The Mer- Lion

by Lee Arthur

  "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 t
he 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.

  Among de Wynter's group, two of the Scots servants had their wounds examined. At a gesture from Eulj Ali, they were scooped up like so much trash and heaved screaming into the sea. John Carlby bowed his head and intoned the last Sacrament while the bound group sat penitent. The screams rose in frequency and pitch, then were cut short. Carlby interrupted his prayers to utter but one word:

  "Sharks!" De Wynter silently swore to exact vengeance for their deaths.

  While Moslem slaves and Christian seamen changed places at the oars, others were transferred in irons to the hold. Then, as the unfortunates sat or lay in bilgewater, the crippled ship set partial sail, and under the flogging of a familiar whip wielded by a new oarmaster, they headed toward Algiers. Their new captain was a boyish redhead.

  Eulj Ali had had little difficulty convincing the first men to board that he was son of their leader. The resemblance between father and son was too well marked, especially the luxuriant flaming red beard. Wielding his chains like a feared "Holy Water Sprinkler," he had flailed away, wreaking havoc among the Christian crew, stopping only when he saw resistance lessening and the single knot of noblemen left. Having at least partially repaid his debt to the Scot by saving his life, the corsair thought nothing of having him locked in irons to be ransomed or sold as fortune would have it.

  In the hold, John the Rob's experience came to the fore. It was he who showed the closely chained men how to lift their arms in unison when eating the miserable scraps they were thrown. How to drink in unison and in uniform amounts so that relieving their bladders could be done as one. How to sleep, alternating heads and feet so that broad shoulders did not rob them of room, and the peculiar choreography in which every other man had to step over the chains, bring them up and over his back and head and then, in unison, he down head to foot. Only in this way were the chains prevented from buckling and doubling on themselves, and cutting shorter what little give they offered.

  The physical discomfort was one thing. The worry about their fate was another. Carlby reminded them, "Boast not about being in Holy Orders. Suleiman has vowed to kill any Hospitaler found in the Mediterranean. And Barbarossa," he pointed out, "has served his time at the oar in the order's galleys."

  CHAPTER 20

  Mercifully, even with less man full sail, the trip to Algiers took but three nights and two days. The merchant ship with its firkata escort moored alongside the new dock at Al Penon, the fortress-island built and held by the Spaniards until Barbarossa tore it down around their heads in 1530. Now, two years later, with the help of thousands of slaves, many of them the former Spaniard inhabitants of the island, Barbarossa was rebuilding the fortress and simultaneously constructing a jetty connecting island and mainland. When it was completed; Algiers would have a large harbor of its own and would no longer need to use Tunis for the wintering of its fleet.

  Brought up from the Stygian darkness of the hold, and still chained hand-to-hand, the prisoners were marched, walking sideways, crablike, toward the city. When one tripped and fell, to the catcalls and jeers of the onlookers, the others could only drag him along until he regained his feet. The last remaining Scot serving man—except for Fionn—fell once too often. A scimitar ensured he would never get up. The headless body bounced about, spewing blood on the fellow prisoners as they dragged it with them—a grim reminder of what happened to one who was less than surefooted.

  Their destination soon loomed above them: the Jenina built by Barbarossa on the site of the palace once occupied by his assassinated Moorish predecessor.

  Iron cages, less than a man's height, hung here and there from tree or beam, tower and turret. Inside crouched men, dead or dying of thirst and starvation. To the Christians' horror, their group stopped just below a cage where one emaciated man was devouring the death-bloated remains of another. Above the great arched entrance to Barbarossa's Jenina, hundreds of heads and even more skulls were mounted on spears, the flesh being scavenged from the newer ones by great blackdaws. Amidst this mute and terrifying testament to the cheapness of life in the Barbaresco state of Algiers, the captives were glad to reach the comparative safety of the dungeons.

  That night, while the prisoners from the Annunciata thirsted unattended in the windowless dungeons carved from stone below the Jenina, there was much merriment above in the Court of the Four Domed Chambers. There, intricately stuccoed walls, ornate window shutters, and lavish wood paneling rivaled in richness the sumptuous, overelaborate furnishings. That Barbarossa was unaware of his son's rescue and was still searching for him did not dampen the feasting. Eulj Ali, his four wives and his mother rejoiced in food and wine and, when he was up to it, in the vigor of his jima with one or more of his wives, as Marimah looked on fondly.

  It was not until the following day that Eulj Ali, his mother, and his father's most trusted lieutenant, Sinan the Jew of Smryna, sat down to discuss the fate of the prisoners. Marimah wanted to wait until the Beglerbey returned before any decision was made. Eulj Ali protested; the decision, like the captives, was his. "They must be freed. I have no choice," Eulj Ali finally declared. "I am indebted to the jamad ja'da for my life."

  "Who?"

  "The jamad ja'da. Wait till you see him, Sinan. You'll agree the name fits the owner, for never on a young man did I ever see such a head of hair white and gray and silver and damascene steel."

  Sinan the Jew, looking on silently, found his interest piqued.

  "A young man?" Marimah persisted.

  "Of an age with me. He travels under this sign," Eulj Ali said, fishing his carving of the Seaforth crest from out of one of the many voluminous and secret pockets within his robes. As Marimah turned the small Mer-Lion over in her hands, Eulj Ali continued, "He bought me and protected me from whippings. I am in his debt, he saved my life."

  "As you saved his," she retorted.

  "He is a Hospitaler," was Sinan the Jew's quiet addition to the conversation.

  Marimah reacted violently, throwing the small carving from her as if it had come alive and mauled her hand. "A Hospitaler?" she shrieked. "You saved a Hospitaler?" Fear, shock, anger, despair warred within her.

  Eulj Ali could not meet her eyes; instead, he bent to retrieve the carving. Damn the Jew. He had hoped the secret would hold until the Christians were safely gone.

  As if Eulj Ali had spoken aloud, Sinan the Jew respon
ded impassively, "If I knew of this within minutes of your arrival, how long, think you, before word reached the Beglerbey?"

  Marimah nodded vigorously; Sinan was right. Eulj Ali only stared coldly at his father's lieutenant. Not even months in the galleys had made him subservient to authority.

  "There is a way..." the slow, nasal voice of Sinan suggested as he met, unblinking, the stare of his master's favorite son, a man only the foolhardy dared to offend.

  Marimah, concerned for her son and fearful of her husband, clutched at the hope the man held forth. "Anything. Just tell us."

  Ignoring her, since she was only a woman, even if mother to Eulj Ali, the lieutenant waited, staring at Eulj Ali. Only when he slowly and reluctantly nodded did Sinan proceed. "There is a way to save their lives and appease the Beglerbey's wrath while repaying the Moulay Hassan's daughter for her high-handed refusal of Barbarossa's offer to take her in marriage."

  Eulj Ali had known nothing of the marriage offer or its aftermath. Diverted and alarmed, he stared at his mother with narrowed eyes. "My father would replace one of you? Which one? Not you, I trust?" A spy in his father's bed was an invaluable asset to a younger son with contentious brothers. Meeting his stare, Marimah saw smoldering in her son the same violence that Barbarossa was so quick to vent. Marimah had lived through Barbarossa's spasms of rage, however, and her son's did not frighten her unduly. She worried only that the Amira Aisha might change her mind and accept Barbarossa's offer. Marimah had spent too many years talking, coercing, threatening, coaxing, bribing, and whipping her fellow wives into order. The thought of removing one and introducing another into the seraglio did not find favor with her. Moreover, secretly she applauded the young princess's posture of independence.

  Eulj Ali's face contorted with anger when his mother did not respond quickly enough to please him. Then Sinan the Jew's nasal voice insinuated itself between mother and son and averted possible violence against the mother by the son. "Your mother would not be forced out. All know she is the favorite of the Beglerbey." Ignoring Eulj Ali's sigh of relief as merely an indication of his irnmaturity, the Jew continued on imperturbably. "All I suggest is a way to use this matter to our advantage. The young princess not only rejected our benevolent Beglerbey's offer of marriage, but also challenged him to compete for her hand. Against others. Any others, providing only that they be of noble birth. Naturally, Uruj Barbarossa will not demean himself to compete with untried men whose only claim to virtue lies in the blood of their fathers and forefathers. However, is it not written that he who owns the slave also owns all that belongs to the slave? And are you not muraquib to the jamad ja'da and his fellows? If you enter one or all of these captives of yours into the contest and one of them wins, the prize is yours. If any or all lose, then they die. It is as Allah wills."