Then the arrests began.
Our barn was used for general interrogations while the more serious wrong-doers were taken to the town gaol. I was no longer allowed anywhere near the paddock. I missed talking to the horses, grooming and stroking their coats and plaiting their manes. Garci turned them into some meadows to graze. I heard him tell my father that they were disturbed by the goings-on in the barn.
We never again heard such screams as had come from Bartolomé that morning. The barn door was kept shut, and Father Besian used the period when the household was at mass for his most rigorous questioning of his suspects. My aunt had been correct. It had been a deliberate ploy to allow Bartolomé’s screams to wake everyone that first morning in order to strike terror into our hearts and make us more malleable. Father Besian had known that the story would run through the town like a fever: all he had to do was sit back and wait for the expected results.
The trials came to an end. Half a dozen or so people had been found guilty of a number of transgressions. An old man who’d converted to Christianity a while ago had, as his years progressed, returned to the rites of his Jewish religion. There was to be a series of public punishments. Those guilty of minor offences would confess in church on Sunday and be given prayers to say or works of charity to perform. More serious sinners, like Bartolomé, were to be publicly scourged. The man found guilty of heresy was to be burned alive.
It was after nine one evening when we heard this news. Father Besian was at the town gaol. Despite the lateness of the hour Papa went to speak to him.
I waited up until Papa returned. When he came into the house, I poured him some wine – not the heavy, sickly type that we had been consuming since Lorena had taken charge of our kitchen staff, but a glass from a bottle of plain country wine that we’d drunk when Mama was alive.
Papa took the glass from my hand and sipped from it. Then he set it down upon the sideboard.
‘You’ve not been able to obtain a pardon for this man?’ I said.
‘Not a complete pardon, no.’ He sat down heavily in a nearby chair.
I went and knelt before him. My face was on a level with his own. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was staring beyond me to some inner private place where I had no access.
‘Would money help?’ I asked him. ‘You can have everything I own. The necklace Mama left me. Anything.’
He smiled and touched my face as if seeing me properly for the first time in almost a year. ‘Sweet Zarita,’ he said. ‘Kind, like your mama; but impulsive, too impulsive for your own good.’
‘Will they not grant this old man mercy?’ I asked.
He waited for a moment before replying. ‘I have obtained for him’ – he rubbed his forehead with his hand – ‘a mercy of sorts.’
‘They will not burn him then?’
‘They will burn him,’ my father replied grimly. ‘It’s just that he’ll not be alive when they do it.’
Chapter Nineteen
Saulo
WE WERE THREE days out of Barbate when disaster overtook us.
The captain and I were following a heading south along the Atlantic coast of Andalucía, with the intention of eventually swinging eastwards to take us back into the Mediterranean, when a violent storm came roaring in from the open sea and drove us entirely off course. Winter had passed, and for the last few weeks we’d witnessed enormous chattering flocks of migrating birds sweeping across the straits from Africa, heralding spring for the lands of Europe. The winter had been mild, so the shock of this sudden severe weather coming in April was all the greater. Driving hail battered the boat and great breaking waves pounded out of the west, threatening to engulf us.
Above the booming thunder the captain managed to scream in my ear, ‘Imagine the full fury of this in the Atlantic Ocean! Would any but a lunatic sail out there with the man Columbus to face such a storm?’
‘Yes!’ I shouted back as the waves whipped my face, and my head and my heart sang in exhilaration at this struggle with the elements of nature. ‘Yes, I would!’
We lowered the sail and stowed away our precious goods, then clung on and rode out the worst of it. Eventually it began to pass over. Sunlight lanced out of grey skies and the wash became a steady swell. Panipat and the oarsmen went on bailing while the quartermaster checked the cargo and the carpenter-cook and the sail-maker examined the mast, which had taken a beating and needed repair. Occupied by clearing up, and with dense clouds still tumbling and growling off to starboard, none of us noticed the white square of a sail appear on the horizon.
No lookout had been posted. Every man was busy, including the captain. He’d even taken off his peacock jacket in order to crouch down in the prow and check that the flint box was dry. The men were wringing out their possessions. Beside me in the bilges, Lomas was checking that the contents of his bag were safe. Suddenly I raised my head and saw the ship coming alongside no more than a hundred metres away.
My voice strangled in my throat. I could only grab Lomas by the arm and croak a warning.
He followed my gaze and yelled at the top of his voice, ‘Muster! Muster!’
The men scrambled to their places and I jumped onto the boardwalk.
There was a bang. The other ship had fired a cannon shot. It went clear across our decks. Lomas grabbed my ankle so that I fell flat on my face.
‘Get down,’ he yelled, ‘lest you want your head blown off!’
She was a tall three-masted privateer, with cannon on each side. And she was flying the flag of the crescent moon.
A shout of joy came from one of the Muslim slaves, and he called out to his companions. They raised their hands, pointing at the flag, smiling and waving.
I saw flame leap out again from the mouth of a cannon mounted on the ship’s foredeck. The ball went over and splatted into the water beside us.
‘She’s too high in the water!’ the man in front of Lomas shouted. ‘Her cannon won’t harm us.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that,’ someone else replied as the next ball skimmed the deck, whapped against our mast, causing it to wobble, and then took off the awning draped above the captain’s table.
‘No talk!’ Panipat shouted in fury. ‘Use your energy to pull!’
But there wasn’t an island in sight and the Turks now saw that we had chained Muslim slaves who were crying out to them for rescue. They closed on us, intending to kill the Spanish crew.
‘For the love of God, release us or we’ll drown if our galley is holed!’ one of the slaves pleaded to Panipat.
‘And have you jump overboard?’ he swore at them in reply. ‘Not this time, you dogs. Get on, you curs! Get on!’ He lashed out with his whip.
The oars groaned as the men bent and pulled. Muscles stood out like ropes on their backs. The captain stamped his feet in frustration. We were far off course, and without knowing our location he couldn’t give Panipat an accurate heading. The Turks had us within their grasp and there was nowhere to go.
‘O Lord, deliver us!’ the quartermaster prayed as he handed out spears to the crew.
One of our freeman rowers spoke to me: ‘If you know what’s good for you, boy, you’ll make a run for it. When we’re boarded, seize your chance to jump and swim. Cling to anything that floats and try to get away. Better to drown than be captured by the Infidel. These heathens will use you for sport before they slit your belly open and toss you to the fish.’
I touched the waistband of my breeches where my knife was hidden.
The privateer was now so close we could see men lined up with grappling hooks, ready to throw down to pull us in. They were shouting to the Arab slaves, who replied in their own language.
‘Tell them how good a captain I’ve been!’ Captain Cosimo begged our chained Arab men. ‘I’ve always fed you and treated you fairly.’
The slaves laughed in his face and defiantly rested on their oars, disobeying Panipat’s instructions.
‘Let us parley!’ Captain Cosimo hailed the
ship in the dozen or so languages in which he could say these words. ‘Name your terms of surrender!’
The answer came in a rush of descending arrows. There would be no discussion. They intended to take whatever we had.
A grappling hook with a line attached came hurtling across the water and thudded into the side of the boat. It failed to find a hold and fell back into the sea. The next one trailed across the deck and caught the side. Our galley shuddered, and a loud huzzah sounded from the enemy. I didn’t need to be told what to do. I ran forward, wrested the hook free and threw it back into the water. Arrows struck the deck all around me, one glancing against my arm. I jumped back among the oarsmen for safety. They cheered me as I crouched at their feet.
Then a contrary wind caught the sails of the other ship and she drifted away from us. Our men cheered even louder and bent over their oars. We began to make headway.
The gap between the two vessels widened. But the Turks were without doubt among the best seamen we had encountered. They altered their angle of approach to bring their prow to bear on our side.
‘Turn us!’ Captain Cosimo screamed at Panipat. ‘Turn us! We must not let them ram us on our broadside!’
Our men stood up and sculled hard. Our boat spun like a piece of cork in a river.
‘We can’t outgun them,’ Captain Cosimo shouted in glee, ‘but we might outmanoeuvre them!’
It seemed as though he was right. We were losing them. They’d no oarsmen to give them power to change direction. They relied solely on the wind, and luck was with us – but for how long?
Blindly the free oarsmen obeyed the stroke command, and there was more open water between the vessels.
The captain had a rough heading and he shouted out to Panipat. Was it possible that we might get away?
The freemen and the port-side slaves settled into a fast rhythm. The boat went on, moving with the flow of the sea.
But the Arab oarsmen were slacking – there was no doubt about it. Whereas eight months ago I wouldn’t have sensed the movement of the boat through the water, now I was experienced enough to feel the sluggishness jar through my very bones.
Panipat became as one demented. He ran up to the prow and began to beat the Arab slaves mercilessly. They bent their backs and took the blows but pulled not one iota harder. Finally he took his long knife from his belt and put it behind the ear of the nearest slave. ‘Pull, you son of Satan,’ he screeched, ‘or I’ll skewer your skull and take your place myself!’
The Arabs began to pull harder.
Our vessel was swift and light and had a skilled oars-master and crew. Now that we’d put distance between ourselves and the larger ship, the captain hoped to be gone. But the bigger vessel had tacked and the Turks were bringing it round again.
We could still get away. Why did the captain not alter course?
Panipat glanced out across the waves and then back to Captain Cosimo. ‘Change our bearing!’ he shouted.
The gap was closing again. Fast.
And then I realized that, at that distance, Captain Cosimo could not see the enemy ship tacking to turn against us.
I crawled along the boardwalk to the command platform and grabbed the captain’s arm. ‘She’s coming about!’ I shouted. ‘She’s coming about!’
Captain Cosimo blinked and stared at me. A mind-numbing pause. Then, within half a minute, he took in what I was telling him.
He was thirty seconds too late.
A shadow loomed over our heads as the privateer, prow out-thrust, bore down on us.
With a crunch of splintering wood she rammed us amidships.
Chapter Twenty
Saulo
MEN WERE FLUNG all ways. Panipat was hurled into the air. Huge though he was, the force of the collision tossed him head over heels like a child’s doll. He slammed back down onto the deck, stunned. A dozen of the freemen were caught under the hull of the enemy ship. They disappeared in a welter of broken planks, ripping, grinding noises and horrendous cries. At the stern end those who had survived the impact began to bail furiously as water swirled in about their feet.
We weren’t broken in half, just impaled upon the front of the Turkish ship, like a fish caught by spear. And, whether by luck or deliberate act, the Turks had breached us towards the stern end, so that it was the freemen who suffered most and the Arab and other slaves who remained unharmed above sea level in the prow.
Panipat got to his feet and began to rally the men. The quartermaster was already at our cannon, with Captain Cosimo beside him, striking a spark for the fuse from the flint box. It was to be a fight to the death.
Our gun fired off. David against Goliath. A bang and a whistling noise. The acrid smell of gunpowder. The cannonball struck the foresail of the bigger ship and tore a huge rent in the fabric.
‘Take that!’ Our crazy captain shook his fists above his head. ‘Ram my boat, would you? Now you’ll pay for it!’
A stream of foul insults came from the quartermaster, directed towards the enemy. The rest of our crew and oarsmen joined in, creating a din to rival the cries and orders coming from our attackers. The quartermaster picked up another ball, preparing to reload our cannon. A volley of small cannon shot rattled out from the ship above us, and the quartermaster fell across the cannon, blood streaming from his face.
One of the Arab oarsmen began to whoop and shout.
In a fury Panipat seized his knife and stabbed him through the neck. Blood spurted out splattering over those beside him who began a caterwauling lament. From the Turkish ship arrows showered down around Panipat. One caught him in his leg. He snapped it off and threw it aside disdainfully, still standing upright among the chaos and uproar.
I had been jolted across the width of the boat. Now I half rose and hunkered forward to the prow to help the captain. Together we levered the dead quartermaster off the cannon.
‘We’ll aim for the sailors this time,’ I said as I lowered the barrel.
‘Yes,’ the captain snarled. ‘Try to blast some of those murderers out of the water.’
We fired another shot. With a thunderous clap, flame spouted from the mouth of the gun. The cannonball cut a swathe through the men standing at the rail of the Turkish ship.
‘We got them!’ I shouted. ‘We got them!’
The captain laughed in delight. ‘Let’s send them another message, the same as the last!’
But the effect of our success on the larger ship was to bring more armed men to the rails just above us. I saw them gathering and quickly grabbed another cannonball. Just as they were about to fire, I thrust it down the open end of the barrel.
‘The metal will burn you,’ the captain warned me. ‘Be careful, boy—’
The skin of my hands singed on the red-hot metal. I yelped in pain and jumped back.
In that instant the Turks let off another round of small cannon shot. I stared in horror as, just in front of me, Captain Cosimo crumpled to the deck. The front of his shirt was pierced in several places. Blood ran freely from these holes.
The sound of the battle suddenly seemed to come to my ears from far away. I got down on my knees beside our fallen captain, hardly aware of the cannonball whizzing past my own head.
I tore off my shirt to try to staunch the blood flowing from the captain’s wounds. The deck was slippery beneath me, red with his blood flowing from his body as fast as an outgoing tide. My captain was dying. I knew it, and so did he.
‘My jacket,’ he mumbled, blood seeping from between his teeth. ‘Give me my jacket.’
I reached out and drew over his peacock jacket. Awkwardly I lifted it and laid it upon him. He gave a sigh as he stroked it, the pallor of his face turning from tan to wax in less than a minute. And he died there, before me, with what appeared to be a look of satisfaction on his face.
I rocked back on my heels. He was gone. Our brave, foolish, proud, crazy Captain Cosimo was no more. I was bereft. Apart from the debt I owed him for all he’d taught me in the months I’d been on hi
s boat, I knew that I had lost a friend as well as a mentor. My face was wet.
A shout brought me to my senses. Lomas was gesticulating at me. ‘Get you to cover, boy! Hide yourself !’
There was no time to grieve for Captain Cosimo. The enemy were recharging their guns while arrows, spears, and rocks thudded onto our deck. Although they gathered up what they could and threw it back, many of our men fell under this onslaught. The sail-maker went over the side with a spear in his belly. The Turks’ strategy was plain: they would massacre us from the safety of their decks and then come aboard and release the slaves. I rolled myself into a ball and cowered as far under the protection of the gun platform as I was able.
Then a different noise resounded through the boat. Given the circumstances it was the strangest sound I’d ever heard. The remainder of our men were cheering and whistling.
I peered out and saw a ship swiftly approaching us.
A ship of the line, a troop ship, flying a flag bearing the crests of Castile and Aragon.
With another similar ship coming up behind.
I too began to shout for joy – but had enough sense to do so without emerging from my hiding place.
The first Spanish ship came up, guns firing, on the Turks’ stern. The enemy sailors ran to the other end of their ship to defend themselves. The second Spanish ship sailed round to our starboard side and tried to edge closer. They threw netting down over their sides so that our survivors could clamber up. The hull still held, and though the few men left there floundered in the water, they managed to get out.
The Turkish ship now tried to disengage from us to win free of the fray.
‘Make them stay until our men get off!’ Panipat called to the Spanish sailors above us. ‘She’s holding us together. If she pulls away we’ll sink in seconds!’ He bellowed out to the remainder of our men. ‘Abandon ship! Abandon ship!’
I was at the top of the netting when I heard the voices of the slaves.
‘Help us!’ they begged. ‘Don’t leave us to die!’
Prisoner of the Inquisition Page 9