‘And this . . .’ The Portuguese had drawn a rough map with his finger in the alcohol that had slopped over the table. He jabbed his finger on the bottom of it. ‘You know the real name for this? Cabo das Tormentas – the Cape of Storms.’

  ‘Do people live there?’ Sana had asked.

  ‘There is a harbour, Cape Town. That is where the great trading ships call on their way to India and the East Indies.’

  ‘Could two people get there in a dhow?’

  Paul had shot Sana a warning look, but the Portuguese was too drunk to notice. He swigged his drink and shrugged.

  ‘Nothing is impossible with God. But likely . . .?’ Whatever else he had to say was drowned in a fit of drunken laughter.

  In Quelimane, their fortunes had improved. Paul and Sana had been transferred to another boat from Ilya’s fleet. Their new home was a smaller vessel with a single mast and a crew of ten. Paul had studied his shipmates, marking what each man did and how the work could be carried out if there were only two people aboard. In calm winds, he thought it might be possible.

  They would still have to dispose of the crew. As well as Mohammed, there were seven others. After weeks at sea together, Paul and Sana knew them well enough to be sure that none of them would support an act of mutiny. Sana had no doubt what to do about them.

  ‘Strangle them. You remember how?’

  Paul shuddered. That was a chapter of his life he had tried to erase, though it lingered in his memory like a nightmare he could not shake. He refused to admit to himself that there had been a time when breaking a man’s neck came as easily as shaking his hand. The thought filled him with horror.

  But they could not delay much longer. They were in the right place. A storm had driven them past Delagoa Bay, further south than they would normally go. They had taken a few days to repair the boat and catch fish to replenish their supplies. Now they would turn north, for the long voyage coasting back towards Zeila.

  By Paul’s best guess, they were still almost a thousand miles from Cape Town. They would have to risk it.

  It was mid-afternoon, and everyone was on deck. At the helm, Tenga the steersman kept a steady hand on the tiller. He was the latest addition to their crew, having joined them at Delagoa Bay. Beside him, Mohammed chewed on a wad of khat and surveyed proceedings like a lazy dog, occasionally stirring himself to bark an order. The others were busy mending ropes, tying nets and caulking planks.

  ‘It is time,’ Mohammed grunted. ‘Come about.’

  The men started to move. Sana picked up the gutting knife. Paul took a length of thin rope and looped one end around his fist, just as he had held the tarade in Gondar.

  ‘I need a barrel of salt to pack these fish,’ Sana called. ‘Will someone fetch one from the hold?’

  ‘Get it yourself,’ called one of the crew.

  ‘I am only a feeble girl,’ she answered.

  Grumbling good-naturedly, two others went below. That left six on deck. Still too many, but the best odds that Paul and Sana would have.

  Sana moved towards the bow. Paul sidled towards Mohammed at the stern. He would strangle him first, then grab the tiller and force the boat around. The sudden change of direction would make the sail swing wildly. That should cause enough confusion that Paul could take on Tenga and the others.

  The blood sang in his ears and bile rose in his throat. You have done this before, he told himself. But that had been under orders, for self-preservation. This was on his own account.

  From nowhere, the ibis-headed god was suddenly in his mind. Paul had not heard the voice in years, but now it spoke like a long-lost friend.

  To master life, you must hold it as light as a feather.

  ‘What do you want, Samat?’ asked Mohammed.

  ‘Samat’ was their name for Paul: it meant ‘silent one’.

  Paul had to distract the captain. He turned and looked out to sea as if he had seen something.

  ‘What is it?’

  Paul pointed – but, of course, he could not speak. With a grunt, Mohammed pulled himself up and came to the rail, shielding his eyes against the sun as he followed Paul’s gaze.

  This was Paul’s chance. From the bow, he could feel Sana’s eyes on him, waiting for the signal to wield her knife. He lifted his hand. At any moment, Mohammed would realise there was nothing to see and turn around again. Paul had to strike now.

  He could not do it. The rope burned into Paul’s palm like hot metal; he let it drop into the bilge. Over his shoulder, he saw Sana put down the gutting knife and shoot Paul a look of fathomless disappointment – the way his mother had sometimes looked at him.

  ‘Who can she be?’ Mohammed said.

  Paul turned. Mohammed was not confused, or berating Paul for wasting his time. He was studying something.

  Paul looked out to sea again, more closely this time.

  There was a ship on the horizon, where he had pointed, as if he had conjured it from his imagination. It should not be there. From the navigator, Paul knew that the coast south of Delagoa Bay was a barren and inhospitable place. There were no people and no safe harbours – only hundreds of miles of rocky shore, lapped by vicious tides. The coastal traders avoided it because there was no one to trade with; foreign merchantmen steered clear so they would not be dashed to pieces.

  ‘Look at this!’ Mohammed called.

  By now, everyone had come to the stern to study the distant ship. She was neither a dhow nor a cargo vessel, but a square-rigged warship. Paul could see the gunports chequerboarded down her side, and the figure of a ravenous shark baring its teeth from her bow.

  On the voyage from Toulon, Paul had spent some time drawing the ships in the fleet, and learning their names. Now one of those unfamiliar nautical words swam back from the depths of his memory. She was a frigate.

  And that was not the only memory she triggered. At her stern flapped a flag Paul had last seen tattered in the desert: the tricolore of France. He could read her name in French, too, painted on the bow. Requin.

  He felt an old terror stirring. He looked west, where the coast of Africa made a low line in the far distance. He jabbed his finger towards it. His eyes pleaded with Mohammed to change course and run.

  ‘We are nothing to them,’ said Mohammed. He spat his wad of khat over the side. ‘Except to trade.’

  This was something they had done before. Ships’ captains would pay better prices than you could get in the markets on shore and were less fussy about quality. Mohammed would offload the worst of his cargo, report to Ilya that it had been lost or spoiled, and pocket the takings, sharing his profit with the crew as the price of their silence.

  Tenga set the ship on a heading to intercept the frigate. They closed quickly, for the frigate had also altered course to meet them.

  The sail rattled down as Tenga brought them up against the frigate’s hull. A rope was thrown up and made fast. The crew delved in the hold and brought up a selection of trade goods. A face appeared above, leaning from the frigate’s side and beckoning them up.

  ‘Venez, venez.’

  On the frigate’s deck, out of sight, the officers were conferring. They made no attempt to hide their voices, for they did not expect anyone in a boat full of African sailors to understand French. A gust of wind brought their words to Paul’s ears down in the boat.

  ‘She is too small to bother with.’

  ‘But the crew. How much would they fetch in the slave markets?’

  ‘Six hundred francs?’

  ‘That would be something. Until the war starts again and we can get back to our proper business.’

  Paul tried to attract Mohammed’s attention, shaking his head in warning. But Mohammed was already clambering up the ladder. Paul grabbed Sana. He put his wrists together, hands splayed out, mimicking shackles.

  Sana understood. She had not forgotten the months-long march with the Bishareen slavers. She grabbed Tenga, waiting his turn at the foot of the ladder, and whispered in his ear.

  His eyes widened. He looked around uncertainly.

  ‘Come on,’ said Mohammed from the deck above. ‘They have brandy for us.’

  The rest of the crew had gathered around the ladder, jostling impatiently to go up. That persuaded Tenga. He climbed; the others followed. Paul hung back, leaning his weight on the gunwale. He had the fish knife in his hands, hidden from view, cutting into the rope that moored them to the French frigate. He sawed it back and forth, severing the fibres one by one.

  Nobody noticed the rope end drop in the water as Paul cut through. Her crew were already on the Requin’s deck, enjoying the brandy that their hosts plied them with. The dhow began to drift away.

  The gap between the two ships widened into open water. For a few precious moments, no one saw what was happening. Then there came a shout from above. Mohammed appeared at the frigate’s side, scowling down on them with a brandy glass in his hand.

  ‘What are you doing? Come back.’

  Paul held up his hands, miming helplessness. On the frigate’s deck, a sailor appeared with a rope and a boarding grapnel. He tossed it with a well-practised arm, and it sailed across the water straight for the dhow. Paul made as if to catch it, but his hands batted it away so that it splashed into the sea alongside.

  ‘Clumsy halfwit!’ raged Mohammed. ‘I will beat you like a dog when I am back aboard my ship.’

  Half an hour earlier, Paul had been within an inch of strangling Mohammed. Now, he felt a short-lived flicker of sympathy for the man he had served. Mohammed did not realise he was living out the last few moments of his freedom. The rest of his life would be spent in chains.

  That was the way of the world. For now, Paul’s only concern was to make sure he did not join the captain. The French sailor had hauled in the grapnel and thrown it again. The gap was now so wide that Paul didn’t have to pretend to fumble it. It dropped short with a splash.

  ‘Soon they will realise this is not an accident,’ said Sana.

  She had been untying the sail, ready to raise it at a moment’s notice.

  They won’t pursue us, Paul thought.

  The dhow was not worth the effort. With the crew captured, the French were already in profit. Their captain would not want to risk his magnificent ship getting any closer to the treacherous shore for such a feeble prize.

  Paul nodded to Sana. Together, they hauled on the halyard to raise the sail. Normally it would have taken three men to do it, but Paul and Sana were fleeing for their lives. They hoisted the diagonal boom to the masthead and made it fast. The triangular sail filled with the wind, like a shark’s fin cutting across the sea.

  Paul grinned at Sana.

  We have our boat.

  And without a drop of blood being spilled. He took the tiller and settled on the stern bench. When he was comfortable with their heading, he turned to look at the frigate. By now it must be obvious that Paul and Sana were fleeing, but he could see no sign the Requin would give chase. There was some kind of commotion on deck, much movement and bustle, but no topmen putting on sail or bracing the yards around to change course.

  A rumble sounded from across the water. The black gunports lifted, and twenty guns poked out their snouts. Sana blanched; Paul gave her a reassuring look. The French captain was trying to scare them with a warning shot.

  But one gun would have sufficed for a warning shot.

  The cannons fired. Not in unison but one after another, a wave of fire rippling down the frigate’s side. With a chill of horror, Paul realised what they were doing. They weren’t aiming to capture or dismast the dhow. They were using her as target practice.

  Cannonballs flew all around them. Paul pushed Sana to the deck and threw himself on top of her, shielding her with his body. The scream of iron tore the air. Water splashed him from the spouts thrown up where the cannonballs landed in the sea around them. One ball struck the transom and unleashed a hail of splinters, some as much as a foot long. The dhow’s planks were not nailed together – they were sewn. They shifted and warped under the impact, like a writhing snake. One ball passed so low overhead, Paul felt it tickle the back of his head. Another punched a perfect round hole through the sail.

  And then it stopped. The gunners must be reloading. Paul braced himself for the next onslaught.

  When it didn’t come, he raised his head above the side and looked back. They had sailed further than he thought. The Requin had receded in the distance, so far she must be out of range. Her captain would not waste more powder and shot on them. Nor was he doing anything to put on more sail or change course to follow them.

  Paul grinned with the elation of having cheated death once again. He tugged Sana up. She rose, rubbing her arms where she had been pinned down awkwardly. But she did not smile like Paul; she did not even look at the frigate. She was staring ahead.

  Paul followed her gaze. The distance they had put between them and the frigate had brought them closer to the shore. The coast loomed high and dark and suddenly nearby. He could see the breakers foaming on the rocks.

  He became aware of the wind. It was the reason they had escaped the French frigate so fast, a stiff easterly breeze speeding them towards the coast.

  He gestured to Sana.

  We need to come about.

  This was a complex procedure on a dhow. The sail had to be loosened, and the whole yard needed to be pivoted around the mast. Even with a full crew it was an unwieldy manoeuvre. For a man and a girl alone, it was almost impossible.

  Sana untied the sheet. The sail flapped and billowed, snapping out of her hands as she tried to bundle it up. Paul went to the front of the boat, balancing on the prow. The wood was slick with spray; the bow plunged down and reared up as the damaged boat rode the surging sea. Paul had no purchase to grip the heavy boom, let alone move it around.

  The coast was getting nearer. The wind roared in his ears. If he did not bring the boom around quickly, the boat would be driven onto the rocks. He could not do it with his hands; instead, he wrapped his arms around the boom and kicked off with all his strength, using his weight to shift it.

  With a creak of ropes, the boom swung around the masthead and on to the opposite tack. Sana scrambled to the stern and put the tiller over. Paul grabbed the untethered sail and pulled it around the mast. It bellied out as it started to catch the wind; if it filled, he would never have the strength to haul it in. He found the mainsheet tangled in the canvas and pulled it back. If he could just make it fast . . .

  Halfway along the gunwale there was a wooden post for fastening the sheet. Moving backwards, Paul reached instinctively for it but felt nothing. Had he misjudged it? He looked back.

  The post wasn’t there. One of the cannonballs had bitten out a chunk of the hull, carrying away the planking and the post that had been attached to it. There was nowhere to tie the sheet down.

  A gust of wind caught the sail. The rope snapped out of Paul’s hand, so suddenly he was forced to let go or he would have been dragged overboard.

  The dhow had already started to turn before she lost steerage way. Now she was caught halfway round, broadside-on to the rolling waves. The sea smacked into her side, battering and rolling her so hard Paul feared they would overturn. Only the cargo in her hold kept the boat buoyant.

  Even without the sail to power them, the boat had not slowed. A current had them in its grasp and was dragging them on. Paul scanned the looming shore for any opening – a beach or a cove where they might bring the boat in safely. The black cliffs made an impenetrable rampart.

  Now they were so close that he could see they were not sheer cliffs, but a series of rocky shelves rising out of the water. It made little difference. The boat would be smashed to pieces long before it reached dry land. Sana had grown up in a desert, and Paul in the middle of France. Neither of them had learned to swim.

  They clung to each other, and to the boat. Paul kept one hand on the tiller, but it made little difference. The rocks were black, the water was black, the sky was black: everything was darkness.

  The boat hit. Even though Paul knew it was coming, was braced for it, the impact was shocking. In the two years he had been sailing the African coast, he had run aground many times. Those had been gentle experiences – a jolt, and then the grate of mud or sand under the hull. This was nothing like that. The rock struck the boat with the force of a cannonball. The hull shattered; the mast toppled. Water gushed in. The battered timbers tore and twisted free from the cords that sewed them together. The planks floated off onto the sea, and were immediately hurled back with redoubled force by the waves. One hit Paul on the shoulder, so hard his arm went numb.

  The boat was dying. If Paul and Sana didn’t move, they would be pulverised with their ship. But the alternative was no better: to throw themselves into the foaming, chewing mouth of the waves around them. They were still too far from shore to touch bottom.

  A massive object swung towards Paul’s face. It was the broken mast, carried on the waves with the speed of a bolting horse. He threw himself back, just before it would have cracked his skull.

  Sana was not so lucky. The mast hit her square across the shoulders and knocked her into the water. She cried out, but only for an instant. The sea swallowed her. Paul saw her body, a black shape in the water, being carried towards the shore like a piece of flotsam.

  He opened his mouth to call for her, but the sound that came out was an indistinct, choking groan. He hurled himself off the shipwreck and into the water.

  The mast bobbed a few feet away. Paul lunged to grab on to it – anything to help him float – but the current carried it out of reach. He was alone in the water.

  He splashed and kicked and fought against the surging waves. It wasn’t a fair fight. He had no strength left, while the sea’s power rolled in from eternity. It toyed with him, tossing him up and throwing him down, like a kitten playing with a mouse. Even so, he lasted longer than he thought possible. He had to find Sana. Every time his head broke the surface, he shook the water from his stinging eyes and scanned the sea for her. In the dark chaos, surrounded by rocks and wave caps and broken pieces of the boat, it was impossible.