Hart, Mallory Dorn

by Jasmine on the Wind

  Anger climbed hot into Francho's face. "But you never truly considered following your heart, did you? You've always kept Felipe de Guzman somewhere about just in case your first choice did not inherit the station you wanted. Even the year you managed to wait was not for me but for the treasure in the desert you thought I might bring back. How convenient your jealousy of the Baroness de la Rocha, an excuse to get out of marrying a mere knight, a moneyless bastard."

  For a moment his intensity seemed to take her aback. She protested, "But I did love you, with the love of a silly young girl, perhaps. Nevertheless, if I could have both you and position and enough to maintain it and my children, I would be more content than I am. But since the choice must be made now, it must be Felipe. Surely you can understand." Her voice took on a softer, pleading tone.

  He stepped away and left the door free. His voice too had come down in pitch. "Only too well, doña, you are very clear. But when the day comes when you would exchange all your castles and jewels for one kind word from Perens, you can remember that I loved you. I still do, for all your cruelty to both of us. I should hate you for leading me to believe you were mine when you really belonged, as a dutiful woman of your rank, to the highest bidder. It doesn't matter. I love you, and you love me. If you can go to your rich marriage bed knowing that, and in spite of it, go then. I won't stop you."

  There was a terrible pain in his heart. He wanted to fall on his knees and plead with her, to see the delicious dimples flash into being once more and hear her tell him it was all a bad joke, to seize her and ride off so far from the world that all the mercenary resolve would melt from her and she would be his sweet Leonora once more. But his pride was crushed, his dreams shattered. He could only bow rigidly and step further aside.

  She had the grace to lower her curved lashes over her eyes, where he used to imagine a blithe and innocent spirit peeped, but she held her small head high. "Fare you well then, Don Francisco. I wish you every happiness," she said with a quaver in her voice, and in a flutter of veil and swirl of velvet robe she was gone, shutting the door softly behind her. He took a few minutes to compose himself, and then, mouth in a grim, straight line, set off quickly for the gate.

  Tendilla, waiting under a flare of torches, studied his fixed and bitter face and walked him away from the guards. "I am sorry you had to discover Leonora's ambition in so crushing a manner. I did not think it was my affair to inform you."

  "If you had not reserved her letters from me I would not have lost her," Francho lashed out. "I would have sensed her impatience and come back to tell her the truth of my hopes, given her something real to hope for."

  "There were no letters," the Count answered bluntly. "The one short note she sent to Alexandria finally came into di Lido's hands; he returned it to her with some excuse. After the embassy came back without you she did not even seek to inquire your specific whereabouts from me. Do not judge her too harshly. Doña María is anxious for her to marry, and your prospects are not certain."

  "Well, it doesn't matter, any of it. I still want her and if I can give her what she desires in time to prevent her marriage to Perens then I will be happy. You may not understand this, Don Iñigo, you and I are of much different temperaments. But if I do not have Leonora de Zuniga I will have nothing." His misery, his sorely wounded pride, emerged from him in an agonized growl.

  The Count's thin nose was pinched, his voice intense. "I am not so iron-hearted as you imagine, Francisco. I felt the same way about Doña Elena, your mother. I loved your mother very deeply and she loved me—but she was Elena de Venegas and the wife of my friend. So young she was laid in her grave and my dead heart went with her; and until the time that the flesh of her flesh reached out for my purse in Cuidad Real I had nothing." The Count stood stiffly in his pleated maroon velvet doublet slashed with silver at the elbows, a fine sword and jeweled dagger adorning his waist His noble face was long, stern above the small pointed beard he affected, his dark hair was heavily silvered at the temples, but his was the erect back and slim waist of a man ten years younger. For once the piercing black eyes lacked veiling, and looking into them Francho saw the aching void of Tendilla's lonely existence, the disillusionment, the unfulfilled dreams of a man past his prime whose armor against the failings of life was his withdrawn reserve.

  "At the moment my influence with the Queen is at its lowest ebb, but I will do all in my power to see your own name and patrimony restored so you may achieve the happiness you seek," Tendilla said quietly.

  Moved but not surprised, somehow, by the revelation of the intimate, hopeless bond between Don Iñigo and Elena, his shadowy mother, Francho put out his hand. "My lord, forgive me. You honor me greatly. I hope the day will come when I can show you the full extent of my gratitude for the friendship you have extended to me. To carry your vaunted name is a privilege I could have hardly dreamed of. But as soon as the Queen releases me from silence I shall claim Francisco de Venegas as I was christened, whatever the consequences, a dungeon or a pardon."

  Mendoza shook his head. "I commend your courage."

  "If I can put an end to Muza Aben and remain alive, I beg to consider my work in Granada finished. I will return to Santa Fe immediately and take up my place as a Castillian knight. And await the Queen's decision."

  Tendilla said nothing in the face of this declaration.

  A guard held his mount's bridle as Francho swung himself up. The stout timber portals swung open. Francho looked down at Tendilla's saturnine face, where the line from the narrow nose to the unsmiling mouth had grown deeper this night. He saw respect in the piercing eyes and something more—could it be a certain regret that Elena de Venegas's son was not his own? By God, he liked the man, taciturn, unemotional, and all. One could trust him, and in the melee of surviving the world this was to be valued above gold. The warmth Francho put into his wry, parting smile was real. Tendilla saw it.

  "Go with God," Tendilla called out, his tone as dry as straw. "Good luck." Then he dealt the dappled Barbary a sharp smack on the rump and the horse got away like an arrow from the bow toward the torch-dotted bulk of Granada flowing up the dark hills. There was no hint yet of morning light, but the breeze had begun to die down as usually it did just before false dawn.

  Chapter 29

  "But the sack of rice you sent from the Alhambra is still half full, Jamal, and anyway there is little food to be bought. We don't need all this money," Azahra protested.

  Francho handed her the heavy bag of dinars. "Then keep it for me," he insisted. "Hide it behind the loose bricks in the hearth and use it when you have to. And should anything happen to me it is yours. It is more than enough for a good dowry and to buy Ali an apprenticeship in a trade."

  Azahra's nose was crooked to one side, and when she smiled she had formed the habit of putting her hand to her mouth to hide her missing front teeth. But her lovely, liquid dark eyes were worried, and she pressed her palms together nervously. "What do you fear will happen? Do you mean you will not come back here?"

  "No, no, there is nothing wrong, girl," he soothed, affectionately smoothing the wisps of hair back from her anxious face. "It is just the times are so uncertain—one can never tell." He passed it off with a vague shrug. Turning to Ali, who was shooting up like a wiry-limbed sapling, he added, "You will, of course, mention to no one the messages I was able to send to my lady-love so far away, eh, grasshopper? It would bring trouble upon the couriers. Your lips are sealed?"

  "Forever, Jamal, it is forgotten." The boy sensed the tension Francho was trying to cover. "But you'll come back soon, won't you, Jamal? Please? You don't come here very often anymore."

  Azahra bit her lip and hung her head at the last remark. Francho knew she had developed a young girl's infatuation for him, but she believed that since Zatar had marked her up her benefactor came less often because he could not gaze too long upon her ugly face. Now she blushed as the tall musician's long, strong arms went about both of them as they stood before him.

  "Of a cer
tain I will come back; does one abandon one's family? But perhaps it will be a small while. Ali, I charge you to continue your school studies most diligently, and Azahra, continue to learn from Ali to write a fine script."

  "He is a very unjust teacher. He has no patience," Azahra complained.

  Francho chucked her under the chin. "Neither do most teachers," he smiled. "And do not forget your dancing, at which Allah has given you such excellence. It will someday delight your husband and you will be beautiful in his eyes."

  "Will you remember that you have promised to teach me to ride a horse?" Ali piped in irrepressible optimism.

  "I shall remember everything," Francho swore and squeezed the eight-year-old's thin shoulder reassuringly. "And now I must leave. I have other matters to accomplish and the Sultan soon wakes from his midday nap."

  He bid them a falsely cheerful goodbye and rode back toward the Alhambra, the setting sun behind him, with one more mission left to accomplish. It would not be the last time he saw that humble little abode, if God watched over him, but the many contented evenings he had spent there as Jamal ibn Ghulam would not be repeated. Azahra would find in the money sack the deed to the house which he had purchased from a cousin of his landlady, who reported her killed in the burning of her father's farmhouse. He had done what he could to ensure the future of the two children who had so unwittingly helped him, and later, if this night did not claim his life, he would continue to watch over them.

  Not only the parting from his little friends weighed down his heart as he cantered up the tree-lined street against a tide of workers and palace petitioners returning to their homes. There was Dolores. And Boabdil. In a way Dolores and he had said their farewells two nights earlier, and what would a further meeting produce for both except strain while yet they were entangled in the shimmery mirage of Granada. When they faced each other again at the Spanish Court, she on her duke's arm in her furred gown and pearled headdress, he as a knight once more, with cuirass and sword, the heavy intrusion of reality would fade the passions—even the tenderness—that had joined them together here. As for Boabdil, what could the viper he had harbored unsuspectingly offer in regret for his fatal bite? Tonight he would attend the Grand Sultan, converse with him, soothe him, play for him more movingly than ever before, and finally leave as he had come, a fraud and an enemy. With no farewell.

  Stonily he successfully blinked back the burning behind his eyes. A warrior loved not his enemies.

  ***

  On the third evening of Dolores's residence amid Reduan's two wives, five concubines, and subdued children in the women's quarters, a husky woman servant entered her small chamber and with a grunt set down upon the carpeted floor a carved chest, an odd-shaped padded bundle, and a small, locked casket. Tears sprang into Dolores's eyes, although in her heart she had already known Francho would not let her return to the Alhambra again. In immediate succession there came a polite knock on the plastered grill separating her cubicle from the women's garden, and outlined against the parchment inlaid to keep the cool breeze from her couch she could see the taut silhouette of the master of the house, scrupulously awaiting her invitation to enter before breaching her chamber.

  At her word he came through the velvet draperies, the lack of expression on his pocked face still causing a tiny shiver up her spine. He indicated the objects just delivered. "Our friend informed the mistress of the royal harem that you were sold and told her he would cause your raiment and jewels to be delivered to the new owner. His slave boy just brought them. He also asks you keep his lute for him."

  The house servant bowed out. Reduan did not stir. He eyed her dispassionately. His hand rested casually upon the intricate hilt of his scimitar, but she thought he seemed disposed to talk.

  With a sadness she could not dispel she asked, "And what of him?"

  "He saved the life of your Queen the night he brought you here by riding to Santa Fe with a warning. He has returned to Granada with but one more mission to accomplish, a very dangerous one. Tonight. If he succeeds the hostilities between your kingdom and mine will soon cease."

  Dolores's lips parted. The news that issued from that thin, straight mouth upset her. Her mind tossed together circumstances and facts and up popped one idea. "The Sultan. He will kill the Sultan," she whispered, but Reduan's face told her nothing. She studied the powerful officer's face, the colorless eyes that challenged her and harbored unwelcome suggestion held in check only by expediency. "No... Muza Aben Gazul," she breathed and by his bark of a laugh she knew she was right.

  "You are lucky to be here, lady. The general's partisans will go mad with grief. Should he succeed and escape, by the morning anyone who had more than brief contact with Jamal ibn Ghulam will be arrested and grimly persuaded to scream out his whereabouts. But, if Allah gives him his life, by my pass our friend will be already gone from the city. For good."

  A thought stabbed through her fear for Francho and the bereft pain that gripped inside her. "How will they know with whom he was close? He kept mostly to himself."

  A cruel smirk sat on Reduan's lips. "Each one will implicate another. Even the Sultan, of course, will be suspect. I will have my own men reinforce his palace Nubians until the terror dies down."

  But it was Ali and Azahra that had occurred to Dolores. She stepped over to him in an agitated jingle of bangles and flutter of the yashmak, behind which hid the unhappy droop of her mouth. Lightly touching his arm she cried, "General Reduan, I appeal to you, there are two innocent children who were very dear to Jamal ibn Ghulam and who inhabit a house in the Albayzin where he went often. They must be brought to safety here, or given at least the chance to flee for their lives."

  At his downward glance she hastily removed her fingers.

  "Yes, I know of those two. The boy carried the messages."

  "He knew nothing of what was in them, he thought them love missives to a sweetheart beyond the walls. Such mercy as you may show to save his life and that of his sister will put Don Francisco forever in your debt."

  "He is already in my debt," Reduan intoned, losing interest. "Peace be with you, lady," he brushed off her plea, and his long, embroidered mantle rippled as he turned to leave.

  "No doubt you are aware that Don Francisco's sire and commander is the powerful Count of Tendilla, Don Iñigo de Mendoza?" Dolores called in desperation to his retreating back.

  As if her words were a cast fishhook the Moorish commander whirled about in his tracks, and the glitter that invaded his colorless eyes rivaled that of the jewel in his turban. "No. This I do not know. But of Don Iñigo de Mendoza, of his triumphs and his ultimate aspirations, I am well aware. Then perhaps you are right. One more show of cooperation, minor as it is, costs little if Tendilla's son so values the lives of two Moorish peasants."

  Dolores let out her breath in a small puff.

  Reduan reentered the room and faced her, irritation in his folded-arm stance. "And yet I dare not send my own soldiers to warn them. Things have not coalesced, and it is not my habit to uncover my own flank prematurely. I believe I shall have to pass up this good deed. My regrets, lady. And to Don Francisco." The curl of his lip said otherwise than regret.

  "But I can go." Dolores detained him by the arm again. "I know the house." She swallowed to contain her distress. "Please let me go for them. All I need is a donkey for me and one for them. I will dress as a simple slave woman, no one will even note me." She saw his objection in the jut of his chin and forestalled him. "I know I am your hostage but where would I go, sayed? I know no one in the city. I cannot go back to the Alhambra. I do not wish to be taken either. I must return here, for my own sake."

  "That is intelligent of you," he said. "Very well, go if you must, but with one of my guards with you dressed as a servant, who will allow you to do nothing foolish since I have guaranteed your safety. You may not go tonight but at the first light of dawn, and only if I know that Muza Aben is dead."

  "That may then be too late," she pleaded.

  The
glitter that had given some life to the depthless eyes was long gone. "That is the best I can do. If Allah wills it you will be in time." It was hard to tell if it was a twitch that moved a muscle in his face or the hint of a sardonic smile. "Be ready." There seemed a subtle shift in the tenor of his thoughts as he stared at her. With insulting directness he asked, "You risk bodily harm yourself to succor Mendoza's friends. Do you love him?"

  Dolores's chin came up.

  The general mused, "The minstrel's beautiful Christian lady, a gift from his overgenerous ruler, was indeed his concubine. And yet it is common knowledge that the Duke of Medina-Sidonia sued for your release several times, which petitions the Sultan ignored. You must have many suitors, lady. A man seldom encounters so enticing a face and form." Some of the glitter had returned to the Moor's eyes. "Perhaps, Baroness, when I claim my Christian heritage, you will consider me also among your suite of sincere admirers?" he asked insinuatingly.

  He pushed aside the velvet drapes and left her standing in her fanciful concubine's veils and chiffons, her half-bare bosom lifting and falling with her angry breathing.

  ***

  Reaching the foot of the Alhambra hill, Francho rounded the illuminating flare of an oil bowl on a pedestal and turned up another silent road whose residences backed on the rocky gorge of the Darro River. It was not hard to spot the general's enclave up ahead, its walls lit by torches, and there would indubitably be guards inside the portals. In his bed was the only time Muza Aben was not surrounded by zealous officers, aides, and assorted cavaliers, and Francho's first thought had been that to dispatch the man in his bedchamber was the surest way, and one where he would have a better chance of escaping with his life. Yet high walls, an unknown layout, and guards everywhere made such a daring plan impossible.