The Flesh and the Devil (85 page)

         
Juana's teeth had begun to chatter. She hardly knew what
she was saying, except that she must vent some of her pain or die of it.

         
'Our lives were not a gain to let go lightly.'

         
There was no need! I could have talked to them-I had almost
persuaded them that I was alone and penniless. They need never have known you
were there!

         
But you had to — show yourself-'

         
'In another five minutes the three of them would have raped
you. Was that what you wanted?'

         
Her chin jerked up in a gesture half of fright, half of
defiance. 'I
—
 
they would not!
They were only interested in the money I might have had, and... .' Her voice
faltered.

         
'I heard them,' he interrupted her. 'I
 
know what they wanted. And you were ready to
give it to them, were you not?'

         
She had been ready to do anything that would save him,
Juana remembered, thinking of the fear that had driven her to recklessness. Her
cheeks burned, but she was too ashamed to notice that the insistent question
held a steady ruthlessness but no contempt.

         
When she would not speak, he said, 'Help me down. I cannot
stand alone this time.'

         
She hesitated but then moved to him without a word, sliding
her slender shoulder under his right arm as he slid, dumsily now, out of the
driving-seat and down to the ground. He had drawn up beside a pool fed by two
or three tiny streams; shallow and brackish-looking, it was overhung by a dozen
dust-covered trees, and green grass grew to the brink of the water. Juana
supported him to the poofs edge, trying to still her trembling, and finally
helped him to lower himself to the grass with a sigh of relief.

         
'We have nothing to eat,' she said automatically as he lay
back. 'I must see if there is anything growing nearby.'

         
The chilling shock, the scorching anger, were fading now,
and the urge to weep out her love and fear was almost overwhelming. It was
 
to prevent herself smoothing the tangled hair
back from his set face that she started to rise, but he gripped her wrist.

         
'It does not matter now, it will soon be dark. Wait until
morning.'

         
Juanna was still, held by his steady, unrevealing gaze. She
fell as though she were being sucked into a vortex, invisible beneath the
surface of a calm lake. Against her will, against her sense, she felt herself
stoop and saw a swathe of her hair fall forward to brush his cheek. Then his
arm came up and locked behind her bead, pulling her down until her lips met
his, and she was helpless.

         
The controlled cruelty that she had always sensed him, that
had lain between them like a sword, was no longer there. His mouth moved
against hers with a hunger that before, for all its savagery, had been
detached, pensive, now it was almost desperate, and she could not resist. For a
few seconds only she struggled, trying to pull herself away, and then her hands
went out to touch his face and bury themselves in his hair.

         
She was panting when she lifted her head at last, her voice
quick and shaking. "Felipe, you must be careful-if your wound breaks open
now —'

         
He had not bother to answer her. He had untied the strings
that fastened her blouse, his touch possessive the bared skin of her throat,
and now his hands slid inside to cup her breasts, subtly insistent so that her
eyelids drooped in response to the caress. Wanting stirred within her, so
suddenly and painfully that she had no words to stop him when he pulled the
garment open and drew her inexorably down against his mouth.

         
She shivered. Her brain told her that this was folly, that
they risked everything by this, but her body would not heed her brain. Her back
arched, the shoulders hollowing voluptuously to answer the demands of his
mouth, and he had turned her so that she was lying half upon him, her limbs
shaping themselves to his. With helpless urgency her hands went out to him,
fumbling at laces and buckles because she could not steady them, and at last
running her palms lovingly down the lean warmth of his hard body. She thought
fleetingry how small and inadequate her hand looked against his tawny-dappled
skin, but his hand,covered hers and held it to him.

         
'Juana.'

         
It was a summons, she knew, and she should recognize the
name, but she was deaf to everything but the message of his flesh against hers
and hers against his. With an impatient shake of her head she pressed closer,
helpless in the grip of her own desire, letting him guide her to that she knelt
astride him, his hands sliding under her russet skirt to grip her hips, gently
at first and then bruisingly hard.

         
She was flying, she thought as she felt the hard thrust of
his possession within her: her body moved in an instinctive response that she
was not aware of, opening itself to delight, and she thought inconsequently
that it was like being mounted on some great winged horse and soaring out over
the whole world. Blind rapture surged inside her as passion gripped them both,
and she could hear herself moaning with a new poignant, agonizing sweetness
that she could neither bear, nor bear it to cease. Above her, as she opened her
eyes, she could see the azure sky darkening to a fierce blend of copper and
velvet blue, and the water - the water in the pool was liquid gold, the last
reflection of the dying sun. No wonder, she was thinking, that Icarus flew too
near the sun and melted his waxen wings.

         
Then light and darkness and a sudden, indescribable ecstasy
all blurred together, and she whirled down out of the sky into fiercely
enfolding arms that held her and swayed her, rocking her like a child. She
opened her eyes again, only dimly aware that she had been weeping, and saw
Tristan's green eyes searching hers, an odd, ruthless look in them.

         
'You called me Philip,' he said in a strange voice.

         
She stared at him. She did not even know that she had
spoken. In the rapidly-falling dusk the memory of copper and gold and blue
still seemed to dazzle her eyes, their dark depths dazed for the briefest of
moments; then his mouth claimed hers, impatient of words, and she forgot the
visions and the fantasies and saw nothing but him.

         
When she had risen to take care of the patient oxen and to
wedge the cart's wheels, she went back to him. He was lying propped up on one
elbow in the grass, his green gaze following her, and she let fall the cloak
she was carrying and pulled Tio Enrique's shirt loosely round him. It barely
fitted Tristan across the shoulders, but the rest flapped loosely; the sleeves,
when he wore it, came halfway down his forearms.

         
'You will be cold now that the sun has set,' she told him
matter-of-factly.

         
'Not unless you plan to hide from me under the cart all
night.'

         
She caught her breath. 'You knew where I was?'

         
'I always know where you are.'

         
It was said so calmly that she could not disbelieve him,
but she dared not question what he meant. Instead of replying she spread the
cloak over him and sank to her knees in the grass, keeping a small, safe
distance between them. He watched her manoeuvres without expression, but the
harshness was gone from his face; the green eyes were watchful but no longer
remote. Juana dared not look at him. She could feel him waiting for her answer
as patiently as a hunting lion for prey, and she knew that she was in danger of
telling him every last, shameful scrap of the truth.

         
Yet if she told him about the baby he would think she had
done so to ensure his protection for the child, not, because she loved him. She
knew that icy cynicism of his too well.
I am a mercenary, and I help myself,
 
he had said, and that same
misanthropic clarity would cut through her emotions as ruthlessly and
destructively as his sword had stabbed through a brigand's hand, straight to
the material motive that he would discern beneath them. Her shoulders drooped a
little, despairingly.

         
'Are you planning new ways of making me suffer?' The
question made her look up quickly. 'No - there are none worth inventing now.
The journey is almost over.'

         
'And tomorrow we come to Cadiz. The last of Spain.' He
spoke with sudden roughness, as if his leg pained him.

         
'Do you still miss your own country?' Without being aware
of it she had moved to help him, supporting him against her shoulder as he
moved his leg to a more comfortable position.

         
'I can barely remember it, I was not eight years old when
my father sent for my mother and me to join him in France.' He spoke
abstractedly, briefly gritting his teeth against an upsurge of pain. 'A green
countryside with forests, and an old house that belonged to my father's brother
- but most of the people there were as sombre and joyless as those here in
Spain. Only my mother was not; my father was an old man even when I was young.'

         
He was silent for a moment, and Juana felt an urge to
gather his head to her breast. 'I thought the English Protestants were Godless
devils who practised every sort of abomination,' she said. 'At Zuccaro, the
priest told us-'

         
Tristan shook his head. 'Not the Puritans, their ways are
more severe than any but the most bigoted Catholics; your King Felipe would
approve their zeal if be knew of it. But they only torture and burn those of
different faiths from theirs-they do not harm their own.'