Tim Severin - Corsair

Chabrillan turned back from the window where he had been admiring the fine bronze statute put up on the waterfront to honour the memory of Grand Duke Ferdinand. It was most appropriate, he had been thinking, that the Duke’s statue was supported by the figures of four Turkish slaves in chains. ‘No, I want this batch shipped to Marseilles,’ he said. The Jew nodded appreciatively. ‘Ah yes, I hear that King Louis plans to expand his galley fleet.’

‘He intends to develop the most powerful naval force in the Mediterranean, and his royal Galley Corps needs oarsmen wherever they can be got. The French are running out of convicts to put to the benches, and I have been commissioned to act as their purchasing agent for foreign slaves. My budget is impressive.’

Crespino regarded the tall aristocrat with interest. He wondered why Chabrillan, who was known for his piety and his fierce hatred of the Muslims, should now seek to serve the Sun King, Louis XIV of France, whose antipathy to the Turks was not so consistent. The answer was not long in coming.

‘I have accepted a captaincy in Louis’s Galley Corps which was offered to me. I will devote most of my time to it. I believe the Corps will soon become an essential ally in the Everlasting War.’

The Everlasting War, the Jew thought to himself, was madness. A mutual destruction pact between the Christians and the Muslims, it had been going on for centuries, and if men like Chabrillan had anything to do with it, would go on forever. Meanwhile, of course, the Crespinos in Livorno, the Cohens in Algiers, and his particular acquaintance Lazzaro dell’Arbori in Malta did very well out of arranging ransoms, negotiating prisoner exchanges, disposing of plunder, bartering slaves, and a host of discreet commercial transactions.

‘Are you not afraid that Louis and his galleys might become so powerful that one day they will surpass the Order of St John in the Mediterranean?’

Chabrillan shrugged. ‘Most of the Knights of St John are themselves French. They serve the Order and the Pope, but they retain allegiance also to France.’

‘A fine balancing act.’

‘No less than yours.’

The Jew inclined his head. ‘If you wish, I can also arrange the delivery of the slaves to the royal galley base at Marseilles.’

‘Yes. Please do that. I need the men there as soon as possible. In Marseilles they will be assessed and distributed among the French galleys so it would be helpful if you could provide me with their individual details, ahead of time, so that I can pre-select the best ones and have them added to the crew of my own vessel when it joins Louis’s fleet.’

‘Then I will arrange for the slaves to be forwarded to Marseilles in two lots. If you can arrange for the selected slaves to be identified, they will be sent – after some delay – in a second consignment. By the time they arrive in Marseilles someone will be ready to allocate them to your ship.’

‘One more thing,’ the Chevalier added. ‘When you are preparing the paperwork, you might value the slaves at one hundred and thirty scudi per head. The French will pay the extra money without question, and I would be obliged if you would forward the surplus to Malta for the benefit of the Order of St John. Grand Master Cotoner needs all the available funds so he can proceed with his improvements to the fortifications of Valletta. Once that work has been completed, La Religion shall have the finest harbour in the Mediterranean.’

So this was what the Christians meant when they spoke about robbing Peter to pay Paul, the Jewish banker thought. Chabrillan was living up to his reputation as a fanatic who stopped at nothing to prosecute the Eternal War. Little wonder that he was known as ‘the Lion of La Religion’ and his galley, St Gerassimus , flew Chabrillan’s personal banner, which displayed the Five Wounds of Christ. The Jew had heard extravagant stories about Chabrillan: that he had accomplished more caravans, as the marauding cruises against the Infidel were called, than any Knight whether of St John or St Stephen, and that he had played a heroic part in the valiant defence of Crete against the Turk. There, it was said, he had been taken prisoner by the Muslims and tortured. Perhaps this accounted for his hatred of Muslims.

In all his experience Jedediah Crespino had never encountered a man so fiercely zealous for his faith.

‘I’M AMAZED that you did not sink and drown,’ Hector said to Dan. ‘That iron ring around your ankle should have pulled you under.’

Dan laughed. ‘Every Miskito has to be a strong swimmer. The Miskito coast is a place of swamps and backwaters. In the rainy season the rivers flood and everything is submerged. So we build our houses on stilts and sometimes we must swim to reach the places where we keep our boats. And when we go to the sea for fishing we think nothing of it if our canoes, which are no more than hollow logs, capsize and tip us into the water. Every Miskito child learns how to turn the canoe the right way up, then climb aboard and bale it out. So when the galley sank it was easy for me to reach the nearest piece of floating timber and scramble up on it. I was there only a short time before the sailors from the warship came in their small boat and collected me.’

‘I’m sorry that you were identified as a renegade, Dan. I feel responsible because I encouraged you to become a Muslim.’

‘Hector. If you think back, it was me who first suggested that we take the turban. Now, as a result, we find ourselves both back in a situation which seems much like the one we sought to escape. Perhaps together we can again find a way out of it.’

Hector found it difficult to share his friend’s optimism this time. The two of them were shackled hand and foot, then attached to a length of iron chain linking them to a third captive, a taciturn and luxuriantly mustached odjak from Izzet Darya . The janissary’s name, Hector had learned, was Irgun. Well over six feet tall and big-boned, he rarely smiled and had an unshakeable calm manner. Standing nearby were four more odjaks, all prisoners taken from the sea by Portland , and similarly chained together in a group. They were waiting at the head of a gangplank and about to disembark from the merchant ship that had brought them from Livorno. ‘That’s Marseilles up ahead,’ a sailor had said to Hector as the ship made her landfall. ‘Richest port in all of France. Full of whorehouses and taverns. Not that you’ll enjoy them. You’re the King’s property now.’

Hector had no idea what the sailor was talking about, for they had caught only a brief glimpse of the man who had paid for them, a Jewish commission agent who had come aboard the English warship in Livorno and spent some hours closeted with the captain in his cabin. The next morning they had been taken ashore and placed in a noxious cell where they were then held for three weeks, being fed on scraps, before being shipped out again.

Gazing about him, Hector could see evidence of Marseilles’s prosperity. On two sides the basin was overlooked by fine buildings, five or six stories high and roofed with slate. Part warehouses, part offices, their tall fronts glowed yellow in the afternoon sun. To the west, behind him, two powerful forts guarded the entrance to the harbour whose waters were furrowed by an armada of wherries, skiffs, palangriers, tartans and lighters, being rowed or sailed about their errands. At the foot of the gangplank, the wharf was bustling with activity. Dockers were piling up bales and crates, rolling huge barrels and manhandling enormous brown earthenware storage jars, cursing and cajoling as they loaded the goods on to donkeys and ox carts. Stray dogs ran here and there. Porters staggered past, bent-kneed under the burdens hoisted on their shoulder poles; and, ignoring the chaos, little gatherings of merchants and store clerks, traders and dealers were busy gossiping or bargaining with one another. ‘Allez! Allez!’ a shout came from behind him. A grey-haired man in a leather waistcoat had come aboard clutching some papers, and was now ordering the prisoners to go ashore.