Crossed Bones

by Jane Johnson

  ‘I’m not wearing a dead man’s clothes,’ Rob said obstinately.

  ‘Fair enough: we’ll be out of the forest by evening. You’ll get maybe a mile if you’re lucky, before some band of villagers stone you to death. Your choice.’

  So it was that some while later two robed and turbaned figures emerged from the eaves of Marmora Forest into the dreary countryside beyond, each mounted on a dun-coloured mule.

  Rob had insisted on wearing his own tunic beneath the robe, and now he was sweltering. He could already feel fleas and lice as they burrowed and bit into his flesh, yet he bore the discomfort with a savage satisfaction. He had stood by and done nothing while two human lives were taken, and he felt filthy inside and out.

  He was surprised that no one paid them much attention as they passed, for he could feel his own guilt burning like a beacon, but, other than a group of ragged children who threw olive pits at the mules as they passed through a dusty grove, people barely turned their heads.

  ‘Blasted little urchins,’ Marshall grumbled darkly. ‘These people breed as easily as rats, then turn their children out into the fields to make mischief without the least threat of discipline. No wonder they grow up into wastrels and thieves. Problem comes from the top down, as is always the case. There is no central authority in this scurvy country: it’s a fucking anthill.’

  ‘Sir Henry Marten said there was a sultan, a Moulay something,’ Rob said hesitantly. ‘Said he thought King Charles would send an envoy to him to plead the case of the captives.’

  Marshall laughed. ‘Moulay Zidane: king of nothing but turmoil and trouble, and most of that of his own making. His father was Al-Mansour, called the Victorious because he drove the Portuguese out of Morocco and killed sixty thousand of their army. The son is as nothing compared to the father: he has no morals and earns no respect, not even from his own corsairs. They have stopped paying him his due from the spoils; they mock him at every turn. That is why we do business with the true power here.’

  ‘Do these pirates have a king, then?’ Rob asked. ‘Someone they have set up in place of the Sultan?’

  ‘The business of pirating is a complex one,’ Marshall said, sucking his teeth. ‘Morally complex, if you like.’

  ‘I can’t see what is morally complex about thieving and slaving.’

  ‘They see it in rather different terms. The Sidi Mohammed al-Ayyachi is a very remarkable man, a respected man to whom all listen, who has managed to draw to himself many like-minded allies. He has forged a formidable fighting force from most diverse quarters – renegade ships’ captains from every seafaring nation in Europe, religious fanatics, wealthy Hornacheros, Moriscos thrown out of Andalusia and Grenada by King Philip – just about anyone, in fact, with a grudge to bear against Christendom. He plays a wily game: talks it up as a holy war while encouraging them all to make a fortune. To plunder a Christian ship is to return the wealth of the world to Islam, to the rightful glory of their god; and if in the process that means killing Christians or forcing them to turn Turk, so much the better for the war effort. If we’d had a king like him in England, we’d have conquered half the world by now, for he is a thousand times more charismatic than that fool James or his pompous arse of a son. The old Queen would have appreciated Al-Ayyachi mightily. In many ways they are much alike: they could understand the nature of men and work upon their weaknesses to play them like pawns in the greater game.’

  ‘What manner of being is their god that he demands such offerings of blood and gold?’

  Marshall turned to regard him pitifully. ‘Why, the same god as our own, lad, the great God Almighty. They have but a different name for him and different practices with which to worship him. Otherwise there is not much to separate our religions except a thousand years of bloodshed!’

  This was all too much for Rob, who felt as if his world was tilting end over end. ‘But if we all serve the same god, then why are we at war?’

  ‘Why are men ever at war? For power and greed and to enforce their own views on others. Personally, I don’t give a toss for any of it: I’d serve the Devil himself if it fit my purpose. But I’ll tell you now: when we penetrate this nest of pirates, you’d better keep your head down and show no anger or disrespect, whatever your own views and no matter how you are provoked, or you’ll lose both your head and your wench in one fell swoop and there’ll be nothing I can do about it.’

  As they rode on, the sun beat down, then blessed clouds covered the sky and a light spattering of rain began to fall as they crossed a great fallow waste land dotted with rocks and dusty bushes. After a while they came upon a number of black tents pitched low to the ground. Livestock were hobbled in little groups around the outskirts, including a herd of great, ugly, hump-backed things with long necks and knobbly knees. Beside the tents women sat tending to infants, weaving bright textiles or pounding grain between stones. One of these now saw the travelling pair and came running towards them, her silver bracelets and anklets jangling as she ran. She fit Rob’s idea of the exotic he had expected this far-flung place to contain, for she wore any number of colourful wraps of cloth about her head and body bound with great silver brooches and pins. Her eyes were outlined with some thick black cosmetic which made her regard most striking, and there were tattoos on her chin and her forehead, and brown patterns on her hands and feet.

  She stretched out one of these patterned hands now in entreaty and gabbled at them. To Rob’s surprise, Marshall did not chase her away with angry words but instead dug in his pouch, drew out one of the coins he had robbed from the dead men and placed it in her palm. More extraordinary still, he then exchanged a few words with the woman in a harsh-sounding language, and she chattered back at him.

  ‘Come,’ said Marshall, sliding down from his mule. ‘Tonight we shall eat and sleep well; and tomorrow we enter Salé.’

  ‘Who are these people?’ Rob asked nervously. ‘How do you know they won’t kill us in the night and leave us for the crows? And what are those horrible beasts they have tethered there?’

  Marshall clapped him on the back. ‘They’re travellers like ourselves: nomads from the desert lands to the south. They travel the ancient caravan routes with their camels and their livestock, trading their produce and whatever trinkets they come by on the way. Did you see how much silver that woman was wearing? No need to worry: their byword is hospitality. Make the most of it: they’re the last decent folk you’re likely to encounter for a while.’

  Rob watched the sun go down in a blaze of gold that left a pillar of violet light reaching high into the darkening sky, while to the south the clouds flushed amber and crimson as if lit by inner fire, which faded to ashes as night fell and the stars came out. His belly was full of a savoury stew he suspected was goat, but was nevertheless as good as any mutton he had ever eaten, served with a soft black fruit that after the first bite was less shocking and increasingly delicious, and flatbreads which had been baked on stones heated by the fire. Listening to the nomads laugh and sing, he felt calm and optimistic for the first time since he had left London. It seemed that not all foreigners were devils. Life could be fine, and, while he and Cat were still alive, there was hope that all would be well.

  The next morning four of the nomad herders rode with them on the way to Salé, with their billy-goats trussed up and dumped like sacks over their saddles; others followed at a more leisurely pace with the rest of the livestock and trade goods. Rob got the distinct impression that Marshall had put a few coins their way: a group of nomads riding into the city were hardly likely to attract notice in the same way as two lone travellers, one of whom was unusually tall and possessed of a pair of bright blue eyes.

  Within an hour the traffic on the road became noticeably heavier. Peasant women walking with huge baskets of herbs on their backs, their foreheads taking the strain of the handles; farmers with cartloads of vegetables; girls in black robes balanced precariously upon donkeys, sitting not astride like a man, nor yet sidesaddle like an Englishwoman, but upo
n a meagre blanket, with both feet bumping against the animal’s flank. Occasionally armed men on horses came hammering down the road, shouting for others to get out of the way, and they did so with such alacrity that one cart even toppled into a ditch, spilling its load of turnips and potatoes everywhere. In England, if this had happened, everyone would have made mock of the carter and walked on, laughing; but here men, women and children scurried hither and thither to collect the bouncing vegetables and return them safely to the cart with a smile and a nod to the farmer.

  As they approached the city, the nature of the countryside began to change once more from parched waste land – which Marshall referred to as ‘the bled’, as if indeed the life had all run out of it – to land that was now cultivated and greener, dotted with trees and bushes and strips of crop. Along the roadside women sat amid great pyramids of fruit, the like of which Rob had never seen.

  ‘Pomegranates, lad,’ Marshall told him. ‘Fruit of life, and Persephone’s downfall!’ Rob was none the wiser on either count.

  A nomad peeled off from the group, returning a moment later with one of the fruit. Marshall tossed it to Rob. ‘There you go. That’ll keep you occupied for a while.’

  Biting into it resulted in a mouthful of horrid, bitter pulp and caused the nomads no end of merriment; but at least he could now perceive the fruit within, gleaming like little rubies in the sunlight. Rob dug out a handful and popped them into his mouth. The explosion of sweetness when he bit down on them was so unexpected and so sensual he almost fell off his horse. Pomegranates. Would they grow in Cornwall? If they would, he vowed he would never eat another apple.

  At last the ochre ramparts of the town rose up before them, and now the traffic became intense and noisy and accompanied by clouds of flies. The road funnelled them towards a huge, arched gateway manned by guards in dusty blue tunics and wide breeches tucked into boots, their turbans so white they hurt the eye. ‘Do what I do and keep your head down,’ Marshall warned Rob again, ‘and say nothing, even if you are addressed.’ He wound his own turban about his face so that his eyes were in deep shadow and only a glint of them could be seen, and Rob arranged his own headgear in like fashion.

  He glanced up once as they approached, in time to catch a glimpse of an array of huge bronze cannon mounted on the crenellated wall above them, pointing out to sea. Expensive guns, of European design. This was it, then: the pirates’ nest, the city to which Catherine had been brought across the wide ocean. He hunched to disguise the breadth of his shoulders and stared fixedly down at the stiff sprouting of dusty hair on the mule’s neck as the shadow of the gate fell across him. The nomads chattered like magpies to the guards, then miraculously they were waved through into a great milling chaos of a place, with all manner of unsavoury smells, and a thousand jostling people.

  Here, they bade farewell to their nomad escorts. Rob was sorry to see them go, and, as he watched them ride off to sell the goats and barter their wares, he almost envied them.

  They abandoned the mules among a hundred other of the beasts, left hobbled to posts near the watering troughs, and joined the mêlée in the winding, reed-roofed pathways, where the sunlight cast lovely, complex spiderwebs of shadow on the ground between the trampling feet. ‘The kissaria,’ Marshall told him. ‘The covered market. I’ve a contact on the other side. Keep close: if you get turned around here and separated from me, you’ll be lost in seconds.’

  Rob blundered against people, elbowing them out of the way in his need to keep pace with Marshall, who bore through the throng like a bull with his head down. At last he ended by grabbing a handful of the Londoner’s robe so that there was a physical bond between them and held on for dear life, like an infant attached to its mother’s apron-strings. The market passed in a succession of dreamlike images of whiskered fish and bright spices, crates of chickens and lizards and snakes, bales of silk, sacks of wool, brass and glass and silver, and everywhere the raucous shouting language, not a word of which he could comprehend. He felt dizzy with it all, even nauseous.

  At last they dodged leftwards up a side street off the main thoroughfare, and the noise receded. Marshall slowed a little; Rob noticed that he was breathing hard and his sweat was pungent. Fear: it was a smell Rob recognized well enough, and the recognition did not fill him with confidence. ‘Now what?’ he asked.

  ‘Now we go to the house of the man who knows another who can get us an audience with the marabout Sidi al-Ayyachi. This man and I have done business before; but he will not be happy I’ve brought another with me, let alone one who stands out in a crowd. If asked, I shall tell him you are my younger addle-witted brother. If made to reveal your face, loll your tongue and cross your eyes. If they perceive you as any kind of threat, they will run you through without a qualm.’

  Just as you did those men sleeping in the forest, Rob thought, but said nothing. He nodded and practised crossing his eyes.

  Marshall grinned. ‘Perfect. You’d pass as an idiot anywhere in the world.’

  He knocked on a nail-studded door. After a time a square hatch in the door swung inwards, and Rob caught a glimpse of a brown, wizened face in the shadows on the other side. Marshall said something, then the door swung open and Marshall gave Rob a little push in the back. ‘Go on. Quickly.’ Rob abruptly found himself inside, with the little foreign man staring up at him. On cue, Rob let fall his turban flap and conjured the most hideous face he could manage, and the man stepped back, making the sign of Fatima’s hand to ward off the evil eye. He and Marshall exchanged an explosion of guttural noises, then the Londoner turned to Rob. ‘Enough of that: job’s done. Follow me.’

  They were ushered into a cool inner chamber, where a woman, dark-eyed and suspicious, brought them tea and ran away before Rob could curse her with his awful face.

  Here they sat for what seemed hours. Every time Rob started to say something, Marshall put a finger to his lips and gestured to the door. Spies, he mouthed. So Rob covered his face and leaned back against the wall and dozed.

  At last voices sounded in the corridor. Marshall got to his feet as another man entered. This one was younger and more dangerous-looking than the first, with lighter skin and a jutting black beard. He carried both sword and dagger at his waist, Rob noticed, and looked as if he knew how to use them. No formal greetings were exchanged: the younger man seemed nervous and distrustful. He prodded Rob with his foot. ‘Sit up, Robert,’ Marshall told him. ‘My poor mad fool of a brother,’ he said, turning back to the new arrival and shrugging. ‘There was no one I could leave him with.’

  The man leaned forward and with a yank ripped the turban away from Rob’s head. Rob was so shocked it took him a full two seconds to remember his fool routine; by then it was too late. The man slapped him hard, and Rob stared at him, affronted and dazed by this sudden burst of violence. ‘It seems Hassan bin Ouakrim has worked miracle cure,’ the man said to Marshall. ‘I not think he so mad now.’ He drew his dagger – in the dim light of the salon its curving blade glimmered faintly – and held it with its tip towards Rob. ‘Who he is and why he here? He no brother you: too pale and white, like filthy pig, eyes blue like Devil. Tell true or I cut him death.’

  ‘His name is Robert Bolitho. He came to save his woman, taken by the raiders from Cornwall in the summer.’

  The other laughed. ‘Al-Andalusi’s triumph, yes! How we laugh see white Christian women sold like cattle in Souk of Gazelle!’

  Rob’s fists balled so tight he thought the knuckles might spring apart under the pressure. He willed himself not to lose his temper. ‘1 am able to speak for myself,’ he said as evenly as he could. ‘One of those captured women is my betrothed, my… ah… soon-to-be-wife, Catherine Anne Tregenna. She has long hair, red to here’ – he indicated his waist – ‘the same colour as this’ – and now he pointed to the tawny braided belt the other man wore.

  At once the dagger whistled down, nicking Rob’s hand so that he yelped.

  ‘Keep filthy infidel hands off! Back, like dog, now!
’

  Seething, Rob complied. Marshall regarded him with a pursed mouth and narrow, furious eyes. ‘I beg your pardon for the rudeness of my companion, sir. He is no more than a hot-headed boy who has crossed the seas hoping to make a bargain with your venerable lord for his beloved’s release. And I have some private business to share with the Sidi, business which I can assure you will make your lord most happy. Put your dagger up and let us discuss these things like brothers.’

  Hassan bin Ouakrim gave him a hard look, then sheathed his blade. ‘You lucky is Aziz who came to me: others would have kill you both. I never bother with infidel curs, but I know you made good business with Sidi last spring. Come.’

  The Sidi Mohammed al-Ayyachi was not at all what Rob had expected the leader of such fearsome pirates to be; nor was his house grand or showy for that of a man whose followers had stripped the wealth from a thousand foreign ships and sold their crews for a fortune. Rather, it was as old and worn as the man himself, though spotlessly clean. They found him about to sit down to his lunch in a small chamber boasting only a single low table and reed matting on the floor. He wore a robe of cotton as white as his flowing beard, so that the only colour about him was his deeply wrinkled face and hands, and his bright black eyes. He stood up as lithely as a young man when they entered and bowed to them deeply, exchanging pious greetings with Marshall, who bizarrely bent and covered the old man’s hands with kisses. More strangely still, the Sidi responded by kissing the former actor’s shoulders like a long-lost friend.

  ‘Salaam, Sidi Mohammed, and blessings be upon you.’

  ‘May Allah’s blessing be upon all those who are for his Prophet. The good Lord be praised that he has brought you safe back to us again, William Marshall. And your young friend here.’ He gestured graciously to Rob, who bobbed his head stiffly.