He stepped up to the bed and gallantly presented her with a pink, dethorned rose, which he must have bribed from the swift rider who weekly arrived with a great armful of southern blossoms for the Queen. "How do you feel, My Lady?" he inquired gently.
"Passable, sir, my thanks. I am just grateful my teeth were not knocked out. I must look—terrible." It didn't hurt to talk now, not since she had taken that foaming potion from the Queen's Hebrew physician.
His smile enveloped her. "You do look a bit battered and swollen, true. But at least you're alive and nothing worse than wounded ribs. With rest and time you will soon regain your feet."
"Did everyone want to know what I was doing out there?"
"Yes, and the truth sufficed, a need to regain your equilibrium after the horrors of the hospital. I was just not very wise to allow it."
"Nay, do not blame yourself, sir, you were being kind." Then she could not resist tilting her head and inquiring in a low, mocking tone, "Do you find your escort enough people to keep me in safety from you, Don Francisco?"
"Yes, enough, doña," he answered evenly, but she saw his face stiffen and was immediately sorry for her ungraciousness. She breathed in the perfume of the opened rose and put her hand out to stay him, smiling, contrite.
"I'm sorry, forgive me, I have so intemperate a turn of words at times. Will you let me blame it on my fever? And oh, how lovely to have this blossom to erase the odor of that physician's vile unguents."
Francho nodded his head in a small bow, as Pulgar approached the other side of the bed along with Doña Luisa, but it was as if an opaque, stubborn veil had closed off the expression from his eyes. "Even injured your beauty yet outshines that of the flower, doña," he intoned, the perfect, chivalrous knight mouthing harmless compliments, and she wished she could bring back that gentle, solicitous light that had been in his eyes when he first leaned over her. And she had continued to wish the same thing on his subsequent courtesy visit, just before the army broke camp. The rose was now carefully pressed in the small gospel which had once belonged to the old Baron. And she kept trying to expunge from her mind the thrilling memory of that wild and dangerous afternoon when his arms had been about her both in desire and in rescue.
Absently she sat upon her bed and jounced up and down a few times. Francho would certainly ride in from Alcala to attend his crony's wedding, in fact he was probably already in Seville. She would surely see him during the celebrations. It would be nice to pass a courteous word or two with him now her face had come back to its normal, unmarked state and her ribs had healed.
"La mentecata!" Dolores upbraided herself, annoyed at the blood beginning to course more strongly in her veins. "If you do not stop thinking of him you will ruin your life. Think of yourself, think of that pleasant Viscount de Capmany among your admirers whose interest in you seems most serious should you encourage it, think of the new gown you will wear to the wedding (unpaid for, her conscience grumped) and of the expensive tidbits of food the Queen graced you with from her own larder when you could scarce move, even angry as she was that you left the camp. Think of how she favors you more and more....
"Think of the smooth-tongued, pale-eyed Don Felipe de Guzman and his constant attendance upon Leonora de Zuniga and the damsel's mother—and the dimpled blonde's deft flirtation with the persistent Perens...."
No! Think of how you can pay your creditors and not give up your estate! Dolores sternly brought her musings back under control. Moneylenders? How could she pay them back? Selling her jewels and furs? Oh no that would break her heart. She could enflame the Viscount de Capmany and finally marry well enough, ignoring his lightly pocked skin, but ay mi madre, he was so bland and boring. There had to be a way. Something would occur to her. Meanwhile she would have to sell at least some of her jewelry to pay each debtor a little. Don Enrique, of course, would loan her anything she needed, and more, but that would just be clasping his chains tighter about her. God would aid her somehow. Meanwhile she would try to live more frugally.
Tired of thinking she bounced off the bed and clapped her hands for Engracia. It was surely past nine; her stomach was growling, and she was due at the palace for the Queen's readings after chapel at eleven. She would put her mind on tonight's nuptials and the celebrations and how wonderful she would look in her violet, red, and white embroidered moire gown with its pearl-trimmed, low neckline and cuffs dripping with fine voile, and her new Italian-style headdress, a small cap of violet velvet worn to the back of the head over flowing, center-parted tresses and fetchingly secured by a slim, jeweled velvet band flat about the forehead and tied in back in a bow. She even had one of those new, sensuous feather fans fastened to a handle of ivory to wave about. She would think of all that; those were pleasant things.
***
Two hours after rising, the shaven, scented, and colorfully attired knight who was known as the bastard of the Count of Tendilla, followed by his dark-skinned equerry, rode tall amidst the stream of pedestrians and mounted citizens on the wide street of fine houses leading up to Seville's Alcazar. His muscles had been loosened by a good, pommeling massage from Ebarra, his headache and queasy stomach were almost gone, and the fresh air of the sunny morning revived him further. The crowded city pleased the eye with its almost homogeneous architecture of Moorish simplicity and privacy, bright white walls gleaming under the red tile roofs and adorned along their smooth facades with the contrasting fussiness of black ironwork balconies. Each balcony and window sprouted a profusion of potted plants and brilliant geraniums, even in the crisp air of February, and along every wall small hanging urns dripped slim vines of green foliage to blow in the breeze and create graceful patterns of light and shadow. There was an alive, gay air to Seville and in the stride and glance of the Sevillanos that matched Francho's own carefree mood.
He was not only riding toward the Zuniga residence, where he would soon be meeting with his darling Leonora— and not even the inevitable presence of her dueña could mar his pleasure with that—but before he enjoyed this pleasure he was going to accomplish another mission. And, oddly enough, his final decision to do so had also raised his spirits. The raucous, riotous debauch the night before seemed to have done him a world of good, shaking loose any lingering depression brought on by his inaction at Alcala and especially from the imminent necessity of having to leave Leonora for so long.
He began to whistle under his breath a tune he'd heard in a gypsy camp. On this benign and happy wedding day even the birds darting overhead twittered back to him the uplifting message that no goal, even his own unpredictable, extraordinary gamble, was impossible. When he awoke that morning, done in by drink, he wouldn't have cared if they'd wrapped him in a shroud. Now he was glad he had dressed with care in his favorite shade of blue, with martin fox trimming the droopy armholes of his surcoat and a jaunty pheasant feather in his hat; and on his wrist, just below the tight cuff of his doublet, a new gold link bracelet and a dangling medallion showing his own red-banded device, a gift from the Archbishop Talavera in honor of his knighting.
Francho's whistle grew a little more attenuated as he came abreast of a narrow, three-storied residence he identified by the coat of arms over the grillwork gate in the whitewashed walls. Although the house was small in comparison to the large, white establishments on either side of it, proclaimed by coats of arms over their gates to be the residences of the Marquis of Moya and the Count of Feria, respectively, it was not insignificant with its arched and columned windows, portal of inlaid woods flanked by two great urns containing small orange trees, and an iron-hatted guard lounging inside the gate, his tabard and pike insignia scattered with embroidered antelopes.
She doesn't play at small stakes, Francho grumped to himself, almost losing his resolve to act the shining, chivalrous knight out of the old ballads. But to own such a house, if it was true, was one thing, a solid position; to merely be installed in it by a besotted admirer was quite another. He dismounted, tossed his reins to Ebarra, and took from his equerr
y a velvet drawstring bag whose contents was not light. Passing through the open gate he gave his name to the guard to be announced to the Baroness and was admitted and bidden wait in a cool anteroom with cushioned seats and colored tile outlining the windows.
He sat down, at first gingerly. Then as the minutes dragged on he jumped up and began to pace. He wondered if he weren't setting his affairs too scrupulously in order, and then called himself coward for the impulse to remove himself from the Baroness de la Rocha's disturbing aura. He felt that the impulse which had Gome to him one night as he had pondered the fact that his life might be lost in "Egypt" was the right thing to do and a generosity his patron in heaven, San Bismas, would approve of. It had to be the remaining effects of the past night's rowdiness that gave him the feeling that his heartbeat was in total suspension and his mouth dry.
He thought of Leonora and remembered how each sweet letter he had enjoyed from her helped to erase the persistent picture of Dolores's poor, bruised face from his mind. He was sure he had gathered enough moral strength from those precious letters to resist Salome herself. Salome. The temptress. Now why did he...
Francho whirled about at the sound of footsteps, and there stood the servant Engracia in an old-fashioned wimpled headdress, beckoning to him. In a tone none too cordial she said, "My lady will see you now. Please come this way."
Relieved to be finished with waiting, actually not too long he had to admit, he followed the woman through another anteroom and then across the square of a small interior garden and into what was the reception room of the house, carpeted with a huge, arabesqued rug from the East and scattered with carved x-chairs and small, round tables in Moorish style. Dolores stood before a tall hearth, where a small fire burned in spite of the temperate day and over which hung a painted wooden sculpture of the suffering Christ. A tiny dog jumped from its tasseled pillow to come forward with wagging tail as Francho entered the room, followed more slowly and fluidly by his mistress.
He would not be human if the sight of her did not take his breath, and he had no time to wonder what caused this: the ripe and radiant beauty of the young woman wafting toward him in a ripple of pale green brocade gown, a starched white coif with floating veil hiding the smoulder of her hair yet emphasizing her slender neck and tipping even more the wide, luminous, and lively eyes; or the surprised but warm and wide smile that lit up her face. But by the time they stood with only a few paces separating them she had drawn the smile together somewhat, into a more reserved regard.
"Well, it is good to see you at Court again, Don Francisco. I had imagined Don Antonio's nuptials would rouse you out of that eagle's nest." She offered a slim hand to be kissed.
"The respite is welcome, doña, I assure you." He realized his expression was tight and relaxed it as he bent to kiss her hand, then straightened to gaze calmly into the silvery depths of her eyes with their dark, thick lashes. His breathing seemed steady and he wondered if he might have finally broken her spell. It was possible, finally, that what he felt for her was nothing more than any man's normal appreciation of her loveliness and a certain warmth of affection, as one would have for an old childhood friend. Feeling safe and in control, his smile grew broader. "And how do you go, My Lady, although you look so—so well I need hardly inquire after your health," he declared, stopping a stammer just in time.
"I am admirable, sir, I thank you." She smiled back. "My poor ribs are healed," and she did a charming little pirouette to show him, "and so my face and other places that were bruised, and I intend to dance all night tonight. But my manners are lacking. Please, will you sit?"
He did so, not quite comfortably, the velvet bag balanced on his knees. He gazed about the good-sized chamber for a moment, taking in the intricately-wrought iron chandeliers, the inlaid wood tops of the tabourets, the delicate plates and pitchers displayed on a high rack running along the walls, the draperies adding color to the whiteness of the walls. "This is a very fine establishment, Dolores," he declared, meaning it as a compliment. But a sudden jealousy stabbed at him and he forgot to be polite. Looking her straight in the eyes he dropped the courteous lady-gentleman pavanne they were doing. "But do you own it?" he demanded.
With typical directness she looked straight back at him and answered, "No, I do not." And then, with a lift of her chin, added haughtily, "Although it is mine to live in however long I wish." There was both bravado and challenge in her voice.
However long the Duke wishes, you mean, growled Francho, to himself. Now the business he had with her was all the more important. He was anxious to get it over with and depart.
Annoyed with his probing, she decided to tilt with him a bit. "And where are your escorts, Don Francisco?" Her eyes lit mockingly. "Did you not decide we were never to be alone together, at any time?"
He was not going to be goaded into losing his temper. "I assure you I am quite cured," he responded coolly. "At any rate, you are safe enough for I see you've asked your dueña to stay." He gestured with his head at Engracia who sat trying to be inconspicuous in a corner.
"Forgive me, I only meant to tease you." She laughed lightly. Now it was her turn to be impolitely curious. She pointed to the velvet-wrapped object he balanced on his knees. "And what is that, pray?"
"Doña Dolores, I have a favor to ask of you. It is brought about by the fact that I am embarking on a very long journey from which, it may happen, I might not return."
Her formal little smile wavered. Unconsciously her fingers tightened on the arms of her chair and a touch of concern crept into her eyes. The Moorish wars were hardly a long way from Seville and an ordinary seasonal occupation with Spanish nobility. She presumed he could not be referring to that. "A favor? Yes, of course. But where do you go so far away and so dangerous that you fear for your life, Francho?"
Her unthinking use of his old nickname warmed him as always, and so did the concern she could not quite conceal under her mantle of composure. "With Pietro di Lido and his party of gentlemen to Egypt, a very honored appointment—and I don't mind admitting that the thought of the trip to so exotic a land along with the delicate mission we have to accomplish really excites me. As why shouldn't it, eh?" He winked at her and for a tiny moment the expression they shared returned them both to lowly cut-purses again, plotting to get rich on a few stolen coins and never dreaming further than a possible trip to Toledo in their lives. "But Egypt is not just across yon plaza. Things could happen. Pirates, slavers, brigands. The suspicious old potentate could imprison us and dance us a dance for several years before accepting ransom, or we could be accidently embroiled and killed in one local war or another on the long road between here and Alexandria, and there would be an end to us." He shrugged fatalistically. "Qué será..."
The breath seemed to have left her. She sat back in her chair. "Ay, mi madre," she lamented and stared back at him.
He had distressed her with nothing more than the truth, of course. He might lose his life on his venture and wind up with his head stuck on a pole like the Count's original agent. But—he stole a look at her face—why should it make him feel so mean to have made her unhappy? Yet it did, and so in order to rally her he let a grin chase the seriousness from his aspect. "Por Dios, Dolores, I have a charmed life. If the Hermandad didn't get me and the Count didn't have me hung and the Moorish fighters haven't yet sent my soul to beg place from San Pedro, what matter a few pirates and Janissaries? They will get short shrift from Spanish knights, I promise you. And yet, one must make provisions...." Without further ceremony he began to unwrap the velvet bag on his lap. "There is in this casket notes and coins worth twenty thousand maravedis which I have been holding with one of the Jews on the Calle Ruy Gomez." He leaned forward over the box and frowned into her eyes to impress her with his purposefulness. "I want to leave this money with you. If I have not returned in three years from Lententide, it is yours. I want you to have it."
The wide, seductive mouth dropped open in surprise. She struggled to find her speech. "Are you mad?" she gasp
ed, clutching at her seat. "That is a large sum. Why should you give it to me?"
Why? Because he somehow felt responsible for her, and for all of her few hectares of land in Extremadura she was still unprotected and defenseless against the lure of a philandering Medina-Sidonia, or at best a marriage to an impoverished courtier who was willing to ignore her suspect virginity and trade marriage for her beauty and small dowry. The money he offered her was what remained of the large amount (less a hundred ducats he had removed for travel expenses) loaned to him by Tendilla when he came to Court and which he had every intention of repaying if their plans grew to fruition. If not, if he did not reach the ultimate goal of his own name and estates, or if he was killed, then the money could be counted as wages for services rendered to Tendilla in a dangerous and unique enterprise. But by enabling Dolores to buy a place in one of the fashionable convents which gave refuge to gentlewomen who lacked family or protection, the money would provide her an honorable way out of the other alternatives. It was the best he could do for her if he never came back. And even at his return he was determined to find some way to make her a gift of the money without challenging her pride.
Although her face still mirrored the vestiges of surprise, she had collected herself enough to rise from her chair stiff-spined, her sleek, straight nose taking on more altitude. "If you think for one moment, señor, that I am in need of your alms, you are very mistaken and I suggest you leave your funds with the Jewish banker, who will pay you for it. Indeed, Don Francisco, you mightily overstep the bounds of friendship—how do you dare presume that I... that I... that... oh!" She fumbled to a halt and hastily stepped back in alarm, her eyes widening, for he had put aside the casket, unwound from his seat like a spring and now he loomed over her with his hand on the pommel of his dagger by habit, glowering down on her blackly as a thundercloud.
Hart, Mallory Dorn Page 38
