A Divided Inheritance

by Deborah Swift

  Alexander sighed, and leaned himself up against the wall with a resigned expression. Zachary dumped his arms case at his feet, and sprinted back up the street. He was going to knock at the back gate and hope the señor would let him in, but as he pushed he realized it was open, Alvarez couldn’t have locked it yet. He loped up the stairs in the yard two at a time. The Ortegas’ quarters were in darkness, and he hoped Ayamena and Nicolao were fast asleep. It was then he saw a light from the training hall. A light passing the window and briefly shining into the yard. The señor must still be in there.

  He hesitated, wondering whether to disturb him. But then there were more noises, sounds like paper tearing, the thud of something being dropped, and low muffled voices, people talking. He crept up to the door and peeped through the crack. There were men in the room, but none of them Señor Alvarez, he would recognize his rangy form anywhere. It was dark, though, and there was only one lantern lit and he could just make out legs and boots silhouetted by the whiteness of the painted floor.

  At first he could not grasp what was going on; a pool of black reached like a dark glove across the white paint. One of the men scuffed his boot in it, dragging it all over the floor. Someone stifled a laugh.

  ‘Oy!’ Zachary shouted, thrusting open the door.

  The men turned. All of them had bandanas tied round their faces and their eyes were shadowed by their broad-brimmed hats. One of them dangled the pot of gall upside down. Liquid dribbled out on to his boot, but he flung the pot insolently down on to the floor where it span in a spatter of ink and then rolled slowly away.

  ‘It’s all right. He’s on his own.’

  The words spurred Zachary into action. His sword flew out of its scabbard like lightning. It disconcerted the biggest man who stepped back out of range.

  ‘It’s that Englishman,’ he said, ‘the one we pissed on.’

  ‘Bastards!’ he yelled. He shouted over his shoulder, ‘Señor Alvarez! Quick!’

  Zachary wielded his rapier just inside the doorway, so none of the intruders could pass, but still Alvarez did not come. Where was he? Zachary would be no match for three of Rodriguez’s men. He drew his blade side to side, threatening, to keep them at a distance, but one blundered at him, his cloak flapping. The tip of his sword shot out towards Zachary’s face.

  Breathless, Zachary stepped to the side and his attacker’s thrust met empty air – enough to unbalance him. He toppled past, his hat bowling away down the stairs. A second man cannoned at him with his metal buckler as Zachary turned to watch him fall. The force of the buckler thudding into his solar plexus sent Zachary flying down the stairs after him.

  His head cracked against the stone step but he leapt up, too afire to heed it. Besides, the boots of the third man were running down the steps towards him, and he knew he was in trouble. Zachary backed off, his sword at arm’s length. He was panting. All his swordplay lessons streamed through his head in a succession of images – angles, techniques, footwork, the criss-cross of lines of the swordsman’s seal, but none of them stuck. Fear gripped his heart as he was corralled to the wall by all three men.

  ‘Finish him,’ growled the biggest man.

  A man with a dark bandana, who smelt of sweat, moved in before him. Zachary read the intent behind his eyes and saw that his opponent was a much heavier man than he. The fear rose up in him and the world began to move very slowly. The man curled his arm from the shoulder and raised it up, the tip of the sword struck a light from the rising moon. He smelt the stench of the man’s armpit as he leaned away before putting his weight and both hands behind the blade. Zachary heard himself gasp.

  A sound, the clash of metal on metal. His attacker’s sword whirled out of his hand and skittered across the yard. The man’s eyes registered complete astonishment over his bandana.

  Señor Alvarez had appeared from the darkness, his sword pressed to the man’s throat, his shock of white hair bright in the dark. The third man was flat on his back in the dirt, his sword lying useless on the ground.

  One of them yelled and made a run for the back gates, clutching a wrist dripping blood. The man on the ground leapt up and fled after his friends.

  ‘Stop them!’ shouted Señor Alvarez, but Zachary was too late. He could barely see. His head throbbed and the gates were a blur as he stumbled through the door after them. They ran out into the dark, but although he could hear their running boots, the men had soon disappeared into the shadows beyond.

  ‘Leave them be,’ Señor Alvarez said, sheathing his sword.

  Just then Alexander arrived. ‘Hey! I was coming to find you. Some men just ran out of here. They nearly knocked me down. What’s going on?’

  ‘Just thugs . . . They’ve been in the hall. The seal – they’ve ruined it,’ Zachary said.

  ‘No – you jest.’

  ‘Would that he did,’ Señor Alvarez sighed. ‘They’ve made a proper mess. We’ll get a better idea of the damage in the morning. Did you see who they were?’

  ‘No, they pelted past with their cloaks flapping, and nearly knocked me down. I thought they might be opportunists, thieves.’

  ‘Zachary, did you recognize anyone?’

  ‘No. Of course not.’ He was on the defensive straight away, but then realized that Señor Alvarez knew nothing of his history, and tempered it. ‘I’ve never seen any of them before. I just came back for my bag. Alexander will tell you. But look, one of them’s left his weapon behind.’ He retrieved it from the ground and held it up before him.

  Alvarez handled it. ‘It’s as I thought. Don Rodriguez’s men. Of course I cannot be certain, but they train with heavy two-handed swords like these.’

  ‘But why?’ Alexander asked. ‘Why would they want to do this?’

  ‘Who knows?’ said Señor Alvarez. ‘Perhaps Don Rodriguez perceives me as a threat. Though I don’t understand why – he has many more students than I do, after all.’

  ‘It is because you are the better swordsman and he cannot bear it, that someone is better than he is.’ Alexander spoke with passion. ‘And he knows Carranza favoured you more than he did him.’

  ‘Is that so?’ said Señor Alvarez. ‘And how would you know that? Were you there?’

  ‘No.’ Alexander was sheepish. ‘But everyone says so.’

  Alvarez sighed. ‘Remember your training, never just accept what people say. Test it for yourself.’ Alexander looked chastened, and Zachary tried to catch his eye in sympathy. ‘Now,’ Señor Alvarez said, ‘get on home to your beds. Zachary, go and get some attention for your head.’ He paused. ‘You know, I can’t understand it, I could have sworn I’d bolted that door. Still, what’s done is done. It’s too dark to see much now, we’ll deal with it in the morning.’

  They heard the bolts shunt behind them as they stepped outside. Zachary paused there; the back of his head throbbed and his backside and hip were stiff from his tumble down the steps. It was as if there was gunpowder running in his veins. He wondered if the intruders came because of him, because they had heard he was still in Seville.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Alexander asked.

  ‘Bastards,’ he said. ‘Do you think we should go after them?’

  Alexander gave him a look that plainly said he had no intention of doing any such thing. ‘Come on.’ Alexander set off, and he had to half-run to keep up. He was striding towards the town.

  ‘Wait,’ Zachary said, shouldering his bag. ‘I don’t want to go home yet, I need to walk a while. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Shall I walk with you?’

  ‘No, I’d rather go on my own.’ He could not tell Alexander he’d promised to meet Luisa again at the old house, and she would already be waiting. ‘Sorry, my friend, but I’ll just take a brief stroll. I’m too tired to talk.’

  ‘Well, if you go out past the city gates, make sure you’re armed.’

  Zachary patted his sword hanger.

  ‘See you tomorrow, then.’ Alexander strode off towards the bridge.

  Chapter 43<
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  When Elspet arrived at her lodgings after marking up the seal, Gaxa was waiting for her in the hall.

  ‘Martha’s gone,’ she said, looking her up and down disdainfully with her large eyes. Elspet saw how her attention stuck on her cheek where the scar made a long dark line.

  ‘Gone where?’

  ‘Back to England. She say to tell you.’

  ‘What? What did she say? Where is she? How can she have gone back to England?’

  Gaxa planted her bare feet more firmly apart. ‘She sold them fancy clothes, to pay for her passage. She can’t stand no more of Spain, she say. She missed home so bad. A carrier took her to the port. She took Arif from the kitchen to be her serving boy. She say to tell you, sorry.’

  The thought flashed through her mind that she had given Martha the gown because she coveted it so much. She should have been grateful, not thrown her gift back in her face.

  Gaxa’s eyes gave her a sideways look, and she went on, ‘She say it’s not right, it looks like you the maid now, and she the mistress.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You don’t act like a lady. She only want to work for a lady, she say.’

  She was not sure now if it was Gaxa talking, or Martha. ‘Did she say that?’

  Gaxa pressed her mouth together in a stubborn line.

  ‘Did she say that I wasn’t a lady?’ She put her hand on to Gaxa’s shoulder but Gaxa flinched and backed away.

  Elspet pushed past her and went into Martha’s room. Empty. Nothing on the hooks in the closet, no dusty shoes standing under the bed. The wicker shopping basket was gone from its usual place behind the door. She had even taken the candle stub from the candlestick on the chair by the bed.

  Gaxa had followed and was standing by the door.

  ‘Gaxa, just tell me when she went.’

  ‘Soon as you left at sun up. She’s long gone now. The sailing was noon – I asked yesternight at the harbour front.’

  Elspet sighed in frustration. And she was hurt that Gaxa had been a part of this whole plan, conspiring with Martha to ask the sailing times. She thought they had become friends after that night when she helped her fetch Ayamena. But she could see that perhaps a maid and a slave might have more allegiance to each other than they would to her. And now Martha even had a serving boy.

  There was nothing more to be done. Martha was gone, and no amount of complaining would bring her back.

  ‘Where was she going in England?’ she asked, fearful in case she was going home to her closed-up house in London.

  ‘Her mother’s place.’

  ‘All right, Gaxa,’ Elspet said, in a tone that reasserted her authority. ‘You may go.’

  Gaxa’s expression showed she knew it to be an order, and was glad.

  That night Elspet slept alone in the huge apartment. She remembered Martha’s sickness on the ship from England and imagined her now, keeling over the side, seeing the ocean flash past in the darkness with the smell of brine catching the back of her throat. And she remembered Mr Wilmot’s wife, Dorothy, standing on the quay to wish them well, the ribbons of her bonnet blowing round her face, and the way she had stood on her toes to kiss her husband’s lips as he left.

  Tears formed in her eyes but she held them at bay. Señor Alvarez set great store by the power of determination and steady thinking, and she would heed his training. Weeping would do no good. What she needed now was strength and willpower.

  When she left the house it was early, the sun barely a tinge of pink behind the façades of the buildings and the crenellated city walls. But she woke with the chill of the dawn and could not stay abed a moment longer. It was as if the fencing school was the centre of her world now.

  She wanted to get there before the men, to practise some feints that Señor Alvarez had shown her on the new diagram in the upstairs room. It was better to try them alone – far too embarrassing to attempt them in front of the men. So she did not even wake Gaxa, but washed hurriedly in the Sevillian soap she was so fond of and, shivering, dressed herself.

  Her step was springy as she bounced down the Calle San Pablo towards the bridge. The aroma of yeast drifted by, as the Morisco bakers began to open their shutters behind her; she noticed the clink of hammer on the cobbler’s iron last as she passed by his shop.

  At the yard she pushed on the gate, but it rattled against the bar. Someone must have heard her for a few moments later it swung open and Ayamena was there.

  ‘Ey, ey!’ she said, in surprise, from behind her manto. ‘Here already?’

  ‘It’s a lovely morning,’ Elspet said. ‘Look, no rain!’ She told her about how Martha had gone home to England, for she knew she would ask after her, she always did. It was the only thing they had to bind them together.

  Ayamena dipped her head and shook it slowly back and forth. ‘You will miss her,’ she said.

  Elspet swallowed, looked at her shyly and admitted that she would. ‘It was nice sometimes,’ she said, ‘to talk in English.’

  ‘Yes. The mother tongue. Is important.’

  ‘You miss your own language? Do you have a chance to speak it much?’

  Ayamena’s expression suddenly became wary. ‘Excuse me, mistress,’ she said, ‘I have something cooking.’ And she hurried away. Elspet could smell nothing cooking though, and no smoke came from the oven chimney.

  She could not wait to go and admire her handiwork from the night before, so she hoisted her skirts and hurried up the stone steps to the training chamber for a quick peep. The door was already ajar, perhaps Señor Alvarez would be there.

  At first she could not take it in, the black pool of ink, a red spatter that could be blood, the prints of men’s muddy boots. Shreds of torn and crumpled paper lifting slightly in the breeze. She stared, one hand clamped over her mouth.

  The door to the library was open. She skirted round the edge of the room, avoiding the mess, hardly daring to look in.

  A whirlwind might have been there in the night. Books were littered everywhere, divorced from their covers, the pages tossed about the room. The leather bindings gutted from their pages, the leaves ripped apart. One of the volumes of Agrippa lay on the ground, its pages blurred with wet. It was only then she smelt the stink of piss. She bolted from the room.

  ‘Señor Alvarez!’ she cried, beside herself. ‘Señor Alvarez!’

  He appeared in the yard in a moment, pulling on his doublet, and mounting the steps. ‘Yes, yes,’ he called, as he came, ‘I know. It was last night. Someone came in the dark and did this.’ He must have seen her horrified face, for he gestured at the floor. ‘It is only a bit of paint. It can be done again.’

  ‘Again?’ she was aghast. ‘What’s happened to it? Who did this? And the library?’

  His face fell. He passed his hand over his brow wearily. ‘The library too? I haven’t been in the library.’

  She nodded. He groaned, and walked with her to the door. He stood at the door and she saw him press his lips together. ‘We must see what we can salvage.’

  ‘But who did this?’

  ‘Someone who bears us a grudge, by the look of it,’ he said, moving away.

  How could he be so calm? ‘It’s ruined. When we left it was exact, just like Agrippa’s diagram. You saw it.’ She was speechless a moment with anger. ‘The Agrippa, it’s on the floor . . . I can’t believe anyone would do this. And Martha’s gone.’ Her voice threatened tears.

  ‘Sit down a moment,’ Alvarez said. He took her by the arm but before she could reach the chair she was holding tight to him, and his arms closed around her in an embrace. They were still for a long moment. She felt his hand pressing her to his chest, heard the thud of his heart. Finally, he moved away to look down at her, holding her by the arms.

  ‘Things change.’ He swallowed, as if to take control of his voice. ‘The perfect seal is inside you now, is it not? The essence of what it is?’ He spoke urgently. ‘Think now. The four elements, and a fifth, the quintessence.’

  She could
not answer him, for her mind was racing, blood beat at her temples. She took a deep breath.

  ‘Try to understand me,’ he said. ‘What matters is that the knowledge is inside you. No one can take that away. It is more real than any painted glyph. You have made it real yourself by your own work.’

  He was looking at her with that peculiarly intense stare that he had. She nodded. It calmed her. He was right, last night they had absorbed something, as if the circle and the cross had been burnt somehow into their bones. She searched inside herself for the sensation of the pattern, and surprisingly, felt it hum there, like a vibration, subtle but insistent.

  He moved away further until her hands lingered in his. ‘Understand me, the training comes first. Before everything else.’ She felt the cool air as his fingertips slid away.

  She swallowed. It was a rebuff, and she felt its keen edge.

  He gathered up a few papers and looked at them as if unsure what to do with them. Eventually he said, ‘Perhaps my students do not really need the training floor. We will clean up, and put things in order. But it could be that this is timely. We do not need the diagram as much as we might suppose. Perhaps you do not need a maid. We will try today without, heh?’

  She looked up at him. His eyes locked with hers. Heat spread up her chest to her neck. He was about to speak, but then seemed to think better of it. Instead, he signalled her to the door. She followed him out. As he went he banged his shoulder into the door frame, and let out a muffled curse.

  Zachary looked over to the kitchen door to catch sight of Luisa. Last night she had brought blankets and cushions and they had spent long, wakeful hours in each other’s arms. He could not tear the vision of her nakedness from his mind. She had been concerned at his cut head, but her tender solicitations had led to more than he had dared hope for. Now he was in an agony of expectation, looking for her to appear.

  But Etienne, Girard and Pedro demanded to hear his story once they had set eyes on the seal. Zachary described his assailants, parted his oiled hair to show where he had hit his head, and praised Señor Alvarez’s swordsmanship in routing the three men. The little group were subdued, it gathered them all together against this common enemy. They sat on the steps, eyeing the weak morning sun and the scudding clouds, before buckling on their sword belts and taking off their sleeves.