He was reading a sheaf of papers, and once again Barney thought this was for show. He and Bacon stood with Ignacio, waiting for Alfonso to speak. Barney sensed Bacon becoming angry. The disdainful treatment was getting to him. Barney willed him to stay calm.
At last Alfonso looked up. "You're under arrest," he said. "You have been trading illegally."
That was what Barney had been afraid of.
He translated, and Bacon said: "If he tries to arrest me, the Hawk will flatten his town."
This was an exaggeration. The Hawk's guns were minions, small cannons that would not destroy any well-built masonry structure. They were too small even to sink a ship, unless by extraordinary luck. The four-pound cannonballs were designed to paralyze an enemy vessel by wrecking its masts and rigging, and killing or demoralizing the crew, thereby depriving the captain of all control. Just the same, the Hawk could inflict a good deal of unpleasant damage on the little town square.
Barney scrambled for a more conciliatory way of phrasing Bacon's rejoinder. After a moment he said to Alfonso in Spanish: "Captain Bacon suggests that you send a message to his crew, telling them that he has been detained quite lawfully, and they should not fire the ship's guns at your town, no matter how angry they may feel."
"That's not what he said." Clearly Alfonso understood some English.
"It's what he meant."
Bacon said impatiently: "Ask him how much he needs to be bribed."
Again Barney's translation was more tactful. "Captain Bacon asks what it would cost to purchase a license to trade here."
There was a pause. Would Alfonso angrily refuse, and jail them for corruption as well as illegal trading?
The fat man said: "Five escudos per slave, payable to me."
Thank heaven, Barney thought.
The price was high, but not unreasonable. A Spanish escudo was a coin containing one-eighth of an ounce of gold.
Bacon's reply was: "I can't pay more than one escudo."
"Three."
"Done."
"One more thing."
"Damn," Bacon muttered. "I agreed too easily. Now there'll be some supplementary charge."
Barney said in Spanish: "Captain Bacon will not pay more."
Alfonso said: "You have to threaten to destroy the town."
Barney had not expected that. "What?"
"When the authorities in Santo Domingo accuse me of permitting illicit trade, my defense will be that I had to do it to save the town from the wrath of the savage English pirates."
Barney translated, and Bacon said: "Fair enough."
"I'll need it in writing."
Bacon nodded agreement.
Barney frowned. He did not like the idea of a written confession of crime, even if it was true. However, he saw no way around it.
The door opened and the girl in the yellow dress walked in. Ignacio glanced at her without interest. Alfonso smiled fondly. She crossed the room to his chair as casually as if she were family, and kissed him on the forehead.
Alfonso said: "My niece, Bella."
Barney guessed that niece was a euphemism for illegitimate daughter. Alfonso had fathered a child with a beautiful slave, it seemed. Barney recalled the words of Ebrima: Slaves are always used for sex.
Bella was carrying a bottle, and now she put it on the table with the walking sticks. "I thought you might need some rum," she said, speaking the Spanish of an educated woman with just the hint of an accent Barney did not recognize. She gave him a direct look, and he realized her eyes were the same bright blue as Alfonso's. "Enjoy it in good health," she said, and she went out.
"Her mother was a spitfire, rest her soul," Alfonso said nostalgically. For a moment he was silent, remembering. Then he said: "You should buy Bella's rum. It's the best. Let's have a taste."
Barney began to relax. The atmosphere had changed completely. They were now collaborators, not adversaries.
The secretary got three glasses from a cupboard, drew the stopper from the bottle, and poured generous measures for the other men. They drank. It was very good rum, spicy but smooth, with a kick in the swallow.
Bacon said: "A pleasure to do business with you, Don Alfonso."
Alfonso smiled. "I believe you have sold eighty slaves."
Barney began to make an excuse. "Well, we weren't aware of any prohibition--"
Alfonso ignored him. "So that means you owe me two hundred and forty escudos already. You can settle the account here and now."
Bacon frowned. "It's a bit difficult--"
Alfonso interrupted him before Barney had time to translate. "You got four thousand escudos for the slaves."
Barney was surprised: he had not known that Bacon had made so much. The captain was secretive about money.
Alfonso went on: "You can afford to pay me two hundred and forty right now."
He was right. Bacon got out a heavy purse and laboriously counted out the money, mostly in the larger coins called doubloons, each containing a quarter of an ounce of gold and therefore worth two escudos. His face was twisted in a grimace of discomfort, as if he had a stomachache. It hurt him to pay such a large bribe.
Ignacio checked the amount and nodded to Alfonso.
Bacon stood up to leave.
Alfonso said: "Let me have your threatening letter before you sell any more slaves."
Bacon shrugged.
Barney winced. Rough manners irritated the Spanish, who valued formalities. He did not want Bacon to spoil everything by offending Alfonso's sensibilities just before leaving. They were still under Spanish jurisdiction. He said politely: "Thank you, Don Alfonso, for your kindness in receiving us. We are honored by your courtesy."
Alfonso made a grandly dismissive gesture, and Ignacio led them out.
Barney felt better, though he was not sure they were completely in the clear. However, he wanted to see Bella again. He wondered whether she was married, or courting. He guessed she was about twenty--she might have been less, but dark skin always looked younger. He was eager to know more about her.
Outside in the square, he said to Bacon: "We need rum on board--we're almost out. Should I buy a barrel from that woman, his niece, Bella?"
The captain was not fooled. "Go on, then, you randy young bastard."
Bacon headed back toward the Hawk, and Barney went to the doorway from which he had seen Bella emerge earlier. The house was of wood, but otherwise built on the same pattern as Carlos Cruz's home in Seville, with a central arch leading through to a courtyard workshop--a typical craftsman's dwelling.
Barney smelled the earthy odor of molasses, the bitter black treacle that was produced by the second boiling of sugarcane and was mainly used to make rum. He guessed the smell came from the huge barrels lined up along one side of the yard. On the other side were smaller barrels and stacked bottles, presumably for rum. The yard ended in a little orchard of lime trees.
In the middle of the space were two large tanks. One was a waist-high square of caulked planks, full of a sticky mixture that was being stirred by an African with a large wooden paddle. The brew gave off the bready smell of yeast, and Barney assumed this was a fermentation tank. Alongside it was an iron cauldron perched over a fire. The cauldron had a conical lid with a long spout, and a dark liquid dripped from the spout into a bucket. Barney guessed that in this cauldron the fermented mash was distilled to produce the liquor.
Bella stood over the bucket, sniffing. Barney watched her, admiring her concentration. She was slim but sturdy, with strong legs and arms, no doubt from manhandling barrels. Something about her high forehead reminded him of Ebrima, and on impulse he spoke to her in Manding. He said: "I be nyaadi?" which meant How are you?
She jumped with shock and turned around. Recovering, she spoke a stream of Manding.
Barney replied in Spanish. "I don't really speak the language, I'm sorry. I learned a few words from a friend in Seville."
"My mother spoke Manding," Bella said in Spanish. "She's dead. You spooked me."
&n
bsp; "I'm sorry."
She looked thoughtfully at him. "Not many Europeans bother to pick up even a few words of any African languages."
"My father taught us to learn as much as possible of any tongue we came across. He says it's better than money in the bank."
"Are you Spanish? You don't look it, with that ginger beard."
"English."
"I never met an English person before." She picked up the bucket at her feet, sniffed it, and threw its contents on the ground.
Barney said: "Something wrong with the rum?"
"You always have to discard the first fractions of the distillate. They're poisonous. You can save the stuff and use it for cleaning boots, but if you do, sooner or later some idiot will try drinking it and kill himself. So I throw it away." She touched the tip of a slender finger to the spout and sniffed it. "That's better." She rolled an empty barrel under the spout, then turned her attention back to Barney. "Do you want to buy some rum?"
"Yes, please."
"Come with me. I want to show you the best way to drink it."
She led him to the far end of the yard. She picked small pale green limes from the trees and handed them to him. Barney watched her, mesmerized. All her movements were fluid and graceful. She stopped when he was holding a dozen or so of the fruits. "You have big hands," she said. Then she looked more closely. "But damaged. What happened?"
"Scorch marks," he said. "I used to be a gunner in the Spanish army. It's like being a cook--you're always getting minor burns."
"Shame," she said. "Makes your hands ugly."
Barney smiled. She was sassy, but he liked that.
He followed her into the house. Her living room had a floor of beaten earth, and the furniture was evidently homemade, but she had brightened the place with bougainvillea blossoms and colorful cushions. There was no sign of a husband: no boots in the corner, no sword hanging from a hook, no tall feathered hat. She pointed to a crude wooden chair and Barney sat down.
Bella took two tall glasses from a cupboard. Barney was surprised: glass was an expensive luxury. But selling rum was her business, and all drinks tasted better out of glassware.
She took the limes from him and halved them with a knife, then squeezed their juice into a pottery jug. She knew he was staring at her, and did not seem to mind.
She put an inch of rum into each glass, stirred in a spoonful of sugar, then topped up the glasses with lime juice.
Barney took a glass and sipped. It was the most delicious drink he had ever tasted. "Oh, my soul," he said. "That really is the best way to take it."
"Shall I send some rum to the Hawk this afternoon? My best is half an escudo for a thirty-four-gallon barrel."
That was cheap, Barney thought; about the same price as beer in Kingsbridge. Presumably molasses cost next to nothing on this sugar-growing island. "Make it two barrels," he said.
"Done."
He sipped more of the zesty drink. "How did you get started in this business?"
"When my mother was dying, Don Alfonso offered her anything she wanted. She asked him to give me my freedom and set me up with some way of making a living."
"And he came up with this."
She laughed, opening her mouth wide. "No, he suggested needlework. The rum was my idea. And you? What brought you to Hispaniola?"
"It was an accident."
"Really?"
"Well, more a series of accidents."
"How so?"
Barney thought of Sancho in Seville, the Jose y Maria, the killing of Ironhand Gomez, the raft down the river Leie, the Wolman family in Antwerp, and Captain Bacon's deceit. "It's a long story."
"I'd love to hear it."
"And I'd love to tell you, but I'm needed on board ship."
"Does the captain ever give you time off?"
"In the evenings, usually."
"If I make you supper, will you tell me your story?"
Barney's heart beat faster. "All right."
"Tonight?"
"Yes." He stood up.
To his surprise, she kissed his lips, briefly and softly. "Come at sundown," she said.
"Do you believe in love at first sight?" Barney said to Bella three weeks later.
"Maybe, I don't know."
They were in bed at her house, and the sun had just risen. The new day was already warm, so they had thrown off the bedclothes. They slept naked: there was no need for nightwear in this climate.
Barney had never set eyes on anything as lovely as Bella's golden-brown body carelessly splayed across a linen sheet in the morning light. He never tired of gazing at her, and she never minded.
He said: "The day that I went to speak to Don Alfonso, and I glanced across the square and saw you come out of this house rolling a barrel, and you looked up and met my eye--I fell for you right then, not knowing anything at all about you."
"I might have turned out to be a witch."
"What did you think, when you saw me staring at you?"
"Well, now, I can't say too much, in case you get a swollen head."
"Go on, take the risk."
"At that moment, I couldn't really think at all. My heart started beating fast and I couldn't seem to catch my breath. I told myself it was just a white man with peculiar-colored hair and a ring in his ear, nothing to get excited about. Then you just looked away, as if you hadn't really noticed me, and I figured it really was nothing to get excited about."
Barney was deeply in love with her, and she with him, and they both knew it, but he had no idea what they were going to do about it.
Bacon had sold almost all the slaves, and those that remained were mostly rejects, men who had fallen ill on the voyage, pregnant women, children who had pined away after separation from their parents. The hold of the Hawk was bursting with gold, sugar, and hides. Soon the ship would sail for Europe, and this time it seemed Bacon really did mean to go to Combe Harbour.
Would Bella go home with Barney? It would mean giving up everything she knew, including a successful business. He was afraid to ask her the question. He did not even know whether Bacon would permit a woman on board for the voyage home.
So should Barney give up his old life and settle here in Hispaniola? What would he do? He could help Bella expand the rum business. He could become a sugar planter, perhaps, though he had no capital to invest. It was a big step to take after less than a month in a place. But he wanted to spend his life with Bella.
He had to talk to her about the future. The unasked question was always in his mind, and perhaps hers too. They had to face it.
He opened his mouth to speak, and Jonathan Greenland walked in.
"Barney!" he said. "You have to come, now!" Then he saw Bella and said: "Oh, my good God, she's gorgeous."
It was a clumsy remark, but Bella's beauty could have a distracting effect on a normally intelligent man even when she was fully clothed. Barney smothered a grin and said: "Get out of here! This is a lady's bedroom!"
Jonathan turned his back, but did not leave. "I'm sorry, senorita, but it's an emergency," he said.
"It's okay," Bella said, pulling the sheet over her. "What's the crisis?"
"A galleon approaching, fast."
Barney leaped out of bed and pulled on his breeches. "I'll be back," he said to Bella as he pushed his feet into his boots.
"Be careful!" she said.
Barney and Jonathan ran out of the house and across the square. The Hawk was already lifting its anchor. Most of the crew were on deck and in the rigging, unfurling the sails. The mooring ropes had been untied from the jetty, and the two latecomers had to leap across a gap of a yard onto the deck.
Once safely on board, Barney looked across the water. A mile to the east was a Spanish galleon bristling with guns, coming at them fast with a following wind. For three weeks he had forgotten about the danger he and the rest of the crew were in. But now the forces of law and order had arrived.
The crew used long poles to push the Hawk away from the jetty and out tow
ard deeper water. Captain Bacon turned the ship west, and the wind filled the sails.
The galleon was riding high in the water, suggesting it carried little or no cargo. It had four masts, with more sails than Barney could count at a glance, giving it speed. It was broad in the beam, and had a high aft castle, which would make it relatively clumsy to turn; but in a straight race it could not fail to catch the Hawk.
Barney heard a distant bang that he immediately recognized as cannon fire. There was a nearby crash, a cacophony of breaking timbers, and a chorus of shocked yells from the crew. A huge cannonball passed a yard from Barney, smashed through the woodwork of the forecastle, and disappeared.
The ball had been much bigger than the four-pounders with which the Hawk was armed, so the galleon must have had heavier guns. Even so, Barney thought their gunner must have been lucky to score a hit at the range of a mile.
A moment later the Hawk turned sharply, throwing Barney off balance. He was suddenly afraid that the ship had been badly damaged and was out of control, perhaps sinking. The prospect of dying at sea terrified him--but only for a moment. He saw that Captain Bacon was spinning the wheel, intentionally turning north, broadside to the wind. Fear was replaced by bafflement. Clearly Bacon had realized he could not outrun the Spaniard--but what was his alternative plan?
"Stop staring, you bloody idiot," Jonathan roared at Barney. "Get down on the gun deck where you belong!"
Barney realized he was about to experience his first sea battle. He wondered if it would also be his last. He wished he had been able to go home to Kingsbridge one more time before dying.
He had been under fire before. He was scared, but he knew how to control his fear and do his job.
He went first to the galley, in the forecastle. The cook was bleeding from a flying splinter, but the kitchen had not been wrecked, and Barney was able to light a taper at the fire. He heard a second bang, and tensed, waiting for the impact, terrified all over again; but the ball had missed.
Down in the hold, the few remaining slaves figured out what was going on, and they began to scream in terror, no doubt fearing that they were about to die chained to a sinking ship.
There was a third explosion, again without impact, and Barney's guess was confirmed: the first shot had been lucky. The gunner of the galleon must have made the same deduction, and decided to save his ammunition for better opportunities, for there was no fourth explosion.