Corsair

NINE

TWO MEN STOOD in the late evening sunshine watching the English third-rate weigh anchor and then work clear of the Algiers mole.

Down by the harbour Consul Martin was feeling homesick, regretting that he had declined the invitation to accompany Abercrombie back to England. Martin had excused himself, saying that he had pressing commercial matters to attend to in Algiers, but the truth was that he did not relish spending the six-week voyage in close company with the glum commissioner and Newland the self-conceited mercer. The final details of Newland’s ransom had been settled smoothly. Abercrombie had brought with him a down payment of ten per cent of the sum the Algerines demanded for the mercer’s release. Newland’s business associates in London had advanced the cash, and a professional ransom broker in Naples was standing surety for the rest. The balance was to be transferred when the cloth merchant reached home safely. The speed of this commercial transaction had underscored the cumbersome progress of the government redemption plan which had eventually allowed only three dozen English captives to depart. Not one of the Irish had been redeemed. The commissioner had made it clear, after the unsatisfactory interview with Hector Lynch, that he did not wish to encounter any more of the young man’s countrymen. So Martin had given up trying to locate them in the bagnios.

No one would ever hear of these unfortunates again, the consul thought to himself as he turned to walk back up the hill to his residence, his despondency only tempered by relief that he was finally rid of the tiresome Newland.

The other figure watching the warship stand out to sea also felt mildly relieved. When Captain of Galleys Turgut Reis had heard that the English prisoners in Algiers were to be ransomed, he had bribed the Dey’s secretary to remove the name of the English sailor-slave, Dunton, from his list. Dunton had proved to be a clever boat builder, and Turgut calculated that Dunton was worth much more than his purchase price if he continued to work in the Arsenal, particularly as the shipmaster there had finally found sufficiently lengthy timber to repair Izzet Darya. Turgut was all too aware that he had to have his galley ready for the start of the new cruising season in three months’ time if he was to escape from his financial difficulties. Anything which speeded up her repairs was a priority, particularly the services of a skilled shipwright.

Looking down from his roof garden, Turgut was glad that his little stratagem had succeeded. He even took pen and paper to draw a rough sketch of the departing English third rate for future reference. It was quite possible that one day Izzet Darya might encounter the vessel during a corso, and previously the captain had found it difficult to tell whether the sailing ships of the unbelievers were fitted out for peace or war. To his eye they all had much the same lines and sail plans whether they were carrying rich cargoes or a broadside of cannon. How unlike his beloved Izzet Darya, he thought to himself. No one could mistake the galley’s long, menacing hull for a plump trading vessel. Izzet was a platform for fighting men, not a tub filled with merchandise. He held up the completed sketch for the ink to dry in the faint breeze, and once again he reassured himself that he had been right not to switch to using a sailing vessel for the corso. There was something discreditable about the way those tall ships fought from a distance, gun to gun. Their opponents were no more than tiny figures in the distance. Far better to do battle honourably, hand to hand, and look your adversary in the eye. That was his personal usanza.

A discreet cough broke into the captain’s thoughts. A servant had appeared on the roof garden, carrying a note. It had just been handed in, the man said, by a slave from the bagnio. Unfolding the paper, Turgut saw that the penmanship was neat and regular, the letters well formed as if prepared by a professional letter writer. Turgut’s long experience in reading foreign charts meant that he was familiar with the crabbed script of the unbelievers, and he found no difficulty in deciphering the sentences written in the lingua franca. The author of the note stated that he wished to profess his belief in Allah and humbly asked the reis to give his consent to a ceremony of conversion. For a moment Turgut was puzzled. Then he recalled that a slave had to have his master’s permission before adopting Islam. Turgut frowned. The note was unsigned. He wondered which of his slaves wanted to convert to the True Faith. Turgut presumed that the messenger had taken advantage of the rest period at sunset when the bagnio gates still stood open, and run up the hill to make the delivery. ‘Where is the man who brought this?’ he asked.

‘He is waiting in the street,’ the servant replied.

‘Send him up,’ he said. ‘I’ll hear what he has to say.’

A few moments later, the messenger appeared, and Turgut saw it was the young man whom he had loaned to the city treasurer.

‘Who is responsible for this?’ he asked, holding up the paper.

‘I am, effendi. I wish to become a Mussulman.’

‘And who wrote it for you?’

‘No one, effendi. I wrote it myself.’

Turgut thought back to the day he had purchased the young man at auction. He remembered wondering even then whether the alert-looking young man might one day be a useful addition to his household, useful for his brains rather than his brawn. Had it not been for the malevolence of that greedy city treasurer he would have already found a more suitable use for this literate youngster. It occurred to Turgut that now he had a way to outwit the khaznadji. He would approve the young man’s conversion, and then inform the treasurer that the young man would soon be a good Muslim and therefore should live in a household where the Faith was respected. That should shame the khaznadji into returning the slave to Turgut’s custody.

‘I am pleased that you have decided to say the shahadah. You have my consent,’ Turgut said. ‘You must remind me of your name so that I may inform the Guardian Pasha and arrange for the ceremony to take place here in this house. I will provide the witnesses.’

‘My name is Hector Lynch, effendi.’ Hector gave the reis a frank look. ‘Would his excellency be so benevolent as to sponsor the same ceremony for my friend also? He too wishes to profess the Faith.’

Turgut was about to turn down the request when Hector went on, ‘My friend has no fellow countrymen in the bagnio. He is a stranger from a distant land, far to the west across the ocean sea.’

Turgut stroked his beard, his curiosity aroused. An image from his ancestor’s map came to mind – the chart of the western ocean, its far shore decorated with pictures of curious-looking animals and cryptic descriptions. Perhaps here was an opportunity to unravel some of these mysteries.

‘I will talk with him. Return with him at this time tomorrow, and I will decide.’

THE FOLLOWING EVENING Hector brought Dan to the captain’s mansion, both men wearing their cleanest clothes. After a short wait, they were shown up to Turgut’s library. It was an airy, spacious room, its ceiling painted with interlocking geometrical patterns of red, green and black, cabinets and shelves lining the walls. They stood respectfully in front of the captain, who regarded them gravely.

‘Peace be upon you,’ he began.

‘And upon you also be peace,’ they chorused dutifully.

‘Your companion tells me that you also wish to say the shahadah. Is that so?’ the captain asked Dan.

‘Your excellency, that is correct.’

‘Have you told this to your master?’

‘Not yet, sir.’ Dan paused. ‘If your excellency would be so generous as to buy me, the cost would be reasonable.’

‘And why is that?’

‘I was recently in trouble. But it was a mistake.’

‘Whether you were in trouble justly or unjustly does not concern me. It is more important that you are useful to me,’ said Turgut. He pointed to his bookstand. His ancestor’s map of the western ocean was on display. ‘Look there, and tell me if you see anything which you recognise.’

Dan stared at the map and, after a short interval, shook his head. ‘No, your excellency. There is nothing. If it please your excellency, I do not know how to read.’

‘You don’t recognise any of those little pictures and drawings?’

Dan again shook his head, and Turgut was disappointed.

‘Well at least you are honest. Can you think of any reason why I should buy you?’ he asked.

Dan was at a loss, and there was an awkward silence until Hector spoke up.

‘Effendi, my friend is highly skilled with ropes and rope-work,’ he said. ‘He would be very useful in the Arsenal.’

Turgut turned his gaze on Hector, his brown eyes troubled. So even the slaves in the bagnio, he thought to himself, knew about his desperate need to get Izzet Darya ready for the corso. It was humiliating, yet he had to admire the quick wits of the young man.

‘Very well,’ he agreed. ‘I shall discuss the matter with your master. If he quotes a satisfactory price, then I may decide on the purchase and you will be informed.’

As Dan and Hector hurried back down the hill to the bagnio, Dan asked, ‘Your idea that I was a rope worker, and could help in the Arsenal. What made you think of it?’

‘My first day in the bagnio,’ said Hector. ‘There was no spare bed in the dormitory and you offered to make me a hammock. You said that the Miskito made them when they went out on hunting trips, so it seemed logical that you could handle ropes, make knots and all that sort of thing.’

WITH THE GRUDGING agreement of the khaznadji, Hector was removed from beylik duties and reassigned to live and work in Turgut’s household. He arrived there on a chilly winter morning, his meagre belongings wrapped in a blanket. The steward, himself a French slave, showed him to the room at the rear of the building which he would share with the other staff. ‘You’ll find the captain is a fair master,’ the steward confided as they skirted the mansion’s central courtyard with its trellises of flowers and vines and a large fountain splashing in the centre. ‘He’s a bit behind the times in his ideas as he’s spent most of his time away in Constantinople in the Sultan’s court. But if you serve him faithfully, he’ll look after you well.’

‘What about his family. Are they here?’ asked Hector.

‘Both his wives are,’ said the Frenchman. ‘But you won’t see much of them. The reis keeps an old-fashioned establishment, and the women’s quarters are separate. They occupy most of the second floor. You’ll find a guard on duty at the door, so you’re not likely to blunder in on them. As for children, the reis has none. It’s his great regret. I’ll introduce you to the other servants later, but right now you are due to start your first day’s work. The captain is already with his books and charts. You’re to help in his library.’

The reis glanced up from the parchment he was reading as Hector was shown in and, after greeting him courteously, waved towards an untidy pile of papers on a low table and said, ‘Tell me what you make of them.’

Hector knew he was being set some sort of test. He began to sift carefully through the documents. Within moments he had identified them as pages torn from ships’ logbooks. Most were in Spanish, but some were written in French or Italian, while others were in Dutch. A few were in languages he did not know but he could guess their content because shipmasters of every nationality seemed to be concerned with the same topics – wind, weather, landfalls, customs dues and lading. He said as much to Turgut, who seemed well satisfied with his answer.

‘Good. Next I want you to check whether they contain any useful information, the sort of details that could be included in a map or written into a guidebook to instruct pilots.’

It took Hector the rest of the day to sort through the paperwork. He set aside those pages which were useless, and classified the remainder according to the areas they described. ‘I’ve made a list of all the ports mentioned, and assigned a colour to each port,’ he reported to Turgut. ‘I’ve attached the appropriate coloured thread to every page where that port is mentioned.’

Turgut walked over to a large cedar wood chest in one corner of the room and lifted the lid. ‘In here I keep the notes and observations which I have compiled during half a lifetime of voyaging. They are in no sort of order. I will want you to find a way of checking the information contained in them against the details in the ships’ logs, and then work out which is more likely to be correct. To do that, you will first have to learn to read my writing, which is often untidy as it was done on shipboard, and the script is Ottoman.’

‘I will do my best, effendi,’ offered Hector. ‘In the bagnio a Syrian Christian, who was taken prisoner in the Levant, showed me a little of the Arab way of writing. With practice, I should be able to carry out your wishes.’

‘Excellent!’ said Turgut, whose enthusiasm to update the Kitab-i Bahriye was increasing with every task he loaded on his new scrivano. ‘I will arrange a tutor for you, a learned man of my acquaintance. He will give you some lessons in the formal elements of our calligraphy, and it would do no harm if you also began to acquire some Turkish from him as well. Lingua franca is all very well for basic communication, but there will be times when it is necessary to discuss the finer points of navigation and map preparation. This library is where you will work every day from now on, except Friday of course. I will give instructions to my steward that your midday meals are to be brought up here. That way you will not waste time.’

IN THE DAYS that followed, Hector discovered he enjoyed the tasks set for him. He relished the challenge of deciphering faded or incomplete notes scribbled down by unknown shipmasters, then arranging the snippets of information into a coherent form which – the Captain told him – one day might take on the shape of a map or chart. He learned to read his master’s writing, even though the captain had the disconcerting habit of using both the flamboyant diwani script of the court and more ordinary workaday lettering in the same sentence. Within a fortnight Hector also understood enough spoken Turkish to follow the captain as his master worried his way through the jumble of information accumulated in his archives over the years. At random Turgut would select a document from the chest and read it out, often hesitating as he tried to remember what exactly he had meant to record so many years ago. It was Hector’s job to correlate that information with the material he had already extracted from the logbooks of the shipmasters. As the days passed and Hector showed more and more of his ability, Turgut Reis gradually slipped into the habit of treating him more like a talented nephew than a possession he had bought at auction.

ONE MORNING Hector was alone in the captain’s library, poring over the salt-stained pages of a Dutch sea captain’s logbook, when his attention was distracted by a glint of light reflecting from a bright object on one of the cabinet shelves. Feeling in need of a break from his work, he strolled over to investigate. A shaft of sunlight was shining on a thin brass disc about as broad as the palm of his hand and inscribed with Arabic writing. There were four similar discs, one of which was cut away with a series of strangely shaped holes. It was obvious that the discs had been made to fit neatly into the face of a circular instrument made of heavy brass lying beside them on the shelf. He was standing in front of the cabinet wondering about the device, when Turgut Reis entered the room behind him and said, ‘That was given to me by my father’s father, peace be upon him. After you become a Muslim, you may one day be glad to own such an instrument yourself. Here, let me show you why.’

Picking up the instrument, Turgut brought it up to his eye. Hector saw that attached to the back of the device was a small brass bar with a peephole at each end. This bar could be turned on a pivot. ‘You hold it like this,’ said the captain, squinting through the peepholes as he moved the bar gently, ‘and take a sight on the star you have selected. It is like taking aim with a musket. The alidade, which is the name we give this bar, measures for you the angle to the horizon.’

He turned the instrument over, and showed Hector the numerical tables inscribed on the back.

‘If you have fitted the correct discs you can read off the time when the sun will rise and set wherever in the world you are, which stars and constellations will be in the night sky overhead, and the times they will rise and fall. That way you will know the qibla, the true direction of the kaaba in Mecca, and so you will be able to say your prayers in the right direction and at the right times.’

‘A sailor on the ship that brought me to Algiers could tell which direction we were travelling and about how far we had come by looking at the night sky,’ murmured Hector. ‘He said there was much more to be learned from the stars.’

‘He spoke the truth,’ answered Turgut, ‘and, by Allah’s will, it is the people of the True Faith who enriched our understanding of the marvels of the firmament. Let me show you something else.’

He went to another cabinet and lifted out what looked like a round paper lantern, and rotated it carefully in his hands. ‘See what is written on the surface.’ On closer inspection, Hector saw that the lantern was made of parchment stretched on a fine mesh of copper wire. The surface bore dozens of pictures. He recognised a bear, the figures of several men, a creature which was part goat and part fish, another in the shape of a crab. It took a moment for him to realise that they were the signs of the zodiac and the constellations.

‘It is a map of the heavens,’ said the captain. ‘I bought it many years ago from a merchant who was selling curios. The Sultan himself owns many such items – they are called celestial globes by those who study such things – and the Sultan’s are far more substantial. One is an immense ball of pure marble carved to show the forty-eight constellations and more than one thousand and twenty-five stars. But this one, though humble, is important to me. Look closely.’

Hector examined the figures on the globe. Each picture was drawn to enclose a group of stars. But it seemed to him that the stars were so scattered and irregular that it took a great deal of imagination to see how they defined the figure. But the captain was speaking again, his voice animated.

‘The salesman told me that one of the great scholars of the north – I believe he was a Dutchman – drew this star map more than a hundred years ago. It encompassed everything he knew about the heavens, all that he had learned from his reading and his years of study. The moment I saw it, I knew I had to buy it. Because I noted that when the Dutchman came to write down the names of the buruj, the constellations, he used the language and writing of the men whose wisdom he had acquired – the language of the holy Qur’an. See, here he has written Al Asad Buruj for the constellation shaped like a lion; and here is Al Akrab Buruj, the insect with a deadly sting in its curved tail.’

Now Hector understood his master’s enthusiasm for the globe. It was true that instead of writing out the names of the constellations in Latin or his native tongue, the Dutch map maker of the stars had inscribed the names in Arabic. ‘And here! And here . . . and here!’ Turgut was pointing to the names of individual stars also marked on the globe. ‘Note the names he has given them: Rigel, which means “the foot” in the language of true believers; Altair is “the flyer”, and this star here, Alderbaran, signifies “the follower” because it appears to pursue that cluster of six stars in the constellation we call Ath-Thawr, the Bull.’

A memory stirred in Hector’s mind . . . of a market day back in Ireland when his mother had taken him and his sister into a fortuneteller’s booth. He had been no more than six or seven, but still remembered the shabby brown drape which served as a door. It had been spangled with stars and zodiacal signs.

‘Using this star map and the brass instrument with the discs you showed me, can someone predict the future?’ he asked.

Turgut hesitated before replying. ‘The instrument and the globe, used together, can be used to calculate the position of the stars at the moment of a person’s birth, and from that information it may be possible to foretell an individual’s destiny. But great care is needed. The Prophet, peace be upon him, cautions us, “Behold what is in the heaven and earth! But revelations and warnings avail not folk who will not perceive.” ’

He replaced the globe carefully in the cabinet and, turning back towards Hector, added gravely, ‘It is wiser to use these things for the true path of observance, even as the pilgrims of the haj rely on the stars to direct their paths across the trackless deserts and the seas.’