"Look here, Carlos! S-see, I've brought you a s-surprise!" Pepi bawled, and out from the gathering group of rugged mountaineers stepped a thin, hard man with a dark cloth tied over one eye who squinted with the other unreceptively at the elegant damsel before him in the cut-velvet gown and jeweled and veiled coif. But in a moment recognition flared in the one good eye and one side of the slash of a mouth rose in a smile.
"Diablo! By the sweat of the Saints, if it isn't my little sister Dolores!" the amused voice rasped. Accompanied by a few appreciative if crude remarks from the grinning men circled about, the rangy leader of the bandit band took a few seconds to look her up and down. A chuckle escaped him. "But from what part of God's good earth did you spring from of a sudden, sister dear?"
"From a less rocky place than you inhabit, brother." She laughed and held out her arms. "Here, help me down. 'Tis a sore ride up these mountains."
Carlos reached up his long arms to her and then set her down on the ground. She glanced around at the hard, sinister faces leering at her and the slovenly woman who had shoved into the circle to stare at her suspiciously and then brought her attention back to her brother. The somber black kerchief obviously hid a blinded eye, but in spite of deep grooves between nose and mouth the long face still showed the austere composure she remembered. "You are looking well, Carlos," she smiled at him. "A bit damaged, mayhap, but well."
His lopsided smile recalled the old, arm's-length affection between them. "And you are looking astonishingly prosperous, little tavern wench. You have grown into a beautiful woman. I salute you, Dolores. You evidently have been more clever than any of us."
"S-she is p-prettier than any of us." Pepi grimaced. "How rich could I get in a c-coif and girdle?"
Carlos swung around to still the loud guffaws and yeasty murmurings of his men. "Hombres!" he barked. "This damsel is my sister, Doña Dolores. Find what scurvy manners you have and treat her with all respect. Any villain who makes a boorish mistake will hang by his toes for it, that is my warning to you!" He motioned to a full-bodied, disheveled woman with wild gypsy eyes and pushed her before Dolores. "This is my wife, Caratid. She has given me three strong sons, one you see here"—Caratid nursed a black-haired baby at her big breast—"and the other two are off in the cliffs hunting birds' eggs." Now he regarded her with curiosity. "And what brings you to visit our humble camp after all these years?"
"Two things, brother. I suddenly had the desire to see how it went with Pepi and you; are we not kin, after all? And... and I came to speak with someone Pepi had already admitted you harbor here."
Carlos's uneven teeth showed as his slow smile turned sly. "Aha. Who? Him?" He jerked his chin up, indicating someone behind and above her.
Dolores swung around. She had to shield her eyes against the sun, but the man lazily lounging against the edge of a shallow niche, one booted leg swinging off the ledge, was undoubtedly Francho. He gazed down at her from his perch, his azure eyes seeming to blaze even more brilliantly in his sun-darkened face. But the left corner of his mouth was slightly drawn up by the still pink, wicked scar that jagged down the outer edge of his face from ear to jaw. Muscled brown arms bulged from his sleeveless leather jerkin secured by a wide leather belt which acted as a sheath for a long knife riding his hip. An incongruous rolled-brim hat slanted rakishly on dark hair, which fell to his shoulders. She had just enough time to decide, with annoyance, that if anything the slightly sinister expression caused by the disfigurement of the scar only added to his potent appeal when he discontinued his survey of her and jumped lightly to the trail.
He sauntered right up to her, ignoring the envious grins of the other men. "What could you possibly want to talk with me about, doña." The white smile she remembered was stiff, unwelcoming. "We can't even speak the same language, a soiled brigand and a noble lady. I might forget my tongue in front of you, and I don't relish hanging by my toes."
Dolores hoped huge disdain was showing in her eyes and not discomfort, for to have him suddenly standing before her again was causing her trouble with her breathing. She tried to steady herself. "Nor do I relish what conversation I am forced to have with you—sir—but that is what I have come for. And you will listen to me. Will he not, Carlos?"
But Francho quickly interrupted with sardonic impoliteness. "Accept my regrets for your long journey, doña, but I didn't ask you to come here. I have no wish to know anything but my own untrammeled and untroubled existence in this place. Do me the favor of leaving me in peace."
"Hombre!" Carlos's low rasp held a warning, and his hand rested on the black muleteer's whip wound about his shoulder and under his arm, a weapon he used with murderous ease. "My sister desires to speak with you. I suggest you honor the lady's small request. And keep your mouth civil while she is in your hulking presence." He turned back to Dolores, who raked the discourteous ruffian who had dared reject her with a triumphant smirk. "But not now, hermanita. You will confer with this rogue later. Now come along with Pepi and me and tell us of yourself."
Having made up her mind that this tawny beauty, scented and powdered and riding a fine mare with velvet reins, was no threat to her, Caratid added hoarsly, "Will you enter our cave, lady? I have good wine and cheese to offer to my husband's sister."
For thanks Dolores inclined her head regally but graciously, ignoring the glint of amusement in certain blue eyes for her airs. "I will be happy to accept," she murmured.
Carlos's large, dimly lit, dirt floor cave was furnished with fine rugs, chairs, and even a curtained bed in one corner, the spoils of raids on trading caravans. They sat at a carved table, and Dolores unfolded her tale, relishing Carlos's narrow-eyed smile and the awe radiating from Pepi's and Caratid's rapt faces.
"S-she arrived at my place with an escort of t-ten men-at-arms, her own guards!" Pepi interrupted, less to corroborate Dolores's story than to communicate his excitement. "A b-baroness! And the men w-wear her emblem."
Dolores dropped her gaze to her lap in false modesty. In fact, she was paying for the guards from the money Francho had left with her and never claimed back.
She swept them up in her narrative, digressing here and there to describe this or that castle or personage until finally she came to her capture by the marauding squad of Moors and her sale as a slave, the fate from which Francho rescued her. Her voice faltered then and she stopped, not sure she wanted to go into Granada. She took a sip of wine and as if to catch her breath she asked casually, "And what of him?"—inclining her head to indicate the member of their small fraternity still outside.
Carlos casually teetered back in his chair. "He has told his story, too. But to Pepi and me only."
Heat climbed in her face. "All of it?"
"All of it." Carlos still did not strew words about freely, but he regarded her flushed cheeks and made the decision to continue. "I suppose you mentioned to him sometime where Pepi had settled. He arrived at the tavern and Pepi brought him here to us. I was surprised, but I was glad to see him. I didn't ask many questions. The others did not trust his fine speech and bearing and at first he was not very sociable; he kept to himself. But after he laid a few of them out they bound up their wounds and located some respect. El Moro, they call him, because of that earring and because when we attack the caravans passing from the north to Cordoba he orders the Moorish merchants about in their own language." Carlos chuckled his dry chuckle. "He is a good man, El Moro. When we divide in two groups to surround our marks I have begun to give him the lead of one. He has a way of scaring the caravan guards so badly that they turn and run before his sword."
"And h-he plays his g-guitar a Devil's sight b-better than he used to."
Dolores looked from one to the other of her brothers. "Did he tell you... of his rank and family?" she said guardedly.
"Didn't I say so? Finally he spit out his whole story to me. Are we not Papa el Mono's little brotherhood, the four of us together?" The dark eyes regarded her sagely. "What do you want me to know, Dolores? That of all of us El M
oro hides in the mountains from no one but himself?"
But she had regained her composure and tossed her head. "That no longer interests me. I only came here to bring him a letter from the lady to whom he has pledged his love."
Carlos pursed his lips, nodding. "That is very good of you, hermanita. Such a long trip...!"
She added a bit lamely, "And to see you, of course; the time has been too long."
"A lady to the queen!" Caratid husked in wonder, hitching up the slipping shoulder of her bodice. With her other hand she shoved behind her skirts the two little boys who had slipped quietly into the cave, already warned there was a momentous personage visiting.
"No, no, let me see them," Dolores begged, holding out her hands. "They are my nephews, after all." Two urchins, dirty, in scuffed sandals and rubbed tunics, came out from behind their mother, the little one about four, the huskier one about six, not shy and grinning broadly at the stranger.
"This is your tía, my sister Dolores, a fine lady. These rascals here are my sons, Antonio and Bernardo." Carlos made the introduction with quiet pride.
"'Bernardo the bad,' we call him," the mother added, giving the older boy a gentle cuff which he gaily dodged.
But Carlos turned a serious mien to Dolores. "They are good sons. I do not want them growing up here too long. Listen, my rich and noble sister, will you care to take them into your household, to employ them? They are blood, they can be trusted..."
Caratid's head jerked up, her eyes flashing alarm.
"...when they are older?" Carlos finished blandly, as if he hadn't seen his wife's scarcely swallowed upset.
Dolores smiled soothingly at Caratid. "It would be my pleasure, Carlos. But when they are older, of course."
"You must stay the night," her brother ordered. "I will not let you go so soon, and I want you to see how well we eat, like kings and queens—almost," he chuckled. "You will sleep in our bed; it is clean and has draperies for privacy. We will stay with the children, behind there." He indicated a curtained off space. "Do not say me nay, Dolo."
She giggled to hear his old name for her. "To you? Where would I find such courage?"
As the sun lowered and shadows cooled the air, they moved their chairs to the mouth of the cave to trade more stories and news and to admire the view, looking across a deep tumble of rocks and a screen of evergreens below to the jagged, high peaks of the sierras touching the sky with lofty, white tips. Dolores's nose twitched happily at the buoyant aromas blending in the pure air: pine, wildflowers, roasting meat, and wood smoke, mixed with the faint animal smell of the belled goats roaming the camp.
From above she heard the strumming of a guembri and looking up the zigzagging path saw a plump woman emerge from a cave to call up to the next level, "Ho, El Moro, by all the imps and devils, sing something happy for a change instead of that constant dirge to Granada. How about a lively one, one of those fancy dances the rich folk like. You do those good."
The guembri strummer looked down at the woman below his perch and spat to the side. "If you do not like my repertoire, Tula," he bantered, "pick yourself up and move. There is an empty hole above Baldhead's cave you could squeeze your haunches into, with even some room to spare for your husband."
"Eh, eh, listen to him," Tula laughed, raising a finger in a lewd gesture. She brandished the wood paddle she had been using to remove the rabbit meat pies for supper from her crude stone oven. "If I move over there who will sweep out your dirty cave for you, eh ungrateful, answer me that? And don't tell me Teresa. She has given up on you, she gets nothing for her pains but a pinch on the behind. Is that a way to cheat a pretty young girl?"
Since she made the business of all the members of the camp her own, Tula waited for an answer and got what she expected—a hoot and a loud thrum on the guembri. "Laugh if you will, you wretch," she called up, chuckling, "but it's not good for man to live alone. Not one that's got his stick and stones, that is." She glanced down and shook her fist at the general mirth of the men sitting around below, then disappeared back through the dark mouth of the cave.
The musician leaned back with a grin against the edge of his cave and thrummed a loud chord and then another, searching for inspiration. His fingers of their own accord seemed to finally find an air that squeezed Dolores's heart, and although he did not sing with it now, he had done so many times before:
My dame is a rose, a wild red rose,
Red rose bloom perfect and joy to my heart.
But pluck her I cannot to hold to my breast,
Sharp thorns are her nature that hold us apart.
Dolores, Dolo—
The tune broke off with a discordant twang, startling even Carlos, who, Dolores realized, had been covertly watching her as she listened. He swung around and yelled up, "Hey, amigo, the lady here wishes to converse with you. Be polite and oblige her."
"Sí, Jefe, de inmediato!" came the sardonic baritone. Conversations around the cook fires and cave mouths broke off again, heads turned.
There was a scrabble of loose gravel and Francho leaped down the last few feet from the path to land lightly before her on springy, muscled legs. He planted his hands on his leather-clad hips and waited, coolly, and she could read nothing in his eyes but false amusement.
She began to fume inside as she considered his impertinent attitude. He was the villain, not her, and here he was doing her a favor to listen to her. Whoreson dog!
To Carlos she said smoothly, "Not here with the whole camp listening, pray. This is a private matter." She thought her brother would be good enough to offer his cave, but instead he answered, "Very well. There is supper to prepare here anyhow." His tone became peremptory. "Take her up to your place," he ordered Francho.
Dolores started and widened her eyes at her brother and opened her mouth to reject this idea, firmly and haughtily, but Carlos brought his dark, quietly threatening eye to bear on her too. "Go with him," he ordered softly. He wasn't smiling.
Francho's unwillingness was evident too, the square underlip grinned in annoyance, but he shrugged and gestured stiffly up the path. Dolores set her nose to the loftiest heights of condescension and swept past him. She started confidently along the steep path, but her disdain soon turned to discomfort as the rough ground bruised her feet through the light soles of her shoes. But when he pushed past her and offered a hand to help her negotiate the climb she ignored it, picking her way over the pebbles and stones in stubborn independence, shutting out the muffled guffaws she heard from various sides.
She paid no attention to Tula either, whose fleshy arms were covered with flour as she grinned round-eyed and curious at this bejeweled apparition, but wobbled past her and finally reached the cave above, which was Francho's. He stood back to allow her to enter into the dim recess. But her patience, never the best, had worn thin, and she immediately turned to lash out as he followed her in, ducking his dark head.
"My lord Marquis of Olivenza, your paucity of manners is only exceeded by the baseness of your condition!"
"Who told you I was here?" he glowered.
"No one. It just occurred to me you might be, since it seemed you were nowhere else. And I made certain by prying it out of Pepi before he brought me up here to this goat's roost."
"I want to be left alone, can you understand that, Dolores?" he muttered irritably.
"No, I can't, but as far as I am concerned you may jump off that cliff and smash into a million pieces for all I would stop you. However, there is something I want to clear from my conscience and that is why I am here. I want to discharge my debt to you."
"Debt? How would you ever be in my debt?"
She contemplated him stonily for a moment, but independent of her will her eyes also studied the jagged scar that pulled at one side of his mouth, making permanent the flat laughter circles that had always attracted her. They took in the dark frown that hung like a ledge over the deep blue eyes, and glimpsed the strong, bronzed neck where a moving Adam's apple gave away his tension. "I am more in
your debt than you think," she answered with an insouciant flip of her shoulder. "However, you will change your mind about my arrival in a second. I've brought you a message— from Leonora de Zuniga."
He stared down at the square bit of paper in her hand as if it were an arrest warrant and then blinked at her, uncomprehendingly. "You carried her letter?"
Dolores shrugged. "Evidently she had made many fruitless inquiries for you. I had once told her we were children together, and when she grew quite desperate she dropped her pride and begged me to say if I might think where you were; in fact, that was what popped the idea into my head that you might be with Carlos. At one time I had gladly wounded her with certain—uh—tales, but now I pitied her. And I owed you. So I agreed I might be able to find you and deliver this message."
"Is... is she well?" Francho asked numbly.
"Well enough. Oh, her betrothal to the Count of Perens still holds"—Dolores arched her neck so that she was looking up at him from the corner of her eye—"but it seems she secretly prefers you." Now she righted her head and looked him up and down pointedly. "As she knew you last winter, of course. Not the desperado you have become in five months." She shoved the letter into his hand.
Recovering, he stuck it into his belt. "Thank you, doña, for your Cupid's offices," he said with sarcasm.
"Think nothing at all of it, my lord," she mimicked his tone.
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