Barros had come ashore by the first boat and as the coffle was assembled he looked on, conversing with a man in a large straw hat who reminded Hal somewhat of Consul Grey, for he was round and ripe and, though he was mounted on a mule, he was dripping with sweat.
‘As you can see, Senhor Capelo,’ Barros told him, ‘we have bought nothing but the finest stock in the market at Zanzibar. These are all fine specimens and I am certain that Senhor Lobo will be satisfied by their strength and endurance as workers.’
‘One of them is white,’ Capelo said, looking at Hal with a disapproving air. ‘Whites never last very long.’
‘You have no need to worry about this one,’ Barros assured him. ‘See for yourself. He is a fine specimen. Long-limbed and strong as an ox.’
Capelo gave a sceptical grunt, but accepted Barros’s invitation nonetheless. He climbed down off his mule, walked across to Hal and examined him, feeling his thigh and bicep muscles, examining the whites of his eyes and his tongue and prodding his stomach. ‘Very well, I shall take your word for it,’ Capelo said. ‘But if he fails to give satisfaction I will want an extra black to replace him and I’ll expect it free of charge.’
‘Of course, of course,’ said Barros. ‘You have the money for these men, though, yes?’
‘Of course.’ Capelo walked across to the mule, opened a saddle bag and pulled out a canvas sack that was heavy with coin. ‘It is all there, the agreed amount. You may count it if you wish.’
‘No need,’ Barros said, with an ingratiating smile. ‘I know that neither you nor Senhor Lobo would ever cheat me. So now, I will bid you farewell. I wish you a safe journey back to the mines.’
Barros departed. Capelo climbed back onto his mule, barked orders to the guards and then set off down the road. A second later, Hal felt the familiar sting of a whip on his shoulders, letting him know that he was expected to get moving too, and so the coffle began its long journey to the heart of Africa.
It took a while for the dozen chained men to get the hang of keeping their dressing as regularly as guardsmen on parade. Some stumbled and fell, bringing others down too, and more than once Hal felt himself dragged to the ground without any means of breaking his fall, for his hands were rendered useless by the chain that linked them. Their guards were Africans but they showed no mercy or sympathy towards their brothers in chains, lashing out with their wooden batons and long leather whips at anyone who did not move quickly enough to satisfy them.
They marched out of the port, through a grove of trees and into the buzzing hive that was Portuguese Quelimane. A newly built cathedral towered over clusters of primitive log huts and whitewashed mud dwellings. In the centre of the village stood the mud-brick ruins of an old fort and beside them the foundations of a new one under construction.
Slaves laboured and sweated in the heat. A team of them hauled an enormous brass culverin up a ramp into the new fort, the wheels of its carriage creaking in complaint and the men’s every step encouraged by the crack of the driver’s whip. Oxen lowed as they dragged in heavy loads of cut timber. Men yelled and cursed and argued or suddenly burst out laughing.
A little further on stood a well-built gallows, the wood still new and clean. By contrast the corpse still hanging from the gibbet, turning slowly on the rope, was reeking rotten and seemed to be dressed in a black cloak, but which turned out to be merely a coating of flies that swarmed over it.
Men sat on the edge of the road smoking pipes and mending fishing nets. Their wives waded into the slow-moving black river to do their laundry. Their children played nearby: fighting with wooden swords or kicking a ball or throwing pebbles at a barking dog which was tied to a stake. A blacksmith was at work forging a new anchor, the sound of his hammer ringing on the anvil like the bell of a country church. An old woman hawked baskets of allegedly fresh fish. A pretty bare-chested black girl declared that her mangoes were the sweetest in Africa.
But none of the Quelimane population showed the faintest interest in the pitiful column of slaves and their guards who wended their way past them. It was a sight so common as to be passing mundane. With that reminder of just how far he had been brought down, Hal kept putting one foot after another, matching his strides exactly to those of the man in front of him as they left the outskirts of Quelimane and headed out into the bush.
udith was nearing total exhaustion. Every muscle in her body throbbed and ached. Her vision swam and her head pounded as if her brain were shrinking in her skull, drying out like a fish carcass on the rack. And yet she kept pace with the rest of the slaves, refusing to let the masked man have the satisfaction of knowing how far gone she was.
The swamps and mudflats of the coast had long since given way to the savannah woodland of the interior. When first she had walked again on solid, dry land her feet, soaked in water for so many days, had been as soft as bread in a bowl of milk. They blistered and bled. But by now they had healed into hard calluses, leaving her with one less agony to endure. Often towards the end of another long day’s march she was at the point of collapse, but always she was able to carry on. She could not give in while she carried such a precious burden in her womb.
Keep going! the child inside her seemed to say. Don’t give in to them. We can get through this. If I can fight then so can you.
Ann also was nearing total exhaustion. Despite her own sorry condition Judith had to help the other girl, encouraging her when she slumped to her knees, drained of all will to go on. It was Judith who urged her on with soft words of reassurance, or at other times tongue-whipped her to her feet; anything to get Ann moving again when it seemed she would rather lie down and wait for death to give her surcease.
The masked man halted the caravan every three hours by his watch, allowing them half an hour’s rest. Ann sat in the dust beside her now, hugging her knees, her face buried in her ragged skirts.
‘Tonight,’ Judith leaned closer to her and whispered. ‘We’ll do it tonight.’
Slowly and pathetically, Ann lifted her head. She blinked her teary eyes and sniffed. ‘Do you mean it this time?’
They had talked about escape many times before, but they had never got further than merely talking.
‘This time I mean it,’ Judith assured her, afraid to say more because the Pelican’s sailors were sitting nearby, sharing a bottle of rag water and listening to the bawdy story one of their number was reciting.
‘How?’ There was a spark in Ann’s sad eyes now, an ember of hope.
Judith glanced over at the sailors, then at the Buzzard who was already lying in his blankets, his hands behind his head, his sword placed carefully beside him. Because of the mask it was impossible to see whether he was awake or asleep. Then, as though he had caught her thoughts on the night breeze, like a predator scenting prey, the Buzzard sat up and turned his head towards her. The fiercely frowning single eye, the absurd, yet frightening beak and that sharp-toothed satyr smile made Ann whimper.
‘Do not look at him,’ Judith said in a low voice. She could see that Ann was trembling and so she took the girl’s hand in hers and placed it on her own belly. ‘Pretend we are talking about the child,’ she said. Ann was still staring at the masked man. ‘Ann,’ Judith hissed and the girl swung her head round, then looked down at Judith’s stomach, understanding at last, forcing an upward curl in the tight line of her lips.
Then Judith told her how they were going to escape.
It was after midnight and the moon was high. Judith and Ann moved quietly to the entrance of the lean-to shelter, careful not to wake any of the men who lay snoring in their blankets around a dying fire, fast asleep despite the night chorus of crickets and cicada beetles. The man on watch was Pereira, the grey-beard who had helped guide the pinnace through the mangroves and ever since continued to act as the navigator leading them to their destination. For all his age, he was alert enough and he turned as soon as they left their lean-to shelter.
‘Ann needs to relieve herself,’ Judith explained. ‘She is too afraid t
o go alone.’
Pereira muttered a reply. ‘Go there,’ he pointed at a patch of open ground at the edge of the camp. Judith shook her head.
‘Not in front of the men,’ she said.
Pereira pondered his response for a minute. ‘Stay here,’ he ordered in his heavily accented English, and then walked past them back towards the fire.
They waited, Judith desperately hoping Pereira would not wake the Buzzard. But to her relief Pereira ignored the disfigured, sleeping figure; instead he crouched to shake one of his Pelican crewmates by the shoulder. The sailor sat up and Judith could see his sleepy scowl in the firelight. Then with a resigned shrug he pushed back his blanket and rose to his feet. He lit the end of his slow match from the fire and came over to the two women. In one hand he gripped his musket, while with the other he signed for them to follow him.
‘Are you sure you can’t wait until morning?’ Judith asked Ann. That was the code they had agreed upon earlier. Judith was giving Ann one last chance to back out.
‘No, I need to go right now,’ Ann replied, hardening the line of her mouth.
Judith nodded. She had expected Ann to renege. Good for you, young lady, she thought.
Their chaperon led them to a spot less than thirty paces from the camp where he stopped on the edge of a patch of long grass that swayed in the chill breeze. Even in the depths of night there was enough starlight that they did not need a torch, and Judith looked back to the camp, relieved to see that the thorn bush screen was so thick that even the fire beyond could not be seen. The thin grey smoke and occasional firefly spark drifting up to the sky was the only giveaway that men were camped out there on the savannah.
‘Can you go there?’ the sailor asked, pointing into the patch of grass.
Ann managed to look coy, glancing from him to Judith, and then back to their warder. She nodded, and made a gesture that he should turn his back while she went about her business. He obeyed her without quibble, and then went one better. As Ann hitched up her skirt and squatted, the young sailor lay his musket down on the ground beside him. Then he clamped his burning slow match between his teeth, unbuttoned his breeches and tugged his manhood out of the fly and began to relieve himself with a noisy gushing that covered Ann’s ladylike dribble.
Judith waited until she heard the patter of his urine stream reach its zenith, then she ran her hand down the opening of the neckline of her dress until it closed around the sharpened branch of mangrove. She moved up behind the young sailor as silently as a stalking leopard, and waited until he turned back again towards her.
She launched herself at him and with all her weight behind it drove the sharpened end of the stake into the base of his throat. Then she used her impetus to hook her right leg behind his and carry him over backwards. She landed on top of him and with all the strength of both her arms drove the point of the stake deeper and worked it from side to side to inflict as much damage as possible. He gurgled and choked, but she had so damaged his throat and vocal cords that the sounds he was able to emit were muffled and inhuman, more the sounds of wild animals than those of a human being.
Within a very few minutes even these lapsed into complete silence. Judith pushed herself away from the corpse and sat panting as she regained control of herself. She had killed men before; scores of them on the battlefield. It took little time for her to recover.
‘Quick!’ she hissed at Ann. ‘The musket!’ Ann scrambled through the grass, and gathered up the dead man’s weapon. Judith unbuckled his belt and pulled the leather shot pouch and powder flask from it. She also took his flint and steel, then snatched the dropped match cord from where it lay smouldering in the grass, and snuffed out the flame. She considered taking his cutlass too, but decided against it, for it was a heavy thing and neither of them needed anything that would slow them down. The musket and shot would have to suffice.
‘Water?’ she hissed.
Ann nodded, patting the flask at her hip. Judith also had her own flask, which she had rationed in readiness for this moment. She had watched their captors foraging and had learned a great deal about which plants and fruit were edible.
She looked up at the stars to orientate herself and then they ran. They fled southwards, as Judith was counting on the masked man to assume they would trek eastwards, back towards the coast the way they had come. Her intention was to turn east towards the sea only when they had put a goodly distance between themselves and the pursuit.
In the excitement of the escape their fatigue was half forgotten. They ran like driven wild animals.
he pinnace dropped Aboli and eight of his fellow Amadoda on a deserted beach just north of Quelimane. They took no supplies with them for they had no need. The land over which they were about to travel might seem barren and inhospitable to a white man, but to them it was as bountiful as a crowded marketplace. Nor were they weighed down by powder and shot, for they took no weapons but the spears, shields and throwing clubs with which they had been raised.
There was only one item from his new world that Aboli, on reflection, took back to the world in which he’d grown: a grappling iron on the end of a coil of rope. For a sailor on the Golden Bough it served as a means to grab on to and get aboard an enemy ship. Where he was going, Aboli reasoned, he might well need to get over a wall or inside an enemy’s building in order to rescue Judith or Hal and so the iron came with him.
Big Daniel Fisher commanded the pinnace as it took his African crewmates to the shore. He was not, by nature or upbringing, a man who believed in indulging his emotions. But before he saw the Amadoda off, Daniel hugged Aboli, then took half a step back, slapped him on the shoulder and, with a catch in his voice, said, ‘God bless you and your lads. Now go and get our captain back, aye, and his lady too.’
Aboli said nothing, just nodded, and the next thing Daniel knew the Amadoda had settled into the loping run that they would maintain all day, and half the night if they had to, and disappeared out of sight between the palm trees that lined the shore.
hat first night, after killing the Portuguese sailor, Judith and Ann had flown like birds, full of fear and the desperate need to escape. But the next day was hard. The sun’s heat pressed down on them like six feet of earth. The savage thrill of the murder ebbed away and fatigue flooded in once more, threatening to overwhelm them. They wasted no strength on talk, each lost in her own thoughts, drifting through the sea of tall grass like wreckage in the wake of a storm, until at last Judith admitted that they must rest.
On the second night they huddled together amongst the low-hanging, leafy branches of a khat tree, huffing into their hands and shivering with cold, when a sudden screaming yell came out of the dark. The scream finished with four sharp yaps, and suddenly Ann was clutching Judith’s arms, her eyes round and full of terror.
‘Jackal,’ Judith said, but she saw that the girl was none the wiser. ‘It is like a dog but no danger to us,’ she explained. ‘They eat rodents and birds and fruit. Even insects.’ She chose not to mention that jackals would also prey on young antelope. Nevertheless, Ann shuffled closer still and every time the jackal called she started, her nails digging into the flesh of Judith’s arm.
Judith had been torn over whether or not to light a small fire, not to keep warm, but rather to have the flame from which to light the match cord should they need to fire the musket. In the end she decided the risk of their pursuers seeing a fire or smelling its smoke on the night air was too great. And so they shivered, praying for dawn and the first pink blush of the sun over the eastern horizon.
Judith had not trusted Ann to stay awake and keep watch, for even as terrified as the girl was, she was down to the dregs of her strength. So Judith tore small pieces bark from the khat tree and chewed them, while the English girl looked on with amazement.
‘I never saw anyone eating a tree,’ Ann said, trying to muster a weary smile.
‘In my country this tree is famous,’ Judith replied. ‘Indeed it is famous throughout the Horn of Africa.’ She pul
led off a leaf and offered it. ‘Here, try it. But chew it well.’
Ann took the leaf, sniffed it, and put it in her mouth. She chewed slowly, as if half expecting it to poison her. Judith smiled. ‘The men in my country can always be seen chewing the khat leaves, as goats chew the cud.’
‘I can’t imagine why,’ Ann said, her lips turned down at the corners. ‘It doesn’t taste very nice. It’s sour.’
Judith nodded. ‘But it will make you feel better, stronger. Just wait and see.’
They did not have to wait long. After just a few more leaves Ann’s chattering reminded Judith of the parakeets that roosted in the tall trees in the centre of the mountain village where she was born. The girl talked about her brave husband and how much she had loved him, of how they had met and of the plans they had made together that would now never come to pass.
Then like a small child wanting her favourite bedtime stories to be repeated again and again, Ann insisted on hearing all about Hal, though Judith had told her a score of times before and it made her very soul ache to think of him. She spoke of how she and Hal had met, when she had been the general leading the Christian army of Ethiopia against an army of Mussulmen. Ann’s expression was, as always, a mix of awe and disbelief at Judith’s telling of it, and Judith could understand that reaction, for looking at herself now, even she found it hard to believe she had once been the guardian of the Holy Grail and saviour of the emperor’s throne.
‘I can’t believe I know a lady like you,’ Ann said. ‘And here we are, in the middle of the wilderness, and we’re like sisters, aren’t we, in a funny sort o’ way, even though we’re not even the same colour. So we’ll stick together and help each other and that’s how we’ll get through it all, until we are safe again. No matter what.’