The Flesh and the Devil (26 page)

         
The lamps in Torres's chamber had burned so low that the
circle of their light was diminished, and the glow had altered from palest gold
to a sullen orange. It lent a misleading look of health to his scholar-pale
cheeks as he sat writing, but he only frowned and peered more closely at his
work. There was too little time to do all that had to be done, he was thinking,
and he blessed the reputation that allowed him to spend a whole night in
writing without any man thinking it strange.

         
His pen was blunt, and he took another. So much to note
down, survey and discreetly edit in his report to the King — the facts would
have to be presented in the most favourable way before Torres was forgiven for
the fact of this betrothal. He himself would be rebuked as he had rebuked that
dotard Histangua, who had chattered so long and in the end told nothing but
some rigmarole concerning the Arrelanos girl's widowed aunt.

         
At least he had not had to spend much among the castillo's
younger servants to establish amongst them the knowledge that the old Duque
would always pay for news of the young one. Already the promise of gold had
brought them to him with tongues wagging, and he had learned much of what
Eugenio de Castaneda sought to keep from him by sending his outwardly meek
guest to his room so soon after supper.

         
It was Histangua who had reported `the master's' stationing
the young Duque in a deserted room and bringing `the young senorita' to him.
The old man had been deeply shocked and had talked of his grand-daughters.
Then, some hours later, one of the lackeys who guarded Valenzuela's apartments
had come on tiptoe with the news of an uproar in the Duque's bedchamber, crashes
and such shrieking that no one had dared investigate. 'He can be like a beast,
Your Grace,' the man had mumbled in response to Torres's quizzical look, and we
knew he was out of temper because of what happened. . . . When he is like
that,none but the pellirojo can handle him.'

         
'And where was — er — the pellirojo?'

         
'Someone came for him before. He was gone half an hour—
perhaps less—

         
and while he was gone the little black wench, the
senorita's maid, came to speak with him. Tristán has a way with women, despite
that face,' he added sourly, and then shifted his feet under Torres's blank
regard. 'We let her into the Duque's apartment to wait for him.

         
Torres's pen had ceased its scratching, and he waited.

         
'When Tristán came back he was only in there for a minute,
and then he came out looking fit to kill and gave us the rough side of his
tongue for letting the wench in.' The lackey made a wry face at the memory. `He
was still at it when a message came from below that the girl had crawled out on
to the Duque's balcony and thrown herself down.'

         
Torres had nodded; he was too familiar with the symptoms of
Valenzuela's disease to have to enquire the reason. `What then?'

         
The lackey had looked shocked. `By the saints, you're as
cool as he was!

         
Not a change in his face when he heard! He just went
straight down to where they said the blackamoor was lying, and we heard no
more. We didn't see him again for the rest of the night, and there was no sound
from that — from His Grace either.'

         
Torres had dismissed the man after extracting from him the
approximate times of these events. It seemed that events were moving swiftly —
perhaps had outgone even Eugenio de Castaneda's expectations.

         
Now he rubbed tired fingers across his eyes and looked up
to see the sunrise creeping in at his window. The light was better there than
at his table, he realized, and he might as well ring to have the lamps
quenched. He was rising, savouring the exquisite twinges in his stiffened
knees, when a scratching at the door arrested him, and for a moment he thought
that he had rung without being aware of it.

         
'Enter.' His tone carried no trace of the weariness he
felt.

         
He did not recognize the girl who peeped round the door,
large-eyed and apprehensive, and at first she spoke so quietly that he could
scarcely make out her words. Then, as he questioned her more closely, he began
to make sense of her low-voiced, faltering testimony.

         
‗... and they said you would pay to know of. . .

         
anything unusual,'she concluded at last,'and I thought. .
.‘

         
'You did well, and I am pleased that you came to me.'

         
The information was worth ten reales, Torres thought, his
fingers gliding wistfully over the coins as he handed them over. He waited
patiently as she stammered her thanks and left, wondering that she had not seen
the important point in her own testimony. That when, only a few minutes since,
she had seen Felipe Tristán by the Senorita de Arrelanos's bedside, gazing down
at her sleeping form, there was no way in which he could have gained access to
the Duquesa's bedchamber without being seen.

         
Someone was shaking Juana by the shoulder, and the touch
woke her to the consciousness of pain. She muttered and shifted, trying to
evade it, but it was repeated, and somehow she knew that it would be repeated
until she opened her eyes. Slowly, wincingly, she lifted her lashes and for one
drowsy instant stared straight into eyes as clear and transparent as pale
emeralds.

         
The hands gripping her loosened and slid away, and after a
moment she became aware of the voice of one of her women calling her from the
other side of the bed. 'Senorita, you must wake. It is important, senorita.'

         
'No. Let me sleep.' Her lids fluttered down again; they
were heavy, and she did not want to see what was in the green eyes.

         
'You cannot, senorita, there is news! A visitor is come for
you, and Senor de Castaneda says that you must go down —'

         
'No matter for that,' Tristán cut in crisply. 'I have been
trying to rouse her for what concerns her. Madam, your maid —'

         
'Michaels? What of her?'

         
The drowsiness fled from Juana's voice, and she thrust
herself up from her pillows. His face was set like stone, she found herself
thinking; only those strangely lambent eyes really lived.

         
'She is dead, madam.'

         
For long moments she tried to speak, to answer him; her
lips moved, but no sound came. At last she said, 'She cannot have fallen ill so
suddenly!'

         
'It was not an illness. She fell from one of the higher
balconies, about two hours before dawn. Someone who saw her fall said that she
threw herself off.'

         
'So long ago!' Juana's throat hurt her. 'Why was I not
summoned before?'

         
'It would have done no good: there was no hope of life in
her. It has taken her since then to die, and when I left —' his lips twisted —
'your learned doctors were still disputing whose task it had been to attend one
so base and where her body should be laid to cause the least labour.'

         
'You? Why were you there?'

         
'She asked for me.'

         
It was said to baldly that Juana could not doubt him, and
her eyes misted as she remembered Michaela's outspoken fancy for a man who did
not respond to her blandishments. 'How did she —' Her voice trembled, and she tried
to swallow her weeping. 'Why did she — ?'

         
She saw Tristán's long fingers clench. 'She went to the
Duque's rooms to seek me, or so I was told, but I had gone to speak with Senor
de Castaneda.' His deep chest moved in a sudden quick breath. Bartolomé was not
quite asleep.'

         
She shut her eyes against the vision, but could still hear
his voice continuing evenly, 'It seems he was more successful a second time. He
was babbling it when I came back to him, but I did not understand at first what
he meant — I thought he talked of you.' His gaze was steady on her averted
face.

         
'He is sleeping now and does not know that the girl is
dead.'

         
The words sounded unreal. Juana could hear the concerned
chatter of her waiting-women and realized that to them Tristán's news was of
less moment than his outrageous, forbidden presence in her bedchamber. It
hardly mattered to her now, she thought, and then her head snapped up as he
added, 'She charged me with a message for you, madam.'

         
'For me? What message?'

         
'She was afraid to die with a wrong upon her conscience,
and she bade me tell you that it was she who betrayed your escape from Zuccaro
to your father. She said, "Senor Jaime never had the letter. I took it to
Senor Miguel."

         
Juana lay very still. She knew that she ought to feel, but
there was nothing: no more emotions, no grief, no joy, no remorse at her own
misjudging. She had blamed Jaime for faithlessness, and all the time he had
never known that she had begged his help, relied upon his love for rescue. In a
flat tone she replied, 'She must have wanted to come here very much.'

         
Tristán was briefly silent; then, glancing up into the
condemning face of the Condesa de Araciel as she came hurrying in, he said
curtly, 'I will leave you to receive news of your guest, madam,' before he
turned on his heel and strode out.