The Debt of Tamar Read Online Free PDF

and your ears open if you know what’s good for you.”
    “Now wait just a minute—”
    “Our agent will come to collect you in Istanbul once you arrive.”
    “I need some time.”
    “Every uniformed man for miles is out right now looking to hunt you down for a fat bounty. They’ll be here in the morning asking after a young Portuguese traveler. With your smooth skin and foreign tongue, how long do you think it will take them to track you down?”
    José swallowed hard.
    “Do as I say.” The Spaniard tapped Istanbul on the map then folded it back into a neat square and returned it to his sack. “Leave.” He pulled the dark hood back over his head and gathered his belongings. “You’re out of time.”
     
    Guards on alert for Reyna and José were stationed all along the periphery of the city. At the harbor, they were approached by district authorities demanding to know what their travel purposes were.
    “My wife and I are missionaries,” José explained to a rotund young man with dopey eyes and thick brows. He handed the officer the forged identity papers.
    “Have you heard of the Mendez children?”
    “I have not.” José felt a knot form at the base of his throat.
    “ Jews . They’re on the run. You two fit the description quite nicely.”
    “I assure you we are not Jews.” He laughed, worrying that perhaps he’d laughed a little too loud. José tried to steady his pounding heart as the officer looked over their forged documents. The man squinted as though something didn’t look right.
    A shrill whistle sounded quite suddenly and José seized the opportunity.
    “Officer, we really should make that ferry. I’m afraid it’s going to leave in just a few moments.”
    The whistle sounded once more. The young guard twitched nervously then pulled the hood down from over Don José’s head. He frisked his fingers through José’s long dark curls. Assured that José did not possess horns or the stubs that indicated their removal, he ushered them onto the boat.
    “Hurry you both!”
    With that, Don José pulled the dark hood of his cloak back over his head and hurried up the wooden planks with Reyna by his side. They boarded Le Grand Marie , an enormous vessel much like the ones Ferdinand and Isabella sent to explore the new world. Thick ropes and netting soared overhead, along with the canopy of four enormous sails bloating out from tall masts rising from the deck like planted spears piercing the heavens. Boys as young as eight or nine hustled by with splashing buckets and tall mops. Muscular deckhands and bronzed sailors tugged and tied their ropes in accordance with the will of the winds. They cranked their wheels and hollered orders beneath the sweaty glow of their sun-kissed complexions.
    They were ushered to their shared quarters, a musty cabin in the lower deck of the ship’s hull fashioned with endless rows of wooden barracks for the hundreds of passengers on board. Outfitted with stained and rancid mattresses, they slept with linen cloths over their mouths to avoid the fevers that at week’s end had spread to countless passengers. They could not risk staying in the upper deck cabins where they might be recognized by diplomats and noblemen lodging in luxurious quarters and socializing in first class dining quarters.
    While the sweltering conditions in the lower cabin were nearly intolerable, Reyna and José spent most of the journey holed up there among the sick and elderly and sealed cargo boxes. With the fiery image of the public burning still vivid in her mind, Reyna thrashed in her sleep and cried out in terror as flames enveloped the dark corners of her mind. Her body was drenched in sweat and smoldered with the heat of her nightmares as José tried to shake her awake.
    By the time the fevers had claimed two lives below deck, the threat of disease outweighed the threat of recognition. Reyna and José made their way up to the open air of the upper deck.
    There, priests and diplomats relished