A Divided Inheritance

by Deborah Swift

  More than ever now, he sensed the Spaniard rising in him, his mother’s blood. He was as dark and slight as they, their tongue submitted to his labours more and more every day. He loved the substance and beauty of Spain, the intensity of its colour. In comparison, France had been pale as whey, its people drab despite all their fuss and fashion. He chewed the spiced sausage, tasted the faint aroma of garlic, sank his teeth into the floury bread. When he cut into the peach it was fat and juicy, the flesh melting on his tongue, the flavour sweet and intense.

  A flash of dark caught his eye and he looked up to see a swallow’s forked tail dart under the eaves of the house. He loved the swooping of these birds, their flight somehow reminded him of a sword in motion. His mother had loved them too, said they reminded her of home. A sudden clamour of cheeping from the nest above his head announced the hunger of its occupants. He smiled; it must be their feeding time too.

  His mood lifted. Bending forward, he rubbed his back hard with his knuckles. Perhaps it felt a little less painful than before. Guido’s face floated behind his eyes. As if they had a will of their own, his legs stood, and he found himself thinking, ‘I’m only a little late.’

  He hurried down the Calle de las Armas, as fast as his sore back would allow. If he gave up on the blade now, then the sword had won. Even though it was not yet even formed, and was only an idea embedded in the metal, he must prevail, show it who was master.

  Guido did not seem surprised to see him. ‘Que llega tarde,’ he grumbled – you’re late. He handed Zachary more metal and he set to work.

  Today the metal flattened beautifully, he was learning to have a feel for it, to understand the texture and colour of it in the furnace. The apprentices and journeymen had stopped staring, as if he was old news. In his filthy apron he was one of them – at least for the moment. He listened to the talk around him, learning the Spanish for the different tools, repeating the words under his breath, tenazas – tongs, cepo de yunque – the stock of the anvil.

  At the end of the second day his ears buzzed like mosquitoes but a blade lay in his hand, not much to see yet, just a long flat lump of steel marbled with a watery pattern where the layers had folded in on each other.

  Guido looked it over, taking it to the lamplight and turning it in front of his eye. ‘Muy bien.’ Zachary beamed. ‘Once more, I think,’ he mouthed, holding up one finger. ‘Then Gabriel – he will show you how to shape the steel edges, and later the grinding and polishing.’ Gabriel grinned.

  At the end of the evening, Zachary called Gabriel over. He was the only one of the journeymen who had actually spoken to him, when he had passed a lighter jack-hammer and mouthed, ‘This one – it is better.’ Zachary asked if he could buy him a drink and they strolled over to one of the street-side eating places in the Corral de los Olmas and ordered ale and iced water to quench their thirst, along with the fruit jellies that were so popular here in Seville.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ Gabriel asked, his big hands wrapped around his cup.

  ‘Making a blade, you mean?’

  ‘Yes. You could buy one finished already. If you don’t mind me saying, you look as if you can afford one, yes?’

  ‘I want something special. Ever since I first learned to fence, I heard men talk of the sword-makers of Toledo, their skill and craftsmanship. It’s a dream, I suppose – the perfect blade – something strong as a cavalry sword, but narrow and flexible like a rapier. When I went to Toledo, they told me the best man still making swords was Guido de Vega. I went to find him but I was too late – he had moved here, to Seville.’

  ‘A lot too late. He’s been here over four years. Seville’s like a beehive growing by the hour. You can’t go a hundred paces without having to step round a scaffold or dodge a pile of rubble. The city’s full to busting. But all the best craftsmen are here now. Stands to reason. But why not just pay Señor Guido to make it?’

  ‘It was something he said, about the sword knowing the hand that . . .’ Zachary wielded an imaginary sword in the air.

  Gabriel understood and nodded.

  ‘It was his idea, not mine. I know how difficult it is, and I was quite prepared to pay.’

  ‘His idea?’ Gabriel looked impressed. ‘Well, I had to walk over hot coals to even get him to see me. We all did. Any smith worth his salt was fighting to get taken on by him. We thought he took you on as a jest, to knock you down a bit, take the wind from your sails. You looked that fancy.’ He smiled apologetically. ‘But anyone can see now you are serious. Touched in the head, maybe – you wouldn’t catch many gentlemen with a hammer in their hands. But you just don’t look the right size for a smith.’

  ‘I’m not planning to make a profession of it! Just this one.’

  ‘Watch out, you might get a taste for it.’ They laughed. ‘But I can tell you know a bit about the art of fence – are you a fencing master?’

  ‘No, not me. Though I’ve seen some that are less skilled than I am, and men so fog-handed they can barely cut a loaf straight, yet still they offer their services. To tell true, I’m looking for a real master, someone who knows their game. I’ve been all over France looking for a good professor of fence. In France they all claim to have ‘la botte secrète’. The secret thrust, you know? But they’re all talk, most of them.’ He scooped up a spoonful of quince jelly and let it slip down his throat.

  Gabriel grunted his agreement and took his cue to fish in his glass and slurp his jelly. He cocked his head to listen.

  Between mouthfuls Zachary continued, ‘I was supposed to go to Rome, but Spain was calling me somehow. My mother was from Cadiz. So I thought I’d come to Spain, get myself a custom-made sword, and a true fencing master. I saw a man fight once – he was a Spaniard. He was like nothing else I’ve ever seen. His sword was fluid – like silk ribbon, oh, it’s no use! I can’t describe it. And I’d love to find him again. He was from Seville.’

  ‘You don’t know his name, this master of fence?’

  ‘Regrettably, no. Or I’d be camped on his threshold.’

  ‘The best fencing master round here is Don Rodriguez by the Arenal Gate. He has never been defeated in any contest. But he is a fearsome fighter, well-known for his toughness. They say he sometimes takes on students, but he is not cheap. And he won’t take conversos, so I don’t know how he’d feel about an Englishman.’

  ‘I’m only half-English. My mother was Spanish. How much does he charge?’

  ‘I’ve heard as much as fifteen reales a day.’

  Zachary blew through his mouth and shook his head. He might have to subsidise old Leviston’s purse with a bit of thievery to be able to afford that. ‘And you say he’s good?’

  ‘The best, by all accounts. He’s the man who trains the constables for the Asistente.’

  ‘Sounds like he could be the one. I’ll go and search him out tomorrow.’

  ‘Be careful. Don Rodriguez insists that his students are of a pure-blood lineage. His men are familiares, spies employed by the Inquisition, though they do not like to call them that now. As I say, he might not take kindly to an enquiry from one whose lineage cannot be checked. He might not take you. And he is not a man to cross by all accounts.’

  ‘He’ll take me, when he sees me fence.’

  The stars were still bright pinpricks above the city and the cocks had not begun their crowing when Zachary got out of bed. He lit a wall-sconce and dressed awkwardly because of his stiff shoulders. How pleasant it was to dress in this balmy climate instead of shivering in the clammy dark in England. He girded on his sword and strapped on his Turkish daggers to make a good show, to look like a serious student. Today he was going in search of Don Rodriguez.

  Better do a few moves and passes on the way, he thought, to make his body more pliant. On the balcony he stretched and inhaled the slight smell of citrus from the sprawling lime tree in the cracked terracotta pot.

  When his exercises were done, he went down the stairs and saw two letters waiting for him on the hall table. He sig
hed; they were probably from Señor de Ribera about the rent. When he untied the first, he was stupefied to find that it had come all the way from England. He took it back up to the balcony to the light to make sure. No, he was not mistaken. He turned it over in his hands, thinking how uncanny – he was just that moment thinking of England, and now here was this letter as if he had conjured it himself.

  He had to read it twice before he understood that old Leviston was dead. This would be the end of his hand-outs, the end of his life in Spain. But as well as the sinking sensation he felt something else. It was regret, a sudden sensation of loss. Just at that moment the cockerels crowed, the noise familiar yet disconcerting. A sound straight from biblical times, it pulled at a distant memory. He swallowed, knowing that the cocks crew for a day that had already begun without his uncle. Old Leviston would never be a part of this life again.

  He sat back down, dazed. When his uncle was alive, Zachary had told himself he meant nothing to him, but now, standing here on the balcony looking down on the world, he felt his loss like a kick in the stomach. A shiver passed through him, the reminder that death is always present, hidden under the skin of things; and come this evening, any man could be a bag of bones like his uncle.

  He shouted for Ana. She appeared silently, from where she had been asleep at the foot of the stairs, her big eyes in her dark face questioning.

  ‘Can you bring quill and ink?’

  She nodded and slid away. A few moments later she returned bearing a portable writing slope and a burning candle, which she positioned on the table. ‘Thank you,’ he said to her retreating back.

  A little light-headed, he sat a moment on the balcony, and watched the pink tinge of the sun begin to brighten the horizon. Perhaps he had not understood Greeting aright. He picked up the second letter now, saw it was also from England, and untied it. He read it and weighed each word. He read it again. And again. His heart beat hard in his chest, his hands were clammy, and only after the third time of reading did he allow himself a whoop of triumph.

  He grabbed quill and ink, but paused, nib in hand. His mind whirled with new possibilities. He started to write but trembled with such excitement that his handwriting appeared on the page as a scrawl.

  Everything was changed. He was rich – maybe he could afford to invest in some mercantile ships, or purchase a house. A grand villa! The thought of it was impossible to grasp. And even better, he would be his own man, beholden to no one. He wrote to Greeting and then, in a sudden desire to tell someone of his good fortune, he wrote gleefully to Shotterill. He laughed to himself – old Gin would never believe him, he’d think it some sort of monkey-trick. Or, knowing him, he’d turn up here, the flea-bitten dog, hoping for the scratchings from Zachary’s table.

  ‘Ana!’ he called, wishing to tell her to engage someone to have care of the letters and make sure they were delivered. But then he realized – she would have gone out to the bazaar as she did every morning.

  So he sat with the pile of letters in front of him, and it was only then that he thought of Leviston’s daughter, Elspet. What would he give to have seen her face when they told her the house was to come to him! He quashed the slight uneasiness that the thought of her brought. The heat of the sun had already begun to pierce the morning haze, but he let it beat down on his bare head. Should he write to her? He baulked at the idea of it. His conscience was protesting but he refused to hear it.

  He remembered the disdainful look Elspet wore whenever he was in the room, looking down her nose at him, as if he was never quite educated or gentlemanly enough for her. And as for the house – well, given a few more years it would just have crumbled to dust around their ears anyway. She wouldn’t be needing it, he reasoned, she must be married by now and living in fine style on her grand estate in Tockton. Tockton. Even the name sounded dull. He bet it was as chilly and damp as a tomb, and Hugh Bradstone too. Though happen that would suit Elspet Leviston well enough; she had no sense at all when it came to men.

  The church bells pounded out the quarter. His news bubbled up inside. He was late, so he hurried straight to the smithy, the letters from England tucked safely into the pocket of his satchel, alongside the one from his mother. As he made his way through town to the bridge he kept stopping, to feel in the bag to check they were still there, that he had not imagined it.

  ‘Tarde,’ Guido said as usual, frowning at Zachary’s grinning face and handing him a set of bellows. Zachary took them without demur. Working the bellows was considered a punishment, and the hottest place to be in the whole damn workshop. But he needed time to think. It was as if a whirlwind had been set loose in his head.

  It was only later that he realized the whole idea of finding Don Rodriguez, the swordmaster, had completely slipped his mind. It struck him; he would be able to pay Rodriguez for any number of lessons now; he would never have to go back to the pigsties of Whitechapel. The memory of his brothers made him guffaw out loud with a kind of ironic glee. Just you look at me now, you sods, he thought, his mouth set into a grim line. Now we’ll see who’s master.

  Chapter 17

  ‘I am pleased to say we have received written instructions from your cousin.’

  At long last. Elspet was standing in Greeting’s chambers again. She had walked from West View House and after the fresh air outside, the room was like a bath-house – uncomfortably warm. The windows bloomed moistly with steam.

  ‘And what does he say?’

  ‘Will you not sit, mistress?’

  ‘Just tell me, when is he coming home?’

  ‘I’m afraid he’s not. Master Deane has left us to carry out his instructions in his absence.’

  ‘And what are his instructions?’

  ‘Please – won’t you sit? Then we can discuss it more comfortably.’

  She pulled her skirts to one side, sat down in the leather-backed chair opposite him, and untied the muslin from her hat. He observed her with a careful expression.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mistress Leviston.’ She waited while he licked his lips and slid the ink stand across the blotter. He looked up. ‘His instructions are to sell.’

  He saw her blank expression and repeated, ‘He wants his half of his inheritance. You will have to sell, mistress.’

  ‘What? Everything?’ Her voice was a whisper.

  ‘Yes. The house is to be sold, and the business will have to go too. I’m afraid he has no plans to return to England at present, and he wishes us to cash his assets and deliver the money in gold to his residence in Spain.’

  ‘You are not – you are not going to act upon his instructions, are you?’ She could hardly bring herself to speak.

  Greeting had the grace to apologize. ‘I beg your pardon, it is not the news you were expecting, I know. But still, I expect you will have an adequate portion from the business when the transaction is completed. But you have to see, my hands are tied. Your father charged me to deliver his wishes and that I must do. You cannot retain half the business if he wants to sell.’

  ‘My father would not have wished this, you know he wouldn’t. Father intended to consolidate the business, not divide it, I’m sure. As for Zachary Deane – he cares nothing for any of us; not me, not the business nor any of the employees. Are you seriously telling me he can sell everything and there is not a damn thing I can do about it?’

  ‘Calm yourself. I have some smelling salts in this drawer –’ He bent over and began to fumble under the desk.

  ‘Smelling salts be damned. What happened to your friendship with my father, Mr Greeting? What if he could see you now, taking the roof from over my head, and my livelihood? What would he think then?’

  He did not answer, but proffered a bottle with a grubby cork. ‘I have asked him to advance you a sum for lodgings until you are wed.’

  She leaned towards him. ‘Lodgings? Please, Mr Greeting, you know this is not right. You have to help me. At least tell me where Zachary is, so I can write to him and reason with him.’

  ‘His instruct
ions were definite, mistress. To sell as soon as possible. If you yourself have no available funds, perhaps your intended, Mr Bradstone, will be able to purchase shares in the business. Though he must move quickly, as perhaps others will be interested too.’

  ‘And I suppose you are on a percentage of the sales, are you not?’ Greeting’s eyes shifted away and he slid the ink bottle back towards him. ‘I’m right.’ She sighed, knowing she had no leverage when it came to coin. ‘Please, Mr Greeting, for my father’s sake, send word back to Mr Deane and press him to delay, at least until I can try to raise the money to buy the house. I have given my heart and soul for Leviston’s Lace and I won’t see it divided. Just give me time to send—’

  He began to bluster, ‘I don’t see that—’

  ‘You owe us that much.’ She stood firm. ‘My father lined your pocket all these years, the least you can do is try.’

  ‘I’m afraid . . .’

  ‘At least give me his address, then. I will write to him myself. I tell you, Mr Greeting, I am not moving from your chambers until I have it.’

  She sat back and folded her arms. They would have to drag her from that place before she would give in.

  Greeting sighed. ‘Very well. You twist my arm. His address, then.’

  He reached up to a high shelf where leather boxes were piled in alphabetical order. He took down the box marked ‘D–E’ and slapped it on to the table. He called to the scrivener in the next room and as the door opened she saw Martha’s red tearful face and knew she had been listening. A change in her fortunes meant a change in Martha’s and well she knew it.