The Promise of Pain

by David Penny

  The Promise of Pain

  David Penny

  Contents

  Place Names

  Spain 1488

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Historical Note

  The Thomas Berrington Historical Mysteries

  About the Author

  Place Names

  For many of the Spanish cities and towns which lay beyond the boundary of Andalusia the current Spanish name has been used, except where the town had a significant Moorish past, such as Cordoba and Seville.

  I have conducted research on the naming of places within Andalusia but have taken a few liberties to make the names easier to pronounce for a modern day audience. Where I have been unable to find reference to the Moorish name of a place I have made one up.

  al-Andalus: Andalusia

  al-Basharāt: the Alpujarra region south of the Sierra Nevada

  al-Mariyya: Almeria

  Gharnatah: Granada

  Ixbilya: Sevilla

  Malaka: Malaga

  Qurtuba: Cordoba

  Sholayr: Sierra Nevada mountains

  Spain 1488

  The Alpujarra region, Andalucia

  Chapter One

  When Thomas Berrington woke tears had frozen his eyes shut. It was not the first time such had happened since he came to the high Sholayr, and he was sure it would not be the last. He lifted his hands and laid the palms across his eyes, waiting for their meagre warmth to melt the ice, broken tears tracking down his face as the ice gave up its reluctant hold. He had woken to find himself still alive, unsure if that was for the good or not.

  The half-ruined hut he had made his home for the last ten days offered little shelter. The roof was intact at one end only. A crumbling chimney at the other offered a place to make a fire, as long as you didn’t mind getting wet when it rained or snowed. Thomas thought he might make a fire today, but hadn’t the day before, or on any of the other days he had been there. He might hunt today but had not the day before. He had gone to sleep hungry, the pain in his belly a familiar companion. Cold and hunger and constant pain had ceased to concern him. He almost welcomed it for the numbness it brought, which washed away memory.

  As he waited for sight to return an internal image lit a trail through his mind—of his wife Lubna lying in a courtyard, and he jerked his head as if movement could repel it. The last remnant of ice snapped from his lids and he opened his eyes to discover a grey pre-dawn, sunrise still some way off. He leaned into a corner of the wall and tried to think of nothing. Failed as memories crowded in, stalking his waking hours as well as his dreams. However far he ran, however high he climbed, he knew there could be no escape. Lubna was dead … stolen from him. No, not stolen. He had abandoned her at the moment she needed him most. She died because of his failure.

  He stood with a jerk, angry at himself, and walked outside, averting his gaze from what hung from the stoutest rafter.

  Round-headed pines whispered a soft song in response to the wind. Snow and ice crackled beneath his bare feet. On the mountain far to the east, the first promise of coming day caught against snow-capped peaks, painting them blood red. When Thomas looked down the slope, past shattered rocks, he saw a lone figure climbing toward him. He knew who it was. He had always known who it was, for the man had been tracking him for days.

  Thomas perched on a rounded rock and waited.

  He had stopped trying to escape his pursuer, though knew if he had wanted he could have eluded him, never to be found. The decision to allow himself to be caught puzzled him. It augured redemption, and he was sure redemption was not what he sought. He welcomed pain as his due, as all he deserved. He waited, watching the figure climb the stone-shattered slope. Let him come. Let the world beyond these cold peaks find him, for all the good it would do.

  Jorge Olmos stepped onto the narrow ledge which fronted the hut, breathing hard. “By all the Gods, Thomas, but you’re a hard man to find.”

  Thomas stared at him, saying nothing.

  “And it’s good to see you too, Jorge. Thank you for coming to rescue me.”

  Thomas turned his gaze away. Retreating shadows cut the valleys and ridges that tumbled to where the sea lay, grey and misted. He studied the play of light and dark, holding the words he wanted to say inside. He tried to think of nothing, tried not to think of love and loss and friendship, but he knew it would make no difference to Jorge. It never had.

  “Do you have any food? I’m starving. I set out hours ago and haven’t eaten since yesterday morning.” He dropped the sack he carried on his back, a self-built monstrosity of sailcloth and rope that looked heavy. “I have a little bread in here. It’s stale but you don’t look as if you’ll care.” Jorge cocked his head. “Have you eaten anything at all the last six months?”

  “I’m still here, aren’t I?” Thomas hadn’t meant to speak, but Jorge could always sneak past his defences. He had loved the man once. Loved him like his own brother … but no, he wouldn’t let his mind go there. Any love he might once have felt had been scourged from his soul.

  “I’ll light a fire, shall I? You’re sure you have no food?”

  Thomas shook his head, making no move from his seat. He watched as Jorge lugged the pack inside—though inside was barely a concept for what remained of the hut—and pulled at the ties until he could reach inside.

  “I like what you’ve done to the place.” Jorge tugged at the noose hanging from the rafter, setting it swinging. “Do you plan on using this?” He glanced up to where sky showed instead of a roof. “It might not be such a good idea, you know. You’re more likely to bring the whole place down on top of you.” He gave a half smile. “No doubt kill yourself, one way or another. Belia sends her love, by the way. Will too. Amal would if she could talk.”

  “You’re making up for it, I see,” Thomas said. “The same as always. Why did you come?” He stared at the noose, which continued to swing softly, calling to him. It had been calling to him for over a month as he trekked higher and higher into the flanks of the mighty Sholayr. At every place he stopped, if he could, he tied the noose as a reminder that if this life became too much to bear, there was a solution to his pain. So far he had managed to ignore its call, but wondered how much longer he might do so.

  “Why do you think I came?” said Jorge. He had found a stack of wood piled beside the fireplace and knelt to arrange twigs above a handful of dry grass and shavings. He looked around, rose, and checked in the few places remaining in what was left of the hut until he found a flint. He knelt once more and sparked the shavings, blew until a flame appeared. He waited, adding larger pieces of wood as the fire caught. There had been a chimney once, but now only the upper part remained. Smoke rose to be tugged away by a rising wind as the day came awake around them.

  “If I knew why you were here I w
ouldn’t have had to ask,” Thomas said.

  “You’ve grown stupid then, have you? I suppose it had to happen one day. All that thinking has worn your brain out. I told you it was dangerous.”

  Thomas half turned despite himself. He watched as Jorge drew out a quarter loaf of dark Spanish bread and laid it on a flat stone beside the fireplace. Despite the broken roof and walls Thomas had turned the ruin into some kind of home. He was surprised how it had become so.

  Jorge fed the fire with more sticks, before tearing lumps of bread off and spearing them with a sliver of wood to toast into edible submission.

  Thomas almost smiled at the domestic mundanity as Jorge sprinkled oil and herbs on the bread. The aroma made his mouth water, before he managed to shut his thoughts down and set his expression. He knew it had been a mistake to allow Jorge to catch up with him, but he had begun to believe it was that or use the noose.

  Thomas wondered when the decision to choose life over death had come, or if it even had. Ever since he had walked away from Malaka, almost every moment of every day had been filled with an aching emptiness. His sleep, when he managed to find any, was shattered by dreams that only made the pain worse. He had lost people before. People close to him. But those losses were nothing compared to the void left by Lubna. Not even the theft of Eleanor, snatched from him when they both had little more than seventeen years, had affected him in this way, though at the time he believed her loss would remain with him forever. Now he hadn’t thought of Eleanor in years, her image only conjured in weak comparison.

  Lubna had been his wife. She had carried their child when her life was stolen, and Thomas had not been there to save her.

  He wondered where Jorge had learned to cook. Had he learned to cook? He was making a reasonable show of knowing what he was doing, the sight even stranger than the thoughts Thomas harboured. The breeze brought a scent of warm bread to him and sparked a painful cramp in his stomach, which had not tasted food in … He tried to remember when last he ate, and couldn’t.

  “How fares Belia?”

  Jorge looked up, as if surprised he wasn’t alone.

  “She is well.”

  “And…” Thomas’s voice drifted away, his mind doing the same. He pictured Will, his body loose as he lay against Lubna, and his chest hitched. He wiped at fresh tears and breathed deep. “And Will?”

  “He misses you, of course. As does Amal.”

  “Amal doesn’t even know who I am.”

  “Will talks to her of you. Not everything he says is true, but most is.”

  “She is too young to understand.”

  “How can we know for sure? She smiles when he tells his tales, so I think she does. She is proud of her father. You need to come home, Thomas.”

  “Why? There is nothing there for me anymore.”

  “There is Will, and there is Amal. And there are others who love you. Belia and me, and Olaf.”

  “Except you are here. Why have you abandoned them?”

  “Usaden is their protection. A better protection than I could ever offer.”

  “He is there and Lubna is not. You were meant to take her to safety and Usaden was meant to protect her.”

  Jorge fed more wood on the fire, even though there was nothing left to cook. Thomas watched his breath come hard, his body stiffen with anger, and knew he had gone too far. Knew he would no doubt do the same again. Lubna’s death wasn’t Usaden’s fault, or Jorge’s. It was his.

  “Is Olaf back on the hill?”

  Jorge nodded. He made a show of checking the bread, as if it was some fine banquet he had prepared.

  Thomas turned away to the endless vista of hills, the sky distant and cloudless as the day took relentless hold. He forgot about Jorge as he sank back into his own misery. To one side the peaks of the Sholayr sparked white with snow. It had fallen here a few days before, and Thomas had wondered if the cold might steal what little spark of life remained in him. But he had been unlucky and woken the next day. Morning after morning came, an unending tide of pain with nothing to offer but more of the same.

  He had no recollection of how many days or weeks or months had passed since Malaka fell, taking the life of Lubna with it. He recalled that when Abbot Mandana and his son Pedro Guerrero—a secret he hadn’t known of until that day— stormed the Alkhazabah, it had been summer. Now it was late winter, so not a year, but close to half a year. And still there was no lessening of the ice gripping his heart. He didn’t think there ever would be. The pain was his punishment. It was all he deserved. It hadn’t been Jorge’s fault, or Usaden’s, or Olaf’s or anyone else’s. It had been Thomas who killed her. Thomas who abandoned Lubna to follow a quest for justice that once burned so bright within him. It had been a fruitless quest. He had thwarted a plot to steal Malaka’s gold, and in doing so lost the person who mattered most to him. Even then, Fernando, king of Spain, had stolen away more than half the riches of the richest city in the land. Now it would be used to continue the fight against Thomas’s beloved al-Andalus—the fight against a way of life he had made his own. Except his life was now forfeit, for there was nothing left for him to live for.

  Except Will. And Amal.

  Jorge was right. Thomas’s children needed a father. But was Thomas the man for that job, or would Jorge not make a better replacement?

  The man came, bringing the scent of toasted bread. He pushed Thomas aside so he could sit on the same rock, even though there were others nearby. He handed a lump of warm bread to Thomas and said, “Eat.”

  Thomas stared at the bread and his stomach cramped. He thought he might try some in a moment.

  “How can I eat? I accepted joy into my life and then destroyed it. I may never eat again.”

  “Don’t act like an idiot.” Jorge spoke with his mouth full. “Or a victim.”

  “What am I if not a victim? I had a wife, a son, a daughter about to be born. Instead she had to be ripped from her dead mother’s belly. I loosened the ties on my heart and allowed joy to enter, only to have it dashed away.” He looked at the bread again and knew Jorge was right but was unwilling to give up his cloak of misery yet. He took a bite, saliva flooding his mouth, and was sure he groaned.

  “Will and Amal need you.”

  Was that enough? Thomas tore another bite from the bread. It was tough, tasteless, but he could recall no better meal since he had walked out from Malaka half a year before. He had been filled with rage that day, but somewhere over the days between he had lost it. He had no wish to find it again, for the rage seemed to be a part of someone else, someone he had once been and was no more.

  “Who killed her?” Thomas asked.

  “Don’t think on it.”

  “I can think of nothing else. I need to know. Who struck the blow? And Yusuf—the last hope for al-Andalus—who struck him down?” He glanced at Jorge, surprised at his placid face, surprised he was not also angry. “Usaden was there. He might have told me, but if he did I have forgotten.”

  “It wasn’t Mandana,” Jorge said

  “Do you speak of it between you?”

  “Now and then, of course we do. Usaden feels a measure of responsibility. He’s a good man.”

  Thomas nodded but said nothing, waiting.

  “Mandana ignored the small gathering in the courtyard and went in search of riches. It was why he was there. Another group of soldiers came, led by someone Usaden didn’t know, not then. But you would have.”

  “You make no sense.” Thomas ate more of the bread, each mouthful spreading a sneaking warmth through his body.

  “Usaden said they were led by a young man. Tall and handsome. He said it was the handsome nature that confused him. Only later when he considered it more deeply did it come to him. He said it wasn’t Mandana who struck the blow that killed Lubna, but this other man.”

  Thomas steeled himself to think back to his time in Malaka: the day a tall man, a handsome man, had come to the Infirmary carrying his already dead wife in his arms. How he had raged, blaming Th
omas and Lubna for not being able to save her. And another day, when chaos reigned. The day Lubna died. He had made efforts to expunge it from his mind but failed. Of course he had failed. Forgetting that day would mean forgetting Lubna.

  Mandana had come to the Alkhazabah with soldiers, but had he been their leader? It was a long time ago and much of that day had slipped from Thomas’s memory—but the other man had been with Mandana, close to him outside the fortress walls.

  “You are thinking,” said Jorge. “I can see it on your face. What is it?”

  “Yes, I know the man. His name is Pedro Guerrero.” Thomas’s chest shuddered when he breathed in. “He hates me, hated Lubna, because he blamed us both for the death of his wife.”

  “You make no sense.”

  “One of us must have told you. It was before the Spanish came, before we moved into the city. Guerrero claimed he had been out in a small boat, his pregnant wife waiting on the beach. She was attacked by some men. Violated. Left for dead. He saw it all, he said, but accepts no blame to himself, even though he left her there on her own.” Thomas shook his head. “I believe he was spying on the city’s defences for the Spanish.”

  “I think I remember you telling us,” said Jorge.

  “We managed to save the child,” Thomas said, “but he blamed us for that as well. He should have killed me, because it was mostly my work that day, but he was a coward and took the life of the woman I loved. Tried to take the child she carried as well.” Thomas looked up. “I came here to find him, but I let myself sink into my own misery. That stops today.”