A Divided Inheritance (42 page)

A slight noise alerted them to Luisa silhouetted in the doorway from the sconces in the hall. ‘I’m ready,’ Ayamena said.

Luisa helped to gather her things and Elspet accompanied mother and daughter to the door. Gaxa opened it for them and the wave of warm air swept in from outside.

‘Thank you,’ Elspet said. ‘God be with you.’

Ayamena lifted her hand and Elspet watched the two women’s backs go down the road and around the corner into the black huddle of the city.

‘Go to bed, Gaxa,’ Elspet said. ‘It has been a long day, and tomorrow I must make arrangements for Mr Wilmot’s interment.’

‘As you wish, mistress,’ she said. Then, shyly, ‘Will you sleep?’

Elspet was touched by her concern. ‘Who knows?’ she said. ‘But let’s try.’

‘Bravo!’ The call made Zachary stop his training to look. It was Girard Thibault, just arrived. ‘That’s a beautiful sword you have,’ he said.

Zachary could not resist telling him, ‘I forged it myself – see, it is narrower and longer than the average blade. I went to Guido de Vega’s on the Calle de las
Armas.’

He held it out for Girard’s inspection.

Girard blew out through his teeth. ‘You’re a craftsman, Deane.’

Zachary feigned nonchalance. He wiped the blade on his sleeve again and smiled, admiring the grain of the metal.

Girard and Zachary began the basic walking of the circle, practising angles of offence, in the chill early morning light. Although Girard had been there the longest, and his training was
supposedly nearly done, Zachary was a good match for him. After they had been going a while the sky turned from the colour of a pale cheese to a vivid blue, and reflected sun leapt from their
blades. Thibault’s sudden concentration told Zachary that Señor Alvarez had appeared to watch and check their paces.

‘Stop,’ Alvarez said. ‘Come here.’ They went over to him.

‘Swap swords.’

‘What?’ Zachary was sure he could not have heard him right. But Alvarez took Girard’s sword by the grip and handed it to Zachary, holding his hand out for Zachary’s
blade. There was no option but to give it to him. Zachary watched as his beautiful sword was placed in Girard’s eager hands. That buffoon, who had a grin on his face as though he had found a
treasure chest in a dung heap.

As they drilled, Zachary was intent on Girard’s handling of his sword, fearing that he would nick its blade, and as for Girard’s sword, it hung too large in his hands, it tipped
forward, the balance of it all wrong. They circled each other warily.

‘Deane, you must put aside your feelings about the sword,’ said Alvarez. ‘You are too attached to it. In a fight you would save your sword and forget to save yourself.
Señor Thibault will have it this morning and the other men and then Mistress Leviston. Everyone will try it, and you will work with their weapons too. It is not good to identify too much
with your own creation.’

Zachary kicked against the dirt and said, ‘Guido de Vega said you have to know your own weapon like your lover. An extension of yourself.’

‘That’s true of course. But first you have to know yourself, heh?’ Alvarez raised his eyebrows at him. ‘Now, begin.’

They walked the circle again. All morning he worked with that useless lump of metal Girard called a sword. The weather was cooler, but they still worked up a sweat. The training was relentless.
His arm ached; he began to wish it was time for more book study, or more geometry. But Alvarez pushed them all on.

‘Quicker!’ Alvarez called out. ‘Footwork!’

From the corner of his eye Zachary saw Luisa come out from the kitchen and unload some sacks of grain from a handcart near the back gates to the stables. He could not help himself, she drew his
attention like a jewel. Next thing he knew, Girard had slipped easily under his guard and knocked his sword to the ground.

Girard whispered, ‘She is pretty, hey?’

‘It’s distracting having them unloading in the corner of the yard,’ Zachary grumbled, picking up the weapon and testing its edge.

Girard smiled, and did not look convinced.

‘Thibault, Deane! Repeat!’ called Alvarez. Zachary redoubled his efforts at the feint and strike and tried to ignore Luisa and the goings-on in the yard. When they were allowed a
pause for a break mid-morning the handcart had been spirited away and there was no sign of her.

Zachary sighed and lounged back against the wall, felt the freshness of the breeze dry his sweat. Thibault took out paper and lead as usual. He was working on a book to sketch all the
techniques.
A Manual of Fence
, he called it, making it sound very grand. Zachary ignored the scratching lead and tipped his hat over his eyes to feel the warmth of the sun penetrate his
tired muscles.

A hand touched him on the sleeve and he shot to upright. When he pushed his hat back, Nicolao’s wrinkled face was squinting before him. ‘I have a message for you,’ he said,
‘from the English señorita, your friend. It is about Señor Wilmot. He died yesterday. His requiem is this afternoon.’

‘What?’ Zachary shook his head, trying to take it in, but couldn’t think of anything to say. ‘Oh God, the poor dog,’ he managed. He remembered Wilmot in his
apartment, trying to get him to change his mind about selling the business. Surely that sweaty man with the determined face couldn’t be dead?

‘What happened?’

‘The sweating sickness, Ayamena says. The doctor bled him. Too much, too late, she says. He couldn’t be saved.’

Thoughts raced through Zachary’s mind – was it his fault? Had he somehow brought it on him? And how on earth would Elspet travel home now, without his protection?

‘I am sorry to hear it.’ Zachary rubbed his hand over his mouth. This would drag him further into involvement with Elspet, he knew. He did not want any further entanglement with her,
even the sight of her reminded him he was a liar and a cheat.

‘Señor Alvarez says you may go to the service.’ Nicolao’s words reined in his thoughts.

‘Today? I’m not sure . . . I’ll miss my training.’

‘If Señor Alvarez says you may go, then you should.’ He pursed his lips. ‘It is a mark of respect for your countryman. The poor Englishman can have few to honour him
being so far from his home. And there is Mistress Leviston also – Señor Alvarez says she will need your support.’

Oh no. Would he never be free of her? He did not want to go to the funeral, but at the same time he wanted to make a good impression on Alvarez, make him think he was worth his time. Perhaps he
could pretend to go, but go somewhere else instead. But then Alvarez would be sure to ask him about it. He tussled it in his thoughts, then shook his head. ‘What time?’

‘Four o’clock at the Church of Santa Maria La Blanca.’

He saw Elspet waiting red-eyed and quiet as they brought out the body, and a shiver of guilt went through him. A few nuns were there, from the convent of the church, gathered
like grey jackdaws round the padre who was to lead the procession. Surprisingly, quite a few other mourners had gathered too – all seemed to be Spanish, there because of some religious
conviction of their own. Elspet beckoned to him to fall in next to her behind the bier. He noticed that she was wearing black gloves. Black gloves in this heat.

The worm of guilt reared its head again. He stepped in next to her. This was no time for their argument, for this sombre procession reminded him of his mother’s death. No fine funeral for
her. He swallowed, pushed away the memory.

The coffin was draped in a white cloth and the padre led the slow gathering down the narrow streets, the silver-gilt cross held before him. Behind came the shuffling nuns, with paper cones
containing lighted candles. Then the pair of them, unlikely mourners, followed by the Spanish rabble.

He knew that walking so close to Elspet gave people a false impression, signified an intimacy they would never share. He wondered if she was remembering her father, and an unexpected wave of
regret washed over him. Leviston had tried to do his best, he knew. Old fool that he was, he had a good heart.

He glanced to the side, and a lump came to his throat. What a scoundrel Leviston would have thought him, to gull Elspet this way. But how could he tell her he was not her brother now? When those
ships came in, he would be a made man.

Folk stopped to remove their hats and make the sign of the cross as the cortege passed. Cobblers ceased their hammering, young children ran over to stare, fingers in their mouths before
scampering off on bare feet to fetch their friends, to gawp as they wended their way past. The doleful air of the nuns chanting the Miserere washed over him as they walked. The coffin moved
maddeningly slowly. He just wanted it to be over.

Outside the church they paused yet again for more sprinkling of holy water over the coffin, before entering through the big arched doorway, carved along its edge with what appeared to be giant
teeth. It put Zachary in mind of a huge jaw.

Inside the church it was gloomy after the outside sun. He shivered. He had not been in a church since leaving London. New plasterwork was in progress, a dust in the air with a slight tang of
limewash in the back of the nostrils. Even here, more building, as if Seville was remaking herself, putting off the dark of the plagues and failed harvests of the past for a gilded future.

‘
Exultabunt Domino
,’ chanted the padre.

Zachary slid into the pew and sat dry-eyed through the requiem Mass. Who would attend his funeral when it came? he wondered. Would he be like poor pathetic Wilmot, with only Mistress Leviston
and Zachary, who cared not a whit for him, as his mourners?

But if Zachary were to die tomorrow, maybe there would not be a single soul at his funeral. Not Elspet. Señor Alvarez? Could he call him a friend? Gabriel? Alexander? He thought of
Rodriguez. As usual he seemed to have made as many enemies in Seville as friends. The thought was sobering.

The padre swung the censer and the pungent whiff of frankincense transported him back to Mass with his mother, to waiting in the darkness whilst she made her confessions. The remembrance of her
face, as she emerged cool and serene to squeeze his hand, as if all her troubles had been rinsed away, made him wince.

He had not made confession for many months. He feared it. He dared not look inside his soul for he knew he would see the black stain of deceit pooling there.

A man stood to let him pass to the front, but he shook his head. To take communion was unthinkable, and he gripped the pew as the other attendees went to kneel at the altar. Elspet tilted her
head back to receive the host as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He swallowed back salt water. He was moved, that she should open her throat to the priest like that, as if exposing
her life and soul to him in that very gesture.

When she returned to the pew he could not meet her gaze. He listened miserably to the absolution:

He knew he had turned away from God somehow. But could he bring himself to confess he was not Leviston’s son? The devout and blameless Wilmot was no doubt on his way to
heaven. The words of the absolution sent an involuntary shiver up Zachary’s spine. A judgement of fire. That was what awaited him, he was certain.

The third day after Mr Wilmot was buried Elspet turned over and hugged the feather bolster to her chest, unwilling to rise and greet the day. She thought of home, and the
remembrance was faint, a mirage wavering in the heat. At the same time her heart filled with such a sharp pain of longing.

‘Mistress?’

She sat up. Martha was holding out her petticoat. Her hands were thin and blotched pink, her hair scraped back under her cap above hollow cheeks. She looked as if she might fall over if Elspet
should so much as blow on her.