Broken Wing (33 page)

Eyes flashing, Gabriel threw back his cloak and drew his sword so quickly it sparked. “You are welcome to try … brothers.”

The
chevalier
had drawn his scimitar and stood behind Gabriel so that they were back to back. “This should prove interesting,
mon frère.”

“Now, now,” el Inglezi laughed, raising his hands placatingly, motioning his men back with a shake of his head, “there’s no need for that. Not every convert is circumcised. It is the custom, surely, but not an absolute
requirement. Perhaps you are just who you say you are. I will present you to my employer, as we have already agreed. He needs good fighting men. There is much opportunity. He is a great and important man. If you serve him, none will dare to question you, yes? I shall introduce you tomorrow. Now go and take your ease, gentlemen. You’ve earned it.”

They were escorted to an agreeable little house complete with pleasant furnishings, three timid servants, and a cook. They could not fail but notice the guard posted pointedly outside the only exit. After a bath, a shave, and an excellent meal of lamb, wine, and honeyed apricots, Valmont turned lazily to Gabriel and belched. “Pardon me, dear fellow. I do believe, Gabriel, that we have just met the civilized version of a Mohammedan press-gang.”

“I believe you are correct, Jacques. It is far superior to slavery or impalement, though. I propose we bow gracefully to the inevitable for now.”

“I agree, my friend. Oh, look! How delightful!” The
chevalier
sprang to his feet with even more alacrity than he’d shown in battle, as two nubile, giggling young women were ushered into the room.
“Mais c’est charmant!”
Performing a courtly bow and grinning from ear to ear, he escorted them gallantly to the pile of cushions that served as their fauteuil. “God in heaven, St. Croix, but these Mohammedans put a lot more effort into recruiting a fellow than your British friends do! I am quite overcome. Have you a preference, or
shall we share?”

“I leave it to you to carry the day, Chevalier.”

“But there are two, St. Croix, one for each of us.”

“I feel certain you will rise to the challenge,” Gabriel said, gathering his pallet and retreating to the covered gallery.

“A votre santé,”
the
chevalier
said, raising his glass in a toast and watching Gabriel’s retreat with puzzlement. What was wrong with the fellow? Understanding dawned, and he gave a slight shrug.
Chacun à son gout
. It wasn’t to his taste, but St. Croix was a solid enough fellow otherwise, quick-witted, and coolheaded, and damned good with a sword.
Dieu
, but it had been over six months! With a playful growl, he scooped up his female companions, one under each arm, and they dropped together in a giggling, groaning heap amongst the cushions.

Gabriel sat on the gallery sipping his wine. It was not uncommon for
renegados
to drink alcohol, despite the Muslim prohibition against it. They would do without pork, even their foreskin, but they would not do without their liquor. The stars were brilliant. Venus was rising over the horizon, and for a moment he thought of Sarah and their last moments beneath the ancient oak. Pain clutched at his heart, worse than anything he’d endured through blows or broken bones, and he winced and shuddered before taking a deep breath and willing it away.

He didn’t deserve her anymore. Perhaps he never
had. His sins had multiplied in this seductive, alien land. He killed for pay, he’d murdered a man in his own bedchamber with his own knife, he’d sold his soul for revenge with a single kiss, and he regretted none of it. He frightened even himself. He had promised to love, honor, and protect her; but that promise had been made by someone else. All he could do for her now was protect her from the man he’d become. He couldn’t afford anything soft, anywhere inside him. He pushed her firmly from his thoughts.

El Inglezi came the next morning to take them before Meshouda Murad Reis, a Scottish adventurer and corsair captain of some renown, formally known as Peter Lisle.

“Well, gentlemen, here you are, converts both of you, sons of the Prophet, or so my captain tells me,” he greeted them. “What’s more to the point, he tells me you can find the pointy end of a sword. I’m no fool, gentlemen, but I
am
short of soldiers, and I’ll be needing crew in Algiers when I return in the spring. So …” he said, steepling his fingers, “I can send you back to your master, to do with as he sees fit. I can turn you over to the authorities here, which might be most unpleasant … or … you can serve me and be well paid for it.”

He pointed to Valmont. “You, I will take. You look like a soldier and I’m told you are fluent in Arabic, but I’m not sure about the other one.” Murad Reis motioned Gabriel forward and examined him carefully. “You appear far too young and slight to be
an experienced soldier. You look more like a pretty child. No matter, I’m sure I could find other uses for you. Perhaps I will find your master and purchase you from him.”

“I have been ill, and I’m older than I look,” Gabriel replied coolly, “and I
have
no master. He who thought to call himself that, now lies dead and gutted.”

“Indeed? Then you are a very dangerous man, I suppose. You must think yourself so if you dare to threaten me. Perhaps you will demonstrate.” He turned to his men. “Who among you would like to teach this dog a lesson in manners?” The men were laughing now, eager for sport, and several stepped forward. “You,” Murad Reis said, pointing to a Turkish giant brandishing a long, wickedly curved blade, “and you have my permission to kill him.”

El Inglezi looked at the
chevalier
regretfully, and shrugged his shoulders. He had thought Gabriel an able man from what he’d seen in the mountains, but there was nothing he could do.

The giant stood over six and a half feet, wore chain, and must have weighed a good twenty stone, most of it muscle. He had the brawny arms of a swordsman and the feral glint of one who took pleasure in dealing death. He roared and beat his chest, to the delight of the growing crowd, then played with his blade, weaving intricate patterns in the air, ending with a dramatic flourish.

Valmont stepped next to Gabriel and put a hand on his shoulder. “How are you going to fight that?”

“I’m not going to fight him. I’m just going to kill him.”

El Inglezi pulled the
chevalier
aside before he could do anything foolish and anger the Reis further.

Laughing and beckoning Gabriel forward, the giant cooed, “Come, beardless one. I would have some sport of you. I will take your ears first, child, and then your arms, next your manhood, and only then your head.”

“I’m a very well-trained child, my dear, but you are welcome to try.” It was hot, his opponent was better protected and had a longer reach, but he was also overconfident and the heat would slow him down. Gabriel would be much faster. Best to strike quick and clean. The giant held his sword out in front of him with both hands, in a theatrical attack stance, playing to the crowd. Gabriel waited, unmoving, until the big man took a step forward. Taking three quick steps of his own, he drew his sword screaming from its scabbard, whirling it back one-handed, and whipping it around in an arc so quick it was only a blur.

The giant stood motionless, a look of stunned surprise on his face. His eyes rolled upward, the sword slipped from his grasp with a dull thud, and then he toppled to the ground, his head rolling along the floor to stop, almost at the feet of Murad Reis. The shocked silence was broken by the sound of the
chevalier
clearing his throat.

“Ahem … Yes … well … I have said it before, St. Croix. You are very efficient.”

Murad Reis stepped forward with a hearty laugh, slapping Gabriel on the back. “Welcome to my employ!”

And so their disguise consumed them and they became mercenaries in truth. They fought throughout the rest of the winter and into the spring, for Meshouda Murad Reis, who fought for the Sultan Mulai Slimane, who fought for control of Morocco, and they were paid handsomely for it. They returned to Algiers in the late spring as Murad Reis’s men, and no one gave them a second glance.

Gabriel and the
chevalier
cruised the coast throughout the summer and into the fall, alert for any opportunity to seize a boat or take passage on a ship and escape, but Murad Reis kept them busy, and he kept them close. They were both his lieutenants now, but they were always watched and surrounded by others of the Reis’s men.
Renegados
caught attempting to escape could expect to be dealt with harshly. At best they would be severely bastinadoed and returned to slavery at hard labor, in heavy chains. They might also be burnt alive, crucified, or impaled. The unlucky ones were thrown from a tower on the battlements. It was equipped with iron hooks to catch them on their way down, holding them as they writhed and screamed in agony, slowly consumed by carrion birds as they prayed for death. It was a fate a fellow would much rather avoid.

The Reis preferred to use ruse and deception when stalking his prey. Disguising themselves as a merchant ship, they would lure their victims in close by
masquerading as friendly countrymen, flying the flag of whichever nation’s ship they stalked, and hailing them in their own language. Once their unwary quarry came within range, they would terrify them with a thundering broadside and a hail of musket fire, grappling their ship and swarming onto the deck in a screaming horde, waving pistols, knives, pikes, and swords, in a ferocious display that usually resulted in a quick and terrified surrender.

The summer passed without any viable opportunity for escape, and they resigned themselves to another winter campaign. Murad Reis kept his favorites richly supplied with gold, horses, and women, and Jacques Valmont, who was particularly fond of women, availed himself of all three. He no longer expected Gabriel to share his interest in wenching, but was somewhat surprised that he seemed to have no interest in fornicating with anyone at all. He decided that he might have been mistaken about St. Croix. As attractive as he might seem to either sex, he himself seemed attracted to neither. If not for his lithe and muscular frame, he might have been a eunuch. It was certain, in any case, that he was an enigma.

They spent the rest of the year on campaign, protecting caravans, punishing the enemies of the Dey, and skirmishing with the enemies of the sultan, traveling back and forth from Algiers to Morocco and from one commission to the next, until they lost track of who they were fighting or why. It no longer mattered
to them as long as they were paid. Gabriel had seen so much brutality and death that it no longer seemed real to him. Tragic scenes of mayhem and cruelty, the disjointed scrambling and hacking, the cursing and pleading and agonized screams, it had all taken on a cartoonish quality, and the dead and dying reminded him of nothing more than puppets with their wires cut, sprawled in ungainly heaps upon the ground.

The spring of 1802 found them in the Atlas Mountains again, fighting for their lives. Several local chieftains, organized, armed, and led by Moroccan insurgents based in Fez, had caught them in a coordinated pincer attack, trapping them in a steep defile with no avenue of retreat. Their captain, guilty of a gross underestimation of his enemy’s ferocity, organization, and numbers, paid for it with his life. The vanguard had been ambushed and slaughtered, and the rearguard was struggling to join the caravan, paying dearly in blood and death each step of the way.

The battle had raged, savage and unchecked, for over three hours, coalescing into a slashing, hacking melee. Gabriel was fighting off two attackers, swinging with his Spanish blade and parrying with his short sword. A mounted Berber, screaming curses, charged him from the rear, driving his sword straight at the back of his neck. Valmont swung round to deflect it. Metal screamed against metal and sparks flew. Drawing back his sword, he slashed at the horseman’s legs. The Berber swung his sword down as Valmont
thrust up, catching him in the throat and spilling him from his horse. He floated to the ground, his snowy robes billowing, like a cloud.

Gabriel shouted a warning, and the
chevalier
jumped back, barely dodging a stroke that would have cut him in half. They edged closer together, fighting back to back, surrounded by a circle of mutilated, dead, and dying. Still they kept coming.
We die here today
, Gabriel thought, as the sun began its quick and early descent behind the mountains. The ebb and flow of the battle had pushed them closer to their pack animals when he saw an opening. Grabbing the
chevalier
by the sleeve, he jerked him in among the panicked animals, and began slaughtering the camels, forming a bulwark around them.

Seeing what he was about, those who still survived from the rearguard and the flanks did their best to join him. Reorganized, they rallied, some of them holding the barricade while others rifled frantically through packs and supplies, searching for more ammunition, and praise Allah, finding it. Muskets were loaded, shots rang out, and men spun through the air in lazy pirouettes to fall broken on the ground.

A bloody dawn found them alone in a silent field of corpses. The mountain raiders had vanished, leaving only their dead behind. The only things that moved were the ungainly vultures that hopped and strutted, necks bent and twisted as they pecked and tore at cloth, and leather, and flesh. Of a hundred-man
caravan, only seventeen mercenaries and a few horses were left alive.

Ashen-faced, chest heaving, covered in gore, Valmont grimaced as he surveyed the carnage. Sighing, he threw an arm around Gabriel’s shoulders and gave him a slight hug. “We need to leave this godforsaken place, Gabriel,” he rasped. “Soon, before there’s nothing human left in either one of us.”

It was decided. No matter the risk, no matter the consequence, they would make good their escape before another summer had passed.