Hector and Vlucht hurried forward to greet the landing party. It was led by the tall, thin man in the white gown. He had a narrow, scholarly face and shrewd brown eyes beneath a plain white turban. He appeared to be wary, rather than hostile, as he sprang ashore.
Unexpectedly he greeted them in heavily accented, but clearly understandable Spanish. ‘From which country do you come?’ he asked.
Hector nodded towards the wreck of the Westflinge. ‘The ship is from the Netherlands, so too are her crew, and her captain here.’
The tall man was quick to note the omission. ‘And yourself?’
‘I come from Ireland.’
The tall man looked vaguely disappointed. ‘Yet you speak Spanish?’ he asked.
‘I learned it from my mother. I had not expected to hear the language spoken so far from her homeland.’
‘The Spaniards first came here during the reign of my Sultan’s great-grandfather. They sought trade and we established good relations with them,’ the tall man explained. He watched Hector and Vlucht closely, trying to decide what sort of people they were. ‘I am Ciliati Mansur, and my family has provided court chamberlains over many generations. I was taught to speak the foreign tongue. But in the time of the present Sultan, the Spaniards have not returned.’
‘Forgive me if I seem ignorant or impolite,’ said Hector, ‘but our vessel was leaking badly and we had no choice but to run her ashore. We do not wish to trespass, nor do we know on whose territory we have landed.’
The court chamberlain drew himself up to his full height and said with grave formality, ‘You are on the lands of His Majesty Said Muhammed Jihad Saifuddin Syah ab Ullah, Sultan of Omoro. I have the privilege of presenting you to his son, His Highness Prince Jainalabidin.’
During the exchange a small, slight figure had emerged from the cabin on the kora kora and made his way to the bow. Hector saw that it was a child. One of the half-naked paddlers had left his place and gone to stand on the muddy bank, immediately beneath the upturned prow. He bent forward, hands on knees. The child stepped down on to the shoulders of his attendant, who carried him up the slippery bank and set him on his feet beside the chamberlain. Hector found himself looking down into the solemn yet haughty expression of a boy who could not have been more than seven years old. He was dressed in a dazzling white sarong, over which he wore an elegantly cut miniature jacket of cloth of gold with red facings. A turban of the same material was wound around his head, and his small feet were encased in white silk slippers. The lad’s complexion was noticeably fairer than that of his attendants.
The boy spoke in a light, clear voice. There was no mistaking that he was giving orders to the chamberlain.
‘His Highness,’ Mansur translated, ‘says that you are to come immediately to the palace. There you are to stand before the Sultan and explain your presence to him.’
Hector bowed diplomatically as Vlucht beside him muttered under his breath, ‘Do whatever the puppy asks.’
The chamberlain turned to the kora-kora crew and waved. A score of the Omoro left the war canoe and began to move off towards the camp.
‘If Your Highness will excuse me, I must attend to my companions,’ Hector apologized and hurried off to catch up with them.
The Sultan’s men wasted no time in dismantling the camp. They took down the makeshift tents, rolled up the canvas and retrieved the ropes and cordage. They collected all the items that had been brought ashore from the Westflinge – the boxes, blankets, guns, tools, Vlucht’s navigation instruments and Jacques’ cooking gear. Everything was carried back on to the kora kora and stowed. Nothing was left behind, and soon the campsite was nothing more than a bare patch of ground. Jacques, Jezreel, Stolck and the invalids could only look on until the moment they were ushered firmly but politely on to the kora kora. The skiff, which had been moored to the bank, was untied and attached by a towline to the stern of the war canoe. Maria was nowhere to be seen.
‘Where’s Maria?’ Hector asked Dan, catching him by the arm.
‘She went off for a walk in the jungle,’ the Miskito answered. ‘She cannot have gone far.’
Hector turned to the Omoro chamberlain. ‘One of our party is missing,’ he said.
‘We cannot delay,’ Ciliati Mansur answered. ‘The Sultan expects our return in time for maghrib, the sunset prayer.’
‘Please allow me a few moments,’ Hector begged.
Fortunately it took him no more than a few minutes to locate Maria. She had only gone as far as the tree, hoping to catch another glimpse of the remarkable birds. When Hector returned with her, the chamberlain was taken aback.
‘You did not say that your travelling companion was a woman,’ Mansur said in surprise.
‘She is my betrothed,’ Hector answered.
‘But you are not yet married?’
‘No.’
‘And her family permits her to travel without female companions?’
‘That is our custom,’ Hector answered.
The chamberlain sucked in his breath softly. Hector guessed Maria was the first European woman he’d ever seen, and he didn’t approve of her lax foreign ways. ‘Then she must remain in the cabin until we arrive home,’ he said firmly.
THE JOURNEY to the Sultan’s capital proved to be a short one. The kora kora’s crew looked to be frail, but they kept up a brisk pace. Four hours of steady paddling along the coast brought them to their destination, and Hector used the time to question Ciliati Mansur about what to expect. The Sultan of Omoro, the chamberlain informed him, had ruled for nearly forty years over a small coastal kingdom that was once rich and powerful, but now increasingly impoverished. Mansur blamed this decline on the shadow of the Sultans of Ternate and Tidore. They had intercepted the only trade that brought much money to Omoro – the sale of exotic bird skins.
‘We call them manuk dewata, “God’s Birds”,’ explained the chamberlain. ‘In truth, Allah put the creatures in our jungle so that we can have something to offer in exchange for the items we lack – guns, powder, and so forth. Traders come from as far afield as Malacca to buy our bird skins.’
‘Are the feathers really that precious?’ asked Hector.
A slight smile twitched the corners of Mansur’s mouth. ‘Yes, thanks to the vanity of man. We pretend the birds are enormously difficult to catch. We claim they have no legs and so they can never alight on land, but soar up into the sunbeams and catch and fix the colours of the rainbow in their plumage.’
‘I’ve seen the creatures settle and squabble on the branches of a tree, and they were noisy and very down to earth,’ said Hector.
‘Then you are one of the very few outsiders to have witnessed such things,’ said the chamberlain. ‘In reality the birds are not so difficult to take. The hunters spread a sticky gum on the branches where the birds gather, and the creatures are trapped. The bird catchers wring their necks, strip off the skins with the feathers attached and bring them to the Sultan’s agent. He alone has the right to sell them on to the Malay traders. That tale of the legless birds started because the hunters cut off the birds’ legs while they are skinning them.’
Hector glanced across to the young prince seated on a cushion by the door of the cabin into which Maria had gone. ‘Does the Sultan have other sons?’ he asked quietly.
‘Prince Jainalabidin is the Sultan’s only male child. Allah withheld that blessing for many years. Our Sultan is old enough to be Prince Jainalabidin’s grandfather.’