A Divided Inheritance (63 page)

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, still
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.

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.’

‘Señor Alvarez did not know about that when he made me the bequest,’ Elspet said, picking up the parchment and holding it out to him. ‘He thought we were kin, and simply
saw a way to show his regard for us both. You heard him say over and over that tradition is important, that the school must not die, and you are the best of all of us, everyone knows it.’

‘Perhaps it might sound sentimental, but we are all brothers here, those that trained with the señor,’ Alexander said. ‘You know it is so.’

Zachary was staggered. He could only open and close his mouth, no words would come.

She placed the document in his hand, and her hand over his, and said gently, ‘I’m telling you that between us we own both my father’s lace business and this school. We can
decide between us as a brother and sister might, where best our respective skills might be employed.’ She paused, her face flushed with emotion.

He took hold of the paper.

‘That is, if you are willing,’ she said. ‘I’m not saying it will be easy.’ She walked to the window and he saw her look out. The winter sun just tinged the curls of
her hair in a silvery light. ‘I’m not sure where my future lies now,’ she said. ‘The lace business might be too small for me now I have seen Spain. I enjoyed the fencing
more than a woman should. And I have a yearning to see more of the world, to visit the cathedral cities of France, the Vatican in Rome, and oh – so much more.’

‘A Grand Tour?’

‘Yes.’

‘I hope it is longer than mine, then.’

She laughed.

Zachary said, ‘I will be happy to share with you, Elspet, if it is what you want, but it is far, far more than I deserve.’

‘I want to make up for lost time. I have no other family except my sister Joan and she’s a nun. You have all been my family. And I didn’t really try to know you as a brother
before, I was jealous of you, and resented you taking Father’s attention. But I think it would please him to see both our names on one document.’

‘I’m hardly the kind of brother a girl might have wanted. And I have a past I cannot change. But I will try to be the sort of son your father could be proud of.’