Liberating Fight

by Melissa McShane

  Amaya turned toward her. “Come with us,” she said.

  Jennet’s eyes widened. “I? No, why would I do that?”

  “Yes, Amaya, why would we wish to have her along?” Edmund said angrily.

  Amaya ignored him. “You do not need to be his slave. Come with us and be free.”

  “Amaya—” Edmund repeated.

  “Edmund, it is wrong that Jennet make people follow Señor Valencia. She can act for herself.” Amaya returned her attention to Jennet. “I do not believe you are so certain as you sound. If Señor Valencia learns the truth, either he will kill you or you will have to Coerce him so you can flee. I do not believe you desire to make others fear or love you or whatever else it is you do. If you come with us, you can do other things. Better things.”

  Jennet’s eyes and mouth were both round with astonishment. Then she laughed. “You are so very odd,” she said. “Do you suppose your offer a noble act? Saving the sinner from Hell? I am already damned for what I have done, Miss Salazar. Leave me to my damnation.”

  “But—”

  “She is right, Amaya, we must leave immediately if we wish to escape pursuit,” Edmund said. He took hold of Amaya’s arm and tried to steer her out the door.

  Amaya stood firm. “You are not damned,” she said. “I am no Christian, but I know you must choose evil to be evil. And you have chosen merely…I do not know the word, but it means the need of the moment.”

  “Expediency,” Edmund said automatically. He swore and added, “Amaya, now.”

  Jennet rose. The amusement had left her face, and she looked as somber as she had in the stable yard. “Almost you convince me to have hope,” she said. “Go, and I hope we never meet again, because if Alejandro orders it, I do not know if I could refuse to Coerce you into obedience.”

  Edmund tugged on Amaya’s arm once more, and this time she let him pull her through the doorway. The last Amaya saw of Jennet was the woman resuming her seat at the table, her face thoughtful and her hand closed loosely along the top of the chair.

  She and Edmund hurried through the darkened inn, out of the kitchen into the small yard with the well. “How are we to go?” she asked, reverting to Spanish.

  “We will take our horses,” Edmund said, hurrying around the corner of the house. “They are Don Fernándo’s animals, and therefore you have more of a right to them than Mr. Valencia does. Though in truth, I do not mind stealing from him after what he did to us.”

  Amaya followed Edmund closely. “Then you blame him and not Jennet.”

  Edmund scowled. “I blame them both. Do not try to change my mind. Coercion is evil, and we have both been betrayed by that woman.”

  They slowed their steps as they approached the stable, where lights still burned. A man detached himself from the shadow of the stalls and said, “Who is it?”

  “Mr. Hanley and Miss Salazar, on an errand from Mr. Valencia,” Edmund said in a slightly bored way. It was exactly the tone of voice Amaya would expect from someone who had been roused from his bed to ride somewhere in the middle of the night. “We need our horses. Mr. Valencia asked us to ride to speak to Jorge Cantos.”

  Amaya did not know the name, but the stable hand did. Clearly Edmund paid better attention to Valencia’s speeches than she had. The stable hand waved them onward without another word.

  In the stalls, they swiftly saddled and bridled their horses. Amaya’s every sense was alert for signs that they had been betrayed. She felt stretched wonderfully taut, her pulse quickened to give her a greater readiness to fight or run. The sensation tingled through her bones and her veins and her muscles. She wished they had time for her to pass that sensation on to Edmund, but haste was now their friend.

  Having led the horses into the yard and mounted, they trotted off down the dark streets of Aranjuez. Amaya continued to listen for shouts, or running footsteps, but heard nothing but the sound of their horses’ hooves and Edmund’s breathing. Her own light breathing made almost no sound.

  “Don’t keep looking back,” Edmund told her the third time she turned around. “Ride as if you have purpose and no fear of being followed. Continually looking behind you makes you seem as if you have something to hide.”

  Amaya nodded and resolutely kept herself facing forward. “I wish we could run.”

  “That, too, would draw attention. We must move at a rapid but unhurried pace.”

  “I am glad you are a spy. I am certain Edmund Hanley the man about town would not have this rarefied information.”

  Edmund didn’t laugh as she had intended. “I will be grateful for my knowledge once we are free of the city. My shoulder blades itch as if a blade were poised there.”

  The knowledge that Edmund was as apprehensive as she quelled her amusement.

  Now they rode in silence, never stopping, until they reached the outskirts of the city. “We will ride faster now?” Amaya asked.

  Edmund shook his head. “We must wait for moonrise, and even then we dare not ride full-out. But in truth, I believe we have escaped as perfectly as possible.”

  “We must return to Madrid, and tell them what we know,” Amaya said. “I do not know the way from Aranjuez.”

  “I have seen the maps of this area, and we are close enough to Madrid that the road makes the journey swift. But we will need a place to rest, and clothing for you. You look like the denizen of an abattoir.”

  The blood spattering Amaya’s clothes now sickened her. “I will feel better once I have changed my clothes.”

  Edmund brought his horse to a halt. “Amaya,” he said, “do not blame yourself.”

  “For what?”

  “For having killed for the sake of a cause you did not actually believe in. We were both victims. I took lives as well. There is no way to reverse that.” Edmund put a hand over Amaya’s where she held her reins. “We can only attempt to make up for those deeds by revealing Mr. Valencia’s plan to those who can stop him.”

  Again, the touch of his hand warmed her. “I understand,” she said. “But—”

  “But, what?”

  Amaya sighed. “Mr. Valencia did evil in having Jennet Coerce us to join his cause. But I am not certain his cause is wrong. Don Balthasar admitted to having done horrid things, and I cannot regret his death even though I might not have killed him except for Coercion. And I have met King Ferdinand, and he does not strike me as a noble ruler who has a care for his people. What if we are wrong about who the villain is?”

  Edmund withdrew his hand. “You did not listen closely to Mr. Valencia’s plans. He may have noble ambitions, but his methods are as violent as any lord’s. Many hundreds, perhaps thousands of men, women, and even children will die because of his revolution. I cannot permit that to happen. And Spain is not my country, and I am disinclined to decide how it should be ruled. Amaya, there are no good solutions in this fight.”

  “No, I suppose not.” A smile tugged at Amaya’s lips. “It is good you are not a frivolous man about town, after all, for such a man would not understand Mr. Valencia’s plan.”

  Again, Edmund did not respond. His lips pressed tightly together, and he cast his gaze down the dark road unspooling like a black ribbon away from Aranjuez. “Better for me if I were,” he murmured. “I revealed my true employment, and I have betrayed my government in so doing. If I did not hate Jennet for anything else, it would be for that.”

  Amaya did not like the way he sounded, full of anger and, beneath the anger, self-loathing. “Edmund, you are not to blame,” she said.

  “Am I not?” Edmund said, his voice harsh. “No amount of Coercion should have lowered my reserve to that extent. And now Mr. Valencia has a weapon he may use against me, or worse, against England.” He let out a short, hard laugh that hurt Amaya’s heart. “I suppose I should count it a blessing that I did not spill for him every intelligence secret I know.”

  “Oh, pray, Edmund, do not talk so!” Amaya edged her horse close to Edmund and gripped his wrist. “If I am not to blame for killing under
Coercion, why should you blame yourself for your indiscretion under the same condition?”

  Edmund opened his mouth to speak, and Amaya overrode him. “Jennet took advantage of your natural desires to see justice done, and you wanted only for Mr. Valencia to know what your true capabilities are. You told him nothing else, correct? No secret plans, no details about England’s intentions toward the Spanish government? Then I do not see the harm in one or two people knowing the truth, especially since they are in no position to do anything with that knowledge.”

  A faint smile touched Edmund’s lips. “I cannot believe my situation is as simple as that,” he said, “but I take your meaning. And I cannot wind back the clock and prevent myself revealing my identity. I will simply have to confess to my superiors what I have done, and pray they will be understanding. Beyond that, there is nothing more I can do.”

  Amaya still felt Edmund chose to take on more guilt than he deserved, but he was smiling again, and perhaps that was the best she could hope for. He still looked downcast, and Amaya wished she knew how to comfort him. Instead, she said, “You were here as a spy? What were you meant to do? Unless you feel you should not tell me.”

  Edmund let out a low, bitter hah. “Likely I should not, but since I trust you with my life, I suppose I cannot be damned a second time for speaking my secrets, and only to you. My assignment—my secret assignment—is to evaluate the strength of the Spanish government and determine what form English assistance should take, if any.” He sighed. “I feel it an extension of that duty to prevent Spain’s government from being overthrown, as England’s interests are not best served by a Spain in internal turmoil. That is my goal. I cannot afford philosophizing.”

  “I understand. And I truthfully do not wish Mr. Valencia to succeed, because I would rather my claws in his throat for what he did to us. But—oh, I am so muddled. I thought, after all this, that I am Spanish, but now…” Amaya flicked her reins. “The moon will rise soon. Let us ride as fast as we may.”

  Edmund nodded.

  As the moon rose, they sought out the road to Madrid, riding as fast as they dared under the waning moon’s blue-tinged light. Amaya no longer looked behind them. She was certain Valencia would not know how to follow them. But she felt pursued nonetheless—not the pursuit of men, but of terrible memories. She recalled how it had felt to tear Don Balthasar’s throat out and shuddered. For the first time in her life, she felt ashamed.

  Chapter 19

  In which different modes of travel bring them closer to their goal

  Exhaustion caught up to Amaya well before the sun rose, the bone-deep weariness that was the result of too-frequent Shaping. Her inability to keep her eyes open and her head from nodding caught Edmund’s attention, and he said, “Do you need rest?”

  “I must sleep.” Her whole body ached with tiredness. “I did not realize, but I have drawn on my body’s reserves too deeply. But we cannot stop. We must—”

  “We must stop for a few hours of sleep,” Edmund said, catching hold of Amaya’s shoulder as she swayed in the saddle. “It will slow us more if you fall asleep while riding and tumble off your horse.”

  Amaya’s eyes slid shut again, and she forced them open. Edmund was blurry in her vision. “A few hours only, and I will be recovered,” she agreed.

  They stopped in a village large enough to have an inn for travelers, if a small one. Amaya waited in the tiny space not big enough to deserve the name of courtyard while Edmund attempted to rouse the innkeeper, leaning heavily against the stolid horse and trying desperately not to fall asleep. Her sunqu all felt sluggish, barely awake themselves. The horse did not seem to mind her leaning on it. Perhaps she should feel guilty at stealing Fernándo’s excellent horses, but emotion was too distant to be more than a shadow on her conscience.

  Then Edmund was beside her, putting a hand on her elbow. “The stair is on the outside, fortunately for us, because I would have difficulty explaining your bloodstained condition. Can you walk?”

  She nodded, and let go of the supportive horse. She hoped it would not be stolen, because it was an excellent horse that deserved better than to be ridden by a desperate man. Of course, she and Edmund were desperate, so she did not know what that said about her.

  She focused on putting one foot in front of the other, one at a time, watching her booted feet stir the dust in little puffs barely visible in the darkness. She could not remember the last time she had seen rain. No, it had been on the road to Fernándo’s estate, and Mrs. Paget had been alive. Once more emotion stirred her heart, distantly, and then she realized her eyes were closed and wrenched them open with an effort.

  The stairs were nearly insurmountable, and it took her one or two tries to remember how to mount them. But at the top, Edmund opened a door to a beautifully warm space she did not attempt to Shape her eyes to see clearly. Then there was another door, and a bed with a scratchy blanket, and she curled up on it and fell unconscious.

  She woke as if to the sound of a bell some time later, clear-headed and alert. Edmund lay on the floor nearby, sleeping as soundly as she had. Even in sleep, he was silent. She could not believe she had never associated his ability to sneak up on her with that of a warrior. She had been as fooled by his casual, carefree demeanor as anyone.

  Swiftly, she assessed her condition. Her exhaustion was gone, and her sunqu responded as readily as ever. That was the trouble with too much Shaping; one’s reaction to it was always hours delayed from the exertion that caused exhaustion, and it was too easy to overextend oneself without knowing. She had been fortunate this time, because in her Coerced state she had not given any consideration to how much of her reserves she was expending on Valencia’s deadly errand.

  She rolled off the bed and crouched beside Edmund, carefully shaking his shoulder. Edmund came alert as abruptly as she had, grabbing her wrist, and as swiftly released her. “Are you recovered?” he asked.

  “I am. We should continue on.”

  Edmund sat up and rotated one shoulder. “We must eat, and you must acquire new clothes.”

  “But we are in a hurry.”

  “We are not so much in a hurry that we can neglect basic needs. If we exhaust or starve ourselves, we will fail in this mission. Stay here. I will return with food and clothing.”

  “I can come with you.”

  Edmund shook his head, smiling ruefully. “You do not fully appreciate your appearance. I shudder to think of the carnage you must have left behind you.”

  When he was gone, Amaya examined her clothes more closely. Spatters of blood stained her chest and shoulders, and her trousers, which had been grimy with road-dust to begin with, had gory brown splotches across the thighs that could not be mistaken for anything but dried blood. Tears in the shirt revealed where the pistol balls had struck her. She sat on the bed and tried not to remember, but the images of men dying at her hands would not leave her thoughts.

  Ordinarily, she felt neither guilt nor shame at killing. When it had been Spanish soldiers in Peru, she had killed in defense of her people. She tried to tell herself that Don Balthasar and his men were evil, and she had rid the world of villains who would hurt innocents, but the fact of Jennet’s Coercion—that Amaya had effectively killed without choosing her victims—filled her with horror.

  She lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, which was low and dark with age. Webs gathered in the corners, too old to host spiders, and the one window shed dirty yellow light across the floor. The scratchy wool blanket had once been dark blue, but had faded to a softer color that was the only attractive thing about the small room. The smells of dust and old wood, bitter and resinous, combined with the fainter smell of unwashed body from the blanket to make Amaya feel slightly ill. She sat up and stilled her stomach, making Need remind her that she was hungry—another aftereffect of excessive Shaping. Or it could simply mean that it was past breakfast time.

  A short while later, a rap at the door preceded Edmund into the room. He carried a bundle of fabri
c under one arm, a bucket in one hand, and a covered basket in the other. “I believe these will fit you,” he said, offering her the bundle, “and there is fresh bread and fruit. I will see to the horses, and as soon as you are ready, we can leave.” He set the bucket on the floor; water sloshed up its sides. “I guessed you might wish to wash. Do not dawdle, though. We must make good time today if we are to arrive in Madrid tomorrow morning.”

  Amaya paused in the act of reaching for the bucket. “We cannot arrive tonight?”

  “We are still some distance from the city, and we slept longer than I anticipated. I doubt the horses will make it that far. If possible, we will see about exchanging mounts this evening, and ride through the night. But it is more likely we will have to rest, and arrive in Madrid in the morning.”

  “Then go, and I will hurry,” Amaya said.

  When he was gone, she stripped out of her gory clothes and sponged herself off, wincing again at how the blood made the water pink. Then she dressed, marveling as she did so how well Edmund had chosen for her. The shirt and trousers were only a little too large, the coat a little too snug, and she pulled on her own boots and wriggled her toes in satisfaction.

  Gathering up her armload of ruined clothes, bucket, and basket, she hurried down the stairs, dashing the water across the parched side yard. It was larger than the front and was surrounded by a low fence twined with bright green vines that looked more alive than anything else near the inn. Edmund was just bringing the saddled horses out of the shed that apparently passed as a stable. The horses did not seem put out at the quality of their lodgings.

  Edmund flicked aside the napkin covering the basket and helped himself to a yellow-green pear and half a loaf of crusty, delicious-smelling bread. “Eat quickly, for I find eating while riding to be hard on the digestion.”

  Amaya thrust her ruined, bloodstained clothing deep into a saddlebag and bit into her own pear, wiping away the juice that spilled over her chin. “This bread smells unexpectedly good.”