Of course, when one is in a prison cell, as I am now, it is no pleasant experience. Imagine how much more compounded that unpleasantness would be if one were sharing it with one’s worst enemy.
The brig was a tiny thing in the bowels of the ship, accessible from the gun deck via a deck hatch and a rickety staircase. The cell itself, enclosed in grids of iron bars, was the length of two men and twice as wide, with barely enough room for one to stand up to full height. There were no tables or chairs at all, but there were two buckets with which prisoners were expected to use for waste. Those were to be periodically rinsed with seawater and dumped overboard. The bars were constructed in a cross-cross pattern, so that even if I had been skeletal-thin I would not have been able to slip through. Dismal though the prison was, I thanked the Lord above that at least I was not expected to do any manual labor.
However, within minutes of my imprisonment, I came to the realization that there was absolutely no hope of my release. After being called “Lord Krym” for several days, I had almost come to believe it myself. Captain Barrett expected a ransom from the Czarina for a noble that did not exist. Any letter that reached an organ of the Russian Empire would be laughed off, as everyone knew that there was only one “Lord of Crimea” and that was Prince Grigori Potemkin himself.
In a fleeting moment of hope, I thought to myself, surely the Czarina would remember me, the gallant Cossack whom she sent out into the west to come back to her after having learned how to be as competent as the most seaworthy of European sailors… yes, of course, that one Cossack that she rewarded for saving her horse.
I let out a deep sigh. It came to me that while the Czarina did give me her imperial seal, she did not give me permission to steal the title of her lover for myself. No matter how I looked at it, no rescue would come, and I sat in that cell, my face buried in my hands, wondering when Captain Barrett’s patience would run thin, and what he would do to me when the time came.
When I heard steps descending down into the brig and looked up to see the black-robed Turkish “prince” being led to share the same cell as me, my despair quickly turned to anger.
It was Private Appleton that brought him to my cell, and he could not look me in the eye as he led the Turk inside and shut the heavy iron grill behind him. In vain I cried out for him to throw me the keys, and I knew that he understood me, even with my broken English, but he walked away just as I thought he would, leaving me alone, face to face with the turbaned, bearded figure who represented everything I hated.
He smiled at me and said “Sälam.”
I would find out later that it meant “peace,” but the fact that he had uttered anything at all brought up within me all the rage from memories past, and I could only respond with a primal roar and swinging fists.
Of the wild punches that I threw at him, perhaps one or two connected. The rest he dodged or blocked, a remarkable feat considering the size of the cage we were kept in. When the Turk saw an opening, he attacked not with a closed fist but an open palm, which made a fiery pain erupt from my cheek.
I paused for a moment, as did he.
“Did you just slap me like a whore?”
He simply nodded.
His mischief only fueled my anger, and I lunged at him with all my weight. With catlike grace, he sidestepped me as I careened into the bars on the cell wall, letting out a loud yell as I hit my head on one of the metal beams. The Turk grabbed me by the collar, but before he could strike, a voice from the entrance called out,
“What the devil is going on here?”
Eirene had entered the brig with a plate of food, and was now staring, slack-jawed, at the Turk and myself frozen mid-battle. My opponent let go of me and bowed in what I saw as mock respect.
“Rodya, what is going on here?” Eirene said as she approached the bars of the cage.
“He’s a Turk,” I replied. “It’s good to kill Turks.”
Eirene looked at my cellmate, who smiled at her, then she turned to scowl at me.
“He’s also the only company you have in here. I would advise you not to make enemies with him, I can’t visit you every day, lest they get suspicious. I had to order Appleton away just to get in here. Listen, I will try to convince Captain Barrett to let me go on shore so that I can talk to the Russian chargé d'affaires myself. I would like to think that the House of Morozov still holds some sway in the imperial court. You will see your freedom again.”
“Thank you,” I said, taking the plate of food. It was a large serving of boiled mutton with some herbs and vegetables. “Is this what they serve prisoners? I could get used to this.”
Eirene scoffed, “Hardly. I managed to uh… purloin this from the officer’s mess. Don’t expect this to be a daily occurrence. I suggest sharing this with your new friend here.”
“He’s not my friend.”
Eirene scoffed, “Besides Andrei, who is currently cooped up in the kitchen, and myself, preoccupied with the duties of my station, he’s all you have.”
Eirene was right. There would be little sense in antagonizing the only man that I was sharing my cell with, but at the same time, seeing him standing there clothed in the robes and turban of the people that had robbed me of my freedom and robbed my brothers of their lives made the prospect of befriending him seem very bitter indeed. I clutched the bars of my cell wall, my fists trembling from exertion. I breathed deep, trying to maintain an air of civility, and replied to Eirene in the most placid tone I could manage.
“Thank you for your concern, Your Nobility,”
“Please,” she said, clutching my hand. “I told you to stop calling me that. In this world, aboard this ship, I am no more ‘Lady Morozova’ any more than you are ‘Lord Krym.’ Just stay your course, be true to who you are, but don’t give in to the hate in your heart, and remember what I said.”
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“It’s more difficult than you know,”
“I won’t pretend to know your suffering, Rodya, but trust me that it would be better for both of you. Now I must go. I have to attend to my duties.”
She reached in and gave me a kiss.
“Until we meet again.”
I was too stunned to respond and watched as she ascended the stairs back up to the deck. For a brief moment, that kiss made me forget all my troubles. Then the Turk cleared his throat behind me, bringing me back to the foul smelling, moldy brig.
I clenched my teeth and turned around to him. I pushed the thoughts of murder to the back of my mind and slumped down to the brig’s floor.
“Well,” I muttered, speaking more to myself than to him, “I’m supposed to learn to like you. I don’t see what there is to like, if I can be honest, Turk. But I will restrain myself from any more violence. For, after all, ‘it is not good for man to be alone.’”
Then, to my surprise, he replied to me in my own language.
“Good, now that you have expended your energy, I can speak to you as a man instead of as a rabid animal.” His voice was calm and smooth, quite unlike the harsh, guttural yells of my former taskmasters. “The very first thing I must ask you – why did you let that man kiss you?”
“You understand me?”
“I nodded to you when you asked me if I had slapped you, did I not?”
“So you did – how do you speak my language?”
“I am the servant of my sovereign the sultan, and in turn he expects me to serve my people also – by administering to them in this, their time of need. Thus, I studied both my master’s language and that of my people’s enemies. Inshallah, we will take back our home from you Christians one day. Now, please, answer my question.”
I ignored him, and my eyes narrowed, “You are no Turk. You’re a Tatar.”
“Indeed, and you are no lord, as your boy-lover said – you are… something else?”
I sighed, “He is… she is, unfortunately, neither a boy nor my lover. Not yet, anyway. She is a woman disguised as a man. What I am… what I was, is no longer important.” I slumped back down on the cell floor and removed my hat. By this time, my hair had grown so long that my forelock was barely visible, but somehow, my cellmate noticed it.
“Ah,” he nodded. “It is good to know that I am not sharing my cell with a boy-buggerer, for there are many things my people consider haram, but to be given the yarrak when one does not ask for it is in my mind, the vilest thing. As for what you are, I can see clearly now that you are a Cossack. I did not know you Russians allowed your women to cross dress, but then again you are barely Russian at all.” He scoffed, “Your people are the bane of my people. By all reason, I should be as hostile with you as you appear to be towards me. However, as it says in the Holy Koran, ‘Allah does not love the aggressors.’”
I snarled at his hypocrisy, “Yet, when I was a boy, you raided my village, killed my father, raped my mother, and sold me into slavery. Is that not aggression?”
He sat down on the floor next to me and said, “If your home was taken over by a foreigner, would you not do everything in your power, no matter how evil, to evict them? That is our justification for the slave raids. But here we sit, not as Tatary and the Sich, but as two men in a barred room. As of yet, we have no reason to argue.”
For a moment, we sat in silence. I contemplated the truth of his words as my anger began to subside.
“What do they call you?” I asked him.
“Aidar Pasha. Yourself?”
“Rodion Ivanovich Kazansky?”
He raised an eyebrow and chuckled, “Kazansky? What do you know of your name?”
“It is my name,” I said with a frown, “What of it?”
He chuckled, “Kazansky – of Kazan. It’s funny, you claim to hate us so much yet your name tells me you yourself are descended from the Kazan Tatars, cousins to us Crimeans.”
I cringed at the thought. It was if as though he had revealed to me that I was somehow part dog.
“The Kazan Khanate, now long gone, was a small country, but its rulers, even though they were all Muslim to a man, were fair and just. All their subjects – Muslims, Shamanists, Christians alike, were judged as men – not by their ethnicity or religion but by their actions. I’d imagine that one of those men was an ancestor of yours. What would he say to you now?”
“It is only a name,” I muttered. “I once knew a man nicknamed Igor Pigskin – he was neither a pig nor skinny.”
“Why was he called that?”
“Because he would not touch his fatback unless it had skin on it.”
Aidar Pasha smiled, and I just realized that I had told him a joke. Perhaps God had put me in this cage with this man for a reason. However, I refused to let familiarity breed, as much as it seemed to be forcing itself upon us both.
“You must find that revolting,” I said. “I hear that you Mohammedans will not touch pork.”
Aidar let out a short, loud “Ha!” and wagged his finger, “The Turks, no – they would never touch pig meat, for yes, it is haram – forbidden by the Holy Qur’an, as the pig is an unclean animal. However, my people were Tatars long before they were Muslim, and we had been cooking and eating pigs since well before they converted. As for me, even though I was born in Konstantiniyye, I am still a Tatar. Thus, we are Tatars first and Muslims second – besides, fatback bacon is delicious. Ah, speaking of delicious, I believe your companion told you to share.”
I stared at the boiled mutton for a few moments and contemplated tossing it to him like I would feed an animal, but somehow my more sensible judgment prevailed.
“Of course,” I said as I handed over the plate. “I believe mutton is acceptable regardless of your beliefs, yes?”
“Indeed,” he tore off a small portion and put the dish in the center between us. “It is also considered very Muslim to share one’s blessings with others.”
“My Christ teaches the same.”
“So he does,” Aidar nodded. “Sometimes, I believe that Allah put different religions in this world to compete with each other in doing good, so that the whole world might live in harmony, but yet, we humans, well…” he laughed softly.
Loud, heavy footsteps descended down the stairs. Much to my surprise, Mister Ferguson, the ship’s master, had come down to see us. He wheezed with every step and waddled more than walked towards our cell.
“Lord Krym,” he spoke almost breathlessly, as if he had just run a great distance. “Lieutenant Morse has informed me that you were originally sent by your Russian empress to study the science of European seafaring, is that correct?”
“Yes, is correct.”
“Well, I shall be happy to converse with you on the subject at length. I am, after all, the ship’s master.”
“Why I trust you? You want sell me like slave.”
“Oh, you understood that little exchange between myself and the captain, did you? Well, I shall tell you in all honesty, I have done you a great favor. If it were not for me, you would be at the bottom of Davy Jones’ locker by now. As you were informed by the captain, the penalty for striking a superior is death. I have never seen eye to eye with him on such matters, as I abhor fratricide. And if I may say so, I refuse to believe that it was you who shot him. Accidents such as this happen in times of war.”
A part of me did not want to trust the man, but the fact that I was in a cage made me quite literally his captive audience. I reasoned that it was providence that I would finally be getting the education the czarina required of me, even in such dire circumstances as this.
“I can say only thank you. Where we begin?”
Ferguson rubbed his hands together with glee and pulled up a squeaky chair. “Where do we begin indeed?”
For a good while, the ship’s master and I exchanged words on the basics of life at the mast while Aidar Pasha watched quietly from his corner, eating his portion of the mutton that we shared. Despite his silence, I could tell from his occasional glances that he was listening intently and trying to commit Ferguson’s words to memory. As the ship’s master taught me the difference between the different types of jibs and sails, he was learning about his enemies.