The Falcons of Fire and Ice (19 page)

The younger priest paused in his unwrapping. His eyes were closed and he was swaying and heaving, as if unable to make up his mind whether he was going to faint or vomit. In the end he scrambled madly to his feet and raced across the floor to the archways where he could lean out over the sea, gulping in the fresh air.

The older Jesuit remained unmoved. ‘We will leave you alone now to gaze upon the face of your lover, but we will return before the next high tide to ask for your decision. Perhaps by then you will have realized just how much you might enjoy the benefits of a healthy sea voyage.’

He ripped the cloth from the corpse lying at my feet. I screwed my eyes shut, but as I stood there helpless, chained to the pillar, nothing, but nothing, could shield me from the stench of the rotting, maggot-filled corpse rolling up towards me.

Chapter Six

Henry II of England cast his falcon at a heron. The heron seemed to be on the point of escaping the falcon, when Henry swore aloud, ‘By God’s gorge, that heron shall not escape, even if God Himself wills it.’

No sooner were these words uttered than the heron rounded upon the falcon and, as if by a miracle, struck the falcon’s head with its beak, killing the bird instantly. Thereupon the heron cast the dead falcon at the feet of his master King Henry, to prove to all those who witnessed it that God’s will must always prevail even above that of a king, though it turns the natural order upside down, and causes the prey to become the hunter.

Belém Isabela

Eyas –
a young hawk taken from its nest in the wild before it can fly and reared in captivity.

‘You’ll all sleep here,’ the ship’s master said gruffly. We were standing in a low compartment beneath the forecastle in the bow of the ship. Two narrow openings in the wooden walls on either side showed tiny glimpses of water and of the quayside. The sun blazed down through the hatch above our heads, illuminating a space that contained little except for a line of small wooden chests and bulkheads hung with wooden and metal tools and coils of rope as thick as my arm. I glanced up at the square of blue sky above us and wondered how dark it would be in here if the hatch was shut. I swallowed the lump that rose up in my throat as I thought of my father sitting there in the damp, stinking darkness of that dungeon, unable to stand or even lie down. How long could a man live like that before sickness took hold of his body, or despair seized his mind?

The master continued, ‘There’s a chest apiece to stow your belongings in, and see that your bedding is rolled and hung on the sides at first light. Seamen need to get to their tackle and they don’t want to be falling over your blankets, especially not in rough seas.’

A plump, middle-aged woman squawked in a mixture of alarm and disgust as she surveyed the bare boards, on which white lines marked out the sleeping space allotted for each passenger. ‘But where are my husband and I to sleep? My husband is a wealthy and distinguished silk merchant, you know.’

‘I told you,’ the master said wearily. ‘All passengers sleep here.’ He glanced at me and then back to her, for we were the only women in the party of eight passengers. ‘Some ladies like to hang a blanket in the corner to screen themselves when they’re dressing.’

‘A blanket!’ the woman echoed, her voice shrill with disbelief. ‘When we were on the pilgrimage last year the better class of passenger all had private cabins with locks on the doors and beds suspended on chains from the ceiling. The cabins were hardly bigger than my linen press at home, and the beds were far too hard and small, but they were at least proper beds. And I put up with all that discomfort and inconvenience without a single word of complaint, isn’t that so, husband? For one expects to suffer on a pilgrimage. But this … this dog kennel isn’t even fit for slaves to sleep in.’

‘This, Senhora, is a cargo ship, not a pleasure trip,’ the master said tersely. ‘But my men would be glad to swap places with you if you don’t fancy sleeping here. Perhaps you’d rather bed down with them in the hold among the grain and spices.’

‘Now see here,’ the small, stout merchant said, indignantly puffing out his chest. ‘I won’t have you talking that way to my wife.’

‘Then you’d best disembark now while you still have a chance, for as master on this ship I talk to passengers and crew alike any way I please. All that matters to me is getting this ship safe to Iceland and back again and I’ll not let any passenger endanger that.’

‘Iceland?’ the merchant said sharply. ‘What business has a cargo ship to do with Iceland? You cannot trade there. They’ll not permit traffic with any Portuguese merchants, not even with the English now. I’m reliably informed that any halfway decent harbours on that island that are able to accommodate a ship have been leased by the German merchants, mostly from Hamburg, and what remain are in Danish hands. I can assure you I have investigated the matter very thoroughly, for if trade were possible, I myself would be taking my business to that island.’

The master gave a twisted smile, displaying a mouthful of crooked, yellow teeth. ‘And who says we’re going to land any goods? There’s no law against landing people, and if a few barrels should happen to fall over the side whilst we’re helping the passengers off …’ He winked. ‘My lads are sharp enough at sea, but put them anywhere near land and they’re as clumsy as ducks on ice.’

The merchant’s wife positively trembled with outrage, her double chin wobbling like a chicken’s wattle. ‘The agent gave us to understand this was a lawful voyage. My husband is a respectable merchant. He has a reputation to uphold and I will not have his name linked to any nefarious dealings. I have no intention of sailing aboard a … a …
pirate
ship.’

‘Pirates seize goods, Senhora, they don’t land them, as you’ll soon find out if we have the misfortune to encounter any. Besides, you’re bound for England, what do you care where we go after that?’ The master glared around at the rest of us.

‘Now mark me well. You’ll get two hot meals a day. When you hear the trumpet sound, make haste to the table and eat. When it sounds again, finished or not, you’ve to rise and make way for the captain and his officers. So you’d best eat quick, for the captain doesn’t like to be kept waiting. If you want more food or drink, you’ll have to use your own provisions, so I suggest you stock up well at any inhabited port we call at, for it is getting late in the season now, and we will more than likely run into the first of the autumn gales as we sail. And if we’re forced to spend more weeks at sea than we reckoned on, then be sure of one thing, the captain will not allow his men’s rations of food or water to be shared with passengers, for if the sailors become too weak to work, then we’ll all perish.’

At these words the matron swayed alarmingly as if she was about to swoon, and some of the other passengers looked equally frightened. I also felt an icy shiver. It was not fear of running out of food but of time that frightened me. I could not afford to be delayed at sea, for with every day that passed the shadow of my father’s death crept closer.

With final instructions not to distract the sailors when they were working, not to touch any rope, chain, pulley or windlass, in fact not to do anything at all except eat, sleep and stay out of the seamen’s way, the master grunted that we’d best get what luggage we had brought with us safely stored aboard, for we would be sailing with the next tide.

As soon as he had climbed the steps and disappeared back up through the hatch to the deck, the merchant’s wife immediately claimed a strip in the far back corner, which she deemed to be the most sheltered from draughts, and ordered her husband to stow the towering stack of her bundles and boxes into what seemed by comparison to be a pathetically inadequate ship’s chest.

One of the male passengers bent towards me and whispered, ‘She won’t find that spot so cosy when all of the passengers are vomiting and gasping for air. Take my advice and sleep near one of the anchor holes. It’ll be cold, but the air will be fresher.’

I was about to do as he suggested when the merchant’s wife seized me by the arm. ‘No, no, my dear, you must sleep next to me.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Sailors are little better than savages. The sight of a woman after weeks at sea drives them mad with lust. We must place ourselves as far as possible from the hatchway in case one of them should try to creep down in the night. I tell you, I’ll not be able to shut my eyes all night for fear that they might try to molest me. I begged my husband to allow me to bring my tiring maid, but he refused to pay her passage. Says it will be cheaper to hire new servants when we arrive. But how he expects me to manage without servants on the voyage, I’m sure I don’t know.’ She glared balefully at her husband who was anxiously examining some cargo tallies, oblivious to his wife’s distress.

The young man who had spoken to me before squeezed past me again. ‘Careful you don’t find yourself pressed into service as her slave.’ He smiled at me and his hand brushed mine so lightly that I could not be sure if he intended it or not.

A trumpet sounded, and the matron looked up eagerly. ‘Food? Make haste, husband.’

She waded through the chaos of bundles and bedding towards the steps that led up through the hatch, elbowing the other passengers aside in her haste to be first to set her foot upon them. But when we followed her up the creaking steps, we found that the trumpet blast had not been sounded to summon us to a meal.

All the sailors were assembled on the deck and a priest stood up on the poop deck in the stern, the highest deck on the ship, a young altar boy at his side dangling a censer of burning incense from its chain in one hand and clutching a silver bowl with hyssop in the other. The sailors one by one removed their caps, and the priest began his blessing of the ship. He was mumbling away in Latin, his voice drowned by the clamour of the voices on the quayside. The boy swung the censer vigorously back and forth, but the incense smoke blew away before it could reach our nostrils. The priest dipped the hyssop twigs in the silver bowl and flung the drops of holy water over the ship, but they too were snatched by the salt breeze before they could touch the timbers.

The altar boy began to sing the hymn to the Virgin Mary in a clear sharp treble,
Salve Regina, Hail Queen of Heaven.
The ship’s boys joined in and the men’s deep voices plodded after them. Each of the weatherbeaten faces relaxed for a few moments into expressions of certainty and devotion.

I felt suddenly afraid. All my life I had known what I believed. Known that the Holy Virgin and her saints were watching over me, as my mother had always told me they were. I had looked up at that shrine in the corner of the kitchen and seen them smiling serenely down at me. When the thunder echoed round the valley so deafeningly that I was sure the great boulders in the mountains were rolling down to crush me, I would run to the shrine and pray with all the fervency of a nun, in the knowledge that the Virgin would protect me.

But whenever I was naughty as a child, I had guiltily avoided the unblinking stares of the statues, knowing that they had seen me steal a fingerful of honeycomb from the jar or watched me as I tried to hide the plate I had broken. I was always convinced they would tell my mother what I’d done. Yet even then, I had known beyond any doubt that when I lay down to sleep in my little cot, if I did not wake I would be carried by the angels up to heaven.

Now, for the first time in my life, I did not know where I would go when I died. If there was a storm and the ship foundered, would any saint bear me up in the waves, knowing what I was, who I was? Would the Virgin Mary Misericordia open wide her cloak and shelter me beneath it? The Holy Church and my own mother had declared the Marranos heretics, and Mary did not spread her cloak to comfort those who were to burn in hell. I was alone, cast out from all the protection that once had surrounded me. My own God had rejected me as a heretic. Yet if there was a God of the Marranos, I did not know him or where to find him.

The agent who had accepted my money and negotiated my passage had asked no questions of me save one – ‘Are you an Old Christian?’ I assured him I was. The lie came as easily to my lips as it had to my mother’s. Indeed, like her, I had for a moment found myself still believing it was true, until I remembered. He had insisted on hearing me recite the Creed and the
Ave
in Latin. But though I had known the words all my life, I suddenly began to stumble over them, as if my tongue was swelling up as I tried to say them. The agent seemed satisfied, however, and had held up his hand halfway through to stop me.

‘That’ll do for me,’ he said. He winked. ‘I have to check. They don’t want those Marranos escaping, but I say, what if they do? Good riddance to them, we don’t want their sort here. In fact I reckon we should get together the oldest and leakiest hulks we can find, pack the lot of them on to them and send them all off to the New World. And if the ships founder before they get there, who’s to care, that’s what I say. But no one listens to ordinary folk like us, do they?’