A Column of Fire

by Ken Follett

  Sylvie was overwhelmed by shock, disgust and horror as she recognized the man at the right hand of the new duke of Guise.

  It was Pierre.

  12

  Barney thought the Caribbean island of Hispaniola must be the hottest place on earth.

  In the summer of 1563 he was still master gunner on the Hawk, three years after he had boarded the ship in Antwerp wanting to go only as far as Combe Harbour. He longed to go home and see his family but, strangely, he was not very angry about having been tricked into joining the crew. Life at sea was dangerous and often cruel, but there was something about it that suited Barney. He liked waking up in the morning not knowing what the day would bring. More and more, he felt that the sad collapse of his mother’s business had been, for him, an escape.

  His main complaint was all-male society. He had always loved the company of women, and they, in turn, often found him attractive. Unlike many crew, he did not resort to dockside whores, who often gave men horrible infections. He yearned just to stroll along a street with a girl at his side, flirting and looking for a chance to snatch a kiss.

  The Hawk had sailed from Antwerp to Seville, then to the Canary Islands. There followed a series of lucrative round trips, taking knives and ceramic tiles and clothing from Seville to the islands and bringing back barrels of strong Canary wine. It was a peaceful trade, so Barney’s expertise in gunnery had not been required, although he had kept the armaments in constant readiness. The crew had shrunk from fifty to forty through accidents and disease, the hazards of normal life at sea, but there had been no fighting.

  Then Captain Bacon had decided that the big money was in slaves. At Tenerife he had found a Portuguese pilot called Duarte who was familiar with both the African coast and the transatlantic crossing. The crew had become restive at this dangerous prospect, especially after so long at sea; so Bacon had promised that they would return home after one trip, and get a bonus.

  Slavery was a major industry in West Africa. Since before anyone could remember, the kings and chieftains of the region had sold their fellow men to Arab buyers who took them to the slave markets of the Middle East. The new European traders horned in on an existing business.

  Bacon bought three hundred and twenty men, women and children in Sierra Leone. Then the Hawk headed west across the Atlantic Ocean to the vast unmapped territory called New Spain.

  The crew did not like the slave business. The wretched victims were crammed together in the hold, chained up in filthy conditions. Everyone could hear the children crying and the women wailing. Sometimes they sang sad songs to keep up their spirits, and that was even worse. Every few days one of them would die, and the body would be thrown overboard with no ceremony. ‘They’re just cattle,’ Bacon said, if anyone complained; but cattle did not sing laments.

  The first Europeans to cross the Atlantic had thought, when they made landfall, that they were in India, so they had called these islands the West Indies. They knew better now that Magellan and Elcano had circumnavigated the globe, but the name stuck.

  Hispaniola was the most developed of many islands, few of which were even named. Its capital, Santo Domingo, was the first European city in New Spain, and even had a cathedral, but to his disappointment Barney did not get to see it. The pilot Duarte directed the Hawk away from the city because what the ship was doing was illegal. Hispaniola was governed by the king of Spain, and English merchants were forbidden to trade there. So Duarte advised Captain Bacon to head for the northern coast, as far away as possible from the forces of law and order.

  The sugar planters were desperate for labour. Barney had heard that something like half of all Europeans who migrated to the West Indies died within two years, and the death rate was almost as bad among Africans, who seemed resistant to some but not all the diseases of New Spain. As a result, the planters did not scruple to buy from illicit English traders, and the day after the Hawk docked at a little place with no name, Bacon sold eighty slaves, taking payment in gold, pearls and hides.

  Jonathan Greenland, the first mate, bought supplies in the town and the crew enjoyed their first fresh food in two months.

  The following morning Barney was standing in the waist, the low, middle part of the deck, talking anxiously to Jonathan. From where they were, they could see most of the small town where they had at last made landfall. A wooden jetty led to a little beach, beyond which was a square. All the buildings were of wood but one, a small palace built of pale-gold coral limestone.

  ‘I don’t like the illegality of this,’ Barney said quietly to Jonathan. ‘We could end up in a Spanish jail, and who knows how long it would take to get out?’

  ‘And all for nothing,’ Jonathan said. The crew did not share in the profits of regular trading, just the prize money from captured ships, and he was disappointed that the voyage had been peaceful.

  As they talked, a young man in clerical black came out of the main door of the palace and walked, looking important, across the square, down the beach and along the jetty. Coming to the gangplank he hesitated, then stepped onto it and crossed to the deck.

  In Spanish he said: ‘I must speak to your master.’

  Barney replied in the same language. ‘Captain Bacon is in his cabin. Who are you?’

  The man looked offended to be questioned. ‘Father Ignacio, and I bring a message from Don Alfonso.’

  Barney guessed that Alfonso was the local representative of authority, and Ignacio was his secretary. ‘Give me the message, and I’ll make sure the captain gets it.’

  ‘Don Alfonso summons your captain to see him immediately.’

  Barney was keen to avoid offending the local authorities, so he pretended not to notice Ignacio’s arrogance. Mildly he said: ‘Then I’m sure my captain will come. If you’ll wait a moment, I’ll find him.’

  Barney went to Bacon’s cabin. The captain was dressed and eating fried plantains with fresh bread. Barney gave him the message. ‘You can come with me,’ Bacon said. ‘Your Spanish is better than mine.’

  A few minutes later they stepped off the ship onto the jetty. Barney felt the warmth of the rising sun on his face: today would be very hot again. They followed Ignacio up the beach. A few early-rising townspeople stared at them with lively interest: clearly strangers were rare enough here to be fascinating.

  As they crossed the dusty square, Barney’s eye was caught by a girl in a yellow gown. She was a golden-skinned African, but too well-dressed to be a slave. She rolled a small barrel from a doorway to a waiting cart, then looked up at the visitors. She met Barney’s gaze with a fearless expression, and he was startled to see that she had blue eyes.

  With an effort Barney returned his attention to the palace. Two armed guards, their eyes narrowed against the glare, watched silently as he and Bacon followed Ignacio through the gate. Barney felt like a criminal, which he was, and he wondered whether he would get out as easily as he had got in.

  The palace was cool inside, with high ceilings and stone floors. The walls were covered with tiles of bright blue and golden yellow that Barney recognized as coming from the potteries of Seville. Ignacio led them up a wide staircase and told them to sit on a wooden bench. Barney figured this was a snub. The mayor of this place did not have a string of people to see every morning. He was making them wait just to show that he could. Barney thought this was a good sign. You do not bother to slight a man if you are about to throw him in jail.

  After a quarter of an hour, Ignacio reappeared and said: ‘Don Alfonso will see you now.’ He showed them into a spacious room with tall shuttered windows.

  Alfonso was obese. A man of about fifty, with silver hair and blue eyes, he sat in a chair that appeared to have been made specially to fit his unnatural girth. Two stout walking-sticks on a table beside him suggested that he could not walk around unaided.

  He was reading a sheaf of papers, and once again Barney thought this was for show. He and Bacon stood with Ignacio, waiting for Alfonso to speak. Barney sensed Bacon becoming angry.
The disdainful treatment was getting to him. Barney willed him to stay calm.

  At last Alfonso looked up. ‘You’re under arrest,’ he said. ‘You have been trading illegally.’

  That was what Barney had been afraid of.

  He translated, and Bacon said: ‘If he tries to arrest me, the Hawk will flatten his town.’

  This was an exaggeration. The Hawk’s guns were minions, small cannons that would not destroy any well-built masonry structure. They were too small even to sink a ship, unless by extraordinary luck. The four-pound cannonballs were designed to paralyse an enemy vessel by wrecking its masts and rigging, and killing or demoralizing the crew, thereby depriving the captain of all control. Just the same, the Hawk could inflict a good deal of unpleasant damage on the little town square.

  Barney scrambled for a more conciliatory way of phrasing Bacon’s rejoinder. After a moment he said to Alfonso in Spanish: ‘Captain Bacon suggests that you send a message to his crew, telling them that he has been detained quite lawfully, and that they should not fire the ship’s guns at your town, no matter how angry they may feel.’

  ‘That’s not what he said.’ Clearly Alfonso understood some English.

  ‘It’s what he meant.’

  Bacon said impatiently: ‘Ask him how much he needs to be bribed.’

  Again Barney’s translation was more tactful. ‘Captain Bacon asks what it would cost to purchase a licence to trade here.’

  There was a pause. Would Alfonso angrily refuse, and jail them for corruption as well as illegal trading?

  The fat man said: ‘Five escudos per slave, payable to me.’

  Thank heaven, Barney thought.

  The price was high, but not unreasonable. A Spanish escudo was a coin containing one-eighth of an ounce of gold.

  Bacon’s reply was: ‘I can’t pay more than one escudo.’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Done.’

  ‘One more thing.’

  ‘Damn,’ Bacon muttered. ‘I agreed too easily. Now there’ll be some supplementary charge.’

  Barney said in Spanish: ‘Captain Bacon will not pay more.’

  Alfonso said: ‘You have to threaten to destroy the town.’

  Barney had not expected that. ‘What?’

  ‘When the authorities in Santo Domingo accuse me of permitting illicit trade, my defence will be that I had to do it to save the town from the wrath of the savage English pirates.’

  Barney translated, and Bacon said: ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘I’ll need it in writing.’

  Bacon nodded agreement.

  Barney frowned. He did not like the idea of a written confession of crime, even if it was true. However, he saw no way around it.

  The door opened and the girl in the yellow dress walked in. Ignacio glanced at her without interest. Alfonso smiled fondly. She crossed the room to his chair as casually as if she were family, and kissed him on the forehead.

  Alfonso said: ‘My niece, Bella.’

  Barney guessed that ‘niece’ was a euphemism for ‘illegitimate daughter’. Alfonso had fathered a child with a beautiful slave, it seemed. Barney recalled the words of Ebrima: Slaves are always used for sex.

  Bella was carrying a bottle, and now she put it on the table with the walking-sticks. ‘I thought you might need some rum,’ she said, speaking the Spanish of an educated woman with just the hint of an accent Barney did not recognize. She gave him a direct look, and he realized her eyes were the same bright blue as Alfonso’s. ‘Enjoy it in good health,’ she said, and she went out.

  ‘Her mother was a spitfire, rest her soul,’ Alfonso said nostalgically. For a moment he was silent, remembering. Then he said: ‘You should buy Bella’s rum. It’s the best. Let’s have a taste.’

  Barney began to relax. The atmosphere had changed completely. They were now collaborators, not adversaries.

  The secretary got three glasses from a cupboard, drew the stopper from the bottle, and poured generous measures for the other men. They drank. It was very good rum, spicy but smooth, with a kick in the swallow.

  Bacon said: ‘A pleasure to do business with you, Don Alfonso.’

  Alfonso smiled. ‘I believe you have sold eighty slaves.’

  Barney began to make an excuse. ‘Well, we weren’t aware of any prohibition—’

  Alfonso ignored him. ‘So that means you owe me two hundred and forty escudos already. You can settle the account here and now.’

  Bacon frowned. ‘It’s a bit difficult—’

  Alfonso interrupted him before Barney had time to translate. ‘You got four thousand escudos for the slaves.’

  Barney was surprised: he had not known that Bacon had made so much. The captain was secretive about money.

  Alfonso went on: ‘You can afford to pay me two hundred and forty right now.’

  He was right. Bacon got out a heavy purse and laboriously counted out the money, mostly in the larger coins called doubloons, each containing a quarter of an ounce of gold and therefore worth two escudos. His face was twisted in a grimace of discomfort, as if he had a stomach-ache. It hurt him to pay such a large bribe.

  Ignacio checked the amount and nodded to Alfonso.

  Bacon stood up to leave.

  Alfonso said: ‘Let me have your threatening letter before you sell any more slaves.’

  Bacon shrugged.

  Barney winced. Rough manners irritated the Spanish, who valued formalities. He did not want Bacon to spoil everything by offending Alfonso’s sensibilities just before leaving. They were still under Spanish jurisdiction. He said politely: ‘Thank you, Don Alfonso, for your kindness in receiving us. We are honoured by your courtesy.’

  Alfonso made a grandly dismissive gesture, and Ignacio led them out.

  Barney felt better, though he was not sure that they were completely in the clear. However, he wanted to see Bella again. He wondered whether she was married, or courting. He guessed she was about twenty – she might have been less, but dark skin always looked younger. He was eager to know more about her.

  Outside in the square, he said to Bacon: ‘We need rum on board – we’re almost out. Should I buy a barrel from that woman, his niece, Bella?’

  The captain was not fooled. ‘Go on, then, you randy young bastard.’

  Bacon headed back towards the Hawk, and Barney went to the doorway from which he had seen Bella emerge earlier. The house was of wood, but otherwise built on the same pattern as Carlos Cruz’s home in Seville, with a central arch leading through to a courtyard workshop – a typical craftsman’s dwelling.

  Barney smelled the earthy odour of molasses, the bitter black treacle that was produced by the second boiling of sugar cane and was mainly used to make rum. He guessed the smell came from the huge barrels lined up along one side of the yard. On the other side were smaller barrels and stacked bottles, presumably for rum. The yard ended in a little orchard of lime trees.

  In the middle of the space were two large tanks. One was a waist-high square of caulked planks, full of a sticky mixture that was being stirred by an African with a large wooden paddle. The brew gave off the bready smell of yeast, and Barney assumed this was a fermentation tank. Alongside it was an iron cauldron perched over a fire. The cauldron had a conical lid with a long spout, and a dark liquid dripped from the spout into a bucket. Barney guessed that in this cauldron the fermented mash was distilled to produce the liquor.

  Bella stood over the bucket, sniffing. Barney watched her, admiring her concentration. She was slim but sturdy, with strong legs and arms, no doubt from manhandling barrels. Something about her high forehead reminded him of Ebrima, and on impulse he spoke to her in Manding. He said: ‘I be nyaadi?’ which meant How are you?

  She jumped with shock and turned around. Recovering, she spoke a stream of Manding.

  Barney replied in Spanish. ‘I don’t really speak the language, I’m sorry. I learned a few words from a friend in Seville.’

  ‘My mother spoke Manding,’ Bella said in Spanish. �
��She’s dead. You spooked me.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She looked thoughtfully at him. ‘Not many Europeans bother to pick up even a few words of any African languages.’

  ‘My father taught us to learn as much as possible of any tongue we came across. He says it’s better than money in the bank.’

  ‘Are you Spanish? You don’t look it, with that ginger beard.’

  ‘English.’

  ‘I never met an English person before.’ She picked up the bucket at her feet, sniffed it, and threw its contents on the ground.

  Barney said: ‘Something wrong with the rum?’

  ‘You always have to discard the first fractions of the distillate. They’re poisonous. You can save the stuff and use it for cleaning boots but, if you do, sooner or later some idiot will try drinking it and kill himself. So I throw it away.’ She touched the tip of a slender finger to the spout and sniffed it. ‘That’s better.’ She rolled an empty barrel under the spout, then turned her attention back to Barney. ‘Do you want to buy some rum?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Come with me. I want to show you the best way to drink it.’

  She led him to the far end of the yard. She picked small pale-green limes from the trees and handed them to him. Barney watched her, mesmerized. All her movements were fluid and graceful. She stopped when he was holding a dozen or so of the fruits. ‘You have big hands,’ she said. Then she looked more closely. ‘But damaged. What happened?’

  ‘Scorch marks,’ he said. ‘I used to be a gunner in the Spanish army. It’s like being a cook – you’re always getting minor burns.’

  ‘Shame,’ she said. ‘Makes your hands ugly.’

  Barney smiled. She was sassy, but he liked that.

  He followed her into the house. Her living room had a floor of beaten earth, and the furniture was evidently home-made, but she had brightened the place with bougainvillea blossom and colourful cushions. There was no sign of a husband: no boots in the corner, no sword hanging from a hook, no tall, feathered hat. She pointed to a crude wooden chair and Barney sat down.