Brasyl

“Contrary winds and currents, Your Grace, but I am no sailor. I spent the time in prayer and preparation.”

“Yes yes, my captains say it is faster and easier to sail to the Island of Madeira and then Belém than the uncertain seas 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 Qui

The bishop mimed a sword-lunge with his stick as Luis Qui

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 Qui

“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 tally. Where is he from, the Jesuit? His accent is exceedingly rare.”

“Ireland.”

“Where is that? I don’t know of any country with that name.”

Bishop Vasco explained the geography and briefly the country’s represssive heretical laws. Pires de Campos pursed his lips, shook his head.

“I am little wiser, Your Grace. But I do think it is a good thing your Jesuit there is leaving Belém soon. Cloth or no cloth, there are a few would cheerfully have him pistoled in his bed.”

Qui

“Father Luis Qui

Qui

“Your service, Father. I am Dr. Robert Francois St. Honore Falcon, a geographer and geometer of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris and guest of this colony. I understand you have some facility with a sword. I myself trained with Master of Defense Teillagory himself in Paris and very much relish the opportunity to try my skill against yours.”

“Very well, monsieur,” Luis Qui

The crowd hooted its appreciation.

“Do not think your collar will protect you,” Falcon said, passing cane, hat, wig, and heavy coat to his slave, retaining his curious, soul-screening glasses. “I come from a family of notorious freethinkers.”

Luis Qui

“Another fifty on the Jesuit,” Bishop Vasco said.

“Really? I think this Frenchman may yet surprise him.” Pires de Campos delicately dabbed his perspiring face with a scented handkerchief. “See?” The encircling faces let out a great gasp and cheer as Qui

“Your man has been seeing off rapscallions all morning. The Frenchman IS fresh as a nosegay,” Pires de Campos commented, then found his fist clenched around his kerchief, throat tight to yell as Falcon made a series of dazzling feints that drove Luis Qui

“That would not count in Paris,” Falcon said, rolling into his stance and dancing away from Qui