Authors: Sara Craven
To save himself the
ingles
would have spoken, Agenor said grimly.
He would have taken the soldiers to the hidden landing strips in the
jungle, and to the secret camps of the
garimpeiros.
Now he was free
to warn his
compadres
on both sides, so the centre of their
operations would be changed, the war would drag on, and more
would be killed.
'But I couldn't stop him stealing the truck,' Charlie protested in her
own defence.
'Pedrinho could stop.' Agenor's face was reproachful. 'But because
you in truck,
senhorita,
he could not use gun.'
And there was no real answer to that, Charlie thought wearily.
The house was silent too, and seemed strangely deserted. The maids
weren't singing about their work today, and there was none of the
distant babble of laughter and talk from the kitchen that she'd
become accustomed to.
It's as if there's been a death, she thought, cold panic gripping her.
But there hasn't been, and I'm not even going to let myself consider
it as a possibility.
But she couldn't rid herself of the sense of guilt which was
oppressing her as she wandered from one room to another. She'd
allowed herself to ignore Philip's questionable behaviour, overlook
the obvious flaws in his character, oblivious to everything but her
need to escape from Riago and this loveless marriage he was
seeking to impose on her.
But that no longer seemed to matter—not now she had to face the
possibility that she could be his widow before she'd ever been his
wife.
She walked into Riago's room, and stood staring across at the bed. It
had been made during her absence, and the carefully smoothed
cover and pristine linen emitted a kind of chill.
She walked across and sat down on the bed, pressing a protective
hand to her abdomen. Ana Maria had touched her in the same way
only a little while ago, she remembered with a pang. Some of the
onlookers who'd crowded into the room had been clearly
scandalised by her familiarity with the
patrao's
bride, but Charlie
knew that the other girl, made percipient perhaps by the joy of her
own motherhood, had read her secret in her face, and was silently
sharing the knowledge of it with her.
It was wrong—all of it. Out of the casual passion of a night a child
would come who might never know his father.
It had been a farce from the beginning, she told herself. A comedy
of errors which had turned suddenly to melodrama, and now seemed
to be plunging towards tragedy.
She had thought that she'd already paid, with her body, the only
ransom that would be demanded of her. But Riago had gone after
her, believing her to be Philip's hostage, and this time he might be
the one to pay an even darker ransom—in blood.
She shuddered, hugging herself almost convulsively, as if that
would dam back the fear and the wretchedness.
'Send him back to me,' she whispered. 'Please send him back safely,
and I'll be his on whatever terms he chooses.'
She curled up on the bed, pressing her face into the pillow, seeking
some reminder of him—some lingering trace of the scent of his
skin, a breath of the cologne he sometimes used. But there was
nothing. No comfort for her.
She remained where she was, huddled up, like a small animal
seeking sanctuary, and, as the minutes turned into hours, at last she
fell asleep.
There were dreams in that sleep. Dreams of the green tunnel in the
forest, where dark-faced men waited with guns on their hips and
machetes in their hands. At the end of the tunnel she seemed to see
Riago, but when she tried to call his name and go to him Philip
Hughes appeared beside him, stepping between them, barring her
way, taunting her with the diamond pendant which dangled from his
fingers.
She saw them struggling together, the two figures receding and
becoming smaller, as if she were looking down the wrong end of a
telescope, so that when one fell she could not see which it was. She
began to run, her feet tangling in creepers and ferns, the branches of
unnamed trees slashing at her as she tried to push past them. And as
she ran the tiny tableau of the fallen man and his conqueror became
ever-smaller, and she knew she had to reach them before it
disappeared completely. The breath was labouring in her lungs, and
when she tried to scream no sound emerged.
She came awake very suddenly, her body soaked with sweat. She sat
up, still trembling from reaction, and saw, in the fading daylight,
Riago watching her from the doorway.
He was leaning heavily against one of the posts, deeply dishevelled,
a jacket draped awkwardly over one shoulder, his face haggard
with- weariness and strain.
For an endless moment they looked at each other in taut silence.
Then he said very quietly, 'Why did you come back?'
Slowly Charlie pushed her hair back from her face. She said, 'I—I
never really went away. Didn't they tell you? I got to the settlement,
and Ana Maria was having her baby—so I stayed.' She added,
swiftly and rather ridiculously, "They're going to call it Carlos—
after me.'
He moved a hand dismissively, grimacing as if he was in pain. 'You
left—you went with him, the
ingles'
That worthless one. Agenor's
contemptuous phrase seemed to hang in the air between them. Riago
went on, 'He stole the truck and took you with him.'
'That was the intention, yes.' She folded her arms across her breasts,
feeling suddenly cold.
'What was his name? You knew it, didn't you, Carlotta? You knew
him.' His eyes never left her face.
'Yes—in a way.' She swallowed. 'His name is Philip Hughes.' The
fact that Riago had used the past tense had not been lost on her. 'Tell
me— is he—is he...?'
'He is dead, yes. Shot.'
She ran her tongue over her dry lips. 'Did you kill him?'
He shook his head slowly. 'No, he was killed running towards a
plane. Someone on the aircraft killed him with a burst of machine-
gun fire. It seems, like the
garimpeiros,
they had no further use for
him.'
'I see.' She remembered the photograph of the smiling young man,
and his aunt's wistful pride, and tears tightened her throat.
His voice was gentle, but it seemed to come from a great distance.
'You told me once you had come here to find someone. Was it this
man— this
ingles?'
'Yes, but you don't understand -'
'What is there to understand?' Riago shrugged, his face twisting
momentarily.
'A great deal.' And how idiotic it all sounded in retrospect, she
thought bitterly. The Philip Hughes she'd hoped to find had been an
illusion—a figment of her imagination. How could she explain that
to the hard sceptical face of the man watching her from the
doorway? She made an effort. 'You see—I never really knew him at
all.'
'And yet, although he was clearly a liar and almost certainly a
criminal, you cared enough about him to try and help him to escape.
You cared enough to trust him with your life—and more?' How cold
he sounded. How remote.
'No. He was supposed to be helping me.' Her own voice was weary
with self-derision. 'Only it all went wrong. I should have seen he
was dangerous—not to be trusted—only, I suppose.
I wanted to... preserve the illusion a little bit longer.'
'Ah.' He smiled faintly. 'Illusions. Now those,
querida,
I can
understand. I have suffered from them myself, after all. But no
longer.' He paused, then said flatly, 'Tomorrow, when the boat
comes from Laragosa, I will send you back to the mission with
Padre Gaspar. He will see that you get safely to Manaus, or
wherever you wish to go-'
'You're sending me away?' Her voice cracked a little. 'But why?'
'Because, as you have said so often, I have no right to keep you
here.' His tone hardened. 'And, as you were prepared to leave with
another man, I do not think that even my household and family
would now consider I had any further obligation towards you.'
'But it wasn't like that.' Charlie scrambled up on to her knees.
'Riago—please listen...'
He shook his head. 'No, I've heard enough. This is indeed today's
world with all its greed and violence, so it is foolish to try and live
according to the traditions of the past. To try—as you say- to
preserve the illusion. So—you are set free.'
She said unevenly, 'Riago—please don't do this...'
'Is something wrong?' The tired voice bit. 'Are you afraid that I will
expect you to leave empty- handed? No,
carinha,
you need not fear.'
He held out his hand. 'This should cover the cost of your expenses
and any... inconvenience you might have suffered.'
She climbed slowly and stiffly down from the bed, and walked
towards him, searching desperately in his face for the smile in his
eyes, the softening of the firm mouth, which, almost unconsciously,
she'd come to expect when he saw her. But there was nothing.
She said, 'I don't want anything, Riago— except for you to listen to
me and believe me.'
'But you must take this. It is yours, after all. The gift I made to you.'
The outstretched hand unclenched, as if with an effort, and Charlie
saw the diamond glittering coldly in his palm. 'Captain Martinho
found it on the
ingles,''
he continued almost conversationally. 'I
suggest that if you give it away again, Carlotta, you find a worthier
object for your generosity.'
The last word was uttered with a kind of gasp, and as Charlie
watched, her lips parting in horror, Riago's knees began to buckle,
and he slid, almost in slow motion, down the door-post to the floor,
and lay there. The jacket slipped from his shoulder, and she saw
with shocked incredulity the dark red stain of blood spreading
across his shirt.
She began to shake her head from side to side in a kind of wild
negation, whispering his name as she did so.
It was only when Rosita, Pedrinho and the others arrived, crowding
into the doorway, that she realised she was screaming.
'Is bullet in shoulder,
senhorita.
We must take out.'
Charlie, huddled on one of the sofas in the
sala de estar,
stared up at
Agenor. They had given her coffee laced with
cachaga—
the fiery
local white rum—to drink, but it hadn't stopped her trembling, or
warmed the icy chill inside her. Perhaps nothing would ever again.
She'd watched them lifting Riago's limp body on to the bed, seen the
grey tinge underlying the bronze of his skin, and that dreadful stain-
growing, spreading...
And he'd said nothing, she thought wonderingly. No one had known
he'd been wounded.
She swallowed down the fear and nausea and tried to speak calmly.
'How can we? We're not doctors.'
Agenor shrugged. 'Pedrinho has take out bullet before—one, two
times, maybe. Rosita say bullet go bad in body—make fever.'
She could believe it in this environment, in this climate, where
infections, even from the smallest graze, could run rife without
treatment.
'We hurry,
senhorita,'
Agenor pressed her. 'Senhor Don Riago lose
much blood.'
She said huskily, 'Then—I suppose we'd better try.'
Riago's face looked shadowed against the snowy pillows. He was
muttering faintly, his body moving feebly and restlessly under the
covers. Charlie went over to the bed, and looked down at him, her
throat tightening.
Beside her, Agenor spoke in a low voice. 'It is bad,
senhorita.
He
say no to Pedrinho, also to Rosita, who has nursed him since baby.
All his life he fight—but no more.'
'We'll see about that,' Charlie said fiercely. 'Send everyone out
except Rosita and Pedrinho.'
While her instructions were being obeyed she sat down on the bed,
capturing Riago's hand in both hers.
She bent forward until her lips were almost grazing his ear, her
voice low and hurried. 'You're going to fight—do you hear me?
You're not going to give up. Too much depends on you for that, and
too many people. You say you want to send me away—well, you
can tell me that when you're well and strong again. Because, until
then, I'm staying—and I'm making the decisions.'
The dark eyes opened and stared at her without recognition.