The Map

by T. S. Learner

  5

  August leaned against the railing staring out at the vast chalk cliffs. The sea smashed against the foot of the soaring coastline then dissolved into mist. It was an endless cycle: waves, rocks, sea spray. Hypnotic. Infinite. The wind, laced with salt and the smell of the diesel from the smoke billowing out of the ferry’s funnel, beat against his face and hair erasing all thought or regret. Instead he was filled with nothing but the sharp chill of the air and an imagined camaraderie with all the generations of departing migrants who would also have stared back, as he did now, at the majestic permanency of the Dover coast. It felt like liberation.

  The ferry emitted one last lingering horn blast that echoed across the blue-grey water, then gathered speed as it ploughed towards Calais. August tossed his cigarette butt away before turning to go into the top deck.

  Inside there was the usual milling crowd of passengers: some tourists, English and loud, laughing and chattering excitedly among themselves about the duty-free purchases, the clubs they were going to visit in Paris, the frustrations at the passport queue; while a few travelling salesmen sat along the wooden benches in clusters of one or two. All in the cheap suits and trilby hats of their profession, some barely shaving, shiny in anticipation, as their elders slouched in seasoned resignation. Two women stood open-mouthed waiting for the tiny duty-free shop to open, the small glass shelves filled with a selection of dramatically shaped perfume bottles, silk scarves and seamed stockings – goods still hard to find in Britain. There was a young girl in a corner weeping silently into a handkerchief, slim and elegant in a well-tailored but humble dress – French, August decided, a nanny returning home perhaps, leaving behind an English lover. He was tempted to go over and comfort her but decided it was more prudent to stay as anonymous and invisible as possible – he couldn’t afford any emotional complications. Behind the young woman sat a middle-aged matron studiously reading a book. Dressed in a tweed suit and gloves, she looked well-heeled, and for a moment August wondered why she wasn’t travelling first class, then thought nothing of it.

  He found himself a seat on a bench facing the bow. The view of the horizon and the two wings of ocean stretched across the large glass front of the cabin. It was one of those rare views of the world – devoid of man, elemental, timeless. Such sights always summoned a primal wonder in August, ever since he was a small boy staring out at the Atlantic from the family’s beach house in Martha’s Vineyard. He looked out, remembering how much he loved the feeling of travel, of moving forward into the complete unknown. It used to be how he reinvented himself – Cecily would say accusingly, ‘escaped himself’. He stretched, shaking off the creeping exhaustion of the night before. Passport control at Dover that morning had been tense. August expected the detective to have issued a warning on his name through Interpol. Luckily, he still had his US passport, and the travel pass he’d been given by MI6 just after the war was still valid. The passport inspector had raised his eyebrows at the American passport but been silenced when August produced the government-approved travel pass with its impressive stamp. Nevertheless, August wondered if the French would be so unquestioning.

  Across the aisle the young French woman had stopped sobbing and now gazed blankly into the distance. One of the travelling salesmen had fallen into a snoring doze while his companions appeared determined to get drunk on duty-free whisky. A lull underlaid by the faint excitement of the traveller settled over the half-empty deck, now rocking gently as the ferry cut its way through the Channel. August closed his eyes and again images of both the professor’s sprawling dead body and Cecily’s dismayed face just before she walked out flashed into his mind. It was no good, he couldn’t break free of them. He opened his eyes again, placing his hand on the travelling bag as a kind of instinctive comfort, his anchor in transit. Under his fingers he could feel the edges of the chronicle hidden inside; it was a reassuring sensation. He reached into the bag and pulled out the next pages of the chronicle he’d managed to decode in the early hours of the morning and began to read, the alchemist’s words filling his head, drowning out the low rumble of the ship’s engine.

  My first challenge was to translate the ancient diary of Yehuda, written in the language of my forefathers, and although I had learned Hebrew from my father, to be found carrying such a document would have had me arrested as a heretic. The diary itself was incomplete, a thin collection of notes written in wild and almost illegible script – there were also maps – with strange and bizarre references to lands I’ve never heard of. I studied the manuscript for a year, late at night while Uxue slept. Night after night I burned the candle low, struggling with the maestro’s cryptic account of his expedition – the nightmare of following the carnage Tariq’s army left in its wake, the moral struggle he felt in himself divided as he was between physic and conqueror.

  It appeared that Elazar ibn Yehuda hath come upon information of a great botanical secret, one that could make a man either a God or a Monster. He hath heard that the first place he needed to look was in the remote mountain valleys that made the natural divide between the Goths and the Vascones. The more he hath heard about this great treasure, the more he was determined to find and conquer its power – not just for his Caliph but for himself. Eventually, I came to understand he hath found several secret forested places within which was to be found a botanical clue leading to the location of the great treasure itself. The first of the locations appeared to be in Biscay. Then rumour reached us that the Inquisitorial guard and their Dominican masters hath arrived and they hath started arresting the innocent already.

  §

  Shimon sat at the simple oak desk he kept beside the window of the cottage, under the eaves of the farmhouse. The tallow in the oil lamp was burning low and despite the frosty air outside he had the small pebble glass window wide open so that the black smoke from the wick could escape into the night. Elazar ibn Yehuda’s papers were spread over the wooden surface, the yellowing parchment cracked and curling at the edges. The lettering was barely visible: an archaic jumble of which Shimon could only really understand every second or third word. His transcription sat to the left of him; a labour of hours, it covered only a few pages of his chronicle. He lay down his quill carefully, so as not to waste the expensive ink, then stared out at the moon. It seemed to call him – three-quarters full, it hung low in the sky, a reddish brown, something portentous about its pockmarked visage. A bad omen, he thought, wondering about his own future. Outside, the valley below the cottage stretched out in the moonlight like a wondrous carpet. The River Ebro – a black glittering snake – wound through it with a slow majesty. Far greener and more lush than the arid southern landscape of his childhood, the country around Logroño had become precious to Shimon. As had the cottage they rented in a village on the outskirts of the town, a small building with two rooms – a front room in which they both received their patients, with the desk he now sat at and a small iron bed more for show than sleeping, and a back room with an open fireplace for cooking, a wooden table for eating (above which Uxue had hung her bunches of drying herbs) and a couch – it was on the couch in this room that they both slept. Small as it was, the cottage had come with enough land for them to grow maize, keep three cows, a few hens for eggs and a donkey. Of the two small fields they leased, one was completely dedicated to the growing of herbs and plants he used in the apothecary and the other Uxue used for her healing practices: black elder, celandine, bay, rue and sugebelarra – serpent’s herb – among others.

  Next to the lavish Córdoba townhouse of his childhood, it was humble and Shimon knew his merchant father would have considered it a peasant’s house and would have been devastated to see how his only son and heir, an educated youth who’d once had all the mercantile opportunities Córdoba had to offer, had been reduced to living like a poor farmer. Yet Shimon had never been happier. In the five years he had lived this double life, he had learned a science and had excelled at it, he had loved and was loved, and most importantly he had found commun
ity. Truculent at first, the local folk were slow to win over, but once won they were loyal for life. And there had been a great need for a physic who was skilful and successful in his craft but who also did not charge exorbitant money for his services. Soon Shimon had become known as ‘the people’s doctor’. Often he did not charge the very poor and was happy to make a trade with those who had no coinage, and as a result his larder was always full.

  The cottage itself was near enough to the town for his wealthier patrons to be bothered to visit him and far enough away to provide them with some protection from the authorities. Both his and Uxue’s businesses relied solely on word of mouth. What else could they rely on, patronage? And as they were both good healers, they had prospered. Soon they would be able to afford a child. But not yet, Shimon told himself; in nearby Miranda they had heard of the arrests in Zugarramurdi. Fear among the communities had spread like an infection – one carried by a fast wind. Uxue had been especially worried; as a Basque healer who used the old ways, she would be particularly vulnerable to suspicion. Just then he heard the low murmuring of his wife tossing in her sleep in the simple couch in the back room. Shimon glanced through the open door. At the foot of the couch their dog they’d called Little Mountain – Menditxu – a Basque hunting hound, slept, his massive head tucked between two large paws, a thin line of drool hanging from his floppy furry lips. How long did they have before this small pocket of utopia was destroyed? And how could Shimon, himself a secret heretic, protect the woman he loved? And, as an outcast, would he ever trust his own happiness? Down on the wooden floor Menditxu’s ears twitched and his large bloodshot eyes sprung open as if he had heard or sensed something in the distance. The dog got up and trotted over to Shimon, his ears alert and erect, his head cocked towards the window.

  ‘What do you hear, boy?’ Shimon asked, softly, careful not to wake Uxue. In response the dog growled softly, now pacing backwards and forwards beneath the window.

  ‘Shh, Menditxu,’ Shimon commanded, and the dog cowered and retreated under the desk. Shimon looked out of the window. At the far end of the narrow lane – trees on one side, the valley and slopes covered in fields on the other – the flare of torches was just visible as a group of people and horses turned a corner. Shimon watched in horror as the procession – completely silent except for the panting of the horses and the faint clanking of stirrups and armour among saddle – moved down the road. As they drew nearer he could see the brown habit of the Dominican priests who held the flaring torches, their taut arms betraying a fanatic determinism, their hoods pulled low over their brows. Wearing the crimson-and-black tunics of the Inquisitional police, with the royal coat of arms embroidered on the breast, swords tied to their waists, and grim-faced, they flanked the pitiful group of prisoners on horses as they silently rode – five on each side. And now as they mounted the crest at the top of the lane just before passing the farmhouse, moonlight flooded the faces of the prisoners themselves. Thirty, Shimon guessed, thirty men, women and children, manacled and in filthy hemp cloth, barely human, stumbling and staggering between the guards and the silent monks. Some of the men had chains around their bleeding ankles. All of them were barefoot, their hair wild and unkempt, the men bearded. All bore the marks of torture. One boy, who appeared the youngest child, about ten years of age, his face hollowed by starvation, his eyes deep set and blackened with exhaustion, stared out terrified and bewildered. He looked like he had lost his wits, Shimon observed. These must be the accused from Zugarramurdi and the other villages, he thought, noticing a hooded figure, a woman, riding a white stallion between two guards, a long maroon cloak and hood concealing her face. As she passed under the window, her horse reared up and the hood fell away from her face. Recognising her instantly, a chill ran through Shimon – it was her, the English woman who had betrayed his own family. Overcome by terror and nausea, he pulled back from the window. Leaning against the wall, he found he was shaking all over.

  ‘What is it, my love?’ Uxue sat up in bed, her face filled with anxiety.

  ‘Nothing, go back to sleep,’ he murmured, as quickly as he could, but the dog was up again, growling and pacing nervously, and the soft shuffling and marching outside was clearly audible.

  ‘What’s that noise?’ Uxue was now climbing out of the bed, her long black hair spilling out behind her to the small of her back, the white night gown gathered around her thighs. Terrified, Shimon stepped towards her.

  ‘Please my love, for both our sakes keep silent!’

  But she was already at the window, staring out, her body becoming rigid as she realised what she was witnessing. Shimon slid down beside her.

  ‘It is the witch-hunt returning, Pierre de Lancre’s victims,’ she whispered, her eyes wide in horror. ‘But I know some of these people.’

  ‘Stay silent, Uxue, otherwise you will condemn us too.’

  They watched in shock as the procession passed the window, winding itself past the farmhouses down to the town of Logroño, the priests’ faces hidden in hooded darkness, the soldiers’ impassive and stony-faced, eyes forward. The prisoners delirious in fear and terror knowing nothing except the exhaustion of another step on the rocky ground before them. Just then one of the men lifted his eyes and saw the two pale faces looking at him from the window.

  ‘Lagundu anaia!’ he yelled. ‘Help me, brother!’ Inside, Uxue started up, ready to answer, but Shimon wrestled her away from the window, covering her mouth with his hand.

  ‘Are you mad, woman? Do you want to join them?’

  She burst into silent sobbing and he cradled her as they both lay on the floor waiting for the footfall and clattering hooves outside to pass.

  When the pale blue of the dawn had started to creep across the straw-covered floor, lighting up the veins of his wife’s feet, Shimon got up and pulled shut the window. Uxue, shaking the grief from her face and shoulders, dusted the straw from her night dress, mustering courage from the stoicism she could now see in her young husband’s face.

  ‘We must leave today, this very hour if must be, Uxue. Else face arrest ourselves.’

  ‘I know, my love. I have thought this myself, but how? We are known, we will be seen and named.’

  ‘Those who are named are named by their enemies only. We have no enemies.’

  ‘Some scream the names of those they love under torture, anything to save their own lives. This is human frailty.’

  ‘We are all frail.’

  ‘Husband, two days ago I found flax seed scattered across the front doorstep.’

  ‘Flax seed?’

  ‘It is what people believe stops sorceresses from flying. Someone believes me to be a witch, Shimon.’ She sounded terrified.

  ‘We will leave at night, under cover.’ He was decided.

  Uxue pulled off her nightshirt, her pendulous breasts revealed in their white and red-tipped glory, the thick black bush of her sex startling against her heavy thighs. For a moment Shimon observed that his wife was thickening into an older womanhood and he loved her for it. He thought about reaching for her, and how this would push away the terror, if momentarily, but she was already pulling on a skirt and a smock and scraping her hair back into a cowl.

  ‘I have often thought of this day and it is inescapable. I have a plan, husband.’

  He walked over to take her hand. In the five years they had been together she had always been the practical one, the ballast to his dreaming.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So this ancient book you wish to follow, you told me the first destination that was mentioned was in Biscay, the country of my people.’

  ‘And …’

  ‘We will travel there. We will flee the Inquisition, yet make a virtue of our journey, for, husband, I will not be broken by such people.’ The fierceness in her voice flooded him with pride. Here was the strength he needed, here was the defiance he secretly feared he’d always lacked.

  ‘You would do this with me? You will support me in this quest?’

  ‘I wi
ll do more than that, I will be your assistant. I will, using my craft, assist our search in any way possible. My plan is that we are to travel in disguise. A disguise that will cause revulsion and will make people shun us.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘You will disguise yourself as a priest, the kind who helps lepers. I will disguise myself as a rich young woman stricken with the disfigurement. The reason behind our travel is that you are escorting me to the leper hospital at Errenteria. With the use of herbs I shall create a mask of such hideous appearance people will avert their eyes for fear of infection.’

  ‘Ingenious. We will take the donkey and you will ride as the rich patient. I shall don the correct robes and carry the leper’s bell I will ring on approaching a village. Uxue, this is a fine and solid plan, no one will dare approach us. We pack what essentials we need and be gone by sunrise.’

  ‘What about the dog, Menditxu?’

  ‘He will come also. If we leave him, he will be drowned as a witch’s familiar.’

  §

  An announcement over the intercom of the ferry told August they were due to dock in ten minutes. Absorbed by his reading, he barely heard the deep voice booming from the speakers. It was only when the other passengers started gathering up their possessions that he looked up from the sheaf of transcribed pages.

  Olivia watched from behind her book, then picked up her own bags, careful not to get too close, not to appear interested or even aware of the tall American now stepping towards the exit. She was just about to follow when she became conscious of a man she hadn’t noticed before on the boat. A tall Slavic-looking man, nondescript apart from the muscularity and extraordinary length of his arms apparent even hidden under a raincoat. As he walked over to follow the American she noticed a gleam of intent, of urgency, for a split second in his movement. It was betraying. August has a second shadow, she thought to herself. In the same instant a thread of fear, a sensation so intense it was almost sexual, shot through her as she realised she knew who this second shadow might belong to.