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HISTORICAL NOTE

Readers of the other books in the Barbary series will be familiar with how Barbary Corsairs of North Africa to enjoy a considerable revival during the long drawn out Napoleonic Wars. The British and French Navies concentrated on fighting each other in the Mediterranean. The decline of the Knights of the Malta had further helped the corsairs.

The corsair ships were now left virtually unhindered not only to capture Christian ships, but also to raid the coasts and islands of Southern Europe, carrying off large numbers of young European women and boys for sale in the slave markets of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.

Our fictitious port of Marsa, the only North African one still under direct Turkish rule, would have played a key role in this revival, financing many of the Corsos, or raids, and providing a ready market for the sale of the captured cargoes and slaves.

Readers may be shocked at the apparent callous inhumanity with which the North African rulers and rich merchants treated their women - and in particular their European slavegirls. But it must be remembered that these latter, whilst being highly desirable sexually were also despised Christians, and hatred of everything Christian went back to the days of the Crusades and the expulsion of the Moors from Spain. To treat Christian slaves harshly, and to be seen or known to do so, was considered only right and proper - as was to own a large number of Christian slavegirls locked up in your harem.

Traditionally in the Barbary States cruelty, torture and oppression had always been regarded there as outward signs of strength. Mercy was evidence of weakness. No man could show pity and expect to rule.

Moreover the position of women there was very different from what it was in Europe. “God has put women in into the world,” the Prophet is reputed to have declared, “for the enjoyment of men. Go ye and enjoy them.”

The Prophet himself was married several times and, as was considered quite normal, enjoyed numerous slavegirls. He taught: “He who is able to enjoy copulation, and does not do so for any reason, is not of me and he has lost his earthly paradise.” Clearly, Turkish and Arab rulers were determined not to run any risk of that!

Djezzar, the redoubtable Pasha of Acre, was then the hero of the Turkish and Arab world. Only a few years before the time of this story, Nelson had destroyed the French Fleet at the Battle of the Nile, cutting Napoleon and the French Fleet off from Europe. Djezzar had, with the help of Sir Sidney Smith and the Royal Navy, humbled the mighty Napoleon and stopped him dead in his tracks on his march to Constantinople, forcing to retreat ignominiously to back to Egypt.

Then aged over sixty he was famous for both his bravery and his cruelty. But, he was also admired for his large harem, and for the fact that eighteen of them were known to be Christian slavegirls.

Readers of the Barbary books will also be familiar with Rory Fitzgerald, formerly an Anglo-Irish officer in the British Army but now in the service of the Sultan of Turkey. He has been sent to be second-in-command of the Turkish Janissaries in Marsa.

In 1807, shortly after Rory's arrival in Marsa, the Turkish Empire was rocked when the Janissaries in Constantinople revolted and overthrew the progressive Sultan Selim. Within a year, his successor, the Sultan Mustafa, had also been removed and Murad, the 'Great Reformer', became Sultan, secretly swearing to get his revenge on the Janissaries.

Murad was half French, his mother being the famous Aimee Dubucq de Rivery. She had been captured as a young girl by Barbary Corsairs and sent as a present to the Sultan. She was a cousin of the Empress Josephine, Napoleon's first wife.

Would Murad allow the Barbary Corsairs to continue? Could he in any case stop them, since they were based not only on Marsa, but also on the semi-independent ports of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers?

However, they were very dependant on the local detachment of Turkish Janissaries who provided both the boarding parties that captured the Christian ships, and the landing parties who raided the Christian coasts. And the best trained Janissaries came from Marsa that was still, through its Pasha, under the direct rule of Turkey.

This, therefore, would have been a time of great uncertainty, not only in Europe and the Ottoman Empire, but also for the Pasha of Marsa himself.

PROLOGUE

RORY GETS HIS ORDERS

‘I shall want you to go and bring me back a beautiful young Italian Contessa,’ said the Pasha.

‘What!’ I exclaimed. Then I hastily added: ‘You’re Excellency’

The Pasha was the Turkish all-powerful Governor of Marsa and my superior. I, formerly Rory Fitzgerald of His Britannic Majesty’s Foot Guards, was now Hussein Effendi, still then merely second in command of his contingent of Janissaries.

‘Yes, my son, I shall want you to take a detachment of your Janissaries and capture me a young Contessa,’ continued the Pasha earnestly, stroking his greying beard, his fierce eyes gleaming. ‘I want a really aristocratic and beautiful woman. The sort of young woman a man would really take pride in owning, as well as being one who would give her Master pleasure. A beautiful young Contessa - that’s what I need!’

‘An Italian Contessa?’ I queried.

‘Yes. But first you must find the French governess who will lead us to her and who, alas, slipped through my fingers before I could get hold of her. Getting her back is going to be a delicate matter - and you are the only man I can trust to do it.’

A Contessa and a French Governess! Was there no end to the sensual needs of this remarkable old man? It was well known that, as well as his four Turkish wives, his harem also contained thirty or so beautiful young European women.

With his wealth, the Pasha could indeed have the pick of Marsa’s famous slave markets and would often sell on a girl and buy in a replacement. A girl with the Pasha’s brand on her belly would sell very well, for the eunuchs in charge of the Pasha’s harem were renowned as strict and highly effective trainers of even the most reluctant white women.

The Pasha would also periodically present one of his girls to a delighted retainer. It was a simple and very effective way of binding a man to him.

Either way, the Pasha’s cast-offs were highly regarded and the idea of having a woman in your harem who had previously been in the harem of the Pasha himself was itself both intriguing and satisfying.

I knew that the Pasha also invested in purchasing captured women reputed to be from rich European families, for whom there was a chance of obtaining a very large ransom. Whilst the ransom negotiations dragged on, the Pasha would enjoy the woman. And indeed, if the negotiations took too long, then he would threaten to send the woman back to the bosom of her family, well and truly pregnant by one of his giant black guards.

‘But what has capturing a Contessa got to do with me?’ I asked. My job was to train Janissaries, not go dashing about the Mediterranean looking for women.

‘Because this is so important and because I can’t rely on any else. Don’t you see - a present from your Janissaries of a titled and beautiful young European woman, as a slave for his harem, would persuade the new young Sultan both that our Janissaries are loyal and that Marsa is a jewel in his Empire.’

‘Oh!’ I exclaimed, feeling rather foolish. I had not thought about Sultan Murad. The Pasha was indeed a cunning old fox.

‘Especially if she had just been circumcised.’

‘Circumcised!’ I repeated shocked.

‘Oh, yes, we Turks much enjoy having circumcised Christian slavegirls in our harems. Don’t look so shocked, it something you’ll learn to appreciate in your own harem.’

Never, I thought! It was just too cruel. Matrak, my own chief black eunuch, was always trying to persuade me to try out having my own Christian slavegirls circumcised – a recommendation that, shocked, I had so far resisted.

‘Sexual pleasure is for men, not for women,’ went on the Pasha. ‘Circumcising as woman not only gives one a delicious feeling of power and make it difficult for a girl to give herself secret pleasure behind your back, but it also makes her more loving.’

More loving, I thought, sceptically?

‘Yes,’ continued the Pasha as if answering my doubts, ‘a circumcised woman soon discovers that, with her clitoris gone, she can now only get pleasure when she is actually penetrated – and provided the black eunuchs make sure that no dildos, or anything like a cucumber, is allowed into the harem she finds herself becoming more desperate to attract her Master’s attention – for feeling his manhood up inside her is now the way she can get pleasure.’

Well, I could see that the Pasha had a point, but all then same …’

‘Moreover,’ said the Pasha, ‘being half European himself, our new Sultan will appreciate owning a well educated and intelligent but circumcised, plaything - just as his father, Sultan Abdul Hamid, may he be enjoying the houris of Paradise, doubtless enjoyed his French mother. With your own European background you should understand these things even better than a Turk!’

He paused.

‘But just how loyal to the new Sultan are your Janissaries?’ he asked. ‘How affected have they been by the revolts of their colleagues in Constantinople?’

I collected my thoughts. Originally the Janissaries had all been recruited from tribute boys in the Christian provinces of the Turkish Empire in the Balkans and the Caucuses. Periodically Turkish officers would visit the Christian provinces and seize one in four of the little boys - the most intelligent and strongest. They were taken back to Constantinople to become the personal slaves of the Sultan, their Christian origin soon forgotten. The cleverest would become his governors and diplomats. The toughest would become his elite core of troops - the dreaded Janissaries.

Originally sworn to celibacy, they were now allowed to marry and had become a sort of self perpetuating Praetorian Guard, both subservient to the Sultan and controlling him. Then Sultan Selim started his own rival army - the New Army - trained by French officers. This had infuriated the Janissaries and led to his overthrow. But the Janissaries in North Africa were a very separate body these days.

‘Provided the Sultan does not send any of his New Army here,’ I answered, ‘then I think that the loyalty of our Janissaries will continue to be unquestionable.’

‘Good, because you must rely on them to help you carry out my plan of seizing a suitable aristocratic young woman. The fact is that our whole future will depend on the new Sultan appreciating what we are loyally and discreetly doing here: profiting from the activities of the Barbary Corsairs, without officially involving him or the Sublime Porte in Constantinople - but with his Janissaries playing a key role.’

I caught my breath. I was being caught up in a web of intrigue that was not of my asking. I had been quite content just training my Janissaries to be the best disciplined forced in all North Africa.

But I could see that the Pasha was quite right, it was indeed detachments of the Marsa-based Janissaries that the Rais, the Corsair Captains, and their financial backers, also often from Marsa itself, begged for when planning a new Corso, or raid. This had brought much money into Marsa, to the Pasha, and onto the Sultan in distant Constantinople. It had also brought a steady stream nubile young Christian girls and boys to the slave markets of Marsa.

Yes, I thought, the present of a young Italian aristocratic girl would indeed emphasise to the new Sultan the role of both Marsa and of his Janissaries. It would also emphasise that the Christian slaves they captured these days were different. There was little demand for young Christian male slaves now. The old Corsair galleys, pulled by oars manned by captured male Christian slaves, had been replaced by fast sailing vessels - the dreaded Polacca-Chebecs, with their mixture of European style square sails and Arab style lanteen sails.

These vessels could outsail almost any ships - largely because they were light and did not carry a heavy gun armament. Like all pirates, the Barbary Corsairs wanted to capture a ship, together with its cargo and any young female passengers, intact and not to sink it. Hence the importance the importance of the well disciplined Janissary boarding parties that I had spent long hours training.

But though the market for strong white male slaves had gone, there was still a strong demand for young white women. There was also a demand for castrated white youths. Indeed thanks to the success of the Barbary corsairs in recent years, Marsa had become one of the main slave markets of the Turkish Empire - supplying white women and young white eunuchs for the slave markets of Damascus, Cairo and Constantinople itself.

Here in Marsa itself, white women were now common as pleasure slaves in the higher-class brothels and in the harems of the wealthy merchants, financiers, Raises and landowners. And these men also, of course, had their coteries of castrated white pageboys.

Moreover, sturdy European peasant girls, perhaps judged to be unsuitable for sale as pleasure slaves but often still attractive, were relatively inexpensive to buy in the slave markets of Marsa. So much so, in fact that they had even partly replaced Negresses, expensively brought all the way across the Sahara, as labourers on Marsa’s highly profitable farms and estates and as trained skilled workers in its lucrative carpet factories.

The owners of these white girls had also learnt that the half caste progeny of these white girls, known as Haratin, were much superior to those produced by their negress slaves and provided a profitable additional source of income, particularly if the white women were crossed annually with giant Dinka negro guards and overseers.

Indeed, the supply, sale and use of white women slaves had now become an inherent part of the rich economy of Marsa, just as black slaves had become an inherent part of the very different economy of much of the New World. Moreover, just as the rich plantation owners of the southern states of America and the West Indies were determined to keep their black slaves, so too, I knew, the rich merchants and landowners of Marsa, and its Turkish Governor, were anxious that the supply of European white women slaves should continue...

The Pasha’s voice interrupted my reverie.

‘I know you have only recently become a Moslem,’ he said, his eyes twinkling, ‘but you must by now have realised the sheer delight that a good Moslem can have from a well-stocked harem of European women - and the excitement of acquiring a new unusual addition to it. I do not think our new Sultan will feel any different! ... Incidentally, how is your own new harem coming along?’

I blushed with embarrassment. I certainly enjoyed the ladies. Indeed it was after being discovered in bed with a Lady in Waiting to Queen Charlotte that I was forced to flee London and seek service with the Sultan.

The Sublime Porte had been delighted to employ a young British officer with recent military experience and had sent me to Marsa to help train the local Janissaries. But first I had had to become, at least officially, a Moslem. I remembered how, arriving in Marsa, I had found that my official residence contained a harem wing and my predecessor, before returning to Constantinople, had strongly recommended that I should stock it well.

‘The troops will expect it,’ he explained, ‘especially as you were previously a Christian. Having a harem of captured European slave girls would be a way of showing that you had put aside your former religion. And not only would it impress the troops, but also the rich merchants who are our primary customers. It is they who hire detachments of our Janissaries for the Corsos they are financing. So in several ways an officer of the Janissaries without a harem of captured Christian girls would be suspect here.’

‘But how do I start?’ I had laughingly asked. ‘And who pays for the girls? My Turkish army pay will hardly allow me to be a regular visitor to the slave markets, even if prices for European slave girls are lower then ever!’

‘Don’t worry,’ had been the reply. ‘I will leave you Matrak, my chief black eunuch.’

‘Chief black eunuch?’ I had queried.

‘Yes, you must have a black eunuch to run your harem for you and Matrak is very experienced in supervising white women - and in dealing with any recalcitrant ones. Just leave it all to him. He will find the girls for you - and without ruining you.’

Matrak had done just that and already I was the proud owner of two very attractive young white women as well as two pretty local Berber girls.

Paula, the tall tawny haired Greek girl from Ionian Islands, had been bought by Matrak quite cheaply at a time when prices in the slave markets very depressed following a succession of highly successful Corsos. Whilst Francesca, a tempestuous young married woman from Naples, had been captured when Barbary pirates had captured the ship, taking her from Amalfi to see her relations in Naples.

It had been a detachment of my Janissaries that had boarded this ship, which was also found to have a very valuable cargo. The ship had been taken back to Marsa for the cargo to be sold and the delighted merchants who had financed the Corso had made a profit of several hundred percent. They had presented Francesca to me, as a little sign of their gratitude.

‘Just remember the basic rules of having a successful harem,’ the Pasha had later told me when I had gained his confidence. These rules had become engraved in my mind.

‘Firstly,’ the Pasha had explained, ‘don’t let your girls see another man. In this way they will soon fall in love with you even if they are pining for a lost lover or husband in Europe - and even if you are old and ugly like me!’

The Pasha had laughed.

‘Secondly, don’t allow any little naughty straying fingers. White women are notoriously sensuous. So if you prefer them not to be circumcised, you must make sure that your eunuchs supervise them constantly, especially at night and even in the baths or when apparently, innocently walking together in the harem garden. They must not be allowed to play with themselves or with each other. By all means allow them to kiss each other or even train them to play with each other in front of you, but your eunuchs must instil such a fear of their whip that your girls realise that you and you alone are now their only source of pleasure and that to have any relief they must first compete to catch your eye.’

Again the Pasha had given a cruel laugh. ‘Most white women are such passionate creatures - even they haven’t always realised it before finding themselves locked up in a harem under the constant supervision of a eunuch. Controlling their natural sensuality, through fear of your eunuchs’ canes, is half the excitement of having a harem.’

The Pasha had stroked his beard and gone on.

‘And the third rule is: don’t get too involved with the running of your harem. Leave your eunuchs to cope with all the tantrums and jealousies that are inevitable when women are shut up with each other. That’s their job - and you must give them a free hand to enforce strict discipline in your harem with their canes. They soon become very expert at it, standing no nonsense from even the prettiest young lady.

‘Yes, provided they produce your women whenever you want them, adoring you and anxious to please you, then you need not enquire too closely into your eunuchs’ methods. But fear of the eunuchs is certainly the sign of a well run harem, just as fear of their black overseers by young white women labourers is a sign of a well run farm or carpet factory.

‘My women are certainly terrified of my eunuchs and yet they all adore me!

‘Finally,’ he had continued, ‘keep your women ignorant of what is going on in the outside world, so that each is only thinking of you, of catching your eye and of pleasing you so much that you will choose her again and again. It’s too late to keep them illiterate in their own European languages, but don’t let them learn to read or write Arabic. Don’t let them read any European novels full of good-looking heroes, nor see pictures of other men. You must be their only hero, their whole life must revolve round you and the harem must be their entire world.’

The Pasha had smiled and had patted my head in an avuncular manner.

‘And if you follow these simple rules, then you will enjoy a happy and well disciplined harem with the women all madly competing for your favours.’

‘Thank you, Your Highness,’ I had murmured, feeling rather embarrassed.

‘So much depends on your chief black eunuch. I hear you have kept on Matrak as yours.’ The Pasha had smiled. ‘An excellent choice - and an old friend of my own chief black eunuch...’

‘Now to return to the business in hand.’ The Pasha’s voice again interrupted my reverie. ‘You remember Barbarossa, the great Barbary corsair of two hundred and fifty years ago?’

I had indeed heard many stories of this highly successful and terrifying Barbary pirate who had ravaged the coasts of Europe in a succession of daring raids and who had been appointed by the Sultan as his Admiral. There was the well-known story of how he had captured the wife and daughter of the Governor of Palermo and had then kept them on board his flagship for his own private use. Then, when they were both well and truly pregnant, he had returned them to the distraught Governor with a note saying that if they produced sons then they must be brought up as strict Moslems - or else he would return to seize the women again.

Then, in 1534, after devastating the countryside around Naples, Barbarossa had led an attack on Fondi, seeking to capture its ruler, the Contessa Giulia Gonzaga. She had been celebrated for her beauty, piety and learning and Barbarossa wanted to give her to the Sultan as a spectacular addition to his harem. However the Contessa had managed to escape on a fast horse still dressed just in her nightgown...

‘But this time,’ said the Pasha guessing my thoughts and giving my knee a friendly tap, ‘the prey will not escape - because you will personally be in charge of the new Contessa’s capture. It is for this reason that I have sent for you today.’

‘But who am I to capture?’ I stammered.

‘That we do not yet know.’

‘What!’ I cried out in astonishment.

‘We must plan it all with great care,’ replied the Pasha. ‘Of course, we don’t want to abduct such a well-known person that the European powers are forced to take action against us. Just a beautiful but rather obscure Contessa will do! But she must be abducted quickly and quietly. So you see the whole operation must be carefully planned and executed, which is why you will be personally in charge. I will arrange for a corsair ship with a reliable Rais, but you must go as the Agha of Janissaries in command of the landing force. Remember, I want the Sultan to be really impressed by this addition to his harem!’

‘But Your Highness,’ I persisted. ‘Where am I to find this beautiful but relatively obscure Contessa?’

‘Well, my son, listen carefully. Several months ago, Hassan, the slave dealer here in Marsa, confided to my own chief black eunuch that he had recently bought a job lot of pretty European women that had been captured in a for Genoa from Naples.

Well? I thought.

‘And standing out from the dark haired Neapolitan female passengers was a beautiful blond girl.’

‘Oh!’ I exclaimed. This was getting more interesting.

‘Now Hassan always has the women he buys interrogated before displaying them for sale. In this way he can get a better price by describing their former background to potential buyers. On this occasion, Hassan told my chief black eunuch, one of the girls had turned out to be well educated and to have been an aristocratic French émigré. She had had been a governess in the household of a rich and beautiful, but recently widowed, young Contessa from Naples.’

‘Oh,’ I said, still not sure what was in the Pasha’s mind.

‘At first he had thought that the rich young Contessa who had employed the girl might perhaps ransom her. But it came out that, on the contrary, the Contessa hated her as a rival for her husband’s favours and, when he died, she had sent her away - only to be captured by one of our corsair ships. So the beautiful Contessa has no love for the French governess and the girl has little love for the Contessa.’

I leaned forward. I could see now what the Pasha might be leading up to.

‘This Contessa sounded just what I was looking for, but unfortunately I was away at the time and, by the time I heard the story, the captured governess had been sold.’

The Pasha shook his head sadly.

‘Apparently, the son of one of the rich Emirs in the interior had sent Hassan an urgent and detailed order which this French girl matched perfectly. So Hassan had decided that, since the Emir’s son was offering such a large sum for just the right girl, then a bird in the hand was worth two in the desert, as we Turks say. So he had not bothered to have the girl trained and prepared for the slave market, but instead had sent her straight off to the Emir’s son.

‘But Hassan had often wondered just what the Emir’s son had wanted the girl for and why he was willing to pay so much for a girl that matched his detailed specifications without even seeing her. He also used to wonder what price such a beautiful blonde girl might have sold for in the slave market ... and about the girl’s story about her hated Contessa employer.’

The Pasha looked Rory in the eye.

‘So I wonder just who was the beautiful rich young Contessa and where she can be found? Undoubtedly the French girl will know. So there you are, my son. A clear lead to just the sort of woman we’re looking for.’

‘But, Your Highness ... how...’ I began.

‘No ‘buts’ ... get the details of the governess’s sale from Hassan and then just go off and find her. Bring her back here, so that we interrogate her and get all the information we need so that you then go off, seize her former Mistress and bring her to me for sending onto the Sultan ... Oh yes, I think the Sultan’s going to be delighted by this new aristocratic addition to his harem! But, first of all, you must get hold of the governess.’

‘But, Your Excellency,’ I protested, ‘just how am I expected to get hold of a girl who has recently been brought, presumably at considerable expense, by a rich young Prince, and who would now be safely locked up and hidden away in his harem?’

The Pashas looked at me craftily.

‘Ah!’ he said. ‘It may not be as simple as that!’

‘Simple!’ I cried. ‘Once a slavegirl enters a rich man’s harem she’s lost to the outside world. Surely, Your Excellency, getting her out will hardly be simple?’

‘What I mean is,’ replied the Pasha, ‘that I doubt if she’s in a harem at all. Certainly Hassan was pretty sure that she was not intended for one.’

‘Not bought for the harem?’

‘Apparently not,’ replied the Pasha. ‘I suspect it’s more to do with the old Roman amphitheatre our there. For centuries now, the local Caids and Emirs have used it for what they call their Roman Games - and to amuse their retainers.’

‘Roman Games! What does that mean? Gladiators?’

‘No!’ laughed the Pasha. ‘I don’t think that would appeal to the Arab or Berber sense of humour.’

‘What then? A modern version of throwing Christians to the lions?’

‘Not quite, but I expect that would be very popular, too. No, I think its chariot racing - something which I know has gone on since Roman times.’

‘But, Your Excellency,’ I exploded, trying to keep my temper, ‘what has chariot racing got to do with our French governess?’

‘Ah!’ smiled the Pasha, obviously amused at my impatience, ‘perhaps they also use teams of girls to pull their chariots.’

‘What!’ I gasped. ‘Well, I’m only guessing, but certainly the tradition is that the Romans here put on displays of chariots being pulled by teams of female slaves, as well as horses - and after the Arab invasion, then the local Caids and Emirs certainly continued the tradition, using black slave women. Perhaps, now that European women have become so much more easily available, they’re now using white slaves.’

‘What!’ I exclaimed.

‘Well it would be a popular spectacle. Perhaps I ought to think about introducing it here, if we Turks start getting too unpopular!’

The Pasha stroked his grey beard reflectively.

‘Yes, I can see that owing and training a team of well matched female chariot slaves could be as absorbing and training a team of matched horses - as would be breeding from them, too. After all, we train white slave women here to pull our private galleys - so what’s the difference? They just haven’t got the sea, or any lakes, where they are!

‘Indeed, I had already heard that the Prince and his rich young friends had been getting up to all sorts of ways of enjoying their new found wealth - wealth that has come from the French Army and British Navy vying against each other to buy our North African corn and bullocks ... Anyway you’ll just have to find out for yourself. It should certainly be easier for you to get hold of her than if she had been immured in some rich man’s harem.’

‘But, Your Excellency,’ again I objected, ‘if the Prince has gone to so much trouble and expense to acquire her, then he’s hardly likely to agree to let me have her, even if she’s not intended for his harem.’

‘Of course not, but you’ll soon find a way.’ His glance told me that it would it worse for me if I did not! ‘Perhaps you’ll be able to offer him a couple of replacements ... Anyway, get the details of the girl’s sale from Hassan and make certain you’ll be able to recognise her. And keep it all secret - we don’t want to alert the Contessa to any possible danger.’

PART I

THE CAPTURE OF MADEMOISELLE MARIE DE ST. SEVRES

1 - BOARDED!

Marie looked out of the glass port in her tiny cabin.

Governesses returning home in disgrace could hardly afford large cabins. Indeed, she knew she was lucky to have a cabin at all for the small coastal brigantine, as well as carrying a valuable cargo of silks and cottons, was carrying half a dozen other pretty young women. They were taking passage from Naples to try their luck in the fleshpots of Genoa - and the gallant young officers of French Army who were now stationed there.

Two of them, the mistresses of French officers and clearly expectant, were their way to rejoin their lovers. There were also several peasant girls going north to seek work in the wine vineyards.

The mountainous coast of Tuscany was eerily outlined in the evening twilight as the vessel slid slowly through the calm sea. In the distance Marie saw the strange looking ship that had been slowly getting closer since noon. The friendly young Second Mate had told her that with its lanteen sails it was probably a ship out Algiers, one the Barbary Ports.

However, there was no need for any alarm, he assured her, for such ships frequently brought grain from the rich plains of North Africa to feed either Napoleon’s armies or the British Navy blockading the French Fleet. It was two years since the shattering victory in 1805 of the Royal Navy over the French and Spanish Navies at Trafalgar and since then the remnants of the French Fleet in Toulon had scarcely dared to go to sea.

But the British, now masters of the sea, just as Napoleon was master of continental Europe, continued to be preoccupied with the close blockade of the French naval base of Toulon - and the Moslem rulers of North Africa continued to take advantage of the situation by trading with both adversaries, for both needed their grain. Moreover, the absence of the French and Spanish Fleets and the preoccupation of the British one with blockading Toulon, had allowed the Barbary corsairs continued to raid the now largely defenceless Christian coastal villages of the Mediterranean with impunity - and to capture its shipping.

A sudden gale of youthful female laughter swept in through the open port. Evidently up on deck several of the girl passengers were flirting with the younger members of the small crew.

Marie sighed. For three years she, too, had laughed and flirted with the widowed Conte de San Luca whilst looking after his young daughter. The daughter herself of a now penniless French émigré family, who had escaped from France at the time of the Revolution, she had found life hard in Naples. So at the age of eighteen, she had been only too delighted to accept the position of governess to the amorous Conte. He had lost no time in seducing the pretty and vivacious French girl, whose long blonde hair had made her an unusual sight in Naples.

Marie had expected the rich old man to marry her and been dismayed as it gradually became clear to her that a Neapolitan Conte might well sleep with a delightful young French Governess in his employ, but would certainly not marry one.

Then two things had happened: firstly the Conte had suddenly married the equally gorgeously blond young Carolina, a well-known beauty from the Neapolitan aristocracy. But Carolina was no fool and she was a determined young woman. She had soon guessed that the unhappy Marie was her husband’s mistress and was determined to get rid of her as soon as possible.

Secondly, her chance to do so had come a year later when the Conte, returning from a late night amorous assignation in a dubious part of Naples had been robbed and killed, leaving the popular Contessa Carolina de San Luca a rich widow.

Not only was she now the proud owner of her late husband’s palazzo in Naples, but also of his large estate along the coast including the pretty village of San Luca itself with it’s restored castello, which provided a delightful escape in the summer months from the heat and smells of Naples. The beautiful and now widowed young Contessa had wasted no time. She had sent her young stepdaughter off to her aunts and dismissed the now unemployed Marie. How had Marie hated that stuck-up bitch!

Meanwhile Marie’s parents had accepted Napoleon’s offer for French émigré families to return to France. Marie was now on her way to rejoin them in Provence where she hoped she could start a new life - away from all the wounding memories of Naples, and away from the hated young Contessa.

It was a moonless night. No one aboard the poorly crewed and well-lit brigantine had noticed that the darkened Barbary ship had made more sail and was now only a few cables astern. A sudden gust of wind brought her right up alongside. The watch on deck screamed as the black painted ship suddenly loomed up on the starboard side.

It was all over in seconds. A well-trained boarding party of twenty armed Janissaries, scimitars gripped between their teeth, swung from ropes onto the brigantine’s almost deserted decks. They then rushed up onto the poop deck where the terrified Officer of the Watch and the equally scared Quartermaster were cowering. They were slaughtered out of hand.

When the Captain and officers came panting up from below to see what was going on, they were unceremoniously flung overboard. Only the youngest members of the crew, still boys, escaped following them over the side.

Having seized control of the ship, the corsairs began to seek out the passengers and to examine the cargo.

It had all been done remarkably silently and Marie was still asleep in her bunk when the door burst open and two dark skinned Arabs, dressed in turbans and voluminous trousers, pulled her, screaming and just wearing her night-dress, out into the corridor and onto the deck. There was no sign of the crew of the ship. She was astonished instead to see, now secured alongside, a black painted ship with a mixture of square and lanteen yards, and with its sails brailed up.

Before she had to time to take in what was happening, the two Arabs dragged her across the deck of the brigantine and onto that of what she now realised be that of a corsair ship - presumably the innocent looking ship they had sighted earlier in the day.

She was taken up in front of a smartly dressed Turkish looking man wearing a turban and a long robe. He had swash-buckling moustaches and a fierce eye. He was evidently the Rais, or Captain, of the corsair ship.

A pretty young white boy was standing alongside him holding up a lantern.

Also standing alongside this terrifying looking man was huge black African dressed in just a pair of red Turkish pantaloons with a white felt conical hat on his head. Behind them stood a burly looking Arab with what looked like a pile of chains at his feet. He was holding a strange looking instrument, like a pair of large tweezers.

The Rais looked closely at her as, terrified, she struggled in the arms of the two Arabs, screaming to be let loose. Then he stroked her long blonde hair approvingly and, turning to the negro, he nodded.

The African stepped forward and, in a sudden gesture, ripped down her night-dress, leaving her standing naked. Appalled, she tried to hide her body with her hands, but the grinning Arabs held her tight.

The Rais glanced at her firm breasts, slim waist and flowing hips. Then he turned to the huge negro and pointed enquiringly with a finger at her gently swelling stomach. The black man stepped forward and began to run his hand expertly over the wriggling girl’s naked belly, bending down to examine it closer. Finally he straightened up and shook his head.

‘A pity,’ said the Rais in Turkish. Shame-faced with embarrassment Marie was mystified. She would have even more appalled if she had understood his next words. ‘A pretty blond woman like this is going to be worth a lot, but she’d be worth even more if she was also carrying a child. But see if she is still a virgin - that would also put her value up considerably!’

The two Arabs kicked her legs apart and forced her down so that her knees were now slightly bent and held her more tightly than ever. The black man came behind her and, holding her with one hand on her belly put the other down between her legs. Marie gave sudden scream of protest and horror. But clearly the negro was very experienced and quickly established what he was seeking.

Again he straightened up and again shook his head.

‘So! Neither a virgin nor pregnant,’ laughed the Rais. ‘A double pity! But even so, with hair like hers she’ll still fetch a high price. And, knowing the slave dealers of Marsa, I’d be surprised if they didn’t have her covered, as they say, before they offer her for sale. Even if they don’t, we certainly don’t want to risk her trying to harm herself before we get back to port. So cage her like the pregnant ones!’

The negro gestured to the two Arabs to lead her, now silent and ashamed, over to the burly Arab. He picked up a pair of wrist manacles, linked by a short length of chain, from the pile of chains. Quickly he fastened them onto the wrists of the still unresisting Marie. Then he inserted a lead pellet into each manacle and squeezed it tight with his instrument. He stood back. Marie was now chained and it would take much hammering and the use of another special instrument to free her.

Then he bent down and fastened a set of similar manacles round her ankles. Both sets of manacles were lined with velvet to prevent them from chafing.

The two Arabs released her and the African led her, hobbling, over to where a group of women, naked and chained like herself, were standing in horrified silence in the half darkness. Marie recognised several of her young fellow passengers, all looking as cowed and ashamed at their nakedness and chains herself. Evidently the corsairs had long before learned that stripping and chaining a captured white woman and forbidding her to speak, was a simple way of ensuring her their docility.

Shocked, she saw that the group included the two pregnant young women. She was about to say something to a particular woman with whom she had struck up a shipboard friendship but her friend raised her manacled hands to her face and put her finger to her lips, pointing with a scared look at another burly negro who was watching them carefully. He carried a short whip.

‘Yes, woman,’ he said to Marie in a strangely high pitched voice, speaking in the local lingua franca of the central Mediterranean - a sort of bastardised Italian and Arabic that Marie found she could easily understand. ‘No talking!’ He raised his whip menacingly. Marie slunk into a terrified silence.

Soon half a dozen more naked and chained women, all equally horrified and cowed, were thrust into the group. Then, when apparently no more suitable young women could be found on board the brigantine, the two negroes gestured to the women to go down a companionway that led down into the hold of the corsair ship.

In the dim light of a candle, Marie saw that round the sides of the hold were shelves, like platforms, hanging on chains from the deck head. Lying chained on the platforms were a dozen naked young European women - evidently captured from previous attacks on Christian ships or villages.

They lay with their feet towards the edge of the shelf and were held there by a long chain that was threaded through the big links in the middle of several adjoining girls’ ankle chains. Thus, by unfastening one securing chain, the white women’s black overseers could release a group of several young women on one shelf, and take them one group at a time to be exercised in a specially screened off part of the upper deck, or take them to be to be fed and washed.

At other times they could be released to answer calls of nature - using the big open-topped conical shaped tubs that stood in the corners of the hold. The wider ends of the tubs rested on the deck so that the roll of the ship did not upset them. These were lifted up out of the hold and emptied over the side twice a day, before being replaced half full of seawater.

Marie remembered with a shudder seeing a drawing of a somewhat similar arrangement of shelves in European slave ships used for carrying African slaves across the Atlantic. Mon Dieu, she thought, as she saw the two negroes lifting up groups of girls onto empty shelves and passing a chain through their ankle manacles, she was going to be treated just like that!

But there was a difference. The drawing had shown simple uneducated African men and women being chained down naked onto their platforms by cruel looking white seamen, carrying short whips. But here it was white women, many well-educated, who were being chained down naked onto similar platforms, not by white men but by equally cruel looking black men, also carrying short whips.

The negroes might well be eunuchs specially embarked to take charge of all women captured during the Corso, but they were still terrifying to look at with their blood-shot eyes and faces decorated with tribal scarring. Marie looked with dismay at the shelf onto she was apparently about to be chained down by her feet. Then suddenly she was grabbed by the two eunuchs.

‘You special! You blond!’ one of them grunted in his high-pitched Lingua Franca. ‘Rais want sell you for plenty money on arrival. He not want risk you harming yourself. You go into special cage - like pregnant girls.’

Marie saw a stack of long low wooden cages in the centre of the hold. They were some two metres long, one metre high and one metre wide. There were six cages, stacked in two lots of three, one above the other. There were already two girls lying on their backs in the top two cages.

Before she could say anything, one of the Africans let down the square end of one of the cages in the middle row. The two of them lifted her up and thrust her, wriggling and protesting, down into the cage. Quickly one of them went to the far end of the cage and let down a square in that end. Then he fastened her ankles manacles to the end of the cage whilst the other African fastened her wrist manacles to the roof of her cage just above her head.

Marie was now held down helplessly on her back.

Just how helpless she was, she only realised when the two Africans went round to the side of her cage and slid back several of the bars. She was quite unable to do anything as they again checked that she really was neither pregnant nor a virgin. She had to lie there, longing to push away their probing hands, with her chained fists opening and closing in frustration above her face.

She saw that the roof of her cage was made of slatted wood. Through the gaps in the wood, she could see the body of the girl above her. She felt similar slats underneath her own back, before one of the black lifted up her bottom so that his colleague could feel her up her better. Desperately embarrassed she blushed silently.

She saw that hanging below the slats of the girl above her was a black bowl. It would, Marie realised with a shock, catch the girl’s wastes. Presumably there was another one hanging in the cage below her to catch her own wastes. Satisfied, the two Africans closed the side of her cage again.

They then repeated the whole process with Marie’s two pregnant fellow passengers, putting them into the other cages. But, in their case, when the Africans slid back the bars at the sides of their cages to feel their bellies, it was to check that their progeny were still kicking away, as their mothers lay chained helplessly on their backs, unable now to get at the little creatures they were carrying. It was this progeny that would greatly increase the value of their young mothers.

Soon Marie was to learn that the short daily little runs round the shrouded off part of the upper deck were not for her, or the other caged women. There the eunuchs used their whips to make the other young women, their wrists and ankles still manacled, run awkwardly run round and round, before being hosed down, fed and watered. No, as the Rais had said, she was a particularly valuable piece of merchandise and was to be kept lying on her back, like the pregnant women, unable to touch her body.

This treatment lasted for three days as the corsair ship, followed by the captured brigantine now sailed by a Barbary prize crew, made its way back to Marsa. It was in Marsa that the Rais felt that he would get the best prices for both the valuable human and material cargo that he had found onboard the brigantine.

Meanwhile the two eunuchs would feed Marie and the other women in the cages by dropping down the end of the cages behind their heads, and spooning nourishing food into their mouths. Then, sliding back the bars at the side, they would encourage each blushing girl to perform into the little bowls hanging below their cages before proceeding to check them all over like nurses giving a patient a blanket bath. Such then was Marie’s introduction to her new life as a white slave in Barbary.