Return to Paradise (Torres Family Saga) (19 page)

      
Rigo smiled bitterly. “Twould seem I have little choice left but to put your words to the test. I will wed the lady and take her with me to confront Aaron Torres.”

      
“Our family will welcome you. But Rigo, you must have a special care for your wife. Miriam will be disowned by Judah Toulon. She cannot wed you under Jewish law.”

      
“Yet you believe in spite of this she will accept me as husband in a Christian marriage?” Things were happening too swiftly for Rigo to comprehend. His mind spun with dizzying speed.

      
“Return to Uncle Isaac and let him mediate. He had long years of practice serving under old King Fernando before the Jews were expelled from Spain. He will bring Miriam to you.”

      
Rigo watched Benjamin's hands. One was gripping the edge of the table tightly and the other was clenched in the thick miniver fur lining his
magister
's robes. “And what of you, Benjamin?” he asked softly, feeling his brother's pain.

      
“I will remain here. Twould seem there is to be a great battle soon between your Imperialists and the French. If history will be made at that small city of Pavia, blood will be shed in the doing of it. I care not if it be French, Spanish or German. I am a physician. I will treat the wounded.”

      
Rigo walked around the table and placed his hand on the chair, afraid to touch his brother and be spurned as he knew he deserved. “So, we trade places. I am for the Indies and you remain in Italy. Be safe, Benjamin, and one day...one day return to Española. ”

      
The next morning Benjamin watched Rigo ride off with a small escort of men from Pescara. Snow was falling, sprinkling his ebony hair with silvery flecks. Dressed in lightweight leather armor, armed with sword and lance, he looked every inch the deadly mercenary. The final farewell between the brothers had been as chilled as the weather.
At last, Papa, you will have your firstborn returned to you. I only pray he deals with you more fairly than he did with me.

      
“So, I lose a captain and gain a surgeon. Will it be an even trade,
Magister
?” Pescara asked after a final salute to Rigo.

      
“I am accounted a good physician,” Benjamin said levelly, his thoughts elsewhere.

      
“Considering how you mended Rigo's torn body, I can believe that, but the question yet hangs in this blustering air. Do you repent that rash act now that the man you saved rides off to claim the woman you love?”

      
Benjamin's head turned and he looked into the smaller man's shrewd dark eyes. “How come you to know that I love Miriam?” He paused, then looked down at the frozen earth. “Do I wear my heart on my sleeve for all to mock me?”

      
“I do not mock, only observe and understand. For every man there is a woman. Perhaps this Miriam was not the one destined for you.” He clasped Benjamin around the shoulders and they turned toward the villa. “Come, and we will soon see what the fates have in store for you, Physician.”

Chapter Ten

      
“Tis fearful cold. That is the truth!” Django Janos stomped his booted feet to warm them. The well-worn leather dully reflected the flickering leap of flames from Agata's campfire. He had stopped at the edge of their encampment, drawn by the old
phuri dai's
cooking. After a day of hard riding, he was starved. The smell of roasting hedgehog made his mouth water.

      
“I will not break the clay from the meat for another hour,” the squat old hag said, as if reading his thoughts. “Send your sister to me. I must speak with her.”

      
Django spat on the ground in disgust but held his peace. She was the
phuri dai,
the wise woman, and as such only old Sandor could overrule her commands, and that only because he had been elected
voivode
, or chief, by the tribal elders. Her glittering black eyes locked with his for a moment. Then he quickly looked away from the fathomless depths that seemed to drain his strength. “I will send Rani,” he said, quickly swinging back onto his horse.

      
The old crone's cackling laughter lent speed to his departure. He rode toward the center of the randomly scattered tents and wagons, all closed against the demon's sneezing, as Gypsies called the winter wind. Everywhere campfires leaped gaily as women bundled in layers of woolen clothing stirred heavy iron kettles, cooking the night's meal. The air reeked with wild garlic and rosemary.

      
Django dismounted near one fire. A small figure huddled before the blaze. Rani looked up at her eldest brother, a towering giant of a man. His approach was greeted by the sound of an animal growling. “Quiet that beast lest I kill it,” he said curtly. Vero again snarled softly from his lair beneath their enclosed wooden wagon.

      
“That is far more easily said than done, brother dear,” she answered saucily, standing to stare undaunted at his harsh, coarse face. She was a full foot shorter than him. “You seem sour enough. Have you eaten frog's eggs? Or did the fair yield little without me there to filch change from
gadje?
”

      
When he raised his hand to strike her, Vero snarled again. “Hush, foolish pet,” she commanded.

      
Django lowered his hand and said curtly, “Agata wishes to speak to you. If you waste more time with her, see you bring me back some of that hedgehog she was baking,” he called after her. “I sicken of your miserable garlic stews.”

      
“Then snare a fat hedgehog for me to cook,” she replied, whirling away. The huge gray wolf emerged from beneath the wagon and loped like a puppy at her heels.

      
“What are you concocting?” Rani asked the old woman after being admitted to the dank and cluttered interior of her tent. Souvenirs from a lifetime of wandering lay piled about them—statues of cats from Egypt and bolts of gaudy cotton from Syria, fat, grease-stained pillows from Turkey and glittering gold coins from every nation in Europe. An intricately carved knife lay on a stool, its naked blade gleaming in the candlelight.

      
Agata was grinding a pestle against the well-worn marble of a mortar, pulverizing some dark, pungent-smelling herbs into powder. “I make an amulet for you to wear,” the old woman said as her fingers worked busily. She wore several rings on each finger of her gnarled, blackened hands. Yet for all her age and seeming infirmity, her movements were deft and quick as she scooped four pinches of the black powder from the mortar and placed them inside a tiny leather pouch. “This will protect you if you keep it near your heart.” She fastened the pouch cunningly beneath a garish locket on a gold chain, then held it up for Rani's inspection.

      
“What do I need with an amulet? I am in no danger,” the girl said, unabashed.

      
Agata snorted. “I have foreseen your future and you will be in grave danger.”

      
Rani laughed. “Do not speak in riddles, Agata. You know we tell fortunes only for
gadje
. Tis nonsense for one
Romni
to try and fool another.”

      
“I do not fool you. I can see the future...when it suits my purpose,” the old hag said craftily. “You are special, girl. I would have you be my successor, teach you all that I know.” Her black eyes glittered as she stared into Rani's gold ones. It pleased her that the girl did not look away as Django had.

      
“You do me honor, Agata. As
phuri dai
your knowledge is vast, but you have grown daughters of your own. Surely they—”

      
“They are not chosen. I am not certain that you have been either. Only time will tell, but I have had troubling visions. You will meet a golden man from far, far away and he will change your life. I know not if for good...or evil. Until I can decide, you will wear this.” Her voice crackled with command as she placed the chain around Rani's neck.

      
Rani's small, heart-shaped face took on a puzzled expression. “A golden man? A yellow-haired
gadje
? What would one of them want with me?” Then her eyes glinted with humor. “Unless I stole his horse or picked his pockets!”

      
“Tis nothing of that,” Agata replied. “I see you with him...” She let her voice fade while keenly observing the virginal girl. Then she added, “As lovers.”

      
Rani's shouted “No!” was so vehement it caused Vero to leap to his feet, sensing danger. “That is absurd. A
Romni
can never wed a
gadjo
,” the girl said indignantly as she soothed the huge beast by stroking his glossy gray fur.

      
“I did not say he would wed you, only that he would take you. As to whether tis for good or evil, that is what I must determine.” Agata plucked at a long gray whisker that sprouted from a mole on her chin.

      
“If he is evil, Agata, can you protect me from him? I will give myself to no
gadjo
” she said with a stubborn tilt of her chin.

      
“Oh, then, you are so eager to wed Michel?” the
phuri dai
asked, knowing the answer.

      
Rani spat on the ground and pulled her woolen cloak more tightly about her slim body. “Pah! That stripling boy. Django and Rasvan have chosen him for me. I despise the whimpering cub.” She twisted a tangled black curl about her fingers nervously as she added, “He is skinny and has rotted teeth!”

      
Agata seemingly rebuked her, saying sternly, “Django and Rasvan are your brothers. Tis their duty to arrange your marriage. You will soon be seventeen years—far past the age for suckling your first babe.”

      
Rani envisioned a sickly black-haired child with crooked, rotted teeth and shuddered. “Never will I bear Michel's babe.”

      
“Mayhap you will, mayhap not,” was all the old
phuri dai
would say.

* * * *

Mirabello Park, outside the Walls of Pavia, February 24, 1525

      
The siege of Pavia, a small town on the plains of Lombardy, had begun by the French army in October of 1524 and progressed through the fall and into winter in a desultory fashion. The Holy Roman Emperor's unlikely French ally, the Duke of Bourbon, after having failed to take Marseilles, enlisted more Lutheran mercenaries in Germany to fight for the most Catholic Monarch of Spain.

      
Having loyalty for neither side, Benjamin had heard reports of the forces converging at Pavia with little interest while he was safe in Marseilles. Once his brother had followed Pescara into the pending battle, his attitude had changed. In Marseilles everyone expected King Francois to triumph, but after meeting the wily little Spanish-Italian Pescara, Benjamin had not been so certain the Imperial Army would fall easily.

      
He arrived in Pavia with Pescara just in time to usher in 1525. Expecting to treat wounded soldiers from both French and Imperial forces, Benjamin was amazed to find little fighting. There was a raging epidemic of the French pox and many soldiers dying of plague as well. The cold was brutal, especially on soldiers with insufficient food and blankets. They were wracked by wasting diseases for which Benjamin had no medicines. For nearly two months he treated them as best he could, quickly using up his meager supplies. He scoured the countryside and villages, purchasing herbs from farm wives and apothecaries. Woundwort and feverfew, comfrey and chamomile were dear and Pescara's purse was thin enough. No money was forthcoming from King Carlos, far off in Spain, and Benjamin had no way to secure funds or supplies from Isaac in Marseilles.

      
The French, who had held the countryside for months, had plucked it barren and turned the park outside the starving city of Pavia into a bustling marketplace where thousands of Lombardy merchants hawked fat capons and fine wine to rich French courtiers. Whores paraded their wares as well and Francois surrounded himself with every comfort of home, including a bevy of mistresses from Paris.

      
But the winter wore on and the Imperial forces grew stronger while the French dissipated their wealth, unable to dislodge the stubborn De Leyva's Imperial army from Pavia, even though the city was cut off from its massing allies beyond the French encampment.

      
Then the final day of decision dawned. Icy cold air swept down from the Alps in the predawn chaos as Imperial sappers breached the walls of Francois’ park, Mirabello. The final pitched battle was set to begin at sunrise.

      
Pescara found Benjamin covering a shivering young drummer boy who was near death from exposure. “Come, Physician. Soon you will have far more violent injuries to treat. I want you behind my arquebusers and lancers. Once the first act opens, this theater will be soaked with blood.”

      
Wearily Benjamin rose and gathered his instruments and medicines. “Do you never tire of the stink of death?” he asked the general as they left the crude tent.

      
Pescara laughed and a gust of wind quickly carried the sound away. “The stink of death, yes. But the triumph of victory, no, for it is exceedingly sweet.”

      
In spite of his small stature, the tough, wiry soldier commanded attention as the men gathered about him. One held his horse while he mounted and scanned the lances gleaming dully in the predawn light. Grim-faced arquebusers and seasoned cavalry milled behind their Flemish commander. Scarred German mercenaries waited with their
landsknechts
. All had made a life's work of carnage. Benjamin observed their faces, this polyglot army of the Emperor Carlos V, and he could smell the blood on them.