“You will not have her?” Husayn asked once the door and the stern guard had come between the women and ourselves.
“You should know me better than that by now, Husayn,” I said. “I cannot take a woman like that, like a slave, like booty, as you Turks can. Especially not this woman. If I am to have her, I must win her, heart and hands, fair and square.”
“It may not be Allah’s will ever to offer her to you again.”
“Let that be between me and God,” I said, as a man goes to what may be his death.
Husayn nodded. “Very well. But I do not understand why you men of Venice enjoy making things ten times more difficult for yourselves than they ever have to be. And, I must say, you make it hard for my commander.”
“Oh, yes,” I said with bitter sarcasm. “Now your commander must force himself to enjoy her favors all alone.”
“My friend,” Husayn sounded hurt. “He wanted to give her to you. He wanted rid of the responsibility. This girl, he knows, will be difficult to keep virtuous.”
“I can see your commander’s lust even now tottering on the edge.”
“You sully the commander, Veniero, and I cannot allow it. Uluj Ali is on commission from the Sublime Porte itself and sails under the Kapudan Pasha. Uluj Ali is known throughout the Middle Sea as one I would trust my own harem to. He respects his women captives as if they were his own sisters.”
I knew I had to believe the earnestness in my friend’s voice. I also had to let some bitterness out. “He will keep them locked up like his own harem, though.”
“For their own protection, yes.”
“Madonna Baffo was tending the sick, not playing with broadswords.”
“Many of our men have been assigned to the boat where the sick are, and they were uneasy to carry out their duties with her there. Men should tend the male sick. Women have their own to comfort.”
“But what harm could she find among wounded men?”
“We cannot say, my friend. It is best not to tempt Allah.”
“But most of those men were Christians. She needn’t fear among Christians.”
“Needn’t she?” Husayn asked. “Our experience with the Knights of Malta and other of your Crusaders has been different. Our women in Algiers, for example, have learned that it is better to fall upon their husbands’ swords than to fall into the ‘mercy’ of those demon Christians’ hands. No, my friend. If you will not take my commander’s mercy when it is offered, you must not balk to submit to his law afterward.”
“Tell your commander to sail for Corfu,” I said. “Let it be so.”
XIII
For two days we sat with the island of Corfu visible on the horizon. Flying the white flag, the Turkish commander tried to bargain with Governor Baffo for the release of the hostages he held. The tender he sent in never returned. The message was as clear as if we had been there in Corfu’s public square to watch the execution of the messengers ourselves: “Damn you, Turk. We will send you to hell before we pay your godlessness a single ducat.” The Governor’s daughter, I saw, came by her pride and stubbornness legitimately.
On the third day, every ship in Corfu harbor (there were four) came out toward us in a bristling fleet.
“The Governor’s a fool,” Husayn muttered to me. “And a barbarian besides. What sort of man would attack a ship that carries his own daughter and his sister?”
Uluj Ali, in Husayn’s eyes, showed such more mercy. He turned our ships and fled rather than throw lives away in battle. The great galley slowed us down. The hole in her hull, in spite of some attempts at patching, was taking in a lot of water. But the Turks were prepared for this. They had herded us all onto their little craft and filled them with as much of the galley’s cargo as they could. I was given another choice—would I stay with the galley and return to my compatriots or would I sail with the Turks?
Since my uncle’s death, I had no kin and hence no sure future in Italy. Husayn was the dearest friend I had, and yet it was no easy choice to decide purposely never to see Venice again. Madonna Baffo must have overheard the offer, for her eyes shouted me a dare as I considered: “You are a coward, Veniero. I hope my father cuts you to ribbons for being a traitor.”
My fate was sealed with a glance of those eyes. I climbed down the ladder into the Turkish ship and, with that move, bade farewell forever to the Great Basin of Venice.
When the Corfiot ships began to gain on us, the Turks cut the galley free. While Governor Baffo paused to board and secure her, we caught a fine southerly wind, and by sunset we were safe in the open sea without a sail of pursuit in sight.
“Now where do we go, my friend?” I asked.
“Constantinople,” Husayn replied with a golden smile. On his tongue, the word was like pure honey—too sweet to be eaten straight, but tempting nonetheless.
Two days after this, the nun was released from this life into the hands of her merciful God. A week later, after a longer but, in the end, no less futile struggle, one of the two maidservants died as well. It was a fever, and it also carried off more than a few of the wound-weakened men and old black Piero besides. But I had seen death at sea before and I managed to keep my spirits high. The more time I spent with Husayn, the more I enjoyed his company. The songs and tales with which he regaled me were new ones suited to my age, and I wondered how I had ever thought the childish ones fascinating when these were yet to come.
I also began to learn a little more of his language. Actually, it was not “his language.” The language he had
