The Holy Sail (23 page)

Albuquerque completed the turn around the southern tip of Africa. His armada was now sailing parallel to the east coast of the continent. The sea was calm and jungles started appearing again, and green mountains behind them. Albuquerque's crew expected to find ports nearby, but all they saw were long stretches of uninhabited beaches with no signs of life. Their eyes remained fixed on the spots where the greenery met the water, but for days on end the shores they passed had no traces of humans or animals.

A week later, they spotted a small dreamy settlement on an island close to the mainland. Wooden dhows
^*
of various sizes and shapes were floating opposite the island. The sandy beach was quiet and serene. Fishermen were busy cleaning their fishing nets and drying their catch. Behind them was a market selling fruits and vegetables, just in front of the town's stone buildings. The town appeared neat and well organised; each house had a small garden planted with flowers and some fruit trees, all overlooking interconnected streets that sprawled onto the beach.

Albuquerque ordered his men to douse the ships' immense sails to reduce their speed. As soon as the ships came directly in front of the town, he shouted to the seamen to drop anchor, and asked his deputy Miguel to search for the settlement's name in Covilhã's guide.

The villagers began to gather on the beach to take a look at the huge Portuguese ships. Suddenly, everyone broke into dancing and singing, waving tree branches. Albuquerque and his crew did not understand what was happening. He ordered his men to prepare to fight and prime the cannons, and asked Miguel whether he had found out any information about the island yet.

‘Nothing, sir. There's no mention of this town in the dreaded dossier!'

‘Fine. Make a mark of its location on the map. We will enquire about its name later.'

Behind the crowds, a canvas umbrella appeared to be moving, surrounded by a group of guards. They made their way to the shore and then boarded a small boat. The party rowed in the direction of Albuquerque's flagship. Everyone followed the boat with their eyes until it reached the ship. Albuquerque's men then dropped a rope ladder, and minutes later, the sultan of the island and his entourage were face to face with the Portuguese.

Albuquerque summoned Miguel, who was fluent in Arabic, to interpret and mediate with the sultan.

The sultan wore a friendly smile and welcomed his guests. ‘Peace, mercy and the blessings of God be upon you. Welcome to our country, the country of Musa bin Bek. I am one of his descendants and the sultan of this land.'

The sultan gave Albuquerque a long colourful string of prayer beads. ‘This is my own
misbahah.
I give it as a gift to you. May it help you praise God after every prayer.'

Albuquerque took the
misbahah
and asked the sultan about the name of the town again. ‘It is Musa bin Bek, commander. Musa bin Bek.' He enunciated the name slowly for Albuquerque to understand it.

Miguel said enthusiastically, ‘I have written it down, my lord.
M-u-s-a, b-i-n, B-e-k
.'

The sultan gestured to a member of his entourage, who came forward carrying gifts of fruits, vegetables, china and jewellery, along with small prayer mats, fabrics and an assortment of spices. He offered the gifts to Albuquerque.

Albuquerque opened the bags containing spices. He sniffed them, then dipped his finger to taste them. ‘Where do you get these?'

The sultan answered him with a smile that bordered on outright laughter. ‘From India of course! It is the only source of spices that we know of!'

‘Do you sail from here directly to India to import them?'

The sultan pointed at the ships anchored off the island-town and said, ‘These ships cannot sail there directly, of course. They sail from here to Zanzibar, and from there, to Mogadishu, and then Aden. When they arrive in Aden, they have practically arrived in India, given how close it is.'

The sultan of Musa bin Bek noticed how curious Albuquerque was about the spices, and thought this was because he was fond of them. ‘We have many of these spices, commander; I can give you as many spices as you want. Ships arrive from time to time loaded with them. We sell them to tribes in the African hinterland. They love the taste spices bring to their food, and give us gold, furs, herbs and precious stones in return for them. Sometimes they sell us prisoners they have captured from other tribes as slaves. I will gift you some of them as well if you like. You are our brothers and we shall help you as best as we can.'

Albuquerque realised there had been a mix-up. The sultan had mistaken them for Muslims, especially since they had furled the large sails displaying the Order of Christ
Cross before they dropped anchor. Albuquerque decided to play along with the sultan. The confusion could prove to be advantageous, he thought, and they might just be able to exploit it to re-supply and repair the ships that had sustained damage from the storms and currents they had to sail through in the south. Albuquerque asked Miguel to only translate what he was saying without volunteering to elaborate anything to the sultan.

One of Albuquerque's officers brought gifts they had carried with them from Portugal, and the sultan was pleased. At Miguel's orders, the seamen lined up in two rows, in their full armour and weapons that they had polished and prepared for such occasions. The sultan, fascinated, inspected the men, especially the muskets they were carrying, which he was wholly unfamiliar with. To demonstrate how they worked, Albuquerque ordered one of his men to load his musket and fire it.

The sailor turned over the muzzle of his long musket and loaded it with a gunpowder charge. He rolled in a round ball of lead, and followed it with a cotton wad, and then using a ramrod, he rammed the wadding, bullet and powder down the barrel. The sailor aimed the musket at the sea. There was a bird perched on a boat nearby. He fired and a deafening boom followed, almost causing the sultan to fall to the ground. To the sultan's astonishment, the bird disappeared, leaving behind a few feathers floating about.

The sultan adjusted his green, gilded turban. He brushed his white robe and rearranged his embroidered waistcoat before he put his hands on his ears, which were now ringing.

A sardonic smile appeared on Albuquerque's face. He knew his message had been understood, but he wanted to continue the charade to the end with the poor sultan. ‘We want to supply our ships with food and water for our journey to India. We want you to send sailors with us to show us the way. We are not familiar with these seas.'

The sultan started regaining his balance, though the ringing in his ears did not stop. He stuck his finger in one and wiggled it around. ‘Certainly. You will get everything you need. You are invited to stay at my palace as my guests. Tomorrow we shall perform the Friday prayer at the grand mosque, and then you can set off to your destination with Godspeed. But how did you come from that direction? I thought the caliph's soldiers came from the east, navigating parallel to the Nile down from Cairo.'

Albuquerque was the only person speaking in this strange conversation. Miguel did not smile and his face remained blank, like a skilled actor.

‘The caliph sent us west to fight the infidels. We are on our way to India to trade and bring back spices. He is very fond of them, as you know.'

The sultan shook his head in surprise. ‘I didn't know the caliph was so fond of spices. We would have sent him everything we had. We trade in them.'

Albuquerque suddenly asked, ‘How long would it take to get to India from here?'

Taken aback by the question, the sultan turned to his companions. All sailors knew that travel times varied depending on the seasons, the winds, the size of the sails and the weight of the ship, but an appropriate answer had to be given to the caliph's soldiers. ‘The travel time
depends on many things that sailors are familiar with, Your Excellency.'

Albuquerque found this to be an opportunity to obtain a guide who would be familiar with these seas. ‘We need a guide to help us get there. Is there someone you can send with us?'

‘Of course, we are all in the service of the caliph and his soldiers. You will get what you want after the Friday prayers and lunch. We will now leave and expect you to honour us with your presence tomorrow.'

The sultan raised his hand and saluted them. ‘Peace, mercy and blessings of God be upon you.'

None of the Portuguese returned his greeting. The sultan blinked several times in shock. Then he waved his hand and climbed back down to the boat, departing to his island. The sultan gave orders to his subjects not to inconvenience the guests and to give them whatever supplies they asked for.

Night descended on the dreamy island of Musa bin Bek. Fires were lit on the shore and the nearby ships. On the beach, the locals celebrated the arrival of the caliph's ships late into the night. They could not stop looking at them in awe, and were particularly curious about the ominous-looking gun ports whose function they did not understand. They were puzzled as to why the sailors had not come down to visit their town yet.

As the townspeople quieted down, the only noise that could be heard were the voices of people cheerfully talking about the formidable caliph of the Muslims, who had not forgotten his subjects even here, in the far south of Africa. They saw the arrival of the caliph's fleet as the beginning of a long-lasting relationship between Musa bin Bek and
Cairo, the city they had heard so much about in legends and stories. Women even dressed their children in their best clothes, hoping the commander would take them with him to study in Al-Azhar and return them one day as accomplished scholars. That night, many women dreamed of seeing their sons wearing the iconic Al-Azhar turban.

Not far from the town, three boys decided to take advantage of the arrival of the caliph's ships to join their crew. They were not content with life on their small, remote island, where they could not aspire to become anything other than farmers or fishermen. The idea that they could become soldiers of the caliph tickled their fancy and revived in them a spirit of adventure.

Their small boat moved quietly in the dead of night, making its way from the shore to the Portuguese armada. They did not want the sultan or their parents to know about what they were doing. They rowed the boat so slowly and quietly that the boat was almost moving on its own. Before they got to the nearest ship, they stopped rowing and let the boat glide over the water using its momentum. As soon as the boat reached the ship, one of the boys jumped onto a rope hanging from above and climbed up. Once near the deck, he peeked over its edge and saw the sailors kneeling on the deck floor, before a priest holding a large metal cross. The priest was reading them the evening prayer.

The boy climbed back down to the boat very gently, where his friends were waiting. He silently signalled to them to return, and they rowed back to shore.

By the following morning, everyone in the island-town had learned the foreign men's real identity. The news reached the sultan, who ordered his people not to
cooperate with the Portuguese and to wait until he clarified matters with them and convinced them to leave without causing any trouble.

On the same morning, Albuquerque's sailors noticed the shore had suddenly been evacuated. Even the market looked abandoned as though something had happened. Albuquerque did not understand what was going on, and ordered some of his men to land on the island and capture anyone they could find to interrogate them.

Several boats were released from the ships. They rowed to the far side of the port to avoid attention. Albuquerque's men walked through the woods in the direction of the town, meaning to flank it and surprise their victims.

With the sun halfway up in the sky, people were resting in their homes or in the shade. The Portuguese attacked and managed to capture five men, four women and four children of different ages, and took them back to their ships.

The sultan tried to negotiate with them. They demanded supplies of food and water before they released the prisoners, and the sultan complied. In the evening, the Portuguese allowed the women, children and elderly they had taken to go, sending them to the island in boats, but kept four men. When the sultan's delegate asked the commander to release all the prisoners as agreed, Albuquerque asked the sultan to assign him a guide to show him the route to India. The sultan told him that this would be difficult because sailors were now afraid to go with him. Albuquerque gave him until the morning to comply, and told him to listen to the ‘music' that night.

The sultan did not understand what Albuquerque meant. After the evening prayer that Albuquerque attended, the manacled prisoners were brought to the ship's deck. Albuquerque ordered his men to tie one of the prisoners to the barrel of a cannon trained on the city. The others were tied in a crucifixion posture. One of the sailors started pouring boiling lard on their abdomens and genitals.

As the victims screamed in horrible pain, the sailors drank, sang and danced. The torture lasted all night. The following morning, people gathered on the shore to find out what was happening. When Albuquerque noticed the multitude of spectators, he ordered his men to fire the cannon that had one of the prisoners tied to its barrel. When the smoke cleared, people saw the victim's arms and legs hanging between the remnants of the ropes used to restrain him, but could not quite understand how the rest of his body had vanished.

Before dawn on the following day, a small boat navigated the short distance between the shore and the Portuguese flagship. A man climbed aboard and introduced himself to Albuquerque. ‘I am Malima Kanakwa. The sultan asked me to guide you on the way to India.'

‘I have no interest in your name or what people call you. Your only job here is to show us the way to India.'

The prisoners were taken down to the bottom of the ship. Albuquerque ordered his ships to fire at the town, and within minutes the dreamy island was turned into a pile of ashes, rubble and body parts. Cannon fire continued until Albuquerque was sure the town had been razed to the ground. He then gave his orders for the ships to head east.