“I’d like to punch him in the nose,” Gavin muttered darkly.
Roberta gave a wan smile. “Never mind, Gavin. It wasn’t, as he said, of much interest. How would you like to take me out to see the sights?”
With a little cry, Silvia ran out of the room. Gavin looked uncomfortable for a moment. Then, “Anyone want to come with us?” he asked cheerfully.
*
Roberta woke once more to the predawn barrage of rockets but went right back to sleep. They had danced until late, and she felt deathly tired. When she woke again, she had the feeling that it was late. There was a good deal of music in the street outside, and the sliver of light coming through the wooden shutters was very bright. She had lost the feeling of dread from the night before. Jason could figure all of that out as easily as Cristiano could, and she would take her comfort that she had told him about the outlaws and how Alarcon might have a rival. Now it was all blessedly out of her hands, and after tonight would be completely out of her hands forever except for convincing Alarcón. That was, if he didn’t get caught here and arrested.
At dinner Gavin asked her to go dancing again.
“No, Gavvy, I couldn’t. I feel so worn out I’m afraid I would fall apart right there on the street. It’s an early bedtime for me tonight. Take Silvia,” she added on impulse. “The poor little thing hasn’t been out at all.”
Gavin looked crestfallen, but apparently decided to make the best of it, because he and Silvia did go out a bit later. She looked very pretty in the local costume of ruffled skirt and embroidered blouse they had all taken to wearing for comfort, and to blend somewhat into the surroundings.
As Roberta slipped out the back way to meet Cristiano at the park, she ran full tilt into Jason, who was, it seemed, trying to slip back in unobserved.
“What the devil - ”
She stood silent, hoping he wouldn’t recognize her.
He grasped her by the shoulders and turned her' toward the lantern illuminating the stable yard. “Good God, Roberta, what are you doing in that getup?” He paused, then said slowly, “It’s Olmedo again, isn’t it? What’s he doing here?”
“There’s a conclave,” she admitted.
“Where?”
“I don’t know, I really don’t. I’ll find out when I meet him.”
A strange expression flickered over his face and he gripped her shoulders hard. “Don’t go, Robbie. You’re mad to get tangled up in that.”
Something cruel made her say, “Now that you’ve shut me out of your life, why should you care?”
He dropped his hands. “You’re right, why indeed?” he answered evenly. “Very well, bonne chance. And Robbie?”
She looked at him wondering what more he could possibly have to say.
“Take care.” He vanished through the kitchen entrance.
As she pushed her way through the crowded streets, no one seemed to give her a second glance. At last she arrived at the Jardin de San Marcos and made her way beneath the trees past the stone benches on which sat figures so closely entwined they seemed almost like statuary, park monuments to the god Eros.
“Hsst!”
“Cristiano?”
“Come quickly, you’re late.”
“I had trouble getting out.”
“Never mind, come on.”
He took her hand until they came to the open pavement in front of the church, an area alive with dancers though she saw no sign of Gavin and Silvia. They worked their way around the edge and arrived at the doorway of what she recognized with a start as the building on whose balcony Jason had caught a glimpse of Alarcón. She hadn’t even questioned him about the general’s presence. The door stood open a mere crack, and they slid inside.
“Madre de Dios!” a small misshapen man ahead exclaimed, closing the door. “Where have you been? Martin said there would only be one of you.”
“My brother here wanted to see the fair, too,” Cristiano reassured him smoothly. “Hurry up.”
The hunchback held an oil lantern that provided uncertain light in the dark corridors, casting great deformed shadows on the flaking plaster walls. Their feet gritted on termite droppings from the heavy wooden beams above. He pulled out an enormous iron key to unlock a thick wooden door that led to an absolutely bare room. He grasped an iron ring in the floor and gave a heave that raised a section of tiles that Roberta could see were fastened to the wooden trapdoor. They descended a ladder and set off through dirt tunnels so low she was forced to stoop and to smell the not unpleasant damp earth. As they progressed, she noticed other tunnels constantly branching off into darkness and felt a sudden claustrophobic fear as she realized that she could never find her way back alone should the need arise. They must have traversed a quarter of a mile or more beneath the city.
“I had no idea there were tunnels beneath the city,” Cristiano said to their guide. “Did the conclave build them?”
The hunchback laughed. “No, the conclave never did all this, nor could have if they’d wanted to. The ancients did it.”
Gradually they became aware of a mutter of sound and a cold current of air pushing against them. “We’re almost there,” the hunchback offered. “There’s another opening above the meeting chamber.”
“Why didn’t we go down there then?”
The hunchback’s tone was scornful. “A handful here, a handful there, no one notices, but several hundred men filing into one building would be a bit conspicuous, don’t you think?”
“You mean there are other entrances?” Cristiano asked surprised.
“Of course, many of them. The ancients knew it was necessary to have breathing holes, and there are shafts that lead to the surface all over town.”
They came then to a large chamber cut out of what seemed almost solid rock. Oil lamps were set in iron sconces hammered into the rock at intervals around the edges, and along one side a long wooden platform had been built. The chamber was nearly full of a milling, gesticulating, talkative crowd of men, none of these masked, and Roberta was glad she hadn't worn hers. The shadow of her hat in addition to the uncertainty of the lighting were disguise enough. She noticed at last in the far corner by the platform a wooden ladder leading up to a dark square opening above. At that moment a man appeared in the opening and climbed down the ladder. As he turned and held out his hands for silence, she saw that it was Zaragoza.
“Gentlemen, our jefe!” he announced.
Down the ladder came the familiar tall form. Roberta noticed that he alone in this gathering had a mask. His powerful presence and confident, educated voice were unmistakable as he told the gathering essentially what he had told the Morelia-Guadalajara conclave, except that on June 1 the assignation point was, even as Cristiano had predicted, Pachuca. There seemed little doubt that a major move of some kind was scheduled for June, perhaps deliberately to forestall Alarcón's bid.
Alarcón... He would have to be every bit the paragon Jason thought he was to overcome the power and confidence of this unknown pretender.
CHAPTER XXII
The next day they marched in the procession again and once more ended milling around in the plaza. There was a firework bull, but he did not this time come near them, though Roberta watched him carefully, or rather watched the swirls in the crowd where he wa6 tossing his firecrackers.
After the siesta’s end at four, Will and Jessica and Jason and Roberta rode across town with costumes to be altered. It was the first time they had been anywhere for a long enough time to engage the services of a seamstress. At that, Hugh had had to bribe her exorbitantly, because during the fiesta anyone who could sew was in great demand.
“You two have sweated out your liquor,” Jason laughed, referring to Will’s and Jessica’s weight loss and his gain, “while I shall end up looking like Sid.” In truth they all had hardened and were looking very fit.
Roberta, who was along because she wanted to watch how the seamstress fitted them, caught a glimpse of Cristiano in the crowd then, but he was gone almost at
once.
“Well, if I - ” Will began, but just then out from a blind side street charged the firework bull, the creature’s gloved hands lighting and throwing firecrackers in all directions. He headed straight for Jason, who put spurs to Bolero and deftly wheeled him at the last moment, avoiding the bull. Will was not so fortunate. Though Jason had shouted a warning, Bolero had hidden the bull with its human torso and legs until all at once there was nothing between Bravo and the spitting, exploding monster that was enough to frighten a mule.
Will, who was a little drunk, tried to pull the horse one way while Bravo tried to go another. When a firecracker exploded right between the animal’s legs, it screamed and in sheer panic lunged right into the bull, knocking its head off and planting a great iron-shod hoof right in the creature’s ribs. They snapped audibly. The lunge had all but unseated the none too steady Will, who lost the reins, which the horse broke off as he went from a gallop into a terrified run.
Jason shouted at Roberta to take the reins of Jessica’s horse, a usually steady gelding that now pranced about eager to take off after Bravo and Bolero. A crowd was gathering around the fallen man, and as someone turned him over, Roberta got a glimpse of the familiar brutal jaw, deathly pale now. Pepino. There was a small derringer on the pavement beside him. She saw that the crowd’s attention was firmly fixed on the man who might well be dying, and she calmly rode away unnoticed, leading Jessica’s horse by the bridle. Jessica herself looked little better than the crushed man.
“Oh God,” she moaned, “did you hear them say he had a mouthful of blood? Will is sure to be killed. Jesus, why did we ever set foot in this godforsaken country? Not even our own company is worth it.”
Roberta only recalled that strange non sequitur much later, but now she was too busy trying to manage her own horse and Jessica’s besides to think about it. They came into the inn stable yard to find Hugh waiting for them.
“What happened?” he demanded. “Why are you back?”
“One of those awful firework bulls charged Will’s horse. He bolted, and Jason went off after him. Take Jessica's horse, will you? I've got to go back.”
“Go back? Why?”
“The man with the bull's head was trampled. I want to be sure he's being taken care of.” She omitted the fact that she had recognized him, and in actuality doubted that his colleagues would leave him lying in the street.
To her astonishment, however, when she returned to the scene he was still lying there, though someone had stolen the bull’s head, his boots, and the gun. In place of the fascinated crowd there were only passersby who evinced no interest whatever in the motionless body. She dismounted the mare and knelt beside him. When he had been knocked down, he had instinctively turned on his stomach, so that the horse’s hoof might strike a less vulnerable part of his anatomy. Perhaps he was still alive. Roberta put her ear next to his mouth and nose. He was still breathing and when he groaned she felt vindicated, even hopeful, that he might live and offer some information about his superior.
“Want to earn a medio, boy?” she asked a ragged urchin who watched with fascination as the foreign lady knelt beside the prostrate form.
He grinned and nodded, holding out his hand.
“Here's a medio, and another for you when you come back with a bowl of water and a cloth.”
He must have lived nearby, for he was back within minutes with the required items.
Roberta gently bathed Pepino’s face and then squeezed a little water into his half-open mouth.
His eyes opened. “Juanita, is it you?” he mumbled, “Don’t — Don't - ”
Roberta never found out what his admonition would have been, for his eyes grew panicked and he brought up more blood than she would have thought possible. When the bout was over, his eyes were dead behind half-lowered lids, and his breathing had stopped. She rose to her feet and stared down at him, studiously ignored by the people who passed. The boy twitched the cloth and bowl out of her hands and scurried away. Not even the sound of horses on the cobbles aroused her.
“Is he dead?” Jason asked.
She nodded, and looked up at him. Will now had reins made from the reata that he, like the others, kept tied to his saddle. “You recognize him?” she said to Jason.
He nodded grimly. “Who would have thought - ”
“You also know it was you he was after, not Will?” she persisted.
He nodded again and looked at Will, who was finding their exchange quite interesting. Will smiled and shrugged.
“What do we do now, leave him?” she asked, mounting the mare.
“There’s nothing more we can do for him,” Jason replied. “If any soldiers come along, at the least we’ll have to pay an enormous mordida.”
“Jason,” she said suddenly, “had Roger Ainsley ever been in Mexico before?”
“He knew it better than I do, that’s why he was chosen. Why?”
“Oh, nothing.” The killing went on and on, didn’t it, she thought, sickened. It had come to her all at once that Ainsley’s death was the result of his having stumbled upon the bandit conspiracy, and had nothing to do with deposing Santa Anna — unless he guessed that the jefe and Mexico’s president were one and the same. Carmelita as well either knew about it or had innocently said something that was construed as knowledge. For whatever reason, they were now sure that Jason knew enough to make it imperative to get him out of the way. It never occurred to them that his fanaticism had nothing whatever to do with the outlaws. When the Toby ploy didn’t remove him harmlessly, they had finally determined he must be killed.
*
That night Roberta refused to go down to dinner. It wasn't only seeing the man die choked on his own blood that upset her, but also the seeming lack of concern of the passersby as the body lay in the street, and on Jason's part as well. The rockets were beginning to go off to announce the eleven o'clock firework castillo when there was a knock on the door. She answered it reluctantly in her nightgown, her hair in braids.
“I've brought you something.'' It was Gavin, bearing a tray of soup and bread and cheese and wine.
“Gavvy, how thoughtful of you, but I'm really not hungry.”
“I know, sweetheart. Will and Jessica told us all about what happened just before they both got so drunk they had to go to bed.”
“Where was Jason?”
He shrugged. “Who knows? His Nibs comes and goes as he pleases, like a big cat.”
“So Will and Jessica got drunk, did they?” She absently ate a piece of cheese. It tasted good, and she realized that she was hungry after all.
“I guess Will was really scared half out of his wits today, and Jessica was scared for him. I have to hand it to him, he gives Jason full credit for stopping Bravo.”
“But Bolero isn’t nearly as fast as Bravo.”
“It seems His Nibs cut through an alley and came out ahead of them.”
“Clever,” Roberta murmured, only half paying attention. She was still thinking of the accident.
“Here, drink the soup before it's stone cold.” On Gavin's face were tenderness and concern.
She dutifully drank the soup, which was in truth getting cold. “Gavin, you're so patient with me. I don't deserve it. You've no idea - ”
He put a hand on her mouth. “I don't want to hear whatever it is you’re going to say. Can't you just accept us, Robbie?”
She felt a rush of warmth for him. It couldn't have been very easy for him when she had come straggling in so openly with Will. What a marvelous solution to everything if she married Gavin, a move the whole company would applaud. Even Jason. Her trials would be over then. She pictured herself with two small children, Gavin a sort of vague, handsome figure in the background. Surely in the security of the marriage bed, things would be far different from that furtive picnic scene with Will. Unwillingly, she saw him again in her mind's eye ready to thrust at her. The vision vanished as she reached up her arms to Gavin, who gathered her in and held her for a long moment, his breath
warm on her neck where his mouth barely touched the skin.
He kissed her then on the mouth, holding her against him. When they broke apart, his breathing was hard, as if he had been running. “I've dreamed of this so often, Robbie, you can't imagine what it's been like.” He slowly unbraided her hair until it hung in a wavy sheet over her shoulders and down her back. He kissed her again and finally put a tentative hand on her breast. He could feel the nipple rise against the palm of his hand.
“Robbie,” he whispered huskily, “if I don’t stop now I don't think I'll be able to.”
Her answer was to pull him back against her. She would marry him and they would go back to New York and leave Jason and all of his machinations... Gavin blew out the lamp, and she saw flashes of the bursting rockets lighting up the weathered surface of the partly open shutter, the outline of his naked body as he came toward the bed. Gently he undid the ribbons on her nightgown and worked it up until he could ease it off over her head. There was a moment of quiet and darkness, then an eruption of light as whistles, explosions, and fountains of colored fire lit up the plaza outside, though the castillo was several blocks away in front of the Jardin de San Marcos.
He lay down next to her, stroking her head with his hand, his body warm against hers. Actually trembling, he kissed her breasts and then with a sigh that was almost a groan lifted himself on top of her. Over his shoulder she could see on the shutter and on a nearby tree in the plaza red and green and blue light flickering and bursting through the darkness. And all the time she heard the shrieking and exploding of bombs from the castillo itself as the fire fountains, Catharine wheels, and Roman candles burned their way up the three tiers of the bamboo tower. Desperately she willed herself to concentrate on the castillo, to forget the rutting of Will and Josefina thrusting so wildly and shamelessly against each other, to forget that ugly tool of flesh standing up through the red and gray pelt. She felt Gavin make a tentative push between her legs and froze.
A Masque of Chameleons Page 26