A Divided Inheritance

by Deborah Swift

  The man was heavily built and powerful. He fought off Pedro’s blows until Pedro was forced to back away.

  ‘Pedro!’ Even as she shouted, she knew she was too late. The beach was still littered with the remnants of Morisco possessions. Pedro stepped back into a misshapen bundle and toppled. She saw his legs fly up, heard the thud as his back hit the sand, the rattle of his sword belt. He grunted as he fell, but the soldier did not pause. He thrust his blade hard down, straight into Pedro’s chest.

  Elspet backed away. It was so quick. Pedro did not even cry out. She knew with certainty her friend would never stand again. The thought incensed her. The soldier was still coming towards her; she ran for the gun but as she picked it up, she realized she did not know how to use it. She threw it towards Zachary, but he was too weak to handle it. He was on his knees, trying to stand, his sword in his left hand. The soldier saw Zachary and laughed.

  ‘The piss-pants Englishman who can’t fight,’ he said, ‘in the dirt again.’ It was only then that Elspet remembered she’d seen this man before. The day the soldiers looted the yard.

  ‘Rodriguez,’ Zachary said, rising shakily to his feet.

  But Rodriguez had already drawn back his sword and made to thrust it into Zachary’s chest.

  ‘Don’t you dare touch him!’ Elspet leapt in from the side and engaged his blade with hers.

  ‘Get out of my way,’ he growled, trying to move her blade.

  She stood firm despite his pressure. ‘I said, don’t touch him.’

  He stabbed at her then, and the speed of his attack gave her no time to think. Her blade slid around his like water. Her edge cut upwards into his cheek. He swore and stepped back out of range. His hand came up to his cheek, and he felt the blood, slick between his fingers and thumb, his expression amazed.

  ‘Vixen,’ he said, as he drew back to launch another thrust to Zachary’s chest.

  You will have to kill me first, Elspet thought, lunging forward with the tip of her sword.

  Rodriguez parried her easily, laughing. ‘Come on, little lady. He’s finished anyway. Why bother? What’s he to you?’

  ‘He’s my brother.’ She pressed her blade towards him. ‘Keep away.’

  He clashed hard against it to force her away. She imagined the circle. Felt it live inside her. It calmed her. She extended all her senses, reaching out in her heart to the señor. Rodriguez stood with his sword outstretched, his breath rang in her ears. She looked into his face and a slight narrowing of his eyes gave away his moment of attack. He propelled his sword forward and she stepped round the circle to the side. But he was too quick, his weapon shot round after her and she felt hers fly upwards from her grasp. She let out a cry, but kept her eyes fixed on her adversary.

  Before her sword even hit the ground Zachary was waving his. She grabbed it. Just in time she rolled away to the side in a flurry of sand and the big man’s blade missed her by a flea’s width. It pierced her skirts and stuck into the ground.

  The slight delay as he struggled to withdraw it was all the time she needed. Zachary’s sword was light and strong and familiar in her hand. She deflected easily as Rodriguez made another strike and slid it upwards to his wrist. I have you, she thought, but then just in time he turned his guard and pushed her away.

  She saw the change in him.

  He paused too, gathered himself. That she was a danger had just penetrated his awareness. He ignored Zachary, who had sunk back gasping to his knees and was no threat to him. He walked towards her, eyes like a snake about to strike.

  His slow approach made her stomach curdle. If she did not prevail then Zachary would stand no chance. She backed away and leapt up on to the jetty to give herself more height. With both hands she brought the blade slicing fast towards his neck. He saw it and leapt to the side. A powerful spring and he was on the jetty with her, pressing forward with a series of shattering blows. His force vibrated up her arm.

  She tried to stave him off. He was bigger and stronger and relentless. But her mind was agile and as he made a last cut towards her face she sprang sideways off the edge like a cat into the shallows. She turned quickly at a sound behind her. Alexander was running to help her. She angled a penetrating strike upwards and succeeded in making a deep cut to the soldier’s knee. He let out a groan of pain and Alexander ran up the jetty and pounced, about to engage him.

  ‘Curse you!’ Rodriguez yelled, hobbling, staggering back. Alexander followed him and drove in his blade. She saw Rodriguez lose balance, and the panic in his eyes as he fought to regain it, arms flailing.

  Slowly, so slowly, he fell into nothingness. A splash.

  Alexander and Elspet moved cautiously along the jetty to see what had become of him. He thrashed in the water, his face gasping at the surface, struggling for air, his weighty armour dragging him under. ‘He can’t swim,’ said Alexander.

  Elspet looked away She could not watch.

  When she looked back he floated face-up, a pale blurred outline just under the water, like a lump of wreckage moving back and forth with the waves.

  A noise of galloping hooves told them that the remaining soldier was leaving. Elspet let Zachary’s sword drop from her grasp.

  She cast her eyes out to sea. In the distance she made out the small black dot of the boat still moving against the light of the sky, and further still a fishing smack waiting at anchor in the deeps.

  Alexander followed her gaze, before turning to look at the fallen figure of Pedro. ‘So they made it. Lucky for some,’ he said sadly.

  Chapter 52

  It was strange to be back in Seville. It looked like a different place, a city bereaved. The stones in the city walls must have been witness to so many conquests, so many lives lived and lost, every empire built on the ruins of another. Elspet took out the letter from Señor Alvarez, and sat at one of the taverns at the side of the road. It was the first private moment she had taken for herself since she had gone to Tavira. After the night the Moriscos left, Alexander had begged Señora Quevedo for help, and she had mustered men from the village to help carry the dead from the beach, and then sent them on to another safe house.

  Together, she and Alexander travelled back to Seville in a hired wagon, with Pedro’s body laid out in a sheet, and Zachary groaning in the back. Fortunately, they had encountered no one en route. The other Moriscos from the villages must be already gathered at the port by now or long gone. She shuddered at the thought of it, imagined the Ortegas and dear Señor Alvarez out in the vastness of the sea. She tried to quell the yearning of her heart.

  She had asked to be dropped here, at a tavern just inside the city walls. Alexander would fetch a physician for Zachary, and then return to the same spot later to meet with her. She weighed the roll of parchment in her hand. She had been too busy dealing with the dead and the wounded to open it. A love letter, the señor had said. She was not sure she could bear words of affection now he was gone. She ordered some tea and some raisin and apple cakes, but left them untouched on the table. Slowly she unrolled the parchment and began to read.

  At first she could not fathom it. She turned it over, looking for something else. But then she understood.

  ‘Oh, señor,’ she said. She began to laugh, and laugh. Tears rolled down her face. She opened it again, ran her finger over where he had signed his name in expansive letters, put her lips to his name and kissed it. He had told her he loved her, but not in words. She would have liked words, but this was better. The feeling in her chest swelled to bursting. Only he could have thought of something like this.

  Pray God everything would knit well and not turn putrid, Zachary thought. He was lucky to be alive. The physician had dressed his shoulder, and sewed up the remains of his ear, but even after a week he was still deaf in that side, with a ringing in his head that would not stop.

  The sun was out though it was bitter cold, and the sharp shadows of clouds danced over his balcony. On the side table next to the bed lay his mother’s letter where he had left it, stil
l open and lifting slightly in the breeze. He picked it up to fold it and put it away, but could not resist reading it one more time. Her voice, her slight Spanish burr, echoed in his mind.

  25th Day of September, 1599

  Dearest Zack,

  By the time you read this I will be gone and you will have to face the future without me. Pray do not grieve too long – life is short and precious and the world will be a worse place without your sunny smile. You must listen to your Mama now.

  I have written to Uncle Leviston and he will come to find you, and you must take his instruction – then you will grow up to be the fine, educated gentleman I know you can be.

  God forgive me, I deceived the poor man all these years, told him you were born early, that you were his son. I owe him much, for it is he who paid for your lessons, kept you in shoes, bought bread for our table. So don’t you forget it. Your blood father – well, let’s just say he came but once, and never again. So what was I to do, with three hungry mouths to feed and no business? Oh Zack, I am not asking for forgiveness, only understanding.

  Uncle Leviston has grown to love you, of that I am sure. So do this last little thing for me, my peppercorn – keep our secret. For I fear your brothers will not prove kind, and they are already set on a dangerous life. And above all, I can rest easy if I know you will be safe in the care of such an English gentleman.

  Though I may be gone and life may deal you bitter blows, you must never give up hope for better things . . .’

  Her last farewells always threatened to bring a lump to his throat, not because of the words themselves but because they were her last and brought back the pain of those first lost days without her. So he closed the letter into its well-worn square and thought how she would raise her brows if she could see him here, if she could know what a life with Uncle Leviston had led to. He laughed at the sheer irony of it; that the safe, respectable life she imagined for him had never existed.

  Do parents always hold out these false hopes for their children? he wondered. In some ways he felt she had not known him at all, yet in other ways, since being in Spain, he had grown mysteriously like her, more at home in his own skin. He inhaled deeply and smiled.

  Gabriel had been to visit and give him news of the expulsion. They had lost three men from Guido’s workshop, but Gabriel himself had become indispensable. And Elspet had come every day, with Alexander. They sat on his bed, and made crumbs with their offerings of honey cakes and dates.

  Zachary had asked her if she believed in destiny. ‘I don’t know,’ she had said. ‘I believe in something, some force that moves us through life. Perhaps it’s just the feeling, the sensation of being alive. I put my trust in nature more than I ever did, and I’m grateful for small things like the sun coming up and shining every day.’

  ‘It’s just that now I can’t imagine that I might never have known you,’ he said. ‘And it was one chance in a million that I picked up your father’s notice. It seemed like a wind from the gods.’

  ‘I know what you mean. When I came to Señor Alvarez, I fancied that Agrippa was talking to me. I was scared of it, but fascinated; I really thought he had written his books especially for me.’ Zachary raised his eyebrows. ‘I know. It seems a foolish notion now, but it made me want to stay, to know more. Like a guidance. Do you think that is fanciful?’

  ‘Look,’ he brought out the piece of Calvary wood from his pocket, ‘my mother gave me this. Said it was a piece of Christ’s Cross. I’ve carried it all these years, thinking it would protect me, like a talisman. Is it superstition, or has it kept me safe? Would that soldier still have blown himself up if I had not carried it? I don’t know.’ He slipped it back in his pocket. ‘We all have our interior lives, I suppose. Some hook to hang up the things we can’t explain.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Do you know, Elspet, though I wanted it so badly, I fought the señor’s instruction. And your father, and you. All of life. Until I realized that it was myself I was really fighting. Alvarez taught me that I do not have to be the same person I lived with and hated for so long – the thief, the liar and the man who dare not open his heart. That I could let all that go.’

  She sighed, and her voice choked. ‘I miss them so much. I miss the training with the señor, the smell of Ayamena’s cooking. I can’t believe it is all over, that I will never hear him call “Mistress Leviston” again.’

  ‘He was something special to you, wasn’t he?’

  She swallowed, twisted her hands in her lap.

  ‘Luisa too,’ he said. ‘I promised I’d go with her. I hope . . .’

  She quietened him by placing her hand on his. ‘She saw, and she will understand.’ So they had sat together then, each with their own thoughts and longings.

  Today the dizziness and blurred vision had subsided enough for him to walk unaided to the fencing school, and as he walked gingerly down the streets he saw every third house was boarded up, the street-front stalls closed, and there was refuse building up on the highway. Seville was only just beginning to count the cost of losing its Moorish population.

  Luisa was ever in his thoughts, and his heart ached for news of her. He paused a moment, closed his eyes tight and sent out his intent to her that she should be safe and well. He hoped she might be thinking of him. Praise be, there was a swordsman such as Señor Alvarez with them, and they were bound for Morocco and Fez, and not Oran. Whilst he was laid up in bed Alexander had brought news of more atrocities against the Moriscos when they reached Oran. That the men had been robbed and killed, and the women and children raped or sold as slaves. The thought troubled him like a sore that would not heal.

  Though he was physically weak, and the injuries were still raw, it was these other wounds that hurt more. To love and lose. To fear for your love’s safety and not know where she might be, or whether she was still alive. It made every moment feel unbearably fragile, the sheer delicacy of human life.

  When he arrived at the Spreadeagled Man the sight of the new yard door brought a lump to his throat. He remembered the sound of it splintering, and little Husain’s terrified face. And worse, he could still see Luisa in his mind’s eye. Every place was a place she would have trod, with her light dancing step. At his knock, Alexander himself opened up.

  ‘Ah, the English Terror,’ he said, laughing. ‘How do you fare, my friend?’

  ‘Better, now that I don’t have to listen to your Dutch nonsense with both ears,’ he said, rallying himself.

  He looked around. The yard was clean and tidy; a new tilt post stood in the centre, with wooden arms on a swivel.

  ‘We have been waiting for you. We could not start training without you,’ Alexander said.

  ‘Steady! It might be a few more days before I can beat you again,’ he said.

  Elspet appeared from the kitchen. She was wearing her old yellow gown and smiling. She hurried over and he made a one-armed bow with a flourish. ‘Oh, it’s good to see you on your feet,’ she said, and her warmth was infectious.

  He grinned at her. ‘What’s this? What were you doing in the kitchen? Surely after all this time you’ve not decided to do women’s work? Gird yourself, woman, and get out here with the men.’

  ‘I can see the injury’s done nothing to improve you, still the same old Zachary.’ She flapped him away with a dishcloth.

  ‘Enough of your jesting now, they will be here to see the papers any moment,’ said Alexander.

  Zachary took in at a glance that Alexander was dressed tidily, with his beard trimmed and his shoes polished. ‘What?’ he said.

  Alexander dropped his smile and shook his head morosely. ‘All Morisco property is to be confiscated and reclaimed by the King. I spoke to the notary yesterday. Don Rodriguez’s sergeant-at-arms wants to take this place on and use the yard to stable his horses. Can you imagine? The King’s commissioner and his notary are coming here today with the requisition order.’

  ‘Is this true?’ Zachary asked.

  Elspet nodded, her lips pressed
together, and bowed her head.

  ‘Bastards.’

  ‘Come up to the library,’ Alexander said. ‘There are chairs up there and you can sit whilst we wait. You are still a little weak and—’

  ‘Damn you. I don’t want to sit. I can’t bear the thought of any of Don Rodriguez’s men in this yard. It is disrespectful to the señor.’ They were moving upstairs, so he had no alternative but to follow. He kept talking as he went. ‘And it’s so unjust. How long have we got before they come?’

  When he got inside the library there were new chairs and a new olive-wood table. In the middle of its polished surface was a document held open by four lead weights.

  ‘Tell him, Elspet,’ Alexander said.

  She pointed to the document, ‘They can’t take it.’ She beamed at him. ‘It’s quite in order,’ she said, ‘take a look.’

  He did not understand.

  ‘They won’t be able to take the building because it does not belong to a Morisco, it belongs to me.’

  ‘To you?’ He was baffled. ‘But how?’

  ‘Señor Alvarez had the deeds made out to me and pre-dated them before the embarkation order. It is signed and sealed by a lawyer and by Girard Thibault. He gave me the copy of the document just before he got on the boat.’

  Alexander leaned over to talk to him. ‘He was clever, Zachary. It is just perfect. He knew it was what you might want most in the world.’

  ‘Me? What do you mean?’

  ‘We think he was giving you the opportunity to trade property with Elspet. He knew you were the one to take over his school in Spain. She wants the lace business you own, isn’t that right? You have what she wants, and she has what you want, see?’

  ‘You mean he meant us to exchange?’

  ‘It certainly looks like it to me,’ Alexander said.

  He could not take it in. ‘But we can’t know that. You can’t be serious. And Elspet,’ he protested, ‘you know full well I’m not your brother. I have no legal entitlement to any of your goods.’