A Divided Inheritance

by Deborah Swift

  And it was good to be grateful. Often there was a shortage of bread and meat because Papa wouldn’t allow them to have meat unless it had been blessed by someone, and if his friend Patricio the priest could not come then they went without. Today there was a small portion of dried lamb cooked in olive oil, from the last time he came. Patricio did not understand their Muslim ways but he liked to play chess with Papa, and he was happy to bless their meat.

  ‘A blessing costs nothing,’ he always said.

  Husain used his bread to scoop the last grains of couscous from his bowl.

  ‘It was good, Ayamena. I think the lamb is better for stewing.’ Papa said.

  ‘Mm, hmm,’ grunted Husain, still with his mouth full.

  ‘Nonsense, Nicolao, it was tough and you know it.’ Mama pointed to a bit of gristle on the edge of her plate.

  ‘It wasn’t so bad,’ Papa said.

  ‘Susana’s family don’t bother with the blessing of the meat. So they have fresh meat every day,’ Luisa said.

  Mama gave her a warning look, but Papa did not rise to her bait. Mama bustled to put the water to heat on the fire so that they could have their mint tea. Luisa watched her bending over the flames, holding the fabric of her manto with one hand to keep it from catching. After a few moments the water bubbled and she poured a hissing steam over the leaves. A shout from outside made her pause midstream. Luisa ran towards the door to see what was going on.

  ‘No!’ shouted Papa. Something in his voice stopped her in her tracks. She hovered in the middle of the room. Mama placed the pot on the trivet very carefully as though it might break.

  ‘What’s the—’

  ‘Sssh.’ Mama hushed Husain with a hand on the shoulder. Time stopped. Their listening was so intense it was almost a noise.

  Wood splintering and a woman’s scream.

  ‘Don’t move,’ Mama mouthed. Husain questioned Luisa with his wide eyes. She shook her head as Mama tiptoed to the shutter and put her eye to the crack where the two boards met.

  ‘Men from the Inquisitor’s,’ she whispered. ‘They’ve staved in Alma’s door.’

  ‘Come away from that window,’ Papa hissed, stumbling to his feet, but she did not come. ‘Ayamena!’ His voice was harsher.

  Alma’s voice wailed from outside, ‘Leave us alone, we weren’t doing anything wrong. We were just eating, that’s all.’

  There was another noise like a thud, and Mama gasped and recoiled from the window. Husain wrapped his arms over his head and crawled away to the corner of the room.

  ‘What is it?’ The piece of bread still in Papa’s hand dropped to the floor.

  Mama did not answer and Luisa pressed up behind her to try to see through the crack. Mama would not let her near and all she could see was a sliver of bright blue sky like a shining needle above the buildings. Mama’s hands were clutching the sill as she balanced on the balls of her feet.

  The window went dark for a moment, and there was the sound of a scuffle – and then something hit the ground.

  Immediately Alma’s voice cried from outside, ‘Please, no. Don’t hurt him, he’s old and sick.’

  Papa blundered towards the door, but Mama leapt before him. ‘No,’ she spat. ‘Do you want to risk us all? Sit down and be quiet.’ Papa tried to push past her but she was blazing now, like a cornered tigress. ‘You stupid man,’ she hissed, beating at him with her fists, ‘what do you think you can do? You can’t even see to shave your face!’

  Father seemed to slump then, and move away from the door. In the silence they heard the clank of metal and chain. Mama’s mouth trembled. She staggered to hold Papa in a clumsy embrace. ‘There, there. I didn’t mean it.’ Over his shoulder Mama caught sight of Husain, watching the whole scene through a gap between his fingers, and hurried to envelop him in the folds of her galedrilla.

  Luisa took her chance and ran to the shutters. Through the crack she saw the black leather breastplates of the King’s militia, the Inquisition. Their swords were unsheathed and one of them held the scourge. He slapped the knotted thongs against his boot. Alma, Daria’s mother, had been chained neck to foot.

  ‘This one now,’ said the smallest soldier.

  They fastened the chains to Alma’s ankles. She did not move, her face was grey as chalk, her eyes blank, fixed on something on the ground. Luisa could not tear her eyes away. She could just see part of a tangled heap of blood-spattered clothes, and the torn flesh of a naked back, wizened and wrinkled as a raisin in the sun. Her hand came to her mouth as the man began to moan and move. Tears started in her eyes. It was Merin, Daria’s father.

  ‘Lazy dog,’ one of the guards said. ‘Get up.’ And he flicked the whip at Merin’s back. ‘Your neighbour says he smelt meat cooking on Friday. The smoke came from your chimney.’

  ‘No, no. He’s mistaken,’ called Alma. ‘It was smoked herring. We’re good Christians. Ask anybody.’

  ‘The court will decide that. We’re to take you all. And anyone else who eats at your table.’

  Luisa pulled away. Nausea engulfed her. She cowered back away from the window and spat saliva into the corner.

  ‘Keep quiet,’ mouthed Mama, urgently, with one hand dragging the reluctant Husain to her side. She reached with the other to grab Luisa by the arm.

  They huddled together, the whole family, pressed to the floor of the sleeping alcove, arms tight around each other, straining to hear what was happening in the street outside.

  A sudden hammering on the door jolted Mama to her feet. Papa’s heart beat against Luisa’s shoulder. Mama’s eyes were wide and staring; Luisa felt a hot tear run from Husain’s face on to her own but she dared not move.

  Outside the door a voice said, ‘Nobody in. Shall we burn it?’

  ‘No,’ came another voice, ‘it’s next door to the armourer’s. We don’t want to risk setting light to that.’

  ‘Why? It won’t matter.’

  ‘It will to Don Rodriguez. He told me this man’s the best leather beater in town. He makes the armour for all the King’s men. You can take responsibility if we do. I don’t want Don Rodriguez to find out I had anything to do with it.’

  ‘He won’t know it was us.’

  ‘Well, I’m not doing it. He’d soon find out who torched his favourite armourer. Come on, let’s take these in. We’ll tell Don Rodriguez to warn the leather beater to get out, and come back tomorrow. Then we can clear the whole infested yard.’

  A crack from a whip made Luisa shrink closer to Papa. They could hear chains moving away. They lay there quiet for a long while. She saw with horror that Papa’s lips were quivering and his eyes leaking tears.

  ‘Don’t, Nicolao,’ whispered Mama, coming back to them and rubbing at his back.

  ‘What use am I to Allah?’ Papa said. ‘I can’t even help my neighbour. I stay here like a coward whilst they take Merin, Merin who would never lift a finger to a fly.’

  ‘But what else could you do?’

  ‘I could have told them, they are good Christians.’

  ‘You know that’s a lie. They pay it lip-service only, like all of us. The more they beat it out of us, the more inward it goes.’

  ‘Mama,’ Luisa said, ‘they said they’d come back. Tomorrow. What will we do?’

  ‘Pray to Allah,’ said Mama. ‘And pack our things.’

  Chapter 22

  Elspet sat side-saddle, and her hip bones ached. Spain was unfathomable to her. So hot and airless, so full of dust and stench. For this last part of the journey they travelled by pack-mule for Mr Wilmot had insisted on going overland. There were no carriages to be had, and every track through this barren landscape seemed interminable. The grit of the road blew into her eyes and her forehead ached from squinting into the sun. If she walked, every step was filled with yellowing tares and teasels, and even the grass was spiny and sharp, more thistle than weed.

  Mr Wilmot’s hand leapt to his dagger at every encounter on the road. He even armed himself against beekeepers and washerwomen. It se
emed he was afraid of everything. Poor man, she thought as she adjusted her skirts to pad out her uncomfortable posterior, he looks so much smaller away from Father’s warehouses and the solid buildings of London.

  Wilmot had no Spanish and was forever asking her, ‘What did he say?’ or ‘Tell me the word for . . .’ and she must supply the answer. He got frustrated if she could not remember and his face turned sour and taciturn, and he kicked his mule on away from them, sighing, as if the two women were just too much trouble.

  Martha struggled on silently as they passed by cob and brick buildings squatting in red dirt villages. Iron grilles barred all the windows, as if everyone in Spain must somehow be behind bars. Martha was slumped in the saddle, her face red with heat. Like Elspet, she was muffled to the neck because of the piercing sun. Elspet tried to ignore Martha’s miserable face, filled with guilt that she had brought her here.

  Sometimes there were roadside shrines, and in the villages rough-built churches, a constant reminder that Spain still held fast to the Holy Roman Church. Elspet always begged to look inside.

  ‘Come, Mistress Leviston,’ Wilmot called, ‘we need to make Toledo by nightfall.’

  ‘Just a few moments. This looks like such a quaint place. Look at the little belfry. And you must be tired. We can rest a moment, take some ale.’

  ‘No,’ Wilmot said. ‘We must keep moving. We will need to rest soon enough when the sun is overhead. It is unwise to dawdle now.’

  ‘A minute or two, only.’ She unhooked her leg from the stirrup, preparing to dismount.

  ‘Get back up, mistress. We are not resting here. If you wish to pray and then fry in the noonday sun, then that is up to you. But I will be riding on.’

  She was tense with the heat and with the harsh road they were on. She scrambled down from the mule, tore her skirt away from the tares that had snagged it, and marched towards the church.

  He shouted after her. ‘Why? Why must you stop at every damn village?’

  She retorted over her shoulder, ‘I go to church as is my duty. I cannot see what is the matter with that.’

  ‘We need to make Toledo by nightfall, that’s what’s the matter. While ever we are on the road, we’re at the mercy of any cutthroat that chances by.’ His angry tone made her hesitate and turn in time to see him throw his hat down on the ground. ‘For God’s sake, woman, I can’t take any more of it, it’s tiresome enough without this stopping every few miles whilst you count your stupid beads.’

  Up until now they had been cordial and his sudden animosity scared her. Martha watched warily from the back of her mule, her face red and screwed up as if she might cry.

  ‘And whose idea was it to travel this way instead of a comfortable passage by sea?’

  ‘You agreed to it. You know what happened to Bainbridge’s ships. And calculations show one is always safer on land than on the water.’

  ‘Calculations? They’re no use to us here. Go on ahead, if you must. I can fend for myself,’ Elspet said.

  ‘Don’t be foolish. I would not have you travel all alone. I owe it to your father. You remind me of him. He could be just as stubborn, but he was good to me – he gave me a good livelihood and an education I’ll never forget.’

  ‘Then my father –’ the words threatened to choke her – ‘my father obviously cared more for you than he did for me,’ she shouted, ‘because he has left me at the mercy of a scoundrel like Zachary Deane.’

  ‘He thought you provided for,’ he shouted back. ‘How the hell was he to know what a sorry muddle he would cause? He meant to do right by you, I’d swear it. Now come, mount up and let’s get out of this infernal heat.’

  ‘No.’ She tried to push open the church door, but it was stiff and would not give.

  ‘For the life of me, I can’t see what you find so attractive about these churches. They are full of idols. You can pray perfectly well with me when we reach the lodging house, by reading the good book. This outlandish Spanish obsession with saints and sin does nobody any good. I’ll swear it does not bring you a whit closer to God.’

  ‘It is not an obsession.’ She gathered herself and turned back to face him. ‘You don’t understand.’ She struggled to form the words. ‘These churches –’ she patted the door – ‘they are like home . . . a place I know and understand. I’ve looked at these same saints since I was tiny. St Christopher, St Anthony, St Francis of Assisi. They comfort me, they are always the same wherever I go.’

  ‘In heaven’s name! They are just paint and plaster.’

  ‘But they’re all I have. Look at me. I’m filthy and my skirt’s rubbed bald with riding. I’m not “Mistress Leviston” of West View House any longer. I’m just another woman on the road, another with no home and no livelihood.’

  He looked at her helplessly.

  She tried again. ‘The churches are my compass. Without them, I think I will lose my senses. You have someone waiting who loves you. I’ve lost everything – my father, my home, my country, but as long as I have the Church, I have a raft. I have something.’

  He was wiping his face now with a resigned expression.

  She croaked, ‘Mr Wilmot, I have to have something.’

  ‘Very well,’ he said tightly, ‘if it is so important. We will stop a few minutes whilst I water the horses. Though I don’t see why you have to make such a fuss about it. Martha, take the mules and the packhorse round the side. Try to find some shade.’

  She leaned her shoulder to the door and it scraped open. He did not follow her inside the church, his English habits must die hard. The church was cool and silent. Emotion had made her breathless. In the heat the blood throbbed at her temples.

  Three candles were burning, listing at an angle in a trough of sand. Little folded prayers stuck up from the surface, some of which must have been there for years, judging by how faded they were. They were crumbling with age in amongst the wax stubs, leached of their colour by the sun.

  She could not kneel for the floor was bare but she sat on one of the rush-seated stools and stared at a painting of the grey-bearded St Martin of Tours sharing his cloak with his enemy, the Roman soldier. It pricked her conscience. She did not want to share her inheritance with Zachary. If she had her way, he would not get so much as a yard of lace.

  She remembered him waving at Father from the quay, all smiles. Her stomach churned. Immediately, she retracted her bitter thoughts as unfit for this holy place, small though it was, and prayed fervently to St Christopher instead for help on the journey.

  She was still reciting when she felt the draught of the door behind, and the sudden scent of heat. She had not realized that heat could smell. She finished abruptly, and turned to see Mr Wilmot standing there, hat in hand.

  ‘You have done?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Happen you might say a prayer for my Dorothy, and my two little ones next time.’ It felt like an apology.

  ‘Gladly,’ she said, and her heart went out to him. ‘Do you miss them?’

  ‘More than my life,’ he said, and turned to walk away.

  She went after him and put her hand on his arm. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘No, the heat makes me short-tempered,’ he said, ‘and I worry about letting my men down. I couldn’t bear it, to go back to them empty-handed.’

  ‘We won’t go back empty-handed, I promise you. I’ll make that scoundrel—’

  ‘Let me talk to him first. I’m in a better position to explain the profits and losses and the trading timetable, and I fear—’

  ‘I know – you fear I will be too hotheaded and jeopardize our cause. I understand you, Mr Wilmot, well enough. We will do it your way.’

  He looked down at her and gave a conciliatory smile. Then he took her arm and escorted her back to her mount like a gentleman.

  Chapter 23

  18 August 1609

  Mr Zachary Deane, Esq

  Sir,

  My condolences on your bereavement. I write to you from Toledo. I am on my way
to Seville with the express purpose of meeting you to discuss the lace business of your father, the late Nathaniel Leviston. If it is managed properly, I am sure your father’s business can yield even greater profit.

  If you will let me go through the figures with you, you will see how great an investment it is, and that it would be worthy of your consideration to keep it trading rather than proceeding at this less-than-fortunate time with the sale. I would be grateful to meet with you at the earliest available opportunity.

  I will be residing at the lodgings of Señor Cisbón close to the new Alameda de Hercules, under the sign of the ball and claw. I await your instruction.

  Your humble servant,

  David Wilmot (Overseer, Leviston’s Lace)

  Zachary threw the letter down and shouted for Ana. ‘If a man calling himself Wilmot should call, an Englishman, tell him I have moved. To Madrid. On no account are you to admit him. Do you understand?’

  Ana stared at his black eye and cut lip. And then at his hands. ‘English man. Wilmot.’ She repeated the name, and Zachary nodded his approval.

  ‘And you are gone to Madrid.’ Her eyes looked doubtful.

  ‘Yes. That’s right. He’s not to come in.’

  ‘Will that be all?’

  She retreated, still gazing at his beaten face. When she was gone, he paced the room. Curses. As if he had not trouble enough, but now he must be dodging all the time in case he should have occasion to bump into Wilmot. The man must have lost his senses, to come all the way over here to press him to keep the lace trade running.

  Wilmot feared for his employment, no doubt. Elspet Leviston and her tomfool husband probably sent him, to try to dissuade him from selling. But it was too late, he’d already sent the order to Greeting weeks ago and by now he should be executing it to the letter. Zachary had no wish to speak with that pedant Wilmot. He would sell, as was his right, and if any of them wanted a share, then they would have to bid for it, like everyone else.