Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

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.’

‘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 home-made, but she had brightened the place with bougainvillea blossom and colourful 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 José y María , the killing of Ironhand Gómez, 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-coloured 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!’