Tim Severin - Corsair

‘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.’