“I have seen what I have seen, and I have heard what I have heard,” the gray-whiskered servant said. “I do not need you to tell me what is true and what is false.”
When Alejandro glanced at Speaks While Leaving as at an errant child, she, too, shrugged off his concerns.
“What would you have me do?” she asked him. “How can I prove that I am not this spirit woman they want me to be?”
Now it was Alejandro who shrugged. “How indeed?”
After a third day in La Extremadura, they left it, climbing up into higher, more fertile land. Speaks While Leaving was glad to see it go, her eyes and ears hungry for the gifts of a more forgiving landscape, but even as they passed the tilled lands of farm crops, herds of cattle and sheep, even as the carriage rumbled beneath the thick boughs of dark forests filled with birdsong, still the land lay mute around her.
It was all so different that, in time, it all became the same in its difference. The roads, the towns, they wove of themselves a tapestry of unearthliness. The places, the people, the creatures were all anonymous, but all part of the same foreign cloth. Mouse Road’s enthusiasm grew with each new town, each ridge crossed, and each new valley below. For Speaks While Leaving, the land only made her wish for home, hearth, and husband.
On the fourth day, Alejandro said something that lifted her mood.
“Today we will arrive at Court,” he said as the car that had become their home jounced and reeled around a particularly bad turn. “I would have enjoyed introducing you to the beauties of Madrid, but our queen keeps court up in the mountains during the summer heat. Still, if there is a place that inspires awe, it is El Escorial.”
One Who Flies translated not only the words, but also Alejandro’s inflection, first of regret and then of zeal.
“What is that? What is El Escorial?” Mouse Road asked. During the long journey, Mouse Road’s interest in everything had infected One Who Flies, bringing him up from the depths of his troubled mind. Speaks While Leaving was glad to see it, not only as it gave her hope for the task that lay before them, but also as evidence of a healing in their troubled love for one another. Speaks While Leaving knew well the misery of a difficult courtship, and she hoped that her sister-in-law and her friend found an easier path than the one she and Storm Arriving were following.
She shook off that last thought. Thinking of him only made her worry after his safety, only made her heart ache for him. Her nights had been lonely enough without his warmth, without his strength beside her; and her days were already filled with anxiety enough without adding such worries.
Mouse Road’s question was answered as Alejandro turned to look out the window. Squeezing the latches, he slid the window down, stuck his head outside, and sat back in his seat with a broad grin on his face.
“That,” he said, hooking one thumb toward the view, “is the town of El Escorial.”
The train slung to the left around a curve in the track, and before them, across a shallow, tree-thick valley, a small town spilled down the hillside, its red roofs, whitewashed walls, and brown, twisted streets a jumble of patchwork color. But the town, with its bright houses shining beneath the summer sun, was not the thing that drew the eye. No, the thing that commanded every attention was the edifice that stood atop the hill.
“And that,” Alejandro said, “is the Palace of San Lorenzo.”
It looked as out of place as anything Speaks While Leaving had ever seen. Like jack-rabbit ears on a whistler, like fish in the sky. Every town they had visited had its cathedral—sometimes more than one—and whether they had been graceful things of delicate lines and upreaching curves or unpretentious blocks that stood out simply because they were taller than the buildings around them, to her they had still seemed part of the town in which they stood, like the Council Lodge and the Sacred Lodges: taller than the lodges around them, but still part of the tribal whole.
The Palace of San Lorenzo was not part of the town of El Escorial. It was not part of the land around it. It was an alien thing in an alien land.
It did not merely stand atop the hill. It towered. It commanded.
It loomed.
The palace walls were flat, straight, and tall. As the carriage headed down into the valley, Speaks While Leaving could see two of the walls that formed its massive square. At least forty feet tall, the walls were a bowshot long, with towers at each corner. Massive, huge, lacking the decoration and ornament of every other edifice she had seen in this land, she felt her heart pound at the sight of it.
With part of her mind, she heard Alejandro explain to One Who Flies and Mouse Road the history of the palace, built nearly three hundred years before. He told of how unusual it was in Spanish architecture, constructed in the shape of the square grille upon which its namesake, Saint Laurence, was martyred. But most of her mind was consumed by the sheer immensity of the creation before her.
They passed into the forest at the foot of the hill, the crowding branches and thick leaves hiding the palace from her.
And she despaired.
How can the People hope to hold their own against creatures that build such things?
The trees ended, and the town began, but even as they switched from the train to a carriage, even from within the twisted streets, the palace dominated. They drove over the cobbles, and it grew larger and larger. At no time could it not be seen; down the street, between the buildings, even over the rooftops. It grew as they approached, taller with each turn in the road. She wanted to look away—wanted it to go away—but like a moth to the firelight, she was drawn.
How can we hope to defeat these creatures? We must seem as small, as inconsequential—as bothersome—as a fly at a whistler’s nostril.
A sob broke through her breathing, and she realized that she was weeping openly. Mouse Road touched her.
“What is it?”
“How can we defeat these vé’hó’e?” she asked, her gaze filled with the foreboding structure. “How can we even combat them?” She turned to the others, saw Mouse Road’s concern, Alejandro’s incomprehension of her words or her emotions. But it was in the face of One Who Flies that she saw an unexpected calm.
“That is why we are here,” he said as he glanced toward her and then back out at the bulk of stone. “To see that this is not the palace of our enemy, but of our ally.”
Mouse Road put an arm around Speaks While Leaving and laid her head upon her shoulder.
“Do not fear, sister,” Mouse Road said to her.
She smelled the scent of Mouse Road’s hair, and heard the whisper of her breathing. One Who Flies held out his hand. Mouse Road put her hand on his, and with a nudge, she encouraged Speaks While Leaving to do the same. Fingers entwining, flesh warm against flesh, she felt the pulse of her own heart and of theirs. The pulses deepened, strengthened, until she heard it in her ears, and though her eyes were filled with the sight of the palace’s frightful walls, in her mind she heard the drumbeat of the Grass Dance, the pumping of a whistler’s legs, and the pounding of the herds across the prairie.
Chapter 18
Monday, June 23, A.D. 1890
Palacio de San Lorenzo
El Escorial, España
George sat on a marble bench in the shade of a glossy-leafed camellia, the heat of the Spanish summer already building despite the forenoon hour. The meticulous palace gardens were extensive, stretching from the northern side of the huge square foundation around the east and southern faces. On the north, where the palace shadow ameliorated the sun’s intensity, was a broad palazzo and low hedges that kept open the vista to the gentle hills in the distance. On east and south, however, where the sterile palace walls nearly doubled the day’s light, masonry walls and archways separated the gardens into small courtyards, providing interest and shade, creating verdant rooms, each with its own personality and charm.
It was in such a courtyard that George now sat. Colorful finches sang amidst the camellia’s thick leaves and scentless flowers. They flew from branches to the
stone lip of a lily-clad pool, therein to dip their beaks before returning to the shady boughs. Around him, flowered stalks of blue and pink, as tall as a man, looked down on the shorter, more delicate blooms of lavender and rosemary. Fat bees floated lazily from flower to flower, and a jeweled hummingbird buzzed in through a columned archway to work his precise craft on a spear of larkspur.
George thought back on the journey that had brought him to this odd, magnificent palace. For over a year, he had been away from any place he might call home. He had traveled to Albuquerque and San Francisco in New Spain, to Washington and New Republic in America, to Cuba’s Havana, and now to this remarkable place in the heart of the Old World. But those were mere cities; spots on a faded map. His greater journey had taken him from the pinnacles of elation and pride and hope, to fear, deepest grief, and a drunken despair that even now dogged at his heels.
A good night’s sleep had helped that, but, oddly enough, not nearly as much as had spending the better part of a week sitting in a hot, cramped railcar. Despite its discomforts, their journey from Cadiz to El Escorial had done a great deal to lift his spirits. Translating question after question for Mouse Road, he had seen the inner workings of her mind as never before. There was a sharpness to her inquiry that went beyond mere curiosity. Any dullard might be curious about what things were, but repeatedly she had asked why things were, often with an incisiveness that had made Alejandro think before providing her an answer. Why were the bulls of La Marismas the best? Why do people who are so poor stay in such a hard land as La Extremadura? Why did Philip II want to build his palace in the shape an instrument of such terrible pain? And watching her bright mind explore this new world, he had been reminded of another “why”—why he had come to love her—and sitting across from her, seeing her cherub smiles, seeing her dark eyes soak up the view, made for as pleasant a week as he could remember, regardless its physical discomforts.
But that journey had ended at El Escorial, and now, after a night’s rest in sumptuous surroundings, George faced the purpose of their coming. How many other, similar meetings had he had on behalf of the People and their hopes for a peaceful future? He recalled his first such “meeting,” riding giant lizards into the Capitol Building in Washington. He remembered, too, and too well, critical meetings with Canadian arms dealers, the viceroy of New Spain, and his own father, the President of the United States. Prior to every one of those meetings, he had felt a confidence in his purpose and in his ability to handle it. And every one ended with a failure.
How now, then, as he prepared to meet with a queen? And when he felt so unequal to the task? Would he fare better, for feeling worse?
He looked up and saw Mouse Road standing in the archway. The bleached buckskin of her dress shone like the pale stone beside her, but her skin and hair were gathered shadow, dusky despite the noon.
“How long have you been there?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Not long.” She came over and sat beside him in the shade. She sat close to him, closer than the bench required, and her nearness fired a forge within him. He reached out and took her hand in his.
“I want to tell you how much I appreciate what you did for me...aboard the ship.” She had been a kind and patient nurse during his recovery from the debilitation he had brought upon himself.
“I am just glad to be with you again,” she said. “I...I am sorry for the way I spoke to you...that day.”
He knew the day of which she spoke. He remembered her words clearly, spoken through rain and anger, just as he had told her that he was preparing to leave on yet another diplomatic mission. Though nearly a year had passed, her slicing rebuke still hurt.
How long, One Who Flies? How long will it be before you can be a whole man?
“What you said to me...your brother said the same thing.” He touched his shirt where, beneath, he bore the medicine bag from the tribe’s late chief. “As did Three Trees Together.”
“Then perhaps they knew what I have only just realized,” she said, surprising him. “That you are not a normal man, that it is something you cannot be. I have accepted this, now.”
He heard her words, and something within him tightened near to breaking. Whereas before she had been angry, now she was resigned. Her judgment of him, so long withheld in hopes of him changing, had now been rendered, and he had been found lacking. He had thought things were going well between them.
Glancing over at her, their gazes met and lingered. In her eyes, he believed he could see an affection for him, even love. He wanted to reach around her, pull her close, and rest his soul upon her heart. He wanted to make her happy, but her words, her acquiescence of what he also had to admit was his basic nature, drove a wedge between them.
“I do not think I can ever be that kind of man,” he said, and quickly—too quickly—she signed her understanding and agreement.
He looked up at the blazing walls of the palace, blinking in the brightness to hide sudden emotion, trying to mask the despair that had crept back into his heart. Mouse Road, however, seemed unperturbed, even serene as she sat there, letting him hold her hand in his. Her lack of sadness could mean only one thing: there was no future for them together, and any hope of such was in vain. Intellectually, he could not deny that it was the wisest course. They were so different, their worlds so different. For years, now, he had tried to believe that he, having rejected his own world, might fit into hers, but time and again, he had met with resistance and difficulty.
As his mind was reeling with these thoughts, Mouse Road gently lifted his hand and brought it to her face. His palm caressed her jaw, his fingertips her cheek. She closed her eyes at his touch, confusing him utterly.
“Mouse Road,” he began. “I...I don’t know what you want of me.”
She smiled and released his hand.
“Ah, here they are,” Alejandro said as he strode into the courtyard, Speaks While Leaving at his side.
George blinked and looked at them as if awakening from a slumber. He saw Speaks While Leaving share a knowing glance with her sister-in-law.
“I wanted to talk to you before the audience. We meet with her majesty in less than an hour, you know?”
The last thing George wanted to do in an hour was to go before the Queen Regent of Spain, but could see no way to avoid it. “Yes,” he said. “I know.”
“Good,” Alejandro said as he bade Speaks While Leaving sit on the bench opposite George and Mouse Road. He, too, sat down, his gaze taking in the garden’s colors. He took a deep chestful of the herb- and bloom-scented air before returning to business.
“While our dear María Cristina is our ruler,” he said, “she is not the one we need to impress.”
George tried to bring his mind back to the day’s purpose, tried to flush from his memory the commotion Mouse Road had wrought. “She is not?” he asked, catching up with Alejandro’s words.
“No. The ones we need to impress are her ministers, Sagasta and Cánovas. They are the ones who speak for the real government of Spain.” He crossed one leg over the other and leaned forward against his knee as he explained. “After our own...troubles, back in ‘68, the monarchy was restored, but only in connection with a civil government. That government is ruled by two parties, one liberal, one conservative, each presiding for a handful of years, at which point control is given over to the other party.” He shrugged. “It makes long-term planning difficult, as policies change radically from administration to administration, but it can be done.”
“And these two men?” George asked.
“Ah, sí,” Alejandro said. “Sagasta speaks for the liberal party and is our current Prime Minister, and Cánovas leads the conservatives. To win the queen, however, we must win them both, for their opinions are the opinions of the government; and to win them both, we must play to their disparate interests. For Sagasta, we need to stress the arguments of freedom and liberty for the Indian peoples. It will appeal to his egalitarianism. For Cánovas, however, we need to concentrate on how this
alliance will strengthen the Spanish Empire.”
George sighed and stood up. This talk of politics and strategies made him nervous, and he had trouble believing he could pull it off. He began to pace, slowly marking off the length of the shade made by the camellia’s glossy leaves.
I can’t do this, he said to himself. Even if I had it within me, I couldn’t do this.
“One Who Flies?” Speaks While Leaving asked. “What is wrong?”
George turned and paced off the shadow again. Not wanting to speak of his personal deficiencies, he spoke instead of what the defects in their political arguments.
“Why would Spain do this?” he asked. “What would an alliance with the Cheyenne bring? I’ll tell you. The anger of the United States, that’s what. Grief. War. That’s what it will bring. This is folly. What can we offer the Spanish crown that would make it worth such a risk?”
“There is much we can offer,” Speaks While Leaving said, switching to her own language.
“What?” George asked her. “Our undying gratitude? Our friendship? And don’t say gold. The moment we offer them gold we’ll simply be overrun by vé’hó’e of a different sort.” He realized that he was using the word we, including himself once again with the People, but he could not bring himself to say you, and thus exclude himself. Whether he liked it or not, whether the bond was complete or not, he was part of the People, and would remain so until his end.
“There are other things we can offer,” she said. “The Council has given us their full support.”
He turned in his pacing and saw signs being passed between Speaks While Leaving and Mouse Road, though he did not catch their meaning.
“The Council gave you their support?”
“Yes,” Speaks While Leaving said.
“I thought you said that the Council was divided. Torn between war and peace, and unsure about an alliance with any of the vé’hó’e.”
The Cry of the Wind Page 24