Q by Luther Blissett (most recommended books txt) 📖

Antwerp, 20 April 1538

‘You’ll be fine here in Antwerp, they leave you in peace, the people in charge are the guilds and the money-makers, apart from those comb-haired cunt-chasers from the hidalgos and the Imperial officials, the Flemish merchants who know the price of everything, they could tell you how many florins Cathay would cost, or even the whole world, they certainly know how to do their accounts, they have sound heads on their shoulders, not like those shit-eating Spaniards, who never do anything but come up with new taxes and get every slag in spitting distance up the duff.’

We met by chance, at the side of a road, outside an inn.

His name’s Philipp.

He’s in an even worse state than I am: he got his leg fucked, he says, when he was called up for the war by the Spanish, whom he hates more than the devil. Philipp is one long soliloquy interrupted by violent bursts of coughing and blood-stained catarrh. We cross the jetty, urged on by the traffic of the sailors and the dockers, an intersection of different languages and accents. We run into a troop of Spaniards, gleaming oval helmets that get them the nickname of ‘iron-eggs’. Philipp curses and spits. ‘The other evening some whore stabbed one of them and they’re not about to forget it. The sons of bitches will come on all heavy for a few days and then they’ll come back to get the clap from our girls. And it’s no more than they deserve. May the pox take the lot of them!’

Boats loaded with every kind of merchandise on the planet, rolls of fabric, sacks of spices, grain.

A little boy runs towards us, the limping man grabs him by the collar and murmurs something to him. The boy nods, frees himself from his grip and runs in the opposite direction.

‘You’re in luck, the Englishman’s at the beer-house.’

A big table in the open air, filled� with sailors, ships’ captains engaged in heated negotiations, some local ship-owners, recognisable by their black cloaks, elegantly cut and unadorned. The limping man says to wait for him, he goes over to a big bloke who turns towards us and points to me, and beckons me over.

‘This is Mr Price, master of the St George.’

We bow to each other slightly.

‘Philipp tells me you want to get to England.’

‘I can work my passage.’

‘It’s two days’ sailing to Plymouth.’

‘Not London?’

‘The St George is bound for Plymouth.’

There was no time or reason to think about it. ‘Fine.’

‘You’ll have to make yourself useful in the galley. Make sure you’re at the ship by five tomorrow morning.’

*

A battered bed in an inn that Philipp brought me to, waiting for the hours to pass.

Squares, roads, bridges, palaces, markets. People, dialects and different religions. The road through memories is hazardous and bumpy: they’re always ready to betray you. The dwellings of the bankers in Augsburg, the gleaming streets of Strasbourg, the indestructible walls of M�nster… it all comes back to my mind confused, disconnected. It wasn’t even me, it was other people, with different names and a different fire in their veins. The fire that burned right down to the bottom.

A spent candle.

Too much devastation behind me, on this earth that I wish the sea would swallow up once and for all.

England. Great man, that Henry VIII. Closes down the monastic orders and impounds all the possessions of the monasteries. Eats and fucks from morning till night and meanwhile proclaims himself head of the Church of England…

A country without papists or Lutherans. Fine, and then maybe the New World. In the end it doesn’t matter where to, just away from here, away from another defeat, the lost kingdom of Batenburg.

From the horror.

The image of the rolling head of Jan van Batenburg attacks me at night and stops me from sleeping, and perhaps not even distance will drive it away.

I’ve seen things that perhaps only I could tell. But I don’t want to. I want to get rid of them once and for all, and vanish into a hidden hole, become invisible, die in peace, if I’m ever granted so much as a moment of peace.

I’ve got a thousand years of war in the bag, a dagger, a shirt and the money that’s going to hoist this anchor. And that’ll have to be enough.

*

Just before dawn. It’s time to go. There isn’t a soul down in the street, a dog glances at me suspiciously as it gnaws on some scraps. I walk through the deserted streets, taking my bearings from the spars of the ships that stand out behind the roofs of the houses. In the area around the port I run into a few beer-soaked drunks. Their burps echo from along way off. The St George must be the fifth ship along.

A sudden agitated noise from an alley to my right. Through the corner of my eye I see five men gathered closely around a sixth, busy kicking the shit out of him. It has nothing to do with me, I quicken my pace, the poor guy’s screams are drowned by the noise of retching and blows to his belly. I recognise the egg-helmets. A patrol of Spaniards. I get past the alley and catch sight of the masts of the St George. From the gangway of one of the ships moored in the harbour half a dozen men come running towards me, clutching harpoons and grappling hooks. Calm, now. Passing me, they slip into the alley, screams in Spanish, the sound of thumps. Holy shit. I run towards my ship, there it is, nearly there, someone trips me from behind, I stumble and graze my face on the cobbles.

‘You cunt, thought you’d get away from us, did you?’

Unmistakable accent. More iron-eggs, emerging from God knows where.

‘What the fuck…’

A kick in the ribs catches the breath in my throat.

I roll myself up like a cat, more kicks, my head, got to protect my head with my hands.

They’re fighting away in the alley.

I peep out between my fingers and see the Spaniards getting out their pistols. Maybe they’ve got a bullet for me, too. No, they’re heading for the alley. Gunfire. The sound of footsteps running away.

The one who was kicking me puts the tip of his sword to my throat.

‘Get up, wretch.’

I expect he’s the only one who knows a few words of Flemish.

I stand up and get my breath back. ‘I’ve got nothing to do with it,’ I cough, ‘…I’ve got to get on to the English ship.’

He laughs. ‘No, what you’ve got to do is thank God that I can’t kill you like a dog: my captain ordered us just to give you a beating.’

The boot gets me right between the legs. I fall and almost faint. Everything spins, the spars, the houses, the bastard’s ludicrous moustache. Then some sinewy arms lift me up and drag me away.

We pass through a confusion of kicks and shouted insults. By now my senses are dulled, my limbs have stopped responding.

I feel the street slipping beneath my feet, two of them carrying me.

Shouts from the windows, objects falling, we get a move on.

The one to my right is tripped up and we fall. My face in a puddle. Leave me here. The shouts get louder, there are people at the end of the street, a cart shoved across it to bar the way: pitchforks. The Spaniards are yelling incomprehensibly. I raise my head: we’re trapped against a building, the road is blocked by a barricade, insults are being hurled from behind it. Someone is throwing pots and pans out of the window on to the Spaniards. One of them lies unconscious on the ground. The other one who was dragging me is standing behind me, his pike levelled. I try to get up, but my legs won’t straighten, everything’s spinning. Darkness. Christ…

� � *

My head drops onto a soft surface, I must have been tied up, no, I move a hand, my legs don’t respond, a foot, my limbs feel like they weigh a ton.

Set me free. The words stay in my head, saliva and something solid comes out of my mouth: a broken tooth.

I open one eye and there’s the feeling of water on my cheeks. A cloth is cleaning my face.

‘I didn’t think you’d make it. But judging by your collection of scars you can take care of yourself in a fight.’

A calm voice with the local accent, a blurred shadow on a big window.

I spit clots of coagulated blood and saliva.

‘Shit…’

The shadow comes closer. ‘Yeah.’

‘How did I get here?’

My voice sounds cavernous and stupid.

‘They carried you. You were brought you here this morning. It seems that any enemy of the Spanish is a friend of Antwerp. That’s why you’re alive. And why you’re here.’

‘Where’s here?’

I want to retch, but I hold it back.

‘Somewhere the Spaniards and the cops never come.’

I manage to pull myself up into a sitting position.�

‘Why?’

My head falls on to my chest, I strain to lift it back up.

‘Because this is where people with money live. Or rather let’s just say that the kind of people who live here are the kind of people who make money. And they’re the ones who make a difference, believe me.’

He hands me a jug of water and puts a basin by my feet. I empty the jug over my head, gulp down, spit, my tongue is swollen and cut in several places.

I can just about make him up. He’s thin, about forty, grey at the temples, alert expression.

He hands me a rag and I dry my face.

‘Is it your house?’

‘It belongs to me and anyone who happens to be in trouble,’ he points out through the window. ‘I was on top of a roof and I saw everything. For once the imperial soldiers got it in the neck.’

He shakes my hand. ‘I’m Lodewijck Pruystinck, roofer, but the brethren call me Eloi. What about you?’

‘I ended up by chance in the middle of all this, and you can call me whatever you want.’

‘Anyone without a name must have had at least a hundred of them,’ a curious smile. ‘… and a story worth listening to.’

‘Who says I want to tell anyone?’

He smiles and nods. ‘If all you’ve got is the rags you’re wearing, you could accept my money in exchange for a good story.’

‘You’d be throwing your money away.’

‘Oh no, on the contrary. It would be an investment.’

I’ve stopped following him. Who the hell am I talking to?

‘You really must be a rich fucker.’

‘For the time being I’m the one who’s tended your wounds, the one who’s got you out of the shit you were in.’

We stay there in silence, while I do a roll-call of all the muscles in my body.

Evening is