We duly installed ourselves in a small inn, around a barrel that served as a table, with a leg of mutton, some pork chops, a large round loaf of bread, and a pitcher of strong red wine from Mytilene, which reminded us of Bull's Blood. We were watching people come and go: the swarthy men who looked and behaved like Sicilians and spoke a language that still contained words used by the Carthaginians; and the women, who were very beautiful but, out of modesty, avoided male company and swathed themselves in black or grey shawls because of strictures imposed by their relatives and husbands. Indeed, the men were as jealous as Spaniards, or more so — a legacy, no doubt, of the Moors and the Saracens. And there the three of us were, sitting with our belts loosened, when some Venetian soldiers and sailors who were drinking nearby happened to buy from a passing peddlar some St Peter's stones, which were held in high regard in Malta — legend has it that the saint was shipwrecked there — because they were said to cure the bites of scorpions and snakes.
At this point I did something unwise. I was not a sceptical youth but I did question certain aspects of faith, as I had been taught to do by Captain Alatriste. And with the insolence of youth, I could not repress a smirk when I saw one of the Venetians proudly showing off to his companions the stone he had bought, threaded onto a cord. Unfortunately, he saw that smirk and took umbrage. He was clearly not a very long- suffering fellow, for he strode over to me with a snarl on his lips, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword and backed up by his companions.
'Apologise,' Captain Alatriste muttered to me.
I shot him a sideways glance, taken aback by his abrupt tone and by his order to retract the offence, although, when I thought about it later, I realised he was right. Not because he feared the consequences — although there were six of them and only three of us — but because there really wasn't time to get involved in a dispute, and because quarrelling with Venetians, and in Malta, could prove serious. Relations between Spain and Venice were not good; there were frequent incidents in the Adriatic over matters of pre-eminence and sovereignty, and it took very little to set a match to such quarrels.
And so, swallowing my pride, I gave a forced smile and said, in the lingua franca that we Spaniards used on those seas and in those lands, something like: 'Escusi, signore, no era cuesto con vol
The Venetian, however, remained unappeased. Emboldened by what he believed to be this show of meekness and by the difference in numbers, he flicked back his hair — he wore it long, unlike we Spaniards, who had been wearing our hair short since the days of Emperor Charles — and heaped abuse on me, calling me a thief, which would be enough to enrage anyone, especially a proud lad from Guipuzcoa. I was foolishly about to leap to my feet, when the Captain, still impassive, grabbed my arm.
'He's just a boy and doesn't know the customs here,' he said very calmly and in Castilian, looking the Venetian straight in the eye. 'But he'll gladly buy you a mug of wine.'
Again, the man misinterpreted the situation. Thinking that my two companions were also backing down and made braver still by the presence of his colleagues, he pretended not to have heard the Captain's words and, unwilling to let go of his prey, namely me, he puffed himself up and said very insolently: lScende, espagnuolo marrano, ca te volio amasar.'
Captain Alatriste, without any hint of emotion, removed his hand from my arm and glanced at Copons. Until then, Copons, as usual, had said nothing and had simply been keeping a close eye on our boastful companions. At that point, however, he stood up.
'Lily-livered swab,' he muttered.
'Che cosa diche?' asked the Venetian angrily.
'He says,' replied the Captain, also standing up, 'that you can beat your own whorish mother to a pulp, but not us.'
And so began the incident between Spaniards and Venetians that the history of Malta and the records of the time recall as the Birgu riot, a detailed description of which would require more paper than exists in the whole of Genoa. For having spoken those words, the Captain took out his sword, as did Copons and I, with such speed that the 'lily-livered swab' — as Copons had called him — stumbled backwards with a cut to one cheek inflicted by the dagger that had leapt like lightning from its sheath to the Captain's left hand and from there to the Venetian's face. And in less time than it takes to tell it, the man nearest Copons found his upper arm skewered by a sword, while I, light on my feet, took on the third. The latter jumped to one side, but nevertheless felt the blade of my sword against his buff coat, and even though it didn't pierce actual flesh, it was enough to encourage him to keep a respectful distance.
Then matters got out of hand, because, at that moment, the Moor Gurriato appeared from nowhere — later, I learned that he had been waiting for us in the shade ever since we had got into the boat to visit the new part of the city — and, without more ado, he lunged at the Venetian closest to hand and stuck a knife into the small of his back. The tavern was at the bottom of the street that runs from the harbour esplanade up to the church near the moat surrounding Fort St Angelo. It was an extremely crowded place, and at that hour was seething with soldiers and sailors heading back to the ships moored nearby. Attracted by the shouts of the wounded men and their comrades — who, although they had now unsheathed their swords, did not dare to approach — more Venetians came rushing in, putting us in no little danger. And although we formed a defensive semi-circle — in the manner of the old Spanish regiments — using stools and lids for shields, and stabbing and slashing for all we were worth, things would have ended badly had not many of our comrades from the Mulata — also awaiting the moment to embark — unsheathed their swords and taken our part without even asking the reason for the quarrel. For although galley- men were not perhaps on the best of terms with Justice, they always helped their comrades, on the understanding that such help would one day be reciprocated. And they would as gladly fight constables and catchpoles as fellow Spaniards or foreigners, it being a point of honour, after any such ruckus, to give refuge on board to any soldier, sailor or galley-slave who sought it, as a church might, only with no higher authority to answer to than the captain of the ship.
Of course, given the kind of people we enlisted — the cream of every house, you might say — in a matter of seconds, Birgu was transformed into Troy. Amid the shouts and screams of the inn-keepers and tradesmen whose furniture and wares were being hurled to the ground, we ended up with fifty or so Venetians doing battle with the same number of Spaniards.
So great was the tumult that men from both sides came to offer reinforcements, for, as soon as news of the affray reached the ships, many disembarked, sword in hand, and from one or two vessels there was even the sound of musket-fire.
Fortunately for us, we Spaniards were popular in Malta, whereas the Venetians — seen as greedy, sly and disrespectful, not to mention being guilty of conniving with the Turk — were hated even by the Italians, and so a number of Maltese men joined in, attacking the Venetians with sticks and stones, throwing some of them into the water and forcing others to dive in voluntarily in order to escape. In the old part of the city, even though no one knew or could remember the original reason for the dispute, there ensued a hunt for anything that so much as smelled of Venice, for a rumour had been put around that several men of that nation had offended the honesty of certain Maltese women — always a good way to start a riot. In the process, several Venetian- owned shops were sacked and various accounts-pending settled. The day was summed up some seventeen years later by Giulio Bragadino, a Venetian and therefore not an entirely disinterested chronicler:
The subjects of the Serenissima suffered much ill-treatment during the night, with damage inflicted to their persons and their goods ... In order to avoid further mayhem, the Grand Master of Malta and the captains of galleys and other ships had to impose their authority, ordering soldiers and sailors to return to their ships and remain there on pain of death. The instigators were sought, but none were found, although it was noted that the Spaniards, who were suspected of having started the quarrel, w
ere very quick to leave the scene.
Nevertheless, the following morning, when the soldiers and sailors on the Mulata were being inspected, we got the most almighty telling-off from Captain Urdemalas, who really gave it his all, although some were sure he must have been chuckling inside. All of us were lined up along the corridors on port and starboard, having been ordered to wear full body armour, which weighed about thirty pounds, and a helmet,
which weighed another thirty, just to make us suffer — all that metal was scorching in the heat of the harbour. Captain Urdemalas strode up and down from prow to stern, and he kept us standing there for a good long while after the awning had been removed from the galley, even though it was hellishly hot and there wasn't a breath of wind.
It was a spectacle worthy of a painting: those lines of men with tragic, contrite faces, sweating cobs and staring down attheir feet — not out of modesty, but prudence — whenever Urdemalas passed, fixing each of us with a gimlet gaze. 'You, gentlemen, are nothing but animals,' he said in a voice loud enough to be heard in Birgu. 'A pack of delinquent braggarts who will be the ruin of me. However, before you succeed in doing so, I will, by my faith and on the souls of my ancestors, hang the lot of you if someone doesn't tell me who started last night's fracas. Gadswoons I will. I swear on myself and on Satan and on the mother who bore me that I'll hang twelve of you today from one yard-arm if someone doesn't own up.'
His voice boomed around the harbour and the city walls. However, as both we and Urdemalas expected, we were all as silent as if we were being stretched on the rack, standing firm beneath the bombardment, but winking at each other in the knowledge that sooner or later it would stop. And we were quite a sight, lined up there, many of us with cuts and bruises, some sporting plasters, bandages and dressings, others with an arm in a sling or a black eye. Far from having had a day's leave to stretch our legs on Malta, it looked as if we had come fresh from boarding a Turkish galley.
When the signal for departure was given a day later — all shore leave having been cancelled — we weighed anchor and headed north-east round the coast of Sicily to Messina. For half of the voyage we had good weather, which pleased the galley-slaves because there was a favourable wind and they barely had to row.
That same night, I had a long conversation with the Moor Gurriato. On the port side, we could see a light in the distance that might as easily have been Cape Passero as the lighthouse at Syracuse. The two sails were creaking, and galley-slaves, soldiers and sailors, apart from those on watch, were all sleeping soundly, emitting the usual snores, groans, belches and other nocturnal noises I will refrain from mentioning. My head ached and I couldn't sleep, so getting up carefully, without disturbing anyone, I walked along the starboard side, crushing cockroaches underfoot as I went and hoping that the night breeze might clear my head a little.
When I reached the bench normally occupied by the strokesman, I saw a familiar silhouette in the faint light of the lantern at the stern. The Moor Gurriato was leaning on the rail, contemplating the dark sea and looking up at the stars, which the sails, by turns, revealed and concealed as the ship rolled. He couldn't sleep either, he told me. He had never been on a ship before embarking with us in Oran, and everything was very new and strange, so that when he wasn't rowing, he spent many nights with his eyes wide open. It seemed a miracle to him that something so large, heavy and complex could move safely over the sea at night. Hoping to discover its secret, he watched the movement of the galley, the occasional faint light on the horizon, and listened to the whisper of the water that glittered phosphorescent along the sides of the ship. He said that the words the sailor on watch sang out in a monotonous voice every half-hour, when he turned over the hourglass, sounded to him like some magical incantation, like a spell or a prayer.
The hour just gone is good,
Better the one to come.
Next man's on watch,
Hourglass is turned
We'll make good sailing
If God is willing.
It was then that I asked the Moor about the cross tattooed on his cheek, and about the legend according to which his people had once been Christians, and still were, even long after the arrival of the Muslims in North Africa and the fall of Spain in the days of the Visigoths, with Tariq, Muza and the treacherous Count Julian. These names meant nothing to him, he said after a brief silence. But it was true that his father and grandfather had told him that his tribe, the azuagos Beni Barrani, were different from other tribes, for they had never converted to the Mohammedan faith. After years of fighting in the mountains, they had lost almost all their Christian customs and become a people without a god or a country. That was why other Moors did not trust them.
'And why do you have that cross on your cheek?'
'I'm not sure. My father used to say it was a mark that dated from the time of the Goths, to distinguish us from the other pagan tribes.'
'The other day, you spoke of a bell hidden in the mountains.'
' Tidt. It is true. A large bronze bell in a cave. I've never seen it, although I've been told it has been hidden away for eight or even ten centuries, since the Muslims arrived. It is said that there are books, too, very ancient ones that no one could read, from the days of the Vandals or before.'
'Written in Latin?'
'I don't know what Latin is, but no one could read them.'
A silence fell. I imagined those men, isolated in the
mountains, remaining faithful to a religion that gradually slipped through their fingers with the passing centuries, repeating symbols and gestures whose meaning had long been forgotten. Beni Barrani, I remembered, meant 'without a country'. The children of foreigners.
'Why did you choose to come with us?'
The Moor Gurriato shifted in the dim light. He seemed embarrassed by the question.
'Fate,' he said at last. 'A man should travel while he can, should go to distant places and return wiser. Perhaps that way he will gain more understanding.'
I leaned against the netting on the side of the ship and asked, 'What is it that you need to understand?'
'Where I come from, and by that I don't mean the mountains where I was born.'
'But why?'
'Knowing where you came from will help you to die.'
There was another silence, broken by the routine words exchanged between the man on watch at the prow and the helmsman, the former indicating to the latter that the way ahead was clear. After that we heard only the creak of the yard-arms and the murmur of the water under the galley.
'We spend our life on the edge of death,' the Moor Gurriato added eventually, 'but many people do not know that. Only the assen, the wise men, know it.'
'Are you a wise man? Or do you want to be one?'
'No, I am simply a Beni Barrani,' he responded calmly. 'I haven't even seen the bronze bell or the books no one can read. That is why I need other men to show me the way, like that magic needle you have over there.'
He gestured towards the stern, doubtless towards the binnacle where, in the gloom, we could see the face of the sailor on watch caught in the glow from the compass light. I nodded.
'I see. So that's why you chose Captain Alatriste to make? that journey with.'
'Yes.'
'But he's only a soldier,' I objected. 'A man of war.'
'True, he's an imyahad., a warrior. That's why I tell you he is wise. He looks at his sword each morning when he opens his eyes and again each night before he closes them. He knows he will die and he is prepared. Do you understand? That makes him different from other men.'
The word 'die' soon took on an urgent meaning. Until around dawn, the wind had been moderate and favourable, but then it began to blow very hard, becoming a stiff north-easterly that threatened to carry us too near the coast. The galley- slaves were whipped awake, the oars lowered into the water, and with everyone rowing, we gradually pressed ahead into the churning water, the spray drenching the rowers. It was pitiful to see them, half-naked and soaked to the
skin, their lungs bursting. Sailors and cabin boys were rushing from side to side, blaspheming and praying in equal measure, while the privileged few took shelter in the stores, the infirmary, or the captain's cabin. We soldiers took our chances, clinging together in the embrasures, some of us vomiting or cursing each time the galley pitched into the heart of a wave and the water flooded the deck. The blankets and bits of canvas we threw over ourselves were of little use because the great swell was joined by a hard, cold rain that ended up sousing us all, and the wind was far too strong for us to put up the awning.