“Mama said she was a child when she was taken,” I said.
He still didn’t speak.
“Her island was surrounded by rocks and she would swim out to them with her older brothers. One morning, she swam back to shore by herself. That’s when she was stolen. She says that she hopes her brother told their mother that she had drowned. She didn’t want to imagine her mother standing by the shore hoping she would return. She won’t talk about her journey, though she once told me she was put on a boat with a chain around her neck, then taken to a market square in Lisbon in Portugal and sold. After that she was taken to a city built on water.”
“I know it,” he said.
I waited. I’d learned that it was best to let Mama tell her stories in her own time, especially as she often struggled to find words that I would understand.
“The city is called Venice. I spent many years there. It was not where I wanted to be, but I didn’t suffer like some. I…” He gave me a sideways look. “I had skills they found useful.”
“My mama was a maid,” I said. “She has a scar across her back from where her mistress poured hot wax across her.”
The fire flared and crackled. I would have to return soon. Mama would be starting to worry.
“Are you … are you Jacques Francis?” I asked.
“I’ve had many names. That was one of them. But it does you no good to know that. I still cannot help you.”
“They say—”
“I am old. I know what they say. Would I be an apothecary’s errand boy if it was true? I would be living the life of a rich man surrounded by gold.”
I couldn’t see his face to read his expression.
“Is there no treasure at all?” I asked.
“I did not say that there was no treasure. There are plenty of secrets below those waters and some of those secrets may be gold, but I would not risk my life to find them.”
“But you risked your life for others.”
“And I made a decision that I would never do it again.”
“You wouldn’t have to. All you’d have to do is tell Mama where to dive. That’s all.”
“And even if she came back with bags of gold, do you think they would let her keep it? Do you think your mother’s life would be easier? If she is happy now, let her stay happy.”
She was only happy because she knew nothing about Griffin’s bag of beads. Soon there would be so many the drawstring would not pull tight. Then what? I thought of the woman in the pillories, her hem damp with slops and her ear nailed to the post. I had looked out for her in the town since then, but perhaps she had gone elsewhere.
Jacques Francis stood up. He went back into the shop and I heard the sound of a chest opening and closing. He came back with a cloak draped over his arm.
“Put this on as best as you can.”
I slid off the chair and tied the cloak around my neck. It brushed the floor. He opened the door and the cold pushed past him into the back room. I wrapped the cloak tight around me. He was already striding away. I ran after him.
“Where are we going?”
He didn’t answer. We were the evening’s entertainment for many in Southampton that night, especially me trotting along, trying not to trip over the cloak or let it drag in the dirt. We turned into St Michael’s Square. The church was dark and empty, the traders long gone. Lanterns flickered in the windows of the merchants’ houses surrounding us.
Jacques Francis raised his arms. “This is where the Venetian tried to sell me.”
Sell him? I thought of conger eels on the fishmongers’ slabs and bundles of dented spoons or poppets and pallets piled with old clothes. There were markets that sold chickens, horses and cows. Those were the markets I knew. But I also knew that there were other markets that sold people. But Jacques Francis was a diver, the best. He couldn’t be a sl— I hated even thinking the word.
“Was he was seeking payment for your services?” I asked.
“For my services?” His voice lowered. “No, he was seeking payment for me. In Venice and other countries, people like me and your mother are bought and sold like a wool blanket. Except, merchants care for their blankets better than their slaves.”
Mama had said that in Portugal, slaves were worked until they dropped dead. They were owned like a horse, but fed less.
“Mama said that there is no slavery in England. Isn’t Southampton in England?”
“Yes, Southampton is in England, but there are Englishmen on Portuguese soil who own slaves. Perhaps that’s why that rogue, Corsi, stood here as bold as the moon above us and offered me for sale to the highest bidder.”
“Did anyone bid?” I clapped my hand over my mouth. That was a question I should have kept inside.
Jacques Francis didn’t answer. I looked up at the moon. It was definitely brighter without London’s smoke. I wished it would shine some light into my head and help me see what I was supposed to do next. He leaned forward. He reminded me of the archers practising on the salt marsh. When they pull back their bow, it seems that their whole body, not just their arms, are bent towards making that arrow hit its mark.
He said, “Can you hear it?”
I could hear the bagpipes from a tavern in a neighbouring street and singing coming from down by the waterfront.
“Hear what, sir?” I said.
He shook his head. “I think it’s only me who hears it. So many men were lost beneath the water that sometimes I wonder if they’re calling to me. When we dived for the Mary Rose, I went into the water with my head full
