The Falcons of Fire and Ice - By Karen Maitland Page 0,4

of the tiny room he rented and hurried through the narrow, twisting streets of Lisbon. Even a passing stranger would have spotted Manuel’s occupation at once, for though he was only in his twenties his chest was already as round as a barrel from years of blowing glass and his olive hands scarred with a hundred healed burns.

With his head hunched down against the wetted wind, Manuel would never have noticed the small crowd gathered at the far end of the square in front of the church had it not been for a small boy who ran headlong into him. With a curse worthy of a sailor the brat dodged around him and scampered across the square. Only then did Manuel lift his head to see what was attracting the lad. The crowd was swelling fast, with men, women and children hurrying towards it in twos and threes. As they joined the gathering, they simply stood and gazed at the church as if it was the most astounding thing they had ever seen.

Manuel hesitated, torn between curiosity and his fear of being late for work. Curiosity won. He hurried across the square and joined the back of the crowd. An old woman, dressed in widow’s black, was trying to elbow her way to the front. Manuel knew her. She occupied one of the tiny squalid rooms two houses down from his own lodgings. He wasn’t surprised to see her here. If there was any trouble or misfortune anywhere in the neighbourhood she was always the first on the scene. He sidled closer to her.

‘What’s everyone looking so thunderstruck for?’ he whispered, then, just to bait her, he added with a grin, ‘You’d think the Virgin Mary had farted in the middle of Mass.’

The old crone turned and glared furiously at him, crossing herself rapidly.

‘How dare you speak so of the Blessed Virgin? If your poor mother was alive today it would kill her to hear such wicked words on your lips.’

She hobbled around to the other side of the crowd, darting poisonous glances at him. Manuel grinned broadly at the outraged expression on her face. That would give the old witch something to complain about.

A man standing on the other side of Manuel pointed through the heads of the crowd to a notice pinned to the door of the church.

‘What’s it say?’ he demanded.

Manuel shrugged. He’d never learned to read much more than his own name, but even if he had been a scholar, at that distance it would have been impossible to make out the words.

The question was taken up by others who were unable to get close to the door. They began insisting that those at the front should either move aside or tell them what had been nailed up there. So, in scandalized tones, the ripple of the words spread back through the crowd, passing from mouth to mouth until it reached Manuel’s ears.

The Messiah has not yet come. Jesus is not the Messiah.

Manuel was as shocked as any in that crowd. It was one thing to make jokes, but what was nailed on that door was nothing short of blasphemy. Even as the words spread through the crowd, an angry buzzing began. Strangers and neighbours alike were demanding to know who could have committed such an outrage.

Manuel felt a cold shiver of unease. It never took much to inflame a crowd in Lisbon. If a few hotheads started whipping up the anger of the mob, they would turn violent in minutes. And he knew only too well whom the crowd would turn on first. Somehow, the Old Christians of Lisbon could always tell if you were a Jewish convert. They could scent the presence of a New Christian and would attack with the savagery of a pack of wild dogs.

He broke away and hurried off in the direction of the glassblowers’ works. As he scuttled through the streets he passed two more churches and saw to his disquiet the same heresy nailed to their doors and other angry mobs beginning to gather around them.

By noon everyone in the city knew that the blasphemous proclamation had been pinned not only to every church door in Lisbon, but also on the very door of the great Cathedral itself, and King João had offered a reward of 10,000 silver crusados to anyone who could discover the author of this evil.

That night when Manuel returned to his lodgings, he found the house packed to the rafters with frightened men and