A Divided Inheritance (28 page)

Luisa liked living at the Fencing School, even though it was on the other side of Triana and further away from the pottery where she worked. At least here there were a few
young men. Much better than their old yard full of toothless old women, and the pot-bellied grandfathers who congregated at the bodega at the end of the street with their thick black coffee and
their endless chess.

There had been no news of Alma and Merin. And poor Daria had gone to live with her aunt – too grief-stricken and distracted to carry on working. It wasn’t until they were gone that
she realized how much their lives had been intertwined. Papa missed Merin, and Mama had nobody to go to the market with. The kitchens at Señor Alvarez’s school were empty without Daria
constantly scrubbing vegetables. Luisa missed her, and the next
auto da fé
wasn’t for three more weeks. Now there was the Time of Grace, if you could ever call it such a
thing.

Mama and Papa chewed over it in low voices, squeezing each other’s hands, bending their heads close together so that Husain should not hear about how they wring confessions out of innocent
men with water torture and the rack. They were snappish and on edge, for they knew it could have been them the
familiares
came for.

Luisa was so angry at Mama and Papa for their stupid Muslim practices that she could barely speak to them. If they would only stop, everyone could breathe safely in their beds. She was tired of
watching Husain leap to hide under the table at every little noise. A loving parent would surely keep their children safe first? It exasperated her. Why did they hold on to it all? Mama said it was
tradition, but who for, when their children were standing right there in front of them in bare feet begging them to stop?

But with Daria and Alma gone, the kitchen empty and bread mouldering in the crock, Señor Alvarez needed someone to step into Daria’s shoes.

Mama was happy to help Señor Alvarez as long as the family could stay there. ‘Cooking is physic,’ she said, ‘and physic is cooking. And it is better to be busy.’
It was safer there, too, she said, in a yard full of men with swords and bucklers.

And Señor Alvarez – well, Papa loved to talk with him. They sat long into the night, with their dry-dust arguments about long-dead philosophers. She was sure Papa should have been a
Greek himself, he spent so much time talking about them.

They were deep in one of their conversations again – a discussion about Heraclitus and the
logos
, and whether the world was rationally organized, can you believe it, when Uncle
Najid arrived. A rapping on the courtyard door, and when nobody from the house went to answer it, Señor Alvarez rose from his cushion to go out himself. Husain leapt up too from where he had
been playing catch-stones at their feet.

‘No, Husain. You stay here,’ Mama said. ‘We don’t know who it is.’

‘Aw, let me go with Señor Alvarez, it might be the fig-seller, or the man with the canaries.’

‘Or the Inquisition,’ Luisa muttered.

Mama threw her a look of knives.

‘Then they have a very polite knock today,’ Señor Alvarez said, catching her eye, but he buckled on his sword just the same. The knock sounded again. And he was right, it was
a gentle knock.

‘Come on, then, Husain. You can carry the lantern,’ Alvarez said, and Husain picked up the nearest light and hop-skipped in front of him to the door.

They waited, straining to hear, but shortly Husain’s excited voice called out: ‘Papa, Mama, it’s Uncle Najid!’ Husain looked proud to have remembered him, holding him by
the sleeve and pulling him into the room.

Mama stood up and hurried to the door to greet him. ‘
As salaam alaikum
,’ she said, full of smiles, embracing him. He made the traditional reply, ‘
Wa alaikum
salaam.
’

‘This is my brother Najid.’ Mama then introduced Señor Alvarez and bade them both sit, and went to make more tea.

‘My, how you’ve grown. Look at you now with your butter-and-milk face, so pretty.’ Uncle Najid smiled at Luisa, but his cheeks were thin and haggard and there were cuts and
scratches all over his hands. Something had come in with him, some sour atmosphere: the odour of fear.

Luisa looked down in embarrassment, conscious she was staring.

‘How old are you now, my little hen?’ Uncle Najid smiled in an effort at jollity.

‘Old enough to help her mother,’ Papa said pointedly, gesturing with his head to the back room where the smoke of the fire clouded through the open door. Of course she understood
this meant that just the men were to talk without them. Even the boy Husain, who was not old enough to understand anything.

She stood up and pulled aside the curtain to go and help Mama who was rolling vine leaves around morsels of rice and peppers. As she went out through the door she heard Papa say, ‘We are
all brothers here, Señor Alvarez can hear what you have to tell, for there is something, is there not?’

She closed her ears, determined not to listen, and concentrated on folding the leaves, slippery with olive oil, and piercing them with the twigs of rosemary to hold them together. Mama’s
attention was not on the task, Luisa thought, she had been rolling the same parcel for too long, and she must be curious to know what her brother was doing here. It must be four, no, maybe five
years since they had seen him. The last time he came he was fatter and sleeker, and full of hopes of setting up his loom and making his fortune from the rich merchants of Seville. But he was not
expecting so much competition here, so Mama said. Seville was full of weavers and embroiderers. Here he was a speck of dust in a lentil pan, and in the end he had returned to Valencia where his
skill was better known.

Husain’s face peeked round the curtain. He was scowling. ‘They say I’ve to come and help,’ he wailed, his mouth turned downwards in a mutinous scowl. ‘Papa
won’t let me stay.’

Luisa pulled him to her and planted a kiss on his head. ‘Here,’ she said and gave him a vine leaf to fold. The men talked in whispers and in snatches of Arabic that she could not
catch. Neither she nor Mama spoke, but placed the food on the beaten copper tray, and added the crock of olives and the last of the goat’s cheese, along with the hot honeyed tea.

Mama looked at her disapprovingly and Luisa knew what she meant. She smoothed down her hair and lowered her eyes before going back through the curtain.

Already she sensed something different in the room.

‘We have to tell them,’ Papa said.

Uncle Najid said nothing, and an awkward silence ensued.

‘Why’s nobody talking?’ Husain whispered.

Señor Alvarez broke the silence. ‘They have expelled anyone they suspect of being Muslim from Valencia. Even
conversos
.’

Mama did not react but put the tray down softly, and said to Husain, ‘Go watch the men practising in the yard for a while.’

‘Really? You’ll really let me watch?’

Señor Alvarez smiled at him and nodded, and he scampered away.

‘Tell us, Najid,’ Papa said.

‘Forty thousand men and women have gone to Oran.’ Najid opened his hands in a gesture of defeat. ‘My city is lost. There is no one left, the streets are empty of traders.
Looters fill the shops. We had three days’ notice, to board ship or to suffer the penalty. They left us no choice. Any
converso
or Muslim left after three days was to be put to
death.’

‘We heard rumours,’ Mama said, ‘but we never thought . . .’ She moved towards him, her hand outstretched, but he shook his head. His eyes were glassy with unshed tears.
Mama pulled her hand away again, for fear her affection would make him lose control of himself and weep.

‘You must stay here,’ Papa was decided.

‘Have you no one with you?’ Mama asked. ‘How did you get here?’

‘A few of us disguised ourselves as women with draperies and head shawls. We sat by the side of the street to ambush a Christian party of soldiers on horseback. We wanted the horses, to go
into the mountains, raise a rebel army. But it went wrong, they recognized one of us, and in the fray only two of us managed to break free. We escaped up the mountain pass, but my friend was badly
wounded from a sabre cut, and I had to leave him.’

‘Oh Najid,’ Mama whispered.

‘It was my friend Ali, remember? Who you met. We’ve been friends since I was . . .’ He paused then, his hands twisting over and over. ‘When I got to the caves where we
were to meet, there was no one there. They must have caught up with the rest. I was the only one. I waited a few days. I stayed in the darkness and prayed, but nobody came.’ He laughed, but
it was bitter as green olives. ‘You are looking at the only rebel left alive from my whole city.’

‘Well, you are welcome here. They would never be able to do that in Seville. The whole city would collapse without our labour, and well they know it.’ Papa’s words were
bracing, but Uncle Najid’s eyes looked hollow just the same.

Elspet flapped the flies from her face with her kidskin gloves, which was the only purpose they were fit for in this heat, and searched the crowd for a glimpse of Zachary. She
had been in Seville a week and still had obtained no audience with him. Mr Wilmot had written from Toledo requesting to see him and had also left a letter with the slave girl at his lodgings. After
a week, still no reply had come, and she was fast losing patience.

Mr Wilmot had persuaded her to go down to the harbour. The fleet of ships bearing gold and silver from the Indies had been sighted, and he wanted to see the entertainment. She had bought a cheap
lace mantilla such as the ladies in Seville wore to protect their faces from the sun, and now she cracked open her parasol which used to be a glorious shade of blue but had turned faded and
yellowish-green under the glare. Martha followed, red-faced and grumpy as usual, carrying a basket of provisions – a flagon of water, and some bread and goat’s cheese.

Elspet sighed and glanced down river at the huge galleons moving imperceptibly closer. While she waited, and she knew Zachary to be there in the city, there was still hope, she knew. England
seemed to be a mirage after so long in Spain and she feared her life might disappear altogether if she did not get home soon.

Mr Wilmot had hurried right into the sun to get a closer look, but she and Martha hung back impatiently in the shade. In the baked mudflats near the river stood herds of pack-mules waiting to
unload the coffers of bullion, gold destined straight for the King, where it would be melted into coin. To protect this mighty treasure, ranks of guards with gleaming helmets, musketeers and
pikemen fidgeted in rows along the quay.

The fleet was enormous, each laden vessel guarded by armed galleons, themselves huge hulks of timber and iron with cannon protruding from the bows. No wind for sail today, so the progress was
slow as the ships were rowed in inch by inch past the sandbank at the mouth of the greenish river.

Like wasps around a crust of bread, a frenzy of activity buzzed around each vessel. Moorish slaves appeared to help lug the coffers on to waiting carts. The men lined up into belay rows; casks
and crates jostled down the line, followed by baskets of more exotic goods such as sugar, patatas, pineapples, vanilla and chilli-pods. There were also slaves, black as pepper, blinking and
stumbling into the sunlight, screwing their eyes into slits as they looked in awe at the gathered population.

A consignment of skins brought an unwelcome image of Hugh Bradstone to mind. Elspet cringed with humiliation.

Had she not problems enough, without dwelling on him?

Some of the goods went straight to auction on the spot. Mr Wilmot had made his way to where men were unrolling brightly coloured bales of woven cloth. The heat burned the back of her neck. She
watched as he stood a little to the outside of the group, a sombre figure in his dark English doublet, watching as the cloths were bartered and sold.

When he returned to her side he said excitedly, ‘If I was your brother, I would want to invest in some of that cloth. I’ve never seen designs like it. And they sold it so cheap.
I’ve just worked it out – less than two pence a yard! No wonder the Flemish and the French are flocking here.’

‘Yes,’ she said drily, ‘but we won’t be investing in anything unless we can persuade him to keep the business. I’m tired of waiting. It is frustrating to dawdle
here when I know he is within a mile of where I’m standing. We will call at his house and be done with it.’ She moved towards one of the tall palms where some other traders had just
vacated the shade. ‘Sorry, Mr Wilmot, but I simply can’t bear to wait any longer.’

‘I thought it best to be polite,’ Wilmot said, ‘to observe the English custom; it might ensure us a more reasonable reception.’

She snapped her sunshade closed and reached for the fan at her waist instead. ‘Mr Wilmot, they tell me my so-called brother was brought up by a whore on Cheapside, and made his living
thieving and fighting. You are wasting your proprieties on him. I have made up my mind. I shall go this evening, whether you will accompany me or no.’