The old man appeared to be in one of his more lucid moods, for he seemed to remember who Hector was, and announced his own name as Simeon. ‘You noticed, didn’t you?’ he asked the young man. ‘They took the strong ones. You were lucky not to be picked. Probably too skinny . . . or too beautiful,’ and he laughed coarsely to himself. ‘This is Algiers, you know. They keep their pretty boys close to home, not sent off to work as public slaves.’
Hector was feeling light-headed in the heat. ‘What’s going to happen to us now?’ he enquired.
‘Off to the badestan, I expect,’ explained Simeon.
The badestan proved to be an open square close to the Kasbah’s main entrance. Here a large crowd of Algerines had already assembled, and before Hector could understand what was happening, an old man had taken him by his arm in a friendly way, and begun to lead him around the square. It was several steps before Hector realised that he was in the hands of an auctioneer. There was a shouted demand from an onlooker. The old man stopped, then pulled the shirt off Hector’s shoulders so that the young man’s naked torso was exposed. A few paces further and at another request called from the crowd, the old man produced a thin, whippy cane and, to Hector’s shock, slashed it violently across his ankles. Hector leapt in pain. Even before he had landed, the auctioneer had repeated the blow from the other direction, so that Hector was forced to skip and turn in the air. Twice more during the circuit of the square, the cane was used and he was made to jump and spin. Then the auctioneer began to sing out what must have been his salesman’s patter, for there were answering calls from the crowd, and Hector guessed that they were making their bids. The bidding reached its climax and the auctioneer was making what seemed to be his last appeal, when a dignified-looking Turk stepped out of the crowd and came across to where Hector was standing. The newcomer was clearly a man of substance. His purple velvet jacket was richly embroidered, and the silver handle of a fine dagger showed above the brocade sash around his waist. On his head was a tall felt hat with jewelled brooch pinned to it. The man said something quietly to the auctioneer who reached up and placed his wiry hand on Hector’s jaw. Then he squeezed with a firm downward pull, and Hector involuntarily opened his mouth. The Turk peered into his mouth, seemed satisfied, and murmured something to the auctioneer who immediately led Hector back to his waiting companions.
‘I told them my age already,’ grumbled Hector to Simeon.
His complaint was met with a gleeful chuckle. ‘It was not your age he wanted to know. But the state of your teeth.’ The smirking grey beard opened his own mouth and pointed triumphantly at his own teeth. The few of them that remained were brown and rotten. ‘Can’t chew with them,’ he crowed. ‘I’d be no good at all. Even though I’ve done my time.’
‘Where, old man?’ asked Hector, growing tired of Simeon’s vagueness.
The dotard snickered, ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ and would say no more.
Hector looked back at the well-dressed man who had bought him. The same purchaser was now interested in the sailor Dunton, and was again talking with the auctioneer even as the guards began shoving all the captives back into line. Those who had not been stripped to the waist now had their shirts or smocks removed. Then the auctioneer walked down the line, followed by an attendant holding a clay pot and a small brush. In front of each man the auctioneer stopped, checked a document he was holding, and then said something to the attendant who stepped forward. He dipped his brush into the pot and made marks on the man’s chest in ochre paint. Looking down at the marks as they dried on his skin, Hector supposed they were numbers or letters, but whether they were the bid price or an identity number he did not know.
CAPTAIN OF GALLEYS Turgut Reis had not intended to go to the badestan that morning, but his senior wife had hinted that he get out of the house so that she could have the servants do a more thorough job of cleaning his study. In her subtle way she let it be known that he was spending too much time poring over his musty books and charts, and he would be better off meeting up with his friends for cups of coffee and conversation over a pipe of tobacco. Indeed it was unusual for the Captain of Galleys to be in Algiers in the last week of July at all. Normally he would be at sea on a cruise. But this summer was out of the ordinary as well as stressful. A month earlier his galley, Izzet Darya, had sprung a bad leak. When hauled up for repairs, the shipwrights had discovered three or four areas of badly wormed planking that would have to be replaced. The Arsenal at Algiers was chronically short of timber as there were no forests in the neighbourhood, and the owner of the slipway had said he would be obliged to send away for baulks in suitable lengths, maybe as far away as Lebanon. ‘Those Shaitan infidels from Malta are running amok,’ he warned. ‘In previous years I could get deliveries brought by neutral ships. But this year those fanatics have been plundering everything that sails. And even if I can find a freighter, the charges are already exorbitant.’ And he had given Turgut a look which clearly told him that it was high time that the Captain of Galleys got himself a new galley, instead of trying to patch up the old one.
But Turgut was fond of Izzet Darya and did not want to abandon her. He admitted that the vessel was old-fashioned, hard to manoeuvre and over-ornate. But then he himself was a bit like his ship – old-fashioned and set in his ways. His friends always said that he was living in the past, and that he should keep up with the times. They would cite the case of Hakim Reis. Hakim, they pointed out, had shrewdly switched from a vessel propelled by oars to a sailing ship which had greater range and could stay at sea for weeks at a time. The benefits were obvious from the value of the prizes that Hakim Reis was bringing in, the recent batch of captives for example. But, thought Turgut, Hakim was also blessed with remarkable luck. He was always in the right place at the right time to snap up a prize, while he, Captain of Galleys, might loiter at the crucieri, as unbelievers called the areas where the sea lanes crossed, and not see a sail for days. No, Turgut assured himself, he preferred to stick with tradition, for tradition had elevated him to be Captain of Galleys. That appointment, with all its prestige as the acknowledged head of all the corsair captains of Algiers, was not in the gift of the Dey nor of the divan, nor indeed of the scheming odjaks of Algiers. The corsairs of Algiers had their own guild, the taifa, which came together to nominate a leader, but the Sultan himself had indicated whom they should choose. He had nominated Turgut Reis in recognition of the family’s tradition of service in the Sultan’s navy, for Turgut’s father had commanded a war galley, and his most famous ancestor, his great-uncle Piri Reis, had been admiral of the entire Turkish fleet.