Golden Lion (28 page)

‘How gracious you are, madam. At the conclusion of our discussion, you will be led to your quarters, where you will be confined for the next three weeks. You will want for nothing, as befits your rank. Sadly, I will be obliged to put you up for sale at the slave market, but have no fear, I have no intention of letting anyone else buy you.’

‘So why pretend to sell me, then, other than as a means of abasing and humiliating me?’

‘Come now, the humiliation of the great Nazet is quite something in itself,’ the prince said. ‘The news that you were put on the block in Zanzibar and traded like any other piece of flesh will reverberate around Africa, India and the Levant. You can imagine what it will do to your people’s morale … and to mine. But my true purpose goes beyond that. You are really just being shown in a very public place as bait …’

‘To draw in Sir Henry Courtney, if he is still alive.’

The prince beamed with delight. ‘Exactly! Ah, what a pleasure it is to talk with a woman who understands these things. Yes, I would have both in my thrall. And after that, well, again I confess my mind is not yet completely set, but if I had Sir Henry, I would offer you a very simple choice: give yourself to me, or I will kill him.’

‘No … I would …’

‘Kill yourself? But consider this: if you kill yourself, then I will also kill him. Give yourself to me, completely, for a full night and not only will he live, but there will be a chance that you are reunited.’

‘What chance is that?’

‘Simple. I will set Sir Henry to fight against this creature here …’ The prince idly wafted a hand in the direction of the Buzzard. ‘It will be one mortal enemy against another, each armed with a sword, to the death. You will be watching, for whichever one of your suitors stays alive will take you as his prize.’

The sound of a throat being cleared could be heard from behind the leather mask. ‘Hush, Buzzard,’ the prince commanded, ‘do not say a word. You know the terms by which I allow you here, and you know that if you speak you will forfeit your life. But look at the prizes I am offering you: the death of the man you hate and the body of the woman he loved.’

‘That … thing will never, ever have my body.’

‘Yes, yes, you’d rather die first, so you keep saying,’ the prince snapped, irritably. ‘But I don’t believe you. What mother would kill herself and her child? A mother will do anything, endure anything, accept any indignity to preserve the life of her child. Are you really so different? As for you, Buzzard, you did well today. You brought me General Nazet. And I am giving you something in return. Go into the city. Find a place to drink your infidel spirits. Find a woman if any will go near you. Pretend, for this one night, that you are still a man.’

f Zanzibar was an island on whose shores the peoples of half the known world washed up, then the Tres Macacos, or Three Monkeys, was the place where the scum of the known world settled. It was a drinking establishment located off an alley that ran to one side of the dead end of a side street in the heart of the oldest, filthiest quarter of the city. It sold alcohol, which the Omani authorities, heeding the words of the Qu’ran, officially prohibited, but to which a few blind eyes were turned, providing that it was only sold by infidels to infidels. The payment of large bribes to a number of relevant individuals also contributed to the tavern’s continuing existence, all the more so since the individuals in question were regular patrons. Like many Zanzibaris, they went to the Macacos not for the raw cane spirit that passed for rum, nor the acrid vinegar that was sold as wine, but for the cock- and dogfighting that took place in a dirty, half rotten arena, rank with the smells of chicken droppings, dog mess and blood that had been erected in a yard at the back of the property.

The tavern’s main saloon, meanwhile, played host to a motley assortment of pirates, smugglers, slave-traders, mercenaries, merchants and seamen of every sort, rank and race, attended to by crudely painted, pox-ridden whores. The air was thick with the heady aromas of tobacco smoke, unwashed bodies, stale liquor and the sinus-clearing perfumes with which the ladies doused themselves after every customer. But even in this grubby temple to depravity and decay, the arrival of the Buzzard, accompanied by his personal slave and a pair of guards whose presence was intended both to protect him and discourage any possible thought he might have of escaping Prince Jahan’s employment, brought a hush to the room and turned even the most jaded, world-weary, seen-it-all heads. One drunken wit was fool enough to shout out, ‘Sorry, birdie, they don’t serve no worms ’ere!’ A second later, the Buzzard’s blade was at his neck and he was stammering a grovelling apology.

The Buzzard strode to the bar. ‘Rum,’ he rasped. He gave a wave of his hand that brought the slave forward, holding his drinking can. ‘Fill that. Right to the top. If you want money, ask Prince Jahan, for I don’t carry any.’

The serving wench nodded in dumb terror. She knew, as all Zanzibaris did, that the prince had tamed a
djinn
who was half-man, half-bird. She had also heard about the killing of the boy who had thrown filth at him and the criminals at the city jail whom the monster had slaughtered. If he wanted rum but saw no need to pay for it, she was not going to argue and nor, she knew, would her boss.

The Buzzard’s slave picked up the full can and then followed his master across the room to one of the very few empty tables in the place. He then inserted the spout into the mask’s mouth hole as was his usual practice and the Buzzard greedily gulped down the first alcohol to have passed his lips in months.

Somewhere in the room someone was foolish enough to titter. The Buzzard swatted the spout away with an angry flick of the wrist, got to his feet and surveyed the room, his nose turning before him like the bowsprit of a tacking ship, and bobbing up and down as his eye scanned the room, just as a bowsprit moves with the impact of each new wave. All laughter stopped, as did all conversation. Then the motion of the Buzzard’s head ceased. He stopped and stared at a particular table. Heads turned towards it, following his gaze. The Buzzard got up from his place and strode across the tavern floor, with scarred, grizzled, teak-hard ruffians scrabbling to get out of his way as he passed.

The Buzzard reached the table that had attracted his attention. A single man was sitting there, with a bottle of wine and a pewter tankard in front of him. He did not quail at the Buzzard’s approach. He simply sat and stared straight back at the painted eyes of the leather mask, with a look of cussed stubbornness on his face that said, ‘I’m not going to flinch. So if you want to scare someone you’d better look somewhere else.’

But then the Buzzard did something no one in the room had foreseen. He stopped by the table, pulled out a chair, sat down on it and said, ‘Captain Hamish Benbury, as I live and breathe. How are you keeping, you cantankerous old bastard?’

The stillness in the room deepened, the tension tightened still further as Benbury remained as silent and immobile as a tombstone. Then he turned his head, spat on the sawdust-covered floor, looked back up at the Buzzard and said, ‘Good day to you, too, Cochran. My mother used to say, “You’re a long time dead.” Evidently she was wrong.’ He took a long drink of his wine and then added, ‘I used tae think you couldn’t get any uglier. Evidently I was wrong on that too.’

The Buzzard started laughing, only to discover – for this was another new experience – that his lungs and throat couldn’t handle it. For a few seconds he was struck by a violent and agonizing coughing fit that made him slam his fist against the table in protest at his discomfort and frustration. He looked around for his slave, who was still at the table where he had been sitting, and gestured furiously for him to come over. The slave got halfway across the room, realized that he had left the rum behind, dashed back for it and then frantically raced towards the Buzzard and stuck the spout in his mouth once again.

The whole manic performance was so absurd that it broke the tension in the room and around the room the usual pattern of conversation, banter and furious insults resumed. After a while, the cockfights began and the saloon thinned out as patrons went outside to see the slaughter. The Buzzard and Captain Benbury were therefore left to talk in peace.

For the next few minutes, the Buzzard ran through the story of his survival, rescue and recruitment by Prince Jahan. He described his role in the best possible light, emphasizing the degree to which his training had restored his ability to fight and giving a leering account of the concubines he had encountered in the prince’s harem.

‘Is that so?’ Benbury said, after the Buzzard had described the experience of coming face-to-face and body-to-body with the prince’s favourite bedmate. ‘I always heard that the only men let into these sultans’ harems, apart from the sultans themselves, were all eunuchs. I must have been misinformed. I mean, you’re not a eunuch, are you, Cochran?’

The Buzzard fiercely denied such a preposterous suggestion and said that this was a sign of the prince’s special favour. ‘Aye, that’ll be it,’ Benbury said, though he could see the locks on the back of the mask and the ring on the neck, not to mention the way the two guards never took their eyes off the Buzzard and decided that the Earl of Cumbrae’s current status was not that of peer of the realm, but somewhere between a prisoner, a slave and a dancing bear.

The Buzzard could sense the other man’s scepticism. He’d seen Benbury’s eyes looking at the ring and part of him had wanted to shout out, ‘Aye! They can lead me like a damn dog. What of it?’ But what good would that do? It was better that there should be a tacit agreement not to take the matter any further, for now at any rate. That being the case, it was time to change the subject.

‘So, Benbury, ye’ve heard my tale,’ the Buzzard said. ‘Now you tell me what brings you and your
Pelican
, for I presume you are still her master, tae this festering hole?’

‘I am indeed still proud tae call myself captain of the
Pelican
, Cochran,’ Benbury replied. ‘And, d’you know it occurs tae me now that my business here may be of interest tae you and profit tae us both.’

The Buzzard leaned forward and tilted his head so that his one beady eye could focus directly on the man opposite him. ‘How so?’

‘Well, I am engaged in a form of speculation. D’ye ken a Portuguese gentleman by the name of Balthazar Lobo?’

‘I cannae say that I do.’

‘He is a most unusual gentleman. I’m sure I dinnae have tae tell you that for many a long year the Portuguese have had ports all along the Swahili Coast, barred tae all white men but them, from whence they’ve traded gold mined in native kingdoms deep in the interior.’

‘I know all about that, Benbury. Aye, and I’ve watched many a Portuguese ship sail by me, fat with the gold in her belly and damned the lack of a war against Portugal that would have given me reason tae take her.’

‘Very well, then, for all these years, the Portuguese have stayed in their ports and barely ventured inland. Och, they’ve set up a few trading posts here and there and missionaries have gone out looking for heathen souls tae convert, but they’ve left the actual mining of the gold tae the native folk. But yon Balthazar Lobo decided that he didnae fancy waiting for the gold tae be brought to the coast. No, he was going right inland, tae a place called the Kingdom of Manyika tae mine the damn ore for himself.’

‘I cannae imagine the local chiefs were happy wi’ that.’

‘Well, I dare say Lobo’s paid a good price for his diggings. But he started up a mine and by God there was gold in its rocks and now the man’s as rich as Croesus.’

‘Are you in his pay now, Benbury? Is that your business?’

‘Nay, he’s not paid me … not yet. But it’s my hope that he will. See, Senhor Lobo has a wee problem. He cannae find a woman tae give him a bairn.’

‘Maybe the problem isn’t the women.’

‘Aye, you’re probably right there, Cochran. But suppose a man could find a woman, ensure that she was with child and then sell her tae Lobo before her condition was apparent? Lobo would think the baby was his and he’d be truly thankful, would he not, tae the man who had brought him the mother of this wee miracle?’

‘Aye, that he would, and I dare say there’d be profit in his gratitude.’

‘Now, I’ve been trying tae find the perfect wench tae sell tae Lobo. I came here to see whether there was one tae be had in Zanzibar. But as I was listening tae your tale of yon sultan’s harem I was thinking to myself, I wonder what happens when yon sultan tires of a lassie? I’m thinking he sells her tae another man. And if that be the case, then maybe you, Cochran, could use your influence over the mighty Prince Jahan tae sell one of his lassies tae me I’d make it well worth your trouble.’

And then a smile spread across the Buzzard’s hidden face, a grin almost as wide and leering as the one painted on his mask. For here, in the unprepossessing shape of Hamish Benbury, he saw the answer to all his problems, an end to his tribulations and the chance of a new life, freed from the prince and revenged upon Courtney.