`THE GALLEY SLAVE'
A Young Man's Odyssey into Slavery
Chapter 10

This is a story of erotic fiction meant for adult readers over the age of eighteen years

Written by Jean-Christophe (Chris)
Read my stories at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Jean-Christophe_Stories 

"The characters and ideas contained in this story are the writer's and shouldn't be used without his permission. Please respect the integrity of the story and don't do any rewrites, make alterations or add pictures." 

Chapter 10:  Rashid, the Merchant of Tripoli

Good fortune has smiled upon me today. I visited the slave market where I purchased two strapping, young, Nasrani slaves who are to man an oar on my trading galley, the `Ghibli' - famously named after the Saharan wind with which I am familiar and which is well-known to the Mediterranean Christians as the Sirocco.

My name is Rashid and I am a merchant of Tripoli. My family has a long tradition of being small, land-based merchants who hold stalls in the city's many markets where they sell the exotic products of faraway lands and the rich plunder from captured Christian shipping. Indeed for me to just walk through the souks and bazaars brings me into face to face contact with numerous members of my extended family. 

Consequently, I avoid visiting these markets if at all possible; the time spent in exchanging greetings and partaking of the generous hospitality of various uncles and cousins - and this excludes the many family friends - is really time lost. 

I regard time as a precious resource which ought not to be squandered in frivolous idleness. Time is for the making of money and I have been eminently successful in my pursuit of wealth. 

My late father - of esteemed memory - was a modest man who was quite happy with his small stall in the main bazaar where he sold the expensive, luxury items from faraway, exotic lands; frankincense and myrrh from the Arabian Peninsula, gum resin from Somalia and cinnamon and nutmeg from the Spice Islands. And from time to time, he'd offer the exquisite hand woven rugs and materials brought by caravans and slave coffles across the Sahara from the far distant lands of the Yoruba and Dahomey.     

He walked comfortably in the footsteps of his father and he expected that I would follow the same path as my ancestors. But in truth, the thought of spending my life in the noisy confines of a crowded market spruiking the wares of my stall and haggling over prices with avaricious customers never held any appeal for me. I wanted more from my life. As a youth I craved adventure and try as hard as I might I didn't see any possibility of that in the markets of Tripoli. 

However, I was a dutiful son and I tried my hardest to please my father. But my life palled and with each passing day I grew more restless. My father sensed my discontent; he loved me dearly and it distressed him to see me so unhappy. 

It had always been his hope that I, the eldest of his sons, would work alongside of him on his stall and that in the fullness of time; I would assume responsibility for the family's business affairs. This had been the template for his life and the lives of all his ancestors before him. There was an honourable continuity in this and he had never envisaged that I would be the one to sever a link in the solid chain of our family's proud, mercantile traditions.

Thinking back to that time - when I was in my eighteenth year - I now realise that I had sorely vexed my father's good humour. He suffered my moodiness and discontent with magnanimity and grace and very rarely did he show any impatience with me. Now, with the maturity of my own advancing years, I feel great shame at the unhappiness I had undoubtedly caused him. 

One day, my father called me to him and told me how it distressed him to see me so unhappy and he asked what I wanted from my life. I told him that life in Tripoli was too constricting and I craved adventure and I wanted to travel to distant places. 

Sadly he told me of his disappointment and thinking back on that I do feel great guilt. My father deserved better from his eldest son. But I was too wrapped up in my own selfish dreams to spare him any thought. 

We talked at length and though it wasn't obvious to me at the time, my father was questioning me to determine what course of action to follow. Once more, he asked me if I was certain within my mind and I assured him that my wanderlust was too powerful an urge for me to ignore. I told my father I needed to leave Tripoli to seek adventure and my fortune in far distant places.

It was true that my wanderlust had pre-occupied my thinking for the previous two years. But in the impetuosity of my youth I had never given a lot of thought to where I'd go or how I'd get there.  But that day, my father, of blessed memory, had an answer for both.

He told me that he'd prevailed on an old friend to take me along on a trading expedition to the Senegambia region on the far western side of the great Sahara Desert. It would be a long, perilous journey that promised much hardship but perhaps it would provide me with the adventure I craved so badly. 

My father told me the Sahara was criss-crossed with numerous trading routes laid down by merchants and slave-gatherers over several hundred years and that these paths led into the dank, humid jungles of the south and to the great rivers of the west which flowed into the vast Atlantic Ocean. 

I was aware that my father received infrequent shipments of exotic cloths and rugs from Senegambia and I knew that many of our black slaves were gathered up from there and driven overland to the ports of Tunis, Algiers and Tripoli for trans-shipment to other parts of the Ottoman Empire.

 Over the years, I had witnessed the arrival in Tripoli of many coffles of emaciated slaves with such exotic tribal names as Yoruba, Fulah, Mandingo and Songhai. Here they were rested and conditioned in the local, fattening pens before being sent further afield to other slave markets. 

And I knew that young, black, male slaves from these areas were highly prized as eunuchs. It is perhaps ironic that many male slaves survive the horrors of the long, trans-Saharan trek only to succumb to the shock of the slaver's knife as they are castrated. The cost of transporting them over such long distances and the high mortality rate serves to inflate the price of a healthy, young, black eunuch. Is it any wonder then that the price for such a eunuch remains so high that only the very rich can afford them? 

However, there is a cheaper option. Nasrani slaves are easier to acquire either by capturing them at sea or by gathering them up in raids on coastal communities along the southern shores of Christian Europe. And the Christian can be made into a eunuch as readily as the black, African slave. Indeed my father had several such Nasrani eunuchs in his household.

I recalled learning from a teacher about the long history of the trans-Saharan trade and how it had been made possible with the introduction of the camel to our region some six to seven hundred years ago. 

Surely, camels are the gift of heaven! Their endurance and strength made them eminently suitable for travel through the hostile regions of the interior and their use had opened up new avenues of adventure for the brave and of commerce for the enterprising merchant. 

And of course, the camels' hooves and the feet of countless thousands of African slaves had woven an intricate pattern of invisible tracks through the ever shifting sands of the desert. 

I'd always been excited by the teacher's tales and perhaps this was the reason for my restlessness. And with my father's reluctant blessing, I was about to live them for myself. My excitement was boundless and I was eager to begin. Impatiently, I asked my father when the caravan would leave Tripoli and I failed to notice the tears in his eyes as he replied it would leave within two days. 

I was blinded to his sorrow by my own eager excitement and I disregarded his fears for me. 

My father was a simple man and I'd not listened as he tried to warn me of the dangers that confronted me in the Sahara's vastness. I'd not listened as he warned me of the heat and the thirst, the blinding sand-storms that arise suddenly and trap and disorient the inexperienced traveller.  And I'd not heard him as he warned of the nomadic, blue veiled tribesmen who roamed at will over the desert robbing and killing any unsuspecting merchant.

I'd turned a deaf ear to his tales of the fearsome djinn who lived in the desert's remoteness seeking to wreak their mischief on the unwary and the unprepared traveller.

Eventually, I was to cross the Sahara many times and never once did I see the djinn who had so terrified my father' consciousness. Perhaps they inhabited the watery, blue, heat haze that shimmered perpetually on the far distant horizons or resided in the sandy funnels of the swirling dust devils as they eddied back and forth over the ever-changing sand dunes.

But I did have a sense of the lonely ghosts who inhabited that infinitely vast and empty space. These were the spirits of the African slaves who'd perished during the long, desert treks from their homelands to the slave-markets of the Ottomans. Their bones were bleached a dazzling white and rendered brittle by the furnace like heat of an ever-present and merciless sun and they served as markers along the trade routes pointing the way ahead for us to follow as clearly as any map.

Thoughtlessly, two days later, I took my leave of my sorrowing father and set out on my adventure. As our caravan left Tripoli, I looked back over my shoulder and wondered when next I would see my home and family. Fleetingly, I was overcome by a sense of homesickness and sadness at being parted from my beloved father. But my melancholy didn't last and soon I was consumed by my anticipation of what was ahead of me.

As we moved through the fertile hinterland and turned towards the waiting Sahara, my excitement mounted; I was confident that many new sights and experiences awaited me. And to an extent that was true. I had never been further afield from Tripoli by more than one day's travel and so, at first, there were new towns and villages to hold my interest. 

But all too soon, we entered into the limitless, desolate expanse of the great Sahara Desert and my spirits sunk to a low level. The sun hung like a merciless, molten ball in a cloudless blue sky and further parched the already desiccated landscape.

Here all seemed lifeless to me. To my inexperienced eye, it appeared to be a dead world and save for the occasional Albranbakh shrub and the all too numerous scorpions it seemed totally devoid of all flora and fauna.

Later I will learn this isn't so. In my many travels over its limitless expanses, I will see that the desert is home to many animals, birds and reptiles. In time I will see the wild ass and the Barbary sheep, the goat and the Oryx, and the baboon and the ostrich. Overhead, in the skies, I will glimpse the desert sparrow, the eagle and the hawk. I will see the vultures and the buzzards which appear from out of nowhere and together with the jackal and the hyena, strip the flesh from the bones of any unfortunate, African slave who dies along the way.  

And I will see the desert flora growing around the wadis and oases. There, by the cool water I will rest in the welcome shade of the date palm, the tamarisk and the acacia. 

But all that was still ahead of me.

                                                             >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I was the youngest and most inexperienced member of the caravan and I had much to learn. Its leaders, two brothers, were veterans of the trans-Saharan trade and they taught me well. From them, I learned to traverse the inhospitable desert and how to avoid its many pitfalls. I obtained my current business acumen from them and they taught me how to negotiate - to my advantage - the best possible prices when both buying and selling. It has to be said that my present happy circumstance owes itself to their profound influences on me. 

I did in fact, accompany them on many more trips across the Sahara and my confidence grew with each expedition. My enthusiasm for adventure and my drive to become rich endeared me to them and after three trips they made me a junior partner in our future enterprises. My youthful exuberance proved to be a counterfoil to their staidness and it gave them much joy. Soon they treated me as an honoured member of their family and in recognition of that I called them `uncle'.  

On our outward bound trips we carried trade goods; colourful silks, flowery perfumes and spices together with the gaudy products of our goldsmiths and jewellers. Cheap and tawdry by our standards, these trinkets nevertheless had great appeal to the Black rulers and the nobility of the petty kingdoms and fiefdoms of the Senegambia region. 

We used them to buy the hand-woven materials for which Senegambia is so rightly famous, the rare commodity of desert salt and slaves. 

And there never seemed to be any shortage of slaves for us to buy. The slaveholding pens of the Black chieftains always seemed to be overflowing with newly captured prisoners from their constant inter-tribal warfare. And during those rare, peaceful interludes, we always found the lure of a cheap trinket overcame a chief's scruples about selling his own young men and women into slavery.  

By carefully observing my `uncles', I learned how to purchase a slave from an African chief for a few cheap trinkets - something I am still very adept at.  Why only this morning, I'd purchased well at the slave-market and soon I will need to prepare those two, young Nasrani slaves for their future roles as oar-slaves on the `Ghibli'.

I can't recall how many African slaves I helped bring back to Tripoli but I am sure it numbers in the many hundreds and my share from their sale helped to make me rich enough to buy my first trading galley and to equip it with rowers and a crew. 

My time as a slave-trader had served me well and made me rich. Why then did I not continue with this profitable enterprise? 

In truth I became bored. I grew tired of the rigours of crossing the Sahara twice on each venture. I grew impatient with the never-ending worry of driving the newly enslaved back to Tripoli and of their recalcitrance. 

It really is hard work driving a coffle of unwilling slaves across the hot, burning, desert sands. I grew weary of the constant haranguing and whipping to keep the slaves moving. And I really hated to watch as a slave - in whom I had invested so much - simply give up, lie down and die thus adding his carcass to those bleached bones already littering the route. 

And also, I had married and fathered a son, Daoud who was then and remains today the apple of my eye. I wanted to see my son grow from a sturdy toddler into adventurous boyhood and then into manly adolescence. I couldn't do this if I was absent for prolonged periods of time.  

And so, I became a seafaring trader carrying trade goods and slaves to the coastal communities along the north coast of Africa and with the occasional longer trip to Constantinople. 

During each rowing season, I put to sea several times but I always return home for a few days respite between voyages while my holds are restocked with trade goods and the galley provisioned with food and water for my crew and oar-slaves. And I have found that a few days labouring on shore are beneficial for the slaves. Released from the confines of the rowing bench, they have a chance to ease their cramped limbs and stretch their tired muscles and tendons. 

This year's rowing season is drawing to a close and I have one more trip to make before conditions in the Middle Sea become rough and stormy enough to confine my galley to the safe haven of Tripoli's protected harbour.  

And it is an important trip for me. One for which I have longed for with all my heart. 

My son, Daoud is now of an age when he can join me in my trading activities. Indeed, next rowing reason, he will join my crew as a permanent member. But he is impatient - next season seems so far away - and with the impetuosity of the young he has prevailed upon me to allow him to accompany me on this, my last voyage for the season. 

I am immensely gratified with my son's eagerness to join his father. Yet this shames me. I recall my late father's disappointment of so long ago when I had rejected his wishes that I join with him in the family's business. But that is now water under the bridge and revisiting old disappointments serves no one's interests. And yet, if this is so, why do I sometimes feel the guilt of my self-indulgent youth. 

I have decided that in his own interests, Daoud is to start at the bottom and work his way through the ranks of my galley crew. Most probably, he'll dislike his first assignment which is that he'll minister to the galley slaves. He'll have to feed and water them. Each day he will draw buckets of sea-water and douse the rowing benches to wash away the foulness, to clear them of the slaves' ordure and to minimise their stench. He'll be trained to use the whip - and I have already spoken to my boatswain about his training - and to master it so that he urges the rowers to greater exertion. Of necessity, he'll need to free his mind of any compassion for the slaves and to see them for what they truly are; mere beasts of burden.

And I'll teach him to despise the slaves for the hated Nasrani dogs that they truly are.

During his first voyage on the `Ghibli', Daoud will learn to become a fearsome whip master; an important first step in his progression through the crew's ranks. 

I recall my own youth and how I had learned to use the whip to drive the slave-coffles onwards over the desert sands. It hadn't been easy at first - there is a knack in how you wield a whip to maximum effect - and it had taken much practice for me to master it. 

And so it will be with Daoud. But he is young and eager to learn and there will be ninety, naked, sweaty backs on which to hone his whipping skills. 

And I will be standing there at Daoud's side to encourage and guide him.  I have a parent's gladness and a father's pride in having my son work with me on the `Ghibli'. And yet these are tinged with sadness and regret at my youthful unwillingness to work with my father in the bazaars of Tripoli.  Now, in my own happiness at having Daoud work with me, I can appreciate more fully the sadness my father felt when I had left his home to seek adventure in the wider world.  

Perhaps, through working with my own son, I can make amends for the disappointment I had caused my beloved father. And in the process, I might even assuage some of the residual guilt I feel - even after the passing of so many years.


                                           
To be continued..................
 
 

