Hart, Mallory Dorn

by Jasmine on the Wind

  Francho was aware that twice a hooded figure had given a certain password at the gates of Alcala and had been taken directly to Tendilla, and that this was one of the two agents who formed the outside half of the courier team, stationed beyond the city of Granada's gates.

  "But God sees that when one leg is lame the other grows stronger," Tendilla continued, a long finger indicating a parchment on his table. "I have here a dispatch from di Lido. Their Majesties have requested him to undertake an embassy to placate the Sultan of Egypt, who is still threatening retaliation for Granada upon his Christian subjects and who might yet take it into his head to dispatch an army to aid Boabdil. The monarchs are trusting to the maestro's diplomatic turn of words to soothe the Sultan, and will also strengthen his argument with exquisite gifts. Di Lido adds here that the King bids him appoint a number of caballeros from our finest families to accompany him, to add the weight of the great houses of Spain to his. Do you see how this eases our path?"

  A leaping tongue of flame from the freshly built fire crackling on the hearth gleamed the satin of Tendilla's fur-lined, knee-length tunic, encircled by a dropped belt of incised leather from which hung his jeweled dagger. It also pointed up the shadowy, baggy smudges under his sharp eyes, witness to the unceasing attention required to command so wide-flung and rugged a perimeter.

  Francho nodded and looked up from the parchment, his gaze narrowed but eager. "It could account for my long absence from Court and from Alcala..."

  "...in very logical and satisfactory manner," Tendilla continued the thought with uncharacteristic fervor.

  Francho grinned. He hooked one ankle over the other knee and teetered back precipitously on two legs of his stool. "When is this mission projected, my lord?"

  "The end of February. Next month. If fortune smiles upon us and we have secured our courier by then, you will be attached to the mission to Egypt. Ostensibly."

  Bold blue eyes met eyes of deepest jet, anticipation glittering in both.

  Francho returned to the locked chamber which had been set aside for him and hung with several layers of cloth and tapestries to conceal the sound of his music. The room had no window, but one wall was an outer wall and tiny wind gusts coming through chinks in the ancient courses of stone stirred the hangings. He chose a guembri, a Moorish guitar, from among several types of stringed instruments resting on a velvet-padded bench. He put one booted foot up on the bench to cradle the sleek, polished guitar and sighed with impatience as his fingers thrummed a dark minor chord. He would give anything he owned and gladly, to bring that last man in their network immediately, solidly, into the fold.

  Chapter 14

  In February the entire glory of Spain gathered in Seville for the brilliant wedding celebration of Don Antonio de la Cueva and the French Countess Lysette de Moulines. Grudging time spent away from his headquarters, for Moorish marauders continued to strike at isolated fortresses in random pattern, Tendilla departed Alcala la Real at the last possible moment, so that his party of gentlemen who had been invited to the festivities plus their equerries and escort had to keep up a grueling pace to reach Seville the evening before the nuptials. They would stay only three days, for the ceremony and the tourney, and return to their duties at Alcala the fourth morning.

  They arrived at the Count's Seville residence exhausted and hungry. Francho went to his chamber and was soon reclining against the high back of a shallow wooden tub while Esteban Ebarra sloshed ewers of warm water over his tired body. Bare-chested, and sitting in his undergarments, he ate his supper before the blazing hearth, for the nights were chilly this time of year in Seville. He had finished his meal, penned a short note to Leonora, and was eyeing the deep bed with longing when a soft tap came at the door. Esteban opened it to an apologetic lackey. "There is a gentleman demanding to see Don Francisco. Will you inform him?"

  Circling one shoulder to relieve a cramp, Francho strode to the door. "At this hour?"

  The compact bulk of Hernando del Pulgar appeared behind the anxious lackey, and the brash cavalier pushed his way into the chamber. "Sí, at this hour! And have you forgotten the custom of feasting the bridegroom on the eve of the wedding?"

  They clasped hands, grinning. "But Hernando, we have just arrived and ridden hard to do it. My bones ache with fatigue."

  "A pox on your bones, señor. Antonio would never forgive you if you did not assist at his last supper in freedom. Come, we're gathered at La Luna de Plata and he's sent me off to fetch you no matter what your condition. So let's be off...."

  Francho knew the Inn, favored by the young bloods for unhampered carousing. He cast a glance at the bed with its turned-down coverlet, but it had suddenly lost its appeal. He pushed a carafe of strong wine and a goblet along the inlaid top of his table toward Pulgar. "Here, amigo, rinse the dust from your gullet whilst I clothe myself. I can't appear at the party without my hosen."

  Pulgar poured himself a brave measure. "Well, don't take too many pains, my peacock. If we don't hurry all the comelier tavern wenches will have been appropriated."

  Esteban was already laying out doublet and hosen, a short velvet cape lined with wool, and soft leather boots. Francho shoved the letter he had written into Esteban's hand. "This is very precious, Ebarra. See it is delivered first thing in the morning." He closed the man's fingers over the crackling parchment, for his heart was inscribed there in loving words of greeting to his lady.

  Pulgar looked up, taking for granted he knew to whom the letter was addressed. His mouth turned down a bit. "Perens has been dancing attendance upon her like a pet dog."

  "I know. So I expected," Francho responded grimly.

  The bluff Pulgar struggled against prying and lost. "But why do you not approach Doña María and your father and demand her hand, Francisco? An official betrothal would certainly jam a stick up that cockerel's behind." Pulgar was not known for his delicacy.

  "Because the Count of Perens is rich, titled, landed, and offers a powerful alliance of families. I've not much hope they would give her to me, even if it is her choice. At least not now. Perhaps, when I return from Egypt..."

  "You accompany di Lido?"

  "Yes, and who knows?" Francho said defiantly. "The Crusaders returned wealthy from the East. Perhaps I will happen upon some riches too."

  Pulgar watched the broad, smooth chest disappear as Francho shrugged into his shirt. His friend's bravado didn't fool him. He was likely to return from Egypt with nothing but a few souvenirs. Pulgar's affection for his comrade and his curiosity outstripped courtesy again. "I don't understand, amigo. You are your father's only heir. Your prospects are considerable. If the lady strongly prefers you that could tip the scales in your favor. You should put forth your suit right now."

  "Hernando, you don't think." Francho growled, annoyed only because he had been over this ground so often in his mind. "My father is not old. He could marry again, advantageously, and have legitimate issue to inherit his title and the most of his fortune. This is why he hesitates to declare me heir." He peered through his lashes to observe the effect of this excuse for his inability to move, pausing for a moment from tying the twisted cords that laced his doublet into an open V over his shirt. Looking into the wrinkled-brow face of his staunch friend he longed to confide the truth, his real name, and his desperate quest to redeem it. Frantic to overcome the strong temptation he threw himself back with a broad smile, to their earlier insouciance. "Come, Don Hernando, there is a revel going on and here we waste the night with serious considerations. I for one want a big flagon of ale and an even bigger wench to jounce on my knee so her breasts pop from her bodice; we live like monks at Alcala. If my equerry will find me my boots we can be off."

  Pulgar's high spirits flooded back. "St, shake your tail, Ebarra, and get him his boots ere the poltroons Antonio numbers among his friends swill down all the drink." His big laugh boomed out. "Very well, Mendoza, you go to Egypt. And I shall command a troop against Lacalahorra this spring, so saith the King. But I hear those veil
ed Egyptian odalisques have devils which wink from their bellybuttons to enslave you. I'd have a care about jouncing them, friend."

  Arms over each other's shoulders in camaraderie and anticipation of the drunken night ahead, they marched out to the wrought iron fenced court, where Francho's horse was already being saddled.

  Francho remembered the rest as only a moment of revelry and noise, an ocean of drink, coarse jokes, and even coarser women smelling of sweat; and then someone was rudely chasing away kindly oblivion by jostling him insistently by the shoulder. He opened his eyes, winced, and Ebarra stopped shaking him. The equerry stood back, holding a large mug in one hand. "How go you, master?"

  "Terrible," Francho groaned, struggling to sit up and squinting against the light. There was too much light. "What hour is it? Still morning, I pray?"

  "Sí, just past nine." He shoved the mug into Francho's shaky hand. "Drink it, master, it will relieve your discomfort," he advised.

  Francho's head felt like the interior of a booming drum, pounding with such vibration that his eyes squeezed shut in pain. Desperately he downed the tepid, smelly potion in one large gulp. "Aargh! What was that nauseous concoction?"

  Ebarra calmly drew back the bedcurtains. "Merely a nostrum of egg yolk, goat's milk, bitter almond, linseed oil, rock salt, treacle, ground dragon's bone—very efficacious— and herbs. An ancient Arab remedy for overindulgence and headache."

  "Fool, you have poisoned me." Squinting against the light that stabbed at his eyes he swung his naked body over the edge of the bed—Esteban must have undressed him upon his dawn return—wrapped the shirt his man handed him partially about him and tottered over to a chair. "Fetch me my breakfast," he moaned, "a slab of venison and enough bread to take away the taste of your ministering. And then attend me. I must go out." He felt the stiff stubble on his face. "In decent shape."

  ***

  It seemed as if the whole city of Seville was whirling with the preparations for the wedding, and yet Dolores found herself clapped up in her house, sitting in a little room off her bedchamber, and staring with irritation at Lencastro's precise columns of figures marked in her small ledger, as if scowling at them would make them go away. Lencastro was the Medina-Sidonia's counting master, who, by the Duke's wish, was helping her to bring order to her financial affairs, for she did not handle numbers well.

  She had to admit she had lost total control of what to her inexperienced eyes had seemed a vast fortune of money. Now she realized, in her second year at Court and after it was half spent, that the rent on her river land had only been a moderate sum in relation to the wealth surrounding her.

  She owed the furrier, the seamstresses, the jeweler, the vendor of scarves, kerchiefs, and stockings, and various other merchants, a long list of debts compiled by Lencastro from bills she had accumulated in an untidy pile in a chest. The problem was that if she paid all these there would be little left in her small money casket, and no hopes of accumulating more unless she sold off Torrejoncillo, as Medina-Sidonia was maneuvering her to do.

  Stupid. How could the daughter of the wily Papa el Mono have been so stupid as to react like a child with a glittering bauble, allowing her scramble into the ranks of privilege to trap her into such foolish spending? No wonder the Duke had paid her the entire sum on the ten-year lease of her river land all at once. He had judged her perfectly. He had known she would not be wise with the money but would spend it quickly on the seductive trappings of luxury.

  However, the house she sat in—and she glanced around at the smooth, white walls and painted ceilings, Turkish carpets scattered across the tile floor, and the small, graceful hearth of the little room—was hers by his request and at his cost. And it was only leased, not purchased, as rumor would have it. Her eyes had been dazzled by the charming little house sited on this street of fine mansions when Don Enrique showed it to her. He proposed an agreement offering her exclusive use of the house for, if she wished, ten years. What he would gain of it was not mentioned in writing, of course, but it was in the same vein, the same prideful buttress to his ego as his other agreement with her. Hardly onerous, one would say.

  She rose and wandered in a fog into her bedchamber, where soon Engracia would come and dress the wavy hair now tumbling below her shoulders and held off her forehead by a circlet, and would also carefully apply henna to her long fingernails with a small camel's hair brush. Dolores distractedly poked among the jumble of bottles, jars, and little pots of perfumed unguent with which she made her toilette, she picked up and put down her silver-framed mirror and her ivory comb (an expensive present from one of the lovelorns who pursued her), but all the while thinking furiously.

  To sell Torrejoncillo was unthinkable, for it represented her dowry, and a greater one than she had believed, now that she realized the value of the fall of water in operating machinery. She had at least had the wisdom to protect her reputation by swearing Medina-Sidonia to greatest discretion in respect to her, for rumors alone would not tarnish her irretrievably. Gossip was a major pastime of the Court. Any courtier with personality or verve lived with rumors against him or her, and most of the hearsay was discounted in the long run in the absence of proof. But ego-sustaining rumor was just what the Duke was after. This house was his way of slyly feeding the rumors, although indirectly and discreetly, for the landlord collected the rent from her. But most clever of him, as she finally understood, it was another way of binding her to the taste of luxury.

  It had all seemed so simple in the beginning as she stood uncertainly in the old Baron's tumbledown manse; so easy a way of adding legitimacy and stature to her purloined station by acquiring a grandee's personal sponsorship and patronage. But it was now becoming tiresome. The secret that she, and perhaps no other, knew was that the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, one of Spain's most victorious commanders, was impotent, having been made so by the groin wound which had also caused his limp. But once he had been a man of virile pride and needs and had counted some of the Court's greatest beauties among his conquests—most discreetly, of course, for Isabella was not tolerant of flagrant extramarital affairs—but never so discreetly that rumors had not abounded.

  Don Enrique would not tolerate pity of any sort. His arrangement with the enviably beautiful, young, and impoverished Baroness de la Rocha, so little worldly at first, was an inspiration which suited them both. She was to act—discreetly, of course—as if there were a certain closeness between them, which discretion would even allow her to accept the homage of other gentlemen. And in turn he would introduce her to the Queen and guide her through the thickets of the Court. So great was his physical embarrassment and craving for the reputation of virility in his forty-seventh year that such deception was not beneath him.

  Restlessly, her gray eyes darting and mirroring her turmoil, Dolores prowled about the room, finally raising the skirt of the silk robe she wore over her linen shift so she could step up to the arched door and small balcony overhanging her lovely little garden, green even in February.

  In her first year at Court, because she was quartered with the Queen's ladies, she truly saw Medina-Sidonia only in public, even though the whispering abounded, and even what business he wished to discuss—it amazed her that a man said to have over sixty thousand ducats a year in rents would care about a mill to make paper—was done quietly in a removed windowseat of the public audience or reception rooms. But since she had accepted this house last spring, as a pleasant refuge when her shift of twenty-four-hour-a-day attendance upon the Queen was rotated to another lady, he had taken to occasional evening visits—very discreet, of course, entering by the door to the garden—because he liked to be with her.

  If the Duke was not modest he was at least not boring, a man accustomed to command, although more celebrated for his patriotic bravery and the huge army he brought into the field from his own resources than for astute military strategy. His conversation revolved about the war and the accumulation of land and plunder; he shrugged at her questions about the Moors as people
because he cared little about them, they were merely the enemy.

  But she was not altogether naive. She realized if her polite reception of his campaign tales pleased him, her person pleased him even more. The bulbous eyes rarely left her face, he licked his smiling lips often as if in anticipation and held her hand overlong as he kissed it. He constantly touched her arm or her shoulder to emphasize a point. He had, not unreasonably, a proprietary feeling toward her, and although he battled with outrage and shame over his impotence, he was still a man with a man's desires. She often felt, under the restrained hunger of his gaze, like a forbidden sweetmeat on a plate.

  Dolores was well aware of what guaranteed her safety from more vigorous advances on his part. It was her land. He wanted her, but he wanted Torrejoncillo more, before she could marry and perhaps put it forever from his reach. He had a clever method of finally levering it from her, she acknowledged ruefully, as the specter of the debit figures rose before her eyes. But he preferred to treat her most respectfully at the moment so she would entertain no other buyers.

  Dolores had wanted so much to tell all this to that dimwitted Francisco de Mendoza, to tell him that she was guilty only of greed and not of whorishness, that she had never given herself to the Duke or to anyone but him, anyone. But the lout had refused to hear, he preferred to think ill of her. And his heart was elsewhere. Angrily she pulled away a yellowed leaf from the vine climbing her tiled balcony. To him, His Excellence with the real pedigree, she would never be anything more than a masquerading guttersnipe.

  Her mind drifted back to Baza after that wild and painful ride from the Moors. Francho had visited her that same night after the Spanish forces had routed the marauders, striding into her chamber escorted by Pulgar and de la Cueva. She was reclining in her bed upon a great heap of pillows, fussed over by Engracia and some of the Queen's ladies, including Doña Luisa, who immediately commenced coquetting mercilessly with the bashful Pulgar. Francho's intention to keep people between them was hardly necessary that night since her ribs were bound up so tight she could barely breathe and only lying very still eased her, along with the potion she had been given that made her lightheaded. She was pleased, anyhow, to note the troubled concern behind his blue gaze as his eyes swept her buffeted face and the bulk of bindings about her middle, which her smocklike gown did not hide.