The Falcons of Fire and Ice - By Karen Maitland Page 0,65
travelling only as far as England, if, she added with disdain, ‘this wretched hulk manages to get us that far’. There her husband was to do business with only the finest shops to which he planned to sell a large quantity of silks and other rare fabrics. She, meanwhile, would decide if there was anything at all worth buying for her daughter’s trousseau, though she very much doubted that England would have anything half as fine as could be purchased in Lisbon. She proceeded to launch full-sail into a detailed description of her daughter’s forthcoming lavish wedding, while her husband sat morosely tearing his bread to pieces and muttering to anyone who’d listen that he hoped the English shopkeepers were feeling generous since he’d have to sell three full warehouses of silk to pay for what his wife had planned.
Finally, he interrupted her and addressed himself to the elderly gentleman sitting next to a lumpish, baby-faced boy who, though he looked no more than twelve, was already twice the size of his tiny wizened father in girth, as if the boy had been feeding on his father like some great leech and had sucked all the juices from the old man. The lad, it seemed, was the youngest of the man’s many children. The father was taking his son to France where he was to be enrolled as a student in Paris and would, his father anxiously assured us, become a scholar.
The lad didn’t look very scholarly and, judging by his scowl, he didn’t seem to want to be. But it appeared his father was in despair to know what to do with his son. He wasn’t suited to the life of a craftsman, for several apprenticeships had been obtained for him and none had lasted more than a few weeks. So it was either the life of a scholar or the lad would be obliged to take holy orders and become a priest or monk. At which pronouncement the boy’s scowl deepened, and he savagely kicked the bench on which he was seated.
Attention now turned to the three other men at the table. All three looked to be of a similar age, in their late twenties, but that didn’t seem to make them friends, for they eyed one another warily, like strange dogs circling as if to test one another’s willingness for a fight.
The one sitting next to me was a gaunt-looking man, with eyes as blue as the deep of the sea. His head was wrapped in a turban of black velvet cloth trimmed with a silver thread. It so completely enveloped his pate that I suspected underneath it he might be bald. He leaned across the rough wooden table to help himself to more of the mutton and the over-long sleeves of his doublet trailed in the juices on his plate.
Dona Flávia gestured imperiously at the cook, who was bending over the two great pots bubbling in the cookbox, half-hidden in a great cloud of smoke and steam.
‘Where is the man who serves the food?’ Dona Flávia asked in a voice that must have carried from stern to bow. ‘He should be waiting on us. This poor gentleman’s clothes are quite ruined.’
The cook gave no sign that he heard her.
‘I fear we have to fend for ourselves, Dona Flávia,’ the man said, dabbing ineffectually at his sleeve with a handkerchief. ‘Like you I am, of course, used to a manservant, but I dare say we shall learn to make shift for ourselves.’ He gave up trying to clean his sleeve and attacked the mutton again with almost as much gusto as Dona Flávia.
‘It’s not good enough, not good enough at all,’ Dona Flávia grumbled, then, raising her voice so that any of the seamen could hear her, she said, ‘Husband, I insist you complain to the agent who booked our passage, the moment we return. Tell him we did not expect to be treated like common peasants on this voyage. I’m sure you agree, Senhor … ?’
‘Marcos,’ the man helpfully supplied through a mouthful of food.
‘And are you also a merchant, like my husband, Senhor Marcos?’
‘Alas, no. I am but a humble physician.’
Dona Flávia beamed and clapped her hands with delight. ‘How fortuitous! Did you hear that, husband? This gentleman is a renowned physician! I am a martyr to a sick stomach, as my husband will tell you. And to know I shall have you to call upon is a great weight off my mind.’