(3/3) Bridle the Wind

by Joan Aiken

  ALL was silent at the hut when I returned to it. I tapped on the door, waited a moment, then opened it. For a moment of dismay I thought that Juan was not there, then his dark head, garlanded with hay, poked up out of the heap. He was smiling and looked the better for his rest, with a touch of color in his pale cheeks.

  "Did you find old Pierre?" he whispered urgently.

  "Hush! Yes. Wait while I do this."

  I crumbled some of the bread into his cup, and poured oft milk to soften it.

  "Now! Try a little of that, eating it slowly. Not too much. Just a mouthful or so, and suck well before you swallow. Then take a drink of milk."

  He ate all the bread and milk with great eagerness, and a little of the cold omelette. I had some, too, and some bread and sausage, which tasted like food of the gods after our night of exertion, and the monastic diet of pulse and beans and salt stockfish.

  The rest of the food was put by for later in the day, since the hour was still before noon, and there were five hours or so before we need start for the grotto.

  I lay down on the heap of hay and went back to sleep. Juan, too, did so for a while, but I awoke presently to see him sitting cross-legged, poring over his poetry book.

  "Are you feeling rested?" I whispered, and he nodded. I gave his neck a rub with some of the goose grease, which I had brought with me in a little pot, and also rubbed his feet, which were blistered and cut from the long walk. I had hoped to buy him some alpargatas, or rope-soled sandals, in the village, but the place was too small to have a market; shoes would have to wait awhile. Meantime I rewrapped his feet more securely in the strips of blanket, binding them with shreds of cord I found among the hay. He, during this operation, was whispering out poetry from his little book.

  I have always been fond of reading stories myself, and on my journey from Spain to England took much pleasure in a volume which had belonged to my father, a tale of a young lady's adventures in England. But what could be the use of poetry? That I had never wholly comprehended, and said as much to Juan.

  "A tale teaches you something, or is exciting to hear, or is about people you know; but what is the purpose of poetry? Half the time it seems to have no meaning at all. It is about the moon, or love; things that have been repeated hundreds of times before in the same language. "Why do poets do it? What is it for?"

  Juan became quite red in the face with outrage at my stupidity.

  "Oh!" he burst out in a passionate whisper, which almost made me laugh: the soft tone contrasted so oddly with his indignant expression and eyes in which copper-colored sparks were burning. "How can you be such a numbskull? Listen to this"—and he read out a poem about a lover who asks his dead lady when he may see her again. "When the autumn leaves that fall become green and spring once more," she answers him.

  "Well, so does she mean that they will never meet again, because the fallen leaves will never be green again? Or does she mean that she will see him in the spring because he will die then?"

  "You have to decide that for yourself," said Juan. "Each reader must find his own meaning in a poem."

  I said I thought that very wasteful. "Why can they not have one meaning, and make it plain for all?"

  "Oh, I have no patience with you!" muttered Juan, and closed his book.

  I thought it lucky that we would soon be in Spain and he restored to his uncle. For plainly a great many of the things I did and said jarred him and made him impatient; while I, for my part, found his fretfulness and peevishness hard to bear. I knew this was unfair; he was still far from well, and half starved, and his neck swollen and painful; but one has little control over ones feelings, and mine said to me loud and clear that this boy and I were not destined to make good companions for one another.

  Except, of course, by God.

  WE WERE both glad to leave the stuffy hut. By midday the sun shone upon the roof and made it very hot inside, and the pile of hay smelled disagreeably of mold. I thought it would be wise to start in good time in case we encountered any difficulties along the way; also, mistrusting old Pierre, I wished to arrive at the rendezvous well before him.

  Our way now led through steep sunlit forest, sometimes thick with undergrowth, sometimes among gigantic rocks, sometimes past tall, handsome beech trees, or birch, or juniper. We saw no wolves or bears, but once or twice disturbed grazing deer; izard, Juan told me they were called. He had recovered his good humor and gave me, in a whisper, much information about the witches who used, two hundred years ago, to frequent this mountain, which was called Choldocogagna; and its neighbor La Rhune, for which we were making.

  "My ancestress, Marie Dindart, could rub herself with ointment. Then she would say, 'Here and there'"— Juan used the Basque words—"and immediately her body would become as thin as a hazel wand, so that she could fly up the chimney and through the air wherever she wished."

  "Well, I wish we had her with us now," said I. "For then she could carry us into Spain without the need of consulting old Pierre."

  "She had a herd of toads, all dressed in velvet."

  "Why did she need toads?"

  "I am not perfectly sure," confessed Juan seriously. "Perhaps she milked them. And she often used to steal children away from their homes to make them her servants; they tended the toads."

  "Who told you all this?"

  "Old Anniq, my nurse; she used it to frighten me and say that if I was not a—if I did not behave myself, Marie Dindart would come down the chimney for me. I did not wholly believe her. But still I was proud to have such a great-grandmother."

  "How old were you when your mother died?"

  "It happened six months ago," he said. "I still miss her sadly."

  I looked ahead along the track, pretending not to notice the tears in his eyes, and reflected on the singularity of his character; at One minute sharp and shrewd, asserting his independence, dealing with Father Vespasian by a clever trick, frightening the Gente by pretending to have magical powers; and then, next minute, weak, petulant, and pitiful.

  "What about you, Felix?" he presently asked. "Do you have a mother and father?"

  I told him no, that my mother had died at my birth, and he exclaimed in sorrowful sympathy.

  "I was brought up by my grandfather, grandmother, and great-aunts—of which there were far too many."

  "And your father?"

  I hesitated whether to tell Juan the story, but in the end did so, thinking it might take his mind off his own misfortunes.

  "My father was an officer in the English army in Spain. My mother's Spanish family were angry at the marriage—they did not think him good enough for her. After her death he was terribly wounded in battle. And he crawled over the mountains to my grandfather's house, taking several years on the way, being nursed by peasants in their huts. When he came to Villaverde, nobody knew him. He had only one leg and a crippled hand. And his face was much scarred. I, of course, had never seen him."

  "How old were you then?"

  "Oh, three or four. He became a stablehand in my grandfather's establishment. He was called Bob."

  "A stablehand? But—he was of good birth. A hidalgo!" Juan sounded horrified. After a moment or two he added, " Why did your father do that? What a strange thing to do!"

  "I suppose he thought that it was the only thing left that he was fit for. He loved horses. And that way he could watch over me."

  "Did you not know that he was your father?"

  "No, I never knew. Not until afterward. He never told me. But I loved him just as much as if I had known ... In the end he died. I think he knew that he could not live for very long. And after that I decided to go and find his family in England."

  "And found them?"

  "Yes; my English grandfather is a duke, and very rich. But he has gone mad. And by the time I had found him, the most disagreeable of my great-aunts in Spain had died, and my Spanish grandfather wrote very kindly, asking me to return."

  "You were on your way back when your ship was wrecked at St. Just de Seign
anx? "When was the wreck?" said Juan. "How long ago?"

  "Hush!" I whispered.

  I still had not decided whether to tell Juan about my strange three-month leave-taking from my wits; and I did not intend to just at this moment. Firstly, I thought it might fill him with doubts as to my ability to help or protect him while we were together; and secondly, I did not, as yet, like him well enough to reveal this odd link between us. The knowledge was for me, not for him. So I cautioned him to silence, for we were now approaching the place that old Pierre had described to me, a cave entrance in a rock face on the side of the mountain. There was a gray cliff, all hung and fringed with ivy, and a stream gliding down over the rock face in a perpetual trickle, which ran into a shallow pool. Oak and thorn trees grew round about the pool, on the flat apron of land at the foot of the cliff.

  "Now we climb," I said to Juan. For I had seen a capital lookout perch three quarters of the way up the cliff, a small natural platform where a birch tree grew and spread its roots into a fan; if we could get up there we should be able to lie in safety, unobserved, and see all who came to the cave entrance.

  "Climb? Why?" Juan demanded in a pettish whisper. "Why not simply wait here at the grotto entrance?"

  "It is too early. Strangers might come by. Come, I will help you up. Take my hand."

  "No—no! I can manage very well by myself," he snapped. But he followed me with exasperating slowness, continually pausing to look round; I could have cuffed him for his sulky lack of compliance, and several times had to restrain the impulse to take his wrist and pull him along by force.

  We had to take a circle round, climbing the slope farther away from the cliff, where it was easier, and then making our way along a goat or coney track which led downward across the face of the hill toward my birch tree. The last portion of this way consisted of nothing more than a few rock steps over the sheer cliff, and there Juan did permit me to aid him by holding his wrist and encouraging him from one step to the next. By the time that we were established in our natural balcony I noticed that his brow was shiny with beads of sweat.

  "I do not like looking down from a steep height; it makes me queasy," he said, swallowing, and I felt impatience mixed with pity.

  "What in the world is the point of coming up here?" he added irritably after a minute or two. "It appears to me that there is no reason for it at all, except to show off your cleverness at climbing."

  "Oh, hush! If you are hungry, why do you not have another bit of bread sopped in milk?" I felt sure that Father Pierre would scold me for dragging the poor boy up here.

  We had finished the cold omelette before leaving, but brought the bread and milk with us. Juan followed my Advice eagerly, and then even slept a little; we were very snugly established among the roots of the birch tree, like birds in a nest, so there was no possibility of his failing. But I remained awake, lying quite still,, with my chin on my arms, looking out, watching for movement among the scrub of small oak trees down below. It was still two hours, at least, before the time named by old Pierre for our rendezvous, so my expectations were not immediate.

  But in the end they were rewarded.

  Four men stole into the clearing by the pool. Two of them I recognized; two were strangers. And none of them was old Pierre.

  Very gently I awoke Juan by touching him behind the ear. I had heard this to be a capital way of rousing somebody without startling him, and so it proved. His dark-brown eyes flew open, gazing straight into mine, and I laid a finger on his lips to ordain silence, and pointed downward without speaking. His eyes followed the direction of my finger, and he drew breath in a silent gasp of fright as he saw Cocher, the white-headed man; Plumet, the ex-cripple, apparently re-covered from his seizure; and two others, all softly conferring together and looking vigilantly about them. It was not hard to guess that the third and fourth men were also members of the troop.

  "Bazin and Michelet," Juan whispered. I could feel him trembling against my shoulder.

  But Plumet had undergone a singular and terrifying change since the previous day and his pretended "healing" at the hands of Father Vespasian.

  Overnight his face, which had (once the painted sores were rubbed away) been a healthy, ruddy, weather-beaten tan—his face was now deathly white, like the belly of a fish, and all creased and seamed, every which way, as would be a piece of crumpled muslin that had been pressed under a heavy weight. He moved jerkily, as birds do, in a series of small, sharp movements. There was something disagreeably unnatural about the motion. The distance was too great for me to see his eyes, but I noticed that the other men regarded him with a kind of awe mixed with repugnance, instantly obeying his commands but avoiding any contact with him. Cocher, I noticed, even took pains not to tread on his shadow.

  "Where, I wondered, was Gueule, the midget, who had been with him on the shore?

  Presently old Pierre limped into view, and I heard Juan snatch his breath in a hiss of distress when the old man, without any hesitation, saluted the four brigands as he might friends or neighbors (though I noticed him give Plumet an inquisitive puzzled glance and then quickly edge away). Now they all, in lowered tones and with much and expressive gesture, evidently were laying out a plan of action.

  Pierre sat himself down on a boulder in the cave mouth, measuring with a glance the setting sun's distance from the shoulder of the hill, which would shortly cut it off from our view. Plumet and Cocher withdrew among the oak trees to our left, but did not go far; sometimes I could catch the glint of the knife which Cocher wore unsheathed at his belt. The other two men concealed themselves in a great growth of ivy almost directly below where we were perched, and I could hear them conversing in confidential mutters. Not all, but some, of what they said came up to me.

  First there was some reference to Gueule.

  ",.. terrible, that!"

  "A thing from the ocean, do you think? A monster?"

  "...Who can say?"

  Then I caught the name Esparza, Esteban Esparza, twice repeated, and that of the old nurse, Anniq Nay, but I could not make out what was said about these people. Some words did float up clearly: "That makes Etcheko Premu even more worth catching. Not a sardine, but a young whale!"

  "Will you be quiet, you two!" called old Pierre angrily. "You will scare the birds away—stow your row!"

  A long silence then followed. At my side I observed that Juan was weeping, endeavoring to do it without any noise, gulping back his sobs and licking in the tears as they rolled down his pale cheeks, furiously rubbing his eyes and nose with the back of his hand.

  Catching my glance, he threw me an angry look and flushed, with shame, I suppose, at his inability to control his feelings.

  As over his fear of heights, I pitied but also a little despised him. He must really be a looby, I thought, if he had expected help and good advice from old Pierre; anybody could see with half an eye that the old man was a villain; but then I tried to put myself in Juan's position. Imagine that you had nobody at all on whom to rely—that even your brother and old nurse were your enemies—that you had to trust such as old Pierre. No, that must be very dreadful, I reflected, but then recalled that I myself had been in much the same case. I at least, though, had a safe haven awaiting me now that my grandfather had written affectionately, asking me to return home. Heaven send that Juan's Uncle León was not also prepared to betray him! If I was able, I thought, once we were in Spain, I would seek out some person of integrity who knew this Uncle León, and try to acquire a just estimate of his character; not simply entrust the boy to a person of whom I knew nothing. The boy! Juan was of an age with myself, but I felt by far the older and more experienced of us two.

  And Spain was still a long way off. Although, as the crow flies, it lay just over the top of the mountain, we were still perilously far from our journey's end.

  No use, now, to attempt old Pierre's route. Indeed, as I was thinking this, he, by a low whistle, summoned Plumet and Cocher, evidently suggesting that they should enter the cave,
perhaps to make sure that we had not arrived early and already gone inside. They disappeared under the rock beneath us, and did not reappear.

  Dusk had fallen by now—an early dusk, for thick dark clouds had crept up, swallowing the sun's last rays, and a faint mutter of thunder made itself heard over the shoulder of the mountain.

  After a while rain began to fall, slowly at first, in big drops the size of silver groats, then faster and faster, rattling and pattering on the ivy growth below us. I became deeply concerned over Juan, who had commenced to shiver badly. If we lay here for long in this violent rain, it might well be the death of him. We must shift, but how could we, with those men down below?

  As if responding to my wish, another low whistle sounded from beneath us, and I saw the other two softly emerge from the ivy bush and slip inside the cave, evidently taking shelter from the storm. Another five minutes and I would not have been able to see them at all, it would be true dark; we must shift at once, there was not a moment to lose.

  "Now is our time to leave," I breathed into Juan's ear.

  "I can't!" he replied through chattering teeth. "I'm too cold to move. And too scared!"

  How much I wished that our goatskin had been filled with wine, as the inn lady had suggested, or, better still, aguardiente. A little of such a stimulant might have put heart into Juan. Failing that, I took him by the shoulders and shook him fiercely.

  "Don't behave like a whining baby! We have got to get away from here before we grow any colder, and while those men are inside the cave."

  I did not mention that it was through his willfulness in the first place that we were in this situation, and that if I had not established us in this eyrie we should have been captured by now. "I am going to climb over you," I said, and did so, hoisting myself up with the aid of the birch trunk. "Now: Take my hand. Shut your eyes, if you prefer; I will tell you where to put your feet."