Page 19 of The Bedlam Stacks

‘I’m not who they’d send if it was something as dangerous as all that.’

Martel nodded. ‘No, quite. But listen; I would hate for you to be offended, but have you any way of proving it’s coffee you want, and not cinchona?’

‘I can’t prove a negative, all I – I can tell you how I know about the coffee, is all.’

‘Go on.’

‘I told you about my grandfather. He stayed at New Bethlehem and he brought back all kinds of things – orchids, white pines – and among them was a kind of coffee that showed some resistance to frost. The samples were lost, and there’s been interest now from Kew and the India Office, so we were hoping for new ones. I’ve never heard of it anywhere else, so we came . . .’

Martel swivelled in his chair to Raphael, a theatric precise ninety degrees. ‘Well? How are you for frosty coffee?’

‘Well off,’ he said.

‘It exists?’

‘I’ve got a garden full of it. You’ve had some. It tastes like chocolate.’ The other Indians we had met, including the boys, spoke Spanish mixed with Quechua, but his was glassy. He was quiet too. It was elegant.

‘Oh, that. God, I didn’t realise it was coffee; I thought you just didn’t know the Spanish for whatever it was.’

Raphael gave his wine glass a blank look and didn’t say anything.

‘Don’t look like that. You didn’t know the Spanish word for the cathedral, remember, the other day?’

‘No,’ he said, without looking up from the glass, ‘you didn’t know. It’s the Qorikancha in Spanish too.’

‘It’s Cuzco Cathedral.’

‘And what do you call the much older place it’s built over?’ Over anything more than a sentence, he had a strange voice. It sounded like he was dragging it up through a shale quarry.

‘The foundations,’ Martel said firmly.

‘For God’s sake.’

I looked between them, prickling and sure that Martel had run on with that to keep me waiting for his verdict about my coffee story. Raphael lifted his eyes just enough to catch mine while Martel was still laughing. There was something bleak in them. He hadn’t smiled once. My heart was going fast again. I couldn’t tell if he didn’t believe me or if he only would have preferred to be elsewhere.

Martel smiled at me. ‘I frightened you, I’m sorry.’ He put his glass down and leaned forward against the table, his forearms flat to the cloth. When they closed over mine, his hands were warm. I made an effort not to shy. ‘I believe you, but I have to be careful, you understand? If you were here for quinine I’d have to turn you back or risk your life. And – as you can imagine, there would be trouble for me too, if the northern suppliers found out I’d let you through.’

‘Yes, I’m . . . starting to see that.’

‘Good.’ He must have felt how cold I was, because he chafed my knuckles. I wanted to take my hands back, but I’d already offended people by not letting them kiss me. ‘So, you see you must travel safely, with a proper guide. That’s why Raphael is here now. I brought him so that he could take you over the mountains. He’s from New Bethlehem, in fact.’

‘Really?’

‘There are only a few towns up that way,’ Martel said. ‘New Bethlehem is by far the biggest. I’m sorry to spring it on you, but it would be dangerous for you to ask around cold.’

I shook my head. ‘Pardon my asking, but why are you helping us? If you’ll be in trouble if I’m lying, you should be turning us away whether you believe me or not.’

He lifted his eyebrows. ‘I don’t think you realise how often this happens. It’s at least once a year. I am very tired of sitting down to dinner one evening with a man, then hearing of his death a week later, whether he was here for quinine or pepper. Very tired. I’m damned if I’ll live in fear of them over nothing but coffee.’

Raphael sat forward. It made the bones and muscles in his shoulders show. I leaned back without meaning to. It was like sitting across from a big animal. There was a right-angled nick in his eyebrow, not old. Someone had smacked him over the head with the butt of a gun. It was a scar I recognised, common in the Navy, common in all the expeditionary arms of the East India Company. I realised he had moved to get a little further away from Martel. He didn’t want to be sent out with us.

‘Would I be right in thinking Raphael is also there to keep an eye on us and make sure we don’t try and dive off into any cinchona woods?’ I said.

‘You would,’ Martel admitted. ‘But – you do understand? Unless you go with him, I can’t let you go at all. It wouldn’t be safe. For any of us.’

‘Of course I do. It’s kind of you to have thought of it all. I’m afraid we must look very haphazard to you.’

He smiled, not all the way. ‘You can’t be expected to know what’s going on here if all you were given is vague orders about coffee. Brave of you to come at all, in your condition.’