Gloriana's Torch

by Patricia Finney

  When all was as safe as it could be, bearing in mind that they were in a cockleshell of wood out on the vast range of the sea at the mercy of Allah’s breath, Suleiman went to look at the men who had been crushed. All three of them were beyond help, one had already died, one was bubbling blood from his mouth, the other grey-skinned and silent and still, but conscious.

  ‘You must put them out of their agony,’ Suleiman said quietly to their Padron, who had been one of the ones hiding under the aftmost bench while he and the better men were making the oars and the gun safe. The Padron stared at him, shook his head. Suleiman sighed.

  ‘Are you in pain?’ he asked the one who was silent and still, whose hips and legs were a bloody, jelly-like mass. For answer the man shut his eyes. ‘They will both be dead in the morning,’ Suleiman said to their Padron. ‘Why make them suffer? Give them mercy.’

  The Padron put his hands behind him and backed away. Suleiman knelt down beside the one who bubbled blood with every breath.

  ‘My son, do you agree that I must kill you?’ he said softly, and the man shut his eyes, nodded convulsively. Suleiman drew his knife again, put his hand over the man’s eyes and stabbed him under his ear. The other one was waiting for the question and sighed, ‘Yes.’ There were tears in his eyes. Again the yield of jugular to his knife, again the gush of blood, the writhing of the body unwilling to release its soul, the smell of sewage.

  Suleiman imagined their souls flying free to meet Allah in Paradise. He went to the clerk, who was squatting under his bench again. The black lay beside him, wheezing for breath and even in the flickering light of the lantern, he looked greyish, which was the shade blacks went when they were sick.

  Suleiman stopped what he was going to say and reached out to feel the black’s forehead. It was burning. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘He took sick yesterday,’ said the clerk tonelessly. ‘The food disagreed with him.’

  This was an ill-omened voyage, Suleiman decided. Never had he lost a man so quickly – well, he’d killed the one on his other bench, but that had been for a good reason. Suleiman sighed. ‘Do what you can for him, clerk.’

  ‘What can I do, Padron? He needs medicine and good nursing, a warm dry place to sleep, rest. Can I give him those?’

  ‘No,’ said Suleiman. ‘Was it you thought of getting up on the bench when the gun went past?’

  A fraction of hesitation. The peasant answered for him. ‘It was, Padron. He thought of it, gave us the order when we didn’t know what to do.’

  The clerk was studying the deck where water and blood still swirled. ‘Well done,’ said Suleiman quietly. ‘You must have the heart of a Padron.’

  The merest flick of the man’s pale eyes told Suleiman that the clerk did not take this as a compliment.

  ‘Or the heart of a lord,’ he added, smiling, not offended, ‘You were also the first to shut an oarport. Well done, again.’

  The clerk nodded but said nothing, still studying the deck. ‘Will you not put him out his pain?’ he asked as Suleiman turned to go, pointing at the black who was so sick.

  ‘No.’ Suleiman was grave to answer this; if the clerk was going to be a Padron he needed to understand. ‘He might get better, and if he does or not is for Allah to decide. The men that were crushed were not going to get better, but it would have taken them until the morning to die, perhaps longer. Why should they suffer more and hurt our ears with their moaning?’

  The clerk looked as if he had more to say but thought better of it. Suleiman went back to his bedroll, found it was wet, hung it up in the hope it might dry one day, and went to curl up against his junior Padron by the drums where it was driest.

  * * *

  Morning came and they were still running before the howling wind, as the rain battered down and the ship rolled from wave to wave. The Captain of the Oardeck and the Señor of the Benches appeared at last with the blacksmith, to inspect the casualties of the night. One after another the bodies were released from the ankle rings and slipped through one open oarport into the water. Nobody said any prayers because they were only dead slaves, except the peasant who crossed himself. The Captain of the Oardeck left that one oarport open for air and a little light, said nothing to Suleiman about the hatches, complimentary or not. No doubt he was terrified of Hugo de Moncada finding out that his lack of care had nearly sunk the ship.

  Although it had nearly killed Suleiman, he thought on the whole he didn’t blame the Captain for his negligence. This was supposedly summer, why should anyone expect such a vicious storm with so little warning? But then they were out on the grey and hostile Atlantic. Even in the fair blue Mediterranean you sometimes got ferocious summer storms. Except there, of course, in a proper galley, you would be safe in port at night anyway.

  It was dark in the oardeck, all that day, with the little lamp burning and nothing to do except rock with the heel and roll and twiddle of the heavily pooped galleas being driven across the miles of grey. At least the deck had been cleaned by the sea, which had now gone out through the scuppers, so the men lay down and most tried to sleep, those who weren’t still puking. With no rowing, it was cold. Some of then huddled together for warmth, others just lay and shivered. Suleiman found the clerk hunched up next to the black, who was stiff and still.

  The clerk shook his head and Suleiman went wearily to the hatchway to tell the officers that another slave was dead.

  After the black had splashed out of the oarport, there was the sound of orders and the Captain of the Oardeck came down the companionway, followed by the blacksmith and four more slaves under guard. Two of them were black, all of them showed the traces of half-healed flogging, so they were men who had tried to escape. Already? thought Suleiman, we’re already down to the escapers and madmen? Allah preserve us.

  Never mind, he would do honour to the clerk, who showed signs of promise. He led the chained men over to the clerk’s end of the bench.

  ‘Clerk,’ he said, and the man climbed to his feet, stood with his legs braced against the bench. He was drawn and weary.

  ‘Yes, Padron.’

  ‘Which one do you want for your oarmate?’

  It was a privilege to be allowed to choose. The clerk understood this, being clearly an intelligent man. He blinked and looked closely at the blacks. One immediately interested him. He reached out, touched an upper right arm. A magnificent snake had somehow been carved into the black skin and scarred so that when the muscles rippled, it looked as if it breathed.

  ‘Him,’ said the clerk.

  No doubt he thought the snake would be a talisman against the fever that had killed his first oarmate. Suleiman nodded to the blacksmith to do his job and when the hammering was over and the new rower safely locked in place, he said to the clerk, ‘You may not wish it, clerk, but you cannot help being what you are, with the heart of a Padron or a lord. When the oarports are open again, I want you to look through them and tell me anything you happen to see. If you do it well, I will give you a loincloth.’

  The clerk looked down at himself and then smiled sourly. ‘I cannot do that, Padron,’ he answered. ‘My sight is too bad. If I had spectacles perhaps … but I can barely see my toes from here.’

  Suleiman sighed, patted the clerk on the back and left him to it. As he went, he heard the man say to the black next to him, ‘Do you understand me?’

  ‘A little.’

  The clerk pointed at the snake-scar, said something about a world-snake.

  Suleiman looked back over his shoulder. The black was staring at the clerk. He spoke softly, the clerk answered, and then suddenly the black was embracing the clerk like a brother. For a moment Suleiman wanted to go over and demand to know why, but then he stopped himself. He could find out later, at the moment he had to supervise the installation of three more slaves in their right places.

  Later, when he had given the slaves permission to talk but told them that they would not be fed that day because they were not working, he found himself shivering
as well. That did it. This was stupid. So he went up the companionway, asked permission to come on deck and went up to the Captain of the Oardeck and bowed to him.

  ‘Señor,’ he said, ‘already we have lost one man to a sickness. Soon we will have an oardeck full of lungfever. It is too cold for them if they are not working.’

  ‘We have no blankets for them,’ said the Captain, rather foolishly. Suleiman knew perfectly well that they had no blankets for the slaves. What would be the point? The blankets would get wet and filthy.

  ‘Do we have braziers?’ It was a rhetorical question, Suleiman knew perfectly well that the blacksmith had two.

  ‘You want braziers in the oardeck? What about fire?’

  Suleiman squinted up at the sky from which hung a steady soggy sheet of rain, that the wind folded over and slapped on wood or rope every so often like a washerwoman at a stream.

  ‘I am more worried about lungfever, Señor,’ he said. ‘I’ve known an oardeck to lose half its men to fevers when they get cold. Señor.’

  The Captain of the Oardeck havered for a while longer. Suleiman balanced in front of him, ignoring the rain on his face and rolling of the ship, staring the man out. He was a perfectly adequate Captain of the Oardeck, but he was weak.

  And Suleiman knew that the galleases were important to the great Enterprise whose ships were sprinkled across the grey sea around them, fleeing from the storm that had broken their formation and scattered them. The galleases had been specially built for it, said the word in the wineshops, the great Santa Cruz had ordered them specially to carry out a great work for the glory of God, to provide him with a miracle. And if they were to be rowed, awkward ugly creatures that they were, they needed rowers. The San Lorenzo flagship, in particular, needed rowers or she would shame Don Hugo de Moncada.

  The braziers were brought down in the late afternoon as the grey winds blew and the grey rain fell, and the sound of chattering teeth filled the oardeck. With a couple of hatches a little open to let the fumes out, the place started to warm up again.

  Suleiman went up the companionway to talk to the Captain again. ‘We should move the men or their bodies will seize up,’ he said without preamble.

  ‘What?’

  ‘They will cramp and ache and be weak tomorrow. They must move. Have them grease the oarblades, then do rowing drill until they are warm. They won’t like it, but it will be better for them.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Señor, have you ever rowed in a galley?’

  ‘I have been Captain of the Oardeck, Simon—’

  ‘Suleiman, Señor.’

  ‘—Suleiman, for three years.’

  ‘Yes, Señor. I myself have been rowing either at the oar or as a Padron for fifteen years, Señor, twelve of them as a voluntary.’

  The Captain of the Oardeck blinked his eyes and Suleiman knew he had him. They brought out the lard they used for the oars and Suleiman made sure they had all the barrels open.

  ‘We grease the oars to keep them supple,’ he shouted as two hundred and fifty-two pairs of eyes stared dully at him, ‘And we grease ourselves not for any impure reasons, but to keep ourselves warm. If I were you, I wouldn’t eat it – it’s heavily salted.’

  Most of them had no idea what he was talking about, so he moved among them, grabbing handfuls of grease, rubbing it into arms, chests, giving a couple of pert buttocks a little slap. Careful not to enjoy yourself, couldn’t have the Captain of the Oardeck getting worried about impurity again.

  He came to the clerk who was looking dubiously at the handfuls of lard in his hand.

  ‘Put it on,’ he said. ‘It’s better to be unclean and a little warmer.’

  ‘I don’t believe I have ever been told not to wear pigfat,’ whispered the clerk. ‘Only it stinks.’

  ‘Of course it does. The pig is an unclean animal and they’re only going to send us the lard that’s going off.’

  ‘How did you know that the pig is unclean, Padron?’ asked the clerk with interest. The black with the snake on his arm was already slapping the stuff on. He looked shiny, like an obsidian statue.

  Suleiman bent close to the clerk. ‘If you could look at me, marrano, you would know I am a Mussulman. We two are surrounded by the infidel heathen here.’

  Surprisingly, the clerk smiled and began putting on the pigfat.

  * * *

  After another dank cold night of howling wind and rain, two more of the slaves were sick with fever, but at last San Lorenzo had turned and was sailing for shore again. Like many sailors, Suleiman could feel the loom of the land under his feet. This was not England, they were nowhere near far enough north, but the storm-battered fleet needed desperately to refit, repair broken spars and masts, take on more supplies.

  They came to the harbour at Corunna, and Hugo de Moncada ordered the oars out again. So the galleas San Lorenzo led the other three into the harbour, at right angles to the wind, and the men rowed well, so well they only needed the warping ropes for the last few feet, and they ran up the oars as she came up against the quay, neat as a kiss. It was a pity that the pretty boy aristocrat with the tawny suit was suffering too badly from seasickness to enjoy it.

  They had broken spars and oars and they needed provisions – more men, food and water, some of which had spoiled already in its raw green barrels. Suleiman forayed out to find more wineskins to fill with a mixture of cheap wine and water for his men. But the cold was more of a problem than thirst. This was summer, but you would hardly know it from the falling rain and the howling wind. Two more slaves caught the fever that had killed the black, and that made four, which worried Suleiman, who knew how sickness could sweep through an oardeck. All of the men were bluish and shivering and when the barber came to shave their heads again, some protested that they needed every scrap of warmth they could find.

  Part of the trouble was that they were on half-rations and not doing any work, and because a large number of men getting bored in close confinement always led to that, there were fights, vicious ones. Mysteriously, one man lost an eye. Suleiman bandaged it and told him he could row even if he was completely blind. During winter in the Mediterranean the remaining slaves were often released from their benches, and kept in the bagnios where they could go out and work in the docks. But not here. While refitting went on and all the sailors slaved at recovering from the storm that had scattered them, the galley slaves idled away the hours.

  Meanwhile more ships joined the great Enterprise. Suleiman could squint out of the oarport where it was open and see them, far away, coming into harbour under the guidance of the pilot boat.

  One day Suleiman was returning to San Lorenzo after a night spent in boredom and drinking in the Corunna wineshops. He came on board to find a new group of men in grave discussions, grouped about a gun.

  ‘Padron,’ called one of the officers, and Suleiman came over, made obeisance. The officer who didn’t know him, made an introduction to a tall, grey-haired, bitter-faced man with only one arm, who had standing at his side … A woman? A woman actually on board a galley? She was veiled, but even so …

  Suleiman tried to hide his shock. Then the one-armed man spoke, in a guttural language that sounded as if it might be German, and the woman translated for him.

  ‘My husband is a gunner,’ she said in excellent Spanish to Suleiman. ‘He wishes to examine the gun that broke loose and make sure it does not happen again.’

  Suleiman bowed again, trying to control his scattered thoughts. ‘Señora—’

  ‘Mevrouw van den Berg,’ said the woman. ‘This is Mijnheer van den Berg.’

  ‘Señora … your husband, of course. But … but not you, Señora. Under any circumstances.’

  ‘How will you speak to him?’ she said coldly. ‘He speaks only Dutch.’

  ‘I’ll manage. I will have no woman on the oardeck, Señora, it would be … it would be unseemly.’

  ‘As I am veiled, they will be unable to see me.’

  ‘Yes … but…’
Allah help him, how could he explain it quietly to the husband without the woman hearing?

  He looked around the officers and saw that all of them, the Captain of the Oardeck included, had been unequal to the task of explaining why a woman could not possibly go down to the oardeck.

  ‘It would be a very shocking thing,’ he said feebly, ‘against all—’

  ‘Are you concerned that I might see the men’s nakedness?’ she asked him, and Suleiman saw all the group of officers wince at the question.

  ‘Well … er…’

  ‘I am a mother, and a wife. Why should I be shocked at what God gave all men?’

  Typical woman, she wanted a look. How disgusting. She was quite small and slight, but clearly as overheated with lust as all women were. Suleiman looked desperately at the Captain of the Oardeck who shrugged.

  The tall, one-armed gunner said something to his wife, and she nodded. ‘I am quite heavily veiled, which makes it hard to see,’ she said, ‘and if you have the men squatting under the benches, there will be … less occasion for immodesty. I doubt you could shock me, in any case, as we have already inspected two of the other galleases where they had much worse injuries.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Suleiman, ‘that was due to my little clerk. I might have lost as many as six men, but he had them jump up onto the bench in time.’

  For all her coldness of manner, she shuddered. ‘Shall we make the inspection?’ she said.

  De Moncada had given the order, the Captain of the Oardeck was too weak to stand against him and Suleiman had not the authority. He sighed, bowed again two-fisted, and led the way to the companionway.

  As he came down into the half-light of the oardeck, where the men were muttering among each other, he roared out, ‘Down!’ and shook out his whip. They were learning, all of them went under the benches and only a few stuck their heads out when they saw the skirts of a woman following him. Suleiman took flicks off their noses for that. Lecherous bastards, lusting after a woman.

  The oardeck became unnaturally still, every eye turned hungrily on the slight curves of Mevrouw van den Berg, as if by the mere force of staring they could shove aside her veil, rip off her gown and kirtle and petticoat and stays and smock, and make her as naked as they were, do to with her as they wanted.