Crossed Bones (16 page)

She shook her head, though she already suspected the answer.

He leaned in closer, conspiratorial. ‘For each slave we take and sell, I shall have a hundredth share for my part in the capture. If we get all of ’ee to Sallee alive and kickin’ and in good enough fettle for the market, I’ll make a proper packet, and that’s for sure!’ He winked again, lewdly. ‘Mebbe I’ll buy ’ee myself, me ’andsome: I bet that priddy hair could keep a man warm a’nights!’

Cat stared at him, aghast. If even Christian men had turned against their fellows in such a cruel fashion, there was surely no justice in the world.

‘Ibrahim?’ It was the seated man who had spoken.

Will of Plymouth, now known as Ashab Ibrahim, snapped to attention. ‘Yes, Al-Andalusi?’

‘Silence! Only I speak now.’

The renegade hung his head.

‘You there, man in black robe.’ Al-Andalusi indicated the preacher with the beak of the strange device from which he had been smoking. ‘What your name?’

Walter Truran threw back his shoulders and looked the pirate chief in the eye. ‘My name I shall keep between me and my God.’

The raïs sighed. ‘How we ask family for ransom if you not give me your name?’

The preacher looked even more outraged. ‘Ransom? Sir, my soul is my own; I shall not have my family blackmailed into buying it back from whatever godforsaken corner of the world you are taking us to!’

‘Sir – raïs – my name is John Polglaze, and I am Alderman of the town of Penzance. Return me and my wife now to the bosom of our family, and I promise you will be handsomely rewarded.’

Al-Andalusi said, ‘Write it down, Amin. All information useful,’ and turned his attention to the Alderman. ‘You not poor man, I can see by your girth. Empty your pockets and show me your hands.’

John Polglaze frowned at him, not understanding the request.

‘Ibrahim!’

The renegade caught hold of Polglaze and rummaged expertly through his clothing, coming away with a handful of coin and a pair of handsome rings. Then he took the Alderman’s arm and turned the hand palm up for his captain’s inspection. The raïs grunted. ‘So white and soft, you no good in galleys or working in field, you last a week, no more! So how much they pay me for you?’

Alderman Polglaze looked flummoxed. ‘I… I… ah… I don’t know, sir… er, raïs.’

‘Four hundred pounds?’

The Alderman went white. ‘Impossible! Never.’

Al-Andalusi waved a hand. ‘Say four hundred pounds, Amin. One hundred fifty for John Poll Glez, and two hundred fifty for his wife. Is she comely? What her name?’

‘Elizabeth, sir, but –’

‘Ah, like old Queen, excellent. She good friend to Morocco, bring us much trade, timber with which to build ships, many guns, enemy of bastard Spanish. Amin write down two hundred twenty English pounds for wife Elizabeth Poll Glez: her name earn discount. Three hundred seventy pounds for pair.’ This he repeated in his own language for the benefit of his scribe, then waved Polglaze away. ‘Next.’

The next man was a fisherman in his thirties, spare and short in stature, his face almost as brown as the pirate’s, except where crow’s-feet had left white streaks around the eyes, but his muscles were like whipcord. His pockets contained no more than a ragged kerchief, two groats and a pocket knife, which the raïs weighed in his hand, then tossed back to Ibrahim.

‘Henry Symons of Newlyn. My family are poor: thee’ll get no money for me from them.’

The raïs laughed. ‘Can you row?’

Symons looked puzzled. ‘Aye, of course, and sail.’

The pirate said something in his own language, and the clerk wrote it down, smiling.

The next man was older, and his seafaring days were long spent. Cat recognized him as old Thomas Ellys. Arthritis had swollen his joints and age bent his back. His silver thruppenny bit was still in his pocket, ready for the collection, along with a yellowed bone comb. The raïs inspected his hand, which was callused and rough, confirming that he was a worker, and no rich man’s father. He turned to the clerk, and they debated for a few moments; then the pirate called for one of his men, made a curt gesture and indicated the old fisherman. Without a word, the crewman jostled Thomas Ellys away to the ship’s side and without ceremony upended him over the gunwale. There was a pause, a splash, and then silence.

‘You barbarian!’ the preacher started. He stared out at the rolling, empty sea. They were already far from land; even a young, fit man had no chance of gaining the shore from here. ‘May the Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on his soul.’

The raïs shrugged. ‘We short on provisions: cannot waste on useless old man who no one ransom and who fetch nothing in auction. If your Jesus care for his soul, he will arrange miracle.’ He held the preacher’s furious regard coolly. ‘It was Romans first called my people
barbari
, “the uncultured”; but they ignorant and so are those who use same word after them. My people call ourselves the Imazighen, “the free men”: we are Berber and proud. At home in mountains I speak language of my own people, with business partners in the kasbah I converse in Spanish, with fellow corsairs I speak Arabic and the lingua franca of ports. I speak also some English and a little Dutch. I have read every page of the Qur’an and from curiosity some of your bible. In my collection of books I have copies of Ibn Battuta’s
Travels
, poetry of Mawlana Rumi, Ibn Khaldun’s
Mukaddimah
and Al-Hassan ibn Mohammed al-Wazzani’s
Cosmographia Dell’Africa
; I have read them all. Now, tell me who the barbarian?’

‘To steal innocent human beings – women and children – from their homes and sell them into slavery is the act of a barbarian.’

‘Then all great nations of world also barbarians – Spanish and French, Portuguese, Sicilians and Venetians. I manned an oar for year on Sicilian galley, have many scars on my back. English also: your great heroes Drake and Hawkins also barbarians. And they far worse than the corsairs of Slâ, which ignorant call Sallee, for they took captives solely for personal profit and treated their cargoes with contempt.’

‘And you do not?’

‘I am
al-ghuzat
, warrior of Prophet. My men and I carry
jihad
– holy war – into seas and on to shores of our enemies, take captive many infidel for sale in our markets. Money we raise from such trade is invested in welfare of our people and glory of God. Is pleasing to Most High that riches of infidels be returned to Allah.’

‘Then not only are you a barbarian but also a heretic!’ The preacher’s eyes were flashing now. His beard flapped in the wind. He looked, Cat thought, like one of the Old Testament prophets, like Moses calling down the ice-storm upon Egypt.

Al-Andalusi leaped to his feet, knocking the pipe over so that smoke and water poured across the deck. ‘You not use that word to me! The Spanish called my father heretic. Inquisition broke his bones on their vile rack, but they never broke his spirit.’ He turned and shouted at three of his sailors, who ran to do his bidding. In no time they had returned. One carried a stave of iron with a flattened end; the other two a small brazier. The latter was set down on the deck beside the raïs, and the first man at once set the end of the stave to the coals in the brazier and held it there till it glowed red, then white. Walter Truran watched it with something approaching fascination, unable to take his eyes from it. Then he started to pray.

Al-Andalusi shouted an order, and the men tore the boots from the preacher’s feet.

‘You have such faith in your crucified prophet, now you for ever honoured by bearing his mark.’

And with that, he gestured to the men, one of whom held the preacher down while the other applied the iron to the man’s white and wrinkled soles. Cat closed her eyes; but she could not erase from her senses the sound of the brand as it burned through the skin and sizzled in blood, nor the stink of burned meat which rose into the air.

While the preacher lay moaning on the deck, Ashab Ibrahim rifled his pockets, coming away with an ivory-handled fruit knife, a handful of small coins and a little leather-bound psalter. This last the raïs flicked through with some curiosity, then tossed back to the preacher. ‘If you not give me your name, you go down on manifest as the Imam.’

‘Give me no heathen title! My name is Walter Truran, and you can write beside it “Man of God”. But I warn you now, there is no one from whom you can extort a ransom.’

The raïs shrugged. ‘You have strong spirit and strong back. Perhaps galleys take you. Or perhaps Sultan Moulay Zidane will be amused by your rantings. Your feet will not be bound until all have seen what happen to those who think to defy me. From today know whenever you set foot on ground you tread on symbol of your bastard religion; and that is how it should be.’

Now Cat was brought before the captain of the pirate ship. So frightened was she by the Reverend Truran’s ordeal that she could hardly bear to look upon his tormentor. She kept her eyes on her feet and prayed silently that he would pass her quickly by. Even the mire, discomfort and darkness of the hold was preferable to this. Her knees shook uncontrollably.

‘What your name?’

‘Catherine,’ she started. Her voice was the squeak of a mouse. Drawing a breath, she tried again. ‘Catherine Anne Tregenna.’

‘You wear green dress, Cat’rin Anne Tregenna. Why?’

This was such an unexpected remark that her head shot up, and she found herself looking the raïs in the eye. His gaze burned into her. ‘I… ah… it is an old dress, sir.’

‘Green is colour of Prophet. Only his descendants may wear it. Are you descended from the Prophet?’

Horrified, Catherine shook her head, her tongue stuck fast to the roof of her mouth.

‘Take off! Is insult to Prophet to wear his colour unless entitled.’

Cat’s eyes widened. ‘I… can’t… it laces up the back…’

Al-Andalusi leaned forward. ‘A woman cannot dress herself must be dressed by a slave. Are you rich woman, Cat’rin Anne Tregenna?’

What was the right answer? Cat searched for inspiration. She reasoned it were best to suggest that keeping her whole and fit for ransom would be worth while; she did not want to be thrown overboard, branded like the preacher or, worse, passed as a worthless bawd to the bestial crew for their pleasure. She squared her shoulders. ‘I am Catherine Tregenna of Kenegie Manor, and I am not without means.’

The raïs translated this for the scribe, who wrote quickly on his block. ‘Turn around,’ he told her then, taking an ornamented curved dagger from his belt.

Fearing the worst, Catherine did as she was told, and waited for the cold blade at her throat. Instead, there was a shearing sound and an ease of pressure, and suddenly the green dress lay around her ankles, leaving her shivering in her cotton shift. Instinctively, she crossed her arms over her chest, feeling the eyes of the crew crawling over her pale white skin like the unclean touch of insects.

Al-Andalusi bent and shook out the fabric. From it fell the little pouch, which at once he snatched up. ‘What this? Is bible or prayers to your god?’ He brandished her little book.

All at once, she felt a powerful sense of ownership. No one must touch her book; her most secret thoughts lay within. Without thinking, she reached out and took hold of it. For a moment, their eyes locked; then the pirate released his grip on the soft calfskin cover. ‘It is a book on embroidery,’ Cat said in a low voice. ‘See, here –’ She opened it on a page she had not yet written on, showing a spray of stylized flowers which might be reproduced on a cuff or a pair of stockings. ‘It contains patterns to copy. Like this.’ Daring now, she raised her petticoat an inch or two to show him the fine clocking at her ankles.

He tilted his head to examine it. ‘And you have done this work yourself?’

‘Yes.’

The raïs said something to the scribe, who added something to the list he made. Then he tossed the little pouch back to Cat. ‘Women of Sultan’s court pay much for work like this. Perhaps you teach them new patterns.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘And perhaps Sultan Moulay Zidane pay me well for such addition to his harem, particularly with such white skin and hair colour of sunset. We set price of eight hundred pounds for such rare prize.’

Eight hundred pounds! It was a huge sum. Cat clutched the pouch to her chest with her heart hammering. Foolish, foolish wench, her head scolded her. Thinking you could outwit a man like that. Now he has set such a price on your head that no one can ever afford to redeem you, and you will end your days in some foreign land, pining away for the sound of an English voice or the touch of Cornish rain, for Rob and kindness and all the ordinary things of the world which you have spurned, and all for vanity. One of the pirate crew threw a thick woollen robe over her head and led her back down to the hold; she stumbled before him as if in a dream, one from which she might never be able to awake.

It had been hard to sleep after reading these last entries in Catherine’s little book. I had just about got my head around her descriptions of daily life at Kenegie and the petty frustrations and jealousies of living in a small, closed community. I had taken the more unfamiliar words and spellings in my stride, skipping those that continued to evade me; but now she had completely thrown me. I had been enjoying her acid comments about her co-workers, her fierce anguish at being forced to marry her cousin, who struck me as a decent-enough man; I had even been rather looking forward to discovering something of what a seventeenth-century wedding entailed: the domestic details, the dress, the meal arrangements and of course Cat’s reaction to becoming a married woman. I found myself charmed by this long-dead girl, felt caught up in her distant life, her hopes and fears. I wished too to know more about the altar cloth she had started, whether the Countess of Salisbury ever reappeared. I wanted to hear that that fine lady and Cat’s mistress had been suitably astonished by the ambition of her vision and by her skill in executing her grand design when she finally presented them with her Tree of Knowledge. I had – I should admit now – rather hoped to track down this magnificent artefact and make it the subject of a distinguished magazine article, suitably illustrated and as elegantly written as I could manage. I had even – God help me – entertained the idea of asking Anna for a few useful contacts in placing such a piece.