Daughters of Babylon (5 page)

“Are you all right, Silvie?”

She pressed knuckles to her lower eyelids. “Overtired, a little emotional, I’ll be okay.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh gosh, it’s twenty past twelve, and I haven’t finished packing.”

“Then I shall take my leave now.” He picked up a briefcase and stuffed the documents inside. “Are you sure you don’t want a ride to the station in the morning? I’m coming into the city anyway.”

“No, thank you. I’ve booked a cab, it’s all arranged.” Silvina pressed the photograph to her heart as she walked Alphonse to the door.

“I do not want you to worry about TPA, FST, VAT or any other acronyms, while you are away,” he said. Her strain must have showed, for he added, “Give no more thought to Blythe. She will come around.”

“I hope so. I thought she was upset because I’d be missing the strategy sessions. When we first landed the Toulouse contract, she said, ‘This is fabulous, you’ll be able to visit my old stomping grounds.’ But since Viv died, she refuses to talk about the place, and she’s not happy about me going there.”

“She’s right you should be careful, but you are a grown woman. The seventies were a strange decade, even in Algeria. It was the middle child between peace-and-love sixties and economic hostage-taking of the eighties. Perhaps she fears exposure of some muscular enjoyment from her past.”

“I hope that’s all it is.” She lifted Alphonse’s overcoat off a hanger and handed it to him. She looked at the photo again. “Please give Claire-Elise my deepest thanks. I feel like a part of me knows
Reine du Ciel
already.”

“She will be happy to hear that.”

“Was your wife one of the Daughters?”

He stopped buttoning his coat. “I don’t know. She was a Cerabornes, of course.”

“I don’t know that word.”

“Cerabornes is her family name and the name of the village nearest
Reine du Ciel
. Her parents owned the grocery store. They helped to sell and ship the produce that Claire-Elise and her friends grew. Their ancestors have lived in those mountains for at least a thousand years.”

“I would love to know more. Do you think Claire-Elise might agree to meet me for an espresso one day?”

“If she did, it would be magnificent.” He kissed Silvie on both cheeks, then rummaged through his pockets and pressed a tiny glass bottle into her hand. It was a second Courvoisier. “Save this for a night when the wind blows cold and
la maison de la montagne
feels ready to share her secrets.
Bonne chance
, my friend.”

Talmont Castle
The Duchy of Aquitaine
SUMMER, A.D. 1141

A small, stout fishing boat slipped through the pre-dawn waters of a quiet cove, sails down. The vessel was in need of paint, the man and boy on deck, in need of sleep. Their gazes swept the nearby shallows.

“When hunting the serpent,” the man was saying, “first thing one must find is a good wreck. The more mangled, the better.”

“How does one find such a wreck,
tío
Benicio?” The boy leaned against the boat’s hull, chin resting on his forearms.

Silhouetted against a pinkening sky, his uncle kept one firm hand on the rudder and slowed
Nuestra Senhora de Graza Perpetua
to a crawl. With his other, he tapped an ear. “By using this, Arturo.”

“But what does she sound like, the serpent? Does she hiss, make bubbles?”

“It is not the serpent we are listening for.” He gestured toward the waters of the calm, dark bay. “Can you not hear them?”

Arturo stood on tiptoe and craned his skinny neck. He could hear the gentle slap of waves against the hull; he heard Father rummaging through tin cookware belowdecks; he heard nothing, however, to suggest a mangled wreck or the conger eels that inhabit them and fetch a fine price at market. “I think I will never make a good fishermen,” he said. “I hear nothing.”

Benicio placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder and lowered his voice. “When I was your age, I felt the same way, but then my uncle shared a secret with me, one that is known to only a handful of the finest Galician fishermen.”

“What is the secret,
tío
?”

His voice dropped to a whisper. “If I tell you, you must promise never to reveal it to another soul, except, perhaps, to a nephew, should you find yourself on foreign shores similar to this one.”

Arturo crossed himself. “I swear upon the holy relics of Santiago.”

“Very well, then, here is the secret: when brave men die, especially at sea, they leave a trace at the very spot that their ship goes down . . . and that trace can be picked up by anyone—throughout eternity— who knows how to listen.”

The boy’s nostrils quivered, while he allowed the splendour of what he had just been told to settle. “Why would brave men do that? Why leave a trace, where they could be hunted down?”

“Why, to help other seamen, of course.”

Everyone in Padrón knew that Uncle Benicio wove outrageous tales, especially when he’d enjoyed a quaff or two, but a thrill coursed through Arturo nonetheless. He cast his gaze across the water again. A predawn mist was rising off the sea like wood smoke, hovering over whitecaps of fine spun sugar. Though he couldn’t be sure, Arturo thought that maybe he detected some echo of a skirmish, some whirling desperation in the vicinity that his uncle had pointed out.

“Are you sure those men died bravely,
tío
? I think they were drunk and fighting with each other.”

“If they were Galician, they were heroes, drunk or sober, but even a vessel of frog-sucking Franks will house decent eels. Serpents aren’t fussy.”

“What kind of swill are you feeding my son now?”

Plutarco de Vila de Padrón climbed out of the sleeping hold, scratching a knit cap pulled over salt-encrusted hair. Darker and more wiry than his younger brother, he smelled of sweat, cod and sour red wine.

“About time you joined the world, Tarco. I think we’ve found her.”

The smaller man peered, bleary-eyed, across the bay, and Arturo knew that his father couldn’t see the way Uncle Benicio saw. With a shrug of indifference, he shuffled toward a wooden barrel and lifted the lid.

“You haven’t prepared the bait, Turo. What have you been doing? Wasting your time again, listening to your uncle’s fish tales.”

“You said we should wait until we’ve anchored, Papá. The serpent only eats—”

The backhand knocked him sideways like a charging bull. Arturo held his injured cheek and, staring at Father, drove the pain, as he always did, inward.

“I know what the serpent eats,” Father said, “I don’t need a child to tell me.”

“Calm yourself, brother,” Benicio said. “The boy needs daylight to slice fish. No more torches. We’ve used too much pitch as it is.”

“I could slice bait with my eyes closed before the age of five and pull in nets with the best of them.”

“Yes, yes, we’ve all heard your stories—so what? Aha, look, Arturo, sure enough, that log is a broken mast. See how she comes up at an angle?” He turned
Nuestra Senhora
so that her name would not be visible from the shore. “We’ll drop anchor portside, right here. Help me lift it over.”

Gratitude soothed the boy’s aches. Everyone knew that Benicio was the strongest man in Padrón; on feast days, blessed by Santiago the Apostle, he could juggle anchors with a full wine bottle on his head and never spill a drop. Nonetheless, Arturo took hold of a tine of iron, weightless in his uncle’s grip, and assisted with the motions of heaving it over. One second . . . two . . . he heard a soft thud.

Father grunted. “Any closer to shore, we’d have run aground. If the tide goes out—”

“The tide is coming in,” Benicio said, “but this cove is deceptive, some say enchanted. The waters come in fast.”

“What about them?” Father pointed upward toward the cliff along the shore. “Anyone can see us from there, and we are well within arrow range.”

Arturo sucked in his breath. Talmont Castle was, indeed, becoming more ominous against the sunrise. A jagged edifice of towers and battlements, it thrust and sprawled across the horizon like advancing stone armies. The castle was home to generations of kings, princes and dukes of Aquitaine, and was his closest glimpse yet of foreign power.

“There may be an archer or two, but I see no colours displayed,” Benicio said. “I don’t think the family is there. It was the old
duque
who loved the place. No one else comes around, since he coughed up his last.”

“It only takes one archer. And we are poaching.”

“Plutarco, have you mislaid your balls again? We are humble fishermen, making an honest living. We can’t tell one border from another, and I am sending our young innocent ashore to prove it.”

“You’re what?”

“Arturo,” Benicio went on. “See those clefted rocks, the ones that now catch the light and shimmer, even before the sun hits them? You will find
bígaros
in the wedges that are so fat and succulent they would make the Virgin weep.”

“I am going ashore?” Arturo clenched both fists to his sides, to keep himself from jumping up and down.

Father rose to full height. “You are not sending my son ashore. I forbid it.”

Benicio stood half a head taller than his brother without trying. “Your son has been stuck on this shithole of a boat for three months without complaining—and must I remind you who is captain?”

Arturo felt a pang of empathy for his father. Sometimes
tío
Benicio was too hard on Papá whose loss of his own boat and those other debts were not his fault. Still, the prospect of stepping onto foreign, perhaps even hostile, shores set his heart thumping.

Father’s eyes crept over him, scanning for signs of eagerness—or disloyalty, as he liked to call it. Arturo braced himself for a second blow, but none came. Instead, Father’s shoulders sagged.

“You say the tide is coming in. How long can he stay ashore safely?”

“An hour or so. Arturo, listen to me. When the sun rests upon the donjon of that castle, the highest point, you must return to the boat, no dallying. Do you understand?”

“Yes,
tío
. When the sun rests on the highest point.”

“Stay away from those grassy dunes and anything south of them. The marshes hide quicksand and riptides.”

“But I’m a strong swimmer,” Arturo said.

“Then the riptides will drown you even faster. Now jump from the stern here, no rowboat. Oars scare off the serpents.” Benicio tossed him a gunny sack. “Fill this with
bígaros
, and tonight we shall feast with profit enough to sail home by torchlight.”

Father knelt to double-knot the laces of Arturo’s sandals. “Keep your shoes on, son. Those rocks will shred your feet—and not a word about this to your mother.”

Arturo nodded, only half-listening, while he cinched the burlap around his waist. He climbed over the edge of the boat, let his feet dangle and took one final look across the watery expanse between himself and wedges full of
bígaros
that would make fat virgins weep. He pinched his nostrils shut and leaped; he paddled and waded to shore and saw within moments that
tío
Benicio was right. The
bígaros
, the periwinkles, were everywhere, heaped in clusters, and easy to pry off with a small stick.

Tide waters lapped the base of the clefted outcrop in small rhythmic swishes. Arturo’s arms and legs tingled with salt spray, his nostrils with the scent of pine forest. Pools of effervescence bubbled at his feet. The first two or three periwinkles, he took time to admire. Grooved spiral bands lightened in colour as they swirled toward the tip; inside, the shells were pearlescent white, smooth as a lady’s wrist. Longing that he couldn’t quite name rose and fell—

—and a squeal pierced the air.

Arturo threw a hand to his ear and nearly flung the bag of winkles into the sea. What manner of Frankish demon could make such a noise? A second squeal was followed by chattering, and he realized with horror that this was no demon or rabid wild boar hurtling toward him—it was woman, and there was more than one of them!

Their conversation approached with intensifying waves from the hill behind the rock. Arturo quickly assessed his options. He could stay where he was and hope, by some miracle, not to be noticed, which, if they were coming to bathe in the cove, would be impossible. He could make a run for the water with only half a bag of
bígaros
and call it a day. If he made a dash for it, however, he’d call attention to himself and would be thrown into prison along with his father and uncle for poaching. Running was a coward’s way out. If Uncle Benicio were in this predicament, he would relax, hold his ground, and charm the ladies. Arturo wished he’d paid more attention to how, precisely, that was done.

The chattering had ceased, and he wondered if they had seen him and were now planning to flush him out like a grouse—but no, Arturo had some rudimentary hunting skills, which included a prey’s healthy sense of dread. What he felt more than anything, so keenly that his teeth ached, was curiosity.

Securing the gunny sack at his waist, he crept along the base of the outcrop toward the hillside where the rock leveled off to a grassy slope ascending to the castle. He recalled Benicio’s warning about the dunes; this appeared to be ordinary grass.

He peered around the corner of the monolith that lent him protection and gasped. Invisible from the bay was a copse of corkscrew willow that contained a small glade. Within the glade, tucked up against the granite wall was a hut built of rough stone slabs and a sod roof. The structure blended so cleverly against the striated outcrop that a person gazing down from the castle would see nothing but a quiet stand of trees.

The women had entered the hut. He knew this with bone-shuddering certainty when the small shuttered window burst open and a head popped through.

“Phew, this place reeks of dead fish!”

Arturo leaped back around the corner, not knowing whether he had been seen. He waited and listened through thundering heartbeats. Apparently, he hadn’t been. Creeping around again, he heard no conversation. Either the women had stopped talking or the stone walls absorbed their sound. The complaint about the fishy smell had been uttered in Langue d’oc, the language of Aquitaine that Arturo knew from pilgrims who stopped in Padrón on their way to Santiago and from nerve-shattered veterans of the Crusade. Their tongue was less harsh than Frankish but no match for the beauty of Galician—then again, what was?