As he fell through space, towards the glittering blackness of the sea, Pett had little idea of where he was, other than somewhere between India and the Cape of Good Hope. He was not sure that he could find the cot, or even if it was still floating on the surface of the waves. He had no idea what manner of sea-creatures might be lurking in the depths beneath him, ready to attack him, kill him and eat him. And quite apart from all of that, he did not know how to swim.
None of that mattered, not in the slightest. William Pett had answered the voice of the Saint. He was doing God’s will. And thus no harm could befall him. He was absolutely sure of it.
s the first rays of the dawn sun cast a soft orange glow across the harbour at Mitsiwa, the pride of the Ethiopian fleet sat at anchor, joyfully flying the Union Flag of her native British Isles. The Golden Bough had been built on the orders of George, Viscount Winterton, at the stupendous price of almost two thousand pounds. Winterton already possessed a substantial private fleet of merchantmen and privateers. His intentions for the Bough were to provide his beloved son Vincent with an agreeable vessel on which to follow the family’s seafaring traditions, while providing himself with further additions to what was already one of the largest fortunes in England.
The Honourable ‘Vinny’ Winterton now lay buried on the shore of Elephant Lagoon, beside the waters of the Indian Ocean a short way north of the Cape of Good Hope, killed in a duel that was, in truth, little more than an act of murder. Yet his father’s money had been well spent, even if the Golden Bough’s recent incarnation, as the flagship and sole fighting vessel of an African navy, was no more part of the viscount’s plans than his boy’s demise. She was as slim and pleasing on the eye as a thoroughbred racehorse and could cut through the water with rare speed and grace. On a broad reach, with her sails full and a good breeze blowing, she could escape any warships that outmatched her and catch any that did not. And like a horse with a winning jockey, the Bough rewarded a captain who was strong in skill and nerve, for she could be sailed tight into the wind when other vessels would be left floundering or forced to change their bearing.
In all his months of commanding the Bough in peace and in combat, on windless millponds and storm-tossed maelstroms, Hal Courtney had come to know his ship from bilge and ballast to bowsprit and rudder. He knew precisely how to squeeze every last knot out of her and how best to arm her for the perils she was sure to encounter. Hal knew that every captain had to balance the firepower gained from additional cannons with the weight they added to his ship’s displacement. Some chose fewer guns for a faster, more nimble ship, whilst others preferred to rely on firepower. With the Golden Bough Hal had both speed and armament. The pick of the guns with which she had originally been provided had been combined with the finest pieces captured in countless engagements. Now he could call on a deadly assortment of cannons and small arms, from mighty culverins, whose twelve-foot barrels fired cannon balls that weighed almost twenty pounds apiece and could snap a mast in two, to much smaller (but equally deadly) falconets and murderers, which could be loaded with grapeshot and turned at point-blank range on enemies trying to board the ship. So the Bough’s teeth were as sharp as her limbs were swift. And that was why her captain adored her so.
Naturally he wanted one of the great loves of his life to look her best when she was reintroduced to the other. Four months earlier, Judith Nazet had been aboard the Golden Bough when the leisurely voyage she and Hal were making down the east coast of Africa, bound for England, via the bay where his family fortune was hidden, was interrupted by a dhow bringing a desperate plea from her emperor. During the few days Judith had spent on the Bough, however, the crew had come to admire her almost as much as Hal did. They were awestruck by her achievements on the battlefield and lovestruck by the beautiful, utterly feminine woman she became when she laid down her sword and armour. So when Hal had ordered that the ship should be readied for her return, adding that he wanted her looking even more perfect than on the day she had first been launched, his men set to work with a will.
For a full week they had hung over the sides on ropes, scrubbing and tarring the hull and hammering new nails into the planks so that no sign remained of the months of naval service – all the broadsides fired, boarders repelled, timbers burned and blood shed – that the Bough and her crew had given. Every piece of accessible timber received attention, repairing, replacing, scraping, caulking, tarring, greasing and painting. The mastheads were blacked and the fore and aft staysails along with the mainsail were unbent for repair. They tarred the lines and polished the culverins and put up more awnings on deck to provide shade for their honoured guests. They scraped every scrap of rust or blood off the ship’s cutlasses, lances and boarding axes and polished the muskets and swivel-guns until they gleamed fit to dazzle in the burning tropical sun.
One particular bloodstain had been caused by an unfortunate Arab warrior who had been shot at close range in the thigh by a musket ball that had ruptured an artery and sent a crimson fountain spurting across the oak planks from which the deck was made. The blood had soaked deep into the wood, leaving an unsightly discolouration on the quarterdeck, just aft of the mainmast. He had his men sluice down the deck and scrub it until its second washing was with their own sweat, but even when they had finished there were still shadows on the boards where the blood had soaked deep into the grain. Mitsiwa harbour was ringed by a sandy beach, so Hal sent a party ashore to gather up buckets filled with the coarse, rasping sand and then bring it back to scrub into the planks so that their surfaces would be scraped away, and the stain with them.
Hal had stood over the men as they worked deep into the night and had even got down on his hands and knees and started scrubbing alongside them when they flagged, for he believed that no man should ever order another to do something he was unwilling to do himself. Finally he had been forced to admit that the deck, which was shining a silvery-white in the moonlight, was as flawless as it was ever going to be and such blemishes as did remain would be lost in the shade thrown by the awning with which the whole area would be covered for the day and night that lay ahead.
Hal had decreed that his beloved’s return would be marked by a feast befitting such a joyous occasion. The men of the Golden Bough had sailed hard, fought hard and seen a dozen of their mates die in battle before being wrapped in shrouds and committed to the sea. They had earned the chance to eat, drink and generally let their hair down and Hal was going to make sure that they did it in style. Yet for all that this was a happy day, it was also a momentous one. He knew that whether they were married or not – and Hal was determined that when he wed his bride it would be in an English church with a Protestant vicar – he and Judith were committing their lives to one another. He had loved before, and known both the bitterness of being deceived and the pain of great loss, but there was a sense of certainty and permanence to his love for Judith that he had never known before. She was his woman. She would be the mother of his children. That was a lot for a young man to take in, no matter how sure he felt.
Dawn found him leaning against the poop rail, from which he could survey every mast, every spar and every scrap of sail of the ship under his command. Now, though, the sails were all furled and the ship was at rest. Off in the distance Hal could see the activity on the shoreline as local merchants prepared to fill their boats with the carcasses of goat, mutton and chicken; the baskets of vegetables and fruit; the huge earthenware pots filled with several varieties of wat, the thick, spicy stew of meat or vegetables that was Ethiopia’s national dish, and the piled loaves of injera, the sourdough on which wat was customarily served; sacks of green coffee beans (to be roasted, ground, brewed and then served with sugar or salt), barrels of strong, red wine from the vineyards of the Lebanon and flagons of tej, or honey wine, as potent as it was sweet; and finally great garlands of flowers with which to bedeck the ship and provide a suitably beautiful and fragrant setting for the bride.
Hal watched the distant bustle for a few minutes.
Though he was barely twenty years old, he had acquired a grown man’s strength and an air of absolute command, earned by his seamanship and courage in battle that made men twice his age happy to follow his orders without question. There was not yet the faintest trace of grey in the thick, black hair that Hal tied with a thong behind his head, and the green eyes that had so amazed the Emperor Iyasu were as clear and sharp as ever. Yet the almost feminine beauty that he had possessed just a few years earlier had entirely disappeared. Just as his back still bore the scars of the whippings he had been forced to endure as a prisoner – little more than a slave – of the Dutch, so his experiences had made his face leaner, harder and more weatherbeaten. His jaw was more firmly set, his mouth more stern, his gaze more piercing.
Now, though, his eyes dropped to the water lapping against the Bough’s hull and he said, ‘I wish my parents could be here to meet Judith, though I don’t even remember my mother, I was so young when she died. But my father …’ Hal sighed. ‘I hope he’d think I was doing the right thing … I hope he wouldn’t think badly of me.’
‘Of course not! He was always so proud of you, Gundwane. Think of the very last words he said to you. Say them now.’
Hal was unable to speak. In his mind’s eye, all he could see was his father’s rotting, dismembered body hanging from a gibbet in the Cape Colony for all its inhabitants to see and for all the gulls to feast upon. Having falsely accused Sir Francis Courtney of piracy, the Dutch had tortured him to the edge of death, hoping to discover the location of his treasure. Yet Sir Francis had not broken. His enemies had been none the wiser as they hanged him from the gibbet while Hal looked on helpless and heartbroken from the high wall where he was serving a sentence of hard labour.
‘Say them, for him.’ The voice was gentle, but insistent.
Hal breathed deeply, in and out, before he spoke. ‘He said that I was his blood and his promise of eternal life. And then … Then he looked at me and said, “Goodbye, my life.”’
‘Then there is your answer. Your father sees you now. I who took him to his final resting place can tell you that his eyes face towards the sun and he sees you always, wherever you are.’
‘Thank you, Aboli,’ said Hal.
Now for the first time he looked at the man who had been his father’s closest companion and was now the closest thing he had to a father figure. Aboli was a member of the Amadoda tribe who lived deep in the forests, many days’ journey from the coast of East Africa. Every hair had been ceremonially plucked from the polished ebony skin of his scalp, and his face was marked with ridged whorls of scar tissue, caused by cuts inflicted in his early boyhood and intended to awe and terrify his enemies. They were a mark of royalty for he and his twin brother were sons of the Monomatapa, the chosen of heaven, the all-powerful ruler of their tribe. When both boys were still very young, slavers had attacked their village. Aboli’s brother had been carried to a place of safety, but Aboli had not been so lucky. Many years had passed before Sir Francis Courtney had freed him and, in so doing, created a bond that had endured beyond the grave, from one generation to another.
The nickname Gundwane by which Aboli referred to Hal meant ‘Bush Rat’. Aboli had bestowed it when Hal was just a boy of four and it had stuck ever since. No other man on board the Golden Bough would have dared be so familiar with their skipper, but then, everything about Aboli was exceptional. He stood half a head taller even than Hal, and his lean, muscular body moved with a cobra’s menacing, sinuous grace and deadly purpose. Everything that Hal knew about swordfighting – not just the technique or the footwork, but the understanding of an opponent and the warrior spirit needed to defeat him – he had learned from Aboli. It had been a tough education, with many a bruise inflicted and a quantity of blood spilled along the way. But if Aboli had been tough on his young pupil, it had only been because Sir Francis demanded it.
Thinking of those days, Hal gave a wry chuckle, ‘You know, I may be master of this ship, but every time I stand here on the quarterdeck I think of being back on the Lady Edwina, getting a roasting from my father for whatever it was I’d done wrong. There was always something. Do you remember how long it took me to learn how to use the backstaff and the sun to calculate the ship’s position? The first times I tried, the backstaff was bigger than I was. I’d stand out on the deck at midday, not a scrap of shade, sweating like a little pig and every time the ship rolled or pitched the damn staff almost knocked me over!’
Aboli gave a deep laugh like the rumble of distant thunder as Hal went on, ‘And making me speak to him in Latin, because it was the language of gentlemen! You have no idea how lucky you are never to have had to learn about gerunds and ablative absolutes. Or cuffing me round the ears because I couldn’t remember the name of every single sail the ship carried. Even when I got one answer right he would tell me a hundred things I was doing wrong. And it was always right here on the quarterdeck, where every single crewman could see me.’ Hal’s expression suddenly turned serious. ‘You know, there were times when I really, truly hated him for that.’
‘Yes, and the fact that he did what he did, knowing that you would not understand and would hate him for it, was the proof of his love,’ Aboli replied. ‘Your father prepared you well. He was hard on you, but only because he knew you would be tested time and again.’ The African smiled. ‘Maybe, if your god wills it, you will have a little Courtney of your own to be hard on soon.’
Hal smiled. He was having a tough enough time imagining himself as a husband, let alone a father. ‘I’m not sure that I’m ready to be a father, yet. I sometimes even wonder if I’m ready to be a captain.’
‘Ha!’ Aboli exclaimed, laying a huge hand on Hal’s shoulder. ‘You have slain your mortal enemies. You have saved the Tabernacle and the Holy Grail. You have won the heart of a woman who has defeated mighty armies.’ Aboli inclined his head slowly. ‘Yes I think you are ready to rock a baby to sleep in your arms.’
Hal laughed. ‘Well, in that case I think we’d better get ready to meet its mother.’
The captain was the master of a ship crewed by living skeletons. Having spent almost all his money on the cargo stashed in barely a score of wooden cases that took up just a fraction of his ship’s hold, he had bought the cheapest provisions he could, and thus been sold biscuit that was riddled with weevils and fungus before he had even left harbour, vegetables that were rotten and dried meats that were so tough as to make for better shoe leather than food. He and his crew were fugitives. They could not put in to any civilized port to buy, work or beg for more supplies without risking immediate imprisonment, always assuming that they would not be blown out of the water by any of the ships pursuing them long before they sighted land. He was, in short, a man in no need of any further troubles. And yet another was headed his way.
He knew that a bad situation was about to get worse the moment he heard the voice from the crow’s nest: ‘Captain! There’s something floating in the sea, just off the starboard bow! It looks like a piece of wood, or an upturned boat.’
The captain shook his head and muttered to himself, ‘Why do I need to be told this?’
His question was immediately answered as the lookout shouted, ‘There’s something moving! It’s a man! He’s seen us … And now he’s waving!’
The captain was aware of fifty pairs or more of hungry eyes, staring in his direction, willing him to give the order to sail on and leave the man to his fate. The last thing the ship needed was another mouth to feed. And yet the captain could hardly claim to be a man of honour, but he wasn’t wicked. A scoundrel, perhaps, but not a villain. And so he ordered the ship to be hove to. Then he had a boat lowered to fetch this man who had appeared out of nowhere, hundreds of leagues from the nearest shore. ‘Never mind, lads,’ he called out. ‘If we don’t like the bastard we can always eat him!’
A short while later a bedraggled, sunburned figure of above average height, but almost as thin as the crewmen who surrounded him, was dragged up the side of the hull and depo
sited on the deck of the ship. The captain had come down from the poop deck to greet him. He spoke in his native tongue and asked, ‘Good day, sir. Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?’
The man gave a little nod of the head and replied, in the same tongue, ‘Good day to you too, Captain. My name is William Pett.’
udith had given considerable thought to what she should wear on the day that she and Hal were reunited. She had been tempted to commission a steel breastplate, moulded perfectly to her figure, around which she would drape a silk sash in the national colours of red, yellow and green, upon which her decorations would be pinned in all their golden and bejewelled splendour. The emperor had given her a rapier of fine Damascus steel, a weapon that was both deadly and perfectly designed to suit a woman’s size and strength. These martial adornments would look well hanging from her hip as she stepped onto the deck of the Golden Bough and would serve to remind the men aboard that she was not a helpless, delicate creature with nothing to contribute to the life and work of the ship, but a warrior as battle-hardened as any of them.
And yet, as much as she wanted the men to respect her, she also wanted her man to love and desire her, and, yes, though she hated to admit it, she wanted to look pretty for him. They had managed to snatch a single precious hour together a month earlier, when both had been called to a council of war. But even though they put every second they had together to the best possible use, and her longing for him was slaked at least for a short while, the reminder of the ecstasy that he could induce in her served only to make their subsequent parting even harder to bear. She never wanted anything whatever to come between them again. So although her sword and armour and military decorations were all stowed in her luggage that she would be bringing aboard, Judith herself wore a traditional Ethiopian dress of pure white cotton that fell to her ankles. The hem, sleeves and the neck were all decorated with bands of brightly coloured embroidery, bearing a pattern of golden crosses. There were necklaces of gold and amber beads around her neck and she wore circular golden earrings, with pearls at their centre.