already,” Manfried said.
“And no revenge will be inflicted upon my flesh for whatever evils I have done?” Al-Gassur pressed, the hoax that had kept him laughing all these months almost told.
“Yeah, yeah, spit it,” said Hegel.
“I, I’m, I’m not—” Al-Gassur tried to say it but his whole body trembled with mirth. “I am no Arab!”
“No Arab what?” Hegel’s eyes were slits.
“No Arab at all! Not even a Turk!” The laughter overpowered Al-Gassur and he rolled in the sand.
“Heth mwad,” Raphael guessed.
“No!” Al-Gassur hooted, “Neither mad nor Arab! I am from Constantinople, probably the same stock as the rest of you! Born a beggar, yes, but an Arab? Not on your souls!”
“What are you, then?” Hegel asked. “Not honest, whatever the breed.”
“My father was a Wallachian peddler.” The memories of his youth calmed Al-Gassur’s delight. “He took my mother to Constantinople to practice his trade. But he was robbed and beaten, and without any coin to even travel home he moved to the only place which would take him, the Jews’ quarter. I was born there, and so to the ignorant city folk I was a Jew. My father and mother both died when the rival Christian merchants launched one of their attacks on the ghetto, killing anyone they could catch. But not I!”
“That don’t tell us why you act the Arab.” Manfried had risen to a crouch.
“Even the exotic Arab with his thirst for Christian blood is less despised than the Jew,” Al-Gassur hissed. “And a converted infidel, one who fought for the Pope in a crusade, can coax coin from even the least charitable Christian. As a young man in the ghetto what chance had I as a beggar or anything else, when all who see you know you for a Jew? I adopted a new name and what name I had is long forgotten.”
“So you ain’t a Jew or an Arab, is that right, Arab?” Manfried insisted.
“No! Yes! The golden horses and other riches my father believed to stand in Constantinople as proof of the city’s wealth were long before stolen by Venetians in a crusade as noble as that on which we are now engaged, and that is why I journeyed there. I intended to abandon my Arabian ruse along the way but it stuck fast and earned me as much pity and drink as it did beatings. My true ancestry won my father naught but a broken heart and an empty pouch, and had I adopted a Jewish name be assured the beatings would have surpassed the mercy, especially in those plague-ridden days when every scapegoat was whispered to have horns beneath his pointed hat.”
“So how’d you learn to talk like’em?” Hegel asked.
“The few Arabs I saw in my youth taught me a bit, and while I had forgotten it all by the time we met, our recent company has rekindled the spark of language so that I may speak a little instead of simply spouting nonsense that would only fool a Christian.” Al-Gassur puffed out his chest, waiting for the blows to fall.
After a long silence, Hegel and Manfried exchanged a glance and began to chuckle. Raphael and Rodrigo soon joined in, and all four laughed until their ribs ached. Al-Gassur and Martyn looked on amazed until Manfried recovered enough to ask another question.
“And you got nuthin else to confess? No other lies need tellin? Last chance!” Manfried’s smile was too broad, too honest.
“What, er, no?” Al-Gassur had not expected them to be amused, but then they fulfilled his expectations by leaping upon him, Hegel holding his arms and Manfried seizing him around the thighs.
“We’ll make you honest yet, Arab!” Manfried began tearing Al-Gassur’s breeches. “What’s under here, then, a stump? I seen you runnin in Venetia, Arab, seen you runnin with both legs!”
Al-Gassur struggled but they held him fast. Blocking the man’s view of his own exposed lower half Manfried revealed the bound leg and tore the rags keeping it lashed against thigh and ass. Then Manfried drew his dagger and pressed the dull side against Al-Gassur’s knee.
“Gonna cut it off, Arab, so’s you ain’t a liar no more!” Manfried dragged the metal across his skin, making the beggar scream and wail. Then the Grossbarts let him go, and he scurried away into the dark while they laughed and laughed. They had not had such sport since they first came to Gyptland.
Heartbroken that his confession had not bothered the wicked twins in the slightest, Al-Gassur took succor in that he no longer needed to