The Falcons of Fire and Ice (24 page)

Dona Flávia beamed at him. ‘What a blessing it is to have someone who understands my frail constitution. Senhor Marcos, I insist you stay with me in case I should become faint. Besides, suppose pirates or Frenchmen should burst in upon me when I am alone. I’ve heard about the French, Senhor. Their men have an insatiable appetite for women.’

But I don’t think it was fear of Frenchmen or pirates that caused the look of panic to flash across the poor physician’s face.

‘I’m sure the boy will stay here and keep you company, Dona Flávia,’ he said hastily. ‘He’s a strapping lad, he’ll look after you. And he could also make himself useful clearing the floor of dung and heaping it ready to burn.’

‘Certainly he will,’ the boy’s father answered for him, glancing anxiously at his glowering lump of a son as if he had grave doubts whether the boy was equal to even this simple task.

Fausto picked two of the water kegs and, sidling up to me, murmured, ‘Dona Isabela, will you accompany me to fetch the water while the others search for wood?’

But though he spoke low, Vítor must have been watching him, for he rounded on him savagely.

‘Have you no sense? Isabela will hurt herself if she tries to carry full water kegs. Do you really expect someone of her slender size to heave great weights about?’

‘I’m quite capable of –’ I tried to protest, but neither man was listening.

‘Isabela can help me to gather wood,’ Vítor said.

‘And you think that easier work, do you? Hauling logs about,’ Fausto retorted.

‘I have no intention of permitting her to carry logs, you imbecile, just twigs and bracken for kindling.’

Furious, I turned on my heel and stalked out of the cottage. What gave them the right to debate what I was and wasn’t able to do as though I was a child? I was more than equal to the task of carrying a bundle of wood or a small keg of water, which scarcely weighed any heavier than a pail. What did they think I’d been doing all my life? Sitting around being waited on by servants? I was in such a temper as I strode towards the forest that I found myself deep among the trees before I even considered where I was going.

Though the trunks broke the strength of the wind, it howled through the branches above, making them bend and creak, and sending twigs flying off like stones from a catapult. If this kept up there would be plenty of wood to burn come morning. One thing was for certain, I was determined now I was not going to collect kindling twigs. I’d return with good stout branches even if I had to walk all night to find them. But the sky was already bubbling black with clouds and beneath the canopy of trees it was darker still. Every tree and herb, leaf and twig was turned to grey in the fading light. Any fallen wood that had lain all summer and was dry enough for burning had merged into one colour with the forest floor of dry leaves, and it was impossible to distinguish it at any distance.

As always when foraging, I convinced myself that if I took just a few more steps I would find what I was searching for, and so I just kept walking, another few yards, then another. Then suddenly as I pushed my way between two bushes I found myself in a small clearing. The ground was uneven, moulded into a series of long humps and hollows, as if waves had formed in the earth. Perhaps these were ancient fallen tree trunks which had over the years been covered by the leaf mould.

In the dim light I saw what I took to be several branches sticking at odd angles out of the ground. They weren’t exactly logs, but they were definitely thicker than kindling. I picked my way towards them between the humps, but as I came closer I saw these were not branches at all, or rather they had been, but someone had lashed them together to make three crosses, still standing at drunken angles. There had once been more of them, for there were fragments of others scattered about and half-buried under the leaves.

It was only when I saw them for what they were that I realized just where they had been placed. The humps were not decaying tree trunks at all, they were graves. Six long ones and two shorter graves beside them, perhaps even a third, though it was so tiny it was hard to be sure. Were these smaller ones the resting places of children? What were they doing out here so far from any church or charnel house? Perhaps they were the graves of the people who once lived in the deserted cottage. But what terrible disaster had overtaken them? And who buried them and made such hasty crosses for their resting places?

From sheer curiosity I knelt down and peered at one of the crosses to see if there was any name or date inscribed there. But there was nothing. These people had been buried without names. Then I saw something pale half-buried in the leaf mould. It stood out starkly in the sickly light of the coming storm. Without even thinking about what I did, I began to brush away the dried leaves and scooped it into the palm of my hand before I registered what it was. I peered at it, then froze. It was not the sight of the iron ring lying in my palm that shocked me, but what was inside the ring. It was a white finger bone, still with scraps of parchment-like skin clinging to it.

Behind me, even over the moaning of the wind, I heard a long-drawn-out shriek of rage and at the same time the snapping of twigs as if something was running fast towards me. I scrambled to my feet and whirled round. Something was moving behind the bushes, something was hiding there. Still clutching the bone, I ran. I didn’t know where I was going except that it wasn’t back towards the cottage, because whatever it was that was pursuing me was coming towards me from that direction, as if it was driving me from any place of refuge. I pelted through the trees, stumbling over roots, tearing my skirts on bushes and my hair on branches.

The wind was roaring overhead and my own progress was so noisy that I couldn’t hear how close the creature was at my heels. At any moment I expected to feel sharp claws fastened on to my back, teeth sinking into my legs. My blood was pounding in my ears and my breath rasping in my throat. I turned as I ran, trying to get a glimpse of what it was that was hunting me. Then, with a sickening jolt, my foot stepped into nothing. The ground fell away and I was tumbling down and down.

Coast of France Ricardo

Sharp set –
a hungry hawk. A bird should be kept sharp set before it is taken out to hunt.

I could hear Isabela crashing through the forest even above the wind. Damn it, every creature in there must have been able to mark her progress as she blundered into branches and tore through bushes. You wouldn’t think such a dainty little thing could lumber about so clumsily, but she was plainly as terrified as I. That shriek was chilling enough to turn your guts to ice. Unlike her, though, I couldn’t run. I cowered down behind the bush where I was hiding and tried desperately to work out where the hell the cry had come from. I peered into the gloom, trying to get a glimpse of the beast that had uttered such a cry, but the branches and bushes were being whipped back and forth so fiercely by the winds that even if a bear had been rampaging through the forest, I wouldn’t have been able to distinguish it from a tree in that gloom.

The noise of Isabela’s flight had almost faded into the distance now. The evening was growing darker by the minute and I was desperate to get back to the cottage before I lost my way entirely. Spending the night lying in goats’ shit with the great she-whale and pig-boy was beginning to feel strangely enticing compared to a night out here alone in the storm. But I dared not move until I knew what it was that had made that noise.

Then I heard a long-drawn-out scream. I’d heard enough screams like that in my time to be quite certain it was a woman’s cry, a woman in pain, a woman terrified. It was far away, but I knew it was Isabela. Whatever that beast was, it must have caught up with her and seized her in its jaws. I almost started in the direction of the sound, thinking I should do something to help her. But I quickly pulled myself together. If she was hurt, dead even, wasn’t that exactly what I wanted? Besides, who knew what had attacked her? Judging by that unearthly shriek, it was a monster no man alone could hope to tackle.

But the girl had conveniently drawn it away from me, and now was the time to run for it while it was safely occupied devouring its kill. Then a chilling thought occurred to me. If there was one monster out there, might it not also have a mate, even a pack? Although it made my flesh crawl to think of it, it also pushed me into action. I had to move and move now. I certainly didn’t intend spending the night alone in a forest full of slavering beasts. With luck, if there were more of them, they’d be drawn to the corpse by the smell of blood.

I rose cautiously and peered about me, trying to work out which way I’d come. The trouble was, I’d been so intent on following the girl that I hadn’t taken much notice of landmarks, and one tree was beginning to look dismally like another in the dark, not that they didn’t in daylight. I’ve always loathed the countryside, and this evening’s events had certainly done nothing to endear it to me.

I edged out from behind the bush and started off at an ungainly trot back in what I hoped was the direction of the stone byre. The wind swirled among the branches, plunging down through any small gap in the trees, sucking up fallen twigs and dried leaves in stinging spirals. Then the rain began to fall, big fat drops plopping down through the branches. I hurried as fast as I dared, peering around me all the time in case that beast, having tired of the girl, had doubled back and was now stalking me. But after I almost pitched headlong several times over tree roots and crashed painfully into branches, I realized that I was in grave danger of breaking a leg or knocking myself unconscious. And if I did, I’d be at the mercy of any passing predator who fancied an easy meal. So I forced myself to concentrate on getting clear of the trees as quickly as possible.

The rain was pouring down now. Between the darkness and the rain driving into my eyes I could only see my own hand, white as a maggot, moving in front of me as if it had become detached from my body and was its own creature. The leaves were now so wet under foot that several times my feet slipped from under me and I had to grab at branches to steady myself, but finally I burst out from the trees into the scrub. I staggered backwards as the full roar of the wind and the crashing of the waves on the shore exploded in my ears.

I could see no sign of the cottage and began to fear that I had emerged from the forest on to a different shore altogether. I clawed my way up the nearest dune on my hands and knees, for there was no way I could stand upright against the immense force of the wind. At the top, lying on my belly, I peered out into the bay. Even in the darkness and blinding rain I could see the great white foaming tops of the black waves as they reared up, racing towards the shore. But I could make out nothing else. I scrubbed the water out of my eyes with my sodden sleeve. Then finally, to my great relief, I glimpsed them, tiny pinpoints of yellow light rising up over the water, and sinking down again to be hidden from view by the great black roll of the sea. I watched them rise two or three times more, just to assure myself it was the ship’s lanterns I could see. At least now I knew I was on the right beach, unless of course there was some other ship riding out the storm.

By the time I eventually found the cottage and burst in through the remains of the wooden door, my limbs and face were so wet and numb with cold that even the draughty interior of the cottage felt like a hot summer’s afternoon in Portugal.

I was greeted with howls of protest as the wind rushed in with me, swirling the sand on the floor into a dust storm and almost extinguishing the flames of the small fire. The merchant hurried over and fought to close the door, stuffing the dislodged cloth back into the gaps in the wood.

‘Have you found them?’ Dona Flávia demanded, the moment she had finished an exaggerated bout of coughing.

I stood speechless, dripping on to the floor. Rain was running into the cottage in half a dozen places through the cracked tiles on the roof and forming small puddles on the sand. The party were all huddled round a small fire in the far corner of the room where the roof tiles seemed to be least damaged, warming their hands. A small pot was bubbling on the edge of the fire, the steam smelling distinctly of salt pork and ship’s biscuit.

‘Well? Did you see them?’ Dona Flávia demanded, taking not the slightest notice that I was half-drowned and near dead with cold.

‘Who?’ My teeth were beginning to chatter. I shuffled to the fire and rudely pushed between pig-boy and his father, crouching down to hug the pitiful heat from the flames.

‘That poor child, Isabela, and Vítor, of course,’ Dona Flávia said, waving her hand around the little circle as if even a blind man could see they were not there. I would have been more startled if I had seen Isabela sitting by the fire, but I was too sodden and numb to register who else was present apart from the great she-whale herself, of course. No one could fail to spot her.

‘Are they missing? And in this terrible storm? What happened?’ I tried to sound suitably appalled, and fancied I made a convincing job of it. But although the absence of Isabela was no surprise, I can’t say I was exactly distressed that Vítor was missing too. Come to think of it, it was poetic justice – a map-maker getting himself lost. I almost giggled, but fortunately my face muscles were too stiff with cold to permit a grin.

Pig-boy’s father shook his head gravely. ‘When Senhor Vítor brought the wood for the fire and discovered Dona Isabela had not returned, he feared she’d met with some accident or could not find her way back, so he went to search for her.’ He glanced towards the door which was rattling violently in the wind. ‘A hopeless task, and I fear that, noble though the gesture was, on a night such as this it may cost the poor fellow his life.’

The merchant grimaced. ‘I should have gone with him, perhaps the two of us –’

‘A fine thing that would be, running off in the middle of the night to search for a girl we barely know and leaving your own wife unprotected and at the mercy of the storm. Goodness knows what may be lurking out in those woods.’ Dona Flávia shuddered, as did I when I remembered that shriek.