by Jane Bow
A Spanish flota in the Azores, the galleons sitting like mother ducks surrounded by a flock of smaller faster chicks, was irresistible as we were no longer fully loaded. Captain St. Clere gave the order to attack but I saw nothing. Once we had left the calmness of our bay in the New World, the fever had struck me a third time. All I could do was lie in my hammock mumbling to You as our ship rocked and shook and crashed under the fire of the cannons. The reek of cordite and gunpowder and human sweat set me to retching until finally, in the midst of all that chaos, I lost consciousness. When I awoke the world had returned to calm. We had captured one of the Spanish ships. The rest had taken flight.
Once the treasure had been transferred to the holds of our two ships, Captain DuMoulin summoned me to his cabin.
“Here,” he said, handing me three bags of gold. “Your share.” The captured galleon, a termite palace, was of no use to the pirates. They were releasing it. I was to go with it back to Spain.
But what use was money to me now? I was little more than a useless bag of bones.
“Take it, brother,” DuMoulin pressed the bags into my hands. “And know also that where it lies, your treasure is safe.”
As You know, Father, just before they reached St. Malo, St. Clere and DuMoulin were set upon by British frigates and killed in a battle that sank both L’Amitié and L’Espérance. The news was all over the Spanish coast by the time we arrived.
We had to wait off Altamira while the rest of the flota was unloaded.
Our ship’s crew would likely be hanged for the loss of our cargo but, if the comandante believed I was a passenger monk, he might spare me unless he found my three bags of gold.
I was on deck in the wee hours, trying to cool my fever in the night air, when some men rowed out from the shore in a dinghy. I could see ripples of the phosphorescence left by their oars. These men were my Altamira brothers, with whom I had kicked the football, wrestled in the dust. They were heading for this ship because we were anchored farthest from shore. Silly fools, couldn’t they see how high we were riding?
What is it, I wonder, that makes a loveless, hopeless old man refuse to die? I tied the bags of gold and this diary wrapped in its oilskin around my waist inside my breeches and slid down a rope into the water. Then, mustering the remains of my strength, I swam toward the dinghy.
They hauled me aboard. I warned them to turn back, and when at last I fell to my knees in the Altamira sand, up where the beach meets the cliff wall, I prayed, thanking You and, while no one was looking, burying my three bags. Then, as I stumbled after the men into the cavern that opens onto that beach, an arm closed around my neck. A knife point pricked my chin.
“No, no,” I cried, “There is no need to kill me, I will be dead soon enough, but listen!” I drew them a map of the little island in the New World. Why not? Everyone needs hope.
There was a certain sad pleasure in giving one of the bags of gold to Jose’s Maria with his love. The other two will look after my sister in whose bedroom I now lie, a jug of wine by my side as I write.
I know this is the end, Father. All I ask, as I lie here, is that Mia’s people’s gold, my beautiful sun ring and Mia’s jewelled butterfly, symbols of the only love beyond understanding I have ever known, if these treasures ever leave their hiding place, please may they stay out of the clutches of pirates and kings. For I have to tell You, Father, that as the fever steals what little energy I have left, so that even raising my arm to dip the quill is difficult, I would still give all that I am, no matter the damnation that awaits me, to have my Mia back for just one moment of the love we knew in that mountain glade.
And struggling now to form the words, as my eyelids begin to droop, I smile, for in the final moment there is no defence required. There is only the afternoon sunlight slanting in between the curtains, and these wings, light as a butterfly’s, shining gold, hovering, waiting.
Satis verborum, Laus Deo.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to the many people whose information, memories, stories, books and Internet articles helped me research this book; thanks also to Lea Harper, Julie Johnston, Betsy Struthers, Florence Treadwell, and to editors Catherine Marjoribanks and Janie Yoon; special thanks to Hilary Boyd, Sarah Collins, Patricia Stone and Georgia Dent and Paul Cohen at Epigraph. Most of all, thanks to my family, especially to Grant Collins without whom this book would not exist.
—J.B.
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