by Carla Kelly
“You’re braver than I am to even attempt such a task,” Hanneke said, pleased to hear Engracia sounding more like herself. “I would run screaming from the room.”
They laughed together, which soothed Hanneke as nothing else could have. Engracia glanced at Juana, who stood attentively by. “Juana, you can find something to do downstairs, I am certain.”
Juana bowed and left the room, but Hanneke didn’t hear a door open and close. She hoped there was another door, because she wearied of being fearful of all sounds and no sounds. Antonio had wanted her to suggest that Engracia might feel more comfortable in Valladolid with her family. Maybe this was the opportunity.
Engracia had her own complaint. “Hanneke, why is it that only Juana comes to see me now? My particular servant Dolores says she is afraid to come to Las Claves unless she is in the kitchen. She won’t attend on me. I don’t know why.”
“Nor I,” Hanneke said, although she had a perfectly good idea. Even she felt uneasy in the great hall if Baltazar or Amador were about. Even if they said nothing or did not move, their eyes seemed to follow her. She understood Dolores’s reticence. At least in the kitchen there were other people at work.
This was a good opening. “Dearest, isn’t it time for you to return to Valladolid and your family?” Hanneke asked, keeping her voice low, as she wondered where Juana was. “Your mother would love to see Rodrigo, and you have more willing servants there.”
“I want to. I asked my brother, but he won’t hear of it,” Engracia said. Hanneke heard all of her frustration. “This is silly, but Felipe claims that…that Antonio has designs on Las Claves and I must be here to protect Rodrigo’s interests.”
“No,” she said quietly. “Remember when I was so ill, well, you know…It’s still hard to talk about.”
Engracia patted her hand. “I can imagine. And here I am with my lovely boy.”
“He told me then that both he and Santiago were counting on land of their own farther south, once El Ghalib and the other Almohades were defeated. No. Antonio does not covet Las Claves. He is from farther south. He wants to return there.”
“You tell Felipe,” Engracia urged. “He doesn’t listen to me.”
He terrifies me, Hanneke thought. Why am I still here? She patted Engracia’s hand. “My dear, believe me when I say that Santiago never encouraged Manolo to join the battle. I was there and I heard every word.”
“And Felipe was…who knows where?” Engracia said. “Sometimes I wonder.”
“You knew Santiago’s heart,” Hanneke said, as her own broke again. “He loved his brother.”
Engracia squeezed her hand. “Ana, I have wanted to believe this, even though Felipe tells me I am wrong.”
“Believe it,” Hanneke said firmly. “Felipe never knew Santiago, did he?”
“Not really. Hanneke, thank you for your comfort.”
They parted as friends. Her peace of mind lasted less than a minute. As she went to the door, Juana came out of the alcove with the altar and saints, where she must have heard every word. She opened the door for Hanneke. “Be very careful, Señora Baltierra,” she whispered.
Show no fear, Hanneke thought, her mind in a panic. Remember what Papa said. Show no fear. She turned to face Juana, letting her eyes bore into the servant’s eyes. She stared in silence, then turned on her heel and left, not to return to her room and cower there, but to find Carlos.
To her relief, he was no farther than the gate, where the blacksmith was reattaching the final large hinge. Never mind that she knew Amador watched her from his perpetual perch by the entrance to the great hall. She linked her arm through Carlos’s arm and tugged him to the side for a moment’s conversation.
“Listen,” she said tersely but softly, and told him of finding her marriage lines out of place, and being called Señora Baltierra by Juana only moments ago. “I have to leave now,” she said. “If Juana knows, then Felipe must know, too. Antonio is in terrible danger. Felipe will send one of his thugs to kill him, and pave the way for forcing me to marry him. I know such coercion happens. It mustn’t happen to me.”
“Yes, yes,” Carlos soothed. “Write a letter. I’ll find someone to carry it north to Toledo.”
“I need to leave now,” she repeated, tugging on his arm for emphasis.
“The day after tomorrow will do,” Carlos told her. “I’ll make sure Pablo knows. We’ll leave before sunup then. I can arrange for horses.”
“No, now!” Hanneke insisted. “Not tomorrow!”
Carlos smiled at her. “They both told me how forceful you can be, little one. Trust me to do the right thing here.” He chuckled. “I am the expert at skulking about.”
She had to be content. The man would not budge. He returned to his work and she stayed close to the gate, rubbing her arms, cold because it was January and she had run outside without a cloak, panicking like a chicken who sees the huisvrouw approaching with an ax. She thought of her father again and tried to show no fear.
When she thought she could move without falling to her knees in fear, she crossed the courtyard, ignored Amador leering at her by the entrance to the great hall. Up the stairs to her own room she went, head high, eyes ahead. Were they closing in on her? Had they waited a few days, toying with her, letting her think they knew nothing, to lull her into carelessness? It had nearly worked. It might work yet. Until it did, she wasn’t ready to surrender to anything Felipe had in mind, and she knew it was her dowry.
She unlocked the door. Felipe appeared out of the afternoon gloom and slid in right after her. She gasped and stepped back, but there was Baltazar, ready to stop her.
“What would you have with me?” she asked Felipe quietly, calmly.
He seemed surprised at her serenity.
“Well?” she asked, her voice still calm. “My husband is dead, and you obviously know that Señor Baltierra and I were married in an attempt to prevent any challenge from you to claim me and therefore the dowry.”
More silence. She gathered together a little more courage from that quiet place in her heart that had been through so much. Santiago had said once, in anger, that she was a terrible liar. I’ll test that, she told herself, because I have no other resource.
“Don’t even think you can kill Antonio,” she said, looking Felipe in the eye, which she knew he never cared for. “The Knights of Calatrava are well-informed of the danger to that good man. He will have an escort all the way to Toledo.” She folded her arms to prevent them from shaking, and waited.
“I will find a way,” he snapped. “Don’t try to leave this place.”
She had satisfaction, a puny one, when he looked away. “Where would I go?” she asked. “I am going downstairs in a few minutes to the kitchen because the cook is expecting me. You may leave now.”
“I’ve won, you know,” Felipe told her.
To her astonishment, Felipe left. She locked the door behind him. She wrote a note to Don Levi, La Judería, Toledo, and in a few words spelled out the danger to her dowry and to Antonio. I will run and hide, she concluded, then blew gently on the ink to dry it. She folded the note and stuck it between her breasts.
When she left the room, she locked the door behind her, well aware that Baltazar watched her every move in the hall. She put the key back in the pouch around her neck and descended the stairs, Felipe’s henchman right behind her, practically on the same tread. She closed her eyes in terror when he touched her hip.
“Never do that again,” she said, with all the venom in her body.
He stepped back, startled. Head high, she went to the kitchen, hoping beyond hope that someone would help her. Cook had died with Santiago’s little forlorn-hope army of five, and Dolores’s father had reluctantly assumed his duties. To her relief, Dolores was kneading bread. Pablo turned the meat slowly on the spit, his eyes troubled.
“Here I am to help,” she sang out. “
I am sorry I am late.”
Please pretend I do this every night, she begged in her heart. “Wouldn’t you know it, Baltazar wants to help, too, don’t you?”
“I hadn’t…”
“Señor Martinez, Baltazar can fetch you some water.”
She had no idea what the new cook’s name was. She stared at him through desperate eyes and he understood.
“I do need water,” he said, as he stopped stirring whatever awful concoction he had dreamed up, because he was no cook. “Just around the corner you’ll find a pail. Thank you!”
No one said Baltazar was bright. He snatched up the pail and left. Hanneke motioned Dolores, Pablo, and her father closer. “I am in dreadful danger from Felipe Palacios,” she whispered. “Dolores, take this note to La Vieja. Señor, do you have a small knife?”
Dolores grabbed the note and ran to the door. “Walk slowly and calmly,” Hanneke said, as she took over the bread. “If she gives you a message for me, come back quickly.”
“I am Julio Villa,” the cook said. He handed her a knife, which she put in the pouch around her neck with the marriage lines. “We will alert Carlos.”
“And me, dama?” Pablo asked.
“When it is full dark, make your way to La Vieja. I have no more plan than that.”
Baltazar returned with water and looked around suspiciously. “Where is the servant girl?” he demanded, grabbing Hanneke’s arm.
She shook him off. “She is with child, and the smell of roasting meat troubles her. She will return when her stomach settles.” I am turning into quite the liar, she thought. “Hand me those pans. The bread is ready.”
She deftly shaped the dough into loaves, placed it in the pans, and handed Baltazar the baker’s peel. “Until Dolores returns, you are to put these in the oven over there and for heaven’s sake watch them! I will tell Engracia that dinner will be ready soon.”
Please be as stupid as I think you are, if only for a few moments, she thought, as she slowly washed her hands, then rolled down her sleeves, taking her time when she wanted to run. She slipped out the kitchen door, hurried up the stairs, and locked herself in her room.
She knew Baltazar wouldn’t stay long in the kitchen. She has no idea where Amador was. She snatched up Santiago’s short cloak, leaned against the locked door and willed herself to think. Antonio had traveled down the vine from the room two doors away, but she needed to keep this door locked.
She opened the window, breathing deep of cold air only getting more frigid. There was just enough light to assure her that there really was a ledge. Whether it would hold her weight, she had no idea. If she climbed out and fell to her death, so be it. She had tried and she had been winnowed, too. Hanneke looked around the room for the last time. “Santiago, help me,” she whispered. She touched her marriage lines. “And you, Antonio, you. God keep you safe.”
Chapter Forty-one
The ledge was icy, but it creaked and held. She gasped when the vine bowed out as she climbed down, but it did not snap. The dry leaves rattled and protested even her slight weight, but no one appeared on this side of the fortress to check out the noise, which sounded to Hanneke like a full-throated tenor singing with a hurdy-gurdy accompaniment.
She closed her eyes in gratitude when she stood on firm ground again, firm enough at least, with snow and mud mingling. Her heart stopped when she heard a low laugh, all the worse because she knew that laugh. She looked up, barely breathing, knowing who she would see, nearly unwilling to look. Help me, Santiago, she thought, bypassing all the saints and Father Eternal.
“Why did you not think Manolo had a key to your room?”
“Juana, what a pleasure to see you,” Hanneke said, as she stared at the window she had just vacated. “Are the goons there with you?”
Juana laughed once more. “Them? Them? What fools. No, I locked the door behind me, like you did. Santiago should have died years ago, but I did my best to kill him with words. You are a different matter. You are weak where he was strong.”
A knife flashed in the moonlight. Hanneke stood there, waiting for the servant to throw it and end her life. Instead, she watched as Juana climbed out on the ledge, too, Juana who was taller and weighed more.
“You did him fearful damage,” Hanneke said, unafraid. “Nothing you do to me will equal that.”
“We shall see, widow of the man I hated as no other, and now the whore of Antonio Baltierra.”
“Santiago, the child you wronged,” Hanneke said, not caring what happened.
“He ruined my life!”
“You did that to yourself, Juana. There will be a judgment someday…”
This time, the vine was less forgiving. When Juana leaned from the ledge and grabbed the vine, it fell away after her first step and threw her to the ground in a judgment much quicker.
Hanneke leaped back as the servant landed on both feet. She heard bones break and grind sideways as Juana suddenly became much shorter. She crashed to the ground beside Hanneke with a shriek and a groan.
Juana held out her hands in supplication. “Help me,” she whispered. “The pain!”
“After all you have done to Santiago?” Hanneke said. “Why should I?”
She wanted to do nothing, but another woman suffered. Almost against her will, Hanneke took a step closer and knelt down, only to see the light go out of Juana’s eyes.
Hanneke turned away. “It is over, Santiago,” she said. “Juana goes to her own torment now.”
She knew she dared not waste another moment, but Antonio hadn’t mentioned a gate so tall, and with a padlock. She stood in front of it, alarmed about this impediment to her escape, only just begun. She ran her hand over the padlock and let out her breath when she realized the hasp was free of the lock. She pushed and the gate swung wide.
She let her eyes adjust to the gloom, wishing she had fled in sturdier shoes. Hopefully, no one would be looking for her, because she couldn’t be missed yet. Who would miss Juana? Only Engracia.
There was nothing to do but stroll into the courtyard then edge toward the gate, where the carpenter was putting away his tools. She could stop and chat, but when Felipe eventually began to search for her, the carpenter might say something. She didn’t know the man well enough to beg him to lie for her or hide her. If he did lie for her, she did not think Felipe would treat him kindly, when found out.
His back was to her. She picked up a shard of roofing tile that had somehow ended up by the gate and heaved it as far as she could. The carpenter looked up. “Marco, you naughty boy, is that you?” he asked into the growing darkness. “Marco? Mama will scold, if you are teasing me.”
She held her breath until he set down his tools and walked toward the sound, calling for his son. She passed through the gate before he turned around, hoping to reach the shelter of the huts and houses before anyone took notice of her.
“La Vieja? Please open your door,” she whispered into wood so old and dried out that she saw into the single room through the gaps. A shadow passed in front of the gaps and the door opened. Teresa Moreno grabbed Hanneke’s hand and pulled her inside. “What happened?”
Hanneke deep a deep breath and another, then told the old woman how Juana must have searched through her belongings and found the marriage lines. “Felipe knows. I locked myself in my room and escaped out the window. Juana is dead. She tried to follow me and fell from the window.”
La Vieja clapped her hands. “No loss at all.”
“I don’t know where Carlos is. Did Pablo…”
La Vieja nodded and held out the scrap of paper her true knight had taken to her. “Felipe thinks you are in your room?”
“I pray he does.”
La Vieja nodded with satisfaction. “He hasn’t the imagination to think you would escape out of a second story window. This is good. You have bought us time.”
Hanneke nodd
ed, relieved to her soul to hear us instead of you. “You will help Pablo and me?”
“How could we not?” La Vieja said. “You became one of us when you bit that donkey’s ear.”
“It seems so long ago,” Hanneke said, remembering the confusion, the pain, and the sorrow of what followed.
La Vieja took her hand and ran with her down the row of huts to one slightly larger, more house than hovel, and opened the door without knocking. The room was dark, but Hanneke saw people. Pablo ran to her and grabbed her around the waist. She hugged him.
“Where am I?”
“In my house, Señora Baltierra, the house of the potter. Pablo and Teresa have told me everything. My house is now your house. I am Francisco Ferrar, and I am at your service.”
“I have put you and everyone in the village in danger, Señor Ferrar,” Hanneke said.
“There is nothing we would not do for you, brave lady,” he said, with a slight bow. “Had you not sent those peddlers to the Knight of Calatrava, we would all be dead. I have your note that must go to Antonio. One of us will leave immediately. I…”
He stopped and listened. Hanneke held her breath and heard it, too, a weak call for help. She knew the voice.
“Carlos?” she whispered. “What are they doing to him?”
Señor Ferrar spoke to two of the shadowy figures, who left in silence. Another word, and a third man took the note she had written. “We cannot waste a moment. Ride to Toledo, Chato.” Señor Ferrar touched Hanneke’s arm. “Come with me. You and Pablo will have to hide and be very quiet. I know a place.”
Hanneke grabbed La Vieja’s hand and kissed it, then followed Señor Ferrar from the house. There was more noise from Las Claves, shouts and a summons for more soldiers, then torches.
“Don’t look at them,” the potter said. “It will only frighten you more. Follow me. This will not be pleasant, but it will be safe.”
She felt Pablo’s hand in hers as they threaded their way through one alley and another. Soon they stood beside a fence. She sniffed, then looked closer at the dark shapes moving about and grunting.