Crossed Bones (21 page)

‘What? What? I don’t understand.’

The bearded man muttered crossly; then he pulled himself upright, pushed past her and disappeared into the back of the cabin, stopping only when he reached the ornate cage in the shadows where the silent songbirds slept. He opened the cage door, reached in and took something out. ‘Fire,’ he said urgently. ‘Where is?’

Amazed to find another pirate on this godforsaken ship who spoke English, Cat blinked. ‘I’ll get it,’ she said, and did. She dragged the brazier out from the screened area and set it down in front of Abdal-haqq, and he blew upon it, making the coals glow cherry-red. Then he took up the tongs that lay across the brazier’s bars, transferred the contents of his hands to them and thrust the tongs into the coals.

Cat cried out in horror. What she had thought was a songbird was another type of beast entirely, a sort of bizarre reptile, for its skin had tiny scales like those of a lizard or a snake, though it was like no lizard or snake she had ever seen. The creature coiled and writhed as it hit the embers, and from its strange beak of a mouth there spiralled a long purple tongue. Its extraordinary armoured eyes whirled; its scaled skin fizzed and burned. A moment later there was what seemed a small explosion in the brazier.

Abdal-haqq nodded, satisfied. ‘
Mezian
,
mezian
.’ He picked up the beast by one tiny clawed foot, carried it to his captain’s bedside and passed it two or three times under Al-Andalusi’s nose. Cat understood this was some form of arcane magic. The smell of the burned creature – repulsively pungent – pervaded the cabin, making her eyes water. Quite what effect a burned lizard could have on the warring humours of a man, let alone a dead man, she could not imagine; but abruptly the raïs gave an almighty sneeze and sat bolt upright.

Cat felt her knees dissolve and abruptly found herself sitting on the floor. She had heard of corpses that made sudden involuntary movements, and even of some that spoke a last word – indeed, it was common knowledge that Mary of Scotland had moved her lips for a good quarter-hour following her beheading – but she had never heard of a corpse that sneezed.

‘
Labas aalik
?’

The raïs subsided on to his cushions. He grasped the old man’s hand with both his own. ‘
Labas
,
allhamdullah
.
Shokran
,
shokran
, Abdal.
Barrakallofik
.’

The two men conversed quietly. Then the old man turned to Cat. ‘English renegade put evil eye on our raïs. The
al-boua
, the chameleon, help for now. But for that the infidel must die.
Then
the raïs get better.’ He patted the curved dagger that hung from his silk bandolier. ‘It will give me great pleasure.’

Cat watched him go, feeling more than ever that she was trapped in another world, one in which death visited swift as a hawk, in which the dead sat up and spoke, and in which the normal rules were refracted like light through water; a world in which magic was both tangible and more powerful than logic, custom or sanity.

And now Ashab Ibrahim, who had in another life been an ordinary seaman from the West Country, was to be executed. He had thought himself safe in this outlandish place because he had clothed himself in its garb, adopted a foreign name and religion; but since this had all been mere disguise rather than any honest transformation, it had not saved him. She felt no fellow feeling for the man who had once been called Will Martin, no genuine regret that he should be killed at the whim of the raïs; what preyed upon her terribly was the sense that it had been the renegade’s threat to
her
that had earned the ire of the raïs. But, if that was the case, why had Al-Andalusi lied to the old man? To save her shame, out of some strange form of respect? But if Ibrahim
hadn’t
cursed the raïs, then how was it that the magic of the burned lizard had revived him? It was all too baffling. Tears began to pour down her face.

‘Why you weep?’

She turned, surprised to find the raïs watching her, and her thoughts felt naked to his gaze. She looked away, discomfited, wiping the tears away with the back of her hand.

‘Do you weep for the renegade?’

Shocked, she stared at him. ‘No, of course not.’

‘Then why you weep?’

She shook her head, furious now. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Because you thought me dead?’ There was a wicked glint in his eye.

‘No!’

‘Many women would weep if I die.’ He paused, watching her reaction. ‘I have large family.’

‘How many children do you have?’

His expression hardened and closed. ‘I have no wife, no children. I have aunts and cousins and their children to provide for, in Slâ and in mountain villages, very many who depend on me, and I work hard for them. Every spring I sail with Slâ fleet, I raid, I take Nazarenes as prisoners, and if they resist, I kill them. In summer or autumn I go home with captives, sell them in souks, divide money among crew, backers, the
marabout
, my family, my community. Everyone profit a little, spiritually and financially, from holy work of the
ghuza
–’ A violent bout of coughing silenced him.

Red-eyed, Cat regarded him. ‘You’re weak and should sleep.’

‘I sleep when I dead, and I not dead yet, despite efforts of bastard Spaniards.’ He spat copiously, then declared, ‘Bring chicha.’

Cat looked towards the ornamental pipe. ‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea.’

He snapped his fingers. ‘Bring!’

His peremptory tone galled her. She leaped to her feet, grabbed up the pipe and shoved it at him. ‘Oh, take the blasted thing and poison your wounds with its foul-smelling smoke! You are a monster and a zealot, and I would not care a damn if you were to die this very minute!’

The raïs’s fingers closed around the stem of the pipe, but there was no strength in them. With a crash, the pipe hit the floor and shattered in a shower of glass and water and pungent herbs.

Al-Andalusi swore in his horrible language, a guttural explosion of sound; then he fell back against the cushions, sweating profusely. ‘I think I keep you for my household; but I see now you are…
kambo
and stupid and would break everything I have of beauty and value.’

‘Good, for I have no intention of being a slave in some heathen pigsty!’

His eyes narrowed. ‘You insult me?’

Cat decided it might not be wise to explain the exact import of her words. Instead, she bent and began to clear up the broken glass, averting her eyes from his furious expression, but the raïs was not to be diverted.

‘What this word you said? What this “sty”?’

His gaze bored into the top of her head. ‘A pig-house,’ she said, very low, regretting her temper now.

‘So, you despise me, do you, little infidel? You think I am ignorant “heathen”, man who live like unclean pig, in filth and dirt? Perhaps you think we all like that in my country, that we no better than animals?’ He bit off each word so that it rang in her ears, sharp and cutting.

She swallowed. ‘No.’

From above there came an agonized scream, a scream that hung on the air and then was cut abruptly short. Cat closed her eyes. So ended the life of Will Martin of Plymouth; and, if she was not very careful, that of Catherine of Kenegie would soon follow.

She was saved by the pirate’s weakness, for soon after this he fell asleep, drowsing fitfully through the rest of the day and night. The next morning his fever had broken, and he came to without need of another burned chameleon, somewhat to Cat’s relief. She took him the food that one of the crewmen had brought to the door at first light and watched as he picked at it. She had after long thought come to a kind of decision.

‘Yesterday you asked me why I wept. I will tell you. I wept because I do not understand your ways. I do not understand why you had Ashab Ibrahim killed. I do not understand anything about this “evil eye” or how the burning of the lizard brought you back from the dead. I do not understand why you have stolen us away, and why you believe it is right to do so. I do not understand why you hate good Christian folk so. I understand none of it at all; and, most of all, I do not understand why you keep me here in your cabin. I wept because I am used to understanding the world I live in, and now I understand nothing at all.’ All this came out in a rush.

The raïs closed his eyes as if pained. ‘Women… Why they ask so much? We not here to understand world; we here to
be
in world and give thanks for it. And I have only just woken up.’ He gave a deep and heartfelt sigh. ‘I tell you why renegade dead: because he act as if my authority on this ship gone, as if I already dead. No one treats my captives ill without my order.’

Cat took this in silently. Then she said, ‘Abdal-haqq said he had put the evil eye on you, and that was why he had to die.’

The raïs made a non-committal gesture with his piece of bread. ‘Abdal-haqq very wise. When he tell the crew I say this why the renegade must die, they will not question my decision. They are… how you say? Afraid of curse and such like. They will put bag over his head and throw him in sea so he cannot turn evil eye on them too.’

‘But what is the evil eye? How can an eye hurt anyone?’

‘There is old Berber saying: “The evil eye can bring a man to his grave, and a camel to the cooking pot.”’

‘I don’t know what a camel is.’

Al-Andalusi laughed. ‘Are all your people so ignorant? I cannot explain camel to you: a camel is itself, and all men know its worth; but evil eye is like a light. You can see it, feel it or hurt others by using it. It can make harm or death, but you can never hold it in hands; all you can do is avert it, by luck and by will of Allah.’

‘So which was the lizard: luck or the will of Allah?’

Al-Andalusi rolled his eyes. ‘Disputing with women bad for health: already I feel my strength waning. Is clear to me now that stars in firmament must be female, and each month poor moon is worn down by their incessant tongues. The chameleon is strong magic, but if it works or not against evil eye is determined by Allah. More than that I cannot explain to infidel.’

‘Why do you hate us so, and call us “infidels” and “Nazarenes”?’

‘Do you know nothing of world? Christians have made war against my people for thousand years. They persecute us cruelly and use religion as excuse. My family is dead at hands of the Nazarenes, and I alone left to avenge them.’

‘Oh.’ In a small voice she asked, ‘What happened?’

He looked away. ‘Why you want to know?’

‘To help me understand’ – she made a helpless gesture with her hands – ‘why you do this, why I am here…’

The raïs regarded her steadily. ‘I do not have to justify my actions. Besides, is not story to tell a child, let alone Nazarene child.’

‘I am
not
a child. I don’t even know if I am what you call a “Nazarene”.’

‘You are Christian, no? Follower of prophet Jesus the Nazarene?’

Cat bit her lip. Nell and Mistress Harris were constantly chiding her for her lack of Christian values. She did not know what she believed, what she was any more. She had been baptized in Veryan’s font and had prayed silent prayers to the baby Jesus, to the Son and the Father and the Holy Ghost in times of stress. But that was before the raid. Now she could not understand how a god who cared for his people could allow an entire congregation to be taken by heathen raiders while at prayer, then let them waste and die in such foul conditions – men, women and innocent children. It tested the faith of the strongest believer, and she had never been that. But she was no Mahometan, so what could she say? Eventually, she shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’

‘Then you my enemy, and I tell you why. My mother’s grandfather’s father came from Rabat in Morocco, but he leave because no work, so he join colony of Moors in Estremadura, in mountains of Spain; my mother’s grandfather and father born there and then my mother too: four generations of her family – you understand? – they live there, they work, they make trade, make community prosperous. My father was trader, he travel all over Morocco, bring salt and gold and ivory from south-west, from Tafraout to north coast, and then to Spain; and take fine Spanish steel, swords and guns back. One visit, he stay my mother’s family and meet her, ask for her as bride. Next trip they marry; then he take her home to Morocco, to mountains of Atlas, where I born. But she very sick for home in Spain, miss family much, spoke no Berber, no Arabic, only Spanish; so when I five, we move to Estremadura to be with her family. Then Spanish king Philip decide all Moors must leave Spain, no matter how long they live there or how Spanish they become. Some our family, they see signs of persecution early, and they leave – my uncle, some cousins – they take everything they can carry and go back to Morocco; but my father angry. He already moved all he had to be in Spain, his business is good there: why he should leave, just for being Muslim? He refuse to leave; they make him Catholic by force. It great shame for him; but my mother beg him support it. They stay longer, but all time it get worse, he treated like dog, disrespected, cheated in business; then finally Inquisition come. They take my father away in night; next morning my mother put me on mule and send me down mountain trail to be with cousin who leave for Morocco. All sisters cry because I leave. They all babies. “We join you there,” my mother promise, but I knew I never see them again. I cry all the way down the mountain. It is last time I ever cry.’

Cat’s eyes were round. ‘And did you ever see them again?’

He swallowed. ‘I not know my family’s fate for a year. I went with cousin to Slâ and found two uncles and other cousins living there. I wait for my father and mother and sisters, but they not come. At last my uncle said one night, “Come with me. There is a man, Spanish prisoner.” I went to kasbah in New Slâ where ship had come in with captives. This man, he blacksmith in Hornachos, but when Moors left he no work, he became soldier. He told me Inquisition racked my father to death. They drew his arms from his sockets, left him rot in prison cell.’ He closed his eyes. A tiny muscle in his cheek twitched and jumped.