Freebooter

by Tim Severin

  At the top of the companionway a burly guard stepped into their path. His thick black beard and moustaches gleamed with oil and were caught up in a light net looped over his ears. He was dressed in tight-fitting trousers of white cotton, slippers with pointed toes and a splendid surcoat of coarse silk, broad across the shoulders, held in at the waist with a wide sash, and flaring out to knee-length skirts. The canary yellow of his turban, sash, and surcoat exactly matched the colour of the standard that Hector had earlier seen flying at the stern of the great ship.

  Hector’s rescuer cringed as the guard loomed over him and barked an angry question in a language that Hector did not recognize. The sailor shrank even further as he mumbled his reply, and the guard snapped an order that sent the deckhand scurrying back down the steps. The guard then turned his attention on Hector, looked him up and down several times, and placed a beefy hand flat on his chest, leaving him in no doubt that he was to stay where he was. Then the guard turned and strode off. While he waited, Hector examined his surroundings. To his left a screen of light muslin blocked his view, and the aft section of this upper deck had what appeared to be a number of cabins. To his right a number of well-dressed figures stood in the open air, chatting idly among themselves or gazing out over the sunlit sea. Most were in long flowing robes and turbans, others in bright waistcoats worn over shirts and loose white pantaloons. Among them were several men whose sashes or turbans were of the same yellow as the guard’s livery.

  One of these – a short, neat man in a brocade waistcoat and yellow sash – was strolling back with the guard as he returned. Hector supposed he was an officer.

  ‘Who are you?’ the newcomer asked, first in careful Spanish, then in English. He had a pleasant, open face, a head of black curly hair, and a trim beard. With his brown eyes and dark complexion he could have been taken for an Arab or an Easterner, but Hector recognized his Portuguese accent.

  ‘My name is Hector Lynch,’ Hector replied in Galician, the tongue his mother had taught him. ‘I fell overboard from that sloop that lost the top of its mast.’

  The officer’s eyes widened with surprise.

  It dawned on Hector that the action of a few humble sailors had gone unnoticed from the higher decks. ‘Your people rescued me,’ he added.

  ‘What possessed your captain to launch such a mad attack?’

  ‘The hope of seizing a fortune.’

  The officer grinned. ‘Well, he wasn’t wrong about that . . . welcome aboard Ganj-i-Sawa’i – it means “exceeding treasure” – and our ship lives up to her name if you count the value of her cargo. Also, as you may have guessed, she carries a most prestigious passenger.’

  Noting Hector’s blank look, he tapped his yellow sash. ‘You don’t recognize this? Or the ship’s ensign?’

  Hector shook his head.

  ‘The royal colours. An older sister of the emperor travels with us. She returns from making the hajj.’ The Portuguese man lifted a chin towards the accompanying warship. ‘That’s why Fateh Muhammed was assigned as escort, to see that we reach Surat safely.’ He paused. ‘By the way, what did you think of Fateh’s gunnery?’

  ‘It cut our rigging, and killed our captain.’

  The Portuguese looked pleased. ‘That’s good to hear. I trained her gunners myself. They are landsmen and this is their first time at sea.’ He extended his hand to shake. ‘My name is Jeronimo Tavares, and I am hazari – that’s to say, captain – of artillery in the army of Aurangzeb Alamgir.’

  Hector was warming to the easy self-confidence of the man. He knew that adventurers of all nations – French, Dutch, German and English – served as mercenaries in the armies of the Great Mogul, but he had not expected to find one of them so open and friendly towards a recent foe.

  ‘Come with me,’ said Tavares. ‘I’ll take you to meet our captain, nakhoda Ibrahim.’

  They had to pass another burly guard in yellow livery before mounting another companionway up one more level to a half-deck open to the sky. On the port side a striped canopy had been stretched between light poles to provide an area of shade. Under it was spread a fine silk carpet, and a silver tray of sweetmeats, delicate coloured glassware and a porcelain flask had been placed on a low table. Seated among cushions behind the table was a tiny figure, who Hector presumed was the Great Mogul’s sister. It was impossible to tell much about her because she was swathed from head to toe in a garment of shimmering moss-green silk edged with gold that left her face in deep shadow. The only clue was the hand that emerged briefly to draw the folds of the fabric even closer, making sure that her face was not visible. It was the bony hand of an older woman, the small fingers loaded with magnificent rings, while her thin wrist seemed barely able to support a broad, triple banded bracelet of pearls. On each side of her sat two female attendants, also wearing fine silks but showing enough of their faces for Hector to see the gold jewellery hung across their foreheads and the glitter of gold nose rings. Aware that he was staring and might give offence, Hector quickly dropped his eyes and allowed Tavares to conduct him to the opposite side of the deck.

  ‘Nakhoda, here’s someone you should meet,’ said the Portuguese, addressing a small, wizened man in a plain white gown. ‘He’s from the Frankish ship that was driven off by Fateh Muhammed.’

  Sharp, probing eyes took in Hector’s bedraggled appearance. ‘How does he come to be on my ship?’ The captain of the Ganj-i-Sawa’i must have been at least sixty years old, though he appeared as alert and trim as a man of half his years. A snow-white beard was clipped very short, framing an intelligent fine-boned face.

  Hector had been able to follow the conversation’s blend of Arabic and Turkish, and decided it would be better if he spoke for himself. ‘I was thrown into the water when the vessel’s mast was damaged. Some of your crew pulled me from the sea.’

  The nakhoda spoke quietly but his voice was loaded with contempt. ‘Your captain is an uncivilized savage. Even a worthless pirate should respect those who travel peacefully, wishing only to perform their holy duty.’

  ‘He paid the price,’ Hector ventured to say. ‘A cannon ball killed him.’

  ‘No more than the brute deserved.’ The comment came from a sleek, portly man who had drifted across to join them from where he had been standing by the ship’s rail. Everything about him spoke of good living, from the comfortable paunch bulging under the embroidered shirt to the large gemstones in the cluster of rings on his chubby fingers. Hector took him to be one of the wealthy merchants who sailed aboard the pilgrim fleet.

  Ibrahim tilted his head back so he could look Hector fully in the face. ‘Can you think of any reason why I shouldn’t have you thrown back into the sea where you came from?’

  When Hector stayed silent, Tavares intervened on his behalf. ‘Nakhoda, this man could be useful if he is handed over to the foreign merchants in Surat. He would be living proof that their governments must do more to stamp out the pirates that sail here to do us damage.’

  Ibrahim considered for a long moment, and Hector held his breath, his stomach knotted with anxiety, as he waited for the nakhoda’s verdict.

  ‘Very well, hazari,’ the captain of the Ganj-i-Sawa’i announced at last. ‘The prisoner is your responsibility. Lock him in the small storeroom next to your own cabin. Arrange that he receives food and water and make sure that he causes no trouble.’

  Listening in, the well-fed merchant gave a malicious smile. ‘A sound decision: when we get to Surat, the foreign merchants can punish this man according to their own customs. They need to show respect for the terms of the Emperor’s firman that allows them to trade in his domains.’

  The artilleryman flashed Hector a cheery smile as the two of them walked back to the companionway. ‘That was easier than I thought. Ibrahim’s a decent old fellow at heart,’ he said, switching back to Portuguese.

  ‘Who was that fat man who talked about the foreign merchants and the emperor?’

  ‘That’s Manuj Doshi,’ Tavares replied. ‘He’s
a Surati merchant, one of several aboard, immensely rich as well as very devious. From what I know of Manuj and his associates they will make sure that everyone, especially Aurangzeb, gets to hear about the captured ferangi who made a piratical attack on a vessel carrying his sister.’

  ‘He seemed to be gloating over it.’

  ‘Manuj Doshi and his friends are constantly looking for ways to harm their business rivals in Surat, the European trading houses. The Moguls lump together all foreigners from Europe as ferangi – “Franks”. Manuj will try to engineer it so that Aurangzeb expels all the representatives of the foreign trading houses in Surat, their factors, and seizes their warehouses and goods.

  He gave Hector a sideways look. ‘You speak excellent Galician, but I detect that you’re not from Spain.’

  ‘My mother was from Galicia, and my father from an English family settled in Ireland. That makes me a subject of the English king.’ Hector allowed himself a bleak smile. ‘But I came out to this part of the world hoping to settle in a free country, in Libertalia where every man is equal to his fellow.’

  Tavares pulled a face. ‘Never heard of the place. Sounds like Utopia, an unlikely paradise.’

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder if it exists,’ Hector admitted.

  ‘And how did you finish up aboard a pirate sloop with a mad captain?’

  ‘He asked me to help pilot his ship among the reefs in the Straits of Alexander.’

  They had descended back to the middle deck where Tavares opened a door set in the bulkhead behind the companionway. It gave on to a short ill-lit passage. They entered and Hector was about to explain that he had joined the Amity only that morning when he caught a whiff of some sort of perfume.

  ‘Am I imagining it, or do I smell roses?’ he asked.

  The artilleryman glanced back over his shoulder, a playful grin on his face. ‘Your nose has detected the choicest of our “exceeding treasures”: Ganj-i-Sawa’i carries thirty Turkish slave girls. They’re a gift for Aurangzeb, though I don’t know who from. They and their two chaperones occupy all the cabins on the left-hand side, except for the last one: that’s the largest and reserved for Her Highness and her attendants. It is a Mogul custom that any room used by their womenfolk is sprinkled daily with attar of roses.’

  Tavares stopped in front of a door a few paces on the right along the passageway. ‘Annoyingly, we don’t get to appreciate those beauties. They’re only allowed out on deck for fresh air for a couple of hours each day. Even then they stay hidden behind that cloth screen that you may have noticed.’

  He produced a ring of keys and searched for the right one. ‘Manuj Doshi and the Surati merchants have been grumbling that the girls take up too much space. Normally the girls’ cabins are where the most precious cargo is kept securely. The merchants don’t like having their ivory, silks, spices and other valuables stowed down in the hold where the ordinary passengers might filch a few items.’

  He chuckled. ‘I must admit I enjoy watching Manuj and his colleagues puffing and panting as they climb up and down between decks two or three times a day as they venture into the bowels of the ship to check that nothing of their property has been stolen.’

  He found the key he was looking for and fitted it into the lock. ‘But they can’t have it both ways. They waited in Jeddah until there was a suitably safe vessel to bring their goods and gold to Surat. With Aurangzeb’s sister aboard, and Fateh Muhammed as an escort ship, they got what they wanted.’

  He turned the key and pulled open the low door. ‘This is where Ibrahim told me to put you.’

  Hector peered into a windowless cubbyhole. His makeshift cell was a storage locker scarcely larger than a decent-size wardrobe.

  ‘I’ll arrange for one of the guards to bring you food and water once a day, and to accompany you to the privy,’ Tavares told him. ‘When there are not too many people about on deck, I’ll come and fetch you myself so you can stretch your legs and we can talk further.’

  Hector felt a great weariness settling over him. The day’s events had drained him of energy and all he wanted to do was curl up and rest. Even the prospect of being shut in the small cubbyhole was appealing. ‘Thank you for what you’ve done for me,’ he said, ‘without you, I would have been thrown to the fishes.’

  Tavares waved a hand dismissively. ‘No need to thank me. I’m looking forward to our chats together. It’ll be good to talk in a language that reminds me of the mother country.’ He paused, seeing the strain on Hector’s face. ‘Try to get some rest. You’re in a different world to anything you will have known before: the world according to the Great Mogul. It’s the exact opposite of that Libertalia you were seeking: every person has his proper place, from the Emperor down to the humblest street sweeper, and the hierarchy is strictly observed. On the other hand, when the Great Mogul smiles on you, nothing is impossible, and something may yet work out.’

  Hector had to bend double to enter the tiny space. The door closed behind him, there was the sound of the key turning, and he was left in darkness. He groped his way into a corner where he found a piece of sacking to sit on, and tried to make himself comfortable. His first thought was of Jezreel and Jacques. If the freebooter squadron had kept to the original plan, his two friends would be with Avery aboard the Fancy chasing after the main pilgrim fleet. Unless the squadron came across the crippled Amity – which was unlikely as Tew had changed course to attack Ganj-i-Sawa’i – his friends would presume that he was still with Tew. They would expect to meet up with him when the Amity had intercepted and turned back the pilgrim fleet. Instead, Ganj-i-Sawa’i was taking him to Surat, to hand him over to foreign merchants who would put him on trial for piracy. A guilty verdict and death sentence were inevitable, and the fat merchant Manuj and his associates would make sure that news of his crime and execution was spread far and wide. His heart sank at the thought that Maria might one day learn how he had died. She would be devastated, believing that the father of their child had ended his days as a vicious pirate who preyed on helpless pilgrims. As he drifted off into an exhausted sleep, he was overwhelmed by a cloud of such black despair that he wished the humble deckhands of the ‘Exceeding Treasure’ had not thrown him a rope. It would have been better if they had left him to drown, unknown.

  NINE

  Jeronimo Tavares kept his promise about coming to visit. The next day, shortly after Hector heard the faint echo of the midday call to prayer penetrate the wooden walls of his prison, the door to the cubbyhole swung open. ‘Come and join me on deck,’ said the artilleryman cheerfully, as Hector blinked up at him. ‘It looks as though you could use some fresh air. Just promise me you won’t try to jump overboard.’

  Hector climbed stiffly out over the threshold and stretched to ease his cramped muscles. His chest and arms hurt where the rescue rope had left purple and blue bruises.

  ‘I told the guards to see that you were fed. Have you been brought anything to eat?’ asked the Portuguese. He seemed in remarkably good spirits and was obviously eager for conversation.

  ‘Yes, thank you. A guard delivered a bowl of rice and dried fish and a jug of water earlier this morning,’ said Hector. He knew that he looked scruffy in his soiled clothes and shoeless, while the artilleryman was wearing a freshly laundered white shirt under his brocade waistcoat.

  ‘It’s still too hot for most of our august passengers. They’ll emerge once the air cools,’ Tavares told him as he led Hector out on deck where the only other persons were the sentries guarding the companionways. Off the port beam the warship Fateh Muhammed was under full sail, more than two miles distant and apparently heading away on a different course.

  ‘Fateh Muhammed is leaving to check on the rest of the fleet, to see that they’re not being molested,’ Tavares explained. ‘She should be back with us late tomorrow.’

  ‘How long until we get to Surat?’

  Tavares reached inside his waistcoat to scratch his ribs. ‘Difficult to say. Maybe another week. Ibrahim is in no hurry and even i
f he was, the Ganj is a real slug.’

  He looked directly at Hector, holding his gaze, and when he spoke, his tone was serious. ‘Hector, you should claim to be Portuguese. Your Galician is close enough to Portuguese for you to say that you grew up in the north of the country. It would mean that when we get to Surat, you would be handed over to the city’s Portuguese merchants for your trial as a pirate. If I put in a good word, they might find a way of avoiding a harsh sentence.’

  ‘What about Manuj and his friends? They wouldn’t be pleased.’

  ‘That’s partly why I’m offering you my help.’ Tavares’s expression, normally amiable and engaging, hardened. ‘My family had a thriving business in Surat not so long ago. We were independent traders, not like a big Dutch or English company operating from its own factory with warehousing, offices and living quarters. Our modest size made us vulnerable. Manuj and his cronies bankrupted us. They dishonoured contracts, delayed payments, bribed judges, pulled all the usual tricks. Instead of inheriting the business I was obliged to go to Portugal and join the artillery to learn about big guns.’

  ‘What made you return to India?

  ‘It was always my intention. Promotion in the Portuguese army requires friends in high places. By contrast, when you work for the Moguls, you’re rewarded with more than enough gold rupees to hire servants, rent comfortable lodgings and enjoy life to the full.’

  Tavares’ eyes had brightened with enthusiasm. ‘You should think about getting a job with the Moguls instead of chasing after that fantasy of Libertalia. Do you have any professional qualification? In medicine, for example? Foreign doctors are much in demand in the Mogul court.’

  ‘I was a loblolly boy for a ship’s surgeon, but that scarcely qualifies me as a doctor.’ Tactfully, Hector did not mention that the surgeon had been a member of a buccaneer raiding party.