Read Online Corsair by Tim Severin - Free Book Online

long enough to fulfil that ambition, and that his eyesight would not fail prematurely.
    Suddenly Turgut felt chilly. While he had been daydreaming, the sun had sunk behind the mountains, and the evening was growing cold. He clapped his hands to summon a servant and picked up the Kitab. Cradling it like his own child, he descended the stairs from the roof top, entered his library and replaced the volume in its box of cedar wood. Behind him the servant carried the precious ocean map in its folder, and then stood waiting until his master had laid it safely beneath a coverlet of dark green velvet. As Turgut took one last glance around his library to make sure that everything was in its proper place, he wondered if there was any way that he could retrieve the black-haired boy from the clutches of the khaznadji before the drudgery of being a beylik slave ruined him.

 
SIX

     
    T HE KHAZNADJI was quick to satisfy his grudge. A servant separated Hector from the other captives in the Dey’s courtyard, and began to herd him briskly through the narrow city streets. When the bewildered young man asked where he was being taken, his escort only repeated, ‘Bagnio! Bagnio!’ and urged him to hurry. For a while Hector believed that he was being taken to a bath house to be washed, for he was filthy and dishevelled. But arriving before a grim-looking stone building he swiftly understood that his anticipation was completely misplaced. The building appeared to be a cross between a prison and a barracks, and the stench wafting out of its massive doors, which stood open, made him gag. It was a foul combination of human excrement, cooking smells, soot and unwashed bodies.
    After a short delay a bored-looking guard took him in charge, then led him to a side room where a blacksmith fitted an iron ring around his right ankle, hammering down the rivet which held it shut. Next he was led to another anteroom where a barber roughly shaved his head, and then to a clothes store. Here the garments in which he had been captured were taken away and he was issued with a bundle containing a coarse blanket, a smock, and a curious item of dress which he at first took to be a woman’s petticoat. Shaped like an open sack, it was sewn across the base, leaving two slits through which he was shown to put his legs so as to make a very baggy pair of pantaloons. He was also given a pair of slippers and a red cap, and another attendant recorded his name in a ledger. Finally he was ushered down the length of a vaulted passageway and thrust out into the open courtyard which formed the centre of the great building. Here he was finally left to himself.
    Hector looked around. He was in the largest building he had ever known. The rectangular courtyard was at least fifty paces by thirty, and open to the skies. On either side an arched colonnade ran the full length of the building, its arches supporting a second-floor gallery. From dim recesses between the arches came the sounds of drunken singing and loud voices quarrelling and shouting. To his astonishment a Turkish soldier, undoubtedly the worse for drink, came reeling and staggering out of the shadows and made his way to the gate. He weaved his way past a number of sick or exhausted slaves lying on the ground or sitting propped against the walls. Hector started to walk hesitantly across the open courtyard, clutching his blanket and wondering what he should do next, or where he should go. The whole building seemed unnaturally empty, though it was clearly designed to house at least a couple of thousand inmates. He had walked no more than a few yards when he felt someone’s eyes on him. Looking up, he noticed a man leaning out over the balcony from the upper floor, watching him closely. The stranger was a man of middle age, round-headed and with his dark hair cropped close. Half his body remained in shadow, but it was evident that he was powerfully built. Hector paused, and the stranger beckoned to him, then pointed to the