as the full roar of the wind and the crashing of the waves on the shore exploded in my ears.
I could see no sign of the cottage and began to fear that I had emerged from the forest on to a different shore altogether. I clawed my way up the nearest dune on my hands and knees, for there was no way I could stand upright against the immense force of the wind. At the top, lying on my belly, I peered out into the bay. Even in the darkness and blinding rain I could see the great white foaming tops of the black waves as they reared up, racing towards the shore. But I could make out nothing else. I scrubbed the water out of my eyes with my sodden sleeve. Then finally, to my great relief, I glimpsed them, tiny pinpoints of yellow light rising up over the water, and sinking down again to be hidden from view by the great black roll of the sea. I watched them rise two or three times more, just to assure myself it was the ship’s lanterns I could see. At least now I knew I was on the right beach, unless of course there was some other ship riding out the storm.
By the time I eventually found the cottage and burst in through the remains of the wooden door, my limbs and face were so wet and numb with cold that even the draughty interior of the cottage felt like a hot summer’s afternoon in Portugal.
I was greeted with howls of protest as the wind rushed in with me, swirling the sand on the floor into a dust storm and almost extinguishing the flames of the small fire. The merchant hurried over and fought to close the door, stuffing the dislodged cloth back into the gaps in the wood.
‘Have you found them?’ Dona Flávia demanded, the moment she had finished an exaggerated bout of coughing.
I stood speechless, dripping on to the floor. Rain was running into the cottage in half a dozen places through the cracked tiles on the roof and forming small puddles on the sand. The party were all huddled round a small fire in the far corner of the room where the roof tiles seemed to be least damaged, warming their hands. A small pot was bubbling on the edge of the fire, the steam smelling distinctly of salt pork and ship’s biscuit.
‘Well? Did you see them?’ Dona Flávia demanded, taking not the slightest notice that I was half-drowned and near dead with cold.
‘Who?’ My teeth were beginning to chatter. I shuffled to the fire and rudely pushed between pig-boy and his father, crouching down to hug the pitiful heat from the flames.
‘That poor child, Isabela, and Vítor, of course,’ Dona Flávia said, waving her hand around the little circle as if even a blind man could see they were not there. I would have been more startled if I had seen Isabela sitting by the fire, but I was too sodden and numb to register who else was present apart from the great she-whale herself, of course. No one could fail to spot her.
‘Are they missing? And in this terrible storm? What happened?’ I tried to sound suitably appalled, and fancied I made a convincing job of it. But although the absence of Isabela was no surprise, I can’t say I was exactly distressed that Vítor was missing too. Come to think of it, it was poetic justice – a map-maker getting himself lost. I almost giggled, but fortunately my face muscles were too stiff with cold to permit a grin.
Pig-boy’s father shook his head gravely. ‘When Senhor Vítor brought the wood for the fire and discovered Dona Isabela had not returned, he feared she’d met with some accident or could not find her way back, so he went to search for her.’ He glanced towards the door which was rattling violently in the wind. ‘A hopeless task, and I fear that, noble though the gesture was, on a night such as this it may cost the poor fellow his life.’
The merchant grimaced. ‘I should have gone with him, perhaps the two of us –’
‘A fine thing that would be, running off in the middle of the night to search for a girl we barely know and leaving your own wife unprotected and at the mercy of the storm. Goodness knows what may be lurking out in those woods.’ Dona Flávia shuddered, as did I when