The Mer- Lion (44 page)

De Wynter was embarrassed, especially when John the Rob continued. "And if ever we beggars may be of help to you, make this sign, holding the little finger so, the pointer crooked like this."

Although de Wynter brushed the idea off lightly, the little man refused to scurry back to shelter until de Wynter had proven he could duplicate the gesture. Then, the beggar-chief was gone Without another word, flirting from shelter of bale to protection of barrel. With a final wave, he was gone from sight.

De Wynter turned his survey to the galley and its slave-rowers. Chained six to a twenty-foot oar, they rowed, ate, slept, and

defecated where they sat in irons. These are the fortunes of war, de Wynter reminded himself. He was glad John the Rob had not been discovered above deck. He did not think the beggar would last long if forced to strain muscles for hours at a time, with whips cracking about arms and backs that faltered. Especially favored for flogging, de Wynte observed, was a slim redhead who felt the whip over and over again yet was not cowed.

The slaves worked well in unison, muscles bulging and breaths gasping as each stroke fairly shot the ship ahead toward the straits. Sometimes the oars flashed even though the sails were full of wind. Don Federico was running against the calendar, as Carlby had explained.

Finally, the whipmaster sounded the drum, signaling an all-too-brief rest period. But many of the men exchanged one kind of work for another, carving bones or pieces of wood scavenged from heaven knew where.

"They're making scrimshaw," Carlby said, joining him. "They hope to sell it to a mujmil at the next port for food or clothes or even freedom. Faint chance of that last. But hope dies hard, and they all carve in the belief it might someday buy them their freedom.''

"Are they any good?"

"Oh, yes. Come see for yourself."

The best of the carvers, de Wynter soon discovered, was the redhead, not much older than himself. With a piece of broken chain-link and a bent carpenter's nail, he had transformed pieces of bone into wondrous animals, the likes of which de,Wynter had never seen.

After watching him perform during several rest periods, de Wynter struck up a conversation with him, though the oarmaster stayed nearby and kept a greedy ear open to the entire conversation.

"Where did you learn to carve such animals?" de Wynter asked in his halting and limited Arabic.

"The carving I have done since I was a little boy,
al rabb;
the animals are common to my native Ifriqiya. Like this one I work on now."

"May I see it?"

The redhead handed up the carving—less than the length of a
man's finger, half lion and half fish—and waited expectantly for the reaction.

"You have actually seen one of these?" de Wynter asked incredulously.

"Other than on the chests of your companions?" The redhead grinned, his white teeth sinning against his sun-blackened skin. He gestured broadly. "Out there are many wonders. Keep the toy, as
radika
from me to you, you of the
Jamid Ja'da."

At that the oarmaster shouldered his way past Carlby and held out his hand, demanding the carving. "That is not his to give. What the slaves carve is rightly mine to keep or sell as I see fit."

"Ju'al,"
spat the redhead, standing up in his chains and threatening the oarmaster with his fist. His fellow oarsmen joined him.

"Now you've done it," Carlby said to de Wynter, interposing his body between oarsmen and oarmaster. "Promise them
tajziya,
or
we'll have a riot on our hands."             

At the sound of the Arabic word for reward, the oarmaster stopped struggling within Carlby's grip.

"Tajziya?"
he asked, all smiles and proper respect.

De Wynter dipped desperately into his purse, forgetting that it had been emptied back at the Tower. He drew out the single object inside, his mother's pearl. However, to save lives, it was a cheap price to pay. He handed it over to Carlby. One look at its lustrous perfection and the oarmaster licked his thick, negroid lips with anticipation.

But Carlby shook his head. "Put it back, man, that's too much. Way too much for one single carving."

The oarmaster, seeing his pearl escape him, offered the other carvings as well. When Carlby refused them, too, as not enough, the oarmaster in desperation said, "Him, too," pointing at the redhead. "He can carve you many more wonders. Carvings and carver, for one small pearl. That is a good bargain,
al rabb."

Carlby hesitated, assessing the situation. It was the best bargain possible under the circumstances. It got them out of a dangerous situation at the lowest possible cost. "Agreed, but let it be
ruqba"
he said, taking the pearl from de Wynter.

The oarmaster demurred, but avarice must have its way.

"Ruqba,
it shall be, but the slave cannot be released until Malta. I must have him at the oars to meet our schedule."

The bargain was struck, de Wynter surrendering his pearl for four carvings—that of his Mer-Lion crest, a giraffe, an elephant, and a crocodile—and one redheaded carver.

The Scots earl, as he followed Carlby up out of the galley-way, was more interested in discovering the meaning of
ruqba
than the identity of his new slave.

"Ruqba
is a gift with a proviso attached. Under Islamic law, your gift of the pearl returns to you if anything happens to your slave—or to the oarmaster himself. Contrariwise, if you should die, the slave reverts to him. So guard yourself well."

Little did Carlby know it, but the slave de Wynter had just purchased was worth his weight in pearls to one inhabitant of the Begler-bey's seraglio in Algiers. Marimah, the most favored of Barbarossa's four wives, would pay any price for her only son, Eulj Ali.

Luckily for the oarmaster and the captain, they, too, did not know the true worth of the slave just sold to the Scot. It would have struck terror in their hearts and Don Federico might well have reversed his course out of fear of the redhead's father.

Eulj Ali, however, had been too shamed by his capture to inform anyone of his identity. In what had been his first captaincy, he had ventured too close to the coast of Caramania. Rounding a heavily wooded promontory, his little ship came in full sight of the
Mystical Rose.
Eulj Ali had no choice but flight. Putting up his helm, he scudded before the breeze, but the
Mystical Rose
goose-winged her two great lateen sails and turned in pursuit.

Even as free men rowing, Eulj Ali and his companions could hold their own for only so long before the galley's twenty-seven oars to a side, nine slaves to an oar, and the lash of the whipmaster would make a difference. Soon, the prow of the galley overhung the stern of the little ship. Escape was impossible, to fight was suicide. Eulj Ali ordered the lowering of his sail, the dipping of his banner. He and his companions were immediately cast in irons and within the month sold at the world's largest slavemarket in Venice.

Eulj Ali was neither frightened nor awed by his new master, de Wynter. However, as the whip struck his fellows and bypassed him, he realized he was indeed within the debt of the
al rabb.
A debt he
resented and vowed to discharge at some future date if Allah allowed.

De Wynter, upon returning to the deck, instructed John Drummond to keep an eye on the boyish red-haired slave in the galley, explaining that he had just bought his service but could not claim his prize until they reached Malta. They were to report to him if the oarmaster applied the whip too generously or otherwise punished his man.

The Seaforth servants and especially Fionn, born into Seaforth service, wondered why their master had bought a slave when he had four servants at hand. They themselves, though they would die for him, were men who had chosen to serve him, and were fed and domed by him in addition to receiving a small stipend at the end of each year of their service.

Steering eastward, the
Annunciata
hugged the coastline to the north, Don Federico fearing that some of Barbarossa's ships might be lurking within the Straits of Gibraltar. With sails and oars, she could outrun a pirate vessel if close to a safe port.

Once clear of the Straits, next stop would be Gibraltar. Here Don Federico hoped to unload the beggars and get word of the pirate fleet's last sighting. Out of Gibraltar, he must make the decision: to go by the long but safe north route, or due east past the pirate stronghold at Algiers.

Gibraltar, one half of the Pillars of Hercules* and the key to the Mediterranean, crouched like a wary lion upon a huge rock. Connected to Europe only by a sandy isthmus, it was nominally Spanish, but very cosmopolitan and heavily Moresco because of its strategic location as a crossroad of shipping among three continents. Jebel Tarik, as the Moors called it (rock of Tarik, the Berber) was a welcome sight as first its towering cliff and then its city hove into view.

Don Federico wasted no time in trying to rid himself of the beggars. The Spanish commandant had other ideas, and men at arms turned the beggars back at the end of the gangplank. A few brave ones who jumped overboard that night and made for shore were hauled from the water and put to death. The rest resigned themselves to staying aboard until the next port was reached, John the Rob among them. He was too clever to risk his life on an uncertainty.

As fresh water and food were taken aboard, traders came to make
offers on the cargo, to sell information and slaves, to
peddle
goods to the passengers or buy scrimshaw at bargain prices from the rowers or the oarmaster.

One of those who boarded, posing as a
mujmil,
was a spy for Barbarossa. Normally his job was to identify the cargo and its worth and pass this information along to pirate ships waiting in the Mediterranean. But today such thoughts were driven out of his head by the sight of a slave—a red-haired one sitting quietly on his oar bench. A knowing glance passed between the two.

Within minutes, the spy was back on shore arranging for the departure of three speedy
firkatas,
rowed by freemen avaricious for his promised reward. One was bound for Algiers, another for Venice, the third to straddle the shipping lanes outside Tunis. Their instructions were simple: "Intercept any and all pirate vessels you come upon. Pass the word that Barbarossa's son, Eulj Ali, is aboard the
Annunciate,
heading toward Cyprus from Gibraltar, route unknown."

The first day out of Gibraltar, the wind being favorable and the ship's motion giving him a false sense of security, Don Federico made his decision. He continued east straight across the Mediterranean, straight into the waters most thickly infested with pirate ships.

Partly, it was Carlby's fault. Don Federico had consulted the Knight Hospitaler who had sailed the Mediterranean most recently. Carlby, knowing the pirates should be wintering, chose to get to Malta at least two weeks sooner by going the shortest, potentially riskiest route.

The second day, a halloo rang out from the lookout on top of the mast. A corsair galleo of sixteen oar banks coursed dead ahead. Don Federico, his heart sinking, barked his orders, "Helmsman, hard aport! Boatswain, unfurl all canvas. Oarmaster, double the stroke."

The wily captain hoped that with his greater number of oars he could slide past the pirate ship without taking more than one broadside, and once past the enemy ship, could pick up a large lead while it tacked and came about.

The strategy might have worked had not Eulj Ali and other Moslems been among the oarsmen. Suddenly, they lost their rhythm,
fouling their oars, disrupting the beat—effectively preventing the ship from moving out smartly.

The slight delay enabled the corsair galleon to veer to starboard and pass close by the virtually unarmed merchant vessel. The first volley of cannon fire shredded the main mast, tumbling canvas and splintered wood and lookouts to the deck. Don Federico knew the day was lost. He could no longer outrun the pirates, and there was not a friendly port anywhere near.

Carlby, de Wynter, and the ship's captain tried, valiantly to organize the resistance to the boarding. When it came, though many fought gamely, there was little chance of repelling the attack. One by one the Christians surrendered or were cut down. Only one pocket of resistance remained. The Knights, the serving brothers of St. John of Jerusalem, and a swarthy, funny-faced, elfin man fought tenaciously.
Even so, they were slowly backed against the rail and would have been chopped down if not for a command from Eulj Ali. "Hold, there. Let them live! Those thirteen brawny backs will put gold in your pockets at the slave market in Tunis. And the nobles can be ransomed!"                     

The pirates disengaged. Their scimitars properly bloodied, their bloodthirsty lust vented on beggars, servants, and sailors, they were willing to listen to greed, an able persuader. Now it was the Christians' turn.

Recognizing defeat, they obeyed Eulj Ali's order to "throw down your weapons and live to be ransomed." Bound together hand to hand, they sat forlornly on the deck while the corsairs directed the cleaning up of their prize. Canvas was folded and stowed away, great chunks of the broken mast thrown overboard. Blood sloshed from the deck, and bodies of the dead and seriously wounded were unceremoniously heaved over the rail to feed the carrion-eaters who constantly trail ships.