Tim Severin - Corsair

‘Which one’s ours?’

‘Can’t tell from this distance. But I heard that she’s hired to the royal Galley Corps by her commander who’s a Knight of one of the Orders. It’s being said that he is a fire-eater and his premier comite is a cold-hearted tyrant.’

‘Maybe someone aboard her can give you the information you’re looking for,’ Dan responded. As usual he was quick to point out the best possible outcome. ‘Don’t the Knights take their galley slaves and convicts from wherever they can get them?’

‘That’s true. I’ve not given up hope of tracing Elizabeth. The thought of finding her helps to keep me going. I sometimes wonder why you never get discouraged.’

Dan gave his companion a steady look. ‘I have often thought about my homeland and the mission I was given by my people, but when that sour-faced man from London came to Algiers to ransom the English prisoners and he refused to help me, I realised the world is a much larger and more complicated place than the Miskito imagine. Now I’m resigned to the fact that I am unlikely ever to deliver the council’s message to the King of England. Yet I feel that my travels may turn out to be for my people’s benefit. Something tells me that I will surely get back home. When I do, I intend to bring something worthwhile with me.’

The prisoners had turned the corner of the harbour basin, and were approaching what looked like a busy pedlars’ market. The wharf was covered with open-sided stands and booths which served as shops and stalls. As the convicts threaded their way between the booths, Hector saw men repairing shoes and doing metalwork, butchers and barbers, tailors, a man making hats, and stallholders selling every conceivable item from haberdashery to pots and pans. For some odd reason nearly every stall had dozens of pairs of knitted socks for sale, which hung up like strings of onions. Looking more closely, Hector realised that every one of the stall holders was a galerien.

‘Same old junk,’ Bourdon spoke up. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those goods were on sale when I was last here.’ The pickpocket was staring hard into the face of a man standing by a barrow on which lay a strange mixture of items – a pair of scissors, several fine handkerchiefs, some carved buttons, a snuff box, and various small articles which Hector could not immediately identify. ‘Some of the vendors are no different either.’

Hector saw the stallholder’s right eyelid flicker very slightly as he winked at Bourdon.

‘Who is he?’ he whispered to Bourdon.

‘A thief like myself,’ came back the quiet reply. ‘I would say that he also fences stolen goods on the side, though it looks as if trade is a bit thin at the moment.’

‘But how . . .’ began Hector. They had paused while the Arsenal warder stopped to examine some lace on sale in one of the stalls.

‘These baraques?’ said Bourdon. ‘They’re run by the comites of the galleys. The port officials rent the stalls to the comites from the galleys, and the comites then put their galeriens into the booths to staff them. If the galerien has a useful skill, a carpenter or lacemaker for instance, he conducts his trade from the baraque, and the townsfolk come there for his services. Any money he earns is handed over to the comite. If he’s lucky, the comite may let him keep a bit of it for himself. But if the galerien doesn’t have a trade, then he has to learn to make himself useful in some other ways. That’s why you see so many knitted socks. The comites hand out wool and knitting needles to their most useless galeriens, and they have to take up knitting. Naturally the comites claim that by keeping the galeriens busy in port they are less likely to make trouble. But of course the main reason is that the comites earn a nice living from their charges.’

He gave Hector a nudge. ‘Look. Over there. That’s someone who’s either so clumsy or so stubborn that he cannot earn his comite any money, at least not yet.’ Hector saw a man dressed in a galerien’s parti-coloured uniform. He was wearing leg irons and cradling a cannonball in his arms. ‘His premier comite will make him carry that cannonball around until he learns something that’ll earn a bit of money,’ Bourdon explained.

Their easy-going guard had finished at the lacemaker’s stall and was strolling towards the far end of the quay. There he turned aside and pushed his way between two booths to bring his charges before what Hector thought for a fleeting moment was a fairground tent of blue and white striped canvas. It took a second glance to establish that the tent was a great canopy which covered the full length of a 26-bench war galley of the first class.

A halberdier stood on sentry duty at the foot of the gangplank. Dressed entirely in scarlet and white, from the red stocking cap on his head to his spotless red breeches with a contrasting white belt and coat lapels, he came smartly to attention, and bawled out at the top of his voice – ‘Pass the word for the premier comite!’ From somewhere inside the huge tent the call was repeated, and Hector heard the summons passing down the length of the galley. Then came a pause filled with the incessant background noise of the shoppers at the baraques, the mewling of the gulls, and the distant shouts of watermen. Finally, after a delay of about five minutes while Hector and the other prisoners waited patiently on the quay, a man appeared at the head of the gangplank and stood there, quietly surveying them. Dangling from a cord around his neck was a silver whistle which glinted in the sun.

Hector was taken by surprise. He had expected a rough brute of a man, violent and coarse. But the man who now stood looking them over had the appearance of a mild-mannered shopkeeper. He was of medium height and dressed in sober dark clothing. He would have passed unnoticed on the street except for his skin, which was uncommonly pale, and the fact that his close-cropped hair was a light sand colour. He did not wear a wig. ‘That will be all, warder. You may leave the prisoners with me and return to your work,’ the comite spoke quietly, barely raising his voice, yet every word carried clearly. His duty done, the elderly guard strolled off. But the comite made no move. He stayed at the head of the gangplank, gazing down on the prisoners, judging them. ‘You are joining the galley St Gerassimus , and from now on you belong to her,’ he announced. ‘My name is Piecourt, and I am the premier comite, so you also belong to me. Serve the vessel well and you will become proud of her. Serve her badly, and you will regret the day you were born.’ He spoke in French with an Italian accent. Then, to Hector’s surprise, he repeated his warning, this time in fluent Turkish. Hector felt the odjaks around him stir uneasily. A moment later, Piecourt was repeating his caution a third time, using lingua franca. Aware of the impression he had made, the premier comite of the St Gerassimus reached for the silver whistle hanging around his neck and held it up for them to see. ‘From now on the only language that matters to you is the language of this whistle, because this whistle is my voice. Everything you do will be controlled by it. You will soon be like dogs, the best-trained dogs. Obedient dogs are fed and cared for; disobedient dogs are whipped. Remember that.’

Without turning, Piecourt called back over his shoulder – ‘Rowing master Yakup! New recruits for the oar. Introduce them to their benches.’

This time the creature who emerged from beneath the canvas awning was what Hector had anticipated, a broad-set, squat, dark-skinned man with a shaven head, enormously developed shoulder muscles, naked to the waist and wearing a pair of loose drawers. Also he sported a luxuriant mustache. Branded on his forehead was an eight-pointed cross. Hector deduced that St Gerassimus ’s rowing master was a Christianised Turk, a renegade who had scarred on himself the symbol of the Knights.