by Carla Kelly
There was one thing more. She put her ear to the door and heard the soldiers coming up the stairs again. She darted to her pallet and raised the corner.
No one had disturbed the bloody papers that she had so carefully transcribed and that James had tossed in the air when the gun went off at such close range. The papers had fluttered about him as he lay dying. She had watched them settle on his body and had scrambled them together even as the soldiers were shouting at her and trying to drag her to her feet.
The papers lay hidden where she had left them, the blood brown now, old already, but not as old as the words from the fifteenth century she had been copying.
“Cristóbal Colón,” Sarah whispered. “Christopher Columbus. Let us go on a journey.” She stuffed the sheaf of papers into a leather pouch and pulled it over her head, easing it down the front of her riding habit.
For the first time since her interview with Clauzel, tears stung her eyes. Had it been only two days ago, before the soldiers had bashed on the archive door with their rifle butts, that James had remarked to her how much he was looking forward to turning those pages over to the Bodleian Library?
“Sarah, only think,” he had said, his eyes sparkling, even though she knew how tired he was with the effort of translation. “Perhaps the last chapter hasn’t been writ on Columbus’ first voyage, now that we know the precise landfall. How I shall relish presenting these papers!”
She sank back on her heels. “Ah, why did we do it?” she whispered.
When word had come to James through one of his Continental sources about the possibilities in the Salamanca library, why had she allowed herself to be swept along by his enthusiasm?
She had been as eager as James to hurry to Papa with the news, and then to plead and argue and urge Sir William Comstock to exert his considerable influence to permit them, in the name of scholarship, to follow in the wake of the triumphant army. A word here, some coins there, a promise given, and the deed was done.
She thought of Papa and his great excitement. He had kissed her on both cheeks, a thing of rare excess in itself, and declared that the Comstock papers from Salamanca would soon be as well known as Lord Elgin and his marbles.
The pleasure of presentation would be hers now, but Sarah Comstock took no joy in it. She jammed her hat upon her head, took one last look around the room, and consigned herself to the French guards outside her door.
The miserable horse that awaited her in the great courtyard of the University of Salamanca looked as resigned as she felt. Snow was beginning to fall. Sarah turned her face up to the sky, absorbing in one last breathtaking moment the venerable spires of ocher and pink that she had clapped her hands over when they rode in better style into Salamanca that summer. Never mind that French soldiers in green uniforms ringed the courtyard now. She did not notice them as she put her fingers to her lips and blew a kiss to the university and to James, resting in a vault of San Miguel in the Wall.
And there was Clauzel again, his kind face wrinkled with worry. “You know the road to Lisbon?” he asked.
“Oui, mon général,” she replied, her voice scarcely a whisper.
He gave the horse a prod. “It is never hard to find an army, Mlle. Comstock. And they are not far.”
She should have smiled at him at least. Throughout the misery of the last few days, he had been nothing but concerned—and aghast, at least in her presence over the shocking death of her brother. “My dear,” he had said over and over, “we do not fire upon scholars. I cannot understand how this happened.”
No more could she. She nodded in his direction, dug her heels into the horse’s side, and took her leave of the University of Salamanca.
Lady Sarah Comstock rode in silence for the better part of the day. Her early fears that someone would steal her horse or molest her soon disappeared. While nobody made a move to help her—and how could they, with the French back again?—the Spanish eyes that watched her from hovels and meticulously picked-over grain fields showed only respect, and some sorrow at her situation.
When she dismounted at noon for a nuncheon of water from a stream that tumbled ice-cold beside the road, she discovered a slice of bread and five dried-out olives in one of the innumerable shrines found on every Spanish byway. She sniffed the bread. It was not fresh, but it was bread.
“You see, sir,” she said out loud to the saint, who looked at her out of mildly surprised eyes from his niche, “I am hungrier than thou art.”
Sarah spoke in polite Spanish, such as she would use to address her betters or a recent older acquaintance. While not a superstitious person, she had no desire to offend the sensibilities of one who might consider, in this Christmas season, some heavenly intervention.
Snow was falling faster as she walked her horse into the afternoon, following the trail of Wellington’s retreating army that had passed through Salamanca less than two weeks ago. There were broken bottles, bloody bandages, and wooden biscuit crates that didn’t even hold a whiff of victuals anymore.
She rode off and on as the shadows lengthened and the sun struggled out from its weight of clouds. Over one more rise, and the army was before her.
Her relief fled as quickly as it had come as she rose up in the stirrups and shaded her eyes with her hand. It was only the smallest group of soldiers and camp followers, the last straggling detachment from this part of Spain.
What did you expect, Sarah? she asked herself and swallowed her disappointment. Wellington was probably sitting before a fire in Lisbon even now, writing up his report of the failed siege of Burgos and the retreat to Portugal. He probably didn’t even know about this group.
She clucked to the horse and it moved faster, heading for the company of animals and the potential of food. As they bumped and jogged over the stony road, Sarah could make out the scarlet regimentals of British troops and the drabber brown of Spanish allies.
“Thank God,” she said out loud.
Some of the horses were already milling around behind the picket line. Sarah sniffed the fragrance of campfires and the sharper smell of food cooking. Her mouth watered and she felt hungry again for the first time in several days.
She rode into the encampment and was met by a familiar face, hiding behind a layer of dirt and several days of whisker. Sarah held out her hand.
“Well, Dink, I didn’t expect to see you here!” Lord Wetherhampton—Dink to his Oxford cellmates—looked at her in some confusion. “Gracious, Sarah, have a little pity and call me Lieutenant Markwell at least!”
The officer on horseback next to him, dressed in Spanish brown, caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. He turned away quickly to hide a smile, even as his horse did a little dance in the snow.
“I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” she amended as the Spaniard turned his back to her, his shoulders shaking.
And then it was Dink’s turn to stare, as if he had only just then realized that he was looking at Sarah Comstock.
“Goodness, Sarah, what are you doing here? And where is James? Don’t tell me that brother of yours is still in Salamanca.” He screwed up his eyes in that familiar gesture she remembered. “Oh, I would like to thrash him.”
Sarah sighed. In another moment Dink would be dithering. She laid her hand on his arm, even as he muttered, “Hookey will kill me for leaving you behind.”
“You couldn’t have known we were there. James…” Her voice changed and she looked down at her hand that grasped the reins. The Spaniard had steadied his horse and was facing her again, as if compelled to turn around by the despair in her voice. She looked at him instead of Dink. “James is dead. Killed by French troops. Dink, I hope you can get me out of Spain.”
After the amazement on his face was followed by chagrin, she waited for him to utter the expected phrases of condolence and reassurance. Dink Markwell did none of those things. He sat on his horse, slapping his gloves from hand to hand, until Sarah wanted to grab him and shake him.
“Well, I’ll do what I can,” he said at la
st, but there was little resolution in his voice, and none whatsoever in his eyes.
He was on the verge of saying something else when a Spanish woman of indeterminate years stormed up to him and latched on to his reins. The animal snorted in surprise, but no more surprise than Dink Markwell showed as he lurched forward and clutched the saddle’s pommel.
“We are hungry,” the woman pleaded, her voice low and intense.
When her pleadings produced no look of interest on Markwell’s rather spotty face, she tugged at the reins. “What are we to do, sir, we who stayed behind to nurse your wounded?” she asked pointedly, following his eyes with hers, forcing him to look at her.
She was joined by other women, and then by the children, who set up such a clamor that Sarah looked away in embarrassment. Trust Dink not to have a single clue what to do. She and Dink had grown up on neighboring estates in Kent, and she knew him too well.
After another moment of silence, followed by one last, desperate look around to see if there were someone else to take the burden, Markwell retrieved his reins and glanced over at the Spanish officer, who, like Sarah, had found something else to occupy his vision.
“Colonel, these are your people,” he snapped in exasperation. “You tell them what to do!”
“Lieutenant, this is your command,” the Spaniard replied. “I joined you only this noon, do you not recall? You have your orders. I have mine.”
Dink wheeled his horse about in exasperation and faced his sergeant, who, with some difficulty, managed to compose his face.
“Sergeant, find these people something to eat,” he ordered.
The sergeant saluted, grinned when the lieutenant turned away, and herded the little group toward the one remaining pack mule. The lieutenant watched him go and then dismounted and gestured to the Spaniard, who dismounted too.
“Colonel, since you remind me that my attention is fully occupied by this ragtag, pestilential gathering of camp followers and stragglers, I would ask you to be Sarah Comstock’s escort. Lady Sarah Comstock, that is, until such time as we reach the battlements of Lisbon.”
The Spaniard bowed but shook his head. “Lieutenant, I am going no farther than Ciudad Rodrigo.” He looked back at Sarah. “And then I ride south along the border to Barcos to spend Christmas with my children. I am sorry, Lady Sarah, but there you have it.”
Take it or leave it, she thought.
“Then you will be her escort until Ciudad Rodrigo,” Dink said smoothly as he accepted a cup of tea from his servant. “Sarah, is it agreed?”
“I… I suppose,” she replied, “if it is agreeable to the colonel.”
She spoke in Spanish and was rewarded with a flicker of a smile from the colonel.
She held out her arms to him, and he lifted her from the sidesaddle.
“Do you have many children, Colonel?” she asked as Dink handed her a cup of tea.
“Two,” he said. “Two daughters. The young one is two, and will not remember me. The older is four, I think.”
“But you do not know?” she asked, and then colored. The question sounded so impertinent, especially in Spanish, which is a peremptory language.
“It has been a long war, doña,” was all he said.
He took off his gloves and walked, stiff-legged, toward the nearest fire. Sarah noticed that he limped.
Lieutenant Markwell put his hands on his hips and watched him go. “He never said that much to me at one time,” he said, his tone disagreeable, childish. He laughed then. “You must be an inspiration. Oh, these are dour people. One would think they were Scots.”
Sarah could summon no reply. She felt less than inspiring. Her backside flamed from an entire day in the saddle, and she was so hungry that tears sprung to her eyes when Dink’s servant handed her a lump of nearly cooked horse meat. She scraped a little salt on it from the gray lump that the older Spanish woman offered her, and ate it with surprising relish.
The Spanish colonel—she did not even know his name—made no move to speak to her while she ate, and she wondered if she had offended him. And then she did not care. She gobbled up a handful of burned onions and washed it all down with beer.
“That was the worst meal I ever ate, Dink,” she said as she passed the bottle to the private who sprawled next to her, half-asleep.
“Not exactly plum pudding and eggnog?” Dink rubbed his eyes and yawned. “Sarah, when we are next in London, I will take you to dinner at Claridge’s.”
“Very well, sir,” she replied, and then spent the remainder of the brief meal in sleepy contemplation of the fire, her chin in her hand.
The Spaniard sat across from her through the fire, and she watched him, interested in him mainly because he was not interested in her, and there was no one else in her line of vision.
He was not a big man, and he was lean, but it was the leanness that comes from starvation. Probably if peace ever returned to Spain and he were given the opportunity, the colonel would put on pounds and flesh until he looked like the little priests who strutted about the University of Salamanca like so many pouter pigeons.
But now he was lean. Even his fingers were lean and elongated, like the hands of an El Greco saint she had seen in one smoky church or other. His hair was black and in need of trimming, and he wore a moustache shorter on one end than the other, as though he chewed on it. His eyes were far and away the thing about the nameless colonel that drew her attention. They were a most startling blue, the blue of a subzero morning, the blue of ice rimming a deep pond.
She had seen enough blue-eyed Spaniards before, but none with eyes so pale, the pupils circled about with deeper blue. The effect was memorable. Sarah found herself looking at him through the flames, wondering about those eyes, until the sun went down and he turned into a silhouette.
He spoke to no one. When the sun was down, he had one of the Spanish soldiers tug off his boots. He sat cross-legged before the fire, gently massaging the instep of the foot that he favored. When he finished, he pulled on the boots again, wrapped his cloak about him, leaned his head forward against his chest, and was still.
Dink Markwell sat down beside Sarah. He followed the direction of her gaze. “That is an art I have not yet perfected, m’dear,” he said, more to himself than to her. “I will be infinitely more rested when I can sleep sitting up.” He laughed softly. “Think what an advantage it will be when I finally take my seat in the House of Lords.” He winked at her. “Wouldn’t James have a laugh at the thought of me in the House?”
He paused then, remembered, his eyes instantly sorry. “I am a beast, Sarah. Forgive me,” he said. “It just doesn’t seem possible that James…” His voice trailed off.
Sarah touched his arm and then rested her hand on the front of her riding habit. “I have saved his work, Dink. Oh, such wonderful things we learned about Columbus’s first voyage.” Her voice was animated despite her exhaustion.
The figure across from her through the fire raised his head and watched her. She was not a person of much prescience, but Sarah Comstock was acutely aware of his gaze.
“You’ll take it to Oxford?” the lieutenant asked. “I will,” she answered, surprised by the fervency in her voice. “No power can stop me. I will, Dink, I will.”
And then she was filled with an enormous sadness that left her gasping for breath. With great effort she controlled it and sat once again in silence.
Dink was fidgeting beside her. “Well, old thing,” he said at last, “you’ll be in Lisbon soon enough. Colonel Sotomayor and I will see to it.”
She swallowed her tears and leaned closer to the lieutenant. “Dink, what is his name? You never introduced us.”
“I am sorry, m’dear.” Dink passed a hand in front of his eyes. “Can’t believe how easy it is to forget the social graces in this scummy country. Luís Sotomayor, and there’s more, of course,” he whispered back. “How these garlic-eaters tack on name after name and then use the middle one baffles me.”
“Alargosa de Meném,” said
the voice through the fire, not even raising his chin from his chest. “And it is not a scummy country, my lord. Devil take you Englishmen.”
Dink leapt to his feet in confusion, looking about him for help and finding none. “Beg your pardon, Colonel. I am sure I did not mean any of that.” There was no reply. Sotomayor was silent. They might have dreamed his pithy comment.
Sarah sat alone for another hour, her eyes on the flames and then on the embers when the flames were gone and the others had begun to wrap themselves in cloaks against the snow that was falling again.
Sarah rose at last and shook the snow off her cloak. She tugged James’s wool shirt up tighter under her chin and arranged her cloak around her again. There was no grass to cushion her sleep. She smoothed off a spot close to the fire, but away from the soldiers.
On the trip from Lisbon to Salamanca that summer, James had showed her how to burrow out a little hollow for her hips. Remembering him, she did as he had shown her so many months ago, and then sobbed out loud at the memory of James riding in the wake of the triumphant army; James in the archives, crowing over his discovery among the red tape; James lying still, his eyes wide open but not seeing her as the papers fluttered about.
Sarah took a deep breath and forced herself into silence. She lay down and drew her knees up toward her chest, her head pillowed on her arm. She closed her eyes.
It was hours later when she opened them. The Spaniard sat beside her now. He had covered her with his cloak, too. She sniffed and smiled to herself as she thought of Dink Markwell and his stupid prejudices. It smelled of horse and garlic.
Sarah made no sound, but the colonel seemed to know she was awake. He looked at her and he was deadly serious.
“Lady, do you know,” he said in Spanish, “you would feel much better if you cried now.”
She said nothing.
“No one will hear you.” He looked about him elaborately, and his voice was dry and filled with something close to contempt. “Everyone sleeps. Even the guards your friend almost forgot to place until I reminded him. It would be a good time to cry.”
