by Joan Aiken
Juana looked at me calmly.
‘He won’t worry. Felix has some experience in dealing with wilful children. Yes, and with evil spirits also.’ Momentarily, a grave expression passed over her face; I guessed she might be remembering, as I did, how we had been hunted over the mountains by a demon inhabiting the body of a brigand, and how we had to drive out the wicked spirit. Juana, too, I thought, has had experience in dealing with evil. Our eyes met, briefly, and I felt a closeness, as if we had clasped hands.
I said, hoping to ease the moment with Conchita, ‘Well, if the little Pilar has such an unquenchable spirit in her, I hope that we can turn it to good account when it comes to the children’s rescue.’
Dona Conchita smiled, just a curve of the lips and a widening of the dark velvety eyes as she thanked me.
Pedro came to tell us that our meal was ready, on a trestle table at the other end of the dim-lit room. There were four places laid, for me, Conchita, and the two sisters.
‘What about you, Pedro?’ I said, surprised. ‘Are you not eating with us?’ For, hitherto, he and I had eaten together as a matter of course.
But with a wholly expressionless tone and countenance he said he preferred to take his meal in the kitchen with Tomas and the postilions. ‘Servants’ gossip,’ he hissed in my ear. ‘You never know what you may pick up.’
From the cool glance Dona Conchita cast at him, raising her fine brows, I could see she considered the kitchen was properly his place. And as it was, the meal proved a little constrained; Juana and Sister Belen ate quietly and very sparingly of the excellent bean soup, omelette, and chicken with artichokes, Dona Conchita picked at each dish and murmured in her soft cooing voice that the soup was too salty, the omelette leathery, the chicken disgracefully overcooked, and the wine and bread horribly rough. I thought it fortunate indeed that Pedro was taking his supper elsewhere, for, nephew and great-nephew of two superb cooks, he was a very fair judge of food and might not have agreed with Conchita.
While we ate, Dona Conchita was gently, sweetly arch and mischievous about the former journey that Juana and I had taken in each other’s company.
‘What an intrepid pair of babies you were to travel so far, and through such dangers together. Did you ever stay in a posada such as this?’
‘No indeed, we had no money for such entertainment,’ said I. ‘We slept in the bracken and I caught our dinner out of brooks.’
‘Ay, de mi, what austerities! It is a wonder you survived.’
But Sister Belen said sturdily that trout fresh from the brook was the best supper there was, and bracken made the finest bed of all. I noticed Juana throw her a grateful glance; I fancied that she was embarrassed and annoyed by Conchita’s gentle raillery.
After we had eaten the two nuns went off immediately to the attic room where they had been quartered. Dona Conchita asked me if I would escort her to a very pretty waterfall that we had noticed not far from the village as we came along; it would, she said, look even prettier by moonlight. But I, with a sad lack of gallantry, replied that it would be best to retire early so that we could make an early start, since we were by no means as far advanced on our way as we should be. Observing her look of disappointment I added, however, that no doubt Pedro would be glad to escort her to the waterfall (though I knew he would not be) if she wished an escort, though, I thought, in such a rural spot, she would be perfectly safe by herself.
But she, sighing, said, no, it had been just an idle whim; and she took herself off to bed. I did likewise and found Pedro there already, casting a critical eye over the rude and scanty bedding.
‘If the Dona de la Trava has done no better, we shall hear about it in the morning!’ he said with a grin, as we shared out the threadbare covers between the two primitive cots.
‘Well? Did you hear any servants’ gossip?’
‘Less than I hoped,’ he said. ‘Pepe and Esteban are merely hired for the journey and have no knowledge about the family. And old Tomas, even when full of wine, has little to say. He did give as his opinion, though, that the Senor de la Trava was not mad; or, at least, not mad at the time when he was sent to prison. But, poor devil, he was in the dungeons of Montjuich for two years – ay, Dios! – they say nobody comes out of that place in his right mind.’
‘I wonder how he ever escaped?’
‘He must have had good friends. By the way,’ Pedro said, cautiously glancing about us, ‘Tomas told me – speaking of friends – that Mother Agnese, the old Mother Superior of the convent where your Senora Juana was, in Bilbao – Tomas says that she is a cousin of the king’s own confessor, Archbishop Saez. And also an old friend of Dona Conchita’s mother, Senora Escaroz.’
‘Is she indeed?’ I said thoughtfully.
The king’s confessor had been responsible for so much savage persecution of the Liberals that even the Russians and French had protested about him and he had, in the end, been relieved of his position as King Ferdinand’s adviser, but, instead, as a consolation, made an archbishop. If he was the cousin of the gimlet-eyed Mother Agnese, it might account for her being so well-informed about my grandfather. And if she was also a close friend of the pair of old toads, Conchita’s parents, what did this betoken? I resolved to be doubly discreet in all that I did and said.
I wondered if Pedro would say anything about Juana – with whom, I had observed, during the day, he had grown to be on very easy, friendly terms; she accepted his services when they were offered, or amiably declined them, without any of the prickliness of former times; and he had held various chaffing conversations with her and Sister Belen; indeed the pair seemed more comfortable with Pedro than any other members of the party. Remembering Grandfather’s insistence that Pedro should come along, and my own first opposition to the plan, I thought, not for the first time, what a very shrewd old fellow Grandfather is!
‘She’s a proper lady, your Senora Juana,’ Pedro observed pensively, blowing out the candle. ‘What my great-aunt Bernie would have called one of the old school – not jumped-up nobodies but real old-fashioned aristocracy.’
‘Good heavens, Pedro!’ I was amused and astonished to find that Pedro’s views were so identical to those of my grandfather.
‘No, I mean it,’ he said seriously. ‘She’s the sort that will do their duty through thick and thin – if it means walking over burning coals. And yet no fine airs about her; easy and joky as you please. Whereas –’ Whatever else he had been about to add he providently decided to withhold.
‘Well, I am glad you think so well of her. Although –’ Here, like Pedro, I was overtaken by second thoughts and closed my mouth.
‘While as for that Sister Belen –’ Now there was a broad smile in his voice. ‘I wouldn’t mind being washed up with her on a desert island.’
‘Pedro!’
‘Too bad she’s a nun,’ he said.
Then we slept.
5
We pass through Pamplona; the fat man again; I ask God for a sign; arrival at Berdun; the unaccountable scream; the mysterious creature in Don Ignacio’s chimney; I receive my sign from God; and hold a moonlit conversation with Juana
Irurzun was only six leagues this side of Pamplona, so we reached that city early in the morning and made no long stop there. I had been there once before, with Juana, shortly before our last parting, and I remembered it with sadness, though it is a handsome place, raised upon a bluff and ringed about by mountains with the mighty snow-capped Pyrenees to northward. If Dona Conchita had not said she wished to make some purchases there, I would have suggested that we ride straight through without stopping, but since she wished to pause, I thought the time might usefully be employed in buying one or two more pieces of equipment. I suggested, therefore, that we might all meet in forty minutes’ time close to the gate in the town wall that opens north-eastwards near the River Arga.
Just as I was about to take my leave of the party, Juana jumped down from the carriage and approached me.
‘Felix,’ she said quietly,
‘would you do me a kindness?’
‘Of course! You know that. Anything in the world.’ My tone was no louder than hers but I tried to put my heart into it.
‘Nothing difficult,’ she said with a faint smile. ‘If I might ask a little money from you? We have none, of course, and I would like to buy a gift or two for the children – only trifles for the poor little beings – to remind them that we used to be friends –’
‘Take what you wish.’ I handed her my purse, and she selected a few coins. ‘It is a good thought. Poor little wretches, they will be in need of all the comfort they can get.’
I thought of the tiny box, with the four coloured stones in it, that Juana had once given me, and how, in many lonely moments, I had taken comfort from it. Would I ever be able to remind her of it? ‘Can I help you in any way – shall I escort you?’ I suggested.
‘Oh no, no, thank you. Belen and I can look after one another –’ and she slipped away into the crowd, walking fast and quietly in her hempen sandals.
I thought about Juana’s money. She had been a wealthy heiress. I remembered the letter from Auteuil Freres, the lawyers, stating that her inheritance of 30,000 reales had been paid to the convent as her dower. And now she had not even a few pesetas to buy toys. What would happen if she should ever decide to leave the Order? Would her dower have to be paid back?
Pedro and I had decided to equip ourselves with more arms. At last night’s posada we had heard much talk of the lawlessness in Aragon, whither we were bound; there were said to be bands of brigands in the mountains; robbery of the mail was a frequent event in the province; merchants, when they travelled, were advised to have with them at least eight companions and eleven shotguns.
Pedro and I considered that we were equal to three bandits apiece, so, with Tomas and the two outriders, we should be a strong enough party, but there was no sense in being underarmed, and Pamplona was the last large town through which we would pass.
Besides the money given me by Grandfather, I had a sum which had recently been sent me by my English trustees. It had taken them an immensely long time to come to the decision that I should be paid an allowance, and even longer to conclude what this should be, but a figure had finally been agreed on and sent with a note to the effect that this was my stipend for a quarter of a year. It seemed to me a princely amount and I felt rich. Without hesitation, therefore, I laid out substantially on shotguns, ammunition, ropes, and rock-climbing equipment, in case Don Manuel had retreated to some giddy crag.
When we returned to the meeting-place, Pedro and I laden with our heavy bundles, we saw that Juana and Sister Belen were there before us with smaller bundles. But we had waited for many minutes before Dona Conchita arrived in a flurry of apologies.
‘The folk in this town are so slow! Many of them, in the stores, seem downright simple,’ she murmured placatingly in her pretty voice. ‘They hardly seem to understand what one says to them.’
Tomas, who came behind her with a great load of purchases, quickly helped her into the carriage and, with expressive looks and a whispered commentary from Pedro, we were on our way again. We rode along a broad valley, through cultivated land, with here and there a tiny village. Mountains rose in the distance on either side, those to the north snow-capped and shaggy. There was no suggestion today of stopping for a picnic; possibly Dona Conchita felt contrite over having delayed us in Pamplona; or perhaps she was engaged in inspecting her purchases.
‘She looked as if she had bought enough apparel for a brigade,’ muttered Pedro. ‘Let us hope that it included some warm stockings for those poor barefoot sisters.’
With the coming of dusk we reached a small town called Tiermas, because of the hot springs that are there. Sister Belen told me that it was once a Roman town; General Pompey (from whom Pamplona takes its name) used to bathe his gouty feet in the hot mineral waters. Since no inn there had room for us all, Pedro and I put up at a very small albergue while the ladies were housed in a more comfortable establishment.
‘Felix,’ said Pedro, when we had eaten our modest supper and were settling into our flock beds, ‘I saw something very odd in Pamplona. It was after we had bought the guns, and while you were talking to the old crone behind the shoe-stall. I could hardly believe my eyes.’
‘Well – what did you see?’ I asked. ‘Don’t keep me in suspense.’
‘You remember in Zamora – at the saddler’s shop – the fat man who was asking for a saddle with a pillion seat – do you remember him?’
‘Yes indeed, very well; what of him?’
‘Well, there he was again in Pamplona – buying a pack of cards at a tobacco shop! The very same man! Do you think it can possibly be accident – or coincidence?’
‘Hardly. Did he see you?’
‘I am not sure. But could he have followed us – all the way from Zamora?’
‘He would not have needed to,’ I said, thinking it over.
‘What do you mean, Felix?’
‘Why – if he knew our destination; if he knew that we were going in search of the madman who has taken refuge somewhere in the mountains near Berdun; then he would know that we must pass through Pamplona, and he could get there much more directly than we have been obliged to do, travelling by way of Bilbao and waiting three days for the Reverend Mother’s leave to depart.’
‘But that,’ said Pedro indignantly, ‘sounds as if we are walking into a trap. And if there is one thing that annoys me, it is being taken for a fool. Especially by a fat fellow like that one.’
‘Well –’ I yawned and wriggled myself more comfortably into the flock, ‘at least we know that we are walking into a trap, and that gives us some small advantage.’
‘But who is setting this plaguey trap?’
‘I only wish I knew!’
The following day brought us to Berdun, where Manuel de la Trava’s brother, Don Ignacio, lived. By now we were in late spring or early summer; but it was a cool year; although the sun shone brightly enough, up here in Aragon, with the snowcapped Pyrenees so close, the sun’s rays had little heat in them yet, and a brisk wind, coming off the snows, kept us from wishing to leave off our warm jackets. The new green corn rippled in silky waves, the willows and poplars along the well-filled watercourses bowed under the breeze and flashed their young leaves; everything was green and flowing, larks and nightingales sang, and thousands of small bright flowers spangled the grassy banks of the roads.
By all rights I ought to have been happy. Six months ago, if I had known that I would be travelling through the Aragon valley in company with Juana, I would hardly have believed that such a piece of good fortune lay ahead of me; yet now I rode along beside Pedro, troubled, anxious, and perplexed; because of this I felt quite ashamed of myself, and as if I ought to be apologising to God for my bad manners.
When I was younger – at that time, five years ago, when I made the journey through the mountains with Juana – I used, now and then, to hold conversations with God, often finding comfort, and sometimes wisdom, in the answers He gave me. But with the addition of years, and the worldly kind of wisdom that is picked up from friends and professors, I had, little by little and without being aware of it, grown less adept at picking out the voice of God from all the other sounds of every day.
There were so many of those, and they were so loud.
Now, riding beside Pedro, between two orchards of flowering almond trees, I addressed God internally, trying to find the old ease and freedom of question and answer.
‘My dear Father in heaven,’ I said to Him, ‘please forgive my ingratitude – for such I fear it must seem to you – that I am not simply bubbling over with joy at being permitted to make this journey in Juana’s company. I am unbelievably glad to see her again – don’t mistake me there – and to find that she has not changed in the least, but it is so difficult and uncomfortable and baffling to be able to talk to her only in the presence of other people – people like Dona Conchita – ’ Then I stopped, feeling how uncivil it
was to whine and grumble at God in this manner; besides, I was sure He was not interested in my opinion of Conchita. ‘Listen, my dear Father,’ I began again. ‘I am quite sure You have some clear purpose in sending us on this expedition – just as You had in helping Juana and me drive away the demon from that man who had taken over the robber band. So, won’t You please tell me what Your purpose is this time? Or at least, dear God, just give me a hint? For, to tell You the truth, I feel very troubled and worried – I feel there is something badly wrong, and I don’t know what it is – ’ I glanced at Pedro, who rode beside me with brows knit and lips compressed; he had just the same feelings about our errand, I was sure.
‘Of course, dear Father, if you think it’s best for me to remain in ignorance, I will try to accept that,’ I ended, as we began riding up the steep hill into Berdun.
Berdun, like Pamplona, sits on a bluff in the middle of the valley. But it is a tiny town –the whole of it would fit into one of my grandfather’s large orchards. In the old days, men banded together on this little hilltop to defend themselves from the Goths, the Vandals, the Moors – its houses have been sacked and burned over and over, hundreds of times, but always doggedly built up again. Now the town seems old and quiet – the last time it was pillaged was 400 years back; like a peaceful cat, paws curled, tail tucked, it drowsed above us on its sunny hill as we rode upward.
‘Ay, Dios!’ remarked Pedro, grinning, ‘the Escaroz carriage is never going to get through there!’
The only way into the town was under an exceedingly low and narrow arch, through which the road, which had already twisted in several sharp bends as it climbed the bluff, now angled its way round yet another hairpin corner.
‘What is the trouble, Tomas? Why do you not continue?’ called Conchita’s soft voice, and her head came out of the carriage window.
‘This place was built for pygmies, not men,’ grumbled Tomas, getting down to open the carriage door. ‘The senora will have to walk – it is not at all dignified.’