FLAT

CHAPTER 1. | NIGHT MOVES

IBERIAN PENINSULA – SEPTEMBER 14, 1519 – SUNDAY

A starless night was faintly lit by a pinprick beam escaping from a fingernail moon. Save for this single gossamer filament, an inky blackness engulfed the far western edge of the Mediterranean Sea. A small, cargo laden, two-masted xebec was slowly making its way from the tip of Northern Africa. It had reached the half-way mark towards its home port of Algeciras at the far end of the Bay of Gibraltar.

A slight favoring breeze from the south kept the seas smooth and the progress slow but steady.

Four of the six-man crew lazed about the deck in various states of approximate sleep. Working hard to remember the Tangier whore he spent one weeks’ pay on the previous night, one lovesick sailor wedged himself up against the bow rail. With the sails tied o” holding the wind, the drowsy helmsman kept a casual heading for his home port while gnawing on a foul-tasting, weevil pockmarked, sea biscuit.

Three bound stacks of hand-woven Berber robes shared cargo space with fourteen wooden crates evenly split between sugar and dates. Stashed in the far corner of the small hold, next to a pile of rocks used for added ballast, stood three unmarked, wax-sealed oak casks.

They never heard a thing.

Hanging double the sail in the wind, the caravel’s captain skillfully maneuvered his boat silently amidships of the lolling xebec. Shifting to a hard left rudder, the boats crossed bows. In a split moment, ten hooded men, faces masked by black scarves, leaped over their own starboard rail, much to the surprise of the recently spent love machine who was knocked cold by a swift sword hilt to the head. The helmsman tabulated his odds, then quickly raised his arms in surrender. The invaders, repeating the Renaissance classic sword hilt to the head, and sedated him along with the rest of the bewildered crew.

Once the boat was secured, the captain made a quick study of the cargo.

“Are you kidding me? DATES…and ROBES? I’m swimming in dates and robes. What the hell am I supposed to do with this shit? Open a day spa?”

One of the crew, holding a lit torch, haltingly approached the captain. He spoke in an unintelligible, mu#ed tone, “zzz use e of zzz” “Drop your kerchief moron, I can’t understand a word you’re saying!”

“Right. Sorry sir. There’s hummus. And lots of it. Crew loves hummus sir. I mean it’s a few barrels of the stuff, but still, do we keep it?”

The captain rubbed his forehead at the pathetic haul for the e”ort and potential consequences risked. “Take it all, then cut us loose.”

“So, burn the boat sir?”

“Why?” came the captain’s curious reply.

“Well, um, it is customary. I mean, I thought we always, did.” The sailor eagerly anticipated the prospect of dropping the first
torch and blazing the ship.

“Considering they haven’t done anything to us, and we’ve already screwed up their night, we probably don’t need to burn them alive sailor. Let’s wrap this up and move along.”

“Aye sir.”

Clearly disappointed, the sailor slowly moved o” to follow the orders. The captain’s irritation with the night’s work flared up. He kicked the nearest dog.

“Crewman!”

The man stopped in his tracks. He turned back to face the captain. “First off, do me a favor. Stop calling me ‘sir.’ This isn’t the Portuguese navy. You’re a pirate! For god’s sake, try and act like one! Show at least a little disrespect for authority.”

“I’m trying sir. That’s why I brought this.” The seaman waggled his torch at the captain. “I figured, given your reputation, ‘the Fearless One’, you’d want to make a statement.”

It’s true the captain had a much-deserved reputation for unprovoked violence, but not tonight. He did however sense that the seaman had mocked his resolve.

“You’re new?”

“Yes sir. First trip.”

“Navigation?” The captain thought he had seen him manning the wheel at one point during the evening.

“Yes sir, plus carpentry and, uh, also lute.”

“Lute?” The response arrived coated in sarcasm which, completely escaped the enthusiastic sailor.

“Been playing since I was a lad.”

“Versatile.”

With a sigh of relief, the man lowered his guard. “Thank you, sir.”

“What genius supposed we needed a musician on board? As if a useless cargo weren’t enough, now we need someone to sing a merry tune about it afterwards?”

His mind made up, the captain shrugged his shoulders in resolve. “No matter. Over the rail you go.”

“Sorry?” The sailor looked confused. He slowly backed away from the captain and the port side rail.

The captain issued his final ultimatum to the shrinking crewman, “Quick as you please. Over the rail, or I can run you through straight away.”

The captain drew his saber from the scabbard at his waist and calmly extended it towards the now petrified seaman. “Choose.”

The man dropped his own sword on the deck and ran to the rail. “Hand me the torch please. Wouldn’t want an accident at this point,” said the overly accommodating Skipper.

“Thank you, sir, er…Captain.”

Quite content with himself after he heard the splash the captain leaned over the rail, and with a bemused shout, issued his terms. “Follow us best you can. If you last the hour, you can have your old job back.”

Holding the torch, he walked back towards his own ship searching for the Boatswain— his 2nd in command. “Longshort!” he shouted. “Longshort, where the hell are you?”

The captain’s longest, closest friend, guardian, and confidante, Longshort, stood a Portuguese 500 real coin over six feet tall with drooped shoulders, a crooked thrice-broken nose, scraggly D’Artagnan greyed goatee and, mostly gray hair. Longshort had witnessed the sailor drop over the rail then drift back with the current. He made a quick run to the caravel’s stern and surreptitiously tossed a line down to the swimmer, motioning him to remain quiet and hold on. Taking stock of the state of things between the two boats, he cut loose a small oar boat the caravel was dragging behind it as well.

“Here Captain. I’m here,” he hailed. Longshort gingerly navigated the gap between the two bound together boats and approached the captain.

“Shall we talk about how hard it’s becoming to find good help these days?” Longshort mused.

“He mocked me.”

“That can happen.”

“According to the book of Longshort, discipline must be maintained,” the captain said.

“Noted. Some years ago, I crewed for a…”

Knowing where this tale was headed, Destemido cut Longshort o” at the knees. “We don’t have time for one of your instructional tales. Daylight’s
coming.”

“Thank you for giving him the option of a workout versus a funeral at sea. Orders?”

“We’re not getting paid enough to put up with this crap. Cut us loose,” spat the captain who was tapped out on patience. Longshort spun around to head back to the caravel. The captain waited a beat, then began a frustrated walk across the deck of the ransacked xebec. Standing on the port rail before leaping the growing gap between the two vessels, he dismissively tossed the still-fluttering torch onto the deck strewn with half-conscious sailors. He hopped over the rail, giving the command to “come about” as he heard the screams and the occasional splash recede in their wake.

“Hummus all around,” came the order from the foredeck.

FLAT

CHAPTER 2. | FIRST SERVE

A small, spinning leather ball, stuffed with a combination of imperial poodle hair, domestic piebald sheep clippings, sawdust, plus a royal handful of collected castle lint, flew high into a cloud-dotted, azure sky. Almost drowned out by the Regal Flute, Lute & String ensemble perched upon a nearby balcony, came an alto shout from ground level.

“TENNIS!”

Lanning Delaford had just launched a whistling, sky-high power lob o” Charles number Five’s royal tennis court. It being spring in Andalusia, Lanning had instinctively calculated the transient ocean breeze into his shot. He watched as the ball floated weightless at the pinnacle of its flight. It hung there on his side of the net in divine stillness – a frozen moment defying the entire weight of the known world.

Then, as planned, the breeze nudged it on the shoulder, directing the balls’ downward arc deep onto the opposing side of the net. “It’s completely inconclusive, you know.”

Prince Ferdinand, the gawky, handsome-ish in a Hapsburg inbred royal way, sixteen-year-old younger brother of the newly minted Spanish King Charles V stood on his half of the tennis court. He waited with complete disinterest for Lanning’s lob to reconnect with gravity and return to earth. “Move your feet Highness!”

Of course, Lanning knew the prince had little interest in the game at hand, his lessons, or much of anything beyond royal pursuits of leisure. “It’s simply not always the case,” said Ferdinand, standing apathetically stationary on the court. “I give up. What is?” Lanning replied, already certain he knew the topic in question.

“What goes up does not necessarily guarantee it.”

“Yes, it does, Highness. It has come down, just there. See…three, four, five. It has bounced away from you yet again.”

The ball rolled o” the court, and into the drainage well at the back of the enclosure. It came to rest in a neat, orderly line, along with the ten other testimonials to royal disinterest that had preceded it. The prince continued his treatise. “Not always, is the point.”

“In what case?”

“Why on the other side of course. It is utterly inconclusive at best.”

“So you’ve said. The other side of what, Freddy?”

The prince set his firm jawline, pushed his shoulder length blonde hair back o” his forehead, then pointed his racquet straight down. “THIS! Beneath us,” he stressed stomping his size ten shoe on the court, “the underside?”

Lanning calmly shook his head. He had wrestled and resolved for himself the very same question since childhood. This had been a recurring debate between student and teacher for some time. “It’s not flat, Highness.”

“Wiser men believe di”erently, Lanning. We don’t question those things we haven’t experienced. I, although royal, and virtually perfect in every way by birthright, am not a man of science.”

“Science actually is conflicted on the matter, Highness. I guess you’ll have to rely on your own perfection to choose what is correct and what is mierda del toro!”

Despite his age and scant portion of athletic talent, the prince possessed a diligently trained intellect. It was by courtesy of private tutors spanning several countries, and professions from wet nurse to court elders to present company. Lanning mostly enjoyed their sparring matches and often engaged the youngster’s penchant for competitive argument. Today he had other pressing matters. The prince parried, “I do not question the existence of the rainbow, yet I know I shall never bathe in either end of its spectrum. I do not question God’s power over mortality, yet other than dispatching the random, bellicose Turk or interloping Moorish squatter by my sword, I am powerless to control God’s will.”

Lanning knew the day’s tennis lesson had now been usurped by the prince’s urge for verbal fisticu”s. His attention span had shrunk to its bare minimum, forcing him to try and cuto” the discussion with haste and a tactical amount of grace. “Two caterpillars were clinging to a tree branch,” began Lanning.

“Ugh. An allegory?” The prince moaned his disapproval.

Lanning spread his arms in a welcoming gesture. “Since you don’t want to play tennis, you leave me no other option.” He continued, “Two caterpillars hanging out talking about their day. As they were talking, a butterfly floated by. One caterpillar said to the other, ‘You’ll never get me up in one of those things!’ ‘Why not,’ asked the other caterpillar. ‘I’m terrified of heights, and always will be. I never want to fly. Squirming is my primary choice of transport.’ The other one nodded in agreement, ‘I hear you brother. I don’t want to be a butterfly either. Bein’ a worm is totally where it’s at!”

The prince discarded his racquet and sloughed over to a bench on the side of the court. “I am not arguing against curiosity.”

“You simply think God expects us to accept all things without question. What happens to imagination?” asked Lanning rhetorically. As happened frequently, the teenager grew suddenly weary of the engagement.

“I take your point. Brain switching off… now. Let’s drink!”

“I just had breakfast! Don’t be such a prince. Ten minutes more,” Lanning urged.

The two men had been on the court for a skoosh under one hour, with infinitesimal progress. Lanning had other places to be, but one does not rush royalty without peril. He might o”er a healthy dose of back talk, but the crown owned all the hours of the day if it so chose.

“Lanning, sip with me,” whined the prince, regressing further back in childhood. He motioned the reluctant Lanning to take a seat next to him on the royal bench. A watchful attendant leaped into action from his courtside seat. Grabbing a four-poled canopy, the attendant placed it over the bench. Another servant delivered two glasses of generously poured chardonnay. The artificial shade covered both men.

Lanning pondered the scope of his impending post-tennis responsibilities. Downing wine at nine in the morning would severely hamper the remainder of his day. He reviewed a hit list in his mind while faux-sipping from his goblet. Get home, change clothes, get to the dock, check the cargo from the previous night’s shipment, find his crew, load cargo, get new provisions—and, oh yeah, find the money to pay for all of that other stuff.

“Charlatan! You waste the fruit of the vine,” jabbed the prince.

“No one can drink this early in the day.”

“Hah! Assumption proven wrong.” The prince said loudly slurping his wine.

“For that matter, why must we have the lute & flute brigade whittling away during your lessons?”

“I’m a royal,” replied Frederick. “Along with merciless, dispassionate behavior, debauchery, and, in my case, disdainful German lessons at noon, merriment is a formal obligation of the job.”

“Sorry Freddy, but I’ve got a full day, and I know you’ve got your day too,” said Lanning.

Fortunately, the prince found Lanning’s nickname amusing. Lanning put his wine glass down no longer needing to pretend. The prince snapped it up, emptying it down his throat like a bucket of water tossed on a dry fern.

“You don’t appreciate the freedom you have,” lamented the prince.

“Same time day after tomorrow?” asked Lanning.

“I detest this game, but it too is a royal requirement from brother Carlos, pardon, his royalness, Holy Roman King, Emperor, God, and whatever other titles he’s sporting these days. Fine. Yes. We are ‘on.’ I know you know we realize we are not a naturally gifted athlete?”

“Your Highness has gifts. We’ll keep looking for them, is all.” Lanning chuckled and served a friendly elbow into the prince’s rib cage. A sudden shout came from the terrace overlooking the royal court.

“I see you, Delaford!”

A squashed, rotund human, with seven surviving strands of strategically placed fish-wire hair flattened against his bald head, bellowed over the balustrade. Roderick Gagnez, Andalusian Viceroy for the Bay of Gibraltar, had a distinctively nasal tone to his voice. It made him sound like he was su”ering from a permanent head cold. Since his birthplace and formative years had been spent in Madrid, no one understood his non-sequitur French accent. The French a”ect generally showed up at random discordant moments inversely related to Gagnez’ ongoing battle with self-esteem. It was symptomatic of his position at the ass end of a long line of Imperial Spain sycophants.

“Ewe should not be ear. Why are you NOT. IN. TANGIER!”

The prince signaled Lanning with a quick wink. Although only sixteen, his royal bearing of righteous entitlement had already taken firm hold of his demeanor. Ignoring Gagnez, Lanning stretched out on the bench to enjoy the entertainment.

“Be gone, Monsieur Lickspittle! You presume to interrupt our exercise?” said the prince dismissively. As he spoke, he waved his right arm towards the Viceroy, and o”ered a conspiratorial smile to Lanning.

Gagnez raged on. “You are SEETTEENG DOWN! Drinking WHINE!!”

“Mongrel! You doubt the word of the heir to the Spanish throne? Be off before we become bored with your very existence.”

Refusing to turn around, the prince whispered to Lanning, “Rather enjoyable diversion, yes? Has he gone?”

“Afraid not,” answered Lanning. “In truth, it looks as if the man might explode.”

“Let that impotent, sycophantic, dim-witted flesh balloon burst. Would be more entertaining than a flute solo. Ha-ha.”

While Lanning had surely enjoyed the prince’s hijinks, he knew the shield of royalty would not protect him beyond the palace grounds.“Allow me a moment, Highness?”

The prince nodded, as Lanning stood up and approached the fuming Gagnez.

“Do not think for a minute I don’t know you’re ducking me Delaford!” said the red-faced official in a more hushed voice minus Gaelic overtones. Lanning maintained his cool temperament in responding to Gagnez.

“But I have it, Your Goodness. You shall no doubt have it by supper. My other boat will be unloading in the harbor as we speak. Besides, what is the gain in dodging you? As you can see, at the moment I’m engaged with the prince, who would sooner see you detonate than listen to us jousting.”

Outgunned by all but the kitchen spit boy, Gagnez’ e”orts were perpetually sabotaged by his own greed and incompetence. It drove him mad with anxiety, and like his spherical physique, nourished an always expanding inferiority complex.

“Everyone is out to swindle me! You promised the same only yesterday,” Gagnez said.

“As I’m sure the Viceroy is well aware, shipping and delivery are a relative science dependent upon conditions of sun, moon, sky, wind, and water. I ask only for patience, my Lord.”

Lanning, along with everyone else at court or in service of it, had read the playbook on Roderick Gagnez. Winning being his singular mission in life, “Rod” practiced a zero-sum gain strategy. Life’s gifts held no meaning for him unless they came at someone’s expense. Tragically, in an age of shifting loyalties, regional power plays, and the rapidly spreading influence of Machiavelli’s page-turning Idiot’s Guide to Despotic Power Maintenance, Gagnez’ meager intellect was publicly, nakedly, overmatched.

Gagnez owed his present station in life along with his waning shreds of self-esteem to the sustaining gift of nepotism. His claim to power relied upon the genetic tether to his grandfather, Gregorio Alfonso del Campo Gagnez. Ferdinand and Isabella, the recently large and in-charge royals, had required the services of Grandpa Gagnez’s private regional army. In order to keep the Moors from expanding their foothold in Granada during the final act of the fifteenth century, an agreement was forged. It included certain favors along with buckets of royal treasure. The favors were granted. They extended up and all the way down to the bottom dweller of the Gagnez family tree. Voila, Monsieur-Señor Viceroy of the backwater region known as Algeciras. Rod suppressed his feelings of mortification by obsessive serial eating. His latest compulsion was a mixture of mashed chickpeas, ground hulled sesame seeds, olive oil, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, sea salt and a healthy amount of fragrant garlic. Gagnez adored hummus. The glutinous haze of a private hummus feast quelled his anxiety and allowed his world to make sense for a brief moment. In Rod’s mind, the most glorious orgasmic hummus of the 16th century came from the dark land a mere fifty kilometers away from his door. Only one man knew the exact location of the Tangier chef who made vats of the stuff specifically for the Viceroy of Algeciras. That man was wasting time teaching tennis to the obnoxiously entitled, Prince Frederick. Lanning was well aware he held the trump card in their fragile relationship.

“A pox on you! Twice!” blurted the frustrated Viceroy. Lanning knew Gagnez was more bluster than action. “And on you sir!” he returned the salvo.

“I caution you against trying my patience, I ad.” Gagnez hu”ed away from the terrace and waddled back into the palace. A tittering laugh caught Lanning’s attention. Swiveling away from the departing anger balloon, he caught a glance from a youthful, olive-skinned girl with wavy auburn hair. She stood tall and lean, dressed in a flowing, green gown. From her spot on the balustrade, she had observed the proceedings for her own entertainment. Lanning caught her eye with his raised brow. She nodded, smirked, curtsied, then headed back inside after the Viceroy. “Who was that?” Lanning asked the prince. The prince let out a cynical grunt. “Ugh, Filippa Beaufort! The only thing to like about her is her scent. She smells like a summer night!”

“Very romantic, Freddy!”

“Trust me, she’s a waste of time.”

“As in, spoken for? Because she actually looks like a good use of time to me.”

“My friend, you truly have no clue as to the true freedom of day, world, and life you enjoy so dismissively! No matter, I do hope someone remunerates you for showing up day after day, week after week for futility in teaching me the tennis,” said the prince. Lanning appreciated the thought. Even though the prince’s concern felt more akin to noticing an un-watered shrub than true compassion for his livelihood.

“Do I get paid? Is that what that means?” teased Lanning. “Hell yes, I get paid. Not enough, but your Exchequer Minister, tosses me a sack of coins every week.”

“You’d like more?” Who couldn’t use more money, especially when asked so innocently by the Royal? Lanning did not want to take advantage of his relationship with the prince for something as miniscule as tennis lessons. There might come a time when his friendship with Prince Frederick would have greater advantage.

“I’d prefer some fresh-squeezed juice after the lesson!” Lanning joked as he gathered his things, “Would you mind if I pay my mother a quick visit?”

“As you choose, but the flautist has a solo coming up, and there’s still half a liter of sauvignon left.”

“See you in a couple days, Freddy.”

“Cheers!” The prince raised yet another glass of wine in a departure toast.

Lanning left his racquet on the bench, made his way off the court, then down and around the side of the palace. He headed for a set of stairs leading to the bottom floor, where his mother, Victoria “Molly” Cortez, worked as the palace baker.

Pushing open the pitted, six-inch thick wooden door he found his Rubenesque mother seated on a three-legged stool before a large, flat table. Rolled out in front of her lay a giant slab of dough. Flour covered the table, the dough, Molly’s apron, and Molly herself. She had heard the footsteps and looked up to meet Lanning’s gaze walking in.

“Really? You wore that to see the prince? Does your mother still need to dress you?!”

“Hi Molly.” Lanning ignored her critique.

“This is the palace. You need to start dressing for success.”

“I’m here to hit balls, not dance at one. It’s tennis.”

“I can’t keep up with your new-fangled ideas. Give me a hand?”

Molly lifted one end of the weighty dough, motioned for Lanning to grab the other end, and do likewise. “Mom, it’s a sport… like baking…” They grunted while flipping over the dough slab. It landed back onto the table with a deep, whapping thud.

“Ha ha!” She wiped her hands on her apron.

“What’s this monstrosity of dough about to become?”

“It’s my royally delicious pan rustico! A palace favorite. Ask me why I’m making it today.”

“I’ll bite. Why are you making this today?” Lanning boosted himself onto the worktable.

“Che cazzo! Get the hell off of that table, boy!” Marco Bellini, the Italian head chef of the palace, had appeared as if by magic. Bellini stood halfway between five and six feet tall. Head man for less than a year, he was Molly’s only source of discontent. She tolerated his pugnacious contempt for the veteran kitchen sta”, ignoring his moodiness and steering clear of his domain in the upper kitchen.

“Sorry Señor Bellini, that is my fault. He was giving me a hand with the rustico.”

“Do we need to hire more help for you, or perhaps, you are getting too old for the work?”

“Hey now,” Lanning said.

Bellini stroked his chin deciding how best to counter Lanning’s provocation. Molly stepped between the two men. “Señor Bellini, can I help with something upstairs?”

A devious smirk flashed across the man’s face. “Nothing of you is required. I’m off to meet the king’s butcher.” Bellini brushed uncomfortably close to Lanning on his way out the door. “Keep your boy in line!” he said before slamming the door shut.

Lanning scowled, “Bastard. I should kick his ass!”

“And end up in the stocks, or worse. I don’t think so, son of mine,” said Molly harshly.

“Weird. Did you see he’s missing part of his little finger?”

Molly carried on with her work.“What an asshole. How do you take that abuse?”

“Never mind him,” Molly said. “I’ve got an opportunity for you, but you better go home and change first.”

“Change? I’m on my way to the docks. Got to check last night’s shipment and make sure it’s delivered to the Viceroy. These two boats are wearing me out, not to mention draining my funds. I need to ready the L’Aquila for the trip to Tangier tomorrow, then find the money to pay for all of it.”

“Exactly why you’re going to put something presentable on. You can’t look like a common thief and meet these people. Hightail it back before supper.”

Lanning knew that once Molly had her mind set, the discussion was over. Begrudgingly, he gave her a peck on the cheek.

“Love you, Mol!”

“That’s MOM to you!”

He flashed her a smile before heading out the door and up the stairway towards the tennis court.