The Barbary Pirates

CHAPTER THIRTY

We sailed south across the Gulf of Noto, apparently having confused any pursuit. Once we cleared Syracuse, I went below and found Harry in the sail locker just as the sun was coming up. Both of us curled into the folds of canvas, the little lad cradled in my arms, but despite my exhaustion, sleep eluded me. Having performed my part of the bargain by finding the mirror, would Astiza, Horus, and I be allowed the freedom to try to find peace while the Rite reassembled its diabolical machine? My only hope was that I could warn the world in time to make up for the bargain I’d struck. Yet Aurora, Dragut, and Osiris seemed more convinced than ever that we’d become partners.

I eventually dozed fitfully. I got up by late morning to see that despite their tumultuous night, the “monks” couldn’t keep away from the mirror. They were inspecting it more closely and speculating how it might work. The crew rigged an awning over the weapon as the sun climbed, because even covered in dust and tarnish it was blindingly bright. The pirates feared it might accidentally set their own rigging aflame.

We anchored that evening off Sicily’s southeastern tip, at a small, flat island called Capo Passero. As the sun descended behind the Sicilian hills to the west, the Rite members worked to better secure the mirror and prepare a celebration in the hold below. Oddly, I found myself a pirate hero, thanks to my idea to sacrifice Aurora’s corsair to enable our escape. Even my young son, cheerful after his sleep, was celebrated as a swashbuckler in the making. The attention pleased Harry because they gave him a hat.

There was no pursuit from Syracuse. Chances were that the city’s ministers and priests were uncertain just what it was we’d even taken. So we risked some lanterns as the mirror was lashed more securely. Carpenters cut out a section of each gunwale so it could sit firmly on the deck, while members of the Rite began to sketch and measure the ancient contraption. It was more complex than we initially imagined. The main surface was shaped like a huge shallow bowl, but it had been forged or hammered with a complex system of hexagonal facets like the pattern of a honeycomb; a thousand small mirrors linked into one. Then there were hinged sections that folded like a closed flower over the main mirror. If unfolded, they would double its diameter. They pivoted as well. There was also some kind of engraving on the back, Dragut announced after crawling underneath. It showed a complex scaffolding to support and turn the device, with lines suggesting how to orient the mirror and its “petals” in relation to the sun.

“It’s as simple as a magnifying glass and as complex as a watch,” he said. “The Rite’s savants will have a challenge mounting this properly. There are more ropes than on an opera stage.”

Hard to operate, easy to sabotage, I thought, but didn’t say that.

“Osiris will figure it out,” Aurora said, looking exultant. She’d finally slept, too, and emerged radiant. Her Egyptian Rite lieutenant limped around the circumference of the mirror to calculate and draw. “Osiris and Ethan together, masterminds of a new age!”

“Not the most natural of partnerships, given that I crippled your engineer,” I commented.

“A wound of battle, no different from the one I gave you in America,” she said cheerfully. “Wounds heal, minds forgive. Right, Osiris?”

“We’ll see what your electrician has to contribute.”

“Yes, my electrician!”

“Your helper, your sycophant, your lover, your slave.”

“I’m not any of those things,” I told him. “I and my family are free, now that I’ve done my part of the bargain. Right? And what’s your real name, when you’re not made up like a eunuch in an emirate? Is it Dunbottom? Lord Lack-Purse? Prince Preposterous?”

“You’re not entirely free,” Aurora interrupted.

“Come. You said if I helped you find the mirror, you’d let Horus and Astiza go. There the bronze platter is, to incinerate whom you wish. Now keep your part of the bargain.”

“Oh, young Horus will not be sold into slavery. And your Egyptian wench can wander wherever she wishes. But there is one thing more you and I must complete before we give her final leave from Yussef’s harem. There’s still unfinished business between you and me, as I told you in America.”

“What? I’ve done exactly what you asked.”

“I’ve decided that we’re going to be married, Ethan.”

“Married!” I was as dumbfounded as when presented with my son. I thought she would break into laughter at her joke, but she looked quite businesslike.

“Marriage will give Horus a proper mother and legitimacy. I will raise him as an acolyte of the Rite, and when he comes of age he’ll be a prince ready to inherit the world.”

“But we hate each other!”

“That’s a crude, simplistic way of explaining our relationship.” She fingered the edge of the mirror. “We repel, and yet we attract. We extinguish, and yet we ignite. We loathe, and yet I will make you a little king yourself because I know how much you’d dread such responsibility, even as you long for me. Don’t deny your longing! I saw it in that cave of echoes in Syracuse. I saw it in my cabin on the Isis. We’re bound, Ethan, and the success of this quest only proves it. We’re chained by destiny. I’m going to marry you and weld you to me forever, and if you’re unhappy with that, as you watch me indoctrinate your son—well, so much the better!” Her eyes flashed. “You will marry me so you must serve me!” All good humor had disappeared. “You will marry me so you can never escape again!”

No wonder I’ve never galloped to the altar. “I’m a poor bet as a husband.”

“If you don’t marry me tonight, on this ship, Horus and Astiza will be sold into the worst kind of slavery you can imagine, and you’ll be given back to Omar the Dungeon Master to break. But if you do marry me, and help us erect and operate the mirror, you’ll rule by my side and your son will inherit powers that not even Bonaparte has ever dreamed of. King George and Jefferson will be his minions, and the emperors of Austria and Russia will prostrate themselves.”

“That makes no sense. From one weapon?”

“This is but the beginning of the ancient secrets we are working to relearn, and just the first mirror of a million—if we need them! We will set nations on fire like your Norwegian’s Ragnarok, his end of the world. And you and I, Ethan, will be freed of all law, all hypocritical rules, all morals, all restraint. We’ll do anything we want with anyone we want to, because we will have acquired the magic of gods who once walked this earth. We will be perfect beings, because it will be us who define perfection.”

I knew she was balmy, but not to the extent of this megalomaniac ranting. She was a cult courtesan on a merchant tub of pagans and cutthroats, and yet boasted like she was Queen of Sheba. I wasn’t on a pirate ship, I was in a house of the addled. I closed my eyes in frustration. “I won’t marry you, Aurora. You’re not the mother of my son.”

“You will marry me, this midnight, or I will give your son to Dragut’s Moors this very night to begin to use as they will! You will marry me or hear his screams, and then you’ll explain what you’ve done to your Egyptian slut of a harem whore before Yussef sells her away to the worst kind of degradation!”

“This wasn’t our bargain!”

“You never asked what the full terms of the bargain were. And I couldn’t tell you, because you’re too stupid to grasp the chance to be a king. So I’ll force it on you, and force you into my bed, and in time you’ll worship me as I deserve.”

She certainly had a high opinion of herself, which is a problem with lovely women. Admittedly, I’m sometimes guilty of the same vice. I stared out at the sea, thinking furiously. No union consecrated by this rabble would be recognized anywhere as either holy or legal. Should I go along with this sham until I could finally get Astiza and Harry away from this treacherous bitch? She wanted to marry me to torment me, to keep me close enough to make every day a misery of regret for what I’d done to her brother. Climb into a bridal bed with a woman who’d slain my friends? I couldn’t even pretend to function. And yet what choice did I have with little Harry still a hostage? I was surrounded by a hundred hostile fanatics and fantasists, and my former friends probably believed I’d betrayed my own country.

“I will make it as hateful for you as it will be for me.”

“I don’t think so, Ethan. No, I don’t think there is any chance of that.” And she turned to Osiris. “The ritual, at midnight! Bring the boy so he can see!” She smiled back at me. “I’m ever so certain I can corrupt you both.”