off
Pernambuco. Pray, what is it the Society requires so urgently it must
have an admonitory sent from Coimbra? I am aware of the Frenchman—how
could one not be, fluttering around the promenade like a butterfly
with his fripperies and gewgaws."
"Your Grace, it is a matter of some delicacy within our
Society."
Bishop Vasco stopped in his tracks, face red with more than afternoon
heat. He rapped his stick on the stones. Birds flew up in a clatter
from the curved eave-tiles. Faces appeared in dark doorways.
"Wretched Jesuitical ... It's that Gonçalves, isn't it?
Don't answer; I wouldn't make a liar of you. Keep your Jesuitical
secrets. I have my own informations." He ducked his head; sweat
flew from his long, curled wig. "Forgive me, Father Quinn. The
heat makes me intemperate, aye, and this country. Understand this one
thing: Brazil is not as other places. Even in this city the Society
of Jesus, the Franciscans, and the Carmelites are in the scantest of
communions with each other over the status; high on the Amazon, it is
naked rivalry. The Holy Church is little more than an engine fed with
the souls of the red man—and his flesh also. What's this,
what's this?" A secretary bowed into the bishop's path and
knelt, offering up a leather tray of documents. "Hah. My
attention is required. Well, Father Quinn, I shall send with
instructions for that diversion I mentioned. I may even risk a little
wager myself. I very much look forward to seeing you in action."
The bishop mimed a sword-lunge with his stick as Luis Quinn bowed,
then, before objection could be mouthed, hobbled heavily after his
whiterobed secretary into the sweating shadows of the chapter.
The Ver-o-Peso roared with laughter as the red-faced youth in the
torn shirt went reeling across the cobbles from the boot-shove to his
arse. Red laughter, black laughter from the roped-off wagons and
drays on the city side of the wide dock where ships and rafts from
the high Amazon and Tocantins moored four deep. White laughter from
the chairs and temporary stands set up on barrel and planking. From
the street and the steps and all around Luis Quinn, the laughter of
males. From the wooden balconies on the macaw-colored façades
of the feitores' houses and inns, immodestly open to heat and regard,
the laughter of women. Luis Quinn stood victorious before the stone
slave block. The young pretender had been dragged away by his friends
to the jeers and fruit of slaves; a fat, arrogant son of a jumped-up
cane-grower with pretensions to gentry, humiliated in two plays,
spanked around the quadrangle like a carnival fool by the flat of
Luis Quinn's mock sword, jipping and whining before the convulsed
audience. Then, the final boot: Out of my sight. Luis Quinn took in
the faces, the wide, delighted faces. Many skins, many colors, but
the open mourhs were all the same: red, hungry. Looking up he saw
eyes above fluttering fans and beaded veils. Luis Quinn strode around
the ring, arms held high, receiving the praise of the people of Belém
do Pará.
"Some men wear their sins on their faces," said Bishop
Vasco, lolling in his chair, sweating freely despite the fringed
canopy shading him from the molten sun and the work of two boy-slaves
with feather fans.
"The women?" said the royal judge Rafael Pires de Campos. A
noble-brother of the Misericordia banished to a pestilential
backwater, he was keen on any sport that might break the monotony of
striving feitores. It was widely known in Grão Pará
that Pires de Campos financed the bishop's foray into private
mercantilism, and that the Episcopal fleet had suffered repeated and
expensive drubbings from Dutch pirates whirling down from Curaçao.
"No, the pride, man, the pride. Yes, I am quite sure that our
admonitory there was quite the blade before he took his first
Exercises. And that's another fifty escudos. How did you ever imagine
that fat bumpkin could beat the Jesuit? Cash or offset?"
"Stroke it from the
Pernambuco. Pray, what is it the Society requires so urgently it must
have an admonitory sent from Coimbra? I am aware of the Frenchman—how
could one not be, fluttering around the promenade like a butterfly
with his fripperies and gewgaws."
"Your Grace, it is a matter of some delicacy within our
Society."
Bishop Vasco stopped in his tracks, face red with more than afternoon
heat. He rapped his stick on the stones. Birds flew up in a clatter
from the curved eave-tiles. Faces appeared in dark doorways.
"Wretched Jesuitical ... It's that Gonçalves, isn't it?
Don't answer; I wouldn't make a liar of you. Keep your Jesuitical
secrets. I have my own informations." He ducked his head; sweat
flew from his long, curled wig. "Forgive me, Father Quinn. The
heat makes me intemperate, aye, and this country. Understand this one
thing: Brazil is not as other places. Even in this city the Society
of Jesus, the Franciscans, and the Carmelites are in the scantest of
communions with each other over the status; high on the Amazon, it is
naked rivalry. The Holy Church is little more than an engine fed with
the souls of the red man—and his flesh also. What's this,
what's this?" A secretary bowed into the bishop's path and
knelt, offering up a leather tray of documents. "Hah. My
attention is required. Well, Father Quinn, I shall send with
instructions for that diversion I mentioned. I may even risk a little
wager myself. I very much look forward to seeing you in action."
The bishop mimed a sword-lunge with his stick as Luis Quinn bowed,
then, before objection could be mouthed, hobbled heavily after his
whiterobed secretary into the sweating shadows of the chapter.
The Ver-o-Peso roared with laughter as the red-faced youth in the
torn shirt went reeling across the cobbles from the boot-shove to his
arse. Red laughter, black laughter from the roped-off wagons and
drays on the city side of the wide dock where ships and rafts from
the high Amazon and Tocantins moored four deep. White laughter from
the chairs and temporary stands set up on barrel and planking. From
the street and the steps and all around Luis Quinn, the laughter of
males. From the wooden balconies on the macaw-colored façades
of the feitores' houses and inns, immodestly open to heat and regard,
the laughter of women. Luis Quinn stood victorious before the stone
slave block. The young pretender had been dragged away by his friends
to the jeers and fruit of slaves; a fat, arrogant son of a jumped-up
cane-grower with pretensions to gentry, humiliated in two plays,
spanked around the quadrangle like a carnival fool by the flat of
Luis Quinn's mock sword, jipping and whining before the convulsed
audience. Then, the final boot: Out of my sight. Luis Quinn took in
the faces, the wide, delighted faces. Many skins, many colors, but
the open mourhs were all the same: red, hungry. Looking up he saw
eyes above fluttering fans and beaded veils. Luis Quinn strode around
the ring, arms held high, receiving the praise of the people of Belém
do Pará.
"Some men wear their sins on their faces," said Bishop
Vasco, lolling in his chair, sweating freely despite the fringed
canopy shading him from the molten sun and the work of two boy-slaves
with feather fans.
"The women?" said the royal judge Rafael Pires de Campos. A
noble-brother of the Misericordia banished to a pestilential
backwater, he was keen on any sport that might break the monotony of
striving feitores. It was widely known in Grão Pará
that Pires de Campos financed the bishop's foray into private
mercantilism, and that the Episcopal fleet had suffered repeated and
expensive drubbings from Dutch pirates whirling down from Curaçao.
"No, the pride, man, the pride. Yes, I am quite sure that our
admonitory there was quite the blade before he took his first
Exercises. And that's another fifty escudos. How did you ever imagine
that fat bumpkin could beat the Jesuit? Cash or offset?"
"Stroke it from the
Similar Books
