Zaragoz Read online

  "It is a pity," he said, lightly. "You should not have tried to fight my men, knowing that your situation was hopeless. I have a good bone-setter, but a minstrel must take far better care of himself than this. You will be unable to play the lute for some time, I fear. You are a minstrel, are you not, Master Orfeo?"

  Orfeo was not suprised that his captor knew his name. The crewmen of the galley who had laid down their arms to surrender would have been quick to buy favour with all the information that they captors could possibly desire to hear. When there is no alternative to slavery but piracy the wise mariner becomes upon the instant the very model of loyalty to the pirates' cause.

  "I reserve the tide minstrel to the elves, my lord," Orfeo replied,

  "as they do themselves. But it is true that I play the lute, and know songs from many lands. I am a storyteller too, and have some little talent to amuse."

  "And you are also a spy for the Lords of Magritta," said the Caliph, "sent to gather intelligence in the court of my master the Sultan. So, at least, I have been told."

  "You are far too wise, my lord," said Orfeo, calmly, "to trust the fantasies of sailors, who are ever quick to believe that a man is more than he seems. I have been some time in Estalia, and when I amused the merchants of Magritta with my tales of Bretonnia and Albion some were generous enough to pay me in my own coin, with tales of the far lands of Araby—of Kamt and Teshert in the east, and Sud and Songhai in the south—and descriptions of the wonders of the Sultan's court. It seemed to me that a man who could take such tales to the cold northern lands might make 16

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  a little of them, by way of amusement. So I begged a passage from the captain of the ship from which you took me, who asked so little in terms of coin that when he looked to me for help in defending his vessel against marauders, I could not in all honour refuse."

  "You killed one of my men," said the Caliph, sadly. "I do not think that was honourable, as you must have known that he was not attempting to kill you."

  "He intended to make a slave of me, my lord," Orfeo pointed out, mimicking the playful manner of the other. "I am content to be the humble servant of all men, but I have a prejudice against becoming the slave of any one. You will understand, I know, that Oldworlders often do have such a prejudice—it is like their reluctance to submit the world to the dominion of one god, though they are ready enough to acknowledge the many."

  "You have a clever tongue," said the other, lightly. "I am glad of it, for it will increase your price. I think, if I advertise your skills appropriately, that the Caliphs of Kamt—who value the arts above all men—might compete to buy your talent to amuse. If only you had not hurt your arm... but no matter. I know to my cost that you have a little skill with the rapier—have you perchance any skill in magic also?"

  "I fear not," said Orfeo.

  "Yet we took a curious amulet from your pack," the other countered, "and a scroll inscribed in letters unknown to me. Are these not magical?"

  "Mere trinkets," Orfeo replied. "In my hands, at least. No doubt you have given them to your wizards—if they find any virtue in the medal or the script, they will be fortunate indeed, for I never could."

  "But you can read," said Nasreen, his voice becoming somewhat less soft. "And write too, I suppose."

  "I can read my own tongue," Orfeo agreed, "but my fingers are cleverer by far in plucking the strings of a lute than plying the quill. I am a fearfully clumsy scribe, even without the hurt to my shoulder."

  The Caliph smiled, humourlessly. "A pity," he said. "You might in time have risen to a high position had you all the skills of wisdom.

  Even a slave may become a vizier, if he proves himself worthy."

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  "Alas," said Orfeo, making no attempt to hide his levity, "my wisdom is a humbler sort, not fit for politics at all, and I do not think I would look so well in a turban as I do in a simple cap."

  The pirate king finally looked away from Orfeo, to stare at Maro.

  The boy had relaxed a good deal, though the tea had not been to his taste and he had laid down the cup without taking more than a sip. He had been watching the exchange betwen Orfeo and the Caliph in some perplexity, and had obviously inferred from their apparent ease that his situation was not so desperate as it had seemed.

  "What is your name?" asked Nasreen.

  "Marcantonio Giraldi, sire," replied the boy. "I am called Maro by my friends." ,

  "I think Maro will suffice," said the other. "You will not need your father's name in these lands, and even without it, four syllables would be a luxury for a slave. But you, also, might qualify for a favoured position if the One God wills it. The King of Songhai—who is a powerful ruler indeed—has such eclectic tastes that he has more eunuchs in his harem than wives. I make shift to find him suitable boys whenever I can, and you have a smooth skin, of a colour which he would think unusual. No doubt you served your fellows in the ship as whoreboy, and have some elementary skill in the crafts which he would teach you."

  Orfeo saw that Maro's skin had taken on a paler hue than was usual, but could not tell whether it was merely the thought of castration which alarmed him, or whether the entire prospect laid before him was abhorrent. He remembered the plea for aid which he had not had time to refuse.

  "Do not frighten the boy, my lord, I beg you," he said. "This is a mariner, not a catamite, and you would surely do better to train him for a pirate than sell him for a plaything. Let him keep his courage, and one day he may be a captain for you. It is plain to see that Estalian birth is not sufficient to prevent a man from rising in the ranks of Aijijil, even to the Barbary Throne itself."

  The last was said with a very slight hint of insult, to draw the Caliph's attention away from the question of the boy's fate. When the dark man answered, though, his tone was free of any sense of injury or offence.

  "Ah yes," he said. "My voice will always give me away, when Zaragoz

  I speak the Oldworlder tongue. My Arabic is very fluent, and the desert men readily take me for one of their own, but you are a travelled man, and can read my features with a practised eye.

  Yes, I am of the oldest stock of that world which calls itself old, and I own that I was not above the age of this meek boy when first I took the turban. But I was a fighting man even then, and far more a warrior than a mariner. Little Maro, if I judge him right, is not even an accomplished thief."

  Maro opened his mouth as if to affirm that indeed he was, then suddenly wondered if it was really a wise thing to do. Being unable to decide, he did the worst thing of all, and neither confirmed nor denied the charge.

  "You see," said Alkadi Nasreen to Orfeo, "no pirate, born or made. I do not train my captains—they earn their station before they humbly beg to join the fleet of Arjijil. But there is no need to hasten to a judgment, for I have already decided that you will be my guests for a while, until I know what is best to do with you. Your broken bone must be set and healed, Master Orfeo, and I am not displeased by the prospect. It is a long time since I was in Estalia, and your talent to amuse will surely find some exercise in reminding me how wise I was to quit its shore."

  "I am certain that you receive regular news from Magritta,"

  said Orfeo, "but it is possible that in my travels I have called at other places which you knew. In which of the many kingdoms were you born, my lord?"

  Orfeo saw that the Caliph's face was straitened by this question, as if the memory of his birthplace did not please him.

  "I doubt that you have been there" he said, darkly. "It is but a tiny realm, on the further reaches of the river called Eboro. Its name is Zaragoz."

  Even Orfeo had not sufficient skill to hide his start of shock.

  "Say you so?" he said, his voice hardly above a murmur. "I will confess that I am very surprised to hear it. It happens, my lord, that I have been in Zaragoz, less than two years since. What befell me there is not among my happier memories, though I have consoled myself with the th
ought that I might one day shape it into a useful story."

  Nasreen's stare was different now in its quality, and Orfeo knew that he was not the only one taken by surprise. It was clear that 17

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  the Caliph was wondering whether this might be a mere trick intended to win his sympathy, but it was equally clear that the bold pirate king wanted to believe him, and that he would indeed be interested to hear of recent events in Zaragoz. In one sense, this was a good thing for Orfeo to learn, but the matter was not without its hazards.

  "And how does Zaragoz fare?" asked the Caliph of Mahabbah and Lord of the Twin Seas, with a curious coldness in his tone.

  "Is the son of diAvila well, and do his people love him better than they loved his father?"

  "It is a long tale," said Orfeo, carefully, "and has more in it than you might expect. I beg your permission to tell it in my own way, when you have made proper time for it. But I will say this, since you ask: Marsilio diAvila, if he is the son that you mean, was called a tyrant by his people. I will tell you also that his reign is at an end.. .and that my story includes an account of its ending."

  When he had made this speech, Orfeo let his breath out very gently, not sure for a moment or two how accurately he had judged his audience or how cunningly he had planned his advertisement.

  There was no cause for alarm, for the face of the Caliph of Mahabbah showed plainly enough the extent of his fascination as he came abruptly to his feet.

  "You are right, Master Minstrel," he said. "I must make time for this, and hear it all. But you must swear to tell me true, for this is a matter which means more to me than you know. I swear by the One God that I will not punish you, should it transpire that you are the bearer of news that hurts me, and I swear also that if I have cause to be pleased in what I hear, then you and this boy will receive fair treatment in Arjilil."

  Orfeo stood up, so that he could look the other man in the eye again.

  "I will swear," he said, "by your One God or by any of the gods to whom we pay homage in the Old World."

  The Caliph nodded. "Swear by Morr and Manann," he instructed. 'The god of the sea and the god of death. Though they are false gods here, I would be content to hear a man like you swear by their names."

  "I so swear," said Orfeo, calmly. "By Morr and Manann, I give you my word that I will tell you the truth of that which happened 32

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  in Zaragoz when I was there. I will give as full and honest an account as any man could."

  The man who styled himself Alkadi Nasreen—but had surely owned another name in his boyhood—nodded in acknowledgement.

  "I will send food and clothing," he said, "and pallets on which you both may sleep. Water too, so that you may bathe. When the time is made, I will send for you."

  He left the room then, and his guards with him. Orfeo felt his spirits lifting, and was glad to raise his left hand to rub the back of his head where he had earlier been struck down. Then he knelt, to pour more tea from the pot which still remained on the floor.

  He heard that two bolts were drawn on the outside of the door, to secure him in his prison, but it did not trouble him at all.

  "Were you really in Zaragoz?" asked Maro, in a way which suggested that he hardly dared believe it.

  "That I was," Orfeo replied, in a low tone. "I could not dare to pretend, even though he cannot have been there for thirty years and more. Nor do I dare invent a tale, when further news might soon arrive from other lips than mine. But I wish I knew what name his father gave him, so that I might tailor the cloth of honesty to suit it. Do not bless your luck too eagerly, friend Maro, for the fate which has entangled your future with mine may yet prove unkind to us both!"

  Some hours later, Orfeo stood at the window of his lofty residence, watching the sun set over the desert at the right-hand edge of the horizon.

  The wind had whipped enough of the desert sand into the air to colour the sun blood red, and that coloured light painted the desert in much darker and more varied hues than the blaze of noon.

  Long shadows showed where the ridges ran and where the tall palms stood about the wells. He could see a camel-train making its slow way south, making the most of the evening sun after a long afternoon spent sheltering from the day's worst heat. Perhaps it was carrying goods looted from the ship which had brought him unexpectedly to this blighted shore, bound for the King of Songhai and not for the Sultan after all.

  The sand-sea of the Sahra was the second of those "twins" over Brian Craig

  which the Caliph of Mahabbah claimed lordship, but any such claim was mere fancy. The desert was no man's realm.

  Would that I had been a spyfor the Lords of Magritta, said Orfeo to himself. For they would have set me aboard a galley with a bombard in its bow, and a troop ofpikemen to defend its decks.

  Alas, a man who has no missions but his own has no such luxuries to help him.

  The bone-setter had come to attend his wound, and had with dubious authority pronounced that the bone was back in proper alignment. He had given Orfeo a sling for his arm and had firmly instructed him not to make much use of it—though he was well aware that the left hand could not stand in for the right when others were there to see.

  If I had only ducked the other way, Orfeo thought, or gracefully accepted upon the crown of my head the first of those cudgel-blows which were aimed to knock me down, instead of striving to draw more blood while I awaited the second, I would have been a wiser man.

  He seemed to hear another voice then, chiding him as it often had in his youth: Headstrong Orfeo. All-too-human in thy recklessness, as though thine heartbeat were a petty wardrum.

  He had bathed himself, and dressed himself in a black leathern suit of his own, from the pack which had been sent to him. All his possessions were there, save only for his rapier. They were prepared to trust him with the knife which he used in eating, but not yet with an instrument whose only purpose was to carve human meat.

  His lute was undamaged, and though Alkadi Nasreen's magicians had surely copied the devices from the scroll which he carried they had taken care to preserve the original from any tear or mark. Maro's possessions had come too, but they were poor in kind and their hosts had added to them a cotton shirt and a pair of loose trousers in the Arab style, which the boy was unashamed to wear. They were both well fed, but Orfeo could not yet be comfortable because his head still throbbed with the echo of the blow which had stunned him.

  He had expected a summons before now, but the business of a pirate Caliph clearly had more duty in it than he might have supposed, and he was beginning to wonder whether his story might 16

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  have to wait for the morrow. But when the sun had slipped so far below the horizon that only a thin arc of fiery red was left above the darkling hills he heard the bolts withdrawn again, and turned to see the person who entered.

  It was a female house-servant, veiled after the fashion of her race—save that this veil was flimsy and transparent, revealing instead of hiding the features which it overlaid.

  "Your pardon, sire," she said, "but you must come with me."

  Orfeo bowed politely, and passed through the door which she held for him.

  The corridors of Arjilil's citadel wound round its walls in complex fashion; their walls were sometimes brick and sometimes stone, sometimes whited and sometimes decorated with rugs and hangings, lit by huge candles nestling in their alcoves. They passed a dozen scurrying servants and a few men-at-arms, such as might have been seen in any castle of the Old World, made so alike to Oldworlders by the shadowy light that only their turbans accurately betrayed their true location.

  Eventually, the girl brought Orfeo to his destination. It was a small chamber, and not as sumptuous as he might have expected of the humblest of a Caliph's private apartments. To his surprise, Orfeo found that it had a high table and upholstered chairs, sturdy enough for the home of an imperial man of business. Furthermore, there was a jug of wine upon the
table, and goblets of crystal.

  Between them stood a candelabra of Bretonnian manufacture, with three long candles only just alight. In taking the turban, it seemed, the man who now called himself Alkadi Nasreen had not forsworn entirely the habits of his former life.

  "Sit down," said the Caliph, when the servant had gone. "I have seen to it that we will not be disturbed. The night is the proper time for men to talk, and I have coats in case it should grow cold when the sun is too long gone. And if your tale should be so long in the telling that it exhausts the dark hours...well then, I trust that you will leave it at a proper point, so that we may take it up again when the night frees us yet again from the burdens of my kingship."

  Orfeo sat down, and the other poured wine into his cup. "If it is not good," he said, "you must blame the captain whose generosity you repaid with your swordplay. It was his own, reserved Brian Craig

  for his private use. He cannot use it now, for our wise priests have banished wine from the land, saying that the will of the One True God is such that men may only lighten their heads with hasheesh and opium. I agree entirely with their discretion, for bad wine is not fit for any man to drink, and the good is far too precious to be wasted. Your health, Master Minstrel!"

  Orfeo drank from the cup, fearing not in these surroundings to use his left hand to lift it. He found the wine altogether agreeable, though by no means of the very best.

  "Thank you, my lord," he said. "The desert wind dries a man's throat, if he is not used to its bite. But I wish you would not call me minstrel."

  "I had forgotten," said the Caliph, though Orfeo did not believe him. "I judge from your niceness in labelling that you have had close dealings with elves."

  "I was raised as a foundling by wood eives in the deep Bretonnian forest," Orfeo explained. "But as soon as I grew old enough to fend for myself I left them—it was all too plain that I was not of their company. My foster father taught me the lute and gave me my name—to have taken the title of minstrel also would have seemed a kind of theft, for I had heard and seen the real minstrels...more of them, perhaps, than any margrave of the Empire."