An eyebrow arched up in the delicate face. "I have never seen someone so anxious to pay a gambling debt. But I think I will not breach the confidentiality of Don Francisco's letters."
"Then he has written to you? Recently? And from where?" Dolores hated herself for begging crumbs from Leonora de Zuniga, but she couldn't even sleep at night, she worried so that something had befallen him. "I do hope the gentleman fares well?"
From the depths of the church behind them one hundred and seventeen male choristers offered up the shimmering polyphonic tonalities of a chorale. Leonora's chin tilted in satisfaction. "You would like to know, wouldn't you, my lady? And not for any gambling debt either. Do you think I am foolish? It has not escaped my attention that you have a certain interest in Don Francisco which has nothing to do with cards. A useless interest, for it is obvious he does not care to communicate with you." Spite glowered out from the brown eyes.
Dolores's hand under her cloak was in her pocket, her fingers turning over and over an object there. "I admit nothing of the sort," she said, holding her temper but happy to drop her fawning attitude. "Until Don Francisco himself returns to Court there is no way to know what circumstances commanded his dispatching one letter over another. Still, I see by your jealous attitude that Don Francisco is at least well, even if he might not communicate with you often."
Stung, Leonora flared, "But so he does—often. And that is all you will hear of him from me." She tried to push her way past, but Dolores, taller and wider-shouldered, blocked her.
The month had been dull, full of cloudy weather and unusual chill and boring evenings with nothing special to fete, and Dolores had been occupied with her frustrated thoughts of Francho, to the extent that the idea of a bit of mischief to liven things up had appealed to her. That was why that bit of metal was in her pocket, although she'd not approached Leonora with any definite plan to use it.
Now she flung back, "I have a right to some concern. We were childhood friends together. Or didn't he tell you that?"
Leonora looked startled, like a doe caught in the light of a torch. Then her lips thinned. "I don't believe you."
"It doesn't matter whether you believe me or not. All I want to know is if Don Francisco will soon be returning from Italy."
"Shh, lower your voice," Leonora grated with a quick glance behind her, where an unseen priest was now droning the litany into a hushed church. Then she measured Dolores up and down with eyes grown hard and said in a harsh whisper, "Perhaps you knew him long ago, Doña Dolores. But he is obviously not interested in continuing the acquaintance, since you are forced to seek news of him. And I will not say more to you on Francisco de Mendoza. Now let me pass."
Dolores's frustration, her dislike of this false, mean little prig, made her evil. "Oh, but the acquaintance was renewed indeed, just before he left. In fact we discovered to both our satisfactions that we were no longer children. See, let me show you the keepsake he gave to me." She pulled from her pocket the medallion she'd found under Perens's supine body the previous winter and let the gold gleam balefully on her palm in the flickering votive lights under an effigy to one side of them. "It was to remember him by," she gloated, looking up from the corner of her eye to see the effect.
Seething, Leonora flung out, "A keepsake can be given to anyone, especially an old acquaintance. If you are trying to imply a close friendship here at Court, let me tell you, it makes no difference to me..."
"Imply?" Dolores widened mocking eyes. "But dear Doña Leonora, I am trying to tell you how close our friendship was. For instance, a lady of your unimpeachable character would not know that Don Francisco has a strange scar on his shoulder blade in the shape of a tiny dagger? Of course, you would not know that." Now Dolores not only stepped aside, smiling with satisfaction in her turn, but she turned and began to glide away toward the long nave, where the drone of a response to the celebrant did not cover the words she flung back over her shoulder at the tense, staring Leonora. "But believe me, it is true. Ask him when he returns."
Almost stumbling over a kneeling vendor who had spread a blanket of trinkets and souvenirs from the Holy Land on the Cathedral's stone floor, Dolores recovered herself and, because she felt Leonora's eyes boring into her back, directed her steps with great dignity as she headed toward a small side niche dedicated to the Virgin and brightly lit with supplication candles. She sank to her knees before the gilded statue with its painted, upturned eyes and sad smile, and there she prayed. Her temper subsiding, she finally begged for intercession with God for forgiveness of her lies and wicked efforts to manipulate Francho's life. It was so stupid. He would be furious when he heard of it. Her cheeks felt hot with shame over the smallness of her actions in view of his last kind gesture to her—but also with deep anger that Leonora had treated her with so little decency, had not made some courteous answer to her inquiry. Unfortunately she'd learned very little for her malicious innuendoes.
But at least she'd learned he was alive, he was well. Had something dreadful happened to him, Leonora would not have hesitated to scourge her with it.
Chapter 19
The Baroness de la Rocha and Don Enrique de Guzman jogged along through the March-bare trees in companionable silence during the lengthy ride through Torredonpedro Castle's hunting preserve, heading toward the high, marshy grasslands, where partridge, quail, snipe, heron and hare abounded. The royal hunting party had split in two: a number to go farther into the forest with the royal couple, who enjoyed coursing on their large hunters after a bounding stag as it was pursued by fifty or seventy-five of the three hundred English-bred greyhounds and deerhounds kept at this ancient estate near Baena; the rest of the guests turning off at an angle to achieve the tangled meadows and fly their beloved hawks.
Dolores was grateful for Medina-Sidonia's attachment to his hunting birds. The strike of the feathered killers was deadly but neat, scarcely bloodying their victims' feathers or pelts, whereas the larger creatures hunted with weapons often bled copiously from grievous spear wounds and the teeth of the dogs who encircled them, and sometimes as many as five javelins pierced into their hides before they collapsed with a bellow or a groan, spurting their lives like fountains. Dolores shuddered, although she was ashamed of her squeamishness when it appeared so many ladies adored being in on the kill, not only to watch but to throw a lightweight spear themselves and further dispatch the dying creature.
She could not deny her fascination with the trained African leopard that sometimes rode on a perch behind the King's saddle and whose leash was slipped as soon as the dogs started the deer or roebuck they were after. The spotted cat's flashing speed and flying leap onto the rearing prey's back was a marvel of power and grace, beautiful to behold, and its fangs, sinking into its terrified victim's neck to sever the spinal cord, brought a quick and almost bloodless death. But even then one had to endure the gory, ceremonial slitting open of the dead animal's body to dip bread into the beast's smoking entrails to throw to the leaping dogs, while the hunting horns echoed the conquest around the forest and the leopard tore at his reward of a fresh-killed hare. Even now as she thought of it Dolores could hear the horns faintly in the distance, ta-ta-tada, ta-ta-tada, the particular call that announced sighting of a red stag.
The Duke, bemused with his own early morning thoughts, might have wondered why she threw him such a sweet smile at that moment, although he was aware she much preferred hawking to the chase. Last year he had made her an expensive gift of a trained peregrine falcon, and he and one of his falconers had patiently worked with her For weeks to teach her to fly the bird properly, to slip it, to call it back, to become master to what was essentially and forever a wild creature, capable of disappearing into the heavens forever should it wish. The compact, sharp-clawed, somewhat diffident peregrine and she had finally come to an understanding. She called the bird Dalila, and she would have liked to believe that the feathered huntress returned to her more out of friendship than for the piece of raw beef she received. The hooded falcon
was now riding quietly on the cadge, a wooden frame mounted to the falconer's horse, along with Don Enrique's larger goshawk and gyrfalcons. Behind them and before rode other hawkers and their retainers and alongside rolled open wagons loaded with pointing and retrieving hounds and their handlers.
Although their styles of costume differed according to their fancy, all the company of ladies and gentlemen were dressed in the same colors: doublets, capes, hose, and gowns in either beige or brown or a combination of both, with stiff feathers of the same shades stuck in each hat and headdress. This was a conceit of the Queen's, copied from the Burgundian court, and one which would make the field banquet to follow the hunt most charming to the eye. But Dolores was not very chipper so early in the morning; she was rather glad for the tranquil ride and Medina-Sidonia's silence. She hoped the pale cream of her velvet gown did not drain the color from her face in the sharp early light—which was why she'd chosen to wear a simple hat of stiffened fabric with a rolled brim sewn with pearls that allowed her auburn hair to wave about her features and be tied loosely behind.
She suddenly had to stifle a yawn with her velvet-gloved hand, ending with an apologetic chuckle as the Duke rolled his eyes at her. She hadn't slept soundly the night before, although the Queen had decreed this stay at Torredonpedro, to which she had invited only her favorite courtiers or those newly favored at the moment, to be one of relaxation and rest and offered little in the evening except some serious music. Most were abed by nine. But Dolores had been restless all year, since the end of the excitement of last spring's celebrations of the Infanta's betrothal to Alonso, heir to the throne of Portugal. Little seemed to amuse her anymore, although only her sharp-eyed good friend Luisa seemed to be aware of it.
"You need to marry, my dear, and that will dissipate your humours," Luisa said kindly, patting her on the knee as they sat chatting together in a window embrasure of the small castle one of the first mornings at Torredonpedro. Luisa had been away from Court with her adored husband and two children visiting their estate in the north for a couple of months. Reunited now, the two friends had been happily having a good gossip when Dolores finally had confessed her discontent.
Dolores did not turn her head from contemplating the forest which bordered at a distance the great sweep of cropped lawn and gardens around the castle. "I can't imagine why you say that, Luisa. How little I really have to complain of. My life is quite full...."
Luisa sighed in mock exasperation. "I say it because I am older than you and more experienced. Merely having a man to your bed does not make you a happy woman. It is the embrace of a man most passionately loved that gives one's face so special a look, a sort of tender glow as if one has a delicious secret. Oh, you are more lovely to look at than ever, my dear, as luminous as a jewel, but there is not that particular halo that I can spy so easily. And that is why I say you must marry—see, I seriously take the part of your family since you have none—while you are still in your beauty and so many seek you out. First you must secure your life with a husband and children, and I advise this in the role of guardian." Luisa's round face suddenly creased in a grin. "And then—and now I speak as your best female friend—you would be free to take a lover if your husband does not please you enough."
"Why Doña Luisa!" Dolores grinned back.
"Oh, most discreetly, certainly, but you might be good at that." Dolores's companion laughed. And then she turned serious again, her dark eyes mirroring sincerity. "Of course it is none of my business," she admitted, but continued on anyhow, "but rumor has always had it that the Duke's heavy attendance upon you could mean you will be his next Duchess when the present one dies, God keep her. That would surely be a most advantageous liaison, dear friend, and such cause for celebration." Luisa's smile showed her slightly crooked teeth. "The Duke has changed, I can tell you, in the two years since you arrived at Court. I'm told he was sometimes surly and danced many a woman a fine tune, each for a short while. And now he smiles and greets one kindly. And seems quite content to be broken to your leash."
"But the Duke's Duchess is very much alive at this date, Luisa," Dolores noted, "and besides, I do not think the gentleman favors me in such respect." Her voice held a touch of asperity for she hated that silly rumor that Luisa quoted. Yet, faithful to her bargain, she would not even tell Luisa of her peculiar and platonic relationship with Medina-Sidonia, or that all he favored her for was her property.
"Oh, do not be angry with me, amiga; I mean you no harm." Luisa reached out her hands, and Dolores was very glad to take them in her own as a salve to the loneliness assailing her lately. She squeezed the plump fingers.
"I know you mean well, Luisa. It's just that— Well, you are right. I am listless and restless and somewhat sad, I suppose, for no reason. Or perhaps it was caused by the small congestion of the chest I recently suffered, although I am most fit now. But I do feel as if something has riven a hole in my life...."
"More likely someone, you mean. Someone special is missing, you see." Luisa was visibly enjoying the small advantage her extra few years of age, married status, and children gave her over her beauteous friend, whose poise was usually so unshakable. "Do I not fully understand that languishing feeling? But first you must be practical and choose a husband. Gossip about an unmarried maid is more damaging than gossip about a married woman," she pointed out with a wink. Placing one forefinger to the pinkie of her other hand in a counting gesture, Luisa pressed, "What about Don Diego de Bernaldez? A lady whose description is certainly you figures in every verse of love he writes—and declaims to a fare-thee-well at every gathering."
"He is sweet, but dull. And a terrible poet."
"True, true. But then there is Don Alfonso Huelvar. He beams, in fact, were he a puppy he would wag his tail off every time you come into his sight."
"Oh, but he is but a baby," Dolores protested, "no more than fifteen. I would have to wipe his nose at every turning."
"We are here talking about husbands, not dreams of the heart," Luisa sniffed. "And he is a Marquis with several castles. Ah well. And the Queen's hero, the illustrious Don Diego de Cordoba? It often seems as if he would gladly push Medina-Sidonia into the moat."
"He is merely flirting. Nor would his family agree."
Luisa mentioned two other quite eligible gallants who often hovered about the coquettish Baroness de la Rocha and twice Dolores made a face. Luisa sighed and shook her head, as if defeated. But then she slyly slipped in, "And of course there is the dashing Don Francisco de Mendoza, who so gallantly saved your life at Baza. When he returns."
Dolores's chiffon-veiled head reared on her neck like a proud swan. "Well! Why in good Santa Catalina's name would you remark him for me, Luisa? The whole Court knows that he favors Leonora de Zuniga and that she and her uncle might even hold in abeyance Don Felipe's suit, if it is presented, until Don Francisco returns. The gentleman merely did me a courteous duty—"
Luisa snorted softly. "Hark, my friend, you have found occasion to mention Don Francisco's name at least one hundred times in the past months and recounted me the adventure with him outside Baza—although I suspect not all of it—almost as often. One would have to be insensitive as a stone not to conclude that the wonderfully handsome caballero had made some mark on your heart?"
Dolores momentarily held her indignant attitude, but then with a sigh she slumped. It really would feel so good to tell someone how much she did think about Francho, how anxious she had been at the news of his ill health in Italy, how disappointed that he did not return home with di Lido, how lovelorn she was in fact, although his heart did not belong to her. It was nothing to be ashamed of. Men and women of the enclosed world of the aristocracy became enamored of each other all the time. The Court was rife with licit and illicit romances, and the gossip of who languished for whom put spice in the day. But, of course, she could never tell Doña Luisa the true dimensions of her bond with Don Francisco de Mendoza.
"You are right, doña," she admitted with quiet despair. "I have fo
ught so to hide my feelings, even from myself, for it is no secret the gentleman has eyes for no one but Leonora de Zuniga." Dolores dropped her lids and picked at a nail unhappily. "The dear Saints know I tried to distract him from her, but I was most spectacularly unsuccessful. My efforts turn now on forgetting him."
Suddenly she was enveloped in a cloud of attar of roses as the sympathetic Luisa impulsively hugged her. "Ah, you will get over it, Dolores, you'll see, it just takes a bit more time." The black eyes rounded. "It happened to me once, such an unrequited passion—before I was affianced to my dear husband, of course," she whispered. "I can assure you, God takes care to finally heal the wounded heart." She hugged Dolores again to her rounded bosom on which gleamed a lovely strand of pearls. But then practicality overcame her and the hug turned into a friendly shake. "But doña, you cannot allow a yearning heart to steal your life, you must smile with all your old brilliance and insouciance and pave the way for your future. Love will come again, but meanwhile you must choose a husband. And see, since you are orphaned, perhaps the Queen, who seems very pleased with you, might act as ex officio guardian and sign the betrothal papers!"
And the thought of such a signal honor to her friend lit Luisa's face.
A husband? Madre de Dios, she is right, Dolores decided. Why do I act as if I shall be forever eighteen? A pox on him then, my arrogant old playmate of the gutter. My care and attention shall now be upon myself. A husband is what I need and sweet children like Luisa's, and a fine manse in the countryside to have my own brew house and bakery, and a stable full of the best horseflesh.... As such bucolic reverie flitted through her mind a soft smile touched her lips which caused Luisa to sit back, relieved.
"There, you see? We each need a conscience to nag us, lacking dear parents to guide. So do not forget my counsel, Dolores: A young woman of birth must finally think seriously of the protection of marriage." With a last pat on Dolores's hand she rose, as did Dolores, for the Queen's Confessor must surely have made his exit by now, and they would be expected to join the small circle of attendant ladies. Smiling at each other, each one made warmer by her friend's caring, they sallied hand in hand from the deep window niche, but not before Luisa got in the advice still uppermost in her mind.
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