Hart, Mallory Dorn

by Jasmine on the Wind

  Eagerness blazed in Francho's eyes, but he had learned well his lessons in courtesy and forced his racing pulse to quiet. "Yours, Maestro, to be certain. It is surely of greater consequence," he deferred politely.

  Di Lido's dark eyes gleamed in appreciation of Francho's restraint since he could hardly contain his own jubilation. "Very well, and I will not try you with the details. I have had recently an invitation to lecture on the divine Dante at Salamanca this winter, which I now feel free to accept. Moreover, His Excellence has requested of me a better translation of the glorious poet's Vita Nuovo and the Convivio into Castilian, as a present to his brother, the Grand Cardinal. And he agrees that I shall do this at Court, since Don Iñigo knows I do my best work only amidst the activity and hubbub occasioned by the Royal presence. So, see you, I am liberated from this vast pile of stone!" His eye caught a fleeting, injured expression on Francho's face and he arched his brows. "But my dear Francisco, that is not to say that I have not thoroughly enjoyed guiding so good a mind as yours into the higher realms of thought. It has been a great pleasure to see your progress—"

  "You have been chafing with boredom, Maestro, especially since your last trip to Madrid," Francho interrupted amiably as he lolled on the end of his spine in an x-chair, the only sign of his controlled excitement an erratic swinging of one booted foot.

  "True, true, very observant." Di Lido nodded and took a sip of wine from his fine, enameled glass goblet, a gift from Ludovico Sforza, who had heard his lectures at the university in Milan. Two bright spots on his pale cheeks indicated that he had been celebrating even while awaiting them. "But that does not mean I am pleased to leave you, Francisco, just when you have achieved some understanding of the elegance of Arabic metaphor. Still, in swordsmanship you most definitely have under control all the nuances of my technique. No one could ruin your style now. In fact, Von Gormach can take over and the change will afford you good experience."

  Francho understood what he meant. Where di Lido's strokes were lightning fast and unexpected, the German's weapon hacked and slashed, requiring his opponent to use less brainwork and more sheer muscle. Although he felt that without his padded armor of lightweight leather he would have been slain more often by di Lido's new technique of a flurry of swift, lunging thrusts rather than Von Gormach's signaled onslaughts, he agreed his parrying of the whistling, murderous, double-edged slice needed strengthening.

  For a moment his thoughts became absorbed with di Lido's departure and what would result from it. "You have given me a generous part of your life, Maestro, and never shall I forget it. If you are happy, then I am happy. Nevertheless, I shall miss you sorely. I wish I could be with you when you go to Seville this year," he added wistfully.

  Di Lido triumphantly held up one of the letters, a broad smile illuminating his fine-boned face. "Aha, and so you will, my friend, and thereby hangs your good news. My Lord Tendilla indicates he wishes you to journey with the Court when it leaves for Seville in the spring, and"—he paused for effect—"thence into the field with him for the summer campaigns against the Moor. So full of praise have our reports been of your progress that your period of learning is over. Just a few more months and you are reborn!"

  Francho launched himself from the chair like a missile from a catapult, knocking over his seat. "Ola!" he yelled, leaping into the air in joyous transport and brandishing clasped hands above his head, proving to di Lido that his advice to his patron had been correct. The young man was but eighteen, in the first flush of his manhood and filled to bursting with heavy instruction and tedious practice. He was ready, nay, needed, to preen his feathers amongst his peers.

  Francho's white teeth flashed against his olive skin, and in his exuberance he whirled, drew his sword, and neatly skimmed the tops off all the candles in an iron candelabra standing nearby. "Saved! I'm saved, amigos," he exulted as the stubs clattered to the floor. "I soon would have been baying at the moon with the hounds, quite mad, quite mad, I tell you."

  "Und me alzo!" Von Gormach grunted happily, for Francho's departure would mean that he too was freed of Mondejar.

  "And there is more." Di Lido tittered with amusement, sitting down abruptly and downing another mouthful of wine with a neat tilt of his head. "We shall soon have a delightful guest for several days. Doña María's daughter, Doña Leonora, has been appointed to the train of the Infanta, the Royal Princess Isabel. She is traveling to Madrid from the seminary, where she has spent the last four of her fifteen years being academically instructed according to the requirement for noblewomen laid down by our most progressive of Queens. She will pass by Mondejar on her way and bring a bit of grace and beauty to this ancient pile."

  "Doña María must be most happy," Francho tossed in, still flushed from his burst of elation to know he was soon to join the world again. Doña María did not speak to him often of her daughter, and when she did it was in modest terms. But she missed the girl and was ambitious enough for her to have actively petitioned her highly placed relatives and the Queen herself for Leonora's placement in the royal household.

  "Overjoyed, she is overjoyed," di Lido agreed pleasantly. "And so I am too, for I shall ride north with the young lady to Madrid, and thence on to Salamanca."

  "Will you come back this way to go south to Seville with me?"

  "Sí, if it is convenient. Would your old cicerone allow Daniel to walk by himself into the den of lions?" He chuckled at the uncertainty that settled on Francho's face. "Nay, Francisco, I but jest. You are more than prepared to take your place at Court. I do not pass you from these shackles lightly. In fact, so high is the curiosity and speculation ever since His Excellence made it known he has formally recognized a bastard that you will be lionized— devoured in that way, if you take my meaning, ha ha. You will make the ladies faint with desire. It will be a triumph."

  Von Gormach bent to adjust his soft boot, which was too tight. "And another step forward," di Lido added, with a significant nod over the German's head, recalling the purpose of all this.

  ***

  Leonora's mercenary-accompanied litter passed over the drawbridge and was waved on by the guard as Doña María threw on her cloak, ran down the steps, and stood waiting before the main portal. The little caravan rattled across the court and came to a halt, and Doña María's daughter stepped nimbly down from the curtained conveyance.

  "Mother!"

  "My dear daughter!"

  Arms wide, mother and daughter embraced, tearfully, uttering cries of endearment, hugging and kissing until the first transport of reunion exhausted itself.

  Doña María held Leonora away by the shoulders. "Let me look at you. I almost do not recognize you, you are so much a grown woman. You have filled out. But, you are beautiful!" the mother exclaimed, her eyes bright with happy tears.

  Leonora put a loving hand to her mother's face, where there were wrinkles that had not been there before. Dimpling, she laughed. "But you have not seen me since my fourteenth saint's day, almost two years past, dearest madam. I was bound to change a bit in so long a time. Oh, and you are looking so well. These few years at Mondejar have done you so much good, mother."

  Doña María drew a lace kerchief from her tight sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. "Yes, querida, I have finally overcome the sadness the death of your dear sire precipitated, the Lord give him rest." She crossed herself, then wrinkled her eyes in a smile. "But the fickleness of woman seems to prevail, and now I am finding the peaceful life tedious and would welcome a change. So I am considering a return to Court."

  Leonora clapped her hands gleefully. "Oh mother, that is such good news! We will be able to gossip together like two old crones."

  "But why are we standing here in the wind?" Doña María cried. "Come inside, let me give you a warm potion and food, and then we will unpack your chest together..."

  "And I will show you all the new Court gowns that I ordered sewn in Cuenca, they are truly beautiful."

  Doña María ordered refreshments brought to the carpeted, velvet-h
ung chamber assigned to Leonora and had the pleasure of seeing some fragrant meat pastries and hot broth bring roses back into the young woman's travel-pale face. Chattering and laughing, Leonora drew out one damask or velvet gown after another from her chest, whirling about the room to show them off to her mother and then handing them to a servant, who carefully hung them on pegs behind a curtain. Delighted with her prestigious appointment to the Infanta Isabel's small, select circle, happy to see her mother, relieved to be finished with the tedium of education, she kept Doña María entertained with all the events of the past months, leaving one sentence unfinished to switch breathlessly to another. Catching her elation, Doña María added her own news of Leonora's sister who was ten years older, married to an Italian duke, and living in Rome, and gossip of various friends and relatives learned by letter. Neither had been in a position to observe much of the tidings they chatted about, but what they didn't know firsthand they supplied from hearsay.

  Watching her daughter's small, elegant head shine bright gold as she passed back and forth through a shaft of sunlight from the window, Doña María realized how much she had missed her youngest and resolved to ignore her own retiring nature and spend more time along with the Court. What was more, although she felt there would be suitors enough for Leonora's hand, the most advantageous matches often needed an on-the-spot parental guiding hand to come about.

  Sinking finally onto an upholstered stool as the last gown and headdress was hung up or repacked by the servant, Leonora heaved an exaggerated sigh of exhaustion and popped a nutmeat from a bowl into her mouth. Crunching it she broached the subject uppermost in her mind.

  "Tell me, mi madre, of Don Iñigo's bastard. Forgive me, I sometimes could not make out your hand in your letters. My curiosity is bursting. Has he been acknowledged heir?"

  Doña María sat and fanned her face, which often flushed with the strange heat caused by the end of a woman's childbearing years. "No, not yet, my dear. He has merely been recognized and is soon to be presented at Court. That is enough for a while, according to Don Iñigo."

  Leonora tilted her blond head pensively. "You know, mother, Don Iñigo once told me that because he was childless I would inherit his properties since his nephew, the Duke, owns so much of Castile already. 'Tis strange he did not ever mention a bastard child before." Her brown eyes were curious, but innocent of rancor.

  Doña María was prepared and answered her daughter with a shrug. "Poof, that happens often. An unmarried youth whose blood runs hot begets a child on some poor mistress, then takes a wife, has legitimate issue, and forgets the very existence of the child born on the left side of the blanket, one among many, usually. It was by a whim— perhaps an angel had brushed a dream of mortality over my cousin's eyes—that he stopped to see his natural son in Ciudad Real just as the boy's mother lay dying."

  "Was his mother a well-born woman then?"

  "She was gently raised. Her father had been a silk merchant, but had lost all his ships in a storm. She lived on the charity of a penurious brother, her son was raised with little but a roof over his head. Seeing the boy was sturdy and bright, Don Iñigo was moved to claim him and give him all the advantages he lacked."

  "Poor Carlotta. I wonder what she would think of this. After all, it should have been her child...."

  "Poor Carlotta thinks not of anything," Doña María said, a slight asperity in her voice. "Her madness has grown but worse through the years, and you know well she was barren."

  So infrequently was Don Iñigo's wife mentioned, so completely was the curtain of superstitious dread drawn about the broken mind alternately drooping or raving for over a decade in a barred room of a cloistered nunnery, that Doña María was startled by her daughter's memory of the woman. She deemed it wiser now to turn the conversation into safer channels.

  "You will like your new kinsman, Leonora. He is a handsome devil and a charmer. The young maids at Court will find him much to their taste."

  "I see he has already won you, sweet mother," Leonora chided, her eyes dancing.

  "And why not? My sight is not yet so dim nor my mind so ancient that I cannot see the beauty of young men." They giggled together like conspirators.

  Together they chose the gown Leonora would wear at supper. It was of pale brown silk brocade, high-waisted and full-skirted, trimmed with a narrow edging of gray squirrel along the low, square neck and at the cuffs of the tight, elbow-slashed sleeves. They rejected the hennin headdress for this evening in favor of a little silk hat like a baby's cap. This knotted demurely under the chin and would show off Leonora's shining hair, tied back at the rear and streaming down her back. From her jewel casket they selected a slim necklace of sparkling garnets to encircle her white throat.

  Doña María rose to leave. "Why don't you rest for a while, daughter. They will bring you a bath shortly and some lovely essence I made myself from last summer's lilies and roses. I will come for you later and we will go down together to the great hall. You look so fashionable. I must see if I have such a low-necked dress in my own chest so you will not outshine me."

  "Oh mother!" Leonora laughed, putting a hand up to her bosom in mock modesty. She walked with Doña María to the door and hugged her in temporary farewell. "Thank you. Thank you, madam."

  "Thank me for what, may I ask?" Doña María gazed lovingly into her daughter's warm, velvety eyes, their height level with her own.

  A shy smile touched the girl's lips, and she plucked affectionately at Doña María's sleeve. "For being with me. For being you. Mother, I have missed you so."

  Later, as they made their descent down the long main stair, Leonora gliding as if there were no legs under her skirt just as the good sisters had labored to teach her, Doña María laid a staying hand on her daughter's arm.

  "Querida, do you regret the fact that Francisco de Mendoza may inherit from Don Iñigo?" she asked, keeping her tone mild.

  "Regret?" Leonora queried, as if the thought had not occurred to her. "Indeed no, why should I regret? I have a noblewoman's dowry and will inherit my father's lands, I am amply provided for. I was but curious before. In fact, I am most happy that my cousin Tendilla has reclaimed a son to carry on his line."

  The older woman knew her daughter; in spite of her denial there was a hint of resentment, a spark of calculation behind the lively interest in the velvety eyes. But the mother believed it only momentary pique. The truth was closer to what Leonora had voiced.

  "I apologize, my dear. I meant no harm. I know you have always been most fond of Don Iñigo, from the time he jounced you on his knee as a baby and your little heels beat a tattoo on his leg." She patted her daughter's hand. Leonora's dimpled smile appeared and they continued down.

  Doña María was proud of Leonora's charity in the situation and considered that the reward for such good nature would come. At the return of Francho's inheritance as a Venegas, Don Iñigo would again be without an heir and that would make Leonora de Zuniga one of the wealthiest women in Spain. What Tendilla promised, he accomplished. Doña María had no doubts he would see Francisco recover his patrimony, or that her daughters, when the time came, would be amply remembered by their illustrious cousin.

  ***

  Jumping from his foam-flecked, blowing horse, Francho quickly patted the animal's damp nose, tossed the reins to a groom, and bounded up the stairs to his chamber, bawling for his valet. As soon as he had seen the strange men-at-arms in the courtyard among the host of other daily visitors, he knew Leonora de Zuniga must have arrived. And here he was, covered with dust and in the old doublet and felt cap he used to gallop across the countryside whenever he could escape from Ebarra and Nunez.

  Finally, later, carefully bathed and combed, he felt cleaner but not calmer, and went twice through his wardrobe unable to decide what to wear. At last he chose a high-collared, velvet doublet of rich blue (Constanza had said it made his eyes more cerulean than the sky) embroidered with gold arabesques, its slashed sleeves showing the white of his linen shirt and its skir
t so short it barely covered his buttocks. He left the front of the doublet open to show the embroidered shirt beneath but secured it at the neck with a gold cord. Over his muscled legs he had drawn up dark hosen, around his waist he fastened a thin belt from which hung his dagger, on his head he set a blue velvet hat with a jaunty white plume curling behind. He felt presentable, even though his hair, curling just at his collar, would not lie flat. He dropped his gold chain twice, his soft red leather boots were new and pinched his toes, and the valet had to be berated for jiggling the long, polished steel mirror that reflected his finery. But finally he was ready.

  He descended to the great hall two steps at a time but slowed his pace at the bottom steps, where he threw back his shoulders and donned an expression of calm. In fact, to his great surprise, he suddenly was calm. He was a member of the elite, was he not, not only by training but by birth? And by all the ill-gotten coin at Papa el Mono's, he was going to act as such.

  Entering the huge, banner-hung chamber, which was used for banquets, gatherings, entertainments, and the formal reception of visitors, he saw the group at the far end sitting or standing before the tremendous hearth, being served cups of Val de Penas wine by two valets with trays. Di Lido, Von Gormach, and several of his other tutors were there, but the person who drew his eyes like a magnet was the small, delicate young woman in a fur-trimmed gown whose golden hair lit the space around her like the sun and whose laugh pealed out like Pan pipes in a glade. In just the few moments that it took to come up quietly behind her as she regaled di Lido and her mother with a lively mimic of the acerbic prioress at the seminary, rearing back her head and pursing her lips in imitation of the nun's pressed mouth, his heart flopped over, ceased to beat for a moment, and then thumped in his chest like a bird pierced by an arrow.

  "Ah, Master Francisco, there you are," di Lido called, and Leonora turned about. "Doña Leonora, I should like to present to you Francisco de Mendoza, a gentleman for whom I have much admiration, even after so many months of incarceration with him."