The Tenth Gift (35 page)

Idriss looked at me warningly, but I gave him a tiny shake of the head.
No, it’s okay.
Then I took Anna’s hand. “Deal.”

I was halfway through my wine before I remembered another question I meant to ask her. “Robert Bolitho’s letters—where did you find them?”

“They were in Alison’s loft, at the farmhouse at Kenegie. Someone had tucked them inside the cover of the family Bible, where they belonged, I suppose.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Alison’s mother’s a Bolitho, isn’t she? You should know— she’s your cousin. It just always struck me as an odd name. We played that game at college once—you know the one, make your porn-star name by taking the name of your first pet and your mother’s maiden name? Mine was Silky Pevsner; hers was Candy Bolitho. Both rather good, we thought. Anyway, family ties to the place or not, she’s moving out; it’s a big place if you’re on your own.”

I was appalled, and for many reasons. I remembered the chill I had felt while I was there, the depression that settled over me. I had thought at the time I was being superstitious, that I had sensed the presence of Andrew’s spirit, but what if there had been something else there? I shivered, unwilling to think about that. “Where’s she going to go, then, Alison?”

“She’s going to buy my little cottage in Mousehole. She fell in love
with it and we did a deal: I let her have it cheap and she let me have the letters.” She gave me a wry little smile. “She’s already moved in as a tenant while the conveyancing is being done and the renovations are carried out.”

Before I could ask anything else, Michael arrived with an envelope in his hand, looking even more harassed than he had before. “God, these people don’t understand a word of bloody English.”

“That’s because they all speak French, darling. Now, then, Julia has agreed to exchange the book we need for the letters you found.”

Michael looked at me, surprised. “Oh, good.” He hovered over the table, as if suddenly wrong-footed, then sat down, opened the envelope, and removed from it several photocopies, plus a sheaf of foxed and spotted foolscap covered in neat inking. Even from a distance I could see it was in Robert Bolitho’s small, neat hand. “The book,” he said, separating the originals from the copies and holding the latter out to me. “Hand it over, then.”

Anna tutted. She reached across and took the papers from him, dropped the foolscap sheets into the envelope, folded the copies and passed them back to Michael, then gave the envelope to me.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Michael roared.

“Fair trade,” Anna said sweetly. “The book, please, Julia.”

Solemnly, I reached into my bag and withdrew
The Needle-Woman’s Glorie.
It felt soft and smooth in my hand. I rubbed my thumb lovingly across the ridges on its spine and the slight discoloring on the back where the corsair captain’s cousin had tried to burn it. “Good-bye, Catherine,” I whispered.

“Au revoir,”
Anna corrected me gently.

“See you in London,” I told her with a smile. “I’ll be back in a few days. I’ll call you.”

Anna’s fingers folded over mine. “Do that, my friend.” Then she drew away, clutching the book against her rib cage like a breastplate.

I got up to leave. Idriss extended a hand to Anna, who smiled up at him. “It was lovely to meet you, Idriss. I hope to see you again.”

“Enchanté, madame. AA la prochaine, inch’ allah.”

He turned to Michael. “I hope you have enjoyed your brief stay in my cousin’s hotel, and that your visit to Morocco has provided something of an education for you,” he said in his best English. “Our culture prides itself on the quality of our hospitality and courtesy. And of course we are entitled to demand that the tongue be cut out of anyone who impugns our honor, or that of any member of our family.” The flicker of his smile did not reach his eyes.

It might have been the light, but it seemed to me that Michael went a little green around the gills.

O
UTSIDE, IN THE
bright sunlight, I squinted up at Idriss. “Is that really true? About cutting out the tongue, I mean? I know in Saudi Arabia with Sharia law they’ll cut your hand off for stealing, and flog people for drinking, and stone women for adultery, and other horrible things, but I thought Morocco was more liberal.”

Idriss drew me into the shadows of an alley, dipped his head and kissed me, very quickly but very thoroughly.

“And that earns me a month in prison,” he said solemnly.

I had no idea whether he was joking or not.

R
OB

1625

T
HE FOREST WAS A STRANGE PLACE
. I
N CORNWALL
he knew every tree, every plant that grew in the woodlands and hedgerows, their names, their flowers and fruits and seasons. But these trees had a bark that was reddish and rough with long vertical splits and gashes, and their limbs were smooth and round and well spaced. The canopy they made was thick and dark, so that the undergrowth grew sparsely, which at least meant there were fewer places from which brigands might ambush them.

They walked in single file, Rob following carefully in the others’ steps. Half a day of walking passed without incident. They ate some of the ship’s biscuit and dried meat and drank water from a stream, and walked on without a word. This left Rob’s mind free to wander mightily, and he found himself remembering his final conversation with Sir John, which had finished on a bitter note.

“Two, and there’s an end to it. Bring any more and I’ll sell them into slavery myself!” Killigrew had told him furiously when he had once more argued that they should try to bring away as many captives as the ship could carry. Rob had subsided with as good a grace as he could summon. What would folk say when he returned home with only Cat and one other when so many had been taken? He knew from the ransom letter that Catherine’s mother, Jane, had survived, and duty prompted him that it should be this lady he saved alongside his beloved, but as he turned it over, the idea sat like lead in his stomach. Rob had never cared greatly for the woman. The lads at home
would surely scoff at him for his folly in shipping back such a shrewish mother-in-law to berate and belittle him at every turn. But what if Cat would refuse to come away without her? He had never thought them overly close, but it was said that blood was thicker than water. He would much rather save Matty, now that he thought about it—good, stolid, decent Matty. She was a young woman and Jane Tregenna old and dried, so surely it was more logical to save Matty so that she might live out a long life in a good Christian country, and bring into the world the children that God intended for her? His mind’s eye captured Jane Tregenna’s pinched and discontented visage and compared it unfavorably with Matty’s rosy dimples, and his decision was made. He could not stop his imagination from running far ahead: Surely Cat would wed him with a whole heart when all this was over, grateful for the mighty effort he had made for her, just like one of the knights in the stories she loved so well. But his conscience pricked at him. It was surely wrong to consider Cat’s heart as common payment. If he was making this journey, this quest, with such payment in mind, he was surely being ignoble, for the success of saving her from the heathen ought to be reward enough of itself. Heroic tales took hold of him again: Might he not see himself as a Crusader striking a blow for Christendom against the infidel? Yes, that was a finer image to cleave to. If he acted as a godly man on the true path of the Lord, he would earn a reward in Heaven.
But I would rather have my reward on Earth, and in my arms.

A bird came clattering out of the canopy overhead, cawing a warning, its long tail trailing like a pennant.

A magpie: bird of ill omen, as much here as anywhere.

Marshall turned and grabbed Rob by the shoulder and dragged him down into the lee of a fallen tree trunk. Voices. Through the spindly stalks of a host of foul-smelling fungi that sprouted from the rotten wood, Rob saw shapes moving twenty feet away through the trees. Their striped cloaks made them hard to discern in the slats of light and forest shade, but the animals they led had no such camouflage. Mules, drawing carts piled high with timber.

It was Rob’s first view of the natives of this land; at first impression they did not look like devils nor even much like brigands. As they approached, he could tell from their gestures and loud laughter that they exchanged ribaldries like any other working men. Their skin was a few shades darker than his own, but it was not much darker than the skin of fishermen with whom he supped down in Market-Jew, and these men seemed slighter built. He felt a vague disappointment; if truth be told, he had been expecting fierce black giants dressed outlandishly and with their curved swords flashing, but these were just woodsmen much as you would find anywhere in the world, poor men with a living to make and families to feed.

Six carts rumbled past, accompanied by fifteen men, the final four of whom wore swords and were more watchful than the rest.

Marshall and Rob watched them go. Eventually the Londoner said heavily, “That’ll be another two pirate ships bound for English shores come the spring. Come on, lad, get up. Let’s put some space between them and us.”

B
Y NIGHTFALL, THERE
was still no sign of an end to the forest. Lying beneath a makeshift shelter of sticks and leaves, Rob dreamed of Cat beaten black and bloody, Cat dead from a dozen causes— from disease, from starvation, from exhaustion, from some mad attempt at escape. Cat lying in a pool of filth; Cat beheaded by a half-naked savage wielding a dripping scimitar; Cat dragged behind a pair of horses till she was unrecognizable; Cat hanging from a spike in a wall, weeping silent tears of blood.

He woke at dawn and trudged behind Marshall through the unending, monotonous trees. At some time in the afternoon the older man held up a hand, then pointed away to the left. Rob followed the line of his finger. In a little clearing two men slept in a pool of sunlight with their cloaks pulled over their heads. Rather than creeping away, Marshall beckoned him to follow. Then he turned and grinned at him, and drew a finger across his throat.

With horror, Rob realized his purpose, but before he could protest, the Londoner had plunged his weapon into one man, withdrawn it, and applied it to the other.

“They like to take a nap in the afternoons,” Marshall declared, pleased. “Lazy bastards.”

Rob fell to his knees. He had never seen a man killed before, let alone two in cold blood as they slept. Bile filled his mouth, and he had to turn away to let out a hot wave of vomit.

Marshall wiped his sword on the first man’s cloak and resheathed it. Then he started to pull the man’s robe up over his head, revealing a pair of scrawny legs and a grizzled scrotum.

Rob stared at him in disgust. “That was murder.”

“Got no stomach for the work, eh, lad? You’d better toughen up fast. They’d have had no qualms about doing the same to you, and don’t you forget it. Now wipe your mouth and help me. We’ll take their clothes and anything else we fancy, right?” He regarded the two corpses with his head on one side. “You’d better take the other one, he’s taller. Good thing about these robes: One size fits all, but this one’s shoes’ll never fit you.”

“I’m not wearing a dead man’s clothes,” Rob said obstinately.

“Fair enough. We’ll be out of the forest by evening. You’ll get maybe a mile if you’re lucky before some band of villagers stones you to death. Your choice.”

So it was that some while later two robed and turbaned figures emerged from the eaves of Marmora Forest into the dreary countryside beyond, each mounted on a dun-brown mule.

Rob had insisted on wearing his own tunic beneath the robe. He was sweltering and could already feel fleas and lice as they burrowed and bit into his flesh, yet he bore the discomfort with a savage satisfaction. He had stood by and done nothing while two human lives were taken and he felt filthy inside and out.

He was surprised that no one paid them much attention as they passed, for he could feel his own guilt burning like a beacon, but
other than a group of ragged children who threw olive pits at the mules as they passed through a dusty grove, people barely turned their heads.

“Blasted little urchins,” Marshall grumbled darkly. “These people breed as easily as rats, then turn their children out into the fields to make mischief without the least threat of discipline. No wonder they grow up into wastrels and thieves. Problem comes from the top down, as is always the case. There is no central authority in this scurvy country. It’s a fucking anthill.”

“Sir Henry Marten said there was a sultan, a Moulay something,” Rob said hesitantly. “Said he thought King Charles would send an envoy to him to plead the case of the captives.”

Marshall laughed. “Moulay Zidane: king of nothing but turmoil and trouble, and most of that of his own making. His father was Al-Mansour, called the Victorious because he drove the Portuguese out of Morocco and killed sixty thousand of their army. The son is as nothing compared to the father: He has no morals and earns no respect, not even from his own corsairs. They have stopped paying him his due from the spoils; they mock him at every turn. That is why we do business with the true power here.”

“Do these pirates have a king, then?” Rob asked. “Someone they have set up in place of the sultan?”

“The business of pirating is a complex one,” Marshall said, sucking his teeth. “Morally complex, if you like.”

“I can’t see what is morally complex about thieving and slaving.”

“They see it in rather different terms. The Sidi Mohammed al-Ayyachi is a very remarkable man, a man whom all listen to and respect, who has managed to draw to himself many like-minded allies. He has forged a formidable fighting force from most diverse quarters—renegade ships’ captains from every seafaring nation in Europe, religious fanatics, wealthy Hornacheros, Moriscos thrown out of Andalucia and Granada by King Philip—just about anyone, in fact, with a grudge to bear against Christendom. He plays a wily
game: talks it up as a holy war while encouraging them all to make a fortune. To plunder a Christian ship is to return the wealth of the world to Islam, to the rightful glory of their god, and if in the process that means killing Christians or forcing them to turn Turk, so much the better for the war effort. If we’d had a king like him in England, we’d have conquered half the world by now, for he is a thousand times more charismatic than that fool James or his pompous arse of a son. The old queen would have appreciated al-Ayyachi mightily. In many ways they are much alike: They could understand the nature of men and work upon their weaknesses to play them like pawns in the greater game.”

“What manner of being is their god that he demands such offerings of blood and gold?”

Marshall turned to regard him pitifully. “Why, the same god as our own, lad, the great God Almighty. They have but a different name for him and different practices with which to worship him. Otherwise there is not much to separate our religions except a thousand years of bloodshed!”

This was all too much for Rob, who felt as if his world was tilting end over end. “But if we all serve the same god, then why are we at war?”

“Why are men ever at war? For power and greed and to enforce their own views on others. Personally, I don’t give a toss for any of it: I’d serve the Devil himself if it fit my purpose. But I’ll tell you now, when we penetrate this nest of pirates, you’d better keep your head down and show no anger nor disrespect whatever your own views and no matter how you are provoked, or you’ll lose both your head and your wench in one fell swoop and there’ll be nothing I can do about it.”

As they rode on, the sun beat down, then blessed clouds covered the sky and a light spattering of rain began to fall as they crossed a great fallow wasteland dotted with rocks and dusty bushes. After a while they came upon a number of black tents pitched low to the
ground. Livestock were tethered in little groups around the outskirts, including a herd of great, ugly, humpbacked things with long necks and knobbly knees. Beside the tents women sat tending to infants, weaving bright textiles, or pounding grain between stones. One of these now saw the traveling pair and came running toward them, her silver bracelets and anklets jangling as she ran. She fit Rob’s idea of the exotic he had expected this far-flung place to contain, for she wore any number of colorful wraps of cloth about her head and body bound with great silver brooches and pins. Her eyes were outlined with some thick black cosmetic that made her regard most striking, and there were tattoos on her chin and her forehead, and brown patterns on her hands and feet.

She stretched out one of these patterned hands now in entreaty and gabbled at them. To Rob’s surprise, Marshall did not chase her away with angry words but instead dug in his pouch, drew out one of the coins he had robbed from the dead men, and placed it in her palm. More extraordinary still, he then exchanged a few words with the woman in a harsh-sounding language and she chattered back at him.

“Come,” said Marshall, sliding down from his mule. “Tonight we shall eat and sleep well, and tomorrow we enter Sallee.”

“Who are these people?” Rob asked nervously. “How do you know they won’t kill us in the night and leave us for the crows? And what are those horrible beasts they have tethered there?”

Marshall clapped him on the back. “They’re travelers like ourselves: nomads from the desert lands to the south. They travel the ancient caravan routes with their camels and their livestock, trading their produce and whatever trinkets they come by on the way. Did you see how much silver that woman was wearing? No need to worry, their byword is hospitality. Make the most of it—they’re the last decent folk you’re likely to encounter for a while.”