“What did the hoca el-pencik think of this?”
“When you walked out, you were naked, and sunburnt as red as a boiled crab, and there was speculation that you might be some species of ifrit. I have to tell you that the Turks have superstitions about everything, and most especially about Jews—they believe we have occult powers, and of late the Cabbalists have done much to foster such phant’sies. In any event, matters were soon enough sorted out. Our owner received one hundred strokes, with a cane the size of my thumb, on the soles of his feet, and vinegar was poured over the resulting wounds.”
“Eeyeh, give me the bull’s penis any day!”
“It’s expected he may be able to stand up again in a month or two. In the meanwhile, as we wait out the equinoctial storms, we are careening and refitting our galley, as is obvious enough.”
DURING THIS NARRATION Jack had been looking sidelong at the other galley-slaves, and had found them to be an uncommonly diverse and multi-cultural lot: there were black Africans, Europeans, Jews, Indians, Asiatics, and many others he could not clearly sort out. But he did not see anyone he recognized from the complement of God’s Wounds.
“What of Yevgeny, and Mr. Foot? To speak poetically: have insurance claims been paid on them?”
“They are on the larboard oar. Yevgeny pulls with the strength of two men, and Mr. Foot pulls not at all—which makes them more or less inseparable, in the context of a well-managed galley.”
“So they live!”
“Live, and thrive—we’ll see them later.”
“Why aren’t they here, scraping barnacles like the rest of us?” Jack demanded peevishly.
“In Algiers, during the winter months, when galleys dare not venture out on the sea, oar-slaves are permitted—nay, encouraged—to pursue trades. Our owner receives a share of the earnings. Those who have no skills scrape barnacles.”
Jack found this news not altogether pleasing, and assaulted a barnacle-cluster with such violence that he nearly stove in the boat’s hull. This quickly drew a reprimand—and not from the Turkish whip-hand, but from a short, stocky, red-headed galley-slave on Jack’s other side. “I don’t care if you’re crazy—or pretend to be—you keep that hull seaworthy, lest we all go down!” he barked, in an English that was half Dutch. Jack was a head taller than this Hollander, and considered making something of it—but he didn’t imagine that their overseer would look kindly on a fracas, when mere talking was a flogging offense. Besides, there was a rather larger chap standing behind the carrot-top, who was eyeing Jack with the same expression: skeptical bordering on disgusted. This latter appeared to be a Chinaman, but he was not of the frail, cringing sort. Both he and the Hollander looked troublingly familiar.
“Put some slack into your haul-yards, there, shorty—you ain’t the owner, nor the captain—as long as she stays afloat, what’s a little dent or scratch to us?”
The Dutchman shook his head incredulously and went back to work on a single barnacle, which he was dissecting off a hull-clinker as carefully as a chirurgeon removing a stone from a Grand Duke’s bladder.
“Thank you for not making a scene,” Moseh said, “it is important that we maintain harmony on the starboard oar.”
“Those are our oar-mates?”
“Yes, and the fifth is in town pursuing his trade.”
“Well, why is it so important to remain on good terms with them?”
“Other than that we must share a crowded bench with them eight months out of the year, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“We must all pull together if we are to maintain parity with the larboard oar.”
“What if we don’t?”
“The galley will—”
“Yes, yes, it’ll go in circles. But why should we care?”
“Aside from that the skin will be whipped off our ribcages by that bull’s pizzle?”
“I take that as a given.”
“Oars come in matched sets. As matters stand, we have parity with the larboard oar, and therefore constitute a matched set of ten slaves. We were traded to our current owner as such. But if Yevgeny and his bench-mates begin to out-pull us, we’ll be split up—your friends will end up in different galleys, or even different cities.”
“It’d serve ’em right.”
“Pardon me?”
“Pardon me,” Jack said, “but here we are on this fucking beach. And I may be a crazy Vagabond, but you appear to be an educated Jew, and that Dutchman is a ship’s officer if ever there was one, and God only knows about that Chinaman—”
“Nipponese actually, but trained by the Jesuits.”
“All right, then—this only supports my point.”
“And your point is—?”
“What can Yevgeny and Mr. Foot possibly have that we don’t?”