Whoever Fears the Sea, Justin Fox [i love reading .TXT] 📗

goodbye. Dalila’s hand was out of the window, his at half mast, waving until the taxi turned the corner. He sat back down on the bench and stared at his feet for a long time.

 

CHAPTER 8

 

Paul took a walk along the beach and out on to the headland where the padrão stood out, white like a tooth in the moonlight. He climbed on to the plinth and looked out to sea, imaging the first arrival of the Portuguese in this bay half a millennium ago and letting his mind slip back through the centuries to an evening in 1498…

A dark figure was sitting on the seaward side of the pillar. The man was dressed in a big-buttoned tunic with billowing sleeves, long stockings and a codpiece. Olive-skinned and bearded, he wore pointy leather shoes and a circular cap.

‘Hi there, I’m Paul,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’

The young man stared back blankly. Then recognition dawned on his face: ‘Bom dia, I no spick inglês.’

‘Ola, muito prazer, Senhor.’ Paul’s Portuguese was rusty, but passable. He’d spent enough holidays in Mozambique to get by and had studied the language for a year at university. ‘That’s a very smart outfit,’ he said.

‘This is my shore garb,’ said the young man in Portuguese. ‘But your vestments are far stranger.’

‘Are you from Portugal?’

‘Sim, from Lisboa, but it’s been long since I was home. It has taken us many months to get here.’

‘You came by sea?’

‘Sim, Senhor, our ships are anchored in the bay. Some of the crew are in the town. Our commander and his captains have remained on board. They won’t come ashore. We had some trouble in the south. These Mahometan infidels … you must know how they are.’

‘Um, kind of.’

‘They are treacherous. Never trust them. All along the coast they have tried to betray us: at Musa Al Big’s Island, at Kilwa, and again when we anchored off Mombasa. My captain had to pour boiling oil on those we captured to extract their villainous intentions. They are all dogs. We had hoped to find evidence of Prester John, or at least some Christian people along the coast. But all is infidel.’

‘You have been fighting your way up the coast?’

‘Yes. When we were betrayed, we opened fire with cannons and razed their buildings to the ground. At Musa Al Big’s Island, we set the town alight. At Mombasa, the infidels laid a trap, but the Lord showed us their treachery and we were spared.

‘Trust me, good sir, all the towns that have plotted against us will be forced to accept the yoke of Portugal. The island kingdoms of Africa will be overrun and subjugated. The Mahometan, in his hate, will find himself transfixed by his own arrows. Mark my words. When we set sail from Mombasa, my commander prayed to our Lord to show us some safe haven and that is how we came to fair Malindi. It is by the grace of God alone.’

‘The people have been good to you here?’ said Paul.

‘Yes, they seem a trusty, warm-hearted race. The sultan has welcomed my commander. He has showered acts of friendship upon us and gifts of fat-tailed sheep, poultry and such fruits as are in season. But we never let our guard down.

‘It was a great honour bestowed upon me by my beloved commander, that I be the first envoy to meet the sultan. Yesterday I came ashore with gifts of scarlet cloth and wrought coral. I told the sultan, through an interpreter, that we were not pirates but proud mariners from the continent of Europe. I must confess that I made an exceptionally good impression on the sultan. He agreed to come and visit aboard our flagship, the São Gabriel. Last night there was great rejoicing on the ships. You may have heard us?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Oh, we had fireworks and exploding firebombs! Those on the beach made reply in kind, letting off rockets and Catherine wheels. This morning at dawn I returned to the shore, feeling a little the worse for wear after such revelry, and escorted the sultan to my commander’s ship.’

‘I wish I’d seen it.’

‘It was magnificent. His barge was decked with multi-coloured silk awnings and the sultan himself was resplendent in robes of damask, dyed a lovely Tyrian purple. I have an eye for such things. At his belt hung a beautiful dagger, its haft glittering with diamonds. His velvet slippers were studded with gold and pearls. In the prow of his barge, men drew from bow-shaped trumpets a strange, festive music that was discordant and even fearsome to the ear. Well, to my ear at least. Some of our mariners appeared to enjoy it, but they had been imbibing.

‘My captain, no less resplendent, put out from the São Gabriel to meet us on the water. His dress was after the Iberian style, though on top he had a French cloak of crimson Venetian satin. My captain wore his gold sword and in his cap a feather was set at a jaunty angle. Such a handsome man. I wore my favourite purple shore-going garb with green breeches. Being properly attired can be so important, critical even, don’t you think?’

‘Yes indeed,’ said Paul, painfully aware of his own casual attire.

‘There were grand speeches on both sides. My commander thanked the sultan for his hospitality and told him about Portugal, how it had risen as a nation by defeating the followers of Islam on the Iberian peninsula. He concluded: “Mahometan might shall never again raise its head among the descendants of Lusus!” Though the sultan was of that faith, he could not fail to be impressed and he wished only goodness upon my captain. “How came you by our shores?” asked the ruler of Malindi.

‘My commander replied that the king of Portugal had sent ships to compel the African to recognise by ordeal