by Joan Aiken
I spoke from my heart, and very forcibly. Juan’s downcast look lightened somewhat at my tone; yet he continued to argue.
‘My uncle lives not a stone’s throw from here, in the Calle Santo Domingo. Well – well, if you feel so –’
‘I certainly do!’
‘Why do you not go to the beast market, then, and sell the mule, while I find my uncle and make sure of his welcome. Then I will return to meet you here.’
We were in a small plaza at that moment, I think it was called the Plaza Consistorial. There were arcades, and coffee-houses under them, and people sitting or strolling about.
I bit my lip. I could very plainly see that for some reason Juan felt it of great importance that I did not come into the presence of his uncle. By this I must confess that I was hurt; deeply hurt. It had never occurred to me that I might be thought of such poor birth and breeding as to bring embarrassment or disgrace on Juan by my company. I considered myself of good family, though I knew I was somewhat travel-soiled and worn. But I am not one to kick up a dust about such personal matters, or to discountenance somebody by pressing a request that is clearly unwelcome. So, swallowing a little, I answered, ‘Very well. So be it. If that is what you wish. But I shall not sell the mule yet, until we know that there is no reason to keep her. I will wait here for you, an hour. So you must promise me faithfully to return, even if it is only to assure me that all is well and your uncle is happy to receive you.’
‘Yes – yes, of course I will do that. I promise you, Felix,’ said Juan in a flurried manner, and almost ran away from me along the street.
Somewhat heavily – indeed, my heart felt like a cold, hollow stone inside me – I tethered our two beasts to a pillar, and, as there was a coffeehouse close at hand, made my way there, sat down at a table, and ordered a cup of chocolate. The waiter looked at me oddly enough. I daresay he wondered if I had the money to pay for it. But I snapped at him to hurry up, in a tone taken from my grandfather the Conde, and he answered ‘Yes, senor,’ respectfully, and removed himself and his tray.
While waiting, I tried to divert myself by looking about me at the town and townspeople of Pamplona. It seemed most strange to be in a city again, after so many days in the forests and mountains -and before that, so many months in the Abbey of St Just – but I did find it pleasant and homelike to hear Spanish spoken once more, even if it was a Basque Spanish, not such as we speak in Galicia. That – a very little – cheered my dismal spirits. And indeed, Pamplona – or Irrunia, as it should properly be called, since that is its Basque title -seemed a handsome town: many of the houses were new and high, with miradors; that is, glassed-in balconies where the ladies may sit and look down to see what is happening in the street without suffering from the cold mountain winds. Under the arcades in the street there were well-stocked stores where a person might buy anything he wanted.
Yet after a while I began to notice a strange contrast to the last English town I had visited, Plymouth; that was a seaport, a cheerful, carefree, noisy place, with everybody going about his business freely and unconcerned; whereas in Pamplona it began to seem to me that the people looked oppressed and anxious; though men talked together at the cafe tables they did so quietly, glancing sometimes over their shoulders; many alguacils and town officials moved about the streets, and there were officers of the Civil Guard, also, and soldiers from the barracks.
When the French armies left Spain I was quite small, five years of age, only a child, but I can well remember the sullen, harried, muttering silence of a town which has foreign invading troops quartered there; thus – or so I felt – it was in Pamplona, too.
And I remembered Father Antoine at St Just telling me about King Ferdinand’s illiberal rule. His words came back to me: ‘I have heard that a rebellion, under Colonel Rafael Riego, is spreading and gathering power.’
Yet, glancing about me as I started to sip my chocolate, I found the idea of a rebellion hard to believe. Thirty years ago there had been a rebellion in France; people spoke of it still with horror. Wild mobs and massacres, blood in the streets, the guillotine, and heads falling every minute. No signs of any such rebellion were to be seen in this staid place; quite the reverse, indeed.
After a very short time – much shorter than I had expected – Juan returned, not running, but walking fast, and glancing about him in the same harassed manner as did the -men at the coffee tables. I raised my hand, he saw me, and his expression lightened.
He made his way towards me, and said in a low tone, ‘I have something of an unexpected nature to tell you. But not here. Come.’
I noticed that his eye lit very wistfully on my cup of chocolate, so I suggested that he should drink it; he needed little urging to do so. Then we untied our mounts, and he led me to the quarter of the town where the market was held.
This was a crowded, cheerful, and noisy area, with squawking poultry, old dames selling eggs, cheese, oil, oranges, lemons, and grapefruit. Juan took me to a corner where an old lady in a black shawl was evidently waiting for us.
‘So this is the one that has brought you out of France; hela, he looks no more than a day-old chick himself!’ She sniffed, giving me a highly satirical glance. She had a sharp-cut face and was thin-lipped with an arched nose and snapping black eyes; her chin was stubbled over with the beginnings of a white beard.
I noticed that whenever her eye chanced to alight on Juan she seemed ready to explode with disapproval and only restrained herself by a great effort.
‘This is my uncle’s housekeeper, Isabelita Arnaiz,’ Juan told me quickly. ‘My uncle has left Pamplona.’
Ah! I thought. That was just what I had expected.
‘Where has he gone?’ I civilly inquired. And to the old dame I said, ‘Naturally I shall be happy to escort the young Senor Esparza to wherever his uncle is at present residing.’
The old lady bestowed upon me an extremely narrow glance, from top to toe, beginning with my face and coming back to rest there. I was able to support this scrutiny easily enough; after the demon glare of Father Vespasian, what other eyes could have power to disturb?
‘Well, but, Felix,’ said Juan, ‘that is the thing. Senora Arnaiz does not know where, precisely, my uncle has gone.’
This did seem singular. His own housekeeper not to know?
‘When did he leave?’
‘It was more than three months ago.’
‘So – in fact – he never received the letter your brother sent him about you?’
‘No! He did not! I was certain that my uncle would have helped me if he could. The letter lies in his house unopened; Isabelita showed it to me.’
‘And the Senora has no idea at all where he might be?’
The old lady, her black eyes flicking this way and that before she spoke, said, rapidly, in a low tone, ‘He was obliged to leave very quickly, you understand. He had been in correspondence with el coronel, and that was dangerous. One evening a note, unsigned, was thrown through the window. It said ‘Depart while your skin is whole.’ So he packed a little bag, saddled a horse, and left immediately. Next day the alguacils were there asking for him … he had gone only just in time. There have been many executions, many imprisonments, many people sent into exile – Ay de mi, where will it all end?’
I guessed that el coronel might be Colonel Riego, leader of the rebellion.
‘But my master is a man in his sixties!’ lamented the housekeeper. ‘How can he manage, without me to bring him his fried egg and cup of chocolate and toast sandwiches?’
‘And you really have no idea where he could have gone?’
The housekeeper’s look suggested to me that, even if she did know, she would not trust us enough to tell. She shook her head.
‘But my uncle left a message for me,’ said Juan. ‘He told Senora Arnaiz that if I found I could not live happily with my brother Esteban – if any trouble arose –’
The old lady muttered something, evidently Uncle León’s uncomplimentary opinion of brother Este
ban.
‘Well, he was right!’ said Juan. ‘So his message was that if I should ever come to Spain and ask for him, I was to be given this.’ And, cupped in his hand, he showed me a little ivory snuffbox, no bigger than a gull’s egg.
‘There is a letter inside?’
‘No letter. Only four stones and a leaf.’
The housekeeper, now glancing keenly over her shoulder, said, ‘I see some carabineers approaching. They keep a continual watch over the house, and they follow me, to discover if my master comes back or sends word. I must leave you at once.’
And she hobbled off as fast as she could. She was desperately lame, and could only just hoist herself along.
‘It seems to me, Juan,’ said I, ‘that by far your best course will be to accompany me to Villaverde.’
My heart rose as I said the words. I thought how pleasant it would be to have Juan’s company on the homeward journey; how greatly I would enjoy showing him my grandfather’s house. And I would not be ashamed of his company! On the contrary!
But Juan, at my suggestion, looked as scared as if I had offered to escort him to the polar regions. He quivered like a nervous horse, shook his head vigorously, and said, ‘No, Felix. My uncle expected that I would be able to solve his puzzle, so I am sure that it cannot be too difficult.’
‘Let me see the stones and the leaf.’
He opened the snuffbox. The little stones -smaller than dried peas – were strung together on a scrap of silken cord: a tiny ball of ivory, a ruby, a little green stone, a little yellow stone. And under them a slim dry brown leaf, upon which had been written in ink the word TOI. Thou.
‘What can it mean?’ fretted Juan. ‘I must be exceedingly stupid not to be able to puzzle it out.’
‘Well,’ said I, ‘such a crowded corner as we are in here is no place to work at puzzles. Somebody might jog your elbow and then your message is lost altogether. Let us buy a little food in the market and leave this city, for it makes me uncomfortable. My shoulder blades prickle every time one of those Civil Guards walks past.’
Juan agreed that he felt the same, so we purchased cheese, bread, and oranges and rode out over the humpbacked bridge into the open sierra once more. There, sprawled under an olive tree, we considered the little box and its mysterious contents.
‘Why in the world should your uncle give you four little jewels? What a peculiar gift! Were they, perhaps, your mother’s?’
‘No, not that I am aware,’ said Juan. ‘I have never seen them before.’
‘What are the coloured stones, do you know? The white one is a piece of ivory –’
‘The red one is a ruby; the green, I think, agate; and the yellow, topaz.’
We were, as usual, speaking French, and he used the French words ivoire, rubis, agate, topaze.
‘White, red, green, yellow. Do the colours have some special significance?’
‘I know of none.’
‘Is your uncle a jeweller?’
He laughed. ‘No, a wine merchant! Like my father. That was how they became acquainted.’
‘The colours are not your family coat of arms.’
He smiled. ‘No, nothing of that nature. My family is not noble, like yours, Felix.’
What a puzzle the boy was!
‘And the leaf?’ I picked it up and sniffed it. It was stiff, shiny, and smelled faintly aromatic. It was from an ilex, or holm oak. They are big handsome trees with small green leaves hanging in great drooping swags; the leaves are not shed in winter but fall at any time of the year; so, under such a tree, you may always shuffle through a scatter of the dried brown leaves. Such trees are to be found in many parts of France and Spain; even in England I have seen them.
‘It is a leaf from a yeuse,’ said Juan, employing the French word. ‘Some say that they are magical trees. But I do not know whether that is to the purpose.’
We sat frowning and cudgeling our brains. It was like hammering at a door that will not open. Juan suddenly let out a long defeated sigh.
‘Oh, I am too tired to think!’ He added wistfully, ‘That was a delicious cup of chocolate, Felix! Once, long ago, my mother took me into Bayonne, when I was about four, and we drank chocolate with my Aunt Laura –’
He stopped short, but I said, ‘Well, I will be glad to take you back into Pamplona and buy you another cup of chocolate. But let us eat now, and perhaps that will sharpen our wits. What do you suppose your uncle means by Toi?’
‘I suppose, by that, he may mean me.’
‘White, red, green, yellow, thee.’
‘Or, yellow, green, red, white, me.’
We began to laugh, we could not help ourselves, suddenly feeling light-headed and foolish; we lay laughing helplessly in the dusty grass.
‘You should make a poem about it, Juan -‘Yellow, green, red, white, Is it time to say goodnight?”
‘White, green, red, yellow, Felix, you’re a silly fellow!’
So for a while we lay in the shade of the olive tree, laughing weakly and making up childish rhymes in a jumble of languages. For a little while the terrors and weariness of our journey were forgotten; and so was its doubtful outcome; like carefree schoolchildren we amused each other with nonsense. In the midst of which I was moved to say suddenly, ‘Juan, I have been thinking about what Brother Laurent said.’
‘About persuading the demon to leave Plumet’s body?’
Sometimes the quickness of his thought amazed me. It seemed as if our minds raced on a parallel course, then met.
‘Yes! He said that the power would be given to you when it was needed. But perhaps – I was thinking – you already have the power. Perhaps it is by your talent to make poems that the evil spirit will be driven away.’
‘How could that possibly be?’ Juan had gone pale again. He sounded unsure, troubled, afraid.
‘If demons hate bells – is it not likely that they also hate verses?’
‘Perhaps … Oh, let us not think about it any more just now!’
But our lighthearted mood was broken, and we sat together in a sad, close silence, watching the people on the distant highway passing in and out of the town.
Presently the sight of a troop of Maragatos, or letter carriers, filled me with the wish to write a letter to my grandfather. So, leaving Juan under the tree, I returned to the town, purchased pen, ink, and a quantity of paper, then came back to our encampment, laid my paper upon Juan’s book, the book on my knee, and after chewing the quill of my pen for a while, began to write:
To my Honoured and much-loved Grandfather, el Conde don Francisco Acarillo de Santibana y Escurial de la Sierra y Cabezada, at Villaverde. This, from Pamplona.
Senor:
I must beg your forgiveness for this long silence and for not having returned home sooner. On the voyage from Spain my ship was wrecked, and I was knocked on the head, fell sick, and was obliged to pass several months at the Abbey of St Just, in France, before I came to my senses. From there I agreed to escort a young French boy, Juan Esparza, to his uncle in Spain. Now, regrettably, we find that his uncle has moved away, and we are obliged to search for him. Nevertheless, dear Grandfather, I hope to return home within the next month. If Juan’s uncle cannot be found, I greatly wish to bring him to Villaverde. He is –
I paused, nibbling my pen.
What was Juan? How could I describe him to my grandfather? He was my dear friend. He had kept me alive by telling me a poem about the wind. He had saved me from the Mala Gente. He had exasperated me by taking part in the bertsulari contest. He had nearly won it. He had stolen the Abbot’s spyglass. I had saved his life in the seaside thicket….
He was my dear friend.
I wrote: ‘He is of good family, gentle, brave, and a poet. Your loving grandson, Felix.’
Then I wrote to Father Antoine, telling him that we had successfully journeyed into Spain, had not yet found Juan’s uncle but hoped to do so, but that we were much troubled about Father Vespasian, who had appeared drowned when we left the Abbey;
yet we had seen him subsequently – or what we believed to be the Abbot – and that we should be grateful for Father Antoine’s prayers and anything else that he thought might help us. I sent him some money to pay for the cup, book, and spyglass, and made the whole into a little packet. Then I carried my letters back to the Plaza San José, by the cathedral, where the letter carriers wait. They are very faithful messengers, easily recognisable by their leather jackets, close-cut hair with a few long tufts left, wide zouave trousers, and enormous hats; they take letters all over Spain, travelling in groups at a rapid trot. I felt certain that, before very many days, Grandfather would safely receive my message, and the thought of this hugely lightened my heart.
Having paid the carriers their fee, I returned again to Juan, who had remained outside the ramparts, and found him greatly excited.
‘Felix, I think that I have solved the puzzle. I really do believe so!’
‘Maravilloso!’ I said. ‘How in the world did you do it?’
‘Look, these stones: ivory, ruby, agate, topaz -and the leaf from the yeuse. What do their letters spell?’
‘I-R-A-T-Y – Iraty?’
‘Iraty! The Forest of Iraty!’
‘Why, Juan! I do indeed believe that you have hit on it. What a very clever boy you are! But what is Toi?’
‘Oh, well,’ he said, going pink, ‘I suppose that means me – that I – that I should go to the forest, where I think my uncle must be.’
‘But is not the forest a very large area?’
‘Yes, it is, hundreds of leagues. But now I think about it, I do remember some talk of my uncle owning a little farm there.’
‘Do you know at all where?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘But Isabelita mentioned an old coachman, now living in Orbaiceta. He would know, I should think –’
‘That is settled then,’ I said, standing up. ‘To Orbaiceta we go.’
‘Oh, Felix.’ Juan looked troubled again. ‘Do you really –?’
‘Hush! Besides, do you think I would leave you without knowing if that was the solution to the puzzle?’
