Priest's Tale

by Turney, S. J. A.

  The once-elaborate building had become the home of an extended Berber family, their huge black desert-style tent anchored on the walls and held up in the centre by three broken columns of varying heights, carpets and coloured, patterned wall hangings dividing the space up. The tribe sat watching the motley parade, each one dressed in dusty black and with the walnut-coloured leathery lined skin of the desert tribes. Even the children looked weather-beaten and wizened, and the beasts that were tethered in the same space as the family were threadbare and slightly mange-ridden. They put Skiouros heavily in mind of the Romani people he was used to seeing in Istanbul and the thought prompted him to wonder what had happened to old 'bone-hair'. Had he died on the ship? Skiouros didn’t remember seeing him among the executions, but where else could he be, really?

  And then the column was moving on, tramping through the eternal beige dust of the ruined city. Time passed tensely for Skiouros, his breath catching at every sight and sound and move of the Turks as his mind churned endlessly, cycling through possibilities, sifting the information his eyes and ears fed him and trying desperately to turn it all to their advantage.

  All in vain.

  The guards were sharp and attentive, and Hassan had everything worked out well. The route they were taking through the ruins of once-great Carthage utilised main streets and open barren spaces, where little of use could be seen, let alone taken or put to work. The indigenous folk were unlikely to be of any help and the bulk of those - sparse occupants really - were Berber families pitching camp among the ruins or the poor and disenfranchised of Arab stock, inhabiting ramshackle shanty buildings among the fractured walls.

  In all, the atmosphere of the ruins did little to lift the spirit.

  Skiouros noted as they moved that, through the ruins and trees and undergrowth, he could see the great harbour-lake that lay inside 'The Gullet' occasionally, at first ahead, and then off to their left as they curved away from the morning sun to head west. The land was relatively flat, broken only by the occasional small rise or dip, though the flora broke up what might otherwise have been a good clear view of the countryside. After some twenty minutes of marching at a pace of which the military would be proud, the slave train finally left the ruins of Carthage and entered the barren wilderness that lay between the ancient capital and its later counterpart.

  A trail led between the two, though it was unsurfaced, dusty and rock-strewn and clearly used only by the poor and wretched inhabitants of the ruins beside the sea or by the few farmers that eked out a living in the lands around and about. There were certainly no tell-tale marks of vehicle passage.

  Skiouros, finally accepting that nothing was going to happen until they reached some kind of civilization - unless they were suddenly set upon by random travellers - settled into the endless tiring crunch of footsteps on the uneven, uncomfortable surface, the guards watching them intently.

  It had been the same a decade ago, of course. There had been no real hope of escape on the journey of the Devsirme intake to Istanbul, until they had passed into the built up area. Clear, open space meant no opportunities. People meant possibilities. And the more people, the more possibilities.

  He leaned forward.

  "Relax until we reach Tunis. I can't see any possibility arising until then."

  "Agreed" hissed Orsini over his shoulder.

  "How are the others doing with their locks?"

  There was a brief pause of murmuring further forward as Orsini enquired, before hissing over his shoulder once more: "No luck. Nicolo cannot get the hang of it."

  Skiouros cursed silently under his breath, using a number of words that sat at serious odds with the vestments in which he was clad.

  "Tell him to keep at it. We've clearly got plenty of time."

  "Perhaps you could pray for him, father."

  Skiouros glowered at the back of Cesare Orsini's head, unable to see his face, but imagining the smile upon it. Gallows humour. It had no place in the real world.

  Skiouros ran through everything he knew over and over again. Everything about Hassan and his crew and ship; about Ottoman corsairs in general; about the Arab nations of Africa (which was unfortunately little more than legend and rumour to him) and about the geography of the land; about what advantages they had, what stolen equipment they had concealed about their persons; about what they could do if all four managed to slip their shackles.

  No new conclusions could be drawn, of course, but the desperate search for an epiphany at least kept him occupied on the long walk as the minutes stretched out to a dusty, hot, painful hour, and that hour dragged on into a second and then finally a third, the landscape barely changing.

  As they moved, the lake harbour started to pull away from them on their left and was finally lost to sight. Then the path began to turn slowly southwards. The road skirted the busier areas near the ports and came at the city from an inland angle, presumably so that the less-than popular peasants of Carthage were kept away from the commercial region.

  Finally, as the third hour of stamping on rocky dust drew to a close, a thicket of acacia, bulked by dry grasses and musk thistles gave way to their first view of Tunis, down a gentle slope. Skiouros felt his lead-heavy heart lift just a little.

  After the claustrophobic, enclosed world of ships and the wide, neat streets of Venetian controlled Candia, Tunis - at first sight - looked almost heart-warmingly familiar. Despite the difference in the ruling nations and the vast geographical gulf between this city and the great metropolis of Istanbul, the similarities were evident even at a distance. The walls were Arabic, clearly, squat and squared and with exotic point-arched gates and unusually-shaped merlons, but behind them Tunis seethed like a living creature, no great western city planning having touched the organisation of the maze like alleys, streets, souks and bazaars. If ever they had a chance to slip their captors, it would be in that heaving mass of sweating, disorganised humanity.

  Cesare had clearly come to a similar conclusion, as he looked over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow before having to turn back in order to breathe past the tightened chain loop.

  "Be prepared" Skiouros murmured.

  Orsini simply nodded as far as his shackles would allow.

  The Greek felt a certain tense excitement build as they watched the gate from the top of the low rise and the column came to a halt. Etci Hassan barked out commands in Turkish to his men and Skiouros smiled to himself. The captain still had no reason to assume that Skiouros spoke his tongue and therefore never guarded it. Hassan had ordered his men to split up. Only ten of them plus the captain himself would enter the city, the other fifteen or so waiting here, so as not to provoke the Hafsid military. Any more than a dozen entering the city would be too strong a force of potential enemies for even the most selfish guard to turn a blind eye to.

  So their chances continued to improve - now at odds of only three-to-one and moving into an enclosed, seething environment. It felt so familiar.

  The slow descent to the city began, the four prisoners now watched all the more closely by their diminished guard, Hassan leading the way, removing a pouch of coins from his waist and weighing them as they approached the heavy bulk of the city's gatehouse.

  Hafsid warriors moved back and forth along the wall tops, spear points and conical helms gleaming in the sun, white linen cloaks, tunics and turbans dazzling. Two more stood beside the gate, one at each side, ready to challenge anyone desirous of entry to the city.

  Skiouros paid scant attention to the guards as the column closed on the gate. His mind was already beyond the arch along with his gaze, picking out every detail of the cramped street beyond, which seemed to be one of the few, rare long straight thoroughfares in the city, stretching away to its heart. Yet for all its linear form, it was still relatively narrow, cluttered with life - stalls, tethered animals, beggars and the general bric-a-brac of a thriving city. Narrower alleys led off it periodically, some through small arches of their own, one or two covered with canvas roofs to guard ag
ainst the sun.

  Much now rested on Parmenio and Nicolo freeing themselves of the chain.

  A quantity of purloined Venetian ducats changed hands at the gate - a part of Hassan's Zakynthian loot presumably - and the Hafsid guards nodded, their unsympathetic stony expressions showing no greater respect for the Turkish pirate than for his captives. Money talked in every language, though, and in moments the column was moving through the arch.

  "How's the padlock?"

  Cesare didn't bother turning.

  "Still nothing. We may have to try and help somehow."

  Skiouros chewed his lip. He could almost certainly see himself slipping the grip of their captors and melting away into the city as he'd once done in Istanbul, and he could even see Orsini following him, despite the man's background of privilege and law. The two Venetian sailors, though, were a different matter. They might know the city a little, but they were not men of dubious skills or instinctive quick-thinkers - they were too honest for that. Unless Skiouros and Cesare could help free them, they would be doomed.

  "I'll try to think of something. We're in the best place now, but we're running out of time."

  Skiouros continued to bite his lip deep in thought, his eyes darting this way and that, looking for something to give him hope; an idea; a way out.

  "Christ is risen!"

  Skiouros was so taken aback at the sudden voice that it took him a moment to drag himself from his deeper thoughts. The voice had called out in Greek! His mind raced as quickly as his gaze, the latter trying to divine the source of the shout, the former attempting to put it into context.

  Christ is risen - a standard mode of salutation between priests and the more pious of the Orthodox Church. What was the response, again?

  "Indeed he is risen!" Skiouros shouted in reply, grateful that he'd spent so long in the company of priests and monks that the response came to his lips before it filtered through his brain.

  His eyes fell upon the speaker just as the haft of a matchlock musket cracked him between the shoulder blades, the guard behind him punishing him arbitrarily for calling out. As he staggered forward, gasping at the pain in his spine, Skiouros lost sight of the man for a moment, but then the crowds parted and he saw the speaker again.

  An Orthodox believer? Here?

  The man was wearing the white sticharion liturgical vestment of a priest, with the plain three-barred cross about his neck, no hat or hood, but the long grey hair and almost white beard that hung to his chest as much a badge of his office as any headgear. Skiouros reeled, partially from the blow, but mostly from the shock of such a sight deep in the Arab and Berber city of Tunis.

  The man was pointing at him now and shouting to people around him.

  "A priest! In chains!"

  Skiouros' heart jumped. The opportunity was upon him. God had apparently provided, and Skiouros found he was grinning suddenly as Orsini craned his head painfully to see what was happening behind him.

  The priest and his companions were a short way up one of the side streets, and Skiouros was interested to hear the man speaking in both Greek and Arabic to his people.

  "For shame!" he then bellowed in Greek, and suddenly the priest was barrelling through the crowd, half a dozen people with him, helping him push through towards the slave train.

  The guards seemed to have suddenly noticed what was happening. Three of them to the rear turned and hefted their swords, preparing to fight off any attack, continually on the alert in this city that held no love for the Ottoman Empire.

  "Release that man!" the priest bellowed in Greek, and then "release him, I say!" repeated in Arabic. Skiouros's darting gaze took in the priest and the half dozen people accompanying him. He was clearly native, born to the region, looking for all the world like the Arab and Berber population around him, and his friends were all apparently of Berber blood from their skin, hair and clothes, and yet Skiouros was interested to see crosses dangling around their necks.

  His mind continued to boggle at this sudden, most welcome and most unexpected encounter, but his instincts took over without the need for conscious thought or decision making.

  Chaos had broken out, an explosion of activity around him.

  The guards were distracted, most of their attention suddenly devoted to this new potential threat. Even Hassan seemed to have taken his eyes off the prisoners, as had the man who still held the end of the chain.

  Skiouros slipped the padlock's shackle open and allowed it to drop from his neck. The chain unravelled and fell away.

  "Orsini" he barked, somewhat unnecessarily as the Italian had clearly shared his thought and was already moving.

  "Nicolo!" he shouted, and Cesare nodded, stepping forward to help the Isabella's purser with his padlock. The crowd in the street had reacted to this sudden activity in the same manner as any crowd in any city would: with keen interest. Some were shying back from the Ottoman guards with their bared weapons. Others were shouting angrily at them, enemy warriors in their city. Yet more were flooding to prevent the Christians from reaching the street, while others were trying to help them through. Most, however, were simply trying to get a better view of the commotion without putting themselves directly in harm's way.

  Skiouros had lost sight of the priest again, but he no longer cared. The man had served his purpose as a distraction and could safely be ignored now. A little back and to one side, where they had passed moments earlier, stood a narrow alley with a canvas roof, packed with stalls selling enticing-smelling things.

  Perfect.

  "Street back there with the spice and fruit stalls" he hissed to Orsini in Italian. The guards at the rear seemed miraculously to have become bogged down in spectators, attempting to seal off the approaching Christians. Skiouros was actually unfettered and with a clear run.

  Hassan was bellowing at his men in an attempt to bring them back into a semblance of order, but the Turks were beyond such discipline at that brief, distracted moment.

  Skiouros turned back to his companions. Orsini was shouting something at Nicolo and in that sudden, stupid, God-damned sick moment, Skiouros' eyes saw Nicolo's fingers fumble, blood welling up where the metal shard had ripped his thumb. The shattered spoon that was their lifeline to freedom pinwheeled, arcing through the air, to disappear among the legs of the guards and the citizens they were fending off.

  Given time and planning, Skiouros would be able to come up with an alternative method of springing the locks, and if he crossed those few precious paces to them, he could do it in a heartbeat with an appropriate spike.

  But there was nothing easily to hand.

  And there was no time.

  Even as Orsini dropped to try and pick up the broken spoon shard, the guards were beginning to come back to order, obeying their captain's furious shouts.

  No time.

  "Cesare!" He didn't really know what he was trying to convey to his friend; it just seemed important to spur the Italian into some other activity. In response, the young nobleman looked up and about, realising that the men whose feet he was scouring around were stepping back into line and that the guards had noticed the state of the prisoners.

  The nobleman rose, and received a musket butt to the back of the head from one of the quicker guards.

  Skiouros felt the panic of impotence. What could he do? Nicolo and Parmenio were still chained, and Orsini was in danger.

  "Get out of here!" Cesare bellowed at him, as a guard smashed the hilt of a sword into the nobleman's stomach, doubling him over in pain.

  Skiouros stared. The world seemed to slow to a crawl, the very air a tar-thick substance the crowd moved through. The escape had failed. Nicolo and Parmenio could not break from their chains and were now already back in the grasping, angry, abusing hands of their captors, Hassan busily snapping out orders. Cesare came upright, waving Skiouros away, only to receive a punch to the face that snapped his head sideways and almost threw him from his feet.

  Skiouros simply stared.

  'Selfi
sh'…

  Despite the desperate situation, Skiouros found himself picturing the old Romani beggar in the taverna in Crete, accusing him of selfishness.

  Was he a selfish person?

  Could he truly be? He'd always considered himself quite the opposite, particularly in light of the amount of effort he had put into trying to rebuild his relationship with Lykaion and to pull their family back together.

  'Selfish'?

  Skiouros broke into a run for the alley.

  He hadn't really planned to.

  In fact, somewhere in his heart, he had fully intended to run in the other direction - for Orsini, to push aside the big corsair brute that was even now landing blow after blow on the nobleman. To rescue him or at least to succumb to the same fate, as a true companion should; to show support and solidarity for his only true friends in the world - the men who had helped, sheltered and befriended him when no one really should have done. Men who had taken him in unquestioningly, despite his deliberately hazy past and occluded plans for the future.

  Shame flooded through Skiouros, freezing his heart and chilling his legs, yet bringing red flames to his cheeks as he bolted, leaving his friends to their fate and racing for that narrow alley and its promise of escape.

  Moreover, he had completely ignored the fate of the priest who had so unexpectedly attempted to come to their aid, along with his companions. Perhaps they were even dead, butchered by Hassan's men in response to some sort of perceived attack. What then of the old man who had greeted him like a brother - which he, to all appearances, was - and who had shouted so defiantly at the enslaving of a priest?

  The corner loomed ahead with only a few boys and old folk in between, none of whom were likely to step in to stop him.

  Shame.

  Flooding, freezing, burning, lead-heavy shame.