A small Spanish trading galley boat had been spotted on the horizon. The lieutenant didn’t care if I was alive or not: even if I had been only halfway dead he’d have dropped me over the side, but now he saw that he might trade me for some alcohol to drink.
One barrel of cheap wine was all I was worth. And even that was grudged. It was more in a spirit of appeasement that the captain of the galley boat agreed to the exchange, for the soldiers had their weapons trained on the smaller boat. Sitting low in the water with no covered quarters for the occupants, the galley boat was only partially decked, with rough sailcloth rigged as an awning at the stern and down each side to protect the rowers from the elements. It had one light cannon mounted up front, and although the few crewmen carried long knives in their belts, they’d be easily overcome by a larger ship equipped with guns and armed men.
The deal was done in minutes, and Fate decreed that I became a galley rat.
The red-haired soldier came to bring me up to the deck. The hatch opened again and sun dazzled in my face. I squinted up as the rope came down.
‘If you cannot climb the rope by yourself, then hold the end and I’ll haul you up,’ he said, not in an unkind way.
I stumbled forward to grasp the swinging end of the rope.
Something glinted in the light.
Caught between the bindings of a cargo bale was a knife. It was long and thin-bladed: the kind a woman would have for paring vegetables. I found out later that it was of the type used by government officers to cut the twine as they affixed the customs seal on taxable goods. It must have become entangled as the cargo was inspected before loading the ship. I reached for it, and in a moment I had it in my hand. But where to hide it? Bending over to block the view of anyone watching from above, I slit the inside waistband of my trouser and slipped the knife inside.
They strung a line from the military ship to the galley boat to transfer the wine barrel. One end of a rope was tied around my waist and the other end to this line. Then I was tossed overboard. The galley crewmen hauled me across the gap, but I was too weak to climb the rope up to their boat. The ship cast off and I would have been caught in the undertow – except I heard a voice from the galley boat shout out, ‘Pull him in! Pull him in!’
Spluttering and coughing, I landed on the wide platform at the galley stern.
The man who had given the order approached me. He was a strange sight, dressed in black shirt, breeches and hose, topped with a three-quarter-length fitted jacket of peacock blue, thickly embroidered with silver thread. He wore a fanciful hat, the like of which I’d never seen before – black with a purple feather and more elaborate than those worn by mummers and performers who play out pageants in town squares at Christmas and Eastertide. Buckles glinted on his shoes while flurries of lace frothed at wrist and neck. A golden hoop dangled from one ear, and on his tanned face he’d grown a moustache and a tiny goatee beard. By his dress and manner I knew he was the captain. He bent over me and stroked my hair.
I snapped my head to the side and sank my teeth into his hand – whereupon he struck out at me with the bamboo cane he carried. I backed into the corner like a wild animal. The galley captain sucked on the bite I’d given him but, far from being angry at my attack on him, he nodded in approval.
‘I like a lad with spirit,’ he said. ‘It means you’ll be good in battle and able to fend off any trouble from our own oarsmen. Too scrawny to take an oar now, but you’ll grow into it if we feed you.’
I stayed where I was for the remainder of the day, cowering in the corner. That evening we anchored in shallow water off an island so that the oarsmen could rest and eat. The captain gave me a piece of the goat that was roasting on a brazier set up on the deck inside an iron firebox to cook food. I ate greedily. It had been weeks, months perhaps, since I had tasted meat.
The captain chuckled as he watched me gobble the food. ‘Go easy, boy. You don’t look as though you’ve had a decent meal all your life. Stuffing yourself like that so quickly will only bring on bellyache.’
He was right. Within an hour I was doubled up with colic as the unaccustomed food worked its way through my gut. To my surprise, some of the rowers came to look at me. I had imagined that every oarsman would be chained to their benches, but in fact only a small number, eight in total, were slaves or criminals imprisoned in this way. The rest, more than twenty free men, had elected to do this work. I was to discover that men from various countries became galley rowers by choice. It was considered a skilled, if arduous, job, but the pay and the pickings could be very rewarding: in addition to basic wages the oarsmen received a percentage of the cargo profit and any other booty that might fall their way. On this particular galley, under the command of Captain Cosimo Gastone, the food was nourishing: meat, fish or fowl, with plenty of bread, strong cheeses, and fruit and honey washed down with wine. The oarsmen were exceptionally well-fed as the captain believed they should be in peak condition.
I was to find out in the most brutal way that our very lives depended on the fitness of the rowers.
Chapter Twelve
Saulo
THE NEXT DAY the captain turned me over to the oarsmaster, who was called Panipat. He was a gigantic bear of a man with thickly muscled arms, chest and legs, clad only in a pair of cut-off leather breeches with a whip and a long knife tucked into the waistband. Every inch of his exposed skin was covered in black and blue tattoos, up to and over the surface of his shaved head. Tied around his wrist was a cord from which hung the key that released the chained slaves.
‘It’s time for you to meet Panipat.’ Captain Cosimo poked his cane in my back, prodding me ahead of him along the narrow wooden boardwalk that ran down the centre of the boat.
Panipat was kneeling in the bows talking to the crewman who looked after the cannon positioned there. This was where the small group of chained oarsmen was situated, just behind the prow. The four on one side were Arabs, probably captured in battle and bought by the captain in some slave market. The four on the other side were men from different places who’d been sentenced to the galleys for the severity of their crimes. If we were attacked and our cannon targeted by enemy fire, then they would be first casualties. There was evidence that the whip had been used across their backs and shoulders. I shuddered as I saw them, each one shackled to his bench, for I knew that in time such would be my fate. Unending and for ever.
Captain Cosimo announced our presence. ‘If it pleases you, most noble oarsmaster, I have a new galley rat for you.’
Panipat stood up, towering above me. He smiled, a terrifying grin exposing broken and missing teeth. ‘Let’s have a look at you, little Rata.’ He fastened his hands around my throat and swung me up into the air so that my face was barely an inch from his. ‘You will obey my every command,’ he spat into my face. ‘At once and without question. And if you ever give me any trouble, I’ll flay every inch of skin from your body. Do you understand?’
The blood thrummed in my brain. I could not even gurgle a reply.
‘Answer me!’
He shook me so hard I thought my ears would explode and my eyes pop from my head.
The captain tapped him on the shoulder with his cane. ‘The boy cannot answer you as you have your hands around his windpipe.’
Panipat released me to crash onto the deck at his feet, where I croaked, trying to regain my breath.
The captain looked down upon me. ‘I think Rata understands you very well,’ he observed with some sympathy in his voice.
Panipat explained what he wanted me to do.
At either end of the boardwalk was a barrel of fresh water. I’d to replenish these every evening from a large cask kept below the boardwalk, which was where our cargo was also stowed. I was given a deep wooden ladle with a long handle. During the day I had to fill this ladle and go up and down the boardwalk giving water to the oarsmen as they required it; one side on the way up, the other side on the way down. Most of the freemen had their own water bottles, which I’d also to
keep refilled. I myself was allowed a drink each time I made my turn at the stern end of the boat.
We set sail in the early morning. The wind was fresh, so for the first hour or so we were carried along mainly by the sail and I merely walked up and down doing as instructed. The men made bawdy remarks and stuck out elbows to trip me up, but I was used to name-calling and agile on my feet so this didn’t bother me very much. Then the sun rose higher, the wind dropped, and we were out on the flat of the water with no shelter in sight. On the raised platform in the stern Captain Cosimo sat under an awning studying his maps and plotting the course. The freemen and even some of the slaves had padded their bench seats with bundles of sacking, and they used strips of it to protect their shoulders and heads from the rays of the noonday sun, for the strip of awning above was not wide enough to cover them adequately. I found that I needed to move faster to keep up with their demands for water. Soon they were shouting insults at me for being too slow.
All the while, Panipat had been squatting on a stool in the stern, just below the command platform, calling out the stroke and directions as the captain, who also acted as pilot, gave instructions for the heading we must take. Now the oarsmaster stood up.
‘Ho! Rata!’ he shouted to me. ‘Give one mouthful to each man as you go up and down. No more than that, or I’ll skin you alive!’
The oarsmen began to complain. Panipat now set them a strong, steady stroke, and sweat streamed from their foreheads and forearms. Those slaves and criminals without any cover across their backs suffered most, and on each circuit I made, one older man kept begging me for more water. I shook my head, but finally, in desperation, he clenched his teeth on the wooden rim of the ladle and tried to swallow the whole lot, slopping water onto his face and torso. Panipat leaped up, stamped down the gangway and struck him across the cheek with the butt end of his whip.
‘Dog!’ he yelled. ‘No one on this boat disobeys my orders!’ He hit the man again with the flat of his hand, then turned and began to walk back to his place.
Quickly, taking advantage of the fact that Panipat’s back was to me, I raised the ladle to my own mouth and gulped down an extra mouthful of water.
Panipat swivelled in an instant.
I didn’t see the lash, only felt the sting on my fingers as it curled around my hand and wrested the ladle from my grasp. I stared, dumbfounded, as the ladle spun onto the deck, and then saw, too late, Panipat raise his arm again. A crack – and ah! the vicious bite as the metal tip on the end of the lash sliced across my chest, splitting the thin fabric of my shirt.
‘That was but a warning, Rata,’ Panipat snarled. ‘I could strip your flesh to the bone if I had a mind to.’
Some of the rowers laughed, for to them any diversion was entertainment. Panipat laughed too as he strode back to sit upon his stool. ‘Now, Rata, you will drink no more water today until I say you can.’
The day went on. The fierce sun of late summer burned the sky and the sea around us. A light breeze arose and they rigged the sail again. I felt my stomach heave as a bout of seasickness gripped me, but I knew not to beg leave to go and vomit over the side. I swallowed the sickness. Bile choked my throat but I carried on with my duties. By mid afternoon I was feverish and staggering with heat and exhaustion. Panipat slowed the stroke to give the men some respite. But I don’t think he would have shown me any mercy had one of the most experienced freemen not intervened. This man was known only by his birthplace, Lomas, an inland village near Málaga. He beckoned for me to come to him and then handed me his water bottle.
‘Drink,’ he commanded me. ‘Else you will collapse and none of us will have any water.’
I glanced fearfully at Panipat, but the oarsmaster turned his head away and pretended not to see.
‘Drink,’ Lomas repeated. ‘I am Panipat’s best rower. He knows that so he’ll not gainsay me.’
I drank the water and managed to stay on my feet for the rest of the day. By nightfall, when we had still not made port, Panipat ordered the men to rest their oars and went to consult with the captain.
‘Sit down here by me, boy,’ Lomas told me.
I slumped gratefully down on the gangway next to his rowing station. He peeled back the torn strip of my shirt and, taking a jar from a bag stowed under his bench, unscrewed the lid and held it out.
‘Spread some of this salve on your cut,’ he said. ‘It’ll help it heal.’
I thanked him, and then, as I gave him back his jar of ointment, I asked, ‘Are we lost?’
‘Not completely’ – Lomas smiled – ‘for it would be hard for even our crazy captain to get totally lost on a closed sea like the Mediterranean, but we should have made landfall an hour ago. It’ll be tomorrow before we see Alicante.’ He stood up and spat into the sea. ‘He was born in Genoa, our captain Cosimo, and the Genoese are supposed to be the best sailors, but this one can hardly find the North Star on a cloudless night.’
‘Then, if you are a freeman, why sign on with this boat?’ I asked him.
‘Captain Cosimo’s main skill is his business sense. He employs only four crewmen: the quartermaster, who also looks after the cannon and other weapons, the carpenter-cook, the sail-maker, and the oarsmaster, Panipat. Our captain’s a wily trader, making more money than other captains who are better navigators. Although he gambles his own share away before we’ve even left port, the crew and the freemen rowers make good money on this boat. We take cargoes between ports as far east as the Balearic Islands, and then west to Cádiz on the Atlantic coast of Iberia. Captain Cosimo has an expert nose for what goods are wanted where, and who will pay the most for them. For striking a bargain there’s none better. It’s a pity he’s never going to retire a rich man, but I am able to work two years and then have six months leave to go home and live off my earnings with my wife and son.’
The crewman who was both carpenter and cook had lit coals in a brazier set up inside the firebox in the prow, and began to cook the fresh fish the quartermaster had caught with his harpoon throughout the day. I was surprised by how hungry I felt. Earlier, when I had been retching, I’d thought never to eat food again. Lomas saw me rubbing my belly.
‘Ha! You remind me of my own son. Always hungry. You have his colour hair and are about the same size. What age are you?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘Sixteen – maybe older.’
Lomas whistled between his teeth. ‘Then you’ve not been fed regularly in your life, have you?’
I said nothing. There was no need to. I knew that I was undersized and skinny. I could see how thin my arms and legs were.
‘Go to the cook. Tell him I sent you, and ask him to give you a piece of fish to eat.’
I stood up. Lomas stretched out his hand to detain me. He pulled me close and spoke quietly in my ear. ‘Listen well to what I am going to say to you now, little Rata. You must take care each evening when the men are eating their meal and are allowed to leave their station to see to their toilet. Be sure that you’re not alone in any part of the boat at that time. Don’t drink any wine. No matter how much the others try to persuade you. Some of these freemen would slit your throat for their own amusement; they’re worse criminals than those kept chained in the prow, and more likely to cause you harm than any of the Arab slaves.’ He reached below his rowing bench and pushed his bag of belongings to one side. ‘You may sleep under there at night.’
Lomas was right. Some of the men did try to encourage me to drink wine, and some looked at me in a way that made me very afraid. At mealtimes I never strayed far from Lomas’s rowing bench, and with his protection I was safe – for a while at least. I suffered recurring nightmares, watching my mother starve to death, and living every moment, again and again, of my father’s brutal end. My days were occupied obeying the commands of Panipat and keeping lookout for danger to my person. The constant thought bearing me up was the prospect that some day I might avenge my parents.
Meanwhile, one aspect of this new life was better than my old one. I was
no longer perpetually hungry. Each day I ate enough to fill my stomach. The weeks passed and we went from autumn to winter. And although the weather became rougher, I acquired a sailor’s balance so that my insides no longer heaved at any motion of the boat upon a restless sea. Exposure tanned the surface of my skin, and underneath I could feel hard muscle forming in my arms and legs and across my chest. Working outdoors made me healthier than I’d ever been, and I grew taller – so much so that the captain was eventually forced to find me a larger pair of breeches to wear. I was pleased about all this, yet I knew that each day I developed brought me closer to the time when I would be fit enough to replace one of the older, weaker men and take a seat at the oars in the prow. When that day arrived, Panipat would put a metal cuff around my foot and link the ends together. The chain that kept the slaves in their place on the benches would be attached to this and there I would be, doomed to row for the rest of my life. My fate was sealed, with no hope.
Except . . .
In the waistband of my breeches I still had the knife.
Chapter Thirteen
Zarita
THERE WERE HORSEMEN in the yard.
When I heard the clatter of hooves, I rose from where we were finishing our midday meal to go to the window and look out.
‘Zarita!’ Papa chided me. ‘You’re not a child any more. You mustn’t run away from the table because you are bored and hear some distraction outside.’
He was sitting with his hand over Lorena’s. It pained me to see them so entwined, and I would have used any excuse to leave the table where Papa liked us to eat one meal together every day.
Two months ago, when she became my father’s wife, Lorena hadn’t taken my own mother’s place at the opposite end of the table to him. From my earliest days I had sat between my parents and we’d conversed as a threesome and shared our stories and jokes as we ate. After their marriage Lorena had positioned herself at my father’s right-hand side, and during the course of the meal she frequently nuzzled against him in the most shameless manner.
Prisoner of the Inquisition Page 4
