Mistress of the Sea by Jenny Barden Read Free Book Online Page B

God’s blessing for each. ‘Will.’ He prayed that his brother would be safe at home, and that the men with him in the cell would find freedom before they died.
    There were footsteps approaching.
    He prayed for his best friend: ‘Hal.’
    ‘Yes, Kit?’ Hal answered.
    He must have spoken out loud. He stood up on trembling legs. The footsteps were very close, reverberating rapidly along the passage outside. Three guards had hauled the last man away, knocked him down when he struggled, then trussed up and gagged him. He would not go like that.
    Kit peered at his companions in the gloom and sensed that Hal was squinting at him in a way he remembered from days at sea, one brow down, the other raised quizzically under a shock of black hair.
    The footsteps stopped. Rattling and banging came from the other side of the door: the sound of bolts being drawn. Hal stretched out his hand and Kit clasped it in both of his.
    ‘Pray for me now.’
    The door was thrown back and yellow light flooded in. With it came a draught like a gust over warm marsh, cutting into the stink of stagnation in the cell. Kit moved to the opening. A sword was pressed to his throat.
    ‘
Ahora usted
.’ The voice was surly.
    Kit held out his hands, but he was seized and turned as his arms were wrenched behind him. His wrists were lashed together. A helmeted Spaniard came close and held a noose before his eyes, then a black sack was pulled down over his head, and he felt the noose digging hard into his neck. The rope tightened until he staggered forward. He tried to slow and was choked. He could see nothing inside the hood. The floor was sloping. He was sure he was walking down. The walls seemed to narrow, to close in and strike his arms. Jibes rang loud in his ears.
    ‘
Perro inglés, enemigo de Dios
. . .’
    The rope tugged him roughly, bumping him about from side to side. With every breath he gagged as the hood was sucked into his mouth. He tried to concentrate on where he was, not succumb to the panic that was welling up inside him. He thought of his arrival months before. He must be somewhere beneath the Viceroy’s Palace; he had seen the buildings when he was paraded as a captive, and the ruins of an Indian temple overlooking a great lake. He was stumbling through a passage: a long twisting tunnel. He tripped, cracking his head. His knees and shins struck the sharp edges of steps. Against his ribs, he felt the point of a sword.
    ‘
Marchad! Luterano
. . .’
    He had to get up. He lay sprawled against stairs, and the rope tightened so hard it was easier to crawl than climb on his feet. But he would not slither on his belly. He shuffled to a crouch and staggered up towards a voice – one that rang out into space and was answered with a thrum: the muted babble of a watching crowd. Then he could feel the sun beating down. The noose fell slack. He stood and swayed.
    Nothing touched him.
    He tried to keep still and not shiver or faint – only listen to the droning voice.
    ‘. . .
Cristóbal Doñan
. . .’
    The voice stopped. None of the words had made sense, except that at the end he had heard the semblance of his name. Someone took hold of his shirt, pulling it wide and baring his chest. The noise increased: the clamour of a baying mob. A blade dug into the small of his back. But he leant against it and kept his balance, only wavering slightly in spite of the pain.
    He wanted time before he took a step. He had climbed, so he could tumble, and then his fall would be broken by the noose round his neck. The Spaniards had threatened him more than once with hanging. Terror weakened his legs.
    He had to be brave and not think of dying. He imagined the crowd and their upturned faces, the shimmering white of the Indians’ tunics, the Spaniards looking on from the windows of the palace, the city of Mexico spread out with its streets of water and reed-roofed houses, the snow on the peaks that could be seen from the lake, rising from haze, glinting with light