The Pirates of the Levant (11 page)

We got to our feet and picked up our hats, not knowing what to say. Malacalza remained seated.

'Before you go,' he added, 'I'd just like to list those places on our service records that no one else cares about: Calais ... Amiens ... Bomel ... Nieuwpoort ... Ostend ... Oldensel ... Linghen ... Julich ... Oran. Amen.'

As he said each name, he picked up the coins one by one, his eyes vacant. Then he seemed to recover somewhat weighing the coins in his hand before putting them in his  purse. Kissing the child on his lap and depositing him on floor, he got to his feet, holding his mug of wine in one hand and resting his weight on his bad leg.

'To the King, may God keep him safe.'

I thought it odd that there was not a hint of irony in his words.

'To the King,' echoed Captain Alatriste. 'And despite the King, or whoever else is in charge.'

Then all four of us turned towards the old sword hanging on the wall and drank a toast.

It was dark by the time we left Malacalza's house. We walked down the street, which was lit only by the light from the open doors of the houses — we could just make out the dark shapes of the people sitting inside — and by the candles burning in the wall niches devoted to various saints. Just then, a silhouette emerged from the shadows, getting up from the ground on which it had been crouched, waiting.

This time, the Captain did not simply give the figure backward glance; he removed the buff coat he had draped over his shoulders so as to leave sword and dagger unencumbered. And thus, with me and Copons following behind, he went straight up to the dark silhouette and asked, 'What do you want?'

The other man moved a little into the light. He did deliberately, as if he wanted us to be able to see him more clearly, thereby dissipating any fears we might have.

'I don't know,' he said.

He delivered this disconcerting answer in a Castilian as good as the Captain's, Sebastian's or mine.

'Well, you're taking a chance, following us like that.'

'I don't think so.' He said this confidently, looking at the Captain without even blinking.

'Why is that?'

'I saved your life, my friend.'

I shot a sideways glance at the Captain, to see if such familiarity had angered him. I knew he was perfectly capable of killing someone who addressed him in what he judged to be an inappropriate fashion. To my surprise, though, I saw that he held the
mogataz
s gaze and did not seem angered in the least. He put his hand in his pocket, but the Moor took a step back as if he had received an insult.

'Is that what your life is worth?
Zienaashin
? Money?'

He was obviously an educated Moor, someone with a story to tell. We could see his face clearly now, his silver earrings glittering in the light of a candle. His skin was not particularly dark and his beard had a reddish tint to it. On his left cheek was that tattooed cross with diamond-shaped points. He was wearing a bracelet, also in silver, and was holding one hand open, palm uppermost, as if to show that he was concealing nothing and was keeping his fingers well away from the dagger at his waist.

'Then go on your way, and we'll go on ours.'

We continued downhill until we reached the corner. I turned at that point to see if the man was still following us. I tugged at Captain Alatriste's buff coat and he looked back too. Copons made as if to unsheathe his dagger, but the Captain grabbed his arm. Then he went over to the Moor again, taking his time, as if pondering what to say to him.

'Listen, Moor—'

'My name is Aixa Ben Gurriat.'

'I know what your name is. You told me at Uad Berruch.'

They stood motionless, studying each other in the gloom while Copons and I remained a short distance away. The Moor was still making a point of keeping his hands well away from his dagger. I had one hand resting on the hilt of my sword, ready, at the slightest suspicious move on Moor's part, to pin him against the wall. The Captain did n seem to share my unease. Instead, he stuck his thumbs in h belt, looked to either side, glanced briefly back at us, then leaned against the wall, next to the Moor.

'Why did you go into that tent?' he asked at last.

The other man took a while to respond.

'I heard a shot. I had seen you fighting earlier on, and you seemed to be a good
imyahad —
a good fighter, a very good fighter.'

'I don't usually get involved in other people's business.'

'Nor do I, but I went into the tent and I saw that you were defending a Moorish woman.'

'Whether she was a Moor or not makes no difference tame. The men were an unsavoury pair, and arrogant and insolent to boot. The woman was the least of it.'

The
mogataz
clicked his tongue.
^t
Tidt.
True, but you could have looked the other way, or even joined in the fun.'

'So could you. Killing a Spaniard is a sure way of getting a noose around your neck — if anyone ever found out.'

'They didn't ... fate.'

They fell silent again, but continued to look at each other, as if they were privately calculating which of them had incurred the greater debt: the Moor because the Captain had defended a woman of his race, or the Captain because the Moor had saved his life. Meanwhile, Copons and I were exchanging glances too, astonished by both the situation and the conversation.

'Saad,'
murmured the Captain in the dog-Arabic spoken in

ports. He said the word thoughtfully, as if repeating the last thing the
mogataz
had said.

The latter smiled faintly and nodded. 'In my language we say
elkhadar.
Fate and destiny are the same thing.'

'Where are you from?'

The
mogataz
made a vague gesture. 'From around ... from the mountains.'

'Far away?'

lUah.
Far away indeed, and very high up.'

'Is there something I can do for you?' asked the Captain.

The other man shrugged. He appeared to be considering the question.

'I'm an
azuago,'
he said at last, as if that explained everything. 'From the tribe of the Beni Barrani.'

'Well, you speak excellent Castilian.'

'My mother was born a
zarumia
, a Christian. She was from Cadiz. She was captured as a child and they sold her on the beach of Arzeo, an abandoned town by the sea, seven leagues to the east, on the road to Mostaganem. My grandfather bought her for my father.'

'That's an odd tattoo you have on your face — odd for a Moor, I mean.'

'It's an old story. We
azuagos
are descended from Christians, from the time when the Goths were still here, and for us it's a matter of
isbah,
of honour. That's why my grandfather wanted a Spanish wife for my father.'

'And is that why you fight with us against other Moors?'

The
mogataz
shrugged stoically. '
Elkhadar
. Fate.'

Having said that, he fell silent for a moment and stroked his beard. Then I thought I saw him smile again, his gaze abstracted.

'Beni Barrani means son of a foreigner, you see. We're a tribe of men who have no homeland.'

******

And that is how, after the cavalcade of Uad Berruch in the year 1627, Captain Alatriste and I met the mercenary Aixa Ben Gurriat, known among the Spaniards in Oran as the Moor Gurriato, a remarkable individual, and this is not the last time his name will be mentioned. For, hard though it is to believe, that night was the start of a seven-year friendship, the seven years that separated that day in Oran and bloody day in September 1634, when the Moor Gurriato, the Captain and myself, along with many other comrades, fough shoulder to shoulder on a wretched hill at Nordlingen. After sharing many journeys, dangers and adventures, and while the Idiaquez regiment withstood fifteen charges by the Swedes in six hours without giving an inch, the Moor Gurriato would die before our eyes, like a good Spanish infantryman, defending a religion and a country that were not his own assuming he ever had either. He fell, at last, like so many; for an ungrateful, miserly Spain that gave him nothing in return, but which, for reasons known only to himself, Aixa Ben Gurriat, from the tribe of the
azuagos
Beni Barrani, had, resolved to serve to the death with the unshakeable loyalty of a faithful murderous wolf. And he did so in a most unusual way — by choosing Captain Alatriste as his comrade.

Two days later, when the
Mulata
left the Barbary Coast and set off north north-west, in the direction of Cartagena, Diego Alatriste had plenty of opportunity to observe the Moor Gurriato, because the latter was rowing in the fifth bench on the starboard side, next to the stroke. He did not have to wear chains, being what was called a
buena boya,
an expression taken from the Italian
buonavoglia
and applied to volunteer crew members. They were usually either the dregs of the ports or desperate men on the run willing to serve for a

wage — the Turks called them
morlacos
or jackals. They sought refuge on a galley much as, on land, others might in a church. This was how they had managed to get the Moor on board, since he was determined to accompany Diego Alatriste and try his fortune with him. Once the Captain had sorted out the problem of Sebastian Copons' licence — Sergeant Major Biscarrues had been satisfied with five hundred ducats plus Copons' back pay — he still had some
escudos
in his pocket, and it would not have been hard to grease a few palms to simplify matters. This, however, proved unnecessary. The Moor had his own money — although where he had got it from he did not say. Unrolling a kerchief that he wore beneath his sash, he took out a few silver coins which, despite being minted in Algiers, Fez and Tlemcen, convinced the galleymaster and the overseer to take him on board, once the usual formalities had been gone through, namely a swift act of baptism, to which no one objected even though it was as false as a Judas kiss. That was enough for his name — Gurriato de Oran, they called him — to be written in the galleymaster's book, along with a wage of eleven
reales
a month. It was thus established that, from then on, the
mogataz
, despite being a new convert and a galleyman, was a good Catholic and a faithful volunteer in the King of Spain's army, a situation to which Gurriato accommodated himself as best he could. Ever shrewd and prudent, he immediately adapted his appearance to suit his new circumstances by shaving off his warrior lock — leaving his head as smooth as that of any galley-slave — and replacing
rexa,
sandals, kaftan and baggy trousers with breeches, shirt, cap and red doublet. All that remained of his former outfit was his dagger, stuck in his sash, and the grey-striped burnous, in which he slept or wrapped about himself in bad weather or when, like now, a favourable wind meant that he did not have to row. As for

the tattoo on his face and his silver earrings, he was not only one to wear such adornments.

'He's a strange one,' commented Sebastian Copons.

He was sitting in the shade of the trinquet-sail, overjoyed to have left Oran behind him. At his back, the mast supporting the lateen yard and its vast canvas sail creaked in the easterly wind with the movement of the ship.

'No stranger than you or me,' replied Alatriste.

He had spent all day observing the
mogataz
, trying to the measure of the man. From where we sat, he seemed barely different from the forced men, slaves and convicts who had no choice but to row with shackles on ankles manacles on wrists. There were few who rowed out of necessity or choice, barely half a dozen among the hundred rowers on the
Mulata.
To these one had to add the forced volunteers; this contradiction in terms could be explained by the very Spanish fact that — as with the soldiers in Oran and Melilla - the lack of manpower on the King's galleys meant that some galley-slaves who had completed- their sentences were not allowed to leave, but were kept on and paid the same wage as a free man. In theory, they would only continue to do so until others came to take their place but, since this rarely happened quickly, there were cases of former galley-slaves completing sentences of two, five and even eight years on the galley — ten years was virtually a death sentence and few survived — only to find themselves obliged to stay on for a few more months or even years.

'Look,' said Copons. 'He doesn't budge when the other, Muslims pray, as if he really isn't one of them.'

Given the favourable wind, the oars were stowed and there was no need to row, so both forced men and volunteers were idle. The former were lying down on their benches, or else doing their business over the side of the boat or in the latrines

in the prow, or de-lousing each other, darning their clothes or performing various tasks for sailors or soldiers. Certain trusted slaves, freed from their shackles, were allowed to come and go on the galley, washing clothes in sea-water or helping the cook prepare the beans for the stew that was steaming on the stove to port of the central gangway, between the mainmast and the supports for the awning. Two dozen or so of the slaves — Turks and Moors — were reciting one of their five daily prayers at their benches, facing east, kneeling, standing up and then prostrating themselves.
La, ilah-la ua Muhamad rasul Ala
they chorused: there is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is His prophet. The soldiers and sailors did nothing to prevent this. Equally, the Muslim galley-slaves took no offence when a sail appeared on the horizon or the wind changed and orders were given to take up their oars, the galleymaster's whip interrupting their prayers and returning them to their rowing and the rhythmic clink of chains. Everyone on the galley knew the rules of the game.