Captain from Castile (22 page)

Upon returning to the mirador with Antonia, she burst into tears.

"If it hadn't been for you!" she reproached.

"I know," admitted the duenne. "It was my mistake, my love. But I thought it would give you pleasure. I could see no harm. Who would have dreamed--!"

It is hard to be a poor relation. Suppose Luisa dropped a word to the Marquis an innocent word apparently, as to Antoma's encouragement of romance! But no, she was safe enough. The secret was too explosive even for a word.

In her tears, the girl looked like a lovely martyr. "Do you think the handkerchief was found. "No, probably not, my dear—don't worry." "Do you think he will be captured?" "T hone not " said the duenna devoutly.

"So do I!" mourned Luisa. "So do I! It would be dreadful if anyone knew about'thThandkerchief. We must pray for him, Cousm. I promise San Cristobal ten candles if he escapes.

She raised her beautiful eyes toward heaven.

So for one reason or another, his lad/s prayers accompanied Pedro de Vargas.

In a crack of the arid land, before the sierra sweeps down into the green valley of the Genii, Pedro wakened, stretched his stiff limbs and then, considerate of the sleeping Garcia, sat clasping his knees and gazing toward the sunset. After a time he drew out a small, crushed object from his inner pocket and unfolded it reverendy. It was embroidered with a tmy coronet and the letter "L." It retained a vague perfume of roses. 

Beyond it, in his fancy, hovered a noble, sensidve face with eyes up-turned to his. For an instant his angular features relaxed. Then as if the relic were too sacred for long exposure, he raised the handkerchief to his hps and, folding it carefully, replaced it within his doublet

All over the world in every age, crows are of the same color. A bandit of sixteenth-century Spain might ride a fine horse and wear a showy baldric but he was still a gangster with a gangster's attitude and vices. If Hernan Soler had not lost a brother to the fires of the Inquisition, and if, all things considered, he had not thought it worth his while to convey the de Vargases safely to Almeria and secure a ship for them he would have been perfectly capable of selling them out at higher profit to the agents of the Holy Office.

As it was, he performed his mission honestly and got a discharge to that eflTect over Don Francisco's signature before the felucca, which they had been lucky enough to find, cleared the harbor. This was part of his bargain with Gatana, who took no chances and had paid him hity ducats of Garcia's money on account, with the promise of a second fifty and herself when he returned. The hundred ducats alone would not have tempted him; but Gatana plus the money made a difTerence Besides, he had a wager with Paco Ribera, his lieutenant, that he would have the bedding of her, which could be figured in with the cash profit. When he had seen the last of the felucca, he and his men turned into a wineshop for celebradon. There were dice and women; the drls of Almeria proved seducdve, the wine potent, and the inn-keepers hospitable, so that it was several days before he rode back exhausted

and in a cold, ugly humor to the Jaen side of the mountains. From his present surly point of view, the remaining fifty ducats and Gatana did not console him for his headache, nor for the news that three good men had been lost in the fight against the troopers.

He arrived at his headquarters in the Sierra Lucena about nightfall; swore at the sentry who challenged him on the trail; and dismounted with his men as the campfires were being lighted.

An overhang of rock, which formed a long, deep gallery at the base of a cliff and which had been partially boarded up to provide cover, served as Soler's chief hangout in the district. It lay at one end of a narrow valley and had a second emergency exit over a low saddle of the cliff. In front of this semi-cave, a small natural basin fed by a brook furnished abundant water. In the open part of the gallery, fires were laid and cooking was done for the forty-odd men and women of Soler's motley household. Guarded by outposts and hidden in a fold of the mountains, it was reasonably secure against the halfhearted constabulary which might be sent out against it.

Since the day after his departure, Gatana had been waiting here, impatient not for Soler but for his news. She had heard, of course, from her brother, who had taken part in the fight on the road, of Pedro's and Garcia's disappearance. That there had been no report of their capture augured well; but Soler would possibly know more. Meanwhile, she established herself in the respect, if not the affection, of the band.

Her position as the future mujer of the chief would have given her prestige in any case, had she needed it; but she was distinguished in her own right as a dancer and a girl of parts, who could take care of herself. Her tongue and her knife were equally ready and admired. When Paco Ribera, presuming on his rank, took liberties the first night, he came off with a wound that made sitting difficult and taught him a lesson about the new capitana. Then too, in case of need, she had her brother, Manuel Perez, burly and short of speech, who during his career as turnkey had kept in with the robbers and was a popular addition to the gang. Manuel approved his sister's choice of a mate as both natural and honorable—Soler was an homhre muy rico —but he would stand for no affronts to Gatana's virtue.

Now that the bargain had been struck, she prepared to carry out her share of it. She had been brought up to elemental facts and accepted them as inevitable. A girl, however independent, must finally belong to a man, work for him, bear children, lose her looks, and grow old: life was like that. Soler or another—it did not matter much. She was lucky in being able to turn the inevitable to some account. By saving Pedro

de Vargas, she had given the years something to remember, some reason for pride.

During the days of waiting at the camp, she held aloof from the others and let them think that she was pining for Soler. Especially at evening, when the tone of a far-off bell in one of the valleys signaled the Angelus, she liked to stand on the saddle of the cliff listening to the faint reverberation and dreaming her only dream.

She was engaged in this when Soler reached camp, and the stir from below drifted up to her. Descending quickly, she greeted him on the threshold of the overhang, as he came up, carrying his saddlebags.

''Well, amigo mio."

To Soler's jaundiced eye, she looked plainer and less glamorous than in the festive atmosphere of the Rosario. She wore nothing in her hair, which was also wind-blown from her walk along the cliffs. In a faded everyday dress, she seemed too lithe, too dark, too hard, too countrylike. His biliousness deepened.

"Well, my friend?" he mimicked, dumping his saddlebags.

She expected to be kissed, but he looked past her, nodding to this one and that around the fire and exchanging a word with several. As the men who had been with him joined the group and their women hung on them, the clatter of tongues grew louder.

Soler spat. "Fetch me some wine," he told Catana. "My throat's dry as hell's dust." 

She brought him a cup and pitcher; he half-gargled, half-drank, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Evidently he felt that the need for courting manners was over.

"Well," she urged, "what news?"

"The job's done," he growled. "Help me off with this cursed armor."

Hell! he chafed, she was not half so well-favored as the Moorish slut he had had in Almeria—the one with almond eyes and the mole on her hip—but in his present mood the thought of any woman sickened him.

Catana loosened the straps, her tawny cheeks a shade darker. He piled the steel pieces on top of the saddlebags.

"Take all that into our room and stow it," he ordered. Then, snappishly, "Freshen yourself up, girl. You look like a hedge clout. 'Sblood! A man might expect his wench to primp a litde for his homecoming."

He found himself facing a pair of hot black eyes.

"Whose wench, fellow?" And when he did not find his tongue, she added, "I asked a question. Till it's answered to my liking, I'm no wench of yours. D'you take me?"

He turned yellow with anger, but he could not beat down her gaze.

The near-by talk quieted suddenly. Manuel Perez, who had been joking with one of the newcomers, stopped smiling.

Though his liver burned, Soler controlled himself. "What question?" he snarled at last, his eyes beady and narrow on either side of his nose. "If you mean old Game-leg de Vargas and his wife, they got off. If you mean Pedrito, what can I tell you? It's no fault of mine what happened. They say he rode off the mountain—he and the big man. But listen to me. I'm in no mood for airs. A cursed deal I've had, with three men gone, hard riding, and nothing to show for it but fifty damn ducats. Your Grace will take orders. We'll have no shrews here. Understand?"

Catana held her right palm out and tapped it with the other forefinger. ''Bueno! I'll take orders when I'm your woman. You say Don Francisco and his lady got off. The bargain took in Pedro de Vargas; but he's probably safe so far, and I'll admit that part of it wasn't your fault. Where's the proof his father and mother got off?"

"Do you doubt my word?"

Catana tapped her palm.

In a rage, Soler drew out the signed paper and smacked it on her hand.

"Eat it and choke!"

Catana unfolded the paper. She could not read, but she could pretend that she did, and she could at least spell out the bold, rough-hewn signature. Having satisfied herself that Soler had kept faith, she tucked the discharge into her belt. Then, lifting her skirt, she detached a purse from her garter and handed it to him.

"Now I'll take orders."

And she occupied herself with the armor and saddlebags.

XXV

In Sanlucar de Barrameda, from the upper town where the road climbs toward the castle, a fine outlook may be had upon the beach and harbor. In front, westerly across the mouth of the Guadalquivir, stretches the long line of the Arenas Gordas that fringe the northern curve of the Bay of Cadiz; to the right extend the lovely reaches of the river, with Bonanza in the distance; the blinding white of house walls, rising tier on tier, is relieved by the sapphire and allurement of water. Giant aloes and palms are visible; gardens and orange groves circle the white town, which recalls Moorish Africa rather than Spain. The sun

beats hard on Sanlucar, maturing the grapes of its vineyards, deepening the scent of its orange blossoms, tanning the skins of its inhabitants, and producing everywhere a riot of color.

It was especially hot and colorful on that afternoon of mid-September, as two Franciscan monks gazed down at the harbor from a parapet near the church of Our Lady of the West. In twenty years, since the Admiral had sailed from Sanlucar on his third voyage to the New World, the port had become increasingly a point of departure for westbound fleets making for Grand Canary and the Indies. Today it was alive with craft taking on cargo and readying gear for the outward voyage, the last to Santo Domingo before winter. Caravels—two- or three-masted, with cocked-up lateen yards on the mizzen—several larger carracks, some lighter brigantines, clustered in the harbor and were connected with the beach by numerous rowboats loaded or empty. But the overseas fleet made up only a part of the shipping. French galleasses, British barks, flyboats, and foists, fat-bellied traders from Holland, Italian galleys and feluccas, rode at anchor in the cosmopolitan medley. With their high poops and forecastles, they resembled a flock of sway-backed ducks.

Crews were busy with lading and tackle; hulls were being tarred; a couple of vessels had been beached for greasing below the water line. The sun played on gilded beakheads and varicolored canvas; it flashed on armor and kindled the blues, reds, and yellows of costume; it brought out the gaudy Saint Christopher on the mainsail of an incoming ship and the colored pennons of her topmasts.

The agglomeration of wooden shacks, a quarter of a mile deep, which occupied the space between waterfront and town, and which housed a community of international riffraff infamous even in that age, now hummed like a fair. Sailors, merchants, hidalgos, mountebanks, peddlers, charlatans, prostitutes, and tliieves, thronged between the squalid huts. A din composed of every sound possible to human lungs floated up to the brothers of Saint Francis, leaning next to each other against the parapet.

As seen from behind by a couple of beggars lounging on the church steps, the two monks offered a droll contrast. One of them was broad of shoulder and beam, with too short a robe that displayed his big, naked calves; while the other, slender and tall, wore a habit too long for him. Though he kept hitching it up under the rope around his waist, it slipped down again and looked frayed and dusty at the skirts.

"See that caravel?" said the burly monk, pointing. "She's the Boniface. Her master's Jorge Santerra, a good friend of mine. She's a bitch

in rough weather, but seaworthy for all that. Damn me, the sight of her turns me homesick! I'll bet you ten pesos she makes port first and skims the cream off the market. Ten yellow clinkers she does!"

He scratched his thigh and continued to gaze.

The other asked, "Where's our ship, the lulia —the Genoese? I don't see her."

"Over behind the French galleass," his companion answered. "There's her topmast." Then abruptly, as if to get something that was difficult to say over with, "But—well—as a matter of fact, your ship, not mine. Mine's the Boniface. Tell you the truth, I paid my passage money this morning to Santo Domingo."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm not for Italy, after all."

A bleak pause. The slender monk hitched his robe. "But I thought—"

"Yes, by God, I know," the other burst out. "Devil take me for a quitter! But I can't help it. It's the feel of the west wind, maybe, or the sight of the ships, the talk on the beach. Italy's an old road; I want new ones." And when silence fell again, he added, "Don't you feel it yourself?"

The younger man nodded. "Seguro. Who wouldn't, in this kettle?" He jerked his chin toward the harbor. "Everybody gets the fever."

"All right then, how about your coming along with me?"