Act of Faith (19 page)

We rode through the dark, through a sudden rainstorm, through villages and farmland and hills studded with olive trees, until we came to Montellano.

The Crow and a couple of his men met us in a tavern on a silent backstreet.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Another day or so and we’ll be at sea. Al-Qasim is sleeping. I have sent for a surgeon to see to his wounds. Now, let’s eat.’

‘Wait,’ Willem said. ‘For once, I’m pleased to see you, but … did you really follow us all that way?’

‘Of course,’ said the Crow. ‘It wasn’t easy. You are very resourceful young people.’

‘Signora Contarini sent you?’ I asked.

‘The
signora
is a very ingenious woman,’ said the Crow. ‘She would have come herself, but she has never left Venice and doesn’t really see why she should. The world comes to her. Just as you did.’

‘Why did you push me in the water, then?’ said Willem. ‘And what about the avalanche?’

‘And you attacked me — in Genoa,’ I added.

‘That wasn’t me,’ said the Crow. ‘Didn’t you notice the Dutchman? I suspect he was Clement’s man. Probably followed you all the way from Amsterdam. Sadly, he went overboard himself, not long after you, but nobody noticed.’

‘I did not know you were Spanish,’ said Master de Aquila.

Willem and I stared at him. ‘You know this man?’ I asked.

‘Of course. So do you. He is translating Cicero for Signora Contarini.’

I remembered my first day in the
signora
’s
atelier
, the man with the silver beard sitting in the sunshine. ‘Oh.’

Willem punched me in the arm. Harder even than usual. ‘You knew him all along?’

‘He looks completely different.’

‘You made me terrified of him all the way across Europe!’ Willem shouted.

‘You didn’t recognise him, either,’ I argued.

‘That’s beside the point.’

‘You must forgive Signorina Hawkins,’ said the Crow. ‘I did trim my hair and beard.’

‘See?’

‘But —’

‘Anyway, we’ve never been introduced,’ I said.

‘Forgive me,’ said the Crow. ‘I am Luis Cortes, formerly of Córdoba, now resident of Venice.’ He bowed.

‘He’s following us,’ Willem teased, re-enacting some of my more hysterical moments. ‘He’s from the Inquisition.’ He slapped me again on the arm, but this time playfully.

I turned to the Crow. ‘You might have said something.’

‘I’m sorry if I frightened you,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to reveal myself to Clement’s spy, so I had to appear to be just another man on the road to Genoa.’ He grinned. ‘Besides, why spoil the intrigue?’

Willem and I ate fast, voraciously, as if it might be our last meal. Master de Aquila could stomach little more than some bread soaked in wine.

When we had finished, the Crow — Luis — motioned to Willem and me, and we met him outside in the courtyard.

‘Your master is weak,’ he said. ‘He needs to rest.’

I nodded. ‘Can we stay here?’

‘For a short while, perhaps. But it is dangerous. Every hour we linger, the enemy could be catching up with us.’

‘They have broken him,’ said Willem. ‘Inside.’

‘I fear so.’

‘Let’s rest here for one day,’ I said.

‘I’ll send some of my men ahead to make sure the way to the coast is clear,’ said Luis. ‘In the meantime, you must all sleep. I’ll
see to Al-Qasim. He’s in a bad way, but he’s tough. You know, he is one of the world’s most brilliant map-makers, and look how they treated him.’

Luis marched off to organise bedchambers for us and stabling for the horses, while Willem and I checked on Master de Aquila. He sat slumped at the table, dozing.

‘Come, Master,’ said Willem. ‘We are all going to sleep here for a few hours.’

Master de Aquila gazed up at us. ‘I did not burn,’ he said softly.

Willem smiled. ‘No, sir. Although I think Fra Clement may be feeling a little singed today.’

‘I felt sure I would. I felt, somehow, it was my destiny.’

His face was beyond pale. It almost seemed as if his bones and teeth were visible through the grey skin.

Willem and I sat down on the bench, one each side of him.

‘But you’ve done nothing wrong,’ I said. ‘Printing beautiful books shouldn’t be a crime.’

‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘Still, Clement has no idea how truly guilty I am. I have broken more of his Church’s laws than he ever suspected.’

I squeezed his hand, trying to sound reassuring. ‘You are guilty of nothing.’

‘That depends,’ he replied. ‘I have assuredly broken laws, but I cannot believe I am guilty in God’s eyes. I am like the early Christian fathers who argued that their conscience and faith deemed them innocent.’

‘Sadly, the Romans failed to see the wisdom of that argument.’

‘And put them to death,’ Willem reminded us, rather unhelpfully.

Master de Aquila smiled. ‘Poor Saint Paul did not have you to rescue him.’

A coughing fit seized him. Willem held him while he convulsed — and I saw clearly this time how he spat blood into the cloth.

‘I have to confess,’ he said at last.

‘I’m no priest,’ said Willem.

‘And I am no Catholic.’ Normally we would have laughed at that. ‘I need to confess to Isabella, not to a priest.’

I moved closer so he could see my face. ‘What is it, Master?’

He gazed at me for a few moments. ‘I have deceived you, my dear girl. Clement was right — my printing press was used for illegal activities.’

‘I know, Master. You printed all those copies of
Discourse on Liberty
. Soon there will be the Hebrew Bible,
The Sum of
 —’

‘No, not those,’ he said. ‘Well, not just those. Paul and I — and Willem, there’s no denying it now, boy,’ he shot a sideways glance at Willem, ‘we printed pamphlets, thousands of them, denouncing the Inquisition, calling for people to rise up against tyranny. Simon smuggled them into Spain and Italy.’

‘I see.’

‘I’m sorry we lied to you,’ said Willem. ‘We thought it was safer that way — for you.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said.

‘There is more,’ said Master de Aquila. ‘We printed other pamphlets — pamphlets written by your own father before he left England — and all kinds of books about faith and freedom and ideas. We translated them into ten languages. There were other books about philosophy, about the world and the heavens and all creation; books for children and books for scholars. Books banned by the Church, or banned by General Cromwell. All of them heretical in Clement’s eyes. Every single one.’

‘Little books,’ said Willem. ‘So small you can hide them inside your shirt. That was my idea.’

‘We exported them — smuggled them, if you like — into dozens of countries,’ said Master de Aquila. ‘We sent them to agents in London under cover of darkness. People carried those books all over Europe. Catholics and Protestants, Gentiles and Jews, refugees and merchants — thousands and thousands of people read our pamphlets and books and passed them on to other people. I have set free a thousand ideas. I have unchained ten thousand minds. That is my crime.’

‘Our crime,’ said Willem.

I stared at them both. ‘I know.’

‘What?’ Willem almost shrieked, but Master de Aquila looked at me with pleasure in his eyes.

‘I wrote some of those pamphlets,’ I said, ‘before I ever met you.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Willem. ‘Your father did, it’s true —’

‘It was me,’ I said. ‘I wrote them, in my father’s name.’

‘You can’t have,’ said Willem. ‘Some of those were brilliant.’

I bowed slightly. ‘I think you mean that as praise.’

Master de Aquila smiled. ‘You knew all along? From the first moment you came to live with us? Yet you said nothing.’

I shrugged. ‘I had other things on my mind.’

‘We shifted the printing to Simon’s workshop a month after you arrived, just in case,’ said Master de Aquila.

Willem was indignant. ‘You mean I lugged all that paper across town for nothing?’

‘I had just lost my father,’ I said. ‘I didn’t care. But it’s true: I was so scared of everything and everyone, then. If I’d known what was really going on, I might have worried.’

It struck me how disruptive my sudden appearance in their household had been. Fra Clement had planned it so, of course, but he had underestimated its impact on all of us.

I laughed. ‘Clement put me in there as a spy.’

‘He must regret that now,’ said Master de Aquila. He coughed again, an alarming, retching cough that left him clutching at his chest.

‘Come, Master,’ said Willem, gently taking his arm. ‘Plenty of time to talk later. Now you need to sleep.’

We carried him upstairs — he weighed little more than an autumn leaf — and settled him into the room Luis had arranged for him. He lay back into the pillows and sighed.

‘I never dreamed I would see another day.’

‘You will see many more, Master,’ I said.

He caught my hand. ‘Isabella — where is it?’

‘
The Sum of All Knowledge
? It is with the
signora
in Venice.’

He tried to smile. ‘That is the most important thing. Those maps in the manuscript — they were painted by my father. They are more sacred to me than my life.’

‘They are safe, Master.’

He closed his eyes. ‘You have done well, my children,’ he said softly. ‘No man could ask for more.’

I was sitting in my room, wide awake, staring at nothing, when I heard Willem yelling outside the door.

‘Isabella! Come quickly.’

‘Soldiers?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Worse.’

‘What is it?’ I asked as he pulled me across the courtyard.

‘Shhh!’ He led me into the dark room where Master de Aquila lay sprawled across the bed. ‘I just found him like this. He can’t move.’

We turned him over slowly, and I raised his shoulders so Willem could place some pillows under his head.

Master de Aquila saw me and smiled. ‘Here you are.’

Then the life faded from his dark eyes and there was no light left in the world besides the glow of coals in the fireplace.

We stayed like that for a long time. Our master’s eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling, his hand in mine until it began to grow cool. Willem stood at the end of the bed, his head bowed.

It seemed like hours before he spoke.

‘What should we do?’

I couldn’t begin to imagine.

‘Fetch Luis,’ I said.

We buried Master de Aquila in the forest. Willem dug a grave, refusing all offers of help, and then crouched by the pile of loose earth, weeping silently. I stood as if frozen, with Al-Qasim on one side and Luis on the other, and managed to recite some of the Psalms, written on my heart as a child. There was nothing else we could do for a Jew, here on the lonely back roads of Spain. We couldn’t even say Kaddish for him, as none of us knew how, but Luis vowed to ask the entire Ghetto to pray for his soul as soon as we got to Venice.

‘What do we do now?’ said Willem at last.

‘We have to keep moving,’ said Luis. ‘They will not rest until they find you — all of us.’

‘But where can we go?’ asked Willem.

I knew how he felt. Lost. Bereft. Again.

‘There’s only one place in Europe I feel safe,’ I said.

‘Good,’ said Luis. ‘Because that’s where we’re going.’

‘How do you know where she means?’ Willem asked him.

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

Willem hesitated, uncertain.

‘Are you coming or not?’ I asked.

‘Think I’ve followed you all over Europe just to give up now?’

‘I suppose I’m stuck with you, then.’

‘Not if I can help it.’

‘Stop grizzling,’ I said.

‘It will take no time at all,’ said Luis. ‘I have papers for us, and a ship waiting at Marbella. We will be in Venice in time for Carnevale.’

And so it was. I’d never have managed it myself, but Luis took care of everything, so that all Willem, Al-Qasim and I had to do was wake up in the mornings, sit on a horse or a ship’s deck all day, and eat whatever was put in front of us. Sometimes, I admit, it’s lovely to have everything arranged for you. We simply floated along in Luis’s wake, all the way to the city in the sea and the print workshop with the cat called Caterina.

We arrived early one morning, just on dawn. Luis took us not to the Ghetto, but to rooms high above the workshop, where someone had laid out an enormous breakfast of hot bread rolls and cheese. He bowed and closed the door quietly behind him. Willem grabbed at the food as if he’d never eaten before in his life. At least some things didn’t change.

I collapsed into a chair by the window and slept for what felt like days, until Willem pestered me awake. I shook my head to clear it of dark dreams of forest trails, churning oceans and flaming torches against a night sky.

‘Are we really home?’ I asked.

He grinned. ‘Come on.’

We walked downstairs slowly, peering out the windows on every landing. Everything was bright and warm and smelled of ink, paper and freshly baked bread.

Signora Contarini spread her arms wide when she saw us, and hugged us both until Willem spluttered.

‘You are safe,’ she said. ‘Praise God.’

‘Master de Aquila —’

‘I know,’ she said gently. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Luis has told me of your adventures.’

On the other side of the room, Luis waved a greeting. He had changed out of his Crow clothes and looked just as he had when I’d first seen him. But now his eyes glittered and I knew just how much strength and guile lay behind them. Al-Qasim sat next to him, smiling. He couldn’t wave.

‘I am so glad you have come home, here, to Venice,’ she said. ‘Your master would have liked that.’

She stared hard at Willem. ‘You looked after her, as I told you?’

‘Actually,’ he confessed, ‘we looked after each other.’

‘Well.’ Her gaze made Willem fidget. ‘Our beautiful Italian food and a few weeks’ riding have done you good,’ she said. ‘You are no longer the shape of a gondola pole. Don’t you agree, Isabella?’

It was true. Willem had filled out, as if an artist had painted in the missing colours on a fresco.

‘I suppose you’re right,’ I said. ‘He looks much more …’

Willem raised his face expectantly.

‘… normal,’ I finished.

He snorted.

‘How is your Latin?’ Signora Contarini asked him.

‘Isabella’s been teaching me.’ Willem shot me a look that warned against any jokes at his expense.

‘Perhaps Luis can take over your lessons now,’ said the
signora
.

Willem blinked.

‘And your French?’ she asked.

Willem’s gaze met hers. ‘
Signora
, I have a lot to learn. I won’t pretend otherwise.’

Signora Contarini’s eyes narrowed. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘You’ll do.’

He grinned. The
signora
patted his shoulder. ‘Now we must set to work.’

‘Already?’ said Willem. ‘We’ve only been back a few hours.’

‘We have a book to publish,’ she said, and winked at me. ‘It’s quite good, or so I hear.’

‘Do you dare?’ I asked. ‘After everything that’s happened?’

‘I would be honoured,’ said the
signora
. ‘Especially after everything that’s happened.’

‘But if they catch you …’

‘They will not,’ she said. ‘The Council of Venice was outraged that the Spanish Inquisition arrested a guest of the city. They sneaked into town, even into the Ghetto itself, and broke about a dozen laws. Think of it! Not even our own Inquisition, but those damned Spaniards! They won’t be coming back in a hurry, mark my words.’

‘But Rome won’t like the book, either.’

‘So what?’ she said. ‘Being banned is good for business. The fools never understand this. If the Pope bans your book, you can be sure half of Europe will want to own a copy — especially the Protestants.’

‘So if you can get England or the Dutch States to ban it as well, you could be rich,’ said Willem.

‘
You
will be rich,’ said the
signora
. ‘You and Isabella. It’s your book now.’

He bowed his head. ‘I didn’t know anything about it.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘We’ll work on it together.’

‘We all will,’ said the
signora
. ‘You,
bella
, and my new apprentice here.’ She nudged Willem. ‘My whole workshop will do nothing else until it is done. Luis has started already.’

Luis raised his head and smiled.

‘We will finish what our dear friend, may God rest his soul, began and we will help the world to understand itself,’ said Signora Contarini. ‘This will be the greatest book anyone has ever seen — besides the Bible, of course. It is
The Sum of All Knowledge
.’

‘Master de Aquila would like that,’ I said. ‘But he wouldn’t want to put you in danger.’