by David Penny
“It will make our loving all the better for the wait.” Lubna smiled. “And you can tease me a little while you talk if you wish.”
“How can I recall anything when I touch you?”
“The great Thomas Berrington?” She lay across him, her mouth covering his, and whatever he knew or did not know was dashed from his thoughts as he submitted to her.
Seven
Mandana came to the house alone. He left his men a quarter mile away, where they lit a small fire to roast something over the flames. A rabbit or hare, something to break their fast with.
Thomas watched him come, slow strides, older now and with something broken inside. It was not just the loss of his hand but something else, too. The man had held a position, been admired and followed by hundreds. Now the dozen men on the ridge might be all he had left. He was back in Fernando’s favour though, doing work others refused.
Thomas waited until Mandana stepped up to the terrace then nodded toward the side of the house and led the way to a small workshop. Lubna had made it clear she wanted nothing to do with the man. Belia the same. She had prepared the ointments Thomas had asked for but he would have to apply them himself. Thomas wondered if Lubna and Belia had not been so against his treating Mandana whether he might have stopped, but their resistance made his resolve only the firmer. Yes, Mandana had been an evil man and may still be so, but he deserved the same treatment as everyone else. Was that not what a physician did — treat all the same?
Inside the workshop he discovered they were not alone. Will sat on a bench, examining one of the pots Belia had left there.
“Madana!” He dropped down and came to the man, who knelt and took Will’s shoulder in his one good hand.
“Ah, my little friend. Has your father been treating you well?”
Will nodded.
“And have you been good?”
Another nod.
“Then here, a small gift for you.” Mandana reached inside his robe and drew something out, dropped it into Will’s hand. The boy sped off and Thomas knew he would have to check later what he had been given. Mandana watched Will leave, staying on one knee after he had gone. “He grows fast.” He turned to stare at Thomas. “I believe he will overtake you before he becomes an adult.” Mandana held out his hand, making it clear he wanted Thomas to help him to his feet.
With a sharp exhalation of breath, Thomas obliged. “Do you have much pain?”
“More this last week, but I am used to pain, it is good for the soul. Do you have the treatments?”
“Show me your arm.”
Mandana rolled his sleeve back to display the mottled stump where wolves had taken the hand years before. He had been lucky to live through the attack. Lucky to have been forgiven by Fernando after kidnapping his only son. Thomas still failed to understand what had happened to change the King’s opinion of this man.
He leaned closer to examine the stump, palpated it inside his hand as he watched for any sign of pain on Mandana’s face, but the man’s expression was a mask.
“You wash it twice a day?”
“When I can.”
“As long as the skin is unbroken any water will do if you cannot find clean.”
“I will try.”
“Try harder. There are signs of infection. If it takes hold there is little I can do for you. So wash, and wash often.”
Thomas used warm water and a soap made by Belia, which filled the air with a sharp scent, before wiping Mandana’s arm dry and applying the first of three salves.
Mandana closed his eyes and his face lost its usual scowl.
“You have a beautiful house here, Berrington.” His voice was soft. “But I would advise you to move as far from Malaka as you can.”
“Of course you do.” Thomas finished with the first salve and left it to perform Belia’s magic for a time. “Would you like me to return to England, perhaps?”
“Each of us has a home. Do you not miss it? But please, do not go until you have made me whole again.”
Thomas laughed. “I’m sorry, but I can’t conjure a new hand. And I miss my homeland not at all.” As he spoke the words, Thomas came to realise his memories of the border country between England and Wales where he was raised had faded almost into myth for him. Green fields, rain, snow, ice on the windows, mud. It was not a memory he welcomed. He would rather turn his face up to the sun than have it constantly dashed with water.
Mandana opened his eyes and studied Thomas. “I may be giving away something I am not meant to, but even you must know the Spanish are coming. And coming soon.” He held his arm out as Thomas wiped the first salve from it and began to apply the second, more astringent than the first, and he saw Mandana wince and say, “I liked the other better.”
“Pain is part of the healing. And why should I fear the coming of Spain? I assume you mean the army?”
“Come this Summer, Malaka will fall. You should not be here when that happens, not unless you plan to switch sides. I know you have been asked, and know too that you would be made more than welcome.” He shook his head. “You are a fool, but all the world knows that.”
“A fool with two hands,” Thomas said.
“Yes, that is true. For now at least.”
As Thomas spread the final salve, he watched Mandana’s face, at ease for once, eyes closed, and a memory surfaced.
“I met someone recently who could have been your double. Without the beard, and with two hands. And much younger, of course.”
Mandana smiled, his eyes still closed. “So nothing like me, then.”
“Perhaps not.”
“It was probably my son. He was in Malaka with his wife, on Fernando’s business. He told me what happened, and your part in it.”
Thomas stopped his treatment, and Mandana opened his eyes.
“You have a son?”
Mandana smiled. “Is the world not a strange place? I did not even know it myself until two years ago.”
“How?”
“Oh, the usual way, I expect. You are a knowledgeable man so I do not have to tell you how such is done.”
“You are an Abbot, or were, at least.”
“An Abbot with access to many places. Including …” Mandana stared into space, his face changing, growing younger. “There was a religious order I helped. Women. And … I admit to a weakness of the flesh. I am a man, like any other, after all. And if the Pope can have a wife and children why not an Abbot?” He shook his head. “Perhaps there are other children, I do not know, all I know of is this one. Pedro Guerrero, he calls himself, a name gifted him by the nuns. He came to me, came to find me after they told him who his father was.”
“Why?”
“Did they tell him, or did he come to me?”
Thomas wiped the salve from Mandana’s arm with a linen cloth. He leaned close to examine the wound. It looked better, but eventually the wound would kill him unless it was treated regularly. Something Thomas was reluctant to do.
“Either.”
“The answer to both questions is curiosity. You would understand that, I am sure. He asked and they told him. They are women of God, after all, and must tell the truth. He came to me because he wanted to improve himself. I found him a position serving Fernando, and a wife. The rest he did himself.” Mandana turned his head and stared at Thomas. “He told me what you did, and that if he gets the opportunity he will kill you.”
“I saved a child. The woman was beyond the skill of any physician. Perhaps he should have taken more care of her. What happened was none of my doing. Tell him that, for if he comes for me it will be he who loses his life.”
“I tried to tell him if anyone could have saved her it would be you, but his heart tells him otherwise. You live among heathens, Berrington, yet profess friendship to my King and Queen. Tell me, where do your loyalties lie?”
“Honestly? We are being honest now, are we not?”
Mandana nodded.
“Then honestly I do not know. Spain, al-Andalus, Englan
d. I have no loyalties anymore. No allegiance. All I care for are my family and friends.”
Mandana gave a tiny smile. “As it should be. My son is here under instruction from Fernando. You and I know that Malaka will fall, and when it does we need to be prepared. My son is helping in that, but he had no idea the price of his service would be so high.” Mandana rose to his feet, tall, skeletal, a broken man and nothing like the one Thomas had first met in Qurtuba over four years before.
“Now, are we finished?” Mandana pulled his robe around himself.
Thomas went to the workshop door and looked out, breathing untainted air as he watched him return to his men. Will and Diego were behind the house, crouching to study something in the dry grass. He hoped it was not a snake or scorpion but knew Will was careful enough, and he had taught him of the few dangers he might encounter. The animals, at least. People were another matter.
After Mandana had gone, Belia came into the workshop as Thomas cleaned up. She stood near him, saying nothing until he stopped his work and turned to her. He studied her face for a time as she continued to keep her silence, as always fascinated by her sense of otherness. She was a beautiful woman — only one of the reasons Jorge loved her — but there was more than beauty there. Sometimes Thomas found her staring at him and found the attention almost frightening, as if she could see through all the layers of his being to his very core — a place he would rather nobody saw, or even knew about.
“He’s gone. My thanks for the ointments.” Thomas touched her shoulder but she shrugged his hand off.
“He will return in forty days, will he not? I do not understand why you do this for him, Thomas. You owe that man nothing. Nothing at all.”
“He has changed.”
“Or you think him changed.”
“And you don’t?”
“I did not know him before, but I do not trust him now. Send him away the next time he comes.”
“But you will prepare your salves for me in any case?”
“Not just for him. There are more deserving patients for them.”
“Then I will tell him to come to the Infirmary next time.” He glanced at the door. “I might be able to catch up with him and tell him now.”
“They have gone. I watched them mount horses and ride away.”
Thomas looked beyond Belia as Lubna entered the workshop, the small space suddenly claustrophobic with the three of them in it, and he thought of the workshop he had left behind in Gharnatah and wished he could be there now.
“That man gave these to Will,” said Lubna, holding her hand out.
“I saw him give him something. What is it?”
“Dice.”
It didn’t seem enough to explain Lubna’s tone of voice until she tossed them onto the bench. They clattered against a wooden box, spun a moment and fell still. Thomas reached out and picked them up, then dropped them again so they skittered across the floor. He had taken them to be fashioned of pale wood or ivory. On closer examination he saw them for what they were, carved from the knuckle bones of a hand. Mandana’s little joke. Or a threat.
When he looked up, Belia was smiling, as if she had won some kind of contest.
“One more time,” Thomas said, “and then I will tell him to find someone else.”
Thomas found what he was looking for far back in a drawer in the room he and Lubna shared. He carried the small objects inside his hand as he went in search of Will and Diego. Mandana had been a distraction, one he didn’t welcome even while continuing to treat the man. He thought of his promise to send him away and wondered if he could do so. He had a sense it was better to keep the disgraced Abbot close where he could see what he was plotting. And then he wondered how much longer Mandana might have left on this earth. His stump had healed a little with Belia’s ointments, but Thomas knew as soon as the treatment stopped the effects would soon reverse. Could he sentence the man to that kind of death? There would be pain, a great deal of pain.
He found Diego and Will together, once more near the patch of grass, and Thomas saw why. There was a cleared circle of dirt where they had been playing with the knuckle-bone dice. He knelt beside them, amused when Diego turned his face away like a loyal dog that knows it has done something wrong.
Thomas shook his hand, letting them both hear the rattle within. Then he cast the dice. Twin cubes of ivory larger than Mandana’s gift, and hopefully with less fear associated with them.
“Pa!” Will reached out before the dice had stopped moving. He examined them, a smile forming. “Good dice, Pa. Thanks.”
“They are for both of you.”
Will nodded and held the dice out to Diego, who remained with gaze averted.
“I need to ask you some questions,” Thomas said.
Diego’s shoulders bunched a little tighter.
“How do you know what they are yet? They might be good questions.”
“Diego knows things,” said Will.
“Everyone knows things.” Thomas tapped his son on the top of his head. “Even you know a few things.”
Will cast the dice, eyes fixed on their dance until they became still, and Thomas watched his lips move as he totalled the count. A three and a five. No significance to the numbers, only the counting of them.
“I want you to do something for me, Diego. For me and Jorge. It means going into Malaka.”
Diego continued to stare out to where mountains reared, jagged-peaked, hazy as the heat of the day built. Swirls of wind came and went.
“We can find somewhere to eat,” Thomas said. “You would like that, wouldn’t you?”
Diego liked to eat. It was as if the food presented by Belia was something he had never experienced before, which might be true, for she had acquired her skill at the stove from somewhere else even if she was born in Ixbilya.
Diego twitched his attention toward Thomas, but it would not stay there long and skittered away again.
“Will come too.”
“Will has to stay here.”
“Then Diego stay too.”
Thomas sighed. “All right, Will too.” He glanced at his son, who continued to roll the dice.
“Play,” Will said, his attention half on Diego. “Show Pa what you can do.”
Diego shook his head.
“Is it a trick?” Thomas asked. “What can you do, Diego?”
“No trick,” said Will. He held out his hand, the dice resting on his palm. “Show Pa. Five and Five.” He touched the face of one of the dice to show the number, its shape, to Diego.
Diego glanced at the dice, at Thomas, back to Will. Slowly he reached out and took the two ivory cubes. He turned them over, studying the numbers, and Thomas wondered how much he knew of them. He had not spent enough time with Diego, assuming he lacked any mind at all, and he knew he was wrong to have done so.
“Five and five?” Thomas said, confused.
Diego gave a sly smile and tossed the dice. They flew through the air, tumbled. One hit a stone and bounced to one side, rolled back. When they came to rest the upturned faces both showed a five.
Thomas examined Diego, whose attention had moved back to the mountains. He wanted to ask how he had done that, and how Will knew Diego could do such a thing. It was most likely a fluke, incapable of repetition.
“Ask him to do it again,” Thomas said. “Different numbers this time. A three and a one.”
Will laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Thomas suppressed a moment of annoyance. He didn’t understand what had just happened, and it sparked a small fear inside him. He was used to logic, to science and knowledge. This owed nothing to anything he understood.
“Diego doesn’t know numbers, only … only shapes. You want one and three?”
Thomas nodded.
Will picked up the dice, turned them in his small hands to show Diego the numbers. Diego stared, looked up at Will, and nodded. He glanced at Thomas and smiled. This was something he could do. He took the dice and cupped them inside his hands, sho
ok them, and threw. As before the dice tumbled a moment before falling still. They showed a one and a three.
“How …” Thomas said, but it was to himself, and he expected no answer — unsure if he even wanted an answer. He stood and offered his hand. “We should go into the city before it gets too hot.”
Eight
Diego became agitated as soon as Thomas began to question him, even more so as the questions continued. He put his head in his hands, covered his ears, and cowered in the corner. Thomas had sent Will away because he didn’t want to subject him to the topic that needed to be discussed. Now he knew he was wrong to expect Diego to accept it either. He had forgotten he was not a man in anything other than body.
“Send for Will,” said Jorge. He gripped Diego inside his arms, but it was clear how difficult it was becoming to hold him. “They have formed a deep bond in a short a time. Will can help.”
“I won’t have him involved.”
“Will is stronger than you think.”
“He is four years old!” Thomas said.
“Almost five. And he is your son. That must count for something.”
Does it? Diego had grown restless when the others left. They had all descended into the city and eaten at an inn before coming to the house that until recently had been Diego’s home. And then Thomas had sent Belia and Lubna away with Will.
The time spent inside Diego’s house had been tense but manageable. It was only as Thomas teased from him the story of how he had come to bring a dead man home that Diego began to grow agitated. Thomas had expected such, which is why Jorge was with him. Diego liked Jorge. Or he had.
“Shh …” Jorge stroked Diego’s face, whispered soft words in his ear, too quiet for Thomas to hear, but he did not want to in any case. Instead he waited, because there was nothing else he could do.
Slowly Diego calmed. Not altogether — his eyes continued to dart from place to place, frequently rising to study the mountains that circled Malaka, as they had done earlier that day. The mountains that protected it from invasion except from the sea, and invasion by sea was difficult, even more so when the city had a tall, strong wall to protect it on that side.
