Corsair

by Tim Severin

  He had not intended to buy any slaves at the badestan until the young dark-haired man caught his eye. The youth had a look about him that said he might one day make an astute scrivano as the locals called their scribes, or, if he had been younger, perhaps even a kocek, though Turgut himself had never much time for clever dancing boys and their attractions. So it was on an impulse that he had bought the dark-haired one, and then, having made one purchase, it had seemed only natural to make a second. He bid for the second slave because the man was so obviously a sailor. Turgut could recognise a mariner of whatever nationality, be he Turk or Syrian, Arab or Russian, and Turgut felt he was able to justify his second purchase more easily. Izzet Darya was a rowing galley, but she also carried two enormous triangular sails and she needed capable sail handlers. Moreover, if he was very lucky, the new purchase might even possess shipwright’s skills. That would be a bonus. Good timber was not the only shortage in the Arsenal of Algiers. More than half the workmen in the galley yards were foreigners, many of them slaves, and if the new purchase could cut, shape and fit timber, he would be a useful addition to the boatyard. Turgut would rent his slave out for a daily wage or have the cost of his labour deducted from the final bill for the repairs to Izzet Darya.

  Having made his bids, Turgut followed the captives back to the courtyard of the Dey’s palace. Now came the final haggling. It was an auction all over again. Each slave was set up on a block and the bid price, written on the man’s chest, was called out. According to custom the Dey had the right to buy the man at that sum if the original bidder did not increase his offer. Turgut noted the frisson of interest among the spectators when a fat pale-skinned man was pushed up on the block. He was too soft and chubby to be a labourer, and the first price at the badestan was already substantial, 800 pieces of eight in the Spanish money or nearly 1,500 Algerian piastres. Turgut wondered if someone had secretly investigated the man’s value. In the slave trade you had to know what you were doing, particularly if you thought you were buying someone worth a ransom. Then the bidding became hectic, both sides gambling on just how much money might be squeezed out of the infidel’s family and friends. So a common technique when prisoners were first landed was to place among them informers who pretended to be in similar hardship. They befriended the new arrivals and, when they were at their most vulnerable, wormed out personal details – the amount of property they owned at home, the importance of their families, the influence they had with their governments. All was reported back and reflected in the price at the Dey’s auction. On this occasion the fat man was clearly English for it was the English consul’s dragoman who was defending the original bid, and when the Dey’s agent increased the price only by 500 piastres before dropping out, Turgut suspected that the dragoman had already paid a bribe to the Dey to ensure that the fat man was placed in the consul’s care.

  Turgut had only a token tussle over the final price for the black-haired young man. The captive looked too slight to be much use as a common labourer and, besides, there was a glut of slaves in the city. So the eventual price of 200 piastres was reasonable enough, as was the fee of 250 pieces of eight which he had to pay for the sailor whose name, according to the auction roster, was Dunton. If the latter proved to be a shipwright then, according to Turgut’s calculations, he would charge the shipyard 6 pieces of eight per month for his labour.

  Turgut was leaving the Kasbah, well satisfied with his purchases, when he came face to face with someone he had been trying to avoid for the past few weeks – the khaznadji, the city treasurer. The encounter was unfortunate because Turgut was severely in arrears with his taxes on the value of the plunder that he had earned when his ship was seaworthy. Not that the Captain of Galleys believed the meeting was accidental, because the khaznadji was flanked by two odjaks wearing their regulation red sashes and yatagans, the ceremonial dagger. The odjaks, as Turgut was all too aware, would be formal witnesses to any conversation.

  ‘I congratulate you, effendi,’ murmured the tax collector after the usual compliments and civilities in the name of the Padishah. ‘I understand that you have purchased two fine slaves. I wish you well of their employ.’

  ‘I thank you,’ answered Turgut. ‘I shall put them to useful work in due course.’

  ‘So your ship is to be ready soon?’

  The khaznadji knew very well that Izzet Darya would be in dock for at least another month, and that as long as his vessel was out of commission, Turgut Reis had no income and a great many expenses, not least of them the mounting costs of the repairs. Being Captain of Galleys was a great honour, but unfortunately it did not carry a stipend. The plundering cruise, the corso, was the only way for him to make a living, just as it was for his crew. Turgut’s petty officers and free oarsmen – about half the total – had long ago left to join other galleys. His slave oarsmen came from a contractor, and Turgut had been obliged to terminate the agreement prematurely. Unfortunately the disappointed slave contractor was also the khaznadji.

  ‘Inshallah, my ship will be afloat before long,’ Turgut replied smoothly, deciding it was better that he bought himself some time with a gesture of generosity, though he could ill afford one. ‘Those two slaves, which you admire, perhaps you would do me the honour of accepting one of them on loan. That would give me pleasure.’

  The khaznadji lifted his hand in a small graceful gesture, acknowledging the gift. He had what he wanted, compensation for the cancelled hire contract. If the Captain of Galleys went bankrupt, which would surely happen if his antique galley was not repaired in time, the slave would automatically become his property.

  Privately the khaznadji despised Turgut. He thought the man was an old fogey who considered himself superior to the Algerines and because the captain came from the Seraglio, the imperial court, he presumed that the young black-haired slave had been purchased for his sexual gratification. It would be amusing to humiliate the captain still further by exposing his handsome young man to abuse.

  ‘You are too kind. I admire your generosity, and indeed it is a difficult choice. With your permission, I select the dark-haired one. But it would be improper to retain him for my household, so I shall place him to the benefit of the city. I will assign him to the beylik, to do public labour.’

  He bowed and moved on, feeling that he had extracted the best possible outcome from the encounter.

  ON HIS WAY back home after the awkward meeting with the khaznadji, Turgut Reis knew what he would do to restore his normal good humour. His house was one of the privileges that came with his rank as Captain of Galleys. A four-storey mansion, it was positioned on almost the highest point of the city, with a magnificent view out over the harbour and the sea beyond. To take full advantage of the location, Turgut had caused a garden to be created on the flat roof. His servants had carried up hundreds of baskets of earth and laid out flowerbeds. Sweet-smelling shrubs had been selected and planted, and a dozen trees rooted in large tubs to shade the spot where Turgut liked to sit cross-legged, gazing over the view and listening to the distant sounds of the city spread out below him. Now, reaching the roof garden, he called for his favourite carpet to be brought out. It was an Usak in the old-fashioned Anatolian style and made with the Turkish knot. In Turgut’s opinion the more recent and popular Seraglio designs with their profusion of tulips and hyacinths and roses were much too showy, though he had to admit that the Persian knotting did give them a softer, more velvety surface. But only the Usak carpet with its pattern of repeated stars was the appropriate setting for his most prized possession – the Kitab-i Bahriye.

  He waited patiently while his steward brought up the beautifully carved bookstand, and then the volume itself. Turgut looked down at the cover of the book and allowed himself a few moments of anticipation before he opened it and relished the treasures within. Of course, there were other versions of the Book of Sea Lore as the infidels called it. Indeed the Padishah himself owned the most lavishly illustrated copy in existence, a volume prepared specially for the Sultan of S
ultans. But the copy lying before Turgut was unique. It was the original. Prepared 150 years ago by Turgut’s forebear, the peerless Piri Reis, the book of maps and charts and its accompanying collection of sailing notes had been passed down in his family for six generations. It was the wellspring from which all other versions had been drawn.

  Turgut leaned forward and opened the book at random. He knew every page by memory, yet he never failed to be awed by the vision of the man who had created it. ‘God has not granted the possibility of displaying everyone of the afore-mentioned places such as harbours and waters around the shores of the Mediterranean, and the reefs and shoals in the water, in a single map,’ he read. ‘Therefore experts in this science have drawn up what they call a “chart” with a pair of compasses according to a scale of miles, and it is written directly on a parchment.’

  Here was the genius of his ancestor, thought Turgut. The man who wrote those words was much more than the Sultan’s High Admiral and a great war leader. He also had the curiosity and penetration to study and learn, and the generosity to donate his knowledge to others.

  Gently Turgut untied the silk ribbons of an accompanying folder. It contained a very special map also prepared by Piri, a map of much greater ambition for it summarised what the admiral had been able to find out about the great western ocean beyond the straits which divide Spain and Ifriqya. This map depicted lands far, far out towards the setting sun, places which neither the High Admiral nor the Captain of Galleys had ever visited, but only knew by repute. Piri Reis had spent years sifting and collating information in the writings and log books of infidels as well as Moors in order to assemble this map, the first of its kind in the Padishah’s Empire, copied and admired in many lands.

  Turgut picked out a typical comment written in the admiral’s neat hand, beside a sketch of a weird-looking beast on the west coast of Ifriqya. ‘In this country it seems that there are white-haired monsters in this shape, and also six-horned oxen. The Portuguese infidels have written it in their maps.’ Turgut sat back and considered. That sentence had been penned a century and a half earlier, yet already the infidels had been showing signs of surpassing the Faithful in their knowledge of the seas and how to navigate them. How had that come to pass? When he looked up into the night sky and searched for the stars that guide mariners at sea, they bore the names that the Faithful had given them, because it was the Moors who had first learned how to use them to find their way at night. Some said the Faithful were obliged to do this because they travelled on the haj across the vast expanses of the desert, and they needed the stars to guide them on their pilgrimage to the sacred places. So Allah in his infinite wisdom had placed the stars in the sky for this purpose. But now it was the infidels who were travelling farthest, and using these same stars to steer by. They were at the forefront of knowledge. Infidels were designing and building the finest sea-going ships even in the dockyards of Algiers; infidel cartographers drew the best charts; and unbelievers had sailed all the way around the globe.

  But Turgut Reis had a secret that he had never revealed to anyone: one day he would, in a splendid gesture, demonstrate that the Faithful still possessed the skills that Allah had bestowed on the followers of the Prophet and, at the same time, burnish his own family tradition. He, Turgut Reis, might never be able to circumnavigate the globe like an infidel, nor explore the farther fringes of the western ocean, but he had the means and the opportunity to expand the Book of Sea Lore that his ancestor had pioneered, and that was just as momentous. That is why, every time he went on the corso, he carried with him his notebooks and brushes, why he made notes of the harbours and anchorages, and drew sketches of the coastlines. The day would come, if Allah willed it, when he would organise all these notes and drawings, and produce a new edition of the Kitab-i Bahriye, updating it to show all the changes that had taken place in the Mediterranean since the days of the High Admiral. It would be his personal homage to the memory of his ancestor.

  Belatedly he had come to realise the magnitude of the task ahead of him, and now he worried that its accomplishment was slipping from his grasp. Through God’s will he lacked sons who might share in the great design, and with each passing year he felt the burden of his ancestry resting more heavily on his shoulders. In short, he needed a capable assistant to make sense of all his notes, organise his many sketches, and draw fair copies of his maps and charts. Perhaps, Turgut thought to himself, the young man he had bought that day might be just the amanuensis he needed. That, too, might be the gift of Allah.

  Turgut bowed his head and closed his eyes. His lips moved in a silent prayer, as he beseeched the Most Merciful, the All-Merciful, that he would be granted a life long enough to fulfil that ambition, and that his eyesight would not fail prematurely.

  Suddenly Turgut felt chilly. While he had been daydreaming, the sun had sunk behind the mountains, and the evening was growing cold. He clapped his hands to summon a servant and picked up the Kitab. Cradling it like his own child, he descended the stairs from the roof top, entered his library and replaced the volume in its box of cedar wood. Behind him the servant carried the precious ocean map in its folder, and then stood waiting until his master had laid it safely beneath a coverlet of dark green velvet. As Turgut took one last glance around his library to make sure that everything was in its proper place, he wondered if there was any way that he could retrieve the black-haired boy from the clutches of the khaznadji before the drudgery of being a beylik slave ruined him.

  SIX

  THE KHAZNADJI was quick to satisfy his grudge. A servant separated Hector from the other captives in the Dey’s courtyard, and began to herd him briskly through the narrow city streets. When the bewildered young man asked where he was being taken, his escort only repeated, ‘Bagnio! Bagnio!’ and urged him to hurry. For a while Hector believed that he was being taken to a bath house to be washed, for he was filthy and dishevelled. But arriving before a grim-looking stone building he swiftly understood that his anticipation was completely misplaced. The building appeared to be a cross between a prison and a barracks, and the stench wafting out of its massive doors, which stood open, made him gag. It was a foul combination of human excrement, cooking smells, soot and unwashed bodies.

  After a short delay a bored-looking guard took him in charge, then led him to a side room where a blacksmith fitted an iron ring around his right ankle, hammering down the rivet which held it shut. Next he was led to another anteroom where a barber roughly shaved his head, and then to a clothes store. Here the garments in which he had been captured were taken away and he was issued with a bundle containing a coarse blanket, a smock, and a curious item of dress which he at first took to be a woman’s petticoat. Shaped like an open sack, it was sewn across the base, leaving two slits through which he was shown to put his legs so as to make a very baggy pair of pantaloons. He was also given a pair of slippers and a red cap, and another attendant recorded his name in a ledger. Finally he was ushered down the length of a vaulted passageway and thrust out into the open courtyard which formed the centre of the great building. Here he was finally left to himself.

  Hector looked around. He was in the largest building he had ever known. The rectangular courtyard was at least fifty paces by thirty, and open to the skies. On either side an arched colonnade ran the full length of the building, its arches supporting a second-floor gallery. From dim recesses between the arches came the sounds of drunken singing and loud voices quarrelling and shouting. To his astonishment a Turkish soldier, undoubtedly the worse for drink, came reeling and staggering out of the shadows and made his way to the gate. He weaved his way past a number of sick or exhausted slaves lying on the ground or sitting propped against the walls. Hector started to walk hesitantly across the open courtyard, clutching his blanket and wondering what he should do next, or where he should go. The whole building seemed unnaturally empty, though it was clearly designed to house at least a couple of thousand inmates. He had walked no more than a few yards when he felt someone’s eyes on h
im. Looking up, he noticed a man leaning out over the balcony from the upper floor, watching him closely. The stranger was a man of middle age, round-headed and with his dark hair cropped close. Half his body remained in shadow, but it was evident that he was powerfully built. Hector paused, and the stranger beckoned to him, then pointed to the corner of the courtyard where a stairway led to the upper floor. Grateful for some guidance, Hector made his way to the staircase and began to climb.

  He was met as he emerged on the upper floor and at closer quarters he did not like what he saw. The man was dressed in baggy pantaloons and a loose overmantle and wore the red cap and iron anklet which, Hector now presumed, marked him as a fellow slave. But the man’s smile was patently false. ‘Benvenuto, benvenuto,’ he said, indicating that Hector should follow him. He led Hector a short distance along the balcony, then turned to the right, and Hector found himself in what was evidently some sort of dormitory. Crudely made wooden bunk beds, four tiers high, were packed tightly together, with scarcely room to squeeze between them. There was no window and the only light came through the open doorway. With such little ventilation the room reeked of sweat. All the bunks were empty except for one which contained a lump under a blanket which Hector supposed was either someone asleep or dead.

  ‘Venga, venga,’ his guide squeezed his way between the bunks to the back of the room, and was again beckoning to him to follow. Hector saw that the corner of the dormitory had been curtained off by a length of cloth hung from a line. He stepped forward, and the man held aside the curtain so he could pass. As soon as Hector was inside the cubicle, the man dropped the curtain and, from behind, pinioned Hector’s arms to his sides. He felt the man’s unshaven cheek press against the back of his neck, and hot, fetid breath filled his nostrils. He dropped his blanket and tried to break free, but the stranger’s grip was too powerful. ‘Calma, calma,’ the man was saying, as he wrestled Hector forward until his face was pressed against the wall of the cubicle. Hector felt the man’s gut pressing against his back, as he was pinioned in position. A moment later his assailant was pawing at Hector’s shirt with one hand, pulling upward, while the other hand was dragging downwards at his loose pantaloons which fell down towards his knees. His attacker was snorting with excitement and lust. Appalled, Hector realised that he was being raped. He thrashed from side to side, trying again to free himself, but it was useless. Every move was anticipated, and Hector was forced harder against the wall. The man was surging now, trying to force himself into Hector, and grunting with effort. Hector felt waves of revulsion.