Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

Jan was excited by the blast furnace, and said that Ebrima and Carlos must meet his main supplier of metals, Albert Willemsen, as soon as possible — in fact, tomorrow.

Next morning, they all walked to a less affluent neighbourhood near the docks. Albert lived in a modest house with his wife, Betje; a solemn little eight-year-old daughter, Drike; his attractive widowed sister, Evi; and Evi’s son, Matthus, who was about ten. Albert’s premises were strikingly like Carlos’s old home in Seville, with a passage leading to a backyard workplace with a furnace and stocks of iron ore, limestone and coal. He readily agreed that Carlos, Ebrima and Barney could build a blast furnace in his yard, and Jan promised to lend them the money needed.

Over the following days and weeks, they got to know the city. Ebrima was struck by how hard the Netherlands people worked — not the poor, who worked hard everywhere, but the rich. Jan was one of the wealthiest men in town, but he worked six days a week. A Spaniard with that much money would have retired to the countryside, bought a hacienda and paid a steward to collect rents from peasants so that his own lily-white fingers did not have to touch grubby money, while seeking an aristocratic match for his daughter in the hope that his grandchildren would have titles. Netherlanders did not seem to care much about titles, and they liked money. Jan bought iron and bronze and manufactured guns and ammunition; he bought fleeces from England and turned them into woollen cloth that he sold back to the English; he bought profitable shares in cargoes, workshops, farms and taverns; and he loaned money to expanding businesses, to bishops who had overspent their incomes, and to princes. He always charged interest, of course. The Church’s prohibition against usury was ignored here.

Heresy was another thing that did not trouble the people of Antwerp. The city was thronged with Jews, Muslims and Protestants, all cheerfully identifying themselves by their clothing, all doing business on an equal footing. There were folk of many complexions: redbeards like Barney, Africans like Ebrima, light-brown Turks with wispy moustaches, and beige Chinamen with straight blue-black hair. The Antwerpers hated nobody, except those who did not pay their debts. Ebrima liked the place.

Nothing was said about Ebrima’s freedom. Every day he went with Carlos and Barney to Albert’s yard, and every evening they all ate at Jan’s house. On Sundays Ebrima went to church with the family, then slipped away in the afternoon — when the other men were sleeping off the wine they had drunk with the midday meal — and found a place out in the countryside where he could perform the water rite. No one called Ebrima a slave, but in other respects his life was worryingly similar to how it had been in Seville.

While they were working in the yard Albert’s sister Evi often sat with them when they took a break. She was about forty, a little on the heavy side — as were many well-fed Netherlands women in their middle years — with a distinct twinkle in her blue-green eyes. She talked to them all, but especially to Ebrima, who was close to her own age. She had a lively curiosity, and questioned him about life in Africa, pressing him for details, some of which he had to strain to remember. As a widow with a child, she was probably looking for a husband; and since both Carlos and Barney were too young to be interested in her, Ebrima had to wonder whether she had a speculative eye on him. He had not been intimate with a woman since parting with Elisa, but he hoped that was a temporary state: he certainly did not intend to live the life of a monk.

Building the blast furnace took a month. When they were ready to test it, both Jan’s family and Albert’s came to watch.

Ebrima recollected that they had done this only once before, and so they could not be sure that it would work a second time. The three of them would look stupid if it failed. Worse, a fiasco would blight their future — which made Ebrima realize that he had been half-consciously hoping to stay and make a living here. And he hated the thought of making a fool of himself in front of Evi.

Carlos lit the fire, Ebrima poured in the iron ore and lime, and Barney whipped on the two harnessed horses that drove the bellows mechanism.

As before, there was a long, nail-biting wait.

Barney and Carlos fidgeted nervously. Ebrima struggled to maintain his habitual impassivity. He felt as if he had staked everything on the turn of a single card.

The spectators became a bit bored. Evi started talking to Hennie about the problems of having adolescent children. Jan’s three sons chased Albert’s daughter around the yard. Albert’s wife, Betje, offered oranges on a tray. Ebrima was too tense to eat.

Then the iron began to flow.

The molten metal inched slowly from the base of the furnace into the prepared stone channels. At first, the motion was agonizingly slow, but soon the flow strengthened, and began to fill the ingot-shaped hollows in the ground. Ebrima poured more raw materials into the top of the furnace.

He heard Albert say wonderingly: ‘Look at that — it just keeps coming!’

‘Exactly,’ Ebrima said. ‘As long as you keep feeding the furnace, it will keep giving you iron.’

Carlos warned: ‘It’s pig iron — it has to be purified before it can be used.’

‘I can see that,’ Albert said. ‘But it’s still impressive.’

Jan said incredulously: ‘Are you telling me that the king of Spain turned up his nose at this invention?’

Carlos replied: ‘I don’t suppose King Felipe even heard of it. But the other iron makers in Seville felt threatened. Spanish people don’t like change. The people who run our industries are very conservative.’

Jan nodded. ‘I suppose that’s why the king buys so many cannons from foreigners like me — because Spanish industry doesn’t produce enough.’

‘And then they complain that the silver from America arrives in Spain only to leave again right away.’

Jan smiled. ‘Well, as we’re Netherlands merchants rather than Spanish grandees, let’s go into the house, have a drink, and talk business.’

They went inside and sat around the table. Betje served them beer and cold sausage. Imke gave the children raisins to keep them quiet.

Jan said: ‘The profits from this new furnace will be used first to pay off my loan, with interest.’

Carlos said: ‘Of course.’

‘Afterwards, the money should be shared out between Albert and yourselves. Is that how you see it?’

Ebrima realized that the word ‘yourselves’ was deliberately vague. Jan did not know whether Ebrima was to be included as an equal partner with Carlos and Barney.

This was no time for humility. Ebrima said: ‘The three of us built the furnace together: Carlos, Barney and me.’

Everyone looked at Carlos, and Ebrima held his breath. Carlos hesitated. This was the real test, Ebrima realized. When they had been on the raft, it had cost Carlos nothing to say You’re a free man, Ebrima , but this was different. If Carlos acknowledged Ebrima as an equal, in front of Jan Wolman and Albert Willemsen, he would be committed.

And Ebrima would be free.

At last Carlos said: ‘A four-way split, then. Albert, Barney, Ebrima and me.’

Ebrima’s heart bounded, but he kept his face expressionless. He caught Evi’s eye, and saw that she was looking pleased.

That was when Barney dropped his bombshell. ‘Count me out,’ he said.

Carlos said: ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You and Ebrima invented this furnace,’ Barney said. ‘I hardly did anything. Anyway, I’m not staying in Antwerp.’

Ebrima heard Imke gasp. She would be disappointed: she had fallen in love with Barney.