Crossed Bones

by Jane Johnson

  Up on the auction platform that afternoon, Cat stared out at the throng who had gathered in the Souk el-Ghezel. The market square was packed with would-be buyers, and with those curious to see the new slaves the Djinn had brought back from his latest foray into enemy territory. The majority were in long robes, many of them bearded and turbaned, but through the crowd there strode others who reminded her of the Plymouth-born renegade who had turned Turk to become Ashab Ibrahim – lighter-skinned men in European dress who swaggered like lords at a feast, pushing their way to the front as if it were their due. Traitors, she thought bitterly. Men who had turned coat against their own, and all for money. Anger bubbled up inside her. How dared they come to mock and gloat over decent Christians treated so; or, worse, come to purchase a woman they would never have won honestly in their own country?

  The women of Penzance were not the only chattels to be auctioned in the slave market this day. Strings of coffled male captives were being led around the other side of the square, paraded as proudly as stud horses at the spring fair. They wore nothing but a winding of white cotton about their loins, and their prices had been written in charcoal on their chests. None of them were captives from the hold of their ship; evidently, other corsair vessels had returned from the oceans and shores of Christendom with their own cargoes of snatched slaves.

  As they went, the dilaheen cried out the qualities of their charges, encouraging the gathered buyers to outbid one another for those best for the galleys, for private armies or for hard labour in the fields. Some were proclaimed as shipbuilders, as sailmakers and gunners; these would fetch the highest prices. Most were fishermen, hardy men with weather-beaten faces and sinewy arms. Bidders felt the muscles of the slaves, prodded their chests and bellies, examined their teeth to be sure that the ages the auctioneers claimed for them were accurate. Now came more women, their skins almost as dark as the flimsy robes they wore, and on their backs numbers had been chalked in white. Cat watched in horrified fascination as a man pulled the robe away from one woman and began to feel the fatness of her arms and legs. She had never seen skin with such an ebony sheen, but the would-be buyer seemed inured to such exoticism, and kept prodding merely to ensure the woman was fit and healthy. Was she pregnant? He touched her belly, and would have explored further had not the dilaheen pushed him away, not angrily but with a jest.

  ‘We are no more than animals to them,’ Jane Tregenna remarked in disgust. ‘They will select us for breeding or work us to death.’

  ‘Perhaps the letter Cat had to write will save us and Sir Arthur will send the money to redeem us,’ Matty started, but the older woman rounded on her.

  ‘You have not the brains of a country mouse, Mathilda Pengelly! Do you really think the Master of Kenegie has money to spare for such as we? Or that if he did manage to raise such a sum, that these savages would not take it and keep us and laugh at him? Or that once we are sold into diverse places, they would concern themselves with finding us and returning us to our homes? And that’s if the letter even reaches him, which I severely doubt.’

  No one said anything to this, for there was nothing to say. Already shocked by the death of Nell Chigwine, the women felt a deeper gloom descend upon them, and they faced a new uncertain future, one in which they might be sold to any man who bid for them for whatever purpose pleased him, or sold on to another in who knew which godforsaken part of this strange world, where they might live apart from their fellows among heathens who spoke no word of English and had no care for them save that they justify their cost.

  Now came their turn to be paraded for sale. As they shuffled down from the dais, the auctioneer in charge of them checked them off against the list the amina’s clerk had made that morning, then began to call out his high-pitched cry in his barbaric tongue. Maria Kellynch and Chicken were sold first as a single lot, quickly followed by Ann Fellowes and her little girl Mary. There were no takers for Anne Samuels or Nan Tippet. Matty, Alice Johns and her son James were bought by the same bidder – a formidable-looking man in rich robes, his long black beard oiled into ringlets, with gold adorning his ears and forearms. He carried an ornate staff and was attended by two boys in livery, just like footmen from a wealthy European house.

  When he came to Cat, the dilaheen paused. Then he raised up his voice to an even higher pitch and pulled back her veil so that her fiery hair was exposed to the view of the crowd. At once, the throng surged and people began to shout and wave bids in the air. Cat firmed her jaw, though her knees had begun to knock. Now that it came to the moment of her sale, she found that she was terrified. Even the squalor of the mazmorra was preferable to standing on the edge of this abyss. Who would buy her? The fat merchant with the avid, greasy face? The thin, cruel-looking man with the hooked nose and austere robes of unadorned white who made no sound, but moved a hand discreetly as the bidding spiralled? The two young men at the front of the crowd who devoured her with their sly black eyes? The coarse-faced renegade swaying from the effects of alcohol, leaning on his equally inebriated friend? She had thought him an Englishman; but when he shouted out it was in a language she did not recognize, and any hope she might have had that she could persuade her buyer to keep her safe until her ransom arrived, or on the pretext of such happening, disappeared. She looked from one to the other, nausea rising in her gullet. Then one of the young men darted forward and something flashed in his hand.

  Suddenly, a small, curved dagger was coming at her. Cat wailed and tried to run; but her leg-irons hindered her, and she stumbled and sprawled full length on the ground, taking Nan Tippet and Matty down with her. After that it was chaos: people yelling and shoving, a woman screaming on and on. Cat pushed herself to her knees just in time to see the dilaheen lash out at the young man who had attacked her. The dagger spun away, flashing in the sun, and by the time Cat had got to her feet the young man and his friend were gone.

  Then, as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, the auctioneer called for the resumption of bids. The crowd pressed forward again, and he pointed his stick at one after another, noting their offers. A lull followed, during which it seemed she had been sold; then a tall figure in a dark-blue turban at the back of the crowd raised his hand. He made a complicated gesture with his fingers, and the dilaheen dipped his head as if in some form of assent. There was a collective gasp, and the crowd turned to see who it was who had closed the deal, but the tall figure was already moving away again. They muttered and fell back, grumbling and disappointed, for the most part uninterested by the remaining lots.

  ‘He tried to kill you,’ Matty whispered urgently, as they were ushered away while the monies and promissory notes were paid over. ‘Why did he do that?’

  Cat had no idea. How could she?

  ‘They hate us,’ Jane Tregenna said, white-faced. ‘They hate us and would see us all dead.’ She touched a hand to her daughter’s face, a tender gesture such as Cat could never recall receiving from this woman in all her life. ‘We may never see each other again after this day, Catherine. Remember that you are well born: your blood is better than you know. Be proud and uphold your honour before God in this heathen land.’

  21

  ‘You must be Madame Lovat, yes?’ The speaker was a tiny woman in an elegant dark robe and a pale silk hijab.

  ‘Julia, yes. Are you Madame Rachidi?’

  ‘Do call me Naima. Let me show you to your room: leave your bags here, Aziz will bring them. Was your journey good, comfortable?’

  I followed her through long, softly lit corridors out into an open courtyard. Wrought-iron tables and chairs had been set around a central fountain, to whose square splash pool someone had added handfuls of fragrant rose petals. Ornamental lanterns scattered skeins of patterned light at each corner of the courtyard; a pillared arcade ran around the sides, and above stretched a gallery of cedarwood overgrown by a froth of jasmine and bougainvillea. As if to add the final perfect touch, a crescent moon hung in the empty black space overhead. I sighed. ‘This is so beautiful, Na
ima.’

  ‘Barrakallofik, Madame Lovat.’ She looked away with a private smile then, walked to one side of the courtyard, unlatched a pair of double doors and pushed them open. Inside lay a chamber out of the Arabian Nights. A huge canopied bed spread with snowy covers and tumbles of silk cushions, lush carpets upon a polished stone floor, brass-topped tables bearing a tray of coloured glasses and a carafe of water, lanterns, candles, two low carved chairs. An upholstered banquette ran along one wall beneath a shuttered window which gave out on to the courtyard. The perfume of roses and incense floated through its curlicued grille. Beyond an archway on the far side lay an exquisite bathroom with shiny-plastered walls, intricate mosaic tiling, two basins of beaten gold, a deep bath of what looked like softly streaked marble and a separate shower cubicle – all lit by flickering candlelight. Now I was speechless. I imagined owning a bathroom like this: if I did I’d live in it. My skin would be permanently wrinkled and prune-like.

  ‘Milouda has prepared a tajine, in case you are tired and prefer to eat here tonight,’ Naima Rachidi said from the doorway.

  I whirled around, caught in my reverie. ‘That’s very thoughtful of you.’

  ‘I’ll set a table in the courtyard for you. It’ll be ready in half an hour, if that would suit you? Then you have time to unpack and bathe before eating.’

  ‘Thank you so much.’

  ‘Tanmirt.’ She inclined her head. ‘Marhaban. You are most welcome.’

  I smiled at her. ‘Your English is wonderful. I’m afraid my Arabic is non-existent.’

  She made a face. ‘My English I learned at college here; but my family is Berber: we prefer to speak our own language. I’m sure Idriss will teach you a few words, if you would like.’

  Idriss. I’d almost forgotten him. Would he fit in with the romantic idyll his cousin had created here? It seemed a tall order. I ate the tajine at one of the tables in the courtyard, wondering over its complex spices and unfamiliar ingredients. The lamb melted on my tongue, and when I swallowed it left little fireworks in its wake, a burst of citrus and chilli and garlic and what seemed a dozen more subtle tastes as well. When Milouda – a bustling older woman in white leggings, headscarf and a billowing knee-length tunic – came to clear my greedily cleaned dishes, I asked her what was in it. She told me what I already knew, then tapped the side of her nose in that universal gesture of complicit secrecy.

  ‘C’est magie,’ she said, and refused to elaborate further.

  I slept well that night but was visited by strange dreams, which the gilded notes of the dawn muezzin wrapped around like a golden cord. I lay there, half asleep and half awake, shivering with the thrill of being alone on this alien continent; yet I felt safe and cared for, and when I went back to sleep it was for another four hours of dreamless rest. I awoke at last to the sound of the little birds in the courtyard and the gentle fall of the fountain’s waters.

  I had finished my breakfast and had settled back with a strong coffee and my guidebook, listening to the chatter of two French tourists at the adjoining table, when a shadow fell across me.

  ‘Good morning.’ English spoken with a faint accent I could not place, but which might have been American. I looked up. The sun was behind him so that I could not see his face; when he moved, the light struck me full force and I had to look aside.

  ‘What are you reading?’

  I spread the guidebook flat on the table. “‘The exodus to Africa of the Moors exiled from Spain continued steadily throughout the sixteenth century up to the end of 1609, when Philip III decided to expel all the Moors definitively from Spanish soil. His final edict, in January 1610, was both general and imperative and demanded that all Muslims, whether they had at any time or for any period converted to Catholicism or not, leave the country at once. It was a decision which was to have dire consequences. The first expulsions in the previous century had already caused a vigorous development of piracy in the Mediterranean; this radical new measure would greatly increase the insecurity of the seas, giving direct rise to resettlement of Sale by those Moors who for almost two hundred years were to become the most active of the Barbary pirates.’”

  He took the empty chair beside me as I was quoting this passage, crossing one long linen-clad leg over the other. I could feel him listening intently, and when I came to a halt and looked up again, he nodded. ‘A reasonable summary, if a little thin on detail, and not entirely accurate.’ He had a grim face, all sharp angles and fierce lines. He could have been anywhere between thirty and fifty, for his head was close-shaven and his regard was knowing. His long, straight nose and high cheekbones of burnished copper gave the impression of a feral hunter, smaller than a lion, more dangerous than a wolf; but then he smiled, and the original impression was immediately replaced by less perturbingly predatory similes.

  ‘Are you staying here?’ I asked.

  ‘You could say that. I visit so often that it has almost become my second home.’

  ‘You sound as if you’re quite an expert on Morocco.’

  He inclined his head. ‘You could say that also.’

  His sharp black eyes were laughing at me. With sudden force I realized why. ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry. You must be Idriss. I thought you were a… a visitor occupying one of the other rooms, you know, appearing so casually like this at the breakfast table and sitting down, speaking such good English…’ Colouring now, I could feel the blush rising in my neck, always the worst sort. I had taken him for a tourist because he spoke decent English and therefore couldn’t possibly be Moroccan; and I had blasphemed, in front of a Muslim.

  He bowed. ‘It is I who should apologize, interrupting your petit déjeuner so rudely and without introducing myself. Allow me,’ and he offered his hand across the table. When I took hold of it, he shook it gently. ‘La bes. I am Idriss el-Kharkouri. Marhaban.’ And he spread his fingers across his heart. ‘Welcome to Morocco.’

  We made a little more small-talk, then he went away across the courtyard and returned bearing a fresh pot of coffee and an ashtray. ‘Do you mind? A filthy habit, but one many Moroccans share. We should all be dying from lung cancer; but it is usually diabetes that carries us off first.’

  ‘Go ahead.’ I declined the cigarette he offered me. ‘Why diabetes?’

  ‘Have you tried our whisky?’

  ‘I thought Islam forbids alcohol,’ I said naively.

  He grinned. ‘We like to call mint tea “Moroccan whisky”. It makes us feel the deprivation less sharply.’

  ‘Milouda made me some tea last night. It was…’ I thought back. ‘Rather sweet.’

  He laughed aloud. ‘Just wait until you see how much sugar goes into a pot. You’ll never drink it again. French women have a fit of the vapours when they realize what they’ve cheerfully been sipping at all holiday long. But for us, sugar is more than just a sweetener: it’s a symbol, of hospitality, of good luck and happiness. A married couple will be given a sugar cone as part of their bridal gift: it’s traditional. Our economy was founded on sugar and salt – sugar brought out of the south, salt from Taghaza in the Sahara, on the main caravan route between Timbuktu and Morocco. It was all shipped out of the ports on the north coast – Essaouira, Safi and Anfa, as well as here at Rabat-Salé – to every country in Europe; your English queen Elizabeth who defeated the Spanish did a good deal of trade with Morocco. But that was not just for the sugar, but for saltpetre to be used in gunpowder, for ivory, silver, gold and amber, Meknès honey and beeswax too. And, in exchange, they brought us guns to use against the Spanish.’

  I was going to enjoy being guided around the city by Idriss, I decided; for all the grimness of his aspect, he was a veritable mine of information. ‘So what went wrong? Why did the pirates start preying on the English coasts if we shared an enemy in Spain?’

  ‘My enemy’s enemy is my friend, you mean?’

  I nodded.

  ‘An ancient Arab saying…’ He paused. ‘You’re interested in the corsairs of Salé – might I ask why? Even in our count
ry, it is not a subject much spoken of.’

  ‘A family legend,’ I said evasively. ‘An ancestor was stolen by Barbary pirates to be sold into the slave trade, or so I’m told.’

  ‘They were corsairs,’ he corrected me, ‘not pirates.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘Pirates are freebooters, operating only for their own gain. The corsairs brought their spoils home and divided the money they fetched among the crews, the ship owners and the community. It was a very well-regulated trade, you see. The corsairs of Salé hunted with the mandate of the state, and were called the al-ghuzat, a title once used for the soldiers who fought alongside the Prophet Mohammed. They were hailed as religious warriors carrying a holy war into the seas against the infidel.’

  I frowned. ‘But they still traded with us “infidels”? That seems just a touch hypocritical!’

  He shrugged. ‘Look around you, read between the lines in your newspapers, on your television – is it really so different today? For decades, Europe and America have been selling arms, both officially and on the black market, to the very people you now label “terrorists”. War and business, always they go hand in hand – it’s realpolitik. Nothing ever really changes, human nature is what it is.’

  ‘And so history goes on repeating itself, over and over in some dreary loop of greed and corruption and compromised ideals?’

  ‘Come,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘Let me show you what you came here to see, and we’ll leave the politics behind, to discuss over dinner.’