Bridle the Wind (23 page)

‘Very good!' said Juan, laughing. ‘For indeed, I was beginning to fear that you never would!'

And so we rode on feeling comfortable with one another.

Yet, that very evening, we were quarrelling again.

We had agreed that, since Brother Bertrand advised finding a blacksmith to file el Demonio's shoe, that had best be done without delay, and we therefore made our way to the banks of the Gave de Mauleon, which, according to our map, farther
up its course passed by a little village named Licq-Athérey. By late afternoon we had reached this place, which contained several houses and two large inns; for, as we learned, the waters that spring from the ground hereabouts possess a healing virtue, and sick people come from both France and Spain to be purged from stiffness of the joints or afflictions of the kidney and stomach. The village is not large, but thriving, and there were a number of wealthy-looking people strolling about. We found a forge without difficulty, but the smith was busy replacing a metal hoop on the wheel of a lady's coach, and we were obliged to wait our turn. I suggested to Juan that I should remain with the ponies outside the smithy, in case some other customer should push in ahead of us; for I wanted to be away from there as soon as might be. The atmosphere of the village made me uneasy, though, to be sure, it seemed a clean, pleasant enough little place.

Juan therefore volunteered to go and buy provisions, cloth for more bandages, tape, and thread. I gave him a couple of francs from my store and urged him not to let himself be cheated by crafty stallkeepers. It had struck me several times that Juan must have led a vastly protected life; he seemed quite unaccustomed to such practical matters as buying, selling, and bargaining. Perhaps, I thought, his father had been an extremely rich merchant and Juan had been reared like a young prince, secluded from the common
people. He seldom said more than a couple of words about his homelife.

At my admonitions he flushed a little pink, but grinned and said that he would do his best.

Time drifted slowly by, the blacksmith eventually completed his work on the coach wheel, and then I led in el Demonio, who lived up to his name, snorted, lashed out, whinnied, and behaved as if all his legs were to be chopped off, instead of having his shoes rendered more comfortable. While he was about it, the smith tightened several nails in them, and then performed the same service for the Harlequin, so that we need not risk a cast shoe in the mountains. He inquired whither we were bound, and I replied, to visit my aunt at Lescun on the Pic d'Anie, and then reddened at the lie, thinking how Juan would mock me if he were there. But the blaze of the smith's fire concealed my blush and he did not observe it.

After that a pair of oxen were brought in for shoeing. This was carried out in a singular manner, which I was interested to watch, for we do it differently in Galicia: the forge contained a stout framework of timber on which each ox in turn was hoisted up by a broad belt passed under his belly, and his legs were lashed together so that the smith could work at leisure without fear of being gored or kicked. The bellowing of those uplifted beasts was amazing to hear; I daresay the poor things thought their last hour had come. I wished that Juan would return, so that he, too, might enjoy the spectacle, but he did not; and then I
thought that this was just as well, for it might have reminded him of his own narrow escape from death.

Both oxen having been shod, they were yoked up and led away, and the smith proceeded to quench his fire and shut up his forge for the night. Juan still had not returned, twilight was falling, and I was by now growing decidedly anxious. What in the world could have happened to him? Surely he could not have taken all this long time in the purchase of bread, milk, sausage, tape, and cloth? My fears were heightened because, earlier, while I had been holding el Demonio's bridle in the smithy, I had beheld a little hunchbacked fellow somewhat closely scrutinizing first me and then the Harlequin in the road outside. I had not set eyes on the member of the Gente called Jorobado, and had no means of knowing whether this could be the same hunchback as Juan had seen in Hasparren, but his curiosity in me and our humble mounts seemed excessive; which was one of the reasons why I had told the smith that lie about our destination.

‘My friend is a long time about buying bread,' said I to him now as he closed his door. ‘May I tie up our
pottoka
behind your forge while I go to look for him?'

And welcome, he said – there was a dusty patch of ground under a walnut tree where his fat wife was washing linen in a tub and hanging it over currant bushes to dry; so I thought the belongings in our saddlebags would be safe enough – and I
walked off along the village street, looking sharply this way and that, with my mind deeply misgiving me. There were hardly any people about now; I saw neither Juan nor the hunchback.

Arrived in the main square – which was no more than a tree-bordered widening of the street – I realised where the population had got to; they were all here; some kind of performance appeared to be taking place.

A platform had been erected in the centre of the place; it was supported on upended wine barrels, and adorned with swags of white muslin and bunches of flowers. Music had been playing gently on fifes, drums, and bagpipes, but ceased as I arrived in the square. After a moment or two – as if all had been awaiting my arrival – three people climbed up onto the stage: an old man with sheepskin vest, white beard, and crimson beretta; a younger man, dark, thickset, and beak-nosed; and – to my cold horror – Juan, looking quite composed, but a little excited, his eyes very bright. The three of them sat down side by side on stools, while a master of ceremonies introduced them. Their names were fanciful. The old man styled himself something like the Lord of the Hillside. Juan's name was given as Ongriako Erregek. I forget the other. Then the
bertsulari
contest (for such I soon guessed it to be) began.

A member of the crowd would shout some phrase, or question, and then each of the three on the platform proceeded, in his own way, to give an answer. The old whitebeard would bawl out
some brief, earthy piece of wisdom, which drew gasps, and laughs, and groans of horrified agreement from the audience. The stocky dark fellow was much more long-winded, and declaimed for nine or ten minutes every time, which evidently tried the patience of some of his hearers, who doubtless were eagerly waiting with questions of their own, so that some began to shout
‘Ya-ya-ya-ya!'
though others appeared to like what he said well enough. When it came to Juan's turn, I could see that he had a degree of difficulty in making himself heard, for his voice was not yet strong and clear. He gave his replies in a kind of rusty croak, and I devoutly hoped that he was not doing the cords of his neck dreadful damage. But whatever it was that he recited (as it was in the Basque tongue, I of course missed a great deal) seemed to charm and amuse the audience greatly, for they listened to him in complete silence while he spoke; and then, almost always, afterwards, there would follow a ripple of affectionate laughter and some handclapping.

While these proceedings went forward I, for my part, grew steadily more and more uneasy. For quite soon I had spotted the little hunchback once more, weaving his way among the crowd; also another man who, I thought, might have been one of the four seen waiting for us at the grotto entrance. Again and again I attempted to catch Juan's eye but without the least success. I was on the outskirts of the crowd, and the audience were closely packed, but by slow degrees I contrived
to work my way forward, edging and wriggling between large and thickset bodies, a process for which at least my small stature was an advantage, until I reached the last row but one below the platform, and was almost within touching distance of Juan.

A large fat woman stood in front of me twirling a distaff and loudly shouting, ‘Bravo, bravo!' at each recitation; the wool, as she spun it, went into a pouch at her side. The man beside her, evidently her husband, looked like a sailor; his black hair was twined into a tarry pigtail and he wore gold rings in his ears.

He called out a question in Euskara, which, to me, sounded like ‘How do you make a pie for a sailor?'

And the old man, first clearing his throat, answered something that sounded like:

which made the audience laugh and hoot. Then the stocky poet produced some long piece of philosophical reflection which seemed to be about the lot of sailors, and how they travelled the wide world over in pursuit of whales and knowledge. On and on it went, and soon had a great many people fidgeting and whistling; the stout woman with the distaff sighed with irritation and trod on my foot.

Then Juan, who had been frowning in extreme
concentration all through this oration, stood up and, quite softly, recited no more than half a dozen lines, which had the crowd so delighted that they began to stamp and cheer and shout
‘Hola, hola!'
as if we were at a bullfight.

In the midst of which commotion I, very quickly and quietly, slipped past the fat woman, seized hold of Juan's ankle, and sharply tugged him off the platform. This had the unlucky effect of unbalancing the whole structure, the platform tipped over, the other two poets were catapulted into the crowd, and the wine barrels rolled in every direction.

‘Come with me! We have to get away from here!' I hissed into Juan's ear, hoisting him to his feet; and keeping a tight hold of his wrist, I dragged him after me through the pressing, shifting people, endeavouring, as I did so, to look sharply about me so as to avoid the hunchback and the other man.

‘Keep your head down!' I muttered to Juan.
‘They
are here!'

I am not sure that he heard me.

As soon as we were away from the square I obliged him to run fast, ducking in and out of the shadows of trees that grew beside the road, making as little sound as possible – though, indeed, the shouts and clamour from behind us would have drowned a cavalry charge.

‘I have left the things behind!' Juan cried angrily.

‘Hush! Keep your voice down! What things?'

‘The food – and bandages.'

‘Then we will have to go hungry. Come on –
faster!
'

Behind us the noise of the crowd swelled louder; laughter, and shouts, and indignant outcry suggested that the collapsed platform had started a fight. Or perhaps the people of Licq-Athérey were searching for their mislaid poets.

Juan was still resisting me strongly, which made heavy weather of the run; he tugged furiously at my hand; also he seemed to be panting violently. When we arrived at the quiet, dusty patch behind the forge, which was illuminated by a beam of lamplight from the smith's window, I saw that Juan was not panting, but sobbing with rage; tears sparkled on his cheeks. He burst out at me in a torrent of mingled French and Basque:

‘Infamous
tyrant!
Why does everything always have to be as
you
order? Just because you saved my life once, you believe I must always obey you and do as you say, but it is not so – it is not so -it
shall
not be so – I will go back there –'

‘Indeed you shall
not!'
said I. ‘Don't be such a hotheaded fool! Will you
listen
to me – just for one minute –'

But he would not listen. He called me all the bad names he could think of in his two languages. T wish to heaven you had never saved me, if I must always be subject to you!' and finally even recollected an English insult. ‘You
pig!'
he burst out, made at me as if to hit me, and aimed a blow at my chest, which I easily parried, holding his two wrists tightly together.

‘Will you pay attention?
A small hunchbacked man is in the village – he was looking hard at your pony and saw me in the forge. Also another man – I think the one you called Bazin who was at the cave entrance – I am fairly certain that I saw him, too, in the street, listening, following, watching you.'

There followed a short silence, then –
‘Oh, mon Dieu
,' whispered Juan. All the fury drained out of him, his shoulders slumped, his hands fell away out of mine. ‘What shall we do?' he muttered wretchedly. ‘Where shall we go?'

‘Back the way we came. And fast. We must be away at once. Come, I have already fed and saddled the horses; they are all ready.'

Without another word he mounted his pony; I did likewise, and as softly as possible, we left the village at a walking pace, darkness and silence encouraging us to believe that we were unobserved.

Behind us we could still hear shouts and sounds of riot. ‘Good,' said I, trying to sound as brisk and cheerful as possible, ‘in all that disturbance it will be impossible for the men to make sure we are not still there.'

Juan made no answer.

As soon as we were well away we broke into a trot and, after a quarter of a mile or so, swung around to our right and made our way through oak forest, always continuing to circle to the right until, at length, I reckoned that we were headed once more in our original direction. Even in the
dark it was possible to be fairly sure of this, for we could see the great pointed shapes of mountains, like dragons' teeth, standing ahead of us against the paler sky to the south.

Juan spoke never a word.

Hour after hour we rode on through the darkness, with stars bright and cold above, our ponies cleverly picking a path, which we ourselves could never have found, among forest and rock, scree and coppice, ascending knolls, threading their way through narrow defiles, all the while climbing, climbing. They were tired now, the fight had gone even out of el Demonio; he plodded soberly along, minding his footing. And still Juan never spoke. His silence was as deep as a well; perhaps, I thought, it was a well that had no bottom. I felt within me an aching, sorrowful heaviness, and began to inquire of myself whether I had indeed behaved unreasonably in snatching him away from a performance that meant so much to him and promised to be his triumph.