The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, the Confusion, and the System of the World (167 page)

“But if there was any truth
whatsoever
in your narration,” said Dappa carefully, “it was a moment of high drama, exceeding anything ever staged in a theatre.”

“What is your point?”

“In those short moments you may have made a vivid impression in the Duke’s memory.”

“I should hope so!”

“No, Jack,” Moseh said gently, “you should hope
not.
”

Only Moseh, Dappa, and Vrej knew that the Investor had for some years been combing every last fen, wadi, and reef of the Mediterranean for the man identified, by Muslims, as Ali Zaybak. Moseh and Dappa had followed Jack to the dress-up sack to fret and wring their hands. Vrej was completely unconcerned, though: “In those days Jack had long hair, and a stubbled face, and was heavier. Now with his head and face shaved, and a turban, and with him so gaunt and weather-tanned, I think there is little chance of his being recognized—provided he keeps his trousers on.”

“What possible reason could there be to take them off?” Jack demanded hotly.

T
HE LONGBOAT CAME OUT.
Jack and the
raïs
climbed in. Dappa came, too, as interpreter—for they had agreed that it would be unwise for Jack to let it be known that he spoke Vagabond-French. The longboat took them not to
Météore
after all, but to a part of the harbor
where no fewer than half a dozen war galleys of the French Navy were tied up on either side of a long stone pier. The longboat was tied up at the pier’s end by a couple of barefoot French swabbies. The tide was quite low, so Jack, Nasr al-Ghuráb, and Dappa took turns ascending a ladder to the pier’s sun-hammered top and there met the same young officer who had earlier brought them the letter. He was a slender fellow with a high nose and an overbite, who bowed slightly, and greeted them without really showing respect. Introductions were made by an aide. The officer was identified as one Pierre de Jonzac.

“Tell Monsieur de Jonzac that he has the smallest nostrils of any human who ever lived,” Jack said in the most vulgar Sabir he could muster, “which must serve him well in his dealings with his master.”

“The Agha of the Janissaries greets you as one warrior to another,” Dappa said vaguely.

“Tell him that I am grateful that he has personally taken responsibility for getting us and our cargo to Egypt,” the
raïs
said.

French was exchanged. Pierre de Jonzac stiffened. His pupils widened and his nostrils shrank at the same time, as if they shared a common drawstring. “He understandeth little, and resenteth much,” Dappa said out of the side of his mouth.

“If we do not take our time, here, and pick out a good complement of slaves, why, we will fall behind the convoy, and Dutch or Calabrian pirates will end up with our cargo—” began the
raïs.

“—of whose nature we are ignorant,” added Jack.

“—but which the Duke appears to value highly,” finished Dappa, who could see for himself how this was going. When he said all of this in French, Pierre de Jonzac flinched, and looked as if he were about to order them flogged. Then he seemed to think better of it.

De Jonzac spun on his heel and led them down the pier. The hulls of the French galleys were low as slippers and narrow as knives and could not even be seen from here, but each one had—as well as a pair of masts—both a fore-and a stern-castle, meant to carry her pay-load of cannons and Marines as high above the foes’ as possible. These castles—which were all decorated, gilded, and painted in the finest Barock style—seemed to hover in the air on either side of the pier, bobbing gently in the swell. It was a strangely peaceful scene—until they followed de Jonzac to the edge of the pier and looked down into one of the galleys: a stinking wood-lined gouge in the water, packed with hundreds of naked men, chained by their waists and ankles in groups of five. Many were dozing. But as soon as faces
appeared above them, a few began to shout abuse, and woke up all the rest. Then they were all screaming.

“Rag-head! Come down here and take my seat!”

“You have a pretty ass, nigger! Bend over so we can inspect!”

“Where do you want to row today?”

“Take me! My oar-mates snore!”

“Take him! He prays too much!”

And so forth; but they were
all
shouting as loud as they could, and shaking their chains, and stomping the deck-planks so that the hull boomed like a drum.

“Je vous en prie!”
said Pierre de Jonzac, extending a hand.

It came clear that they were expected to take a few slaves from each galley. A rite soon took shape: They’d cross a gangplank from the pier to the sterncastle and parley with the captain, who would be expecting them, and who would have helpfully culled out a few slaves—always the most miserable tubercular specimens on his boat. Nasr al-Ghuráb would prod them, inspect their teeth, feel their knees, and scoff. This was the signal to begin haggling. Using Dappa as his intermediary, al-Ghuráb had to reject
galériens
one by one, beginning always with the most pitiable, and these would be sent down into the ever-boiling riot of Vagabonds, smugglers, pickpockets, deserters, stranglers, prisoners of war, and Huguenots chained to the benches below. Then it would be necessary to pick out a replacement, which involved more haggling, as well as endless resentful glares, verbal abuse, bluffing, and stalling from the petty officers—called
comités
—who controlled the oar-deck, and tedious un-chaining and re-chaining. The longboat could only ferry ten or so slaves out to the galleot at a time, so five loads, and as many round trips, were needed.

Al-Ghuráb’s strategy had been that he would wear the French down by taking his time and choosing carefully; but as the day went on it became obvious that time was on the side of the captains of the galleys, who relaxed in their cabins, and of Pierre de Jonzac, who sipped Champagne under a giant parasol on the pier, while Jack, Dappa, and al-Ghuráb toiled up and down the gangplanks smelling the bodies and enduring the curses of the
galériens.
They picked out perhaps two boat-loads of reasonably good slaves before they began to lose their concentration, and after that they were more concerned with getting to the end of the day with some vestiges of dignity. Jack led many a
galérien
down the aisle that day. Some of them had to be prodded down the entire length of a one-hundred-fifty-foot ship to be offloaded. Each of those who was staying behind felt bound to say
something
to the one who was being taken off:

“I hope the Mohametans bugger you as often as you’ve whined about your wife and kids in Toulouse!”

“Send us a letter from Algiers, we hear the weather is very nice there!”

“Farewell, Jean-Baptiste, may God go with you!”

“Please don’t let the Corsairs ram us, I have nothing against them!”

It was on the very last trip of the day that Jack—standing in the aisle of a galley while the
raïs
argued with a
comité
—was dazzled, for a moment, by a bright light shone into his eye. He blinked and it was gone. Then it was back: bright as the sun, but coming from within this galley. The third time, he held up an arm to shield his eyes, and squinted at it sidelong, and perceived that it was coming from the middle of a bench near the bow, on the starboard side. He began walking towards it—creating a sensation among the
galériens,
who had all noticed the light on his face and were screaming and pounding their benches with amusement.

By the time he’d reached the forward part of the oar-deck, Jack had lost track of the light’s source—but then one more flash nicked him again, then faded and shrank to a little polygon of grey glass, held in a man’s fingers. Jack had already guessed it would be a hand-mirror, because these were commonly found among the few miserable effects that galley-slaves were allowed to have with them. By thrusting it out of an oar-lock, or raising it high overhead, the owner could see much that would otherwise be out of his view. But it was cheeky for a
galérien
to flash sunlight into the eyes of a free man standing in the aisle, because this was most annoying, and might be punished by breakage or confiscation of the mirror.

Jack looked up into the eyes of the insolent wretch who had been playing tricks on him, and recognized him immediately as Monsieur Arlanc, the Huguenot, whom he had last seen buried in shit in a stable in France.

Jack parted his lips; Monsieur Arlanc raised a finger to his, and shook his head almost imperceptibly. Then he swiveled his eyes in their sockets, leading Jack’s gaze over the gunwale and across the choppy black water of the harbor, off in the general direction of Sicily. Jack’s attention rolled aimlessly about the harbor, like a loose cannonball on a pitching deck, until it fell into a hole, and stopped. For he could clearly see a sort of heathen half-galley riding the swells at the harbor’s entrance, but obliterated, every so often, by a flash of light just like the one that had come from the hand-mirror of Monsieur Arlanc.

The half-galley was none other than the Cabal’s galleot.

Jack’s first thought was that the new slaves must be staging a mutiny and that his comrades were signalling for help. But the flashes emanated not from the quarterdeck, where the Cabal would make their last stand in a mutiny, but from a point down low and amidships: one of the oar-locks. It must be one of the new
galériens,
probably chained safely to his bench by now, but reaching out with a hand-mirror to flash signals to—whom, exactly?

Jack turned around to face the pier-side, which had fallen into deep shade as the sun had swung around over the high crags and castles of Malta. By blocking the sun’s glare with his hand he was able to see a vague spot of bluish light prowling around the pier’s shadows. The mirror was held in an unsteady hand on a rocking boat far away, and so the spot of light frequently careered off into the sky or plunged into the waves. But it would always come back, and work its way carefully down the pier, and then dart upwards at the same place. After this had occurred several times, Jack raised his sights to the top of the pier and saw Pierre de Jonzac sitting there at a folding table with a quill in one hand, staring out to sea. Each mirror-flash lit him up with a ghastly light, and after each one he glanced down (his wig moved) and made a mark (his quill wiggled).

“I suppose you think this was all predestined to happen, monsieur,” said Jack, “but I like to believe you had some say in the matter, and therefore deserve my thanks.”

“There is no time to talk,” Arlanc said. “But know that the men they have sent you are very dangerous: murderers, conspiracists, phanatiques, looters of bakeries, outragers of women, and locksmiths gone bad.”

“I would rather have a Huguenot or two,” Jack mused, scanning the other four members of Monsieur Arlanc’s team. The headman, who sat on the aisle, was a Turk.

“It is a noble conception, Jack, but not destined to happen. They will never agree to it—it is not part of their plan.”

“What about God? Doesn’t He have a plan?”

“I believe only that God preserved me until now so that I could show you what I have showed you,” said Monsieur Arlanc, glancing up towards de Jonzac frozen in another pallid flash, “and thereby repay you for your generosity in the stables. What on earth are you doing, by the way?”

“It is a long story,” Jack said, taking a step away—for al-Ghuráb had finally picked out the last slave, and was calling to him. “I’ll explain it when we reach Egypt.”

Monsieur Arlanc smiled like a saint on the gridiron, and shook
his head. “This galley will never reach Egypt,” he said, “and my mortal body is, as you can see, one with it.” He patted the chain locked round his waist.

“What, are you joking? Look at the size of this armada! We’ll be fine.”

Arlanc closed his eyes, still smiling. “If you see Dutch colors, or English, or—may God forbid it—both combined, make for Africa, and stop not until you have run aground.”

“And then what? Go on foot across the Sahara?”

“It would be easier than the journey we begin tomorrow. God bless you and your sons.”

“Likewise you and yours. See you at the Sphinx.” Jack stormed off down the aisle. For once, the
galériens
did not hound him the whole way. They seemed sober and deflated instead, as if they had all guessed at the subject of Jack’s and Monsieur Arlanc’s conversation.

T
HE VOYAGE FROM
M
ALTA
to Alexandria was a rhumb-line a thousand miles long. The Dutch hit them halfway, five days into the passage, somewhere to the south of Crete. Jack supposed that if he were God watching the battle from Heaven it might make some kind of sense: the onslaughts of the Dutch capital ships, the stately maneuvers of the French ones, and the slashing zigzags of the galleys would form a coherent picture, and seem less like an interminable string of dreadful accidents. But Jack was just a mote on a galleot that was evidently considered too small to be worth attacking, or defending.
Now
they understood why the shrewd Investor had never insisted on having the loot taken off the galleot and loaded into a man-of-war: He must have suspected that half or more of his capital ships would end up on the bottom of the Mediterranean.

Every time a French frigate was struck by a Dutch broadside, a vast cloud of spinning planks, tumbling spars, and other important materials would come flying out the opposite side and tear up the water for a hundred yards or more. After this had happened several times the ship would stop moving and a galley would be brought in to tow it from the line of battle, somewhat like a servant scurrying into the middle of a lively dance-floor to drag away a fat count who had passed out from drink.

The galleot, for its part, wandered about aimlessly, like a lost lamb searching for its mother in a flock that was being torn apart by wolves. Van Hoek spent the day up on the maintop, cheering for the Dutch, and occasionally shouting explanations—so cryptic and technical as to be useless—of what was going on to the others. Very early the Cabal had met to discuss surrendering to the Dutch forthwith.
But there was much that could go awry with that plan. At the very best it would mean surrendering all of the gold, and many in the Cabal did not share van Hoek’s natural affinity for the Dutch side of things anyway.