The Sometime Bride (11 page)

“
A thousand pardons, Dona Catarina, but I fear I must flirt with you.” Pedro de Sousa Holstein was seated at a card table in what aficionados of the Casa Audley had begun to call The Portuguese Cardroom. He seized Cat’s hand in his and lingered over it, whispering, “The good major is observing us . . . and now comes this way.”

With seeming indifference Major Martineau noted the unbroken decks of cards on the table, the conscious looks on the faces of the two who had just broken apart. Catarina’s hands were now folded in her lap, de Sousa’s gracefully displayed on the top of the card table. The portrait of guilty lovers, or clever conspirators, was nearly perfect.

The major favored them with a curt nod. “Dona Catarina, de Sousa.” The child was so very good at this that sometimes he actually wondered if she really were a young wife disenchanted with her husband. But no . . . she was the daughter of her father, and he would wager a year’s salary her husband was neither cuckolded nor at the bedside of a dying rich relative.

“
Have you heard from your errant husband, Dona Catarina?” the major inquired politely, as he had each time he had visited the Casa for the past month.

“
Ah, no, not a word, major,” Catarina murmured with a mournful shake of her head. “I fear he has found Another Interest.” Her eyes grew wide. “Or perhaps he has been taken by bandits. Do you think it possible?” She gave Pedro de Sousa a quick glance of heightened interest. De Sousa, hard put not to laugh, squeezed her hand and assured her Don Alexis would soon return, he was certain of it.

This blatant truth was almost too much for Cat’s equilibrium. Absurd! Major Martineau was not a fool to be played with in such a manner. If he had overheard her telling the Portuguese diplomat about Blas’s journey to Spain, they were both in serious trouble.

Mildly, Cat agreed it was too soon to worry about Don Alexis. It was, after all, a long journey he had been forced to make. Hopefully, his aunt, who positively doted on him, would provide for him quite handsomely. If so, his long absence would be well worthwhile.

Major Martineau, who expected to hear nothing else, had now satisfied his personal code of honor. No one could say he had ignored the sight of Dona Catarina in conversation with one of the most important young noblemen in Portugal.

As the major disappeared into one of the larger gaming rooms, Pedro de Sousa bid Catarina a hasty goodnight and left to spread the news which would stir dampened hopes from the Minho to the Algarve.

Don Alexis Perez de Leon returned to the gaming rooms the next evening with the sad tale of an aunt who still lingered at death’s door. Only his concern for his wife and the Casa Audley had brought him back to Portugal. Alas, he feared he would soon have to make the long journey once again. For, after all, what was more important than money? He winked at the long-suffering major to whom he was confiding this patent falsehood. His poor Catarina . . . so fortunate she had the Cardosos, father and son, to provide their excellent protection and aid with the Casa. The major digested this fairytale in silence, shook his head, then walked away. They both knew he did not believe a word of Don Alejo’s tale.

In mid-April rumors reached Lisbon that the master puppeteer Napoleon was once again playing Punch and Judy with the Spanish royal family. While pitting Charles and Ferdinand in a vicious scramble for the throne, he turned around and offered the crown of Spain to his brother Joseph Bonaparte.

Within forty-eight hours Blas was back on the road to Spain, his remarkable sense of timing putting him in Madrid on the day a child’s tears provided the spark which ignited one of the most massive uprisings in the history of the world and added a new word to the language of nations. The Spanish word for “small war.”
Guerrilla
.

Madrid, Spain, May 1808

Blas woke early that morning. And wondered why. Accustomed as he was working to working through most of the night and sleeping the morning away, a return to the life of a carter for another journey to Madrid was not enough to bring him awake so soon after dawn.

It was the silence. The hushed expectancy of a great city on the verge of . . . something.

When he arrived in Madrid in late afternoon of the day before, the city was rife with rumors. The French had sent that miserable cur Godoy to France, thus helping him escape trial for his crimes against the state during his years as first minister of Spain. Ferdinand
el deseado,
the desired of his people, had been lured into France by the promise of a Bonaparte bride. Instead, when he entered Bayonne, he was arrested. With the former Charles IV and his queen already in custody, Napoleon proceeded to goad all three members of the Spanish royal family into greater and greater idiocies, even to the extent of the queen claiming that Charles had not fathered Ferdinand. Ferdinand, it would seem, was not desired by his mother.

As Blas wandered from tavern to tavern, listening, nodding, watching, wondering, only one thing seemed clear. The Spanish government had deserted its people. They were leaderless and alone.

There was authority in Madrid, make no doubt about that, said Blas’s drinking partners in sibilant whispers through slitted mouths. Napoleon Bonaparte’s brother-in-law, the French Marshal Joachim Murat, controlled the city. His army, camped on the outskirts of town, was not described—at least not aloud—as an army of occupation only because Spain was still nominally an ally of France.

The last rumor Blas heard that night was in a smoky
taberna
where the ale was strong and the fandango suggestive enough to make his manhood rise. But the words whispered into his ear were enough to make him dismiss any thought of buying the dancer’s favors for the night. Blas gave his full attention to the young Spanish guardsman at his side. Marshal Murat had ordered the remaining members of the Spanish royal family to be transported to France. Tomorrow.

Which was now today. The city seethed. Behind thick walls, in back streets, in quiet courtyards, under the rounded arches of arcaded walkways. People whispered and worried. And wondered. What to do? Who would help? Did anyone care?

Their government was worse than incompetent, but it was theirs. The French were not. If the last of the royal family were taken to France, there would be no Spain . . .

Quietly, anxiously, in small worried knots, people began to move through the streets. Workers, students, merchants,
hidalgos
, lawyers, priests. Worried, curious, they gravitated toward the Plaza de Oriente and the royal palace of Spain.

They had no plan, no weapons except perhaps a small knife for cutting meat and as a token of protection against a wicked world. Blas fell in step with a group of men who had left their wives in charge of their stalls in the marketplace and set out to see for themselves if the rumors were true. Few words were spoken as they passed through the quiet streets. They were not angry, only worried. And wondering if life as they knew it was about to end.

It was.

On that long walk to the Plaza de Oriente the wives in the market were the only women Blas saw. There was an occasional flash of a face in a window, the soft click of a closing door, but that was all. No lovely bosoms dangling next to the red geraniums on the balconies, no rustling of skirts, no voices raised in song, no flirtatious glances from liquid chocolate eyes. Madrid had become a world of men. And of women who shut themselves inside their stuccoed walls and told their beads. And wondered, as did their husbands and fathers and lovers, what was to become of Spain. And their own small corner of it.

Madrid is a city of rosy cream and pink and beige. A capital city of ornate architecture and strong Moorish influence. The royal palace, like the Casa Audley, was an open square surrounding a central courtyard. The scale, however, was so massive that the entire House of Audley might have fitted inside the courtyard of the
palacio real
. At the rear of the palace were the gardens of Campo del Moro. At the front, the handsome tree-lined open space called the Plaza de Oriente. It too was decorated with masses of flower beds in full bloom. In its center a handsome fountain spilled a steady hiss of water into the blue depths of a large oval pool.

As Blas and the men from the market approached the plaza, it became apparent that at least one of the rumors was true. Above the heads of the crowd, which was still streaming into the plaza, could be seen a line of heavy traveling coaches drawn up before the columns of the front entrance to the palace. In a protective semi-circle surrounding the coaches was a guard of mounted horsemen. French dragoons, their blue jackets trimmed in red with tight white pants and gleaming gold helmets, were armed not only with sabers but with muskets as well. Even more colorful was the troop of mameluke guards mounted on fine Arab stallions, their only uniformity the broad white turbans wound about their heads. Their short jackets and full trousers were of nearly every shade imaginable. Although Napoleon’s opinion of Spain had long since turned to contempt, he had ordered a formidable guard to escort the remnants of the Spanish royal family to France.

The crowd grew larger, crept closer to the circle of armed and mounted guards. And still they waited. The coachmen sat slumped on their high perches. The horses twitched their tails, their riders never moved. The dragoons did not bother to hide their boredom, their indifference to the crowd. The faces of the mamelukes showed no expression at all.

Whispers, murmurs ran through the crowd. Rumors, speculation. Nothing a man could sink his teeth into. They waited, the sun rising higher over the buildings surrounding the Plaza de Oriente.

Suddenly, from a corner of the plaza nearest the palace the murmurs rose in pitch, the crowd surged forward. “There! You see him?” declared a stranger as Blas’s group drew close to the source of the growing noise. “He is a locksmith, just now come from the palace.”

The locksmith, overcome by emotion, moved further into the crowd, once again wailing his message. “Kill the French! They have taken the king, and now they will take the rest of the family. They take our government! I tell you it is true. I was hired to change the locks on the minister’s cabinets. Kill them! You must rise and kill them. Kill the French dogs!”

Blas stared, awed by the small man’s fervor. He was mad. Suicidal. Magnificent.

Though not loud enough to reach Napoleon’s guards, the locksmith’s words burned through the crowd. Voices rose, tempers flared. The dragoons lost their boredom. The dark eyes of the mamelukes betrayed a spark of interest. Shock poured through the crowd. They had come to the plaza out of anxiety and curiosity. They had not come to die.

They hesitated. There was no sign of the royal family. Quite possibly the locksmith was mad.

Blas put his back to a tree and checked the knife in his boot. He was now much closer to the side door from which the locksmith had escaped the palace, so he was among the first to hear the words from the next bearer of news. A young Spanish palace guard, wild-eyed, tears streaming down his face, burst out of the palace and into the crowd which had spilled out of the plaza, surrounding the locksmith’s exit.

“
The young prince will not go,” the Spanish guard cried. “Prince Francisco refuses to leave Spain. Refuses to leave the palace. He is above in his apartments, throwing a great tantrum. He has only thirteen years, yet he is a braver man than his father, braver than Ferdinand, his brother. He cries, the young one, but he cries for Spain. He cries for us all. Do not let them take him away.”

It was impossible. Intellectually, Blas knew the whole thing was absurd. He also knew it was the moment for which they had waited so long. The unknown spark which could set off a revolution. Split Spain from France. Create an Achille’s heel to Napoleon’s mighty empire.

Blas tensed against his tree, feeling the rough bark bite into his back. What now?

The noise of the crowd swelled to a roar as news of the Prince Francisco’s defiance raced through the plaza. Knives appeared, branches were torn from trees and stout shrubs, cobbles pried out of the roadway. As the crowd erupted into motion, Blas stayed pinned to his tree, his knife still in his boot. Thomas would kill him if he got himself killed in Madrid. Cat would kill him. And yet all these glorious fools around him had as much to lose as he. No, they had one thing more. It was their country they were about to lose.

With his back still hugging the tree, Blas drew the knife from his boot. Ahead of him was a vast melee of men and horses as the crowd surged forward, attempting to overwhelm armed and mounted troops by the force of sheer numbers. The curved sabers of the mamelukes rose high and slashed down, rose and slashed . . . rose yet again. The French dragoons raised their muskets, fired point blank into the crowd. But muskets took time to reload, time the dragoons were not allowed. They were left with only their sabers as a multitude of eager hands reached up to pull them from their horses.

One dragoon, braver or more foolhardy than the others, got all the way to the tree where Blas was standing. As his saber arced down toward the head of a young Spaniard, Blas mustered all the strength of his twenty-two-year-old body and leaped at the dragoon, dragging him from his saddle. To his relief, he did not have to use his knife. A half dozen Spaniards rushed forward to do the job for him.

The battle could not last. The odds were impossible. For every enemy down, ten Spanish bodies lay crumpled in the plaza. But something else was happening. The sound of the dragoon’s volley of musket fire reverberated through the city. Voices screamed the news from balcony to balcony. And they came, the men of Madrid, armed with ice picks and axes, meat cleavers, shovels, and even some swords.