Read Online The Falcons of Fire and Ice by Karen Maitland - Free Book Online
Authors: Karen Maitland
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the week in order to catch the trade winds. A few days, I told her, could make all the difference between a journey lasting mere weeks and a voyage of many months, as I knew from my own experience, having seen ships becalmed for days on end.
I explained to her that men grew so sick from lack of food and water as their supplies dwindled that by the time they found the wind again, the crew were too weak to man the sails. I told her how I’d seen innocent young boys plunge to their deaths from the rigging, too faint to hold on, and men, driven mad by thirst, leaping into the waves thinking the water was a meadow and they could see their own wives and children running across it. She dabbed her eyes most touchingly at that.
Finally, after we agreed that the money had to be found as quickly as possible if she didn’t want their deaths on her conscience, I left her house, clutching a basket of grapes and peaches ‘for dear little Pio’.
Tomorrow I would pay a call on a friend of mine, a clerk, and get a document drawn up. Dona Lúcia would expect a written contract before she parted with a single crusado. My friend could produce the most impressive documents ornamented with great flourishes and couched in such obscure legal phrases that the Devil himself would sign away his own soul and not realize he was doing so. This clerk would draw up whatever I required for nothing. He owed me. He’d managed to pocket some nice little sums from his employer over the years, but he’d become greedy and careless, and was perilously close to getting himself arrested. I’d helped him point the finger of blame at another employee who even now was languishing in prison, but my friend knew that one word from me and he could find himself in that dungeon instead.
‘Just think, Pio,’ I said, as we feasted on the fruit in the stifling heat of my lodgings, ‘in five days’ time that bastard of an innkeeper will be bowing and scraping and begging us to accept the best wine his poxy tavern can offer. But I’ve a good mind never to set foot in there again. He can whistle for his money. Throwing me out as if I was a beggar instead of a gentleman. By rights he should be paying me to drink that muck he serves just to get rid of it. And I should sue him for giving me a bellyache every time I sup it.’
Pio snatched another grape from my plate, and leapt up on top of the battered old cupboard to eat it, spitting the seeds at me. I popped a grape into my own mouth and, as if he thought I was stealing his food, Pio screamed at me in indignant fury, before finally turning his back on me and refusing to look at me at all.
When he was in this mood, he was nearly as bad as Silvia. The sulky little witch was always flouncing and throwing tantrums. I didn’t have enough fingers on my hands to count the number of times she’d threatened to leave me. Now she had finally done it, but I knew she wouldn’t stay away for long, not once she got a whiff of the money.
‘How long do you reckon it’ll be before that whore comes crawling to me? Want to place a wager, Pio? A month, you say. I’ll bet you a whole barrel of figs it’ll be a week at most, you’ll see. Then she’ll be twisting her pretty little arms round my neck and begging me to take her back.’
I lay back on the narrow stained straw pallet and stared up at the sagging beams above the bed. God, but I missed her. Silvia drove me mad when she was here with her whining and nagging, but when she was gone I was crazy with longing for her. I tried not to think about whose bed she was lying in now. And she would be lying with someone; she was not the kind of woman to spend even a single night alone. With that wild mane of raven hair, lithe brown limbs and full soft lips, not even a Jesuit could have remained true to his vows in her company.
Even when we lived together I could only be sure that Silvia was faithful to me when she was actually in the room with me. Not even then sometimes, for she
I explained to her that men grew so sick from lack of food and water as their supplies dwindled that by the time they found the wind again, the crew were too weak to man the sails. I told her how I’d seen innocent young boys plunge to their deaths from the rigging, too faint to hold on, and men, driven mad by thirst, leaping into the waves thinking the water was a meadow and they could see their own wives and children running across it. She dabbed her eyes most touchingly at that.
Finally, after we agreed that the money had to be found as quickly as possible if she didn’t want their deaths on her conscience, I left her house, clutching a basket of grapes and peaches ‘for dear little Pio’.
Tomorrow I would pay a call on a friend of mine, a clerk, and get a document drawn up. Dona Lúcia would expect a written contract before she parted with a single crusado. My friend could produce the most impressive documents ornamented with great flourishes and couched in such obscure legal phrases that the Devil himself would sign away his own soul and not realize he was doing so. This clerk would draw up whatever I required for nothing. He owed me. He’d managed to pocket some nice little sums from his employer over the years, but he’d become greedy and careless, and was perilously close to getting himself arrested. I’d helped him point the finger of blame at another employee who even now was languishing in prison, but my friend knew that one word from me and he could find himself in that dungeon instead.
‘Just think, Pio,’ I said, as we feasted on the fruit in the stifling heat of my lodgings, ‘in five days’ time that bastard of an innkeeper will be bowing and scraping and begging us to accept the best wine his poxy tavern can offer. But I’ve a good mind never to set foot in there again. He can whistle for his money. Throwing me out as if I was a beggar instead of a gentleman. By rights he should be paying me to drink that muck he serves just to get rid of it. And I should sue him for giving me a bellyache every time I sup it.’
Pio snatched another grape from my plate, and leapt up on top of the battered old cupboard to eat it, spitting the seeds at me. I popped a grape into my own mouth and, as if he thought I was stealing his food, Pio screamed at me in indignant fury, before finally turning his back on me and refusing to look at me at all.
When he was in this mood, he was nearly as bad as Silvia. The sulky little witch was always flouncing and throwing tantrums. I didn’t have enough fingers on my hands to count the number of times she’d threatened to leave me. Now she had finally done it, but I knew she wouldn’t stay away for long, not once she got a whiff of the money.
‘How long do you reckon it’ll be before that whore comes crawling to me? Want to place a wager, Pio? A month, you say. I’ll bet you a whole barrel of figs it’ll be a week at most, you’ll see. Then she’ll be twisting her pretty little arms round my neck and begging me to take her back.’
I lay back on the narrow stained straw pallet and stared up at the sagging beams above the bed. God, but I missed her. Silvia drove me mad when she was here with her whining and nagging, but when she was gone I was crazy with longing for her. I tried not to think about whose bed she was lying in now. And she would be lying with someone; she was not the kind of woman to spend even a single night alone. With that wild mane of raven hair, lithe brown limbs and full soft lips, not even a Jesuit could have remained true to his vows in her company.
Even when we lived together I could only be sure that Silvia was faithful to me when she was actually in the room with me. Not even then sometimes, for she
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