10
Barney Willard hated being in the army. The food was disgusting, he was cold all the time except when he was too hot, and for long periods the only women he saw were camp-following prostitutes, desperate and sad. The captain in charge of Barney’s company, Gómez, was a big, vicious bully who enjoyed using his iron hand to punish breaches of discipline. Worst of all, no one had been paid for months.
Barney could not understand how King Felipe of Spain could have money troubles. He was the richest man in the world, yet he was always broke. Barney had seen the galleons loaded with silver from Peru sail into the harbour at Seville. Where did it all go? Not to the troops.
After leaving Seville, two years earlier, the José y María had sailed to a place called the Netherlands, a loose federation of seventeen provinces on the north coast of Europe between France and Germany. For historical reasons that Barney had never quite untangled, the Netherlands was ruled by the Spanish king. Felipe’s army stationed here had fought in Spain’s war against France.
Barney, Carlos and Ebrima were expert metalworkers, and so they had been made gunners, maintaining and firing the big artillery pieces. Although they had seen some action, gunners did not usually become involved in hand-to-hand fighting, and all three had survived the war without suffering injury.
The peace treaty between Spain and France had been signed in April 1559, almost a year ago, and Felipe had gone home, but he had left his army behind. Barney guessed the king wanted to make sure that the incredibly prosperous Netherlanders paid their taxes. But the troops were bored, resentful and mutinous.
Captain Gómez’s company was garrisoned at the town of Kortrijk on the river Leie. The citizens did not like the soldiers. They were foreigners, they carried arms, they got noisily drunk and, because they got no pay, they stole. The Netherlanders had a streak of obstinate insubordination. They wanted the Spanish army gone, and they let the soldiers know it.
The three friends wanted to get out of the army. Barney had a family and a comfortable home in Kingsbridge, and he wanted to see them again. Carlos had invented a new type of furnace that was going to make him a fortune one day, and he needed to get back into the iron-making industry. What Ebrima saw in his future Barney was not sure, but it certainly was not a life of soldiering. However, escape was not easy. Men deserted every day, but, if caught, they could be shot. Barney had been alert for an opportunity for months, but none had offered itself, and he was beginning to wonder whether he was being too cautious.
Meanwhile, they spent too much time in taverns.
Ebrima was a gambler, obsessively risking what little money he had in a dream of getting more. Carlos drank wine whenever he could afford it. Barney’s vice was girls. The tavern of St Martin in the Old Market of Kortrijk had something for each of them: a card game, Spanish wine and a pretty barmaid.
Barney was listening to the barmaid, Anouk, complaining in French about her husband while Carlos made a single glass last all afternoon. Ebrima was winning money from Ironhand Gómez and two other Spanish soldiers. The other players were drinking hard, shouting loudly when they won or lost, but Ebrima was quiet. He was a serious gambler, always careful, never betting very high or very low. Sometimes he lost, but often he won just because others took foolish risks. And today luck was with him.
Anouk disappeared into the kitchen, and Carlos said to Barney: ‘There should be standard sizes of cannonball throughout the Spanish army and navy. That’s what the English do. Making a thousand iron balls the same size is cheaper than making twenty different sizes for twenty different guns.’ As usual, they spoke Spanish to one another.
Barney said: ‘And then you’d never find yourself trying to use a ball one inch too large for your barrel – as has happened to us more than once.’
‘Exactly.’
Ebrima stood up from the table. ‘I’m through,’ he said to the other players. ‘Thank you for the game, gentlemen.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Gómez bad-temperedly. ‘You have to give us a chance to win our money back.’
The other two players agreed. One shouted: ‘Yes!’ and the other banged the table with his fist.
‘Tomorrow, maybe,’ said Ebrima. ‘We’ve been playing all afternoon, and I want a drink, now that I can afford one.’
‘Come on, one more hand, double or nothing.’
‘You don’t have enough money left for that bet.’
‘I’ll owe you.’
‘Debts make enemies.’
‘Come on!’
‘No, Captain.’
Gómez stood up, knocking the table over. He was six feet tall, and broad in proportion, and he was flushed with sherry wine. He raised his voice. ‘I say yes!’
The others in the tavern moved away, seeing what was coming.
Barney stepped towards Gómez and said in a quiet voice: ‘Captain, let me buy you another drink, yours has spilled.’
‘Go to hell, you English savage,’ Gómez roared. Spaniards considered Englishmen to be northern barbarians, just as the English regarded the Scots. ‘He has to play on.’
‘No, he doesn’t.’ Barney spread his arms in a let’s-be-reasonable gesture. ‘The game has to stop some time, doesn’t it?’
‘I’ll say when it stops. I’m the captain.’
Carlos joined in. ‘That’s not fair,’ he said indignantly. He was quick to be angered by injustice, perhaps because he had suffered so much himself. ‘We’re all equal when the cards are dealt.’ He was right – it was the rule when officers gambled with enlisted men. ‘You know that, Captain Gómez, and you can’t pretend you don’t.’
Ebrima said: ‘Thank you, Carlos,’ and he stepped away from the fallen table.
‘Get back here, you black devil,’ said Gómez.
On the rare occasions when Ebrima got into an argument, sooner or later his antagonist would use skin colour in an insult. It was tediously predictable. Fortunately, Ebrima’s self-control was formidable, and he never took the bait. He did not respond to Gómez’s jibe, except to turn his back.
Like all bullies, Gómez hated to be ignored. Furious, he hit Ebrima from behind. It was a wild, drunken punch, and it only clipped Ebrima’s head, but the fist at the end of the arm was the iron artificial hand, and Ebrima staggered and fell to his knees.
Gómez came after Ebrima, obviously intending to hit him again. Carlos grabbed the captain from behind, trying to restrain him. Gómez was now enraged and out of control. He struggled. Carlos was strong, but Gómez was stronger, and he fought free of Carlos’s grasp.
Then, with his good hand, he drew his dagger.
Barney now joined in. He and Carlos tried desperately to restrain Gómez while Ebrima struggled to his feet, still dazed. Gómez threw off both his assailants and stepped towards Ebrima, raising his knife arm high in the air.
Barney realized fearfully that this was no longer a mere tavern brawl: Gómez was intent on murder.
Carlos made a grab for Gómez’s knife arm, but Gómez batted him sideways with a sweeping blow of his iron-handed arm.
But Carlos had delayed Gómez for two seconds, just enough time for Barney to draw his own weapon, the two-foot-long Spanish dagger with the disc-shaped hilt.
Gómez’s knife arm was high in the air, his iron hand extended outwards for balance. His front was undefended.
As Gómez brought his knife down, aiming for the exposed neck of the dazed Ebrima, Barney swung his dagger in a wide arc and stabbed Gómez in the left side of his chest.
It was a lucky stroke, or perhaps a very unlucky one. Although Barney had swung wildly, the sharp double-edged steel blade slipped neatly between Gómez’s ribs and penetrated deep into his chest. His roar of pain ended abruptly after half a second. Barney jerked out the blade, and a gush of bright red blood came out after it. He realized the blade had reached Gómez’s heart. A moment later Gómez collapsed, his knife falling from limp fingers. He hit the floor like a felled tree.
Barney stared in horror. Carlos cursed. Ebrima, coming out of his daze, said: ‘What have we done?’
Barney knelt down and felt Gómez’s neck for a pulse. There was none. The blood had stopped pumping from the wound. ‘Dead,’ Barney said.
Carlos said: ‘We’ve killed an officer.’
Barney had stopped Gómez murdering Ebrima, but that would be difficult to prove. He looked around the room and saw that the witnesses were leaving as fast as they could go.
No one would bother to investigate the rights and wrongs of this. It was a tavern brawl and an enlisted man had killed an officer. The army would have no mercy.
Barney noticed the owner of the tavern giving instructions, in the West Flemish dialect, to a teenage boy who hurried away a moment later. ‘They’ll be sending for the city guard,’ Barney said.
Carlos said: ‘The men are probably stationed in the city hall. In five minutes we’ll be under arrest.’
Barney said: ‘And I’ll be as good as dead.’
‘Me, too,’ said Carlos. ‘I helped you.’
Ebrima said: ‘There’ll be scant justice for an African.’
Without further discussion they ran to the door and out into the marketplace. Behind a cloudy sky, the sun was setting, Barney saw. That was good. Twilight was only a minute or two away.
He shouted: ‘Head for the waterfront!’
They dashed across the square and turned into Leiestraat, the street that ran down to the river. It was a busy thoroughfare in the heart of a prosperous city, full of people and horses, loaded handcarts, and porters struggling under heavy burdens. ‘Slow down,’ Barney said. ‘We don’t want everyone to remember which way we went.’
At a brisk walk they were still somewhat conspicuous. People would know they were soldiers by their swords. Their clothes were mismatched and unmemorable, but Barney was tall, with a bushy red beard, and Ebrima was African. But it would soon be night.
They reached the river. ‘We need a boat,’ Barney said. He could handle most types of craft: he had always loved sailing. There were plenty of vessels in sight, tied up at the water’s edge or anchored in mid-river. However, few people were foolish enough to leave a boat unprotected, especially in a city full of foreign troops. All the larger craft had watchmen, and even small rowing boats were chained up with their oars removed.
Ebrima said: ‘Get down. Whatever happens, we don’t want people to see.’
They knelt down in the mud.
Barney looked around desperately. They did not have much time. How long would it be before the city guard began to search the riverside?
They could free a small boat, breaking the attachment of chain to wood, but without oars they would be helpless, drifting downstream, unable to steer, easy to catch. It might be better to swim to a barge, overcome the watchman, and raise the anchor, but did they have time? And the more valuable the craft, the more intense would be the pursuit. He said: ‘I don’t know, maybe we should cross the bridge and take the first road out of town.’
Then he saw the raft.
It was an almost worthless vessel, just a dozen or so tree trunks roped together, with a low shed in which one man might sleep. Its owner stood on deck, letting the current carry him, using a long pole to steer. Beside him was a pile of gear that looked, in the twilight, like ropes and buckets that might have been used for fishing.
‘That’s our boat,’ said Barney. ‘Softly does it.’
Still on his knees, he slipped into the river. The others followed.
The water got deeper quickly, and soon they were up to their necks. Then the raft was almost upon them. All three grabbed its edge and hauled themselves up. They heard the voice of the old man yelling in shock and fear. Then Carlos was on him, wrestling him to the deck, covering his mouth so that he could not call for help. Barney managed to grab the pole he had dropped before it was lost, and he steered the boat into midstream. He saw Ebrima rip off the man’s shirt and stuff it in his mouth to silence him, then pick a length of rope from the tangle and bind the man’s wrists and ankles. The three friends worked well as a team, Barney reflected, no doubt because of the time they had spent jointly managing and firing a heavy cannon.
Barney looked around. As far as he could see, no one had witnessed their hijack of the raft. What now?
Barney said: ‘We’re going to have—’
‘Shut up,’ said Ebrima.
‘What?’
‘Be careful what you say. Give nothing away. He may understand Spanish.’
Barney saw what he meant. Sooner or later the old man was going to tell someone what had happened to him – unless they killed him, which none of them would want to do. He would be questioned about his captors. The less he knew, the better. Ebrima was twenty years older than the other two, and this was not the first time his wisdom had restrained their impulses.
Barney said: ‘But what will we do with him?’
‘Keep him with us until we’re out in the fields. Then dump him on the river bank, bound and gagged. He’ll be all right, but he won’t be found until morning. By then we’ll be well away.’
Ebrima’s plan made sense, Barney thought.
Then what would they do? Travel by night and hide in the daytime, he thought. Every mile farther away from Kortrijk made it more difficult for the authorities to find them. And then what? If he remembered aright, this river flowed into the Scheldt, which went to Antwerp.
Barney had a relative in Antwerp: Jan Wolman, his late father’s cousin. Come to think of it, Carlos, too, was related to Jan Wolman. The trading nexus Melcombe–Antwerp–Calais–Seville had been set up by four cousins: Barney’s father, Edmund Willard; Edmund’s brother, Uncle Dick; Carlos’s father; and Jan.
If the three fugitives could reach Antwerp, they would probably be safe.
Darkness fell. Barney had blithely assumed they would travel by night, but steering the raft was difficult in the dark. The old man had no lantern and, anyway, they would not want to show a flame for fear of being spotted. The faintest imaginable starlight penetrated the clouds. Sometimes Barney was able to see the river ahead, and sometimes he blindly ran the raft into the bank and had to push off again.
Barney felt strange, and wondered why, then remembered that he had killed a man. Odd how such a dreadful thing could fall from his consciousness, only to return as a shock. His mood was as dark as the night and he felt edgy. His mind returned to the way Gómez had fallen, as if life had left him even before he hit the floor.
It was not the first time Barney had killed. He had fired cannonballs from a distance into advancing troops and had seen them fall by the dozen, dead or fatally wounded; but somehow that had not touched his soul, perhaps because he could not see their faces as they died. Killing Gómez, by contrast, had been a horribly intimate act. Barney could still feel the sensation in his wrist as the blade of his dagger first met and then penetrated Gómez’s body. He could see the gush of bright blood from a living, beating heart. Gómez had been a hateful man, and his death was a blessing to the human race, but Barney could not feel good about it.
The moon rose, and shone fitfully through gaps in the clouds. During a period of better visibility they dumped the old man at a spot that seemed, as best they could judge, to be far from habitation. Ebrima carried him to a dry place well above the river, and made him comfortable. From the boat, Barney heard Ebrima speak to the man in low tones, perhaps apologizing. That was reasonable: the old fellow had done nothing to deserve this. Barney heard the chink of money.
Ebrima got back on board and Barney poled away.
Carlos said to Ebrima: ‘You gave him the money you won from Gómez, didn’t you?’
Ebrima shrugged in the moonlight. ‘We stole his raft. It was his living.’
‘And now we’re broke.’
‘You were broke already,’ Ebrima said sharply. ‘Now I’m broke too.’
Barney thought some more about pursuit. He was not sure how energetically they would be chased. The city authorities did not like a murder, but victim and perpetrators were Spanish soldiers, and the Kortrijk town council would not spend much money chasing foreigners who had killed a foreigner. The Spanish army would execute them, given the chance, but once again Barney wondered whether they would care enough to organize a murder hunt. The army might well go through the motions and give up quite soon.
Ebrima was quiet and thoughtful for a while, then he spoke solemnly. ‘Carlos, there’s something we need to get straight.’
‘What?’
‘We’ve left the army now.’
‘If they don’t catch us, yes.’
‘When we boarded the José y Maria, you told the officer I was a free man.’
Carlos said: ‘I know.’
Barney sensed the tension. For two years Ebrima had been treated as a regular soldier – an exotic-looking one, but no more a slave than the rest of them. What was his position now?
Ebrima said: ‘Am I a free man in your eyes, Carlos?’
Barney noted that phrase in your eyes. It meant that Ebrima was a free man in his own eyes.
Barney was not sure how Carlos felt about this. Ebrima’s slavery had not been discussed since that moment on the José y María.
There was a long pause, then Carlos said: ‘You’re a free man, Ebrima.’
‘Thank you. I’m glad we understand each other.’
Barney wondered what Ebrima would have done if Carlos had said no.
The clouds began to break. In the better light, Barney was able to keep the raft in midstream, and they moved faster.
After a while Carlos said: ‘Where does this river lead, anyway?’
‘Antwerp,’ said Barney. ‘We’re going to Antwerp.’
*
EBRIMA DID NOT know whether to believe Carlos. It was not wise to put your trust in friendly words from your owner: that was an article of faith among the Seville slaves. A man who was happy to keep you prisoner, force you to work for no pay, flog you for disobedience and rape you any time he felt like it would not hesitate to lie to you. Carlos was different from the norm, but how different? The answer to that question would determine the course of the rest of Ebrima’s life.
His head hurt from Gómez’s blow. Touching his skull gingerly, he felt a lump where the iron hand had struck him. But he was not confused or dizzy, and he thought he would recover.
When dawn broke they stopped where the river ran through a grove of trees. They pulled the raft out of the water and concealed it with branches. Then they took turns to watch while the other two slept. Ebrima dreamed that he woke up in chains.
On the morning of the third day they saw the tall tower of Antwerp’s cathedral in the distance. They abandoned the raft, letting it float free, and walked the last few miles. They were not yet out of trouble, Ebrima reckoned. They might be seized immediately and thrown in jail, then handed over to the Spanish military, to be hastily tried and speedily executed for the murder of Ironhand Gómez. However, on the busy roads leading to the city no one seemed to have heard about three Spanish soldiers – one with a red beard, one African – who had killed a captain in Kortrijk then fled.
News went from city to city mainly in merchants’ bulletins, which contained mostly commercial information. Ebrima could not read, but he understood from Carlos that such newsletters included details of crimes only if they were politically significant: assassinations, riots, coups. A tavern brawl in which all involved were foreign soldiers would be of little interest.
Antwerp was surrounded by water, he realized as they explored the outskirts. To the west was the broad sweep of the river Scheldt. On the other three sides, the city was separated from the mainland by a walled channel. The waterway was crossed by bridges, each leading directly to a fortified gate. It was said to be the richest town on earth, so, naturally, it was well defended.
Even if the guards knew nothing of what had happened in Kortrijk, would they admit ragged, starving men with swords? The friends approached with trepidation.
However, the guards gave no sign that they were looking for three fugitives from justice, to Ebrima’s relief. They did look askance at the appearance of the three – who were wearing the clothes in which they had boarded the José y María two years ago – but then Barney said they were relatives of Jan Wolman, and suspicion melted away. The guards even gave them directions to his address, near the high cathedral they had seen from so far away.
The island was indented with long, narrow docks and latticed with winding canals. Walking through the busy streets, Ebrima wondered how Jan Wolman would receive two penniless second cousins and an African. They might not be the most welcome of surprise visitors.
They found his home, a fine tall house in a row. They knocked at the door with apprehension, and were regarded doubtfully by the servants. But then Jan appeared and welcomed them with open arms. He said to Barney: ‘You look exactly like my late father when he was young and I was a boy.’ Jan himself had the red hair and golden-brown eyes of the Willards.
They had decided not to burden Jan with the whole truth about their flight from Kortrijk. Instead, they said they had deserted from the Spanish army because they had not been paid. Jan believed them, and even seemed to think that soldiers who had not been paid had a right to desert.
Jan gave them wine, bread and cold beef, for they were starving. Then he made them wash and loaned them clean shirts because, he said with amiable candour, they stank.
Ebrima had never been in a house like Jan’s. It was not big enough to be called a palace, though it had plenty of room, especially for a city dwelling. However, it was crammed with costly furniture and objects: large, framed wall mirrors; Turkish rugs; decorated glassware from Venice; musical instruments; and delicate ceramic jugs and bowls that seemed to be for show rather than use. The paintings were also unlike anything Ebrima had seen. Netherlanders seemed to enjoy pictures of people like themselves, relaxing with books and cards and music in comfortable rooms similar to the ones they lived in, as if they found their own lives more interesting than those of the biblical prophets and figures of legend more common in Spanish art.
Ebrima was given a room smaller than those of Barney and Carlos, but he was not asked to sleep with the servants, and he concluded from this that Jan was not certain of his status.
That evening they sat around the table with the family: Jan’s wife, Hennie; his daughter, Imke; and three small boys, Frits, Jef and Daan.
They used a mixture of languages. French was the main medium in the south and west of the Netherlands, and various Dutch dialects were spoken elsewhere. Jan, like many merchants, could get by in several languages, including Spanish and English.
Jan’s daughter, Imke, was seventeen and attractive, with a wide happy smile and curly fair hair; a junior version of Hennie. She took an immediate shine to Barney, and Ebrima noticed that Carlos competed in vain for her attention. Barney had a roguish grin that girls loved. In Ebrima’s opinion steady, reliable Carlos would make the better husband, but few teenage girls would be so wise as to see that. Ebrima himself had no interest in young girls, but he liked Hennie, who seemed intelligent and kind.
Hennie asked how they had come to join the Spanish army, and Ebrima began to tell the story, in mixed Spanish and French with a few dialect words when he knew them. He made the most of the drama, and soon the whole table was listening to him. He included the details of the new furnace, emphasizing that he had been an equal partner with Carlos in its invention. He explained how the blast of air made the fire burn so hot that the iron was produced in molten form and flowed out continuously, allowing the furnace to produce a ton of metal per day; and as he did so he observed Jan looking at him with new respect.
The Wolmans were Catholics, but they were horrified to learn how the Church in Seville had treated Carlos. Jan said that kind of thing would never happen in Antwerp, but Ebrima wondered if he was right, given that the Church in both countries was ruled by the same Pope.
Jan was excited by the blast furnace, and said that Ebrima and Carlos must meet his main supplier of metals, Albert Willemsen, as soon as possible – in fact, tomorrow.
Next morning, they all walked to a less affluent neighbourhood near the docks. Albert lived in a modest house with his wife, Betje; a solemn little eight-year-old daughter, Drike; his attractive widowed sister, Evi; and Evi’s son, Matthus, who was about ten. Albert’s premises were strikingly like Carlos’s old home in Seville, with a passage leading to a backyard workplace with a furnace and stocks of iron ore, limestone and coal. He readily agreed that Carlos, Ebrima and Barney could build a blast furnace in his yard, and Jan promised to lend them the money needed.
Over the following days and weeks, they got to know the city. Ebrima was struck by how hard the Netherlands people worked – not the poor, who worked hard everywhere, but the rich. Jan was one of the wealthiest men in town, but he worked six days a week. A Spaniard with that much money would have retired to the countryside, bought a hacienda and paid a steward to collect rents from peasants so that his own lily-white fingers did not have to touch grubby money, while seeking an aristocratic match for his daughter in the hope that his grandchildren would have titles. Netherlanders did not seem to care much about titles, and they liked money. Jan bought iron and bronze and manufactured guns and ammunition; he bought fleeces from England and turned them into woollen cloth that he sold back to the English; he bought profitable shares in cargoes, workshops, farms and taverns; and he loaned money to expanding businesses, to bishops who had overspent their incomes, and to princes. He always charged interest, of course. The Church’s prohibition against usury was ignored here.
Heresy was another thing that did not trouble the people of Antwerp. The city was thronged with Jews, Muslims and Protestants, all cheerfully identifying themselves by their clothing, all doing business on an equal footing. There were folk of many complexions: redbeards like Barney, Africans like Ebrima, light-brown Turks with wispy moustaches, and beige Chinamen with straight blue-black hair. The Antwerpers hated nobody, except those who did not pay their debts. Ebrima liked the place.
Nothing was said about Ebrima’s freedom. Every day he went with Carlos and Barney to Albert’s yard, and every evening they all ate at Jan’s house. On Sundays Ebrima went to church with the family, then slipped away in the afternoon – when the other men were sleeping off the wine they had drunk with the midday meal – and found a place out in the countryside where he could perform the water rite. No one called Ebrima a slave, but in other respects his life was worryingly similar to how it had been in Seville.
While they were working in the yard Albert’s sister Evi often sat with them when they took a break. She was about forty, a little on the heavy side – as were many well-fed Netherlands women in their middle years – with a distinct twinkle in her blue-green eyes. She talked to them all, but especially to Ebrima, who was close to her own age. She had a lively curiosity, and questioned him about life in Africa, pressing him for details, some of which he had to strain to remember. As a widow with a child, she was probably looking for a husband; and since both Carlos and Barney were too young to be interested in her, Ebrima had to wonder whether she had a speculative eye on him. He had not been intimate with a woman since parting with Elisa, but he hoped that was a temporary state: he certainly did not intend to live the life of a monk.
Building the blast furnace took a month. When they were ready to test it, both Jan’s family and Albert’s came to watch.
Ebrima recollected that they had done this only once before, and so they could not be sure that it would work a second time. The three of them would look stupid if it failed. Worse, a fiasco would blight their future – which made Ebrima realize that he had been half-consciously hoping to stay and make a living here. And he hated the thought of making a fool of himself in front of Evi.
Carlos lit the fire, Ebrima poured in the iron ore and lime, and Barney whipped on the two harnessed horses that drove the bellows mechanism.
As before, there was a long, nail-biting wait.
Barney and Carlos fidgeted nervously. Ebrima struggled to maintain his habitual impassivity. He felt as if he had staked everything on the turn of a single card.
The spectators became a bit bored. Evi started talking to Hennie about the problems of having adolescent children. Jan’s three sons chased Albert’s daughter around the yard. Albert’s wife, Betje, offered oranges on a tray. Ebrima was too tense to eat.
Then the iron began to flow.
The molten metal inched slowly from the base of the furnace into the prepared stone channels. At first, the motion was agonizingly slow, but soon the flow strengthened, and began to fill the ingot-shaped hollows in the ground. Ebrima poured more raw materials into the top of the furnace.
He heard Albert say wonderingly: ‘Look at that – it just keeps coming!’
‘Exactly,’ Ebrima said. ‘As long as you keep feeding the furnace, it will keep giving you iron.’
Carlos warned: ‘It’s pig iron – it has to be purified before it can be used.’
‘I can see that,’ Albert said. ‘But it’s still impressive.’
Jan said incredulously: ‘Are you telling me that the king of Spain turned up his nose at this invention?’
Carlos replied: ‘I don’t suppose King Felipe even heard of it. But the other iron makers in Seville felt threatened. Spanish people don’t like change. The people who run our industries are very conservative.’
Jan nodded. ‘I suppose that’s why the king buys so many cannons from foreigners like me – because Spanish industry doesn’t produce enough.’
‘And then they complain that the silver from America arrives in Spain only to leave again right away.’
Jan smiled. ‘Well, as we’re Netherlands merchants rather than Spanish grandees, let’s go into the house, have a drink, and talk business.’
They went inside and sat around the table. Betje served them beer and cold sausage. Imke gave the children raisins to keep them quiet.
Jan said: ‘The profits from this new furnace will be used first to pay off my loan, with interest.’
Carlos said: ‘Of course.’
‘Afterwards, the money should be shared out between Albert and yourselves. Is that how you see it?’
Ebrima realized that the word ‘yourselves’ was deliberately vague. Jan did not know whether Ebrima was to be included as an equal partner with Carlos and Barney.
This was no time for humility. Ebrima said: ‘The three of us built the furnace together: Carlos, Barney and me.’
Everyone looked at Carlos, and Ebrima held his breath. Carlos hesitated. This was the real test, Ebrima realized. When they had been on the raft, it had cost Carlos nothing to say You’re a free man, Ebrima, but this was different. If Carlos acknowledged Ebrima as an equal, in front of Jan Wolman and Albert Willemsen, he would be committed.
And Ebrima would be free.
At last Carlos said: ‘A four-way split, then. Albert, Barney, Ebrima and me.’
Ebrima’s heart bounded, but he kept his face expressionless. He caught Evi’s eye, and saw that she was looking pleased.
That was when Barney dropped his bombshell. ‘Count me out,’ he said.
Carlos said: ‘What are you talking about?’
‘You and Ebrima invented this furnace,’ Barney said. ‘I hardly did anything. Anyway, I’m not staying in Antwerp.’
Ebrima heard Imke gasp. She would be disappointed: she had fallen in love with Barney.
Carlos said: ‘Where will you go, Barney?’
‘Home,’ said Barney. ‘I’ve had no contact with my family for more than two years. Since we arrived in Antwerp, Jan has confirmed that my mother lost everything when Calais fell. My brother, Ned, no longer works in the family business – there is no business – and he’s some kind of secretary in the court of Queen Elizabeth. I want to see them both. I want to make sure they’re all right.’
‘How will you get to Kingsbridge?’
‘There’s a Combe Harbour ship docked here in Antwerp at the moment – the Hawk, owned by Dan Cobley, captained by Jonas Bacon.’
‘You can’t afford passage – you haven’t got any money.’
‘Yesterday I spoke to the first mate, Jonathan Greenland, who I’ve known since I was a boy. One of the crew died on the voyage here, the ship’s blacksmith and carpenter, and I’ve taken his job, just for the journey home.’
‘But how will you make a living back in England, if your family business is gone?’
Barney gave the devil-may-care grin that broke the hearts of girls like Imke. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’ll think of something.’
*
BARNEY QUESTIONED Jonathan Greenland as soon as the Hawk was out at sea and the crew were able to think about something other than steering the ship.
Jonathan had spent last winter in Kingsbridge, and had left to rejoin the ship only a few weeks ago, so he had all the latest news. He had called on Barney’s mother, expecting Alice to be as eager as ever for reports from overseas. He had found her sitting in the front parlour of the big house, looking out at the west front of the cathedral, doing nothing; surrounded by old ledgers but never opening them. Apparently, she attended meetings of the borough council, but did not speak. Barney found it hard to imagine his mother not doing business. For as long as he could remember, Alice had lived for deals, percentages and profits; the challenge of making money by trading absorbed her completely. This transformation was ominous.
Sir Reginald Fitzgerald, who had plotted Alice’s ruin, was still mayor of Kingsbridge, and living in Priory Gate, his vast new palace, Jonathan said. However, Bishop Julius had been brought down. Queen Elizabeth had broken all her promises and returned England to Protestantism. She required all priests to take the Oath of Supremacy, swearing allegiance to her as the supreme governor of the Church of England: refusal was treason. Almost all the lower clergy had agreed, but most of the old Catholic bishops had not. They could have been executed, but Elizabeth had vowed not to kill people for their faith, and she was keeping to that – so far. Most of the bishops were merely dismissed from their posts. Julius was living with two or three former monks in a house attached to St Mark’s church in northern Kingsbridge. Jonathan had seen him drunk in the Bell Inn on a Saturday night, telling anyone who would listen that the true Catholic faith would return soon. He made a sad figure, Jonathan said, but Barney thought the malevolent old priest deserved a worse fate.
Jonathan also explained to Barney the attractions of life at sea. Jonathan was at home on board ship: he was sunburned and wiry, with hard hands and feet, as nimble as a squirrel in the rigging. Towards the end of the war against France, the Hawk had captured a French vessel. The crew had shared the profits with Captain Bacon and Dan Cobley, and Jonathan had got a bonus of sixty pounds on top of his wages. He had bought a house in Kingsbridge for his widowed mother and had rejoined the crew in the hope of more of the same.
‘But we’re no longer at war,’ Barney said. ‘If you capture a French ship now, you’re guilty of piracy.’
Jonathan shrugged. ‘We’ll be at war with someone before too long.’ He tugged at a rope, checking the security of a knot that was evidently as tight as it could be, and Barney guessed that he did not want to be questioned too closely about piracy.
Barney changed the subject and asked about his brother.
Ned had come to Kingsbridge for Christmas, wearing an expensive new black coat and looking older than twenty. Jonathan knew that Ned worked with Sir William Cecil, who was Secretary of State, and people in Kingsbridge said Ned was an increasingly powerful figure at court, despite his youth. Jonathan had talked to him in the cathedral on Christmas Day, but had not learned much: Ned had been vague about exactly what he did for the queen, and Jonathan guessed he was involved in the secretive world of international diplomacy.
‘I can’t wait to see them,’ Barney said.
‘I can imagine.’
‘It should be only a couple of days now.’
Jonathan checked another rope, then looked away.
No one expected to get into a fight on the journey along the Channel from Antwerp to Combe Harbour, but Barney felt he ought to work his passage by making sure the Hawk’s armaments were ready for action.
Merchant ships needed guns as much as any other vessel. Seafaring was a dangerous business. In wartime, ships of one combatant nation could legitimately attack ships of the enemy; and all the major countries were at war as often as they were at peace. In peacetime, the same activity was called piracy, but it went on almost as much. Every ship had to be able to defend itself.
The Hawk had twelve guns, all bronze minions, small cannons that fired a four-pound shot. The minions were on the gun deck, immediately below the top deck, six on each side. They fired through square holes in the woodwork. Ship design had changed to accommodate this need. In older ships, such gun ports would have seriously weakened the structure. But the Hawk was carvel-built, an internal skeleton of heavy timbers providing its strength, with the planks of the hull fastened to the skeleton like skin over ribs. This type of structure had the additional advantage that enemy cannonballs could make multiple holes in the hull without necessarily sinking the ship.
Barney cleaned and oiled the guns, making sure they were running freely on their wheels, and made some small repairs, using the tools left behind by the previous smith, who had died. He checked stocks of ammunition: all the guns had the same size barrel and fired interchangeable cast-iron balls.
His most important job was to keep the gunpowder in good condition. It tended to absorb moisture – especially at sea – and Barney made sure that there were string bags of charcoal hanging from the ceiling on the gun deck to dry the air. The other hazard was that the ingredients of gunpowder – saltpetre, charcoal and sulphur – would separate over time, the heavier saltpetre sinking to the bottom, making the mixture harmless. In the army Barney had learned to turn the barrels upside down once a week.
He even ranged the guns. He did not want to waste ammunition, but Captain Bacon let him fire a few balls. All cannon barrels rested on trunnions, like handles sticking out both sides, which fitted into grooved supports in the gun carriage, making it easy to tilt the barrel up and down. With the barrel at an angle of forty-five degrees – the attitude for maximum distance – the minions would fire a four-pound ball almost a mile, about one thousand six hundred yards. The angle was changed by propping up the rear end of the barrel with wedges. With the barrel level, the ball splashed into the water about three hundred yards away. That told Barney that each seven degrees of elevation from the horizontal added just over two hundred yards to the range. He had brought with him from the army an iron protractor with a plumb line and a curved scale for measuring angles. With its long arm thrust into the barrel, he could measure the gun’s angle precisely. On land it worked well. At sea, the constant motion of the ship made shooting less accurate.
On the fourth day, Barney had nothing more to do, and he found himself on deck with Jonathan again. They were crossing a bay. The coast was on the port bow, as it had been ever since the Hawk had left the Westerschelde estuary and entered the English Channel. Barney was no expert in navigation, but he thought that by now they should have the English coast on the starboard bow. He frowned. ‘How long do you think it will be before we reach Combe Harbour?’
Jonathan shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
An unpleasant possibility crossed Barney’s mind. ‘We are headed for Combe Harbour, aren’t we?’
‘Eventually, yes.’
Barney’s alarm grew. ‘Eventually?’
‘Captain Bacon doesn’t confide his intentions to me. Nor to anyone else, come to that.’
‘But you seem to think we might not be going home.’
‘I’m looking at the coastline.’
Barney looked harder. Deep in the bay, just off the coast, a small island rose steeply out of the water to a precarious summit where a great church was perched like a giant seagull. It was familiar, and he realized, with dismay, that he had seen it before – twice. It was called Mont St Michel, and he had passed it once on his way to Seville, three years ago, and again on his way back from Spain to the Netherlands two years ago. ‘We’re going to Spain, aren’t we?’ he said to Jonathan.
‘Looks like it.’
‘You didn’t tell me.’
‘I didn’t know. And besides, we need a gunner.’
Barney could guess what they needed a gunner for. And that explained why Bacon had hired him when there was so little work for him to do as ship’s blacksmith. ‘So Bacon and you have tricked me into becoming a member of the crew.’
Jonathan shrugged again.
Barney looked north. Combe Harbour was sixty miles in that direction. He turned his gaze to the island church. It was a mile or two away, in waves of at least three feet. He could not swim it, he knew. It would be suicide.
After a long moment, he said: ‘But we’ll come back to Combe Harbour from Seville, won’t we?’
‘Maybe,’ said Jonathan, ‘maybe not.’