Lord of the Land

by Margaret Rome

  She had almost reached the top, her head level with the nest, when a bloodcurdling squawk from the female eagle told her that she had been spotted. She tensed, rigid, but did not look round in case she should overbalance, then she heard Rom quietly encouraging, 'Carry on, Frances. The female has alighted on a branch to the left of you, behind your head. She appears agitated, but I doubt if she will attack before the male returns. Hurry, cara, get the eggs into the flask as quickly as possible. I have a shotgun. If necessary, I'll frighten both birds away by shooting a few blasts in the air, although I'd very much prefer not to!'

  With her heart hammering, her ears deafened by the sound of a volley of screeched abuse coming from somewhere very close behind her, Frances stretched a hand above her head and began groping blindly inside the nest until her fingers closed around a delicate eggshell. Gently, her nerves tense as bowstrings, she plucked the egg out of the foul-smelling nest and transferred it to the thermos flask. Three times she repeated the action, rustling her fingers through the mound of woven sticks and caked-on mud until her mouth, eyes and ears were filled with dust, her nerves paralysed with fear of the furiously angry female that had shifted near enough to allow her to glimpse a vicious-looking beak, bloodstained bib, and sharp pointed talons. Yet from somewhere she found courage enough to remain searching until she had satisfied herself that the nest was completely empty before starting a cautious, guilt-ridden descent.

  She was halfway down the ladder when the male bird reappeared, swooping in response to his mate's squawks of hysteria. With a shriek of rage that riveted Frances' feet to the rung, he began a dive bomb attack upon the ladder, forcing her to cringe in terror from the brush of powerful wings that left in its wake a slip-stream of air so strong she was almost toppled from her perch. Seconds later she screamed aloud when she was plucked from the ladder by a grip that pinched and borne through the air like some terrified victim of a winged predator.

  It was not until her feet came in contact with the ground and Rom's voice shouted an order to take cover that she realised that it was he who had plucked her from the ladder and not—as her terrified senses had suggested—the huge male eagle.

  'Quickly, into the hide!' Rom followed up his command with a push that sent her staggering under cover just as the swooping male bird began advancing to begin a second attack.

  Rom followed her inside, and without giving her time to regain her breath, urgently demanded, 'Did you get the eggs?'

  'Yes, three,' she managed to gasp in spite of a mouthful of dust and a throat dry with terror. 'They felt lukewarm when I lifted them from the nest, but I don't think the female has been sitting very tight, she's probably been keeping them cool for a while before warming them up gradually. Screw the top on the flask, would you, please,' she requested shakily. 'It's imperative that the same degree of temperature is maintained until we get the eggs into an incubator.'

  'I shan't feel happy until that is done.' Quickly, he did as she had asked, before striding towards the observation space built into the wall of the hide. Sensing his concern about the upset caused to a female deprived of her eggs, and a male enraged by their encroachment upon his territory, Frances urged, 'Rom, are the birds still agitated?'

  He picked up his binoculars to peer closely.

  'Madre de Dios!' she heard him breathe. 'I can hardly believe it—the female is actually sitting preening!'

  'I know exactly how she feels.' Lightheaded with reaction from her traumatic experience, Frances did not stop to choose her words but simply released a pent-up dam of relief and gratitude. 'Any maiden in distress would be flattered to be rescued by a gallant Sir Lancelot.'

  She knew she was looking a mess, with dust-grimed cheeks, twigs sticking out of her hair, her hands and clothes filthy, yet when Rom swung round she saw a glint in his eyes that was akin to admiration. When he leant close to remove pieces of twig from her hair she quivered, her senses responding to the gentleness of his touch and to a look more tender than a kiss.

  'You continue to confound me, cam,' he admitted gruffly. 'The last attribute a man ever expects to find in a woman is courage.'

  At that moment, it seemed to Frances as if a fragile link had been forged between herself and the man she could not prevent herself from loving. She longed to keep his mood mellow, to wrap herself around, to snuggle, to luxuriate in the warmth of his approval, but the task she had undertaken demanded self-discipline and dedication as the price of success, so, in spite of a yearning to remain encapsulated with him for ever inside the leaf-cool atmosphere throbbing with unbelievable promise, she had no recourse but to prick the beautiful bubble.

  'Rom,' she reminded him, grey eyes mourning the passing of a sweet, tender moment that might never return, 'we must get the eggs into an incubator within half an hour, at most.'

  Ten minutes later she was sitting in a car that was speeding them back to the Palacio, with the thermos flask containing the precious eggs cradled in her lap.

  'Are you certain to find everything you'll need at the Palacio to construct a satisfactory incubator?' Rom queried, casting her a look of respect that gave her a heady sense of importance and hardened her already strong determination to make sure that the experiment reached a successful conclusion.

  'Pretty certain,' she nodded happily. 'My father used to utilise items of kitchen equipment and even raided the greenhouse for soil warmers used to raise seedlings, and cloche covers which he swore were an invaluable aid to maintaining the temperature and humidity needed to hatch out the eggs. First of all, we must weigh, measure and number the eggs before placing them in the incubator, then during the following three weeks while we're waiting for the eggs to hatch I'll have to stay with them virtually twenty-four hours a day, even sleeping close by at night-time, so that I can keep checking the temperature.'

  'You seem prepared to forfeit an entire month out of your lifetime to the hatching.' He sounded sharply concerned. 'Are you sure you are up to it? I will share your vigil whenever I can, of course, nevertheless it is inevitable that the heaviest burden will fall upon your shoulders. The success of this experiment means a great dear to me,' he frowned, 'but not so much that I am prepared to risk your complete exhaustion.'

  'I won't let myself become exhausted,' Frances promised, revelling in the warmth of his concern.

  'It's no use pretending that the next few weeks won't be hard, but the outcome will be well worth the effort involved. It's amazing,' she sighed blissfully, 'how easily, weariness can be forgotten at the sight of a faint crack appearing in a shell, followed by a tiny pointed beak, then the entire emergency of a tired, naked, helpless little creature!'

  Slightly, the car swerved off course as if the mind of its very competent driver had been momentarily diverted. Quickly she glanced his way, surprised by the uncharacteristic lapse of concentration, then sensed intuitively that his thoughts were dwelling upon their wedding night and that his words were somehow an indictment of herself when he expelled on a caustic breath.

  'I have learnt never to underestimate the influence of the timid, whose strength lies in their weakness, who can scar a man's conscience even without claws!'

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A single window enclosed by an iron reja, and opening right down to the floor, had been left slightly ajar to allow the night air to circulate around Frances' bedroom, and with it the noise of a fountain splashing in the garden far below. The trill of a nocturnal songbird and the endless din of crickets impinged upon her conscience as she drifted into and out of sleep, disturbing the rest she had been forced to take because during the past three weeks she had been secretly disobeying Rom's orders by hovering as closely and as constantly over the incubating eggs as a broody hen, snatching a couple of hours' sleep at a time, catnapping in a chair set close to the incubator, refusing to delegate the responsibility of turning over the eggs every four hours in spite of the fact that a rota of helpers had been organised from estate workers whose conscientious application to duty Rom had sworn could
be relied upon.

  But with the instinct of a female who is aware whenever birth is imminent, she had sensed that tonight would be crucial, so wearily she threw back the covers, slid out of bed, and began groping in the darkness for her dressing-gown. It was a plain white cotton robe that buttoned from the neck down to a hem reaching to just above her ankles, so when she silently appeared on the threshold of the small room adjoining the kitchen that Rom had whimsically dubbed the 'maternity ward', she must have appeared to the drowsy man on duty like a ghostly apparition.

  'Go to bed, José,' she smiled, wondering why his first startled reaction had been followed by a look of intense relief. 'Has there been any sign of life?' She peered through the perspex dome covering the eggs. 'Any hint of a crack in a shell?'

  'Nothing, Condesa.' José rose to his feet and with a sad shake of his head prepared to take his leave. Everyone knew that the young Condesa had taken upon herself an impossible task, but she had refused to listen to reason, seemed almost to have turned a little loca during her bid to prove that the offspring of the Spanish imperial eagle could be treated like those of a farmyard fowl.

  'Are you certain that El Conde will not mind if I leave?' Uneasily, he shuffled his feet on the stone-flagged floor. 'He was most insistent.'

  'Don't worry.' Absently, already absorbed in her vigil, Frances waved him on his way. 'I shall accept entire responsibility for your absence.'

  As soon as the door had closed behind him she pulled a chair close up to the table holding the incubator and sat hunched, an elbow propped on one knee, chin resting on her hand, staring hard, willing some sign of movement from eggs upon which she had lavished time, care and devotion in the hope of being able to present to her wealthy husband a gift that money could not buy. Patiently she watched, with a tender, musing smile upon her lips, while minutes ticked into hours that slipped silently by. Not once, during weeks spent watching and waiting, had the scepticism of those around her been allowed to shake her belief that the miracle of birth was evolving within the fragile shells—thriving as surely and steadily as the child that had chosen to make its tiny presence known by inflicting upon its mother bouts of early morning sickness.

  Suddenly she was alerted out of her state of happy euphoria by the suspicion of a crack, thin as a pencil mark, that had appeared on the surface of one of the mottled brown eggs. Conscious that her competence as a midwife was about to be tested, she removed the egg from the metal bars of the incubator and laid it gently in a shallow bowl lined with soft tissue. Like an echo from the past, she recalled her father's voice, urging her to encourage the chick out of its shell.

  'When the chicks are hatching, the mother bird, the incubating female, talks to- the chicks as they are emerging, reassuring them by giving chirping vocalisations. Try to imitate her baby talk.'

  After a nervous gulp, Frances leant close to the egg and attempted the mother-bird's vocal aid to delivery.

  'Ch.i.r.r.r.p! Ch.i.r.r.r.p! Push! Ch.i.r.r.r.p! Come on! Heave!' she pleaded. 'Come on, my precious, h.e.a.v.e…!'

  At that precise moment, just as the tip of a tiny beak pierced a hole in the shell, it seemed entirely appropriate that Rom should materialise as if from nowhere, standing close enough for her to hear his sharply indrawn breath, and to share her joy at the sight of the eggshell cracking gradually, piece by piece, then finally falling away to reveal a skinny, damp, weary, yet healthy-looking egret.

  The other two chicks followed its example by emerging in quick succession, leaving them no time to voice their joy and wonder until all three chicks were nestling sweetly inside a box lined with straw constructed and contoured as nearly as possible along the lines of the nest from which the eggs had been removed.

  Dawn had broken, and sounds made by servants moving around the interior of the Palacio could be heard, when Frances clasped her hands as if offering a prayer of thanksgiving and turned to Rom with an ecstatic sigh.

  'Triplets! A new set of triplets for the Aquila family!'

  'Thanks entirely to you, chica madre,' Rom breathed, keeping his glance locked with hers as slowly as he drew her towards him. His dark head, tousled by raking fingers, was lowering to place a kiss of gratitude upon her quivering mouth when the door was flung open by José, who had obviously decided to return to relieve Frances of her vigil.

  'Que mona! Muy bonita!' His cry of delight at the sight of the chicks fetched the rest of the servants running and seconds later the room was filled with an uproar of excitedly babbling people.

  'Outside, everyone! Outside!' Looking slightly exasperated, Rom shooed the servants into the kitchen, then, relenting at the sight of their downcast faces, he ordered with a grin, 'Fetch champagne! We must all drink to the health of the new arrivals!'

  Anxious to check up on the welfare of the chicks, Frances slipped unnoticed inside the room filled with the sound of hungry chirping and discovered José busily preparing their first feed.

  'If you will allow me, Condesa,' he requested almost apologetically, 'I should like to be put in sole charge of the little egrets. Once begun, a task becomes easy. All the important work has been done by you, but the unpleasant task of keeping them supplied with a 'constant stream of worms, insects and grubs is unsuitable for pale soft hands and can be safely left to me.'

  'As it shall be, José.' A protest died on Frances' lips when Rom strode inside carrying a glass of champagne. 'Drink this up,' he commanded sternly. 'As soon as you have finished it you must return to your room to catch up on your rest, and this time,' he breathed the promise under his breath, 'I shall make certain that you stay there.'

  Impelled by his black crystal look, she forced herself to drink the raw gold liquid that burst bubbles under her nose and fermented the sweet taste of happiness to a pitch of sparkling exhilaration that rushed straight to her head, making her feel giddy. The sensation of floating on a cloud intensified when Rom scooped her into his arms to carry her out of the kitchen and up the sweeping staircase to her room.

  She strove hard to disperse the weariness that was threatening to cut short the most glorious period of fulfilment she had ever known, and to deny her the pleasure of seeing Rom as she had seen him only once previously—on the night that passion inherited from the combination of gypsy and Moorish blood had been given rein, allowed to outstrip the cool hauteur of the Spanish grandee, the indifference of a lofty Lord of the Land.

  It was nice to feel cossetted, she decided, when he deposited her gently upon her bed, nice to feel petted and pampered, to know that she had pleased him sufficiently to be rewarded with the exquisite pleasure of feeling his teeth tenderly nibbling her ear, of experiencing once again the utter bliss of being cradled in arms that seemed determined never to let her go. Exerting great effort of will, she forced heavy lashes to lift over wine-drugged eyes. Tiredness was enveloping her like a cloak, a cloak which for weeks she had determinedly pushed aside, preventing herself through sheer strength of will from succumbing to its sleep-inducing warmth.

  'Your eyes remind me of the grey fathomless depths of mountain tarns, cami mescri, the ojos del mar which shepherds believe show signs of disturbance whenever a storm threatens even from many miles away.'

  Rom's voice sounded strangely disembodied, yet tight with leashed emotion.

  'Legend has endowed one of these tarns with special mystery. In its depths, so it is said, is a palace built by a Moorish king, in which a beautiful slave girl grieves for the master who abandoned her. This grief leads her to draw down into the depths any man who dares to wander near, appearing to them in the form of a timid white bird that tempts them to the edge of calm grey waters then pulls them below to drown in the ecstasy of her arms. I feel like a victim of that timid white bird, querida,' his whispered words seemed to be gradually fading, 'charmed by the wiles of a grey-eyed temptress…'

  'Rom,' she murmured, feeling herself drifting into a chasm of darkness yet worried by a reminder that there was something very important that she had forgotten to tell him.


  'Yes, querida . . .?'

  She smothered a yawn, the pounding of his heart against her cheek imposing the hypnotic effect of a steadily beating drum.

  '… please remember to tell José that when he feeds the chicks he must cut up the worms very small.'

  She awoke after almost eight hours of sleep feeling fretful. Drowsily, she lay looking around the room kept cool and dim by shutters closed against the heat of the noonday sun, her brow puckering into lines of worry as she tried to recall the misty interlude she had shared with Rom just before sleep had claimed her. But her subconscious refused to release any clue as to why she should be feeling so cheated, why an inner voice should be insisting that for a few precious seconds supreme happiness had beckoned and then sorrowfully passed her by.

  A light tap upon the door preceded Sabelita's entry into the room carrying a tray laden with her mistress's favourite breakfast—lightly boiled egg, toast, and a tall pot spouting the rich, aromatic smell of freshly percolated coffee.

  'Ah, so you are awake at last!' Sabelita beamed, advancing towards the bed. 'It is almost lunchtime, but I thought you might prefer to eat in your room?'

  Frances nodded agreement and eagerly eased herself upright, propping her shoulders against a bank of pillows. But immediately she caught sight of the food-laden tray a wave of nausea struck, draining colour from her cheeks, rendering grey eyes dark with apprehension.

  'Oh!' Her sharp cry of distress brought Sabelita to an enquiring halt, then when Frances struggled out of bed clasping a hand over her mouth and rushed towards the bathroom comprehension dawned and a great smile of happiness transformed the old gypsy's features.

  She had disposed of the tray and was hurrying to render assistance when Frances reappeared, clutching the doorframe for support, looking spent and ashen.

  'Don't worry, chica,' the old woman scolded happily. 'The sickness will soon pass and then . . .!' she heaved an ecstatic sigh, '… oh, the joy I shall feel when I hold the new baby in my arms! The rejoicing that will erupt the moment my tribe is told the news! Such an outcome was inevitable, of course,' she beamed, 'yet never before have I known the albahaca magic to work so swiftly.'