A Divided Inheritance

by Deborah Swift

  He was about a third of the way across when he saw them. A familiar knot of marching men. He looked again to make sure. Don Rodriguez and a group of his men were approaching from the other side; they had a man between them in chains. They must have come from the Castle of San Jorge which loomed large on the opposite bank of the river.

  Zachary licked his lips. His mouth was dry. He turned to go back the way he had come, but the route behind him was blocked. Those in front were clearing the way for the group, who were in armour and had the air of officialdom that uniform gives men.

  ‘Excuse me.’ Zachary tried to squeeze past the woman behind him to go back.

  ‘Hey!’ she cried. ‘What are you doing? You want to push us off the bridge?’

  He muttered an apology, and tried to force his way back through the crowd. By now everyone else in front of him was retreating or moving aside to give the approaching men room.

  Fear made his voice high-pitched. ‘Soldiers are coming, we’ve got to let them pass,’ he said to a man with two donkeys, but the man shook his head and refused to move. He could see their helmets above the crowd now. They were almost upon him and his heart was hammering in his chest. Somehow he elbowed his way through the crowd and ran to the shelter of one of the stalls set up by the river.

  From here he saw Don Rodriguez, Fabian and his men march their unfortunate victim towards the city. He cursed himself. Why had he not stood his ground? He had fought any number of men in duels and had never been afraid. But Don Rodriguez was something else. A fair fight was one thing, but humiliation at the hands of these men, well, he feared it.

  He went to the fencing school feeling out of sorts. Señor Alvarez took one look at him and set him repetitive drilling up and down the yard until he was almost on his knees, and then to sweeping the yard. Sweeping was not something he had ever thought he would be doing as part of his sword training. But then Señor Alvarez was an unusual master.

  Zachary was unsure what to think of him, but some authority about him commanded respect. Though they had not practised many techniques yet; Alvarez was intent on teaching them what he called ‘the principles’, which seemed to be mostly angles and geometry. And he’d certainly need more than mathematics to stand a chance against Rodriguez and his men. With a jolt, Zachary realized that Rodriguez had somehow replaced his bullying brothers in his thoughts.

  He swept the small pile of leaves from the corner of the yard out into the street and wondered if the others were enjoying their cleaning tasks as little as he was, and how they had come to study at Señor Alvarez’s. What a ramshackle collection of individuals. For a start, there were only five of them, and none of them looked remotely like fighters, nothing like the ranks of leather-armoured men at Don Rodriguez’s salon.

  One of them – Alexander, a tall, rangy man with a lugubrious face and deep-set eyes – revealed that he had won several tournaments in his own country, so he must be better than he looked despite his drooping appearance. Zachary was keen to test his mettle in a bout or two. But no, they both had to start from the beginning, like children.

  As he swept, the bristles of the broom scratched rhythmically. Zachary thought back to the day before when Señor Alvarez had made them each draw out a circular training diagram in the empty chamber upstairs, with a nail, string and chalk.

  When Zachary’s was done Alvarez instructed him to stand in it. He lifted up Zachary’s sword until the tip was outstretched to the circumference.

  ‘Perfect stillness,’ was all he said.

  Zachary was expecting to stay a few moments, but as he stood, the moments stretched into minutes. Señor Alvarez sat watching the whole time. Zachary struggled to maintain the position. A fly landed on his cheek followed by another on the trickle of sweat at his hairline. He felt their tiny legs prickling his brow, tried to blow them away, but from the corner of his eye saw Señor Alvarez frown.

  The minutes stretched on until he understood it was some kind of test. He refused to give up. The bell sounded the half, then the third quarter, until his shoulder throbbed and his arm trembled. When more than one hour had passed and his eyes were closed in pain, Alvarez’s voice made him start.

  ‘Good,’ Alvarez said. ‘Now you know your range to the North. Turn to face the South.’

  Zachary raised his stiff arm, suddenly understanding. He would have to do the same to the other directions. He clenched his teeth, so that was to be it – no fencing, no glimpse of a bit of duelling action, but he stuck with it. He knew every inch of those walls now – the cracks in the plasterwork, the knot in the floorboard where the ants crept in and out passing through the shafts of sunlight as they marched by.

  When he got home, his arm throbbed like the devil, but it was strange, as soon as he held out his arm he could sense that circle.

  He paused now, outstretched broom in hand, to see if he could still feel it. Yes, the sensation was still there. Zachary finished the sweeping and set aside the broom with relief. No sooner had he done so than Alvarez appeared and handed it back to him, instructing him to join Alexander inside, where the Dutchman was polishing the tables and chairs with beeswax.

  ‘Are there no servants to do this?’ Zachary grumbled.

  Señor Alvarez was waiting in the doorway and must have overheard. ‘You want a clean mind? One fit for fighting? Then sweep. Metáfora, you understand?’

  A metaphor. Yes, but a metaphor would not help him keep his body ready for action, thought Zachary, irritated with the whole thing. He’d come to learn to fight. Any fool could sweep the floor. After they had done, he let his besom clatter to the floor and turned to Alexander. ‘Carry on like this and I’ll be worthless for a duel but I’ll be the best house slave in Seville.’

  ‘Do you want to train with Señor Alvarez, or not?’ Alexander said, looking up from his polishing.

  ‘Of course I do, it’s just—’

  ‘Then stop complaining. It wastes your energy. And you’ll need it if you stick with him. He’s the best fighter I’ve ever seen.’

  Whilst Zachary was sweeping, across the river Elspet fanned herself and shifted impatiently on her balcony, behind the hemp awning which had been pulled down to afford her some shade.

  As soon as Mr Wilmot rounded the corner she sagged. It was not good news, she could tell. His head was bowed and his shoulders drooped. He was carrying his hat, flapping it ineffectually before his face, and his sparse blond hair was stuck to his forehead. She hurried back into the room and down the stairs.

  ‘What?’ she asked, before he had so much as a chance to get himself through the door.

  ‘I waited two hours, but there was no sign of him.’ He tore off his coat and threw it on to the floor. ‘Bloody heat. Your brother did not come.’

  ‘Don’t call him my brother. Are you sure you did not miss him?’

  ‘I’m sure. No, you were right. The man is deliberately avoiding us.’ He ascended, dragging his feet and wiped the perspiration from his brow with the back of his already damp shirt sleeve.

  ‘Then we’ll go back to his lodgings again,’ she said, following on his heels. ‘Make him see us again.’

  ‘He won’t admit us. The girl told me he had gone away.’

  He was ready to give up, she could sense it. ‘I am not leaving Spain until I have a settlement from him in writing,’ she said.

  Wilmot laughed. ‘Then what will you do? Force him against his will? He was clear enough he is not going to change his mind. I think we should go home and see if we can somehow band together to buy a part of the business back.’

  ‘The business, the business! Is that all you can think of? What about me? How shall I live?’

  ‘Mistress Leviston, Elspet, I—’

  ‘I am not leaving. It is up to you what you do, but I am staying. I will hang at Zachary Deane’s elbow like a mosquito if need be. He’ll be so weary of the sight of me, he will agree simply to rid himself of my presence.’

  ‘I cannot leave you here alone, Mistress Elspet. It is
out of the question. How would you get home?’

  ‘The same way as I came, I suppose. It is not beyond a woman’s wit to book a passage, you know, Mr Wilmot.’

  ‘No. Impossible. You must travel with me, Mistress Elspet. It is not safe for women to travel alone. I insist.’

  She suppressed a laugh at the idea that he was any form of protection. ‘Insist? Well, in that case you will have to pick me up and carry me, for I have not come all this way to give up at the first difficulty. He has not left Seville, of that I am sure. He is a liar, but he does not fool me.’

  Wilmot sat down. He loosened his collar and flapped it back and forth. ‘For heaven’s sake, be reasonable. I cannot argue in this heat.’ When she continued to stare at him, arms folded, he blew out through his mouth and said, ‘You’re right, the girl was lying. I got talking to a fellow in a tavern – I asked after him there. They pointed me to a smith and his apprentice. The apprentice told me he’s signed on with a master of fence across the river.’

  ‘Now that sounds more like the truth. A master of fence. That will be my cousin. He was ever obsessed with fighting. Where?’

  ‘In the gypsy quarter of Triana. You would be better advised to look for him there.’

  ‘Then I shall go there tomorrow. You will accompany me, Mr Wilmot?’

  Wilmot pressed both his hands over his eyes and smoothed his fingers over his eyebrows and cheeks with a long exhalation, before looking at her mournfully and shaking his head. That, she took to be his agreement.

  They paused under the sign of the Spreadeagled Man and looked at each other. Mr Wilmot pushed open the door under the drooping bougainvillea, and Elspet saw a deserted courtyard and a yard swept so clean that even the dust bore the marks of a broom. Elspet blinked in the dazzle of the sun. The only sound was the chirruping of a bold cricket, which had not yet succumbed to the heat of the day.

  ‘There’s nobody here. Where do they train?’ Something about the place made her whisper.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Wilmot said, ‘but look.’ He pointed at the targets nailed to the wall. ‘This is definitely the place.’

  She turned around, scanning the windows of the house, and caught sight of a movement inside. Through the window on the first floor the dim form of a man dressed in a black doublet could be seen. Mr Wilmot had seen him too so they climbed the stone steps towards an upper door. She signalled Martha to follow them, but before they could lift a hand to knock, the door opened.

  ‘Yes?’ the man asked in a low voice, his eyebrows raised. He had a sun-weathered face but the most surprising thing about him was his hair – it was pure white. He was not an old man, though, she judged him to be in his thirtieth year or thereabouts.

  Wilmot nudged her to speak in Spanish. ‘Are you Señor Alvarez, and do you have a student called Zachary Deane?’ she said.

  ‘Yes to both,’ he answered.

  ‘We would like to speak with Mr Deane.’

  ‘Is there a difficulty of some sort?’

  ‘What does he say?’ Wilmot asked her. She shook her head at him; it required all her concentration to understand.

  She could not think how to explain, but instead said, ‘I am his . . . his cousin.’

  He looked at her appraisingly. She found herself quailing under such a frank gaze.

  ‘Well, you may speak with him at the end of the morning session. Not before. Wait on the bench in the shade, if you wish.’

  Just before he shut the door she caught a peek inside the room. The floor was whitewashed, with a circle and a cross inscribed upon it, and over that a sundial of intersecting lines like a pagan symbol. She would not be at all surprised to find Zachary was involved with the black arts. It made her wary. Best not mention the symbol to Wilmot, he was afraid of his own shadow. He might want them to leave straight away.

  ‘Well, what was all that?’

  ‘He said we’ve to wait.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Until the end of the morning.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’ve come all the way from England, Mr Wilmot. A few more hours is nothing. We might just as well wait.’

  As if she had not tarried long enough. Zachary Deane was somewhere behind that door and she could have cried with frustration.

  Unaware of his visitors, Zachary watched Señor Alvarez’s apprentice get out the paper and quills. The book creaked as Señor Alvarez prised it open. He had obviously opened it at the same place many times before because he smoothed out the page and it stayed perfectly flat. It was a facsimile of the Book of Human Proportions by Albrecht Dürer, and they were to measure each other, something Zachary did not want to do. He worried he would seem laughably small in comparison with Alexander’s broad shoulders and barrel-like chest. Zachary began to fidget with the buckle of his scabbard.

  Señor Alvarez turned to him. ‘Pay attention, Mr Deane. You must know your own measure inside and out. The circle and the cross – a map for the good ordering of your mind. The general must have control of his army, yes? And not let it be subject to the will of a multitude of barbarians. So it is with your thoughts. Besides, you will need to be able to get the measure of your opponent.’

  Zachary was sceptical, but Alvarez said gently, ‘Mr Deane, you may not see the point of it now. But I tell you, without knowledge of the principles, nothing can be achieved.’

  How the señor could see inside him to know what he was thinking, he had no idea. It disturbed him. From the training room the noise of clashing rapiers filled the air as the other three men put each other through their paces. Zachary sighed. He would much rather be in there with them.

  In the end, the task was not as bad as he feared. He enjoyed measuring Alexander, who stood like a mammoth as he stretched to wrap the tape around him. Alexander’s drawing of him was strangely pleasing. Though not an artist like Girard Thibault, Alexander had a neat hand and Zachary liked to see himself labelled, ordered so.

  Whilst they were both admiring their work, the bell tolled midday. He was astonished that the time had flown by so fast.

  ‘Come on,’ he said to Alexander with relief, ‘I could kill for a glass of ale.’

  They stumbled out of the dry air of the house into the cool of the courtyard, shaded by lime trees. He barely had time to inhale the breeze when he heard someone call his name.

  ‘Mr Deane.’

  Wilmot, the Englishman, stood there, looking bedraggled as usual. So he was to have no peace.

  ‘Who let you in?’ he snapped, ‘Go away and leave me alone.’

  ‘Did you forget our meeting?’ Wilmot persisted.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, tired of him. ‘On purpose.’

  Wilmot looked visibly shaken that he had decided to forgo the pretence at pleasantry.

  ‘I cannot persuade you—’

  ‘We will not leave until you agree to talk with us.’ Elspet Leviston emerged from the shadows of the foliage in her ridiculous dark English gown, all bones and bows and stiff as a post.

  ‘Fine,’ Zachary said, ‘if you wish to sit here for ever.’

  He saw the dark circles under her eyes, and that her hands clenched and unclenched, but he did not want her to tickle his conscience. He wanted her out of his sight.

  ‘I make no jest,’ she said tightly. ‘I will simply wait here every day, until you agree to discuss it.’

  Over in the dark shade of the vines their English maid loitered, pale and scared, eyes darting from one to the other. As he glanced over to her, he spied Señor Alvarez’s dark figure watching them from an upstairs window.

  Damn. That was all he needed. The señor might not like female hangers-on in his yard. Curse Elspet Leviston. And his new friend Alexander was staring at the three of them, with a puzzled expression.

  He ignored Elspet and Wilmot and sauntered over to Alexander and took him by the arm, whispering in Spanish, ‘Come, let us take our refreshment.’ He was anxious to divorce himself from his visitors. He felt Alvarez’s eyes upon him. Distractions to th
e training were frowned upon. He steered Alexander across the yard, deliberately ignoring Wilmot’s bleat of ‘Mr Deane!’

  On the other side of the courtyard was a small cool room where refreshments were laid out at midday. There was lemon-water today, and it reminded him of Luisa Ortega of the dark doe eyes. Zachary and Alexander joined the other three men, all of them silent. Señor Alvarez did not encourage talking whilst on the premises. They should conserve their strength, he said.

  So he filled his tankard from the jug quietly, and stood with the small group supping tangy lemon-water and tugging on the chewy local bread with his teeth. From the corner of his eye he saw Elspet Leviston sit down stone-faced under the vine, on the only bench in the yard.

  Zachary dropped his backside down on to the ground, to lean on the lime-washed wall under the shade of the jasmine creeper. A lizard scuttled away in quick, flicking movements. He did his best to ignore the huddled group on the other side of the yard, tried to pay them the same unattached attention as he did the lizard.

  A moment later, Señor Alvarez emerged from the training hall as upright as a sapling. He swung a small wooden tray as he walked, and even his walk was graceful, spacious. He placed the jug and three cups on the tray, and added a platter of bread.

  Next time Zachary looked up, he was offering the tray to Martha the maid. Zachary paused, his bread halfway to his mouth at the sight. Martha bobbed a hasty embarrassed curtsey and set the tray on the ground, then stooped to pour the liquid as Alvarez went over to Elspet and, with a small bow, offered her a twist of bread. She smiled and accepted it, thanking him in Spanish.

  Zachary could not believe it. Alvarez offered it in turn to Wilmot, who accepted a portion but then stood shifting from foot to foot in decided discomfort. He looked as if he did not know whether to eat it or not. Señor Alvarez glanced over at Zachary. Ashamed, Zachary dropped his head. He did not look at them again, even when it was time to go inside.