Koi (5)

Captain Viggo was the first to approach the king to obtain his sovereign authority in order to send a fleet to regain Maldivas under his name. With his permission, the Portuguese territorial command in Goa would make him a viceroy and spare an armada. There was no king to rule Maldivas and the archical dynasties wrestled for the throne.

Adrianus and Vincent advised King Dom Manoel that Viggo’s motive of creating a Lusitanic Maldivas was not realisable or decisive. Several others disagreed. By the mid half of the 16^th century, Portuguese were too worried for losing mutual trade relations and territories with the eastern world taken over by an invasion of Islam. Sending missionaries to these parts became a new venture rather more successful.

Finally, Don Manoel furnished him with a letter to be delivered to his aunt, Princess Ayesha Rani Kilégé, the most dominant councillor in the archipelago. Captain Viggo failed to win an armada to support his mission. He asked the king to send Koì with him. Dom Manoel agreed. Koì was very disappointed to return to Maldivas.

Captain Viggo met with Princess Ayesha Rani in presence of her husband, Ali, who was proclaimed king five years later. Sultan Ali was killed by a Portuguese mob sent by King Don Manoel and led by a Divas Catholic by the name of Captain Andreas Andre; better known to the natives as ‘Andiri Andirin’ – the Dark Knight. In 1558, he established a garrison and ruled a wide range of Maldivas for fifteen years under King Dom Manoel.

Princess Ayesha Rani rejected to recognise King Dom Manoel. She spoke, “You have blood in your hands. You killed a Divas. If any other envoy reached me, I will be more than willing to allow a trade base in the islands. Nuvan…never Captain Viggo.”

Viggo left disgraced. He ordered his crew to set sail to Bodu Thiladummathi. In three rainy days, Vela de Deus reached Borah with or without permission to anchor in the lagoon. Once again, Viggo pushed the ship into the inlet lagoon through a passage of 480 yards and rocks in the bottom.

He told the island chiefs that King Dom Manoel sent him as a vice-rei – natives pronounced viozor – from his rule in Goa. He decreed that all Divas islanders should convert to Christianity or be killed.

In the following days, 350 marinheiros invaded the islands of Borah, Madeu, Muraì and Fillad compelling the Divas to drink beverage. Some forced on their knees and wine downed into the gullets. Some drank to quench the thirst. Others were brutally treated. Drunken sailors raped the half-naked women like wild cats in the rain and the sun – Bacanália. Islanders were helpless as the sailors carried guns.

On 4^th August, Mala gave birth to a baby boy in a Full Moon. Two weeks later, Kamblo gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, with fair skin. Karanfu was elated. There could be no other explanation though.

These ships called nau carried food that last for several months. However, water run out more often.

Murdur arrived in Borah with Koì to assist Katib Haron out of the dreadful situation. He planned to curse the crusaders with black magic. Katib Haron marched a procession calling on islanders not to use water from the mosque. After observing recitals and casting sihr on the shores, what they did was contaminating the water in the wells by human faeces.

When the sailors arrived to fetch water, it smelt rotten, caught in the island air.

Captain Viggo realised that the island folks were on strike. It was Saturday. Sailors would climb ashore for the night, make love with the women and dine with wine. He called all hands onboard and to set sail immediately. However, it was Full Moon and the lagoon drained out its water. Viggo cried, “Puta merda!”

The moon would rise at sunset. The tide would rise at midnight. Viggo opened a cabinet and grabbed a bottle of rum – a spoiler from Brazil.

An hour after sunset, boats from islands around began to reach Borah. Those boats rigged with black sails. Captain Viggo saw a movement on the shore. Borah folks getting ready in their rowing boats and doni. They carried torches. Viggo ordered to pull the anchor and rig the sails on three masts.

The boats reached the nau and sailors waited for them to get close. And then they fired the muskets. Some caught in the bullets. However, Murdur’s plan worked as the boats behind emptied barrels of coconut oil stored in the warehouses into the lagoon. They lit fires strewn in a vast lagoon.

Vela de Deus fired its demi-cannons. The lagoon turned red with blood. Waters lit and the sky burned red. Black smoke screened the estuary. In trouble, the big ship pulled its anchor and rigged the sails to the masts as she moved very slowly towards the passage.

As the carrack reached the mouth of the estuary, islanders torched the 480-yard canal with coconut oil fuel dumped. By then the winds caught the sails and the ship picked momentum. She dragged her keel in the sand bed. She sailed out through the canal engulfed in fire. At this point there was no cannon fire but sailors continued to fire muskets from both sides of the ship at the island folk labouring from both ends of the isle.

Right outside the canal she hit the bottom on the rocks several times. And every time, Captain Viggo swore in mother tongue. Miraculously, Vela de Deus trundled out of the black smoke without a scratch on a night that became known as ‘Raì Vila’ – Red Cloud.

Sixteen Divas lost their lives.

Afterwards, while involved in cleaning the water wells in Borah, Koì caught an infection from a waterborne disease. Unfortunately, he died before reaching home in Lisbon. His body was buried in a single grave in Madeu in the northern tip – a haunted place folks believe not to be disturbed. There stood a six-foot tall stone carved with a symbol of a cross and a three-foot fence erected. Perhaps, the only gravestone marked with a cross in the islands of the Divas and King Hassan IX would say he’d not have it any other way.

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