And so it was that a startling sight swept out of the small house on the Plaza de Armas a few minutes later: Carolina like a vision of white and gold and red flame - above her head a black ruffled silk parasol that had once belonged to the governor’s wife - and carrying that umbrella, sombrely gowned with her eyes bright but her face impassive - old Juana, moving stolidly half a step behind her young mistress.
‘Where will we go?’ asked Juana, who would have been glad to parade through the whole town and observe the shocked expression in people’s eyes as they passed.
Carolina looked ruefully down at her shoes. They had endured an earthquake, a flood, the salt air of the Ordeal's deck, and being marched through Havana’s dusty streets - the combination had nearly disintegrated them. ‘I think we will visit the market, Juana. Perhaps I can find a pair of sandals there.’
‘What will you use for money?’ wondered Juana, doubting this lustrous wench had any.
‘I will simply tell them Don Diego will pay,’ said Carolina with a careless toss of her head.
Juana nodded thoughtfully to herself. Doubtless that would serve!
Their progress down the handsome expanse of the Plaza de Armas was - to Juana, who hoped for drama - somewhat disappointing. One or two gentlemen in wide-brimmed hats, clattering by on horseback, spurs a jingle, turned to stare. A barefoot Franciscan friar in his simple habit of coarse grey sackcloth, with a white cord knotted around the waist, hurried by - averting his eyes, Juana noticed with glee. But as they approached the market the streets grew more crowded. A handsome carriage approached and Juana shook the black parasol slightly over Carolina’s head, letting the black silk ruffles shimmer in the sun. She was rewarded by the sight of two elegant ladies, severely gowned in black, who registered shock at the sight of Carolina. Old Juana hid a grin - she had not been so entertained since the governor’s cook had pursued Miguel down the street with a knife, screaming that he had taken a mistress!
A group of soldiers from the fort, seeing them, stopped to stare - and were frowned at by a Dominican friar in black mantle, white tunic and white apronlike scapulary, whose way they had blocked.
Carolina swept through them, head high.
‘Move along here, you’re blocking the path,’ said a familiar voice in Spanish.
The soldiers moved on with alacrity and Carolina came to an abrupt halt, for in this strange city she had at last stumbled upon someone she knew:
That erstwhile Frenchman she had invited to sup in Port Royal stood before her - indeed it was his commanding voice that had scattered the knot of staring soldiers. But what a difference in his appearance!
Gone was the foppish look that had made him at first sight seem French. Here was a Spaniard born and bred. He was dressed in sombre black and he seemed arrow thin. His tawny eyes had a dangerous look, and the wintry gaze he had turned on the soldiery held no slightest vestige of the ready smile she remembered.
This was Don Ramon del Mundo - and he lost a step at sight of her. But he recovered promptly and swaggered forward with a jaunty grin to sweep Carolina the lowest of bows.
‘Good morning, beautiful lady,’ he said in English. ‘Have you come to take the city?’
‘Only the market,’ laughed Carolina. ‘So you are Spanish! I was sure of it back in Port Royal.’
‘Your discernment matches your charm,’ he said easily.‘ Allow me to introduce myself. I am Don Ramon del Mundo.’
‘Not Monsieur Raymond du Monde - whose name means, I believe, man of the world?’ she teased, reminding him of the last time they met.
‘Not French and not du Monde - although the name means much the same thing in Spanish.’ He fell into step beside her. ‘Let me escort you to our market, which is most unusual.’
‘I know,’ she said drily. ‘I narrowly escaped being sold there myself just yesterday!’
He gave her a puzzled look. ‘Perhaps my English is not so good after all. I do not understand you.’
‘I was on my way to England when our vessel was waylaid by a Spanish warship. We were escorted willy-nilly to New Providence where a French-Spanish attack swept the beaches clean of pirates. With the men all dead, the “ladies” of the place were bundled aboard our ship and we were all brought here to Havana to be sold as slaves. And it was done - in the marketplace. Yesterday.’
‘What?’ he cried, aghast.
‘You don’t keep up with what’s happening in Havana?’ she asked, slanting a narrow look up at him. ‘Surely no one could miss yesterday’s fiesta?’
‘I was up in the hills,’ he said moodily. ‘Hunting. All I caught was a touch of fever. It dogs me in this climate.’ He frowned at her. ‘You say you narrowly escaped being sold?’
‘My sister and I were withdrawn from the sale. She now resides at the governor’s palace. I was sent next door to be - housekeeper’ - she stumbled over the word - ‘to Don Diego Vivar.’
‘Vivar!’ Anger flitted briefly over Don Ramon del Mundo’s dark countenance and was gone. ‘I might have known! First he is put in command of my plan to take Jamaica - now he is given my woman!’
Carolina stood straighter. Her silver eyes blazed at him in the tropical heat. ‘I am not your woman!’ she cried indignantly.
His sombre gaze passed over her. ‘You would have been,’ he muttered, ‘had I been permitted to carry out my plan.’
‘So you were my guest under false pretences?’ she said resentfully. ‘You were actually there to spy out the island for an invasion!’
‘I offered my sword to a lady in distress,’ he said imperturbably. ‘And was invited to sup - nothing more. Surely you could not fault me for that!’
‘You would be wasting your time to invade Port Royal now,’ she told him bitterly. ‘There is nothing left! The earthquake, the wave swept all before it. The entire town has sunk into the sea.’
He shook his head, marvelling. Then he looked down with compassion upon her fair head. ‘That will mean you have lost your house,’ he murmured. ‘I am very sorry to hear it.’
Her house at that moment seemed the least that she had lost, but Carolina chose not to enlighten him.
‘What is your quarrel with Don Diego?’ she asked, seeking to change the subject.
‘Don Diego seems singularly favoured by God,’ he muttered. ‘First, as a king’s favourite, he is sent out from Spain to command my venture, then the governor takes him up - and now the governor has given him you. By the saints, next he will replace me as commander of El Morro!’
She stopped in astonishment on the dusty street and her head swung upward to look at him. "You are in command of El Morro?’
‘Yes. Is it so difficult to imagine?’ He gave a short laugh.
‘No, not at all,’ she said hastily. ‘It was just that when we sailed in under the guns of El Morro, it seemed such a forbidding place . . .’
‘And you would imagine me in some more lightsome role? Perhaps a dancing master?’
The sarcasm in his tone made her flush. ‘I did not mean that,' she hurried to say. ‘It is just that to command that fortress on the rock must be very grim.’
He shrugged.
She tried a different tack. ‘What of the men on the Ordeal? What has happened to them?’
‘They are, all of them, deep in El Morro,’ he told her moodily.
‘Where you command . . .’ she murmured.
‘Where I command,’ he echoed with a touch of hauteur. He peered down at her suddenly, and his dark brows met in a frown. ‘Why? Did any of them hurt you? If so, I will punish the culprit!’
Carolina shivered - surely, to be lost in the depths of El Morro was punishment enough even for Captain Simmons, who would have sold her to gain his freedom! ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘Of course not. I just wondered what will happen to them.’
The man who strode beside her shrugged again. ‘The governor will send word to Spain that they have been taken and he will ask what should be done with them. I am afraid it will take some time.’
&nbs
p; They had reached the market now. It was piled with produce. Indian women from palm-thatched bohios sat with expressionless faces behind mountainous stalks of yellow bananas. Blacks and mestizos hawked their wares. They strolled between great piles of oranges and limes and coconuts, stacks of woven baskets, rows of pottery. Bargaining was going on all around them. Old Juana regretted bitterly that Don Ramon and her mistress spoke only English.
‘Is there anything you desire to buy?’ he asked her courteously.
‘I had thought to buy a pair of sandals,’ admitted Carolina. ‘My shoes are not much longer for this world!’
Don Ramon cast an appreciative glance down at her dainty feet.
‘I will take you to a bootmaker,’ he decided.
‘Oh, but I couldn’t let you,’ protested Carolina. ‘You see,’ she confided, a trifle embarrassed, ‘I left the house without money but I had thought it would be easy enough to explain to a sandal-maker at the market that Don Diego Vivar would come by to pay for an inexpensive pair.’
But protests were in vain. Old Juana’s eyes were bright as Don Ramon masterfully led his protesting lady to a bootmaker’s shop where he personally selected for Carolina a pair of very soft black kidskin shoes with high red heels.
When Carolina suggested that Don Diego would pay for the shoes, Don Ramon waved his hand airily and insisted that he would pay for them. He would be back, he told the bootmaker, to do so presently. Meantime he must escort this lady home in her new shoes. The bootmaker, intimidated by Don Ramon’s reputation, gave them both a worried look and hastily agreed.
Carolina wondered if Don Ramon really had any money. She thought with compassion that she must get her shoes paid for elsewhere - she would ask Don Diego the next time she saw him.
That was to be sooner than she had imagined for as they were coming out of the bootmaker’s shop the governor’s carriage clip-clopped by. And sitting in that carriage, being driven about the town, was Don Diego himself - and beside him the governor’s daughter, clad all in white with a white mantilla of heavy lace shading her excited face.
If Don Diego felt startled at sight of Carolina, he kept that emotion to himself. His narrowed gaze roved over them both and settled expressionlessly on Carolina as he acknowledged their existence with the slightest of bows.
Beside him the governor’s plump daughter leaned out to stare hotly at Carolina - and then turn her accusing gaze on Don Ramon del Mundo, who made her a deep bow. She lifted her chin and turned her head, refusing to acknowledge his greeting.
Irrepressible, Carolina waved gaily at Don Diego and turned about, fair hair flying, to take Don Ramon’s gracefully proffered arm. She hoped Don Diego had noticed her high red heels that he would soon be paying for!
‘Would you care to see El Morro?’ Don Ramon was asking by her side.
‘Not today.’ She flashed him a smile. ‘But perhaps one day soon? I wonder, could I see the prisoners?’
‘It is most irregular,’ he murmured, smiling down upon her fair hair. ‘However in your case’ - the smile on his dark face deepened - ‘I think it might be arranged.’
‘By order of the commandant?’ she suggested saucily.
‘Something like that . . .’ The crowd swirled round them - two broad-hatted Jesuits in sackcloth, a cimaroon drunk on the local black wine, some leather-clad hunters - but Don Ramon remained immobile, staring down at her.
‘Would you care to see our waterfront, señorita? Or perhaps I could call you by your first name.’
‘Yes, do,’ Carolina said contentedly. ‘It is Carolina.’
‘Doña Carolina? A lovely name.’
‘And I have seen your waterfront.’
‘But you have not viewed our customs house or La Fuerza, down by the sea wall, from close up.’
She shook her head. ‘Another day perhaps.’
‘Then perhaps you will share with me a glass of wine?’ And when she hesitated, ‘Oh, have no fear, Doña Carolina, I am not speaking of some filthy cantina on the Xanja Canal - there is a respectable tavern close by that serves an excellent Malaga.’
She dimpled at him. ‘Spanish ladies do not frequent taverns, Don Ramon!’
‘Ah, but you are not Spanish,’ he said caressingly. ‘And the day is hot. Would you not care to relax beneath cool archways with a tall drink before you attempt the hot walk home in your new high heels?’
Thus reminded of his kindness, she began to laugh. ‘I would indeed, Don Ramon,’ she said, inspired by the thought that if she strolled home late, Don Diego would be there to see her escorted home by the commander of El Morro!
Just why was it so important to her to arouse jealousy in Don Diego’s broad breast? she now asked herself. Was it because of his striking resemblance to Kells? Was that what she was doing, assuaging the grief of Kells’s loss by imagining Don Diego actually to be Kells?
She put the thought away from her and hurried along beside Don Ramon, who cut a handsome figure as he escorted her into the dim interior of a nearby tavern where he ordered Malaga for both of them - and wine for old Juana, too, who sat impassively nearby, as if she were in truth a duena for a beautiful señorita.
'Perhaps now you will tell me no tall tales about being a Frenchman fresh from New Providence,’ Carolina suggested with a wicked look at Don Ramon as she sipped her wine. ‘But tell me the truth about Don Ramon del Mundo!’
Thus encouraged by a beautiful woman, Don Ramon leaned back expansively and his voice rang softly through the coolness of the almost empty tavern. He told her about his homeland - and through his eyes she could see it shining golden in the sun. He told her about his family estancias, the beautiful but dilapidated hacienda, the tawny pastures with clumps of evergreen oaks surrounded by rooting black pigs. He described rushing streams tumbling by weird rock formations, terraced gardens, and sweeping groves of olive trees with thick gnarled trunks and lovely feathery branches stretching on, it would seem, forever, towards the blue backdrop of the Guadalupe mountains. She saw it as he saw it: a land of sun-bronzed peasants and peaceful herds of cattle and goats, moving through the grassy summer pastures to the sound of tinkling bells.
‘A paradise,’ she murmured and his eyes kindled.
‘I have found it so,’ he said.
'And yet you are here?’
Don Ramon winced. Was he to tell this beautiful cleareyed girl who sat across from him that he had come to Havana to make the world ring with his valorous deeds - so that he could find himself a rich wife?
Instead he launched into the sad tale of Doña Ana of Austria, daughter of that Don John of Austria who had led the Christians to victory against the Turks in the Battle of Lepanto. Doña Ana had the misfortune to fall in love with the son of Prince Juan of Portugal. Which would have been all right save that Prince Juan of Portugal had two handsome and reckless sons who looked so alike that no one could tell them apart. One son was named Sebastian - and he was by Prince Juan’s rightful wife. The other son was named Gabriel Espinosa - and he was by a pastry cook’s beautiful daughter. Sebastian, he told her, succeeded to the throne of Portugal.
‘And did he marry Doña Ana, then?’ wondered Carolina, fascinated by this look-alike tale. ‘Or was it the pastry cook’s grandson she loved?’
‘Who knows who she loved?’ shrugged Don Ramon. ‘But it is certain that neither of them married Doña Ana. Against all advice, taking Espinosa with him, Sebastian went off to campaign in Africa - and only one of these two look-alikes returned from that catastrophe. At first everyone believed Sebastian the new king had been killed, but after a time, the one who had returned claimed he was indeed Sebastian and alive after all - he claimed he was so bowed down by his defeat in Africa that he had been ashamed to admit his true identity.’
‘How confusing!’ murmured Carolina, a little curious as to why Don Ramon had told her this story. ‘Did they ever sort it all out?’
The tall Spaniard gave her a grim smile. ‘Oh, they sorted it out, all right. Philip II was Doña Ana’s un
cle and he had the man who now claimed to be Sebastian arrested. He was brought to trial and condemned - whereupon Doña Ana threw herself before her uncle, the king, and wept, appealing for mercy for the condemned man. Her appeal was refused and the condemned man - whether king or commoner - was garrotted.’
‘And Doña Ana?’
He grimaced. ‘Her uncle the king was furious with her, feeling she had disgraced him by fancying a pastry cook’s grandson. He locked her in a convent, she was allowed to speak to no one, her privileges of rank were stripped away, and on Fridays she was reduced to bread and water.’
Carolina shuddered at Doña Ana’s fate, but her mind was on the look-alikes. ‘Was the truth about Sebastian and his brother ever known?’
'Never. It is one of the great mysteries of my country. Was it a commoner who died or was it a king?’
‘And which one did Doña Ana love?’ murmured Carolina, as if to herself. Or, she asked herself, startled, did Doña Ana love them both? Was the resemblance so striking - both in appearance and character - that she was unable to separate them in her mind? The thought brought a sudden staining to her cheeks. ‘It is hard to imagine that they were so - alike,’ she said haltingly.
‘And yet they were. All who knew them said so. Identical sons of different mothers.’
‘Perhaps they were really twins - but one of them was spirited away because of trouble over succession to the throne,’she suggested.
‘Perhaps.’ Don Ramon gave her a sunny smile. ‘Perhaps Doña Ana was the only one who knew the truth. Perhaps she loved a king - or perhaps a pastry cook’s grandson.'
‘A pastry cook’s grandson who was nevertheless of royal blood - perhaps Doña Ana sympathized with him, a man never able to claim his birthright.’ She thought of Kells, never able to claim his own birthright, and a trace of bitterness tinged her voice. ‘Don Ramon’ - she shook off those shadows of the past - ‘it is pleasant to while away the day with you, but I must get me home.’
‘Of course, Doña Carolina.’ He rose and gravely offered her his arm.
He is careful not to call me ‘Señora’, thought Carolina. It is because he chooses not to recognize my marriage to Kells! In Port Royal that might have irritated her - here, oddly enough, it did not.
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