It was a quiet meal we had, the father, the daughter, and I, the homeless boy.
Her name was Evelina, but she was called Eve most of the time. His name was Robert Vypont. The house in which they lived was an old manor, built strongly and well some hundred years before, yet a house with much grace and style within.
We talked lightly, of this and that, and then toward the close of the meal, he said, “What do you now propose to do?”
“I shall go to London-town. It is a large place, and there I might find some way to live.”
Vypont shook his head. “There are many boys of your age there, good lads some of them, rascals most. You would find it hard, I think.”
“I must earn my way. I have no fortune, nor hope of any but what I can make of my own wit and strength.”
He studied me gravely, shaking his head. “You are young for that. The apprentices of London are rough lads themselves, and apprenticeships must be purchased.”
He watched while the maidservant refilled our glasses with ale. Then he said, “You have traveled much and are no doubt tired. Would you do us the honor to be our guest for a few days?”
I hesitated, dearly wanting to agree, yet wary of it. I didn’t know this man, and although he seemed generous, I was not sure of his motive. Moreover, I was now accustomed to the rough way of living and growing daily more so. Might not living here make me soft again?
“You know naught of me,” I said. “There was trouble at the inn, yonder, and it might bring grief upon you and yours. You have been kind, but much as I should like to remain, I must be about my business.”
“You will stay the night?”
“If it pleases you, I should be delighted.”
He paused a moment. “Forgive my curiosity, and I know I have no right to ask, but a lad of your obvious background…there should be a place for you.” He looked at me again. “You have obviously gone to good schools.”
“I have never been to school. My father was my teacher.”
“Ah? A man of rare education, no doubt.”
“He was that. He read me from the writings of Homer when I was very young, and from Virgil, too. He taught me much of history, and not of our country only, but others as well.
“We walked much together, and he instructed me then. We also talked with visitors—”
“Visitors?” Robert Vypont spoke casually, yet I knew the question was an effort to learn something of my background.
“There were few visitors toward the last,” I said, “and mostly from the Continent.” I had no doubt he knew where I was from, for I had the brogue, although not much of it.
“Were they enemies of England?” he asked mildly.
“My father,” I said, “was enemy to no man, and wished harm to no man. He was a scholar who wished only to be let alone.”
“I am not a scholar,” Vypont said. “Would that I were! I have many interests, and much desire to learn scholarly things, but for too long my activities were directed elsewhere.”
My father had talked to me of his many interests, talked to me as though I were a man grown, discussing not only our bookish interests, but others as well. Often of a night I had gone to the shore with him when he would show a light to guide some of the returning “wild geese” safely to shore, for it was wild geese we called those young Irishmen of family who went abroad to join the armies of France, Spain, Italy, and others. Having no future in Ireland, not permitted by England to have an army, and not wishing to serve England, whom they considered an enemy, they fled overseas, usually aboard some smuggler’s craft.
Often in my father’s house I heard them talk of politics in foreign lands, of wars, battles, and courtly intrigue, of music, art, and letters.
They came by night, and they left by night, catching short visits with friends and relatives, then off to the wars once more. Mayhap when I was older I could become one of them—or so ran the thoughts in my mind.
Yet Vypont was a kindly man, and wished me well. He was hungry for talk with one of his kind, and Eve was also. Two days I remained, eating too well, talking, riding, and walking with them both.
On the third day we had come to the bottom of the steps for a ride when suddenly there was a clatter of hooves and into the yard came three red-coated soldiers, and with them one of those who had tried to rob me at the inn.
“See? What did I tell you? There’s the Irisher!” he shouted, pointing at me.
The soldiers started toward me, and I sprang to the saddle. My life long I had ridden, for my father was a horseman ever, and those fine Irish horses of ours! Ah, how I missed them!
Turning the horse, I raced around the house, leaped the low hedge, and went down across the lovely meadow and into the old beeches beyond. Under their cover, I turned sharply back, circled a haycock and another barn, and was into the lane. My horse was running hard.
Wild was the riding, and beautiful the movements of the horse beneath me, but he was Vypont’s horse, and I must free him. There was a place where the lane went by a deep cut in the earth that dropped to the glen below. I left the horse there, with a ringing slap on the rump to keep him running. Then I ducked down into the cleft.
Sliding and jumping, I reached the bottom and went into a wooded hollow, crossed it to a stream, and walked into the cold fresh water.
The afternoon was late when I left the stream and went up to the moors above. Long into the night I walked, then seeing a vast wood before me, I went into it, deep within it, and lay down at last, covering myself with leaves, and there I slept.
Again I was adrift, homeless, alone and hungry. And now I was hunted as well.
If they found me, boy though I was, I would die.
CHAPTER 9
I AWOKE IN THE cold dark and lay still, confused. I had fallen asleep with my mind filled with thoughts of my boyhood. Now I was a castaway, lying on leaves in a Carolina forest with a stranger for companion and naught but enemies about.
I sat up slowly, trying to make no sound. Turley lay still, resting quietly. He, too, was no doubt accustomed to sleeping in the worst of circumstances.
My sword was at hand, and my other weapons. One by one I checked them, all the while listening. It was with difficulty that I shook off the memories of that long-ago night and that wild flight to escape the British soldiers. Yet I had escaped. A week later, starving once more, I had come upon the old man whom I had seen at the inn, the one who had smiled pleasantly and left, driving his cart with its donkey.
But no more of the past. Now was a time for thinking; now was a time to plan. In my hidden boat lay treasure, far more than I had ever expected to possess. By all the laws of salvage, it was mine, yet it was not truly mine until I could get it safely abroad and in a secure place.
I was beginning to understand that the finding of treasure was the smallest of problems. The greatest problem was to keep it. To do that I must keep its location secret until I could find a way to transfer it to England. All of which would take planning and foresight.
That I had possession of the prize both Don Manuel and the big man now his captor were seeking made it no easier. Once the San Juan de Dios was discovered, the vessel would be looted of its remaining treasure, and I had no doubt they would suspect me of having what was missing and come searching for me.
Moreover, they would not be long in finding the ship, so the time left to me was short, indeed. Nor did I wish to take Silliman Turley into my confidence. Many a man has been murdered for less than I possessed, and I had no idea how far Turley could be trusted.
Yet with all my thinking of the gold and the getting of it, my thoughts were shadowed by the memory of Guadalupe Romana.
She was in their hands, and she had no knight errant to come riding on a white horse to save her. That she was a clever girl I was prepared to admit; that she could deal with the big man I doubted very much. He had a quality of ruthlessness about him that showed no leavening of mercy, consideration, or kindness. He knew what he wanted and
he intended to have it, and he was the type of man to whom no particular woman is important. To such a man, women are something to be taken and then cast aside. Feminine wiles would mean nothing to him.
Softly, bitterly, I swore. Turley awakened and lifted his head. “You are thinking of the girl?” he suggested.
He sat up, brushing leaves from his hair. “It is ever the way. Seven times out of ten, when a man curses there is a woman involved. What is it now?”
“She is their prisoner. I must think of some way to free her.”
“And then what? You will only have her on your hands. No, my friend, let her bring trouble to them; they will rue it soon enough. Why, you could do them no more harm than to leave a woman amongst them!
“She will divide them, split them, create havoc among them! They will argue over her, because of her, and about her. Some will betray others because of her, some will die because of her. By all means, let her remain where she is. They will be destroyed by it.”
“She’s a fine girl.”
“Ah? Would she be as fine, or you so anxious to aid, if she were ugly? I think not. Worry not about the lass, Captain, and you’ll save yourself much and cost them more. And do not forget it. There is evil yon.”
I felt so myself. Yet why did that big man seem so familiar? What was there about him, that teased my memory? And the other man also, the one who had been lying on the ground, his back to me?
“She hoped I would help her. She expects it of me.”
“No doubt,” he replied grimly. “Do not they always?” He shook his head. “What do they see in her, anyway? She is but a woman.”
“A woman is sometimes enough. But there is more, or so they believe. They take her to Spain to win from her the knowledge of where some Inca gold is hidden.”
“Ah? Now she begins to make sense! Gold, is it? And Inca gold, too? How comes the lass by such knowledge?”
“She is but Spanish in part, and the other part of royal Inca blood. As you know, the Spanish demanded a great ransom for the Inca, whom they had seized. Then when they had the gold, they killed him anyway. What they did not know was that much gold was still on the way, and when they killed him, that gold was hidden. She, they believe, knows where.
“Also, it is believed that in the mountains there are strongholds where the old Incas still carry on, where the old gods are worshiped and the old ways continue. And there should be much gold there, too, for it is a metal born of the sun, which is their god.”
“The girl then is a prize. I can see…yes, of course. And you, Captain, have an interest in her also? Well, well, Captain, keep your eye upon the gold. It never fades in beauty. Women? They do fade, and they also grow crusty with age, and shapeless. No, the gold is the thing. Women are forever young when you have gold enough.”
He was silent. I thought of what I might do. To get Guadalupe Romana away from her captors would be no easy thing, but what to do after that was even more of a problem, for there would be no use in freeing her only to condemn her to a life in the forest. Somehow I had to contrive not only to free her but to see that she found her way home.
Worried as I was about my hidden boat and its treasure, there was nothing I could do about it for the moment, so I led the way down through the trees toward the pirate camp…if pirates they were.
It was quiet in the woods. Along the sunny side of the trees near a small creek the birds were singing, and I heard a loon call across the sound somewhere.
Turley put a hand on my shoulder from behind. “They’ll be a-watchin’, Cap’n. They surely will. You fall into that fat man’s hands and you’ll live long enough to regret it.”
We waited, listening. Hearing nothing, we moved along. Suddenly we stopped, for there lay the camp. Don Diego and Don Manuel sat in close conversation. Conchita was at the fire, preparing something…coffee, if my nose was true.
My eyes searched for the Basque, for I thought him a true man, but he was nowhere to be seen, nor Felipe. Several of the pirate crew stood about, all armed but negligent. They probably had no experience of Indians yet.
What were we to do? The fact that I could not see the fat man worried me, for he was the one I wished most to keep under observation.
Guadalupe was seated near a tree, close to the trunk of it, almost indiscernible from where we stood. She held a mug in her hand, and from time to time would sip from it. I doubted she was woolgathering; I believed her attention was probably upon escape…or something of the kind.
She was sitting half-faced toward me and most of the others were facing away. The impulse came upon me suddenly, for if we were to help her she must know it. Deliberately, I stepped out from the brush where we were concealed.
Her mug was lifted toward her mouth, but stopped an instant, then continued. Yet I was sure she had seen me, and I stepped back under cover. A moment later she stood up and stretched, yet in such a way that both hands extended before her, palms out and toward me.
It might have been coincidence, but I was sure she was warning me back with her pushing gesture. She stretched again, then sat down again where she had been.
“Now what was all that about?” Turley asked.
“She knows I am here, and she was warning me to stay back. So, at least, it appeared.”
He was skeptical. “Mayhap. If that was what she did she was most shrewd about it, and I doubt a woman would think so cunningly.”
“She would,” I said.
“We’d best lay low, then.” He peered around. “The less we move the less likely we’ll be seen.” He peered about. “We’ve a good spot here, and should lie ready until they are all within sight, yonder.”
“It may be a long time,” I said.
“Aye,” he agreed. “Do you sleep. I’ll wake you an hour or so from now, or if there’s movement yonder. Then I will sleep.”
In the brush where we had sheltered there were several deadfalls and a place where the brush parted overhead and sunlight came through. There was grass there and the logs allowed for concealment behind them, yet their camp was still within view.
Down behind one of the logs I settled, and drawing my cloak about me, I slept.
*
AGAIN IN MY sleep I went back to my boyhood. What was happening now that inspired these dreams? Or the half awake pondering on the past? Why now, after all this time, should my thoughts be going back to the days of my first flight?
After my escape on Vypont’s horse there followed days of running, hiding, begging for food, working a bit when I could, my clothes going to rags once more, and still no way before me except to keep moving. Then I came upon the kindly faced old man whom I had seen so long ago in the tavern before meeting the Vyponts.
The cart stood beside a lane. His donkey was feeding upon grass at the roadside. The old man had a fire going and I walked across the field toward him. He saw me coming, but went on with his business, and I suspected he had been troubled many times along the lanes and byroads by those who would rob or annoy him.
It was only when I stopped beside the cart that I could be sure. He looked up and smiled. “You have come a long way.”
“I have. And you also.”
“It is my way. Once I was…no matter. For these fourteen years past, this has been my life.”
“You are a peddler?”
“Of cloth and trinkets, needles and pins. I am also a tinsmith, and I collect herbs from along the lanes and sell them in the villages or cities.”
“You do well at this?”
“It is a living. It is enough. I am free. The nights are long and quiet, the mornings cool and bright, I live with the sun, the moon, and the stars. The air is fresh where I am, and there is no one to hurry me or to demand this or that of me.”
“It seems a good life.”
He looked at me. “You are hungry?”
I shrugged. “I ate yesterday, and once the day before that.”
“Join me. I eat what the way provides, and a little that I buy. Sit
you down…or if you will, gather a bit of wood for the fire.”
Coming down the slope, I had seen a fallen tree, so I returned to it and gathered broken sticks, some bark, and whatever would add to the fuel.
He dished up a bowl of stew and handed it to me. “Try that,” he suggested.
On the tailgate of his wagon there was a large book opened for reading. “What is the book?” I asked.
“Maimonides.”
“You are a Jew?”
“I am English, but one finds wisdom in all languages. I read him often, for he has much to tell.” He looked at me. “How do you know of Maimonides?”
“My father read him also. We had many, many books, and my father would often read to me. Sometimes we talked of them.”
“I have few books now, but they are old friends.” He looked at me sharply. “Where do you go?”
“To London, I think. I look for employment and to make a place for myself. I have much to learn.”
“What is it you wish for yourself?”
“To become skilled with weaponry. The wars offer a young man his best chance, and I would have wealth.”
“Wealth? Well…perhaps. It has its benefits, but is an empty thing in itself.”
“We once had a home. It is now in other hands and I would have it back. The walls have memories of my father’s voice and the pools there mirrored the features of my mother. My happiest days were spent walking the cliffs with my father and hearing him tell the tales of Achilles, Hector, and Ulysses.”
“Ah, yes. It is good to have roots. I had them once…long ago.” He paused. “Now I grow old. I am slower than I once was, and loneliness sits hard upon me. I go now to Yorkshire, but after that, perhaps to the edges of London.”
I said no word, waiting for what was on his mind. After awhile he said, “If you hurry not too much, you could come with me. You could learn my trade and more. Also, I shall meet soon with friends, and among them there is a gypsy.”
“There were gypsies in Ireland, too.”
“Aye, they are everywhere, but this gypsy…he is skilled at all the arts of fencing. With whatever weapon you choose, he is a master. He has studied and taught the art in Venice, in Milano, in Paris as well as in London. Now he travels the roads.”
Fair Blows the Wind (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Page 7
