‘Would that I could,’ said Slovo. ‘My Arabic is still such that I can only dimly hear the apparently sublime cadences of your Qur’an.’
‘Persevere,’ said the corsair as an aside. ‘It is well worth it. Meanwhile, I have received a letter concerning you. There is someone keen to meet you, my Captain Slovo, and I do not think I dare to deny them. It will be next month – are you agreeable?’
Slovo shrugged. ‘What have I to lose?’ he quipped.
Khair Khaleel-el-Din gave the comment far more consideration than it merited.
‘That,’ he said, running an index finger pensively along his withered lips, ‘is a very good question.’
At the time appointed for the meeting, Khair Khaleel-el-Din was more forthcoming. ‘This enlightened being who deigns to look upon you is the Principal of the ancient Cairene University of the Mosque Al-Azher. He is known as the Shaduf, after the original water-lifting implement of his nation, since he likewise brings life to the parched fields of the mind from the refreshing waters of truth. As a fellow respecter of wisdom, Slovo, you should abase yourself before him, as I do.’
In fact, neither of them made a move to do any such thing. Slovo took the minute movements of the little Arab visitor’s implausibly neat beard and moustache to be outward signs of facial expression, and presumed it was a greeting. He made a semblance of a bow in return.
‘I thank you, master privateer,’ said the Shaduf. ‘You may now leave us.’
Slovo wondered just what was in store. And it transpired he had the opportunity to ponder for some while. The Shaduf simply sat and studied him at first. Considering a trial of stares unwise, Slovo pretended to examine the galleys in Tripoli Harbour far below.
‘Yes,’ the Shaduf eventually drawled, clearly expectant that Slovo would give way to ecstasy at first hearing of that word. ‘Yes, you will do.’
Slovo cleared some imaginary dust from the knee of his breeches. ‘Well, that’s a great weight from my mind,’ he said. ‘Do for what exactly?’
‘For what we have in mind,’ replied the Shaduf concisely, not obviously disappointed by the infidel’s reaction. ‘But that needn’t concern you unduly at this stage in your career.’
‘I was unaware of owning such a structured concept,’ said Slovo. ‘And, incidentally, who is this “we”?’
For the Shaduf the interview was patently over but he remained willing to humour this impudent Christian. ‘Firstly,’ he ticked off one elegant finger, ‘you may be presently unaware of a pattern to your life but that is not to disprove its existence. Secondly,’ another digit was coaxed to bend over, ‘the “we” to whom I referred is a collective called the Vehme.’
Slovo’s data-retrieval faculties travelled gingerly down the hall of memories, careful to avoid some of the more monstrous items slumbering lightly there. ‘I recall hearing that word,’ he said, frowning to recollect, ‘in Germania, amongst the City States. I have heard things …’
‘But not the truth,’ interrupted the Shaduf dismissively, with confidence that convinced. ‘That is something that can only be learned gradually. It is this that we propose to you.’
Captain Slovo already had the experience to scent overwhelming power. Physically, the Shaduf might be no match for the youngest trainee pirate aboard Slovo’s ship but it was clear to the Captain that he himself was very much a slingless David to the Arab’s Goliath in this encounter.
‘Just out of curiosity,’ he asked, ‘is it open for me to refuse?’
‘It is open to all men to die,’ answered the Shaduf.
The Year 1488
‘By possession of a beautiful bottom (but not my own) I secure a new position in life and acquire respectability and a wife!’
‘Details, mere details,’ said Captain Slovo.
‘They may be mere details to you, Captain,’ replied Bosun, ‘but to us it’s life and death. Come on – slit your throat and spill the news.’
Ever since the blowing of his cover, revealing him as an amateur philosopher, Bosun had been manifesting dangerously democratic tendencies. Slovo would never have tolerated it but for the fact that he had only one more voyage to make and that replacing Bosun would be inconvenient. Otherwise, the upstart tiller-tugger would have been over the side in short order, to join the Venetian.
‘A reliable source,’ Slovo explained with a patience that should have stirred Bosun’s neck hairs, ‘informed me of a particularly succulent “fruit of the waves”, that is all. We sally forth to pluck and devour it. What could be more natural?’
Bosun made his protest with a discreet lowering of voice. ‘But a Caliph’s ship! That’s not been our way. We’re just a galiot and she’ll be laterna size – we’ll never hack it. They’ll be all over us!’
‘That prospect might be more attractive than you think,’ answered Slovo. ‘A Princess’s ship will carry a hefty contingent of maidens and eunuchs-in-waiting, in lieu of fighting men. The odds will be more even than you suppose. Besides, I am assured that we will be assisted by an agent aboard.’
In between his reflex ten-second checks on the crew’s devotion to duty, Bosun found time to construct the message ‘unconvinced’ on his features. ‘You’ve got a lot of faith in this source,’ he said cautiously. ‘That’s not like you.’
Nor indeed was it but, in the face of the arguments arrayed in battle order by the Shaduf, Slovo had seen little option but the leap of faith. If the Principal of the world’s oldest university said that a dowry-laden daughter of the Egyptian Sultan was en route to matrimony with a Turkish rival, Slovo found himself with no alternative but action. The additional consideration, that Slovo was soon to be declared an ‘Enemy of God’ throughout the Islamic world, made imminent departure very attractive. Bit by bit, the Vehmic conspiracy had narrowed and straightened the path before him, and then firmly pushed him on his way.
‘What more can I say?’ asked the Captain of his Bosun, preparing to deploy his ‘doomsday instruction’. ‘Trust me.’
There was no safe answer to that and Bosun swung away, launching into compensatory abuse of the crew. Those seamen not wedded to the oars teemed about like ants trying to appease him.
The galley fairly ripped through the water as the rowers settled easily into the mindless rhythm of the strokemaster’s ancient song. Bosun had been permitted to tantalize them with hints of a bounteous prize ahead and they pulled away with a will. Only Bosun himself remained discontent, pacing the rowing deck and scanning the sea ahead, but there was nothing so unusual about that.
Slovo, by contrast, was looking forward to what was to come. For once in his life he did not need to worry about preparing for every eventuality. The Shaduf – and through him, the Vehme – had instructed him down to the last detail. Such tender care recalled dim memories of family, and might have cheered the Captain but for what the Venetian and Stoicism had jointly worked on him.
While the Shaduf had said next to nothing about the apparently all-embracing Vehme, he had been generous to a fault with other thought-provoking ‘facts’. The Deity, however one conceived him or it, he had said, was possessed of seventy-three proper names and those infinite few who knew any of them were termed the Baal Shem.
Slovo had confessed himself intrigued by such theological information, but he was a working pirate with a living to steal. Exactly how did such revelations assist him?