The Day of Atonement

by David Liss

  Roberta rose and leapt awkwardly from the boat, walking to my side. None of the others moved.

  Inácio grinned. “Ah, the lady. If there was but one I would have with me, it is you. Now, the rest of you, get out, or one of you dies.”

  “No one else leave the boat,” I said. “I will manage this.”

  “How will you do that?” Inácio asked. “I have more pistols in my pockets, and I believe I can take two or three of you before you can reach me. You see, you are not the only one who does not fear death.”

  I studied him, his bandaged arm, his posture, the bulges in his pockets. It was possible he could do what he said, but he would be slow, uncertain. Even so, there were lives not my own in the balance, and if he was determined to hurt one of the others, I might not be able to stop him in time.

  “Maybe instead of the pretty lady, I shall aim first for the child,” Inácio said. “Or perhaps the Jewess. That would trouble our friend Sebastião, I think.”

  Roberta took a tentative step toward Inácio and swallowed hard.

  “Roberta,” I said. “Stay here.”

  She ignored me and took another step. She was pale, her lips almost white, but when she spoke, her voice was calm. “He says he loves me,” she told Inácio. “So if you want to hurt him, take me.”

  Inácio studied her, trying to figure out the puzzle. “And what would I do with you once I had you?”

  “I don’t care,” she said. “I have nothing left, but I know that if you take me, it will torment him. Even though I say this in front of him, it will still kill him to know you have me. That’s enough.”

  “Perhaps you enjoyed my attentions more than you wish to admit,” Inácio said.

  “Believe what you like,” Roberta returned.

  Inácio was now laughing softly, shaking his head in wonder. Did he truly believe that after all he had done, Roberta felt some strange desire for him?

  “We shall see,” Inácio said to her. “I shall give you an opportunity to prove your loyalty, and if you do—”

  “Careful, Inácio!” Roberta cried out. “Foxx has a knife.”

  Inácio, whose eyes had drifted toward Roberta, returned his gaze to me and raised the pistol. His eyes were narrow and intense, his muscles hard. Until that moment, I had not moved, but now I did. I had more than one knife, of course. I had many knives. I began to reach for one in my belt. Let him fire his pistol at me. Either he would hit me or he would not.

  Neither of us saw Roberta coming. She lunged forward and thrust her own blade, the replica of the one that had once belonged to my father, into Inácio’s thigh, all the way to the hilt, and then yanked it out in a single, fluid motion. Without stopping to see the damage she had inflicted, she leapt away and began to work at the ropes toward the aft of the boat. Understanding his role, Franklin moved to its front. I ran toward Inácio.

  Inácio had been staggered by the wound, but only for a second. It must have been horribly painful, but he was not going to let it deter him. He took two steps back and then raised his pistol at me. I was now less than ten feet away from him. “One more step and you die.”

  I stopped and raised my hands, letting my blade drop. From the corner of my eye, I saw Franklin finish with the ropes and jump on the boat, wobbling and nearly falling in the water. It would have been comic under any other circumstances. Roberta was already on board. Inácio saw it too, but dared not react. He knew better than to take his eyes off me.

  “Clever,” Inácio said, trying not to grimace. “But your friends leave without you. She tricked you and escapes without you.”

  “It is what I want,” I said. “And she knows it. She knows that I can be trapped here forever, so long as they are safe.” I turned my head slightly. “All of you, go. Go, and do not stop. Do not look for me to catch up with you. I shall go another way and meet you in London.”

  I heard movement behind me. Settwell cried, “What are you doing? We can’t leave him.”

  “It is what he wants,” Roberta said.

  “He is just saying that to deceive Inácio!” Settwell again. “We must wait.”

  “You don’t know him. He wants us to make our escape. If we wait for him, and we fail, it will kill him. If you want to help him, then go!”

  I did not turn to look at her, but I did not have to. I knew she understood. It wasn’t callousness but tenderness that made her want to leave me behind, and I thought of my own departure ten years earlier. It was the one thing she could do for me, and for herself, and though I knew it was hard, she did not flinch. I kept my eyes on Inácio and listened to the sound of waves lapping, but there were no more voices. They were silent, I imagined, as they drifted out of the boathouse and toward the river. Were they watching me or had they turned away already? I hoped it was the latter.

  Inácio scowled. Blood ran down his trouser leg, pooling about his boot, but he appeared unconcerned. “You want to be abandoned, despised by the people you protect?”

  “This is how I protect them. You were right, you know. I could have endured anything but to see them harmed. Now I need not fear it.”

  We glowered at each other like two tomcats preparing for an inevitable fight, a conflict with no goal but victory. We kept our gazes locked while almost everything I cared about in the world slipped further away.

  “Your friends left you,” Inácio said. He grinned crookedly. “Just as you knew they always would. You are all alone. Abandoned.”

  “So it seems.”

  “How does it feel to be cast aside?”

  “I am pleased,” I said, utterly without inflection.

  “You may pretend to be unaffected, but I know the truth. I was wrong. There is one thing harder for you than seeing your friends hurt. It is seeing how little they care for you.”

  “You know it is not so,” I said. “I am content.”

  “Then be content to get on your knees.” He flicked the pistol slightly downward.

  “No,” I said.

  Inácio’s face darkened. Perhaps he had expected that this would be easier. “If you do not, I shall shoot you.”

  “Then shoot me,” I told him. “You said yourself that I care not if I die.”

  “Even such men as you will prefer to live.”

  “Perhaps so. I shall not be toyed with, however. If you mean to shoot me, then do so. If you think you, who have been beaten and stabbed so many times in the past few days, can do what a half dozen soldiers could not, then go ahead and defeat me in unfair combat. But I don’t believe you have the courage. I believe you are a coward, Inácio. I believe you know that unless you drop your weapon and flee, you are going to die.”

  Inácio hesitated. Then he lowered the pistol. He quite clearly meant for the ball to strike me below the waist, a wound that would immobilize but not kill me. He did not want me dead yet. He had set out to hurt and betray me, and though he had caused me pain, it had gained him nothing. He had no gold for all his efforts, only wounds and humiliation, and he wanted me to suffer for it.

  As Inácio prepared to fire, I dropped to my knees and leaned forward, throwing my arms wide and presenting my heart. So intent was Inácio not to kill me yet that by instinct he twitched to the right even as he pulled back on the hammer and fired the weapon. There was the pop of exploding gunpowder and the crack of the ball striking wood. Acrid smoke puffed out of the pistol in a diabolical belch. Inácio would know that this mishap was the best he would have to show for his efforts. I had defeated a half dozen soldiers, I had taken on the Inquisition in their own Palace, and I would be more than a match for this wreck of a man with but one good arm and one good leg.

  Inácio was not prepared to surrender, however. He dropped the expended weapon and reached into his pocket for his second pistol. I was already there, ripping the weapon from his hand and tossing it into the water. It was now a fight of brute strength. I grinned, though I felt no pleasure.

  I was tired. I was tired of death and suffering and misery. I was tired of Lisbon, and I
was tired of attempting to do what was right and failing miserably time after time. I had come to Portugal because I believed it my obligation. I had no choice but to try to make things right, to restore order, to atone. Instead, I did nothing but leave a path of destruction behind me. I was weary, so weary, of trying and trying and destroying all I encountered. I was tired of disappointing the people who trusted me. I was tired of my own heart, which knew only broken love.

  I leapt forward and grabbed Inácio by his left forearm, guessing where the worst of his wound was, and squeezed hard. At the same time, I kicked the flat of my foot brutally into the fresh wound on his thigh. His face went pale. His mouth slackened. Somehow, through force of will, he shook his head, keeping himself conscious, but it was not enough.

  I took another step forward, and struck him in the side of the head. He stumbled backwards and fell to his knees. His face had gone white, and his eyes were wide, darting rapidly, as though he had forgotten where he was. This was not an honorable fight between equals, but I no longer cared about honor. I was angry and unafraid.

  Inácio’s gaze was unfocused, but he looked up, grinning with bloodstained teeth. “You should be thanking me. I killed the Englishwoman’s husband. I have all but given her to you.”

  I felt the rage blossom afresh. Inácio must have seen it, because he managed to raise a hand in protest.

  “Wait!” he cried. “I see I have been wrong. You and I are not to be enemies. We must be allies. We are alike. You know it is true. Think of what we could accomplish together. The old friendship!” His words were rapid and wheezing.

  I hardly understood what he said. The anger was like a storm roaring in my ears. Even the priest had been less despicable than this man. Azinheiro, at least, operated within the rules of an institution, corrupt though it was. Inácio had killed Enéas, had betrayed me, had murdered Rutherford Carver and his servants. He had hurt Roberta. He had done it all for the pleasure of cruelty.

  I saw Inácio’s lips moving, and knew he was speaking, but I could not understand the words. I reached out once more and took his head in both my hands. “I found the priest,” I said, “and I showed him mercy. You get none.”

  For a fleeting moment, looking into his face, I saw the boy as I’d first seen him, at the bottom of a staircase. Then, with a single, hard gesture, I twisted Inácio’s neck sharply and heard the crack of his neck breaking. It was over. Quick and clean and without joy or flourish.

  Before the dead man could begin to slump, I shoved him into the water, where he floated facedown, the waves lapping over his still form. I walked away, and looked out through the open door to the Tagus. There, in the distance, I saw the boat, farther away than I could have imagined. The tides or the winds were casting it away so swiftly. Perhaps if I ran, I might be able to signal them to return to shore and I could join them. I could sit with Franklin and Roberta and I could talk with Mariana. Even the thought of bickering with Eusebio seemed sweet to me.

  It was foolishness. I could never catch them, and perhaps that was for the best. I would not have to face them every day. I would have given my life to save any one of those people—yes, even Eusebio—but each one of them was a scathing reminder of all my mistakes, all my broken vows.

  I went back down the hallways and stepped outside the building and smelled the sooty air that stank of death and rot and a broken and burning city. I lowered myself upon the wet dirt of the road. Alone in this least broken quarter of a once-great capital, I opened the letter Luis Nobreza had given me. As I read, tears ran down my cheeks. I did not know I was weeping until I saw the drops of water plashing against the paper.

  I put the letter away. There was still so much for which I had to atone.

  Chapter 34

  London, five months later

  I lost track of how many weeks it took to cross into Spain. I traveled east, staying off the main roads, foraging and hunting, finding work along the way. The temperature dropped, and the snow began to fall, but I still walked, every day, as far as I could drag my legs, numb from fatigue and cold. There were incidents along the road, encounters with men who took me for an easy target, but those meetings were best forgotten.

  Once in Spain, between my Portuguese, English, and a smattering of French, I was able to make myself understood. When I reached a town large enough to have an inn, I took the first in a series of long carriage rides. I hated them. I would rather have walked than sit all day, but I rode just the same. Eventually I made my way, perhaps ironically, to San Sebastian, where I remained until the spring. I found a small boardinghouse where no one asked me questions, and I lived off what back-breaking labor I could find and, from time to time, stealing from men who were themselves thieves.

  When the weather warmed and the seas calmed, I took the first ship to England. I had hoped I might sail directly into London, but it was not to be. I traveled, instead, to Falmouth, but I would not allow myself to consider it symmetry. It was a port, and ports took ships. It was nothing more than that.

  I remained in Falmouth until I could gather together enough funds, by fair means and foul, for a carriage to London. I had nothing but the clothes I wore. All the money I had saved in my life I had used for the venture in Lisbon, and the wealth I had taken from the Palace of the Inquisition had remained with my friends. When I was a boy of thirteen, I had come to England with little. Now I was a man of four-and-twenty, my birthday having come and gone on the long walk to Spain, and I had even less.

  There had been time, so much time, to think about everything that I had done, and I was ashamed of having stolen out of London like a thief, saying goodbye to no one. Even so, I had been right to go, I decided, and all that had happened, all the harm I had done, was done with good intention and based upon sound choices. I regretted that people had been hurt, but I did not regret entering into the fray.

  More than anything, I regretted leaving without speaking of my plans to Mr. Weaver.

  I had begun my journey out of Lisbon determined never to see him again. It would be too painful for me to face what I had done. Somewhere on that long road, however, as I lay on cold dirt by weak fires, I decided that the pain meant nothing. What did humiliation amount to? Mr. Weaver had always been good to me. That was more important than my pride and hurt feelings.

  So in April of 1756, having been gone for the better part of a year, I arrived in London. I was determined to set out at once to Dukes Place and Mr. Weaver’s house. I was prepared to endure the shame.

  I was not, however, prepared to see my foster father waiting for me as I disembarked from the coach. I felt like I had been gone so long, like I had endured so much, that I expected to find Mr. Weaver a decrepit old man. I soon realized that the time had not been as hard for my mentor as it had been for me. He was the same man, tall and muscular, imposing and composed, dignified in his advanced years without being defeated by time.

  He smiled at me. “You did not think your whereabouts would be unknown to me.”

  I stood there in my ragged coat, my hair unkempt, stubble upon my face, and shook like a child. “You have been following my movements since Falmouth, I suppose.”

  “Since San Sebastian.”

  Caring nothing for the people who stared, I fell to my knees. “I beg your forgiveness for how I treated you.”

  Mr. Weaver raised me up by my elbow. “It is given,” he said. “I understand why you did what you did. I can only hope you found what you were looking for.”

  “I saw the city of Lisbon destroyed,” I said. “I saw the Palace of the Inquisition reduced to rubble. I killed priests, and I took their stolen money.”

  Mr. Weaver nodded. “That sounds like time well spent.”

  Back in his house, I realized Mr. Weaver already had heard a great deal of the story. “Your friends have been to see me. They told me most of what happened. I believe there were things left unsaid, but the accounting gave me much to be proud of.”

  “I made many mistakes.”

  “You ca
nnot always be accountable for believing the lies of your friends,” Mr. Weaver said.

  Evidently, he had heard the truth about Settwell and Roberta. I did not know if I should be relieved or ashamed.

  “Your friends set up an account for you at a local goldsmith’s,” Mr. Weaver explained. “Your share of the spoils of war. You’ll not be wanting money for some time.”

  It did not occur to me to ask how much. I didn’t care. “Do you know where they are settled? Are they all in London?”

  “Not all,” Mr. Weaver said. “Eusebio Nobreza and his wife have already departed for Rotterdam. I have given them a letter of introduction to my brother, and I have no doubt they shall do well there.”

  I said nothing. Was I saddened to hear she was gone? Was I disappointed? I did not think so. “And Luis Nobreza?”

  “He remains here in London. He seemed eager to wait for you, but also apprehensive. Can you tell me why?”

  I let out a long breath. “He destroyed my father.”

  The letter Luis left me had confessed everything. It was he, and not Kingsley Franklin, who had given my father to the Inquisition. He had done it not out of self-preservation, but because my father had given him several thousand pounds in negotiable notes, which he needed converted into gold. My father had set up a series of contacts, all of whom needed to be bribed for him to get himself, his family, and Gabriela and her father out of Lisbon.

  “I had betrayed men before,” Luis had written. “I had been inside the Palace of the Inquisition and made to call my friends and neighbors Judaizers, to swear by our Savior that I had witnessed crimes that had, in truth, never taken place. I had done this to save myself and my family. It excuses nothing, but perhaps it explains why betraying your father was not so difficult. Betrayal is a part of life in this city, and why should a man not betray for money as well as preservation? That your father stood poised to flee all of this angered me. It angered me that he could do what I could not.