‘Egypt has a weak Sultan, very young,’ Sabraham said. ‘Al-Ashraf Sha’ban. The regent rules him. He is a Mamluk and holds the title atabak al-’asakir or as we say, Constable. Commander. He is called Yalbugha. Repeat the name.’
‘The Mamluks are a kind of Turk, yes?’ I asked. I probably massacred the name, as he made me repeat it and the title that accompanied it. That was part of my lessons, too. I also learned to say ‘Allahu Akbar’ or ‘God is Great’.
‘The Mamluks are Kipchaks and Circassians,’ Sabraham said, ‘taken as slaves – sometimes as war captures, but sometimes sold by their own parents. The Genoese bring them by the hundred, and the Egyptians buy them as soldiers. Sometimes they are called “Ghulami” or “slaves”.’
‘If they are slaves, why do they fight at all?’ I asked. ‘Why don’t the Egyptians do their own fighting?’
Sabraham nodded. ‘Warfare demands horsemen, and Egypt is rich, but it is terrible country for horses – too hot, and too many insects. The rainy season kills horses by rotting their hooves and the dry season kills their forage and robs them of water. But the troubles in raising horses don’t effect the army horses – it is that there are not enough horses to raise a boy to riding from infancy. You cannot create a horse-archer overnight.’
I nodded my agreement. I knew how much effort it took to remain capable with a lance, or a longsword.
‘So they buy boys who were raised from birth with horses. Most of them are Kipchaks like your John. Some few are Turks, but they are not trusted with senior commands.’ He shrugged. ‘A Kipchak boy can rise to rule. All of them have fine armour, beautiful horses, superb weapons, any woman they want, and they live well.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m told that Kipchak boys have been known to compete to go to the slavers.’ He paused. ‘Do you know who Baybars was?’
It was like being asked who Satan was. ‘Yes!’ I exclaimed.
‘He was a Kipchak. You understand?’
I supposed that I did. I certainly understood why Sabraham was so pleased by John the Turk.
At any rate, Sabraham watched the shoreline as we approached; it was as flat as the fens around Boston and green as spring, even in early autumn. We made a rendezvous of which I had not been informed – Sabraham was very close with information about our meetings. Off a village to the west of Alexandria, we transferred, by prior arrangement, from the Order’s galliot to a Cypriote merchant of less than a hundred tonnes, a stubby, round-hulled ship with a crew of six men and holds that stank of fish guts.
Brother Robert saluted us and slipped away to the north, and Theodore, the captain of our new vessel, a Cypriote Greek, welcomed us aboard. It was immediately clear to me that he was in the pay of the Order or perhaps the king, but Sabraham insisted that the six of us – his own servant or squire, whose name was Abdul, his two silent soldiers, whose Christian names I had never learned, as well as John the Turk, Sabraham himself and I – stay well separate from the crew of the fishing smack. By his order we all wore our hoods at all times, and we bespoke no man.
In the last light of day, beautifully timed, I must say, Theodore entered the outer harbour under a shivering lateen very close-hauled. The broad harbour had four rows of ships anchored well off shore, but for some reason no vessel was anchored closer than a bowshot from the beach.
Our captain called to Sabraham and they had a brief conference.
Sabraham returned to me and shook his head. ‘He says the Porto Vecchio is so silted up that he cannot approach the shore. Why did he not tell me this earlier?’
‘I thought you had been here before?’ I asked.
‘Always from the land, with caravans,’ Sabraham said. He frowned.