by Carla Kelly
Joseph looked back at the soldier, who scowled and struck him.
“I know he is here, and that woman!” the man shouted.
Joseph only wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and rested an arm on the colonel’s leg. “We are only poor pilgrims on our way to Belén, if it please your worship. Honorable sir, it is the ninth evening of our posada. Soon the Child will be born.” He gestured toward the colonel. “I must find a place for María this night. Let us pass, noble one. It is a small thing we do, something we have done for centuries.”
As the Frenchmen stood beside the colonel and Joseph, the other soldiers ran down the procession, peering at the villagers. Scarcely breathing, Sarah burrowed in closer to the man who held her. The soldier scrutinized her and passed on down the line.
The French stood together in conference at the head of the procession. The colonel swayed slightly in the saddle, and Sarah bit down on her knuckles and closed her eyes. She clutched at the leather pouch under her habit, cursing herself for being such fearful trouble to the colonel and wondering why she had not thrown the papers away hours ago, to let them flutter about the landscape. What terrible secret did they hold? Were they worth a man’s life?
She let her breath out slowly as the soldiers moved off. The leader returned and shook his fist at Joseph. “Continue your procession, you superstitious savages,” he shouted, and struck the man again for good measure.
Joseph reeled under the blow and then bowed again.
“Happy Christmas to you, my lord,” he said.
As the soldiers watched, the procession moved down the street to another door. Joseph let go of the colonel and knocked on the door.
A man with an apron drooped about his paunch opened the door. “What is wanted?” he bellowed, and then sang in old, pure Spanish as quaint as the writing on the Columbus papers. “We have a party within, and our house is full of travelers.”
Joseph bowed his face to the ground. “We seek a room for the night,” he sang, gesturing to the colonel. “Here is María, great with child, and it is her time. Oh, sir, is there room in this inn?”
“Please sir, I am weary,” sang the woman who stood beside the colonel and steadied him. “Please, sir, it is the Christ Child.”
The French soldiers drew closer again, intrigued by the ragged pageantry before them. Sarah gritted her teeth. Would they never go away?
Joseph looked about him as if he had no greater concern than María, who clutched at the donkey’s mane with bloodstained hands. Gently he covered the colonel’s fingers with the edge of the robe and sang to the innkeeper again, adding something at the end of the song that made the man’s eyes widen.
The innkeeper nodded then and gestured to Joseph.
“All may enter and find rest,” he sang, his voice loud and with a certain defiance that gave Sarah hope and put heart back in her again.
Joseph bowed low once more and lifted María from the donkey. The colonel groaned and his head flopped against the man’s shoulder.
The French troopers applauded. “Such acting,” shouted one, and tossed a coin to the colonel. “Three cheers for María!”
The soldiers shouted their approval, laughed, and then moved off down the street toward the campfires across the bridge. The villagers poured into the house, throwing off their cloaks and gathering around Sotomayor, who lay in front of the nacimiento. He opened his eyes as Sarah knelt beside him and gripped his hand. Slowly, slowly, he drew her hand closer, kissed her fingers, and fainted.
One of the women led Sarah to a stool close to the fire as Joseph cut away the colonel’s uniform and the men gathered around to offer advice. They chatted companionably among themselves as Joseph and another man poked and prodded the colonel, and then uttered “Ahh,” and plinked a ball into a basin.
A call from one of the men brought a wife close with a sewing basket and more advice, followed by grunting and shallow breathing from the colonel, and then a long silence that was even harder on Sarah’s nerves. She leapt to her feet, but the woman pulled her back and handed her a bowl of wheat mush.
Famished, Sarah ate the mush as a call went out for cloth. The usurped María offered her petticoat, which was accepted and ripped into strips and wrapped tight around the colonel, who had long ago drifted into unconsciousness.
Her eyes on the men, Sarah ate another bowl, wondering how she could sit there in that room and stuff herself as the drama of life and pain unfolded in front of her. I shall have such a story to tell the neighbors back in Kent, she thought, and then dismissed the idea. They would never believe her.
In another minute the colonel, swaddled in María’s petticoat and clad only in his smallclothes, was carried into the next room and put between rock-warmed sheets. Sarah followed and watched from the doorway as the priest blessed him and the innkeeper’s wife drew the blankets up to his chin. She glanced at Sarah and put her finger to her lips.
“He will feel much better in the morning, my lady, and so will you.”
Feeling strangely empty, Sarah went into the other room again. A pallet was prepared for her close to the fire, and she sat down upon it. Joseph came and stood before her.
“Accept the hospitality of our village, my lady,” he said simply, and held out his hand to her.
Sarah got to her feet again and took his hand. “I cannot express my gratitude, señor,” she said.
He patted her cheek. “There is only one payment, my lady. You must do likewise for another.”
She nodded. “Thank you,” she said again, and sat down, more tired than she had ever been before in her life.
As she sat staring into the fire, one of the women brought the colonel’s bloody clothes to her and held out the boots. In her hand was a wad of paper, tightly folded.
“My lady, you should see this. It fell out of the colonel’s boot.”
Mystified, Sarah accepted the paper and unfolded it.
She frowned over the tiny writing, pages of numbers and letters. They made no sense to her at first, but as she studied them, a growing chill covered her body. She moved closer to the fire. They were regimental numbers, French regiments, and a census of artillery. She put them aside and picked up the other papers, also in French. She saw the name Soult, and Ney, and the signature of… She looked closer: Bonaparte.
The letters dropped from nerveless fingers. Sarah took a deep breath. “And you thought the French were after you, you silly widgeon,” she whispered. “Colonel Sotomayor, you dear, wonderful aggravating man! What game have you been playing?”
And then suddenly Sarah was furious with him. She tried to resist the anger that shot through her like a ball from a French carbine, irrational anger that left her weak and shaking as it passed quickly.
She folded the papers again, her mind going a thousand miles an hour, even as her body cried out for sleep. The colonel had mentioned Burgos once and then brushed past the word as though he had not said it. “Were you spying on the French, Colonel Sotomayor?” she asked out loud.
The papers formed a sizable wad in her hand. “No wonder you had such a limp, Colonel,” she said in English, and then laughed.
The woman beside her looked at Sarah in concern.
Sarah touched her arm. “I am not hysterical, señora,” she assured her. “But I am so tired.”
The woman nodded and spread back the blanket. Sarah shook her head. “If you do not mind, could we carry this into the colonel’s room? I would feel better if I were there when he woke up.”
“Very well, my lady.”
They carried the pallet into the room where Joseph kept watch over his unconscious María. He beamed at Sarah and helped make a space for the pallet at the foot of the bed.
Sarah lay down then, clutching the papers tight in her hand, and was asleep before Joseph pinched out the candle.
When she woke, startled out of sleep by a dream of soldiers in pursuit of Joseph and Mary, the colonel was sitting up in bed, letting himself be fed by the lady of the house. Two
bright spots of fever burned in his cheeks, but he was single-minded in his devotion to wheat mush. Someone had wrapped a shawl around his bare shoulders, and his curly hair was tousled.
He winked at Sarah, and she smiled back, noting the very small seep of blood through the bandage.
He followed her glance. “Our host is a barber, Sarah, or so his good wife tells me. We fell into excellent hands.”
Sarah nodded. She straightened herself around and then sat on the end of the bed until the woman spooned in the last of the mush and wiped the colonel’s mouth. She withdrew from the room, a smile on her face.
Without a word, Sarah held out the wad of paper. He took it from her, wincing as he leaned forward. He spread the papers out as she had done the night before, looking at them as if for the first time.
“Bless my soul,” he said at last. “Where could these have come from?”
Sarah glared at him. “You know perfectly well,” she said indignantly. “Why didn’t you tell me I was riding with the most dangerous man in Spain?”
He tried to shrug, winced, and then gave it up as a poor attempt. “I thought you would be afraid.”
She could only sigh and look away.
“Happy Christmas, Sarah,” he said, and her cup ran over again.
“How could you do that?” she scolded, and shook her finger at him. “When I found those papers last night, and realized what a game you have been playing—”
“No game,” he interrupted, a twinkle in his eyes that mystified her as much as it enraged her.
“You made me so angry! I wanted to march in here and clobber you with your own boot.” She paused for breath and narrowed her eyes. “But I never throttle people who are down, no matter how much they deserve it. Consider yourself lucky, you… you….”
“Thickheaded orange-grower?” he offered helpfully.
She stared at him and nodded slowly, realizing exactly what he meant and why he was looking at her with such love.
“Yes, you marvelous person. I don’t wonder that Liria used to scold you.”
“As you just did, querida.”
“Well, someone has to,” she finished lamely, too shy to look at the man in the bed.
The colonel moved carefully, made a face, and lay back against the pillow. “I wish I were equal to this occasion, Sarah. Maybe in a few weeks.” His eyes widened with that hopeful look in them she was coming to consider as indispensable to her own happiness. “I am a rapid healer, my heart.”
She laughed and watched his face a moment, admiring the beautiful blue of his eyes, grateful, at least for the moment, to see the frown gone from between them. She thought of what Joseph had told her the night before and made up her mind.
Sarah held out her hand for the papers, wiggling her fingers when he seemed reluctant to part with them. He sighed and put the wad into her hand.
Sarah pulled the leather bag from the front of her habit and opened it. She removed the safe-conduct from General Clauzel and waved it in front of his eyes.
“These papers will fit in my boot as well as yours, dear sir, and I have this safe-conduct. I will ask these good folk to point me in the direction of Ciudad Rodrigo and be on my way.”
“Oh.”
“That’s all you can say?”
He held out his hand to her and she got off the end of the bed and came closer.
“Lean down, Sarah.”
She did as he said, and he kissed her lips. “That’s for luck,” he said, and then kissed her again, a kiss that belied his infirmity. “And that is for Colonel Sotomayor. In fact…” He stopped, winced, and sat up again. “I wish I could stand up. Sit down, will you? Right here.”
He moved his legs and she sat beside him. “I tried to tell you earlier, you know, back there on the trail.”
He paused and chewed on the end of his mustache.
“It is hard to put into words, Sarah.”
“Think of some,” she said, and twinkled her eyes back at him.
“I love you,” he said simply. “Marry me.”
Sarah smiled and kissed him. “Concise as always, but so effective, Colonel Sotomayor. Yes.”
“Even more concise. You will be a fine Spaniard, my love.”
He kissed her again and several more times, to make up for his taciturnity.
“I’ll be back, Luís,” Sarah said a moment later, when she could speak again.
“I wouldn’t chance it now, Sarah. Not until it is safer.”
She rose quickly, even as he grabbed at her, and she stared at him, her hands on her hips. “I don’t care what you think. I am coming back as soon as these papers are in British hands.”
He smiled. “The answer I was hoping for. Very well, Sarah. Are you in charge now?”
“For a while. Until you are better. Someone must see that you arrive in Barcos at least in time for the Day of Three Kings, and we cannot always expect our Lord to provide.”
Luís crossed himself. “He tries, my dear, He tries, but Spain has always been a difficult child.” He took her hand. “Be careful, my heart.”
She blew a kiss to him and went outside. Joseph stood by the front door, watching the French across the bridge as they doused their fires and mounted.
“I can offer you the loan of a donkey, my lady. It wouldn’t be safe to take the colonel’s horse,” he said when the troops moved off down the road to Ciudad Rodrigo.
“I would welcome it, Joseph. Oh, what is your name? I do not know it.”
He smiled. “It is better that way.” “I do not even know the name of this village, Joseph, where the pilgrims of Christ live,” she said in her most elegant Spanish.
He bowed. “And I will not tell you that, either. Better sometimes that you know nothing, especially if the French ask you. And they will, my lady. You must go through them to reach Ciudad Rodrigo.”
“Pray for me, Joseph,” she said simply as she took off an earring and tried to hand it to the man.
Joseph stepped back and held up his hands to ward off her gift. “No, no, my lady. We did not do this for money.”
She pressed the earring into his hand. “I know that. But can you use it to buy food for the village?”
He held up the earring, turning it this way and that in the morning light. “This is valuable.” He handed it back with a wink. “Save it for when you fall among the English again, lady.”
She laughed and put it back in her ear. “Happy Christmas, Joseph.”
She did not encounter the French until far into the afternoon. The donkey acquitted itself admirably, picking a surefooted way on the rocky ground that gradually, almost imperceptibly, began to slope away toward a flatter, more gentle land. They were leaving behind the highest places of Spain.
By shading her eyes and squinting into the afternoon sun, Sarah was able to make out Ciudad Rodrigo.
“Merry Christmas to me,” she said out loud.
And then the French were upon her. They rode leisurely toward her on the trail. Her heart in her mouth, Sarah dug her heels into the donkey and forced it to continue at a sedate pace toward the soldiers. Finally she dismounted and stood beside the donkey, saving them the trouble of ordering her to the ground. She held her head up and twined her fingers together so they would not shake.
They came close, wary at first, and then riding with confidence when they saw it was only a woman—and a small one at that.
As they looked her over, Sarah stared back and allowed a sigh of relief to escape her. They were not the same troops that had tracked them into the village last night. She looked until she found the man with the most gold braid, and sighed again.
He had a rough face, a peasant face, and the hardened look of one who had spent all his adult years in the service of Bonaparte. His skin was coarse and lined from years in the outdoors, facing into the turbulent winds that blew all across Europe. He was a peasant, she was sure of it, one of the many who had risen from the ranks through a lifetime of soldiering. He probably could not read.
“You are the Englishwoman.”
It was not a question but a statement, delivered in a flat, uncultured voice that further betrayed humble origins.
“I am,” Sarah answered in French. “Lady Sarah Brill Comstock, of Mansfield, Kent. I am on my way to the British lines in Lisbon, and I have a safe-conduct.”
“Then produce it, mademoiselle.”
Sarah pulled the safe-conduct from her pocket and handed it to the lieutenant, who looked at it a long time. Sarah came closer and pointed.
“See you there, sir, it says, ‘General Bertrand Clauzel.’ “
She had pointed to her own name. The lieutenant nodded and Sarah could barely contain herself. So you cannot read, sir, she thought. I thought as much.
He nodded finally and handed it back to her.
“Where is the colonel?”
She did not attempt to hedge about the issue. She raised her head as her eyes filled with tears. “He is dead, sir, killed last night from ambush.”
The lieutenant held out his hand. “Give the papers to us then, my lady. That wily wolf we have tracked from Burgos would never permit them to be lost.”
Sarah said nothing. The lieutenant came closer. She gritted her teeth as he drew his sword and calmly put the point at her neck and flicked at the leather string.
“Mademoiselle, I suggest that you present it to us before we are forced to strip you right here on the road.”
And find the notes in my boot, she thought. Never.
With steady fingers, Sarah pulled out the pouch. The tears spilled onto her cheeks as she opened the bag for the last time and pulled out the Columbus papers.
She smoothed them out for one last look, remembering the long hours in the archives, James’ great joy at finding Columbus’ diary, and the feverish race to copy it all down as the French closed in. She handed them to the lieutenant with a great show of reluctance.
He snatched them from her as she sobbed.
“He told me never to let those fall into your hands,” she cried, noting that the other soldiers backed away, uneasy with her tears.
“Ah, but here they are,” said the lieutenant, looking at the words in old Spanish that told of Columbus’ first voyage, with the exact readings of that first landfall. “The entire troop strength of every army we have in Spain.” He bowed over Sarah’s hand and kissed it. “How good to have this back again, mademoiselle. Such a Christmas present you have given me.”