The Mer- Lion

by Lee Arthur

  He heard a cry. At first he thought he had uttered it, then realized it Came from a lookout posted on the top of the tiny cabin. Carlby could not discern immediately what all the clamor was about, though he craned his head as far as possible without being detected, and strained his ears to catch the excited conversation. The crewmen were gathered at the aft rails, pointing and gesticulating at the water.

  Peering through the oarlock, Carlby could see what had upset the crew: a myriad of lights trailed the ship, sparkling and twinkling within the depths of the waves, and lighting up their wake with a greenish white glow that was both beautiful and eerie. There wasn't a man among the crew who hadn't listened to, and told, tales of the mermaids who trail ships, enticing sailors with their fiery jewels, causing some to dive overboard and disappear. The watery enchantresses were reported to have led ships onto the rocks so that they might add to their treasures of gold and jewels and men.

  The lights now engulfed the ship from stem to stern, the wet hull reflecting the phosphorescent glow onto the water and making it appear brighter than ever. Some of the crew drew back from the rail, while others, fascinated though frightened, could not resist the allure of the spectacle. Facing aft as they were, Carlby and about half of the prisoners watched and listened, though few knew what was happening.

  "What's got 'em so excited, milord?" John the Rob whispered across to de Wynter.

  "It's the lights," de Wynter answered. "Some say they are mermaids flashing their jewels. Others say it is reflection from the hide of some giant sea monster below. Who knows?" he said with a grin, knowing that John the Rob's wild imagination would take over, and enjoying the jest. At best, de Wynter knew in his heart that a logical, natural explanation existed. He would have to ask Carlby when they were unchained from these damnable oar stations. Carlby did indeed know, and he suspected the captain was holding out the truth from his crewmen for reasons of his own. The lights were gammari. Shrimp. Billions of miniscule floating crustaceans joined together in huge schools, each giving off its own tiny phosphrescence, and the whole adding up to a formidable light-emitting body. Just why the mass seemed to twinkle and sparkle Carlby had never learned, but his scholarly mind told him it had something to do with reflection and prismatic phenomena as the waves and the ship's wake brought angles into play.

  As suddenly as they had appeared, the lights disappeared behind the speeding ship. The voices quieted, though the stories continued. One had actually seen a mermaid. Another saw a circle of shimmering diamonds in the shape of a crown. And one pooh-poohed the others with his tale of having seen the monster's green tail rise out of the water during a similar sighting of the lights off Gibraltar three years earlier.

  Carlby and his fellow prisoners drifted back to sleep, less worried about strange lights in the sea than how to survive another day at the oars.

  De Wynter woke just before dawn. He, too, had dreamed. The same dream as before. He was riding up the Ben Nevis to Seaforth on Dun Dearduil. There stood two women waiting for him, a small boy standing between them. The one woman, he knew without seeing her face, was his mother. The other he was sure was Anne Boleyn. But even though he urged his horse first to a trot then to a canter, finally to a gallop, the castle seemed no nearer, nor the other woman's face clearer. Always, just as he was sure another stride of the horse would enable him to-make out his loved one's face, he awoke.

  A slowing of the ship, preceded by sharp commands and squealing block and tackle, told him the huge sail was being furled. No doubt they would stand off the harbor entrance at Tunis until daylight and use the oars to bring her in. His muscles ached at the thought. But at least it would be a short turn at the oars, no more than half an hour he judged, remembering how long it took them to clear the harbor at Algiers.

  He raised his head cautiously and looked around in the dim light shed by the lamps that had been placed on the walkway. Most of the men were still mercifully asleep, but he saw Carlby and a few of the others carefully stretching arms and legs, trying to get their circulation going. Satisfied, and not wanting to raise the wrath of the oarmaster who might be keeping an eye on them, de Wynter again rested his head on weary arms and waited patiently for dawn.

  The sun had not yet risen above the waves when the crack of the whip and a bellowing voice roused them and bade them stand. After queueing up at the narrow latrines, the men stood in place while watered sour wine and stale bread were doled out and promptly wolfed down. Then it was back to the oars, the men alternating as they spit on their blistered hands and rubbed them to ease the soreness and give themselves a decent grip. The sun was warming their backs as the cadence was struck and the ship moved gracefully toward the harbor entrance. Within it, evidently, the ship could not steer a straight course, for the sun threw its rays first over their right shoulders and finally straight in their faces as the steering oar slanted diem directly toward the colorful and massive piles of houses, mosques and ancient stone structures that rose from the water's edge in a long, crenellated line.

  The sudden whir of mighty wings caused the prisoners to glance skyward, some frightened, some cautious, some merely curious. Hundreds of pink flamingos, disturbed by the ship, had taken wing. Through the oarlocks, the outer rowers saw a sea of pink to every side as the ship moved toward its moorings. Even hardened sailors were moved by the sight, John Carlby remembered. De Wynter, having read about the wondrous sight, realized what he was missing.

  This was Al Bahira, the little sea connecting the Gulf of Tunis to the city, a few miles to the southwest. The shallow water here was ideal for the great birds, but hazardous for navigation. The steersman, with lookouts posted forward, had skillfully guided the ship through La Goulette, a narrow channel that offered ships their only real entrance. To the rowers' right rose the shadowy hills of Cap Bon. To their left the ruins of Carthage. And behind their hardworking backs, the city itself, at a distance of fifteen kilometers or so.

  The air was calm now, the sea wind having dropped. The oppressive heat, even in the fall, settled in around the ship, and the oarsmen perspired more heavily with every stroke. The Carthaginians had been smarter than the early settlers of Tunis, or Thunes, as the Phoenicians called it. They had sought out higher ground and a small natural harbor for their city while Thunes, its predecessor, had been built on low* ground rising only a few hundred feet above the sea, and situated between two lakes, Al Bahira and Sebkha es Sedjoumi, an inland saltwater lake. By its location, it was excessively hot and humid in summer and cold and blustery in winter.

  Across Al Bahira they rowed, the cadence slowing as they neared the docking area. The sounds of the busy city could be heard over the splash and creak of the oars. Finally, the oarmaster barked the command to raise oars, a few minutes later to dip oars and to back water, finally to ship oar. Gently, expertly, the Sea Devil nosed alongside the great stone pier jutting out into the lake.

  Again the prisoners were bade to line up on the walkway that ran the length of the ship like a wooden backbone, and crewmen snapped links into place, making them once again a long human chain. A plank was thrown across to the pier, and single file they made their precarious way across.

  Street urchins taunted and threw pebbles at the chained prisoners, who were marched from the Sea Devil to a nearby prison built to hold slaves, until they were ready for the auction block. They had but to navigate two and a half of the irregular souks which marked the lowest part of the city, nearest to the sea. This was the edge of the native city, or medina, walled by stone some forty cubits high and strengthened by turrets at regular intervals.

  Now, some three hundred years past its prime, Tunis was experiencing the slow decline that would someday tumble its great wall and reduce the once colorful and exciting souks, the market stalls, to repositories of cheap, shoddy merchandise.

  As passersby ignored him—slave chains were all too common in this city—de Wynter indulged his own curiosity. Ahead he saw turrets of what must be the Great Mosque, framed in the foliage o
f olive trees.

  Beyond it, and higher still, near the middle of medina, sat the Dar al Bey, home of the ruler and the site of state occasions. The hill blocked from his view the last of Tunis's three wonders—the Bardo Palace, harem of the Beys, built early in the fifteenth century about two kilometers from the center of the city.

  Then the slaves arrived at a low stone structure with tiny barred windows and not many of them at that. While the captain went inside, the prisoners were herded together under guard of the crew. De Wynter could hear the captain haggling over'the price he must pay for cells. Then the captain motioned the slaves to enter the doorway and they followed him down a dank corridor, made a few sharp turns and stopped in front of two cubicles with open doors. Each man was cut free from the next and shoved roughly into the tiny cells, half the group in each one.

  The young Scottish earl looked around his new place, noting the rings set all round the walls for the purpose of chaining prisoners, and was grateful that the captain, maybe under orders from Eulj Ali, was not going to keep diem in irons. The doors clanged shut and were secured. This time de Wynter and Carlby were in the same group and glad of it. They sat with their backs to a wall and discussed their situation. John the Rob stationed himself near the door and attempted to engage the guard in conversation, mostly offering him promises of silver for a bucket of drinking water.

  According to Carlby, they would be bathed, fed, and generally well cared for during their stay in these cells. To bring a proper price as slaves, they would have to appear healthy and not too shabby. When the slave auction would be held and how long they would stay in the cramped cells, he didn't know. Maybe a week, maybe no more than a few days, judging by the haste the captain had insisted on.

  The cells were so small, the men alternately sat or stood. Eventually they were taken two at a time to a common washroom and doused with buckets of water while they attempted to clean themselves with rough, strong soap. Leaving the bare room, distinguished only by the drain in the middle of the floor, each man made his first quick trip to a void room with several excreta-soiled holes in the floor, which, judging from the echoes, were actually deep wells. The smell kept any from lingering. On leaving, they were handed white ragged strips of bleached muslin to loop between their legs and tie around their waists.

  Their spirits raised, the prisoners whiled away the balance of the afternoon dozing or talking quietly, the beggars even practicing some of their sleight-of-hand. Water was passed.around once. And from somewhere, probably one of the local souks, came a tin of salve for their blistered hands and a bottle of oily hair dressing and a crude comb. Not until all others had made use of the latter was it passed to the beggars, who, John the Rob confided, had head-lice.

  Shortly after the muezzins called the faithful to prayer for the fourth time that day, slaves brought in a single earthenware tub of food and left it sitting in the middle of the floor. There were no utensils, only hands. Some would have dug right in, but Carlby and de Wynter, acting quickly, stopped them. The food must be portioned out fairly.

  When the emptied crock was removed, the next,problem to be solved was floor space. Eighteen bodies did not fit comfortably in a room less than four paces by five paces. Especially when those bodies stretched out on the floor. De Wynter solved that one. He simply split the group in two—one half was able to stretch out full length for a time while the others sat, leaning against the opposite wall, each group alternating every three hours.

  Having sat, then stretched out, then sat again through the dark hours on the uncomfortable stone floor, de Wynter slept only fitfully and was awake when the first call to prayer wafted clearly over the still city. "Allahu Akbar," he translated, "God is most Great."

  Then, to de Wynter's surprise, the call broke off. Not once during his captivity had he heard the Imam cease the Adhan before completed.

  Carlby too looked puzzled. What dire calamity had struck the city to halt the first call to prayer of the day?

  CHAPTER 21

  No natural calamity in the city had caused the break in the call to prayer. It was just a maniacal game played on certain prisoners by the depraved and deranged ruler of Tunis, the Moulay Hassan. In the Palace of the Harem, called the Bardo, the Moulay too heard the clarion call. His annoyance at having his sleep disturbed quickly gave way to pleased anticipation of what would happen later that day to the poor unfortunate who had mistaken the dawn and mistimed the call to prayer. But now was the perfect time to begin again where sleep had intervened and stopped his play with his bed partner.

  With a move surprisingly fast for such an obese man, the Moulay pulled the bed clothes away to reveal the naked body beside him. It was that of a child of not more than 10 or 11, scarcely past puberty. The slave had been a gift from Barbarossa, accompanying his proposal of marriage to the Princess Aisha, and had been chosen to appeal to the Moulay's well-known debauched taste.

  The child was indeed a rarity—as the Moulay noted with awakened desire—neither all male nor all female it had organs of both. Where the Bey's gaze traveled over the cringing slave, his small, pudgy, brown hands followed. Then lunging atop the child, he pressed his fat slobbering lips against the tender, dry, childish mouth, suppressing the child's scream.

  Up above the palace, the living gargoyles of Tunis shivered on the city's minarets as they continued to watch for the first ray of the dawn. At the Moulay's direction, the call to prayer in Tunis had

  evolved into a deadly game. Each slave purchased for the game was given ninety days in which to be first to spot the dawn and begin the first Adhan of the day, the chant, "Assalatu Khairum Hinan Nawn (Prayer is better than sleep)."

  The game was simple, having but three rules.

  The first provided suspense. Which and how many of the miserable slaves would win another ninety days of life and of competition?

  The second gave the populace variety. The unsuccessful slave was executed on the ninety-first day. To the delight of the people of Tunis, the Moulay himself decided on the means of death, and his inventiveness was such that word of these public executions had spread throughout the Mediterranean. Beheading English-style or burning at the stake in the French manner were too tame for him. He preferred his victims to die slowly and noisily. Some he had trussed and turned on a spit so that the flesh blistered and charred; then they were doused with water so as to prolong the suffering. Impaling was another favorite, especially for a slave who was small and skinny. The weight of his own body would slowly drive the sharpened stake higher and higher up into his body.

  The third rule of the game gave the loser a fitting punishment. The slave who wrongly woke the people of Tunis by issuing the call prematurely lost his tongue.

  Naturally, there was great competition among the unfortunate slaves to be first to spot that initial streak of the dawn's first light. And frequently, a slave started the chant prernaturery—as had happened this morning—desperately gambling that the elusive ray would flash the same instant. If his timing were perfect, hundreds of voices joined his own, his life extended for another three months. Sometimes, as had happened this morning, the solitary voice faltered ... broke... and silence was restored to the city. The Tunisians, appeased by the public spectacle of detongueing, had grown accustomed to such false awakenings and stoically had learned to turn over and go back to sleep or to indulge themselves in other pastimes, as the Moulay was doing.

  Today's unfortunate was an English yeoman captured by Barbarossa's pirates and sold to the keepers of the Great Mosque better than two months ago. Cringing, he could hear the booted footsteps of the guards slapping against the tiles of the courtyard as they approached the base of the minaret on which he perched. They would not bother to climb up and drag him down, he knew. Instead, they would wait for him to descend as he would have to do one day, one way or another.

  Edwin Godwin pulled his scant rags around his still-strong body to ward off the chilling gusts sweeping in off the Mediterranean and wished himself back in his
native England. Desperately, he pondered his fate. Fear of falling had kept him awake through the early morning hours, and fear of failing had fooled his eyes into believing they had seen a lightening of the sky in the east.

  Now, he had three choices left to him: to cling to his perch and eventually, growing light-headed from lack of food and drink, topple off to his death upon the tiled courtyard seventy-five feet below; to end his misery quickly by throwing himself off the minaret; or to make his way down the stairs and surrender to his fate.

  Tempering his decision was the knowledge that from among the speechless victims of the Moulay's game came a selected few members of the mute bodyguard of the princess, his daughter. If one were young and strong, once the stub of a tongue had healed, life as a member of this elite group was reported to be easy and luxurious. "Suppose her bodyguard is full... or I am not thought young and strong enough?" He shook his head to clear away such defeatist thoughts. He had gambled and lost with his premature chant; he would have to gamble again.

  Then, even as he inched his way around the parapet toward the opening to the stairway, a streak of light seemed to pierce the darkness. Here was a second chance and even if false, he could lose his tongue but once. His voice rang out surprisingly clear:

  "God is most Great!

  God is most Great!

  I bear witness that there is no god but God,

  I bear witness that Mohammed is the Apostle of God.

  Come to prayers.

  Come to good works.

  Prayer is better than sleep.

  God is most Great!

  God is most Great!

  There is no god but God!"

  In the depths of the bed in the Bardo, the Moulay halted his thrusting and raised his head: it was the same voice. The Moulay