Sword and Scimitar - Scarrow Simon - Страница 32

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Richard nodded, his face drained of blood as he stared at the tom flesh. Fearing that his squire might faint, Thomas steered him over to a small chest on the deck. ‘Sit there. I’ll see to the wound myself directly.’

Don Garcia and his entourage picked their way over the bodies and discarded weapons on the deck and approached the stem. Don Garcia nodded with gratification.

‘There’s one less of the vermin to trouble our people. Well done, Sir Thomas. I saw you strike him down.’

Thomas bowed his head in acknowledgement.

Don Garcia’s officers grasped the corsair by the arms and dragged him over to the steps leading to the stern deck and propped him up. The corsair’s face contorted in agony for a while before he fixed his eye on the Spanish aristocrat and spoke through gritted teeth in Spanish.

‘You have . . . your small victory today, infidel ... I am dead. Paradise awaits me . . .’

‘So, you speak my tongue.’ Don Garcia smiled faintly. ‘I assume then that you are a Morisco, or some such traitor.’

‘I am no traitor . . . but a martyr, ready to ascend to heaven.’

‘There is no heaven for you, only eternal torment for what soul you may have,’ Don Garcia replied coldly. ‘That is all that awaits you, and all other followers of the false prophet. It is God’s will.’ The corsair’s lips flickered into a smile. ‘We shall see the truth of it. . . soon enough, Christian. Your days are . . . numbered. Soon you will be as I am ... You and all these about you ... A great power is rising. One that shall sweep before it... all the enemies of the Sultan . . . and the true faith. ’

Don Garcia leaned forward and grasped the corsair’s beard, pulling his head closer. ‘Where will the Sultan strike first? Speak, you dog.’

He released the beard and the corsair’s head thudded back against the steps. He winced and then smiled again.

‘Is it Malta?’ demanded Don Garcia. ‘Or Sicily? Tell us.’

‘Go to the devil.’

‘No. It is you who will go to the devil!’ He turned to his officers. ‘Chain his feet together.’

Thomas stepped between Don Garcia and the dying corsair. ‘What do you intend to do, sir?’

‘I intend to teach these scum a lesson, Sir Thomas. Now, out of the way, if you please.’

One of the officers retrieved a length of chain from the hold and thrust the corsair’s booted feet into the iron hoops before sliding the locking bar through the eyelets and forcing the locking spindle into place. Then he wound the rest of the length of chain round the corsair’s ankles. The man groaned in agony at his rough treatment. When the order had been carried out, Don Garcia addressed the corsair again.

‘Your wound is mortal. I can make the end painless, if you tell us where the Sultan intends to strike first. Otherwise I will cast you into the deeps.’

Thomas shook his head. ‘Sir, this is without purpose. He will not tell you.’

‘Then he will drown, in the darkness, alone.’ Don Garcia kicked the man in his side, close to the wound, and he cried out in torment. ‘I give you one last chance. Tell me.’

For a moment the corsair clenched his remaining eye shut and sweat pricked from his brow until the wave of agony had passed. Then he looked up, his chest rising and falling swiftly as he gasped for breath. There was blood on his lips now, and a faint gurgling as he spoke again. ‘You will die ... all die . . . Your women and children too . . . Your bodies will be carrion for the dogs.’

‘Enough!’ Don Garcia turned to the nearest of his officers and snapped, ‘Get rid of this vermin!’

Fadrique and another officer bent down and reached under the corsair’s arms to wrench him on to his feet. Then they dragged him to the bulwark. Spaniards lined the side to get a good view of his end, and began to jeer. By the foredeck the prisoners cried out, some in protest and grief. But others cried in terror and fell to their knees, praying for salvation.

Fadrique was holding the corsair tightly by the arm and he looked towards his father. Don Garcia nodded and Fadrique released his grip and gave the corsair a firm push that sent him tumbling over the rail. Thomas was close by and saw the tranquil blue of the sea explode into white spray and flailing green cloth. Then through the disturbed surface of the water he watched as the corsair swiftly sank into the depths, his robes billowing gracefully like reeds in the flow of a river. Then, with a last dull waver of colour, there was nothing to see, just the blue of the ocean.

‘One less unbeliever to deal with.’ Don Garcia nodded with satisfaction, before he turned to the captain of the flagship. ‘Send some men below to free any Christians at the oars. Have them brought on deck to be fed and watered. The prisoners can take their place. The wounded who will recover will be chained in the hold. The others can be disposed of.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the captain nodded.

Don Garcia paused to look around the galley. ‘A fine-looking vessel. His Majesty’s navy can always use a new addition.’

As the first of the wretched creatures was helped up on to the sunlit deck from the living hell of the rowing benches, Thomas paused from his cleaning of Richard’s wound. The sight of the emaciated figures, stooped from having to bend below the low deck of the corsair galley, filthy and covered in sores, awoke a painful chain of memories in Thomas.

‘It’s hard to believe those creatures are men,’ Richard muttered. The rowers that had been marched down to Don Garcia’s flagship from the dungeons of the citadel in Barcelona had been pitiful enough but at least they had been rested, fed and given a chance to scrub themselves clean over the winter. The men stumbling on to the deck had endured far greater privation and degradation. They tore into the bread and cheese that was brought to them. Some of the Spanish soldiers looked on in pity while others stripped the robes off the prisoners and handed them to the freed men. Then, when the last of the Christians had been brought up, the corsairs were forced below and put in chains, destined to be worked to death in the vessel that had so recently been their own.

‘Such reversals of fortune are commonplace in this sea,’ said Thomas. ‘You’ll grow accustomed to it, I’ll warrant, if you live long enough. Now hold still, this will hurt.’

He had taken some thread and a needle from the well-stocked medical chest in the cabin that had belonged to the galley’s captain. Squinting, Thomas threaded the needle and tied the ends into a knot. ‘Hold your arm up and keep it still.’

Richard did as he was told and took one last look at the puckered lips of his wound before he turned and fixed his gaze on the nearest of the galleons where the crew were busy splicing some of the sheets that had been severed by the corsairs’ chain shot. Thomas gently pinched the sides of the wound together with his left hand and then pressed the needle through the skin, across the wound and out through the flesh on the far side of the cut. He pulled the thread through until the knot pressed lightly against the skin and then began the second stitch. Richard clenched his teeth and fought against the pain.

‘For a moment I thought you might not follow me into the fight,’ said Thomas, trying to take the young man’s mind off the stitching. ‘Back there, before we boarded. You were afraid?’ Richard shot him a quick glance. ‘You know I was.’

‘And yet you fought like a lion.’

‘I have been trained to fight.’

‘And right well. Who was your teacher?’

‘Another of Walsingham’s men.’

‘A soldier?’

‘Hardly.’ Richard smiled thinly. ‘He used to be a leader of a London gang. He was due to hang for murder but Walsingham offered him the chance to live if he was prepared to serve and obey orders without question. When he wasn’t questioning those Walsingham suspected of treachery, he was tasked with training the rest of the agents in the use of blades and street fighting. ’

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