Chapter 7
We slipped out of the office in knots of two and three, making our way through Aden’s midnight streets. Dalila and I had stashed
our traveling bags in an adjoining alley, and I retrieved my sword and my grandfather’s khanjar with haste, feeling better
the moment they were back on my person.
It was an astonishingly dark night. By the time we reached the beach, the water was a blur of churning blackness marked only
by the crash of silver surf and the shattered light of moonbeams rising and falling with the waves. It was impossible to distinguish
between the horizon and the sea, let alone make out the contours of the harbor and distant seawall. The Marawati was a bobbing cutout of stars and shadows marked by the faint light of a few torches burning on the warship anchored at her
side. There was only one vessel there now, the second lurking God only knew where.
I glanced at Tinbu. “Do you think you’ll be able to swim?”
His voice was laced with pain, but he nodded. “You’d be amazed the things I can do when fleeing prison.”
“Then this is where I leave you,” Yusuf said softly.
Tinbu spun to face him. “Come with me.”
“I cannot.” Even in the dark, I saw the heartbreak writ across the Jewish merchant’s face. “I could not abandon my family
like that.”
“What if we kidnap you?” Tinbu pleaded. “Then it wouldn’t be your fault.”
“I doubt they would appreciate the difference.” Yusuf touched Tinbu’s cheek. “We will see each other again, I know it. Nakhudha-whose-name-I-am-avoiding, you will take care of him?”
“I will,” I promised. “And thank you for your assistance. You have a future in the cups game should you be interested.”
Yusuf shuddered. “I have had enough adventure. God be with you all.”
Lovers parted, we crept across the beach and entered the water with as little movement as possible. Though the Marawati wasn’t anchored too far offshore, our swim was long and purposefully slow. I drifted more than swam, my soaked traveling
clothes heavy and my bags floating around my shoulders. The water this time of year was warm, the salty taste rushing over
my lips as I watched for any movement on the Marawati ’s deck. Had the moon been brighter, we might have been visible, but the sea was black as pitch.
We gathered in the water at the stern end, the men clutching the twin side rudders as they bobbed in the tide’s pull. I swam
for the anchor chain and started to climb, my heart in my throat. It was dark, yes, but if any of the soldiers glanced over,
I would have an arrow in my chest before I could drop back into the sea.
My arms were aching by the time I finally slipped aboard. I had an irrational urge to hug the Marawati ’s worn wooden railing, to press my brow to the damp hull as I reunited with my beloved ship for the first time in ten years.
It felt like this moment should be more momentous, more solemn. Then again, having to sneak on board was probably more fitting
given our history. I dropped into a crouch, surveying what I could. The Marawati had been trashed, supplies and belongings tossed everywhere. But with the crew imprisoned and a warship nearby, the authorities
must have felt confident, for they had left only a single soldier sitting on my captain’s bench. He was awake, thumbing the
beads of a misbaha as he murmured his way through dhikr.
I hesitated. It was a great sin to attack a fellow Muslim at prayer, and yet what choice did I have? If I failed to act, I risked the lives of all my men. So I snuck up behind him, clamping a rag over his mouth at the same moment I pressed my khanjar to his throat.
“I have no wish to kill you,” I whispered. “Stay silent and you will survive this night.” Granted I did not give him much
choice, stuffing the rag in his mouth as I divested him of his weapons and bound him with rope. Once the soldier was secure,
I motioned silently to the men waiting in the water.
They moved fast, crawling over the deck like spiders, taking their places as we had planned as the ship swayed and dipped
with the movement of the midnight ocean, every knock of water against the wooden planks making my heart race. My instincts
were on high alert, waiting for the cry of alarm I knew would eventually come from the other boat. But it didn’t, not yet.
Aden was a law-abiding place, the prospect of people sneaking onto a vessel floating beside a galley full of soldiers likely
so ludicrous they were barely watching the Marawati .
Tinbu joined me at the captain’s bench. “Do not be angry with me,” he began, always a promising start. “It was the most secure
place I knew.” He slid apart a series of panels beneath the bench that had not been there when I last sailed to reveal a shallow,
hidden space and started removing objects: his bow and quiver, a leather coin purse, a well-wrapped rectangular parcel...
“Is that my rahmani?” I breathed. “You put my family’s navigation manuals in with—”
“Would you rather they have been seized by the wali?” Far more gingerly, Tinbu lifted out a medium-sized wooden crate and
set it down between us. He pried open the lid, clearing away the cotton batting that had been used to cushion the four cylindrical
objects nestled inside. They were brass bowls wired into coconut-sized spheres, and I could already smell what was hidden
at their core: the acrid aroma of pine resin and sulfur that sours the belly of any sailor. The scars on my wrist itched.
Naft .
Few weapons are more feared on the sea than naft, a substance of near-mythic origins. There are many Rum who believe naft
is sacred, a miracle granted to their people to fend off the would-be conquest of Constantinople centuries ago. An oily substance,
it ignites with water and does not cease to burn until there is nothing left to burn. In their Mediterranean Sea, mercifully far to the north, their warships carry great pumps, astonishing marvels of
technology that spew naft over a burning flame to create lethal jets that can incinerate an enemy across the waves.
In its deadliest form, naft is a zealously guarded state secret, one both scholars and spies have died to protect. We do have
copycats, various recipes for a pitch that can be stuffed into canisters and hurled by catapults or by hand, or that arrows
may be dipped in. It is not enough to incinerate invading navies (though to be fair, we do not really have “invading navies”—the
Indian Ocean is either too vast or northerners more querulous, God alone knows best). Some of the wealthier trade ships and
many of the warships around here carry at least some form of the concoction, which they typically cobble together themselves
in an effort that has never, ever gone wrong and burned down their own vessels.
A carton of that was what Tinbu had found floating amongst the iron ore he had salvaged.
Dalila joined us. The three of us had been on enough misadventures that no one needed to speak as our eyes met above the box
of fiery death, but Dalila did so anyway because she believes in murdering hope whenever possible. “What if it does not work?”
“What if it does work?” Tinbu countered. “Why must you always be so cynical?”
“Being cynical has kept me out of prison. How has being na?ve worked for you? And what if those warships have their defenses
up?”
There were defensives against naft. Vinegar-soaked surfaces were usually impenetrable, and sand could smother small pockets of it. And if we had been pirates about to raid a vulnerable merchant vessel in the open sea, I might have been concerned.
But we were facing a warship in the most secure port in the western Indian Ocean. Aden did not fear invaders from the sea;
the sole attempt had been years ago and resulted in the attackers being butchered on the beach. These ships and their soldiers
were here to deal with smugglers and bandits—an attack on themselves would have been suicidally foolish. Clever pirates stayed far away from properly armed foes, preferring easier prizes.
“They have no reason to be expecting such an attack,” I argued, trying for more confidence than I felt. “But keep two of the
devices back.”
“Why?” Tinbu asked.
“For when the second warship inevitably turns up. Take your places and wait for my signal.”
I returned to my captain’s bench, taking command of the Marawati for the first time in a decade and setting my gaze upon the horizon. I had been studying the stars all night, orienting myself
to the layout of the sea, letting memories long buried rise to the surface. There was a time I knew Sira Bay like the back
of my hand. Knew its currents and sandbars and the breakers against the ancient seawall. A time when I was brashly confident
in my abilities as one of the best—most feared—nawakhidha in the Indian Ocean.
I prayed I could be that person again.
Taking a deep breath, I whispered a prayer and glanced down, meeting the expectant gaze of the broadly built Sumatran sailor—named,
inexplicably, Tiny—who everyone had agreed had the most accurate throwing arm. I nodded.
Tiny raised his arm, rolled back his entire body, and hurled the brass projectile of naft at the brightest light burning on the warship.
I swear to the Almighty that time itself seemed to slow as the incendiary sailed through the air toward a large glass lantern hanging from the stern ornament—and then completely missed, instead smashing into the stern ornament itself with a thunderously loud crack that promptly woke every soldier on the ship.
“What was that?” a distant voice cried, followed by exclamations in whatever tongue the imported warriors spoke back home.
The naft that had been in the smashed projectile glistened and dripped in the firelight, but it was too far from the lamp
to catch flame.
“There are people aboard the Indian’s ship!”
Well, there went discretion. “Again!” I cried. Tiny did not need to be told twice; he threw the second projectile with all
his might and this time it struck true, shattering the lantern and bursting into flame.
“Now!” I shouted.