try to find me four section leaders at troop sergeant level, who can think on their feet and act independently if need be. You’d be one of them, but for your foot, so find some more men like you.”

  The sergeant-major glowed at Taghri’s compliment, even as he shook his head. “I’ll start making lists, sir, but as I said, I don’t think I can find that many, that quickly.”

  “Do your best. I may know where to get more. I’m going to talk to the slave rowers from Sidi Reis’ ship. They have to wait for his galley to be auctioned off, then divide its proceeds among them. I’ll hire up to a hundred of them to refurbish some old ships we’ll be using, and invite any of them who’re interested to try out for the fighting unit.”

  “Ah… would this involve their former captors, sir?”

  Taghri thought fast. He could not identify their targets yet. He compromised with, “I can’t say right now, sergeant-major, but you don’t hear me calling you a liar. Everyone will find out when the time’s right.”

  Hadi grinned. “I understand, sir.”

  “I also need a factor, someone to be based here in Alconteral to manage our orders from local merchants, and ship them out to us as quickly as possible. I’ll have to leave a lot of money with him for that, so he’s got to be trustworthy.”

  “There’s my son Fihr, sir, the one we ransomed from the pirates last year. He was training for a factor’s job with a local merchant – that’s why he was aboard the ship that was captured. He’s young, but he’s steady, good with figures, and he knows all the local merchants and the state of the market. I’m biased, of cours
e, as his father, but I still say you can trust him.”

  “Why didn’t his employer help with his ransom?”

  Hadi spat sourly. “He didn’t ransom any of the crew, sir. He blamed them for losing his ship and his goods.”

  “Not much blame if a slow, heavily-laden, defenseless ship gets taken by a fast-moving pirate galley with a fighting crew. If we hire him, Fihr can get some of his revenge by not giving his former employer any of our business.”

  “He’d like that, sir.”

  “Bring him to see me this evening. Start thinking about who you want to hire, but don’t approach them until I know for sure – probably by this afternoon – that the money’s available. Meanwhile, I’m going down to the harbor to talk to a former slave, and look at some ships.”

  “Aye, sir.” Hadi nodded towards the corner of the room, where three scabbarded swords of different shapes and lengths leaned against the wall, along with an arquebus, a pair of large, heavy-caliber horse pistols in saddle holsters, and two boxed sets of smaller handguns. “Where did those come from, sir?”

  “Gifts from the Governor. I’ll show them to you later, when we have time. I must go.”

  “Good luck at the harbor, sir. I reckon those slaves will have enough hate in them for their captors that some of them might jump at the chance for revenge.”

  “All those that do may get that chance.”

  Elhac looked at Taghri in astonishment. “A hundred of us, sir? For three months?”

  “At least a hundred, more if they’re willing. I need men who can refurbish and repair older ships – those ones over there, to be precise.” He pointed towards the eight ships confiscated by the harbor and coast patrol service, anchored in a little cluster. “Most of them look to be in poor shape, but the patrol service assures me they can all be made seaworthy with hard work and the right materials. I’m going to need them, very soon. Officially, it’ll be to trade with other ports. Unofficially, they might be an unpleasant surprise for people like those who enslaved you. I want you to lead the sailors. Interested?”