A Column of Fire

by Ken Follett

  ‘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.

  5

  Margery’s wedding was postponed.

  After the fall of Calais, England expected to be invaded, and Bart Shiring was deputed to raise a hundred men-at-arms and garrison Combe Harbour. The wedding would have to wait.

  For Ned Willard
, postponement was hope.

  Towns such as Kingsbridge were hastily repairing their walls, and earls reinforcing their castles. Ports scraped the rust off the ancient cannons on their sea fronts, and demanded that the local nobility do their duty and defend the population against the dreaded French.

  People blamed Queen Mary Tudor. It was all her fault, for marrying the king of Spain. Were it not for him Calais would still be English, England would not be at war with France, and there would be no need for city walls and waterfront cannons.

  Ned was glad. While Margery and Bart remained unmarried, anything could happen: Bart could change his mind, or be killed in battle, or die of the shivering fever that was sweeping the country.

  Margery was the woman Ned wanted, and that was that. The world was full of attractive girls, but none of them counted: she was the one. He did not really understand why he was so sure. He just knew that Margery would always be there, like the cathedral.

  He regarded her engagement as a setback, not a defeat.

  Bart and his squadron mustered in Kingsbridge to travel by barge to Combe Harbour on the Saturday before Holy Week. That morning, a crowd gathered at the river to cheer the men off. Ned joined them. He wanted to be sure that Bart really went.

  It was cold but sunny, and the waterfront looked festive. Downstream of Merthin’s Bridge, boats and barges were moored on both banks and all around Leper Island. On the far side, in the suburb of Loversfield, warehouses and workshops jostled for space. From Kingsbridge the river was navigable, by shallow-draught vessels, all the way to the coast. Kingsbridge had long been one of the biggest market towns in England; now it did business with Europe, too.

  A big barge was docking on the near bank when Ned arrived at Slaughterhouse Wharf. This had to be the vessel that would take Bart and his company to Combe Harbour. Twenty men had rowed upriver, assisted by a single sail. Now they rested on their oars while the barge was poled into a berth. The downriver voyage would be easier, even with a hundred passengers.

  The Fitzgeralds came down the main street to give an enthusiastic send-off to the man who was set to become their son-in-law. Sir Reginald and Rollo walked side by side, old and new editions of the same tall, thin, self-righteous book; Ned stared at them with hatred and contempt. Margery and Lady Jane were behind them, one small and sexy, one small and mean.

  Ned believed that Rollo saw Margery as nothing more than a means to power and prestige. Many men had this attitude to the girls in their family, but in Ned’s eyes it was the opposite of love. If Rollo was fond of his sister, it was no more than the emotion he might have felt towards a horse: he might like it, but he would sell or trade it if necessary.

  Sir Reginald was no better. Ned suspected that Lady Jane was not quite so ruthless, but she would always put the interests of the family before the happiness of any individual member, and in the end that led her to the same cruelty.

  Ned watched Margery go up to Bart. He was preening, proud to have the prettiest girl in Kingsbridge as his fiancée.

  Ned studied her. It almost seemed as if there was a different person wearing the bright coat of Kingsbridge Scarlet and the little hat with the feather. She stood straight and still, and although she was talking to Bart, her face was like that of a statue. Everything about her expressed resolution, not animation. The imp of mischief had vanished.

  But no one could change so quickly. That imp must still be inside her somewhere.

  He knew she was miserable, and that made him angry as well as sad. He wanted to pick her up and run away with her. At night he elaborated fantasies in which the two of them slipped out of Kingsbridge at dawn and disappeared into the forest. Sometimes they walked to Winchester and got married under false names; or they made their way to London and set up in some business; they even went to Combe Harbour and took ship to Seville. But he could not save her unless she wanted to be saved.

  The oarsmen disembarked and went into the nearest tavern, the Slaughterhouse, to quench their thirsts. A passenger got off the barge, and Ned stared at him in surprise. Wrapped in a grubby cloak and carrying a battered leather satchel, the man had the wearily dogged look of the long-distance traveller. It was Ned’s cousin Albin from Calais.

  They were the same age, and had become close while Ned was living with Uncle Dick.

  Ned hurried to the quay. ‘Albin?’ he said. ‘Is it you?’

  Albin replied in French. ‘Ned, at last,’ he said. ‘What a relief.’

  ‘What happened in Calais? We still haven’t had definite information, even after all this time.’

  ‘It’s all bad news,’ Albin said. ‘My parents and my sister are dead, and we’ve lost everything. The French crown seized the warehouse and handed over everything to French merchants.’

  ‘We were afraid of that.’ It was the news the Willards had been dreading for so long, and Ned felt deeply dispirited. He was particularly sad for his mother, who had lost her life’s work. She would be devastated. But Albin had suffered a much greater loss. ‘I’m so sorry about your parents and

  They walked up the main street. ‘I managed to escape from the town,’ Albin said. ‘But I had no money, and, anyway, it’s impossible to get passage from France to England now because of the war. That’s why you’ve had no news.’

  ‘So how did you get here?’

  ‘First I had to leave France, so I crossed the border into the Netherlands. But I still didn’t have the fare to England. So I had to get to our uncle in Antwerp.’

  Ned nodded. ‘Jan Wolman, our fathers’ cousin.’ Jan had visited Calais while Ned was there, so both he and Albin had met him.

  ‘So I walked to Antwerp.’

  ‘That’s more than a hundred miles.’

  ‘And my feet felt every yard. I took a lot of wrong turnings, and I nearly starved to death, but I got there.’

  ‘Well done. Uncle Jan took you in, no doubt.’

  ‘He was wonderful. He fed me beef and wine, and Aunt Hennie bandaged my feet. Then Jan bought me passage from Antwerp to Combe Harbour, and a new pair of shoes, and gave me money for the journey.’

  ‘And here you are.’ They arrived at the door of the Willard house. Ned escorted Albin into the parlour. Alice was sitting at a table placed near the window for light, writing in a ledger. There was a big fire in the grate, and she was wrapped in a fur-lined cloak. No one ever got warm keeping books, she sometimes said. ‘Mother, here’s Albin, arrived from Calais.’

  Alice put down her pen. ‘Welcome, Albin.’ She turned back to Ned. ‘Fetch your cousin something to eat and drink.’

  Ned went to the kitchen and asked the housekeeper, Janet Fife, to serve wine and cake.

  Back in the parlour, Albin told his story. He spoke French, with Ned translating the parts his mother did not understand.

  It brought tears to Ned’s eyes. The portly figure of his mother seemed to shrink in the chair as the grim details came out: her brother-in-law dead, with wife and daughter; the warehouse given to a French merchant, with all its contents; strangers living in Dick’s house. ‘Poor Dick,’ Alice said quietly. ‘Poor Dick.’

  Ned said: ‘I’m so sorry, Mother.’

  Alice made an effort to sit upright and be positive. ‘We’re not ruined, not quite. I still have this house and four hundred pounds. And I own six houses by St Mark’s church.’ The St Mark’s cottages were her inheritance from her father, and brought a small income in rents. ‘That’s more wealth than most people see in a lifetime.’ Then she was struck by a worrying thought. ‘Though now I wish my four hundred pounds were not on loan to Sir Reginald Fitzgerald.’

  ‘All the better,’ said Ned. ‘If he doesn’t pay it back, we get the priory.’

  ‘Speaking of that,’ said his mother, ‘Albin, do you know anything of an English ship called the St Margaret?’

  ‘Why, yes,’ said Albin. ‘It came into Calais for repairs the day before the French attack.’

  ‘What happened to the ship?’

  ‘It was seized by
the French crown, like all the other English property in Calais – spoils of war. The hold was full of furs. They were auctioned on the quayside; they sold for more than five hundred pounds.’

  Ned and Alice looked at each other. This was a bombshell. Alice said: ‘So Reginald has lost his investment. My goodness, I’m not sure he can survive this.’

  Ned said: ‘And he’ll forfeit the priory.’

  Alice said grimly: ‘There will be trouble.’

  ‘I know,’ said Ned. ‘He’ll squeal. But we will have a new business.’ He began to brighten. ‘We can make a fresh start.’

  Alice, always courteous, said: ‘Albin, you may like a wash and a clean shirt. Janet Fife will give you everything you need. And then we’ll have dinner.’

  ‘Thank you, Aunt Alice.’

  ‘It is I who thank you for making this long journey and bringing me the facts at last, terrible though they are.’

  Ned studied his mother’s face. She had been rocked by the news, even though it was not unexpected. He felt desperate to do something to renew her spirits. ‘We could go and look at the priory now,’ he said. ‘We can begin to figure out how we’ll parcel out space, and whatnot.’

  She looked apathetic, then she made an effort. ‘Why not?’ she said. ‘It’s ours now.’ She got to her feet.

  They left the house and crossed the market square to the south side of the cathedral.

  Ned’s father, Edmund, had been mayor of Kingsbridge when King Henry VIII began to abolish the monasteries. Alice had told Ned that Edmund and Prior Paul – the last prior of Kingsbridge, as things turned out – had seen what was coming, and conspired together to save the school. They had separated the school from the priory and given it self-government and an endowment. Two hundred years earlier, something similar had been done with Caris’s Hospital, and Edmund had taken that as a model. So the town still had a great school and a famous hospital. The rest of the priory was a ruin.