by David Liss
“So be it,” he said, as if I had explained all of this out loud. He ran at me.
Inácio was big, and he charged like a bull, but I also knew he was cunning. I watched his eyes, not his body—even in the moonlight I could see them shift—and knew his plan was to go low, to cut my legs. I leapt out of the way and spun around the instant he dove.
He was on the ground now, and I remained standing, with the full advantage. I kicked Inácio hard in the side. He grunted, but with the momentum of the kick leapt to his feet, hardly worse for wear. He yet held the dagger.
He charged again. I sidestepped, but this time not quickly enough. Inácio was on me, his weight pinning me to the ground. He stretched his forearm across my chest, immobilizing my arms, and with his free hand raised the dagger.
I drove my forehead into Inácio’s face. I made poor contact, bloodying his nose at worst, but it was enough to make him loosen his grip. I drove a punch into the side of his head, and Inácio fell off me. He scrambled quickly to his feet. He looked at me for a moment, seeming to take a measure of me and the situation, and further off into the blackness of the Lisbon streets. I could see his face shift as he made a decision.
“Revenge or gold!” I cried, as he ran down the street. “You can’t have both.”
I would not follow him. I would deal with Inácio later. Settwell came first, before justice or mourning for Enéas. I hated that it was so, but I gritted my teeth and stepped onto the cart, grabbing the reins.
It was half past two in the morning when I reached Eusebio’s house and brought the gold inside. I was soaked with sweat and my head ached beyond anything I had known. My back throbbed and my arms stung. I was hardly aware of any of it. Enéas was dead. Inácio had betrayed me. But still there was a touch of relief. I was close. I nearly had what I needed to help Settwell, and once that was done, I would be free to settle scores, to deal with Azinheiro—and now Inácio.
I had planned to have Enéas free the mule as soon as I took the gold off the cart, but now it was one more matter to tend to alone. I drove nearly a mile down the street, untethered the animal, and ran the distance back to Nobreza’s house. Both beast and cart would be claimed before dawn, vanishing into the endless churning sea of Lisbon’s poverty.
When I returned to the house, there was only a single lamp lit in the sitting room—no one would wish to lead a neighbor to ask questions or make reports—but the entire house was awake. Luis Nobreza was involved in a heated argument with his son, and Gabriela watched them, her expression unreadable. She wore a wrinkled gown she had hastily thrown over her nightclothes, and her hair was loose and wild.
When I walked into the room, Eusebio spun on me. “You walk into my house as though it were your own?”
“Your father instructed me to do so,” I said, making every effort to keep my voice civil. “I have no wish to cause trouble.”
“Enough,” Eusebio snapped. “Where did this gold come from?” When I did not answer, Eusebio pointed at his father. “Did you even think to ask? There is something criminal or heretical here. Do you want this Englishman to stain us with his taint?”
“There is no taint,” Luis said. “It is business. It is what we do, what we’ve always done. Senhor Foxx asked if I could convert the gold, and I said yes. I’ve done as much for your and our friends for decades.”
“Well, you shan’t do it this time. Get rid of the gold.”
“I can’t do that,” I said. “I no longer have the means of conveyance.”
Eusebio walked over to me and jabbed a finger into my chest. “Then I suggest you flee. You run as fast and as far as you can, because I want no part of this money, and I shall report you and your scheme to the Inquisition this very morning.”
“No, you won’t,” I said. I was angry and tired and hurt. I had seen Enéas’s body lying dead in the cart. And so patience for Eusebio eluded me. He complained and threw up obstacles. And he had Gabriela. That was the most unforgivable thing of all. Keeping her for himself, when he was weak and cowardly. I was the only thing that stood between her and ruin, and her whining little dog of a husband didn’t even know it.
I pointed at him. “You won’t invite the Inquisition to ask questions. You don’t think they’ll ask questions you don’t want to answer? You don’t think they’ll take this gold and link it to your father?”
“Maybe they should,” Eusebio said. “Better he should be in the Palace prison than remain a powder keg in our house, waiting to explode.”
Eusebio’s face had reddened with rage, but the moment he spoke, regret washed over it. He was already turning to apologize to Luis, but it was too late. I was already across the room, grabbing Eusebio by his shirt and lifting him off the ground. I thrust him into the wall hard enough to knock down paintings and dislodge candles from their sconces. Plaster under the wallpaper cracked. Little clouds of dust puffed out.
“My father was dragged off to the Palace dungeons, and he died there, so do not speak of incriminating your own. I will rip your tongue from your mouth before I let that happen. Do you doubt me? Do you?”
“No,” Eusebio gasped. He pushed back against me, though he lacked the strength to make me move. “Now let go of me. They were but empty words.”
I relaxed my hand, and Eusebio stumbled but remained on his feet. “This is Lisbon,” I said. “Words are sharper than blades.”
All was now silent. Eusebio stared at me, eyes wide and limbs shaking. Gabriela stood nearby, a hand over her mouth. She knew. I could see it on her face, but she said nothing.
“Who are you?” Luis asked. “I see no reason not to tell us now.”
“I’m a dead man,” I said. “I pray you do not become like me.”
I began to walk off. Luis followed me and grabbed my arm before I walked through the front door. “What is this money about? Truly?”
“A debt,” I explained. “Long ago, a man fulfilled a promise to my father and saved my life. That money is his. He needs to flee the country, and the money will allow him to save his daughter. That is as much as I will tell you.”
“It is as much as I need to know,” Luis said. “I will have your notes by this afternoon. I shall bring them to you or send them by someone I trust. It is probably better that you do not come back here.”
I nodded. “You are a good man, senhor. I am sorry to have brought trouble to your house, and I am sorry to have behaved so poorly toward your son.”
Luis smiled. “You have a hard time containing your anger.”
I snorted. “That is what it looks like when I succeed in containing my anger.”
Chapter 23
The message from Luis came at almost noon. He did not think it safe to be seen at an English inn himself, and instead he told me to go to the Rossio and wait near the cluster of tailor shops. I hurried out and made my way to the crowded square, conducting some business at stalls and then leaning against a wall and smoking a pipe as though engaged in nothing more important than watching the crowds. From time to time, I was able to keep myself from thinking of Enéas and his cruel and pointless death.
I saw no sign of Luis and began to despair of his coming at all. What if something had gone wrong? What if Eusebio had followed through with his threat, or the family had been taken by the Inquisition for some other reason? I had not told Azinheiro anything of note, but if he had grown impatient, then all might have ended in disaster.
That was precisely what I feared when I saw one of Eusebio’s servants, an elderly man whose name I did not know, approach. The fellow was dour-faced, so it was hard to read anything in his expression.
“Is something amiss?” I asked at once.
“No,” the servant said. “Come with me.”
I followed him out of the square and down a series of winding streets. Then, at an intersection, he said, “The third house on your right. The door is opened.”
“Whose house is it?” I asked.
The servant shrugged. “If I do not know, then I cannot say.”
&nbs
p; I understood about such places. They were often owned jointly by New Christian merchants, purchased by a fidalgo on their behalf, and used for secret meetings. Often there were multiple entrances so men could attend without being seen to enter together. I could not understand why Luis would need to meet in secret. I wondered if I might be stepping into a trap, though traps did not frighten me overmuch. Traps were set by men. Men could always be made to talk.
I walked into the hall. There was an entrance on the left—a well-lit parlor that caught the midday sun in an almost blinding luminescence. There Gabriela waited, already rising to meet me.
She held out a leather envelope toward me. Her expression was unreadable. “Your bank notes,” she said.
I stared at her. With the light of the window behind her, illuminating her sky-blue gown, she looked like something more than human. Her dark hair, tightly bound, glinted in the sunlight. Her face was red and puffy from weeping, but still her beauty was almost painful. And we appeared to be alone. The two of us, with no witnesses. Did she know what she meant to me? Did she mean to inflict this torment?
“Thank you,” I said, my voice a rough croak. I entered the room and turned so she would have to move away from the window, her dress regaining its intended opacity.
“It is for Mr. Settwell, isn’t it?” she said, swallowing hard. “It was always rumored that it was he who helped you escape, and we know he is in trouble.”
I nodded. Words did not come easily.
“Is that why you’ve come back?”
“It is why I stayed so long,” I said.
We stood five feet from each other, taking in each other’s faces, neither daring to move or look away. Her green eyes were fixed on me, and the bow of her mouth was pressed hard together.
“I cannot see how I failed to notice,” she said at last. “But after what you said—and then my husband’s father told me that you wanted the money to save the English merchant who liberated you.” She shook her head. “It all became clear.”
“People see what they expect. And I have changed.”
“That is beyond doubt,” she said.
“Do you judge me?” I asked her, hardly believing what I heard. “I have loved you, Gabriela. All this time, across these years and these miles. You want to know why I came back? I told myself it was for revenge, and then to help a friend, but it was for you. It was always for you.”
“We were children then,” she said. Her eyes were downcast and her voice was very quiet. “And I am married now.”
Was she shy? Was she afraid? Did she need me to be bolder? “What does your marriage mean to me?” I asked. “Eusebio Nobreza is nothing. He cannot stand between us.”
“Is that what you expect? That the past ten years can simply be erased?” Her voice was louder now. Harder.
“I don’t know what I expect,” I told her. “But I had to tell you the truth.”
She looked at me, her eyes cold and without tenderness. “The truth is that we grew up together and we liked each other and you were sweet and kind to me. What is that compared to Eusebio, to whom I owe everything?”
“He is not worthy of you,” I said. “He is a weak—”
“I owe him everything,” she repeated, this time more sharply. “After my father died, I was made to live in a nunnery. I tried to make myself useful, to belong there. I sought to take orders, if you can believe such a thing, because I knew that it would be a better life than anything that awaited me outside. The abbess—she was kind to me and sympathetic to my plight, but she died, and the woman who replaced her had always hated me. And … I was not treated well.”
I reached out for her, but she snatched her arm away.
“No. I don’t want sympathy. I wrote to a friend, telling her what I endured, and she told Eusebio. He came and paid the outrageous fee the abbess asked, and took me away. He brought me back to his house and told me I owed him nothing, that he would forget what he had paid the convent. But I did not want him to send me away. I loved him, truly loved him, for saving me. I have been happy with him. I don’t need a man who throws others against walls or steals gold or plays games with the Inquisition. I need a man who will take care of me and protect me and be a coward if that is what it takes to survive. I need him. So stop pretending we’re children. All of that is gone.”
“I thought—” I began, but I hardly knew how to continue.
“I cannot imagine what you thought,” Gabriela said. Her tone was soft, but the words cut all the same. “You look at me and do not see what is there, but what you wish to be there.”
Could that be true? Roberta had said as much of me, and the little faith I had placed in Inácio had proved to be too much.
I stood in silence, feeling the sting of her words, and feeling foolish for having believed there would be something still between us. Those long years I had held on to the hope of her, the memory of what we had felt for each other. But did I have any notion of how much of it was real and how much invented? What I knew now was that the love I felt was for someone as unreal as any creature of myth. She bore no connection to the angry woman standing in front of me.
Yet, for all the humiliation I felt, I still had to try to save some part of that past. “I will get you out of this country,” I told her.
She shook her head. “Have you heard nothing I said? Your love for me is the love of a child. I will not run off with you.”
“Both of you,” I said, trying to save face, yes, but also seeing things more clearly now. Of course it was madness to think she would leave her husband, but I could still serve her. I had an obligation to do so.
“All of you,” I told her. “I know Eusebio has smuggled money out of the country. I will get you out—you and Eusebio and Luis. You will go where you like.”
She blinked at me. “You would do that for us? Why?”
I looked at the woman who had consumed more of my thoughts than any other person, any other idea, and I understood that this was not the Gabriela I had dreamed of. She was gone, as much a memory as the boy who had loved her. Time and circumstance had remolded her as surely as they had remolded him.
“Why?” she asked again.
“Because for sins of one man against another, the Day of Atonement does not atone until they have made peace with each other.”
“What does that mean?” Gabriela snapped.
“I hope someday you will know. For now it is enough to explain that I need to undo the past. You have a husband, and you love him. I have no desire to hurt anyone. Not ever again.”
“How will you do it?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Not yet. But I will figure out a way.” I thought of Inácio’s threat the night before. Time was running out for the Nobrezas. “Soon. Within the week.”
Here she was, the woman I had loved all my life, and I had just let go of her. While I felt a deep and terrible sadness welling up inside me, I also found, to my surprise, something like comfort. She was gone, but not beyond my helping. I could do something real and undeniable for her. Maybe that would be enough.
“I am sorry I was cruel to you,” she said at last. “I misjudged you.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I said, turning to leave. “And you did not misjudge me. You understand me all too well. If I had the same understanding of myself, perhaps things might have gone better.”
Chapter 24
Wanting to waste no more time, I made haste as I pushed my way through the streets, my leather envelope of incredible wealth tucked into my breeches so that no pickpocket could help himself to what I had acquired through blood and sacrifice. I had to make my way around a procession carrying the bones of some saint or another, but otherwise the streets were empty. Tonight was All Hallows’ Eve, and the superstitious people of Lisbon would already be preparing for an evening of prayer, clutching crucifixes and rosaries, hoping to keep the spirits of the dead away during the most haunted night of the year. Then tomorrow would be All Saints’ Day. The streets would be m
obbed. Every church in Lisbon would be alight with candle and full of song. I would, by then, be in pursuit of my own vengeance instead of Settwell’s. I would tend to Franklin. I would make Inácio pay for his crimes. I would kill Azinheiro, and then I would flee the country with Eusebio and his family. And then? Well, then, of course, I would become a happy man, ready to lead a productive life.
I laughed at the absurdity of my plan. How could I be transformed? I had come to Lisbon to exorcise the darkness, but everywhere I went was the gloomier for it. I no longer pursued these things because I believed they would improve my life. I did them because they needed doing. Where a broken man like me might make his home thereafter, I could not guess.
At Settwell’s house, the old mulatto woman let me in at once, and Settwell rushed to see me. “Well?” he asked.
I held the envelope in my hand already, lest his joy be somewhat diminished by seeing me pull his wealth from my breeches. Settwell snatched it away. He peered inside and his eyes widened. He took a few steps backward and forward. He opened his mouth to speak, but laughter erupted, and he put a hand up to silence himself as though he were a little girl.
“You have done it,” Settwell said. “The money, right here. In my hands.” He reached out and clapped my shoulder. “By God, sir, whatever I did for you, you have repaid me. You have more than repaid me. You have served justice and given new life to me and my daughter.”
Mariana, sensing the excitement, came running down the stairs and threw her arms around me. “Mr. Foxx!” she cried. “What did you bring me?”
“Mariana!” snapped her father. “Do not be rude. Mr. Foxx has other things to worry himself about than geegaws for little girls.”
“For ordinary little girls, to be sure,” I said. “For special little girls, I have no more pressing business.” From my pocket I pulled forth a cleverly carved little wooden duck, trailed by a train of ducklings. I had bought it in the Rossio before meeting Gabriela.
Mariana squealed. “I love it. This is the best present I have ever received!”
