Corsair

by Tim Severin

  Livorno was ideal for such transactions. Declared a free port by the Duke of Tuscany less than a decade earlier, it was now a thieves’ kitchen on a grand scale. On the waterfront and in the counting houses it was quietly acknowledged that the transactions of men like Chabrillan were best not investigated too closely. Ostensibly the galleys of the Orders were licensed only to cruise the sea in search of vessels belonging to ‘our enemies of our Holy Catholic Faith’, as Grand Master Cotoner in Valletta put it. Such vessels could be seized and sold, together with their crews and cargoes. And should a Christian ship be found to be carrying Muslim-owned goods, then the Order’s captain could impound only the goods but must release the vessel. Often, however, both goods and ship were confiscated, and on occasion the Christian crew themselves were held for ransom or even sold as slaves.

  In such delicate traffic Livorno relied on its Jewish population. There were nearly three thousand of them, and they had been granted exceptional privileges. Here a Jew could own property, wear a sword at any hour, employ Christian servants and did not have to wear the Jewish badge. They also operated a complex network of commerce with their co-religionists in Tunis, Malta and Algiers. It was for this reason that Chevalier Chabrillan valued his connection with Jedediah Crespino so highly.

  ‘ONE HUNDRED SCUDI a head, a most satisfactory price if I may say so, though the English captain did insist that he was paid at once and in silver,’ observed the Jewish banker. He and Chabrillan had met in the Crespino’s private apartments at the end of the day’s business. Jedediah lived in great style even though his office was only a minor outpost of the Crespino mercantile empire. He ran his business from a building overlooking the docks, and the first-floor room in which the two men now sat was sumptuously furnished with heavy brocades, fine furniture, rich rugs and a brilliant display of coral ornaments – a sign of the commerce in trinkets and religious artefacts which had been the mainstay of the Crespino fortune in the early days. ‘Will you be selling on the slaves or keeping them for yourself ?’ the banker continued.

  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.

  It was awkward to negotiate the slope of the gangplank without snagging their chains, but, once on land, Hector and his companions shuffled in the direction the man in the waistcoat indicated – towards an enormous building which dominated the south-eastern corner of the waterfront. Its walls were painted blue and decorated with yellow motifs which Hector recognised as the fleur-de-lis, the symbol of the French king. Another huge yellow fleur-de-lis surmounted the great dome which rose from the interior of the building. Smells of pitch and tar, of raw timber and hot metal, and the sounds of hammering and sawing told Hector that they were approaching a vast Arsenal and shipyard.

  ‘Allez! Allez!’ Their drover was shouting at them to go around the building and approach it on the landward side. As they turned the corner, Hector saw ahead a sight he would never forget. Coming down the busy street which led from the heart of the city was a column of about fifty men. They were dirty and dishevelled, with long matted hair and unkempt beards. Most were dressed in rags, and some wore broken boots or clogs while the rest were barefoot. They moved slowly as if exhausted. All of them wore metal collars, and from each collar a light chain joined each man to a central heavier chain, so that the entire column was linked together as a single unit which made a mournful clanking sound as it limped forward. At the head of the column rode an overseer mounted on a bay horse, and on each side were more mounted men, clearly guards, equipped with bullwhips. Three or four carts brought up the rear of the column and – to Hector’s astonishment – several desperate-looking women were keeping pace, occasionally darting into the column to speak to one or other of the chained gang.

  ‘Halte-là!’ The leather waistcoat shouted at Hector and his companions to stand where they were and allow the column to pass in front of them. As Hector and Dan looked on, a double gate in the Arsenal’s yellow outer wall swung open to receive the long, sad file. Led by the mounted officer, the column began to be swallowed up, though the women were prevented from entering. Uniformed sentries blocked them from going any further. The women beseeched and begged, but the soldiers firmly held their muskets crosswise as a barrier, holding them back. One tearful woman fell to the ground, keening in anguish.

  ‘Allez! Allez!’ The leather waistcoat was bawling urgently at his charges to move forward and enter the Arsenal before the gates were shut and barred. Once inside they found themselves in a large open parade ground where the prisoners of the column were standing meekly. Guards were removing the iron neck collars, and then dividing the prisoners into small batches. As each batch formed up, it was escorted to what looked like the main administration building and taken inside. Several minutes would pass, and then a guard appeared and shepherded away another batch of prisoners. Eventually all the prisoners had been removed, and the square was empty except for Hector, Dan and the odjaks. Their escort in the leather waistcoat had walked away, ignoring them. Moments later a guard came to the open door and beckoned to Hector, Dan and Irgun.

  They were directed into a large whitewashed room where bent over a table was some sort of official dressed in an ill-fitting black coat with tarnished silver buttons. His pen was poised over a ledger. ‘Nom?’ he enquired curtly, without even raising his head which, Hector observed, was flecked with specks of dandruff. Clearly the official was a receiving clerk and had mistaken them for another batch of prisoners from the column. Grateful to the friars who had taught him French Hector replied, ‘Lynch, Hector.’

  The clerk scratched down the information in the ledger. ‘The crime of which you are condemned?’

  ‘No crime,’ said Hector.

  Angrily, the clerk looked up and saw the three prisoners from Izzet Darya standing in front of him. ‘Where are you from?’ he demanded. ‘You are not with the chain.’

  ‘We are from the galley Izzet Darya.’

  At the mention of the galley, Hector thought he saw a glimmer of recognition in the official’s eyes. ‘And your name?’ he asked Dan. The Miskito understood what was wanted, and answered simply ‘Dan’. Again the pen scratched across the surface of the ledger. Next it was the turn of the odjak but he did not answer, and stood silent and staring down at his interrogator from his great height. ‘He does not comprehend,’ Hector intervened.

  ‘Then you tell me what he is called.’

  ‘His name is Irgun.’

  ‘Any documents to confirm your identities?’ the clerk said irritably.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I shall put you all down as Turks. That will be all,’ and he began to fill in a column he had left blank in the ledger. ‘Guards! Uncouple that big Turk and put him with his fellows where he belongs. Take the other two away, take off the linking chain, and keep them separate from the rest. Tomorrow they will be assigned to their duties. And if there are any more Turks outside, you can conduct them to their cells without bothering me with the details.’

  The guards led Hector and Dan down a long corridor, across a courtyard, and through a series of doors which were unlocked and then relocked, and finally left them in a cell some twenty feet by twenty feet. It was unfurnished except for a layer of damp straw, two benches and a bucket that was evidently being used as a latrine. Stretched out on one of the benches was a tough-looking man with close-cropped dark hair who sat up as the cell door slammed behind them and regarded them with distaste.

  ‘How come they put you in with me?’ He spoke French with a strong accent. At some time his nose had been badly broken.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You’re Turks.’

  ‘No. I’m from Ireland, and Dan here is from the Caribees.’

  The broken-nose man hawked and spat in the straw. ‘Then how come he’s wearing a leg ring? Anyhow Turks, Moors, slaves – doesn’t matter which. They all mean the same thing if you’re condemned to the oar. And if you’re Irish, how come you’re here?’

  ‘We were in the bagnio in Algiers, and converted. Now we’re treated as renegades.’

  ‘You’re lucky they didn’t hang you the instant they caught you. That’s King Louis’s usual way of dealing with renegades. They must be in too much need of oarsmen to give you the long drop.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘The King’s Galley Corps. I’ve been here before, and that’s why they’re keeping me apart from the oth
ers. To stop me tipping them off about what’s to come and how they can dodge the worst.’

  ‘What others?’

  The man nodded towards a small barred window, set high in the wall. Hector stepped up on the bench, took a grip on the bars and hauled himself up so he could look out. He was staring down into a large hall, as bare and bleak as his own cell. Seated or lying on its straw were the crowd of disconsolate prisoners who had just arrived with the chain column.

  ‘I was with that lot on the stroll from Paris,’ explained the fellow prisoner disdainfully as Hector lowered himself back down. ‘Took us nearly a month, and more than half a dozen died on the way. The argousins . . .’ Seeing that Hector did not know who he meant, he explained, ‘The argousins are the convict-warders. They weren’t any worse than usual, but that thieving bastard of a comite who was in charge had done the usual corrupt deal with the victuallers. We were served half rations, and nearly starved.’