Page 36 of A Column of Fire

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Barney Willard walked along the busy Seville waterfront, looking to see whether any English ships had come up the Guadalquivir river on the early tide. He was desperate to learn if his Uncle Dick was still alive, and whether his family had lost everything.

A cold wind blew down the river, but the sky was clear and deep blue, and the morning sun was hot on his tanned face. After this he felt he would never again grow accustomed to the damp cold and cloudy gloom of English weather.

Seville was built astride a bend in the river. On the inside of the curve, a broad beach of mud and sand sloped up from the water’s edge to firmer ground where thousands of houses, palaces and churches were packed close together in the largest city in Spain.

The beach was crowded with men, horses and oxen as cargoes were discharged from ships to carts and vice versa, and buyers and sellers haggled at the tops of their voices. Barney surveyed the moored vessels, listening for the broad vowels and soft consonants of English speech.

There was something about ships that made his soul sing. He had never been happier than on the voyage here. Despite the rotten food, the foul drinking water, the stinking bilges, and the frightening storms, he loved the sea. The sensation of speeding across the waves with the wind swelling the sails was a thrill as intense as lying with a woman. Well, almost.

The ships at the water’s edge were packed side by side as close as the houses in the town. All were moored prow in, stern out. Barney was used to the docks at Combe Harbour, which would have five or ten ships at anchor on a busy day, but Seville regularly had fifty.

Barney had a practical reason for visiting the waterfront early. He was living with Carlos Cruz, his second cousin, a metal worker. Seville manufactured weapons for the endless wars of King Felipe II, and there was never enough metal. Carlos bought everything exported by Barney’s mother: lead from the Mendip Hills for shot, tin from the mines of Cornwall for shipboard food containers and utensils, and – most important – iron ore. But ores and metals came into Seville by ship from other exporters, some in southern England, some in northern Spain, and Carlos needed to buy from them, too.

Barney stopped to watch a new arrival being delicately nosed into a mooring. It looked familiar, and his heart lifted in hope. The ship was about a hundred feet long and twenty feet wide, the narrow shape popular with captains who liked to move fast. Barney guessed it displaced about a hundred tons. There were three masts, with a total of five square sails, for power, plus a triangular lateen on the middle mast for manoeuvrability. It would be an agile vessel.

He thought it might be theHawk, owned by Philbert Cobley of Kingsbridge, and when he heard the sailors calling to one another in English, he felt sure. Then a small man of about forty with a bronzed bald head and a fair beard waded through the shallows to the beach, and Barney recognized Jonathan Greenland, who frequently sailed as first mate with Captain Bacon.

He waited while Jonathan tied a rope to a stake driven deep into the beach. Back at home, men such as Jonathan could always get a glass or two of wine at the Willard house opposite Kingsbridge Cathedral, for Alice Willard had an insatiable appetite for news from anywhere. As a boy, Barney had loved to listen to Jonathan, for he spoke of Africa and Russia and the New World, places where the sun always shone or the snow never melted, and his reports of prices and politics were mixed with tales of treachery and piracy, riots and hijacking.

Barney’s favourite story had told how Jonathan had become a seaman. At the age of fifteen he had got drunk in the Jolly Sailor at Combe Harbour on a Saturday night and had woken up the next morning two miles off shore and heading for Lisbon. He had not seen England again for four years, but when at last he got back he had enough money to buy a house. He recounted this as a cautionary tale, but the boy Barney had thought it a wonderful adventure and had wished it would happen to him. Now a man of twenty, Barney still found the sea exciting.

When theHawkwas securely tied up, the two men shook hands. ‘You’re wearing an earring,’ Jonathan said with a surprised smile. ‘You’ve become exotic. Is that a Spanish fashion?’

‘Not really,’ said Barney. ‘It’s more of a Turkish thing. Call it my whim.’ He wore it because it made him feel romantic, and because girls found it intriguing.

Jonathan shrugged. ‘I haven’t been to Seville before,’ he said. ‘What’s it like?’

‘I love it – the wine is strong and the girls are pretty,’ Barney answered. ‘But what’s the news of my family? What happened in Calais?’

‘Captain Bacon has a letter for you from your mother. But there’s not much to tell. We’re still waiting for reliable information.’

Barney was downcast. ‘If the English in Calais were being treated mercifully, and allowed to continue living and working there, they would have sent messages by now. The longer we wait, the more likely it is that they’ve been imprisoned, or worse.’

‘That’s what people are saying.’ From the deck of theHawksomeone shouted Jonathan’s name. ‘I have to get back on board,’ he said.

‘Do you have any iron ore for my cousin Carlos?’

Jonathan shook his head. ‘This cargo is all wool.’ His name was called again, impatiently. ‘I’ll bring you your letter later.’

‘Come and dine with us. We’re in the nearest quarter of the city, where you can see all the smoke. It’s called El Arenal, The Sandpit, and it’s where the king’s guns are made. Ask for Carlos Cruz.’

Jonathan swarmed up a rope and Barney turned away.

He was not surprised by the news, or lack of it, from Calais, but he was dejected. His mother had spent the best years of her life building up the family business, and it made Barney angry and sad to think everything could just be stolen.

He finished his waterfront patrol without finding any iron ore to buy. At the Triana Bridge he turned back and walked through the narrow zigzag streets of the town, hectic now as people left their homes to begin the day’s business. Seville was much wealthier than Kingsbridge, but the people looked sombre by comparison. Spain was the richest country in the world but also the most conservative: there were laws against gaudy clothing. The rich dressed in black while the poor wore washed-out browns. It was ironic, Barney thought, how similar extreme Catholics were to extreme Protestants.

This was the least dangerous time of day to walk through the town: thieves and pickpockets generally slept in the morning, and did their best work in the afternoon and evening when men became careless from wine.

He slowed his pace as he approached the home of the Ruiz family. It was an impressive new brick house with four large windows in a row on the main, upstairs floor. Later in the day those windows would be covered by a grille, and the overweight, breathless Señor Pedro Ruiz would sit behind one like a toad in the reeds, watching the passers-by through the screen; but this early he was still in bed, and all windows and grilles had been thrown open to let in the cool morning air.

Looking up, Barney got what he hoped for: a glimpse of Señor Ruiz’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Jerónima. He walked even more slowly and stared at her, drinking in the pale skin, the lush waves of dark hair, and most of all the large, luminous brown eyes accentuated by black eyebrows. She smiled at him and gave a discreet wave.

Well-bred girls were not supposed to stand at windows, let alone wave at passing boys, and she would get into trouble if she were found out. But she took the risk, every morning at this time; and Barney knew, with a thrill, that it was the closest she could get to flirting.

Passing the house he turned and began to walk backwards, still smiling. He stumbled, almost fell, and made a wry face. She giggled, putting her hand to her red lips.