The Princess and the Pirate

By Sally Gaunt

In the 16th century, the Portuguese were the dominant power in the triangle of India, Madagascar and East Africa. It was the ‘Age of the Pirate’: forays into India to impress men into service on pirate ships, raids on shipping in the Arabian Sea for booty...
A romantic story of adventure, The Princess and the Pirate centres on Zahira, a young Indian girl taken hostage and ransomed by the handsome, brave pirate chief, Pedro Alvarari. Can she forget home and family to contemplate a future with the pirates? Will Pedro’s lust for gold and drunken, violent life allow him to fall in love?
Is the pirate life itself under threat by a desire for more order and stability?
Written for young readers aged 15 and above or for the romance connoisseur, The Princess and the Pirate is beautifully illustrated with twelve plates.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Sep 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398414631

Sally Gaunt

As an Australian university student, Sally Gaunt toured extensively in Pacific Oceania, Indonesia, and India. She studied the Ramayana and Mahabarata and developed a genuine interest in the culture and people of South East Asia. She lives in Perth Western Australia with her husband and has published two books of poetry – Poems of Passion and Praise, and Blue Moon over Moorea. (The latter was published by Austin Macauley in May 2022.) This is her first novel.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

As an Australian university student, Sally Gaunt toured extensively in Pacific Oceania, Indonesia, and India.

She studied the Ramayana and Mahabarata and developed a genuine interest in the culture and people of South East Asia.

She lives in Perth Western Australia with her husband and has published two books of poetry – Poems of Passion and Praise, and Blue Moon over Moorea. (The latter was published by Austin Macauley in May 2022.)

This is her first novel.

SALLY GAUNT

The Princess and the Pirate

Copyright © Sally Gaunt 2023

The right of Sally Gaunt to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398408210 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398414631 (ePub e-book) www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

DEDICATION

To my aunt Rev. Rosemary Perrott-Russell and Charles Russell, who encouraged me.

PART I

An Old Malagasy Tale

Zahira opened her eyes. Above the mossy resting bank, she saw towered layers of tropical rainforest. Thick, ropy lianas clung to enormous trees, slender palms thrust upwards to a glimpse of milky blue sky.

Sunlight filtered sulkily down through the trees on which grew orange fungi, the size of platters. A kaleidoscope of turquoise butterflies flew above her head. She could hear the chatter of monkeys and see the bright green, red flash of parrots’ wings.

She could not fathom how she had got there.

She remembered being in her father’s compound, a palisaded square with wet mud buildings on each side, when the soldiers had come. She remembered all the chests being carried into the courtyard; the pirates searching each one. They removed bolts of silks, brass tea and coffee pots, chests of tea, star anise and cinnamon, muttering under their breaths, There should be more, much more.

Her father wrung his hands, sank to his knees in the middle of the compound. He was still a fit, active man, but many years of raids on the West Coast Indian villages of Mahapradesh had affected his spirit, his resilience.

There is no gold, Rama Van Riebeek said in a wavering voice, over and over again.

A heavily built, scowling man stepped forward. He wore a scarlet waistband with a long sash, a cutlass at his hips and tall leather boots. He was the pirate chief.

The entire household – family and servants, some eighty souls – watched, horrified as he punched and kicked Rama into the dust. Then, he and the other men departed with the chests in a small cart or slung over their powerful shoulders.

Zahira was standing outside her mother’s hut, her Ayah’s hand on her shoulder. Her mother, a grand old lady whose hair had long gone from jet black to white, clad in a silken green sari, appeared from behind the bathhouse.

Zahira was her seventh child, the only girl, and had been raised by servants and siblings. She loved her mother, thought that she was beautiful, but did not see much of her. At the age of ten, she was rather in awe of her.

Zahira’s mother grasped her husband by the arm and helped him clamber to his feet. By now, the soldiers who had raided and looted them had gone.

They have taken our sons! she cried.

It was true – Zahira could not see her three older brothers: Aadesh, who had just returned from a canter with his pony, and Avyan and Rajesh, who had been, some moments ago, sitting with their guru, under the banyan tree.

Two of the servants’ sons could not be located either: the cook’s son, Dev, and the floor sweeper’s son, Mehul. Upon this discovery, everyone in the compound broke into a wailing and a weeping, their grief rising and falling in waves of sound.

Press-ganged, moaned Rama. "Press-ganged to sail the pirate ship!’

Find Lakhbir, Mother said and a servant scuttled behind the compound to the trout pond where Lakhbir had been mending nets and fishing.

Lakhbir, the oldest son, had thrown aside his fishing gear. He had strapped his cutlass to his waist by the time he entered the compound. He threw himself on the ground, kneeling before his father:

Give me two men, Father, I shall follow the soldiers, he exclaimed. The raiders are heavily laden and can’t have made much distance.

I cannot lose all my sons, the old man groaned. When you go, stop in the bigha. Ask your brothers, Padaesh and Sahas, to go with you.

Speedily, Lakhbir prepared himself, embracing his mother briefly. She managed a wan smile.

Lakhbir mounted the dog cart, which had been filled with weapons then covered with a canopy. He flicked a whip across the donkey’s rear. He drove through the gates of the compound, down the rutted road to the bigha. Little did anyone guess that hidden in the darkness under the cowhide canopy crouched Zahira, who had slipped her Ayah’s hand to join the pursuit to save her brothers.

The dog cart trundled along behind the donkey, at what seemed to Zahira a snail’s pace. At last, it came to a halt. Zahira heard men’s voices, agitated, shouting, with heavy footfalls, the trumpeting of an elephant.

It was Tibu, her brother Padaesh’s elephant, with his large ears, tusks, stout, short legs. Tibu spent his days in the forest rolling logs with his strong, grey trunk, lifting, stacking and taking them to the fast-flowing stream.

Our three brothers, she heard a voice she knew to be that of her brother Sahas, and two other boys taken by the pirates! We must follow them. Which way have they gone? Where is their ship?

Padaesh replied.

The coast is two days’ march from here. The pirate ship is probably anchored in one of the bays at the coast. Only one or two have deep water anchorage sufficient for the draft of a large ship.

Let’s follow by foot through the rainforest past the ruined temple.

Try to stop them before they reach the swing bridge, cut them off before they reach the coast.

The young men nodded.

To travel fast is to travel light, muttered Padaesh, dropping his shield and spear, but checking that his dagger was at his waistband.

The dog cart was unhitched and pushed to one side. The donkey was left to graze. Zahira’s brothers bound their boots with banana leaves, tied with twine to silence their footfall through the rainforest. Then they departed, running swiftly down the track.

Some moments elapsed, during which Zahira heard only the sound of her own breathing. She uncurled herself from her cramped position, lowered herself to the ground. It was wonderful to stretch.

The rescue party had gone. Zahira followed at a discreet distance.

Further down the mountain, she saw a flash of their coloured jerkins, blue turbans as they were briefly exposed to view on a section of the path where the jungle momentarily gave way to rocks and boulders… Lakhbir led, followed by Padaesh and finally Sahas. They raced on as winged arrows.

Then she lost sight of them, engulfed by the forest once more.

At this time, the later part of the sixteenth century, most of the Southwest coast of India from Goa to Pondicherry was under the control of the Portuguese. Diaz was the first European to sail around the Cape of Good Hope; he reached a point halfway up the Southeast coast of Africa before his crew threatened to mutiny. Vasco da Gama boldly sailed further than Diaz, crossing the Arabian Sea. In 1497, he arrived in Goa, presented the maharajah with trinkets, noting the wealth of his kingdom.

Vasco established a trading post in Goa before returning to Portugal with news of his discoveries.

Portugal gradually established a trading protectorate over India and Ceylon which was to last four hundred years. There was tacit agreement, without firm dividing lines between the European powers – Portugal, France and Spain – as to their areas of influence.

They established trading posts or factories for the collection of spices, timber, gold, silver and gemstones. To protect these factories, they built fortresses up and down the West coast of India; to get them back to Europe, along the East coast of Africa.

The Dutch and the British came later, but for four hundred years the Portuguese were the predominant European power.

It was in the waters between Southwest India and the East coast of Africa that piracy flourished.

Rain forest filled with valued teak and other hardwoods clad a mountain range that stretched north-south from Goa to Pondicherry at the tip of the peninsula. Zahira’s family lived in a compound: four rooms on each side of a central open space with large teak doors on one side, at the top of this mountain range.

They lived five kilometres