by David Penny
She smiled, the gesture ragged and blood-streaked.
“I know you will, my love.”
“He stuck you, Pa.” Will stood over Koparsh. “Can I kill him?”
“No.” Thomas tried to rise to his feet and failed, managed on the second attempt by hanging on to Will’s strength. “But there is something you can help me with, if you are willing.”
“Anything, Pa.”
Thomas staggered and Will reached out to keep him upright. Over on the far side of the terrace, Yves sat on the low wall. Salma lay with arms thrown wide. Her throat was cut, blood soaking the surrounding slabs.
Thomas walked to his workshop and picked up a stool. He brought it back, cracked it on the flagstones to break the legs, then set the seat beneath Koparsh’s arm, halfway between wrist and elbow.
“Give me your axe,” he said to Will.
“I will do it. I have killed two already, I can kill another.”
“Give me your axe,” Thomas said again, and eventually Will gave in and held it out.
Thomas couldn’t use it as Will and Olaf did, swinging freely from a leather thong secured at the wrist. It made the weapon one with them, a feat he could never emulate, but he had no need of their skill. He gripped the handle of the axe and kicked his toe against Koparsh, who was recovering.
“Usaden, is she dead?” Thomas asked without turning.
“She could not be more dead.”
“And Yves?”
“He looks like he might throw up, but otherwise unharmed. He did well. He moved faster than I thought possible.”
“Come hold Koparsh’s arm for me.” He glanced at Will. “You hold the other.”
Thomas waited until they did as asked, then waited some more until Koparsh was almost fully recovered. As he regained his wits, he spat at Thomas.
“You would not dare. If you kill me, my master will not rest until I am avenged.”
“And who will tell him it was me?”
“There is always someone. You can never sleep safe.”
Thomas laughed. “Ah, if only I could sleep. Confess and I may spare you.”
“So the Queen can take my head instead? No, do your worst.”
“You have my word I will not kill you, but I need to know the truth. Tell me and you can return to Turkey, or whatever land you come from.”
Still held by Usaden and Will, Koparsh stared up at Thomas. His eyes dropped to take in the axe, the bloodstained blade.
“You will let me walk away from your house alive?”
“You have my word.”
“Everything I heard about you said your word could be trusted, but—”
“What have you to lose? Don’t tell me and you die here. Tell me and you may have a chance. Your decision.”
Thomas waited, watching the man. His head swam with exhaustion, but he knew he had to hold on a little longer. Helena’s face needed repairing, Salma’s body needed to be disposed of, and Yves had questions to answer of his own.
“Ask, then,” said Koparsh.
“Eleanor claimed the French recruited her to kill Isabel. Is that true?”
“No, I recruited her. The French have nothing to do with any of this. It was a tale we agreed she should tell so nobody would know it was my master who wanted the Queen dead. Your lover was known as the most skilled assassin in the western lands. Somewhere in her home, she claimed to have a list of all those whose lives she had taken. So many, she had to make extra space for their names.”
Thomas didn’t care about the others.
“Did you have her killed?”
“I did, because she failed me. Those who fail me suffer the consequences.” Koparsh glanced beyond Thomas. “Even Salma, it seems.”
“And Baldomero and his wife?”
“Collateral damage, nothing more. As you would be if you were not so difficult to kill.” Koparsh smiled, his strength returning. “There is still time to remedy that mistake.” He glanced beyond Thomas once more.
“I have a message for your Sultan,” Thomas said.
“What message? Tell me then, before you die.”
“This.” Thomas brought the axe down hard. Koparsh screamed, high and sharp. Thomas pushed at the detached arm with his foot and kicked it away. Blood poured from the stump to pool on the flagstones.
“Will, kneel on his arm to slow the bleeding, I don’t want him to die.”
His son did as asked.
Koparsh continued to shout and Thomas was tempted to kill him, but knew he could not. Instead, he leaned close and put his mouth to his ear.
“Go back to your master and tell him to leave this land alone. It is not for sale. It is not for conquest. He will take his eyes away from the west and settle for what he has. Do you understand?”
Koparsh nodded, reaching over to grasp his arm.
“Keep him where he is.” Thomas walked into the workshop and found a cloth and distilled alcohol. He searched in drawers until he found needle and gut, and went back out.
Koparsh screamed even louder when Thomas cauterised the wound with coals from the fire as he stitched it closed. He did not tidy the end of the stump as he had for Olaf. The sharp bone would grate painfully when the wound healed, a constant reminder of Koparsh’s failure.
When he had finished, he allowed the man to his feet. Koparsh glared at Thomas without speaking, glanced at Salma’s body, then turned and left.
“You should have killed him,” said Usaden. “I can follow and do it for you.”
“I need him to carry a message.” Thomas glanced at Will, reached out and pulled the boy against him. He rolled his shoulder, testing it. The wound Koparsh had inflicted was not serious and there was more important work for him to do. He glanced at Yves, who was sitting on the flagstones.
“You were a fool to fall in with them,” he said.
Yves looked up. He stood tall, different now, as though killing Salma had turned him into something he had not been before.
“Who are you to call me fool?” Even his voice was more confident. “You are the fool,” he sneered, “Father.”
Thomas ignored the taunt.
“What are you going to do now?”
“Whatever I want. It is none of your business. I am a grown man of thirty-one years and will make my own decisions. My mother tried to control me and I know you want to do the same. I will not stand for it anymore. Not from you. Not from anyone.” He glanced down at Salma, his face expressionless. “As she discovered.”
Thomas turned away, then stopped. He needed to attend to Helena as soon as possible. The longer he left her wound, the less perfect the repair would be, but something in Yves’ words had stuck in his mind. He had said he was a man of thirty-one. Thomas thought back a long way, counted forward. His son should be thirty-five. Not thirty-one.
When he looked at Yves again, Thomas saw the realisation of what had been said in anger come to him and his sneer return.
“Did you really think I was your son? Your son? You are an even bigger fool than I thought you.”
Thomas continued to stare, trying to make sense of everything Eleanor had told him, everything he had believed until this moment.
Why had she lied about such a thing?
“Who, then? That old man?”
“Of course not. I doubt he could even get it up, and if he could, he wouldn’t know what to do with it. Another came. Young, like you. Handsome, unlike you. A travelling minstrel, Mother told me. Except he stopped travelling for a while. I think I remember him, but cannot be sure. He was there, and then he was not. It is what men like him do. What you did.”
He was there, and then he was not. Thomas recalled Eleanor’s confession to him. The lover she had killed after poisoning his wife. Another lie, but perhaps one with a grain of truth to it.
“Eleanor carried my child when I was torn from her,” he said.
“That may be true, though it was only many years later she admitted it to me. When she recognised you in Córdoba, she asked me t
o pretend to be your son.”
“So who is that child, if it’s not you? Where are they now?”
Yves smiled. “Oh, I am sure you would like to know the answer to that question, but I have no inclination to give it.”
“You will, eventually.” Thomas turned to Usaden. “Hold him until I finish.”
Usaden gave a nod and moved forward, as sure as ever. And then the impossible happened.
The knife Salma had held at Yves’ throat appeared in his hand and he struck out, lightning fast. All at once, blood bloomed on Usaden’s chest. He coughed and stopped, then went to his knees.
Before Thomas could react, Yves turned and ran through the door to the alley.
Chapter Forty-Nine
The year was drawing to a close and Thomas knew that soon, he would have to return to Isabel. He tried to ignore his reluctance and pretend it was nothing more than weariness. Some was that, but weeks had passed and still he remained in his house on the Albayzin. Jorge lived with Belia and Jahan in their new house, and life had settled into a peaceful rhythm.
Thomas treated Helena’s face every day with a lotion Belia made for her and already the flesh had knitted together. It formed a raised red welt down the side of her face, but Helena made no complaint.
Usaden healed slowly, but had started to train with Will again. He owed even more to Thomas now, because nobody else could have saved his life after Yves struck out. Even Thomas had been unsure he could do so, but the thought of losing the man had been too much to bear, so he had exceeded even the skill he already possessed. They had talked of how Yves had struck him. Nobody ever struck Usaden and he claimed they had all underestimated the man who was no longer Thomas’s son. He wondered often what had happened to the child Eleanor had carried, a thought that scratched at his mind. Had the child died? Did it live? Did it still live? He knew, one day, he would have to find the answer to the question. But it was something for the future. If he had one.
“Your face will heal,” Thomas said to Helena one night as they lay in bed together. “I know you may not believe me now, but it will heal.”
“I did not believe you when first you fixed me, but you were right. I cannot see the scar on my other cheek anymore, however hard I look. This wound is deeper, but I do not mind so long as you continue to lie beside me.” She kissed his mouth, half-lying across him. “Will you always lie with me, Thomas? You haven’t touched me since that man gave me this. It is my face he damaged, not anywhere else.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You would not. You know I have ways and means.”
“Soon.” Thomas stared at the perfection of her body, touched the narrow valley along her back.
“The sooner the better.” She kissed him again and turned away. “I love you, Thomas Berrington.”
He reached out and snuffed the candle and lay for a long time, listening to the sounds of the city that came muffled through the glazed window.
In the morning there were visitors, Martin de Alarcón and Theresa. Helena set two more places at the table in the courtyard where they could all gaze across at al-Hamra.
“I expect Isabel has sent you, hasn’t she?” Thomas asked.
“She wants to know if you are all right,” said Theresa. Martin stood chatting to Jorge and Belia, who had arrived only moments after them. “She said you were not all right the last time she saw you.”
“That was weeks ago. I have slept since, and as you can see, I am eating.”
“She is grateful for what you did. ‘Trust Thomas to sort it out,’ she said.” Theresa smiled. “She wants you to go to her today. There are arrangements to be made.”
“When is it to be?” Thomas did not need to be told what manner of arrangements. The time had come and he had no clear idea of how he felt about it, only that he knew whatever he felt would stop nothing. Like everything else he had done, he would have to accept it as well as he could. The fall of his beloved Gharnatah.
“The day after tomorrow. The first day of a new year. The first day of fourteen hundred and ninety-two.” Theresa covered her mouth with a hand as she laughed. “And she says you have to do something about Columb. She has never encountered anyone so single-minded or persistent. Other than you. She says she cannot think about him a moment longer.”
“I will return with you and Martin.”
Theresa smiled at him. “He has asked me to marry him.”
“I thought he was looking for a duchess.”
“Am I not better than a duchess, Thomas?” She shook her head. “Oh, but it would have been nice to have seduced you the once.”
“My apologies.”
Theresa looked past him to where Helena was laughing at something Jorge had said.
“What happened to her face?”
“Koparsh Hadryendo. I took his arm off and sent him back to his master with a message that Spain cannot be touched.”
“And the woman?”
“Dead.”
“Martin found the cook you were looking for.”
“Also dead?”
Theresa nodded. “And your son, Yves? Has he also been punished?”
“He is gone. One day I may tell you about Yves, but not this day. This is a day for friendship, not betrayal. I am pleased about you and Martin. Without him, none of this would have happened. The war would still go on, but now it ends the day after tomorrow.” Thomas could scarcely believe it. “What will Isabel do then?”
“What she has always done. Her duty.”
“And you will be at her side?”
“As always. As will you, Thomas. I know she wants you with her. She needs you now more than ever. You know this city and its people. The war might end, but the peace is not yet won. She will demand you help her forge a just peace.”
Thomas drew a breath and held it deeply before releasing the air from his lungs. The weeks since he had returned felt like a dream, nothing more. Duty called. It felt like a return to normality.
A cold wind tugged at Thomas’s robe as he stood beside Isabel’s white stallion. She sat astride it like a man, as she always did, her silver armour bright in the thin sunshine. It had rained overnight and the ground underfoot was sticky with mud.
Abu Abdullah stood with head bent beneath the open eastern gate of Malaka. His mother Aixa stood to one side, a scattering of nobles and officials also present. But it was the Sultan who mattered here.
The time had come. It could be put off no longer.
Abu Abdullah raised his head as if with a great effort and stepped forward.
“You majesties, I present you with the key to this city, which has served me good and well. Take care of it and its people, for I no longer can.” He held out his hand, which held a large, ornate key. Thomas knew it would open nothing and was only for show, but the symbolism mattered.
Isabel made to urge her horse closer, but Fernando cut her off, riding to loom over Abu Abdullah, who reached up and handed the key to him. Without looking at it, Fernando held the key out, waiting. Juan stepped close and took it. He carried it back and handed it to his mother, who passed it on to someone else. The key did not matter. The moment did.
“Help me, Thomas,” Isabel said.
He offered his cupped hand as she dismounted, touched her slim back to steady her. When he looked beyond her, Fernando’s eyes were on him and they blazed with hatred.
Isabel picked her way across the slippery ground until she stood before Abu Abdullah, a slight figure, but the stronger of them.
“I give my promise, Malik, that we will do as you ask.” She afforded him one final small honour as he bowed his head. Protocol demanded he should kneel, but they had made an arrangement so as not to demean him further.
Thomas looked beyond the gathering, his eyes searching until he found the people who mattered most to him in the world. Will stood tall, Amal perched on his shoulders. Jorge had one arm around Belia while the other held Jamal on his hip. He saw Thomas find them and nodded. Helena stood besid
e them.
And then Thomas saw two other figures and smiled. Usaden stood apart from everyone, unarmed as were all but those of Castile. Beside him stood Kin, alert, eyes on everything.
There was one other Thomas sought, but failed to find. Olaf Torvaldsson had chosen not to attend this surrender.
Isabel turned away and it was as if the earth gave a great sigh. Thomas met Abu Abdullah’s eyes and saw defeat in them. When he looked at Aixa, he found only hatred of him and those who had humiliated this great city.
There were others Thomas knew from the many years he had lived within Gharnatah’s walls. Friends and neighbours, soldiers he had healed who had never thanked him, but the lack never concerned him, only that he had done his duty. As he knew he would continue to do his duty.
“I need you with me tomorrow, Thomas,” Isabel said. “I am allowing Boabdil until the end of today to say his goodbyes and gather whatever he needs. Tomorrow, I enter the palace and I want you to show me everything.”
“Then I will need Jorge with me,” Thomas said, “for he knows it far better than I do.”
“Bring him then, but not when we enter. That will be Fernando and myself, with you behind us. I want the world to see the trust I place in you. Ask Jorge to join us later. You are right, who better than a eunuch to know a palace?” She gave a shake of her head, as far as the armour would allow. “I forget he is a eunuch these days. A eunuch who can father children. Truly it is a time of miracles.” She gave a wicked smile. “Perhaps I should have him made a saint. I am sure Cardinal de Borja would oblige me.”
“Saint Jorge?” Thomas shook his head. “I think not.”
It was gone noon when Thomas once more stood beside Isabel. This time, the ceremony was almost as symbolic as the sham that had occurred that morning. Abu Abdullah was mounted this time, while Isabel sat on her own steed and waited for him to approach.
Fernando was at her side, and as the party of Moors approached, he urged his horse to stand between his wife and Abu Abdullah.
“You are to ride directly to Laujar de Andarax. You are not to detour. You are not to make any attempt to contact your army, do you understand?”