Fanned by a brisk night breeze, the leaping flames madly consumed the dry wood and straw of the stable and threatened to spread to engulf every structure in the outer court. Confusion reigned as men raced from the barracks and tents and scurried from the troughs with buckets of water to toss on the flames; others, led by an officer, began dragging the heavy sacks of powder out and away from the conflagration; still others dashed for the inner court, where they might get more vessels and basins from the kitchens.
Leaving the shadows the bare-chested Francho became just one more soldier running for water, coughing and masked against the smoke. Looking back as if to see the progress of the flames he deliberately collided with the pot-bellied guard from the keep. Lowering his head with a snarled, "Watch out, you oaf! Get your bucket filled!" Francho hurried on toward the nearly dry troughs, where he shoved the bucket he carried into the hands of a soldier who stood helpless, lacking anything to scoop up the water with, and yelled at him, "Here, take this, I'll go to the castle kitchens for a big caldron." He disappeared through the milling, scurrying, and disorganized firefighters into the semidarkness beyond the blazing stables.
But instead of heading toward the inner court, Francho pulled up and flattened against the wall of the keep near the portal. Hoping he would be unnoticed in the commotion by the men pelting past with their eyes riveted on the blazing fire, he faded inside the gaping doorway and out of view. Grabbing up a lantern from the guard's table, and with the iron key he had just removed from the portly guard's sash ready in his hand, he bounded up a long flight of stone steps. A quick glance down the corridor of the first landing pointed the way: two cell doors were open, one was barred. He heaved the iron bar from the two rings embedded in door and wall and shoved open the door.
A startled and wary Spanish infantryman blinked up at him from the dirty stone floor, his wrists circled by manacles attached to long chains passed through a ring embedded in the wall. Through the slit window of his cell the man had heard the cries of "fire!" and the screaming panic of the horses, and now he sneered insolently and muttered at Francho in the slurred dialect of the mountains, "Don't think I'm going to help you put out your fire, you accursed heathen." The coarse face was derisive.
"You have harder work than that cut out for you tonight, amigo; I hope they've left you in one piece." Setting down the lantern Francho knelt and yanked the man's arm over to open the manacles.
The prisoner drew his head back suspiciously. "Eh? What's this? You're not the fat pig from below. What do you want of me?"
"I'm going to get you away from here. You must take a message to the Count of Tendilla at Alcala la Real as fast as your feet can carry you." The opened manacles fell off.
The soldier gaped, but he rubbed vigorously at his wrists and rose to his feet. Francho was relieved to see he was undamaged and steady. "What slimy trick is this?" the man demanded in a surly growl.
"I am a Christian," Francho snapped, "one of Iñigo de Mendoza's complement of knights. And it will cost our side dearly if you don't manage to get my warning to him. How fast can you make your way from here to Alcala? Is there a shorter route than through the Elvira pass?"
"Yes. A narrow chasm not wide enough for horses that goes northwest straight as an arrow. On foot, barely two days."
"If you succeed in two days there will be a gold ducat for you."
"You speak Castilian like a gentleman, yet you look a Moor to me. But just get me outside these walls, and if it serves the King I'll do what you require and with pleasure."
Wrapped around his waist like a hastily tied sash, Francho had brought the knee-length white shirt of a Moorish soldier. Whipping it off he tossed it to the man. "Here, put this on over your hosen, in the darkness you'll pass. But be quick about it. If the guards return we are both finished."
The masking flap of turban over his nose and mouth hid the grim smile with which Francho heard the thunder of hooves and the wild neighing of horses outside the slit window. He had counted on the fear-driven frenzy of the loose and unmanageable horses to create more diversion. Now, if the desperate need for water to save the other half of the stables and storage sheds would drive the firefighters to open the gates and form a bucket line to the nearby stream...
He handed a packet of food and a sealed paper to the soldier, who stuck the letter into his hosen, and then, in case the paper was lost, gave the man an abbreviated verbal message. And even with his lower face muffled he tried to stand with the dim lantern behind or below him so that if the runaway were caught he could not easily identify his accomplice. The two of them ran down the stairs and edged over to the door still unguarded by any of the keep detail. Outside there was pandemonium. Now almost the entire huge court was lit by the ravening fire that had transferred its writhing and swift flames to a number of tents. Wild-eyed bunches of horses ran loose, trampling the unagile, blundering into tents, knocking over the piles of sacks and powder kegs that a sweating squadron of soldiers were hastily transporting into the inner court, their terrified whinnying echoed by the brays of the pack mules in the corrals outside the walls. Trying to head off and capture the panicky steeds, panting men chased after them waving garments and lances, shouting directions to each other, but succeeding only in further frightening the stampeding animals.
With eyes rolling and nostrils flared a group of horses galloped just in front of the keep entrance, cutting it off from general view temporarily. "Now!" Francho yelled over the noise of their hooves, and he and his companion ducked out to slide along the outside wall of the tower, inches from the heaving sides of the alarmed beasts, and then smoothly joined the running, gesticulating stream of soldiers that followed behind the horses in an attempt to drive them into the inner court and away from the open main gate.
A wooden bucket rolled crazily on the ground in their wake. Francho scooped up the stray bucket and pushed his man into the dark of a deep arch built between the barracks and the wall. "Praise Mary, the gates are open and the guards have their hands full trying to keep the horses from bolting. It's up to you now, amigo, you are free. Take this bucket and run through the gates for water with the others, keep your head down and ducked into the collar of your shirt. If anyone shouts at you, just grunt. Once you get outside you'll find an opportunity to keep running; else you'll know what their finest tortures can do." Francho wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his arm. "God go with you, hombre, and don't fail me." With his thumb he made the sign of the cross on the other's chest.
The soldier grinned toughly, nodded, crossed himself again, took a deep breath, and plunged out into the swarms of soldiers dashing about.
For good measure Francho traced a cross on his own breast. He flattened against the shadowed wall of the arch, straining to see the gates through the smoke. He thought he saw the freed mountaineer scoot before a bevy of horses and disappear under the raised portcullis gate amid a hurrying crowd of bucket carriers. In the darkness and confusion the man could slip behind the chain of bucket passers that had
been formed and swiftly get away, Francho hoped, for now officers of higher command were taking charge in the courtyard and would soon restore a semblance of order.
He had to get back to his chamber, and without being noticed. Setting the fire had been easy—two small torches quickly lit and shoved through wide gaps between the planks of the old structures to ignite piles of straw had done it—but getting back into the castle now that everyone was up and about was another matter. He slunk through the melee toward the kitchen court, since the chances were that everyone was coming out the faster way through the inner court. Once inside, if he could scale the rough-stoned far wall unseen, he would land in a weedy garden where a tough vine gave him access to a window not far from his chamber.
It wasn't until he slid through the narrow gate to the kitchen court that he realized from the noise that they were corraling the captured horses in the inner court. And at that moment he came up full tilt against the cold-eyed Reduan and two of
his adjutants. The general, fully attired, his sash carefully wound, his spiked helmet gleaming amongst the folds of his underturban in the leaping light from the portal, stared at him for a moment. Then, as Francho stepped aside, Reduan strode on without further recognition. But Francho was not deceived; the Moor had recognized him and marked his presence half-dressed and sweaty and coming from the flame-filled outer court—the last place one would expect to find the Sultan's pampered musician.
Chapter 24
"It's... its hard to describe the... the elation that burst through me, especially since I had no certainty whether my messages had gotten through at all, either with the man I freed from Albolodny or the later one I sent from here."
"Well, try," Dolores urged.
They sat on pillows on the floor enjoying a light supper together. She leaned forward attentively, elbow on the low table, chin in hand, enchanted by the impassioned light in his eyes as he cast back in his mind over the past three weeks.
He chuckled, pleased with her eagerness. "Your wish is my will, doña, but I'll start from the beginning so you can feel the true pace of it. One has to credit Boabdil for moving fast. From the quick turn around we made here in Granada, off we marched with a fresh army and the cheers of the people ringing in our ears. We reached Salobrena, which perches on a cliff overlooking the sea, in remarkable time, but the worst of it for me, at least, was that it took only one day for Reduan's keyed up troops to overrun the outnumbered garrison and take over the port. And I..." Francho paused and grimaced, remembering, then took up his knife and fiercely speared a date. "...I was ordered to compose a ballad of triumph for the celebration that night. Ah yes, I sang and smiled and guzzled wine with all the rest, but I almost drowned in my own bile, hating myself for having failed to prevent this catastrophe. The destruction of Alhendin still haunted me, every night in my dreams I struggled with the blame of having denuded its garrison. And now the Moors had captured the port of Salobrena and opened their gates to the world again. I felt that nothing I'd accomplished before could balance my ineffectiveness in preventing so crucial a victory. Boabdil, of course, lost no time in commandeering one of our merchant ships and sending off that fox, Yussef Abencerrage, to the Bey of Tunis to wrangle enough ships to keep Salobrena open."
"Would he have gotten it?"
"Probably. The Bey is greedy, even his own pirates must pay him heavy tributes. Granada was offering him a bounty of five hundred dinars per manned ship and requesting six of them. If they had arrived and stationed themselves in proper formation at the mouth of the harbor, they could have easily fended off a Christian naval force twice the size. And then..."
He paused for a moment to appreciate her nose. It was slim, the skin stretched over it so flawlessly a man might want to experience that warm smoothness with his lips. The tip was delicate, if not quite classic....
Unaware of his drifting thoughts she urged him on, wide-eyed. "Yes, and then...?"
He blinked, shook his head, irked with himself, and resumed. "Well, no more had this embassy departed, perhaps two days, when the watch on the fortress tower called out "Sails, ho!" and there, suddenly appearing out of the mist, were four great warships standing off the northern spit, each with great crosses on their sails and the glorious colors of Castile and Leon and Aragon whipping from their tall masts. What a heart-stopping sight! It was all I could do to keep from leaping into the air with joy. Except I wasn't sure that these ships had not put into Salobrena purely by chance and might sail themselves in jeopardy of the cannon on the cliff as soon as the tide turned. But something strange occurred...."
He tore a hunk of bread off a flat, round disk, dipped it into his wine cup, ate it with gusto, and wiped the wine dribbles from his chin.
"Tell! Madre de Dios, how do you stop at such a point?" Dolores protested, bouncing on her pillow.
"Patience, woman, you want to starve me?" he protested in his turn, sawing off a slice of roast lamb. But he continued. "What happened was the warships calmly hove to just beyond the reach of the castle's bombards and rode the swells for several days, neither attacking nor running for help. They seemed to be waiting. Nor was I the only one who suspected what they were waiting for. But the General Reduan could not convince the Sultan that his attack had been anticipated. Finally a courier, having sped first to Granada and thence to Salobrena, galloped into the gates with the news that His Catholic Majesty, Ferdinand, was in full march with a powerful army toward Salobrena. At that point Boabdil had to give in, for without help from Africa, which was not certain, a Christian pincers attack from both land and sea would cause great losses—and worse, would cut him off from Granada. And so we withdrew in haste and made a forced march back here not to be caught in the trap."
"What a triumph for you," Dolores said admiringly. "I mean, it was your warning alone that provided time for the warships to reach Salobrena quickly, before help could come to Boabdil from Tunis. And His Majesty was able to retake the area without a drop of blood spilled! Didn't that further lift up your spirits?"
"Of course, because it redeemed my credibility as an informer. But it also convinced Reduan even further that duplicity was the cause of our failures: the troops at Alcala, the rich caravan that never passed through Quezada, the lack of surprise when the Spanish ships found their port occupied, and the obviously concerted action between the arrival of heavily armed galleons loaded with troops and the marching of Ferdinand's army. Even Boabdil could not deny the enemy had to have acted on information. But he rolled up his eyes and told Reduan he had been surrounded all his life with spies and enemies who would rather have the Christians take Granada than accept him on the throne. How could he begin to know which of his myriad foes was selling information?
"Reduan strongly advised him not to take so many people into his confidence, not to give the council every detail of war plans, not to inform the lesser officers from noble families of delicate operations until they were in the field. But I could have told the general he pushed too hard. Boabdil is a man, but with a boy's thin skin. He becomes sullen, angry to be considered naive, and he closes up his ears."
Dolores caught her lower lip between her teeth. "Do you think there is a possibility Reduan suspects you?"
"Ay de mí, who can read that jackal's face? I admit his eyes seem to linger on me overlong when I catch him at it, but this might be merely hostility over losing you. At Albolodny I made sure to immediately explain to the Sultan that I had been taking the air and was impressed into helping put out the fire, and not even Reduan can accuse the Sultan's intimate of treason without having proof. Still"— he heaved a sigh—"I have learned an important lesson. In this dagger's edge business I cannot hope to win every battle. Now I must allow suspicion to subside even if it means some Moorish victories which I might have prevented. It would be wiser to minimize the risk of discovery by reserving my messages for major attacks, such as the one on Salobrena. That conquest could have become the entry point for huge Moslem reinforcements from Africa."
Dolores was trying unsuccessfully to crack a hard-shelled nut in the angle of a brass-handled device. He removed it from her hand, with an easy squeeze crushed the shell, and absently handed her the results.
"Do you think that even now King Ferdinand is marching on Granada?" she queried, picking out the nutmeats from the debris in her palm.
"Quite probably, with so large an army already in the field, but it might not be a serious attack. For one it is late in the season. For another, Granada is too fat with food and arms and defenders. He will come, though, just to serve notice, and to continue to burn off the planting and crops and ruin the earth, so that what is already stored here is the last to be gotten."
He yawned and leaned his elbow back on a pile of pillows, at peace with himself for the moment.
Dolores clapped the crumbs from her hands and rose in order to serve him more kavah from a long-handled little pot on a brazier. She saw him blink and look up lazily at her with a soft smile on his lips, and in t
hat one unguarded instant the affection and admiration beaming from his smitten blue glance caused a joy that struck her like a blow. It was only a second's revelation, and then he blinked again, immediately recovering his usual amused but guarded expression around her, but it was enough to feed her determination to get him to realize the truth.
There had to be some reason why he hadn't already sued for Leonora de Zuniga's hand, something that was staying him from betrothal to the woman he claimed he loved. The reason was her, she was sure of it, beginning with Toledo and in spite of his battling against himself ever since. Toledo? No. Beginning in Ciudad Real. The face of the boy who had loved her superimposed itself upon the visage of the adult with little displacement Her eyes lingered on the planes of his face, tracing the faint frown furrows, the strong cheekbones, the bearded jaw hardly softened by the gleaming hoop of earring, the strength and sensitivity of the square lower lip, and then leaped to meet his shining gaze. She loved him terribly. Idiota! Why did he deny what was real?
Smiling, she poured the kavah slowly so as not to disturb the sediment already in his small cup. Her thigh and perfumed veils brushed his shoulder. And then, ankle bells jingling softly, she brought him his lute and gracefully sank down across from him, eyes smoky and provocative in the light of the oil lamp.
"Play for me, Francho?" she asked huskily. "Sing my favorite ballad, will you not? 'My Sweetheart Pricks Her Finger.' I have truly missed your voice and your lovely songs."
Francho stubbornly clung to his composure, even though a vision came into his head of how she had run into his embrace with undisguised relief and joy at his return, and his arms felt again how delightful it had been to hug her in that brief moment. He realized it was lonely for her when he was away, although he had provided her with a permit to shop among the vendors crowding the First Plaza. Now he studied her thoughtfully. "I wish there was a way I could pass you on to our own forces when they come close, but it would be more than dangerous. You are much safer remaining here."
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