The Holy Sail (44 page)

‘She committed suicide, Admiral Correia, because she could no longer bear living in a corrupt and rotten world!'

Emir Nasser roared with an obnoxious laughter that everyone around heard, before he suddenly fell silent. ‘Are you sure about that? You have slain my slave Jawhar because he knew the whole story. Farah sold herself to him in return for cheap promises, and your daughter sold herself to me because she was jealous of her maid and did not want to be left out! They were both cheap women!' Nasser turned to António, who was smiling, and added, ‘But very beautiful ones.'

With his eyes still on the Portuguese commander, he pointed at Attar and said, ‘This man has a grudge against me and you, commander. He is a danger to us both. He will not hesitate to stab you in the back if he can.'

Listening to the squabble, António became certain that there was no threat of these men ever agreeing on anything. He made a decree appointing Emir Nasser governor of Bahrain and representative of the kingdom of Portugal, and left for Hormuz with Attar. Attar felt weak and had a profound pain in his chest, having been insulted in a way that his body and soul could not cope with.

 

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39
 
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Al-Ahsa, Eastern Arabian Peninsula

As news of Sultan Muqrin's death spread, a painful sense of bereavement pervaded Al-Ahsa. Halima in particular was stricken with both grief and guilt, as she felt she was the cause of his death.

The Portuguese were now a stone's throw away from Al-Ahsa, and everyone felt it was only a matter of time before their legions appeared on the horizon. Sultan Muqrin and his army were now history, the realm had disintegrated and even the Bedouin tribes were now mounting daring attacks on the edges of the city, which had descended into lawlessness. People were barricading themselves in their homes and inside the forts scattered around the area.

Halima became panic-stricken after the sultan's death. She blamed herself for his and his men's demise, and for the fall and sacking of Bahrain at the hands of the Portuguese, and she hated the world and herself for it.

Halima wandered around aimlessly, recalling her life as a pampered princess with her father in Hormuz, her marriage to Bin Rahhal who treated her like a queen, and then his murder, leading up to the wretchedness and misery she was now living. She often had bouts of rage and sobbing, with feelings of utter loss and despair, throwing sand on her head and shrieking in terror and distress. These bouts would last for a few minutes until she fell unconscious. Sometimes, when children saw her in this state, they
summoned the sheikh's wife, who would rush to Halima with wet cloths to wipe her face and rouse her. The older woman would escort her back home and help her clean herself, and waited with her until the sheikh returned and consoled her with some verses from the Quran.

People thought
jinn
had possessed Halima. But what she was going through, dreadful as it was, was not the result of some supernatural entity. She felt that she had lost every reason to live, that there was nothing beautiful left in the world to endure for. She felt her soul had been shattered into a million pieces, and that everything she had taken for granted had been violently overturned. Death seemed to her to be the salvation, and spells of madness a way out of her painful reality.

There was little Halima could enjoy in life now, and happiness was to her like a deeply buried memory. All food tasted bitter to the forlorn woman, who neglected her body. Halima felt a trace of cheerfulness near graves and envied the dead for their departure. She was on the brink of insanity, rebounding between the dismal reality and the long lost, blissful past.

The days passed like weeks, and weeks passed like months, but by now Halima's shock had started to wear off, and her misery had begun to fade. Her emotional state improved, and the bouts of mad grief were not as frequent as before.

She had no one left but her father now, but she was too ashamed to return to him. How could she return having lost her husband and her fortune, and having caused Sultan Muqrin's death and the occupation of Bahrain? Halima did not know what she wanted in life, or what life wanted
from her, and she wished her soul would depart her weary body.

Sheikh Jamal al-Din Tazi decided to return to his home in Morocco. Life in Al-Ahsa had become difficult and unpredictable. Since Halima did not want to remain by herself in a city where she had no one else, she decided to travel with them as far as Mecca, the Holy Land.

Halima remembered that she still had the Bahmani dagger in her possession when she was packing. Sultan Muqrin, she recalled, had promised the Indian king who gave it to him to deliver it to the caliph. Halima realised that this promise had to be fulfilled, even after Muqrin's death.

She turned the dagger over in her hand, then took it out of its sheath. She had cleaned Farah's blood from the blade. No one else could fulfil Sultan Muqrin's wishes but her now. Halima set her mind on delivering it to the caliph by any means. She packed it with her luggage without having a clear plan of how she was going to do it, and placed it in the same box as the ring the sultan had bought from the Banyan merchant, also as a gift to the caliph. She had managed to keep both precious items safe, but it was now time to pass them on.

Sheikh Tazi's wife was helping her pack and sort out her belongings when she suddenly asked, ‘And just where do you intend to go after Mecca, Halima?'

‘I don't yet know. I may remain in Medina until I die. Al-Ahsa does not want me any more, nor do I want it.'

‘Why don't you go back to your father in Hormuz?'

Halima sighed. Any mention of her father still rattled her and made her pine for her childhood. ‘I have no one else in
the world but him. I sent him a letter telling him I am going to the Hajj but he did not approve. May God forgive me! I will not return to Hormuz before I perform the pilgrimage and visit the tomb of the Prophet. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I will not find in the whole world a better company than yours. I will stay in Medina for some time, and fulfil Sultan Muqrin's wishes to deliver his dagger to the caliph.'

‘Who will you stay with there, Halima? I fear for you staying alone after we leave!'

‘Do not worry yourself. Calamities have befallen every land around us. Even my country has become inhospitable after the Portuguese took it. The things my father has told me in his letters are heartbreaking. If I go there, I will be happy to see him for a few hours but then I will have to live in a crucible of fear and pain like him. No, I will carry out my religious duty and then let God guide my path from there on. I don't care whether I live or die afterwards.'

She looked at the dagger before she spoke again. ‘I loved my husband with every fibre of my being. My husband had the utmost love and respect for Sultan Muqrin in turn. I will do right by them and take the dagger to the caliph. Perhaps that will expiate my sins and misdeeds.'

The elderly woman frowned. ‘Sins and misdeeds? What are you talking about, child? Nothing bad could ever come from you!'

Halima smiled and tried to avoid having this conversation. What she had done, inviting the Portuguese to Bahrain, still caused her insurmountable guilt and heartache. ‘It doesn't matter. What matters is that the dagger should reach the caliph's hands.'

‘Which caliph, Halima? My husband and I spent time in Cairo on our way to Mecca the first time. The caliph was known to be weak, easily manipulated by the Mamluk amirs and commanding obedience from none but his harem!' She paused and then quipped, ‘And I'm not so sure he even controls his harem!'

Halima replied absentmindedly, ‘Whatever the case, I have to fulfil the late sultan's wishes.'

The sheikh's convoy headed west with a group of pilgrims and a larger group of people simply fleeing from Al-Ahsa. The caravan was large and well guarded. The roads were no longer safe with the Arab tribes further inland rebelling and in the absence of a powerful central authority that could rein them in.

The travellers lifted their hands to the sky and prayed for a smooth and safe journey. The caravan's departure was a bleak sight, amid the tearful goodbyes of the travellers and their loved ones. The cameleers began singing a sad tune that reminded the travellers of the forbidding, lonely road ahead and the loved ones they were leaving behind for a long time.

The caravan reached Mecca shortly before the pilgrimage season. Halima saw droves of people of all nationalities and complexions, who had come from all around the world speaking in different tongues – trading, eating and drinking, and conversing. She had hoped to spot pilgrims from Hormuz, whom she would be able to recognise from their clothes and appearance, but none were there to be seen. She was told the sea route to Jeddah was now perilous and few ships dared traverse it. She felt annoyed; it had never
been this bad before the ships bearing the large red cross came.

The Hajj was a unique experience for Halima. She had left her small island only when she got married. Now, she was seeing and experiencing the world and its diversity. She drank putrid water, experienced hunger, ate foul-tasting cured meat, and tasted dirt in her mouth and felt it inside her eyes.

Halima rubbed her head in the sand and prayed humbly to the Creator. She experienced things she would never have encountered in the palace of her father the vizier. And she saw how big the world was, much bigger than the world she had lived in at the palace or even the estate of her slain husband. The eye-opening, multilayered and multicoloured discoveries she made distracted her from thinking about her ordeal.

At the Hajj, Halima learned that the Abbasid caliph had surrendered his title to the Ottoman Sultan Selim, who was now the official caliph of the Muslims. She could not understand how the caliph could be a non-Arab.

Halima asked Sheikh Tazi to whom she should give the dagger and the ring now, the deposed caliph or Sultan Selim, and in the event she were to give the gifts to the latter, then how would she be able to reach him.

Sheikh Tazi's advice was that she should deliver them to the Ottoman sultan, since he was the current caliph of the Muslims. But since the sultan was too far from her, he said, she should go instead to the highest Ottoman authority in Hejaz, namely, Suleiman Pasha, commander of the Ottoman Red Sea fleet and ruler of Jeddah. The sheikh told her she had to wait until the Hajj season was over, however,
as Suleiman Pasha would be busy receiving the delegations from around the Muslim world.

The Hajj season was soon finished. The pilgrims started leaving the Holy Land. Long caravans carrying luggage headed in all directions, and others made for the port of Jeddah where the pilgrims took ships back to their homes in the lands of Zanj, India and China. Mecca gradually shed its crowds and life returned to normal until the next Hajj season.

Sheikh Tazi and Halima's caravan set out for Jeddah, the city where Suleiman Pasha, the new Ottoman ruler who could deliver the dagger to Sultan Selim, was based. Suleiman was popular among the Jeddans, in contrast to Hussein Pasha al-Kurdi. In Jeddah, Halima and the sheikh and his wife would go their separate ways; they were going back to Morocco via Egypt, but she did not yet have a specific destination in mind after her mission was completed.

The sheikh's small caravan crossed the gate of Jeddah, which was now wide open. The guards did not ask them where they were going and what their purpose in the city was. Jeddah was now much safer, and life had returned to the normality that existed before the devil, as the people called their previous ruler, had come. The pilgrims stayed at a small inn, immediately adjacent to the wall.

The sheikh was able to find someone to vouch for him at the palace, and get a hearing with the governor. Tazi asked Halima to come with him. ‘You must come with me to the palace, Halima. Then you can deliver the dagger and the ring to Suleiman Pasha yourself.'

Halima was not too keen, and was nervous about going there. ‘I will give them to you, uncle. I don't want to go to a place where there are too many men I don't know.'

The sheikh persisted. ‘I will be with you the entire time. You must give him the gifts yourself, Halima. This is not the time to back down. You have come all the way from Al-Ahsa for this and you must get it done.'

Sheikh Tazi, accompanied by Halima, entered the governor's palace. Tazi asked her to wait in a small hall outside the pasha's private
diwan
, and entered by himself. The hall was brimming with guests. The sheikh sat and waited for his turn to meet the governor. Eventually the governor received him, asking him what the purpose of his visit was.

‘My name is Jamal al-Din Tazi. I come from Morocco. I went to Al-Ahsa last year with Sultan Muqrin al-Jabri, but he was killed in a battle with the Portuguese defending Bahrain. The situation there has become dangerous, so I decided to come for the Hajj and then return to Morocco.'

The pasha seemed interested in what the sheikh was saying. ‘One of the people who frequent my court told me two days ago that you were coming to meet me. He said you were carrying news from East Arabia, and that you had an important matter to discuss with me.'

‘Indeed, Pasha. I will brief you on developments in East Arabia so you can do what needs to be done. I also have another matter I want to discuss with you.'

The pasha gave him a broad smile. ‘Very well, let us begin with the news, Sheikh Tazi. I am very interested in what you have to say about Sultan Muqrin and the Portuguese.'

The sheikh began his report. ‘As you know, Your Excellency, the Portuguese have seized the trade routes between India and Arabia. For this reason, trade has never returned to normal. More importantly, the Portuguese spread terror and death everywhere their ships have visited, levelling cities and massacring people. Only a handful of cities have been spared their muskets and cannonballs.'

The sheikh did not want to prolong the conversation. He knew the pasha must have met many people already and probably did not want to hear any more unpleasant news, so he tried to be brief. ‘Sultan Muqrin sent his fleet to India to assist the Mamluk fleet led by Hussein Pasha al-Kurdi, but both fleets were defeated in the Battle of Diu. The Portuguese have commanded the seas since that day, and there has been nothing to stop them from raiding our lands. They have conquered and sacked Bahrain, and killed the sultan who died defending it. The Portuguese beheaded him and sent his decapitated head to Hormuz!'