Grudging (13 page)

Teresa climbed to her feet. Her face filled with sadness. “I'm sorry, Ramiro, but we'll have to leave your brother. It's the only answer. She won't cooperate, and who can blame her.”

The youth reddened, clutching at his sheathed sword, but his voice sank to a violent whisper. “I cannot. We've no shovel to give Salvador a proper resting place. And even if we had, the ground is too soft for burying. Bad enough I must leave Alvito and Gomez; I won't leave my brother.”

Against her will, Claire's eyes went to her mother. They'd leave her to rot; her soul trapped inside her body. One way or another, they'd take her and let her mother lie here like trash. All they cared about was their own dead and their own desires. Tears rolled into her gag. Her mother's soul would never find peace. Never return to the ancestors of the Women. It would be forced to wander lost forever.

And she'd be dragged away from her, losing her forever . . .

Claire reached out with her bound arms to touch the peasant woman. When she had Teresa's attention, she pointed toward her mother, then climbed to her feet.

“You'll walk?”

Claire nodded and pointed to her mother.

“If we bury your mentor?”

Claire shook her head and kicked at the ground, making a stamping, negative motion.

“No burial.” Teresa examined their surroundings. “They obviously have other funeral traditions. A cairn of stones? No, there are not enough stones. Or quicksand? Do you sink your dead in quicksand?” she prompted.

The gag cut across her face, abrading the corners of her mouth. Claire shook her head with a growl for the barbarian notion. How could she make the woman understand?

Ramiro strode to them, and Claire stepped back, though some of the anger had left his face, leaving him almost a different person. “Too wet to bury,” he said. “They must do something else.” He studied the ground, and then his head came up. “Fire. They must burn their dead.”

Claire nodded.

He stalked closer, all grace like a deadly panther, putting his face close to hers in confrontation. “You promise to walk if we burn the witch?” His eyes drilled into her, catching her agreement.

“Deal.”

 

CHAPTER 15

J
ulian exited the council chamber and pulled the door shut. He slumped onto a bench set against the wall for petitioners, sinking into the velvet cushion. The waiting area was empty as a tomb, the guards having shuffled everyone out of the building but the officials.
Concejal
Adulfo suggested Julian return to his rooms while they debated, but it seemed like the coward's way. Better he stayed and took his medicine as soon as it was spooned to him.

The council had every reason to expel him as
alcalde
. He had gone behind their backs with a momentous decision. And it had gone terribly wrong—­children captured by the enemy. Julian stared without interest at the tapestry opposite him, one of Santiago planting his staff in the soil that would become Colina Hermosa. A crowd of ­people were woven in lifelike detail at the saint's back—­­people who would become his countrymen.

Those men and women would hurl stones at him if they were here now.

Of course it had been a risk all along—­a risk that had landed squarely on the most innocent. He was more than willing to take all the blame if that would bring one child safely home. By the saints, he wanted to turn back time.

Well, he accepted the responsibility; they could find a replacement who would not make such horrible mistakes. Julian scrubbed at his face and slowly sat upright, only to jerk in surprise at a priest in a coarse brown robe and triple-­rope belt standing right in front of him, blocking out the tapestry of Santiago.

Unlike the saint in the wall hanging, this priest had skin so dark it practically shone. His hair was cropped short and, like all priests, he wore no beard. “May I join you in your rest?” he asked.

Julian pushed aside a surge of superstitious nonsense and slid farther along the bench to make room for the burly man. The bench creaked loudly as the man took his spot, dispelling Julian's vision of ghostly apparitions sent from Heaven.

“You are spiritual advisor to one of the
concejales,
Father?” Julian asked.

“I am an advisor to any who need me,” the man answered vaguely. He settled square-­knuckled hands in his lap atop the simple trirope belt that signified his station. Instead of boots, he wore dusty and worn sandals, a hole actually worn through in one spot.

“You've taken a vow of poverty?” Julian asked.

The priest patted an emerging paunch. “Of the material, but not, I fear, of the flesh. I'm too fond of my meat and drink.” He smiled, revealing not the perfect white teeth Julian expected but ones crooked and slightly yellowed.

“Indeed,” Julian said as prelude to the silence he hoped would follow. He left the priests to his wife. Beatriz had enough interest for both of them.

“In times of tumult, look to Me sayeth the Lord.”

“One can look,” Julian said drily.

The priest nodded. “Have faith in Me, and the Lord will have faith in you.”

“The Lord has many platitudes.”

Instead of taking offense, the priest chuckled. “Glory to the Lord. Turn the other cheek in a quarrel, and I shall shelter you from harm.”

Julian cleared his throat to keep hot words from escaping. “I don't see the Lord protecting us from the Northerners, Father.” Priests and their ambition. Though no new saints had been created in—­what—­three hundred or so years, they never gave up hope they might be the next if faith and benevolence and fuzzy words could make it so. Better they kept their opinions to themselves until asked for. Even the most good-­hearted couldn't ignore the ultimate prize. They wouldn't know a true miracle if it stepped on their toes.

“An eye for an eye suits you better?” the priest asked. “Do you believe that fate controls our destiny?”

“If I did, I'd spend my days hiding under my bed.”

“And faith? Can faith turn the tide?”

“That and a copper will buy you a cup of
sopa de cordero
.” Not that one could get mutton soup for a copper since the Northerners. Julian gave himself a mental shake. “I mean no disrespect, Father. Faith is a power I don't have much dealing with, but a power nonetheless. My wife—­”

“Faith is for women and the weak-­minded, you mean to say.”

Julian shrugged, secure in his convictions. “No offense meant, Father.”

The big priest held up a callused hand. “No offense taken, my son. I've felt the same myself many a time.” The man grinned and winked. “On my bad days, you understand.”

“Don't mistake me, Father. There is a place for faith.”

The man's belly shook as he chuckled. “Spoken like a politician. Now who has the platitudes?”

Julian offered his hand. “A wise man stays out of religious argument.”

“Amen, brother.” The priest gripped Julian with a huge, callused hand. “Father Telo.”

“An honor.”

Father Telo settled his hands back on his stomach. “Better if you had kept the children here. Sending them away to keep them safe? Idiotic idealism. Better we hid under our beds, as you put it, and do nothing so the children could be culled like cattle as the Northerners pick their one in thirty after our surrender. Or suffer a violent death when our walls come down. Or burn in their homes before that. Certainly the parents won't thank you for giving their most precious possessions a chance at life and freedom. Such selfishness. After all, we should sit on our hands and wait for the Lord our God to save us all.”

Julian stared in shock as the man continued with a perfectly disinterested face.

“It's not like He gave us free will for a reason. Or that some of our choices are often less than perfect. We are as omnipotent as Our Lord, are we not?”

Julian scowled, but the priest continued before he could get out a word.

“And when the council deposes you, can they not find someone with experience of a lengthy siege and invasion to replace you? You, who are doing such a poor job.”

Julian made a
hmmph
deep in his throat. “How many times a day do you get called an ass?”

“Isn't that what the city pays me for?”

“Remind me to cut the church's tithe from the budget,” Julian said. A sudden suspicion struck, and he sat up straighter on the bench. “Did my wife send you, Father?”

Father Telo flashed his teeth in a crooked smile. “Is that not her prerogative, having her own share of free will from Our Lord?”

Julian shook his head. “Tell her she made a wise choice. I've been thoroughly dis—­”

The door behind them cracked open, spilling forth the seven councilors. Such had been their haste to call this meeting that
Concejal
Antonio still wore the bloodstained apron of his profession as butcher, and
Concejal
Pedro had flour from the mill on his collar and hair. Julian rose to face it on his feet.

Tangled beard bristling, Adulfo settled a hand on Julian's shoulder. “The council has voted to stand behind you, my friend. While better to have shared your plans with this board, we cannot see another option you could have taken to better secure our children. They were in every bit as much danger here.”

The other
concejales
mumbled their agreement.

A mist gathered before Julian's eyes.
Sentimental idiot.
He dismissed it with a sniff. The stress was getting to him. The true test came when he faced the ­people and let them know what he had done. A test he would face now. The ­people deserved to be acquainted with his disgrace. He doubted they would be nearly as forgiving.

“Father,” the
concejales
said in greeting to the priest.
Concejal
Lugo even knelt for a blessing. But then again, the small man was known for putting a thumb on the scale in his business dealings, so no doubt he needed the extra favor.

Julian inclined his head to the priest. “If you'll excuse me, Father. Time to come out from under the bed.”

The
concejales
looked at him in astonishment, but the priest nodded gravely. “May His blessing go with you.”

All seven councilmen followed Julian to the door, where two uniformed soldiers and Julian's bodyguards kept the portal closed against concerned citizens. Usually, the great bronze doors stood open to all and sundry, even during the glaring heat of the midday sun. Today, it needed no imagination or glass set into the bronze to tell Julian what waited outside. Already, the sounds came through metal and wooden obstructions alike.

The soldiers pushed open the doors onto a mob. ­People strained against one another below the steps of the council house, their faces contorted in anger or worry. Women with mourning shawls covering their heads wept. A general hum of voices filled the large square, while the crowd reached to the shops opposite and spilled into the roads. The council
pelotón
held the entranceway against them with spears raised and crossed to bar the way.

At his appearance, someone threw a fistful of vegetables to splatter against the bronze and plop in a glancing blow against a soldier. The hum grew into a roar as bodies surged forward like a furious tide. “Where are our children? What have you done to our children? Children!” The word echoed across the square, thrown from a thousand throats.

In ten years as
alcalde
, Julian had never dreamed such a dark day could exist.

A cold hand touched his arm, and Beatriz stepped to his side from the protection of the soldiers where she'd been hiding. Her face was pale and strained, but determined. Julian sensed the
concejales
flinch at his back but stand firm. Astonishingly, the sight of so much righ­teous wrath washed the rest of his reservations away. He had done what had to be done. His choice had been right—­no matter the consequences. Now he had to rectify what had gone wrong.

Pulling free of his wife, Julian held his arms wide for silence. In only a few breaths, he had it, the mob dwindling to mutters somewhere in the depths.

“Where is my child?” a thick male voice shouted.

“You shall all be reunited with your children or told where they are as quickly as possible,” Julian shouted so all could hear. “Most are in the citadel. Some have been sent to the swamps for their safety and some, as you saw, were captured.”

“Safety!” The roar returned, hotter. Most of the heated words drowned in the tumult.

Julian spread his arms again and waited as the shouts and mutters died for the second time. “Yes, my ­people, safety. Do we fool ourselves that our lives here are any more secure? Our situation is ominous, and no amount of pretending can make it otherwise. But remember: The enemy is outside the gates, not within. To tear each other apart will not help the situation.”

He continued over the talk this raised. “The Northerners expect us to close the tunnels—­to hunker down and pray for salvation. They push us to give up our city, our freedoms, our souls.” He darted a glance at Father Telo, who had joined them on the portico, and inspiration struck. A plan, clear as crystal, formed in his head. “But such is not the path of Colina Hermosa. The ­people of Colina Hermosa make their own fate. We do not surrender to infidel invaders. Give up our homes and lives without a fight? Never.”

The mutters held a note of approval. They waited to hear what he could offer, for ­people desired someone to take charge—­as long as that someone brought a likelihood of success. But the crowd would be just as quick to return to outrage.

Saints, allow it not to come to that.

“It's my responsibility to see this sorted out and families reunited,” he continued. “Then the evacuations will continue. We may not be able to hold our city, but I will ensure you escape from it. I will make good on my mistakes, and we will get our children back. This I swear by Santiago himself!”

This time the angry roar held purpose behind it. Speech done, Julian now had one more task.

It was time to create a miracle.

R
amiro sliced through foul, stinking water of the swamp lake. He glanced back at the column of black smoke falling behind them along with the dry land. It had taken more time than it should to collect enough wood. Too much of it was either green or wet, and it sent a thick plume into the air for that very reason. The fire wouldn't be hot enough to consume the body of the saint-­cursed witch, though apparently the nit didn't understand that. She walked, albeit it at the very end of her tether to be as far from him as possible.

Ramiro shivered.
Saints preserve me.
Burning the dead. The witches were barbarians. How could a person go to the afterlife with no body?

She walked, but her eyes focused on him and not her steps. Her white-­hot scorn focused along the several yards of rope connecting them and into his soul. If looks could kill, her glare would have a knife in his back. But if looks could kill, he'd have her head under the water. No doubt Teresa had chosen to go with them for that very reason. Someone had to keep him from killing the result of their botched mission. Despite that, he wished the scholarly woman would have remained behind to tend to the others.

Ignoring the witch, Ramiro returned his attention to the treacherous waters ahead—­already they lapped to his waist—­and kept the western, sinking sun at his back. Everything in him screamed at him to go back, to ignore duty and orders and be with his dying friends. But . . . he'd given his word. Coward that he was, he ached at abandoning them, but hadn't the guts to turn around. By Santiago and San Martin, he swore he'd return for them, no matter the cost. Once the burden of Colina Hermosa's survival didn't weigh on his shoulders.

Now that weight was all too heavy. What would Salvador think of that? Alvito would have rolled his eyes. Gomez would shake his head to see a
bisoño
at the helm. His brother would tell him to do what must be done. Ramiro gritted his teeth. He was not fit to be the leader.