by Jane Johnson
Al-Andalusi swore in his horrible language, a guttural explosion of sound; then he fell back against the cushions, sweating profusely. “I think I keep you for my household, but I see now you are … kambo and stupid and would break everything I have of beauty and value.”
“Good, for I have no intention of being a slave in some heathen pigsty!”
His eyes narrowed. “You insult me?”
Cat decided it might not be wise to explain the exact import of her words. Instead, she bent and began to clear up the broken glass, averting her eyes from his furious expression, but the raïs was not to be diverted.
“What this word you said? What this ‘sty’?”
His gaze bored into the top of her head. “A pig house,” she said, very low, regretting her temper now.
“So you despise me, do you, little infidel? You think I am ignorant ‘heathen’ man who live like unclean pig, in filth and dirt? Perhaps you think we all like that in my country, that we no better than animals?” He bit off each word so that it rang in her ears, sharp and cutting.
She swallowed. “No.”
From above there came an agonized scream, a scream that hung on the air and then was cut abruptly short. Cat closed her eyes. So ended the life of Will Martin of Plymouth. And if she was not very careful, Catherine of Kenegie would soon follow.
SHE WAS SAVED by the pirate’s weakness, for soon after this he fell asleep once more and slept fitfully through the rest of the day and night. The next morning his fever had broken and he came to without need of another burned chameleon, somewhat to Cat’s relief. She took him the food that one of the crewmen had brought to the door at first light and watched as he picked at it. She had after long thought come to a kind of decision.
“Yesterday you asked me why I wept. I will tell you. I wept because I do not understand your ways. I do not understand why you had Ashab Ibrahim killed. I do not understand anything about this ‘evil eye’ or how the burning of the lizard brought you back from the dead. I do not understand why you have stolen us away and believe it is right to do so. I do not understand why you hate good Christian folk so. I understand none of it at all, and most of all I do not understand why you keep me here in your cabin. I wept because I am used to understanding the world I live in, and now I understand nothing at all.” All this came out in a rush.
The raïs closed his eyes as if pained. “Women … Why they ask so much? We not here to understand world. We are here to be in world and give thanks for it. And I have only just woken up.” He gave a deep and heartfelt sigh. “I tell you why renegade dead: because he act as if my authority on this ship gone, as if I already dead. No one treats my captives ill without my order.”
Cat took this in silently. Then she said, “Abdal-haqq said he had put the evil eye on you, and that was why he had to die.”
The raïs made a noncommittal gesture with his piece of bread. “Abdal-haqq very wise. When he tell the crew I say this why the renegade must die, they will not question my decision. They are … how you say? Afraid of curse and such like. They will put bag over his head and throw him in sea so he cannot turn evil eye on them, too.”
“But what is the evil eye? How can an eye hurt anyone?”
“There is old Berber saying: ‘The evil eye can bring a man to his grave, and a camel to the cooking pot.’”
“I don’t know what a camel is.”
Al-Andalusi laughed. “Are all your people so ignorant? I cannot explain camel to you: A camel is itself and all men know its worth, but evil eye is like a light. You can see it, feel it, or hurt others by using it. It can make harm or death, but you can never hold it in hands; all you can do is avert it, by luck and by will of Allah.”
“So which was the lizard: luck, or the will of Allah?”
Al-Andalusi rolled his eyes. “Disputing with women bad for health. Already I feel my strength waning. Is clear to me now that stars in firmament must be female, and each month poor moon is worn down by their incessant tongues. The chameleon is strong magic, but if it works or not against evil eye is determined by Allah. More than that I cannot explain to infidel.”
“Why do you hate us so, and call us ‘infidels’ and ‘Nazarenes’?”
“Do you know nothing of world? Christians have made war against my people for thousand years. They persecute us cruelly and use religion as excuse. My family is dead at hands of the Nazarenes, and I alone left to avenge them.”
“Oh.” In a small voice she asked, “What happened?”
He looked away. “Why you want to know?”
“To help me understand”—she made a helpless gesture with her hands—“why you do this, why I am here….”
The raïs regarded her steadily. “I do not have to justify my actions. Besides, is not story to tell a child, let alone Nazarene child.”
“I am not a child. I don’t even know if I am what you call a ‘Nazarene.’”
“You are Christian, no? Follower of prophet Jesus the Nazarene?”
Cat bit her lip. Nell and Mistress Harris were constantly chiding her for her lack of Christian values. She did not know what she believed, what she was anymore. She had been baptized in Veryan’s font and had prayed silent prayers to the baby Jesus, to Son and Father and Holy Ghost in times of stress. But that was before the raid. Now she could not understand how a god who cared for his people could allow an entire congregation to be taken by heathen raiders while at prayer, then let them waste and die in such foul conditions—men, women, and innocent children. It tested the faith of the strongest believer, and she had never been that. But she was no Mahometan, so what could she say? Eventually she shrugged. “I suppose so.”
“Then you my enemy and I tell you why. My mother’s grandfather’s father came from Rabat in Morocco, but he leave because no work, so he join colony of Moors in Estré madure, in mountains of Spain. My mother’s grandfather and father born there and then my mother, too. Four generations of her family—you understand?— they live there, they work, they make trade, make community prosperous. My father was trader, he travel all over Morocco, bring salt and gold and ivory from southwest, from Tafraout to north coast, and then to Spain, and take fine Spanish steel, swords, and guns back. One visit, he stay my mother’s family and meet her, ask for her as bride. Next trip they marry; then he take her home to Morocco, to mountains of Atlas, where I born. But she very sick for home in Spain, miss family much, spoke no Berber, no Arabic, only Spanish, so when I five, we move to Estré madure to be with her family. Then Spanish King Philip decide all Moors must leave Spain, no matter how long they live there or how Spanish they become. Some our family, they see signs of persecution early and they leave—my uncle, some cousins—they take everything they can carry and go back to Morocco, but my father angry. He already moved all he had to be in Spain, his business is good there. Why he should leave, just for being Muslim? He refuse to leave. They make him Catholic by force. It great shame for him, but my mother beg him support it. They stay longer, but all time it get worse, he treated like dog, disrespected, cheated in business; then finally Inquisition come. They take my father away in night; next morning my mother put me on mule and send me down mountain trail to be with cousin who leave for Morocco. All sisters cry because I leave. They all babies. ‘We join you there,’ my mother promise, but I knew I never see them again. I cry all the way down the mountain. It is last time I ever cry.”
Cat’s eyes were round. “And did you ever see them again?”
He swallowed. “I not know my family’s fate for a year. I went with cousin to Slă and found two uncles and other cousins living there. I wait for my father and mother and sisters, but they not come. At last my uncle said one night, ‘Come with me. There is a man, Spanish prisoner.’ I went to qasba in New Slă where ship had come in with captives. This man, he blacksmith in Hornachos, but when Moors left he no work, he became soldier. He told me Inquisition racked my father to death. They drew his arms from his sockets, left him rot in prison cell.” He closed his eye
s. A tiny muscle in his cheek twitched and jumped.
Looking down, Cat found her knuckles were white where she gripped her skirts. She did not dare ask the question she wanted to ask for fear of what the answer might be.
“The soldiers came for rest of my family two days after taking my father. They rape my mother and kill my sisters. My mother die of shame and grief. I was ten years old. My sisters were two, four, and seven. I should have stayed and defended them….
“The blacksmith, he saw. He said he tried to stop them, but I knew he lie. My uncle gave me knife to kill him. He was first Nazarene I kill; at age of eleven. Now I have lost count.
“I swore revenge, so my cousins make me apprentice to a great corsair: Yussuf Raïs, once Englishman called John Ward. English treat him ill—call him hero when he take foreign prizes for Crown, and villain when he take them without letter of marque—so he renounce Christianity and come instead to Islam, make war on Nazarenes. He once said me, ‘If I meet my own father at sea I rob him, and sell him when I had done.’ He was good teacher. I sail with him five years. When he went to Tunis he give me this ship. He die three years ago. I bless his name. Now I operate under usanza del mare, code of corsair: I bring much money, many captives back to my people, kill many Spanish, many Nazarenes, damara’hum Allah, may God destroy them. Is both my revenge and holy work. I cannot bring down Inquisition nor Spanish throne, but I can wage war against its religion and wreak what havoc I may.”
His eyes flashed, and with a shock Cat remembered the same expression on the face of her grandfather as he recounted tales of the Bloody Queen, half sister of the great Elizabeth, who had burned three hundred Protestants at the stake and threatened to bring the Spanish Inquisition to English shores to turn the whole country Catholic. The Spanish were roundly hated in Cornwall: He had himself lost a leg in an action against a Spanish privateer. And she remembered how only two years ago when King James had sent a delegation led by his favorite, George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham, to attempt to win the Spanish Infanta as the Prince of Wales’s bride there had been much fury and riotous talk in Marazion; how Thom Samuels had talked of taking up arms if England were to have a Spanish queen, and Jack Kellynch had punched him, since his own mother was Spanish. It was rather extraordinary to find that her own people had anything in common with this violently zealous pirate. It was also extremely disconcerting to discover how moved she was by the story he had told. For a moment, at least, he seemed less a monster and more a man who had a reason to do the terrible things he did.
She realized she had been staring at him; when he looked up suddenly and met her eyes, she found the intensity of his gaze uncomfortable and had to look away.
“But I still do not understand what you have against the English,” she said at last. “Especially if you sailed with an Englishman and he gave you his ship. It wasn’t the English who killed your family, it was the Spanish, and England is at war with Spain again, just as we were under the old queen, so they’re our enemies as much as yours.” She paused. “And Cornwall’s really a separate country all its own, not really part of England at all.”
Al-Andalusi gave a short laugh. “I have raided the Spanish coast so hard there’s no village we haven’t struck. They well fortified now: too many guns. So I take Nazarenes where I find them. Your people not well prepared: no guns, no defenses, very easy.” Seeing her face fall, he said more kindly, “Here, Cat’rin—take bread and eat. If you tend me until I well, you need be strong.” He handed her the remains of the small, hard loaf. “Dip in oil to make soft or you break teeth. Broken teeth lose me money at market. And take some of these, too—good for digestive organs.”
Heaped on a brightly colored earthenware plate on the table beside him were a number of the salty black fruits she had so disliked and some round, squashed-looking objects that resembled nothing so much as miniature turds.
Cat wrinkled her nose. “No, thank you.”
“Take,” the raïs told her. “Is good.” He picked one up and held it out, and when she hesitated, thrust it at her with greater insistence. “With my people, hospitality important. To refuse is insult.”
She took a small bite. Sweetness flooded her mouth so that she gasped. It was not in the least what she had expected, for it tasted remarkably like the preserved medlars the cook bottled each autumn from Kenegie’s orchard. “Oh …” She took the rest whole, saliva breaking from the corner of her mouth.
Al-Andalusi looked on, eyebrow cocked sardonically. “Is fig,” he said. “In some traditions it was the fruit Eve gave to Adam from the Tree of Knowledge.”
“In the Bible that was an apple!”
“In our tradition, according to Qu’ran, it was apple also. And when Adam swallowed mouthful of fruit, it stuck in throat and made lump all men have.”
“The Adam’s apple!” Cat cried, astonished. “We call it that as well.”
“We are, perhaps, not such strangers to each other as you think.”
CHAPTER 16
The rais saies that in two daies our shippe wille come in to Sallee Port in Moroco. After whych tyme I knowe not what wille become of mee. The rais is nowe on hys feet & I have seene lyttle of hym. I have not beene sent back down belowe but am kept here in the cabine. I was in hopes that hee would allow my mother to joyne me heere, but he just turned from mee and I dare not aske agayne. I feare future, for on account of foolish lye hee stille thinkes wee are of a riche familly who wille paie a grate ransom for oure return. But hee also threttens mee with being solde to a sultan, who I beleeve is lyk unto a kyng in ther countrie, for he saies I wille fetch a goode price at Sallee’s market wyth my redde haire & faire skyn. How I wishe I had took old Annie Badcock’s advyse & gone home with Rob to Kenegy …
“WHY DID YOU SHOOT OFF LIKE THAT, JULIA? IT looked really odd, you know.”
I regarded her steadily. “I really can’t bear to be around him.”
Alison made a sympathetic face. “Sorry. I’ve just made it worse, haven’t I? Look, if you’d rather I walked away from the renovation of the cottage, I will. It’s only money.”
“Did Andrew leave a lot of debts?” I felt awkward asking. “I could help you out, you know.”
She smiled, and her eyes filled up. “It’s probably not as bad as I think it is. I haven’t dared look at the statements, haven’t felt up to it. But I could do with a bit of work, if only to have something else to think about.”
“Of course you must take on the cottage, if you want to do it. Don’t mind me.”
“It’s just that …” She looked embarrassed. “Well, I may have got a bit carried away with telling Michael what could be done with the cottage. He seemed quite fired up by it. In fact, he called Anna and she’s coming down tomorrow to discuss what we might do.”
“Is she?” I was horrified. Had Michael suggested Anna visit before or after he called me? If before, he must have decided it would be his last chance to see me before she arrived. If after … I felt sick. Was it his way of punishing me for turning him down? I knew there was the purely practical matter of the cottage, but something told me there were other, darker reasons. “Does Anna know I’m here with you?”
“Um, yes,” she said. “Sorry. When Michael came off the phone, he said she sent her regards and was looking forward to seeing you.”
Cold iron in the heart. “I can’t stay. Can’t do it.”
Alison rubbed her forehead. “God, what a mess. Isn’t it better to get it out of the way? Try to get things back to normal?”
I shook my head. “It’s too soon. I just can’t face her. Not feeling strong enough yet.” My mouth twisted suddenly; I thought I might cry.
Abruptly tears started to spill out of the corners of my eyes and a moment later Alison welled up, too. She hugged me. “I’m so sorry. God, now we’ve both got the waterworks going.”
I gave her a wobbly smile and pulled myself together. “Sorry, I’m being pathetic. It’s only a stupid affair, one that should never have started. I brought
this on myself, but you—”
She waved her hands at me. “Don’t.” She gulped. “Look, don’t you think it might give you closure, put a proper end to it?”
“No, I’m just not ready.”
“To be honest, I don’t think Michael is, either. He talks about you a lot when you’re not there.” My traitor heart leapt up.
“Oh, and he asked about the little needlework book, too, whether you’d finished it yet. He seems to think it might be valuable.” “If it is, Al, you should have it back.”
She shook her head. “He gave it to you. It’s yours, Julia, honestly. And don’t you give it to him without getting a receipt, okay?”
I grinned. “Because we all know what an honest man Michael is, eh? You know, Al, I really should get back to London for a bit, just to make sure the shop’s okay, try to get myself straight.”
Alison shrugged. “You do what you have to do.” She put her hand on my arm. “It’s been great having you here, you know, Julia. I’ve really appreciated it.”
“I was glad to be able to do it,” I said, and meant it.
“It’ll all work out for the best in the end. I mean, there has to be a reason for it all, doesn’t there? There are days when I think there really is some huge great tapestry of a plan out there and we’re all woven into it—this fabulous, complex pattern of life and death, full of recurring motifs and waves of color, and we’re each one tiny thread in the weave. And then there are the days when I know that we’re on our own and it’s all a horrible mess and our own fault.” She sighed. “But there are some amazing coincidences going on. I mean, how weird is it that Andrew should have sent those books up to Michael, and one be about embroidery, just your thing, and contain the journal, and that Michael should spot it and think of you? Let alone that Catherine should come not just from Cornwall, but right here at Kenegie? There was a load of old Kenegie stuff in the attic, you know, odds and ends, books and broken furniture. Probably been dumped there when they were renovating the manor, been moldering away for centuries.”
