My father, not an educated man in the sense I was later to understand, was intelligent and observant, and like most of Brittany at the time was pagan rather than Christian. Christianity, for which my father had the greatest respect, had discarded much that was good along with the bad. The baths had been symbols of paganism, so baths and bathing were condemned, and few people bathed in Europe for nearly a thousand years. Books had been thrown out on the theory that if they repeated what the Bible said, they were unnecessary, and if they said what was not in the Bible, they were untrue.
Travel, ever an enlightening influence, had revealed to my father a more agreeable way of life. He had learned to appreciate the seasoned and carefully prepared food of the Mediterranean countries as well as their silken garments. The first rugs seen in Armorica were brought home by rovers of the seas, and many of the first books, also. Two of those brought to our house were Latin; another was in Arabic.
The first of the Latin books was Vegetius on the tactics of the Roman legion, and during that long voyage to Iceland and beyond, I read and reread it. The second book in Latin was the Illustrious Lives, by Plutarch.
The book in Arabic was on astronomy, and from this I learned much of navigation unknown in northern Europe. At various places in the volume were quotations from the Koran, and these I memorized.
Zorca, our Greek servant, had traveled up the Nile, had seen the pyramids, great temples, and all manner of strange animals. How much I could believe I did not know, but I loved his tales of Trebizond, the Black Sea, and the Greek isles.
The girl cast me a glance and said, “I am Aziza.”
“And I am Kerbouchard, Mathurin Kerbouchard.”
“It has a bold sound.”
“My father was Jean Kerbouchard. It was also the name of an ancestor who fought Caesar.”
The man glanced at me, his curiosity aroused. “What know you of Caesar?”
“He was an enemy of my people, but I have read of him in a book by Plutarch.” Easing the tiller, I added, “Caesar attempted to destroy my people because they refused tribute.”
Walther strode aft. “We go to a cove near Malaga.” He drew from his tunic a chart from the vessel we had looted, and showed it to me, indicating a place on the shore. “Can you take us to that place?”
“I can.”
“Do so, and when the ransom is paid you shall have a share.”
Aziza’s eyes were on me. Was she wondering if I would betray her for that reward?
Had she known my mind she would have been unworried, for there was no wealth anywhere that meant half so much as a glance from her eyes or the shape of her body beneath her thin clothing. But I was young then.
3
When darkness came I was awakened and returned to my place by the steering oar. Near the bulwark huddled the two captives.
His name, I discovered, was Redwan, and he was a warrior as well as a statesman, a man of consequence. He slept now, snoring slightly. There was no sound from Aziza, and I suspected she was awake.
“Look to your steering,” Walther advised. “We must not be discovered. Find the cove, and when shore is sighted, awaken me.
“Attempt no foolishness, for the Gaul is awake and so are the men of Finnveden. One sight of betrayal, and you will be killed.”
Nor did I doubt his words, for the three men of Finnveden were cold and dangerous men, not so cowardly as the others, but morose and silent, vicious in any kind of a fight and without a thought for any but themselves. I suspected I should have to face them one day.
The sea was dark, the waters glassy. No oars were in use, only the sail to give us steerage way, for we wanted no sound to bring attention upon us.
There were no stars. Water rustled along the hull, phosphorescent ripples rolling back from the bow. The sky was heavily overcast with a hint of rain. Timbers creaked as the galley moved in a slow roll through the dark water. Here and there a slave muttered in his sleep, or murmured some half-forgotten name. Metal chinked upon metal as weapons touched in the night, for the men slept fully armed.
She came to me so quietly I scarcely realized her presence but for the perfume. Her hand touched my arm. “You must help us, Kerbouchard! Please!”
Her fear gave me strength, for when is one not the stronger through being needed?
Yet she stirred me in other ways, for along our Breton shores there were no such girls as this. Often they were lovely but never so soft and delicate as this.
“I shall do what I can.”
“Already you have helped. It was you who stopped that man.”
“Your companion is a Moor?”
“A Norman. He was a great captain among them when he fought against us, but now he has become an ally.”
Her nearness was disturbing, for I knew little of women, yet most of my fear was that she should be seen near me and our nearness misunderstood. Such a suspicion might be enough to throw her to the crew, so when she returned to her place near the bulwark, I was relieved.
My experience with women had been slight, with little time for conversation. There had been a few meetings with girls on the moors who had a way of becoming lost where I was accustomed to wander alone.
Of course, there had been a time when a fine caravan camped atop the cliffs, and a young woman came alone to the beach to search for shells. She found more than she bargained for, which she seemed to appreciate and endure with fortitude, even to the extent of taking an active interest in the proceedings.
She was quite a beautiful young woman, the widow, I discovered, of a merchant in Angers. This I learned later at the inn where they stopped for the night. She had come alone to the beach where I lay sunning myself on the warm sand, and her search for shells brought her closer and closer until I began to suspect that her interest in marine life might be more extensive than at first appeared.
When she discovered that I was awake, a conversation developed, so naturally I told her of the cave behind the dunes. Intrigued by the mystery of it, she wished to see the cave, but what she found there was obviously no mystery.
The boom of a not too distant surf interrupted my thoughts, and my call awakened Walther who came aft, rubbing sleep from his eyes. The dark line of the shore appeared, and one of the men of Finnveden took his place in the bow to conn us in.
The cove was a mere cutback in the shoreline, partly screened by a bluff, and no place to lie with southerly or easterly winds. We could dimly make out the white sands, which lay deserted and still.
A change had come over the galley. Once committed to demand ransom for the prisoners, the ship’s company was alert. Armed men came aft, and others scattered themselves along the bulwark. From now until we were safely at sea, this guard would stand twenty-four hours a day.
The lure of a strange, shadowed shore was upon me. I listened to the whisper of the sea upon the sand, the creaking of the ship itself, the lap of water against the hull, and the chuck, chuck sound from the trailing oars.
What destiny awaited me here? What girls might lure and laugh and leave me? What fortune might come? What mystery? In the strange and perfumed night I felt a stirring within me, a longing to be ashore, to go walking alone up through the trees that lay beyond the beach.
Walther came aft again with Eric, the eldest of the Finnvedens, Cervon the Gaul, and others.
Redwan was standing, Aziza beside him. Walther stared threateningly at him, but Redwan was not one to be intimidated by casual freebooters. “We shall send three men to Malaga,” Walther advised him, “if they do not return, you will be put to death, and the girl, too, in time.”
Redwan drew a ring from his finger. “Your men will live if they do as I say and if they convey this to Hisham ibn-Bashar, in Malaga. Tell him I insist upon secrecy and immediate payment.”
“Secrecy?”
“Would you want a dozen galleys to descend upon you? Of course, there must be secrecy.”
Walther accepted that, but it caused me to wonder. It seemed to me that Redwan might have another need for secrecy, some reason that might concern either Aziza or himself.
Walther hesitated, and I watched him with irritated contempt. He was a petty man accustomed to dealing with paltry sums and people of no significance. He had no idea what ransom to ask, nor did Eric or Cervon.