Taghri's Prize

by Peter Grant

  “If there are any profits. I warned you, remember; this is a high-risk venture.”

  Fihr seemed confident enough, but Taghri couldn’t help thinking, If this doesn’t work out, I won’t need to worry about profit or loss. I daresay I’ll be dead, along with everyone who comes with me.

  Sergeant-Major Hadi scoured the city, but could find only one hundred and eighty men who met his standards, either veterans of military service, or seemingly fit and strong enough, and with the right attitude, to learn to fight in a military way. “I’m sorry, sir,” he apologized. “It’s just that during winter, a lot of hangers-on who’ve worked in trade during the summer go home to their towns and villages with what they’ve saved, to spend time with their families.”

  “You’ve done your best,” Taghri reassured him. “I don’t expect you to work miracles. There’ll be several dozen former slaves from Quwain to join them. I doubt if everyone will manage to complete the training, but perhaps you’ll be able to find a few more veterans here and there. We’ll head out to the training camp tomorrow, and sweat everyone for two months. There aren’t any sand dunes in the area, but there are plenty of steep uphill and downhill slopes. I daresay they’ll get fit and strong enough tackling those.”

  Training began every day, as it had for the first raid, with an extended run. Taghri started it at two miles every morning, and extended it to five miles by the end of the first month. Despite having been warned what would be expected of them, a number of the recruits just couldn’t keep up, and were dismissed. The others cursed and swore, but kept at it, and began to compete to keep up with Taghri as he pounded along at their head.

  Half of each day was spent exercising with weapons, and the other half working in formation, learning to fight as small and large units rather than individuals. “I’ve fought against the people you’ll be fighting,” Taghri informed them. “They’re good enough as individuals, but that’s their biggest problem, too. They’ve never learned to fight as anything but individuals. At close quarters, they get in each other’s way, and don’t understand that it’s death for one man to oppose a trained team. That’s what distinguishes the warrior from the soldier. Warriors make great fighters, but lousy soldiers, because they can’t let go of their individual fighting instincts. A trained platoon or company can defeat many times their number of individual enemies, provided they work together and maintain formation. Learn to fight as a unit, then I’ll show you another advantage we’ll have.”

  As soon as the men were meshing together well, in half a dozen fighting groups, Taghri introduced logs mounted on big wheels. “Pretend these are small cannon,” he told them. “Each unit will have one or two cannon with it. They’ll break up an enemy charge before it can hit you, then you’ll surge forward in formation to kill the survivors as they get tangled up in their own dead. The cannon will move with you. If there isn’t room for them, you’ll wait until they finish firing, then they’ll fall back behind you to give you room to fight.”

  The soldiers took it in turns to wheel the wooden ‘cannon’ around makeshift battlefields, learning how to push, pull and carry them over rough terrain. Taghri and the instructors prodded the men to move smoothly and efficiently with the cannon. “Their crews will do most of the hard work, but you’ve got to know how to help them. Don’t think of the guns as useless dead weight slowing you down. Think of them as long-distance armor, stopping the enemy before he can strike you.”

  After the first few weeks, Taghri left the instruction in the hands of Sergeant-Major Hadi and his hand-picked team of instructors, all veterans of the Quwain raid. He headed back to Alconteral. He had far too many other things to do, and he’d been neglecting them.

  The scouts returned to Alconteral aboard the boum. “It was a lot easier than you feared, sir,” the leader explained. “They seem to think no-one would even dream of bothering them. Their security’s laughable. They never patrol their own back yard.”

  “So much the better for us, then. D’you think the plan I outlined will work?”

  “It’s going to be tough, sir, but it’s possible. Let me show you what we found.”

  Taghri produced the map Elhac had drawn for him, while the scouts produced one of the copies they’d made, with additional details marked on it. The leader began, “The mountains forming the spine of the peninsula don’t leave much room on their inward side for the settlement, sir. It runs in a long, narrow strip along the coast, because that’s the only ground level enough to build on. Their fields are further inland, where the peninsula curves out into a half-moon crescent bay.”

  “So they do have fields and farms?” Taghri asked.

  “Yes, sir, but only outside the wall, and not many. They aren’t using even a quarter of the land available for farming – maybe because they don’t have enough water – so they can’t possibly raise enough food locally to feed themselves.”

  Taghri frowned. “I’d have thought there’d be enough rainfall on the mountains to support more farms.”

  “There is, sir, but they haven’t built dams to capture it. They let it run off into the sea.”

  “Why? Are there no suitable sites for dams?”

  “I could see at least three or four, sir, but they haven’t bothered to build them.”

  “They’re fools, then. Go on.”

  “Yes, sir. It’s winter, so no crops are growing, but our best guess is that they grow corn, beans, that sort of thing. They have goats and chickens in the settlement. Anything more has to be brought in by ship.”

  “What do they have in the way of reserve stocks of food?”

  “The slave compound has a storage building, sir. The main settlement has three smaller storage buildings, lean-to structures against the walls of a small fort covering the harbor. There’s a big bread oven inside the fort, that seems to bake for everybody in the settlement. People come there from the houses every day to get food, bread and other things. There’s a sort of market in the courtyard.”

  “How many people in the settlement, not counting slaves?”

  “Several hundred, sir, but I was surprised to see a lot more women and children than men. Many of the women wore mourning clothes. I think they must have lost a big fight recently.”

  Taghri couldn’t hold back a feral grin. “They did – more than one. How many fighting-age men?”

  “I’d say about two hundred, sir, maybe fifty more if you include the oldest and the youngest. Some of the boys might be able to handle a sword if they had to.”

  “Those are better odds than I’d feared.”

  “Yes, sir, but you’ve got to get past their cannon to get ashore, and then over the wall to get at them and the defenders.”

  “True. What about their galley slaves?”

  “They’re not in the settlement itself, sir. There are slave pens further out, by the fields, walled in to stop anyone escaping. There seem to be three or four hundred of them, sir. There are always guards on duty, relieved from the fort every day.”

  “How is the fort armed?”

  “It’s got four cannon, same as the bastion at the entrance to the bay. They look like twenty-four-pounders taken off galleys. They cover a harbor formed by a breakwater extending from this point out to seaward, sir, then curving towards the land to form a sheltered enclosure.”

  “How far out into the bay could they cover, d’you think?”

  “At least a mile, sir, maybe a mile and a half, but they’ll only be accurate to a quarter of a mile or so. The bastion, being higher up the mountainside, can cover a slightly longer range.”

  “Very well. How many galleys and other ships?”

  “Three galleys and two boums, sir. One of the boums makes a supply run every second week. There are several more berths, but no ships in them. One galley’s much bigger than the other two, but she’s been dismasted. A few men are making a new mast for her, lying on trestles on shore next to the ship, shaping it with adzes, draw-knives and shavers. The work’s going very slowly.”<
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  “And the other two galleys?”

  “They’re about the same size as the one you captured near here a few months ago, sir. Twenty-five oars a side, two rowers per oar, two cannon in the bows.”

  “All right. You say the fort covers the harbor?”

  “Yes, sir. Their cannon can dominate the whole area, and the sea beyond the breakwater. They can probably reach the slave pens, too, if they can lever them that far around in their embrasures.”

  “That would be logical. How many men in the fort – living there, I mean?”

  “Very few, we think, sir. Most of them seem to go home at night. I doubt there’s more than a few actually living there. The fort’s pretty run-down. It could be rebuilt into something quite strong, but that’d mean getting rid of the storage buildings and bread oven, and the market, and repairing its walls, and bringing in more cannon.”

  “All right. Let’s get back to the settlement. If it’s so spread out along the coast, how do they protect it? They can’t build walls around it – the terrain won’t let them.”

  “No, sir. The fort’s built against an outcropping of the mountain. A wall runs from it down to the breakwater, with a gate to let people go in and out. At the other side of the settlement, the buildings end in a small bay with a beach. They seem to use that for swimming or fishing, but not now, sir – it’s too cold and rough in winter. There are a few small fishing boats drawn up on the sand above the surf line. They go out most days when the weather allows.”

  “How do they get fresh water?”

  “There’s a dam on the hillside above the fort, sir. It collects rainwater coming down the mountain. A pipe runs to the fort, where there’s a big wooden water tower. From there a small aqueduct runs along the rear of the village, behind the houses, with water points at intervals. The aqueduct comes through the wall of the fort, sir – you could walk right inside through it. They let water into it for half an hour in the morning and evening. People take buckets or small carts to it to draw water.”

  “No water tanks or cisterns on or near the buildings?”

  “None outside, sir. There may be water barrels inside the houses.”

  “How deep is the aqueduct?”

  “Not very deep, sir. I’d say it would come calf-high on my leg.”

  “Is it broad enough for a man to walk or run along it?”

  “Oh, yes, sir, easily – probably two men abreast, if each walked along one lip. In places it’s no more than a stone-lined ditch in the ground, in others it’s on pillars several feet high.”

  “Good. Are there any larger, more luxurious houses?”

  “Yes, sir, those nearest to the fort. This one here is the biggest of the lot. There are several others around it, smaller, but still bigger and more comfortable than the rest of the settlement.”

  “Probably for galley captains and officers. All right, let’s look at the details. How big are the houses? What are they made of?”

  It took him a full day to extract every detail from the scouts, mark them on his map, and take notes. At last he pushed back from the table and stood, rotating his aching shoulders and arms to ease his tight muscles.

  “You’ve done very well. Take a few weeks to relax and enjoy yourselves, but for the gods’ sake, don’t say a word about where you’ve been or what you were doing! I’ll send you back ahead of us, so if anything leaks out, you’ll be the first to die.”

  Chuckling, the scouts promised to guard their tongues.

  19

  Shortly after midwinter, a Kalba galley pulled into Alconteral harbor to rest its crew and repair weather damage. It had sailed from Talima ten days before, but run into a seemingly endless winter storm, making progress slow and very difficult. Its commanding officer sent a messenger to Taghri with the somewhat cryptic suggestion that he should come on board, as there were passengers he might wish to meet. Mystified, Taghri complied.

  He was met at the gangplank by the ship’s captain, who escorted him to his cabin beneath the poop deck. There he found a Kalba merchant and four somber young women, all physically attractive, but with memories of long and frequent mistreatment staring out of their haunted eyes. It was obvious that three of them were well advanced in pregnancy. He knew at once who they must be.

  “Ra’id Taghri, it is an honor to meet you,” the merchant said as he rose. “My name is Khayrat. The Princess Gulbahar used your generous gift to send me to Talima, to negotiate the ransom and release of four of her ladies-in-waiting. Allow me to introduce Lady Ridwana, Lady Dima, Lady Widad and Lady Khariyya.”

  Each half-bowed to Taghri from her seat on a carpet piled with cushions, but did not stand. Their veiled faces were carefully blank, but their eyes followed him. He could almost sense the fear in them. Would he treat them as ladies still, or as dishonored former slaves, involuntary concubines, their former status and worth as human beings forever lost? He knew he would have to put their minds at rest, and bowed deeply to them all, even as he motioned to the merchant and the captain to leave them alone to talk. He knew the men would regard the presence of multiple women as sufficient chaperonage. Sure enough, they slipped out through the door as he began to speak.

  “I greet you, ladies. I’m very glad to see you safe. The Governor of this province, Hamid Bousaid, and his wife hosted Princess Gulbahar for several months following her rescue. They’ll certainly want you to be their guests while this ship is repaired. I’ll send word to him at once, and he’ll send an escort to bring you to him.” All four almost flinched, their eyes flickering, and he hastened to reassure them. “He’s a very good man, and his wife and children will make you feel at ease. No-one will ask any questions about your months in captivity.” He was careful not to use the term ‘slavery’, or mention what he knew they must have been through.

  “Th – thank you, Ra’id Taghri,” Ridwana said softly, her face averted. “We are… no longer accustomed to… polite company. I hope they will understand, and make allowances.”

  “I’m sure they will. Princess Gulbahar enjoyed her stay with them, and they parted the best of friends. She’ll approve of your visiting them.” He hesitated, then decided to take the plunge. “If you wish to remain here until you’ve delivered your children, I’m sure they’ll be delighted to help. There can always be arrangements made for the children, so that if you wish, you can return home without any evidence of… of what happened.”

  The three pregnant women exchanged glances, sudden hope flaring in their eyes. “Would – would there be any… gossip?” Ridwana asked.

  “Not from the Governor’s palace, I assure you. I can’t speak for the crew of this galley, but I daresay the Malik will be able to make them understand the need for discretion. As for other rumors, they can be dealt with as they arise – likewise those who spread them.”

  Khariyya murmured, a catch in her voice, “It will be d-difficult for us to learn to be sociable again with outsiders.”

  “Then use this visit to make a start, my lady. You have nothing to fear here, and no-one will hold your captivity against you. Ah… are any of you devotees of the goddess Kokat?” All four looked up at him swiftly, and nodded. “Then I’ll ask the prioress of her Temple here to visit you. Princess Gulbahar went there several times.”

  “I would like that very much,” Widad said, longing in her voice. “Sometimes, during the long months, it was only our faith that kept us alive, and stopped us taking our own lives.”

  “Then I’m grateful for your faith, too. Your lives are far too valuable to be thrown away like that.”

  Dima shook her head. “Many will say they should have been thrown away – that we should have seen to that ourselves, if necessary, after…” She could not finish the sentence.

  Taghri struggled to hold back a rising tide of anger within him – anger tinged with a growing sense of guilt. After all, troopers under his command had raped women of the defeated enemy on occasion, although he’d never done so himself. Like all soldiers, he’d seen it as a no
rmal reward for them, without even considering how the women felt about it. He’d never questioned the customs of war until Gulbahar’s ordeal, and that of her ladies-in-waiting, had forced him to re-examine them.

  “Those who say that are fools,” he said with emphasis. “What happened to you wasn’t your choice, and wasn’t your fault. I don’t see how any right-thinking person can blame you for it. Oh, there’ll be some, I know; but that’s where you must stand on your dignity, ignore what happened to you, and treat them with the disdain and contempt they deserve. Don’t give them the courtesy of a reply – just look them up and down from head to toe and back again, sniff haughtily, and turn your back on them. If they persist, I’m sure your parents and brothers will take action. If not, let me know, and I’ll take care of it. I’ve already promised that to Princess Gulbahar.”

  “She sent a letter to us via Khayrat, telling us that,” Ridwana said, warmth creeping into her voice. “He gave it to us when we were freed. I – we are… very grateful to you for that, Ra’id. Many men would not be willing to take such a stand.”

  He shrugged. “I’m not ‘many men’. I am who I am. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll send a messenger to the Governor’s Palace, then let the Temple know you’re here.”

  He emerged on deck to find the captain and the merchant waiting for him. He told them what he intended to do, and added, “If you need anything for which you don’t have funds, call on me. Do you need the services of a shipyard, or can you repair your damage yourself?”

  “A shipyard would make it go much faster, but the ship’s funds won’t run to that,” the captain admitted.

  “Then I’ll stand surety for the amount. I know the Malik will refund it. Tell the shipyard to contact me for payment. What about your crew? Have they got enough money to enjoy themselves for a few days?”

  “Yes, Ra’id. I have their pay for the next two weeks in my strongbox.”

  “How long will the repairs take?”