CHAPTER 1
Mehdi loved the soothing sound of the waves against his father’s small, blue, wooden boat – a steady, soft rhythm that slowed time. On days when the breeze was soft, after the morning catch was brought in, Mehdi would beg his father to give him the old boat so he could drift out beyond the harbor and just listen to the drumming of the waves chase away the troubles back on shore.
These days, Mehdi rarely had to ask his father’s permission to take the boat, since it was usually Mehdi who went out fishing in his father’s place. Father’s health had followed in the footsteps of his beloved city Mogador and its fading fortunes. Mehdi had always imagined that his father’s soul indeed was tied to the soul of the old port city, so much his father loved it, praised it, told story after story about it. To Mehdi, though, who had not known the city’s glory days, his father’s constant praise for the city was grating. In fact, all Mehdi wanted to do was get away, leave Mogador behind, backwater that it was, and make a name for himself somewhere else. Somewhere that still mattered. Somewhere with businessmen, financiers, pashas, sultans, diplomats from around the world. Father could keep his stories of Mogador, for all they were worth; Mehdi preferred stories of Marrakech, Tangier, Fes. Dreams of these cities – their palaces, mosques, souks – danced through his mind as he lay in the old boat with its flaking blue paint, rocked gently by the push and pull of the receding tide.
Suddenly, almost imperceptibly, the rhythm of the water changed. Mehdi, who knew the water’s language like his mother tongue, quickly woke from his dreams, sat up straight and peered around him. The slowly undulating blue surface was uninterrupted all around him except for the occasional dive of a seagull seeking its lunch. Then, off in the far distance, away from the shore, Mehdi made out another small boat.
Strange, he thought. Usually at this hour, he was the only one out on the water, as other fishers beat a retreat from the heat of the high sun.
Then it struck Mehdi: the faraway boat was not the typical fading blue of Mogador’s fishing boats. In fact, it did not look painted at all. Mehdi was still too far away to make out anything else about this strange boat appeared out of nowhere.
Something unsettled him about the boat. He could not put his finger on why. A voice inside told him to steer clear, that it could only mean trouble.
As soon as Mehdi had been old enough to join his father on his fishing outings, the old man had taught him that the ocean was like any other jinn, neither good nor bad. It just was. Sometimes it behaved generously, sometimes mischievously, sometimes calm and inviting, sometimes raging and destructive. Its waters could bring the city its sustenance but could also bring pirates.
Piracy had always been a way of life off the shores of North Africa, and Mogador was not immune. As the city had lost its importance, as the Europeans left for greener pastures, as the city’s council spent more and more time squabbling over how to revive the city’s prosperity, pirates increasingly took advantage of the vulnerable port. And one thing pirates liked best was to take young local boys forcefully into their profession.
Mehdi stared at the strange boat, wavering between two opinions. Unfortunately, between curiosity and caution, the former had always wielded a stronger pull on Mehdi’s heart. He picked up his paddle and began rowing toward the boat.
As he drew closer, he perceived that the boat was clearly not of Arab or Berber design. It was about the same size as his own boat, but wider, and more angular, with hooks for ropes along each side, as if the boat belonged to a larger ship. If that were the case, then this boat had gone far astray – there was no trace of another vessel as far as the eye could see. Stranger still, he could not make out any passengers. Had the boat been blown loose in a storm? How far had it travelled?
Mehdi pulled up close. He peered in and discerned the shape of a small emaciated body laying lifeless in the bottom.
Almost lifeless.
The chest was still rising and falling, if barely.
The young man in the boat was like no one Mehdi had ever seen. His skin, though bronzed by the sun, was more red than olive. His hair was a bright yellow, the color of hay. For clothes, the boy, who looked to be about Mehdi’s age, wore a rough brown shirt and trousers of the coarsest wool. But strangest of all, the boy clutched a shining silver sword of a make Mehdi had never seen. It was longer and straighter then most Arab or Berber swords, but more curiously, it was covered with etched cursive writing in Latin letters all over. It looked far too large for the boy to handle on his own, let alone a grown man. The boy appeared weak from sun exposure and starvation, but yet his right hand firmly grasped the sword that lay across his chest.
Mehdi pulled a rope from the bottom of his boat and tied his own boat to the foreigner’s. He leaned over and gently placed a hand on the boy’s cheeks.
They were still soft with the flow of life. The boy did not stir.
Mehdi stared for a long time at the beautiful sword. Finally, giving in to curiosity, he reached a hand out to feel the strange blade.
As his fingers touched the metal, strangely cold despite the sun’s bright heat, the body under it jerked, and the hand gripping the sword tightened. The boy’s eyes shot open and he jolted into a defensive crouch, screaming words in a foreign tongue at Mehdi, his eyes filled with terror.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Mehdi tried to soothe him, his hand still outstretched, “I wasn’t going to take it from you. I want to help.”
The boy continued to shout. Mehdi scoured his mind for words in the only European language he knew.
“Mim amigo. Mim ajudar.”
The boy remained crouched and scared, staring at Mehdi’s outstretched hand. Finally, Mehdi pulled back and held both hands up, palms facing the boy. “No harm. Ajudar.”
The boy’s muscles relaxed slightly, except for the hand gripping the sword, and the fear slightly dissipated from his face. His eyes began to droop, and within seconds, his body crumpled back into a heap at the bottom of the boat, unconscious.
