The Barbary Pirates

I felt nauseated as we crept back into the labyrinth of dungeon tunnels under Yussef’s castle. The smell of earth, sewage, and lightless corruption came back like a slap, triggering old fear, and we could hear moaning and the occasional insane scream. Then I reminded myself of Astiza and little Harry, captive somewhere in the harem far above, and resolved to blow this mouth of Hades permanently shut by bringing Yussef’s fortress down on top of it. Let slip the dogs of war!

We passed several iron corridor gates, locking them again to discourage interference or pursuit. Then a flight of stairs upward that I recognized as the way I’d been taken to Yussef’s palace to meet Astiza.

“I think our army of three needs to divide at this point,” I said. “Robert, somehow we’ve got to get your torpedo, or mine, to where the mirror is and set it off.”

“Archimedes might have used a catapult,” he said. “Perhaps something similar will occur to me. How do I get within view?”

“If we can get you to the roof of Yussef’s storage rooms you may be able to look across. Follow this tunnel and hunt for stairs, if you don’t meet a sentry.”

He drew his own cutlass. “Or kill one if I do.”

“What is your assignment, donkey?” Pierre asked.

“Go to the harem where the women are.”

“Of course.”

“That’s where Harry and Astiza should be. I’ll slip in, find them, and bring them down to go out the way we came.”

“And brave Pierre, who never seems to be given the job of rescuing harems of young, nubile, enticingly captive women?”

“Brave Pierre has the most important job of all. Take these keys and release as many prisoners as you can. When we retreat, their escape will create confusion while we make for the plunging boat. Beware, Pierre, an ogre lives in these tunnels. He’s a brute known as Omar the Dungeon Master and we want to avoid him.”

“A presumptuous title. Is he big and ugly, like you?”

“Bigger. And uglier, I dare say. Even homelier than our late giant friend Magnus Bloodhammer.”

“Then I shall be David to this behemoth’s Goliath. I am the great Pierre Radisson, North Man and voyageur, who can stroke twenty hours in a single day and travel a hundred miles before sleeping! None can portage more weight than I, or drink more, or dance more splendidly, or jump higher, or run faster, or more quickly charm a woman! I can find my way from Montreal to Athabasca with my eyes closed!”

I’d heard all this several times before. “Then you’ll do fine in the darkness down here. Quickly, Pierre, and quietly, and run like a deer if Omar hears you. We need you in our submarine to remind us again of your prowess.”

“Of course you need me! Those two savants you left there, while they have undoubtedly concocted eight new harebrained theories of the history of the earth, have probably by now lost all sense of direction, if they haven’t sunk already. Well, Pierre will do all the real work as usual, and meet you at the gates that lead out of this dung hole. Then we will work on your reform!”

And so I turned to climb the castle steps and rescue my son and the woman (I realized with a jolt that I had unconsciously come to think of her this way) who was, for all practical purposes, my wife.

The climb was familiar, taking me up to the reception hall where I’d met Astiza. I passed with disquiet a side tunnel that I remembered led to Omar’s torture chamber. Then I opened the wooden door, pushed aside the concealing tapestry, and entered the throne room. This, I guessed, was close to the harem. The royal chair and pillows were as I remembered them, shadowy in the darkness. Even the African cat was there, locked for the night in its brass cage. I could see the fire of its eyes as I quickly passed through, and the beast made a rumbling purr. I wondered if Dragut’s dragon was lurking about, too, a lizard with the appetite of a polar bear.

In the rear of the cage a third eye gleamed, and I realized a smaller cage held Yussef’s turban and emerald, ably protected by his cat. Even the leopard earned his keep.

At the far end I slipped out into a quiet hallway hung with old brass medieval shields. There was a forbidding stillness to the castle as if the building was waiting, and I puzzled that I hadn’t encountered more guards. It was midnight, yes, but was I really this lucky? Where was everyone?

Up a flight of marble stairs—I must be at the top of the palace now—and there a eunuch doorman, conveniently asleep in the depth of night. There was a flask nearby, and if he was caught in this dereliction he’d no doubt be bastinadoed on the soles of his feet, or hung from a hook on the castle wall. I hesitated, thinking of killing him, but couldn’t do it to a man already cruelly castrated. Instead I tore a drapery and jumped, clouted his head, gagged him, and tied him tight. Another sharp clout put a stop to his squirming.

Then I went to the wood and brass harem door and listened. No trill of female laughter; the harem was asleep. I was ready to smash its lock with a pistol ball if need be, but instead this door opened, too. Clearly, Yussef was either not expecting an imminent American attack—or had faith in his eunuch guards. I slipped inside cautiously, not wanting to risk a riot by startling the girls. Could I find the duo I was looking for? If we could just creep away, I hardly cared about the mirror. It couldn’t really work after all this time, could it?

But it had, burning that Spanish ship. As it could burn ours.

The harem was empty, too.

I passed through an antechamber and entered the lovely harem court, far more opulent than the merchant’s attic I’d once broken into in Cairo. This room had a central pool and a domed roof pierced by inserts of colored glass. In daytime, a rainbow of colors would filter down. Pillars ran around the chamber’s periphery to form an arcade beneath and balcony above, and doorways opened to what I presumed were the separate bedrooms and kitchen of the women who lived here. Flowers filled a score of vases, and lotus petals floated in the pool. The place smelled of perfume and incense. What would it be like when the concubines lounged and laughed, the beauties of a dozen nationalities just lightly clothed? Limbs dangling in the pool, breasts casually exposed, gossiping as they brushed each other’s glossy hair, smooth shoulders, sweet hips, their great almond eyes lined with kohl, their lips picked out with…

Focus, Ethan!

You’re worrying about just one woman now.

And suddenly I had company. There was the light tread of a slipper behind me to which I might have turned, but at the same instant there was a growl ahead, the bass rumble of a heavy muzzle flecked with saliva and blood. Sokar! The grip on my pistol was suddenly slick as I realized why the castle was so quiet. I’d walked into a trap.

“Ethan, Ethan, so predictable,” Aurora’s voice came from the shadows where the dog regarded me with its piss-yellow eyes. “We’ve been waiting for weeks.” And there emerged the wolflike bulk of her brutish mastiff, head lowered, shoulders bunched.

“We were going to let you turn the mirror on your own navy,” another voice said behind me. Dragut! “You could have proved yourself to us, Gage. But now, we’ll just try it on you.” His tone was anticipatory as a gun muzzle as wide as a dog’s mouth nudged my back. “Please don’t move, because I’m holding your friend’s blunderbuss. If my finger slips, the blast will cut you in two.”

“Hell of a mess in this pretty pool.”

“We’ve slaves enough to lick it clean, if necessary.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Aurora stepped into better light, holding my longrifle in a hand that also grasped Sokar’s leash. In her other fist was a second leash, this one tied to two figures coming miserably into view. The line led to a leather collar around the neck of Astiza, whose eyes were flickering to search for a means to fight back. And then from her to little Horus, who was walking with a limp and looked tearstained and traumatized.