Corsair (6 page)

On the quayside, Martin found the Dey’s scribes already seated at the table where they would enter the new intake of captives in the city register. Martin knew the chief registrar slightly and bowed to him, a gesture of politeness which would do no harm as the Algerines, for all their villainy, valued good manners. The usual crowd of idlers had assembled to observe the landing of the prisoners and pass comments on their potential worth as slaves, while the first boatload of the captives had already been ferried ashore. Martin noted how bewildered and frightened the poor wretches looked as they gazed about them at the strange world into which they were being inducted. Glumly the consul concluded that the new arrivals were too fair-skinned to be Italians or Spanish, and he supposed they must be Dutch or English. The only prisoner taking an intelligent interest in his surroundings was a handsome, black-haired young man in his late teens. He was looking this way and that, apparently searching for someone. He seemed agitated. Beyond him was a short, pudgy man wearing a wig. He was standing slightly apart from his fellow captives and trying to look as though he was too superior to be in their company. Martin wondered if the man knew that his every action was telling his captors that he was worth a larger ransom.

The consul moved closer to the table. The registrar’s assistant – a Greek slave who, to Martin’s knowledge, spoke at least eight languages – was asking each prisoner the same questions: his name, age, place of origin, and profession. Martin found it difficult to hear their answers over the chatter of the onlookers until, all of a sudden, there was a respectful hush and they turned to look towards the harbour. The captain of the corsair ship was himself coming ashore. The consul was intrigued. To get such a close glimpse of Hakim Reis was unusual. Hakim operated from whichever base suited him so he might as easily have brought his captives to Tunis, Sallee or Tripoli to sell. He was welcome wherever he landed on the coast of Barbary for he was acknowledged to be the most successful corsair captain of them all.

Hakim Reis was dressed in an immaculate white gown edged with gold braid, and a scarlet turban decorated with a large ostrich feather. In his hand he held a light gold-headed ceremonial cane. He came up the landing steps with the brisk tread of a man half his age, though Martin knew the corsair must be at least in his late fifties. The consul watched as the corsair captain approached the registrar and stood beside the desk for a few moments. Martin guessed that he wanted to make his presence felt, so there was no false accounting. At that moment Martin heard someone calling out to him.

‘You, sir, you there!’ It was the portly man in the wig. He must have recognised the consul by his foreign dress. ‘If you please. My name is Josiah Newland. I am a mercer, from London. I need to speak with the King of England’s representative at once.’

‘I am the English consul.’

‘A fortunate encounter, then,’ said Newland, puffing slightly in the heat and instantly adopting a self-important tone. ‘Would you be so good as to send word by your most competent commission agent that Josiah Newland is taken and wishes to contact Mr Sewell of Change Alley in London, so that matters can be speedily resolved.’

‘There is nothing I can do at this time, Mr Newland,’ the consul replied calmly. ‘I am here merely as an observer. The Turks have a well-established routine which must be followed. Perhaps later, when the Dey has made his choice, I may be of assistance.’

‘The Dey? What has he got to do with it?’

‘The Dey, Mr Newland, is the ruler of Algiers and has the right to his penjic or portion. He takes every eighth slave, plus other benefits such as the bare hulls of all captured vessels. Tomorrow or perhaps the day afterwards when he has made his selection, I will see you again.’

‘One moment . . .’ the mercer was about to continue, but Martin’s attention had again been distracted. The registrar’s Greek slave wanted a word with him. ‘Your honour,’ began the slave, ‘my master asks me to inform you that most of the captives are from Ireland, one or two are English. He wishes to know whether you will accept their charge.’

‘Please tell your master that I will consider the matter, if he would be so good as to provide me with a list of names and other relevant details. I look forward to giving him my reply tomorrow.’

A burst of angry shouts and the sound of blows interrupted him. Farther along the quay, a gang of slaves had been manoeuvring a great block of quarry stone preparatory to fitting it into a gap in the causeway which led to the island fortress. The massive stone had been balanced on a crude sledge with the men harnessed to it like draught horses. The stone had slipped and toppled sideways, and the overseer had lost his temper. Now he was cursing and laying about him with a whip. As the slaves were still fastened to the sledge, they were unable to avoid the lash. They scrabbled and ducked, trying to avoid the blows. It was some minutes before the overseer had vented his anger, and in that time the majority of the men received a thorough thrashing. Martin had witnessed many scenes like it. The great mole at Algiers constantly needed repairs, and its maintenance was the responsibility of the Dey. There was a very good chance that those slaves who were unlucky enough to be taken in his penjic would be assigned to this dangerous and backbreaking chore.

Civilly Martin bowed again to the registrar and started walking back up the hill towards the consulate. He was already considering how best to arrange the fat mercer’s ransom. That transaction should not be difficult. The man exuded the selfconfidence of someone with access to ready funds, so a well-placed bribe would ensure that Newland was not sent to the bagnios. Instead he would be released into the consul’s care for the three or four months that the ransom negotiations would take. The Irish captives were a different matter. If they were Protestants, he could assist them in some small way as he did with their fellow unfortunates who were English or Scots. He could provide them with pocket money which, spread in judicious bribes to their goalers, might ease their life in the bagnio. Later he would reclaim the sum from London.

But if the Irish were Papists, he would be throwing away his own cash. The tight-fisted bureaucrats in London would be sure to query his accounts, and he would never be reimbursed. Sourly he reflected that his own consular salary was three years in arrears. Still, he was in a better position than his colleague and sometime rival, the unfortunate consul for Spain. After four years he was still trying to negotiate the ransom of a Spanish nobleman being held prisoner in the most vile conditions. The captive was a Chevalier of the noble Order of the Knights of St John in Malta, whose ships were fighting an implacable holy war against the Muslims. The Barbary corsairs loathed the Knights, and the feeling was mutual. The Algerines wanted such a huge sum for the Chevalier that there was little prospect of him being released for several more years, if ever. In the meantime the Dey and his divan were stepping up the pressure on the Spanish consul. Recently the Spaniard and his local interpreter had been set upon in the street and beaten up. Now, for fear of their lives, they hardly dared leave their consulate.

Martin tripped on a loose paving stone. The mishap made him uncomfortably aware that his feet, in his fashionable high-heeled shoes, were beginning to swell in the heat. He found himself looking forward to the moment when he could change back into his kaftan and slippers. Setting aside any further thoughts about the corsair’s captives, the consul concentrated on the steep climb back up the hill of Algiers.

H
ECTOR STUMBLED THROUGH
the next few hours. Numbed by his sister’s disappearance, he barely noticed what was happening as he was inscribed in the register, and he slept badly in the bleak holding cell where the captives were kept overnight. Again and again he wondered what might have happened to Elizabeth and how he might find out. But there was no opportunity to enquire. At first light he and the other prisoners were woken and, barefoot and still wearing the soiled clothes in which they had been captured, they were marched up the hill to the great building Hector had mistaken for the citadel. In fact it was the Kasbah, part fort, part palace. In a courtyard the men were mustered in three lines, and after a short wait the Dey’s head steward appeared. He was accompanied by three men whom Hector later knew to be two overseers from the public slave barracks and a Jew who was an experienced slave broker. The trio walked up and down between the lines, occasionally stopping to consult with one another or examine a prisoner’s physique. Hector felt like a beast in a cattle market when one of the overseers reached out to pinch his arm muscles, then prodded him in the ribs with the butt of a wooden baton. Finally, when the inspection was complete, the Jew in his black cap and black gown walked between the lines and tapped four men on the shoulder. Among them was the strapping young villager whom Hector had formerly seen going out to cut turf. As the four were led away by the guards, Hector heard the crazed grey beard standing beside him mutter under his breath, ‘Beylik, poor bastards.’

The old man appeared to be in one of his more lucid moods, for he seemed to remember who Hector was, and announced his own name as Simeon. ‘You noticed, didn’t you?’ he asked the young man. ‘They took the strong ones. You were lucky not to be picked. Probably too skinny . . . or too beautiful,’ and he laughed coarsely to himself. ‘This is Algiers, you know. They keep their pretty boys close to home, not sent off to work as public slaves.’

Hector was feeling light-headed in the heat. ‘What’s going to happen to us now?’ he enquired.

‘Off to the badestan, I expect,’ explained Simeon.

The badestan proved to be an open square close to the Kasbah’s main entrance. Here a large crowd of Algerines had already assembled, and before Hector could understand what was happening, an old man had taken him by his arm in a friendly way, and begun to lead him around the square. It was several steps before Hector realised that he was in the hands of an auctioneer. There was a shouted demand from an onlooker. The old man stopped, then pulled the shirt off Hector’s shoulders so that the young man’s naked torso was exposed. A few paces further and at another request called from the crowd, the old man produced a thin, whippy cane and, to Hector’s shock, slashed it violently across his ankles. Hector leapt in pain. Even before he had landed, the auctioneer had repeated the blow from the other direction, so that Hector was forced to skip and turn in the air. Twice more during the circuit of the square, the cane was used and he was made to jump and spin. Then the auctioneer began to sing out what must have been his salesman’s patter, for there were answering calls from the crowd, and Hector guessed that they were making their bids. The bidding reached its climax and the auctioneer was making what seemed to be his last appeal, when a dignified-looking Turk stepped out of the crowd and came across to where Hector was standing. The newcomer was clearly a man of substance. His purple velvet jacket was richly embroidered, and the silver handle of a fine dagger showed above the brocade sash around his waist. On his head was a tall felt hat with jewelled brooch pinned to it. The man said something quietly to the auctioneer who reached up and placed his wiry hand on Hector’s jaw. Then he squeezed with a firm downward pull, and Hector involuntarily opened his mouth. The Turk peered into his mouth, seemed satisfied, and murmured something to the auctioneer who immediately led Hector back to his waiting companions.

‘I told them my age already,’ grumbled Hector to Simeon.

His complaint was met with a gleeful chuckle. ‘It was not your age he wanted to know. But the state of your teeth.’ The smirking grey beard opened his own mouth and pointed triumphantly at his own teeth. The few of them that remained were brown and rotten. ‘Can’t chew with them,’ he crowed. ‘I’d be no good at all. Even though I’ve done my time.’

‘Where, old man?’ asked Hector, growing tired of Simeon’s vagueness.

The dotard snickered, ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ and would say no more.

Hector looked back at the well-dressed man who had bought him. The same purchaser was now interested in the sailor Dunton, and was again talking with the auctioneer even as the guards began shoving all the captives back into line. Those who had not been stripped to the waist now had their shirts or smocks removed. Then the auctioneer walked down the line, followed by an attendant holding a clay pot and a small brush. In front of each man the auctioneer stopped, checked a document he was holding, and then said something to the attendant who stepped forward. He dipped his brush into the pot and made marks on the man’s chest in ochre paint. Looking down at the marks as they dried on his skin, Hector supposed they were numbers or letters, but whether they were the bid price or an identity number he did not know.