"Santa María Purissima! Where did you drop from, señor?" Leonora de Zuniga laughed, smiling up into devilish blue eyes shining from under the burnished steel of a plumed helmet.
For a moment Francho just drank in the delicate gold and white beauty of his lady, who was wrapped against the chill coming off the mountain in a cloak of pale brown fur, a few tendrils of honey-colored hair whipped back charmingly against her hood. He felt besotted with the very sight of Leonora's winsome face. The sound of her sweet voice enchanted him. Already he felt himself free from the depressing grip of a loneliness no blowsy campfollower could lessen.
"My lady," he began, wondering if the words would come out clearly from his paralyzed throat. "My dearest Doña Leonora, I have lurked behind every bush and rock in this valley for days on end, just awaiting the scent of your perfume to tell me you were near."
Her dimples flashed into being and turned him lightheaded with joy.
"Ah, knave, a very pretty story, but do you expect me to believe you would suffer the cold of night and the hard ground on my account? 'Tis very flittering."
"There is nothing, nothing I would not gladly suffer on your account, doña, and so do you know it. I have missed you, Leonora."
She blushed prettily and cast down her dancing amber eyes. "I understand you are to be addressed as Don Francisco now, and I am happy to congratulate you, cousin. I am truly sorry we were not in time for the knighting ceremony."
"Sí, and so am I, for it was splendid," Francho recalled, unable to hide his pride. "The King wore his grand robes of royal purple and ermine over his ceremonial armor, and our entire complement of grandees and hidalgos and prelates attended, even the old Archbishop of Seville in his teetering jeweled miter, and so every merchant, equerry, attendant, and common soldier in camp who could crane a neck to see past the gathered nobility. My friend Hernando del Pulgar was knighted by His Majesty as well, and assigned to bear on his arms a lance with a red kerchief. And as for Antonio de la Cueva, for he is already a Marquis and standing to inherit his father's dukedom, he was heavily praised for his leadership and presented with a most richly caparisoned, magnificent charger."
"Oh, could I have just witnessed it," Leonora enthused. "Especially as I have heard that the King praised you most fulsomely for rallying your wavering band against a superior force and turning those cravens into heroes. I was very proud of you."
For such tribute, for the admiration shining from her eyes, he would have attacked all four hundred Moors alone, even though her approval made color rise in his face. "Lady, how did you hear of this so fast? It happened only several days ago."
"You must not be so modest. Everyone has heard of the 'midnight foray.' Do you forget that our Monarchs are connected by swift couriers?"
A distant shout now took his attention, and he spied riders coming toward them from the camp. His time alone with Leonora was short. He leaned from his saddle to speak closer to her fur-enveloped ear, at the same time delighting his eyes with the smooth texture of her soft cheek, pink with cold. "You have grown more beautiful since I last saw you, doña, if such is possible." His voice was husky.
Leonora looked up at him sideways. "And I've grown more worldly too, señor. I no longer let pretty words and smooth phrases turn my head."
"I have never uttered a word to you I didn't mean sincerely, with all my heart."
She held on to the forward cantle of her saddle as her mule stumbled upon a rock. Recovering, she responded lightly, "But I have learned that of times the head is not completely in tune with the air the heart is singing."
It was meant to be a cryptic remark but Francho knew clearly what she meant. He had already professed his undying love to her, in Toledo, in Seville, but not a word further than that. Yet, how could he say more with his future so questionable? He was afraid she might believe that with his high-ranking name and Tendilla's large fortune to inherit perhaps he was seeking a more politically strong marriage. And did she love him? He thought so, but a maid of her station ordinarily would not declare her feelings without strong proof of a wooer's good faith and Sangre de Dios, he had never even kissed her, damn the watchful eyes of the old lady assigned to act as dueña to her. The most they'd done was to sit and whisper on benches in the palace garden, furtively holding hands.
He resolved to make a quick, positive move to gain her, even if he had to reveal his thorny position. He reached out for one of her gloved hands, viewing her with his half-frown, hoping she could read his adoration of her in the depths of his eyes. "Some day, dear heart, I will sing my song so sweetly to you that even your marble heart will melt, and you will surely know who loves you best."
"Ah, indeed," she murmured, "I have always admired music, cuz." But she squeezed his gauntleted hand, and he did not miss her message.
The first of the welcoming party galloped up to salute the Queen, and the entire train halted. "Tomorrow night," Francho said to Leonora urgently, "tomorrow night we must meet privately for I have many things to tell you. And in this you dare not say me nay."
She withdrew her hand from his grip for decorum's sake, but her smile and the light in her eyes were warm. "And why would I want to say you nay, Don Francisco?" she flirted. Their eyes held. They smiled at each other, then rode on in companionable silence as the column moved forward again.
The cortege was escorted into camp amidst the noisy acclaim of caballeros and commoners alike, the ladies sitting their mounts proudly, delighted at the cheers of welcome from the jubilant men. They halted in the large square before Ferdinand's wooden headquarters, hardly a palace but a remarkably large building for a war camp and now even larger, with a newly built wing to accommodate the women in the train of the Queen and the Infanta. The rest of the female nobility had been assigned to quarters with their husbands or kinsmen, or, in coveys of two and three for propriety's sake, to the larger houses among the commanders.
The Queen was assisted to dismount, by means of a wooden stepstool, by her beaming husband and by the dukes of Medina-Sidonia and Albuquerque. The other nobles and caballeros saw to their wives and sisters and sweethearts, and a band of beaming monks and ecclesiastics surrounded the Grand Cardinal Mendoza. A billeting committee met the other arriving gentlemen and their servants.
Swinging from his saddle, Francho held up his arms to Leonora and she leaned toward him, laughing at the rakish quirk of his black eyebrow. He lifted her lightly down from her mule and blessed both their enveloping cloaks that allowed him to boldly slide her body along his without undue exhibition. He expected a rebuke for the irresistible liberty, but there came none. Now impatience grabbed him. "Leonora, I meant what I said. I must speak with you."
They stood quite close, for in the commotion no one noticed that his hands still spanned her waist under the fur cloak. He knew the pretty pink coloring her cheeks was not just from the wind.
"Speak then, sir; your words are always charming," she coquetted lightly.
"Not here, certainly," he grumbled, wanting first to shake her and then to hug her. "Tomorrow. Or the next night. Alone. I will arrange a meeting place. Surely you can manage to give your dueña the blind eye for an hour?" They both noticed Felipe de Guzman approaching swiftly and they stepped apart.
But not before she quickly whispered, " 'Tis strange, sir, but my dueña sleeps most soundly right after the copious wine served at a feast. Mayhap fetch me then?" With a saucy tilt of her head and a rustle of silk, Leonora turned the full force of her dimpled smile on the bare-headed, steel-chested Perens, who first glowered at Francho and then bent to press a lingering kiss to Leonora's gloved hand. There was a short, two-sided, and uncomfortable conversation in which Leonora spoke first to Felipe and then to Francho, while the two men carefully kept their eyes only on her. Then, spying Doña María being helped from her litter, Leonora fluttered, "I fear I must beg leave of your gallant company, señores, but I would speak to my mother before the Infanta claims my attendance."
Felipe took swift advantage.
"I should be pleased to escort you to your distinguished dame, doña, if I may offer my arm?"
"Most kind, Don Felipe," Leonora accepted politely and laid her light hand on the velvet-covered ropy muscles of the Count of Perens's arm, which he held stiffly crooked for her. With a soft "Don Francisco" and a quick, meaningful smile of farewell, she moved off with Perens to join her mother.
Francho stood looking after them, wondering why he always felt so—incomplete, was the only word that came to his mind—after every encounter with Leonora. He resolved once and for all to define their situation clearly with her. His thoughts on what he was going to do were so riveted that de la Cueva, the amiable and brash, had to clap him twice on the shoulder to get his attention.
"There she is, more bewitching than ever. Did you see her? Did you see how he hustled her off?" Antonio's eyebrows wriggled with mock lust. "Madre mía, what delectable lips, what divine form..."
For a second Francho thought his friend meant Leonora. But he quickly erased his glare as he saw Antonio was looking in another direction. "Who?" he asked, his mood on the rise. "What poor virgin must run from your clutches now?"
"No maiden this, I'll wager, so all the more intriguing." Antonio flipped his head toward the retreating form of a cloaked and hooded lady attentively escorted by the Duke of Medina-Sidonia. The tall, graceful woman was trailed by an old dueña and four servants staggering with baggage.
"That looks to be the Baroness de la Rocha. I had no idea you were so smitten by her, my lord." Francho said this affably enough but in fact he was actually uncomfortable. He didn't like discussing Dolores, even with his good friend.
"Pah, Francisco, do you live cocooned in a woolen mitten? Granted you spent little time with the Court in Seville this spring, but she threatened to outdo even your Leonora in the count of admirers who wrote her poems and sang her ballads and would have been glad to lay themselves down beneath her feet. Me too. But my lord Medina-Sidonia is so jealous he watches her as carefully and dangerously as a starving mountain cat."
The truth was Francho had glimpsed Dolores earlier, for she had already arrived at the square just as he and Leonora rode in. She was being helped to dismount by several eager gentlemen, Medina-Sidonia finding it necessary to first greet his Duchess, and her eyes were wide and sparkling in the high color of her gorgeous, glowing face, reddish locks whipping from her hood in the wind. He saw her lips form words as she bantered with the delighted gallants who handed her down, and the quick memory of how passionately those lips could kiss had shaken him. He had an angry impulse to stalk over to the laughing group and lay about him with the flat of his sword to scatter the greedy bees that swarmed to the welcoming honeypot, but convulsively quashed both the recollection of her mouth and his reaction, with a furtive glance at Leonora who was fortunately looking elsewhere at the moment than at him. Yet he still felt ashamed of his previous cruelty to Dolores, and contrite, and he didn't count the short note he had written to her as enough. He really wanted her forgiveness. He would try to speak to her personally as soon as a moment presented itself.
Now he warned Antonio, "Beware, my friend, you almost didn't come out in one piece the last time you tasted somebody else's wine."
"Devil take it, if I'm going to be bludgeoned into marrying that silly Countess de Moulines for the sake of her relation to the French throne, I might as well enjoy myself while there's still a chance. But not with the beauteous Doña Dolores, believe me. I have no care to tangle with Medina-Sidonia."
Francho grinned, stamping his feet against the cold. The sun was disappearing behind a wall of gray clouds sailing in from the west; they could see their breath now on the damp, chill air. "No one could bludgeon you into anything, Antonio, even your worthy sire. The daughter of Monsieur l'Ambassadeur pleases you well enough, but you're too stubborn to admit it. And she's too well guarded to admit you!"
Antonio grinned back wryly. "Aha! I see my father has another voice of reason on his side. Well, come on, Mendoza, I can use some spiced wine to help me contemplate the swift approach of the marriage bonds. And this cursed damp is creeping into my bones."
"Lead on, friend, but not for too long. I have some arrangements to accomplish before tomorrow's grand fiesta." They strode off together, away from the square filled with the throng of the newly arrived and their welcomers and shouting servants endeavoring to sort out the baggage mules.
***
The ancient hand curved like a claw shot out to grab Dolores's wrist as she walked by the group perched on benches about a brocade-covered gaming table. She looked down to see the rice powder-coated visage of the Duchess of Dimonales grinning up at her, an elderly wheeze in a threadbare, droopy-sleeved gown thirty years out of date but with a large pile of gold coins heaped up at her place. "Ah, my dear pretty Doña Dolores, join us, join us, add your dear charming presence to our little party!" the insistent Doña Teresa spluttered, not releasing her hold on the slim wrist.
Dolores, feeling exquisitely fragile-looking that night in a becoming gown of pale lavender velvet embroidered with silver nettle leaves, her hair coiled under a turbanlike hat of matching silk, had no idea why the wealthy harridan had always seemed to favor her from the moment she joined the Court. In return Dolores had always taken pains to be pleasant to the poor old thing, whose tenacious grip on life seemed only occasioned by her greedy love for gambling. Dolores smiled at the invitation but thought she would say no. For one, her Queen had retired early, ostensibly to rest the remains of a chest croup, which had freed her ladies to mingle with the indefatigable courtiers greeting each other in the hall of the encampment's royal quarters. Dolores was being trailed about—in Medina-Sidonia's absence—by several gentlemen whom she traded banter with and who were happy for the least flirtatious glance from her.
For another she wasn't fond of gambling, although the gentlemen, so long away from frivolous pursuits, were full of siege talk tonight, which did not amuse her either. Bursts of happy laughter came from various parts of the big hall, rising over the piping harmonies of musicians on the wooden balcony, everyone so exhilarated at the reuniting of the Court that in spite of the grueling journey that had just ended that afternoon and the fact that a formal celebration was planned for the following night no one seemed tired. She wanted to keep flitting from one group to another, the better to accidently bump into Francisco de Mendoza, who seemed, so far, to be nowhere about. But then again, neither was the prim little Zuniga, although Dolores felt assured that was because the Infanta was always cranky and indisposed after a trip and kept her ladies about her in her quarters.
She was on the point of politely refusing when her glance took in the other players at the table, the rakish Count of Valencia; a sallow young prelate in a purple skullcap and brocade robe; a large, bluff man with a rugged face whom she thought was a da Silva, and— Her eyes locked momentarily with the pale blue, contemptuous gaze of Don Felipe de Guzman.
Perens rose with a sinuous movement, a thin smile on his lips, and surprised her by joining the old dame's coaxing. "It would give us great pleasure if you would enter our game, Doña Dolores. We are short one person to make the betting more interesting." He indicated a place on the bench next to Valencia, whose wide hat sported two peacock feathers quivering behind. "Honor us by being seated, if you will."
Caught off guard Dolores could only answer the oily invitation with an inane echo, "By being seated?"
His eyes glittered at her from under a lank blond fringe of hair that almost concealed them, but his rangy frame, clad in a short, fur-trimmed doublet, stood relaxed, and he projected a casual air. "Surely you know how to play Riba-bajo? Even in Extremadura they must teach it to the children. Your beauty, Baroness, added to Doña Teresa's" —and here he nodded affably to the shrewd-eyed old number chewing on her gums—"will bring radiance to our corner. Why not test your good fortune then? No reason for it to desert you tonight."
In the face of his caustic smile Dolores found her balance again. She unders
tood his aim was to humiliate her by pitting her relative inexperience—or so he thought— against these facile players. He would be evilly pleased if she lost a large sum. It was only lately she had realized that his barely concealed hostility arose because of his father's expenditure of what Felipe suspected was inordinate sums of money on her, a policy the Duke had never been known to pursue before and one that annoyed his often financially strapped heir. Her gorge rose, as it always did around Felipe.
Still, she hesitated. She did not mind sitting with the other ladies attending the Queen and playing cards, but only for maravedis and with a modest limit, for she hated to lose and so she couldn't help cheating. Papa el Mono's skill at palming cards had gained him enough gold to buy the inn when he was young until one day the business end of a knife skewered to the table both his hand and the cards secreted in its curve, crippling the hand and his gambling career together since he did not like dice. But such harsh penalty for being detected didn't deter him from showing the children he raised every dishonest way he knew to assure the desired fall of the cards, and he insisted they practice until they mastered them. Dolores had turned out best at it for her hands were smaller and quicker than the two older boys and she thought faster than Pepi.
She saw Don Felipe still looking at her, challenge in the flare of his narrow nostrils. Still she was torn. She could not afford the slightest hint or taint of cheating on her reputation; cheating was for peasants, she thought.
The Duchess dragged on her wrist again. "Come, Doña..."
"Of course, if it would sorely distress your purse..." Felipe drawled.
Hart, Mallory Dorn Page 28
