by Carla Kelly
“Antonio.”
He rose, but he did not move toward her. She came forward. “Antonio, I had given up,” she said simply.
He still did not move, his hands together in their long sleeves. She saw the strain in his eyes, as if in pain, the skin stretched thin across his face. She could tell he lived with pain now, and her heart went out to him. What had happened?
“We all work in the field,” she said. “I wish I had time to tidy myself better, but nothing matters, because you have returned to me.”
His eyes softened at her words. If only he would come closer. Stubborn man, she thought, torn between fear and irritation. Whatever this is, you think I am not equal to it?
She stood close to him, her back straight, too, realizing that he had said nothing to her. “Antonio, speak to me.”
He avoided her eyes and watched Liria, who gazed back at him, wide-eyed. He fingered her black curls. “Liria, have you taken good care of your mother?”
Liria put her finger in her mouth, and nestled closer to Ana, wary. Very well, she thought, you have a voice. “She will become accustomed to you,” she said. “She was so tiny when you left. It’s been many months.”
“Sit, you two,” Mother Abbess said. “Right next to each other.”
It was a small bench. Ana did not hesitate. She sat with Liria, then sighed with inward relief when he sat, too, their hips touching.
Mother Abbess offered Antonio a goblet of wine. He seemed to relax then. “This is as good as I remember,” he said, after a long drink.
“Our grape harvest begins next week,” Mother Abbess said. “Tell us of Navas de Tolosa.”
He looked at Ana. “Do you want to hear?”
“You know I do, my love,” she replied.
He made a sound deep in his throat. She examined him at close range, seeing the pain, the ravaged look. She could make him eat better, once they were together, as he had once coaxed her. Patience, patience, she told herself.
Liria surprised her, leaning toward Antonio. When he set down the goblet and reached for the baby, Ana saw the cause of his suffering.
His right hand, his sword hand, was missing fingers, muscle and bone. “Antonio, I am so sorry,” she whispered. “What pain you must be in.”
He settled Liria on his lap. To Ana’s relief, she leaned back and snuggled in. When the little one was secure against his good arm and hip, he held up the maimed hand. When he spoke, Ana heard the bitterness and all the regret.
“Ana, I have become the person I feared the most: a one-handed man in a dangerous, two-handed world. What can I possibly offer you now?”
Chapter Fifty-six
In the silence, Ana became aware that Mother Abbess had left the room and closed the door behind her.
She made herself look at Antonio’s hand. Two fingers and part of his palm had been scooped away as if by the curved blade of a scimitar. A scar from the bottom of what remained of his hand disappeared into his sleeve.
The silence stretched on as she let the ugly sight register in her mind and make itself comfortable there. Some wisdom beyond her own – maybe it was more love than wisdom – cautioned her not to say anything until what she said would be right and true.
His head was bowed; he was a man defeated. She touched his cheek and turned him to look at her. When she did that, she knew what to say, because she loved him. Whether he believed her was his business. “Antonio, you are telling me that for all these months, you have been wondering if I would love you any less? Please assure me that you have more faith in me than that.”
He held her gaze, which gave her hope. “Ana, do you remember when the three of us rode into Toledo past the cathedral?”
Surprised, she thought back to that first visit, which had seemed to be part of someone else’s life, not hers. She remembered the delight of riding between two warriors, Spaniards in their absolute prime. Now one was dead and the other wounded in a way that left more than a scar.
“I remember,” she said softly, wanting to treasure that moment in her heart. “I was so proud to ride between the two of you.”
“Santiago said something that haunts me,” he said. He fingered Liria’s curls with his thumb and remaining two fingers. “I made some remark about seeing the beggars on the cathedral steps, and asked him if he ever thought about the old soldiers there.”
She remembered her shock at seeing the beggars. “Yes. Santiago said it would be better to die in battle than to have to fight each day at the cathedral for food.”
“And here I am.” He managed a slight smile. “After the battle, King Alfonso granted me what would have been Santiago’s land – an extensive holding near Úbeda, which is quite far to the south.”
“Dangerous?” she asked, understanding with perfect clarity his dilemma.
“Claro que si,” he replied. “I cannot even defend myself yet, let alone a wife and child and followers.” He gave that offhand laugh she was familiar with, the one that told her he was settling into their friendship again, if nothing more. “I rely most heavily on Carlos.”
“You can manage. I have infinite faith in you and Carlos.”
She said it calmly, treading carefully, not wishing to wound him further. Her quiet words seemed to sink in, because he sat back and eyed her in that measuring way she had missed.
“Ana, I wasn’t going to say this, but perhaps, just perhaps, in a few years when the frontier is more settled, we will have this conversation again. You know, when it is safer.”
“Why wait?” she asked, her voice even softer, so he had to lean closer. “I love you now. What could I possibly fear, with you beside me?”
She put deeds to words. With her hands on either side of his face, Ana kissed him. She didn’t stop with anything perfunctory, not with this man she adored. She kissed him slowly and thoroughly. Her whole heart rejoiced when he kissed her back the same way.
She wanted to continue, but Liria protested, squashed between them. Ana pulled away. “Liria! I am doing something so important with your father. How soon can I get you to sleep?”
Antonio laughed. “Ana, I hate to remind you, but it’s not even noon yet.”
She pulled her dignity together and whispered in his ear. “She takes a two-hour nap after the noon meal.” Without question, this was a good time to run her tongue in his ear, the ear of a silly man who thought she would ever let him go. If the way he shifted about was any indication, Antonio Baltierra was highly susceptible to that sort of merriment. She stored that knowledge away for further embellishment.
“You know this is impractical,” he told her, even as he breathed more heavily.
“Certainly,” she agreed. “I should wait patiently and grow cobwebs while you and Carlos and your followers settle in. I can embroider and sing pious canciones! I am past patience. If you and Carlos ride out of here without me and Liria, I will run after you. Don’t think for a moment that I won’t.”
“I believe you.” He held out his left hand this time. “I have been practicing with this hand. I’m clumsy still, but I’m learning.”
“Very well,” she said, hoping, hoping. “Tomorrow let us ride to Toledo to the Jewish Quarter and Don Levi.” She laughed, leaning against his shoulder. “I was there two weeks ago, arranging my affairs since I had survived two husbands. We will change what needs to be changed.”
“Changed? I am the second husband… ah, I see. You went there and declared me dead, which gives you sole control of your remaining dowry.”
“I thought you were dead,” she said.
“Don’t change anything,” he told her. “We will let the Levis know I am alive, but I trust you to manage our affairs.”
“That makes you a rare man,” she said. His confidence in her touched her heart.
“I am a man with doubts and worries.” He looked at his maimed hand. “Make sure you hav
e thought this through, Ana.”
“I have,” she assured him. “I can tell you there is enough remaining of my dowry to build our lives in a new place.” She took a deep breath, knowing this was the clinching argument, the one that mattered. “Toño, you never left me in my hours of need. How could I possibly desert you in yours?”
This time, she saw the fondness in his eyes, but it was more than fondness and more than relief. Ana knew love when she saw it. As she gazed at her husband, she knew she had been seeing this same more-than-fondness in his eyes almost since they met at the dock in Santander. The reality of his silent constancy humbled her. With a jolt, she knew if nothing had happened to Santiago, Antonio would have remained silent and constant all his life.
“Carlos told me that if I did not stop here today, he would leave me to my own devices. I agreed – what could I do? I was determined to tell you I do not hold you to this admittedly strange marriage of ours, as I promised when we were wed in such haste.” He paused. When he continued, the words seemed to be dragged out of him with reluctance. “I can release you now, or I can make you wait a few years. Choose.”
“I don’t like those choices,” she said, her hands in her lap, her eyes lively, because she knew she had won. “Dissolve this marriage? Wait a few years?”
“I don’t like them, either,” he told her. She heard confidence this time. “I knew that when I saw you in the door, tanned and healthy.”
“My hair is stupid looking and I am muddy.”
“Those are matters easily remedied,” he joked. He turned serious, raising his right hand. “I’ll need to draw on your strength, esposa mia.”
“It is yours for the asking.”
“Then I ask, Ana Baltierra.”
Thoughtful, overjoyed, Ana returned Liria to the kitchen and Hernana, with Luz eager to help. She washed herself thoroughly in the bath house, leaving Antonio with Mother Abbess and Sister Filomena. She passed Carlos in the courtyard and nodded to him, which made him grin and show off his missing teeth. “You’re to eat the noon meal in the refectory with us,” she told him.
“Dama, I am not a fine sort of man,” he protested.
“You’re the best sort of man,” she assured him. “You are my husband’s right hand, Carlos, and I bow before you.”
She lowered herself into the same graceful bow she had given to King Alfonso what seemed like years ago, when she didn’t know what she was capable of, or who her true friends were, when small things felt like large things.
“Dama, no,” he protested.
“Too late,” she said when she rose. “I am ever in your debt for getting Antonio here. Just remember – no swearing in the refectory. Mother Abbess takes a dim view.”
Clean and dressed in her shabby best – her hair was going to be hopeless until it grew long – they dined in the refectory of Santa Catarina. Antonio Baltierra told them of Navas de Tolosa, how a shepherd had led the armies of the Spanish kingdoms through a mountain pass marked by the head of a cow.
“There were more of them than us, but we had surprise on our side. Thank you,” he said, as Ana passed him the grapes. She watched with love as he carefully grasped a handful with his remaining digits and palm and ate them. “I…I was out of the fight not long after, but the armies pushed the Almohades back to the area close to Granada.” He smiled at Ana. “Spain is nearly ours, and fairly won.”
Mother Abbess crossed herself. “We heard so many stories from the returning soldiers. You have land?”
“Yes, Mother Abbess, I do, more than I ever dreamed.”
“An orange grove?” Ana asked.
“No. I have olive groves and cattle,” he said. She heard no regret. “We’ll leave more conquest to our children.”
Liria cooperated beautifully after noon in the refectory, pulling at her eyelids and leaning against Ana, who returned her to Hernana. “Keep her here until I come for her,” Ana said.
“You’re planning an afternoon romp in a convent,” Hernana teased, keeping her voice low because Luz was listening. “He’s still recovering. Don’t wear him out!”
She didn’t wear him out. After a few moments of awkwardness – he admitted he didn’t have enough strength in his right arm to perform as he would have liked – Señor and Señora Baltierra figured it out, then figured it out again.
When she was settled comfortably beside him, Antonio closed his eyes, a smile on his face. “I’ll admit to you that I have wanted to do that ever since we rescued Santiago from drowning.”
She decided she would never tell him that the sight of his impressive near-nakedness during that same event had kept her going through recent long months. She settled on, “I didn’t know you cared then,” because she didn’t know.
“Good! Santiago would have run me through.” He ruffled her hair. “I like curly hair. How did this happen?”
“God only knows. You really like it?”
“Si, esposa mia. Stay awake for a few minutes. There is more to my story of Navas, but for your ears alone.”
“El Ghalib,” she said and he nodded.
“Surely he didn’t…do that to you?” she asked, alert where moments ago she had been ready to sink into the mattress.
“No. He kissed her shoulder. “The Almohades were at breakfast. We poured out of the mountain pass and rode at them full tilt. One of them killed my horse …”
“Your beautiful black,” she murmured. “I am so sorry.”
“It was battle,” he said simply. She heard his sorrow at the loss of his horse.
“Where was I? Ah, yes. I went down right at the beginning of the fight. My bad luck. I must have been knocked unconscious. When I came around, our soldiers and the Almohades were practically fighting on top of me. I don’t remember much, but I remember the noise.”
She thought of the ambush in the mountain pass before Toledo, and the warbling war cry. I remember, too, she thought.
“Carlos went running after another horse – you will admit that my new Arabian is a magnificent animal.”
“I will,” she said with a kiss.
“I hunted around for my shield. An Almohad warrior seemed to rise up out of the ground. I honestly did not see him before he struck my sword hand.” She watched Antonio’s eyes stare into that unknown distance. “Then El Ghalib was there. As he ran toward me, I hope to help me, one of King Alfonso’s men stabbed him with a lance.”
“No, no,” she said.
“It was a free for all,” he said. “An Almohad killed the soldier, then Carlos dispatched the warrior.” He put his hand over his eyes.
Ana moved his hand and kissed each eye. “Don’t see it,” she whispered.
They clung together until Antonio’s breathing returned to normal. “I am glad you will share my bed to help me through the dreams,” he said, then smiled, because he was Antonio. “And for other matters.”
She wanted him to finish, to tell her if Yussef el Ghalib, her great champion, still lived. She had to know.
“I know this is hard, my love. Please tell me…tell me he lives.”
“I don’t know, really,” he said. “We were both bleeding so badly. Carlos wrapped my hand, and he looked at me, as if wondering whether to kill El Ghalib – such an honor that would be, probably worth his own lands.” He settled her closer. “That was when Yussef worked the necklace out of his tunic and held it out to me.”
“You let him live.” She closed her eyes in relief.
“I was honor bound to do so,” Antonio said. “He said something most curious. ‘Do this, Antonio: Let your wife choose. Don’t assume anything. Let her choose you or someone else. Abide by her choice. That is what I ask from you, not my life.’”
Ana kissed his bare chest, thinking of that good man, never her enemy. “My love, it seems that anyone with the necklace makes several bargains.”
“It does
,” he agreed. He sat up, his eyes so serious. “Choose again, Ana, now that you know this. You are free to choose, even if it means you choose Yussef el Ghalib. He loves you.”
“I suspected that,” she said, knowing her gratitude to El Ghalib would always be in her heart. “Toño, I still choose you,” she told him with no hesitation.
He kissed her, twining her together with him. “We left him there on the field. In these last few months, I have prayed that his own men found him and he is alive.”
“I will pray, too,” she said. “Now the necklace is yours.”
He reached into his pile of clothing by the bed and took out the necklace. “Yours to wear again, my love.”
She put it on. “No woman is well dressed without jewelry.”
“You might want to add a camisa and gown. You know, when it isn’t just us.”
She laughed and settled beside him again, lifting up the necklace for another look. She knew the cost of the necklace in blood and tears, every drop. This necklace would go with her to the grave. It meant choice.
“After the battle, Carlos took me to Almadén, where he knew of a Muslim physician,” Antonio continued. He closed his eyes, signaling to her that this part of the story was hard. “The old man did not care who he tended, Muslim or Christian. He removed splintered bone and torn muscle, and stitched me together.”
“How brave you must have been.”
“Carlos said you could hear me scream all over Almadén.” He raised up on his good side. “I have heard much good of Muslim physicians. It is all true.”
He slept then, this husband, lover and constant friend who had returned to her. Ana dressed quickly, knowing she was overdue in the kitchen, and that Hernana would tease her unmercifully. Her hand was on the door latch when she remembered something. She shook Antonio awake, but gently, then sat beside him.
“How is a man to recover strength to repeat his magnificent efforts if his wife wakes him?” he asked, but he was smiling.
