by Robyn Young
Now, the beacon they had all been walking towards, flickering on the horizon, had winked out – and at his own breath. What a trusting fool he was. Hunger had emptied his mind as well as his belly. He should have bargained for the information he had.
‘It isn’t just money, signore. I need to understand who my father was. What he believed in. What he was working towards. Your Academy? New Eden? I need to know. Was all I did – all I lost – in service to him . . .’ Jack shook his head, hating the desperation in his voice but unable to mask it. ‘Was any of it worth it?’
‘Your father’s sword.’
Jack faltered. ‘Signore?’
‘I will return your father’s sword to you, as payment for your service. It is a valuable piece.’ Lorenzo gestured to his guards, who stepped forward to seize Jack’s arms.
Jack felt the world threaten to sink beneath his blistered feet as the guards forced him towards the curtain. ‘And my father’s ring?’ he blurted, twisting to Lorenzo. ‘Signore!’
‘Is not yours to wear.’
With that, Jack found himself marched back through the opulent chambers, out through the courtyard with the bronze statue, past the gold and the marble, and all the glittering wealth. His sword, in its battered old scabbard, was thrust into his hands and then he was out in the street with the beggars and the sewage, the cold snatching his breath.
5
The Spaniard had been gone for some time and Harry was beginning to worry.
He glanced at the three men – one secretary, a servant and a groom – who had accompanied him from England, now resting on the dockside, mopping their brows in the heat. Around them, piled on the harbour wall, were the chests that had travelled with them from the Port of London, filled with Harry’s personal effects and a costly array of gifts for Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand: gold plates, beeswax candles, ivory hunting horns, cloaks of fine Flemish cloth, jewelled daggers from Nuremburg and furs from Novgorod. There were even two hunting hounds, picked from the royal kennels by King Henry’s Master Huntsman, although one had been terribly sick on the voyage and was now flopped on the floor of his cage, panting shallowly. Harry prayed the sorry creature recovered in time for his audience. The presentation of a dying dog to the Spanish monarchs would not prove an auspicious beginning to his role as English ambassador.
‘I need to stretch my legs,’ he told his secretary, nodding to the trunks. ‘Watch them. And give that damn dog some water, will you.’
‘Of course, Sir Harry,’ answered Peter, an earnest, keen-to-please young man King Henry had chosen for his knowledge of the Castilian tongue.
Sir. The title felt to Harry like a new cloak: shining and exquisite, but perhaps still a few sizes too big. Henry had knighted him just before he left England – a hasty ceremony with little fanfare, nothing like Harry had imagined it would be, the king’s blade upon his shoulders and his cool voice in his ear as he embraced him, reminding him what he was expected to do in return for the honour.
Wiping the sweat from his face, Harry headed along the harbour, passing into the shadows of the square-sailed caravels – some of them up to six hundred tons – moored at the docks near a gleaming tower with walls that looked to be made of gold. It was February, but felt like June, the Spanish sun prickling his skin, still wan from the English winter.
The harbour was busy, galleys being loaded. There was a crane clawing lengths of timber from the bowels of a large cog and customs officials moved through the bustle, talking to captains, checking cargo. He heard many tongues – French, Latin, English. Others he did not know.
A brisk breeze blowing across the river laced the air with dust and carried smells of smoke, rotting fish and a sweet scent Harry couldn’t place – a spice or perfume? His legs felt unsteady, the ground still seeming to tilt beneath his feet, but he was grateful to be back on terra firma. Around the northern coast of Spain, he had been as sick as the dog, every ominous creak of timber telling him the ship was about to crack apart. He’d been on boats before, but never had he experienced such seas – mountains of water lifting the galley to terrifying heights, before hurling it down the other side, waves exploding over the bowsprit.
The ordeal had lasted days until, finally, they edged around the southern coast of Portugal into the Gulf of Cádiz. Even then the crew remained watchful and wary, looking south across the Straits of Gibraltar towards the dark ramparts of the mountains of the Barbary Coast, where Harry heard a savage brood of pirates lurked, waiting to take cargo for plunder and sailors for slaves. He’d been told the threat from the Moors across the water had grown since the king and queen had declared a vigorous renewal of the centuries’ long Reconquista – their aim to conquer the Muslim Kingdom of Granada and take back control of the last Christian territory held by the infidel in Spain. The relief on board had been palpable when the galley had entered the wide mouth of the Guadalquivir and sailed upriver towards Seville.
Just beyond the gold tower, where a line of ramshackle taverns began, Harry got his first glimpse of the city proper. The riddle of red rooftops, stark white walls and tiled domes shimmering under the midday sun seemed an impossible maze. A place that might be filled with wonders, or dangers. A place he could lose himself if he wasn’t careful. All at once, the gratitude he felt for having simply made it here alive dimmed in the face of his task. Would the king and queen accept him into their court? How would he gain their trust? Enough to prevent them from granting any funds to this sailor, Columbus? Enough to stop the man’s plans for a voyage west? He thought again of Henry’s voice whispering in his ear, the king’s blade heavy on his shoulder.
Do not fail me.
Harry glanced back the way he’d come to where his men were still waiting with the chests. It was almost two hours since Rodrigo de Torres had headed to the royal palace to announce their arrival and arrange transport for the baggage and a suitable escort. Where was he?
Hearing wailing cries, Harry turned back to the dockside. Following the sounds, he came upon a row of people kneeling on the harbour wall. There were a few young men among them, but most were women and girls, some rocking as they cried, roped one to another all along their line. They were an arresting sight.
In London, Harry had seen people of different colours, pale like himself to ruddy, sallow, olive and tanned. But he’d not seen skin like this before – a deep brown-black, like oak gall ink. He moved closer, drawn by their strangeness, to see more being herded down the gangplank of a caravel. Some were girls, barely out of childhood. A few clung to one another as they were pushed along by men who hurried them with rough shouts and, if they were too slow, the flick of a stick to their legs.
A voice sounded at his ear. Harry turned to see a man looking questioningly at him. He shook his head and used a few of the Castilian words Peter had taught him on the crossing to say he didn’t understand.
With a knowing laugh, the man switched easily into English. ‘I said they will be in the market tomorrow. Come early if you’re looking for strong ones. Come later if you want a good deal.’ He dropped his voice and nodded to a man who was moving down the row of kneeling girls, studying each in turn before chalking something on a board. ‘We took a lot of young ones this haul. The price will be lowered by the afternoon.’
Slaves, Harry realised – these men were slave traders. ‘Thank you,’ he muttered.
The man nodded and headed over to join his companions, inspecting their miserable cargo. Harry had heard the trade was booming in some parts of Christendom, although he’d not known anyone in England who owned slaves. His eyes tracked south down the river towards the gulf, where those Barbary pirates waited. He felt queasy as he thought of being taken, bonded to a stranger in a foreign land. No wonder the sailors had been fearful. Praise God he had made it here.
‘Sir!’ Peter was hurrying towards him. ‘Don Rodrigo has returned.’
Leaving the men to corral the weeping women, Harry set off with Peter to where the Spaniard was waiting.
&
nbsp; From what King Henry had told him and from what Harry had learned direct from his travelling companion, Rodrigo de Torres was a hidalgo – one of the lower noble class – born of an affluent family in the province of Jaén, which had been wrested from the Moors over two hundred years earlier. One of his ancestors had been instrumental in the capture of the province and had been rewarded with a coat of arms and a parcel of land, which successive generations of the family had turned into a prosperous estate with acres of olive groves and its own presses. Rodrigo, who had grown up serving Queen Isabella as a squire in the royal guard, had succeeded his father upon his death three years ago and had become a favoured vassal of the queen. He was a young man with a confident manner and coal-black eyes that Harry had noticed would burn with a zealous fire whenever talk turned to the Moors.
‘Señor de Torres,’ he greeted, looking past Rodrigo for the expected host of royal officials come to greet him and the beasts to carry his bags. As his gaze alighted on a company of five coarse-looking men, two of whom led bandy-legged mules, Harry felt a flush of indignation. His father’s talk of his arrival as ambassador to the royal courts of France and Burgundy had sounded so dignified, so grand: musicians and high stewards to usher him in, wine and delicacies to welcome him. ‘Did you speak to the king and queen? Did you tell them I am here?’
‘Queen Isabella left the city three months ago to give birth to her daughter,’ Rodrigo said, his accent making music of the English words. ‘At present, she and the king are in the north.’ Rodrigo smiled. ‘Do not be troubled, Sir Harry. I have a house here in the city.’ He gestured to the men leading the mules, beckoning them down to the pile of chests. ‘My men will bring your belongings. I will send word to the queen. Inform her of your arrival. You may stay with me until you get your audience.’
Harry fought to keep the bitterness from his voice. ‘You were gone so long, I thought you would surely return with better news.’
‘On the contrary, my friend, I have excellent news. In my absence, the tide of the war has turned.’ Rodrigo’s black eyes smouldered. ‘Many more strongholds of the enemy have fallen to our forces.’ He grasped Harry’s shoulder. ‘Come, one of my men is waiting to give me a full report. God willing, this very year we will wipe the infidel stain from our lands.’
Jack scanned the riotous masses, the din of drums assaulting his senses as the first of the wagons rolled towards him, winding up the street from the cathedral, the rust-red dome of which mushroomed over the city. A loud boom rattled the shutters of buildings and shuddered through his chest, sparks flashing amber across the pallid sky. The air was thick with the smell of sulphur. He had thought at first that people were firing guns into the crowds, until Valentine Holt had told him they were toys.
Flowers of Cathay the gunner had called them – black powder stuffed into paper tubes with a lit fuse, shot skyward on arrows. Jack had been with his father under King Edward’s banner at the Battle of Barnet, aged thirteen; deafened by the roar of cannon, choking on the smoke. He had seen, first-hand, what shot and the devil’s powder could do to a mass of men. It seemed irreverent to use it as a plaything.
‘Here they come,’ called David, gripping Adam’s shoulder to peer over the heads of the crowds that pressed in around them in an oppressive stew of body odours and bellowing voices.
Earlier, forcing their way through the crush, they’d spotted a set of steps outside a baker’s that would give them a slight vantage, but as the crowd swelled they’d been pushed further back until now the five of them were pressed up against the shutters of the shop front.
The wagon approached, accompanied by the throb of drums. As it trundled past, Jack saw the back of it had been decked out like a forest. Among painted trees with green and brown ribbons for leaves, furry-legged satyrs and nymphs in diaphanous gowns cavorted. The crowd cheered, men hooting at the girls who danced in circles around the leering satyrs, staggering as the wagon’s wheels jolted over the cobbles. High above, people leaned from balconies to watch, most of them women in glittering gowns, jewelled and aloof. A second wagon trundled in the wake of the first, this one occupied by a blindfolded Eros, poised with bow and arrow, wings of turquoise satin splayed behind him, young boys in white singing at his feet.
Last week, arguing over the details of their next move in the cheapest lodging they’d been able to find – a rundown tavern near a row of wool-washing sheds that emitted an eye-watering stink – they’d met a German merchant who knew English well enough to tell them all about Florence’s forthcoming Carnival: a wild celebration of the change of season from winter’s darkness into spring; the different guilds and confraternities who commissioned the wagons, the route the procession would take, the taverns to avoid unless they wanted overpriced piss-water and pox-riddled whores. The whole parade, the merchant said, would end at the Palazzo Medici, where performances would be held for the entertainment of the Medici family and the city’s dignitaries. This would, they had decided, provide the best opportunity to gather what they needed to implement their plan. It was the first time since Jack had returned from the palazzo empty-handed that they’d all agreed on anything.
Jack’s eyes strayed down the street to where the imposing palazzo thrust above most of its neighbours. Outside, an enormous tiered dais had been erected, blocking the street. It was packed with hundreds of men in sumptuous robes and fur-trimmed capes, elaborate hats and jewelled belts. Servants threaded among them, bearing drinks and food. Over them all was raised a scarlet standard, displaying a shield of gold emblazoned with seven red balls. Jack, who’d glimpsed the symbol throughout the palazzo on his brief visit, had seen it many times since, engraved and embossed on buildings across Florence – the Medici coat of arms, like a stamp of ownership on the city.
He rubbed absently at his finger where his father’s ring had made a white band. It was almost a fortnight since he’d lost it to Lorenzo de’ Medici’s keeping, but his hand still felt naked without it. He had returned to the palazzo the day after the man dismissed him and the day after that, waiting in line with the host of men who thronged the benches at the palace entrance, but his requests for another audience had been denied.
‘Eyes on her, boy,’ Valentine warned in his ear.
‘They are,’ Jack retorted, bridling at the apellation. Valentine and the Foxley brothers might each be about old enough to be his father, but at twenty-seven he was long past boyhood. Forcing his gaze from the palazzo, he scanned the crowds around the dais, now edging back to make way for the wagons lining up outside the palazzo. He searched the sea of feathered caps and silk mantles until he picked out a flash of grey and a crop of short brown hair. He held Amelot in his sights for a moment, then she was gone again, swallowed by the throng.
‘Lose her and we lose our chance,’ Valentine reminded him.
Jack said nothing, but thought how the gunner had changed his tune. Valentine had been against Amelot coming with them from the start, demanding to know what use the mute girl was. Besides which, though she might dress as a boy, she was a woman – and God knows women be bad luck and trouble in a company of men. But when, in Aigues-Mortes, after a fruitless week searching for a vessel whose price they could afford to take them to Pisa, the girl had dropped a pile of purses on the floor of their lodgings like a dog bringing birds to please its master, her value had at once been clear.
‘Didn’t know they’d be celebrating you in this parade, Holt!’ Ned shouted over the din, nodding to the next wagon, which was occupied by a bald and bloated Bacchus squatting on a swathe of green velvet, several lambs tethered, bleating unhappily, around him. As he swigged from a jug of wine that washed red down his belly the crowd roared its approval. Grinning, Ned dipped two fingers in his ale and offered them for Titan to lick. The little dog, unnerved by all the bangs and flashes, was nestled in his coat.
Valentine growled something into his tankard, but Jack didn’t catch it as the press of people in front of him parted like the twitch of a curtain and Amelot slippe
d through.
Her pinched face was flushed, her tawny eyes bright and alert, whether with nerves or excitement he couldn’t quite tell. From beneath the folds of her grey cloak she pulled five purses, the strings of which had been cut by the dagger Ned had given her. Adam and David stepped in closer, shielding her from view as she handed them to Jack. Two were of worn leather, but three were more ornate, including one of purple velvet decorated with a pearl.
Jack stowed them in the bag he’d strapped to his body beneath his cloak. ‘Be careful,’ he cautioned as she turned to go.
Amelot narrowed her eyes at him in response, before stealing into the throng, visible here and there as she weaved her way back towards the dais.
‘There’re more guards now,’ David observed, nodding at the crush around the platform.
Jack saw four men in the same blue tunics emblazoned with a black viper they’d seen others in this area wearing that morning, all of them armed and watchful. They were moving slowly through the rowdy hordes, keeping a close eye out. He hoped Amelot had seen them. They had been right in their estimation – the crowds here offered the richest pickings – but that meant more protection. ‘Perhaps we should call her back?’
‘No,’ said Valentine gruffly. ‘We’ve not enough.’
Adam nodded in agreement, his sharp blue eyes meeting Jack’s. ‘The barge leaves in two days. If we don’t have the funds we’ll not be on it.’
Jack didn’t answer. What could he say? The others were set on this plan now and he could either go along with them or remain in the city alone. He’d done what he could to find out more about this Court of Wolves Lorenzo had spoken of in connection with the badge Amelot indicated had been worn by one of Amaury’s abductors, but with scant understanding of the Tuscan dialect all he’d been able to discover was that it was some kind of duelling company. He could see no more trails to follow. Not if Lorenzo wouldn’t see him.