And so, on the advice of that ancient mariner of captive pirate stock, who showed mounting interest in their journey, they had purchased in the port of Salé a big ship, old but built of sound timber, which had served in bygone days as a guardship in the fleet of the caliph Hashem the First. Without removing the old bridge in its bow or the row of rusting shields that adorned its sides, they prepared it for its civilian mission. They installed separate cabins amidships, cleared out the hold, reinforced the timbers with large wooden rivets, increased the height of the mast, and fitted a larger, triangular lateen sail. They waited for the summer to manifest itself, and then Abu Lutfi selected six experienced sailors to take the ship on a trial run back and forth near the Straits of Gibraltar. It passed the test, and so they loaded it with the great mass of merchandise that had accumulated in the warehouses over the past two years, and with further goods as well. Jars full of pickled fish-cheeks and olive oil, camel skins and leopard skins, embroidered cloth and skillfully made brassware. Also sacks of condiments, and sugar canes, and fastened baskets full of figs and dates and honeycombs, and leather containers brimming with desert salt, in the depths of which they had concealed daggers inlaid with precious stones and flasks of rare perfumes. It was late June when they set sail, turning their backs for the first time in their lives on the rising sun and setting their faces to the west, to the great expanse of the ocean. Clinging cautiously to the coast of southern Andalus, they began to sail northward along the califate of Cordoba and the kingdom of Leon, turning eastward somewhat along the northern coast of Castile and Navarre to the port of Bayonne. From here, after a short rest, they sailed along the coast of Aquitaine and the duchies of Gascony and Guyenne, touched the coast of Belle Île, and turned northwest, into the heart of the ocean, so as to give a wide berth to the dangerous craggy headlands of Brittany. So weary were they from the long voyage that they momentarily disregarded the old pirates’ map and hunted for the mouth of the river they were seeking in the big gulf that they had come upon. But they had been overhasty, and pressed on northward for ten long days more, skirting the great duchy of Normandy until at last they were able to turn east, into the crocodile jaws of a new bay that appeared at dawn in all its splendor, and into which flowed the longed-for river named the Seine, which would conduct them circuitously but safely to the place where their third partner had vanished, after submitting to his wife’s repudiation.
Even though there was no reason why the Christian millennium should trouble Jews or Muslims sailing alone upon the universal ocean, the Moroccan ship, advancing at the pace of a fast horse, seemed to have absorbed something of the new religious fervor radiating from the nearby Christian coasts. How else are we to explain the fanaticism with which the sailors harried the black boy, who attempted occasionally to commune with his ancient gods, which the dread of the wide ocean was forcing out of the memory of his pagan childhood? Ben Attar sometimes thought that this panic-stricken youth might be able to find peace in his outlandish prayers, and even bestow it upon others. But this is not what the Arab sailors thought, for whenever they caught the boy prostrating himself in supplication to the sun or the moon or the stars or bowing down at the base of the old bridge, facing the animal head carved at the top of the mast, they would drag him to his feet and flog him for idolatrously polluting the worship of the one invisible God, who here, on the high seas, seemed to his worshippers not merely a necessity but the only rational divinity. Fearing that the young African might secretly betray them, they attached little brass bells to his coat, so as to keep track of his movements. And even now, as he brought Ben Attar the light meal he had cooked for him, the soft chimes dissolved the silence of the night.
On a round brass tray lay an earthenware bowl full to overflowing with a yellowish stew with some pieces of white cheese floating on it. Beside it was a fine silver basket replete with figs that had been picked and dried in Seville, on which lay a grilled fish that had been netted earlier in the night, its eye still gleaming in the dark as though it were not yet reconciled to its death. At such a deep hour of the night Ben Attar did not feel like tackling a full-scale meal, but he forced himself to swallow some of the scalding stew and picked at the white flesh of the fish, so as not to drink on an empty stomach the wine that the young slave was pouring for him, despite the rabbinic prohibition on drinking wine poured by idolaters. Even though he sought to temper his spirit, and even to befuddle it enough to encourage the carefree humor that gives rise to a proper desire, well balanced between shyness and assertiveness—like that which had guided him in his coupling earlier in the night—he still had to be cautious with an unfamiliar wine, whose effects had not yet been fully tested.
At first, out of consideration for the faith of his fellow travelers, he had thought of declining the large wine jar he had been offered in exchange for a jar of olive oil twenty days since in the port of Bordeaux, and to content himself with sipping the sweet spiced wine he had brought from home for ritual purposes. It was the ship’s captain who had urged him not to turn down the Frankish wine, whose smell and taste were very seductive. For seafaring men, even if they are Mohammedans, the drinking of wine is not a sin, explained Abd el-Shafi, whose many years at sea had made him not only a tough old sea salt but also an expert in maritime law. If in truth all mankind may be divided into three classes, the living, the dead, and seafarers, who are neither living nor dead but merely hopeful, surely there is nothing like wine for inspiring hope. Therefore even now, observing the Jew tippling in the silence of the night, the captain leaned down from his hammock with an agile movement to inspire himself with a little hope, not for a waiting wife but for the mouth of the river, which he hoped the summer had left deep and wide enough to let the potbellied ship pass through without disgrace or mishap.
He did not venture to serve himself without asking the owner’s permission. But once invited, he started to gulp the wine down so lustily that the young slave had to be repeatedly dispatched to refill the pitcher, until even Abu Lutfi, who was sleeping the sleep of the just among the sacks of condiments and the camel skins so as to keep an eye on the hidden swords and daggers, awoke at the sound of the swilled wine and emerged from the bowels of the ship—not, heaven forfend, to transgress against the Prophet’s prohibition, but to content himself with contemplating the ruby liquid and perhaps sniffing its unfamiliar odor. Unable, however, to contain himself at the sight of Abd el-Shafi calmly drinking, he raised his eyes to the dark vault of the sky to discover whether at such a distance from his native country, on the threshold of a backward Christian land, unstable of government and possessed by vain beliefs, there was anyone who might rebuke him for tasting this beverage that was so beloved of the inhabitants of the place. Not for the sake of pleasure, he reasoned, but to judge for himself the nature of this juice that colored the thoughts and feelings of those whom he would soon be called upon to pit himself against. He closed his eyes as he raised the goblet to his lips and took a small sip of the cool liquid, and then his face paled as he understood how sublime the taste of the forbidden drink was, and how easily one might become enslaved to it. There and then he resolved to abjure it totally. But it was such a pity to throw the wonderful wine into the sea that he passed the goblet to the captain, who drained it delightedly and by way of thanks pointed to a pair of new stars that had appeared over the northern horizon to confirm how far they had sailed under the vault of heaven.