by Betty Younis
“Elizabeth! Can you hear me? ‘Tis me – Agnes!” Agnes was by her side in an instant, and with no prompting the children who only moments earlier were playing dolls and horses pulled blankets from the warming rack near the hearth and brought them to Agnes. Elizabeth felt Agnes’ worry as much as she saw it across her face. She tried to smile. In the background, a stamping noise could be heard.
“Clear a way for me! You young hoodlums, clear a way I say.”
It was her father, and she felt his tears on her hand as he held it tight.
“‘Tis enough, old man, the child will need food.”
“Well then, you must get her a plate, and quickly.” Thomas sat beside her on the makeshift bed on which she lay. He was crying openly now, patting her hand and talking quietly to her.
“I felt you would not leave me, Elizabeth. I felt it in my soul.”
Elizabeth smiled and with all the strength she had squeezed his hand. His tears became sobs.
“She understands! Agnes! Quickly with the food!”
The two of them struggled as they pulled her into a sitting position and Agnes then fed her small drops of beef broth. Elizabeth had never tasted anything quite so delicious.
“My lady,” she whispered, “You must compliment the cook.”
It was Agnes’ turn to sob. She passed the bowl and spoon to Thomas and ran to the hearth wiping her eyes with her apron.
“Quickly, children, bring me candles. We must light candles for today we have seen a miracle. Our Elizabeth has returned.”
The children looked at her in confusion. Agnes put her hand to her head in frustration.
“Velas,” she said finally. “Candles! Bring them to me!”
Before they were lit, Elizabeth was asleep again. But as she drifted away, she could hear as if from a great distance a happy cacophony of babbling voices, praising God and saying her name over and over.
Chapter Eighteen
On warm bright afternoons, Thomas and Elizabeth frequently sat in the sun on the narrow cobbled way just outside the door of Captain Ransdell ’s small home. Here in Malaga, there were no sweeping avenues or broad walkways. No grand manors awaited beyond the privacy of hedges or woods, nor did the houses of common folk and gentry keep themselves neatly beyond the street with gates and gardens. Instead, each home sat squarely against the next, and all perched upon the lip of the street just outside their front doors. Brilliant red geraniums grown in oversized terracotta pots graced each such stoop, and on days like today, most inhabitants of Malaga dragged simple benches or chairs outside to sit and chat with their neighbors and watch what few wagons traversed the way.
Those disinclined to such idleness might pass the day in the town square. There was no official market day, and on any given afternoon, save Sundays, sellers would lay their goods out upon the ground or arrange them on their wagons to the best advantage. The city square was small but Malaga took enormous pride in it. All side streets led to the central park and the cobbled streets formed a tidy and pleasing border around the area. It was here that one might find mangoes from the peninsula, lemons or olives from further north, cured meats, simple cloth for garments, rudimentary tools or services from blacksmiths or cobblers. Fish was abundant and sold fresh or smoked or occasionally pickled. Even on off days the little open air market lent a busy, festive air to the village.
Across the square from the market was the church of St. Nicholas. In the great Reconquista of 1487, Malaga was taken by siege from the Muslims and re-established as a Christian village. Accordingly, the mosque was converted from the worship of Allah to that of the Christian God and the structure began to be called by the name of the patron saint of sailors and ships, St. Nicholas. The great pillared interior of the main sanctuary soared three stories high and still bore the intricate Moorish patterns and designs which had graced the mosque. But instead of the broad open spaces where hundreds would lay their prayer rugs and face Mecca each day, rough wooden benches now sat. A raised altar graced the far end of the long, narrow aisle and a small dais sat atop the altar. It was from here that Friar Marcos spoke each Sunday, each holiday, and on each saints’ day.
Thomas had been the first to recover from the shipwreck of the Phobos. The wave which swept him overboard that fateful night had carried him to a rocky shoal. He had managed to cling to a craggy outcropping and as that wave had receded, he had inched his way gradually landward. But more waves had followed, and for every foot gained inches were lost. As the night progressed, his will and the jutting rocks had provided him purchase albeit at a heavy price – he had never been so bruised and battered. By morning, he made landfall and dragged himself shivering up the beach away from the tide. It was here that the searchers had found him, bleeding and nearly dead.
Agnes and the children had fared the best. The same fate that cast Thomas up upon the rocks had determined a safer route for them. Clinging tightly to the wood as Elizabeth had instructed, they had ridden the destructive surge all the way to shore. But before Agnes could cross herself and give thanks, another wave battered the beach and tore Consuelo’s feet from beneath her. Her childish screams were swallowed by the fierce roar of the storm. Agnes had thrown herself back into the heavy surf and grabbed a tiny hand. Roberto was screaming behind her now, and with her other hand she had reached out to him. He anchored himself behind a massive boulder in the sand and held tight. The wave subsided and before the next one hit, Agnes pulled Consuelo, unconscious now, from the surf. Together, she and Roberto had tugged the small body away from the sea before collapsing. Agnes had tried desperately to bundle them together somehow and stay warm. She had placed them side by side on the sand and with the wind and rain howling about her, had draped herself over them to shield their tiny bodies as best she could from the wind and the rain.
But Elizabeth: The Morai had disagreed that evening. Should she live, or should she sink to the bottom of the sea never to rise again like so many others aboard the Phobos? Clotho had woven the shipwreck into the fabric and pattern of Elizabeth’s life; but Lachesis, she who determines how long the length of the complex weave will be, chose to see what intricacies might still remain in the pattern of Elizabeth’s life. At that moment, Atropos, the most abhorred of the three, lost her power for without Lachesis to determine length, Atropos could not cut the life thread which bound Elizabeth to heaven and earth. And so against all odds, she survived.
As the water battered and sucked her under, she had grasped a larger piece of debris than the one she originally clung to, and with every ounce of consciousness she held tight to it as the tidal currents and storm played with her like a cork on a fishing wire. The debris she now clung to bobbed up and down with each onslaught and she rode with it, learning to breathe deep with every ascent and pray with every descent. Her feet finally felt sand beneath them, and from then on it was a question of dragging herself further up the shore with every surge. Hours later, she was victorious, but the price was high. She had not the strength to pull herself completely out of the water. Instead, she lodged against a mighty rock and as the sound and fury finally subsided, she lay unconscious, almost buried by seaweed and debris from the Phobos. In a strange way, it was the debris which saved her in the end, for it sheltered her from the wind and insulated her against the driving ravages of the storm. The sound of workers shouting back and forth and of oxen bellowing as they strained to pull the wagons through the wet sand had finally awakened her near sunset. Throwing off the protective shield of rubbish, she had used the last of her energy to pull herself up against the rock and wave for help.
But that effort was almost her last. A hard fever set in, and for months she fought delirium and unconsciousness. A draining cough became worse, and had it not been for Agnes’ gentle and determined care Elizabeth would not have survived. Once the fever past, there were months of rehabilitation to follow. She had been battered and both a leg and an arm broken in the fight against the sea that night. As a result, time had lost all meaning for her in her
battle against death.
On any given day when she and her father found themselves sitting just outside the front door, Elizabeth’s thoughts always followed the same patterns. She would ponder how long it had been since she had considered such mundane issues as seasons, months, days and hours. She always did this with her face turned skyward, soaking in the bright sun and letting it flow over her as the waves of the Mare Nostrum had once done. She was safe now, she had always to remind herself, and as she looked upwards, her fingers played with the flowers which sat in a nearby pot. As always, at some point in her reverie, Thomas would look at her and smile.
“So we have made it, daughter, you and me. We survived against the odds.”
Elizabeth always smiled and with her free hand would reach out and rub her father’s arm.
“Indeed, father, we have, as did those we love.”
It was as though each of them, in their own way, needed this daily reaffirmation of their survival and depended upon their little routine for reassurance. Unconsciously, they had elevated its importance to a ritualistic level, to the point that even who pulled the chairs outdoors and placed them in the exact same spot each day (Elizabeth), who sat down first (Thomas), and who sat in what chair resonated deeply for each of them, providing a strong sense of order out of the nightmare and chaos which had engulfed them on the night of the wreck of the Phobos.
Their conversation seldom varied either, and like a church litany, Elizabeth always followed with an observation about the sadness which accompanied the wreck.
“‘Tis sadness in its purest form, father, to see so many in this village brought low by the storm.”
To which Thomas always gave the same, reassuring reply.
“Yes, but Ransdell is a good man, and he does what he can for Malaga.”
The captain had survived as well, and in recognition of the severe losses suffered by the village, had agreed that until each dead sailor’s children came of age, he would give half of all his profits from the sale of cargo towards their care. It was a generous gesture, and in turn, the village came to love the English captain and his mysterious English travelers, as the strangers were sentimentally regarded. Who was this strange man, a noble man according to Ransdell, who brought his daughter – a mere maid – on such a treacherous journey? And who was the woman who accompanied them? They were told that she was a lady to the young maid but such a tale did not make sense. The older woman was vigilant in her care of first Thomas, Consuelo, Roberto, and the Captain and then, as each completed the journey of their own recovery, solely of Elizabeth. A servant surely would not take such extreme measures. Only a family member, they reasoned, would risk her own life as she had done, and only to help others in her clan survive.
Agnes was an utter amusement to the village. Early on in their tenure in Ransdell’s house, she had realized that the circumstances demanded her complete dedication if all were to survive. She grasped in a heartbeat that knowledge of sufficient Spanish to bargain, plead, understand, and cajole to get what she needed for those she now considered her family was an essential tool. There were no servants, no estate, no one to help her or them but herself. There were no ladies’ gowns – her clothes and those of Elizabeth were charitable gifts from the other women in the village. There was no needlepoint to occupy her afternoons. Instead, she mended the children’s clothes and did the laundry. No one asked her what evening meal should be prepared, or what she thought might please the lord of the manor and his daughter for this or that saint’s day celebration. Instead, she hurried out to the market each afternoon after she hung the laundry behind the house on a rope supplied her by Ransdell. He was amused, and told her that laying the wet garments before the fire worked just as well but Agnes had insisted.
“Do you not understand the need for cleanliness?” She frequently remonstrated. “And is there anything fresher than clothing dried by the sun set in the heaven by our Almighty Father?”
Ransdell always smiled at this point. He was not a religious man, but he was deeply superstitious. Even now, he and his crewmen who had survived wondered what they had done wrong to deserve such a night as was visited upon them and on the Phobos. He himself had escaped relatively unharmed, with only minor bruising as evidence of the trauma. As had been their habit for generations, night after night, he and his fellow sailors and captains from the village met in the square an hour before sunset to discuss local news, weather patterns, cargoes and upcoming voyages. They were a tightly knit fellowship and, in the months following the wreck of the Phobos, their conversations almost always started and ended with that fateful voyage. Thomas had joined this group when he was able to walk again, and had quickly picked up more of the patois spoken by the locals. He had made inroads with the language on the ship while talking to the crew, and at this point, despite the fractured nature of his grammar and vocabulary, was able to join in the discussion.
Try as they might, however, they could not parse the disaster. There was no obvious point of blame and no noticeable causal event to explain why they had been led into the storm’s path. As the months passed, the discussion turned from the wreck itself to prevention of future catastrophes. This was particularly true among the survivors. Each man who had washed ashore and lived to tell about it discussed over-arching reasons for the disaster each afternoon with the other sailors in the square. But when they were alone, when they were with grateful family or listening to a homily from Friar Marcos or preparing this or that ship for another voyage, they thought long and hard about their personal fates. Why had they survived and not their friends, their cousins their uncles or fathers? Why had destiny chosen them to carry on, but more importantly, what had they done to deserve to continue on? Had their talisman against death been the jacket they were wearing, borrowed on that day from a fellow sailor because their own was too torn to don and work in? Or perhaps it was the cross that their mother had told them to always keep on a chain about their necks so that God could identify them as one of his faithful – had that saved them? Before leaving on the voyage, some had kissed their children goodbye. One particular sailor remembered his wife, in an unusual gesture, playfully cupping him about the ears and rubbing his head. Perhaps that had been his salvation – after all, why had she chosen that voyage, and only that voyage, to demonstrate her love in that manner? Prayers were said and confessions given to Friar Marcos, but at the end of the day, each survivor made certain that to the extent he was able he repeated the sequence of events or clothing or peculiar send-off which had accompanied the last voyage of the Phobos.
Ransdell had come to believe that the presence of his English passengers had saved him and his children that night. What else could it be? He had agreed at the last moment to take them aboard and ferry them to Rome. Some might believe they were the cause of the wreck, but not many. Instead, they were looked upon as special for otherwise why had God singled each of them out for survival. But his appreciation of the English threesome did not stop there.
As the months passed and Malaga recovered, Ransdell had turned his mind once more to sailing. The Phobos had been his best ship but not his only one. The Deimos was the near twin of the Phobos. Both had been captured by his father during the Reconquista, and in honor of his service to the Spanish crown, he had been allowed to keep them as his own. Additionally, he had owned a much smaller vessel, the San Miguel, which had previously supplied his living before the great battle with the Moors across the sea. Ransdell the younger had inherited this fleet, as would his son Roberto. Most families in Malaga were similarly situated. It was a mariner’s village and there was no family whose fortunes were not somehow tied to those of the ships anchored just off the shore in the tiny cove of Malaga.
Since the passing of his wife, the Captain had struggled to keep himself and his small children together. Initially, the villagers had stepped up and cared for them on while Ransdell was away at sea. After all, their own sons or husbands were likely crewing on those voyages and economic success for Ransdell
also meant economic success for them. But as the years had passed and the children had gotten older, fewer and fewer volunteered to feed and house the rambunctious pair. Isabel’s family had disowned the trio years earlier, and in desperation Ransdell had turned to England and to his own family. But they, too, were unwilling to take on the education and care of Consuelo and Roberto. At the very moment, when his heart had sunk the lowest point, he had been asked to take Thomas and his family to Rome. He had agreed to do so for money; had he realized the difference they would make in his own life, he would certainly have done so without charge.
Each time he returned from a voyage, Agnes dressed the children in their best and took them to wait for their father to be rowed ashore from his ship. They would then make their way to his house, where a warm fire burned and the aroma of a meal floated out from the hearth. Elizabeth and Thomas would be there, and a sense of happiness and family pervaded the small house. It was always spotlessly clean thanks to Agnes, and thanks to Elizabeth, the children now spoke English as well as they did Spanish.
When he was not at sea, the captain watched in admiration as Agnes and Elizabeth ran his household. Each morning, the children sat for lessons with Elizabeth. In the afternoons, they either walked along the seashore with her, looking for shells, or went to the market in search of adventure with Thomas. Elizabeth slowly incorporated herself into the work required to keep the household running, and as a result Ransdell began to understand what the concept of home truly meant. He watched Agnes at first with admiration, and then with something more. She had become his helpmate even though it was never spoken. Their relationship was one of scolding, nagging and teasing, and they both loved it.
