Hart, Mallory Dorn

by Jasmine on the Wind

  Francho looked fully up to see the blond, clenched-jawed cavalier planted solidly before him, disdain lurking in the pale fox eyes.

  "But soft, amigos," Felipe murmured. "Let us not disturb the sweet reveries of our friend Mendoza, pursuing vain dreams concerning his gentle cousin Doña Leonora, no doubt. Should we then intrude upon such hopeless fantasy?"

  Francho unwound his frame with deliberate slowness, a cold light showing in his eyes. "So? Do you dare even mention my kinswoman in the same room where we have discussed your sire's enamorata?"

  Felipe snapped his fingers loudly. "That! for my father's doxy. Should you disparage the Medina-Sidonia courage or military astuteness I would cut you down between two breaths, but the Duke's romantic liaisons move me not. And as for the lovely Zuniga," Perens continued, "her name is pure enough to remove the taint of coarseness from the room. But I advise you to dream no more, Mendoza, for the Court arrives here within the fortnight and the lady will shortly inform you her choice lies elsewhere."

  "Upon you, no doubt?" Francho sneered. They stood glaring face to face, almost nose to nose.

  "But of course. She merely plays with you to tease me, as any clever female would."

  The hands of both men rested angrily upon the hilts of their swords. With a quick movement Francho unhooked the clasp of his short cape and flung it upon the bench behind him as Felipe almost casually undid the button of the high neck on his doublet. "And what makes you so certain of this, my lord Perens?" Francho growled. The other caballeros, aware of the intense rivalry between these two for the attentions of Leonora de Zuniga, fixed eager eyes upon one, then the other. "What makes you so certain that my sensible cousin would seriously consider so fabricating and posturing a churl as you?"

  Perens ground out his answer. "And think you she'd rather a come-lately bravo who was tucked up like a trembling coward with his studies for years, while the rest of us took care the Moors did not disturb his trances?"

  They sprung apart, swords snickering out of their scabbards. Francho advanced a pace, belligerent. "I'll push those words down your verminous gullet!"

  Felipe twirled the point of his sword. "Take care, jester. I am aching to cut your pretty face. 'Twill give my lady pause even to look at you."

  "Come on then, braggart, here is the sharp edge of my sword. Avoid it if you can."

  Lumpy Juan Pimentel, Count of Bonavente, ranged himself behind Perens, an ugly smirk on his pocked face. "Go to, Don Felipe," he urged, "these new ones always need heavy persuasion to make them keep their place." Bonavente was twenty-seven and married, but rumor had it he kept his homely wife as pristine as a maiden and dallied instead with the servants' little boys.

  Quietly Antonio de la Cueva stepped behind Francho. "This is not your battle, Bonavente. Nor even your place. You do much better in a nursery shucking unripe infants."

  With a snarl Bonavente flashed his sword and launched a clumsy assault upon de la Cueva, who, weapon in hand, danced away and circled, as if baiting a stupid bear.

  At the same instant Felipe struck out at Francho with a violent sideways slash designed to separate head from shoulders, but his stroke only rang loudly upon Francho's swift, strong blade, brought up and over as he jumped away from the blow. Felipe immediately pressed forward and launched another frontal assault.

  The other men spread to the edges of the chamber to give the four duelists room and followed each stroke and parry with zestful attention. They had seen the pugnacious Perens wield his sword in other personal fights and knew his deadly ability. Francho had wiped his blade clean of Moorish blood numerous times and he had their respect for his daring in the field, but they had never assessed him in a private feud, where hate often deflected one's aim. Many of them were keen to discover how Pietro di Lido's pupil would fare against an opponent of Felipe de Guzman's experienced caliber.

  But the enticing clash of steel upon steel and the juicy insults flung back and forth between the slashing protagonists were too much for some of the young bloods to bear passively. Luisa's detractor deliberately remarked within earshot of that maiden's swain that at least this duel was being fought over a woman whose honor was unquestionable, and for this effort was rewarded with a cry of rage and a spat out epithet. Two more weapons slithered from their scabbards. The circle widened.

  Pressed savagely by Perens, Francho yielded, trying to gain enough time to be sure of his enemy's methods before launching his own offensive, cursing silently the other fighters who crowded him. Perens's technique seemed to pair ferocious attack with inviting recession, a combination meant to catch a clumsy opponent off guard for the ensuing, vicious onslaught. Francho, counting on his ability to parry the powerful slices, determined to stay on the defensive until Perens wore out a bit, and then he would strike back with di Lido's befuddling method of feint-sidestep-lunge to the heart.

  Amidst cries of encouragement and advice the tension increased, threatening to turn the three small wars in which at first only injury was meant into more deadly contests.

  At that moment the door curtains were roughly shoved aside and the Grand Constable barged in, his eyes popping with wrath, followed by three royal guards with lowered poleaxes. "Stop this! By the orders of Their Majesties, I say cease! Lay down your swords at once, gentlemen, or I shall arrest you all." He motioned to the guards to advance on the combatants. The swords were lowered grudgingly. The Count of Haro's face was purple. "How dare you break the King's law in his own house? A monstrous breach, señores, and were I not ashamed to inform His Majesty of this infantile behavior on the part of his noble gentlemen, I would clap you all in the dungeons to reflect on your temerity. How do you dare, sirs!"

  The men who had been dueling scowled, resheathed their swords, and said nothing. The guards lifted their poleaxes, one not fast enough to suit the vicious Bonavente, who with a powerful blow and a curse knocked the weapon up in the man's hands. The spectators, though, were incensed, for although Haro was entirely within his office in stopping the imbroglio, he had no excuse to be so ruffled except his own pomposity. In spite of the royal edict against dueling, personal fights went on little abated even if sub rosa, and the Grand Constable knew it.

  Now the thick door to the inner chamber opened and the King's chief secretary, Don Manuel Sorrolla, appeared and nodded at the twenty-odd caballeros in the anteroom. Resettling and brushing off their clothes, the duelists wiped the sullenness from their faces, and then, as a group, filed past Sorrolla and into the frowning royal presence.

  Francho thought his ears would scorch under Ferdinand's vehement lecture on insubordination. The angry ruler hurled his words like firebrands, burning his displeasure deep into their souls, the ten-minute storm even included a menacing description of the punishment awaiting anyone discovered engaging in private duels, for the muted sounds of swordplay had not escaped the royal notice.

  The King finally wiped his brow with a silk kerchief and paused for breath, sternly surveying the contritely bowed heads battered by his tirade. Well, that was sufficient. They would remember his wrath for a long time. Now what he really wanted was to hear a detailed account of the spur-of-the-moment venture which had so enriched his larder and treasury. "Don Antonio de la Cueva. We would appreciate from you a full report of this midnight sortie, sir," he demanded.

  Francho observed the relish with which Ferdinand listened to de la Cueva's colorful accounting of their foray, and in spite of his chastened condition his admiration waxed again for this king, who was, before all, a warrior. But he felt heat rise in his face each time Antonio cited him as leader during several crucial spots in the venture and the hooded royal stare shifted to him, as it finally also did to Hernando del Pulgar. After a vivid description of their violent surprise attack at the narrow part of the trail and the thundering clash with the Moors which threw the enemy into complete disarray and caused them to panic and turn tail, leaving their injured to be stripped and added to the shackled prisoners, de la Cueva's narrative came to an end. The
young nobleman bowed and stepped back, but although his eyes were still chastened from the foregoing tongue-lashing, the pride in his voice and the set of his shoulders could not be missed.

  There was a pause, and some uncomfortable shifting.

  "My lords. Señores," Ferdinand finally rumbled. But the severity had left his tone, replaced by a more ringing pitch. And then, with a triumphant pound of his fist against his table and an elated grin from ear to ear, Ferdinand's fighting nature which so endeared him to his men emerged. "By Saint Anthony's bones, a splendid and victorious undertaking, gentlemen. I congratulate you all, each one of you, on your courage and audacity. And on the morrow in the ground before our manse, be it rain or no rain, we will cause a great ceremony to be held, to show the appreciation of your Monarchs and your country for your great valor. Señores, I salute you!" And the King rose up with such vigor his heavy chair fell over backward.

  ***

  Outside, as the relieved group of men dispersed to their well-earned midday meal, Antonio drawled to his cronies, "That furious outburst had me convinced we might barely escape the headsman."

  Francho rubbed his neck wryly and began a cocky answer but let it die in his throat as the Count of Perens strode past. Francho's eyes locked with the malevolent, almost colorless pale blue ones in a hard stare.

  "We are not yet finished, Mendoza," Perens grated from stiff lips.

  "My pleasure, my lord," Francho growled in invitation. "At any time." His lip curled and he watched with undisguised dislike as Perens, followed by his cohorts, stalked on.

  "You had scarce joined the Court when he decided you were anathema to him. Is it solely the hand of Doña Leonora that causes such rancor between the two of you?" Pulgar asked curiously as he stood beside Francho.

  Francho raised his big shoulders in a slight shrug. "Perhaps he does not like the cut of my clothes. Who knows? I know of no other reason for enmity between us."

  But he did and now it was on his own part. Along with his jealousy that the icy Count of Perens would even claim that Leonora showed him serious consideration, there was the sharp thrust of rage that had stabbed his breast when the viper had dared to call Dolores a doxy, a term reserved for the lowest whore. He would allow no one, no one to insult Papa el Mono's daughter. And so there were two causes, at least, prodding him to swear to himself to grind Felipe de Guzman's soulless face in the dirt one day.

  Chapter 10

  Cidi Yahye, wiping grease from his mustache with a linen napkin, contemplated the remains of the delicious midday meal of roast lamb and pepper sauce he had just enjoyed and realized disgruntledly that it was probably his last until the blockade was lifted. And it would be lifted, in spite of the enemy's brave show of provisioning the past few months. The Christians, he felt certain, would yet give up their unheard-of six-month siege and wearily depart to the comfort of their homes and families for the winter. Any day now, and certainly before the snow closed the passes.

  At that moment footsteps pattered across the tiled floor of the arabesqued chamber where he dined, and he looked up to see his pantalooned aide and several of his captains hurrying toward him. "Yes, what is it?" he growled out.

  "Your Excellence, please come quickly to the ramparts," his adjutant panted. "There is a strange Christian cavalcade coming down into the valley from the north. It is not merely one of their supply trains. You will want to see it for yourself."

  Calmly putting down his napkin, the commander of the city of Baza rose from his cushions. "Very well, Ali Man-sour. The Amatana Gate tower, our highest point, is where I shall view this apparition." He asked no questions, for since his adjutant rarely became agitated it was best to consider immediately what had so shaken him.

  The jog up the hundreds of steps inside the great, square tower was nothing to Yahye in spite of his girth; he made it a practice to ascend in a run to the battlements several times a day to survey the valley, although there was little to see besides the smoke fires from the enemy camps and the daily skirmishes his captains mounted to harass them. Skirmishes only; his commanders were under orders to waste as few lives as possible in these short battles. The city was fast running out of food, true, but his people were with their families in comfortable and familiar surroundings. They could last the few weeks until bad weather, disease, fever, and restlessness would surely drive the cooped up Spanish to retreat.

  From the Amatana tower, however, his disbelieving eyes told him a different story. And all about him, on the battlements, the tallest housetops, and mosque towers, the turbaned inhabitants of Baza jostled pop-eyed to get a view of the great, shining column of riders slowly coming from the northwest hills toward the Christian camps.

  The wind brought to his ears the distant flourishes of trumpets, flutes, and bells which accompanied the Spanish procession. Shading his eyes from the sun, Yahye made out in the van, under the fluttering white tower-on-crimson of the house of Trastemare, an imperious, magnificently robed lady riding a large white mule, the animal so bedecked in golden trappings that they brushed along the ground. "Their Queen, Isabella," he muttered, feeling shaken, and experiencing a sudden indigestion not brought on by the fatty lamb.

  Familiar with the Christian Court, he believed that the smaller figures riding on Isabella's right were her daughter, the fourteen-year-old Infanta Isabel in shining satin and jewels, and the Infante Juan, the little Prince of Asturias and heir to the throne, clad in a miniature suit of armor. On the Queen's left could only be the powerful Grand Cardinal Mendoza, whose red robes and cloak spilled over his glossy black charger like lapping fire, and whose steady hand supported a tall, gilded pole topped with a gem-encrusted, golden cross. A long train of splendidly dressed noblewomen followed, most of them on horse or muleback but some traveling in brightly painted litters with arms-emblazoned curtains. Many of the ladies wore green- or red-dyed fur cloaks full enough to drape over their animals' haunches.

  An honor guard of armored, high-ranking hidalgos with plumed helmets and closed visors cantered as escort to the ladies, and behind all this rode hundreds of gentlemen, squires, soldiers, and pages in a long, straight line whose rear guard had barely gotten clear of the hills. Over their proud heads flew the multicolored banners and pennants and guidons of Christian Spain.

  "May Allah preserve us," muttered one of Cidi Yahye's captains. "They bring their women to camp. And with baggage and hundreds of beasts of burden laden with extra supplies. What means this?"

  With leaden heart Cidi Yahye continued to stare at the distant procession. Presently a company of cavaliers burst from the gates of the Christian camp to meet the Queen's train. These were soon followed by Ferdinand in great pomp, attended by his commanders and other grandees, many of whom Yahye had met as peer in long ago tourneys between Spain and Granada, when peace still held. From the Christian camp cries of joy pierced the air, and they could see caps and helms and headgear being flung to the sky in jubilation.

  Yahye had viewed enough, and he turned away from the glittering message which Ferdinand had so clearly delivered him. He saw his captains watching him, waiting for some pronouncement. Swallowing hard he said, "You know as well as I what this portends: that the fate of Baza is decided. Warriors of the Crescent, pray Allah to show us mercy. The enemy intends never to leave our gates until he triumphs."

  Ali Mansour quivered to see his Prince's eyes dead as stones. "Excellence! We can best them yet. At your order our entire force can ride out and throw themselves upon that arriving column; we can decimate them and beat back whatever army Ferdinand sends to their aid. We can—"

  "No! I prohibit it!" Cidi Yahye's dark face sagged under the shadowy droop of his mustaches. "To what avail murder their women and old men? Their message is clear: they are so well provisioned they can maintain their whole Court in camp and not relent until we behind our walls are all dead of starvation. I am a Prince and Caliph of this city. I must think of my people. I will not bring retribution down on their heads."

  Another capt
ain groaned, "What about Gaudix or Granada? Perhaps if we hold out there will be succor...?"

  This, at least, brought a spark of outrage into Yahye's eyes. "You saw the communication we had from El Zagal. He is without an adequate force to break the blockade, so he says. He is powerless to save us. Or unwilling, if you will have the truth. Yet, perhaps the Sultan... But I am not a fool. I will not deceive myself about deliverance until all hope of lenient negotiation is past." Bitterly he surveyed his white-lipped captains. "Hear me, I forbid any attack or insult upon the Christian cavalcade. Their Queen, a lady of valor, is among them. Let us demonstrate that Moslems do not lack the courtesy of proud men. We do not war upon women."

  To hide the tears of vexation that sprang to his eyes he turned again, with his mingled feelings of astonishment, grief, and awe, to the mighty demonstration of Ferdinand's confidence. The people of Baza too began to understand their predicament, and a low keening started from their throats. The muezzins in the mosque towers commenced wailing. "Allah acbar... eched en la ila ella Allah, eched en Mohammed rasou Allah..."

  But the point of the horizon in the direction of Mecca toward which all of the frightened, turbaned faithful turned their eyes was unluckily directly in line with the grandiose Christian procession as it began to veer off toward the southern camp.

  ***

  Francho was lucky. When the Court arrived he was at some distance beyond the camp, behind a small rise where he often went with his equerry, Ebarra, so they could converse in Arabic without being overheard in order to keep up his fluency. At the first glimpse of the spectacular cortege just emerging from the shadow of the mountains, he clapped on his helmet, leaped onto his horse, and galloped out to meet it. As he rode past the ranks of the procession he saluted the exuberant, gaily waving ladies, greeting the ones he knew, but he scanned their number carefully until he finally found the one he sought. Immediately he insinuated himself into the escort bordering the column, blessing his good fortune to be so well ahead of Ferdinand's official welcoming party—and his rival.