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Authors: Kerry Newcomb

BOOK: Mad Morgan
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Morgan stepped over the body of the slain soldier who seemed to stare at something beyond the grasp of living men. The pirates filed past, ignoring the dead man for fear of seeing their reflections captured in his sightless eyes.
A few scattered lights along the shore beckoned, although most of the settlement was shrouded in shadows while its inhabitants slept soundly in their beds, taking comfort in gently wafting breezes, secure in the knowledge they were safe, protected … and wholly oblivious to the tiger in their midst.
T
he Inn of the Palms was a large two-story apartment house fronting the Calle de Hermanos, a tree-lined avenue of shops and houses whose windows were shuttered against the night. A faint breeze stirred the branches of the palm trees. A pair of frigate birds, disturbed from their rest by an unseen predator, soared above the clay tile rooftops. Parakeets piped and trilled then quieted again. At the Inn of the Palms, music drifted down into the courtyard from the balcony of one of the apartments, an incongruous Irish jig played upon an Irish harp.
Elena Maria allowed her skilled fingers to perform a carefree run across the strings. The melody rose from her spirit—oh, it was a tilting tumbling phrase that brought a smile to the lips of the two men who comprised her audience. A river of Gaelic melodies went a' coursing from the French doors, flowed down to the courtyard and through the gate to mingle with the whirr of rushing wings, the tinkling tones of a shell windcatcher, and a sibilant sea breeze.
The harp grew still. Elena Maria lowered her cheek onto the bogwood frame and placed the palm of her hand upon the strings as if in supplication, then General Vega and Don Alonso—her betrothed—began to enthusiastically applaud.
Twenty-three-year-old Elena Maria de Saucedo, already a spinster by everyone's standards but her own, rested the instrument upon its
stand. It was a handsome piece, with its dark sounding board and forepillar capped with the carved head of a cockatrice.
Unlike some women, Elena Maria was at ease being alone with the general and Don Alonso in the drawing room. She could read the desire in their eyes. The señorita took a sip of wine and acknowledged the compliments of her audience.
Look at them. They think they know my heart. Men are like harps, waiting for the right hand to coax sweet melodies from them. Leave such men their fantasy, but the proof is in the player.
Elena Maria considered herself a virtuoso.
“Bravo, Señorita,” said General Juan Paolo Vega, a portly little man who mopped the perspiration from his florid cheeks with a cotton kerchief he kept tucked in the sleeve of his coat. His features crinkled as he smiled and helped himself to another
torta de jojoto
. The corn cake was a kitchen staple, a hearty dessert whose batter was rich with sugar, crushed vanilla, and heavy cream.
“You find the cake to your liking?” said Elena. It was the general's third.
Vega nodded, and without the least bit of self-consciousness wolfed down the confection and brushed the crumbs from his waistcoat. The officer looked disapprovingly at his crystal wineglass; its emptiness was an affront.
“As I said, she has the hands of an angel,” Don Alonso added. “One of her tutors at court was an Irishman. It was he that taught the señorita to play. I shall be forever in his debt.” The newly appointed governor of Panama, ten years her senior, stroked his close-trimmed black beard; his brown eyes sparkled as he appraised his bride-to-be.
Beauty and wealth, God bless Don Bernardo de Saucedo.
The old landowner had known that his daughter, despite being educated in Madrid, would never be accorded the same influence as one of Spanish birth. Elena Maria, though a clever and enchanting creature, was still a
criollos,
one born in the New World. By this marriage, the señorita's father had ensured his daughter's welfare. Elena Maria would be under the protection of someone with lineage and breeding, someone born in Spain, a
peninsulares,
whose family had a place at the Spanish court and enjoyed the favor of the king.
Elena Maria met the governor's stare for a moment, then demurely lowered her gaze. Her beauty captivated him. She was fair of skin, with a long, aquiline nose, prominent cheekbones, and darkly intelligent eyes. A wealth of black hair, lustrous as a raven's wing, framed
her strong features. When she looked at him again, her moist lips parted with a come-hither smile.
Don Alonso del Campo rose from the overstuffed chair, patted the wrinkles from his ruffled shirt and royal-blue waistcoat. He favored a gold-stitched sash drawn tightly about the waist of his rust-red breeches, as if to slenderize his appearance.
“My dear sir, it seems the general's banquet table agrees with you, perhaps overly so,” Elena observed drily.
“I have a robust appetite,” Don Alonso admitted, patting his growing paunch. “But I am still fit, as I shall prove on our wedding night.” His silver-streaked hair glistened in the firelight as he roared with laughter. Don Alonso clapped Vega on the shoulder, who chimed in with good humor. But the general's laughter seemed a bit forced, even vague, as if his thoughts were elsewhere, no doubt lost in imagining the señorita among the tousled sheets of her four-poster bed, her ankles in the air, her moist sheath waiting for her lover's lance. The general gulped and mopped his brow. It was suddenly hotter in the drawing room than ever before.
Don Alonso moved with an air of confidence that came from being born to a family who, despite their chronic debts, had the favor of the court. Vega's blatant interest in the señorita excited the governor. Don Alonso placed a hand on Elena's bare shoulder, his fingers caressed her soft flesh.
“When we are married, my pretty … you shall play nothing but sweet ballads, the joys of love, eh?”
“Love ballads are often melancholy,” Elena replied. Light and shadows played upon the emerald taffeta folds of her dress. She tilted her chin, brushed her long hair back from her face, her dark eyes a guarded, calculating, lustrous green; the mysteries of her heart were like the waters of a hidden grotto, undiscovered and beyond the reach of men.
“The hour is late,” said General Vega. It was a struggle to drag his hungry stare from the swell of her breasts and smooth shoulders.
“One last glass of wine before you go,” Don Alonso said. “Where is your servant, Elena? The witch is too slow. Consuelo, a drink for el commandante, and be quick!”
A woman emerged from Elena's bedroom. The servant, a half-breed
Kuna
with skin the color of fired clay, had just turned down the covers on her mistress's bed. Consuelo was a small-boned, quiet woman who kept her own counsel and was devoted to Elena. Don Alonso knew her as an unfriendly, close-mouthed creature, someone
to be viewed with suspicion. He placed no confidence in her claim to be able to see beyond seeing. Despite Elena's assurances, Don Alonso scoffed at the Kuna woman's bewitchments.
Consuelo did not care a whit for the governor's opinion of her. In earlier days the half-breed servant had wet-nursed more babies than she could remember. Her breasts were flat, leathery pouches now, her spare frame was all but lost beneath her faded blue dress and lace smock. A few brushy strands of dull gray hair escaped the confines of her lace cap. Her right eye, the “witch-eye,” was masked by a milky-white film.
Consuelo concealed her disapproval of Elena's guests behind a mask of indifference as she served the two men from a recently decanted Madeira. She refilled their wineglasses, then cautiously approached Elena, who dismissed the servant.
“That will be all, Consuelo. Wait for me in my bedroom. Attend me there. I will be along directly.”
“Sí, señorita.”
Consuelo nodded and set the tray and crystal carafe on an end table. The nurse trundled off through the bedroom door. She cast a brief glance toward the governor, then departed, drawing the warmth from the room and leaving in her wake a chilly peace.
The Madeira was cloyingly sweet to the taste buds of one who had been raised on the bitter, fermented nectar of the agave; still, the señorita joined in the toast to her impending marriage to the governor. Elena Maria performed her social rituals to perfection.
At last, protocol dictated General Vega should extricate himself from one of the drawing room's overstuffed chairs. Bathed in the moonlight pouring in through the French doors, Vega stood at attention and unsteadily raised his glass in the woman's honor.
“Señorita, if Don Alonso changes his mind, come back to Maracaibo and I will marry you myself.”
“And what will your wife and your mistresses have to say about that?” asked Elena Maria.
The general frowned and stammered a protest that did more harm than good as he sought to reassure the woman of his fidelity.
Don Alonso seemed amused by el commandante's discomfort. The governor was becoming accustomed to Elena's outspoken nature.
General Vega blushed like a schoolboy despite his fifty years, and turned away in surrender. “Hmm, yes, perhaps, well now, uh, hmm, I see my reputation precedes me,” he said, his cherubic features souring. “Anyway, do not begrudge me my few pleasures. My wife and I are joined in name only. She keeps to our plantation, back in the hills,
and I remain here at the Inn of the Palms. It is an arrangement that suits us both.” Vega coughed and then adjusted his military coat, taking care to pat the wrinkles from his sleeve. “The hour is late, my friends, and I must bid you
buenos noches.
Duty awaits.”
“No doubt exhausting 'responsibilities.' I commend you, Señor,” Don Alonso added with a chuckle. He had been introduced to the general's mistress, an earthy, well-proportioned little tart. “It is reassuring to witness such a hardworking commandante. I only hope my own officers in Panama are as diligent. If you need any help tonight, I am certain I can rise to the occasion.”
“Many thanks, Gobernador. But I can manage. Besides, I have no wish to deprive you of the companionship of such a delightful lady.”
“You are most kind,” Elena told him. “But Don Alonso must accompany you. I am sorely in need of rest.”
Don Alonso could not conceal his disappointment. “But my dear …”
“Of course, you would not have me compromise my chastity before our marriage vows were spoken in Panama.” Elena's eyes were wide and innocent as she spoke.
Don Alonso's shoulders sagged. Clearly his thoughts were less on propriety and more on lust. Still, there was nothing for a gentleman to do but withdraw. “Never,” he lied. “Sleep well.
Suenos dulces, mi señorita.
”
The governor kissed her hand, then followed General Vega into the dimly lit hall. A soldier stationed near the top of the stairs scrambled to attention as the officer and the visiting dignitary appeared in the corridor. Vega dismissed the man with a wave of his hand. The soldier slumped back into his chair, his rumpled uniform receding into the shadows as he resumed his half-dozing state.
Most of the apartments were empty this night. The landed gentry who kept them for their own assignations with their spouses or paramours had yet to arrive in town.
“You are a stronger man than I, my friend,” said Vega. “Elena Maria is a very beautiful woman. Yes, I am a brute and would have her if she were mine.”
“But she is not … yours,” Don Alonso icily replied.
Vega took no notice of the governor's tone, and prattled on. “Fortunately for me, I have a woman waiting for me.
Mucha mujer
—much woman. I will not sleep alone this night. Perhaps I will not sleep at all.”
“Yes, well …” Don Alonso replied, staring at the door to the
apartment the general had provided for him. It adjoined Elena Maria's quarters. “I have a purse of doubloons and daresay I shall not want for companionship.”
“Sí.
I understand. A man has needs. Miguel downstairs will bring you a woman. Someone tempting as a honey cake, I warrant.”
“That might not be wise, with the señorita de Saucedo on the other side of the wall,” said Don Alonso.
“There is a back stairway that exits through the kitchen. And if a man were discreet, he could come and go unnoticed even by his intended bride.” General Vega described the lay of the streets, and the whereabouts of a brothel where a gentleman might find someone warm and willing, the kind of woman who would never, ever say she was “sorely in need of rest.”
 
 
“What is it? Speak your mind—you know you will eventually,” Elena told her nurse.
“I do not like these men,” Consuelo said.
“Of course you do not,” Elena replied, sitting patiently on the bench seat at the foot of the bed while the mulatto brushed her hair. “But do not fear. I will never allow Don Alonso to take you away from me.”
“I worry that he will take you away from yourself,” the nurse countered, the milky orb that was her right eye peering at and through Elena's reflection in the mirror.
“What do you see, old mother?”
“That you do not hold the governor in your heart.”
“Of course not,” Elena Maria admitted in a matter-of-fact tone. “Why would anyone wish to marry for love?” She smiled, amused at her nurse's candid observation.
Consuelo shook her head and sighed. Behind her a breeze stirred the curtains over the window, ruffling the fabric. She could hear the distant crash of tides, imagined the sea rising and falling, like some great beast making love to the earth beneath a blanket of stars.

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