by David Penny
Fernando grasped the man’s shoulders. “What are you talking about? The man we seek is up there. Look, you can see him for yourself!”
The soldier frowned. “The man you asked us to search for is over a mile downstream of here, your grace. The body is broken but we are sure it is him.”
Fernando frowned. “Make sense man, that is impossible.”
“The priest, your grace. Ramon Braso. His body is discovered.”
Thomas turned away, some new certainty settling through him. He stared up at the figure on the precipice. Tall, like Ramon, skeletal, like Ramon, but the description fitted another man equally as well. A swell of dread rose in him as recognition came, at the thought of the danger Isabel had been placed in. Thomas filled his lungs ready to call out, which was the moment the figure steeled himself and threw his body into empty space, trusting his God to perform a miracle.
He might have made it had his robe not snagged on the gutter and pulled him up short a few scant feet from the roof he was attempting to reach. He yelled, a curse more than a scream, and then he fell.
Thomas didn’t see him land, but he heard it, a wet sound that augured bad news. Or good news, more like.
He discovered Samuel lying on his back. Blood ran from beneath his skull like an opened tap, but he was still alive. His eyes scanned the dark night sky as if searching for something and failing to find it.
Thomas knelt beside him, surprised when Samuel clutched at his robe and pulled him close. His other hand rose and there was a flash of light against sharp steel. Thomas reared back, falling on his side as the blade slashed through the air where a moment before his neck had been. Samuel was like a bug it was impossible to kill, however hard you stamped on it. Except, this time there could be no escape. His life was draining from him as Thomas regained his knees and reached for the wrist. He twisted the blade free, then checked for other weapons before leaning over Samuel again.
“Was it Mandana put you up to it?” he said, but Samuel only chuckled, a smile on his lips.
“Oh no, this was all my own idea. A visionary works alone.”
Thomas didn’t believe him. He considered lifting the man, shaking him until he obtained a confession, but there was not enough time. And then Samuel spoke for the last time.
“Look, I see it now! My soul ascends to heaven. Can you see it, Thomas Berrington? It is a thread of silver.” His hand rose, clutching at something, and for a moment Thomas believed he saw it too, exactly as Samuel said, a thread of light rising from the centre of his body. Then it was gone, if it had ever been there, and his body stilled. Thomas checked for a pulse but knew he would find none.
He reached out to close the man’s eyes but Fernando said, “No. Let him see the fires of hell burn for ever.”
Thomas withdrew, tension draining from his body to be replaced by exhaustion.
“So it ends,” said Fernando, helping Thomas to his feet.
“Does it? Was Samuel the architect of this or only a tool?”
“You fear without cause, Thomas. You see the hand of Mandana behind everything. Why? What would it gain him? He has been taken back inside the fold and would not dare risk his position a second time. Come, we must tell Isabel the good news.” Another slap on the back. “And you and I deserve wine, rich wine to drown our aches and pains. You in particular, for you have run down another killer of men.” Fernando shook his head. “Truly, you are death itself, Thomas Berrington, there is no escape from you. Remind me to never cross you.”
But Thomas was thinking of Samuel’s last moments. Of that thread of silver, and the more he thought of it the more he believed perhaps there had been some truth behind the man’s madness after all. And if there was a grain of truth then all men of all religions and races possessed that soul, for Samuel had only worn the religion of Spain as a mantle over his true self.
Thomas wanted wine, but took a bottle to his own room, seeking solitude. He needed to know what he had missed, and how. Had Samuel been so clever, or he so stupid? He realised it must have started in Malaka when the two men attended the infirmary together. Perhaps Ramon had spoken of his conversations with Talavera, their talk of the soul and whether it existed or not. Had Samuel started the work long before, or only recently? Thomas knew he would discover the answer if he chose to return to Ixbilya, but knew he would not do so. It did not matter now. The man was dead. He had corrupted Ramon, not the other way around, and used the man’s mental fragility to draw him into his own obsession.
Samuel’s access to Triana made sense now. It would be he, not Ramon who could go anywhere he wished. And that night when they freed Belia, Samuel had been encouraging Ramon, not watching him. And it had been Samuel who had freed Ramon from the dungeon. Had they both gone to al-Haquim’s house to remove all trace of evidence, or had Samuel done so alone?
Thomas poured the last of the wine into a goblet and drank it down in a single swallow. He had been misled the entire time because he had liked Samuel, had trusted him. He started to mutter a vow never to trust anyone again, then stopped. Living life that way was impossible.
As sleep drew him into its embrace he thought of what Fernando and others had said. Was death truly his companion? His friend? Thomas shivered, and then darkness engulfed him.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Theresa emerged from the room where Isabel lay in labour. “She bleeds again, and the child is not coming. I fear we will lose one or the other, if not both.”
“I cannot,” Thomas said. “You know I cannot. It is not seemly for me to attend the Queen.”
“Oh, it is all well and good in your fabled al-Andalus but not here? You told me how you helped women of the harem during childbirth. Help your Queen now!”
Thomas considered it wise not to point out that Isabel was not his Queen. The depth of winter had arrived and with it came flurries of snow on the courtyard outside. This castle in the heart of Spain reminded Thomas of why he had no longing to return to England. The days were short and the air too cold for bones accustomed to the south. As the months had passed Isabel had grown heavier, and Fernando had found frequent excuses to go hunting. Thomas sat with Isabel and they talked, of Spain and England, and what the future might hold for all of them. And now there might be no future for Isabel if Thomas did nothing.
“Cover her, then,” he said, “so she cannot see me, nor I her.” He turned aside and ran to his room to fetch instruments, praying they would not be needed, but better to have them than not. If it came to cutting at least one life would be lost. When he returned he went directly into the room, the copper scent of blood in the air.
“Is that Thomas?”
He glanced at Theresa, but she merely lifted her shoulder and shook her head. Not my doing.
“It is, your grace.”
A chuckle that changed to a groan. “I believe we may be passed beyond formality here, Thomas. Do your worst, or best, but I have a request of you.”
He moved so he could see Isabel. Her face was pale, sweat standing out on it. He had heard she was stoic during childbirth, but this was not normal. The infant she carried that Thomas had saved once now stood on the brink of another precipice.
“I know it is bad,” said Isabel. “I sense it. If it comes to a choice between myself and my child, you are to save me, Thomas. Do you understand?”
He nodded. The request came as no surprise. To another the instruction might appear selfish, but he saw it for what it was. For a mother to choose herself over her child was a hard decision, but Spain needed a strong Queen more than it needed another prince or princess.
“I will do all I can.”
“I know you will.” A grimace as fresh pain lanced through her. “I am glad it is you who is here.” For a moment she clutched at his hand. “Now do your work and we will never mention your presence at my bedside again.”
Thomas moved to where Isabel could not see him. He glanced at Theresa, the other women in the room almost invisible to him. They fussed with water and rags.
One held Isabel’s hand on one side when she bore down, another on the other side. A third wiped her brow with a cloth wrapped around chunks of ice hacked from the courtyard outside.
“Tell me what to do,” said Theresa.
“Clean her as best you can. Let me see the damage, if any.” He stared at what he was not allowed to see, but his personal feelings had shut down and this was professional, nothing more. He let his breath go in a rush. “It might not be possible to save both.”
“Then get the baby out fast. Don’t think about saving it.”
“You heard what she said?” Thomas said.
“And she is right. Spain needs a strong Queen, now more than ever.” Her eyes sought his, a challenge in them. “Unless you would rather see her die.”
Thomas rose and went to the narrow table laid beneath the window. An array of instruments of birthing lay there, as fearsome as the torture irons in Castillo de Triana. His hand hovered over one, another, settled on a third. He saw Theresa’s eyes follow the device as he sat on a low stool and decided how to start.
The baby’s head showed, already distorted from passing through the birth channel, but that was nothing unusual.
“Good, at least it’s the right way around,” Thomas said.
“It is, but too large. She is a delicate woman.”
“She has had difficulties before?”
“She has, but she is brave, and pain means nothing to her, even now.”
The woman he was trying to save had made hardly any noise the entire time, and Thomas offered a sharp nod.
“Take care when I start. If the bleeding worsens I may have to stop, but I intend this to be fast, and it will not pretty. Be ready with the cloths. We have one chance only.”
He turned his wrist, easing the leather hook alongside the baby’s head. He closed his eyes, projecting all sensation along his fingers and into the hook. He turned it, drew back. Cursed and tried again, this time catching the hook between the child’s legs. This was, he knew, more than likely the single hope of saving both of them. He had other instruments but they were destructive, and the child would die.
“Use your hand beneath the skull to protect it,” he said to Theresa.
“Do we warn her?”
“Say nothing. On the next contraction I will apply force. There will be one chance only, so be ready.”
Thomas waited, closing his eyes again. He felt a movement and sensed Isabel tense.
“Now!”
He pulled, harder than someone watching would believe possible, and as Isabel bore down Theresa used her hands to cradle the baby’s head. Thomas put a foot against the bed and pulled even harder and in a shower of fluid and blood the baby came in a rush. Theresa cradled the infant while Thomas cut the cord, then she wrapped it in linen and carried it to the side.
“Give it to one of the others,” Thomas barked. “I need you here.”
Theresa handed the child across and returned.
“Wet cloths, clean her up. I think I’m going to have to stitch some of this and cauterise. She’s losing too much blood. As fast as you can.”
Thomas went to a small brazier he had hoped not to use. It already contained grey charcoal and an iron rod rested in it. Thomas blew, bringing the rod to red heat, then held one end in a leather glove and returned. Theresa had done a good job of cleaning Isabel, and Thomas leaned against her shoulder, the two of them working in concert as he drew back muscle and dabbed at the worst flow of blood with the rod. Isabel jerked and breath hissed between her teeth, but still she did not cry out. Thomas continued, and after a while he knew Isabel had fainted away and worked faster still before she came around.
It took little time, but a time that stretched to infinity, before he sat back and dropped the rod to the floor where a remnant of heat burned a mark in the wood.
“It is done?” said Theresa.
“It is done,” Thomas said. “She will recover or not, but I have done all I can, and I believe she will recover. The child?”
“It lives. Did you not hear it bawling?”
Thomas smiled and shook his head. “A boy, as you predicted?”
“Another girl. The Queen is good at carrying girls.”
“This is more than likely the last child she will carry.” Thomas drew away, stood, his head spinning for a moment, then he looked down on the Queen of Castile, her face pale but all strain gone for the moment. “There will be pain when she wakes. I will give you a list of herbs. Find what you can and I will show you how to make a salve, and a pill to ease her.” He glanced at the table where his instruments were laid out. “Have someone clean those well. Make sure they are thorough.”
Thomas walked out into the courtyard where snow had been cleared into piles around the edges, walked through to a small practice yard where the sound of metal on metal told him the way. Already he was thinking of the journey south, once Isabel was fully recovered. Thinking of his family. Of Gharnatah. Of the scant few remaining years of peace before his world was dashed away by this man and woman who had made him their friend. And he wondered, now that Samuel was dead, would she let him go?
Fernando saw him at once but finished his practice before stopping and coming across.
“A girl,” Thomas said.
Fernando nodded. “A shame, but I like girls well enough. And Isabel?”
“It was a difficult birth, but she will recover.”
“God willing,” said Fernando, and Thomas nodded.
“Yes. God willing. Do you have a name yet?”
Fernando smiled. “Isabel had a name for each, whether it be boy or girl. She will be called Catherine after her grandmother.”
“My mother was named Catherine,” Thomas said. “But I only ever heard my father call her Cat.”
“Is she alive?” asked Fernando.
“Taken by the pestilence before I left England.”
“It is the scourge of this earth. You are the man to ask, Thomas, can nothing be done against it? Nothing at all?”
“There is less in al-Andalus, so my recommendation is to wash more often, your grace.” He flinched when Fernando punched him on the shoulder, but the King was grinning, and without warning pulled Thomas into an embrace.
“Thank you, Thomas Berrington, for what you have done for Spain this day.” He released him, but only after embracing him far longer than was seemly. “Do you not want to know what Isabel would have chosen if it had been a boy?”
“But it was not. Catherine is a good name. A strong name.” He looked up and saw Fernando grinning, shook his head. “Then it’s lucky it is a girl, isn’t it? That would have been a stupid name for a Prince.”
Historical Note
I have taken some liberties with the timing of events during the year 1485 when The Inquisitor is set, mainly to include the city of Sevilla as a setting, but also because some events overlap with the previous book. It was in Sevilla that the Inquisition reached its more barbarous heights, and here that the exquisite palace of the Real Alcazar can be found. In my telling of events Isabel and Fernando return to Sevilla after the defeat of Ronda, which was told in The Incubus.
In reality they left Sevilla in March 1485 because of an outbreak of the Plague, which was less prevalent in Spain than northern latitudes, but still to be greatly feared.
My telling of the story and the facts begin to coincide once more with the Queen’s journey to Jaen to continue planning the war against the Moors, and of course from there north to Alcala de Real where Katherine of Aragon was born on the 15th or 16th of December 1485. Katherine was indeed the last child Isabel bore, but certainly not for the reasons I have given in the book.
The Moorish name for Sevilla was Ixbilya, which looks strange until you write it phonetically: Isbilya, and remember that a v in Spanish is generally pronounced the same as a b in English.
The home of the Inquisition in Sevilla was the Castello de San Jorge, but a few centuries before it was also known as Castello de Triana, and the Triana neighbourhoo
d still exists to this day south of the Guadalquivir. Although I considered using the more modern name of the Inquisition’s home, Jorge would not allow me. He wanted no connection to such a place, even if it was only the sharing of a name.
As is usual in the chronicles of Thomas Berrington I have taken liberties with facts where they are not concisely documented. Perhaps the biggest liberty this time is for Thomas to assist at the birth of Katherine. It is unthinkable that a man would be allowed access to the birthing chamber in those days, but as always Thomas infiltrates himself into many places he should not be.
At several points in the text I use the Swedish word Morfar, which translates as grandfather, but more literally mother’s father, which is who Olaf Torvaldsson is to William Berrington. For those who are curious, the father’s father is Farfar. My thanks to our Swedish neighbour and her sons for teaching me this when talking to the boys’ grandmother and grandfather on their visits to the UK.
As before I offer thanks to the Viking Sisters Gee and Trish who regaled me with information about how Viking warriors were trained from a young age in the use of shield and axe. I only hope I have done them justice. If not, I suspect I am in trouble at our next meeting in Harrogate.
The decoration Lubna undergoes prior to her wedding, her henna night, goes back to early Islamic times and is a common ritual in that religion. It involves the decoration of hands, feet and other parts of the body using intricate designs etched with henna dye. Although there is no direct link, some casual references indicate this may be the source of our current “hen night” in the UK.
The Inquisitor brings us to the half way point in the story of Thomas Berrington. In Book 6, The Fortunate Dead, set in 1487, Thomas and Lubna move to Malaga to continue her education. But, as always, nothing is ever simple.
Expect The Fortunate Dead to appear in late 2018, with book 7, A Darkness Fallen, to follow soon after.
References