The Tenth Gift (16 page)

According to various sources—academics, amateur historians, official state papers, the occasional survivor’s account—more than a million Europeans had been abducted and enslaved by North African pirates between the early sixteenth and late eighteenth centuries.

This was a fraction of the estimated twelve million Africans taken and sold in slavery in the Americas, but still a hugely significant number. Between the 1610s and the 1630s, Cornwall and Devon lost a fifth of their shipping to corsairs, and in 1625 more than a thousand sailors and fishermen from Plymouth and the Cornish and Devon coasts were taken and sold into slavery. The mayor of Bristol reported that a Barbary fleet had captured Lundy Island and there raised the standard of Islam, and that this little island in the Bristol Channel then became a fortified base from which the pirates launched raids on the unprotected villages of north Cornwall and Devon. The raiders came to be known as the Sallee Rovers, since they operated out of the Muslim stronghold of Salé, just across the river from Rabat in Morocco, and included a ragtag collection of disaffected privateers from various seafaring European nations who had ensconced themselves there alongside the remarkably mixed population of the area, which already contained native Berbers, Arabs, Jews, and “Moriscos”—Muslims expelled from Catholic Spain, where many of their families had lived for generations. In the Barbary states these Europeans found men eager for revenge on the Christian world, which had persecuted them, men with the resources, the wit, and the will to carry a seaborne war to the very shores of the enemy; a war, moreover, sanctioned and blessed by the ruling powers and driven not only by the greed for wealth, but also by the fervor of religion.

One of the most effective raiders had apparently been an Englishman by the name of John Ward, who had turned renegade shortly after King James I signed a peace treaty with Spain, thus cutting off Ward’s legal opportunities to attack the Spanish treasure fleet. Ward became the admiral of the Salé fleet, vowing to “become a foe to all Christians, bee a persecutor to their trafficke, and an impoverisher of their wealth,” made for North Africa, converted to Islam, taking the name of Yussuf Raïs, and started training the locals in the knowledge of navigation and in the use of sailing swift vessels. One particularly intrepid corsair chief, Jan Jansz—a Dutchman going by the adopted
Muslim name of Murad Raïs—had apparently sailed from Salé all the way to Iceland and stolen four hundred captives out of the harbor city of Reykjavik to sell at a premium, with their milk-pale skin and white-blond hair, in the Barbary slave markets.

I found mention of a letter from the mayor of Plymouth in April of 1625, warning the Privy Council that he had spoken with an eyewitness to a fleet of ships (“thirtie saile”) about to set out from Salé in Morocco bound for our shores, bent on the capture of slaves; clearly, the authorities of the time had not acted on the information.

It was the final entry I followed up that sent shivers running down my spine. Quoting the state papers of the time, a Lebanese expert on the period described how in the summer of 1625 Salé corsairs took out of a church in Mount’s Bay “about 60 men, women and children, and carried them away captives.” For several moments I sat there, trembling. I read and reread the entry to make sure I had not misunderstood it. Then I took out the little book Michael had given me, laid it on the table, and stared at it, feeling the synchronicities wreathing around me like ghostly threads. Here I sat in a library in Penzance, Mount’s Bay, with my left hand on the soft calfskin cover of an extraordinary seventeenth-century memoir and my right on the hard, smooth plastic of a computer mouse, old technology and new connected by a human bridge spanning four centuries of history. And now my head knew what my heart had already accepted: that Catherine Anne Tregenna had indeed been snatched from Sunday service by ruthless pirates, to be sold in white slave markets fifteen hundred miles and two continents away.

Just at that moment, as if the electricity of that connection had somehow arced across another emotional gulf, my mobile phone rang. It was Michael.

I should have switched it off and let him stew, but the disapproving faces around me panicked me, and I ran outside to take the call.

“Hello?”

“Why did you run off like that? And what about that parting
shot, ‘I thought we’d said good-bye some time ago’? That was hurtful.”

I almost laughed. “You’re hurt? What about me? It was you who ditched me, not the other way around. You’ve no right to feel hurt.” “I know, I know, and I was wrong. I should never have done it.” “Never have done what?”

“I should never have walked away from you. I can’t do this, Julia. I can’t not have you in my life. I miss you.”

Every dumped woman dreams of having a man say such a thing to her. Every dumped woman practices a number of killer lines with which to squash the insect that crawls back thus. Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of any of them. Instead, what came out was “Do you?” in a horrible, yearning whine.

“Meet me tonight. Come and have dinner with me at the hotel. You could stay, if you wanted to.” And then he made a sexual suggestion that made little arrows of desire fire through my loins.

“I really don’t think that’s a very good idea….” I said.

“It may not be a good idea, but it’s an idea that always works for us. Come on, you know you want to. And afterward you can read me to sleep with embroidery hints from your little book.”

It was like having a bucket of cold water upended over me. “I can’t,” I said firmly. “It’s too soon, you hurt me too much. I need to think about what I want, what’s good for me. And I don’t think spending the night with you tonight is good for me at all. Go and take a long walk and a cold shower. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Shaking, I hung up, then switched off the phone for good measure. When I got back to my seat in the library, I found that the Internet connection had crashed.

C
ATHERINE

1625

Wee have beene at sea now for the best parte of two weekes, but yf wee reach Sallee alive it will surely bee a miracle, caughte as wee are between wyld seas, starvation, disease & the violent conduct of oure captors. All ready wee have lost some of oure original number, viz. three children & two of the men taken captive before us, who bore woundes from their capture off Plymouthe. This verie mornyng old Mrs Ellys expired at last from weaknesse & shock of losyng her poore husbande, but no one has taken her bodie, she lyes in the ordure & addes to the stink. My mother ailes & there is no thyng I can do for her. We have no comforte of light or clene aire & are plagued by flyes and maggots & I have heard the scuttle of rattes along the timbers of the shippe. It is as well they do not feede us moore, or the mire & vermine would bee worse. No one seeyng us now would ever knoe that wee are not all of the same estate for wee appeare all as poor wanderyng ragged beggars herded together like in a pygges stye.

T
HERE WERE DAYS WHEN
C
AT SIMPLY WANTED TO LAY HER
head down against her companion and die, days when she could no longer bear the stench and the captivity, the pangs of her gut or the terrible, suffocating miasma of hopelessness that had stolen over the
whole miserable human cargo. At the beginning, outraged by their treatment, the captives had talked of insurrection, of overcoming those who came to feed them—holding them down and drowning them in the shit and piss that made a second sea within the ship, of stealing the keys to their shackles, arming themselves with whatever they could find, and storming the ship. They embellished the fantasy of this revolt with loving detail: how they would take the raïs and put out his eyes with the same brand that had burned the preacher’s feet; how they would strip him bare and throw him overboard for the sharks and laugh as he was ripped limb from limb; how they would hang from the yardarm the renegade Englishman now known as Ashab Ibrahim, but not before removing the male appendage he must have submitted to heathen circumcision when he first turned Turk; how they would take captive the remaining crew and confine them in this very stinking pit of a hold, before sailing for a home port and handing them over to the authorities as hostages against those unfortunate Englishmen still held in the port of Sallee.

Captain Goodridge told how he had heard of a successful insurrection by captives aboard an Algerian vessel: how the prisoners had managed by some means or another to bribe one of the Europeans in the crew to release them and furnish them with weapons, and how they had killed the captain of the slavers and run the ship back to Plymouth with all speed and honor, whereupon they had roasted a pig on the quayside and paraded it in front of the Mahometan picaroons, threatening to force them to eat it till they wept in abhorrence.

Privately, Cat thought the captain had most likely confected it himself to raise their spirits and his own. In the end, it had not worked: At the very mention of pork, many of the captives had groaned and salivated, reminded afresh by their hunger, while others had retched and added to the noisome liquids that swilled around their feet.

It had not taken long for such rebellious talk to evaporate: A few more days of discomfort, some foul weather that left them bruised
and shaken, and the sudden death of the first of the children, a little boy who had been overcome by fever and flux, and their spirits, such as they were, were broken. The boy’s mother wailed over the tiny body until the raiders came down and took it away. Then she shrieked hysterically that they would eat it, and none could comfort her or assure her they would do nothing of the sort, for no one was entirely sure that such was not the case. The sound of her howling haunted their hours, waking and asleep.

After that, one by one, they fell ill. Two more children succumbed to the fever—a girl of three and a boy of eight. Cat had known the little boy—he came to the manor with his mother on feast days and she had played club-kayles with him in the garden. He suffered for several days, but by the time he died, Cat found she could neither cry nor pray. She wondered if the first inability was because there was some lack of feeling within her, or whether it was simply that she could produce no more tears for a want of water. As to the second, she knew that her faith had failed her. It was hard to believe there was a god who cared sufficiently for his flock who could allow children to die in such a terrible manner.

Within a week, nineteen had been taken by the flux or other ailments: strong men, young men, sturdy women, lively children. Among them were Thom Samuels, whose wound suppurated until his arm went black; Captain Goodridge, whose ship had been taken in the British Channel; Nell’s husband, William Chigwine, and little Jordie Kellynch, who had been coughing for days before being taken from the church; Annie Hoskens of Market-Jew and old Henry Johns of Lescudjack; her own youngest nephew, little Jack Coode.

Walter Truran healed with remarkable speed, despite the conditions. There were those who believed the symbol of the brand itself protected him; others whispered of a miracle. But the women who had lost children shot him sidelong looks that clearly showed their inner feelings: They wished God had spared their own at the preacher’s expense.

At last, with the specter of losing the entire precious cargo before him, the ship’s chirurgeon made an appearance, rather against his will. A tall, thin man with a long gray beard and hooded eyes barely illuminated by the lantern he carried, he was accompanied by two of the raiders, one of them Ashab Ibrahim, a cloth clamped to his nose and mouth with one hand. The other hand firmly propelled the doctor into the hold.

“Who here is sick?” Ibrahim called.

His question was met by a hubbub of noise. The chirurgeon looked aghast. He said something in rapid Arabic to the renegade, who shook his head. “Well, do what you can, then.”

The chirurgeon made his way gingerly between the benches, examining a tongue here, the white of an eye there. Some he shied away from touching: They were obviously beyond saving. When he came to a woman two rows in front of Cat, he recoiled. The woman turned her head, moaning, and with a shock Cat recognized her as Nell Chigwine. Thin strings of vomit fell from her lolling chin to her filthy dress; sweat beaded her forehead and her breathing was shallow. The doctor shook his head and backed swiftly away, gesticulating. He stood in front of the renegade and talked with such vehemence it seemed he was in a fury. He pointed at the sick woman, then indicated the filth on the floor. He waved his arms, shouting. At last, Ibrahim shrugged and bent to unlock the bar that held the shackles in place.

“Get up!” Ibrahim said, and kicked at the man on the end of the row when he did not respond. “Stand up!”

The man lumbered to his feet, his face a mask of agony as unused muscles protested, and stood there swaying with the rocking of the ship. A fisherman, then, Cat thought, watching as he moved automatically with the motion of the vessel. Nell staggered and collapsed. “Get up!” the fisherman hissed. “Your life depends on it.” He caught her under the arms and hauled and she clutched at him, her hands like claws. It looked as if she would fall again, but some inner force of
will exerted itself and she drew herself upright, looking more corpse than breathing woman.

The renegade chivvied the first group of captives into line, then turned back to address the hold at large. “We’m takin’ you up on deck one group at a time for some air on the chirurgeon’s instructions. Anyone who can’t make it up the stairs on their own two feet will be thrown over the side. One person from each row will clean up your shit before going on deck. Then you will return with a bucket of sea-water and sluice your area.” He took a metal pail from the second crewman and threw it to a woman in the first group on their feet. Cat averted her eyes as the woman scooped the filth into the pail, and she selfishly prayed that this noisome task would not fall to her.

She watched three ragged coffles of prisoners following these instructions, leaving and after a while returning, cleaning their area, taking their stations once more. Her feet itched to move; she could almost taste the briny air that awaited her. At last, after what seemed an interminable amount of time, Ashab Ibrahim came to her row and unlocked the bar. “Up, all of you.”

They lurched upright and stood there uncertainly, trying to balance. To her horror, Cat found that after two weeks cramped into a crouch, her legs did not want to support even her reduced weight, and she fell across the man in the row in front of her, who swore in protest.

The renegade caught her by the arm and dragged her to her feet. “Can’t afford to lose ’ee overboard, my bird. Precious cargo, you are.” He leered.

Affronted, Cat forced her muscles to obey, shuffling along in the heavy woolen robe they had given her, her chains clanking painfully against her ankles. Someone else had landed the task of cleaning the row.

A
T THE TOP
of the steps, the fresh air hit her like a fist. For a moment she felt dizzy, disoriented. She had to close her eyes against
the sudden light and hold tightly to the sides. Someone pushed her in the back. “Move on, can’t you?”

Up on deck she stared at the swaths of blue that assaulted her vision—a great vivid sky, streaked with high clouds like mares’ tails; an endless ocean beneath frothing with whitecaps. The shimmer of the sun on the sea and the whiteness of the belling sails hurt her eyes so that she had to look down at the solid darkness of the wood beneath her feet. Two weeks, she thought (they had all been counting, judging the passage of time by the changing quality of darkness in the hold); two weeks without sight of the world or fresh air to breathe. She had never realized how lucky she was simply to exist at Kenegie. To wish for more than simple pleasures had been a raw vanity.

They stumbled across the deck, impeded by their chains, threw the filth overboard (“Out of the wind, if you please,” as the renegade laughingly instructed them), drew up bucket after bucket of seawater, and scrubbed their filthy skin and clothes. Salt stung their sores: Strong men cried out in pain.

The crew watched them, their black eyes as inimical and assessing as the Kenegie farm cats as they joked with one another. Cat wondered what they were thinking: Were they mocking their captives, commenting on the weakness of these poor, pale creatures? Were they totting up their likely prize money, the prices they would fetch at auction, or were their thoughts running along darker lines? She huddled under the robe, using it as both washcloth and towel. How they must despise us, she thought, filthy as animals, crawling with lice, feeble and diseased. They have reduced us to this state so that we are less than human, and that is how they now see us: cargo that must be kept alive to earn any sort of price, as nondescript as sheep. And she kept on scrubbing as if the dirt would never come off.

In the midst of this almost trancelike state she was surprised when there was a cry and a man on the foredeck started to chant in a strange singsong voice.

“Allah akbar. Allah akbar. Achehadou ana illah illallah. Achehadou
ana mohammed rasoul allah. Achehadou ana mohammed rasoul allah. Haya rala salah. Haya rala salah. Haya rala falah. Haya rala falah. Qad qamatissaa. Qad qamatissaa. Allah akbar. Allah akbar. Laillah ilallah …”

The entire crew stopped whatever they were doing and walked quickly to the buckets of sand set at intervals about the ship. Each man dipped his hands in the bucket and rubbed the sand between his palms like soap. Then they ran their hands over their faces, three times, as if washing. They took another handful of sand, then “washed” their right hands, then their left, to the elbow, again three times. Cat stopped her own washing and watched, fascinated. She looked around and found that the other captives were doing the same thing. It was like watching a mystery play, she thought suddenly, remembering when as a child her father had taken her to see the mummers when they visited Truro—something you didn’t quite understand but could not take your eyes from. The mummers had frightened her with their strange costumes and their chanting voices—the Devil with his skin rubbed black with ashes, his wild red hair and the sheep’s horns stuck on his head; the angels in white sheets swaying and pacing, back and forth, back and forth, mesmeric but unsettling—but at least the mummers had been at a safe distance and she had known she was going home afterward.

Now the crewmen had all turned to the left-hand side of the ship and stood facing an older man in a white robe with the hood up over his head. They all stood silent for a few moments, as if deep in thought, even the most savage-looking of them; then they went to their knees and stayed like that without a word for a minute or more. Finally they prostrated themselves, touching their foreheads to the deck: once, twice. Cat realized, with a sudden shock, that they were praying, and that their captain was among them, no distinction made between him and the men of his crew.