THIRTY

SERPENT WAS TWO DAYS OUT OF ALGIERS AND CHANCED UPON A BALTIC trader carrying mercantile goods to Italy. The packet was a small ship, easily taken without a shot, and the ship was searched eagerly for plunder or wealthy passengers who might be ransomed for large sums. Regular seamen or servants were destined for the slave market. Zabana had experience with captured passengers attempting to swallow their money, or even exchange clothes with their servants. Consequently, he personally examined his captives’ hands and teeth, for these were the best indications of status. Sometimes he even had men beaten or given a saltwater emetic to force the retrieval of hidden or swallowed money.

Zabana knew all the tricks, and sorry was the prisoner who tried to fool him.

Serpent ranged into the waters south of Sardinia hoping for an American ship to present itself, a ship full of gold and beautiful women would be nice, he thought.

Though Wilhelm Visser received perhaps less scrutiny than slaves who had no chance of ransom, he also was at pains to do what he was told. He had witnessed what happened to those who disobeyed their masters; those poor wretches suffered indignities and all manner of punishments.

Algerians meted out punishments for even the smallest of transgressions. A Maltese slave who dared threaten his master with his fist had his arms and legs broken with an iron bar. A Turk was crucified for stealing an egg. And Visser had heard it said on the quay that two Moors who struck janissaries had their right hands amputated and hung from strings around their necks. So Visser was careful to do everything that was asked, and as a consequence he was allowed a bit of freedom to roam the city when he wasn’t working. Even then he kept his head down.

But his eyes were open.

When the city of Algiers came under Ottoman control a wall was built to surround it on all sides, including along the sea. Five gates were installed in the wall, and five roads ran from the gates up the hill to the qasba, or fortification where the dey kept his palace. A major road ran north and south, bisecting the hillside into the upper city and lower city. The houses Visser passed gleamed bright white in the sun and the glare from the walls burned his eyes. Most were three stories tall, with open courtyards with fountains, tile floors, and a terrace on the roof. Oddly, the homes had few windows, but perhaps that kept them cool.

Each evening Visser returned to the bagnio, or prison by the quay, which used to house old Roman baths. Here is where the holding pens for captives were located, surrounded by stockade posts and open to the sky. New arrivals were given two thin blankets and a straw pallet for comfort; this was the sum total of their belongings until they were either ransomed or sold. At night, exhausted after a day spent working in the unrelenting sun, Visser could hear a flutist wander the twisting alleys playing something beautiful to announce the curfew.

One day a week Visser was set free to move about the city. He had earned that much for never giving the guards any trouble and, besides, how could he escape a walled city? He memorized the narrow streets and shrouded doorways, the door knockers and tiles, the smells of strong coffee and tobacco smoke. He walked the passageways and paused in the shade of broad-leafed trees that occasionally grew from a crevice of dirt.

The city, which once seemed so foreign to him, had become familiar.