Infinite Devotion (Infinite Series, Book 2)

by L. E. Waters

“Maybe you’ll see that fish-face really came from the sea. And she misses her fish mother and father,” Andres says with the girl smiling stupidly, not knowing he’s insulting her.

  Pepe shoots Andres a glare. “Knock it off, Andres. Her name is Nessa.”

  I hate that he’s defending her, and Andres is quiet after being disgusted by the same thing.

  So I pick up her hand, look into her dull, empty eyes and tell her, “You’ll fall in love with a young man, but you have a curse that will kill anyone who would try to love you. After the death of this first young suitor, none will have you in fear they will perish too. Because of this curse, you will end up sad, childless, and alone.”

  Pepe jumps in. “Don’t translate, Captain, he’s making this all up.”

  The captain looks at me. “Why would you want to say that to this young girl?”

  “I swear I see that. I’m not making it up. You asked me to read her hand, and that’s what I saw.” I push her hand away and walk off.

  The captain tells Nora in Latin, and after she informs Nessa, I hear the girl sob. I march back through the tunnel with Andres and Bella trailing behind.

  Andres says as we come out into the castle, “No one will ever want to be with her once they hear that. She’ll end up alone, I bet. Good job, Luis! Maybe even Pepe will be scared.”

  Chapter 15

  Days later, a constant flow of women and men search me out to tell their fortunes. I flee through the tunnel and into the cow pastures to avoid them. Andres always comes with me, but Pepe’s spending all his hours awake with Nessa.

  Lying in a field, avoiding the cow piles, Andres says to me, “Do you think he’s going to stay here and marry Nessa if we find a ship home?”

  It’s the question I have been asking since I saw how he looked at her.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Would you still go if he stayed?”

  “Yes, Spain is our home. Our home is not with these people.” But the truth is I have no home anywhere. Pepe and Andres and even the captain and Alvaro are all my home; the ship that broke to pieces felt like my home; even the rush bed on the floor in the castle feels like my home. The thought of us breaking apart here or in Spain is too much to bear.

  A warning horn blows from the top of the castle, and everyone who’s still outside rushes to the tunnel to see what the danger is. Andres and I reach the cave at the same time as Pepe and Nessa. He puts out his hands to help her down to the entrance, and I can’t believe the change that’s come over him—growing up overnight. We let them go ahead of us, and Andres puckers his lips up like a fish at them as they pass, making me laugh through my sadness.

  As soon as we get through the tunnel, two strong men slam the thick and heavy door shut, then fix two large pieces of wood in the slats to lock it. All of the savages gather in the court, with MacClancy in the center. MacClancy’s an unusually tall man with black wavy hair. He’s powerful-looking, but whenever he smiles, you see the strong dimple on his cheek that makes him less fearsome. He seems stressed and unsure. He speaks almost directly to Captain de Cuellar. After they talk some, he translates to those who don’t know Latin.

  “MacClancy is saying he’s received word that there’re seventeen hundred English soldiers heading this way. They’re on a direct path to the castle and surely have heard there are Spaniards harbored here. MacClancy feels like they should head for safety into the mountains where the English troops don’t dare to venture on horses. He’s asking what we want to do.”

  Alvaro speaks. “What does he have here to fight with?”

  We watch as MacClancy starts speaking and gesturing excitedly, counting on his thick fingers and pointing to all areas around the castle.

  The captain translates. “He says there are six crossbows, ten muskets, and eight arquebuses with plenty of ammo.”

  Alvaro considers this and asks, “Cannons?”

  MacClancy shakes his head so we all understand and then speaks.

  The captain says, “He says this castle is impregnable. The bog surrounds the whole lake, making it hard for artillery or horses to be used. No one can swim the great distance of the lake on every side and when the current strengthens from the sea in the spring no one can maneuver a boat. He says he has about a six-month supply of provisions we can have if we stay and defend it.”

  “Another situation where we can last as long as our supplies last?” Alvaro seems hesitant.

  “What choice do we have? Go with the savages? Barefoot and freezing like we have all done on our miserable journey here? So then move on to find shelter elsewhere? When all of Ireland is either trying to kill us or afraid someone will kill them for helping us?” The captain shakes his head. “No, this is where we’re staying, and our only option is to win.”

  Alvaro says nothing back, but the captain looks over his Spanish comrades. “Who is going to stay here and fight with me?”

  The six unknown Spaniards step next to him, and Alvaro smiles a crooked smile and joins. Andres and I jump forward and turn as we realize Pepe hesitates.

  Was he actually pondering leaving with Nessa instead of fighting with us for our lives?

  Nessa looks at him and sees he might choose to stay. She runs off crying, and Pepe hurries to console her.

  MacClancy speaks, and when he does, his brown-greenish eyes look sternly at the captain. He even takes his shoulders and seems to make the captain slightly uncomfortable.

  The captain turns to us after speaking with him. “MacClancy’s asking us to hold his castle with our lives. He’s telling me that we can’t surrender for anything. Even if we will starve, we must hold the castle to the very end, and we must not let in any Irishman, Spaniard, or anyone else until his return.”

  The captain speaks to MacClancy and then repeats it for us. “I’m sure we can hold this castle. Even eleven Spanish soldiers are worth more than seventeen hundred Englishmen!”

  They cheer, and maidens circle around de Cuellar, enamored with his bravery. Urard comes looming over him in her gangly awkward manner and pushes them all out of her way. A high-pitched wooden flute plays joyous music, and they dance in a lively light manner I’ve never seen before. She practically picks the captain up as he protests, and she spins with him around the room all out of step and time with the music. Alvaro’s especially enthralled with their way of dancing and quickly picks it up and does it better than any savage. Bella barks and runs in circles, excited by the music, and tries to get Andres’s attention. Their music is happy and wonderful and makes one’s heart glad even if it’s heavy. I sit and watch from a stool beside the wall of the castle, where the light of the fire and shadows of gay people dancing keep flickering across the walls and me.

  There she is, Nora, beautiful as an angel wearing wool. She gathers the blanket around her on this cold night and sits next to me.

  “Hello, Spain.” She labors through the unusual sounds she has to make and then smiles.

  She seems to be picking up some Spanish.

  I smile and say, “Hello,” back.

  Upon seeing us talking, the captain shows up after escaping Urard and seeking refuge, pulls over a stool. She speaks to him.

  “She said she came over here to warn you of the faerie folk,” he says, laughing greatly at the end.

  Nora seems confused why he’s laughing so.

  She repeats, “Fear-gortha, fear-gortha.”

  The captain takes a deep breath. “Oh, now she’s telling me she needs to warn you when we travel later about something called the hungry grass. She says you have to make offerings while traveling, offerings to these here fairie folk…” He gives me a crazy look and circles his hand around his ear. “So she says if you don’t, then these nasty buggers will make patches of ‘hungry grass’ that can trap and swallow men whole.”

  She has such a serious and worried face, I get slightly scared it could be true.

  She puts an oatcake in my hand, and the captain says, “She says to carry that in your pocket at all times to
use as a charm of protection against them.”

  Nora rests her hand on my shoulder, gives me a look of warning, and speaks again. As she talks, she uses her slender hands in a mesmerizing way to tell the story. I almost wonder if I hold her hands if she could still tell the story. Suddenly, the captain roars in laughter and breaks my eyes away from her hypnotic movements and enchanting words.

  “These people are insane! She’s now warning you about the ‘little people’ who come up from the ground and play tricks and the ‘banshee’ that foretells your death if you hear her, all in white with glowing, red eyes! Woo-woooh!” he finishes in a high-pitched voice, making his eyes roll in his head.

  Nora stares at him suspiciously and walks back to her people.

  “Where are you going?” He turns to me. “The prettiest ones are always crazy.”

  I leave the captain and decide to retire before Andres or Pepe. Pepe’s nowhere to be found, and Andres is holding Alvaro’s hands, spinning and jumping with the savages in merriment. I fall asleep quickly in the quiet of our room.

  I’m walking up the crude stone steps of all different heights up to the turret. I look out across the dark night with hundreds upon hundreds of clear stars, when a wind blows across the hills and over the lake, causing the shining reflections of the moon to stir. It makes a whistling, eerie sound. The sound turns from a whistle and spins into a loud and mournful lament, and I look toward the sound. I turn around to the sea and see a glowing white woman with red-hot coals for eyes, glowing hotter and hotter as her moan rises to a horrible shriek that flashes out and hits me with great force.

  I wake up with a shiver and see only Andres in the room, sleeping beside me. In the morning, he notices Pepe’s absent also.

  “I wonder if he left us for good,” Andres says.

  We walk out to the open circle and see there aren’t any savages anywhere.

  Alvaro rests against the courtyard wall, picking his teeth with a straw and I ask, “Have they all left so soon?”

  “Yep, they’re pretty quick. They’re off before I got up.” He reaches back with a yawn. “But it’s pretty nice to have this whole castle to ourselves.”

  I realize Pepe must have gone with them after all. He must have woken up early and gone without saying good-bye.

  “Let’s go up to the turret to look at them going up the mountain.” Andres heads up the stairs as I follow. We’re startled to see someone already up there. His back’s turned, but we know who it is.

  “Pepe, you didn’t go with her?” Andres asks.

  Pepe doesn’t turn, only shakes his head. He’s watching them make their way over the mountains with all their flocks, and we decide to leave him alone.

  Andres fumes on the way down. “I’m glad he stayed, but he’s still not himself. I can’t wait for us to leave this place.”

  Chapter 16

  Everything’s quiet for a few days, when suddenly Bella alerts us. We run to the turrets to see men on horseback trotting calmly in a single line down the narrow path through the bog, with English banners and flags waving. Great disarray ensues once they realize they can’t go farther since the pathway ceased purposefully. Trying to turn, the horses are forced to step off the stones and into the bog. They all get stuck and whinny frantically, causing their embarrassed passengers to dismount and pull them out of the stubborn mud, many dropping their esteemed flags in the mud while doing so. We can still see them as they slink back a half mile on land to where more stable pasture fields lay, and they dismount to discuss their unusual situation.

  Later that night, a band of brave men try to pull a cannon out to the shore of the lake, but it’s so wide it keeps falling off the path and gets stuck as the exhausted men have to keep prying it up with crowbars and pieces of wood. These mud-men give up halfway there and abandon the cannon. The next day, trumpets sound by the shore, and all rush to see what’s happening.

  Two men stand on the hill. One shouts through a long voice trumpet that carries remarkably well over the lake up to us. He shouts a long monologue in what sounds like the tongue of the savages.

  No one within the castle understands what he says, so the captain shouts in Spanish through his voice trumpet, “I can’t hear you from there! Come closer!”

  We snicker at his attempt to get them within range. The captain shouts, “Speak in Spanish so we can understand the terms of your surrender!”

  Every Spaniard snickers at his cheeky presumption. The trumpet’s passed to another man beside him, and then he speaks in English-accented Spanish.

  “I am a messenger for our Lord Deputy, William FitzWilliam, ordained by Her Majesty the Queen.” He keeps pausing to take another large breath to yell out sentence by sentence. “We are under orders that all Spaniards who have crashed upon our shores, after assaulting England, are to be detained and tried. The traitorous MacClancy clan is harboring these enemies to the crown within these castle walls, and if they are not surrendered to us, we will attack without mercy or regard for Spaniard, Irishman, woman, or child.”

  The captain yells, “Sounds like how you conduct business wherever you fight!”

  Laughter erupts from the turret and carries across the lake without the aid of the trumpet.

  This man then translates to a regal-looking man sitting straight on his white horse with a full body of armor, a short distance up the path. This must be FitzWilliam. He snaps something back angrily and kicks his horse to turn back, and the horse stumbles a bit on the high rocks on the side of the path, humiliating the rider in his haughty exit.

  The man speaks again across the lake. “You leave us no choice than to vanquish you!”

  “Good luck to you in your vanquishing, Deputy!” the captain yells out, and laughter again carries over the lake, and the man turns to walk back stiffly in his armor with the other man carrying flags.

  The soldiers’ numbers accumulate in the fields; the news of seventeen hundred may have been an understatement. Alvaro busies us by having us bring up stone after stone up to the turrets from the stockpile in the circle. It’s backbreaking work, but they say that this can be as important as having a cannon if the English make their way to the castle by boat. We feel important, then, dragging each one up, and if they are especially heavy, we take them together. I’m holding a heavy one with Pepe, and we can hardly talk with the strain, but I try. “Are you feeling better?”

  “I realized if we keep the castle that Nessa would come back, so it’s made me stronger.”

  I can’t believe it; he’s still thinking of her, even when we faced death together. As soon as I get Andres alone, I tell him what he said.

  Andres only looks sad. “He’s changed. He’s not the Pepe we knew.”

  Trumpets ring out with Bella barking at the unusual sound, and we return to the turrets again to see archers lined up with flaming crossbows. The order is called, and they all let loose. We duck at the whipping sound that carries across when they release, but are relieved as most fall in the lake as others hit weakly against the lower, rough castle walls. We all cheer at the failed assault, giving us confidence in MacClancy’s claims.

  Hours later, another attempt is made. Three longboats are brought forward, carried over the heads of the soldiers. They put them in the lake and half take out their oars while the other half holds muskets pointed at the castle. A knot rises in my throat as they start right for the castle, but midway a strong current hits them that spins the boat and makes it impossible to stay still, let alone move toward the castle. All three boats end up on the far shore. We all cheer again, invincible now.

  We celebrate that night with double rations of oaten bread and butter. The captain says a prayer, and we listen and dance to Alvaro’s new Irish music he’s picked up. We awake to more trumpeting and hear in Spanish, “Traitors to the crown, we give you one more chance to surrender.”

  The captain and company laugh heartily at this. “Only if you promise to treat us under the same ‘fair’ terms of surrender and promise of ‘safe�
� passage as those Spaniards you promised before! No! We know you, and you’re a traitor to man and God! We would rather die with bullets or starve slowly before we die in your whore of a queen’s noose!”

  The men standing behind the trumpeters get so angry at the captain’s words that they let loose their muskets without command. Some musket balls make it across the lake but again hit the wall without damage. The Spaniards laugh again as Pepe fills with courage and pulls his pants down, mooning the shore, causing even more laughter to erupt. The man speaking to us motions angrily back up the hill, and we all gasp as we see two half-naked men with arms and legs tied being dragged by four men down the path.

  One Englishman shouts, “If you surrender now, we will pardon these fellow fish-eaters.”

  The captain says nothing but looks on with great concern.

  “No response?” The Englishman pulls one man forward and holds him up in front of him and rips off the gag.

  The prisoner screams out in a raspy, tortured Spanish voice, “Go Santiago!”

  Furious at his defiance when he hoped for a plea, the man holding him cuts with his saber clear across his throat. We see the blood spray from our great distance as the Spanish man slumps to the rocks, and the Englishman gives him a kick into the bog. The captain almost leaps off the tower toward him. “Go Santiago” is our war cry. My eyes fill with tears at the bravery of that man. They choose not to take off the other prisoner’s gag and casually slice his throat from behind also. He joins his countryman in the bog.

  The Englishman shouts, “We will save all of our executions from now on for your enjoyment until you agree to our terms of surrender!” and they walk off and over the hill.

  The captain gathers all of the religious relics, Spanish and savage alike, and passes them around to each of us. He lifts the largest wooden cross and holds it above his head. “We offer up prayer to you for those Spanish sacrificed upon this shore. We pray for their souls to go directly to heaven and hope you assist us in our plight so that their sacrifices are not in vain.”