The Falcons of Fire and Ice

by Karen Maitland

  But he stubbornly shakes his head. ‘No, I must be sure first. When he wakes then I will know.’

  ‘And what will you do then, Ari?’

  He covers his head with his arms as if trying to shield himself from a great boulder that is about to crash down on him. Then he turns and scrambles over the rocks towards the entrance of the cave. I hear the shower of small stones rattling behind him as he hastily climbs back up and out through the slit.

  The cave seals itself again in silence, save for the gentle bubbling and gurgling of the pool. I look down at the man. At his temple a tiny pulse flickers beneath the skin like the wingbeat of a moth. That is the only sign of life in him. Since they brought him here, he has not moved nor opened his eyes, but beneath her veil my dead sister, Valdis, turns her head towards me and laughs, a dreadful mocking laugh, and the walls of the cave tremble.

  Chapter Five

  A fable relates how once a falcon refused to return to his master’s fist. A cockerel, watching this, thought, I am just as fine a bird as any falcon, yet I am forced to scratch for scraps in the dust at my master’s feet. Why should I not ride upon his fist and be fed choice meats from his fingers?

  So the cockerel flew up on to his master’s fist. His master was delighted and praised the bird for its cleverness. Then he killed it, and held up its body as a lure for the falcon, which at once returned to his fist and devoured the cockerel’s flesh.

  Torre de Belém Ricardo

  Man – to accustom the hawk to being handled by the falconer and to make the bird accept the equipment used to control it, such as hoods, jesses, etc.

  The guttering orange flames of the torches high on the walls of the dungeon glinted on the black water as another icy wave surged in and splashed across my legs. I shivered violently. My bare chest was wet with the salt spray. I could no longer feel my feet as I stood knee-deep in water, and my arms were numb from hanging in the chains. But at least I no longer felt the terrible panic of the first night, when the guards had chained me here promising that, with the coming of the high tide, the dungeon would flood. They roared with laughter as they climbed up the stairs of the tower, leaving me to wait in agonized terror for the first wave to come rolling in through the openings and race across the stone slabs. Just how high would the tide reach?

  I had stood there in the darkness with my hands gripped painfully either side of my head by the fetters that bolted me to one of the great pillars, feeling the water creeping higher and higher up my legs with each breaking wave. How long before the tide was at its highest? How many hours had passed? And the cold! Oh, sweet Jesu, that bitter, biting cold. I had no idea how agonizing cold could be. It was as if my bones were being slowly crushed in the vice of it.

  Then, when something solid bumped against my groin, it suddenly occurred to me that eels, octopuses and worse, much worse, also made their home in the sea. If the water could flow in, what was to prevent them swimming in with it? Was that an eel even now gnawing at my numb flesh, or a crab tearing strips of my skin off with its claws? Was that just a ripple I could see in the torchlight, or some huge fish carried in on the tide, a stinging jellyfish, a shark? What was swimming around me in that dark, swirling water, its mouth open, its teeth dagger-sharp?

  But I was not drowned or devoured that night, nor had I been in the fourteen tides that followed, for I count my days in tides now. But what would happen when there was a storm? And sooner or later there would be one. I’d seen the waterfront at Belém flooded more than once when high winds lashed the sea. I knew just how much higher those waves could rise. And tall as I was, they would only need to rise a few more feet to cover my head.

  But even when the tide was low and the water had drained away, I couldn’t get warm. The heat of the sun didn’t penetrate the dungeon of the tower, though I could glimpse it sparkling on the blue water through the openings in the walls as if it was put there to taunt and torment me. A priest told me that once a year the damned in hell are permitted to glimpse the beauty of the heaven they can never enter, to comfort them in their suffering. When I saw the reflection of the sun on the sea, I knew that if those in hell are shown heaven it’s not an act of mercy, but just another torture inflicted on them.

  The sea wind funnelled through the arches of the dungeon, flaying my wet flesh. The skin on my feet and legs, especially the tender parts around my cock, was cracking open and peeling, leaving raw wounds and sores which stung viciously with each new flood of salt water, and itched madly as the salt on my skin dried at low tide. With my hands chained either side of my head, I couldn’t even relieve the torment by scratching my crotch. Merciful heaven, to think it was summer now! How much worse would it become if I was still chained up here in winter?

  They had rowed me out to the tower within hours of Carlos seizing me. Dona Lúcia’s nephew was a wealthy man, and the rich can buy vengeance which is denied to the poor. Had I robbed some poor market woman of every miserable thing she had ever owned, I would have merely ended up in the town jail, not comfortable perhaps, but not torture. Try to borrow a few escudos from a woman who’s so rich she wouldn’t even notice the loss, and they chain you up in here. There’s no justice in this world.

  And to think that just a few short weeks ago Silvia and I had stood, arms round each other, her head resting on my shoulder, gazing out from the shore at the tower, its windows glowing with soft yellow light. Silvia had thought it so romantic with its little turrets and graceful arches. Believe me, the romance dies pretty quickly when you see it from this angle.

  A guard clattered down the stone steps, swinging a pail in one hand and half a loaf in the other. He stopped somewhere behind me and addressed another prisoner hidden from my view.

  ‘How are we today, Senhor? In a better humour, I trust.’

  The only response was an incoherent mumbling, punctuated by sudden shrieks of demented laughter.

  I knew there was someone else chained up behind one of the other great pillars that supported the vaulted ceiling. I’d never seen him, but I could hear him talking to himself, though if I shouted a question at him he’d immediately fall silent. Each time the tide started to roll in, he’d begin whimpering and crying, and as it rose he’d start howling above the wind like a starving dog. How long had he been here? Had he been mad when they brought him here or had he gradually lost his wits chained up in this place, month after month? How long were they going to keep me here? Until I was as crazed as he was?

  I had given up asking the guards what was to happen to me. They simply laughed, sometimes drawing their fingers across their throats, or else twisting their heads sideways and making their tongues loll out in the grotesque mockery of a hanged man. But they never answered me.

  The footsteps moved towards me again and the guard rounded the pillar, a grin on his lopsided face. I stared at the quarter of the loaf remaining in his hands. I was sure he’d given that other prisoner the bigger share. He stuffed the bread into my chained hand and watched me lean my head towards my fingers until the bread was close enough to my mouth to eat. I devoured it as rapidly as I could. If I took too long, the guard would become bored and wander away without giving me anything to drink. But I had learned from painful experience to hold the chunk of bread tightly, for if my numb fingers dropped it, the guard wouldn’t pick it up and return it to me again. He’d simply walk away, leaving it on the floor where I couldn’t reach it. And the sight of the bread, so near yet so unattainable, would only make my stomach ache more with hunger.

  The guard dipped a ladle in a stinking bucket of water and held it to my lips, tilting it only slightly. I sucked as fiercely as a baby at the nipple, before the water could dribble down my chin. To my surprise he dipped the ladle a second time and then a third. I’d never been given more than one before. For a moment I wondered if he’d pissed in it or poisoned it, but frankly I was so thirsty not even that would have stopped me drinking it.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, when he picked up the pail ready to depart.
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  The guard snorted. ‘Not me you want to thank, it’s your visitors. Said they wanted you in a fit state to talk, they did.’

  ‘Talk? You mean they want to question me?’ My stomach contracted so fast I nearly vomited what I had just drunk.

  ‘They didn’t come here for the good of their health. In fact, one of them’s looking decidedly peaky. I’d always heard of people turning green, but I never believed it until I’d seen him. I don’t reckon he enjoyed that crossing much. He’s up in the Governor’s room now, taking a little port for his stomach, and if I were in your shoes I’d be praying it improves his temper, otherwise I don’t give much for your chances.’

  ‘Who … who is it? Senhor Carlos?’

  The guard chuckled. ‘These are no senhors,’ he said, as he walked away.

  ‘Wait, please! At least tell me who –’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ the guard called back, as he ambled towards the stairs. ‘Don’t be so impatient. Not as if you’ve got anything else to do today, except hang around.’ Laughing at his own feeble joke, he vanished from view.

  As if he too shared the joke, the unseen prisoner also began to laugh, a high-pitched, insane giggle that ended in a sob.

  I don’t know how long I waited. There was no way to measure time except by the relentless tides. My ears were straining for the sound of footfalls on the steps and my thoughts were spinning in a maelstrom. What did he mean, these were no senhors ? Were my visitors women? Had Dona Lúcia taken pity on me? Did she feel guilty that her own nephew was responsible for my unjust incarceration and had come to negotiate for my release? Perhaps that adorable little maid of hers had persuaded Dona Lúcia that I was innocent of any crime, which indeed I was, since I hadn’t actually taken any money from her. There was no denying the kiss that girl had pressed on me had all the taste and passion of love, and she had tried to help me to escape. She would be distraught that I had been taken.

  I was so preoccupied with thinking of the maid coming to release me that it wasn’t until they had rounded the pillar that I saw them, two black-robed men, their cassocks held in place by a long girdle tied about the waist. They moved round either side of the pillar and came together in front of me like a giant claw closing. They seemed to be gliding an inch above the ground for their sandals made no sound at all on the wet paving stones.

  It took me a moment or two to realize who they were. I’d never before been within spitting distance of one of their kind. But when I recognized their habits, a douche of icy panic shot through my bowels. Jesuit priests! What the hell were they doing here? There was only one reason I could think a priest would visit a prisoner – to hear his confession and give him the last rites before he was executed. I stared wildly from one to the other, but neither spoke.

  Faced with their icy silence, my brain seemed to freeze. I couldn’t think of a single coherent story with which to defend myself. Instead I began to babble wildly like some callow farm boy caught stealing a chicken.

  ‘Please, you have to understand I’ve done nothing wrong. It was just a business arrangement, that’s all … I didn’t take the money … You can’t hang me without a trial … Don’t listen to Senhor Carlos, he completely misunderstood the situation. He … he wasn’t there at the beginning, you see. I had no intention of borrowing any money from the old lady, quite the reverse. In fact I’m the one who was the victim here. I was completely deceived by Henry Vasco and the captain of that ship. It’s them who should be here, not me … I … the truth is …’

  My voice faltered and died away. Both men’s faces were expressionless. They did not so much as nod their heads to show they were listening. Both stared at me with unblinking eyes as if they were searching my soul and despised what they saw. The only sounds to be heard were the waves lapping against the outside of the tower and the wind whining between the pillars. Even the mad prisoner had fallen silent.

  The older of the two men gave a dry little cough. He was a well-fleshed man with a bulbous nose and small, sunken eyes which even in the shadow of the dungeon seemed to be permanently squinting against a non-existent glare. His companion, in contrast, was a shorter, leaner man, with sharp features, but whose black eyes burned with a dark fire that I had only ever seen in men who are consumed with lust for a woman. Sweet Jesu, surely he didn’t mean to … I mean, you did hear of prisoners who were raped by their jailers, but not by a man in holy orders surely?

  The older priest coughed again. ‘I am sure you realize by now that you are in serious trouble, Senhor Cruz. Oh, yes, we know your name, in fact we know all the names you call yourself. But let us not trouble ourselves with a list of those. Why don’t we stick to the name that will appear on your death warrant, just to simplify matters?’

  ‘Death … but I told you I am innocent. I didn’t take a single crusado from Dona Lúcia.’

  ‘But you tried to. A thief who is apprehended in the midst of his crime is no less guilty than one caught afterwards.’

  ‘A servant who puts poison into his master’s wine is still executed whether his master drinks it or not,’ the younger man added.

  ‘But I was tricked, I –’

  The older priest held up his hands. ‘Don’t waste words lying to me. It’s not the first time you have committed such a fraud. True, the ship was a little more ambitious than some of your other schemes. Remember the olive grove you sold that you did not actually own? The girl you promised to marry and then abandoned after you had talked her into giving you her jewellery to buy medicines for your dying mother? And then there were boxes of rare nutmegs you procured for the noble lady which turned out to contain, what was it – apricot stones? Need I go on?’

  ‘That wasn’t me. You are mistaking me for someone else, I swear.’

  ‘We could, of course, bring these people as witnesses to your trial,’ the priest said in a bored tone, as if he was discussing the price of hay instead of my life.

  ‘They wouldn’t testify, because they know it wasn’t me,’ I retorted, trying to sound far more confident of that than I felt.

  ‘I grant you many of them wouldn’t want to admit in public they had been taken as fools. But let me assure you that the girl’s father as well as Senhor Carlos are so hungry to see you hanged they’d don the executioner’s hood themselves, if we allowed them to.’

  He paused. His gaze wandered to somewhere behind me. I turned my head and was sure I glimpsed the sleeve of a black cassock sticking out from behind the pillar to which I was chained. There was a third priest in the dungeon. Why didn’t he step out where I could see him? Was he going to garrotte me from behind? I was horribly conscious that my hands were chained fast. There was nothing I could do to defend myself, not even cover my face.

  The older priest was speaking again. ‘But it would be a pity to let a man with your skills go to the gallows when he could perform a great service for his country and for the Holy Church. Our Blessed Lord does not like us to waste the talents he has given us.’

  The younger priest gave a half-smile. ‘Indeed.’ He nodded respectfully to his companion, before turning to me. ‘The Holy Church wishes you to carry out a task for her. If you succeed, on your return you will be set up in a well-appointed house many miles from Belém and your accusers. Furthermore, you will be granted an income more than sufficient for all your needs, such that you will never again have to put yourself to the trouble of finding, shall we say … a less honest means of earning a living.’

  I gaped at him. I couldn’t take in what he was saying. Just minutes ago they were talking about death warrants and gallows, now they were suddenly offering me houses and money. Had my wits finally fled and I’d become as mad as the unseen prisoner? Perhaps I was imagining all this and the priests were just hallucinations. I jerked my hand and felt the iron shackle cut into my wrist – the pain was certainly real enough.

  ‘Are you saying I’ll be released … with no charge? Will there … will there be a penance?’ I asked anxiously.

 
I had witnessed the ghastly humiliation of those the Church forced to do public penance for their crime and always thought I’d rather die than suffer that. Although now that it had come to just such a choice, I realized I would do anything to stay alive, even endure public shame.

  ‘We feel that the task you will undertake will involve sufficient hardship so as to render any further penance unnecessary. You might say that what the Church requires of you is in the nature of a pilgrimage.’

  ‘You mean to Compostela or the Holy Land?’

  The abject fear that had gripped me was beginning to ease a little. Pilgrimages could be quite jolly affairs, or so I’d been told. True, the journey could be a little rough at times, but if one had plenty of money there was always good food, desirable women and juicy entertainment to be had in the inns along the way.

  ‘I fear the pilgrimage you are about to embark on is to somewhere a little colder and damper than the Holy Land.’ The young priest glanced round the dungeon at the water marks on the pillars and the puddles of sea water on the floor. ‘But after this place such a journey should be no hardship. We want you to go to Iceland … you have heard of Iceland?’

  ‘Somewhere in the North, isn’t it? Nothing there but cod and sheep, so I heard. Why would I go on pilgrimage there? Are there even any shrines in Iceland?’

  ‘It’s not the destination that makes the pilgrimage, Cruz, it is the journey,’ the older priest said. ‘A pilgrimage is a journey you undertake to purify the soul, but in this case it is a journey you will make to purify the Holy Church, and Portugal, even the young king himself.’

  The older priest glanced behind me again, as if he was seeking confirmation from someone standing just out of my sight in the shadow of the pillar. Whatever answer he got seemed to be a signal to continue, for he nodded briefly and returned his gaze to me.