The Last Crusaders: Blood Red Sea (9 page)

‘It is the flight of King Boabdil. You know of him?’

‘The last Moorish king of Andalus.’

The Moor nodded. ‘Who reined in his horse on the last high pass over the mountains of Spain, and looked back one last time over his beloved, lost kingdom of golden Granada – and sighed. That pass that has ever since been called
El Suspiro del Moro
. The Moor’s Last Sigh.’

He said very softly, ‘The history of men is but sadness and sorrow, always and for ever. Trust not in men and their history. Trust in Allah only.’

After a while Nicholas said, ‘Yet – though your people are going and passing away from Spain for ever, you still wish to receive these . . . gifts, from England?’

‘Very much,’ said the Moor, still with his head bowed, dwelling on the past and his people’s sadness – and unguarded. ‘We still wish to distract Spain, to prevent this Holy League from forming a while longer. Then when it forms, let it be drawn far eastwards, to Cyprus, so that the Ottoman fleet can sail west and take—’ He bit his lip. This was too much to divulge, even to this gallant English ally – who was yet a Christian.

At that moment the boy returned with another whispered message. The Moor turned his head sharply, then said, ‘Forgive me. There is a . . . I will return.’

And as he vanished behind the curtain, he glanced back at his two guests, a look of puzzlement on his face.

The only possible weapon in the chamber was a tasselled silk cushion, which might stop a dagger-thrust for a second or two. They were well and truly trapped. Before, their situation has seemed so absurd, Nicholas had smiled. His smile had gone. The Moor had talked far too much for them to walk out alive now.

‘I’m not sure,’ said Hodge quietly, ‘we’ve not hopped proverbially out of the frying pan straight into the fire, like a couple of stupid sausages.’

Nicholas nodded. ‘Hiding from the Spaniards, sheltered by a Moor. Truly Lady Fortune is a whore.’

‘You’ll be a poet yet.’

They sat in silence for a while. At last Hodge said, ‘Nick, this is agony.’

Nicholas said nothing.
Surely Allah plays jokes upon mankind, to instruct him!

‘The minute we came into this house,’ said Hodge, ‘dark and candlelit as it was, there was the coffee and tobacco smell, and mint tea, and the shoes left at the door. And I said to myself even then, Hodge, dearest friend, you are in a bugger’s pickle now.’

‘We cannot betray,’ said Nicholas. ‘They saved our lives here, though mistaking us for someone else, I think. But is England really to supply the Moors with armaments, to weaken Spain from within? Is our own country so treacherous?’

‘Is she really our own country still?’ said Hodge. Nicholas looked pained. ‘Politics,’ said Hodge, waving his hand. ‘Like you said of the devil, it’s the same the world over. No one comes out of it smelling like my dad’s sweet williams.’

There was whispered conferring and then the Moor reappeared. ‘Quickly, there are soldiers. In here.’

They hurried after him. In the outer chamber was a large cedarwood chest, which the boy and a woman had cleared of its contents. They stacked the various blankets and coverlets beside it on the floor.

‘Inside,’ said the Moor.

Nicholas hesitated. Such a hiding place wouldn’t fool anyone. And once in the chest the lid might be locked or weighted down, and they would be left to starve. Who could they trust?

A thunderous drumming was heard far off. Pike butts being thumped against the bolted wooden door on to the alleyway.

‘House search! Open up in the name of King Philip!’

Hodge was already getting into the chest. ‘Mind you leave it open a crack.’

The pikes drummed again, and then they began a steady, rhythmic battering at the door. There soon followed a crash as the bolts gave and the door was flung back against the wall.

‘Give me your dagger,’ said Nicholas. The Moor looked puzzled. ‘Give it to me!’

There was the sound of running feet and ruffianly shouts. ‘On the floor! Don’t move! You, kneel!’ A muffled sound that might have been a cry of pain.

The Moor drew the thin gold-handled dagger from his belt and handed it to Nicholas without a word.

Nicholas stepped into the chest and crouched. As they lowered the lid over them, Nicholas laid the dagger blade on the rim, jamming it open a crack.

The chamber emptied and they crouched in silence.

‘I hate small spaces,’ said Nicholas.

‘I didn’t enjoy the dungeons of Algiers jail that much myself,’ said Hodge. ‘Can you see out?’

Nicholas craned painfully and tried to put his eyes to the crack. ‘No. Only darkness.’

From the rest of the house, and the warren of chambers and passageways and courtyards that was the old Morisco quarter, came a range of thumps and bangs and cries, all the more unnerving for being unseen.

After some time there came a long silence, and then they heard the door of the chamber open. A voice whispered, ‘Friends!’

It was the voice of the Moor.

They didn’t move. Nicholas’s grip tightened on the handle of the dagger.

‘Friends! It is safe. Come out.’

Still they hesitated. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure.’

Another pause, and then Hodge slowly pushed the lid up, Nicholas ready with the paltry dagger.

There were two burly Spanish pikemen at the door, and another had his arm gripped around the Moor’s throat, half-throttling him. In his left hand he held an evil half-pike, the tip under the captive’s jaw. A fourth soldier had a knife to the throat of the boy, whose eyes rolled white with terror. In the brown eyes of the Moor there was no hint of treachery, only pleading and sorrow.

He whispered, ‘I am sorry, I am so sorry—’

‘Shut it,’ growled the soldier, screwing the point of his half-pike into his cheek and drawing a trickle of blood. ‘Or you’ll lose the boy.’ He looked back at the two wretches rising from the chest and smiled. ‘Chain ’em up.’

The day was still dark and rain-sodden when they were dragged out of the maze of dark passageways into the street. They were driven into the main square, now empty of fugitives. But as they passed by a wide puddle, Nicholas saw that the rain was mixed with blood. They crossed to the imposing courthouse, and were dragged down some narrow steps into a lower passageway, though a narrow iron gate, down more stone steps in air clammy with damp and decay, and finally thrown into a fetid dungeon. The iron bars clanged shut behind them and were triple-locked.

It was pitch dark and silent as the grave. Some other sense, perhaps hearing, perhaps smell, told them that dungeon was not large.

They lay still, twisted, chained and blind. After a while they rolled over on to their sides and tried to pull themselves against the damp walls. They lay and breathed. This was going to be bad. They could see absolutely nothing.

‘Dark as Egypt in the eighth plague,’ muttered Hodge.

All they could hear was each other breathing. And then another sound. A skitter of little paws.

‘Rats,’ said Hodge.

The skittering grew. More and more of them.

‘Shite,’ said Hodge, and tried not to think of the tales he had heard. Of men chained in dungeons, unable to move, while rats feasted on their hands, their feet, their faces . . . He kicked out with his hobbled boots and the rats shrieked and trotted away. Then he could hear them coming back, chattering. Could picture them in
the darkness, raising their narrow muzzles, noses twitching, scenting fresh meat.

Suddenly, from the other corner of the dungeon, not two body lengths away, there came a violent thump and the rats squealed and were gone. For now.

‘Who’s there?’ demanded Nicholas.

Silence.

‘Damn you, speak. How many of you?’

Water dripped from an overhang, a drop every few seconds. Nothing else.

‘If you don’t sing, I’m going to,’ said Hodge. ‘And you won’t like that at all.’

After a pause, a soft voice said, ‘I am Abdul of Tripoli.’

‘A goddam Mohammedan?’

‘As you say. You have any light?’

‘Of course we don’t have any light,’ said Hodge. ‘You think they gave us a tinderbox and a sirloin steak when they shoved us in here?’

After a while something rasped in the darkness, and to their astonishment a small flame appeared. A stubby candle was set on the floor, blinding them for a moment, and then as their eyes grew used to the light in this dark place, they saw a slim brown face beyond. He grinned.

‘Some of us come prepared.’

‘But you’re not chained!’ said Hodge indignantly.

‘And you are, I see. Pedro Deza must have caught two very big fish indeed.’

‘He’s got a surprise coming,’ said Nicholas. ‘What are you in for?’

‘For following my own business,’ said Abdul. His smile was very wide. ‘But I shall soon be free again. I am of too much service to Pedro Deza.’

‘You work for him?’

‘I work for whoever is the chieftain. Always keep an eye on the leader of the monkey pack.’ He ran his middle finger along an eyebrow in an enigmatic but expressive gesture. ‘When I am in the dungeons of Grand Inquisitor Pedro Deza, I work solely and loyally for Pedro Deza. Once I am free again – Pedro Deza can go and kneel beneath an aroused camel.’

‘You’re an Algerine, then?’

‘Abdul of Tripoli is also Abdul of the world!’ He rocked back and forth where he sat cross-legged, smiling delightedly. Maybe he’d been in here a long time. He certainly seemed keen to talk to someone. ‘You know that
Abd’ullah
means
slave of Allah
. But then when I am Greek I am become Petros Christodoulos, which is, in Greek, Peter, the slave of Christ. It is all one, you see, and means everything and nothing.’

‘So you’re a liar and a Judas.’

‘I’m a philosopher,’ said Abdul. ‘And a survivor. I have been whipped in Spain, whipped in Sicily, scourged in Jerusalem and stoned in the streets of Cairo. But I survive. And like an old dog, I have learned from my whippings. I laugh at other dogs who are too stupid to learn.’

He regarded the candle. There was plenty more to burn.

‘In Rome I’m a Christian, in Mecca a Muslim, in India I lie down in the dust and let the sacred cows walk over my prostrate body. I am all things to all men. And then Abdul climbs a hill in his imagination, as the sun sets, and looks down on the churches of Rome, the minarets of Mecca, the temples of India, and he sits back and laughs in the sun! He laughs at them down there, trapped in their gloomy churches and temples, while he sits high and free on the windy mountainside, a song in his heart like an uncaged bird. You wish me to sacrifice or swear devotion to any god? Willingly. Then let me go in peace, showing my bare arse to your gods as I go.’

‘You’re a blasphemer,’ said Hodge.

‘If it is blasphemy then God will punish me for it.’

‘He is right,’ said Nicholas wearily. ‘Perhaps he is a man with no soul.’

‘No, I have my soul.’ Abdul lowered his eyes and stared into the candlelight. He said again softly, ‘I have my soul.’

They heard the sound of footsteps in the passageway and Abdul cupped his hands around the candle flame. Then they heard a stertorous breathing and he took his hands away again.

‘My tubercular and tabefied friend Diego the Jailer!’

‘Tabefied?’ said Hodge.

‘Phthisic,’ said Abdul. ‘Marasmous. No hope for him, poor fellow.’

A gaunt, grubby figure with slumped shoulders and keys at his belt, Diego laboriously unlocked the door. Then he handed in a bundle of fresh candles, a large flask of water and, to Nicholas and Hodge’s astonishment, a wooden trencher steaming with some roast fowl. Abdul took them from him and sat down cross-legged again before the candle and began to eat. Diego locked up. Nicholas watched his movements closely.

‘Don’t even think of it,’ growled Diego through the bars, then hawked and spat. ‘Not a chance. There’s two soldiers at the end of this passage who’ll skewer you like hogs the moment you stick your head out of the cell.’

‘These two,’ said Abdul with his mouth full, pointing at them, ‘they escaped from Algiers prison
three times
.’

Now their jaws dropped open. ‘How in the devil’s name did you . . .’

Abdul smiled infuriatingly and tore another strip of glistening meat from a slender bone. ‘I must say, this is an excellent bit of guineafowl. Well done, Diego. How is the girl?’

Diego ran his tongue over his black teeth. ‘Goes like a drunk mare,’ he said.

‘She is a generous-hearted soul. I owe her. And when do we expect . . . His Excellency in town?’

‘Tomorrow, I heard.’

Abdul looked back at his two cellmates. ‘Don Pedro Deza will be in town tomorrow, and will then want to question you. Pedro Deza is a genius of his kind. He knows how to set one man against another. He could make a man betray his own mother. You should start praying to your god. Did he not once send an angel to rescue St Peter and St Paul in a similar predicament?’

‘If I had a fist free,’ said Hodge, ‘I’d lam you.’

‘But you have not. Which is why I shall continue to taunt you. But you should understand,’ he ran his finger round the trencher and sucked up the juices, ‘that there is teaching in my taunting. I may not love you as my brothers. But it would please me, nevertheless, if you were to avoid having every bone in your hands and feet broken by Pedro Deza and his ingenious machines. Before you die.’

Abdul slept for a while. Nicholas and Hodge bowed their heads but did not sleep. Their cellmate revived very suddenly and yawned and said, ‘I must be out of here in another day or two. It dampens my spirits.’ He looked at them sharply. ‘You are sure you have nothing to sell?’

Nicholas shook his head.

‘Even information?’

‘No.’

‘And there are things Pedro Deza, peace be upon him, would want to know of you?’

‘I suppose.’

‘But you are of heroic temper, and will resist telling him?’ He shook his head. ‘Pedro Deza knows how to make a man spill the innermost secrets of his heart. It does not take long either.’ He belched. ‘Mm, that was a lovely bit of guineafowl. Would you care to gnaw the bones?’

‘Up your arse,’ said Hodge.