by Kit Brennan
Like all Spanish men, he was in love with his uniform, so that garment featured strongly in many of our first (and ongoing) escapades. Spurs, too, were on the menu. He’d wear his boots (and nothing else), while I’d don his spurs. He loved a little pain; some men are like this. I think he fancied himself as a horse, in his most secret fantasies. Who knows what men are thinking as they are coming? I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone what I am thinking in the same, private moments. Why should we? That is for our own soul; it feeds us and fills us with pleasures both describable and inexpressible—and then we return and thank God for each other, for the fulfillment and satisfaction that swells our hearts and blood vessels in the moments after. In the arms of a good lover, the world is made right.
He adored his mustache, and played with it constantly. He was rude, and made me laugh, when he’d say he could taste me on it for hours afterwards. He was proud of his manhood—well, what man isn’t?—referring to them as his “crown jewels.” As for me? Well, with Diego I understood why it is called a little death. Under his skillful touch, I could imagine myself as the hand inside a glove, and then the way that hand feels as the glove is swiftly slipped off: naked and free, for uncharted moments, shorn of everything but sensation. Such bliss . . .
I moved in with him, not caring whether Ventura approved nor whether Grimaldi would be angry from afar. I was angry with them, I thought defiantly, and anyway, Diego promised to smooth things with the playwright. Luisa Fernanda was sad that I was leaving, but she was young and her world constantly revolved, accommodating aristocratic relatives, royal functions, kittens and puppies, and her mother’s absence. I promised we would dance together at the ball. “Very well,” she said, “I will anticipate that with pleasure.” Already more distant, already moving into her destiny. Already I felt like a traitor to her.
Isabel didn’t notice my departure, but that was nothing new.
Carlota and I met briefly—she came to my room as the last of my trunks were being carried out. “I didn’t mean that you must leave us immediately, dear. But perhaps it’s for the best.” I almost told her then; I came so close to blurting it out. We’re going to kidnap the princesses, by direct order of Cristina! Do you approve, do you know this is about to happen?
She must have sensed my turmoil, as she pushed a strand of hair back from my forehead and said in her matter-of-fact way, “You’re lovely. I don’t need to know, but be careful. Choose your friends wisely. Listen to your heart.” The servants bowed as they left the room for the final time. She turned to look about, checking their work. “We will be off, too, after the ball. Cadiz and Seville are restless; their father as well.” She moved to the window and gazed down into the courtyard below. “I feel a heaviness . . .” It was true, she appeared tired, those splendid features rather drawn. I didn’t know what to say to her, her presence made me tongue-tied with admiration—the only woman I’ve ever met to cause such anxious yearning in my heart.
“Damn,” she suddenly cried. “Those shitheads have brought my favourite stallion out for Cadiz!” She yanked open the window and shouted, “Not on your life, boy! Get your turd-filled boots off that stirrup! You’ll ruin his mouth!” She ran from the room, calling back, “I’ll see you at the ball—as the Fires of Hell!” And she was gone.
Those next few weeks—waiting, and living with Diego—were some of the most whirlwind of my life. I had called him a dynamo and that is surely what he was. He went about his military business during the mornings; he was a general, after all, and highly regarded. The populace loved him for his bravery and swashbuckling charm. He’d fought heroically and gallantly in the Carlist battles, earning the loyalty of the people as well as the title of Count of Belascoain, a thank you from Cristina.
One morning, as the church bells struck noon, he arrived with his comrade, General Manuel Gutérrez de la Concha e Irigoyen, another handsome, uniformed fellow, but taller and thinner—the other general Grimaldi had mentioned. Diego filled us in on the plan as he knew it.
“We are to kidnap the infantas on the evening of the ball, deliver them to the fastest coach we can muster, and head for the border. We need you, Rosana, to keep Espartero amused, distracted, while we get them away. At first he won’t know what is happening—his office is only a few streets from the Oriente, and that is where you must get him to take you. By the time reports have come in and they’ve found him to tell him, it will be too late. We know a secret route over the border. We’ll disappear.”
“But the girls will be frightened!” I protested.
“There’s a woman coming with us. She’ll be good with them, never fear.”
“They know me, they trust me. I should go with them.”
“Too obvious.”
A pang of jealousy shot through me. “May I see Grimaldi’s instructions?”
“You don’t doubt me, surely?” Diego grinned, then frowned.
“Of course not. But it seems dangerous.”
“It is dangerous!” He snapped his teeth and rolled his eyes at de la Concha, as if to say, Women . . .”
This made me angry. Did he think me afraid? I was determined to be as brave and as reckless as my athletic lover. Why shouldn’t I be? Did he think I couldn’t do it? Concha added a few soothing words: “The princesses will be safe, not frightened at all.” But neither of them would part with any further details.
This was the only wrinkle in an otherwise rhapsodic interlude of days and nights. Diego made love like a man dying of thirst. I realized he must have other women elsewhere; he was just built that way. But during this time he was almost constantly with me—and I didn’t care, anyway. His spurs strapped to my ankles, digging into his sides, made him bleed: The crazy man shouted for more! When I’d pull them off and kiss his wounds with sorrow, he would roll me off the bed and then under it, amongst dustballs and centipedes, until I’d crawl out gasping and running for the other room, with him in aroused pursuit.
He took me to a yard where dozens of exquisite horses were being paraded up and down, all up for sale from a distinguished horse-breeding establishment in the Sierra de Guadarrama, northeast of Madrid. Diego’s taste in horseflesh was as discriminating as his taste for the other pleasures; he knew exactly what he wanted. He settled on a sleek, black, three-year-old gelding with a white star on the brow and a white left foreleg. As we led the beauty through the frosty streets, I kept looking up at his large brown eyes (the horse’s, not Diego’s), listening to the soft breath through his nose. “Oh, he is gorgeous,” I said, taking the hand of the fine military man at my side. Diego stopped, grabbed my waist and hauled me to him, kissed me fiercely, and whispered, “He’s yours.”
We stabled the gelding in the place where Diego kept his favourite stallion, Conquistador; a spacious, clean stall for each horse, fresh straw, sweet water, and only good feed to eat. Diego spared no expenses for “the most gracious and noble animals in the world.” Seeing the horse settled, he said, “At three, he’s old enough to have experienced a few things, good and bad, and young enough still to be keen to learn. The act of gelding is barbaric, yes, but he won’t be distracted. Conquistador is a terror sometimes.”
“Just like you,” I said into Diego’s ear.
He stroked my black horse’s neck, rearranging the thick mane with tenderness. “This horse loves to run, you can see it in his lines. He’ll run until he drops if he’s asked to. He’s gentle, he’s loyal; he’ll keep you safe.”
“He is the most wonderful gift I have ever had, Diego.” And I meant it—even jewels, even diamonds, in that moment, could not hold a candle to the splendour of that living, breathing, beautiful beast.
“Call him Lindo.”
“I will.”
“For his calm, and his good nature. I can trust you with him. And he’ll be right here for you, in case you need him.”
This seemed to be important, since he was very serious when he said it, and Diego did not allow himself often to be serious. I tried to question him further, but he sho
ok his head. “That’s enough about it. I’m glad you like him.”
This worried me, yes, and it also made me curious. But I was trying to live in the moment with this marvellous man, and so I told myself that the gift of Lindo, from one horse lover to another, was a pledge. And it was.
We rode together frequently in the days following, as I acquainted myself with the particular singularities of Lindo and improved my riding ability. I’ve always loved it; I have a good seat and am quite unafraid, though riding with Diego made me realize how much I still had to discover. One morning, after it had snowed prettily, inducing a frisson of celebration in the city, we headed out together to a flat field where the military men trained. Diego began galloping, creating circles in the fresh snow, Conquistador’s hooves flashing as they kicked it up. “Watch this,” he called, and flung down the cap he was wearing. I pulled Lindo to a halt and rode off to the side. Diego was urging the stallion to go faster and faster, then finally he turned him swiftly and rode full tilt at the cap sitting small in the whiteness of the snow. Just as I thought the horse was sure to gallop over it, Diego swirled his body to the side—I thought he was falling, going under the animal’s belly—and in a seemingly impossible move, he reached, plucked up the cap, and righted himself all in one smooth action. He gave a loud whoop, Conquistador laid his ears back against his head, and they dashed off in a riveting charge to the edges of the field, racing nobody but themselves, the day, the hour, and their own might. I laughed when Lindo raised his head in the air and whinnied.
“What were you doing?” I called as they whirled to a halt beside us.
“I met a Cossack four years ago,” Diego grinned. “He’d left Russia and come south for the warmth, but he missed his savage sports. He used to practice this endlessly on a field near where he lived. I learned it from him.”
“And where is he now?”
“Oh, he’s dead.”
“From doing this, no doubt.”
“No, they thought he was a Carlist. He was executed. Because of the Carlist leader who pretended to be a Cossack. Those were jumpy times, Rosana.”
“Well, they were mad, and he was a madman! And so are you!”
“I know!” he shouted with a happy laugh and kicked Conquistador into motion again. This time I raced after him, Lindo straining at the bit to be given his head and catch up with the bolt of lightning streaking before us, plumes of snow billowing up from his hooves.
At some point during that lovely, cold, kiss-drenched day, I remember asking Diego about the rebels. “Did you go to the north? The mountain bandits, I hear they’re difficult to fight because they know their mountains so well. Anyone not from there is sure to be outdone.”
“Not quite true,” he answered, “but almost. They are ruthless, yes. But to look at it from their side, they’ve been wronged and abandoned for so long. Each time they are roped in to fight, in their minds they are fighting not for the centrist government nor for a king they never see, but for their fuegos, their traditional rights. That crucial element is forgotten at peril. It makes them cagey, because they are always being used. Mountain people see different things—not so far, perhaps, but deeper.”
This made sense. I nodded thoughtfully, reminded of the border patrol who had almost intercepted Matilde, Father Miguel, and me. And of the only other Spanish northerner I’d met: Pedro Coria.
“Afraid of bandits, my darling?” Diego smiled. “I’ll protect you.”
“I’m afraid of nothing,” I said with a toss of my head, “not even you.” And to prove it—though I’d been about to—I didn’t even tell him about my near accident in the theatre fly tower, nor my worries about the shadowy figure who’d attempted to kill me.
“Ah,” he whisked his mustache across my fingers, which he’d raised to his lips, “la bandita. That’s who you are!”
He loved this sobriquet and used it often afterwards, particularly in the throes of passion, with my spurs laid on hard. He adored word games and naming things he cared for, as I was to discover.
The night before the fateful ball, Diego introduced me to a different love: He was a gambler, particularly cards. Of course, being in the army and often needing to while away the time, either between nerve-wracking bouts of fighting or idle, weary waiting, cards and dice had a long history with the men. But Diego took it beyond such a mundane occupation: He was crazy about it. I was sleepy and sated, trying to relax before our big event, but he glowed with energy. In his hands, the deck of cards flashed and spun; I could barely see how they came together in new configurations. His sweet-smelling little cigar was clenched between white teeth.
“I’ve always been lucky at cards—ventiuna, écarte, any kind. The higher the stakes, the better I’m pleased.”
“I find it unnerving,” I yawned.
“I could teach you.”
“I like to dice?” I offered.
“Dice takes no skill,” he responded. “No, in cards, it’s all about equal conditions. Establishing them, keeping them. If your opponent is belligerent or overconfident, you must be so in return. You must keep control of the crowd, manipulate the outcome, so he doesn’t gain advantage. And plan your ambush.”
“Ambush? Sounds like the bandits.”
“Sí, Bandita, now you’re understanding. Dice is open, blind fate; you simply wait for disaster. Cards are concealed. That’s the only advantage you can count on: your own skill and daring, all other conditions being equal.”
I rolled towards him and stroked his thigh, but he wouldn’t rise. Or, he rose, but ignored it. This had become more important for some reason. He lay out a hand, showing all four suits.
“Concealment is an advantage?” I tried to follow.
“Sí. Like breaking in a wild horse. If you fall you get right back on, show no fear, or it will gallop away and never come back.” The cards whirled in a new dance.
I’d lost him. “And we’re talking about . . . ? Love?”
“How to win, Bandita. Listen to me again: The fundamental principle is equal conditions. If your opponent is more powerful, or unscrupulous, prone to violence or clamourous distraction, if he’s deceitful, can disturb your concentration by making you afraid or angry, if he can turn the crowd against you—then he means to destroy you, forever.”
I sat up then, since his words were frightening me. “You can’t be talking about cards anymore, Diego.”
“In my opinion, it applies to everything,” he whispered, happy now that he had my full attention, and ready to tickle me again with his mustache. “Life is gambling. Never let them see your hand.” He reached across me with a muscled arm and picked up the candle, then blew it out. I felt him putting it back down again by the side of the bed, able only to see his shape in outline from the tapers burning in the other room. “Do you understand now, Bandita?” He could feel my hair and then my lips against his arm, where I’d turned to kiss it. “You must keep your head, trust your skill and your daring, and play hard, without fear. This is what I have learned, and what I believe.” He bent his head and kissed me. “All our lives depend upon it. Now, if we understand each other?” He leapt up and we were at it again.
By dawn, we lay in each other’s arms, past sleep, the disquiet of impending action affecting us both.
“Have you killed many men?” I asked.
“Yes, I’ve killed. Only bad people, ones who were on the wrong side. By the way, I’ve seen your Cloud with the Silver Lining—enchanting. Espartero will be yours for the night, I guarantee. I’ll try not to be jealous, for the cause.” One hand was on my breast, warm and heavy. I didn’t want to think of the man I had to seduce but rather concentrate on the one I was seduced by. Perhaps he guessed it. “Be brave, sweetheart . . . One night is not so long.” He sighed into my hair, then asked, “What are you going to do when you get out of this?”
“Be a dancer, and be famous,” I said pertly, then faltered. I wanted to be truthful with him; I loved the courage he gave me to be true. “Well, that’s what I
’d like. What are you going to do?”
“Leave the army. Settle down with a wonderful woman and have twelve children.”
I laughed and said, “I don’t see myself with many children. So it won’t be me then.”
“I think we both know that, Bandita.”
That made me suddenly sad. And regretful. So I told him about the little girl I’d once had, my fears for her, and my hopes. Why I’d given her up. How lonely I’d been, and then how angry. About my mother’s ways, and how I couldn’t bear the idea of being anything like her. Even Grimaldi’s threat of blackmail and the decorated box and how it applied to my daughter—I actually said the words, and they thrilled and frightened me: my daughter. I felt absolutely safe in the warmth of Diego’s arms, speaking of love and true, honest things, no need for prevarications or lies. He was a man who would take me as I was. I was so happy.
“Truthfully,” he said when I’d finished my story, “I can’t see you settling for any one man. Perhaps as truthfully as I can’t see myself with any one woman. But I think I should try.”
We both laughed at that one, and let it pass. Diego’s cries of ecstasy often included prayers in favour of his seed, or of women about to go into labour—a bit strange or religious, but somehow endearing. Spaniards take their faith seriously, all aspects of it, like medicine.
He returned to business. “I warned you to say nothing to the Infanta Carlota of Naples.”
“I remember. And I haven’t.”
“She’s too impetuous, always has been. Thinks she can solve everything herself if she just behaves arrogantly enough. Cristina expressly forbid her sister from knowing the plan for that reason. They had a falling out.”
“Really? Why?”
“Carlota thinks Cristina’s a silly cow for actually falling in love after the king’s death. Visibly pregnant much too soon. The people were screaming, ‘Death to the whore!’”
This chilled me then, and chills me now. Why are women always made to pay for their passion? And it reminded me again of the princesses.