PROLOGUE

In the Arab quarter of Al Halisa in the Sicilian city of Palermo, there once lived a beautiful girl. She was virtuous and cared only for her flowers. One day, when she was watering her hibiscus and jasmine on the balcony, she was spotted by a handsome Saracen trader. He burned with a desperate love for her which neither prayer nor strong wine could extinguish. He would walk beneath the girl’s balcony, go down on one knee and silently look up to where his beloved was pruning her roses and singing to the orange blossom. The girl was not made of ice, and the charming Saracen soon opened her heart as well as her gate.

Their love was deep and their love-making passionate and insatiable. The couple remained in each other’s arms until first light and swore undying love to one another.

Then the girl found out that her beloved had neglected to mention his wife and children in the Orient, whither he was soon to return. She sank into the depths of despair and humiliation. She waited for her lover to fall asleep and then cut off his head. Now he could never leave her. She turned his noble Saracen head into a flowerpot and planted basil seeds in it. Then she watered them every day with her tears. The basil plant grew with extraordinary vigour and exuded an intoxicating fragrance which drifted across Al Halisa night after night, just as the moans of the lovers had done before. It caused each of the local inhabitants to pause for a moment, recalling a time when they had been so much in love that they wanted to die.

 

I.

 

Boy scratched at his leg where there was a dried-up scab from the last time he had jumped down from the tree too quickly. The scab absorbed his attention and he started to methodically peel it away until the whole thing came off. He gasped. Fresh blood oozed from the wound. It was as red as the glass lamp that hung around the neck of Izar the merchant.

“Quiet or you’re for it,” Boy shouted at his dog, which was barking at him beneath the tree. “If you give us away, if someone finds our tree because of you…” Boy snarled at the dog, just as he’d seen his father do, until the dog put its tail between its legs and quietened down, “…you’re dead. If you give us away, you’ll be for the knacker’s.”

“I have to go,” said Boy, turning to his friend. “Father will give me a hiding if I don’t get back in time for the execution. I’ll come again tomorrow.” He gently touched the baby bird on his friend’s lap and then his friend’s sleeve before jumping down. He landed with the lightness of a cat. The dog started leaping up at Boy, overcome with joy.

“Quiet!” shouted Boy. The dog ran ahead of him in the direction of home, turning round all the time. Occasionally it would stop, sit down and scratch behind its ear. Boy was glad to have the dog with him, even if it did have fleas: they had to walk through the Valley of the Lost Children, which always gave him the willies, so he sang to keep his spirits up. Protruding from the rocky walls were the stone heads of children, staring out from the past through empty eye sockets, while withered moss sprouted from between their teeth. They were so frightening that the boys from the city were only given a name once they had passed through the valley without soiling themselves. Boy had been coming here for a long time, so he could easily have had his own name by now, but he couldn’t tell anyone about it. If someone found out that he walked through the Valley of the Lost Children, they might discover the tree with his friend in it. That would be the worst thing that could possibly happen.

Whenever the dog stopped and pricked up its ears, Boy stopped too. When Boy whistled, the dog froze on the spot like Lot’s wife. They moved in harmony, like the two arms of a single body.

“It’s the shit-seller’s boy!”

They passed through the city gate without any problem – the watchmen knew him, as Boy and his father often came this way when they were taking their wares to the peasants outside of the city. The last time they had come here, Boy had tripped and spilled the contents of his bucket, getting it all over himself and hurting himself in the process. He didn’t burst into tears or even let out a sob, just quickly got up and dusted off his dirty knees while a soldier in a ripped tunic by the city gate laughed and pointed at Boy. Boy picked up his bucket, watching his father out of the corner of his eye, but he was acting as though nothing had happened and kept quietly walking along. When the guard called out to them to take their stench with them, saying he would have to stand there in the sun surrounded by it for hours, Boy’s father wordlessly placed his hand on his shoulder and left it there until they were out of sight of the watch.

Boy ran into the market square just as the execution was reaching its climax. The condemned man, some poor wretch who had throttled and eaten a rare peacock from the castle moat, fainted the moment the executioner broke his fingers and smashed his wrist with a club. A ripple of disappointment passed through the crowd and the executioner decided to bring the unfortunate man round by flaying his chest, but it was hard work and the condemned man merely let out a faint groan. The prince in his green robes stood up and ordered the executioner to behead the wretch. Then he left the balcony. Again the crowd murmured its dissatisfaction. By the time the executioner held the pitiful head of his victim aloft, only a few drunks remained in the market square.

 

***

Saturday 4th October, Feast of St Francis

We were ready to set sail yesterday, when a favourable wind was blowing, but the superstitiousness of the sailors prevented us from putting to sea on the day of our Lord’s crucifixion.

I have never met a more superstitious bunch than sailors. According to them, so many things bring bad luck: for example, people with red hair, unless you manage to speak to them first. I had to haggle with the captain because two of the men in my retinue are as red as foxes; before embarking, they had to cover their heads with caps and all of the men from the crew had to say something to them first, one after the other. I need hardly point out that it wasn’t anything nice. Priests and other clergymen also bring bad luck. A woman on board has the power to bring ruin upon the whole voyage. It is not possible to set sail on a Friday, nor on a Thursday – that is Thor’s day. The second Monday in August is the day when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, which rules it out too. Seabirds carry the souls of drowned sailors and are therefore not to be killed. Whistling summons a storm.

Sailors are constantly at the mercy of the elements, and so they cling to even the smallest image of security, which they have tattooed onto their body so that no-one can deprive them of it. The motifs of these tattoos differ according to where the sailors are journeying to, but they all have them. Those who have a tattoo of a pig or a chicken believe that if the ship is wrecked and the Lord looks down and sees these animals that cannot swim in the sea, He will take pity on them, scoop them up in His loving hands and set them down on dry land. The anchor is a symbol that is supposed to keep a sailor who has fallen overboard close to the ship, while the image of a compass rose is supposed to guide lost sailors safely home.

As I said, they are more superstitious than old biddies. That is why we were unable to set sail on Friday, despite the favourable wind, and had to wait until Saturday, when the sea was like a Venetian mirror. The sails were as limp as an old man’s penis, so the captain ordered them to be taken in. Built for strong winds, our brig, the Fortuna, was becalmed in the middle of the sea, stuck like a fly in a dish of honey.

However, sailors have reason to be superstitious: more than one expedition has come a cropper at sea. Alaric, king of the Visigoths, could tell you a thing or two about it. He led the first barbarian tribe to conquer Rome, but during the subsequent voyage to the Roman provinces in Africa his fleet was sunk and shortly afterwards Alaric met his end.

***

Sunday 5th October, The Lord’s Day

There was grumbling amongst the crew about how it had better not turn out like that time when the Fortuna was becalmed on the shore of the Equatorial Kingdom and was unfortunate enough to fall prey to pirates in swift rowing boats. However, our captain had the sense to keep the men busy, and so they sifted through barley below decks while a black cat wandered between their legs, its ears pricked up in case a startled rodent should dart out from the heap. Every hour the men poured buckets of seawater over the deck and scrubbed it with coarse fabric made of Amazonian lemoleus. The rest of the crew repaired the torn and tattered sails using needles, waxed twine and a leather palm strap with a brass circle in the middle for the sailor to brace the thick needle against so he could push it through the stiff sailcloth. I liked to watch the work take shape under their hands. Some of them sang quietly to themselves, while others worked in silence, occasionally wiping the sweat from their brow. The sunshine still held the warmth of summer and quickly brought on fatigue.

I could see them sneaking glances at the eternal light in the red carafe at my neck. Everyone sneaks glances at it, all the time: the legend of this light precedes me, as does the belief in its miraculous power. But my retinue of burly and taciturn Vikings prevented them from approaching me. Without my having to do or say anything, the crew treated me with respect, which is a difficult thing for any mortal to achieve – as any traveller who has ever sailed the seas will testify.

The captain was a well-read man. Before retiring for the night, he invited me to his cabin for a glass of the al-kahal I had sold him earlier and insisted that I tell him about my travels. Occasionally he would cross himself when he found my account too dramatic or when I was telling him about the infidels who do not honour the Sabbath and go around bare-bottomed, or about a tribe of cannibals called the Laestrygones. That evening the captain had a visit from the bosun, who bent down and whispered to him that one of the men had broken out in a grey rash. He needn’t have whispered: I could hear him well enough, and besides, I myself had noticed this unfortunate fellow earlier and instructed the men in my retinue to steer clear of him. The captain wanted me to tell him the tale of the pirate scoundrel Stenka Razin – everyone was talking about him because he had risen up against the Tsar and earned himself excommunication from the church. It was a lengthy tale about a Cossack hero who was betrayed by his own generals and whose brother was executed during a campaign against the Poles. That led Stenka to break with the tsarist autocracy once and for all.

“What would you do if someone executed your brother?” asked the captain, poking about in his mouth with a silver toothpick.

“I don’t have a brother,” I replied, taking up the story again. Stenka Razin and his men set out on a crusade along the River Volga into Persia. He had the Tsar’s blessing as he intended to free Christian souls from Muslim captivity.

The captain nodded – he was familiar with this story; how many times had he heard about Christians in foreign chains?

And Stenka Razin murdered and pillaged, and during his raids from his island base of Suina he plundered the whole of the Persian coast. He delivered many Christian souls from Muslim bondage, and the Tsar himself thanked him and pardoned him for all his previous crimes. Razin amassed a fortune in booty the like of which had never been seen before, making him richer even than the Tsar. However, a man with great wealth also has a great many enemies – and the worst of them is his own conscience.

During one marauding raid, Razin captured the daughter of a Persian prince along with her brother. He gave the brother to the Tsar as a gift but kept the princess for himself as his mistress. He sailed with her down the River Volga, caressing her young body at his leisure and covering her in kisses until he was on the point of fainting, and he decided to take her as his wife. But his men were against this and said to him: “Stenka, our Ataman, do you not know how treacherous it is to have a woman on board? You should know that love makes the mind grow soft and the sword arm grow weak.” And Stenka wept, and he took the princess in his arms, kissed her forehead and cast her into the cold waves of the Volga. The princess’s garments were inlaid with silver, gold and precious stones, so she just glistened on the foam of the waves for a moment before disappearing beneath the surface of the broad river. Stenka Razin wiped away a tear and then ordered the crew to set sail for Astrakhan.

“Quite right too,” grunted the captain of the Fortuna. “A woman has no place in war or on board a respectable ship.”

“That’s not superstition talking,” he added when he saw I was silent. “You should see it – as soon as there’s a skirt on board, the men are all at sixes and sevens and don’t jump aside fast enough when the anchor line is being untied and pay no heed to orders. What is one to do with a crew like that? It would spell disaster for all of us.”

The captain lowered the flame of the lamp to conserve precious oil. The cabin was plunged into darkness. In the calm of the still waters, the sound of someone being sick on deck could be heard.

Stenka Razin launched a campaign against Astrakhan. Having made a name for himself all over Russia with his exploits in Persia, he was soon joined by supporters, serfs and the downtrodden from near and far. They sacked Tsaritsyn and Astrakhan, captured the local voivod, threw him out of a tower and declared a Cossack state. Razin put his people in charge of the captured cities and took more and more territory. Led by the Cossacks, the people revolted against the nobility.

“Such impudence,” said the captain quietly.

The uprising caused great consternation. The Patriarch of Moscow put a curse on Stenka and the furious Tsar sent a punitive expedition sixty thousand men strong against him. There was a great battle which lasted an entire month. Fifteen thousand Cossacks fell and Stenka was gravely wounded in the fighting.

Betrayal by another Cossack Ataman led to Razin’s imprisonment. All the captured supporters of the rebellion were executed. The Volga ran red with blood.

The captain sighed sadly.

Stenka was taken to Moscow to be made an example of. He was led to the execution ground on Red Square before Tsar Alexei himself. It took so long for the sentence to be read that refreshments had to be brought for the Tsar and his retinue. Stenka stood there motionless the entire time. Then he turned towards Saint Basil’s Cathedral and whispered: “Forgive me.” He whispered the same thing to each side apart from the dais where the Tsar was sitting. Then, in accordance with the Tsar’s sentence, the executioner cut off Stenka’s right arm at the elbow, then his left leg at the knee. Stenka’s younger brother prostrated himself before the Tsar and begged for mercy – after all, such barbarity was against the Tsar’s own laws. The half-dead Stenka barked at his brother: “Silence, you dog!” Those were his last words. Then the executioner cut off his head and quartered him as a warning to others.

“Yes,” nodded the captain, as though the ending was a foregone conclusion.

“The Tsar could not have acted otherwise. He had to defend his principality. Every rebel will receive his just deserts. The pirate must surely have known that.”

“Oh, undoubtedly. But I wonder whether he had any regrets. All those enemies and innocent civilians with their throats slit, the murder of his lover… And his last words were actually: ‘Forgive me.’ He asked for a forgiveness for his sins that could no longer be granted to him… No-one made the sign of the cross over him, the way to the starry heavens was barred to him…”

“Naturally, people always wish for what they do not have. There’s no need to wish for what one already has. What do you wish for most, Izar?”

I told him that what I wished for most of all was to sleep. I bid the captain farewell and retired to my quarters, where I tossed and turned all night long.

***

Monday 6th October, by the grace of God

On the morning of the third day, we were greeted by a blood-red dawn and the sailors again prophesied bad luck. After two days of dead calm, the captain gave them permission to whistle, albeit softly, in order to summon up the sleeping wind. The bosun gently stroked the mast. When I was urinating from the stern a few moments later, a faint breeze was already beginning to disturb the course of my stream. The sailors began to climb up the masts like monkeys and loosened the lashings on the heavy sails. The Fortuna took a deep breath into her sails and went skipping across the sea like a girl who has just been asked to dance by the bridegroom. Suddenly there was work to be done everywhere. The bosun, who had been virtually invisible up until then, was giving out orders left, right and centre. The ship went flying along at a speed of seven knots. The captain scratched his crotch contentedly and said that if the wind held we could reach the Island the next day. He asked me whether that book I was always making notes in was an album amicorum, which some noble gentlemen on the mainland had taken to carrying about with them. And whether he should draw something in it for me. He gave a hearty belly laugh. I thanked him politely. He asked me if I would let him read it.

“It’s an ordinary notebook, Captain, just the humdrum notes of an old man,” I said, smiling insincerely and tucking the notebook away under my cloak.

The captain shook his head, but he was too preoccupied with all the activity on deck to press me further.

At the start of the voyage we had a crew of fifteen men, but by the time we arrived only thirteen were left. The one with the rash had begun to bleed from his ears, so they threw him overboard. They did not even perform the traditional burial at sea, in which the most experienced crew member sews the deceased into a sail or his own hammock instead of a shroud, with the last stitch going through his nose – this is to make sure that he really is dead and, more importantly, that he is securely attached to his shroud and cannot follow the ship.

They did not even wait for the other sailor to start bleeding. As soon as purple boils erupted on his face, they grabbed him and carried him to the taffrail. He screamed blue murder, and before his body even hit the surface, the water had darkened with the hungry mouths of sharks, crocodiles and other creatures. The remaining crew members knelt down and prayed to Saint Erasmus. I instructed my three Vikings to stand on the bow so that all the unhealthy miasma, which is the source of illness, would be blown away from them. Two of the crewmen spewed into the sea. The birds and fish feasted on their vomit as though it were manna from heaven. This is the cycle of life provided to us by the grace of God.

Tomorrow we celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto, when the allied naval forces of the Holy League roundly defeated the main fleet of the Ottoman Empire, thus putting an end to the fears of all good Christians about a Turkish attack from the Mediterranean Sea. Deo gratias.

 

Translated by Graeme and Suzanne Dibble