“They won’t,” said Gwennec from his perch in the rigging. “They can’t turn fast enough. Just wait.”
Fatima waited. One lonely arquebus discharged from overhead, then another, but they were too late: as Fatima turned, she saw the railing of the stern castle clear the larger ships, releasing the little cog from their long shadows and into open water. Gwennec, invisible behind the mainsail, gave a wild yelp, and even the gelding seemed to understand its good fortune, for it threw up its shaggy head and whinnied.
A flutter of red caught Fatima’s eye. The Castilian flag was still aloft in the air behind them, as if it had run after the cog to say farewell. As she watched, the wind folded it upon itself and cast it into the sea. The flag puckered, sinking under its own weight, until finally it was gone, and there was only water, green and wild, spilling toward the edge of the earth.
Chapter 17
“We can’t feed it, blev’ruz. Surely even someone as daft as you can see that. The thing’ll need pounds and pounds of—”
“There are carrots and apples in one of those barrels down below. We can spare some for the poor beast. We’ve got lemons and so forth for ourselves, when it comes to that.”
“Lovely. Lovely! Do you have any idea how much a horse eats? And shits? We’ll all starve together, the three of us and this damned nag as well. Who’s to say you get to decide, anyhow? It was Fa’s ring that bought the supplies.”
“Hush, you’ll wake her.”
Fatima inhaled sharply and opened her eyes. Overhead, she saw the swaying ribs of the hull as they curved up to meet the deck. The sunlight that gilded the bottom of the stairs across the floor from her bunk was richly tinted. Sitting up, she was rewarded by a surge of nausea. The Middle Sea, so placid where it touched the eastward shores of Spain, had grown rougher as they approached the Strait. She felt, or thought she felt, the ship gather its strength, preparing itself for hostile, unknown water.
Fatima put her feet on the pitch-stained floor and shook her head to clear it. Hooves pawed at the deck overhead. Bracing herself against the ribs of the hull, Fatima made her way toward the stairs and up into what remained of the sunlight.
“There, see?” Hassan, his hair stiff with sweat and sea mist, stroked the gelding’s dun-colored nose to soothe it. “You did wake her.”
“You should have woken me hours ago,” said Fatima, yawning. The sea came into focus around her: it had turned a milky green, thick with the sediment of rivers. Land reached out to encircle them on both sides. To her left, in the far distance, Fatima could see a range of blue-green mountains beneath a veil of cloud; to her right, much closer, an uneven row of arid cliffs, bone-white and barren of vegetation. Only the way forward was open. The Strait of Jebel Tareq led into the setting sun, between the parted hands of Europe and Africa. At its narrowest point, a mountain crowned with lights rose straight out of the sea, its appearance so solid and abrupt that it seemed conscious of itself, like a sentry lifting his lamp over the threshold of the world.
“What is that?” murmured Fatima.
“Jebel Tareq himself,” said Hassan, coming to stand beside her. The gelding followed him anxiously. “Gibraltar, as the Christians call him.”
“And he’ll be watching,” said Gwennec. “From that peak, the Spaniards can see anything that comes and goes in this waterway. There’s a fortress up there where you see the lights, with walls ten feet thick and a ring of watchtowers. Always under guard, day and night.”
Fatima leaned over the railing to get a better look. Behind her, the gelding snuffled at the pocket of Hassan’s robe, hoping for an apple. It was an ugly beast, its fetlocks untrimmed, its coat a muddy roan: a packhorse, more than likely, before the Castilians had set Gwennec atop its back. Fatima craned her neck to study the monk. He was rubbing his wrists absently: the red marks had deepened to purple and blue.
“Tell me what happened,” said Fatima in a quiet voice.
Gwennec flushed and looked away.
“I didn’t—” His voice caught, and he made silent shapes with his mouth, as if trying to remember an unfamiliar word. “I think you ought to know that I tried to turn you in,” he continued evenly, his eyes fixed on nothing. Fatima went hot and cold by turns. She could still feel the points of heat on her face where Gwennec had kissed her, but a chilly knot in her chest told her hostis, hostis, and she reminded herself that he had drawn a line between them.
“You said you’d go to the monastery,” was all she offered, matching his tone.
“I never made it as far as the monastery. There were guards posted everywhere. But I never had a chance to give you up, because they already knew well enough where to expect you, as if they’d been here on this ship, listening at your elbow. They asked me who I was and where I’d been and it seemed foolish to lie. But I wouldn’t tell them your plan. Where you were headed, the map, all of that. Didn’t seem relevant, as you were sitting there in the harbor, nor was it my right to say anyhow. They didn’t like that. They took me to a public house somewhere up the main road, where the general and the lady were waiting.”
“The lady?” A chill rippled down Fatima’s arms. “Do you mean Luz?”
“Who else? So kind, she seemed at first—I’d met her before, of course, aboard this very cog on the way down the coast, but she took no notice of me then. This time, though—” Gwennec shifted on his feet and flushed again, turning crimson from neck to scalp. “She knew all sorts of things about me. Asked after my father, my three sisters, wanted to know whether the youngest was married yet. Spoke about this year’s catch, which was paltry compared with years past, and asked whether I thought the cod mightn’t be thinning out along the Breton seabeds. Fishermen’s talk. It was the oddest thing. She knew my father’d been furious when I told him I wanted to join the brothers at Saint Padarn’s. Said she’d pray for me and for him, that his heart might soften and come to accept my vocation.” Gwennec licked his chapped lips. “I asked her what she wanted. And what she wanted, apparently, was for me to tell her I’d seen our blev’ruz using his powers to commune with the Devil.”
Hassan spat out a laugh, startling the horse.
“I told her I’d seen no such thing. I told her the truth—that Hassan seemed ordinary enough, a bit delicate maybe, but as smart as they make ’em, and as good-hearted. And as for Fatima here—” He smiled at her lopsidedly. “I told her that if ever there was anyone as could put the Devil in his place, it was Fatima.”
Fatima could imagine it: she could see Luz sitting across from the baffled monk, smiling in her sympathetic way, her wintery eyes opaque, disguising whatever fury or fervor she might feel.
“Did you see it?” Fatima pressed. “The speck in her eye—her left eye.”
“A speck?” Gwennec looked puzzled. “I can’t say I remember any speck. Her eyes seemed regular enough to me. It’s what comes out of her mouth that’s so terrifying. Not even that—it’s the fact that people listen to her. That’s the most terrifying thing of all.”
Fatima pressed her hands against her sides to warm them. When she blinked, she could see the speck struggling and wriggling in its bed of flesh, and she turned toward the sun to blot it out. It unnerved her that Gwennec couldn’t see what she had seen. She thought for a moment that she might be mistaken, that in her terror she had imagined the parasite. Perhaps it had been only a fleck of ash or dirt after all. Yet Hassan had seen it too, and Hassan saw more than anyone else. Fatima wondered whether Gwennec simply hadn’t noticed the speck, or had disregarded it, or whether something else yet more unsettling was at play. He had risked much to help them, but some part of him, the largest part, still belonged to the world Luz inhabited: perhaps he could see only what he had been taught to see.
“Something’s wrong with her, anyway,” said Fatima, half to herself. “Something awful.”