‘Would you have a lady travel abroad without some protection?’ she retorted. ‘I have had to leave my Moorish servants, and now I have only this stupid Dutch woman. And she’s been dumb since birth. What else was I to do?’
He grunted. Luisa stood, head bowed, thankfully still silent. The guard’s eyes shifted to the procession coming towards them. Four or five armoured men marched in front; columns of soldiers were ranked to the side with muskets and pikes. Boxed in by them shuffled a wretched bunch of people with barely any baggage, only sagging haversacks and tied bundles. They looked to be wearing all the clothes they possessed, but their backs were sodden with wet, their hems dripped, the men’s hair and beards hung in rat’s tails.
Elspet could do nothing but stare. There were women there, nursing mothers and children. Old people who limped with a stick and shivered, despite the fact that others were steaming with the exertion of walking. Many were barefoot. As they passed, their feet made footprints in the mud, but these were quickly blotted out by the people walking behind. As they walked, the women sang mournfully in an ululating lilt. They paid no heed to Luisa and Elspet standing there as they passed; their eyes were blank, or fixed on the city ahead.
The sound of the women singing had a creaking quality as if it had been long buried. When Elspet looked at Luisa she saw her cheeks were wet with rain. That was until Luisa brought her sleeve up to wipe her eyes, and Elspet realized with a jolt it was tears. She dare not go to comfort her, it would look too intimate to behave so with a servant.
‘Wait a while after we pass,’ shouted the guard. ‘We move slow, no point in you being right on our tail.’
‘Yes, sir, we will,’ called Alexander.
It took perhaps one quarter-hour for the procession to pass. The guard trotted to catch up with the back of the party, and as the rain fell dark and heavy Elspet watched them grow smaller as they headed to the city.
Alexander put the horses back in traces.
‘We go on,’ he said. ‘Not back, as the soldier ordered. You all right?’
She nodded and they waited as he hauled the horses and carriage back on to the track. They climbed inside, wet running from their shoulders. Elspet reached out to Luisa.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Señor Alvarez and his students will look after your family.’
‘I hope Mama doesn’t see that,’ she said.
To her surprise, Luisa did not pull her hand away but gripped it tight as the carriage moved off again. Eventually she said, ‘Those soldiers, do you think they’ll let them pass?’
‘Señor Alvarez trained his men well. Your family could not be in better hands. Never fear, they’ll get to Tavira somehow.’
They had to make a detour into a derelict farmstead as Alexander saw yet another smaller group of Moriscos on the road, and they held their breath as they passed. But as night fell there were no more hold-ups and the roads became rutted and uneven. They travelled through the blur of rain until they could no longer make out any trace of Seville on the horizon. Finally, the lights of a small fishing port twinkled in the distance. The carriage stopped by a group of gnarled olive trees; the branches rattled in the wind.
‘I’m going to walk on ahead,’ Alexander said to them through the window. ‘Etienne was supposed to meet us to show us the way, but there’s been no sign of him. Perhaps I’ve missed him somehow. Wait here until I come back for you. I’ll go and find the Quevedo family and check it’s safe.’
He disappeared into the darkness. From here they could hear the moan of the wind, and the crash of waves breaking against rocks.
‘Are you afraid?’ Elspet asked into the black cave of the carriage.
‘No.’ A short laugh. ‘I am angry, that is all. I am Spanish and a good Catholic. I am being made to flee my homeland for no good reason. What sort of a man is he, that would do this to his people?’
‘I don’t know. In England our king will not allow us to worship in the Roman Church. Señor Alvarez says it is easy to have an opinion when you have no power, but when you have power, when you are a king, then your opinion will uphold some and exclude others. Señor Alvarez says it is better not to have opinions at all.’
‘Huh.’ The voice was disparaging. A short silence and then, ‘I don’t understand what you are doing in Spain. Why do you wait for Zachary Deane before you go home to England? He is not interested in you, that much I know.’
Elspet laughed. ‘I know he’s not interested in any sort of suit with me, nor I with him. He probably despises me. It’s complicated. I thought he was my half-brother, but now . . . I’m not sure what he is.’ It was the first time she had admitted the truth. ‘But I think I am financially reliant upon him. We are tied together through my father.’
‘How?’ Luisa’s voice was curious.
Elspet told Luisa the truth. And telling her, she found she was not nearly so emotive about it as she had been before. Next to these people who had already been stripped of their possessions and were fleeing for their lives, her own concerns seemed petty and insubstantial.
At the end of her tale, Luisa said, ‘So I think you do not want to marry Mr Deane?’
Elspet laughed. ‘He would be the last person on this earth I would choose. Besides, I have a feeling he has his heart set on someone else.’
Luisa was silent.
Elspet listened to the wind rattle the branches, the rain smatter down on the carriage roof.
At length Luisa said, ‘You need not have helped me and you did. You have changed. When you came to fetch my mother to your English friend I thought you were just another lazy white woman with too few skills and not enough common sense.’ Elspet opened her mouth in indignation; she did not know whether to be flattered or insulted, but Luisa went on, ‘I saw how you trained in the yard with the men. I was wrong. You are not afraid of hard work. I don’t know how things will turn out, but I won’t forget your kindness.’ And from the dark a thin, cold hand found her, and she found herself pulled into a tight embrace.
When Alexander returned he said, ‘Bad news. Etienne never got there and Señora Quevedo was not expecting us. I told her the situation and I think I’ve persuaded her not to turn us away.’
He drove them to a group of small farm cottages up an unmade track. The wind was even fiercer here, and the noise of the sea closer. A boy was standing there with a palely glowing lantern at the only cottage that looked habitable. Señora Quevedo, a leather-skinned woman of about forty years, beckoned them inside under the low beams and sat them to steam before the fire.
Luisa thanked her for their hospitality and shyly told the señora of the crowds on the route. Alexander said if they did not mind he would leave the women at the farm and ride back to show the others the way, since there was still no sign of Etienne Galen. Elspet hoped Galen was all right. Though she had never liked him, she could not help but hope he was lost somewhere and not dead at the side of the road.
‘You must eat,’ said the señora, ‘and then I will take you to join the others.’
‘Others?’ Luisa said. ‘But my family are behind us.’
‘The others who will take the boats. We are all waiting for the early tide. Six boats. My husband’s too. Eat first, then Bento will show you.’
Elspet needed no encouragement to eat and drink for she was hungry and tired and eating seemed a form of normality. The woman served up mutton broth with a kind of sourdough bread. All three women ate in silence. Afterwards, with the help of the boy, Bento, they unloaded the few bags from the carriage to the covered porch around the front of the building. The señora looked at Elspet strangely as she buckled on her sword and stowed her daggers in her belt.
‘Do not worry, señora. Señor Alvarez has trained her,’ Luisa said, as if that explained everything.
In the end, restlessness drove them out on to the porch despite the wind. Every small noise made Luisa look up the road, until at last the sound of hoofbeats announced the arrival of Nicolao Ortega and Señor Alvarez.
After exchanging formalities, the señora said, ‘Come, now the ladies are dry, Bento will take you to the others, and show you where you can wait. There are too many of you for my small casa.’
Bento went ahead with the little globe of the lantern and pushed open the door of the next cottage.
Elspet drew in her breath. The room was completely full, with not a hair’s breadth of space remaining. Not a floorboard could be seen, except where water trickled through a gash in the roof to make a dark stain on the floor below. Every stick of broken furniture had a person perched there, people crowded against the walls and people leaned on the windowsills and in the doorways. Some had strings of shoes hung around their necks, or the tools of their trade. Crammed in every square inch of space were solemn-eyed children, livestock, tied cloth bundles, cages of poultry. The room smelt of sweat and damp and fear. The people gathered there looked up at the newcomers with silent hostility.
Señor Alvarez was clearly taken aback. He exchanged a look with Elspet and ushered her backwards out of the door. ‘Are all these waiting for the next tide?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ Bento said.
‘Where have they all come from?’
‘The people from the vineyards in the village. They did not want to leave their children. Christians came in the night with knives to loot their houses. One ran to us for help, and then another, and then more. So many people.’ He sucked in his lips and shook his head. ‘Word spread somehow. Father can’t turn them away. We’ve sent a few hundred already, yesterday and the day before.’ He laughed. ‘Mother thought we had finished, but more keep coming. Like you. The people going today, well, some of their husbands or brothers own the boats you will sail in.’
Alvarez walked past Elspet on to the porch and stood for a moment, deep in thought. Rain dripped from holes in the awning on to his shoulders.
‘What is the matter?’ asked Alexander.
‘Too many of us,’ she heard Señor Alvarez say. ‘A fleet of boats at anchor is an easier target than a single boat. Moving a hundred people to the boats is much more obvious than moving only a few. And the more people, the more often it has gone on, the greater the chance the authorities will want to stop us. Others in the village might not be as sympathetic as Señor Quevedo. Did he tell you when the next ebb tide is?’
‘No,’ Elspet said. ‘We haven’t seen him, he is out preparing the boats with the other men. But I guess soon.’
‘I asked the boy,’ Alexander said. ‘It’s at five bells. Only a few hours.’
‘How far behind were Ayamena and Husain?’ Elspet asked.
‘I said to leave it two hours,’ Señor Alvarez said, in a worried tone. ‘We weren’t expecting to go today. It wasn’t what we planned. We planned for next week; the tide was later then.’
‘Then they’ll be cutting it fine,’ Alexander said.
Chapter 49
In the distance, thunder rumbled and Zachary ran down the back streets dragging his trotting horse behind, glad that the buildings were high enough to afford some shelter. He threw the reins over the fence at the sword school, and sprinted to the quay. A sense of unreality hung over him. How would he find Husain? It would be like looking for a single straw in a thatch. His only hope would be to intercept him before he reached the holding house.
At the quay it was even worse than he thought. Hundreds of angry people were waiting to embark, caged between ranks of soldiers, like wild dogs ready to turn and bite at any moment. Mercenaries searched the assembled people for arms and prised their belongings from them with threats and beatings. A scuffle broke out right in front of him, but the soldiers bludgeoned the Morisco man with the end of a pike until he handed over his gold.
Around the cordon, half of Seville seemed to be there; to barter and haggle over trinkets and coin, and watch the spectacle of the people being driven on to the ships. Further down the road Moriscos covered their heads as a rain of stones fell on to them from the jeering crowd. He couldn’t see any children.
He approached one of the onlookers politely, trying not to appear desperate. ‘Excuse me, where are these people from?’
‘From Carmona and Estepa, and some from Triana.’
‘Where do they take the children?’ Zachary said.
The man took him in with an appraising look. ‘The tobacco factory. The warehouses of Martin de Vérez. But they’ve blocked the road at both ends. It’s crazy mad with screaming women. Some are frantic, trying to get their babies and children out, but there’s even more begging them to take their older ones in. There’s a rumour they will all be –’ He mimed slitting his throat and glanced sideways at Zachary to gauge his reaction. ‘The poor beggars are not sure if they’re all going to be dumped at sea.’ He sucked in his breath and then whispered, ‘If you’re looking for your child, my son, they will not let you have him. They want the children for servants and slaves. Trained of course, to be good Christians and hate the race of their fathers and mothers.’
His bitterness was like a canker. And there was some sort of enjoyment in his words too, as though he relished delivering this news.
A crack and a flash, and they both fell to the ground, covering their heads. Another rumble and the sky lit up. But it was only lightning, splitting the sky with its ragged scrawl.
They stood up sheepishly, brushed the wet from their knees as another bolt came from nowhere right overhead. The hot poker of light attached itself to one of the pikemen and they saw him stutter and fall. A sudden hush, and even from where they stood, they caught the smell of burning. Simultaneously a cheer broke out from the assembled Moriscos and a cry of ‘Allah!’ Everyone surged forward to see what was happening.
Zachary shuddered. It was a sign from heaven. God’s wrath released on those responsible for these terrible events. He had a feeling of being caught in something momentous.
‘Lord have mercy,’ he cried, and sent up a silent prayer for help as he took advantage of the diversion and set off at a run towards the warehouses by the river.
As the old man had told him, the road was closed off. The street had a barricade of upturned tobacco barrels with pikemen and musketeers lined up behind to keep back the men and women who were trying to find their children.
He cut round to the other side of the building where the soldiers were bringing in children they had separated from their families at the port. They were escorted in gaggles of five to ten. Between the great armoured beetles of pikemen, they looked so small and lost. At this side too, women wailed, clamouring for their babies, alongside male elders who hurled insults and shook their fists. Here too, they were held back by the well-disciplined ranks. In the gathering dark the children’s gazes combed the faces behind the soldiers, searching for someone they knew.
Zachary observed for a moment from a distance. He took a breath to remember his training. All his senses were alert – a deer listening for the hunter. If a chance came to get through he would be ready. He moved himself in a leisurely walk, down to the part where the troops were most sparse, alongside the river, following a few other well-dressed civilians in wide-brimmed hats. He scanned the line of troops. There was a gap in the barricade there, guarded by four men.
Zachary joined the tail of the merchant party and saw one of the civilians hold out a paper to the nearest guard. The guard gave it a cursory glance and waved them through. Zachary hurried to stick close to the moustachioed man in front. As he passed through he let out his breath. He still could not see any children, but he cast his eyes about for a door to the warehouse.
‘Hey! Get back. We were here before you.’
It was only then he realized he was in a queue of about eight men, all well-d
ressed in Walloon ruffs and with the obligatory long tucks hanging from their belts. Their cloaks and embroidered hose marked them out as wealthy men. The line ended at a peeling, iron-red door set into the factory wall. He apologized and stepped to the end of the queue, hoping to blend in with the other men he had come in with, who were just joining the queue. Thunder rumbled again as he craned over the heads of the soldiers in front, to try and catch a glimpse of Husain.
‘I expect there’ll be a bigger queue soon. The terms are not bad, eh? Just give them bed and board and we get twenty-five years of work out of them at least before they have to be released. The Crown will give a gift of grain and shoes too. My wife wants a girl, for the laundry.’
But Zachary wasn’t listening, he had spotted a line of carts, heavily guarded by pikemen, trundling towards the warehouse. As each one passed he stood on tiptoes to look at the children inside. The wagons stopped. A bare-headed woman had made it through the barrier and was trying to climb up to reach her child, but a soldier clubbed her over the head and dragged her like a carcass out of the wagon’s path. The crying children fell solemn and silent, and just at that moment the rain began to pelt from the sky. Great bouncing drops, that made the children bow their heads and squint against its impact.
There, between two other boys, was Husain, clinging white-faced to the rails. A toddler, grubby tear-stains in vertical stripes down his cheeks, gripped tight on to Husain’s arm as the cart jerked its way towards the doors. But Husain’s eyes still searched the crowd. Zachary turned his head quickly away. He did not want him to recognize him and shout out.
He moved himself closer to the armed convoy but could see no way through, the soldiers were two deep all around it, the rain splattering off their helmets. The cart set off again towards the open doors. But just as it did, the iron-red door in the wall opened and the queue of men, shuffling closer to be out of the rain, pressed towards it. Zachary ran to join them. A sharp dry smell of snuff met his nostrils.
A Divided Inheritance Page 43
