by Carla Kelly
The priest leaned closer. “It was just a stoning.” He spoke conversationally, as if discussing ordinary things. “A woman was found to have congress with the devil.” He lowered his voice. “She tried to knife her husband after the birth of her two-headed baby, or so he told us.” He wrung his hands like Pontius Pilate. “The matter is over and Rincón is safe from evil. Excuse me.” He hurried on.
Nito took Hanneke’s arm. “Rincón is not for us,” he said, his eyes troubled. “I have seen villages where people have their blood up. Not for us.”
“Nito? Are we leaving?” Florinda asked from inside her wagon.
“Yes, my sweet,” Nito said, trying to calm his voice. “This is not a place for gypsies.”
Magdalena eyed the people flowing by the wagons, laughing and calling to each other. She turned on Nito. “Look at them,” she demanded, waving a finger in his face. “They are in the mood for entertainment. This could be an evening where we finally make some money!”
“You don’t understand,” Nito said. “What we heard…”
“I don’t care what you heard,” she snapped. “I want to dance!”
She leaped off the wagon and began to whirl about and snap her fingers, throwing out her breasts, thrusting her hips. The crowd gathered, and soon the ground was speckled with more coins than the monkey could gather quickly.
When Magdalena stopped, the men howled for more. Nito held up his hand. He tried to clear his throat, but his words sounded faint. “Kind people of Rincón,” he began, then tried again. “Kind people, we will sing and dance for you later, after we have rested from our journey. There will also be fortunes told, and camel rides. Go to your homes. Let us prepare.”
Hanneke held her breath when no one moved. The crowd seemed to breathe together like an enormous, restless animal. A fetid, musky odor permeated the air.
Nito sensed the danger. He reached inside the wagon for his guitar, which be played softly, slowly. He played until the spell was broken and they were alone.
“Nito, we can’t stay here,” Hanneke pleaded.
“We dare not leave,” he said. “They would tear us apart. We must perform for them tonight.”
Chapter Forty-six
No one spoke as they prepared for the evening’s entertainment. Magdalena looked around in triumph. She had won; they were staying.
Pablo wasn’t certain anyone in their right mind would pay to ride Fatima. “I wouldn’t,” he assured Hanneke. “Even if I had money.”
“Pablo and I have been thinking it is time for us to leave you,” she said to Nito, as he started to walk away. “You have been so kind, but…”
“You are feeling some danger, too?” Nito asked, rubbing his arms. “I have seen places like this before, but we must stay tonight. We dare not leave until we give them what they want.”
“Tomorrow then?” she persisted.
“Tomorrow.” Nito tried to laugh and failed. “Once we are gone from Rincón, you may change your mind.”
She shook her head, but he pressed his argument. “Ana, Yussef el Ghalib dictated that I should shelter you, at some risk to myself I might add.” He drove the point home with something close to triumph. “I could turn you out here in Rincón, but I need your fortune telling.”
You are a wily one, Nito, she thought, to remind me that I am in your debt. “Very well, since you have made the matter clear to me.”
“I knew you would understand.” He sweetened the extortion. “Do you know, I have come to like you, Señora Gonzalez. Cheer up! Eventually we will turn toward Toledo. Until then, think of the money we can make with your fortunes.”
Deep in thought, hungry, tired, she ducked into Florinda’s wagon, wondering if Nito would ever freely let her go. She put on her hump, distracted and irritated with herself for not standing up to Nito. Maybe in another town she might dare hold back some coins from him and take a bath at an inn.
She had to smile when Pablo came toward her riding Fatima. “I did not think you would willingly get on her back,” she said.
“I wasn’t willing,” he replied. “Nito’s helper picked me up and put me here.”
“How is the view?” she asked, happy, even if for a small moment, to think about something silly.
“Good. I rode to the edge of the clearing. I saw a small camp in the distance.” He sighed and looked down at her. “I wish we were over there and not in Rincón.” He raised up. “People are coming here, but I still don’t think anyone will want to ride Fatima.”
She went inside her tent, ready to tell the people whatever she thought they wanted to hear. She lit her lamp and pulled it closer. “Come in,” she called. “La Joroba Morena is ready.”
La Joroba Morena promised the people of Rincón everything. She discovered mystical lifelines in the hands of men, women and children that assured health, wealth and victory over the Almohades. She told them they would find lost coins and lost love, and endless vigor. She let pregnant women touch her hump and endured the stares of old men.
She stopped once to take most of the money to Florinda and then carry a drink to Nito, who had been playing and singing for hours.
“Thank you,” he said, and set down his guitar, even though his audience howled for more. “I wish the good citizens would tire, but they grow rowdier.”
“I have promised everything in the world, and it is not enough,” she whispered back.
He picked up his guitar. “Still, it has been a profitable evening. Perhaps we should not complain.”
Someone was already seated at her table when she returned. She sighed, wising to be done, longing for sleep even more than food. She hurried around the man, sat down and looked at him.
If he noticed how she sucked in her breath and widened her eyes, he did not make any mention. It was the soldier again, the one from Santa Luisa. She started to rise, then noticed someone outside the tent. As she sat down and tried to stifle her rising fear, she suddenly knew who Pablo had seen camping outside of Rincón.
“I have come again for my fortune, Joroba,” he said, holding out his hand.
“I told your fortune in Santa Luisa,” she said quietly.
He leaned closer. “Then let me tell yours. Obviously there has been a miracle since Santa Luisa.”
“What? How?”
“You wore an eye patch in Santa Luisa,” he said. He reached up and grabbed her shoulder. “And even more of a miracle, your hump has changed sides.”
She shook off his hand, and tried to rise, but he forced her down. “You can come with me and Amador back to Las Claves, or I can tell the people of Rincón, who know a witch when they see one.”
“Please, no,” she begged.
“Señor Palacios told us how anxious he is to keep you safe from scum who would squander your dowry.” He stood up, towering over her. “Amador!”
“No!”
Ignoring the heat, she grabbed the lamp and threw it at the soldier, who ducked and moved closer as she tipped up the table. The lamp struck Amador as he came inside the tent. As he shrieked, the fire on his sleeve leaped to the tent and set it ablaze, too.
The soldier beat out the flames on Amador, giving Hanneke time to duck under the back of the tent and run. Another man – dear God please not Baltazar – grabbed her cloak, which she untied and left in his hands as he roared his displeasure. She scrambled under Florinda’s wagon and out and nearly ran into the camel, who tried to bite her. She tugged at Pablo, who was helping someone down from Fatima.
“Run!” she said. “Don’t look back!”
They darted behind the wagons. When the music stopped, people roared their displeasure then screamed to see flames. She gasped as Magdalena’s wagon began to burn. “What have I done?” she said, then ran faster, grabbing Pablo’s hand.
She didn’t realize where they were heading until the path became stony and ste
ep. She couldn’t turn around because there were others on the path, some with torches. She heard swords clanging in their scabbards.
They stood staring down at what had to be the stoning ground. “This is a mistake,” Pablo said, bent over and gasping for breath.
My entire life since I left the Netherlands has been a mistake, she thought. She thought about leaping to her death. Who would care? She looked up at the stars. That tiny spark within her that Nito had told her to search for when telling fortunes still burned. Antonio would care. I care, she reminded herself. She stepped back from the edge and forced herself to think.
She ran to the edge and looked down on bones and a body. The moon had not yet risen, but there was enough starlight to indicate a path to the bottom. She looked back and saw pinpricks of light.
“Pablo, my true knight, follow me,” she said, and picked her way along the sloping ledge.
“I’m afraid,” he said.
“So am I. Do it anyway.”
Scarcely breathing, Hanneke made her way from one rocky shelf to another, moving carefully and slowly, even though every fiber in her body screamed at her to hurry. Over one rocky shelf, down to another, over and down, they zigzagged to the bottom of the chasm, careful not to dislodge any stones and disrupt the eerie calm of the pit.
Maybe hell is silent, dark and cold, she thought, as she waited out a small rock fall and prayed that no one heard it, no one living, at least.
She doubted that many minutes had passed since she left the stoning ground and finally, finally stepped onto the chasm’s floor. The moon had risen, so she flattened herself against the stones and looked around her new prison.
Despite her fear, her heart went out to the woman who must have gone over the edge only hours ago. I do not think you ever coupled with the devil, she thought, her mind amazingly clear. I doubt you had a two-headed baby. I think your husband tired of you for some reason. God grant you peace.
She heard the men above and moved closer to the stony wall. She saw Pablo, and then she didn’t see him. Panicked, she looked closer, then saw the cave. Grateful for a black dress, she inched along the wall then crawled inside.
They huddled there, arms around each other, and listened to the men overhead. They heard arguments, and recrimination, and dares from one to another to go down and check. One or two tried, then stopped.
“Will they go away?” Pablo whispered.
“I don’t know.”
She held Pablo close when he started to cry. “I think we had better find out where this cave goes,” she whispered.
Chapter Forty-seven
The cave proved to be their salvation, if salvation meant trading the worst for something not quite so bad. Gradually, Pablo felt heavy against her side and she knew he slept.
The tiny spark that had given Hanneke the courage to find a way down to the pit flickered out as she listened to the bonfire above and grew colder with each passing moment. How far could she run and hide, with no knowledge of where she was going and how to get there? Did Antonio even live anymore?
Back at the caravan she had burned the tent and Magdalena’s wagon. She doubted Nito wanted anything more to do with her. El Ghalib had told her plainly that he dared not help her anymore, not with his own caliph demanding total loyalty.
There was no one. Sitting there in a cave of bones, Hanneke accepted the reality that she was alone. When Pablo sighed in his sleep, she knew only one thing: she had to get Pablo to a place of refuge, where others could see him safely back to Santander and the monastery. Sometimes even a true knight is only a kitchen boy.
The hours passed. She strained to hear what was going on above her on the stoning ground. She had no way to know if anyone remained there, or if they had given up. Perhaps they assumed she had gone elsewhere, because no one seemed willing to climb down and find out. She needed light to find her way in the cave, but she didn’t know if the sun penetrated to this depth.
How can one wait impatiently for the sun to rise? It happens every day, she reminded herself, in its own due time. When the sun finally rose, after a darkness so profound that she doubted her very soul, she bowed her head in gratitude. One more day was hers.
She opened her eyes, reminding herself that what she saw might frighten her, and looked around. As sunlight filtered into the cave, she saw bones, to be sure, but there in the corner was a cloak.
Her eyes on the cloak, she gently shook Pablo awake, careful to keep her hand over his mouth in case he called out in surprise. “It is morning,” she whispered. “We made it through the night.”
When he sat up and rubbed his eyes, Hanneke shoved back all her fear and walked to the cloak. She touched it, then lifted it from the skeleton it covered, shook it out, and draped it around her shoulders. The cloak smelled of mildew and death, but her gratitude was unlimited. “Whoever you were, thank you,” she whispered to the skeleton, a fellow sufferer. She lacked the courage to peer outside the cave and see the poor woman who had died yesterday.
Hanneke sat with Pablo, sharing the cloak, until the sun’s rays moved farther into the cave. Eyes wide, Pablo looked around. “Dama, I think we should leave this place.”
“So do I. It is time to put Rincón behind us.”
He asked no questions, which was good, because she had no answers. He didn’t ask for food, because there was none. He followed her farther into the cave, mindful of his steps, trusting her.
They walked until the sun ran out, moving slower, picking their way as the cave floor sloped. Too soon they stood in total darkness. Hanneke closed her eyes, resigning herself to death because she could not imagine surrendering to Baltazar or Amador who would no doubt use her cruelly before they brought her to Felipe. This is the end of it, she thought. I was winnowed, too.
She wished the Lord God Almighty, in His kindness, would smite her right then, but He didn’t. When she opened her eyes and heard distant running water, she understood why.
As she looked toward the sound, she saw light, just a pin prick, but daylight. She grabbed Pablo’s arm. “Do you see that?”
“Yes!”
She knew he wanted to dart ahead, but she held him back. “We will go slowly,” she told him. “We cannot see the ground. Someone might be waiting for us outside.”
Their sedate pace picked up when enough sunlight began to guide them. When she could see her feet, she let go of Pablo’s hand. “Do not leave the shelter of the cave,” she warned. “We do not know what lies ahead.”
When she reached the cave mouth, a low opening she had to crawl under, she saw Pablo squatting by a stream. As she watched, eyes wide, he reached down and pulled up a fish, and then another, tossing them in her direction. Two more fish and he stopped.
She crouched on all fours beside him to scoop water down her parched throat. When she finished, she leaned back against the safety of the cave’s wall and looked at the stream, watching it flow beside the cave, then widen a little.
“Dama, do you have a knife?”
She reached into the pouch around her neck, feeling her marriage document and the little knife of no consequence. “Will you scale and gut them?” she asked, swallowing down saliva as she handed him the knife.
He went to work, deftly slicing off heads, then opening their bellies. “We don’t have a way to cook them.”
“Never mind. I don’t want a fire to alert anyone.”
Neither of them hung back. The only sound was chewing and swallowing. The raw fish slid down easily; she only wished there were more. She licked the scales off her hands.
“Maybe I can catch another,” Pablo said.
“Please try.”
He caught three fish, and they downed those quickly, wanting more. When the weak winter sun was overhead, Hanneke took a good look at their surroundings. It was the same terrain they had traveled over for the past two weeks – hilly and stony, with
bare trees here and there, the endless plain of Castile.
“I don’t even know which way is Toledo,” she admitted. “Do you?”
Pablo shook his head, then pointed to the stream. “I do know that little streams flow toward bigger streams, and then to rivers. Let us follow the stream.”
At her urging, he caught three more fish and prepared them, but put them inside his doublet. “We can eat them later, dama. Should we start walking?”
She nodded. “Little streams to bigger streams.”
Fed and somehow fortified, they traveled with extreme caution, looking behind as often as they looked ahead. Rain came, then sleet, then rain. The flinty soil turned slippery, compounding their misery
Shivering, even in the wonderful cloak, Hanneke decided the weather was a blessing. Even wolves like Amador and that soldier must prefer a warm fire. She hoped they would assume she had died, and carry that fable back to Las Claves, where Felipe Palacios was master.
In the whole day, they heard horsemen only once and hid themselves in a clump of brush, flattening low and hoping for the best. Hanneke looked up after they passed, seeing two riders, and she wondered.
They ate the fish when they could wait no longer. She knew Pablo was not one to complain. Like most Spaniards, he took life as it came. He matched her step for step.
Sure enough, the small stream they followed poured itself into a larger one. The trouble came when the larger stream dumped into something wider and deeper, and flowing faster.
“If we cross this, I think we will be on the right side, when the stream gets wider,” Pablo said. “I’ll go first.”
He gasped when he stepped into the cold water, wobbled and waved his arms about for balance, then righted himself. Hanneke followed, gasping too, then holding the cloak tighter so it would not billow out and drag her too fast.
Even though the water came no higher than her knees, the current pulled Hanneke down. She scrambled to her feet and cried out in frustration when her sopping cloak tugged her down again.
Pablo reached for the cloak, tripped and fell against the slippery stones. His face went white and he groaned, reaching for his leg. Hanneke lumbered toward him, and grabbed him when he sagged.
