The Flesh and the Devil (84 page)

         
'Come here.'

         
The green eyes were fixed on the leader of the brigands,
but she knew he spoke to her. Pulling herself away from the momentarily
slackened grasp of Blas, she ran to the cart and scrambled up into it. It was
only when Tristan's fingers touched her that she realized what he meant to do,
and that their only hope lay in her managing not to protest. Pressing herself
close to him as though for protection, she felt his arm encircle her shoulders
and braced herself, unobtrusively but with all her strength, to take his
weight. Against her cheek she could feel the heavy thudding of his heart and
guessed what agony it must be for him to stand so arrogantly, so impassively,
with his arm so apparently lightly across her shoulders.

         
'Well, boys, the lady has a protector!'

         
The black-haired man had recovered from his surprise, but
the jeering note in his voice rang false; his dark eyes were darting from side
to side, finding out what his companions were doing. Ferrando appeared to be
transfixed, his weapon drooping from his hand as though he had forgotten he
held it, white Blas darted hungry glances at his fallen pike, his springy body
tensed to dive and snatch if up. If he succeeded, Juana knew, their chances
were almost surely ruined.

         
She felt Tristan's fingers tighten on her shoulder, so hard
that he had to bite back a cry of pain, and then he moved. Slowly and with an
air of unhurried languor, he lowered himself from the cart and stood alone. He
had not made a sound as his wounded leg took his weight, but as she turned her
head to watch him she saw an infinitesimal tightening of his lips as some loose
stones slid away from under his foot. For a few seconds the green eyes looked
sightless, and then his foot found solid ground. He straightened, one hand on
the rim of the cart with what looked like studied elegance, and his expression
held nothing but faintly amused hauteur.

        
'Do you expect me to stand by tamely while you take my
possessions, gentlemen?'

         
'If you are wise, you will. If not-' The dark man nodded to
Blas, who moved towards his fallen pike. At once Tristan stirred, a leisurely
shifting of his weight, and the rapier-blade glinted.

         
'Wiser not,' he said crisply, and the curly-haired man
paused in mid-motion.

         
Tristan's gaze had not left the leader's face; there was
still that faint, infuriating smile on his scarred mouth.

         
The leader cast a swift look down at Blas, who had sunk to
one knee with his hand outstretched, then burst out suddenly in a tone between
jeering and bewilderment'

         
'You must be lunatic, man! We could take you now, where you
stand!'

         
'Could you? The three of you?'

         
There was a short, uncanny silence, and Juana chewed
savagely at her lower lip, uncertain whether or not she had seen Tristan sway.
He seemed to be holding the three men in some hypnotic spell; all their faces
wore the same look, I frustrated aggression mixed with superstition and doubt.

         
The dark man laughed suddenly, a sound that had no mirth in
it. 'You're deceived - I have a dozen more men on the hillside. Look behind
you!' Tristan's eyes did not waver. 'Look, Juana.'

         
She obeyed half-fearfully, scanning the hillside. Boulders
- hollows - stunted trees - nothing moved there but a gust of wind, blowing the
dust into eddies.

         
'No. Nothing.' Her voice cracked.

         
'So. Only three.'

         
Tristan rested the tip of his blade on the ground and
leaned on the hilt; it was as if he disdained to point his weapon at such
negligible foes. Only Juana noticed that the poised, graceful motion, one foot
before the other in studied urbanity, had left all his weight on his uninjured
left leg. Bias's outstretched hand darted towards the pike; in the same moment
the rapier-blade struck, quivering, in the ground between the outspread
fingers.

         
'
No
' was all Tristan said, and his voice was only
gently reproving.

         
The white-rimmed eyes flared hatred from the ground, and
the hand was jerked back.

         
The brigands' leader was breathing more quickly now, and
all traces of his charm had vanished as he licked his lips and rapped out
hurriedly, 'Use your wits, Ferrando, don't stand there gaping - get behind
him.'

         
'Try it,' Tristan invited levelly.

         
The younger man's mouth opened and closed once or twice,
and he put up an arm to mop his forehead with a flapping shirt-sleeve. There
was not a sound as he hesitated, making a couple of feints towards Tristan's
left and then thinking better of them, shuffling uneasily in his tracks.

         
And all the lime Tristan's slanting green eyes rested
steadily on the leader, with an expression of mockery growing slowly in their
depths.

         
'You - !' the man said, and spat.

         
'Come,' the answer was bitingly ironic, 'I do not mean to
wait here all day while you make up your minds to rob me.'

         
The man's teeth bared. 'Ferrando! Blas!'

         
The next few seconds were utter confusion to Juana. She saw
a scuffling movement on the ground, saw Tristan pivot smoothly on his left
foot; there was a flash of metal and a terrible scream, and on the other side
of him Ferrando, who had not made any positive movement until then, stepped
backwards with a horrified look. Blas started to rise from his knee, then
stumbled and half-fell; as the dark man went to help him she saw that the hand
he had reached out to grasp the pike was cradled to his breast, spurting blood
from a stab-wound that pierced it clean through from back to palm. The leader
stared, gagged, and started to urge his wounded companion backwards. In the
next moment, all three of them were running, scrambling back the way they had
come over the rocks. Only the fallen pike and a splash or two of scarlet showed
that they had ever been there.

         
Tristan's head was bowed forward when Juana reached him; he
seemed to be absorbed in cleaning the blood from his rapier by digging it
repeatedly into the grey dust at his feet. It was only when she was within two
paces of him that she saw the way he was standing, the muscles as taut as
knotted ropes, his breath held in agony. She would have gone to his support,
but his smothered voice stopped her.

         
'Do not touch me - they may be watching still.'

         
Her hands fell to her sides with a brief, despairing
flexing of her fingers. She had to bite the heel of her hand to stop herself
crying out as he walked, with a slowness that looked like total confidence,
back across the sliding shale to the cart. As he came to it she closed her
eyes, and when she opened them again he was sitting behind the oxen, rather
white about the mouth, calmly unknotting the reins.

         
'We had better drive on in case they decide to call on us
again,' he remarked shortly. Then, when she still stood staring up at him,
shocked and wordless, his long fingers paused in their work. 'What is it?'

         
'I did not know you had a sword - and -'

         
'I found it hidden in the cart, days ago - Elena brought it
back for me. I forgive you for not noticing I had it at Dona Jeronima's feast.
What else?'

         
'I did not -' she swallowed - 'I did not know you could
walk.'

         
'No more did I,' he responded dryly. 'Climb up while I try
to make these beasts move.'

         
The sun was dipping low over the hills when Juana wrenched
herself out of her unprofitable thoughts, and she looked up to see that the
cart's pace was slowing. She stiffened, staring bewilderedly round her, and
then almost accusingly up at Tristan's set profile.

         
'It will be too dark to follow the mules' tracks in another
hour.' He spoke without taking his eyes from the track ahead. 'The ground is
open on either side, and we can see and hear any night-visitors long before
they can come upon us-there is water, and even grass. Where better to spend the
night?'

         
She did not answer. The casual-sounding words were so much
at odds with the trend of her thoughts that she could hardly believe he had
uttered them. In silence, as if he sensed her mood, he reined in the sluggish
oxen and turned to face her, to see her lovely face stormy with rebellion.

         
'You could have been killed.' The words seemed wrenched out
of her against her will. 'They could have murdered you!'

         
There was a curious look in the green eyes for an instant
before he answered. 'Men who hunt in packs only kill if they are excited,' he
answered levelly. 'Wiser ones would have struck first and then debated, but
they delayed, and that gave me an advantage.'

         
'And you cannot let an advantage pass, can you, Master
Mercenary? You must always take the risk - no matter what the cost -'