by S. W. Perry
‘That’s a grand welcome, an’ no mistake,’ says Connell appreciatively. He points to the fleet little Marion, already moored against the stone breakwater. ‘Mind, I did send word we had an emissary of the English queen aboard. Maybe the sultan’s sent that rogue al-Annuri down here to shake your hand.’
‘Al-Annuri?’
‘He’s one of the sultan’s ministers. A cold bugger. Eyes like a peregrine’s. Not the sort of Moor you’d care to cross. But I can’t see him coming all this way and wasting good powder on an infidel, mind.’
‘The man I’m to meet is named Sumayl al-Seddik,’ replies Nicholas, recalling Robert Cecil’s instructions. ‘He was with the sultan’s envoy who came to London some years back. I carry a letter to him from Lord Burghley. He’s going to tell me all about Moorish medicine.’
Connell throws back his head and laughs. ‘Oh, you’ll enjoy that, Dr Shelby. You’ll do more eating than learning. Likes his comforts, does al-Seddik.’
‘You know him?’
‘Of course. Everyone knows old gundigutts. If you pushed him over, he’d roll.’ Connell slaps his own lean belly in appreciation of his fine humour. ‘Still, whoever ordered that salute, you should feel honoured. They usually keep that sort of welcome for the corsairs when they come home with a bounty of slaves.’
And indeed Nicholas can see a galley beached on the strip of sand, looking for all the world like a trireme from ancient Athens. Her oar ports are empty, the oars themselves stacked nearby.
Noticing the direction of Nicholas’s gaze, Connell says, ‘You can’t traffic with the Moor and not come to appreciate his proficiency in the meat trade, Dr Shelby.’
‘The meat trade?’ echoes Nicholas, a pang of disgust taking away his breath. ‘You mean slaves?’
‘Aye, slaves, Dr Shelby. European slaves, Protestant and Catholic… Turk slaves… Saracens… fellow Moors of different tribes… Men as black as the finest ebony from the very heart of the desert, who worship gods you’ve never even heard of. Men, women, children… Slaves. The markets are full of them. Here in Safi, in Marrakech, in Algiers, in Tripoli – I’ve heard it reckoned there’s more than thirty thousand Europeans alone sold through those markets. Only the Devil knows the true number. Some are sold to row the sultan’s galleys; some to wait in service upon their masters, as we have it in Christian households; some they castrate and set to guard their harems, or to serve them as secretaries. It’s rich soil for any fellow with the courage to till it.’
Nicholas wonders if that includes Cathal Connell. He would not be the first, he thinks. He’s heard from the watermen who frequent the Jackdaw that Francis Drake and John Hawkins are not above trading in human souls.
‘When these fellows aren’t raiding Christian ships,’ Connell continues, ‘they’re either working their fields or driving camel caravans. This is where the spice road ends. Strike inland and one day – if you live long enough to pass through the High Atlas and more miles of desert than there are stars in the heavens – you’ll find yourself in China.’ He grins like a skull. ‘That’s if the giants with one eye in the middle of their foreheads who dwell in the kingdom of Kongo, or the scaly serpents with teeth the size of your fingers that swim in the Nile, don’t have you for breakfast first. Welcome to the Barbary shore, Dr Shelby. Aren’t you glad you came?’
On the waterfront around the Kasar el Bahr small mountains of merchandise cram the flagstones. Sacks of cinnamon, sheaves of sugar cane, slabs of salt the size of flagstones, chests of saltpetre wait to be loaded aboard the three English vessels, once their holds have been emptied.
The Righteous has been warped the last few yards of her journey by gangs of small, agile men who heave on dripping cables until she is moored safely against the great hemp fenders hanging from the quayside. Connell tells Nicholas they are Berber tribesmen from the mountains, earning more by labouring than they ever could herding goats in the foothills of the High Atlas. They grin and chatter as they toil, their glistening skin the shade of old leather soaked by rain.
Nicholas has been picturing this moment since before the Righteous sailed. The Low Countries he knows from first-hand observation – not so very different from England. But his understanding of the lands of the Moor has been mostly framed by watching Muly Molucco and Tamburlaine performed at the Rose, and from reading Pliny’s Natural History – in the original Latin during his studies at Cambridge, which damn near sent him running back to Barnthorpe and his father’s farm.
As he jumps down onto cobbles gritty with windblown sand, he is instantly made aware of his ignorance. Looking around, he sees no despotic chieftains dismembering their enemies with wickedly curved swords, no mountains capped with lightning, no endless deserts of black sand, no men with eyes in the centre of their foreheads or possessing just one huge foot on the end of a single leg… Just a busy little port that could be Dover, were it not for the heat and the colour of the men’s skin.
A committee of welcome waits on the breakwater. Some are Moors in long robes that make Nicholas think of Roman togas, the others – judging by their faces and their dress – are Europeans, Jews and Levantines. They have the same cautiously expectant look he’s seen in the faces of the merchants and factors who gather on the quaysides in London. They are here to haggle over the newly arrived cargo, and to get themselves the best deal for their own goods when the Righteous is empty and ready for the return voyage to England.
Standing apart from the men of commerce is a gang of labourers, ready to do the heavy lifting. They are a sullen group. Of every age from young to greybeard, they are dressed mostly in tattered hose and slops, their chests bare and gleaming in the heat. Save for the fact that most of them are Blackamoors, this could be Galley Quay or Botolph’s Wharf on the Thames, Nicholas thinks.
The most alien sight in his immediate compass is a herd of beasts lying hobbled nearby. He takes them to be camels. They wait patiently for their cargoes, their indignant faces reminding him of old Walter Pemmel when he launches into one of his customary tirades against the petty rules of the parish aldermen.
The camels’ overseer is a young lad of barely ten. He wears a grubby woollen tunic and shouts first in Spanish and then in English, ‘One camello, seven English pennies! One half-camello, eight English pennies! All very good camellos. No lames. Carry cargo very good.’
For a moment Nicholas wonders if by ‘half a camel’ he means he’s also offering them for meat, before it dawns on him that half a camel is a shared load – and the extra expense is to cover the cost of searching out the rest of the load.
In a cool chamber set into the inner wall of the Kasar el Bahr sits a man in a pristine white robe, behind an elaborately carved European table that Nicholas assumes is a relic of Portuguese rule. On his head he wears a voluminous cloth binding that Nicholas can’t help thinking looks like a giant onion. The man has a lean, knowing look, as though there’s not a subterfuge for avoiding customs duty that he hasn’t yet seen through. Studiously ignoring his two visitors, he prefers to study a quill and inkpot set beside two books. One is a simple calfskin-bound volume the size of a large loaf, the other much smaller, but far more extravagantly bound and inlaid with intricate Moorish designs picked out in gold.
‘We have to be the first to speak,’ whispers Connell in Nicholas’s ear. ‘To him, we’re infidels. Don’t ask me to explain the logic in that, but it’s his realm we’re in now, so needs must.’ He beams his skull’s smile at the customs official, swings the clay pot onto the table and says, expansively, ‘Peace be upon you, Muly Hassan. I’ve brought you a little of what you like.’
The change is instant. The previously immobile official springs to his feet and begins pumping Connell’s now-free hand. When he speaks, his English is surprisingly good. Nicholas guesses it’s the result of a lifetime spent mixing with foreign merchants. He wonders if there might be any customs officials in London who can speak the language of the Moor. He doubts it.
‘Wa alaykum, Sayidi Conn-ell. You
have good voyage, yes?’ the man says through a broad set of neat yellow teeth. ‘Allāh, the most merciful, the most compassionate, filled your sails with a profitable wind, yes?’
‘Aye, he did that, Muly Hassan,’ says Connell, tapping the taut cloth cover of the pot. ‘He must know how much you like English barberry preserve.’
Nicholas watches in stunned silence. Can this Cathal Connell, the bringer of presents of jam, be the same Cathal Connell who might – might – have thrown a palsied English apprentice into the sea while he still lived?
‘But I’ve brought you a present more valuable than barberries, Muly Hassan,’ Connell continues, glancing at Nicholas. ‘This young fellow here is an envoy of Sir Robert Cecil, a minister of our sovereign majesty Elizabeth. He has letters for your prince.’
‘Captain Yaxley of the Marion, he tells me this,’ says Muly Hassan. He makes a small bow to Nicholas. ‘The governor of Safi will make audience with you in the Kechla very soon. But first we must make honour to His Majesty Ahmad Abu al-Abbas al-Mansur, the Golden, the Conqueror of the Songhai, Commander of the Faithful. This is required on arrival.’
For a moment Nicholas wonders if he is expected to kneel, or make some other formal salute to the sultan. When Elizabeth passes Southwark in her royal barge – on the way to Whitehall or Greenwich – the salute from the riverbank is usually good-natured cheering and ribald shouts that generally echo Farzad’s slanders of the Pope and the King of Spain. But what does a freshly minted envoy do when first setting foot onto a foreign shore? Robert Cecil has omitted to tell him. He looks to Connell for a lead.
But Connell is showing no reverence, other than to drop his bill of loading on the table next to the barberry preserve. He unrolls it. Then he and Muly Hassan pore over the neat lines of handwriting that list in detail what is crammed into the hold of the Righteous. Every now and then Muly Hassan makes a tick with his quill on the roll, then puts an entry in the small, gold-embossed book on the desk.
The powerful taking their cut, thinks Nicholas as he watches. The Barbary shore, it seems, has more in common with England than he’d imagined.
With the sultan’s tithe agreed and recorded, Connell and Nicholas return to the Righteous. The six crates of matchlock muskets are already on the quayside. But there seems to be no hurry to remove the rest of the cargo.
‘There’s no gain to be had by your hanging around here, Dr Shelby,’ Connell tells him. ‘At the speed these rogues work, it’ll be a while before our holds are empty. And my boys will want some time ashore to take their ease. If you catch my drift.’
He puts out a hand for Nicholas to shake.
‘You have my gratitude for bringing me to a safe landfall, Captain Connell,’ Nicholas says, wondering if this is the same hand that helped roll Edmund Hortop overboard. It feels like he’s clutching a knot of rope that’s been dredged up from the ocean floor.
‘Don’t count your chickens,’ Connell says with a laugh. ‘Give them the chance, and these heathens will cut out your heart and sell it for a treat, long before you reach Marrakech.’
Glad to be away from Connell, if only for a while, Nicholas sets off up the hill towards the Kechla, the old Portuguese citadel on its crest. He has not gone far before a young man in a brown djellaba falls in beside him, matching his stride with an easy lope. He has a head of tight black curls and the contemplative face of a poet.
‘I am Hadir Benhassi,’ he says, as though it’s a prize he’s been awarded. ‘Welcome to Safi. Please, tell me, have you been sent here by the Worshipful Company of Barbary in London?’
Nicholas is looking into a pair of eager brown eyes.
‘I fear not, Master Benhassi. My name is Nicholas Shelby. I’m a physician. I’ve been sent by my queen’s minister to study physic in your land. How can I be of service to you?’
Is that a flicker of relief Nicholas thinks he sees on Hadir Benhassi’s face? If it is, it’s gone in an instant. The lad throws up his hands in a gesture of delight, the djellaba sliding down his brown arms.
‘I have the honour, Sayidi, of being the factor of the Barbary Company here in Morocco. I come from Marrakech to see all is well with Captain Conn-ell’s cargo. Three days on a camello!’
Nicholas searches Benhassi’s face for signs of artifice. He finds none. But if this lad really is the Barbary Company’s factor, as he claims, then where is Adolfo Sykes? In his thoughts, Nicholas can hear Robert Cecil’s voice: Three Barbary Company ships have returned to England without a single one of Adolfo Sykes’s dispatches. I fear some mischief has befallen him…
‘That’s an important responsibility, Master Benhassi,’ he says cautiously. ‘Do you bear it alone?’
‘Yes, Sayidi. All alone.’
‘In Safi?’
‘No, Sayidi; in our great city of Marrakech.’
If Hadir Benhassi is lying, Nicholas decides, he’s more practised at it than his innocent countenance would suggest.
‘Are you returning there, Master Benhassi? Because that’s where I am bound. I carry a letter from my queen to your sultan.’
Hadir Benhassi’s eyes widen in awe. ‘Then you are a most important man, Sayidi Nich-less. And in Morocco, all important men must have a secretary. Do you have already a secretary?’
‘I do not, Master Hadir,’ says Nicholas, understanding at once how this conversation will end. ‘But as I have not a single word of your language, I suppose I should hire one. Might you suggest someone?’
I could do worse, he thinks, than keep this engaging young man close. And what better way to learn – with a little careful diplomatic enquiry along the way – what has happened to Adolfo Sykes. They agree on half a ducat a week.
‘Because you are an important man, Sayidi Nich-less, you will need the finest camello for the journey to Marrakech to see the sultan,’ Nicholas’s new secretary says as they follow the dusty track towards the Kechla, between trees that look to his stranger’s eye like giant dandelions. ‘I will get you one. Very comfortable. Only eight English pennies.’
‘The lad at the quayside was offering a camel for seven,’ Nicholas says, instantly wondering why he’s being cautious with Robert Cecil’s money.
‘You can pay him seven if you wish. But I do not recommend it.’
‘Why not?’
‘They’re not his camellos.’
Nicholas smiles. He decides he quite likes Hadir Benhassi – whoever he really is.
They are approaching the high sandstone walls of the Kechla and a fine arched gateway set between two high towers. In their shade is a small tented encampment, where men with faces as dark and furrowed as a Suffolk field in winter tend herds of grazing goats. The men wear robes dyed as blue as the sky, and their heads are swathed in broadcloth. The women, garlanded in necklaces of polished stones, sit in circles, chattering gaily as they brew some sort of drink in brass urns.
‘Tell me, Hadir, how long have you been the Barbary Company’s factor?’
‘Since the second Jumada,’ Hadir says. ‘Two months.’
‘And the previous factor – was he your father?’ Nicholas asks, feigning no more than a passing interest.
Hadir’s bright face clouds over. ‘Sayidi Sy-kess was very good man to me. But he is dead now.’
Nicholas struggles to keep his face from betraying emotion: he doesn’t know of Adolfo Sykes. Never heard of him. Wouldn’t know the name if it were painted in letters ten feet high.
‘Dead? An old man, was he?’
‘No, Sayidi. My friend Sy-kess was not old. Was an accident. Very unlucky accident.’
21
Bianca sits in the pews at St Saviour’s, a mannered look of submissive piety on her face. It is a mask she adopts whenever she visits a Protestant church. The effort costs her less than the fine for non-attendance. She lets Parson Moody’s sonorous voice enfold her like an old woollen blanket that’s been left out in the rain. Cloying. Musty.
Moody is telling his flock that the Devil has visited the pestilence upon
them because of their own sinfulness. She fancies calling out that she knows of a certain house near the Falcon river steps where the bawd keeps a selection of wickedly pliable canes to employ upon the parson’s plump buttocks. But she does not. The arrival of the plague is shock enough for Bankside.
It is two weeks now since she awoke to discover she had escaped its black enfolding wings. The entire Willders family is in the cemetery. In the same plot lie daughter Ruth’s husband, the glover, and his twin sisters. The landlord of the Walnut Tree on St Olave’s Lane is interred nearby, along with several of his customers, including the tanner Jack Prout and all but one of his family – a grandmother. This ancient survivor has become so deranged by what she witnessed in the closed-up plague house, while her kin died around her one by one, that she now visits the graveyard to be closer to them. There she crawls amongst the tombstones, eating handfuls of earth until the churchwarden shoos her away with a broom.
Walter Pemmel is dead, his old man’s whining now for ever cut off, after an ill-advised visit to his son on Pepper Alley. The Lazar House behind Bianca’s physic garden has been turned over to the confinement of the sick, although she wonders how much more quickly they might expire if they knew what had happened to her in that awful place. The bookseller Isaac Bredwell, Ned’s former drinking partner, has been carried off by the sickness and now lies at St Saviour’s, along with everyone in his lodging house: twelve in all, including two girls aged three and seven and a six-month-old babe. Ned has managed to find in his heart a measure of sadness for Bredwell, who once tried so hard to turn Nicholas against Bianca when he first came to Bankside in the year of his great grief.
Bianca’s attendance at church has little to do with gratitude for her survival. It is a matter of practicality. The parish authorities are wary of doing business with anyone who is not a willing member of a congregation, and so she sits in the pews at St Saviour’s and listens to the sermons with as much forbearance as she can muster, trusting that God will understand that in a nation of heretic Protestants, the faithful must sometimes do things they would rather not.