For the first time Pat hesitated on receipt of a direct order, then snapped, “Sir,” and turned away. With a quick word to Bai Ju, he collected Maru and Wiwik, whistled up Mot and launched the jolly boat, making no objection when Hinatea and Rat jumped in as well.
Once they were away from the ship, he told them the mission.
“No!” Hinatea cried, “They were so sweet! Do we have to kill one? I would never eat one, they look too much like people.” She sniffed at Maru and Wiwik who hung their huge heads at her disapproval of their dietary habits.
“I am not happy either,” said Pat, wondering at her caring about a monkey while delighting in slaughtering men. “I reckon we can catch one alive, and bring him back. The Captain didn’t actually say he wanted a dead one.”
“Yes,” cried Hinatea in ecstasy, “let’s get a little one and I will keep him as a pet!” All the Pahippians loved animals.
“Might be tricky, remember how long that big male’s teeth were?
“I’ve caught a few cats,” mused Rat, absently rubbing a long faint scar on his forearm. Pat looked at him till he flushed. “Um, some of the cheap food stalls would pay well for them.”
Pat continued to look at him, then said, “Good, at least you have some experience of catching animals. I expect these ones will have the dangerous ones on the outside and the easier ones in more protection. So what we will do is land there” he pointed to a bit of beach “tie up the boat, and you, Maru and Wiwik will sneak along the coast towards where the monkeys live. Try to get close without them seeing you, get in and grab one. Choose a small one, but not a baby.”
Rat interjected. “Take a cloth bag to put them in, they will quieten down in the dark but be careful, they will bite through the cloth.”
Maru took the cloth bag shoved at him with a dubious frown. “What are you going to do?” He asked while checking the drawstring on the bag.
“Hinatea and I will be the reserve. We will sneak in from deeper inland, and if you are spotted we will use you as a distraction to get in closer. Now be careful, this is a real test for all of you as they will be much better at sensing you than a man. Any questions?” Rat shook his head, the others waited without expression. “Right, patrol mode.” This meant silence, hand signals only.
The boat glided into the beach, Wiwik landing lightly on the sand holding the painter which he quickly slipped round a tree root. Maru stood on a sloping trunk at the back of the boat and tied up securely. Hinatea and Rat helped Pat select some brush, which he cut quickly with a slash of a machete to be arranged artistically by Hinatea. In moments the boat wasn’t visible from ten yards away and Maru, Wiwik and Rat melted into the green without a sound.
Mot was sitting on the ground in the shade watching Pat, who made a last check on the boat before giving a motion with his hand inland and she was gone. He followed her, with Hinatea ten yards behind him. Each moved carefully, but swiftly for the undergrowth was sparse once they were away from the shore and the canopy kept sunlight from the forest floor. They were careful to avoid touching any of the odd bits of foliage and after a couple of hundred yards, Pat motioned with his arm and they swung north, coming slightly back towards the beach. Rat was visible for a moment, ghosting from one tree to the next till he reached a clearing formed by a falling giant tree and the undergrowth thickened with the increased light.
Mot appeared and went into a rigid stance, her nose pointing at thick bush. The monkeys thrashed around in the bush, feeding on small green fruit, and Pat folded into the ground to study them. Outriders guarded the surrounds, and one stiffened and barked. Immediately several big males came up, all barking and the smaller monkeys rushed up into the trees. Pat quickly started moving closer to the back of the troop, Hinatea close behind him while Mot ranged ahead. Maru stood up and confronted the males. With this distraction Wiwik dived out of a bush twenty yards further along and grabbed a small monkey, which screamed in terrified fury and sank its fangs into his wrist. There was an uproar with all the monkeys screaming and the big males left Maru and rushed over towards Wiwik who ran for the beach trying to stuff the monkey into a sack.
The monkeys at the back were ranged through the trees at all heights, standing up and watching. Silently, Pat ran up behind one low down on a branch and flipped his sack over it. The monkey turned its head as he arrived and started to fall off the branch to avoid him, but Hinatea was there, caught it and boosted it into the sack. Quickly they turned and ran back to the boat while the monkey squeaked in the sack and the small ones set up a shrill ululation behind them.
They quickly stripped the camouflage off the boat and pushed off into the water. With no sign of the others, Pat used the oars to row along the beach. Maru came out of the trees, closely followed by Rat. Both dived into the sea and swam to the boat. Maru was laughing uncontrollably. Wiwik appeared, blood pouring down his head, threw his sack towards the boat and dived after it. Hinatea neatly caught the sack, placed it beside the other and helped the men aboard.
Wiwik was swearing. One of the big males had jumped on his shoulders, slammed its upper jaw down on the top of his head so the canines went deep into his skull and jumped away before he could do anything.
The big monkeys appeared on the beach and were jumping up and down shrieking as the kai Viti raised the sail and Pat took the tiller. Mot was sniffing the sacks, her tail wagging. Hinatea picked up the smaller bag and cradled it on her lap, making a cooing noise. The sack quivered and she undid the top, carefully rolling down the sides, exposing a terrified face. She cooed at it, and it chattered quietly at her. Slowly its chittering stopped and the monkey peered at her from big eyes.
The jolly boat was hauled up and Pat took his men up to report to the Captain. By this time the little monkey was out of its bag and clinging to Hinatea for protection, screaming at anyone who came near, which of course half the crew did. Wiwik pulled the larger specimen from his sack and held it high for everyone to see. Blood was all over his head, though dried by now. The monkey sorted that by twisting impossibly inside its skin and sinking its teeth into his wrist. Wiwik cursed, dropped it, and it shot up the rigging, followed by half the crew and the Bosun’s bellow as it shat on a sail.
Various sailors took one look at the monkey before demanding their winnings from Little who tried to avoid paying up. He claimed they might still be homunculi, on the basis that nobody had ever seen one.
Captain Larroche wasn’t best impressed by the live monkeys but was pleased the crew were placated. He was more interested in Suzanne, Bai Ju and Mimi, who were returning to the boat from meeting with Ravi Sohal. They climbed up the side of the boat and came towards him, casting curious glances at the monkeys.
“Captain, we have a troop of horse sent by the Rajah to escort us to Sonda. There are a dozen horses for us to ride.”
“Horses? Damn bloody things, hurt like hell. I am not going. Sara, your show. Who are you taking?”
“Thank you sir. I will take riders, which basically means Harrheinians. I’ll take Captain Mactravis and his troop, plus Pat. I suppose you can ride?” She asked Bai Ju.
“Of course. I think you will find these saddles are different to what you are used to. They are different for me, but I can manage.”
“Different in what way?”
“Much smaller than ours. Ours are like chairs and fighting saddles hold the warrior on the horse, even if he is injured. They are big and lots of straps to keep you in one place.”
“Our heavy horse use similar saddles, essential for a cavalry charge,” responded Sara.
“Only if you can’t ride,” interjected Pat with enthusiasm. “A small light saddle lets you become one with a horse. You need to feel the horse properly and have it respond to you without thinking.”
Sara considered him thoughtfully. Of course, he was a plainsman and lived in the saddle. “Do you think the soldiers will have a problem with small saddles?”
“Grey Fox won’t. Elves are good horsemen - they taught me to ride.”
“We’ll manage,” said Mactravis dryly. “We practice bareback, although some of us were heavy horse. You will laugh when you see Little on a horse. He looks like a sack of dung but somehow he is always there and has no problem. As usual, ignores all the manuals on the proper conduct.”
“Fine,” said Sara forcefully and cutting off the conversation. “Mimi, can you ride and how far is to Sonda?”
“Yes, no problem with small saddles either. Started off on side saddle, after which everything is easy! It’s about twenty miles, should take us the morning. I like horses,” Mimi volunteered with a smile, reflecting she had had more excitement in a week working for these Harrheinians than in her entire life.
As they came out of the jungle, the city of Sonda rose out of the fields in front of them, about two miles away, looking like a something out of faerie land. A beautiful white wall sparkled in front of them, while gleaming slender spires rose out of rounded roofs. Farmers rested on their tools and stopped their buffalos in the fields, watching them ride past.
Sara flicked her eyes over them, while still listening with half an ear to Suzanne flirting with the escort’s Captain. She had elicited a surprising amount of information from him, most of it fascinating. Sara found she was well informed on the political situation and the worry in Sonda as to whether they could withstand invasion. The Rajah’s special Kushtu guards were mighty warriors, but not enough of them, the mercenaries being hard to tempt this far south.
Sara caught Pat’s eye. “How well do they keep the fields?”
He gave her a scathing look. “I’m a herder, not a bloody farmer. I can’t give you an expert opinion, but they look OK. Crops look healthy, whatever they are, not much weed growth, plenty of variation.”
“They are good,” Bai Ju spoke past him to her. “Plenty of farmers for such an area, the crops are heavy as well. I know most of them. These wet ones are rice.” She indicated a series of small fields with water in them, tiered so the water cascaded from one field to another. “They will get at least two crops a year, and it is the staple food of the poor.”
Mactravis studied the paddy fields thoughtfully. “I tell you what, Princess, these rice plantations are a highly effective guard on the city.”
A labourer, up to his knees in mud, wrestled a plough behind a buffalo. “You would never get cavalry through there,” she nodded in agreement. “No wonder they use cows to plough.”
“It’s a buffalo,” said Bai Ju absently, her eyes on the city. “The wall is not high, but it would be hard to get siege equipment up, and with all this water it would be impossible to, how you call it, dig tunnels under and collapse wall?”
“Sap,” replied Mactravis. “We call it sapping. You’re right. You have to put wood in the tunnels to support them, and set fire to the wood. You could never tunnel there or get the fires to start. It would be tough, storming the walls with ladders and ropes.”
“These people have an old culture,” said Bai Ju in her best guru voice. “They fight a different way. The armies draw up outside, and the best warriors fight each other, later the armies fight. If the army outside wins, the people let them in.”
“Saves on re-building the wall,” remarked Sara. “Well, well, we have a reception committee. All those stops on the way up the coast have clearly paved the way. Hope they didn’t hear about Kalikut.”
Trumpets were sounding from the city as they drew closer, the gates opened wide and half a dozen elephants came out, gorgeously trapped in cloth of gold, with the boxes on top, called howdahs, full of young women who were throwing something out.
The elephants split into two columns and through the middle of them came a troop of cavalry, which also split and formed an outward-facing crescent. As they came closer, the girls threw more flowers, and down the path came a splendid figure on a white horse, moving sedately. Something on his head appeared huge, and sparkled in the sunshine.
The horse came a stop a few paces in front of the crescent, revealing a small rider watching them intently. As they came closer, she realised he was young, and when their eyes met he dug his heels into the horse which bounded forward. She was close enough to see the consternation of the faces of the cavalry, and guessed this wasn’t planned.
The rider wasn’t just young, he was a boy, and he was laughing out loud as he rode up, shouting in his own language. Sara couldn’t help but smile. He stopped in front of her horse, smiling hugely.
“Welcome to my Vijaya,” he said in Belada, “I am so happy you have come! And you are young too! Like me! Isn’t it boring talking to these old people who rule other places?”
Sara laughed in delight. “Indeed it is! You are a breath of fresh air! I am Princess Asmara, but you are welcome to call me Sara!
“Thank you Sara! You are very pretty! You must call me Rama. Please come to my palace, you must stay here and talk to me.” His eyes sparked. “I want to hear all about how you escaped from the Eralppad..”
An older man arrived on horseback looking horrified. He gabbled quickly at Rama who snapped at him, then spoke in Belada. “Our guests do not speak Konkani, we will speak Belada always in their presence. Do you understand me, Haniph?”
The old man slumped and muttered assent.
Rama turned triumphantly to Sara. “I know you want a trade post. You have spoken to all these greedy people to the south. Now you come to me, and we do not even have a proper harbour! I am very happy, especially because you are so beautiful! I will build a harbour for you and we will help you with all your trade, everything you want I will give you!”