The Falcons of Fire and Ice (10 page)

Belém, Portugal Ricardo

Make in –
to approach a falcon after it has made a kill.

‘Álvaro, Álvaro, wake up, you lazy dog!’

A clatter of stones hit the broken shutter of my window and pattered on to the wooden floorboards. Pio chattered angrily and retreated to the top of the cupboard. I groaned and turned over, trying to force my eyelids open, but shutting them against the cruelly bright morning sunlight.

‘Álvaro! I know you’re up there!’

Another hail of stones, one bouncing hard off my back, finally made me sit up. Even so, it took me a few moments to realize that the idiot throwing stones was actually addressing me. I’d become accustomed to thinking of myself as Ricardo these last few days, so that I’d almost forgotten that up to then I had been
Álvaro
, at least to those who shared the miserable squalor of this quarter of Belém.

‘Álvaro!’

‘I heard you! I’m coming!’ I bellowed. ‘And stop chucking stones, you fuckwit! You’ll have my eye out.’

I struggled out of bed and crossed over to the window. The acid from last night’s cheap wine rose up, burning in my throat, and I coughed violently as I bent forward to see who was disturbing me at this unholy hour. How anyone can face being up before noon is a mystery I have never fathomed. What is the point of mornings, you tell me that? The taverns aren’t open, the whores haven’t unlocked their doors, and cock pits are empty, so what is there to get up for?

I blinked down into the street below. It was crowded with jostling people trying to edge around one another with barrels and baskets. Women balanced trays of fruit or pitchers of water on their heads, men held live chickens fluttering under their arms, and donkeys swayed under the weight of laden panniers or huge mounds of hay. In the midst of all this bustle, a solitary man was standing resolutely under my window gazing upwards. He was being shoved forward and backwards as those on the move barged into him, cursing him roundly for blocking the path, but he was ignoring all of them.

He was a scrawny-looking fellow, with fleshy ears that stuck out between the locks of his straight hair, like the handles on a flagon. I dimly recognized him as one of the potboys from the inn. What was his name – Felix … Filipe … ?

He beckoned with a frantic flapping of his hand as if he was trying to bat at a wasp. But I had no intention of going down there until I knew what he wanted. Had the lousy innkeeper sent him to collect the money I owed? Did I owe this Filipe some money as well? I couldn’t remember, but it wouldn’t be the first time I laid a wager after one too many glasses and not recalled the incident. If I was honest, I’d have to confess I’ve been told of many things I’ve done when I’m drunk that I don’t have the slightest recollection of, but then the world is full of liars. And, as I always say, if a man can’t remember laying a bet, then he was in no condition to make one. If you are going to trick a drunken man into making a wager, you can’t expect him to honour it when he’s sober.

I peered cautiously out of the window again. ‘What do you want?’ I yelled down.

‘It’s your woman … Silvia. You have to come.’

My heart began to thump against my ribs. ‘Silvia, but … Wait for me. I’ll have to dress. I’ll be as quick as I can.’

I knew it! I knew Silvia would be begging me to take her back, and it couldn’t be for the money, because she didn’t know I was about to acquire such a sum. She was coming back because she loved me, adored me in fact, and she’d found she couldn’t live without me, any more than I could live without her. She’d lay down conditions, of course; she had her pride. She’d make me promise I’d never do it again, whatever it was she thought me guilty of, and I would swear to it on my mother’s grave. But we’d both know she wouldn’t have sent this lad to fetch me if she hadn’t already made up her mind to return.

I gathered up the soiled clothes from the floor where I’d scattered them as I’d lurched to bed. Although I dressed as rapidly as possible, without paying any attention to the way I looked, it still seemed as if the simple task was taking hours to accomplish. My hands were trembling so much that I fumbled uselessly with every button and lace. I even managed to put my breeches on backwards and then had to fight to take them off again.

As soon as I crossed to the door, Pio leapt from the cupboard on to my shoulder, expecting to accompany me as usual, but I gently swung him on to the bed.

‘No, Pio, not today. You stay here.’

Silvia did not much care for Pio. He had the habit of springing on her back without warning and pulling her hair. It particularly amused him to do so when her hands were full and she couldn’t defend herself. Once, when I was nearly choking with laughter watching her struggle, I made the mistake of telling her that he only did it because she squealed, and if she ignored him, he would tire of it. I think that was the time she threw my dinner at me, and the names she called that innocent little monkey couldn’t be repeated even in a dockside tavern.

So on balance it seemed diplomatic to keep Pio out of the way until after Silvia had agreed to return. But Pio wasn’t used to being left behind. He made another rush at me, squeaking with anxiety, but I quickly closed the door in his face before he could slip through and heard his screams of rage behind me as I clattered down the stairs.

Filipe was squatting against a wall, waiting for me. He rose swiftly as I approached, and with another agitated flapping of his hand strode off down the narrow street, weaving in and out of the crowd with such agility that, several times, I lost sight of him altogether. At the end of the street, I turned in the direction of the inn, assuming that was where Silvia would be waiting, but I felt a hand on my sleeve, tugging me in the opposite direction.

‘This way, she’s down by the harbour,’ Filipe said.

I obediently trotted after him. So she’d found a bed somewhere along the waterfront. But just whose bed had she found? She wouldn’t have spent this past week alone, I knew that. I felt the sharp spike of jealousy plunge into my bowels. Who was he? Some sweaty hulk from the docks, all muscle and no brain? One of those oily musicians who play in the inns and wink at girls, or a foreign sailor with gold in his pocket? Was that why she wanted to see me again, because her lover’s ship had sailed?

I realized I was clenching my fists and I was probably muttering furiously to myself, because a middle-aged woman with a pannier of fish on her back squashed herself hard against the wall to avoid me, her hands raised across her face as if she thought I was going to attack her. I smiled and bowed, but she scuttled away, throwing terrified glances over her shoulder.

I tried to calm myself. There was no point in asking Silvia where she had been or who she had been with, that would only start another fight. For both our sakes, it was safer to ignore it. I must kiss her, cajole her and woo her again. That’s what she wanted, to be the centre of attention, to be made to feel the most desirable woman on earth, and she was too. Sweet Jesu, my groin was throbbing just at the thought of her. It had been a week since I’d held her, and my body ached for her more than any drunkard craves his wine. I could picture her now, naked save for that amulet in the form of the eye of God which nestled unblinking between her sweat-beaded breasts. She was straddling me, her back arched, her eyes closed and her lips parted in a cry, my hands pushing up over her slim waist, towards those soft round breasts.

I was so consumed by the image that I would have walked straight past the shack, had Filipe not grabbed my arm again.

‘She’s in there.’

He indicated a rough wooden hut, thrown together from old ship’s timbers black with tar, and from driftwood bleached to ash-grey by the salt sea. The doorway was covered by a piece of frayed sacking and outside several nets lay drying over barrels. The stones around the hut were stained with rusty splashes of dried fish blood, and littered with empty mussel shells. It was a typical fisherman’s hut, the kind of shelter he would use to mend his nets and clean his catch. The place stank of fish guts, salt weed and cat pee. It wouldn’t be hard to persuade Silvia to abandon such a rat hole. However handsome her fisher-boy, her ardour would cool as rapidly as sea wind if she was forced to spend time in this hovel.

But Silvia would never admit that. She’d be in there now artfully posed, draped seductively over a bench, waiting for me. She’d try to look as if she hadn’t been waiting at all, but I’d just happened to come in whilst she was resting. She’d feign complete indifference until she considered she had punished me enough with her coldness. But she knew only too well it was that very aloofness and disdain that drew me to her like a dumb fish to a juicy worm, no matter how many times it gets hooked. Even though I knew every twist and turn of the game she was playing, I was powerless to resist it. I took a deep breath and pulled aside the sacking curtain.

But what I saw was not Silvia reclining on a bench. Light shining in from the broken board in the wall revealed two men sitting on upturned barrels, fishermen judging by the stench and filth on their breeches. In one glance I took in the grappling iron lying within a hand’s reach of one of them, and the sharp knife tucked in the belt of the other. Not that either of them would have needed weapons to attack a man, not with their great fists.

As rapidly as I had stepped in I backed out again, crashing straight into Filipe, who squealed as I trod heavily on his toe. But I was in no mood to apologize to him. The little rat had set me up. I’d get even with him later, but right now the only thing on my mind was to get as far away from that hut as fast as I could. I turned to run, but Filipe yelled after me, ‘Wait! They need to tell you about Silvia. Come back!’

I turned. The men had made no move to follow me. I hesitated, then cautiously edged my way back towards the hut, torn between curiosity and a healthy desire to stay out of danger. I am not a man who enjoys pain and besides, I needed my face to remain intact to earn a living, not to mention all my other appendages, of which I had grown rather fond.

‘What,’ I asked Filipe, ‘do those two cod-buggerers know about Silvia that you couldn’t have told me back at my lodgings?’

The tips of Filipe’s jug-ears turned scarlet and he squirmed like a schoolboy told to drop his breeches.

Comprehension dawned. ‘Ah, I see it. They want money for their information, that’s it, isn’t it? Well, you can tell them from me I haven’t got the price of my next meal, and even if I came into a fortune I wouldn’t give as much as a bag of goat’s droppings for information about that bitch. I don’t care where she is or what trouble she’s got herself into.’

Filipe cringed and darted an embarrassed glance towards the hut. It suddenly occurred to me that Silvia might be hiding somewhere near, waiting until the fishermen had been paid. I raised my voice so she could hear.

‘If she wants money, tell her to sell herself on the streets, she’s had enough practice. And when she’s sick of doing that, she knows where to find me, but she’d better hurry because if my bed gets any colder, I’ll be moving Bárbara in to warm it.’

I stole the name from the wind, for the truth was I didn’t actually know any Bárbaras, apart from an elderly aunt with a hairy black moustache, and I certainly didn’t intend inviting her into my bed. But I could have met someone since Silvia had left me and there was no harm in letting her believe I had.

Filipe was flapping at me like an agitated duck. ‘No, no, don’t say such things. Silvia is … I didn’t know how to tell you. That’s why I brought you here. I thought you should see for yourself. If it is her, I mean. I think it is … I’m sure it is.’

He ran back to the shack and held the sacking curtain up, pointing to something lying on the floor inside. A cold hand seemed to have thrust itself inside my chest as I realized what he was trying to say. But it couldn’t be true. I would have known. I would have felt it.

Slowly, on legs that felt as heavy and dead as ship’s timbers, I edged towards the door. The two fishermen hadn’t moved from their barrels.

The older of the two removed the long strip of dried fish he was chewing, and waved it at the curtain. ‘Drop it. Don’t want everyone seeing our business.’

Filipe nudged me inside and, following hard on my heels, dropped the sacking back in place.

Between the two fishermen a long bundle was stretched out on the floorboards, wrapped in a piece of old sail cloth. I hadn’t even noticed it when I’d first entered, in my shock at finding the fishermen inside.

‘Caught her in the nets this morning. Knew there was a floating corpse even before our nets snagged her, could see the gulls following something.’

The younger of the two men leaned down and peeled back a flap of the sail. I tried to stifle a cry as I reeled backwards into Filipe, the bile jumping into my throat. The body had evidently been in the sea for some time. I could only see its head and shoulders, but it appeared to be naked. The eyes were open but milk-white, the face grotesquely swollen and bloated. The skin was peeling away. Something had been nibbling at the lips and nose and they were half-eaten away, revealing sharp white teeth. Salt crusted the matted black hair, turning it grey even as I stared at it.

Gagging, I clapped my hands to my mouth, trying to stop myself vomiting. The two fishermen glanced at each other with undisguised contempt for my weak stomach. I stared up at the broken roof boards of the hut, and when I could finally trust myself to speak without retching, I shook my head.

‘That’s not Silvia. It looks nothing like her.’

Filipe laid a hand on my shoulder. ‘I know she’s swollen up in the water, but look at that amulet round her neck. It’s the eye of God. Silvia always wore –’

I did not look. ‘Thousands of women wear that amulet,’ I snapped.

‘But most wear a crucifix too, and that eye is much larger than –’

‘It isn’t her, I tell you. Some woman jilted by her lover probably. Hundreds of women a year drown themselves over men or unwanted brats or just from plain melancholy. Women are like that; they always have to make the dramatic gesture.’