The Falcons of Fire and Ice - By Karen Maitland Page 0,85
go wandering into those trees. Master’ll keel haul me if I lose one of his crew, even one as useless and bone-idle as you.’
We watched Hinrik trudge up the beach and disappear from sight. He seemed to be gone an age. I felt the tension knotting my stomach tighter. What if he had heard something in the forest and had gone to investigate? I could stand the suspense no longer. I stood up and tried to pick my way over the plank seats towards the boatswain.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ the boatswain yelled. ‘Sit still, can’t you, you’ll have us all in the water!’
I flopped awkwardly down on to one of the seats. ‘Listen, my good man, the lady is becoming chilled and we are all hungry. I think you should take us back to the ship at once.’
‘Oh you do, do you? Well, if you think I’m going to row you lot all the way across the bay with one man short at the oars, and then row all the way back for my lad, you’re an even greater blockhead than you look.’
‘How dare you speak so to a paying passenger,’ Dona Flávia snapped. ‘He was only thinking of my comfort and he is quite correct. It’s outrageous that we should be kept waiting like this. If your boy –’
The merchant interrupted his wife. ‘Look, the young man is returning, my dear.’
All eyes turned to Hinrik who was weaving down the beach towards us, staggering under the weight of the provisions barrel awkwardly hoisted on his shoulder. I let out a huge sigh of relief. He was alone.
Despite the fact that the ship and boat were not rocking anywhere near as violently, Dona Flávia’s progress up the rope ladder was no less ungainly than it had been coming down. In fact it was worse, since she now had to heave her bulk upwards. Men heaved on the rope from the top and the boatswain, much to her indignation, grabbed her great hams and pushed from below, and finally she was hauled on to the deck. To make matters worse, she had insisted on going first, so the rest of us were obliged to wait below on the bobbing boat, until we could follow her up that swaying ladder.
The other passengers all made at once for their quarters in search of their own supplies of food and wine. But I was too anxious to think of eating. I stood on deck watching the distant shore. Hinrik had said he’d called and whistled several times, but there was no answer. That was it then. Isabela and Vítor had vanished. The ship’s master was barking orders. Men feverishly cranked the windlass to haul up the great anchor, while high above me, the gromets, as they called the apprentice seamen, were already swarming over the rigging.
I willed the seamen to hurry. Just a few more minutes and we would be sailing out of the bay and all my problems would be marooned for ever on this shore. That old familiar thrill shuddered through my belly, as it did whenever I was certain I was going to win on the throw of the dice. It was all over and I hadn’t had to do a thing.
Naturally, that would not be the story I would tell the Jesuits. I wasn’t going to give them any excuse not to pay me what they had promised. I would confess to her murder. Confessing a sin you haven’t committed is no crime. There were saints who confessed to sins of pride and lust, greed and faithlessness every day. How could they be saints and have committed those sins? It was merely excessive humility on their part. Yes, I’d confess sorrowfully to her murder. They’d ask me how I’d done it, of course. And I would tell them that I –
My breath turned to stone in my throat. There was someone hurrying down towards the beach. Vítor, was it Vítor? He was clutching what looked like his bedroll in his arms. Suppose Isabela was following behind him? He might have run on ahead to alert the ship. I turned sharply away. Maybe no one else would see him. The sailors were all intent on their tasks. The anchor was clear of the water. They were just securing it. I searched for the ship’s master. He was standing on the forecastle, his hand shielding his eyes from the sun as he squinted up into the rigging. Give the order