Infinite Devotion (23 page)

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I awake with a stick hitting my head and open my eyes to the boy tending the fire.
Did he just hit me with a stick on purpose?
I couldn’t tell by how he seems to be ignoring me now. I look over to Andres holding back his laughter, and I see he’s dangling a stick over my head. He and Pepe spurt out in laughter as soon as I realize it had been them.

I sit up and rub my eyes. “Where’s the captain and Carlos?”

“They’re outside trying to talk to some of the savages, trying to get directions where we can go next,” Pepe says.

The captain walks back in much stronger than he had been yesterday and proclaims, “All my boys up!” and he throws Pepe a pair of pants that have seen better days. “This boy here’s going to walk us in the right direction.” He points at new, carved walking stick‌—‌some villager must have given him‌—‌at the boy, who seems unaware he has been nominated. Carra walks in and speaks to the boy, who hops up immediately and looks back for us to follow.

Pepe pulls the pants on like he’s afraid they’ll burn him, and we scoff at his ungratefulness.

“What?” he says. “These look like someone died, got buried, and was dug back up to get them.”

We laugh.

The captain takes Carra’s hand and kisses it as her pale skin glows. It never occurred to me until then that this woman seems to find the captain handsome, and I guess he is, with his tall stature, dark looks, and bright smile. The rest of us bow to her in thanks, and her eyes seem to tear at our plight as she kisses her cross once again and holds it up to the sky.

The boy’s running too far ahead, and the captain keeps throwing rocks in his direction, yelling, “Slower, by God!”

Suddenly, we turn the bend to see the boy sitting on a large rock. He points to a village in the distance down a knoll.

“Oh, that’s where we should go?” the captain asks.

The boy points again and moves his head and hands back and forth in a negative way.

“Oh, we shouldn’t go there?” The captain straightens.

The boy points at the path we are on and follows it all the way with his finger until it is close to the village and then shows us where the path splits and indicates we should take the one that avoids the huts.

The captain begins saying, “All right, so we just follow—” But before he can ask where the path leads, the boy disappears back up ahead.

“Well, that’s it, then.” The captain goes forth with his walking stick. “Let us keep moving. We’ll need to find shelter before night falls.”

It’s a few hours before we come to the fork that leads to the village, and we go the way the boy showed us, which takes us again through a thick wood.

“Let’s stop here and eat these berries,” the captain says, pointing to the bushes lining the path.

“How do you know they’re not poisonous?” Pepe asks, eyeing the little black berries suspiciously.

“I’m
mostly
sure these are the delicious bilberries. I had a most delicious jam from France that had a picture of these little beauties on them.” He opens one between his thumbs, and red juice drips and stains his skin. “Yes, these are most definitely the little black hearts!” He pops it in his mouth with a sucking sound. “Um-um-ummm.”

We grab for as many berries as we can pop in our mouths. They’re the most wonderful things I’ve ever tasted. We take the time to fill our bellies and our pockets with as many as we can find, when something hits me in the back of the head and throws me to the ground. In seconds, a thin man, much older than me, is pulling off my trousers and tunic. I look to my side and see a man on every one of my companions plus two pulling off the captain’s clothes. The man on me pulls off my dirty linen shirt and pants, then pushes me back down again. I watch as they’re unhappy to see the captain’s seams have already been torn and in anger take the captain’s walking stick and hit him across his back with it. The savages laugh and spit and go back from where they came with the walking stick, and leave us naked and shivering as a cold wind picks up.

“I just got those pants!” Pepe throws a rock after them.

We all sit there, almost waiting for them to bring them back to us, but the captain pulls himself up with a grunt and wince, then hobbles over to the brush. He begins pulling the ferns out with his hands and throwing them all in a pile. We wonder if he’s going mad, but we watch as he strips the largest fern and ties it tightly around his thin middle. He then starts tying fern after fern onto the stringlike plaits.

Halfway done, he looks up with a smile and says, “My Irish kilt!”

We all laugh and get up to copy what he’s doing.

After the last fern is on, we look like a band of native warriors. We’re still shivering but feel a little more pride walking again on the trail. Pitch dark sets in, but we have to continue.

“What’s shimmering over there?” Andres points through the trees.

We step off the path to go toward it and come out by a large lake. To our right, we see the moon illuminating the thatched huts.

“I think we should stay away from villages,” Carlos says to the captain.

But the captain squints his eyes and says, “No smoke means no fires, and no fires means no villagers.” He starts walking toward the village.

Chapter 13

He’s right; the village is deserted. The fires haven’t been lit for some time, and no personal articles can be found. We check in each hut quietly to be sure and are startled by movement within the largest one. Three men jump up off the straw floor, and a small dog begins barking. Before we can turn and flee, we hear one exclaim, “Run!” in Spanish.

Immediately, the captain exclaims, “Brothers!”

They lunge toward us in the darkness of the hut, slapping us all on our backs. We’re relieved we’ve found more countrymen.

“My name is Captain Francesco de Cuellar from—”

“Captain!” The tallest man jumps out and hugs him so hard the captain loses his balance.

“Alvaro?” the captain says, completely shocked.

Their dog’s jumping up on my leg repeatedly, and it dawns on me as I bend down to feel the familiar wet nose all over my face. “Bella!” I scream, and suddenly, both Andres and Pepe embrace her.

After the excitement of the unexpected reunion dies down, we sit with Alvaro and his companions.

“You all look very lovely in your skirts.” Alvaro smirks as he playfully tousles our hair.

The captain smirks. “I think we’ll get another day out of them before they shrivel up and I get to show off!”

“Hah! Now I feel overdressed for this party.” Alvaro’s smile reaches his eyes.

“That better not be Philippe with you.” The captain squints into the dark, trying to see if he recognizes the others.

“No.” Alvaro’s eyes twinkle in the faint light coming through the window. “He had a terrible
accident
as soon as you were taken off the ship.”

The captain chuckles proudly and then pauses. “So, tell me, what became of my beautiful ship?”

Bella comes and tries to nestle in the circle of Pepe’s lap, scratching furiously at the ferns.

“Easy, there, that’s a Pepe original you’re shredding there.”

Alvaro sits up to start his tale. “I became captain after you didn’t return. Talk about trial by fire! First time captaining a sinking ship in enemy territory.” He rubs his scruffy beard back and forth nervously. “The ship was falling apart, taking on water faster than we could pump. Half the ship was sick from reducing our rations and water. I knew we had to make for land, but none was in sight. We were forcing the ship to its breaking point, and everyone on board gave up all hope. In the slight glimmer of the northern lights, there was an eerie stillness as I realized the pumps stopped working for the first time in days. All men came on deck, prayed, and resolved to give up and let the water rise. As dawn broke, we saw land right before our eyes! I gave commands that we were making to crash on the sandy shore and for everyone get to the ready! I steered right for the beach, but the tide swept us and stuck us right between a narrow wedge in the cliffs.”

The captain asks, “Are you the only survivors?”

He flips his head back with a weird laugh. “That’s the strangest thing! Every man made it off the ship!”

We all shake our heads in disbelief.

He keeps laughing. “The yardarms hit just above a ledge in the side of the cliff, and we managed to get every man off! Even the wounded!”

“Why aren’t all your men with you, then?” The captain’s brow tenses.

Alvaro gives him a crazy glance. “That’s the ironic part.” He laughs strangely. “I get every man off, and as soon as we’re making our way toward a village, the Lord Deputy FitzWilliam surrounds us with cavalry and savages with muskets and arquebuses.”

“Did you fight?” Pepe asks impatiently.

Alvaro turns toward him. “We were ready to, but some of the noblemen talked to his men in Latin. FitzWilliam told us there were three thousand English right behind them. He asked us which noblemen were on our ship and had them and the priests brought to him. He convinced them to surrender and promised us all we would keep our clothes and would be returned to Spain. Once our weapons were laid down, they attacked with brutal force, shooting, clubbing, spearing, punching. I ran right for the bog behind us with about fifty or so other men, but as soon as I reached the other side of the bog, these two were the only men with me.”

“What about Bella?” Andres asks.

Alvaro finally smiles. “Oh, well, she’s smarter than any of us. As soon as she heard FitzWilliam and the cavalry coming, she ran for the bog. That’s how I got the idea.”

We’re quiet for a bit, and the captain speaks. “How many days did it take you to find this place?”

“This all happened this morning,” his companion says.

“So there might be three thousand English troops in this area?” The captain becomes rigid.

Alvaro nods. “And they’ll shoot Spaniards in the streets like dogs.”

“This FitzWilliam, is he a deputy?” the captain asks.

“That is what the nobleman translated. That’s why we trusted him. I should have never trusted anyone with steel-grey eyes.”

“Well, we should rest, because as soon as dawn breaks, we need to get away from this place.”

The captain settles himself down, and we all say goodnight.

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The door slowly opens in the faint dawn, and Bella sounds the alarm. We quickly get to our feet, but the startled man closes the door at the sight of us. The captain puts his hand up for us to stay quiet, and he listens to the intruder walk away.

Alvaro runs to the window. “It’s only one clergyman, no one else.”

With this reassurance, the captain hobbles out, shouting, “Please! Help us!”

The monk pauses, unsure of us foreigners, and he says something to the captain I can’t understand. Surprisingly, the captain speaks back in the same odd language.

“Latin,” Alvaro explains to us.

The captain struggles with it, but the monk’s pointing a lot, and the captain keeps nodding gratefully. The captain shakes the religious man’s hand with both hands and returns happily to us.

“We are saved, men!” He waves for us halfway back. “God has intervened to save us once again! Follow me. I’ll explain while we’re walking.”

“What did he say?” I ask, walking one stride to his two.

“I understood most of it. First, he told of great danger. He said the English had gone around to all the villagers and warned each one that harboring or aiding a Spaniard was punishable by death.” The captain looks back toward the other villages we passed. “He said they were rounding them all up this very morning and walking them to the gallows.”

“Shouldn’t we try to help them?” Andres halts.

Alvaro scoffs and throws his hands up in the air. “Yeah, you go back there and rescue them all.”

Andres looks hurt but starts walking again.

The captain keeps his gaze ahead but puts an arm around Andres and brings him up to pace. “We can’t help anyone but ourselves right now.”

“So that explains the Irish welcome,” Alvaro says.

“Well, all is not lost. Thankfully, the queen has her enemies, and the monk gave me direction to friends of King Philip, Chieftains O’Rourke, and MacClancy, six leagues from here, north of the mountains.”

Alvaro stops. “But we aren’t going north of the mountains.”

“I’m very well aware of that.” He smirks. “I’m hurrying to the other fantastic news God’s messenger told of.”

We wait for a moment for him to continue.

Alvaro spits, “What is it?”

“A Spanish ship has been sighted off the coast. The ship is searching the shore for survivors, but we must hurry.” He’s straining greatly.

Hearing this news, Alvaro, Carlos, and the other men quicken their pace. At first, I can’t go any faster than the captain, but after a few hours, he slows, and I try to reduce my pace but see the others disappearing ahead. Andres is the only one who slows down to walk with the captain and me. Not including Bella, of course, who playfully keeps running back to us and circles around us. Pepe never even glances back.

“You two run ahead too.” He stops, panting heavily. “I just need to rest my leg a moment.”