There they prostrated themselves before Zayn al-Din in the throne room of his palace.
Zayn al-Din had welcomed his nephew warmly. He had thought him dead, and was delighted by the tidings he brought of Yasmini's execution. As Kadem had promised, the Caliph looked with favour on Kadem's new companion and listened to accounts of his ruthless warlike talents with attention.
As a trial he had sent Koots with a small force to subdue the remaining strongholds of the rebels who still held out upon the African mainland. He expected him to fail, as all the others before him had done. However, true to his reputation, within two months Koots had brought all the ringleaders back to Lamu in chains. There, with his own hands and in Zayn's royal presence, he had disembowelled them alive. As his reward Zayn gave him half a lakh of gold rupees from the plunder, and his pick of the female slaves he had captured. Then he had promoted him to general and given him command of four battalions of the army that he was assembling to attack Muscat.
'The Caliph comes to us now. As soon as he arrives you can order the assault to begin.' Kadem turned and went to meet the palanquin that eight slaves were carrying up the hill. It was covered with a sun canopy of gold and blue, and when they set it down Zayn al-Din stepped out.
He was no longer the chubby child whom Dorian had thrashed in the harem on Lamu island and whose foot he had maimed in the struggle to protect Yasmini from the torments Zayn had heaped upon her. He still limped, but the puppy-fat had fallen away long ago from his frame. A lifetime of intrigue and constant strife had hardened his features as it had sharpened his wits. His eyes were quick and acquisitive, his manner imperious. If it were not for the cruel lines of his mouth and the fierce cunning in his dark eyes, he might have been handsome. Kadem and Koots prostrated themselves before him. In the beginning oots had found this form of respect abhorrent. However, like the Oriental attire he had adopted, it had become part of his new existence. Zayn gestured to his two generals to rise. They followed him to the
brow of the hill, and looked down over the open ground on which the assault force was drawn up. Zayn studied the dispositions of the troops with a practised eye. Then he nodded. 'Proceed!' His voice was high pitched, almost girlish. When he had first heard it, Koots had despised Zayn for it, but the voice was the only feminine thing about him. He had fathered a hundred and twenty-three children, and only sixteen were girls. He had slain his enemies in thousands, many with his own sword.
'One red rocket.' Koots nodded to his aide-de- camp. Swiftly the order was relayed down the back slope of the hill to the signallers. The rocket sparkled like a ruby as it rose into the cloudless sky on a long silver tail of smoke. From the foot of the hill they heard faint cheering, and the massed troops swarmed forward towards the walls. A slave stood in front of Zayn, who rested his long brass telescope on the man's shoulder, using him as a living bipod.
The leading ranks of Turks had reached the ditch below the walls when suddenly the Sprite came into view from behind the stone ramparts. She was followed almost immediately by the Revenge. Zayn and the officers switched their telescopes to the two ships.
Those are the ships in which the traitor, al- Salil, arrived in Muscat,' snapped Kadem. 'Our spies warned us of their presence.'
Zayn said nothing, but his features altered at the mention of the name. He felt a stab of pain in his crippled foot, and the acid taste of hatred rose in the back of his throat.
'Their guns are run out.' Koots stared at them through the glass. 'They have our battalions in enfilade. Send a galloper to warn them,' he snarled at his aide-de-camp.
'We have no horses,' the man reminded him.
'Go yourself!' Koots seized his shoulder and shoved him away down the slope. 'Run, you useless dog, or I shall have you shot from a cannon's mouth.' His Arabic was becoming more fluent every day. The man raced away down the slope, shouting, waving his arms and pointing towards the small squadron of warships. However, the Turks were fully launched upon the attack, and none looked back.
'Signal the recall?' Kadem suggested, but they all knew it was too late for that. They watched in silence. Suddenly the leading ship erupted in a cloud of white powder smoke. She heeled slightly to the broadside of her long black cannons, then came back on even keel, but her hull was blotted out by the billowing smoke cloud. Only her masts showed high above it. The thunderous sound of the blast reached their ears only seconds after the discharge, then rolled away in diminishing echoes among the distant hills.
The watchers on the hilltop turned their telescopes back to the dense pack of humanity on the plain below. The havoc shocked even these old soldiers, who were hardened to the carnage of the battlefield. The grape-shot spread so that each blast cut a swathe twenty paces wide through the massed battalions. Like the scythe blade through a field of ripe wheat, it left not a single one standing in its path. Chain-mail and bronze armour offered the same protection as a sheet of brittle parchment. Severed heads, bearded and still wearing their soup-bowl helmets, were tossed into the air. Torsos, with arms and legs torn off, were piled upon each other. The cries of the dying and wounded carried clearly to the men on the hilltop.
The Sprite put up her helm and tacked round into the open waters of the bay. The Revenge sailed serenely into her place. On shore the survivors stood in stunned dismay, unable to fathom the extent of the disaster that had swept through their ranks. As the Revenge levelled her cannon on them, the moans of the wounded were drowned out by the survivors' wails of despair. Few had the presence of mind to throw themselves flat against the earth. They dropped the scaling ladders, turned their backs on the menace of the guns and ran.
The Revenge loosed her broadside upon them. Her shot swept the field. She put up her helm and followed her sister ship round.
The Sprite completed her tack across the wind, then came back on the other leg, offering her port battery to the fleeing Turks. Meanwhile her starboard battery had reloaded with canvas bags of grape, and the gunners were standing ready to take their next turn.
Like dancers performing a stately minuet, the two ships went through a series of elaborate figures-of-eight. Each time their guns bore they loosed another thunderclap of smoke, flame and cast-iron grapeshot across the narrow strip of open water.
After the Sprite had completed her second pass, Mansur snapped his telescope shut and told Kumrah, 'There is nothing more to fire at. Run in the guns, take her out into the bay.' The two ships sailed back blithely to their anchorage under the protection of the guns on the parapets of the city walls.
Zayn and his two generals surveyed the field. Corpses littered the ground, thick as autumn leaves.
|How many?' asked Zayn, in his high girlish voice.
'Not more than three hundred,' Kadem hazarded.
'No, no! Fewer.' Koots shook his head. 'A hundred and fifty, two hundred at the most.'
They are only Turks, and another hundred dhows full of them will arrive before the week is out.' Zayn nodded dispassionately. 'We must
begin digging the approach trenches and throw up a wall of gab ions filled with sand along the bayside to protect our men from the ships.'
'Will Your Majesty order the fleet to take up a blockading station across the entrance to the bay?' Kadem asked respectfully. 'We must bottle up those two ships of al-Salil and, at the same time, prevent supplies of food reaching the city by sea.'
The orders have already been given,' Zayn told him loftily. The English consul will place his own ship at the head of the fleet. His is the only vessel to match those of the enemy for speed. Sir Guy will prevent them breaking out through our blockade and escaping to the open ocean.'
'Al-Salil and his bastard must not be allowed to escape.' Kadem's eyes lit with the dark mesmeric glare as he said the name.
'My own hatred for him exceeds yours. Abubaker was my brother and al-Salil murdered him. There are other old scores, too, almost as compelling, which I still have to settle with him,' Zayn reminded him. 'Despite this setback, we have the noose round his neck. Now we will draw it tight.'
Over the next weeks Dorian watched the development of the siege from his command post on the minaret. The enemy fleet sailed round the peninsula and deployed across the entrance to the bay, just out of range of the batteries on the walls or even of the long nine-pounders on the two schooners. Some of the larger, less manoeuvrable dhows were anchored on the twenty-fathom line where the sea bottom shelved in. The more nimble vessels patrolled back and forth in the deeper waters, ready to seize any supply ships trying to enter the bay, or to intercept the two schooners if they tried to break through.
The graceful hull and the elegant raked masts of the Arcturus hovered in the distance, sometimes hidden by the cliffs, sometimes dropping below the horizon. At intervals Dorian heard the distant rumble of her cannons as she fell on some unfortunate small vessel attempting to bring supplies in to Muscat. Then she reappeared from a different quarter. Mansur and Dorian discussed her as they watched her through their telescopes.
'She points well up into the wind when she is close-hauled, unlike any of the dhows. She can carry a spread of canvas nearly half as large again as either of our ships. She has eighteen guns to our twelve,' Dorian murmured. 'She is a lovely ship.'
Mansur found himself wondering if Verity was aboard
