A Divided Inheritance (25 page)

‘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.’

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 seemed 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.

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.

He read the letter again, and then opened the lid of the writing slope. But maybe he’d pen a letter to Greeting, suggesting that Bradstone might like to offer for the business, as Wilmot
seemed so mightily keen. A little competition might raise the price.

He pictured Elspet Leviston’s reaction, asking her husband to bid for what should have been hers by right. A queasy feeling lurked in the back of Zachary’s mind. He recognized it as
guilt. The same tainted feeling that came every time he picked a pocket or snatched a cloak. But he was on his way out of that life, with the help of Leviston’s money. So he quashed it, like
drowning something that gasped for breath.

Zachary was sure Guido was about to say ‘
Tarde
’ again, but he was too stunned to say a word when he caught sight of Zachary’s bruised face.