Hart, Mallory Dorn

by Jasmine on the Wind

  Still, his sincerity and love for her was certain. She would not spoil this precious meeting, neither for him nor for her, by pressing him too hard with doubts. She passed around a corner to a narrower passage, counted two doors, and entered the third room.

  Francho waited for her, half-seated on the edge of a wide table, one black-and-silver-clad leg swinging impatiently, a habit he had picked up from Tendilla. She ran into his waiting arms and he enfolded her, both of them sighing with the relief common to lovers who must subdue their feelings before the world and wait for infrequent private meetings to let them free. Boldly he slid his hand down her satin-covered hip and thigh, and she snuggled against him. "Francisco, how shall I endure when you leave? Life will be empty—an inane posturing, a smile here, a curtsey there, and silly, vacant chatter—and all the while my heart will be longing for you. Ah, life is cruel...."

  "Ah, sweet heart, don't sorrow, you will take all my courage from me. Try to think of when I return—that we will be wed and our future assured, with a happy life stretching before us."

  "But I still do not understand what might Egypt have to do with us? Is it that you hope to find a treasure on the desert? Or so please the Sultan he will shower you with riches? And why can't we at least claim betrothal? It is all very confused." She pouted prettily, her small, tender mouth beguiling.

  "You promised not to ask questions of me, sweet. You said you would trust me."

  "I do trust you; forgive me. But—but a year is such a long time."

  Francho had not the courage to tell her that it might be much longer, in fact, when it came to her he refused to let the reality sink into his own mind that he would be gone as long as the war to capture all of Granada lasted. He would find some way to tell her later and pray she would be willing to cope with an extended separation. But now it was easier for both of them to part saying it was just for a twelvemonth. "Will the time stretch so long for you that you will forget me? The Court abounds with gallants who would claim your attention, especially since there are no contracts, no banns?"

  "How can you utter such words? I am listless as an unstrung puppet when you are not nigh until I hear your voice and see you. And no matter how we observe amenities, think you the Court is blind? Oh, they may try to draw me from you, but they will not. Francisco, I shall never want anyone else but you, ever. Swear you will never doubt me," Leonora begged.

  "I swear I shall always love you." He took her small face between his hands and stared deep into the guileless, velvety brown eyes. He found her so sweet, so unaffected. "You make me tremble. I yearn for you so," he whispered.

  She saw in his eyes the longing and the question and put her fingers over his lips. "No, don't ask me, Francisco, for I will answer yes. Yes, yes, I want to be yours, to lie sheltered and happy in your arms tonight. But God help us both for then we would know the true sweetness of love and understand the terrible width of the ocean soon to be between us. It would be a torture beyond bearing and my heart would break with the burden. Do you love me enough to spare me that?"

  She needed no answer and he gave her none; wordless, strained, he studied her poignant face, then put her away from him and turned his back. His hand was steady as he lifted a decanter of wine Ebarra had furnished for them, but he drew out the pouring process until he could face her more calmly.

  "I am selfish," she whispered.

  "You are wise."

  "I love you." His voice was hoarse.

  Gliding up to him she pulled from her index finger a small gold band inset with chip rubies. "I have had this ring since I was a child. Keep it with you always; it will remind you I am waiting and praying for you, counting every hour until you return." She kissed it and put it in his hand.

  The ring hardly went over the tip of his smallest finger. He unbuttoned the neck of the doublet and dropped it into the pocket of his shirt, then took her hand and pressed the palm over his heart. "Do you see where it lies? Only you may take it away, and then you should have only the gold, but not the kiss."

  She leaned against him. the top of her honey-colored head in its intricate, openwork cap of pearls and gold thread barely reaching to his chin, and he held her gently to him. "I shall truly be lonely, Francisco," she mourned.

  "I go because I must, sweet heart," he tried to soothe her, "but afterward we shall never again be separated, I promise. By all the Saints in heaven I swear—"

  "Very pretty. An eloquent tableau!" an intruding voice sneered from the doorway.

  Francho whirled; he had not heard the door open. Don Felipe stood leaning against the jamb, pale eyes slitting, shoulders tensed under his short scarlet and gold cape. "But you should not give your trust to a man with so facile and flattering a tongue, Doña Leonora." He pushed away from the door and walked a few steps into the room, swaying.

  For Leonora's sake Francho strained to hold his wrath in check. "You intrude, My Lord Perens. Get out."

  The Count of Perens's face could be called handsome in a cold way; but his narrowed eyes of palest ice blue now rimmed with red glittered with his spiteful nature. "On the contrary, Mendoza, it is you who trespasses. Remove your distasteful presence from my lady's vicinity or I shall show you the way out with the point of my sword." The words were detectably slurred, the man weaved a bit as he stood, but the eyes fixed on Francho delivered a menacing message.

  Leonora gasped as Francho's hand flew to the grip of his sword. "Francisco, he is drunken. He doesn't realize what he is saying."

  Felipe leered at her. "Not drunk enough, my charming damsel, that I cannot see this lout has taken advantage of your trusting disposition to inveigle you into a private meeting. It seems I must save you from yourself...."

  "I am capable of managing my own affairs, Don Felipe," Leonora flung at him, "nor have you ever been given the right to interfere with them. You overstep the bounds of friendship, my Lord. As a gentleman you will withdraw."

  Perens scarcely heard her; it was Francisco de Mendoza to whom he spoke. "Females are notorious for placing themselves in situations they later decry. Be thankful, doña, that I am here to see you do not succumb to the empty blandishments of a knave who only this matin paid a lengthy visit to my father's mistress."

  Francho started. Did this viper have eyes everywhere? "You miserable, intolerable snake, what you insinuate is a damned lie," he retorted in the deadly, back-of-the-throat rumble of a glowering mastiff. His sword whipped from its scabbard.

  Leonora caught at his arm. "Francisco, I don't believe him, I know he's lying. But you cannot attack him; he can barely stand up. It would be murder!"

  Francho shook her off. "Save your sympathy, dearest heart. I've had enough of my Lord's meddling attentions and insults. I finally intend to teach him some manners."

  "That is correct, my dear lady, your sympathy is misplaced," Felipe agreed, arrogantly strolling some paces forward and kicking aside a small chair in his way. His sword snicked out of its scabbard. "I could dispatch this fellow if I were blindfolded and one-armed. Come, Mendoza, or are you reconsidering..." He crouched, circling, arms wide.

  "Francisco!" Leonora cried to halt him, but she backed away from the cold, calm, blue menace she saw glistening in his eyes, more frightening than any burst of fury.

  "I only consider, Perens, whether to wound you or kill you. Or perhaps I will do both," Francho snarled and launched himself at the person he detested most in the world; and steel sword rang upon sword like the crash of cymbals. Francho fleetingly wished Felipe were sober, although the man's skilled swordsmanship seemed not impaired, for a dead Felipe's partisans would question the fairness of the fight, testifying he had been too drunk to draw sword. But there was no stopping now, the hate that burned in his heart for the posturing rival who wanted to own Leonora overpowered his reason. Fury to be forced to leave his beloved alone in the same corner of the world with Perens overcame his intelligence—edicts, the ire of his rulers, retribution be damned—his outrage came first. The man parrying his blows so proficie
ntly was every insult, every fear, every scorn that had ever struck at him in his life. He sent his opponent hurling away from a closing-in that had brought the insolent, sneering face closer to his and knew as he sprang forward on the offensive again that only the bright spurt of blood from Guzman's throat would assuage the jealous rivalry that consumed him.

  Hand to mouth and forgotten in a corner, Leonora watched with eyes filled with dread as the two duelists battling over her clashed, and ringingly clashed again, hacking at each other up and down the room with violent blows which were just as violently parried and turned, each pressing grimly for the other's small mistake that would produce a bloody victory. Backed up and arched against the heavy trestle table, Francho's bunched muscles repulsed the fierce weapon that would have cut him in two and knocked it to one side, the force of the stroke jolting up to his shoulder, then kicked out viciously so that Felipe jumped back and gave him the second he needed to swivel away from the untenable position.

  Felipe recovered instantly and advanced with relentless aggression. Their swords engaged in a flurry of powerful strokes, steel ringing against steel. Grunting they rammed up to each other as one sword slithered upon the other. For an instant the hilts touched and they came face to face. Felipe was pale, paler than usual, sweat trickled down the side of his face, the cords of his neck stood out with strain. "Drunken as I am I play with you for a while, Mendoza; it amuses me," he panted with a hot breath. "But soon I will put an end to this farce. I warn you, say your orisons...."

  But even as Francho snarled and shoved Felipe away a measure of cooler calculation descended upon him and he moved to set up his enemy for the unusual, Italianate method of skewering an opponent which di Lido had taught him. As Guzman launched another rain of slices and sidecuts Francho parried furiously; whirled away, dodged, and whanged at the Count of Perens's sword with the edge of his own, throwing the man momentarily off balance. This was all he needed. Crouching, flipping the sweat back out of his eyes, he flew forward with the lightning fast move called a lunge, the point of his sword aimed inexorably for Felipe's heart, and if the man's automatic reflex to leap back hadn't instead caused him to slip and fall under the level of the deadly, thrusting blade he would have been dead. Recovering immediately he scrambled back up to his feet, while Francho, surprised at the accident, for he had forgotten the man's condition, hesitated a heartbeat.

  But suddenly Felipe's arm relaxed, his grip opened, and his weapon thumped to the floor. For a moment he stood rooted to the spot dead white and shaking, his hand gripping his stomach. Then his hand raced up to his mouth, his eyes grew wide in distress, and he made a dash for a corner of the room, where he leaned over the high back of a carved mahogany settle and noisily gave up the great quantity of aguardiente and sweet wine that had undone him. Helpless, retching uncontrollably, covered with cold sweat, the Count of Perens turned his unguarded back toward his mortal enemy and puked.

  Francho's unbelieving stare turned into a whoop of laughter. He drove his sword into its sheath with a satisfied gesture and turned to Leonora, who, though just a minute before was on the verge of fainting with fear that her suitors would kill each other, now began to giggle hysterically. "I could run him through this very moment, doña, and be rid of him forever," he chortled, "but God help me I've always felt a kindness for the sodden." Even so, he knew that his amusement was mixed with just as great relief that he had not had to kill Felipe and surely ruin his own life by incurring the wrath of the King.

  "Oh, the blessed Virgin, I have never seen anything so funny. He just collapsed like a pricked wine skin..." Leonora's chiming soprano laughter joined Francho's deeper tones as they made merry over Perens's gasping figure.

  Francho bent to pick up Felipe's sword, a fine Toledo blade of the newest, lightweight type, with guard wings of twisted gold and silver wire. "I might just keep this as a memento to hang over our hearth. A trophy of a bravo whose grip was too weak to hold it." Such an end to the raging, bitter duel was just too ridiculous. Another wave of laughter overcame him. He walked toward Leonora, holding out his hand to her. "I am sorry, my Lady, that I couldn't give you the—"

  "Francisco! Look out!"

  Striking with the speed of a scorpion's sting, Felipe had launched himself at Francho's back, putting his entire weight into the leap so that his unwary enemy found himself suddenly toppled to the floor, flattened with the wind knocked out of him as Felipe's body landed across him. A steel-hard arm swiftly encircled his neck and squeezed, forcing him to struggle for air. Francho writhed to shake the man off, grappling with the deadly arm, but he could not loosen the berserk grip. He heard Leonora cry out, he heard Guzman's thick snarl of victory, and the room began to darken and purple as he fought to keep Guzman from strangling him. Driven and beside himself with mortification, the man was using every ounce of his considerable strength to throttle his bucking, writhing victim. Francho was aware of a sour, panting breath that rasped in his ear, "Die, vermin, die!"

  The arm that was choking him to death could not be pried off. Convulsively Francho reached back and grabbed a fistful of Felipe's hair, hanging on with all his might to keep the man's head pulled forward. Praying that God's mercy would guide his hand as Felipe jerked his head about in an effort to get loose, he jabbed back blindly with vicious strength and felt his thumb partially strike its soft mark.

  With a yell of pain Felipe clapped a hand to his eye, loosening his hold enough for Francho to wrench out from under him and roll away and come up to one knee, gulping air into his lungs. He saw Felipe jerk his dagger from its sheath. One eye screwed shut in agony, teeth bared in towering fury, Felipe surged up with a powerful thrust of his thighs and launched himself upon his detested foe.

  Springing to his own feet, and with a swift and agile twist of his body worthy of the finest Moorish bullfighter, Francho dodged the gleaming blade aimed at his heart, which instead ripped through his sleeve, plowing a gash in his bicep. Catching Felipe's arm on the downstroke, he used a wrestling hold of Von Gormach's, levering the raging man across his own body and with a masterful flip sending him crashing on his back to the floor. Without giving the dazed Count of Perens a chance to move, Francho pounced on the prone, gasping body and with two battering blows to the jaw knocked his tormentor into insensibility.

  Enraged beyond thinking, Francho wrapped his hands around Guzman's throat. "Suffocate me, will you, you whoremaster! I'll show you how to do it—"

  "Francisco," Leonora cried out in terror. "Don't kill him! Don't kill him, I beg you, it will only bring trouble upon our heads. Listen to me, please," she pleaded, running up and tugging with frantic strength to pull him off Felipe.

  "Why should I not send him to Hell, where he was spawned?" Francho demanded. "He would have finished me."

  "Oh please, no, let him be." Leonora began to weep. "You have bested him before me. He will never dare to interfere with us again. If you strangle him the King will imprison you, execute you, his friends will say he was besotted, helpless. Oh my dear, don't throw away our lives on your hatred for Don Felipe, for then even in death he would be gratified. It isn't worth it."

  Her words and her tears pierced through the fury that drove him. Francho's hands relaxed and the breath of life gurgled back in Felipe's bruised throat, the faint tinge of blue left his lips. Dazedly Francho stood and surveyed his unconscious enemy for a moment; then he turned and gathered the sobbing Leonora in his arms, stroking her hair to calm her. "It's all right, it's all right, doña," he muttered. Silently he thanked God once more that her reason had reached him before he had squeezed away that malicious life and impaled his own upon the deed.

  "Francisco, you're wounded!" She reached out, the sight of the crimson soaking his dagger-slashed sleeve stopping her tears. But he gently put by her hand.

  "Do not bloody yourself, sweet heart, it's just a scratch. See, it hardly bleeds. Listen, Leonora, you must go back to the dancing now, before you are too much missed. My equerry is in the courtyard feasting wit
h the townsfolk. I'll find him and leave so he can bind up my wound and I can clean up and change my attire. I'll return shortly and find you."

  "What about Don Felipe?"

  "Leave him here. If he is found they'll think it was just a drunken stupor felled him." Francho stepped over and righted the overturned chair and proceeded to erase other marks of the scuffle, wiping up flecks of blood on the floor from the cut on his arm with the flimsy kerchief Leonora held out to him. "After all, I would not like the gossip of a duel to mar my friend's wedding celebration," he wryly observed, in a weak attempt at lightness. He slid Felipe's sword and wiped-clean dagger into their scabbards and then mopped his own forehead with a clean part of the kerchief.

  Leonora wrung her hands. "Now he will enter the tourney against you, he will somehow arrange the draw of opponents to fall out that way. But he will be sober and wild for vengeance. And Don Felipe has a deadly score of 'accidental' killings in the lists."

  "Well, let him do so, that would give me much pleasure to skewer him on my lance in the presence of the entire Court. Drunk or sober he is not capable of overpowering me at anything," Francho assured her gruffly, picking up his feathered hat from where it had fallen during the fight. He took her by her dainty shoulders and smiled tenderly, flattered by the unconcealed esteem in her eyes. "And you may believe that, my Lady. You need never to worry on my account."

  She said nothing, but gave him a tentative smile back.