Halim staggers over to his old servant and kneels beside him, passing a palm over his eyes to close them. Faustina maintains a low wailing, and flames flicker at the corner of one of the sails, from sparks sent out by the gunpowder. The ship leans heavily as we cut our retreat. Il Castigo is already lagging.
Halim seizes a passing soldier by the collar, and shouts at him while pointing to us. He looks at me. “I can’t listen to that noise a moment longer.”
Faustina’s cheeks are wet with tears as we’re roughly pulled to our feet. “They’ll throw us overboard!” she screams.
But our guard jostles us belowdecks instead. It seems incredible, but Halim must want us out of harm’s way. We pass behind more rows of cannons, through bitter smoke and heat, men struggling to maneuver them into the gunports. I step over a dead man’s body.
“Hurry up!” Our captor takes us around a corner, along a short corridor, and then pushes us into a cabin. He smiles grimly, his face shiny with sweat. “Enjoy yourselves,” he says, before slamming the small door shut.
We listen to the lock sliding into place. Faustina clings to me. “This will be our tomb,” she says.
We’re surrounded by wooden boxes. There’s some navigational equipment on a low table, and I recognize a sextant. Rolls of charts are tucked into a shelf. I wonder if Faustina is right. One direct hit, and this ship will be blown to splinters. I prise the lid from one of the crates with the edge of a compass. It contains what looks like spare sailcloth. I try the next, a smaller box, and find what I was hoping for. An unmistakable fine black powder. If a flame reaches this room, at least our death will be quick. It would be far worse to drown slowly, pulled into the depths by the sodden weight of my clothes.
The noises of battle continue beyond. Explosions, muffled thumps, the singing cannonballs and above it all the screams of the raging and the dying.
As I see it, we have two choices. Either Halim is defeated and goes down with the ship, or he makes his escape and we never see Venice again. Either way, we lose.
“I can’t go to Constantinople,” says Faustina. “The food will never agree with me.”
Despite everything, I laugh. “We won’t be going to Constantinople.” Then I see there’s a third choice, and at once I have a plan.
I grab the sextant lying on a side—its angle-arc, eyepieces and handle are all solid brass, and it’s heavier than it looks. I throw myself against the door. “I’ll do anything if you’ll let us out!” I cry desperately. “Please! Anything!” I can only hope that the sailor understands the full meaning of my words.
“What are you doing?” Faustina asks, frowning at the sextant in my hand.
“Getting us out of here,” I hiss. I bang the door again. “Please. Help us!”
There’s the sound of the lock being drawn back. I wait behind the door, standing on a crate, and put a finger to my lips. Faustina nods uncertainly.
The door creaks open. The same sweat-smeared sailor pokes his head into the room, and I bring the sextant down on his temple with a thud. Faustina yelps as he falls, a dead weight at my feet. “Help me with him,” I say. We bend over, taking an armpit each, and drag his body aside. I check that the corridor beyond is empty, then grab the hem of my skirt and begin tearing at it with my teeth and nails.
“What are you doing?” Faustina protests. “For heaven’s sake, do you know how much that dress cost?”
“I think the dress is ruined already,” I say. Faustina hesitates, then comes beside me and shows me how to find the warp and weft of the fabric, tearing easily along the line of the weave. The two of us rip my skirts into lengths of fabric. Soon, there’s nothing left to guard my modesty but my underskirt.
“Twist them into ropes,” I instruct Faustina. We work quickly, knotting the silk until it resembles a rope of sorts—enough to carry a flame along its length. I take the box of gunpowder down and pour it in the far corner of the room, then carefully lay one end of the silk rope in the powder and trail the rope towards the open door. Finally, I feel through the sailor’s pockets, rifling through his clothes