Spanish Serenade

by Jennifer Blake

  Now there could be heard, beneath the harsh gasps for breath and the explosive exclamations that marked a hit, the rise of a calm, objective voice approving, disdaining, correcting, explaining every move, every cut and parry, every error. It was Refugio, harrying the enemy in his own way and also giving them free instruction which they could put to use or not, as they chose, and whose value they might not recognize until a later time. The gathered throng, hearing it, laughed and cheered. The engagement took on a different, slower tempo. The combatants became more wary, the blows more deliberate as anger and blood lust seeped away to be replaced by grim endurance.

  Then the moon began to go behind a cloud. The field grew slowly darker, then darker still. The moonlight was extinguished. All that was left was the gleam of starshine on shining leather tackle and silver bits, and on the pale shirts of Philip's three men. Refugio's followers became mere wraiths that advanced and retreated and struck from nowhere. The blades of their swords were like flails, in constant movement, spewing arcs of orange sparks as they scraped and clanged. The island horses, fine-hearted beasts but not trained for such fighting or conditions, became more and more nervous, rearing and screaming as they caught slashes meant for their riders. Then Charro was out.

  Pilar did not see it happen. One moment he was in the thick of a savage hacking match, the next, Refugio was rapping out an order that caused Charro to lower his shield and wrench his mount from amidst the struggle. The man from the Tejas country slid from the saddle and stood gentling the animal before slowly walking the horse up the incline to where Pilar stood. As he came nearer, she saw the trickle of blood along his jaw from the dark line of a cut across his cheekbone. She put out her hand as if she would touch it, but he turned his head quickly and stepped back out of her reach. He did not speak, but stood watching the fight with narrow and intent eyes.

  Pilar wondered briefly if he blamed her for the contest going forth and for his injury. It was, in a way, her fault. If Philip had not been attracted to her, the protective instincts of Refugio's men would not have been aroused and the whole thing would not have started. She could not think what she might have done to make things turn out differently, still she felt somehow at fault.

  It was possible, of course, that Charro's behavior had nothing to do with her, but rather was caused by his embarrassment at being eliminated from the tournament. His pride would not permit him to easily accept defeat or to acknowledge the injury that caused it as anything more than a trifle.

  On the field the knowledge of men and arms of Refugio's followers was being brought to bear. Matched man per man, the shirtless ones were pushing back the others, forcing them to retreat step by step, to break and regroup. Their superior skill and unflagging strength carried them forward inexorably. Philip and his two men fought well, but it was easy to see they were outclassed.

  “Twice damned devil,” Charro said, adding a short, sharp epithet without taking his gaze from the action.

  “What is it?” Pilar asked as she felt the brush of alarm.

  “I just realized who put me out of the game.”

  She stared at the twisted frustration on his face and the way he followed Refugio with his hard gaze. “You don't mean . . . ?”

  “Who else? It appears he meant to even the odds before inflicting his punishment.” He touched his fingers to his face. “Or maybe this was a part of the rest.”

  “But I don't see why.”

  Charro looked at her, his gaze bleak. “Don't you?” he said.

  She refused to accept it. She stared at him for long seconds. She was still looking at him when the tumult of screams and shouts rang out around her.

  She swung back with her heart pulsing in her throat. Three, no, four horses were down. They thrashed and kicked in a mad tangle of saddles and riders. It appeared that one had injured his knee and fallen, taking the others with him. There was a white-shirted rider lying to the side, with one leg twitching. The other men were ducking among the plunging horses, tugging at bridles as they tried to get them to their feet, dodging flying hoofs, bending, searching for and retrieving swords dropped or thrown down in the fall. And then the moon came out.

  In its light Pilar saw Philip rise from the ground with a sword in his hand, almost from under Refugio's feet. The blade glittered, the light running along the edge from hilt to tip with a wicked, honed gleam. The whine of the slash he aimed at the brigand leader was a malicious sound in the night.

  Refugio caught the stroke on his shield, and the tough leather that coated the wood split like rotten silk. Then he was parrying, retreating before a hail of blows driven by rash fury and sudden confidence. The edges of the two men's swords rang together with a bell-like tolling, hissing and shrilling as they whirled around each other, then clanking like two iron pots thrown together as they locked hilt to hilt.

  The two men faced each other with inches between their faces. Refugio spoke, a low-voiced warning. Philip laughed, then sprang back with his sword poised and ready. An instant later he attacked.

  The crowd drew a collective breath. There was not a person there who had failed to see that the sword Philip held must be unblunted, who could not guess that Refugio had told Philip and that the young man had refused to acknowledge it.

  And suddenly the pace of the fight between the two men shifted while around them horses struggled to their feet unaided and the other combatants stood staring with their sword tips trailing on the ground.

  Refugio, met Philip's assault with controlled force and spare movements executed with blinding speed. It was plain to see that he had released some internal restraint and was calling on reserves of art and proficiency that had been held in abeyance until this moment. His movements dictated by hard and potent justice made deadly by rage, Refugio began a slow and steady advance. He dominated his opponent, giving him no room for error. Philip stumbled backward, desperately defending, his face as white as his shirt.

  Pilar's eyes burned as she strained to see. She became aware of a woman praying. It was Señora, Guevara. Beside her was Doña Luisa, her eyes shining with horrified excitement. The crowd was calling, warning, yelling, while somewhere in the rear frenzied bets were being placed. Charro was standing with his hands clamped on his sword. As he felt Pilar's gaze, he turned his head.

  “He'll kill him,” he said. “Before God, Refugio will kill him.”

  Philip was backing among the trampling, jostling horses. Sweat poured down his face, his breath rasped in his throat. His ripostes had become leaden, his parries perfunctory. He was demoralized by the cold fury of the offensive that had been unleashed against him, his skill and training forgotten. The only thing that prevented his defeat, that had held it off for long moments, was the whim of the man who faced him. And then that whim settled, congealed, and moved in for the end.

  The moonlight skated on the whispering blade as it swirled in Refugio's hand, catching on that of the other man, skimming with a blue diamond sparkle toward Philip's heart.

  Pilar saw the moment approaching and knew terror. Refugio must be stopped, he must, but how? Then she saw it. She was the judge. She had been given the right to put an end to this appalling trial. “Stop,” she said in a hoarse whisper. Then she jerked taut muscles into movement, running forward. “Stop! Stop it! Now!”

  Refugio never wavered. Sooty black and glistening with oil and sweat, he continued in his drive. His final thrust was perfectly launched and as precisely timed and directed as it was lethal. Philip twisted, trying to parry, trying to slip past the vicious sighing steel. It was too late.

  Philip cried out, sagged to his knees. Refugio stepped back. His face set, expressionless, he pushed his sword into the ground. With deliberation, he turned and walked toward where Pilar stood. She watched him come while pain engulfed her in a bitter tide, rising like blackest gall to force tears into her eyes.

  Then, behind Refugio, Philip staggered to his feet with a friend on either side. On his shirt, directly over his heart, were ragged tears c
aused by a sword point, tears in lines that were stained dark red and formed in the sign of a cross.

  Pilar looked from Philip to Refugio as he came to a halt in front of her. She met his heated gray gaze, her own vulnerable, troubled, and yet glad.

  He reached out to grasp her arms, drawing her against him. He bent his head and touched her mouth with his in a kiss that was fleeting, yet fiery.

  His voice soft and deep, he said, “I have stopped, my lady, and I claim the forfeit. The game is over.”

  12

  THEY ARRIVED IN NEW ORLEANS four days before Easter, after a voyage of stultifying boredom. The last leg was the hardest to bear, the journey up the Mississippi River with its endless leagues of rolling, yellow-brown water, its progression of curves and unbroken vistas of trees and mud. There was some novelty, at first, in the humid landscape, the marsh birds and snakes, frogs and alligators, and the myriad varieties of vicious insects. It was also a relief to enter calmer waters on the sluggish, wallowing vessel in which they had taken passage. Still, they were all anxious to reach their destination, to be released from the confines of the cramped common quarters where they had been sleeping practically on top of each other, and to come within grasping distance, finally, of their quarry.

  One reason they were so heartily sick of the coastal ship was that they had spent the last three days of their sojourn in Havana under its sweltering decks. They had quitted the Guevara house directly after the midnight escapade on the beach, pausing only to gather up their belongings. This was what Refugio had intended, of course; the surprise was that Doña Luisa went with them. She did not intend to stay behind, she said, and have the recriminations of Señora Guevara heaped on her head alone. Philip's mother was in a hideous rage over the incident, which had not only come close to killing her son, but had stained his honor as well.

  But the accommodations, a single cabin lined with berths stacked one on top of the other with only a greasy curtain dividing the section for ladies from that for the men, had not suited Doña Luisa's notions of comfort or her consequence. She had demanded the use of the captain's cabin, only to be refused. The details of the acrimonious quarrel that ensued, along with the insults the captain had spoken, his disgusting appearance and personal habits, comprised the bulk of her conversation for the rest of the voyage.

  The other recurring subject was the tournament. It was worried between them all like a particularly juicy bone by a litter of bored puppies. Conclusions were scant. No one could say where the sharp sword Philip had acquired had come from, whether it was a blade that had somehow missed being blunted in the darkness and confusion of the swift preparation — one in use by one of Philip's friends all along — or if it had been secreted in the accoutrements of one of the riders. If the first, it seemed unlikely that the man using it had not noticed, for the islanders chosen to participate had been experienced in defending themselves in the not infrequent duels of their class. For the man with it to have noticed and kept quiet was not impossible, but was conduct outside the code of honor. In addition, if the sword had been present the full time, the swordsman who had wielded it had been most inept, for there had been no sign left by a sharp blade on any of the shields of the band, nor had they felt its effects on their swords.

  It appeared, then, that the sword had surfaced during the melee with the downed horses. The first animal to fall had had a cut knee. It could be claimed that the injury was deliberate, but strange things happened in battle, and it could just as easily have been caused by a wild downswing. If it had been planned, however, it could have been for the purpose of bringing out the sharp weapon.

  Philip claimed to have found the sword close to his hand after his own was knocked from his grasp. Was that a lie? Had he planned and made the exchange himself? Had he provided himself with the sword for later use as a means of evening the odds should the game go against him?

  Charro tended to believe Philip innocent of murderous intent. But who else was there? One of his friends could have acted from the same motive of angry pride, but placed the sword near Philip's hand to save his own honor. He could also have been paid by someone acting for Don Esteban. The question was, who?

  As with the shot that felled Refugio, it seemed that there must have been an agent of the don on the ship with them, someone who had followed them from Spain. That there had been no other attempt on Refugio's life since they sailed from Havana might indicate that this person had been left behind on the island, or only that there had not been another convenient opportunity.

  The nature of the attacks thus far was suggestive. It seemed that the agent was too cowardly to perform the deed himself, but preferred to pay someone else. It could also mean that the person was too weak to go against Refugio in a personal encounter, perhaps an older person, someone unfamiliar with firearms or swords, such as a clerk or merchant — or, possibly, a woman.

  Refugio seldom participated in the discussions of the two attempts. Whatever opinions he had of them he kept to himself, nor could he be drawn. He did not hold himself aloof; he played cards with them, gave them music, told stories of pointed hilarity, made extravagantly gallant gestures to the ladies and chivied his men to exhibitions of wrestling and swordplay on the decks as well as leading them scampering like monkeys about the masts and cross-trees. Still, when the subject of the attacks came up, he either gave the conversation an adroit turn or found reason to be elsewhere.

  And he slept alone.

  The narrow bunks in the open sleeping cabin made anything else difficult, but Pilar was not certain he would have chosen to have it otherwise. His manner in private toward her since the tournament was polite yet distant, though she sometimes caught him watching her with a speculative light in his eyes that was intensely disturbing. There was some satisfaction in the fact that his manner toward Doña Luisa appeared no warmer. Pilar wondered if he was not just as satisfied to have an excuse to avoid private sessions with the widow also. That may, of course, have been her own wishful interpretation.

  The ship dropped anchor in the crescent bend of the Mississippi River before the town of New Orleans just before midday. It was late afternoon by the time the customs officials had made their cursory inspection and issued landing permits. The band disembarked as a group, leaving the city as night fell. Their destination was Doña Luisa's holdings, located some distance outside the city, along a waterway called Bayou Saint Jean.

  The house the widow had inherited on the death of her husband was a rambling, whitewashed structure in the French West Indies style. It had two floors with six rooms each, and a hip roof that projected out over upper and lower galleries on all four sides. There was also a connecting wing known as garçonniere, which was usually used for the older boys in a family, or else for indigent relatives or visitors. The walls were of vertical logs with the interstices filled with bousillage, a plaster of mud thickened with moss and animal hair.

  There was a mulatto housekeeper and her two teenage children installed in one of the downstairs rooms of the wing. They appeared not to understand Spanish, but Doña Luisa, using her court French, soon made her husband's former mistress understand who she was and why she was there. The mulatress was inclined to be sullen, but soon accepted the fact that bedchambers must be made up, bath-water heated, and a meal prepared.

  Doña Luisa made a circuit of her new abode, walking quickly through the interconnecting rooms. Immediately afterward she began to assign bedchambers. For herself she chose one of the corner rooms at the rear of the main house. Refugio she directed to the front corner bedchamber which connected to her own, while she gave Pilar the other front bedchamber, one separated from that of Refugio by a sitting room. Baltasar and Isabel she sent to the upper floor of the garçonniere, with Enrique and Charro in the remaining rooms of the wing. Having arranged everything to her satisfaction, she turned and began to order the mulatress and her children to carry the pieces of hand baggage stacked on the front gallery to the various chambers.

  “No.”r />
  The objection, simple but firm, came from Refugio.

  “I beg your pardon?” Doña Luisa's brows were raised to her hairline as she faced him.

  “Forgive me, but no. You have been everything that is kind, and have earned our gratitude for offering hospitality at this time. I am desolate at being forced to countermand your arrangements; still, I have a greater duty to protect those who have come so far with me.”

  Doña Luisa brushed away the politeness with an impatient gesture. “You prefer to sleep elsewhere?”

  “I prefer to have those who are dependent upon me sleep closer.”

  “Such as?” Their hostess's voice was harsh.

  “Pilar will share my quarters.”

  “Oh, but really—”

  “Nothing else is acceptable. It will also be more convenient if the others are in the main house. I suggest Enrique occupy the chamber next to your own, Doña Luisa, with Baltasar and Isabel on the opposite corner. Charro can then have the other front chamber.”

  “What impertinence! I'm not sure I can allow it. Next you will be telling me when I may come and go.”

  “Not at all. You are free to do as you will. If our presence displeases you, we will of course find other accommodations.”

  The two of them stared at each other across the dusty, candlelit room while the others shuffled their feet and gazed around at the rough walls and shuttered windows, the handmade furniture and the few pieces of pewter and faience that served as decoration. Pilar did not look away, but divided her glances between Refugio's expectant features and the pale face of the widow. She was the cause of the contention between them, but she could not see Refugio's reason for making an issue of it.

  Abruptly, the widow threw up her hands. “Have it your way, as usual! I don't remember you being so hard all those years ago, Refugio, and the change is not for the better.”