The Monsoon by Wilbur Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

not a hair on his cannonball head, not a single thread of grey to betray his true age, and though wrinkle and scar were so intertwined on his features as to be inextricable, his body was lean and muscular, his skin smooth and glossy as polished obsidian. Nobody, not even Aboli himself, knew how old he was. The stories he told were even more fascinating than Big Daniel’s best. He told of giants and pygmies, of forests filled with marvelous animals, great apes who could rip a man apart as though he were a grasshopper, of creatures with necks so long they could eat the leaves off the tops of the tallest trees, of deserts where diamonds the size of apples glittered in the sun like water, and mountains made of solid gold.
    “One day I’ll go the reV Tom told him fervently, at the end of one of these magical stories.
    “Will you come with me, Aboli?
    “Yes, Klebe.
    We will sail there together, one day,” Aboli promised.
    Now the carriage jolted and crashed over the uneven surface, and splashed through the mud holes, and Tom perched between the two men trying to contain his excitement and impatience. When they reached the crossroads before Plymouth, a skeletal figure was hanging in chains from the gibbet, still wearing waistcoat, breeches and boots.
    “He’s been hanging there a month, come next Sunday.” Big Daniel lifted his cocked hat to the grinning skull of the executed highwayman, from which the crows had picked most of the flesh.
    “God speed, John Working. Put in a good word for me with Old NickV Instead of continuing into Plymouth Aboli swung the horses onto the wide, well-travelled tracks that led eastward towards Southampton and London.
    London, the greatest city in the world. Five days later, when they were still twenty miles off they saw its smoke on the horizon. It hung in the air and mingled with the clouds, like the great dun pall of a battlefield. The road took them along the bank of the Thames, broad and busy, bustling with an endless procession of small craft, barges, lighters and bum-boats, loaded deeply with timber and building stone, with bags of wheat and lowing cattle, with boxes, bales and kegs, the commerce of a nation. The river traffic grew denser as they approached the Pool of London, where the tall ships were anchored, and they passed the first buildings, each surrounded by open fields and gardens.
    They could smell the city now, and the smoke closed over their heads, shading the sun. Each chimney stack was belching forth its dark fumes to deepen the gloom. The smell of the city grew stronger. The reek of green hides and new cloth in bales, of rotten meat and other strange, intriguing odours, of men and horses, of rats and chickens, the sulphurous stench of burning coal and raw sewage. The river waters turned dung brown, and the roadway became congested with cart and carriage, coach and dray. The open fields gave way to endless buildings of stone and brick, their roofs huddled together, and the side-streets became so narrow that two carriages could not pass each other. Now the river was almost obscured by the warehouses that stood foursquare along either bank.
    Aboli weaved their own carriage through the multitude, exchanging cheerful banter and insult with the other drivers. Beside him Tom could not drink it all in. His eyes darted back and around, his head twisted on his shoulders and he chattered like an excited squirrel.
    Hal Courtney had given in to Dorian’s pleading and allowed him to scramble onto the carriage roof where he sat behind Tom and added his shouts and laughter to those of his elder brother.
    At last they crossed the river on a mountainous stone bridge, so massive that the river tide built up around its piles and swirled like a brown maelstrom through the piers.
    There were stalls along its length where ragged hucksters shrieked their wares to the passers.
    “Fresh lobsters, me darlings. Live oysters and cockles.”
    “Ale!
    Sweet and strong. Drunk for a penny. Dead drunk