4
Barney Willard walked along the busy Seville waterfront, looking to see whether any English ships had come up the Guadalquivir river on the early tide. He was desperate to learn if his Uncle Dick was still alive, and whether his family had lost everything.
A cold wind blew down the river, but the sky was clear and deep blue, and the morning sun was hot on his tanned face. After this he felt he would never again grow accustomed to the damp cold and cloudy gloom of English weather.
Seville was built astride a bend in the river. On the inside of the curve, a broad beach of mud and sand sloped up from the water’s edge to firmer ground where thousands of houses, palaces and churches were packed close together in the largest city in Spain.
The beach was crowded with men, horses and oxen as cargoes were discharged from ships to carts and vice versa, and buyers and sellers haggled at the tops of their voices. Barney surveyed the moored vessels, listening for the broad vowels and soft consonants of English speech.
There was something about ships that made his soul sing. He had never been happier than on the voyage here. Despite the rotten food, the foul drinking water, the stinking bilges, and the frightening storms, he loved the sea. The sensation of speeding across the waves with the wind swelling the sails was a thrill as intense as lying with a woman. Well, almost.
The ships at the water’s edge were packed side by side as close as the houses in the town. All were moored prow in, stern out. Barney was used to the docks at Combe Harbour, which would have five or ten ships at anchor on a busy day, but Seville regularly had fifty.
Barney had a practical reason for visiting the waterfront early. He was living with Carlos Cruz, his second cousin, a metal worker. Seville manufactured weapons for the endless wars of King Felipe II, and there was never enough metal. Carlos bought everything exported by Barney’s mother: lead from the Mendip Hills for shot, tin from the mines of Cornwall for shipboard food containers and utensils, and – most important – iron ore. But ores and metals came into Seville by ship from other exporters, some in southern England, some in northern Spain, and Carlos needed to buy from them, too.
Barney stopped to watch a new arrival being delicately nosed into a mooring. It looked familiar, and his heart lifted in hope. The ship was about a hundred feet long and twenty feet wide, the narrow shape popular with captains who liked to move fast. Barney guessed it displaced about a hundred tons. There were three masts, with a total of five square sails, for power, plus a triangular lateen on the middle mast for manoeuvrability. It would be an agile vessel.
He thought it might be the Hawk, owned by Philbert Cobley of Kingsbridge, and when he heard the sailors calling to one another in English, he felt sure. Then a small man of about forty with a bronzed bald head and a fair beard waded through the shallows to the beach, and Barney recognized Jonathan Greenland, who frequently sailed as first mate with Captain Bacon.
He waited while Jonathan tied a rope to a stake driven deep into the beach. Back at home, men such as Jonathan could always get a glass or two of wine at the Willard house opposite Kingsbridge Cathedral, for Alice Willard had an insatiable appetite for news from anywhere. As a boy, Barney had loved to listen to Jonathan, for he spoke of Africa and Russia and the New World, places where the sun always shone or the snow never melted, and his reports of prices and politics were mixed with tales of treachery and piracy, riots and hijacking.
Barney’s favourite story had told how Jonathan had become a seaman. At the age of fifteen he had got drunk in the Jolly Sailor at Combe Harbour on a Saturday night and had woken up the next morning two miles off shore and heading for Lisbon. He had not seen England again for four years, but when at last he got back he had enough money to buy a house. He recounted this as a cautionary tale, but the boy Barney had thought it a wonderful adventure and had wished it would happen to him. Now a man of twenty, Barney still found the sea exciting.
When the Hawk was securely tied up, the two men shook hands. ‘You’re wearing an earring,’ Jonathan said with a surprised smile. ‘You’ve become exotic. Is that a Spanish fashion?’
‘Not really,’ said Barney. ‘It’s more of a Turkish thing. Call it my whim.’ He wore it because it made him feel romantic, and because girls found it intriguing.
Jonathan shrugged. ‘I haven’t been to Seville before,’ he said. ‘What’s it like?’
‘I love it – the wine is strong and the girls are pretty,’ Barney answered. ‘But what’s the news of my family? What happened in Calais?’
‘Captain Bacon has a letter for you from your mother. But there’s not much to tell. We’re still waiting for reliable information.’
Barney was downcast. ‘If the English in Calais were being treated mercifully, and allowed to continue living and working there, they would have sent messages by now. The longer we wait, the more likely it is that they’ve been imprisoned, or worse.’
‘That’s what people are saying.’ From the deck of the Hawk someone shouted Jonathan’s name. ‘I have to get back on board,’ he said.
‘Do you have any iron ore for my cousin Carlos?’
Jonathan shook his head. ‘This cargo is all wool.’ His name was called again, impatiently. ‘I’ll bring you your letter later.’
‘Come and dine with us. We’re in the nearest quarter of the city, where you can see all the smoke. It’s called El Arenal, The Sandpit, and it’s where the king’s guns are made. Ask for Carlos Cruz.’
Jonathan swarmed up a rope and Barney turned away.
He was not surprised by the news, or lack of it, from Calais, but he was dejected. His mother had spent the best years of her life building up the family business, and it made Barney angry and sad to think everything could just be stolen.
He finished his waterfront patrol without finding any iron ore to buy. At the Triana Bridge he turned back and walked through the narrow zigzag streets of the town, hectic now as people left their homes to begin the day’s business. Seville was much wealthier than Kingsbridge, but the people looked sombre by comparison. Spain was the richest country in the world but also the most conservative: there were laws against gaudy clothing. The rich dressed in black while the poor wore washed-out browns. It was ironic, Barney thought, how similar extreme Catholics were to extreme Protestants.
This was the least dangerous time of day to walk through the town: thieves and pickpockets generally slept in the morning, and did their best work in the afternoon and evening when men became careless from wine.
He slowed his pace as he approached the home of the Ruiz family. It was an impressive new brick house with four large windows in a row on the main, upstairs floor. Later in the day those windows would be covered by a grille, and the overweight, breathless Señor Pedro Ruiz would sit behind one like a toad in the reeds, watching the passers-by through the screen; but this early he was still in bed, and all windows and grilles had been thrown open to let in the cool morning air.
Looking up, Barney got what he hoped for: a glimpse of Señor Ruiz’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Jerónima. He walked even more slowly and stared at her, drinking in the pale skin, the lush waves of dark hair, and most of all the large, luminous brown eyes accentuated by black eyebrows. She smiled at him and gave a discreet wave.
Well-bred girls were not supposed to stand at windows, let alone wave at passing boys, and she would get into trouble if she were found out. But she took the risk, every morning at this time; and Barney knew, with a thrill, that it was the closest she could get to flirting.
Passing the house he turned and began to walk backwards, still smiling. He stumbled, almost fell, and made a wry face. She giggled, putting her hand to her red lips.
Barney was not planning to marry Jerónima. At twenty he was not ready for marriage, and if he had been he would not have been sure Jerónima was the one. But he did want to get to know her, and discreetly caress her when no one was looking, and steal kisses. However, girls were supervised more strictly here in Spain than at home and, as he blew her a kiss, he was not sure he would ever get a real one.
Then her head turned, as if she had heard her name called, and a moment later she was gone. Reluctantly, Barney walked away.
Carlos’s place was not far, and Barney’s thoughts moved from love to breakfast with a readiness that made him feel slightly ashamed.
The Cruz house was pierced by a broad arch leading through to a courtyard where the work was done. Piles of iron ore, coal and lime were stacked against the courtyard walls, separated by rough wooden dividers. In one corner an ox was tethered. In the middle stood the furnace.
Carlos’s African slave, Ebrima Dabo, was stoking the fire ready for the first batch of the day, his high dark forehead beaded with perspiration. Barney had come across Africans in England, especially in port cities such as Combe Harbour, but they were free: slavery was not enforceable under English law. Spain was different. There were thousands of slaves in Seville: Barney guessed they were about one in ten of the population. They were Arabs, North Africans, a few Native Americans, and some like Ebrima from the Mandinka region of West Africa. Barney was quick with languages, and had even picked up a few words of Manding. He had heard Ebrima greet people with ‘I be nyaadi?’ which meant ‘How are you?’
Carlos was standing with his back to the entrance of the house, studying a newly built structure of bricks. He had heard of a different type of furnace, one that permitted a blast of air to be blown in at the bottom while iron ore and lime were fed into the top. None of the three men had ever seen such a thing, but they were building an experimental prototype, working on it when they had time.
Barney spoke to Carlos in Spanish. ‘There’s no iron ore to be had at the waterfront today.’
Carlos’s mind was on the new furnace. He scratched his curly black beard. ‘We have to find a way to harness the ox so that it works the bellows.’
Barney frowned. ‘I don’t quite see it, but you can get a beast to work any mechanism, if you have enough wheels.’
Ebrima heard them. ‘Two sets of bellows,’ he said. ‘One blowing out while the other breathes in.’
‘Good idea,’ Carlos said.
The cooking range stood in the courtyard a little nearer the house. Carlos’s grandmother stirred a pot and said: ‘Wash your hands, you boys. It’s ready.’ She was Barney’s great-aunt, and he called her Aunt Betsy, though in Seville she was known as Elisa. She was a warm-hearted woman, but not beautiful. Her face was dominated by a big, twisted nose. Her back was broad and she had large hands and feet. She was sixty-five, a considerable age, but still full-figured and active. Barney recalled his Grandma in Kingsbridge saying: ‘My sister Betsy was a handful of trouble when she was a girl – that’s why she had to be sent to Spain.’
It was hard to imagine. Aunt Betsy now was cautious and wise. She had quietly warned Barney that Jerónima Ruiz had her eye firmly on her own selfish interests, and would surely marry someone a lot richer than Barney.
Betsy had raised Carlos after his mother died giving birth to him. His father had died a year ago, a few days before Barney’s arrival. The men lived on one side of the arch and Betsy, who owned the place, occupied the other half of the house.
The table was in the courtyard. They usually ate out of doors in daylight, unless the weather was exceptionally cold. They sat down to eggs cooked with onions, wheat bread, and a jug of weak wine. They were strong men who did heavy work all day, and they ate a lot.
Ebrima ate with them. A slave would never eat with his owners in the large household of a wealthy family, but Carlos was an artisan who worked with his hands, and Ebrima toiled side by side with him. Ebrima remained deferential, however: there was no pretence that they were equals.
Barney had been struck by Ebrima’s clever contribution to the exchange about the new furnace. ‘You know a lot about metal working,’ Barney said to him as they ate. ‘Did you learn from Carlos’s father?’
‘My own father was an iron maker,’ Ebrima said.
‘Oh!’ Carlos was surprised. ‘Somehow I never imagined Africans making iron.’
‘How did you think we got swords to fight wars?’
‘Of course. Then . . . how did you become a slave?’
‘In a war with a neighbouring kingdom. I was captured. Where I come from, prisoners-of-war normally become slaves, working in the fields of the winning side. But my master died, and his widow sold me to an Arab slave trader . . . and, after a long journey, I ended up in Seville.’
Barney had not previously asked Ebrima about his past, and he was curious. Did Ebrima long for home, or prefer Seville? He looked about forty: at what age had he been enslaved? Did he miss his family? But now Ebrima said: ‘May I ask you a question, Mr Willard?’
‘Of course.’
‘Do they have slaves in England?’
‘Not really.’
Ebrima hesitated. ‘What does that mean, not really?’
Barney thought for a moment. ‘In my home town, Kingsbridge, there is a Portuguese jeweller called Rodrigo. He buys fine fabrics, lace and silk, then sews pearls into them and makes headdresses, scarves, veils and other such frippery. Women go mad for his things. Rich men’s wives come from all over the west of England to buy them.’
‘And he has a slave?’
‘When he arrived, five years ago, he had a groom from Morocco called Achmed who was clever with animals. Word of this got around, and Kingsbridge people would pay Achmed to doctor their horses. After a while, Rodrigo found out and demanded the money, but Achmed would not hand it over. Rodrigo went to the court of quarter sessions, and said the money was his because Achmed was his slave; but Justice Tilbury said: “Achmed has broken no English law.” So Rodrigo lost and Achmed kept his money. Now he has his own house and a thriving business as an animal doctor.’
‘So English people can have slaves, but if the slave walks away, the owner can’t force him back?’
‘Exactly.’
Barney could see that Ebrima was intrigued by this notion. Perhaps he dreamed of going to England and becoming a free man.
Then the conversation was interrupted. Both Carlos and Ebrima suddenly tensed and looked towards the entrance arch.
Barney followed their gaze and saw three people approaching. In the lead was a short, broad-shouldered man with costly clothes and a greasy moustache. Walking on either side of him and a pace or two behind were two taller men who appeared, from their inexpensive clothing, to be servants, perhaps bodyguards. Barney had never seen any of the three before but he recognized the type. They looked like thugs.
Carlos spoke in a carefully neutral tone. ‘Sancho Sanchez, good morning.’
‘Carlos, my friend,’ said Sancho.
To Barney they did not seem to be friends.
Aunt Betsy stood up. ‘Please, sit down, Señor Sanchez,’ she said. Her words were hospitable but her tone was not warm. ‘Let me get you some breakfast.’
‘No, thank you, Señora Cruz,’ Sancho said. ‘But I’ll have a glass of wine.’ He took Aunt Betsy’s seat.
His companions remained standing.
Sancho began a conversation about the prices of lead and tin, and Barney gathered that he, too, was a metal worker. Sancho went on to discuss the war with France, and then an epidemic of shivering fever that was sweeping the town, taking the lives of rich and poor alike. Carlos responded stiffly. No one ate anything.
At last Sancho got down to business. ‘You’ve done well, Carlos,’ he said patronizingly. ‘When your father died, rest his soul, I didn’t think you would be able to continue to run the enterprise alone. You were twenty-one, and you had finished your apprenticeship, so you were entitled to try; but I thought you would fail. You surprised us all.’
Carlos looked wary. ‘Thank you,’ he said neutrally.
‘A year ago, I offered to buy your business for one hundred escudos.’
Carlos straightened his back, squared his shoulders and raised his chin.
Sancho held up a hand defensively. ‘A low price, I know, but that was what I thought it was worth without your father to run it.’
Carlos said coldly: ‘The offer was an insult.’
The two bodyguards stiffened. Talk of insults could lead quickly to violence.
Sancho was still being emollient, or as near to it as he could get, Barney thought. He did not apologize for offending Carlos, but rather spoke forgivingly, as if Carlos had slighted him. ‘I understand that you should feel that way,’ he said. ‘But I have two sons, and I want to give them a business each. Now I’m prepared to pay you one thousand escudos.’ As if Carlos might not be able to count, Sancho added: ‘That’s ten times my original offer.’
Carlos said: ‘The price is still too low.’
Barney spoke to Sancho for the first time. ‘Why don’t you just build another furnace for your second son?’
Sancho stared haughtily, as if he had not previously noticed Barney’s presence. He seemed to think Barney should not speak until he was spoken to. It was Carlos who answered the question. ‘Like most industries in Spain, metal working is controlled by a “corporation”, somewhat like an English guild only more conservative. The corporation limits the number of furnaces.’
Sancho said: ‘The regulations maintain high standards and keep crooked operators out of the industry.’
Barney said: ‘And they ensure that prices are not undermined by cheap alternatives, I suppose.’
Carlos added: ‘Sancho is on the council of the Seville metal guild, Barney.’
Sancho was not interested in Barney. ‘Carlos, my friend and neighbour, just answer a simple question: what price would you accept for your business?’
Carlos shook his head. ‘It’s not for sale.’
Sancho visibly suppressed an angry retort and forced a smile. ‘I might go to fifteen hundred.’
‘I would not sell for fifteen thousand.’
Barney saw that Aunt Betsy was looking alarmed. Clearly she was scared of Sancho and worried that Carlos was antagonizing him.
Carlos saw her look and forced a more amiable tone of voice. ‘But I thank you for the courtesy of your proposal, neighbour Sancho.’ It was a good try but it did not sound sincere.
Sancho dropped the façade. ‘You may regret this, Carlos.’
Carlos’s voice became disdainful. ‘Why would you say a thing like that, Sancho? It almost sounds like a threat.’
Sancho did not confirm or deny that. ‘If business turns bad, you will end up wishing you had taken my money.’
‘I will run that risk. And now I have work to do. The king’s armourer needs iron.’
Sancho looked furious at being dismissed. He got to his feet.
Aunt Betsy said: ‘I hope you enjoyed the wine, Señor – it’s our best.’
Sancho did not trouble to reply to such a routine remark from a mere woman. He said to Carlos: ‘We’ll talk again soon.’
Barney could see Carlos suppressing a sarcastic retort as he responded with a silent nod.
Sancho was turning to leave when he caught sight of the new furnace. ‘What’s this?’ he said. ‘Another furnace?’
‘My old furnace is due for replacement.’ Carlos stood up. ‘Thank you for calling on me, Sancho.’
Sancho did not move. ‘Your old furnace looks perfectly all right to me.’
‘When the new one is ready, the old one will be demolished. I know the rules as well as you do. Goodbye.’
‘The new one looks peculiar,’ Sancho persisted.
Carlos allowed his irritation to show. ‘I’m making some improvements on the traditional design. There’s no corporation rule against that.’
‘Keep your temper, son, I’m simply asking you questions.’
‘And I’m simply saying goodbye.’
Sancho did not even bristle at Carlos’s rudeness. He continued to stare at the new furnace for a full minute. Then he turned and left. His two bodyguards followed him. Neither had spoken a word the whole time.
When Sancho was out of earshot, Aunt Betsy said: ‘He’s a bad man to have as an enemy.’
‘I know,’ said Carlos.
*
THAT NIGHT EBRIMA slept with Carlos’s grandmother.
On the men’s side of the house, Carlos and Barney had beds on the upstairs floor, while Ebrima slept on a mattress on the ground floor. Tonight Ebrima lay awake for half an hour, until he was quite sure the house was silent; then he got up and padded across the courtyard to Elisa’s side. He slid into bed beside her and they made love.
She was an ugly old white woman, but it was dark, and her body was soft and warm. More importantly, she had always been kind to Ebrima. He did not love her, and never would, but it was no hardship to give her what she wanted.
Afterwards, as Elisa dozed off, Ebrima lay awake and remembered the first time.
He had been brought to Seville on a slave ship and sold to Carlos’s father ten years ago. He was solitary and homesick and in despair. One Sunday, when everyone else was at church, Carlos’s grandmother, whom Barney called Aunt Betsy and Ebrima called Elisa, had come upon him weeping in desolation. To his astonishment she had kissed his tears and pressed his face to her soft breasts, and in his yearning for human affection he had made love to her hungrily.
He realized that Elisa was using him. She could end the relationship any time she pleased, but he could not. However, she was the only human being he could hold in his arms. For a decade of lonely exile she had given him solace.
When she began to snore he returned to his own bed.
Each night, before going to sleep, Ebrima thought about freedom. He imagined himself in a house he owned, with a woman who was his wife, and perhaps some children too. In the vision he had money in his pocket that he had earned by his work, and he wore clothes he had chosen himself and paid for, not hand-me-downs. He left the house when he wanted to, and came back when he pleased, and no one could flog him for it. He always hoped he would go to sleep and dream this vision, and sometimes he did.
He slept for a few hours and woke at first light. It was Sunday. Later he would go to church with Carlos, and in the evening he would go to a tavern owned by a freed African slave and gamble with the little money he made from tips, but now he had a private duty to perform. He put on his clothes and left the house.
He passed through the north gate of the city and followed the river upstream as the daylight grew stronger. After an hour he came to an isolated spot he had visited before, where the river was bordered by a grove of trees. There he performed the water rite.
He had never been observed here, but it would not matter anyway, for he looked as if he was merely bathing.
Ebrima did not believe in the crucified God. He pretended to, because it made life easier, and he had been baptized a Christian here in Spain, but he knew better. The Europeans did not realize that there were spirits everywhere, in the seagulls and the west wind and the orange trees. The most powerful of them all was the river god: Ebrima knew this because he had been raised in a village that stood on the edge of a river. This was a different river, and he did not know how many thousands of miles he was from his birthplace, but the god was the same.
As he entered the water, murmuring the sacred words, tranquillity seeped into his soul, and he allowed his memories to rise from the depths of his mind. He remembered his father, a strong man with black burn scars on his brown skin from accidents with molten metal; his mother, bare-breasted as she weeded her vegetable patch; his sister holding a baby, Ebrima’s nephew, whom he would never see grow into a man. None of them even knew the name of the city where Ebrima now made his life, but they all worshipped the same spirit.
In his sadness, the river god comforted him. As the rite came to an end, the god granted his final gift: strength. Ebrima came out of the river, water dripping down his skin, and saw that the sun was up, and he knew that, for a little while longer, he would be able to endure.
*
ON SUNDAY BARNEY went to church with Carlos, Aunt Betsy and Ebrima. They made an unusual group, Barney thought. Carlos looked young to be head of a family, despite his bushy beard and broad shoulders. Aunt Betsy looked neither old nor young: she had grey hair, but she had kept her womanly figure. Ebrima wore Carlos’s cast-off clothes, but he walked upright and somehow managed to look neatly dressed for church. Barney himself had a red beard and the golden-brown eyes of the Willards, and his earring was unusual enough to draw glances of surprise, especially from young women; which was why he wore it.
The cathedral of Seville was bigger than that of Kingsbridge, reflecting the fabulous wealth of the Spanish clergy. The extraordinarily high central nave was flanked by two pairs of side aisles plus two rows of side chapels, making the building seem almost as wide as it was long. Any other church in the city would fit inside it, easily. A thousand people looked like a small group, clustered in front of the high altar, their responses to the liturgy lost in the emptiness of the vaults above. There was an immense altarpiece, a riot of gilded carving that was still unfinished after seventy-five years of work.
Mass was a useful social event, as well as an opportunity to cleanse the soul. Everyone had to go, especially the leading citizens. It was a chance to speak to people one would not otherwise meet. A respectable girl might even talk to a single man without compromising her reputation, although her parents would watch closely.
Carlos was wearing a new coat with a fur collar. He had told Barney that today he planned to speak to the father of Valentina Villaverde, the girl he adored. He had hesitated for a year, knowing that the business community were waiting to see whether he could make a success of his father’s enterprise; but now he felt he had waited long enough. The visit from Sancho indicated that people recognized the success he had achieved – and that at least one man wanted to take it from him. It was a good moment to propose to Valentina. If she accepted him, not only would he win the bride he loved, but he would also be marrying into the Seville elite, which would protect him from predators such as Sancho.
They met the Villaverde family as soon as they entered the great west doors of the cathedral. Carlos bowed deeply to Francisco Villaverde, then smiled eagerly at Valentina. Barney observed that she was pink-skinned and fair-haired, more like an English girl than a Spaniard. When they were married, Carlos had confided to Barney, he was going to build her a tall, cool house with fountains, and a garden thick with shade trees, so that the sun would never scorch the petals of her cheeks.
She smiled back happily. She was fiercely protected by her father and an older brother, as well as her mother, but they could not stop her showing her pleasure at seeing Carlos.
Barney had courting of his own to do. He scanned the crowd and located Pedro Ruiz and his daughter, Jerónima – the mother was dead. Pushing through the congregation to where they stood, he bowed to Pedro, who was panting after the short walk from his home to the cathedral. Pedro was an intellectual who talked to Barney about whether it was possible that the earth moved around the sun, rather than vice versa.
Barney was more interested in his daughter than his views. He turned his hundred-candle smile on Jerónima. She smiled back.
‘I see the service is being conducted by your father’s friend Archdeacon Romero,’ he said. Romero was a fast-rising churchman said to be close to King Felipe. Barney knew that Romero was a frequent visitor to the Ruiz house.
‘Father likes to argue with him about theology,’ said Jerónima. She made a disgusted face and lowered her voice. ‘He pesters me.’
‘Romero?’ Barney looked warily at Pedro, but he was bowing to a neighbour and had taken his eyes off his daughter for the moment. ‘What do you mean, he pesters you?’
‘He says he hopes to be my friend after I’m married. And he touches my neck. It makes my skin crawl.’
Clearly, Barney thought, the archdeacon had developed a sinful passion for Jerónima. Barney sympathized: he had the same feeling. But he knew better than to say so. ‘How disgusting,’ he said. ‘A lascivious priest.’
His attention was caught by a figure ascending the pulpitum in the white robe and black cloak of a Dominican monk. There was going to be a sermon. Barney did not recognize the speaker. He was tall and thin, with pale cheeks and a shock of thick straight hair. He seemed about thirty, young to be preaching in the cathedral. Barney had noticed him during the prayers, for he had seemed possessed of holy ecstasy, saying the Latin words with passion, his eyes closed and his white face lifted to heaven, by contrast with most of the other priests who acted as if they were doing a tedious chore. ‘Who’s that?’ Barney asked.
Pedro answered, having returned his attention to his daughter’s suitor. ‘Father Alonso,’ he said. ‘He’s the new inquisitor.’
Carlos, Ebrima and Betsy appeared alongside Barney, moving forward to get a closer look at the preacher.
Alonso began by speaking of the shivering fever that had killed hundreds of citizens during the winter. It was a punishment from God, he said. The people of Seville had to learn a lesson from it, and examine their consciences. What terrible sins had they committed, to make God so angry?
The answer was that they had tolerated heathens among them. The young priest became heated as he enumerated the blasphemies of heretics. He spat out Jew, Muslim and Protestant as if the very words tasted foul in his mouth.
But who was he talking about? Barney knew the history of Spain. In 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella – ‘the Catholic monarchs’ – had given the Jews of Spain an ultimatum: convert to Christianity or leave the country. Later the Muslims had been offered the same brutal choice. All synagogues and mosques had since been turned into churches. And Barney had never met a Spanish Protestant, to his knowledge.
He thought the sermon was hot air, but Aunt Betsy was troubled. ‘This is bad,’ she said in a low voice.
Carlos answered her. ‘Why? There are no heretics in Seville.’
‘If you start a witch hunt, you have to find some witches.’
‘How can he find heretics if there are none?’
‘Look around you. He’ll say that Ebrima is a Muslim.’
‘Ebrima is a Christian!’ Carlos protested.
‘They will say he has gone back to his original religion, which is the sin of apostasy, much worse than never having been a Christian in the first place.’
Barney thought Betsy was probably right: the dark colour of Ebrima’s skin would throw suspicion on him regardless of the facts.
Betsy nodded towards Jerónima and her father. ‘Pedro Ruiz reads the books of Erasmus and disputes with Archdeacon Romero about the teachings of the Church.’
Carlos said: ‘But Pedro and Ebrima are here, attending Mass!’
‘Alonso will say they practise their heathen rites at home after dark, with the shutters closed tightly and the doors locked.’
‘Surely Alonso would need evidence?’
‘They will confess.’
Carlos was bewildered. ‘Why would they do that?’
‘You would confess to heresy if you were stripped naked and bound with cords that were slowly tightened until they burst through your skin and began to strip the flesh from your body—’
‘Stop it, I get it.’ Carlos shuddered.
Barney wondered how Betsy knew about the tortures of the inquisition.
Alonso reached his climax, calling for every citizen to join in a new crusade against the infidels right here in their midst. When he had finished, communion began. Looking at the faces of the congregation, Barney thought they seemed uneasy about the sermon. They were good Catholics but they wanted a quiet life, not a crusade. Like Aunt Betsy, they foresaw trouble.
When the service ended and the clergy left the nave in procession, Carlos said to Barney: ‘Come with me while I speak to Villaverde. I feel the need of friendly support.’
Barney willingly followed him as he approached Francisco and bowed. ‘May I beg a moment of your time, Señor, to discuss a matter of great importance?’
Francisco Villaverde was the same age as Betsy: Valentina was the daughter of his second wife. He was sleek and self-satisfied, but not unfriendly. He smiled amiably. ‘Of course.’
Barney saw that Valentina looked bashful. She could guess what was about to happen, even if her father could not.
Carlos said: ‘A year has passed since my father died.’
Barney expected the murmured prayer that his soul would rest in peace that was a conventional courtesy whenever a dead relative was mentioned, but to his surprise Francisco remained silent.
Carlos went on: ‘Everyone can see that my workshop is well run and the enterprise is prospering.’
‘You are to be congratulated,’ said Francisco.
‘Thank you.’
‘What’s your point, young Carlos?’
‘I’m twenty-two, healthy and financially secure. I’m ready to marry. My wife will be loved and cared for.’
‘I’m sure she will. And . . . ?’
‘I humbly ask your permission to call at your house, in the hope that your wonderful daughter, Valentina, might consider me as a suitor.’
Valentina flushed crimson. Her brother gave a grunt that might have been indignation.
Francisco Villaverde’s attitude changed instantly. ‘Absolutely not,’ he said with surprising force.
Carlos was astonished. For a moment he could not speak.
‘How dare you?’ Francisco went on. ‘My daughter!’
Carlos found his voice. ‘But . . . may I ask why?’
Barney was asking himself the same question. Francisco had no reason to feel superior. He was a perfume maker, a trade that was perhaps a little more refined than that of metal worker; but still, like Carlos, he manufactured his wares and sold them. He was not nobility.
Francisco hesitated, then said: ‘You are not of pure blood.’
Carlos looked baffled. ‘Because my grandmother is English? That’s ridiculous.’
The brother bristled. ‘Have a care what you say.’
Francisco said: ‘I will not stand here to be called ridiculous.’
Barney could see that Valentina was distraught. Clearly she, too, had been astonished by this angry refusal.
Carlos said desperately: ‘Wait a minute.’
Francisco was adamant. ‘This conversation is over.’ He turned away. Taking Valentina’s arm, he moved towards the west door. The mother and brother followed. There was no point in going after them, Barney knew: it would only make Carlos look foolish.
Carlos was hurt and angry, Barney could see. The accusation of impure blood was silly, but probably no less wounding for that. In this country, ‘impure’ usually meant Jewish or Muslim, and Barney had not heard it used of someone with English forebears; but people could be snobbish about anything.
Ebrima and Betsy joined them. Betsy noticed Carlos’s mood immediately, and looked enquiringly at Barney. He murmured: ‘Valentina’s father rejected him.’
‘Hell,’ said Betsy.
She was angered but did not seem surprised, and the thought crossed Barney’s mind that somehow she had expected this.
*
EBRIMA FELT SORRY for Carlos, and wanted to do something to cheer him up. When they got home, he suggested trying out the new furnace. This was as good a time as any, he thought, and it might take Carlos’s mind off his humiliation. It was forbidden for Christians to work or do business on a Sunday, of course, but this was not really work: it was an experiment.
Carlos liked the idea. He fired up the furnace while Ebrima put the ox into the harness they had devised and Barney mixed crushed iron ore with lime.
There was a snag with the bellows, and they had to redesign the mechanism driven by the ox. Betsy abandoned her plans for an elegant Sunday dinner, and brought out bread and salt pork, which the three men ate standing up. The afternoon light was fading by the time they had everything working again. When the fire was burning hot, fanned by the twin bellows, Ebrima started shovelling in the iron ore and lime.
For a while nothing seemed to be happening. The ox walked in a patient circle, the bellows puffed and panted, the chimney radiated heat, and the men waited.
Carlos had heard about this way of making iron from two people, a Frenchman from Normandy and a Walloon from the Netherlands; and Barney had heard something similar talked of by an Englishman from Sussex. They all claimed the method produced iron twice as fast. That might be an exaggeration, but even so it was an exciting idea. They said that molten iron would emerge from the bottom of the furnace, and Carlos had duly built a stone chute to carry the flow to ingot-shaped depressions in the earth of the courtyard. But no one had been able to draw a plan of the furnace, so the design was guesswork.
Still no iron emerged. Ebrima began to wonder what might have gone wrong. Maybe the chimney should be taller. Heat was the key, he thought. Perhaps they should have used wood charcoal, which burned hotter than coal, though it was expensive in a country where all the trees were needed to build the king’s ships.
Then it began to work. A half-moon of molten iron appeared at the outlet of the furnace and inched into the stone chute. A hesitant protuberance became a slow wave, then a gush. The men cheered. Elisa came to look.
The liquid metal was red at first, but quickly turned grey. Looking hard at it, Ebrima thought it was more like pig iron, and would need to be smelted again to refine it, but that was not a major problem. On top of the iron was a layer like molten glass which was undoubtedly slag, and they would have to find a way to skim that off the top.
But the process was fast. Once it got started, the iron came out as if a tap had been turned. All they had to do was keep putting coal, iron ore and lime into the top of the furnace, and liquid wealth would pour out the other end.
The three men congratulated one another. Elisa brought them a bottle of wine. They stood with cups in their hands, drinking and staring in delight at the iron as it hardened. Carlos looked more cheerful: he was recovering from the shock of his rejection. Perhaps Carlos would choose this celebratory moment to tell Ebrima that he was a free man.
After a few minutes Carlos said: ‘Stoke the furnace, Ebrima.’
Ebrima put down his cup. ‘Right away,’ he said.
*
THE NEW FURNACE was a triumph for Carlos, but not everyone was happy about it.
The furnace worked from sunrise to sunset, six days a week. Carlos sold the pig iron to a finery forge, so that he did not have to refine it himself, and could concentrate on production, while Barney secured the increased supplies of iron ore they needed.
The king’s armourer was pleased. He struggled constantly to buy enough weapons for warfare in France and Italy, for sea battles with the Sultan’s fleet, and for protection against pirates for galleons from America. The forges and workshops of Seville could not produce enough, and the corporations opposed any expansion of capacity, so the armourer had to buy much of what he needed from foreign countries – which was why the American silver that came into Spain went out again so quickly. He was thrilled to see iron being produced so fast.
But other iron makers in Seville were not so glad. They could see that Carlos was making twice as much money as they were. Surely there was a rule against this? Sancho Sanchez lodged an official complaint with the corporation. The council would have to make a decision.
Barney was worried, but Carlos said the corporation could not possibly go against the king’s armourer.
Then they were visited by Father Alonso.
They were working in the courtyard when Alonso marched in, followed by a small entourage of younger priests. Carlos leaned on his shovel and stared at the inquisitor, trying to look unworried, but failing, Barney thought. Aunt Betsy came out of the house and stood with her big hands on her broad hips, ready to take Alonso on.
Barney could not imagine how Carlos could be accused of being a heretic. On the other hand, why else would Alonso be here?
Before saying anything, Alonso looked slowly around the courtyard with his narrow, beaked nose in the air, like a bird of prey. His gaze rested on Ebrima, and at last he spoke. ‘Is that black man a Muslim?’
Ebrima answered for himself. ‘In the village where I was born, Father, the gospel of Jesus Christ had never been heard, nor had the name of the Muslim prophet ever been spoken. I was raised in heathen ignorance, like my forefathers. But throughout a long journey God’s hand guided me, and when I was taught the sacred truth here in Seville I became a Christian, baptized in the cathedral, for which I thank my heavenly father every day in my prayers.’
It was such a good speech that Barney guessed Ebrima must have made it before.
But it was not enough for Alonso. He said: ‘Then why do you work on Sundays? Is it not because your Muslim holy day is Friday?’
Carlos said: ‘No one here works on Sundays, and we all work all day every Friday.’
‘Your furnace was seen to be lit on the Sunday I preached my first sermon in the cathedral.’
Barney cursed under his breath. They had been caught out. He surveyed the surrounding buildings: the courtyard was overlooked by numerous windows. One of the neighbours had made the accusation – probably a jealous metal worker, perhaps even Sancho.
‘But we weren’t working,’ said Carlos. ‘We were conducting an experiment.’
It sounded thin, even to Barney.
Carlos went on, with a note of desperation: ‘You see, Father, this type of furnace has air blown in at the bottom of the chimney—’
‘I know all about your furnace,’ Alonso interrupted.
Aunt Betsy spoke up. ‘I wonder how a priest would know all about a furnace? Perhaps you’ve been talking to my grandson’s rivals. Who denounced him to you, Father?’
Barney could see from Alonso’s face that Aunt Betsy was right, but the priest did not answer the question. Instead he went on the offensive. ‘Old woman, you were born in Protestant England.’
‘I most certainly was not,’ Betsy said with spirit. ‘The good Catholic King Henry the Seventh was on the throne of England when I was born. His Protestant son, Henry the Eighth, was still pissing in his bed when my family left England and brought me here to Seville. I’ve never been back.’
Alonso turned on Barney, and Barney felt the deep chill of fear. This man had the power to torture and kill people. ‘That’s certainly not true of you,’ Alonso said. ‘You must have been born and raised Protestant.’
Barney’s Spanish was not good enough for a theological argument, so he kept his response simple. ‘England is no longer Protestant, nor am I. Father, if you search this house, you will see that there are no banned books here, no heretical texts, no Muslim prayer mats. Over my bed is a crucifix, and on my wall a picture of St Hubert of Liège, patron saint of metal workers. It was St Hubert who—’
‘I know about St Hubert.’ Clearly Alonso was offended by any suggestion that someone else might have something to teach him. However, Barney thought he might have run out of steam. Each of his accusations had been parried. All he had was men doing something that might or might not count as working on a Sunday, and Carlos and his family were surely not the only people in Seville who bent that rule. ‘I hope everything you have said to me today is the pure truth,’ Alonso said. ‘Otherwise you will suffer the fate of Pedro Ruiz.’
He turned to go, but Barney stopped him, concerned for Jerónima and her father. ‘What happened to Pedro Ruiz?’
Alonso looked pleased to have shocked him. ‘He was arrested,’ he said. ‘In his house I found a translation of the Old Testament into Spanish, which is illegal, and a copy of the heretical Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin, the Protestant leader of the abominable city of Geneva. As is normal, all the possessions of Pedro Ruiz have been sequestrated by the Inquisition.’
Carlos did not seem surprised by this, so Alonso must be telling the truth when he said it was normal, but Barney was shocked. ‘All his possessions?’ he said. ‘How will his daughter live?’
‘By God’s grace, as we all do,’ said Alonso, and then he walked out, followed by his entourage.
Carlos looked relieved. ‘I’m sorry about Jerónima’s father,’ he said. ‘But I think we got the better of Alonso.’
Betsy said: ‘Don’t be so sure.’
‘Why do you say that?’ Carlos asked.
‘You don’t remember your grandfather, my husband.’
‘He died when I was a baby.’
‘Rest his soul. He was raised Muslim.’
All three men stared at her in astonishment. Carlos said incredulously: ‘Your husband was a Muslim?’
‘At first, yes.’
‘My grandfather, José Alano Cruz?’
‘His original name was Youssef al-Khalil.’
‘How could you marry a Muslim?’
‘When they were expelled from Spain he decided to convert to Christianity rather than leave. He took instruction in the religion and was baptized as an adult, just like Ebrima. José was his new name. To seal his conversion, he decided to marry a Christian girl. That was me. I was thirteen.’
Barney said: ‘Did many Muslims marry Christians?’
‘No. They married within their community, even after converting. My José was unusual.’
Carlos was more interested in the personal side. ‘Did you know he had been raised Muslim?’
‘Not at first, no. He had moved here from Madrid and told no one. But people come here from Madrid all the time, and eventually there was someone who had known him as a Muslim. After that it was never quite secret, though we tried to keep it quiet.’
Barney could not restrain his curiosity. ‘You were thirteen? Did you love him?’
‘I adored him. I was never a pretty girl, and he was handsome and charming. He was also affectionate and kind and caring. I was in heaven.’ Aunt Betsy was in a confiding mood.
Carlos said: ‘And then my grandfather died . . .’
‘I was inconsolable,’ said Betsy. ‘He was the love of my life. I never wanted another husband.’ She shrugged. ‘But I had my children to take care of, so I was too busy to die of grief. And then there was you, Carlos, motherless before you were a day old.’
Barney had an instinctive feeling that, although Betsy was speaking candidly, there was something she was holding back. She had not wanted another husband, but was that the whole story?
Carlos made a connection. ‘Is this why Francisco Villaverde won’t let me marry his daughter?’
‘It is. He doesn’t care about your English grandmother. It’s your Muslim grandfather he considers impure.’
‘Hell.’
‘That’s not the worst of your problems. Obviously Alonso, too, knows about Youssef al-Khalil. Today’s visit was just the beginning. Believe me, he will be back.’
*
AFTER ALONSO’S VISIT Barney went to the home of the Ruiz family to see what had happened to Jerónima.
The door was opened by a young woman who looked North African and was evidently a slave. She was probably beautiful, he thought, but now her face was swollen and her eyes were red with grief. ‘I must see Jerónima,’ he said in a loud voice. The woman put her finger to her lips in a shushing gesture, then beckoned him to follow her and led him into the back of the house.
He expected to see a cook and a couple of maids preparing dinner, but the kitchen was cold and silent. He recalled Alonso saying that the inquisition routinely confiscated a suspect’s goods, but Barney had not realized how fast it would happen. Now he saw that Pedro’s employees had already been dismissed. Presumably his slave was going to be sold, which would be why she was crying.
She said: ‘I am Farah.’
Barney said impatiently: ‘Why have you brought me here? Where is Jerónima?’
‘Speak quietly,’ she said. ‘Jerónima is upstairs, with Archdeacon Romero.’
‘I don’t care, I want to speak to her,’ said Barney, and he stepped to the door.
‘Please don’t,’ said Farah. ‘It will cause trouble if Romero sees you.’
‘I’m ready for trouble.’
‘I’ll bring Jerónima here. I’ll say a neighbour woman has called and insists on seeing her.’
Barney hesitated, then nodded assent, and Farah went out.
He looked around. There were no knives, pots, jugs or plates. The place had been cleared out. Did the inquisition even sell people’s kitchenware?
Jerónima appeared a couple of minutes later. She was different: she looked a lot older than seventeen suddenly. Her beautiful face was an impassive mask, and her eyes were dry, but her olive skin seemed to have turned grey, and her slim body trembled all over as if shivering. He could see the enormous effort it took to bottle up her grief and rage.
Barney moved towards her, intending to embrace her, but she stepped back and held up her hands as if to push him away.
He looked at her helplessly and said: ‘What’s going on?’
‘I am destitute,’ she said. ‘My father is in prison, and I have no other family.’
‘How is he?’
‘I don’t know. Prisoners of the inquisition are not allowed to communicate with their families, or with anyone else. But his health is poor – you’ve heard him panting after even a short walk – and they will probably—’ She became unable to speak, but it lasted only a moment. She looked down, breathed in, and regained control. ‘They will probably put him to the water torture.’
Barney had heard of this. The victim’s nostrils were closed to prevent him breathing through his nose, and his mouth was forced open, then jar after jar of water was poured down his throat. What he swallowed distended his stomach agonizingly, and the water that got into his windpipe choked him.
‘It will kill him,’ Barney said in horror.
‘They have already taken all his money and possessions.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Archdeacon Romero has offered to take me into his household.’
Barney felt bewildered. Things were moving too fast. Several questions occurred to him at the same time. He said: ‘In what role?’
‘We are discussing that right now. He wants me to take charge of his wardrobe, ordering and caring for his vestments, supervising his laundress.’ Speaking of such practical matters clearly helped her control her feelings.
‘Don’t go,’ Barney said. ‘Come away with me.’
It was a reckless offer, and she knew it. ‘Where? I can’t live with three men. It’s all right for your grandmother.’
‘I have a home in England.’
She shook her head. ‘I know nothing about your family. I hardly know anything about you. I don’t speak English.’ Her face softened briefly. ‘Perhaps, if this had not happened, you might have courted me, and made a formal offer to my father, and perhaps I would have married you, and learned to speak English . . . who knows? I admit I have thought about it. But to run away with you to a strange country? No.’
Barney could see that she was being much more sensible than he. But all the same he blurted: ‘Romero wants to make you his secret mistress.’
Jerónima looked at Barney, and he saw in her big eyes a hardness he had never noticed before. He was reminded of Aunt Betsy’s words: ‘Jerónima Ruiz has her eye firmly on her own selfish interests.’ But surely there were limits? Jerónima now said: ‘And if he does?’
Barney was dumbfounded. ‘How can you even say it?’
‘I’ve been thinking about this for forty-eight sleepless hours. I have no alternative. You know what happens to homeless women.’
‘They become prostitutes.’
This seemed not to shake her. ‘So my choice is flight with you into the unknown, prostitution on the streets, or a dubious position in the affluent household of a corrupt priest.’
‘Has it occurred to you’, Barney said tentatively, ‘that Romero might even have denounced your father himself, with the intention of forcing you into this position?’
‘I’m sure he did.’
Barney was astonished again. She was always ahead of him.
She said: ‘I’ve known for months that Romero wanted to make me his mistress. It was the worst life I could imagine for myself. Now it’s the best life I can hope for.’
‘And he has done that to you!’
‘I know.’
‘And you’re going to accept it, and go to his bed, and forgive him?’
‘Forgive him?’ she said, and a new light came into her brown eyes, a look of hatred like boiling acid. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I might pretend. But one day I will have power over him. And when that day comes, I will take revenge.’
*
EBRIMA HAD DONE as much as anyone to make the new furnace work, and he harboured a secret hope that Carlos would reward him by giving him his freedom. But as the furnace burned for days and weeks his hopes faded, and he realized that the thought had not even crossed Carlos’s mind. Loading cold ingots of iron onto a flatbed cart, stacking them in an interlocking web so that they would not shift in transit, Ebrima considered what to do next.
He had hoped Carlos would make the offer spontaneously, but as that had not happened he would have to ask outright. He did not like to beg: the very act of pleading would suggest that he was not entitled to what he wanted – but he was entitled, he felt that strongly.
He might try to recruit Elisa to support him. She was fond of him, and wanted the best for him, he felt sure; but did her affection extend so far as to free him, in which case he would no longer be there when she needed love at night?
On balance, it would probably be best to take her into his confidence before he spoke to Carlos. At least then he would know which way she was going to jump when the decision was made.
When should he tell her? After making love one night? It might be smarter to raise the subject before lovemaking, when her heart was full of desire. He nodded to himself, and at that moment the attack began.
There were six men, and they all carried clubs and hammers. They did not speak, but immediately began to beat Ebrima and Carlos with clubs. ‘What’s happening?’ Ebrima yelled. ‘Why are you doing this?’ They did not speak. Ebrima put up an arm to protect himself and suffered an agonizing blow to his hand, then another to his head, and he fell down.
His assailant then went after Carlos, who was retreating across the yard. Ebrima watched, trying to recover from the daze induced by the blow to his head. Carlos seized a shovel, dipped it in the molten metal coming out of the furnace, and threw a shower of droplets at the attackers. Two of them screamed in pain.
For a moment Ebrima thought perhaps he and Carlos might prevail, despite the odds; but, before Carlos could scoop up more metal, two others got to him and knocked him down.
They then attacked the new furnace, smashing its brickwork with iron-headed sledgehammers. Ebrima saw his creation being destroyed, and found the strength to get to his feet. He rushed at the attackers, screaming: ‘No – you can’t do this!’ He shoved one so that he fell to the ground, and pulled the other away from the precious furnace. He used only his right hand, because he could no longer grip with the left, but he was strong. Then he was forced to scurry backwards out of the way of a lethally swinging sledgehammer.
Desperate to save the furnace, he picked up a wooden shovel and went at them again. He hit one over the head, then he was hit from behind, a blow that landed on his right shoulder and caused him to drop the shovel. He turned to face his assailant and dodged the next blow.
As he backed away, desperately leaping out of the way of a down-swinging club, he could see from the corner of his eye that the furnace was being demolished. The contents poured out, burning coal and red-hot minerals spilling over the ground. The ox began to grunt raucously in panic, a pitiful noise.
Elisa came running out of the house, screaming at the men: ‘Leave them alone! Get out of here!’ The attackers laughed at the old woman, and one of the men Ebrima had knocked down got up, seized her from behind, and lifted her off her feet. He was big – they all were – and he easily restrained her writhing struggles.
Two men were sitting on Carlos, one was holding Elisa, and one was keeping Ebrima cornered. The remaining two went to work with their sledgehammers. They smashed the bellows mechanism that Ebrima and Carlos and Barney had puzzled over for so long. Ebrima could have wept.
When the furnace and the bellows mechanism were flattened, one of them pulled a long dagger and tried to cut the throat of the ox. It was not easy: the beast’s neck was thickly muscled, and he had to saw through the flesh with his knife, while the ox tried to kick free of the wreckage. At last he severed the jugular. The bellowing stopped abruptly. Blood came like a fountain from the wound. The ox sank to the ground.
And then, as quickly as they had come, the six men left.
*
JERÓNIMA HAD BECOME a calculating shrew, Barney thought as he left the Ruiz house in a daze. Perhaps she had always had a hard streak, and he had never noticed it; or perhaps people could be transformed by a terrible ordeal – he did not know. He felt he knew nothing. Anything could happen: the river might rise up and drown the city.
His feet took him automatically to Carlos’s house, and there he suffered another shock: Carlos and Ebrima had been beaten up.
Carlos was sitting on a chair in the courtyard while Aunt Betsy tended to his wounds. One eye was closed, his lips were swollen and bloody, and he sat half bent over as if his belly hurt. Ebrima lay on the ground, clutching one hand under the opposite armpit, a bloodstained bandage around his head.
Behind them was the wreckage of the new furnace. It had been ruined, and was now a pile of bricks. The bellows mechanism was a tangle of ropes and firewood. The ox lay dead in a pool of blood. There was a lot of blood in an ox, Barney thought disjointedly.
Betsy had been bathing Carlos’s face with a scrap of linen soaked in wine. Now she stood upright and tossed the rag on the ground in a gesture of disgust. ‘Listen to me,’ she said, and Barney realized she had been waiting only for his return before making a speech.
All the same he forestalled her. ‘What happened here?’
‘Don’t ask stupid questions,’ she said impatiently. ‘You can see what happened here.’
‘I mean, who did this?’
‘They were men we’ve never seen before, and almost certainly they’re not from Seville. The real question is who hired them, and the answer is Sancho Sanchez. He’s the one who’s been whipping up resentment of Carlos’s success, and he’s the one who wants to buy the business. I’ve no doubt it was he who told Alonso that Ebrima is a Muslim and works on Sundays.’
‘What are we going to do?’
Carlos answered Barney’s question. Standing up, he said: ‘We’re going to give in.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We could fight Sancho, or we could fight Alonso, but we can’t fight both.’ He went over to where Ebrima lay, grasped his right hand – the left was evidently injured – and pulled him to his feet. ‘I’m going to sell the business.’
Betsy said: ‘That may not be enough, now.’
Carlos was startled. ‘Why?’
‘Sancho will be satisfied with the business, but Alonso will not. He needs a human sacrifice. He can’t admit to having made a mistake. Now that he’s accused you, he has to punish you.’
Barney said: ‘I’ve just seen Jerónima. She thinks they will put her father to the water torture. We’ll all confess to heresy if that happens to us.’
Betsy said: ‘Barney is right.’
Carlos said: ‘What can we do?’
Betsy sighed. ‘Leave Seville. Leave Spain. Today.’
Barney was shocked, but he knew she was right. Alonso’s men might come for them any time, and when that happened, it would be too late to flee. He looked apprehensively at the archway entrance to the courtyard, fearing that they might already be there; but there was no one, not yet.
Was it even possible to go today? Perhaps – if there was a ship leaving on the afternoon tide, and if that ship needed crew. They would probably have no choice about where they went. Barney glanced up at the sun. It was after midday. ‘If we’re really going to do this, we need to hurry,’ he said.
Despite the danger he was in, his spirits lifted at the prospect of going to sea.
Ebrima spoke for the first time. ‘If we don’t go, we’re dead men,’ he said. ‘And I’ll be the first.’
Barney said: ‘What about you, Aunt Betsy?’
‘I’m too old to go far. Besides, they don’t really care about me – I’m a woman.’
‘What will you do?’
‘I have a sister-in-law in Carmona.’ Barney recalled Betsy going there for a few weeks in the summer. ‘I can walk to Carmona in a morning. Even if Alonso finds out where I am, I doubt that he’ll bother with me.’
Carlos made up his mind. ‘Barney, Ebrima, get whatever you want from the house and be back by a count of a hundred.’
None of them had many possessions. Barney tucked a small purse of money into his waist under his shirt. He put on his best boots and his heavy cloak. He did not own a sword: the heavy longsword was made for the battlefield, designed to be thrust into the vulnerable spots in the enemy’s suit of armour, but unwieldy at close quarters. Barney sheathed a two-foot-long Spanish dagger with a disc-shaped hilt and a double-edged steel blade. In a street brawl, a big knife such as this was more lethal than a sword.
Back in the courtyard, Carlos was wearing a sword under his new coat with the fur collar. He hugged his grandmother, who was weeping. Barney kissed her on the cheek.
Then Aunt Betsy said to Ebrima: ‘Kiss me one more time, my love.’
Ebrima took her in his arms.
Barney frowned, and Carlos said: ‘Hey—’
Aunt Betsy kissed Ebrima passionately, her hand buried in his dark hair, while Carlos and Barney stared in astonishment. When they broke the kiss, she said: ‘I love you, Ebrima. I don’t want you to go. But I can’t let you stay here to die in the torture chamber of the inquisition.’
‘Thank you, Elisa, for being kind to me,’ said Ebrima.
They kissed again, then Betsy turned away and ran into the house.
Barney thought: What the hell . . . ?
Carlos looked amazed, but there was no time for questions. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.
‘One second,’ said Barney. He showed them his dagger. ‘If we meet Alonso’s men on the way, I won’t be taken alive.’
‘Nor will I,’ said Carlos, touching the hilt of his sword.
Ebrima pulled aside his cloak to reveal an iron-headed hammer thrust into his belt.
The three men left, heading for the waterfront.
They were alert for Alonso’s men, but as they moved farther from the house the danger receded. All the same, people stared at them, and Barney realized that they looked scary, with both Carlos and Ebrima bruised and still bleeding from the fight.
After a few minutes, Carlos said to Ebrima: ‘Grandma?’
Ebrima spoke calmly. ‘Slaves are always used for sex. You must know that.’
Barney said: ‘I didn’t know it.’
‘We talk to one another in the marketplace. Just about every one of us is somebody’s whore. Not the old ones, but slaves don’t often live to be old.’ He looked at Barney. ‘Pedro Ruiz, your girlfriend’s father, fucks Farah, though she has to get on top.’
‘Is that why she was crying? Because she’s lost him?’
‘She was crying because now she will be sold, and a stranger will fuck her.’ Ebrima turned to Carlos. ‘Francisco Villaverde, who is too proud to be your father-in-law, always buys slaves as small boys, and buggers them until they grow up. Then he sells them to a farmer.’
Carlos was still incredulous. ‘So every night, when I’m asleep, you’ve been going to Grandma’s bedroom?’
‘Not every night. Just when she asked me.’
Barney said: ‘Did you mind?’
‘Elisa is an old woman, but she’s warm and loving. And I was glad it wasn’t a man.’
Barney felt as if he had been a child until today. He had known that priests could put a man in prison and torture him to death, but not that they could also take all his possessions and make his family destitute. He had not imagined that an archdeacon would take a girl into his house and make her his mistress. And he had had no idea what men and women did with their slaves. It was as if he had been living in a house with rooms he had never entered, sharing it with strange people he had never previously set eyes on. He was disoriented by the discovery of his own ignorance. It threw him off balance. And now his life was in danger and he was trying to leave Seville, leave Spain, all in a headlong rush.
They arrived at the waterfront. The beach was busy, as always, with stevedores and carts. At first glance, Barney reckoned there were about forty ships moored. The morning tide was preferred for departure, for then the ship had a whole day of sailing ahead; but usually one or two would leave in the afternoon. However, the tide was already on the turn: they would soon be away.
The three men hurried to the water’s edge and scanned the vessels, looking for signs of imminent departure: hatches closed, captain on deck, crew in the rigging. A ship called Ciervo was already moving out of its berth, the crew using long poles to keep it away from the barks on either side. There was still time to get aboard, just. Carlos cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted: ‘Skipper! Do you want three strong deck hands?’
‘No!’ came the answer. ‘I’ve got a complete crew.’
‘How about three passengers? We can pay.’
‘No room!’
He was probably planning something illegal, Barney speculated, and did not want it to be witnessed by people he did not know or trust. The commonest crime, in these waters, was offshore dealing in American silver, to evade the king’s taxes in Seville. But straightforward piracy was not unusual.
They hurried along the river bank, but their luck was out. No one else seemed to be leaving. Barney felt desperate. Now what would they do?
They reached the downstream limit of the harbour. It was marked by a fortress called the Golden Tower. At this point an iron chain could be stretched from one bank to the other, so that raiders coming upstream from the sea could not attack the ships at anchor.
Outside the fortress, a recruiter was at work, standing on a barrel, calling on young men to join the army. ‘There’s a hot meal and a bottle of wine for every man who enlists now,’ he shouted to a crowd of onlookers. ‘Over there is a ship called José y María, and the two blessed saints watch over her and guard all who sail in her.’ He pointed, and Barney saw that he had an iron hand, presumably the artificial replacement for a real one lost in battle.
Barney looked in the direction indicated and saw a big three-masted galleon bristling with cannons, its deck already crowded with young men.
The recruiter went on: ‘We’re sailing this afternoon to a place where there are wicked heathens to be killed, and where the girls are as willing as they are pretty, as I can tell you, my lads, from personal experience, if you know what I mean.’
There was a knowing laugh from the crowd.
‘I don’t want you if you’re weak,’ he said scornfully. ‘I don’t want you if you’re timid. I don’t want you if you’re a girlie-boy, and you know what I mean by that. This is only for the strong, the brave and the tough. This is for real men.’
On the deck of the José y María someone shouted: ‘All aboard!’
‘Last chance, lads,’ the recruiter called. ‘What is it to be? Stay at home with your Mama, eating bread-and-milk and doing as you’re told? Or come with me, Captain Ironhand Gómez, for a man’s life, travel and adventure, fame and fortune. All you have to do is walk up that gangway, and the world is yours.’
Barney, Carlos and Ebrima looked at one another. Carlos said: ‘Yes or no?’
Barney said: ‘Yes.’
Ebrima said: ‘Yes.’
The three men walked to the ship, climbed the gangway, and went on board.
*
TWO DAYS LATER they were on the open sea.
Ebrima had sailed many miles, but always as a captive, chained in the hold. Seeing the sea from the deck was a new and exhilarating experience.
The recruits had nothing to do but speculate on their destination, which still had not been revealed: it was a military secret.
Ebrima had an additional unanswered question: his future.
When they had boarded the José y María they had been met by an officer seated at a table with a ledger. ‘Name?’ he had said.
‘Barney Willard.’
The officer wrote in the book then looked at Carlos. ‘Name?’
‘Carlos Cruz.’
He wrote down the name, glanced at Ebrima, then put down his pen. Looking from Carlos to Barney and back, he had said: ‘You can’t have a slave in the army. An officer can, though he has to feed and clothe the man out of his own money. But an enlisted soldier obviously can’t do that.’
Ebrima had studied Carlos’s face closely. A look of desperation had come into Carlos’s eyes: he saw his escape route closing. After only a moment’s hesitation he said the only thing he could say: ‘He’s not a slave, he’s a free man.’
Ebrima’s heart had stopped.
The officer had nodded. Freed slaves were rare, but by no means unknown. ‘Fine,’ he had said. He had looked at Ebrima and said: ‘Name?’
It had all been very quick, and when it was over, Ebrima still was not sure where he stood. Barney had not congratulated him on being freed, and Carlos had not acted like a man who has given a great gift. Clearly Ebrima was to be treated as a free man in the army, but how real was it?
Was he free or not?
He did not know.