Corsair

TEN

‘HE’S A VERY DECENT MAN,’ Hector told Dan when the two friends next met at the bagnio on their Friday rest day. ‘His steward told me that the captain never orders any of his servants to do any job that he would not be prepared to do himself. He said that Turks of the ruling class believe that the only people fit to rule, are those who have themselves served. The captain comes from one of the best families in Constantinople, yet he started off as a lad scrubbing slime off anchor cables as they were winched aboard the galleys. When he grew strong enough, he had to spend six months on the oar bench.’

‘My master is reluctant to sell me to your captain, even if I want to turn Turk,’ said Dan. ‘Since my bastinadoing, I’ve been given only the most unpleasant tasks in the masserie. My master seeks to add to that punishment.’

Hector looked around the bagnio’s grim courtyard and recalled his unpleasant experience with the lecherous kaporal. He had never seen his friend so glum.

‘If only there was some way you too could help out in the library,’ he said, ‘then you too would be transferred to live in the captain’s house.’

‘A library job is not likely when I don’t know how to read or write,’ Dan pointed out. ‘That page he wanted me to examine meant nothing. Just a lot of black lines and some pretty pictures poorly drawn. I could have done better myself.’

Hector looked at his friend questioningly. ‘What do you mean, “done better”?’

‘Those pictures of trees and fish were all very clumsy, and someone had tried to draw a bird you call a parrot. But it was not like any parrot I had ever seen. Wrong shape and the colours were all odd. That’s why I told the captain that I couldn’t recognise anything. Maybe I should have said there was a badly drawn parrot.’

‘You mean you could have produced a better picture of it.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then show me,’ said Hector, suddenly excited. He went to where one of the bagnio letter writers was squatting against the wall, waiting for clients. He paid for a sheet of paper and the loan of pen and ink and thrust them into Dan’s hand. ‘Draw me a parrot,’ he demanded.

Dan looked dubiously at the materials. The pen was cut from a goose quill, and the nib was frayed and blunt. The paper was dirty and slightly crumpled. ‘I wouldn’t be much good with these,’ he said.

‘Why not?’

‘I paint and draw on skin, not paper.’

‘You mean on vellum made from sheepskin, like the monks who taught me in Ireland.’

‘No. I make my pictures on human skin.’

For a moment Hector looked dismayed, thinking that his friend was about to reveal that the Miskito flayed human corpses to obtain their skins. But Dan’s next words reassured him.

‘I paint on living people. It is something that I learned as a youngster. There’s a jungle tribe who live inland from the Miskito coast and go around half naked, with their skins painted with pictures of birds and trees and flowers. When I was a boy the Miskito council sent me to them as some sort of hostage, while one of their youths came to live in my family. Their women folk are the artists. They spend hour after hour painting coloured pictures on the skins of their men. They think it makes the men look handsome and attractive. If the work is cleverly done, the pictures seem to come alive because they move as the muscles ripple. Because I was a stranger from outside the tribe, they indulged me and showed me how to make the paints and brushes.’

‘You had to make your own brushes?’

‘It’s not difficult. You cut a twig from a certain type of bush, chew the end until it is soft, and use that as the brush.’

‘And what about the paints?’

‘We mixed coloured earth or the powder of certain stones gathered in the river beds, and coloured sap from jungle plants. There was scarcely a colour that we couldn’t create. Blues and reds were easy, yellow more difficult. For a special occasion like a feast or a wedding, the women would first paint their men with the pictures. Then they puffed grains of shiny sand over them while the paint was still wet, so that their men folk glittered.’

Hector looked at his friend in astonishment. ‘Show me what you can do. Though we won’t find any coloured earth or jungle plants in the bagnio.’

In response, Dan approached a huckster selling cooked meats from a brazier, and asked him for a small nub of charcoal. Returning to Hector, he took from him the sheet of paper and, laying it flat on the ground, smoothed it out. He made four or five swift strokes with the charcoal, and then held it up for Hector to see.

On the page was the unmistakable image of a seagull, swerving in mid flight.

‘Will that do?’ Dan asked.

Awestruck, Hector took the sheet of paper. ‘Do! Even if I had all the time in the world, and the best materials, I could never have drawn something like that.’

‘I’d prefer to be an artist than a gardener,’ said Dan.

‘Dan, if I can get you a supply of paper, and some pens of the sort we use here, do you think you can teach yourself how to draw and colour with them? You would have to learn how to make the sort of pictures you saw on that map, only better, much better.’

‘Making pictures comes more easily when you do not know how to read or write,’ the Miskito answered confidently.

Every Friday in the month that followed, Hector coached Dan in the art of illustrating maps and charts. He prepared a list of the subjects – mountains, ships, fish, wind roses – and made rough sketches to show Dan how they should look. Once, after much soul-searching, he stole a loose page from a disintegrating collection of charts held in the captain’s library, and brought it to the bagnio to show his friend, replacing the page next day.

Finally, when he was satisfied that Dan had mastered the use of paper and ink, Hector was able to return from the bagnio to the captain’s mansion carrying what he believed would be Dan’s salvation.

WHEN TURGUT entered his library the following morning, Hector was ready with his demonstration. ‘With your permission, effendi,’ he said, ‘I would like to show you a drawing.’

Turgut looked at him enquiringly. ‘A drawing? Something you have found among the logbooks?’

‘No, effendi, it is this,’ and Hector pulled from his sleeve a sheet of paper on which was Dan’s most recent effort with pen and coloured ink. It was a picture of Algiers seen from the sea. All the salient features were there: the harbour mole and the lighthouse, the city walls, the Dey’s castle on the summit and the gardens at either side.

Turgut recognised it at once. ‘And you made this yourself?’

‘No, effendi. It was drawn by the slave who is my friend. The one whose home is across the western ocean.’

Turgut was quick on the uptake. ‘I take it that you are suggesting he is qualified to help in the library, that his skill could be valuable in preparing a new version of the Kitab-i Bahriye.’

‘That is so, your excellency.’

Turgut thought for a moment and then said quietly, ‘Friendship has its obligations. I will increase my offer of his purchase price with his master. As soon as that is settled, your friend can begin work as a draughtsman and illustrator and come to live in this house. That also will be an auspicious time for both of you to celebrate your adoption of the True Faith. In the meantime you should be thinking about your new names.’

‘I HOPE THE ABDAL has a steady hand and a sharp razor,’ said Dan on the morning that he and Hector were due to profess Islam. The two friends were at Turgut’s mansion preparing for the ceremony the captain had called their sunnet. They had already paid a visit to one of Algiers’ public bath houses and were putting on new white cotton gowns.

‘Judging by the number of slaves from the bagnio who converted to Islam, the abdal must have plenty of practice in removing that piece of skin,’ said Hector, trying to sound more confident than he was feeling. ‘I’ll be glad when it’s over. It will put an end to all the jokes about being too sore to walk straight.’

‘ . . . or make love again,’ added Dan.

‘I wouldn’t know,’ confessed Hector. ‘I’ve never been with a woman properly. Just had one or two encounters with village girls, but always brief and they never meant anything.’

‘Then you’ve got something to look forward to, though you don’t earn enough to visit the bordellos that the odjaks use. They aren’t allowed to marry until they’ve reached senior rank and until then must live in men-only barracks. No wonder they appreciate good-looking young men.’

Hector ignored his friend’s banter as he looked into a mirror to adjust his red slave cap which he had been told he should wear during the ceremony. ‘Have you decided what you will be called in future?’ he asked.

‘I’ll be Suleiman Miskita – Suleiman the Miskito. What about you?’

‘The captain suggested that I become Hassan Irlanda – Hassan from Ireland. He’s offered to act as my sponsor even though I really don’t need one.’

‘Turgut Reis has really taken a liking to you, hasn’t he?’

‘No more jokes, Dan,’ said Hector seriously. ‘I think it is because he doesn’t have any family of his own.’

‘Well then, let’s not keep him waiting.’

Together the two friends made their way to the mansion’s central courtyard where a small group of the other servants were waiting for them. Spread on the ground was a large carpet, on which stood jugs of flavoured drinks and trays of food – a first course of sheep’s head and feet served with fried eggplant and cucumbers in yoghurt, followed by a sweet course of pears and apricots, grape paste and halva flavoured with almonds. Hector’s tutor in calligraphy had already arrived and Hector caught a glimpse of the abdal, the specialist who would perform the circumcision, as he disappeared into a side room with his bag of surgical tools.

Moments later the captain himself appeared, resplendent in a dark red jacket over his embroidered shirt, full pantaloons, and a maroon turban with matching silk sash. With him were two of his friends, both elderly men with grave expressions and full white beards. They were to witness the act of profession. The captain was in an expansive mood. ‘Peace be upon you,’ he said genially to the assembled company. ‘This is an important day for my household. Today you are my guests and I want you all to enjoy yourselves, so take your places and we will eat together.’

He seated himself at one end of the carpet and invited his two colleagues to sit beside him with the abdal next to them. Dan and Hector were to be seated directly opposite. When his guests had eaten their fill and the trays had been cleared away, Turgut called for everyone’s attention. ‘My friends,’ he said, ‘the ceremony for the taking of the right path is always an occasion for celebration. When there is sunnet for the sons of the Sultan, the festivities last for fifteen days and nights. A thousand plates of rice and fifteen roast oxen are despatched daily to the people of the city, there are fireworks and parades, and the harbour is a mass of coloured lights attached to the masts of the assembled vessels. Today may seem very humble by comparison, but nevertheless it is equally a time of rejoicing, and the proper ritual must be observed.’ Rising to his feet, the captain then beckoned to Dan to come forward. The Miskito stepped into the centre of the carpet and stood facing his master. Turgut asked him formally, ‘Is it your wish to acknowledge the true Faith?’

‘It is, effendi.’

‘Then raise your finger, and pronounce the shahadah loudly and clearly so that all may hear.’

Obediently Dan did as he was told, and recited the words, ‘There is no god but God and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.’

Turgut turned to his valet standing in the background, and nodded. The valet came forward with a pair of scissors. Removing Dan’s red cap, he threw it on the ground and then deftly clipped away the Miskito’s long hair leaving only a central top knot. Next the valet clapped his hands, and his assistant brought forward a length of tan-coloured muslin which the valet carefully wound around the Miskito’s head as a turban. When the valet was satisfied, he stepped back and Turgut announced in a loud voice, ‘From now on you will be known as Suleiman the Miskito. In the words of the holy Qur’an, “He who rejects false deities and believes in Allah has grasped a firm handhold which will never break.”’

To murmurs of approval from the audience, the valet then escorted Dan away to the side room, even as the abdal quietly left his place and followed.

Next it was Hector’s turn. Rising to his feet, he stepped into the centre of the carpet, and at the captain’s prompting held up his index finger and repeated the words of the shahadah, as Dan had done. After his red cap had been removed and his head shaved, he too was given a turban, though this time it was a more expensive length of fine white cotton shot through with gold threads. Then, Turgut stepped forward and placed in his open palm a little container, the size and shape of a pill jar, fashioned of brass. As Turgut pressed a catch on the side, the lid sprang open revealing a little compass, its needle quivering gently. Engraved on the inner side of the open lid were lines of Arabic writing. ‘Here are inscribed the names of the cities and countries of the known world,’ said Turgut, ‘and should you ever find yourself in such places, consult the needle to learn the qibla that you may worship towards the pillars of Islam.’ Then, to everyone’s surprise, he leaned forward and gave Hector a formal embrace. As he did so, he whispered in his ear, ‘Don’t be afraid. It happens at once, and is a wonderful thing as Allah has wished. Praise be to God.’ Then he stepped back, as his valet led away Hector for his circumcision.

To his alarm Hector could not see Dan anywhere when he was ushered into the side room where the abdal stood waiting beside a low bed. The only other furniture in the room was a sturdy stool. ‘Do not be afraid,’ said the abdal. ‘Your friend is recovering next door, and will soon rejoin the celebrations. The pain is quickly over. You may lie on the bed or be seated on the stool, whichever you prefer. Osman, the valet here, will remain to bear witness.’

‘I prefer the stool,’ said Hector, his voice unsteady.

‘As did your friend. Pull up your gown, and sit down then, with your legs spread apart.’

Hector did as he was instructed, and the abdal reached forward and took the young man’s penis in one hand and gently teased forward the foreskin. Next, as Hector peered down anxiously, the abdal was holding in his free hand an instrument which Hector first thought was a set of dividers of the type he himself used when measuring distances across a map. But these dividers were made of wood, each limb flat-sided. Hector broke out in a cold sweat as he realised it was a clamp. Expertly the abdal closed the clamp upon the foreskin, nipping it tightly so that it could not retract. Hector shut his eyes and clenched his fists so that the nails dug deep into the palms of his hands. He sucked in air and held his breath, while hearing the soft mutter of a voice saying, ‘Allâhu akbarre’. Then came an agonising spike of pain which made him gasp, and a shocking moment later the warm spurt of blood striking the inside of his thigh. Even as he quivered with the pain, he sensed the blessed pressure of some sort of poultice or bandage being pressed to his wounded manhood.