The Falcons of Fire and Ice (48 page)

I sank back against the wall of the cave. Isabela was lying on the ground near the twins; she seemed to be asleep, her face buried in her arm, her curly dark hair falling in damp tangles across her slender neck. She looked so young and vulnerable. She reminded me of my poor Silvia sprawled across my bed in the heat of a summer’s afternoon sleeping like a child.

What on earth was I going to do? The only reason I was here was to kill the girl, and God knows I had good enough reasons. It was simple enough; dispatch her and return home to a civilized country where I could live in comfort in my own house, with the priest’s gold jangling in my pockets, or
not
kill her and face permanent exile or even be tortured to death myself, if that little weasel Vítor had his way. It wasn’t exactly a difficult choice to make now, was it, so why couldn’t I do it? I only knew as I watched her lying there that for some incomprehensible reason I’d never be able to harm her – other women perhaps, but not Isabela.

But if I didn’t, would Vítor kill her anyway? He’d talked about bringing down the rocks to trap her in here. Would Vítor’s hatred of Marranos overcome his distaste of dirtying his own hands? I had to warn her, but the problem was how to tell her who Vítor was, without also revealing that he’d been sent here to watch me commit a murder, her murder. It’s not the kind of thing you can casually walk up and whisper to a girl, is it?

I glanced up at the sound of raised voices. The twin sisters seemed to be having some kind of argument. Whatever it was about, Unnur and her daughters were looking thoroughly alarmed. It couldn’t have been easy for the sisters. I mean, if you quarrelled you couldn’t exactly storm off and leave the other.

I have to admit the twins were a bit of a shock at first. Two women on a single pair of legs, that’s not a sight you see every day. I wondered if any man had ever made love to them, now that would be an interesting threesome. Not that I harboured any ambition in that direction, in case you were wondering. I grant you, one of the pair had a nice firm body, but the other was so withered she looked more like her great-grandmother than her sister. But it did occur to me that if only they could be persuaded to come back to Portugal with me, I could make a fortune exhibiting them. I’d see that they were well rewarded, and surely a few hours each day showing themselves off to the crowd had to be better than a lifetime chained up in a cave, didn’t it? It was a wonder no one here had done it already, but then no man on this island would recognize a business opportunity, even if it was dangling from his own cock.

The twins crossed over to the man lying in the corner and one of them began rubbing more ointment on him. He looked as if someone had given him a thorough beating, but even in the time we’d been here the ointment seemed to be working miracles, and no wonder, given what Isabela had told me was in it. But the poor fellow still wasn’t moving. It was going to be the Devil’s own job getting an unconscious man out of the cave, especially if we had to do it in a hurry.

Isabela had woken and now she clambered unsteadily to her feet. She came towards me, stumbling like a sailor after a night in the tavern. I had to catch her in my arms to stop her tripping over. I lowered her to the floor against the wall of the cave, and crouched down beside her.

‘Anyone’d think you’d been drinking some of the brew the farmer’s wife served us that first night. You haven’t, have you?’ I said hopefully. ‘I could do with a few swigs of it myself – that water doesn’t just smell like bad eggs, it tastes of it too.’

She shook her head, then put her hand to it as if she wished she hadn’t. She sat for a long time leaning against the wall, lost in thought. I half-thought she’d drifted back to sleep, but suddenly she seemed to make up her mind about something, and she gripped my arm.

‘Marcos, would you do something for me?’

‘Ask away,’ I said. ‘What is it? Do you want me to fetch you water?’

‘I … would you try to cut through the iron hoops around the waists of the two sisters? That pool is heating up and we’ll have to leave soon. We can’t leave Eydis here chained up to die. But it’s going to take some time to saw through that iron. I don’t think the sisters have any tools we can use. You’ll have to use something like this, it’s all we have.’ She picked a sharp piece of stone from dozens of fragments littering the floor of the cave. ‘I saw Ari sharpen his knife on one of these earlier, so if you rasp at the metal, you should be able to break the bands in time.’

‘With bits of stone?’ I said. ‘Look, Isabela, I’d be the first to admit I’m no expert at these things. The only sawing I’m in the habit of doing is with my knife on the old horse flesh at my local inn, which the villain of an innkeeper swears is tender veal. But even I can see it’s going to take a lifetime to hack through those iron bands. Much easier to chip away at the rock where the iron ring is embedded. A bit of wriggling and I could probably work it loose and free both of them at once. I’ll make a start now.’

‘No, no, you mustn’t, please don’t do that … promise you won’t do that.’

I was taken aback by the panic in her tone and the look, bordering on fear, that passed across her face. Anyone would think I’d suggested chopping the twins in half to get them out.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘I know it’s going to be awkward for the sisters clambering about with those chains still attached, but don’t worry, we can help carry them. The main thing is to get them out. Then we can find a proper file or cutters and have them free quicker than a thief can cut a purse.’

Isabela gripped my sleeve again. ‘Please, you mustn’t, Eydis doesn’t want you to. She knows the clanging of the chains would carry for miles in these mountains, and the Danes are still searching for us. No, we have to get the hoops off. They must have rusted a little in the damp of the cave over the years, so I’m sure you can do it. Ari is already trying to free Eydis; please could you work on Valdis?’

I looked over. Ari had taken up his position behind Eydis and, judging by the way he was frowning, was already hard at work. I shrugged and lumbered towards the sisters, but Isabela seized the hem of my shirt.

‘One thing more … this is hard to explain … Don’t cut all the way through Valdis’s hoop, nearly through, so it can be broken quickly, but don’t break it, not yet. It’s important … really important.’

‘I thought getting the hoops off them was the whole idea,’ I said irritably.

‘Valdis doesn’t want the hoop removed until the very last minute, because … because … it’s the custom,’ Isabela said. ‘Swear you won’t until I tell you to?’

‘How do you know what Valdis wants?’

‘I told you, I can’t explain … but I know. Please trust me, Marcos.’

If I live as long as old Methuselah himself, I will never understand women. They are all as crazy as Icelandic horses. I resolved there and then that if I did ever manage to escape this country of lunatics with their slimy food and rabbit-burrow houses, boiling rivers and icy sun, I would never in my life again set foot in any foreign land.

I gathered up a few of the sharpest stones I could find and took up my position next to Ari, behind the two women. Eydis pulled her sister upright, clasping her tightly so that I could tackle the band around her waist. Have you ever tried to grate away at an iron hoop with a bit of stone, especially when someone is wearing it? I tried to do it without touching Valdis’s skin. I told myself it was out of respect for a woman, but the truth was, her skin looked so wrinkled and brown that I couldn’t bring myself to touch it. But the stone slipped off Valdis’s iron band and grazed her sister’s arm, a few drops of blood ran down the stone and on to my fingers, but she barely flinched.

Isabela had followed me over and now was sitting close by, watching me intently.

‘Don’t be afraid to touch Valdis. You’ll have to grasp the hoop firmly, like Ari’s doing.’

Though I was, of course, flattered that she wanted to watch me work, I was somewhat affronted by the suggestion that Ari was more competent than I was.

‘Ari has probably been sawing through iron hoops all his life,’ I said. ‘I imagine it’s all they can think of to amuse themselves on a winter evening round here. They find themselves a nice stout hoop and saw through it. They probably even lay wagers on it. My hands were never created for manual work.’

‘I know … but please try your best,’ Isabela said.

Gritting my teeth, I grasped the hoop and started pulling it away from her loose skin. Despite the heat of the cave I was shocked to find her body was as cold as the grave. I shuddered and pulled the band as far away from her back as I could. I knew I must be making it cut into her belly, but didn’t want to feel that flesh against my hand. The sooner I got this band off her the better. I sawed vigorously at the rim of it with the sharp edge of the stone.

Beneath her band I could see a thickened strip of skin, hard and rough as the sole of my foot. How long had she worn this thing? I knew only too intimately how iron bruises the flesh, how it cuts in deeper and deeper with each little movement. I remembered the raw burning of sores around my own wrists and ankles from those few weeks in the tower of Belém. The long sleeves on my doublet had hidden the scars on the ship until they healed, but they were still there.

I rasped more furiously, swearing, but not stopping, even when the stone slipped from the iron and skinned the knuckles of my other hand. The stone was still stained with Eydis’s blood and now it was supping mine too.

Without warning, Silvia’s face floated into my head, and my hands were not grasping stone and metal, but something soft and warm. Silva was laughing at me, taunting me, daring me. Then the laughter changed to another sound, one I’d never heard her make before, not even when she was shrieking in passion. Her eyes were wide open, but they were not mocking me any more. For a moment, only a moment, I saw something that might have been shock in those liquid dark eyes, shock and then nothing. There was nothing at all in those eyes, not even life.

‘Why have you stopped?’ Isabela asked anxiously. ‘What’s wrong? You look frightened.’

I shook my head and, breathing hard, picked up the stone which had slipped out of my wet fingers and attacked the iron again. I don’t know how long we were working. Fannar returned to eat, then went out again. Several times Ari and I were forced to rest. The sweat was pouring down our bodies. There was no relief to be had even in drinking, for though water was drawn from the pool and put aside to cool, it barely seemed to get any colder and the taste was worse than the smell.

I glanced over to see how Ari was doing, just in time to see the last little fragment break on Eydis’s hoop. It sprang open by no more than a baby’s-finger breadth. Eydis must have felt it give, but if she did, she gave not the smallest sign of it. It would take a couple of us, one pulling on either side, to bend it wide enough for her to slip out, but that could be done quickly now that the hoop was broken. Ari went to fetch himself some more water and wipe the sweat from his streaming face. Only a few more moments and I would be joining him. Valdis’s hoop was almost at the point where a few more rasps would break through it, but before I could finish, Isabela frantically beckoned me away and led me over to the far side of the cave on the pretext of finding me a cloth to wipe the stinging sweat from my eyes.

‘You’ve almost cut through the band, Marcos. You must leave it now.’

‘It won’t take much more,’ I said, massaging my bruised and cut hands. ‘The iron has rusted on the edges. Just as well, or I think I’d never have made a dent in it. Ari has broken through Eydis’s band. I’ll do the same for Valdis, then it will just be a matter of pulling the hoops wide enough apart for them to slip out.’

‘No, no, you must leave Valdis now, please. We can easily break the band when the time comes, but not yet. Promise you’ll leave it.’

Valdis’s head swivelled in my direction. She was calling out, and it didn’t sound to me as if she was thanking me. In fact, she sounded more than a little angry.

‘Are you sure that’s what she wants? She doesn’t sound too happy.’

Isabela bit her lip. ‘Eydis wants it this way. She knows what she’s doing. You have to trust her … you should rest now. You must be exhausted.’

These Icelanders were crazier than a rabid dog at the full moon, but I wasn’t going to argue. My fingers were swelling up like sausages and, to be honest, I wasn’t at all sure I could have managed to saw any more, even if she’d begged me to. Stretching my back, I made my way across the steamy cave towards the pail of hot water.

I staggered backwards as a sudden rumbling filled the cave and jets of stinking steam burst out of the pool, filling the cave with a dense white fog. Someone was screaming, but I couldn’t see whom. The dripping cave walls seemed to cool the steam a little as it rolled towards me, but it was almost impossible to breathe in it. Ari was shouting. I could scarcely see anything in the hot steam, except the smudged shapes of people moving as they loomed in and out of the fog.

‘Marcos, help me get the hoops off them!’ Isabela yelled.

I stumbled blindly across the cave, slipping on the wet stones, but I couldn’t see where Isabela was, never mind the sisters. Everyone was shouting. Shapes were forming and disappearing again in the steam.

I was terrified I was blundering in the wrong direction and might end up falling into the boiling pool. All I actually wanted to do was to get the hell out of that inferno as quickly as I could. If it had just been a matter of saving those two mad sisters, frankly I would have made straight for the passage and the way out, but Vítor was somewhere in this maelstrom, and I was damned if I was going to leave Isabela to his tender mercies.

I dropped to my knees, crawling over the rock. I discovered it was just a fraction easier to breathe closer to the ground. Then I saw them. Ari was crouching behind Valdis who was writhing and twisting. Isabela was frantically trying to pull open the iron hoop about Eydis’s waist.

‘Help me, Marcos!’ Isabela looked terrified, as well she might.

‘Can’t you get the sisters to sit still?’ I yelled in exasperation as the iron band slipped for the third time out of my sweating hands. ‘We’ll never get anywhere if they keep wriggling about. What the hell is Eydis trying to do, anyway?’