The voices moved off, gone to announce his shame—his failure—to the rest of the camp. Julian felt no blame toward the concejales: The people called for his blood and it would be political suicide to stand against it. And weren’t they right?
All true, he acknowledged.
His left hand shook, the whole arm feeble. He sank deep into the self-pity and doubt of his broken inner landscape, unable to move from his chair.
The cold touch of metal pushed against his neck right below his beard. A presence pressed beside his back. Julian froze, not daring to breathe. He hadn’t thought they literally wanted his blood, at least not enough to come at him through the back of the tent.
“You do not look so well, old fox. What is all this silver in your hair? Why your beard is entirely gray.” Amusement tinged the words, but the knife didn’t waiver and kept its keen edge against his throat. “I call that first round a draw—you lose your city, I my army—but it seems your people see it elsewise.”
“Ordoño.” Julian did not give the man the dignity of a title.
“The old fox and the young fox. But no, no longer an old fox. What is this? Now an old, whipped dog.” The knife lifted. “There is no fun in killing a dog with its tail between its legs. You disappoint me—letting them strip you of your rule. Who does that?”
“A people who follow the law.”
Ordoño came around the table and took Diego’s empty chair. The first time they had met, the leader of the Northern army had acted the part of servant. Now he wore a worn poncho over torn trousers several inches too short. Dusty sandals covered his feet instead of boots. A scruff of a dark beard graced his jaw. With his ordinary face, no one would have picked him out of a crowd of peasants. Julian couldn’t help but be impressed with the man’s recklessness. The Northerners, with their pale skin, eyes, and hair, could never hope to blend into the camp, but Ordoño was one of them.
He sat, flipping the knife first by point and then by hilt. “Where’s the thrill in following the law? A fox makes his own rules. I already have my army back. While you, you have nothing.”
Julian considered calling for help and dismissed it. He wouldn’t learn any information that way. “Did you come here to gloat?”
“No. I came to kill you. But this punishment seems much better. Why ruin it? I will even order my men not to touch you.” He grinned. “Does that add salt in the wounds, old fox? Because to me you will always be that: a fox. Only a fox could manage to bring an enemy like the witch and rout my army. Your citizens are fools to lose you.” Ordoño caught the knife by its point and gestured with the hilt. “You delight me with your unexpectedness. So creative. It’s almost a pity. I should kill your competition to let you keep your seat, but I’m not insane.”
“You could have fooled me,” Julian said drily. “Is there anything you haven’t learned while spying?”
Ordoño shrugged. “I know more than you. People talk amongst their own, after all. Would you like to question me?”
“Where is your army?”
“Near Zapata. Do you plan to attack it? We both know that would be suicide on your part and no one would follow you anyway.” The man leaned forward in his chair. “I’ll admit, you didn’t make it easy for me. I’m still dragging in odds and ends—had to make many examples. How I hate superstitious fools. Such a waste.”
“My sympathies.”
Ordoño slapped his knee. “You and I, my friend, so much alike.”
“Hardly.”
“Careful, old fox. Keep up this spirit, and you might earn your throne back. You’re showing your teeth.” He stood and slid the knife into his poncho. “One thing to think on before I go. I also know your witch is gone, and I can take your people anytime I like. The question is shall they be appetizer or dessert, before or after Aveston, my army’s main course?”
“You might find us pricklier than you expect.”
“Don’t bluff when I can see all your cards. You are defenseless without your walls. I know why your witch was here, and I know why she left. I know there is only the one. A witch alone is easier sport. Shall I hunt her? Or perhaps, I’ll save my knife for your son. Women are so fickle. Killing him will ensure she never comes back. A girl will do many foolish things for a handsome face, but if that face is gone—so is the incentive.”
“Guards!” Julian shouted as he jumped to his feet, but the man was out of the tent in a flash. By the time Julian reached the flap, he caught sight of the end of the poncho vanishing into the crowd, gone.
“Sir?”
Julian hesitated. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, in the camp to match the generic description he could provide. To bring up this encounter would be a waste of valuable time and resources. Julian modified his words. “Would you tell my son to come see me—immediately?”
“Right away, Alcalde,” one said with a sympathetic nod. “He rode back into camp a few minutes ago.”
“There he is!” someone from the mob shouted.
Julian looked at them, almost expecting to see Ramiro, but no one could have heard him from this distance. It was him they had caught sight of, and with the crowd ready to overreact, it made sense to stay inside the tent and let someone else fetch Ramiro. Though he saw almost as many hands held out beseechingly as fisted in anger.
“Make another miracle for us, Alcalde,” a woman shouted.
She was immediately shoved to the side by a taller man. “We need no more of those kind of miracles! My family is dead!”
“You let the witch get away. Your wife did it!”
Julian shrank back, as arguing broke out for and against. His inner landscape rocked with doubt. Maybe some still supported him, but the majority felt like the concejales. The scorn in Ordoño’s eyes flashed in his brain and the world steadied, solidifying with anger.
At that moment, a thought struck. “And have someone check on the captive woman Santabe, and try and find Father Telo and escort him here.” After the fiasco that morning with Santabe killing one of her jailers, Julian had tripled the guard on her wagon—he needed to hurry her trial, but there had been difficulties. He did not believe Ordoño had come to free the priestess, but the man may have a twisted sense of loyalty, and if he wanted her, then her rescue would have taken place already.
Julian ducked back inside as the guards issued orders and sent men running. The concejales would say Ordoño had a death wish in coming here, but Julian knew the wisdom of sending the right tool for the right job. Ordoño was the right tool. The hazard had been acceptable for the potential gain. In his place, Julian would have put most priority on finding out how his army had been disrupted. Ordoño must feel the same. Maybe they were somewhat alike in that they both accepted risk.
For the first time in days Julian’s inner landscape stayed firm. His mind worked, tumbling through possibilities, rejecting some and holding fast to others. He stared at his left thumb, willing it to bend. With much pain, he forced it to touch his palm, the merest brush before he relaxed the effort.
Julian stuck his head out of the tent again. “Fetch back the concejales and find me all the priests.”
“All the priests?” a guard said. “In the middle of the night, sir?”
“Aye, now. They’ll need to begin work at first light. There will be changes.”
Ordoño might live to regret this visit. Julian had eight days before his time ran out as alcalde. If he could hold on to his resolve, he could still bend the situation and this round would be his. Then they would see who was the whipped dog.
After leaving Claire and returning to camp, Ramiro felt as if tied to two horses running in opposite directions. They took his heart one way and his brain the other, dividing him. He couldn’t sit still. Couldn’t concentrate. He started to groom Sancha only to walk off distractedly and find himself yards away, holding the curry brush. A quick return to work, and the next thing he knew, Sancha nudged him with her nose as he stood doing nothing again.
The camp reflected his mood—it see
med alive tonight. He swore he could hear it breathe, though the servant section was empty with not a soul in sight. The desert beat with a suppressed excitement. It seemed no one could sit tonight, despite the late hour, let alone sleep.
Saints.
One minute he resolved to let Claire go and stay for his people. An instant later, he wanted to throw it all away. He owed duty to both. It was his fault Claire was here. If she should die on her own . . .
If the people should perish for lack of fighting men . . .
His father forbade choosing Claire . . .
He leaned over and heaved until bile filled his mouth. San Martin had never faced this. Santiago never doubted his path. The Lord knew Ramiro was no saint, but he’d always thought his path clear.
A week ago following orders was enough—he let others tell him what to do. Then his mother was in the hands of the Northerners and he’d made his own commands. Now, he found no clear sense of direction.
He spat the bitter taste from his mouth and ran a hand through his hair. What was he to do?
What Claire said about other witches made sense, but he doubted there would be time—if any of the strange women listened. Using her magic was a surer answer to the Northerners. There would be no right choice to bring to Claire in the morning.
A messenger boy collided with him in the darkness. “The Alcalde wants you immediately,” the boy got out in a breathless rush. “Immediately,” he repeated.
Ramiro touched his sword hilt, some of the boy’s urgency transferring to him. “I’m on my way.”
The guards at the council tent fell back to give him room. Ramiro lifted the flap and entered. “What’s happened? I heard shouting. You sent for me?”
His father paced the room with more energy than Ramiro had seen in days. When Julian turned, the spark of life lit his eyes again.
“I don’t like the look of that crowd outside,” Ramiro said. “They didn’t want to let me through.”
“What? That? It is nothing, my son.” Julian waved it off and took Ramiro’s arm, drawing him close. “I need you to leave your unit and take a message to Crueses.”
Ramiro drew back, brows coming down. “Crueses? That’s a two-day trip. I have patrol tomorrow afternoon. They might send me out again tonight to look for Claire. What’s happened?” Did his father know of his dilemma and resolve to make the choice for him?
“Things have changed. It’s a new day, my son. I am in charge of all the pelotónes, am I not? Surely I can order one of its number. I’m still the Alcalde with control of the troops, and the council has to listen to me—whether they like it or not. I have a message for the leader of Crueses. I will explain to your capitán.”
“Why bother to go to Crueses? They won’t help us. And they don’t deserve to share our information. Let them suffer as we have. It should be their turn for the way they let us down. If they’d been there . . .” He trailed off, the anger too deep to speak.
His father had bustled over to the table to turn over papers, now he looked up, shock on his face. “What’s this, my son? Hate, from you? This isn’t like you.”
“I’ve changed more than you know.”
“So had I—or so I thought.” Compassion spread across Julian’s face. “Hate is not the way to success, Ramiro. It clouds the thinking process. What I do I do for Colina Hermosa and our people. If it benefits Crueses, then that’s as may be.” He turned back to his papers.
“And what about Claire?” Ramiro asked.
“Where is the ink? What about her? She has returned to her home, has she not? Unfortunately, the Northerners know all about her, but I trust in her skills to defend herself. She has a head start on them and will be fine.”
“Fine?” Ramiro said, disgusted. The Northerners knew of Claire? His worst fears were realized. “But how do you know this? How did the Northerners find out?”
“I just know, my son. Leave some worries to me. I need your obedience on this. Take the message to Crueses for me, and when you come back we can talk.” Julian looked up. “I think your mother was right—never tell her I said so—we should not use the magic again. As you said, they’ll be expecting it. There are other ways to save our people.” He looked down again. “Saints, where is that ink?”
A guard stuck his head inside. “We are still locating the concejales, sir.”
As the bodyguard disappeared, Julian crossed to Ramiro and took his arm, leading him to the exit. “I need someone I can count on. I’ll send a runner to you with the message and I need you to go with haste. Right away. Do this for me?”
Ramiro reeled from the tent, his father having accepted his silence for assent. What had been hours to make up his mind just became minutes. He didn’t want to see the smug, satisfied people of Crueses in their homes when he had none. And going to Crueses would make it impossible to speak to Claire again . . . to say goodbye.
Things had been so much easier when he’d been nothing but a bisoño, yearning to earn his beard. He longed to lay this before someone for advice, but his military brothers would all say the same thing, would not even see the dilemma. Speaking to his commanding officer would likely get him arrested for desertion. His closest friends to whom he could confide were dead at the hands of Claire’s mother. And the one—his breath caught—the one of his blood, yet closer than a mere sibling, who always listened to his troubles, could never help him again.
His vision blurred. Ramiro jabbed at his eyes with his knuckles before someone saw his weakness. He wanted to pound something until it was beyond dead, wanted to yell until his throat was raw. Yet, such acts were childish. Salvador would scold that sort of self-indulgence. Ramiro stumbled forward, eager to leave behind the desperate people around the council tent.
A shape broke out of the darkness. Sancha nudged his chest with her nose. “Felt that did you, girl. Sorry to wake you up.” It didn’t happen often, but he must have been upset enough to alert Sancha through their bond. “It’s a mess, and I don’t know what to do.” He touched her warm flank. Should he disappoint his father or the girl?
The moon rode high in the sky, large and bright and uncaring. Its beam lit up the dark walls of Colina Hermosa like something out of a dream.
A dream . . .
Ramiro’s heart skittered. He’d seen this before.
The dream where Salvador had dropped his helm and turned his back on him. More appropriately, he’d been facing the city, had turned his back on it. Had it been a message for him from his brother? Had Salvador been trying to say something to him besides farewell?
“That’s senseless,” he told Sancha, but indecision fled and his stomach settled. He thought back to the dream, to what Salvador had showed him.
He knew what he had to do.
Chapter 11
When Ramiro entered the clearing, the moonlight showed Claire precariously balanced on a rock, her saddle on her shoulder and both arms up to keep it there. The saddle blanket hung askew across her horse’s back, and every time she shimmied closer with the saddle, the animal ambled its backside away. A laugh burst from him before he could hold it back, followed by a surge of annoyance.
Claire tipped off the rock, arms waving, as her saddle hit the ground just missing her toes.
“Trying to leave without saying goodbye?” It was hours before they were supposed to meet. If he’d waited until the assigned time, she’d have been long gone. He’d never expected her to be the one trying to avoid the other. He slid from Sancha to face her with hands on his hips.
She frowned right back at him. “I didn’t think you would show, and if you did, I didn’t want to say no again.”
He strode over and took the blanket off her horse, giving it a hard shake to free any clinging hair or dirt, and refolding it to the cleaner side. “You need to learn how to treat a horse. It was never going to stand still for you.”
“I’d have managed,” she said crossly.
“Really?”
She stuck out her tongue, and he resisted the urge to
do the same. How could one tiny girl make him so angry? His mind inserted another question he didn’t want to think about: How did she manage to look so appealing with her tongue out, a smudge of dirt on her cheek, and her braid done crookedly? He shook that off as unproductive for this moment. “I’m not here to ask you to reconsider.”
“Oh?”
“I’m here about the other option. Your idea of finding more witches to help. I think it has merit.”
“It does?” She blinked and her hands dropped off her hips. “Of course it does.”
A few scratches and reassuring pats to her horse and the mare knew exactly who was in charge. He bent to retrieve the saddle. With his face hidden, he said, “And I’m going with you. Father has a new plan for protecting our people—he likes your idea and doesn’t need me hanging around for his. That frees me up to go with you.”
Also technically true, as he’d arranged for Arias to take the message to Crueses. Claire didn’t need to know his father had forbidden him to go with her, or that he was deserting from his pelotón. His mother’s support would likely be gone, too, if she found out what he was doing. He pushed aside the wave of guilt—and loss. He knew this was the right choice.
Claire clapped her hands at his lie, a beaming smile crossing her face. “I don’t have to go alone. You’re coming with me. That’s a relief—erm . . . I mean”—her eagerness dropped—“I can make space for you.”
He rolled his eyes at her lack of guile, but inwardly smiled. At least someone was happy about his decision. “Then it’s settled.” He set the saddle and started adjusting the straps. “Find yourself something to eat from my bags.”
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