by Dave Duncan
"I suppose so."
"Nor would you expect him to discuss it. So you understand! And surely I need not mention that a nobleman of impeccable ancestry, who can trace his line back to the later Caesars, will naturally be touchy on such matters. It would be extremely dangerous to emphasize any trifling discrepancies between what you may falsely perceive to be Don Ramon's current circumstances and the conditions to which he is entitled by his birthright."
Hamish walked on in silence, staring fixedly ahead, looking as if he had just met a dragon selling souvenirs.
"You are bound for Montserrat, though?" Toby asked.
The old man beamed up at him. "To Barcelona, which is very close. And if certain persons in our company are so deluded as to believe that they hired a strong young man with a sword to defend them on their journey, that may not be how everyone views the same arrangement." Paid guard ... mercenary soldier ... wages? "A nobleman could never stoop to a crass commercial arrangement of that sort!"
"Of course not. I see you are a man of discernment, Senior Tobias."
"The weapons and livery you are to issue to us?"
"They look very splendid on you, senor." This was madness. Why, therefore, should Baron Oreste want Don Ramon's muddled aristocratic head chopped off? Unfortunately, that might become clear in due course.
4
The valley was wider now, affording some glimpses of rocky, scrubby hills, and seeming a little less barren than before, but the war had reached it. A casa on the far side had been burned, as had its surrounding crops and vineyard. While Don Ramon had been interviewing his new retainers, his charges had spread out in a dangerously extended line. Even in this bare landscape, Toby could see innumerable stone walls, patches of shrubbery, and rocky knolls that could provide cover for any evil-intentioned persons who wanted to lie in ambush. Whether or not the deluded don recognized the problem, he was heading for the front of the group as fast as he could move his antediluvian knacker.
Francisco was moving no faster, hobbling along beside his pony and stabbing nosy little questions in his squeaky voice.
Hamish gave an abbreviated account of his wanderings with Toby. Gracia recovered her tongue and began asking about the real live don who had invited her to dinner—Toby would be much in favor of this new interest if it would stop her making calf eyes at him. But Francisco was a quick-witted old rascal and proved more expert at prying than she, displaying a dry cynicism in total contrast to his master's grandiose posturing. He soon learned the lady's true status and what she had been in her former home, but even his skill failed to elicit an explanation of the bottle hung around her neck.
After a while the old man apologized for the state of his feet and mounted his pony so they could all go faster. "May I inquire, Senor Jaume, how you knew my master's name? While he will understand that his fame should have reached as far afield as you said, I myself—being cursed with a deplorably skeptical disposition—have some trouble with the notion."
"Oh, he was pointed out to us in Toledo."
"When?"
"Um ... about a month ago."
"I am quite positive that he was not there then."
Hamish frowned in exasperation, for his guess had been a reasonable one. "Then it was a man who looked very like him, wouldn't you say, Toby?"
"Astonishingly so, and he looks even more like the man. But who are all these pilgrims? I trust those friars are not servants of the Inquisition, for I confess, being a stranger, I consider the Inquisition an institution of doubtful merit."
This heretical sentiment made the squire roll his eyes in alarm. "Do remember the wise old saying, Senor Tobias: When in Rome, keep your mouth shut. And you must not confuse the Black Friars, who are Dominicans, with the Black Monks, who are Benedictines. We have preachers of many suborders of Galileans in Spain—possibly even too many for our own good," he conceded. "The Mosaic and Arabic philosophies have been suppressed of late, as you probably know. We do have a friar, Brother Bernat, but he is a Franciscan, and the other learned scholar is Father Guillem, a Benedictine monk. I shall introduce all these fine people to you as we go by. Now these first, or perhaps it would more accurate to call them these last, are natives of Catalonia who fled before the invaders and now seek to return."
The four to which he referred were trailing some distance behind the main body of the pilgrims, having trouble moving a well-laden mule. The two men were dragging it along on a rope, and the two women driving it, whacking its rump vigorously with sticks. All of them wore the dark, monotonous dress of peasants and looked bent, weathered, and hopeless, prematurely aged by toil. Francisco introduced Senora de Gomez and her two fine guards, who would henceforth put their strong arms at the disposal of the company. The men regarded the strangers with glowering suspicion.
"Miguel and Rafael," Francisco explained, without distinguishing which was which or mentioning their wives' names.
Toby and Hamish expressed their honor and happiness at the meeting. The women paid no attention at all, one keeping her eyes on the ground, and the other redoubling her efforts to wallop the mule into faster motion. The men grunted and scowled. Then the taller spat. "Foreigners!"
Toby spat also. "Idiot peasants! Your mule will go faster if you take some of its load on your own backs."
Whether they understood the words or not, the men reacted with incomprehensible patois and very comprehensible gestures. The newcomers walked on.
"You will have to excuse them," the squire said. "Their homes have been destroyed, and they lost dear ones. The mule, whose name I am pleased to recount is Thunderbolt, carries all that they possess in the world—most of which they will have eaten before we reach our destination."
"They can have no cause to like or trust foreigners," Toby agreed. Their pleasure would be even less if they knew that he was the reason King Nevil had invaded Aragon at all. Miguel and Rafael each carried a stout staff. He wondered if they could use them, because he was already making mental notes about defense. If he was to assist the don in his task of guarding the pilgrims—as unpaid assistant, obviously—then he would see it was done properly. Taking orders of any sort was never his strong point, and he had endured floggings rather than obey foolish ones. To keep the party together, the slowest members should be put at the front.
Any marauder who tried to drive off Thunderbolt would not have a profitable outing, but the next two pilgrims were of a different sort, a large and well-gowned lady on a gray palfrey, and a more-simply dressed girl on a piebald pony, both of them riding on cumbersome sidesaddles. A roan packhorse trailed behind them on a tether. Here was wealth worth guarding, because people could be murdered in Aragon at the moment for a horse.
"Senora Collel," Francisco declaimed in a Catalan so mixed with Castilian that even Toby could follow it, "may I have the inestimable honor of presenting the charming Senora de Gomez, who travels like ourselves to Barcelona? And her stalwart companions, who will aid the don in guarding us?"
The two women exchanged polite words and penetrating inspections, Senora Collel being obviously intrigued by the bottle. She was a large lady of middle years, with a buxom figure and a coarse, mannish face bearing a visible mustache. Her imperious manner, while it would not match Don Ramon's, left no doubt that she was a person of considerable importance in her own eyes, and she was dressed accordingly, in a red and green gown with lavishly embroidered hooped skirt, puffed sleeves like strings of sausages, and an ornate neckline displaying an elaborate chemise beneath. The roundlet on her head and the long casing enclosing her braid were embellished with pearls and gold thread. Her wisdom in wearing such finery under the present circumstances could be doubted.
Her younger companion was not introduced, but the predatory way she looked Toby up and down gave him gooseflesh. He felt his bare-shaved face color under her calculating smile and averted his gaze quickly. She would doubtless be pleased to have won such a quick response.
Senora Collel's features stiffened when the new guards wer
e named. "Foreigners?"
"But nothing to do with the rebels, senora," Francisco said hastily. "Wandering scholars who have had the misfortune to become caught up in this terrible war like ourselves."
"Scholars?" She ran a frown over Toby from his helmet and oversized pack to his already-battered buskins, and then back again, all the way. "And what do you study, Senor, er, Long ... senor?"
"Civilization, senora," he said blandly. "I believe my own poor land of Scotland has much to learn from the more cultured ways of Aragon, and from Catalonia in particular."
"Indeed? Perhaps you are not quite so barbaric as you appear, then. I trust you have brought your own rations, because we have none to spare."
"You expect me to bleed for you without pay, senora?"
She glared. "The don has guaranteed our security. How he provides it is his concern. Senora de Gomez, will you not ride with me for a while? Dismount, Eulalia. A walk will do you good. You will, however, stay close to us." She reined in her horse and the others halted also.
Gracia viewed the saddles with alarm. "Oh, that is most kind of you, but I have no experience on the silla, only the angarillas."
"Then it is time you learned. If this halfwit girl can manage it, I am sure you can. Eulalia, you heard me."
The maid seemed unconcerned at losing her place, but she was waiting for Toby, holding out her hands so he could help her down. When her hopeful smile failed to produce the desired result and Hamish moved forward in his place, she refused his aid and slid easily to the ground on her own, contriving to reveal most of two very shapely legs in the process. Toby promptly lifted Gracia to the seat, which was a sort of chair mounted on a packsaddle. She blushed crimson, while all the others pretended not to notice.
Rafael and Miguel and the rest had almost caught up by then, so the horses were chevied into motion, and the three men set off once more toward the front of the procession, leaving the two senoras chattering like parrots.
"Senora Collel is going home to more than Miguel and Rafael are?" Toby inquired.
"I would presume so, senor." Francisco's manner was guarded, so he might have the same suspicions about the packhorse that Toby did. It seemed to be making heavy work of carrying a very compact, unassuming load.
"A formidable lady!" remarked Hamish, although he had spent the whole time ogling Eulalia.
"Indeed," Francisco agreed. "And a very well informed one. Senora Collel is the person to ask if you want to know anything at all about anyone in our party, Senor Jaume. That will shortly include your own life story, I am sure. Or else that will be the price required for the answers you seek."
"Is gossip a weakness of the fair sex, do you think?" asked Toby.
The squire quirked a puckish smile. "And of the old, senor. Now we come to our learned clerics. Father Guillem is from Montserrat, and is not merely a learned monk but also a holy acolyte of the sanctuary. I am not sure where Brother Bernat came from originally."
"And whose is the child?" Toby asked, for a skinny girl of about seven was bouncing along between the preachers, holding a hand of each and periodically lifting her legs so they had to swing her. As each man was laden with a bulky pack, this was probably not easy for them. "Are not friars and monks expected to be celibate in Spain?"
"Most are celibate, senor. A certain number are even chaste. The girl's name is Pepita. She is Brother Bernat's ward. I suspect her parents died in the war, but ... but Senora Collel may be better informed on the matter than I am."
Hearing the three men and one pony advancing on them, the two robed men halted and turned. Little Pepita frowned with a child's frank distrust, moving closer to the taller and older of the two, who wore the gray and must therefore be Brother Bernat, the Franciscan.
The other spoke first, in a voice with the rumble of thunder. "Good spirits bless you, my sons!" Father Guillem was a monolith of a man in his forties, solid and square-cut—square his jaw, square his shoulders, and his sandaled feet seemed set too far apart. Even his tonsure appeared somehow angled instead of round. In a large and hairy fist he clutched a staff almost as massive as Toby's own, much heavier than was needed for walking, so he could be added to the list of the company's defenders. He frowned as he listened to Francisco's introductions. "And whose men are you?"
The questioned burned, as it always did, and Toby bristled. "We appear to have become Don Ramon's, Father. For the time being."
The cleric disapproved. "Laws in all lands require a freeman to have a lord. No land, no lord, no guild?"
"Only honesty and a strong right arm."
"The strong arm I can see. I trust you will demonstrate the honesty."
"I also try to be civil, unless I am given cause not to be."
"A civil reply in the circumstances," said Brother Bernat mildly.
Grateful for that remark, Toby turned to him. He was tall and spare, a willow. His face was lined and aged, even his eyebrows silvered, and only a trace of swansdown surrounded his tonsure. He seemed absurdly ancient to be walking the length of Aragon with a pack on his back, but his wizened lips were smiling.
"Thank you, Brother." Toby bowed. He normally disapproved of friars, men who ought to find themselves honest labor instead of wandering around the country telling other people how to behave. Even monks were a cut above friars, if they performed useful functions like caring for the sick or providing hospitality to travelers. However, this old man was the first of the pilgrims he thought he might be able to like.
Then he noticed that Brother Bernat's eyes were surprisingly clear and dark for so old a face, and they were appraising him with more than normal curiosity. "So you are truly your own man, are you?"
He almost seemed to be hinting at something, and Toby felt a shiver of unease. All these pilgrims were infested with curiosity.
"I answer to no one!" he snapped. The friar frowned.
"He's very big!" Pepita said accusingly. She was pretty, elfin, and probably undernourished. She was also a welcome distraction from the friar's disconcerting inspection.
Toby went down on one knee. "I can't help it. You're very small, but you will grow bigger. I don't know how to grow smaller."
She giggled. "I want to ride on your shoulders!"
"Child," Brother Bernat said reprovingly, "remember your manners!"
"I don't see why she shouldn't," Toby said, glad of a chance to demonstrate some civility for a change. He cupped his hands for her. "Mount!"
Instantly she scrambled up to sit on his pack and clasp her skinny legs around his neck. He stood up, making her squeal in delight. Her grip on his helmet tilted it to an uncomfortable angle, but her weight was trivial.
"You should not encourage her, my son," Brother Bernat said, but he was smiling again, sunshine on an ancient mountain.
"She's no burden. Pepita, you are our lookout. Watch for bandits and shout if you see any. I'll send her back in a day or two, Brother."
"You also travel to Montserrat, Tobias of the strong arm?" Father Guillem rumbled. "For what purpose?"
More nosiness! "We agreed to escort a lady there, Father. While I'm there, I shall ask the tutelary to foretell my future."
A frown seemed to be the monk's natural expression. "Spirits are not oracles. Seek out some fairground huckster if you want your fortune told—but waste only money you do not need."
"I have never known such money, Father. Is the tutelary unable to see the future or merely unwilling to reveal it?"
Father Guillem's manner chilled even more. "You raise heavy matters for a social chat, Tobias. A private discussion when we are camped would be a more appropriate setting."
"Why do you ask, Tobias?" Brother Bernat inquired softly. "Does your future seem especially clouded?"
The dark eyes were rummaging through Toby's soul again. He decided he was outmatched—which Hamish would certainly have told him must be the case, had he asked before he started this absurd fencing. He had not intended to cross wits with the two clerics, but how did one down swo
rds in such a contest?
"Every man's future is clouded, surely?"
"No."
"No?"
Brother Bernat smiled with the benevolent tolerance of the very old for the very young. "Come and talk with us this evening. You are an interesting young man, Tobias."
Definitely nettled now, Toby barked, "In what way?"
"Your eyes do not match your eyebrows. No, I do not mock. Your strength lies uneasy upon you. You have the bones of a fighter and the soul of someone else."
Was that only a lucky guess, or was the monk detecting the hob in him? Demons could do that, but he did not think any unaided mortal could. It was Father Guillem who was the acolyte, an acolyte being a sort of adept. But anyone could be a hexer, even a friar.
"I don't think I know how to answer that remark, Brother. I'll take your little girl for a walk."
Toby strode off, cursing himself for a dimwitted boor. He seemed to be putting up every back he met. His ill temper was soon dispelled, for Pepita twisted his helmet, drummed her heels on his chest, and shouted, "Faster, faster!"
"Faster? Who do you think I am, Thunderbolt?"
"You're bigger than Thunderbolt."
And more stupid. He hadn't made many friends so far. There were only two more pilgrims to meet, and they had halted about thirty paces ahead. The don must have told them to wait there, because he was some distance out in front, heading for a rocky knoll.
Toby stopped to let Hamish and Francisco catch up. "You realize that you have to carry me on the way back, don't you?"
That made her laugh. "Which of you? The one inside or the one outside?"
He caught his breath. "Pepita, what do you mean?" She was only fantasizing, surely.
"Nothing," said the piping voice overhead. "Just, when I was looking at you, I could sort of see two of you. I can't from up here. That's very curious, isn't it? I'll ask Brother Bernat. He'll know what it means."
As long as she didn't ask the Inquisition! He wished he could look at her and judge how serious she was, but all he could see of her was little brown feet in shabby sandals. "Do you often see two of people?"
