Seas of Fortune(6)

Of course, even if cupidity had triumphed over piety, he was in trouble. Unless she could convert it to an innocuous ingot herself, she would have to recruit an assistant, who might alert the Church. And even if she didn’t arouse any suspicion, life wouldn’t be the same. She might blackmail him, or denounce him if he did something to displease her.

As a secret Jew, Henrique had known that his life might come to this turning point. It was time to get moving.

There was a knock at the door. Henrique put the musket on full cock. “Who’s there?”

“Maurício.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.” His voice sounded puzzled, not nervous or fearful.

“Bide a moment.” Henrique uncocked the weapon, and set it down again. He unbarred the door, took a quick look at the street past Maurício, and pulled his servant into the room.

“What—”

“Bar the door again,” Henrique said. “I am glad you returned in time.” Maurício had been off on an errand to Cameta.

Maurício fiddled with the door. “I hope you have a good explanation.”

Henrique started throwing provisions into a sack. Cassava bread. Beef jerky. Acai fruit. “I have to flee for my life. Actually, we both do.”

“What’s wrong?” Maurício asked. Henrique told him.

Maurício raised his eyebrows. “I certainly don’t want to see you get burned as a heretic. But why exactly do I have to flee? Can’t you just, oh, tie me up so I can swear that I wasn’t complicit in your crimes?”

“Sure. But they would probably put you to the torture anyway, you being my long-faithful servant and all.

“Even if they didn’t, the Church will seize my assets. And where would that put you?”

Maurício blanched. Under Portuguese law, an ex-slave could be re-enslaved by the creditors if his former master went into debt.

“Is there a ship about to leave for Lisbon?” Maurício asked. “We could board it, and outrun the bad news. Once in the city, we could lose ourselves in the crowd, perhaps sail someplace outside the reach of the Inquisition. France, perhaps.”

Henrique shook his head. “A sugar boat came through two weeks ago.” They didn’t have a regular schedule, but they came up the coast once a month, on average. There was no reason for another to appear within the next week.

Henrique pried up a floorboard, probed underneath with a stick. In Amazonia, you didn’t search a dark opening with your hand. Not unless you were fond of snakes. He pulled out a pouch, which held money and jewels. He might need to bribe someone to make good his escape.

“Could we reach Pernambuco? Or Palmares?” There was a Dutch enclave in Pernambuco. And, farther south, in Palmares, there was a mocambo of runaway slaves.

“We’d never make it by sea; both the wind and the current would be against us.” That was, in fact, why Maranhão had been made a separate state, reporting directly to Lisbon, in 1621; it was too difficult to communicate with Salvador do Bahia in the south. Coasters did go as far south as São Luis, the capital of Maranhão, but taking one would just delay the inevitable. The authorities in Belém would send word to São Luis, and the latter was too small a place to hide for long.

“And the overland route is completely unexplored. Nor would the map from the future aid us there.”

Maurício had started collecting his own possessions. Mostly books. “Then why not sail north? There are English, and Dutch and French, in Guiana and the Caribbean. We might even get picked up en route by a Dutch cruiser.”

Henrique was sure he was forgetting something important. Ah, yes, a hammock. You didn’t want to sleep on the ground in the rainforest. Not if you didn’t like things crawling over your skin. Or burrowing into it. Hammocks were a native invention, which the Portuguese had adopted. And that reminded Henrique of a few other native items he needed. He gathered those up, too.

“Henrique, are you going to answer me?”

“Going north is what the garrison would expect us to do. And before you ask, they would be equally on guard against the possibility that friends would hide us, and smuggle us onto the next sugar boat to Lisbon.”

“So, what are we going to do? Did the people from the future teach your family how we might turn ourselves invisible?”

“In a way. We will flee into the Amazon, lose ourselves among the trees of the vast rainforest. Go native. At least for a time.”

Maurício wailed. “But I’ll run out of reading matter!”

* * *

Captain Diogo Soares shook his head. His good friend, Henrique Pereira da Costa, a Judaizer! He could scarcely credit it. Perhaps it was a mistake, a dreadful mistake. Although Henrique’s flight was certainly evidence of guilt.