by Judith James
He was tiring now, every movement, every breath, an exquisite torture as his broken ribs ground ragged in his chest. His arm was bent at an obscene angle, jagged bone exposed, sending sharp thrills of agony coursing through him as he paddled to stay afloat. He hoped there were no sharks about. That would be a damned unpleasant way to go. He had thought himself inured to pain, long since, but his hubris was being strictly adjusted. Well, at least, it was keeping him awake. If he fell asleep, he would slip between the waves within moments. It amused him, somewhat, that after fighting most of his life to get to sleep, he would spend what little of it was left trying to stay awake.
It was full dark, and a chill had seized him. The sky had cleared and the storm had disappeared without a trace, as had the L’Espérance and her pursuers. The swells were tamed now, rocking him gently. He’d been doing his best to move as little as possible, but he was still wearing his clothes and boots, and there were two swords strapped to him, weighing him down. A comforting lassitude had gripped him some time ago, and the task of removing them seemed unbearably complicated, but he wouldn’t last long at this rate. He was barely managing to keep his head above water as it was. Biting back a groan of pain, he was struggling to loosen his sword belt when he was knocked under the water by a powerful thump to the head. Spitting and coughing, barely alive, he struggled instinctively for the surface.
It was a charred and shattered spar. Fighting to remain conscious, the only sound the wheezing and whining of air in his lungs, he struggled to pull himself onto it. In some fevered part of his brain he imagined that Carlos was there with him, helping to pull him out, clutching him tight just as Gabriel had done for him before they had both been tossed, like broken toys, into the raging storm. He was dimly aware of the sky turning a deep violet, and then, despite pain and thirst, and his own determination, he slept.
He drifted in and out of consciousness. Sometimes he was lying in a leafy meadow, a soft-voiced woman cradling his head in her arms, whispering warm in his ear. At other times, he imagined that his broken spar was crowded with Davey, Carlos, Robbie, and others of the crew, annoying him by their jostling, and incessant questions that he was too tired to understand, or to answer.
The excruciating pain receded to a rhythmic throbbing. At some point, you no longer feel pain, he thought dully, a lesson he was familiar with, and no immediate cause for alarm. Trying reflexively to strengthen his grip, he was vaguely alarmed when his body refused to respond. He knew then that he was dying. He felt peaceful. He loved the sea. He need only let go to slip into her soothing embrace. Still… there was something nagging at him, insistent, something he needed to remember. Someone. Sarah! He was flooded with memory, her scent, her sweet voice. She called to him and she wouldn’t let him go. He managed to tighten his grip, pulling himself up a little farther before fading into blackness once again.
At first, the voices were far away, indistinct, and he listened to their vague babble and hubbub with sublime indifference, but that was quickly turning to annoyance. He willed them to go away and leave him in peace. As if to spite him, the chatter grew steadily in volume and excitement. It was a foreign tongue, one he didn’t recognize. No, wait, yes, he did. It was … Arabic, and the lingua Franca. Even as he realized it, rough hands seized him, hauling him up, smashing his shoulder and his arm against something hard and unforgiving, sending searing waves of pain knifing through his body, and sending him back to blessed oblivion.
CHAPTER
24
Gabriel woke coughing and retching. A strong grip braced his shoulders, steadying him and holding him still. Jagged shards of pain assailed every movement, every breath, and he struggled to contain a moan of pain, grateful for whatever force it was that restrained him.
“Easy, mon ami,” a cultured voice reproved him as a tin cup was pressed to his lips. “You want to keep as still as you can. You’ve broken some ribs, it seems. You need to drink. It’s a vile witch’s brew, I know, but you’re badly dehydrated and we’re given very little water. If you hope to survive, you need to take whatever’s offered.”
Gabriel struggled to get his bearings. His head was pounding and an insistent throbbing radiated up and down the length of his left arm, which seemed to be in some sort of splint. It was torture to breath. It was dank, dark, and suffocatingly hot, and the stink of sweat and fear was overwhelming. It took him a moment before he recognized the sounds he was hearing, the slapping of oars as they hit the water, the creaking and moaning of wood, stressed by wind and sea, and the muffled thudding of canvas, beaten by the wind.
He was on a ship, and he was in the hold. Memory came to him suddenly, in a flood of images. The stricken warship hung up on the reef, the sky bloodred with flame and smoke, the angry sea littered with bodies and debris, and Carlos’s eyes, changing from wild hope to terror and despair, as the tumbling cannon swept them both into the sea.
“You were aboard the French ship,” he croaked.
“I was, indeed,” the stranger agreed. “You must have been aboard that little privateer that played about us for a while. Fell off her then, did you? Rather clumsy of you, if you don’t mind my saying.”
Gabriel grunted in reply.
“Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Jacques Louis David, Chevalier de Valmont, at your service. I would offer you a bow, but there just isn’t the space, you see, and I’m currently occupied striving heroically to give you a drink. Do be a good fellow and make an effort to cooperate.”
Gabriel’s lips were cracked and bleeding, his throat raw and sore, and he was in desperate need of water. He did his best to drink the fetid swill the Frenchman was trying to give him, struggling not to retch as he swallowed it.
“There now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“Why are you helping me?” Gabriel asked dully, exhausted from even these minor exertions.
“You wound me, sir! We are old friends and traveling companions. Do you not remember?”
Gabriel’s brow furrowed, then cleared as a thought struck him. “You were on the spar that struck me.”
“Quite unintentionally, I assure you.”
“I thought there was someone else.”
“Yes, I know. You kept calling me Sarah. I was most affronted.”
“You pulled me from the water. You saved my life.”
“Well, I was bored, you see, and I felt somewhat obliged after knocking you unconscious. You proved to be very poor company, though.”
“I’m not sure you did me any favors,” Gabriel said. His sigh made his ribs grate inside his chest. Wincing, he turned his head and peered through the gloom. There was a faint light from a grate overhead and his eyes were adjusting to the dark. The hold was filthy, filled with huddled forms crowded close together, some of them weeping and moaning. Chained, naked or in rags, there must have been upwards of fifty of them, leaving little air to breathe. The heat and stench were overpowering.
“Well, you needn’t thank me, then, but there’s a belief in these parts, that if one is so impertinent as to interfere with fate by saving another man’s life, he becomes bound to him, their fates entwined.”
“You must not feel any such obligation, Chevalier. I assure you that I do not.”
“Nevertheless, monsieur, we are chained together. It gives one pause. Who knows? Perhaps we are fated to spend the rest of our lives shackled together on a bench, closer than any husband or wife. You might at least tell me your name.”
“St. Croix … Gabriel St. Croix.”
“Ah, a fellow Frenchman! How is it, sir, that you were serving on an English privateer?”
“My cousin was the owner and captain. How is it that you are serving the French Republic, Chevalier?”
“Oh, well, it’s not much of a republic anymore. More of a dictatorship now, really. Much like the ancien régime, although it was republican leanings and military skill that saw me safely through the revolution. I do it for the adventure, for the money, to spite my father, and to survive. These ar
e interesting times, are they not? Fortune makes strange bedfellows of us all.”
A hatch opened above them, causing a sudden commotion of cursing and shouting and the rattling and clanking of chains. Desperate men leapt up, contorting themselves, tearing their skin against their chains as they struggled to catch the small, missile-hard loaves of black bread that were thrown in all directions, many of them landing in the slop and filth that coated the floor. The chevalier held out a hand almost negligently, and retrieved a loaf from midair, calling something out to their captors before handing it to Gabriel and plucking another for himself.
The feeble daylight from the open hatch offered Gabriel his first good look at his new companion. He was fine-boned, tall and well-made. Refined features were marred by several fist-sized bruises, and offset by sharp and penetrating ice-gray eyes. His dark hair was tied in a neat queue with a piece of materiel torn from his ragged shirt. He looked surprisingly elegant, despite his chains and filthy rags.
“Tell me of our capture, Valmont. I missed most of it. Do you know where we’re headed or what lies ahead? And how is it you speak Arabic like a native?”
“You’ve been most fortunate in your illness, St. Croix. I would that I had missed most of it. Where to begin? I have the honor of holding a commission as major in Bonaparte’s army. I have been on his Egyptian campaign the past three years. I learned the Arab tongue in Alexandria. One can get by with the lingua Franca, but one can also get by with interpreters, if one wishes. People of higher rank and more refined social status speak Arabic, and I thought it worth learning. One never knows when it might prove useful. Our ship was carrying treasure, and I was carrying dispatches back to France, when we ran aground.”
“Indeed? We were wondering if you were worth the risk. We’d rather hoped your captain would chuck your cannon over the side so we could find out.”
“Bon Dieu, but he nearly did!” Valmont laughed. “It took myself and three of his lieutenants to dissuade him. The cannon didn’t help us, though. I wonder now if tossing them might have made a difference … Well … there’s no point pursuing that chain of thought. You and I were hauled onboard two days ago, and as I’ve told you, you were lucky to be unconscious. They are slavers, of course, and the hold was already full when we arrived. They rescued, if that’s the word, about thirty from the ship I was on from a crew of one hundred and fifty. We were all examined to determine our social standing, profession, and potential for ransom, then stripped, robbed of our clothes, and beaten. Two of the younger, comelier lads, were taken and haven’t been seen since,” he finished grimly.
Shifting a little, he leaned his shoulder against a bulkhead and continued, “As for you, you were unconscious, badly injured, and half-drowned. They decided you weren’t worth the bother and were planning to throw you over the side for the sharks when I took the liberty of telling them you were a very wealthy nobleman, your mother’s darling lambkin, and sure to bring a fine ransom. Well, my friend, there was no end of excitement when they took a closer look. A good pistol, two swords, one of them a very fine Toledo blade, rich clothes, and beautiful to boot. They’ve concluded from your weapons and apparel that I spoke the truth, and you will bring a healthy ransom. Failing that, you are young and handsome enough to do very well at auction. They had their surgeon splint your arm and have left you in peace ever since. They even give me an extra ration of water for you, which has been a great trial to get down your throat.”
“And what have they concluded about you, Chevalier?”
“Oh, much the same,” he said blithely.
In fact, Jacques Louis David, Chevalier de Valmont, was the dissolute and deadly younger son of a French duke of that name, and was likely to fetch a very fine ransom, indeed.
As they approached the port of Algiers, they were pushed and prodded onto the deck with whip and cudgel. Gabriel was barely able to stand. He was gaunt, pale, and badly dehydrated. The foul water and filthy conditions of his captivity, combined with his weakened state, had given him dysentery. His splinted arm was hot and swollen, and throbbed with a dull pain that exploded in searing jolts of agony whenever it was jostled or touched. Every movement grated in his chest and side, and each breath was a torment. As they shuffled in their rags, chains clanking and clattering at wrist and heel, he was forced to lean on the chevalier for support.
Training and force of habit made him observant, and despite his weakened state, he examined the scene before him, searching for information, weakness, and opportunity. The city was built on the side of a very high hill, tapering upward so steeply that from seaward he could see almost every building. The houses were whitewashed, and from a distance the city seemed to float and shimmer, resembling a pristine North Atlantic iceberg gone wildly adrift. It was well fortified, surrounded by two walls about twenty-five feet distant, which looked to rise almost one hundred feet in places. The outer wall was defended by brass cannon and a trench forty feet wide. Now that’s going to be Christly difficult to escape, he thought bleakly.
They were herded down the docks and past the city gates to be paraded through the street. The main thoroughfare was crowded with people of all nations and every imaginable dress. Gabriel could see Turks watching at a distance, sitting on carpets and rugs, smoking tobacco. There were Moors and Janissaries in billowing knee-length drawers, Berbers in hooded cloaks, and renegados sporting European fashions that spanned the past fifty years. There was a cacophony of shrieks and curses as they were jostled and pummeled by a crowd hurling imprecations, refuse, and abuse. Occasionally he could hear European voices shouting out questions, begging for news from home.
He was stumbling now; the chevalier would have to carry him soon, or leave him at the mercy of the guards and the crowds. A peaceful calm came over him. The voices around him receded to a soothing murmur. The sun seemed brighter, colors more deeply varied and hued, and time seemed suspended. The buildings around him were impossibly lovely. Built around delightful courtyards, bedecked with galleries supported by elegantly arching pillars, their flat roofs and terraces were joined by ladders and bridges and capped with rooftop gardens that were much as he’d imagined them from Sarah’s balcony. His reverie was interrupted by a particularly vicious kick that sent him stumbling sideways, only to be righted by Valmont.
“Careful, mon vieux, if you fall here, you may never get up.”
Seized by a spirit of perversity, Gabriel stopped and turned to the mob, bowing and giving them a mock salute followed by a rude gesture as men stumbled into him from behind. The crowd roared with indignation. A whip cracked, laying a stinging stripe across his back just moments before a cudgel struck his head, sending him crumpling to the ground.
CHAPTER
25
Gabriel was lying down, his face pressed against clean fresh linen. Relief flooded him. It had all been a terrible dream. He could hear a soft voice, murmuring close by, and felt a cool hand against his brow. Sarah, he thought, smiling contentedly; come as always to rescue him from his nightmares. He reached for her, but the hand withdrew. He thought he could hear the roaring of wild beasts in the distance. That was strange. The bed creaked and his weight shifted as someone sat down beside him.
“Bienvenue, mon frère, you have returned from the Elysian Fields at last. I am greatly distressed that you would go to such lengths to avoid me. I assure you, most sincerely, that in some quarters I am accounted an agreeable companion.”
Gabriel turned and looked into concerned gray eyes. “Valmont,” he croaked.
“Indeed, it is, my friend. You have been in a delirium these past few days. Ever since you were rude to our hosts and they tapped you on your very hard head.”
Groaning, Gabriel raised his head and looked around. He was lying on a simple cot in a clean and spacious room. There were worktables along the wall, and busy men in European and Arab dress conversed earnestly in hushed voices in the corner. There were several other cots, but only three of them were occupied. He heard the unmistakable roar of a l
ion. Surprisingly, he was feeling little pain. Certainly his circumstances seemed to have improved. “Where are we?”
“We are in the bagnio of the Dey of Algiers, along with his menagerie, about three hundred other slaves, and various denizens of the criminal sort. Fortunately, we are housed in the infirmary. You are here because you are ill, they fear you will die, and you are considered valuable. I am here because I am thought to be eminently redeemable, though my family and several ladies of my acquaintance might disagree. Whatever were you thinking, provoking the crowd and our guards that way? I was certain it was the end of you. I was amazed when they picked you up and carried you here. Someone has marked you as a sound investment.”
“I don’t know,” Gabriel answered ruefully. “I find myself seized by a spirit of perversity at the most inconvenient times.”
“Ah, yes, I know that feeling well,” the chevalier said with a grin.
“Things seem to have improved, though. The accommodations are better and I’m feeling no pain.”
“I should hope not! You’ve been plied with enough laudanum to fell an elephant. You are still gravely ill, though, you may yet die, and the accommodations beyond this room are nearly as bad as they were on the ship. It’s filthy. Men are in chains, beaten and whipped, and most sleep in the open on bare ground. Those who have not been sold at auction are driven out to work at hard labor from dawn to dusk, and fed little better than we were in the hold. When your health improves, if we have failed to secure a prompt and healthy ransom, we will find ourselves joining them soon enough.”