Voyage of Slaves

4

ONE WEEK LATER. A HOUSE ON THE NORTHERN POINT OF THE GULF OF SIRTE. JUST OUTSIDE OF THE TOWN OF MISURATA.

BEN, AND THE OTHER THREE WHOM Bomba had picked up on his journey, blinked against the midmorning sun as they emerged from the wagon. All four were shackled together by their ankles. There was an Egyptian boy, about two years older than Ben, whose name was Omar. The other two were about the same age as Ben: a Cretan girl called Lucia, and a boy who claimed to be Sardinian, his name was Sandro. The wagon had pulled into a courtyard, with high walls and a barred gate. This was guarded by rough-looking men, four of them, wearing burnooses and armed with long jezzails⁵ and scimitars. Throughout the journey, Bomba had fed them with maize porridge and water. They had quickly learned to be obedient and silent, scarcely daring to speak with one another.

Now the four captives gazed around the area, a veritable oasis of water and greenery in the wasteland of Libyan desert outside. Date palms and fig trees, interspersed with gnarled olive trees, bordered the flowered walks and well-groomed lawns. Tiny ornamental bridges crossed a moat filled with clear, placid water. Upon the moated island stood a large, well-appointed house, three floors high, with broad, open windows and a flat, low-walled roof patrolled by more guards.

Bomba slapped his riding quirt against a palm to gain their attention. “Listen now, you little bazaar rats. I am going into the big house yonder, but I’ll be back.” He tossed the manacle key to one of the guards. “See they are cleaned up for my return, make them presentable to your master!”

The guard spoke little. After loosing their shackles, he pointed to the moat. “You boys, over there, get in and wash yourselves.” He called over the bridge, “Jasmina, see to this girl!” A stern-faced woman, clad in black robes, emerged from a side door of the house. She beckoned at the girl, Lucia, with a stick she carried, shouting orders in Arabic at her. The girl looked at her blankly until Ben spoke to her in her own language.

“She is telling you to come around the other side of the house, out of sight from the men and us boys. You are to wash yourself in the water.”

Lucia bowed slightly to Ben, thanking him, then went to follow the woman.

The water was glorious, still and cool. Ben flung himself in. Pulling off his meagre clothing, he scrubbed at his dust-caked skin with handfuls of sand from the bottom of the moat, which was no more than three feet deep. Omar and Sandro followed his example.

The top floor of the house was open to soft breezes flowing in from the nearby Mediterranean Sea. The large room was opulently furnished. Pattern mosaic tiles decorated the walls, silk hangings rippled in the breeze. The floor was strewn with many precious rugs, some of which had come from far Cathay.⁶ Slender columns of roseate marble supported the frescoed ceiling. Small decorative palmettos and flowering plants were much in evidence, with parrots and cockatoos wandering about amidst them. At the centre of the room, perfumed rosewater tinkled pleasantly into the scooped-out base of an alabaster fountain, where ringed doves perched on the basin’s edge. Next to this was a sumptuous divan of ivory, ebony, and patterned damask satin, which had once graced the saloon of a sultan’s ship. Now its new owner sat on it in solitary splendour. This was Al Misurata, the most feared pirate on the Barbary Coast.

Al Misurata was only a name he had taken from that region he had called home for three decades. Nobody knew his proper name, or where he had come from. In reality he was the son of a Moroccan servant girl and a Turkish janissary.⁷ He had embarked on a career of piracy in his youth. From there he had plundered and murdered his way to infamy.

Al Misurata was a man in his fifty-third year. Tall, lean and cruelly handsome, his dark, hooded eyes and curved nose gave him the visage of a hungry desert hawk. Dressed all in purple silks, and carrying a sword made from the finest Toledo steel, he was a captain of captains, a figure to obey without question or argument.

He heard Bomba enter the room, but did not concern himself with turning to greet him. Sipping lemon sherbet from a thin crystal goblet, the pirate sat admiring his supple burgundy boots of best Cordovan leather. He waited until the slave driver addressed him.

“Lord, I have brought thee four fine specimens. A girl from the Isle of Crete, sweet-natured and pretty. Also three boys—an Egyptian, another from Sardinia and a blue-eyed Frank, light-skinned with fair hair. They are all sound in wind and limb, healthy and fit . . .”

Al Misurata silenced Bomba with a single glance. “I will judge them myself. No doubt you stole them all?”

The slave driver spread his arms, smiling and shaking his head. “Alas, no, lord, all were bought with thy gold.”

Al Misurata put aside his goblet, extending a hand. Bomba dug the chamois purse from his wide belt and placed it on the pirate’s palm. Al Misurata tossed it up and down a few times, gauging its weight.

“If they are as good as you say, you did well.”

Bomba made an overelaborate bow, touching his fingers to his lips and forehead. “I live but to serve thee, Master!”

The pirate threw him the purse. “Keep it!”

Bomba’s eyes shone greedily. “No man is more munificent than the great Al Misurata, Lord of the Barbary Coast . . .”

The pirate cut him short. “Go now, bring them here in the cool of the evening. I will see them then!”

It was mid-noon. Ben sat with the other two boys and the girl in the shade of the wall, under the watchful eye of the guard. They were all clean, even their clothing, which had dried out quickly in the fierce heat. The stern woman came out of the big house, with another younger one in tow. Between them they carried a basket of fruit—dates, figs, oranges, pomegranates and a big yellow melon, which had been cut into slices. They placed the basket at their feet.

“Eat now, and try to stay clean!”

Ben chose a slice of melon, nodding gratefully to her. “Thank you. What do they call this place, who owns it?”

The older woman rapped Ben’s back with her stick. “I said eat, not talk. One more word from you, boy, and you will feel how I can really use this rod!” She stared at the strange, fair-haired lad for a moment, then turned and strode back to the house.

Evening arrived, tempering the heat by drifting sea breezes over the land. Ben and the other three captives were herded into the upper room by Bomba. They stood bewildered, trying to take in the splendour surrounding them. Al Misurata watched them from his divan. Standing behind him, the stern-faced Jasmina leaned forward. Whispering in his ear, she pointed at Ben. The pirate nodded toward the boy, and Bomba shoved him forward. Al Misurata spoke in French to Ben. “Tell me, infidel, do you have rich parents?”

Ben replied in fluent French. “I have nobody but myself, my parents are long dead. Sir, it is a crime against my god and yours to buy and sell human beings. Slavery is a wicked thing.”

Al Misurata had a smattering of many languages. He replied to the boy’s accusation in English. “I serve no god. My sword and my wits provide me with gold, that is all Al Misurata, Lord of the Barbary Coast, needs. How is it that you can speak in other tongues, O Defender of the Righteous?”

Ben answered the ironic question in English. “I have always had a good ear for languages. I pick up things here and there, it’s not hard.”

Al Misurata pointed to the other three slaves. “Ask them if they have wealthy families who would want to ransom them.”

Ben translated the enquiry to Lucia, Omar and Sandro. One by one they shook their heads in silence.

The pirate switched back into Arabic. “So, they are all worthless beggars. What do you suggest I do with them, boy?”

Ben was not afraid of the Barbary pirate. He replied promptly, “Why do you ask me? You have captured us, and you are going to sell us into slavery, to obtain the gold which you worship. But someone once said to me that in the end, gold can only buy you an expensive coffin and a great marble tomb.”

Bomba leaped forward, raising his quirt to strike the boy down for his insolence. However, Al Misurata stopped him in his tracks with a single glance. “Take these others and lock them away for the night. The infidel boy stays here with me. Go!”

The slave driver bowed and ushered his charges away.

Al Misurata stroked his forked beard, studying Ben intently. “What is your name, and how old are you?”

The boy’s strange blue-grey eyes stared solemnly back at his captor. “I am called Ben, nothing else. As for my age, I’m not really certain.”

The Barbary pirate’s eyes narrowed. “I think you are about fourteen years of age, but about two hundred in the head, eh?”

Ben shrugged. “I suppose so, but my head isn’t much over a hundred, certainly not two.”

Al Misurata smiled thinly, indicating a round table nearby. It was piled high with food for his evening meal. “You are a remarkable boy, not like the usual peasant clods Bomba brings here. Do you want food? Take some, it is very good. Come on, I never yet met a young one who was not hungry. Jasmina, give him a plate.”

The hard-faced Libyan woman scowled. “I would as soon give him a back marked with stripes for his insolent tongue!”

Al Misurata raised his hand imperiously. “Silence, woman, you forget yourself! I am the master and you are the slave. Take yourself out of my sight!”

Clasping her hands, Jasmina bowed low. She glided wordlessly away. Ben hesitated for a moment, then hurried to the table. Taking two circles of flat, unleavened bread, he made a hefty sandwich with slices of warm, roasted lamb and cooked yellow peppers. Biting into it, the boy chewed ravenously—the food tasted magnificent.

The pirate nodded approvingly. “When a man is wealthy, only the best is good enough. Look at this room, is it not splendid?”

Ben’s mouth was crammed, but he nodded agreement.

Filling one of the fine crystal goblets with a lemon sherbet cordial, Al Misurata passed it to him. “I could use a boy like you, bright and intelligent. You could serve me in this house, be my eyes and ears, tell me who are my friends and who are my enemies. It would be a life of luxury, you would want for nothing.”

Ben cleared his mouth before answering. “Except freedom.”

The pirate’s mood changed like lightning at this remark. Rising angrily, he strode to the long, open windowspace, taking in the lands outside with a sweeping gesture. “Fool, what do you know about freedom? Hah, beggars in soukhs and bazaars, shaking their bowls! Men breaking their backs at hard labour! Women scavenging the fields and the shores! For what? Just to feed themselves and their ragged brats! Toiling like animals from dawn ’til dusk as they pray for their gods to help them! You call that freedom? Only gold can truly buy the power to give any man freedom. That is the real truth, is it not? Answer me, infidel!”

Ben knew he would further enrage the man by arguing, yet he carried on, defending his right to reply. “The truth is that those poor folk cannot sleep safe at night, knowing men like you might come and sell them into slavery. Yet look at the freedom you have bought by trading in human beings. You want me to serve you by spying upon those in your own home. I pity you, with neither god nor real friend to turn to. Gold will never buy you that.”

The enraged pirate struck Ben across the face, the crystal goblet shattered on the floor. Food scattered into the fountain, parrots squawked and doves fluttered wildly to the ceiling as Al Misurata shouted.

“Guards, get this infidel out of here! Chain him in the cellars without food or drink!”

Two burly sentries rushed in; seizing Ben roughly, they dragged him from the room. The pirate followed them to the door, venting his spleen on the boy.

“Ungrateful worm, now you will know what it is like to be a slave! I have killed men with my bare hands for saying less than you did to me! That’s what I get for offering you the hand of friendship, eh? Before I am done you will be begging on your bended knees to serve me without question!”

The cellar door swung open, and Ben was hurled inside. He clattered down a flight of stone steps into complete blackness. The guards barred the door, one of them calling down to him, “Little jackass, we’ll see if you still feel so bold in a week or so. If you make a sound in there we’ll send Bomba to silence you with his quirt!”

Ben heard their retreating footsteps. Then there was only silence, and inky darkness. A large insect scuttled over his hand. He crawled forward until he felt the wall. Sitting with his back against the rough limestone, he buried his face in both hands and wept uncontrollably. “Ned, where are you? Answer me, Ned, answer me!”