The Religion: A Novel

by Tim Willocks

  “No,” said Tannhauser.

  This was true and yet not true but, for this night, he’d had enough of such complexities.

  “He would have been proud of the honor you’ve won,” said Abbas, with a smile.

  Tannhauser wanted to smile back, but couldn’t. “In a world where eunuchs strangle children and call their duty sacred, honor is hard to come by. Sometimes, so is Faith.”

  “Ibrahim—”

  “You see,” said Tannhauser, against all better judgment, “it was not the stain of the child’s murder that filled me with such shame—but the fact that I’d failed to fulfill my sacred duty. To the corps. To the oçak. To the Sultan. To God. And because I valued duty above infanticide, I knew I’d lost either my mind—or my soul.”

  Abbas shook his head. “From God we come, and to God we shall surely return. Please, tell me you are not lost.”

  It was as good a moment as any to reaffirm the purity of his faith, at least in front of his patron. Tannhauser quoted the Unity. “He is Allah, the One. Allah-us-Samad, the Eternal, Absolute. He begetteth not, nor is He begotten. And there is none like unto Him.”

  “Allahu Akabar.” Abbas’s hand was still on his arm. He squeezed. “Ibrahim, we must never lose our faith in Allah, even if we lose our faith in our fellow men. Even if we lose our faith in ourselves.”

  Tannhauser put his hand on Abbas’s. He realized, for the first time, how delicate in stature Abbas was; in his mind he had always been a giant. He said, “It’s my faith in men that I can’t abandon entire, and I will tell you I’ve tried. Perhaps that will be my doom.”

  Abbas nodded dubiously, as if fearing that fresh blasphemies might loom. “You are far from good health, and I’ve taxed you by talking too long. I must check the night watch. And you must sleep.” As Abbas walked toward the exit, he stopped and turned. As if to lighten the mood he said, “Tomorrow you will tell me more of the trade in pepper. I’m intrigued.”

  “Gladly. But tell me, please, where is the Ethiop?”

  Abbas looked at him. “Gone. He belongs to Admiral Piyale.”

  Tannhauser watched Abbas leave. He was grateful for the exhaustion that overcame him, for it loosened the knot of emotion in his gut. When he reached his bed he was about to throw himself down when he noticed two white silk scarves on the pillow, each with something wrapped inside. He unwrapped the first scarf and found the gold bangle that he’d hidden around his ankle.

  I come to Malta not for riches or honor, but to save my soul.

  Perhaps the bangle had helped to save his hide. He wrapped it around his wrist. He picked up the second object and knew at once that it was a knife and his heart squeezed at a thought he dared not formulate. He unwrapped it, and for a moment his tightened nerves relaxed. It was an elegant dagger. Its hilt was worked in silver with great art and a ruby was set into its pommel. The scabbard was red leather decorated with garnets. He slid it from the sheath and his heart sprang once again into his throat. In contrast to the exquisite fittings, the blade was crude in workmanship and lacked symmetry, yet its edges gleamed sharp, and its essence was uncommonly deadly. The steel was dull and mottled with black streaks and he knew it at once. It had been forged by the voice of an angel, and quenched in the blood of a devil, by his own hand.

  In Saint Elmo’s forge, Tannhauser used the dagger to divide a one-pound slab of opium into quarters, then he packed the lot into his saddle wallet. He placed his Russian gold ring on his right-hand middle finger and reseated the stone in the floor. He tethered his horse to the anvil and he made his way upstairs to the derelict solar, where he found his wheel-lock rifle and bullet pouch undisturbed in their cranny in the broken rafters. He hung the rifle’s winding key around his neck. He collected the mare and rode back out of the fort, past the baffled and groveling Bulgar, and headed over the hill to Marsamxett Harbor. It was there that the bulk of the Turkish fleet, and all the Algerian corsairs, were safely harbored.

  After his meal with Abbas, Tannhauser had lain on his cushions for three days and nights, and had ventured no farther than the kitchen and the latrine. His liver had produced the black bile that engendered melancholy. In this sorry state, between bouts of stupefied sleep, he’d pondered what course to take next, and though this pondering exacerbated the dolorous effects of the bile, he’d found himself unable to turn his mind elsewhere. Worse still, he’d come to no firm conclusion, for no sooner had he settled on the merits of one scheme of action than he reconvinced himself of the merits of another.

  Sound reason was on the side of re-embracing the Ottoman way. Malta would fall, even if later than sooner, for with their Mongol blood their stubbornness knew no bounds and for them to yield, especially in the matter of siege warfare, was almost unknown. As he’d discussed with the traders in the bazaar, conquest would leave him well placed to turn a profit, and he could count on the patronage and investment of Abbas bin Murad. In the garden of the Auberge of England a fortune in opium was buried beneath his tub. It would be easy enough in the sack to go and retrieve it. With Sabato Svi reestablished in Venice, their future would be bright. More pressingly, he was confident he could avoid any further combat.

  The alternative was not only bleak—and highly improbable—but would require a vigor and a passion that he seemed to have exhausted for good in the fury of Saint Elmo. He would have to return to the Borgo through both sets of hostile lines; no easy feat since the Turkish cordon thereabouts was now tight as a drumhead. Since there was no point returning merely to die like a fool for the Religion, and assuming Amparo, Carla, and Bors were still alive, he’d then have to spirit all of them back out—through the same double cordon of steel—and reach the hidden boat at Zonra, whose continued existence was no real certainty either.

  None of these calculations included Orlandu. When Tannhauser did so, the journey to the Borgo seemed impossible. He was willing to brass his own way out of being caught sneaking in the dark by Turkish watchmen, but with a slave boy in tow they’d be screaming under the bastinado by dawn.

  Bors was his own man and as long as he died with a sword in his hand would have no complaints. The women? If they survived and were taken prisoner by the Turks—and their pale-skinned beauty would accord them considerable value, at least as far as their lives were concerned—he could probably winkle them out of their long-term fates. In Tannhauser’s experience, if a bargain could be conceived, it could be made. Mustafa wouldn’t put the entire population to the sword, despite his rages. Someone had to rebuild the town and plow the fields. San Lorenzo would become a mosque. The food would get better. Malta would become like Rhodes or the Balkans or any of a hundred foreign territories brought under Suleiman’s fief: prosperous and peaceful. They could even go to church on Sundays. And if Carla and Amparo didn’t survive he would, in time, forget them and life would go on. For life always did. He had lost women before. And at least he wouldn’t have to see these die before him.

  This latter, callous, sentiment proved false, and its contrary kept him awake more than any other. He’d never forget the fair and tender ladies he’d brought across the sea, any more than he’d forgotten his mother, or Britta or Gerta.

  Next morning he’d awoken and decided that he could raise Orlandu’s station—if he was alive—without either of them risking a painful death. Because Tannhauser had pointed him out in his delirium, Abbas had tried to claim the boy, on the morning Saint Elmo fell, but the corsairs who’d taken him had been implacable. Booty had been thin on the ground that day, and after so much sacrifice they’d have held on to a three-legged goat for the sheer sake of honor.

  Marsamxett Harbor was choked with activity and thick with mast and sail. Ships came from Alexandria and Tripoli loaded with supplies. Others left for the same destinations with cargoes of wounded. Repairs and refitting were a perpetual chore. He spent half the day searching the waterfront, exchanging pleasantries, blessings, and the occasional obscenities with the Algerian scurvies thereabouts, though nothing passed that required
a resort to arms. After numerous discussions and falsely raised hopes, he eventually spotted Orlandu scraping barnacles and weed from the hull of a galley. The boy was hard at it and, from a distance, looked none the worse for wear. Tannhauser did not disturb him and made more inquiries.

  He discovered that the boy was now the property of said galley’s captain, a razor-featured cove named Salih Ali. He was a follower of the great Torghoud Rais, who had died the day Tannhauser had been carried from the ruins. Salih was a native Algerian, which was a relief of sorts, for the sleaziest and most vicious of the Barbary corsairs were invariably Christian renegades, like Torghoud himself. They retired to the shade of an awning and drank sweet tea and talked. Tannhauser let him glimpse the tattooed wheel on his arm, lest his finery mislead him, and they complimented each other on their valorous reputations, of which both were in fact quite ignorant. Tannhauser then intimated that he might be in the market for a Christian slave, a youth strong in back and limb, and the negotiation began.

  It took two and a half hours before it was concluded. It was doubtful that any European of Tannhauser’s acquaintance could have endured it; even Bors would have throttled Salih within twenty-five minutes. But to Tannhauser it was meat and drink. He loved such games—had learned them the hard way, as all loved games are learned, from masters in the bazaars of Beirut and Trebizond and the Buyuk Carsi, who’d laughed and rubbed their hands when they’d seen him coming—and he knew very quickly that he would get the better of Salih, for the corsair fell at once into the trap of coveting the wheel-lock rifle draped across his adversary’s lap, a desire which Tannhauser had counted on with some confidence. Since Salih was not, of course, so vulgar as to ask for the rifle straight out but rather made a point of admiring it, Tannhauser was only too delighted to demonstrate its accuracy, the ingenuity of its mechanism, its instantaneous discharge on pulling the trigger, and its freedom from anything so primitive as a burning length of cord. He was careful not to let the poor fellow handle it. Subsequently convincing Salih that the wheel lock was not up for trade, at any price, despite that a far greater sum than a filthy slave boy was worth was eventually heaped high on the table, was a masterpiece that consumed the first two hours, and Tannhauser was happy for it to do so. It was at this point, when Salih’s desperation to own the gun had reduced Orlandu’s value to a minor item on a lengthy list, that Tannhauser suggested they sample the opium he’d brought.

  He produced a walnut-size chunk from his caftan and Salih’s eyes slitted with covetousness. A water pipe was procured and they crumbled some of the opium with flowers of hemp and crushed raisins and tobacco, and smoked in the stifling shade, Tannhauser with the restraint of one who had himself been victim to such stratagems, Salih with the reckless gratitude of a man whose nerves, beneath his smile, were frayed raw. Salih was not the first to believe that a little relaxation would improve his trading skills. But by the time the wondrous resin had cast its spell, and the uproar and stench of the harbor had faded, and Salih started swaying on his stool within arm’s reach of Paradise, Tannhauser was able to buy the boy for but two of the opium quarters. He threw in the remains of the smaller chunk as a gesture of goodwill, for it would give Salih a facesaving boast and—who knew?—the world was a small place and perhaps they would one day meet again.

  Orlandu was brought up from the beach by a factotum. Tannhauser kept his face turned until the right moment and then stepped forward to place himself between Salih and the boy. He nailed Orlandu with a hard stare and in the act of stroking his beard placed a finger over his lips to tell the boy he shouldn’t reveal that they were friends.

  Orlandu, quick as a snake, transformed his initial gape of shock into the sullen glare of the unwillingly bought and sold. Salih’s factotum, who’d caught a fragrant whiff from the hookah, was absorbed by the hope of partaking of the pipe, vain though this was, and the silent exchange went unnoticed. Salih contented himself with clubbing the boy on the ear with the heel of his fist by way of telling him to mind his manners now that he was in the service of a gentleman. By the look the Algerians exchanged, Tannhauser suspected that both assumed his purpose in buying the boy was in fact to bugger him, and Salih had repeatedly assured him that Orlandu was “a boy of perpetual freshness”; but this was not the time to take offense at imaginary slurs. Salih Ali expressed his hope that they trade again and Tannhauser assured the corsair that indeed they would. And then they were off: Tannhauser on his mare, rifle across the pommel, and Orlandu running beside him, hanging on to the stirrup for all his life was worth.

  When they were out of sight of Salih’s berth, Tannhauser slowed to a walk. He did not look down, as he wanted to maintain appearances. Snug beneath his thigh the wallet bulged with another four pounds of black gold. He laughed. He hadn’t laughed in longer than he could remember and it improved the day no end.

  “So,” he said, in Italian, “you have reverted to your former profession as a barnacle scraper. I’m disappointed.”

  “Where are we going?” said Orlandu.

  “What, no gratitude?”

  “I thought you were dead. I mourned for you and prayed for your soul, even though I thought you were damned.”

  “Your lack of faith shames you. Did I not tell you we would meet again?”

  “Why did you take so long?”

  “Hold now,” said Tannhauser. “It was not I who let himself be captured by the Sultan’s sea wolves, while on a secret mission for La Valette.”

  Orlandu let go of the stirrup and stopped. Tannhauser stopped too and looked down at him. The boy’s eyes were filled with hurt and rage. Tannhauser had spoken lightly, without intention of cruelty, but the boy was too young to accept it as such.

  “Listen,” said Tannhauser, “you’ve done well to survive six weeks in the company of corsairs.” If Orlandu had been less rough hewn, and more cherubic, his perpetual freshness might well have been sullied, but he didn’t say so. “You’ve been resolute and brave and I’m proud of you. So much so that I’ve decided to make you my partner in a famous enterprise.”

  Orlandu brightened. He had a mercurial nature, not given to pointless brooding—in Tannhauser’s book a strength to be admired. “Your partner?” Orlandu said.

  “In the first instance, you’d be more in the way of my apprentice. After all, you know nothing of business—or of very much else. But with due diligence, and in, I should say, ten years or so, you could be a prosperous young man—a man of the world, no less—with a diamond in your turban and a ship or two at your command.”

  Tannhauser was suddenly aware that these were extravagant claims for a man wearing hand-me-down clothes, grand as they were, and who sat on a borrowed horse. But Orlandu didn’t doubt his mentor for a second.

  “I must wear a turban?” said Orlandu.

  “You are going to become a Turk, my friend.”

  “I hate the Turks.”

  “Then learn to love them. They’re no worse than any other kind of men, and have the advantage over most in all sorts of ways.”

  “They’ve come here to kill us and take our land.”

  “A habit they share with a good many tribes and peoples. That they’ve proved uncommonly good at it is not to be held against them. The Religion are invaders too.”

  “But we fought the Turks,” said Orlandu. “You fought them too.”

  “For and against in my time,” said Tannhauser. “The French fight the Italians, the Germans fight with themselves—as do Christians and Moslems both—and the Spanish fight just about anyone they can find. Fighting is a habit as naturally inborn as shitting. As you will learn, the identity of the foe hardly matters to the combatants at all. In any case, we’re hardly well placed to quarrel with the Turks right now.”

  Orlandu’s face twisted in confusion. He was bright enough to appreciate the power of logic but, like most, he was unfamiliar with the art. He said, “What about Jesus?”

  “Worship Him if you will. The Turks won’t tie you to a stake for it. But t
here are benefits to professing an allegiance to Allah and His Prophet, may peace be upon Him, even if it be insincere.”

  “How can you pretend to believe in a god?”

  Tannhauser laughed. “Mark my words, there are red-hatted scoundrels in the Vatican at this very moment who doubt that He exists at all. They’re just cunning enough not to say so.”

  “We’ll go to the everlasting fires of Hell.”

  “It’s a crowded place by any account. But if you were God, would you much care by what name or means humanity groveled before you? Indeed, would you much care what we did at all?”

  “Jesus loves us. This I know.”

  “Then he will forgive a petty deception designed to save us from the bastinado. And now, with your permission, we must be on our way. It’s improper for a man of my standing to be seen arguing theology with his slave.”

  “Your slave?”

  “For the sake of appearances, certainly. And without doubt you are the Sultan’s slave, as are the majority of his subjects. The grand viziers are slaves. The aga of the janissaries is a slave. The most powerful men in the empire are slaves. Suleiman’s slaves. Under the empire only Turks are freeborn. But, as we’ve just established, when it’s merely a matter of words, where is the sting? In Europe birth is all and it’s a boot on every throat. But under the Ottomans, merit can take you to the highest councils of Stambouli. Piyale himself was born a Christian, found abandoned as a babe on a plowshare outside Belgrade, when Suleiman laid that city siege. He’s now the greatest admiral in the empire, perhaps the world. Surely it’s better to be a rich slave than a poor man free in name alone, scraping at the barnacles in Grand Harbor and bowing like a serf whenever a nobleman walks by.”

  Orlandu considered this, not yet wholly convinced. “Then I must pretend to be your slave, and pretend to love the Turk, and pretend to worship Allah too?”