Courtney.10.Monsoon.1999 by Smith Wilbur

Author:Smith, Wilbur [Smith, Wilbur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Google: CWsZlZjO9xsC
Amazon: 0312971540
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 0100-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

The Monsoon

At one stage of the evening he climbed the back stairs to a small room,overlooking the harbour, with a pretty, laughing lass who helped himwhen he lost his balance and steadied him when he almost fell back downthe stairs.

Her naked body was very white in the lamplight, and her embrace waswarm and engulfing. She laughed in his ear as she clung to him, and hespent his anger on top of her. Later, she giggled and waved away thecoin he offered her.

I should be the one who pays you, Master Tom.” Nearly everyone in thetown had known Tom since childhood.

“What a darling boy you’ve grown into. It’s been many a month since myporridge pot was so well stirred.” Much later Aboli prevented him fromaccepting a challenge to arms from another over-refreshed seaman, anddragged him out of the tavern, helped him up onto his horse, and ledhim swaying in the saddle, singing lustily, to High Weald.

orly the next morning Tom rode up onto the moors with one of hissaddle-bags bulging. Aboli was waiting for him at the crossroads, adark, exotic figure in the thick mist. He wheeled his horse in besideTom’s.

“I think the good burghers of Plymouth would have preferred an attackby the French rather than your last visit.” He looked sideways atTom.

“Do you not suffer still from last night’s alarms and excursions,Klebe?”

“I slept like the innocent child I am, Aboli. Why should I suffer?”Tom tried to smile but his eyes were bloodshot.

“The joy and folly of youth.” Aboli shook his head in mock wonder.

Tom grinned, put the spurs to his mount and sent him soaring over thehedge. Aboli followed him and they galloped over the brow of the hillto where a grove of dark trees nestled in the fold of ground beyond.

Tom pulled up, jumped down, tied his horse to one of the branches, thenstrode into the field of ancient stones that stood in the grove.

They were mossy with age, and legend said that they marked the gravesof the old people who had been buried here back in the infancy oftime.

He chose a propitious spot among them, allowing his feet, not his head,to guide him. At last he sTomped his heel into the damp turf.

“Here!” he said, and Aboli stepped forward with the spade in hishand.

He drove the blade deep into the soft earth and began to dig.

When he paused for breath, Tom took his turn and stopped when the holewas waist-deep. He climbed out of it and went back to where he hadtethered his horse. He unbuckled the flap of his saddlebag andcarefully lifted out a cloth-wrapped burden. He carried it back andset it down on the lip of the hole they had dug. He unwrapped thecloth from the jar. Through the glass, al-Auf glared back at him withone sardonic eye.

“Will you say the prayer for the dead, Aboli? Your Arabic is betterthan mine.” Aboli recited it in a deep, strong voice that echoedweirdly in the dark grove. When he fell silent Tom rewrapped the jar,hiding its grisly contents, and laid it in the bottom of the grave theyhad prepared for it.

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