Liberating Fight

by Melissa McShane

  “Very true,” Lady Enderleigh said, regaining some of her cheer. “And it is surprising how quick people are to fulfil one’s demands. I never need worry about finding a seat at some gathering.”

  “Then we will be feared together,” Amaya said. “Now, may I examine you? I wish to see your body and if there is to be…complications, is the word.”

  “I should excuse myself,” Edmund said, rising.

  “No, wait here,” Lady Enderleigh said. “I am accustomed to Dr. Hays’ examinations, and they are not immodest, but they are boring to anyone not involved, or so my husband says.” She rose, pushing herself off the sofa with both hands, and added, “I am grateful to you both.”

  Edmund bowed. “It was my pleasure to serve you—both of you,” he added, including Amaya in his bow.

  “Let us remove upstairs,” Lady Enderleigh said, “and Mr. Hanley, feel free to ring for refreshment.”

  “Oh, Edmund will read a novel while he waits,” Amaya teased.

  Edmund groaned theatrically. “You will yet make me a bluestocking,” he said with an answering smile.

  Chapter 5

  In which the diplomatic party arrives in Madrid

  Amaya sat in the well-appointed carriage, with its padded seats and open windows, and tried to relax. The road to Madrid was not as well-paved as similar country roads in England, and the ruts bounced the carriage’s passengers mercilessly. Amaya had difficulty not clinging to her seat, trying to anticipate the next bounce.

  Beside her, Elinor, Lady Enderleigh, sat with her eyes closed, though Amaya did not believe it possible for anyone to sleep given the rigors of the journey. She showed no signs of distress. In the nearly two weeks Amaya had known the Countess, she had become accustomed to the lady’s placidity of temperament concealing a keen mind and robust sense of humor. This native good humor had made it natural that they should make free of one another’s given names within only a few days of becoming acquainted. Amaya supposed Elinor was used to the movement of a ship, and this road might be no worse than a storm at sea.

  On the seat across from them, Lord Enderleigh sat looking out the window, his one hand gripping the edge of the seat and his maimed right arm resting in his lap. Amaya did her best never to stare, but it was difficult not to wonder at the amount of damage he must have sustained for his hand to be removed, and consider the skills of the Extraordinary Shaper who had managed it so neatly. Almost it convinced her to accept medical training.

  Sir William Kynaston, the other official representative of the King of England to the court of King Ferdinand, had sat with them in the morning, but he suffered from motion-sickness on these terrible roads. Although he never complained, his face had grown increasingly pale and green-tinged around the lips during the morning’s travel, and after a stop for a midday meal, he had chosen to sit beside the driver.

  He was a handsome man in his early fifties, lean and hawk-nosed with deep-set hazel eyes, and he might be a kind and generous man, but Amaya did not care for him. He spoke well, but Amaya suspected by how readily he smiled that he kept his true opinions well-hidden. Amaya distrusted anyone who could lie so readily for no discernable reason; such men and women reminded her of the Inca Seer Achik, whose deception and spite had nearly got Amaya and Bess killed. Sir William bore careful watching.

  His wife, Lady Kynaston, rode seated beside Lord Enderleigh, having declared that the rear-facing seat did not disturb her. Where her husband was lean, she was round, with rosy cheeks made redder by the heat. She resembled one of Mary Hanley’s porcelain figures, with flaxen hair and blue eyes, but she had a clever mind she concealed behind a sweet, diffident voice. Elinor had told Amaya, privately, that Sir William’s success as a diplomat was due in large part to the presence of his wife behind the scenes. Amaya liked her to the same degree she misliked her husband.

  She turned her attention to her own window. The warm, dust-filled air made Amaya wonder why she had ever disliked the dampness of the English climate. But the countryside was beautiful: a patchwork of yellow-greens and golds and rich, loamy browns that spread into the misty distance. At the edge of her enhanced vision, trees were visible, their low, spreading branches like grey-green clouds floating low above the ground. With the dust in the air, the trees made the sky seem to blend into the earth, gradually turning from yellowish-tan to pale blue to a vivid brightness that reminded Amaya of the skies above her mountain home, just before a storm.

  A particularly bad jolt made Elinor open her eyes and Lord Enderleigh grip the seat edge more tightly. Amaya tensed her leg muscles to keep herself from sliding.

  “I realize the war is to blame for the conditions of the road,” Lord Enderleigh said with a smile, “but I’m resentful of it regardless.”

  “We are almost to Madrid, are we not?” Elinor said, leaning to look out the window. “I see a river ahead—I believe it is the one bordering the city. The Manzanares.”

  Lord Enderleigh rubbed his face with his right sleeve. “Say the word, and I will scout ahead.”

  Elinor laughed. “You dislike this cramped carriage, and the dust and heat, and you would like any excuse to Fly and leave the rest of us behind.”

  “You have seen through me, my dear.” Lord Enderleigh had a long, interestingly bony face and fair hair bleached by a hotter sun than shone over England. Burn scars like a dozen bony, ropy fingers, livid against his tanned skin, sprawled across his right cheek and along that side of his face and crept into his scalp, making his hair above his ear patchy. The disfigurement never seemed to bother him, but Amaya would not draw attention to it in any way.

  Now he turned his keen blue eyes on Amaya and said, “I would, of course, not leave you both to suffer while I escaped to the cool heights. Is there anything I might do for you, Miss Salazar?”

  “No, thank you, my lord,” Amaya said. “It is enough that this journey be almost over. I am not used to heat as this is.”

  “I imagine the mountains of Peru are much cooler.” The Earl mopped his brow again. “The Caribbean is hotter still, but there is such a difference between being trapped in a carriage, eating dirt, and sailing through the waves and the sea breezes.”

  Amaya looked out the window again. Ahead, she saw the glinting ribbon of a river, and beyond it, the angular grey shapes of stone buildings. “Madrid is not as big as London,” she observed. “Though it still seems large.”

  “It is a populous city, and one that has seen many centuries of growth and change,” Lady Kynaston said. “Structures dating from the Moorish occupation still stand in the city, alongside European buildings. This co-mingling gives the city its unique character.”

  “I look forward to seeing the sights,” Elinor said. “If we are allowed time for it.”

  Lord Enderleigh grimaced. “Say, more likely, if we demand time for it.”

  “I suppose I could use my notoriety to gain us greater freedom,” Elinor said with a sigh, “but that would be cruel. And I dislike being feared.”

  “You might become like El Encendedor, terrorizing the countryside,” Lord Enderleigh said with a twisted, bitter smile as if he were remembering something disturbing. “But you know I will not permit my wife to be a figure of dread.”

  “‘Permit’ is perhaps the wrong word, dearest,” Elinor said. “Who is El Encendedor? I believed that to be the Spanish word for a Scorcher, but you make it sound like a title.”

  “He is half bandit, half bogeyman, and all legend,” Lord Enderleigh said. “The stable hands at the last inn were full of tales about him. Apparently he is rather a thorn in the side of the government, being a rogue Extraordinary Scorcher at the head of a large guerrilla army. King Ferdinand cannot contain him, and the common people love him, as he fought against the afrancesados who would have had Spain remain dominated by the Bonapartes.”

  “It is that he is a folk hero,” Amaya said. “Why is he feared by the government?”

  “Because he does not always confine his activities to fighting the official ene
mies of Spain.” Lord Enderleigh shifted his weight and rested his maimed arm along the windowsill. “Many lesser nobles have apparently been his victims. It is all to do with the Cortes, which drafted a democratic constitution that was ignored by King Ferdinand on his return from France. There are many who would see the nobility weakened, and the common man granted more freedoms. El Encendedor wishes that to happen immediately.”

  “How frightening,” Elinor said, her brow furrowing. “Even if his motives are noble, I do not believe anyone is justified in hurting others in the pursuit of a cause.”

  “I agree,” Lord Enderleigh said. “He may call himself a freedom fighter, but I daresay he is closer to being a brigand.”

  Amaya did not know what to believe. It would have been unthinkable for the Incas to rise up against the Sapa Inca, but he was a god to his people, and King Ferdinand was only a man. Suppose he did not have the best interests of his people at heart? Perhaps then it was the duty of those people to challenge him, as it seemed this Extraordinary Scorcher was doing. And yet she did not approve of vigilante justice, which so often became simply a justification for doing selfish, violent acts. Whoever El Encendedor was, he could not be entirely honorable.

  “At any rate, I suspect if we are not assertive, we will find ourselves inundated with other people’s requests,” Lord Enderleigh said. “Though ‘assertive’ need not mean ‘frightening.’”

  Amaya silently agreed, though she was not the one whose time would be monopolized. She recalled Sir William, on the ship from London to Santander in Spain, talking a great deal about what would be expected of the diplomatic party, but he spoke in a florid, roundabout way she had difficulty following, and between that and her dislike of him, she had not paid attention. Now she wished she had at least asked Edmund to explain the situation.

  All she did know was that the English diplomatic party was to be housed in the Palacio Real, that the Earl and Countess were to be presented to the Spanish king, and that Sir William intended to press the king and his government, the Cortes, to formalize their alliance with England. Amaya did not understand this last item. From what Edmund had said, Spain was in a subordinate position to England, so why would Sir William, or the English government, for that matter, wish to take the lead in promoting good relations between Spain and England? But it was nothing to her except a curiosity. She was here to care for Elinor and the child.

  The idea of finding her Spanish family no longer compelled her as it had before the diplomatic party left England. Wherever they were, whoever they were, they could have no knowledge of her existence, and likely did not desire the connection. But late at night, when she lay wakeful in whatever narrow bed had been procured for her by Matthew Hestow, the man in charge of the details of their procession, she considered the possibility that she was wrong. Suppose her Spanish relatives were like Mrs. Neville, caring and interested in knowing her? Suppose they are hateful and vile, she told herself, and refused to think on the matter further, until the next night found her once more wakeful.

  The carriage jolted abruptly once more, and then the rocking and bouncing diminished, and the sound of the wheels deepened. Amaya peered out and discovered the road was much smoother than before, though it still was not paved. Madrid was closer now, and she watched its grey stone edifices loom larger. The world was so much bigger than she had ever imagined when she was a jaguar warrior in Peru. That fact might have intimidated her were she not so curious about what made European cities, and people, different from her homeland.

  She sat back and discovered Elinor was looking out the other window. “I see the palace,” she said. “It is quite large. Our party will be swallowed up by it.”

  “How fortunate I brought my compass,” Lord Enderleigh said with a straight face. “I hope I recall how to use it. We might end up wandering the halls, piteously calling for help in finding our way back to our rooms.”

  Elinor shot him an amused look. “I will arm myself with a spool of thread as Theseus did, and make a web of my wanderings.”

  Lord Enderleigh laughed. “How very practical of you.”

  A peculiar look, not quite pain and not quite pleasure, wrinkled Elinor’s brow, and she splayed a hand across her belly. Lord Enderleigh’s amusement vanished in an instant. “Are you well, Elinor?”

  Elinor nodded, though the peculiar, inward-turned look remained. “The child moved,” she said. “It is still disconcerting, however often it happens.”

  Amaya was grateful Sir William had chosen to sit outside. He always looked embarrassed whenever anything drew attention to Elinor’s condition. His reactions annoyed Amaya. She did not understand why the English were so reticent to discuss such a natural thing as childbirth, or why so many of them pretended a woman with child was not in that condition. She followed their customs, as she felt was polite, but the annoyance remained.

  She laid a hand atop Elinor’s where it rested on her stomach and let herself plummet deep into her awareness of Elinor’s body. It felt like falling from a great height without striking the ground, the inner structures of her ears telling her that her body was moving even though she knew it was not so. She closed her eyes, unnecessarily, because her vision no longer perceived the outer world, but the shapes and structures of the human body.

  Amaya was intimately familiar with how the human body looked on the inside, so she knew what she saw when she descended into this state bore no resemblance to reality. It felt, instead, as if she were asking questions of the body she Shaped and knew the answers on the same fundamental level she perceived the body from. Europeans had no name for the sunqu, the five parts of a human she had been taught by the Shapers of the Tawantinsuyu to call Heart, Sense, Need, Strength, and Release. She swiftly asked of each sunqu, *All is well?*

  The responses welled up within her, feelings more than thoughts, as if her own body were linked to Elinor’s. That could not actually be so, as that kind of linkage could be deadly if one body were ill or severely injured; it was merely a useful metaphor. Elinor was as healthy as ever, though Need was edging up on hunger and Release needed to urinate, a common enough occurrence in an expectant mother.

  The unborn babe was a blank in Amaya’s sense of Elinor’s body, a separate individual Amaya could not directly touch and therefore could not Shape. Instead she dived deeper, becoming aware of the five nested sunqu centering on the womb. The babe moved then, sending ripples through the five. It had rolled rather than kicked, which concerned Amaya, as a too-mobile babe in the womb could roll itself into a dangerous position. But the child remained head-down, its life-giving cord coiled loosely around it, and seemed perfectly healthy.

  She rose out of her meditative state and withdrew her hand. “The child is restless,” she said. “It wishes to breathe free, I believe. But it is not ready, and it knows that, too.”

  “I admit to restlessness myself,” Elinor confessed. “Only a few more weeks, and yet it feels like forever.”

  “Your time will come soon enough, my dear,” Lady Kynaston said, patting Elinor’s knee. “Every one of my five confinements passed in the space of a moment, or so it seemed. It is what comes after that is forever.”

  Shadows flashed over them, and Amaya once more looked out the window. They had entered the city without her knowing it, and tall buildings that looked much as London’s did towered over the carriage, alternating with shorter buildings that lacked the ornamentation of their companions. Men and women passing in the street, most of them on foot, two or three on horseback, glanced at the English procession of carriages and then took a second, longer look, gaping.

  Now the rattle of the wheels took on a hollow sound, as if striking stone, and the carriage took a broad left turn. Immediately ahead Amaya saw an enormous, pale grey structure whose many glass windows gleamed in the afternoon sun. It was her turn to gape in astonishment. She did not believe she had ever seen a larger building, even in London, though it was true she had seen very little of London in her time there. Even so, the Pal
acio Real was large enough to swallow up three of the Sapa Inca’s palace.

  The carriage came to a halt, and Lord Enderleigh stepped down and offered his hand first to his wife, then to Amaya. Once she had left the carriage, Sir William climbed down and offered Lady Kynaston his arm. The rest of the carriages in their train stopped smoothly nearby, and the diplomatic party began emerging from them. Amaya smoothed her skirts and took a few steps toward the palace, but came quickly to a halt when she realized how many people gathered around the entrance, standing in formal ranks like so many life-size dolls.

  There were soldiers in the blue and red uniforms she had seen in Peru, lined up behind men in clothing that resembled English garb so closely she would not have guessed them to be Spanish. All of them had their attention fixed on a point somewhere between themselves and the carriages, not on any of the diplomatic party.

  Amaya assessed the crowd, looking for potential threats. The soldiers were armed, but none held their weapons at the ready, and the gentlemen—for so she felt she should call them—did not appear to carry any weapons. Even so, talent did not show on the skin, and any of these people might possess talents they might turn on the English. Amaya flexed her fingers and let her claws extend a fraction of an inch beyond her fingertips. It was unnecessary, because Elinor’s talent was far better suited to defending against a large body of warriors, but Amaya did not believe in letting down her guard in a strange place.

  Sir William and Lady Kynaston strode toward a short, black-haired man who stood near the front of the Spanish cohort. Sir William bowed; the black-haired man bowed in return. In Spanish, Sir William said, “Lady Kynaston and I thank you for your welcome.”

  The black-haired man glanced past Sir William at the rest of the diplomatic party. His dark eyes narrowed for the briefest moment, and then his expression smoothed into affability. “It is we who are thankful that England shows us such respect,” he said in the same language.