The Flag of Freedom (10 page)

Yusuf's grandfather, Ahmed, had been one of their leaders. He had seized power in a military coup, which was not unusual in the outer provinces of the Ottoman Empire. What was unusual was that shortly afterwards, he had invited several hundred of the country's most eminent chieftains and notables to a state banquet and had had them murdered, singly or in groups, as they shuffled through the corridors to the dining room. There was still some debate in the coffee houses over whether he had had them garrotted or cut their throats. The majority favoured garrotting, to avoid any telltale signs of bloodshed. Either way, none of the victims returned to shed light on the matter. The Pasha used the money from their confiscated estates to bribe the Sultan into confirming him as Regent.

Whether Yusuf had learned from this admirable example, or inherited the same ruthless sense of survival, his own route to power was just as merciless, if rather more personal.

As Spiridion had heard it, the story was this:

The previous Pasha, Ahmed's son, Ali, was a drunk and a profligate, who rarely moved beyond the castle walls and left the management of the country to his Grand Kehya, while for the more subtle business of managing the court he relied on his women – ‘those casual instruments of mischief', as Spiridion's informant had described them. Ali had many women, but in the Khuloghlis tradition, only one wife, the Georgian, Lilla Kebierra, by whom he had three sons, Hassan, Ahmed and Yusuf.

The eldest, Hassan, was widely regarded as a man of intelli gence, charm and courage. Spiridion's informant, who was the sister of the previous British Consul and clearly enamoured, had described him as ‘a fine, majestic figure of a man, a born ruler, much beloved by his people'.

Always a curse in the Ottoman world.

In his early twenties, as was customary with the eldest son, Hassan had been appointed Bey, Commander-in-Chief of the Janissaries. He took this role more seriously than most and spent a great deal of his time and much of his money on military campaigns against the brigand tribes of the interior, which was mostly desert the size of France and Spain combined. Unfor tunately for Hassan, his obvious qualities of leadership, together with his prolonged absences from court, proved fatal. The first provoked the jealousy of his two brothers and aroused the fear that he would have them disposed of the moment he assumed power; the second provided them with the opportunity to do something about it.

The middle son, Ahmed, was a nonentity – a drunkard and a coward who took after his father and made himself scarce at the slightest hint of danger. Hassan had nothing
to fear from
him
. But the youngest son, Yusuf, was a talented and ruthless conspirator, with a devotion to his own interests uninhibited by considerations of family, friends, country, honour or religion. Everyone expected him to go far.

His main problem was catching Hassan off-guard.

Such was the hatred and suspicion that existed among the three brothers, they rarely moved without a coterie of armed retainers and loyal followers. The one exception to this was their mother's harem – a traditional place of sanctuary in the Ottoman world, where no violence was tolerated, and no weapons or male followers were permitted.

From what Spiridion could gather, Yusuf persuaded his mother that he wanted to be reconciled with Hassan. So she had summoned them both for a meeting – in the harem.

Hassan had just lost his two young sons in a recent plague which had decimated the population. He was in a mood for reconciliation with his brothers, but being a Khuloghli he took his sword with him, hidden under his robes. Unfortunately, his mother detected it and made him take it off and leave it on a windowsill.

She then sat her two sons down beside her and joined their hands together, begging them to swear an end to their enmity. Yusuf appeared willing. He even proposed that they swear on the Qur'an. Hassan being agreeable, Yusuf crossed to the door and called loudly to the servants to bring him a copy of the Holy Book. This was a prearranged signal. One of his slaves promptly appeared and handed him two loaded pistols.

Hassan was still seated beside his mother on the sofa. Yusuf had his back to them at the door. When he turned, they both saw the pistols and Lilla Kebierra gave a scream and threw herself in front of her eldest son. Yusuf fired anyway and the ball pierced her hand and struck Hassan in the side. He was still able to reach for his sword, however, and make a lunge at his younger brother. Whereupon Yusuf discharged the second pistol, killing him instantly.

Lilla Kebierra draped herself across the body, wailing piteously. The door opened and Lilla Ayesha, Hassan's wife, came running in. She, too, hurled herself upon the body. In her wake came five of Yusuf's slaves who pulled the two women away and hacked the corpse to pieces with their swords. Then Yusuf and his followers, covered in blood, made their escape, killing the Grand Kehya on the way.

As Spiridion's informant eloquently put it: ‘Hamlet ain't in it!'

But whatever Shakespeare's audience might have made of it, the population of Tripoli, after a short period of pleasurable horror, anarchy and Turkish intervention, gave Yusuf a stand ing ovation. He was widely acknowledged to have that elusive spirit of
bashasha
– a combination of charisma, charm and the capacity for unrestrained violence – which marked him as the coming man: a man with all the qualities necessary to rule a turbulent province on the fringes of the Ottoman Empire. When he emerged from his exile among the Berbers and the Bedouin of the interior, he returned in triumph to take his place on the throne. His grieving mother uttered no word of rebuke, his surviving brother fled to Tunis, and his subjects kept
their heads down and refused all invitations to dinner at the castle.

They were wise to do so. At his first full Divan, the new Pasha announced the death penalty for everything but the most trivial of offences. Thieves were seized by snatch squads of executioners – a profession reserved, in Tripoli, for members of the Jewish faith – and instantly hanged or strangled. Raiding tribesmen were beheaded. Women convicted of adultery were tied in a sack and throw into the sea. Yet it was said that Yusuf could be merciful. He had a tendency, it was reported, to be swayed by a transitory emotion. This, too, was part of his
bashasha
.

His personal life was simple. He had two wives, one black, one white, and thus far no concubines; his alcohol consumption was moderate; he had no other known vices. Spiridion had been told he had a lively and penetrating knowledge of events in Europe and that he spoke fluent Italian, in the dialect of Sicily. He was on good terms with the Spanish and the French and until recently, when there had been a certain cooling of relations, with the British. His main problem, as a ruler, was lack of money. For which reason he had resorted, as had so many of his predecessors, to the licensing of piracy.

Yusuf adhered to the traditional policy, practised all along the Barbary Coast, of being in a permanent state of war with Christendom. This conferred the right of his seafaring subjects to embark on a
corse
, or cruise, with the purpose of raiding isolated Christian communities through out the Mediterranean and of seizing any Christian ship incapable of defending itself.

It being forbidden by the Qur'an to enslave the followers
of Mohammed, the sole purpose of this enterprise was the harvesting of slaves and plunder.

In practice, however, the states of the Barbary Coast made exceptions for all those nations powerful enough to exact retribution for such atrocities or prudent enough to pay an annual subsidy. One of Yusuf's first acts on assuming office had been to declare all existing treaties to be null and void and to demand additional payments from the tribute nations, most of whom had reluctantly paid on demand. But not the United States.

Which was why the
Saratoga
now languished in the Pasha's harbour and her passengers and crew were assembled in his castle with chains around their ankles.

The language of the court was Turkish and Spiridion was able to follow most of what was going on without the help of the dragoman. The Grand Kehya sat at a table with his paperwork while one of his officials read out the names and nationalities of the crew and the passengers. Spiridion knew the form. Crew members, whatever country they came from originally, were considered to be of the same nationality as the ship and were disposed of in the same way as the cargo. A tenth of their number belonged to the Pasha, the rest would be sold in the slave-market to the highest bidder and the profits divided by the corsair Captain, the ship's owners, and those of his crew who were not slaves already.

The passengers were treated more individually. If they were not covered by treaty they, too, were enslaved – unless they could raise sufficient funds to buy their freedom. The actual amount varied but it was usually as much as they could afford to pay. There were a number of
Jewish merchants in the port who acted as brokers, assessing exactly how much might be raised from the family and arranging the transfer of funds with other Jewish merchants in Europe. The whole process tended to take months, if not years, during which time the prisoners were employed as slaves.

If any of the passengers were from a country covered by treaty, however, their Consuls would promptly petition for their release – and usually it was granted.

On this occasion most of the passengers were Venetian – and their legal status, so far as their captors were concerned, was ambiguous. The Most Serene Republic of Saint Mark had ceased to exist. Something else had taken its place, but it had not yet been recognised by any of the nations of Europe, let alone by the Great Sultan. Nor did it have any consular represent ation. Venice being under French occupation, it was possible that the French Consul might speak up for them. Possible, but unlikely. Not when they had been fleeing from French control.

Spiridion glanced towards the French delegation. His particular interest was in a man called Xavier Naudé, who was, like Spiridion, keeping well in the background. For he was, like Spiridion, a spy. He had formerly been the leading French agent in Venice, acting on behalf of the notorious Jean Landrieux, head of Bonaparte's intelligence service in Northern Italy. What he was doing in Tripoli was anyone's guess. Mr Lucas had heard that he was here on behalf of the Directory to renew the peace treaty, but he was far too important an agent to be concerned with such an issue. Something else was afoot, and Spiridion intended to find out what it was.

He assumed that Naudé's interest on this particular occasion was in the Venetians. If they were fleeing the French they probably had good reason to do so. Very likely they had considerable funds at their disposal, almost certainly stashed away in a bank vault somewhere. It was as much in the French interest as it was in the Pasha's to lay their hands on it. Naudé did not look particularly interested in the proceedings – he looked quite bored, in fact – but this was the normal expression of a spy.

Spiridion was about to turn away and resume his study of the Pasha when Naudé's expression changed. It was nothing dramatic and he had it under control in an instant, but not before Spiridion had noticed. It had been an expression of surprise – and something more. He had seen someone in the crowd, someone he knew. Still looking, he leaned his head towards the French Consul standing next to him and murmured something in his ear.

Spiridion followed the direction of his gaze – and the shock of recognition drove every other thought from his head.

He was astonished now that he had missed her. Perhaps someone had moved, or she had been brought forward. Yes, that was it, they had brought her forward to the front of the crowd of prisoners, and now Spiridion could detect the quiver of interest that ran through the room. More than a quiver. It was like the sudden change of temperature that heralds an earthquake or an approaching storm. For though her face was without the artifice of rouge or powder and her hair was unkempt, she was stunningly beautiful.

And then there was an audible gasp of astonishment.
For the court official had read out her name and rank.

‘Sister Caterina Caresini, Deputy Prioress of the Convent of San Paolo di Mare in Venice.'

The fact that Spiridion shared this astonishment was not because of her beauty. He had seen her before, many times, and though he was not inured to it, nor indifferent, he viewed it with the same circumspection as he might the beauty of a tigress, or a bird of prey. Nor was it because she was a nun. He had known that, too.

The reason for Spiridion's interest, and almost certainly that of Naudé, was that in her previous existence, Suora Caterina Caserini had been the foremost British agent in Venice.

I
t was the final week of October and Nathan was watching the last of the swallows heading out towards Africa. At least, he had been told they were the last, for the weather had grown noticeably cooler over the past few days, and for the first time on his afternoon walk, though the sky was clear, he wore an overcoat – a Spanish army greatcoat that he had purchased from one of the local stores. He suspected its previous owner had died, possibly during one of the long sieges to which the outpost was prone, but there were no suspicious holes or obvious bloodstains to cause him embarrass ment in fashionable circles, inasmuch as these existed upon the Rock of Gibraltar.