almost human shapes in the twilight. In that place, I could believe anything was possible. Why hadn’t we done as Hinrik had asked, even if it was to reassure him? I didn’t need any more bad luck. I was running out of time. How many days had passed since we landed? I was losing count. A week? No, it couldn’t be, not yet! Please God, not yet!
‘Hinrik, are we near the place of the white falcons? How far is it to the high mountains? How many days?’
The boy hunched away from me. ‘You must not talk of them. Not in this place. It will call the witch’s curse.’
He refused to say more. In the end we searched for fuel together, never straying out of sight of the guttering yellow flames. We heaped our finds near the fire to dry them – more dung, dried woody roots and stems from bushes and the dried bones and skull of a sheep that must have fallen from the rocks and broken her legs. Hinrik insisted on dragging them to the fire, saying his mother had often burned bones for fuel.
But as soon as I smelt the stench of the burning, I could only see the girl standing in the flickering torchlight of that sultry Lisbon night with the pitifully tiny casket of bones in her arms. I could hear her sobbing as the casket burst into flames on the pyre. Her mother … ? Her father … ?
Hinrik stiffened at the sound of footsteps on rocks as Marcos stumbled back towards our camp. He tossed a small heap of woody plants down beside me.
‘Is that for the pot or the fire?’ I asked.
‘All I could find,’ Marcos said morosely.
Before I could ask him what the plants were, Vítor reappeared, closely followed by Fausto, who threw himself disconsolately on to the ground beside the small fire, and stared into the flames, his fingers savagely plucking at the grey, wiry grass. Marcos glowered at the pair of them.
It was obvious from Fausto’s empty hands and stony expression that he’d caught nothing. So there was really no need for Marcos to comment, but he did.
‘So where’s this sumptuous supper you promised us, Fausto?’
The light from the flames flickered across Fausto’s face, showing the muscles tighten as he clenched his jaw.
‘There’s nothing to trap in this cursed land.’
‘Yet according to you we were going to dine like royalty tonight.’
‘So what game have you brought us for the pot?’ Fausto retorted. ‘I don’t smell it cooking, or was the boar you slaughtered with your bare hands too massive to carry back?’ He prodded the bundle of withered herbs which I was sorting through. ‘Is this what you brought back? Not even sheep could eat this. What is it anyway?’
‘Herbs, but if you don’t want to eat them …’
‘Yes, but what kind of herbs? On the ship you told us you were a physician, come here to look for new herbs for cures. I can’t say I’ve noticed you take any interest in the plants as we’ve been tramping through this wilderness. And for that matter I haven’t seen you do any physicking either. When Isabela hurt her knee it was the ship’s surgeon who attended to her, not you.’
‘That was a job for a bone-setter. I am no common bone-setter. A physician doesn’t deal with such matters.’
‘So you’d let a woman suffer in agony rather than soil your hands, would you? You know what, if you are a physician, prove it.’ Fausto plunged his hand inside his scrip and drew out a couple of handfuls of wizened red berries. ‘I found these. I have no idea whether they’re poisonous, but if you’re as knowledgeable with herbs and plants as you claim, you’ll know whether or not these are safe to eat.’
‘Why don’t you eat them and find out?’ Marcos growled. ‘Then with luck we’ll only have four people to divide that fish among instead of five.’
‘I’ve got a better idea – why don’t you eat them?’
Fausto flung himself on Marcos, seizing him by the front of the doublet and trying to cram the berries into his mouth.
‘Stop it!’ I yelled. ‘Leave him alone. Those berries might kill him!’
Vítor rushed over and tried to prise Fausto off, but even so it took several minutes of Marcos pushing and kicking, and Vítor tugging, before Fausto could be persuaded to let go. All three men collapsed on to the ground, panting. Marcos spat out the berries still in his mouth, and