Pirates of the Levant

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  According to what he had been told, the people in the encampment belonged to the Beni Gurriaran tribe, who were considered by the Spanish garrison to be peaceful Moors. The agreement was that the garrison would protect them against other hostile Berber tribes in exchange for agreed quantities of wheat, barley and livestock to be handed over every year on predetermined dates. However, last year, the wheat and barley harvest had been late and the contribution rather sparse — a third of it was still owing to the garrison — and now the Moors were trying to avoid handing over the livestock that had been due in the spring. They still had not done so, and rumour had it that the people of Beni Gurriaran were preparing to move somewhere far from Uad Berruch, beyond the reach of the Spanish.

  'So we're going to catch them napping,' Sergeant Major Biscarrues had said, 'before they can even say knife.'

  Sergeant Major Biscarrues was from Aragon; he had seen long service as a soldier and had the confidence of the governor of Oran. He was a typical denizen of those North African towns: as hard as nails, his tanned skin parched and lined by the sun, the dust and by a life spent fighting, first in Flanders and latterly in Africa — with the sea at his back, the King in far-off Spain, God preoccupied with other matters, and the Moors only a sword's length away. He commanded a troop of soldiers whose one hope was to win some booty, and he carried out his job with due rigour, for these men of his were dangerous, potential deserters, fodder for the gallows and the galleys, and as ready to mutiny as they were to kill each other. He was, in short, a cruel but approachable bastard, and no more venal than most. That, at least, was how Sebastian Copons had described Biscarrues before we met himon that first evening.

  The meeting had taken place in a small barracks in kasbah, where we found him bent over a map spread out the table, each of the map's four corners weighted down, respectively, by a jug of wine, a candlestick, a dagger and a small pistol. With him were two other men: a tall Moor with a white cloak over his shoulders, and a thin, dark individual dressed in Spanish fashion, clean-shaven and with a prominent nose.

  'With your permission, Sergeant Major, may I introduce my friend Diego Alatriste, a fellow veteran of Flanders no deployed on the galleys in Naples. Diego, this is Don Lorer Biscarrues. These two men are Mustafa Chauni, the chief our mogataces, and Aron Cansino, our interpreter.'

  'Flanders, eh?' The sergeant major eyed Alatriste curiously. 'Amiens? Ostend?'

  'Both.'

  'A lot of rain has fallen since then. At least in Flanders, those damned heretics. There hasn't been a drop here f months.'

  They chatted for a while, discussing comrades they had ' common, both alive and dead. Finally, Copons explained present situation and obtained the sergeant major's permission for us to join the cavalcade, while Alatriste studied both him and the other two men. The mogataz was an Ulad-Gale whose tribe had served Spain for three generations. In appearance he was typical of such men: grey-bearded and swarthy complexioned; he wore slippers, a curved dagger at his waist, and his head was entirely shaved apart from the small tuft that some Moors left so that, if their head was cut off in battle, an enemy would not have to stick his fingers in the decapitated head's mouth or eyes in order to carry it off as a trophy. He led the harka of one hundred and fifty warriors chosen from among his tribe or family — which, in those parts, amounted to the same thing. They lived with their wives and children in the village of Ifre and nearby encampments. As long as those men were assured of pay and booty, they were prepared to fight under the St Andrew's cross with a courage and loyalty one would like to have seen in many subjects of the Catholic King.

  As for the other man, it came as no surprise to Alatriste that a Jew should act as interpreter in the town, for although the Jews had been expelled from Spain, their presence was tolerated in the Spanish enclaves in North Africa for reasons to do with commerce, money and their mastery of the Arabic language. As he found out later, among the twenty or so families living in the Jewish quarter, the Cansinos had been trusted interpreters since the middle of the last century, and even though they observed Mosaic law — Oran was alone in having a synagogue — they had always shown absolute competence as well as loyalty to the King. This was why the various governors of the town had honoured and rewarded them, allowing the profession to pass from father to son. The translators combined their linguistic skills with a little espionage, for all the Israelite communities in Barbary were in regular communication.

  The other reason why the Oran Jews were tolerated was their vital importance as merchants and traders, despite the heavy taxes imposed on them because of their religion. When times were hard, they were the ones who lent the governor money or wheat or whatever he might need. In addition, there was the role they played in the slave trade: on the one hand, they mediated in the ransoming of captives and, on the other, they owned most of the Turks and Moors sold in

  Oran. After all, regardless of whether they worshipped Mary, Mohammed or Moses, as far as everyone — Jew, Moor Spaniard — was concerned, a silver coin was a silver coin. As Don Francisco de Quevedo would have said, Sir Money a powerful gentleman. And the man was a fool who would bother going to light a candle at anyone else's altar.

  The dog barked again in the distance, and Alatriste touched the well-primed pistol at his waist. In a way, he thought he wouldn't mind if the dog kept on barking so that Moors in the encampment, or at least some of them, were awake, with scimitar in hand, when Sergeant Major Biscarrues gave the order to attack. Slitting the throats of sleeping men in order to steal their livestock, women and children was easier than slitting their throats while they were awake, but it would take a vast amount of wine to wash the blood from his memory.

  'At the ready.'

  In a whisper that gradually grew louder, the order passed down the line. When it reached me, I, too, passed it on, and heard the words move off into the crouching shadows until it vanished like the fading of an echo. I ran my tongue over my cracked lips and then clenched my teeth to stop them chattering in the cold. I tried on my espadrilles, removing the rags in which I had wrapped both my sword and blade of my half-pike to avoid making any inopportune noise. I looked around. I couldn't see Captain Alatriste among the various silhouettes in the dawn light, but I knew he was lying with the others close by. I could see Sebastian Copons, a dark, motionless figure, smelling of sweat, greased leather and s burnished with oil. There were similar figures among lentiscus bushes, the prickly pears and the thistles that in Barbary are called arracafes.

  'We attack in two credos' time,' came the new order. Some, either out of devotion or simply to calculate the time, started mumbling the creed out loud. I heard them all around me, in the half-darkness, in different accents and intonations: Basque, Valencian, Asturian, Andalusian, Castilian; Spaniards who only came together to pray or to kill.

  Credo in unum Deum, patrem omnipotentem, factorem caeli et trrae ... Such pious murmurings as a prelude to bloody battle always struck me as odd; all those male voices whispering holy words, asking God to let them survive the fight, to capture gold and slaves aplenty, to be granted a safe return to Oran and to Spain, laden with booty and with no enemies nigh, for as they all knew — Copons and the Captain had both emphasised this point — the most dangerous thing in the world was fighting Moors on their own territory and then withdrawing and finding oneself pursued down those dried up riverbeds and through that arid landscape, beneath the implacable sun, with no water, or else paying in blood for each drop, or being wounded and falling into the hands of Arabs, who had all the time in the world to kill you. Perhaps that was why the murmur was spreading among the crouching shadows: Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero ...

  After a while, I found myself mechanically murmuring the same words, without thinking, like someone singing along to a particularly catchy ballad. Then, when I realised what I was doing, I prayed with real devotion: Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum et vitam venturi saeculi, amen. At the time, I was still young enough to believe in suc
h things, and a few other things besides.

  'Forward for Santiago ... for Santiago and Spain!' The words were spoken in a howl, punctuated by a few sharp blasts on the bugle, while the men scrambled to their

  feet and ran through the undergrowth, holding high the King's standard and flag. I stood up too and ran forwards, aware of shots being fired on the far side of the encampment, where the darkness was dotted with flashes of harquebus fire.

  'Forward for Spain! Attack! Attack!'

  It was awkward running along the sandy bed of the river, and my legs felt like lead when I reached the other side, where a hawthorn hedge protected the livestock. I tripped over a motionless body on the ground, ran a few steps further, only to scratch myself on the spiny branches. God's teeth! There was now the sound of harquebus fire on our side too, while the silhouettes of my comrades rushed like a torrent through the tents. I caught sudden glimpses of lit fires, of terrified figures who either fought or fled. To the shouting of Spaniards and mogataces, reinforced by the thundering hooves of our horsemen charging in from the other side, was added the cries of dozens of women and children, wrenched from sleep, who were now emerging from their tents, clinging to each other or running to their menfolk, also barely awake, but who, in trying to protect them, fought desperately and died. I saw Sebastian Copons and others hurl themselves among these people, cutting and slashing, and I followed suit, wielding my half-pike and losing it at my first encounter, when I plunged it into the half-naked body of a bearded Arab who emerged from a tent bearing a scimitar. He fell at my feet without uttering a sound, but I didn't have time to recover my pike, because just as I was trying to, another young Moor, even younger than me, came out of the same tent, in his nightshirt, and started lashing out at me with a dagger, so fiercely that if he had hit home, Christ and the Devil would have been well served, and the people of Onate would have had one fellow countryman less. I staggered backwards, drawing my sword — an excellent galley sword,

  broad and short and bearing the mark of Toledo on its blade. Fighting back with more aplomb now, I managed to slice off half his nose with my first blow and the fingers of his hand with my second. He was already on the ground when I delivered a third and final blow, slitting his throat with a backward slash. I peered cautiously inside the tent and saw a huddle of women and children in one corner, screaming and shouting in their own language. I let the curtain fall, turned and went about my business.

  It was nearly over. Diego Alatriste kicked away the Moor he had just killed, removed his sword from the man's body and looked around. The Arabs were barely resisting now, and most of the attackers were more concerned with plundering whatever they could find — almost as if they were Englishmen. He could still hear harquebus fire in the encampment, but the screams of rage, despair and death had given way to the groans of the wounded, the moans of prisoners, and the buzz of flies swarming above the pools of blood.

  The soldiers and mogataces were rounding up, as if they were mere livestock, women, children, the old, and any men who had thrown down their arms. Others were collecting any objects of value and herding together the real livestock. The women — their children clinging to their skirts or clutched to their bosom — were screaming and striking their faces at the sight of the corpses of fathers, husbands, brothers and children; and some, overwhelmed by pain and rage, were trying to scratch the soldiers, who were obliged to beat them off. The men were clustered together in a separate group; bewildered, bruised, and terrified, they squatted in the dust, guarded by swords, pikes and harquebuses. Some — adults and older men who were trying somehow to preserve their dignity — were shoved around or slapped in the face by the victorious soldiers.

  The order, as usual, was not to kill anyone who could bring in some money, but this was the soldiers' way of avenging the half-dozen or so comrades who had lost their lives in the assault.

  This displeased Alatriste, who was of the view that while one could kill a man, one should not humiliate him, still less in front of his friends and family. That century, however like most centuries, was not particularly abundant in scruple Embarrassed, he looked across at the outskirts of the encampment. Among the hills, the soldiers on horseback were pursuing any Moors who had managed to escape and were hiding among the reedbeds and fig trees. The captives were led back, their hands tied to the tails of the horses.

  Some of the plundered tents were on fire now, with all the furniture, pots, silver, carpets and clothes piled up outside. Sergeant Major Biscarrues, who was keeping an eye on everything, shouted to his men to look lively and get the booty together so that they could leave. Diego Alatriste saw him squint at the newly risen sun and then glance anxiously about him. It wasn't hard for Alatriste, a fellow soldier, to guess his thoughts. A column of tired Spaniards, taking with them a hundred or so livestock and more than two hundred captives, would be extremely vulnerable to attack by hostile Moors if they were not safe inside the walls of Oran by sunset.

  Alatriste's throat was as dry as the sand and stone he walked upon. God's teeth, he thought, I can't even spit out the dust and blood that are making my tongue stick to my palate. He looked about him and met the friendly but fierce gaze of a red-bearded mogataz who was earnestly beheading a dead Arab. Closer to him, an old Moorish woman was kneeling down tending a badly wounded man, whose head rested in her lap. She had a wrinkled face, with blue tattoos on forehead and hands, and when Alatriste stopped in front of her, sword still in his hand, she looked up at him with blank eyes.

  'Ma. Water. Ma,' he said.

  She didn't respond until he touched her shoulder with the point of his sword. Then she gestured indifferently towards a large tent and, ignoring everything else, continued to tend the wounded Moor who lay moaning on the ground. Alatriste headed for the tent, drew back the curtain and stepped inside.

  As soon as he did so, he realised that he was going to have problems.

  1 spotted Captain Alatriste in the distance, among all the plundering and the comings and goings of soldiers and prisoners, and I was glad to see that he was safe. I tried to call out to him, but he didn't hear me, so I headed in his direction, avoiding the burning tents, the heaps of clothing, the wounded and the dead. I saw him go inside a large, black tent, and I saw, too, that someone went in after him. I couldn't quite see who it was, but he looked like one of our Moors, a mogataz. Then a corporal stopped me and ordered me to keep watch over a group of Arabs while they were being tied up. This delayed me briefly, but, when I had finished, I continued towards the tent. I lifted the curtain, crouched down to go inside and was astonished by what I saw: in one corner, on an untidy pile of mats and rugs, lay a young Moorish woman, half-naked, whom the Captain was helping to get dressed. She had a bruise on her tear-stained face and was wailing like an animal in torment. At her feet lay a child of only a few months, waving its arms, and next to her was one of our soldiers, a Spaniard, his belt unbuckled, his breeches round his knees and his head blown apart. Another Spaniard, fully clothed but with his throat slit from ear to ear, lay face-up

  near the entrance, blood gushing from his wound. In the few moments in which I was still able to think clearly, it occurred to me that the very same blood was staining the blade of the curved dagger that a surly, bearded mogataz had pressed to my throat as soon as I entered. All of these things — well, put yourself in my place, dear reader — drew from me an exclamation of surprise that made the Captain turn round.

  'It's all right. He's like a son to me,' he said quickly. 'He won't talk.'

  The mogataz's breath, which I could feel on my face, stopped for a moment as he studied me closely with bright, dark eyes edged with such thick eyelashes they could have been those of a woman. That, however, was the only delicate thing about his tanned, weather-beaten face; and his pointed reddish beard accentuated the fierce expression that froze my blood. He must have been about thirty or so, and he was of average build, but with powerful shoulders and arms. Apart from the usual lock of hair at the back, his head was shav
en, and he wore a long scarf looped about his neck, silver earrings in each ear and, on his left cheekbone, a strange blue tattoo in the form of a cross. He duly removed the dagger from my throat and wiped it on his grey-striped burnous before putting it back in the leather scabbard at his waist.

  What happened?' I asked the Captain.

  He slowly got to his feet. The woman, filled with fear and shame, covered herself with a grey-brown veil. The mogataz said a few words to her in her own language — something like barra barra — and she, picking up her crying child and wrapping it in the same veil, walked lightly past us, head bowed, and left the tent.

  'What happened,' said the Captain calmly, 'is that these two valiants and I had a disagreement over the meaning of the word "booty".'

  He crouched down to pick up the pistol he had fired and stuck it in his belt. Then he looked at the mogataz, who was still standing in the entrance to the tent, and something like a smile appeared on his lips.

  'Things weren't going too well for me when this Moor appeared and took my part.'

  He was studying the mogataz intently, from top to toe, and he seemed to like what he saw.