"That" the priest said quietly, "would be a very bad idea. If you are being sought by this Turk you would be very unlikely to make it to sea. Plus there are very few Hafsid sailors who would be willing to transport Christians without serious recompense. We can talk the Berber traders into taking you for almost nothing. Unless you have hidden wealth, your seaborne options are all but nil."
"So where?" Skiouros repeated, aware that they would be unable to afford even a ferry across the bay, let alone to Sicilia or beyond.
"It is a lengthy journey and a tiring one, but the network of desert traders can take you from here, across the old roads of the Romans and the hidden ways of the Amazigh almost to the great western sea. The ports along the coast between here and there will be generally unfriendly to you, but if the traders can keep inland and take you far enough, there are cities on the far coast that belong to the Portuguese. There you may find sympathy and aid."
Parmenio sat up straight.
"There is nowhere nearer? What about going east?"
"Into Egypt and the Mamluk world? Hardly an option, captain."
"How far are these Portuguese ports?" Skiouros asked quietly.
"Three hundred leagues if they're a mile" Parmenio answered in an equally low voice. I've sailed it from Sicilia a few times. Takes nearly a fortnight at best, leastwise to Ceuta, which is where I'm assuming you're talking about?"
"Indeed" the priest said with a smile. "By desert route and trade road, plan on perhaps a month and a half."
"A month and a half?" demanded Skiouros incredulously.
"It's not a fast business. But it is the most sensible choice; the only sensible choice" the priest added.
"There must be a better way" Parmenio sighed.
"Six weeks?" boggled Nicolo unhappily.
"It is" Orsini said with a shrug, "the sensible decision. No one will think of looking for us there and even if they do they will not have the local knowledge these Berber traders do. We will disappear from Tunis without a trace and Hassan will be left nursing his wounded foot and his wounded pride. We cannot hope to acquire transport on a Hafsid vessel, so we must look to our fellow Christians for aid, and the nearest safe port is a month and a half away. I for one would rather move slowly and safely through the desert than face the extremely hazardous ports of the coast here. Besides, I ache as though I have been bear-baiting with my open hands, and I would appreciate the time to recover my strength as, I'm sure, master Skiouros would too."
Skiouros nodded slowly. It was a delay but safety was worth the time, and the idea of spending a month or more lying cushioned in a cart appealed, given how much it had hurt simply lowering himself into the seat.
"Agreed" he said quietly. "Besides, towards what are we all rushing? Parmenio and Nicolo have lost their ship, Cesare has only troublesome family to return to, and I…" He fell silent as the others looked expectantly to him. "I have nothing pressing" he finished feebly.
"God preserves you for something" the priest said with a strange smile "and I would not stand in the way of my Lord."
The whole room fell instantly silent as the door clicked and then swung open. The four Christians' hands went to the hilts of swords that were no longer there, but the local congregation seemed unconcerned as two men scurried inside, shutting the door and babbling away in Arabic, though their expressions warned of trouble.
"What has transpired?" Orsini asked sharply, glancing at the priest before crossing to the window and peering out with his good eye, the other still puffed and rosy from the beating.
"It seems that your Turk is sharper than we expected" the priest replied, struggling into clean clothes. "I assumed he would attempt some sort of bribe with the authorities, but he has also enlisted the aid of Sidi Najid, who already has men scouring the city."
"Sidi Najid?" Skiouros hazarded, noting with alarm how the six locals were scrambling from their seats and retrieving the knives that had sat at their waists when they attended the slave auction.
"A local villain. More powerful in some ways than the Emir himself." The priest turned and babbled in Arabic to the two men who had just entered.
"They have seen men who are known to work for Sidi Najid in the souk two streets away asking after Christian priests. It will not take them long to learn of this place, and then we are in trouble. We can no longer wait for nightfall - we must go now and trust to God to see you safely out of the city."
Skiouros shook his head. "What about you? Will you and your people not be in danger? You could come with us?"
The priest smiled wanly. "This is not the first time I have had dealings with Sidi Najid. Can you wield a blade? This last was clearly aimed at the other three as he turned his face from Skiouros while he spoke.
Parmenio and Nicolo both nodded, but Orsini stepped back from the window and turned.
"With some skill, father."
"Good. Take this."
Reaching down behind the water barrel to a small cupboard, the priest hauled something out from behind it. Skiouros' eyes widened as the man retrieved a heavy, well-used sword - old fashioned and utilitarian - and crossed the room, presenting it to Orsini, who took it with a raised eyebrow, turning it over in his hands to admire it.
"A soldier's blade."
"Upon a time, yes."
Skiouros peered at the sword as Orsini tested it and both noted at the same time the symbol on the crosspiece: a cross 'Pattée'. The symbol of the Order of the Knights of Rhodes, the Knights Hospitaller. The old priest's past became at once clearer and more occluded.
"This is from…"
"Yes. Use it well in God's grace. I am more familiar these days with this." Reaching down behind the cupboard once more, he drew a long, curved blade of Arabic manufacture.
"These will be a trifle difficult to conceal" Orsini noted.
"We will be moving quickly through small alleys to the cart. They can then be secured and hidden. Better to be prepared than not, young man."
Skiouros stood, slowly and painfully, and one of the locals thrust something at him. Skiouros noted with dismay that it was the battered, dusty and frayed vestments of his monk persona.
"You want me to wear this?"
"Certainly not now - you would be far too conspicuous in the streets for those who are hunting a priest. But you will need them for the journey. The Amazigh will respect you a great deal more in vestments, may God forgive me for perpetuating your deception."
Having finished dressing, the old priest slung the sword at his waist and, without any Christian accoutrements, bore more resemblance to a Hafsid warrior than a priest.
"Are we ready?"
"As we'll ever be" Parmenio muttered.
One of the local flock crossed to the front door, flicking the latch and swinging the door slowly inwards. The sudden force of a kick from the far side slammed the heavy wood into the poor man's face, smashing nose and teeth and hurling him back from the doorway to collapse against a table. The room erupted as three men crossed the threshold wielding heavy blades, faces made ugly with expressions of hate and lust.
"Run!" barked the priest as he pushed his way past the others towards the intruders. Two of the locals ran across to join him, drawing their small curved knives.
Orsini hefted the solid knight's sword and stepped next to the priest to help deal with the attack.
Skiouros felt himself panic, aware of the danger, but feeling the need to go to the aid of Orsini and the priest. He took a painful step towards them, picking up a heavy wine jug as a makeshift weapon, but Nicolo and Parmenio grasped him and turned him away. The other two locals had hauled aside one of the rug doors into a back room and while one held the rug aside for them, the other crossed the small chamber and opened a back door that led out into a narrow alley.
Skiouros felt panic at the thought of turning his back on Orsini and the priest, but was being propelled towards their escape route by his friends and harboured too little strength to resist.
Cesare Orsini leapt
into the fray with a speed and dexterity that belied the beaten aspect of his body. Only those who knew him well would note the slight stagger as he landed on his right foot, the slightly off-mark thrust, thrown aside by his lack of depth perception, one eye almost swollen shut.
The priest - at the centre - was engaged in a duel to the death with one of the grunting, black-teethed villains, while the intruder at the far side busied himself with dismembering the two flock members who desperately fought him off with their knives, taking horrifying wounds as they did so.
Orsini took half a heartbeat to weigh up the man facing him: a thug of some size, with great ham hands and tree-trunk legs. The sword that would be a weighty thing for most men to swing was nothing to this beast, yet he was far from fast. He favoured his right leg, twisting oddly on the left. It could be an old wound still causing some discomfort, though Cesare was willing to wager that this was the man who had kicked the door inwards and, not expecting there to be a man behind it, he had badly jarred his knee. He could manage one good thrust, but without room to swing or slice downwards in the confined circumstances, his great strength had become more a liability.
Ba-thump - Cesare's heart beat and he back-footed a single pace to the side - knowing the man's injured leg would prevent him from reacting fast enough - and readied himself a fraction of a moment before the thug's sword thrust through the empty air where he had been. Cesare suffered from the same lack of space as the big man, though for a smaller, lithe man it was no setback. With a deft flick of his hand, he brought the heavy knight's sword around and ran it through the brute's ribs just below the armpit. The sword slid in the full width of the man's huge torso, the point scraping on the inside of the ribs at the far side, scything through vital organs as it passed.
Ba-thump. His heart beat again as he ripped the sword back out, smoothly, just as the big body fell forwards, astonished and already in the throes of death, heart and lungs all pierced in the same strike.
Another glance around to take in the situation: the priest had managed to dispatch his opponent, but had taken a painful shoulder blow from the third assailant, who had already butchered the two men with knives. A shout drew Orsini's attention to movement outside the door, and he realised that there were more thugs coming up the street to back up the three.
"We have to leave" he shouted at the priest.
"Go. Find the cart."
Ba-thump. The indecision lasted only that one heartbeat. Cesare Orsini had played chess many times in his life and had won the lion's share of the games. He knew when the game was in danger of being lost, and it aggrieved him deeply to have to sacrifice a knight like this, but he also knew that to stand and argue would lead to his own death and they would have lost both knights.
"God be with you" he yelled to the priest as he turned and hurtled through the room, out of the curtained door, where he paused only long enough to pull a heavy cupboard down with a crash, partially blocking the door, before dashing out into the narrow alley.
There was no sign of life already in this crawl-space perhaps two feet wide and filled with dust, rubble and detritus.
Pausing for another heartbeat, he could just hear a minor commotion in the distance to his right. His teeth gritted in irritation at having to leave the priest to his fate and, clutching his bruised ribs with his free hand, Orsini pelted off along the alley in the direction of the distant commotion, sword held close.
There was no longer any doubt. The desert traders were their best hope at a successful flight.
Chapter Thirteen - Of desert traders
Skiouros burst from the latest in a series of identical alleyways clutching his erstwhile disguise to his side, Parmenio in front and all-but dragging him by the bunched-up shirt, Nicolo pushing him along from behind and the two locals scurrying ahead. The small square into which they emerged was little more than a junction of two streets that widened to create just enough room to swing a cat. A rickety wooden cart stood in the centre, hitched to two sorry looking, flea-bitten donkeys that twitched and whickered.
Two men who could only be Faysal and Shukri were overseeing the cart's unloading, dressed in the same white, yellow and peach colours as seemed to be the norm among the common folk of Tunis, their heads bare. Around them, half a dozen of the Berber traders lugged stacks of elephant tusks tied with leather straps as well as stacks of rich dark wood and boxes and bags of miscellaneous goods. These men were fitted out for desert travel, with long billowing robes of deep blue, their faces almost entirely concealed behind veils of a similar hue, black turbans wound atop their heads.
Skiouros staggered to a halt as Parmenio and Nicolo finally relented from their propelling of him, and he looked down to note with some concern that his shirt was once more wet with fresh blood where his stitches had come apart from the painful exercise.
He felt like collapsing between the effects of the throbbing pain and the weakness, but knew that such an act was not an option right now. Soon he would be in that wagon and relatively comfortable, though. It was a pleasant thought.
As Parmenio and Nicolo stood with him impatiently, the two locals who had brought them from the church scurried over to their friends, and the four men began to talk animatedly in Arabic. The three former slaves watched for a moment, feeling the desperate pressure to move as fast as possible, but unable to do anything about it.
After a brief discussion, one of the trader brothers called out and the door-curtain to what could only be their warehouse was swept aside.
The woman who issued from the building took away what was left of Skiouros' breath. He noted Nicolo and Parmenio's grips loosen as they too had the bulk of their attention diverted. Wearing a long billowing robe of bright flame-orange and a head covering of saffron yellow, she was tall and elegant, tendrils of her shining black hair peeking out from the confines of her headdress. Her face was blessed with high cheekbones and a flawless caramel skin, her dark, almond-shaped eyes glittering with life and intelligence. Tattoos of delicate designs with whorls and lines and branches extended from her lower lip down her chin and neck and along her jawline to the ears, complemented by a small but beautiful design on her brow between her eyes.
The woman turned to the trader brothers and addressed them in a voice like honey flowing slowly over a spoon.
The two men replied, hurriedly but clearly respectfully. Skiouros noted with interest that the language seemed to have changed. He had no grasp of Arabic, but he had heard it enough to know that this tongue was not it - bore no similarities, in fact. These desert folk were like nothing he had encountered before, and he was rapt - particularly with the female.
The woman was clearly in charge - a fact that surprised him as much as her delicate and stunning appearance. She listened, asked a couple of questions of the brothers and then nodded her agreement. Stepping out towards Skiouros and his friends, she placed her hands together and smiled.
"Oy ik?" she asked in her honeyed tones. "Mani eghiwan?"
Skiouros coughed uncomfortably, while Parmenio and Nicolo simply gave her nonplussed looks. The woman frowned and then spread her hands. "As-salam alaykum?"
The two sailors shared a baffled look, and Skiouros cleared his throat. "It's an Arabic greeting. They use it sometimes in the Empire. Means something like 'peace be with you'."
"What's the reply?" Parmenio asked quietly.
"I haven't a clue. I'm a monk, remember, not a dervish!" he replied petulantly.
The three men smiled at the lady and nodded in feeble reply, and she turned to the brothers who owned the local business and rattled something off again in her own language, opening yet another conversation. The men were clearly explaining something - presumably how none of the Christians spoke any useful language and how none of their own could speak the peculiar Christian tongues.
Skiouros almost laughed at the absurdity of the impasse. Here they were trying to arrange to sneak out of a city and travel with these people, and no one spoke Greek, Turkish or Italian. Skiou
ros remembered that the priest - who would hopefully be here soon to interpret - mentioned that Latin was held by some of his flock, but Skiouros had not paid a great deal of attention during those Latin lessons and was very much aware of his failings in the dead tongue. He would hardly be able to communicate beyond telling the brothers that 'nauta vacca amat' - the sailor loves the cow. Hardly helpful.
The last goods were unloaded and empty cloths and bags and straps were thrown back into the cart.
"How are we going to hide under that?" asked Nicolo.
The four locals held another brief discussion and then two of them touched their foreheads respectfully in the direction of Skiouros and his friends and then ran off into the streets. The brothers remained and gestured at their Berber companions.
"Yes?" Skiouros prompted, hoping for more details, perhaps in the form of sign language.
The Berber lady began to rattle off an explanation in her own tongue, which was strange and otherworldly and yet musical and attractive, given her voice. Skiouros realised he was bathing in the words and grinning like an idiot and pulled himself together. Still clutching the priest robes to his bleeding side, he held out his other hand imploringly.
"I am afraid we do not understand."
The woman repeated her phrase slowly and loudly and Skiouros shook his head at the wonder of the fact that any people of any race when confronted with incomprehension simply raised their voices and talked slowly and deliberately.
"We do not speak these languages. Shall we get in the cart?" he asked, gesturing to the vehicle. Parmenio and Nicolo nodded helpfully, Nicolo echoing the gesture.
Again, the Berber lady spoke, gesturing at her companions.
"We… do… not… understand." Repeated Nicolo slowly.
"She is telling you to don their robes!" bellowed Cesare Orsini breathlessly, bursting from the alleyway, bloody sword in hand.
Priest's Tale Page 18
