Microsoft Word - Sherwood, Valerie - Nightsong (36 page)

It was at this point that Don Ramon had seized the envoy by the throat.

Captain Juarez could not blame him. It was indeed a devilish disappointment to work so long and hard on a plan and then discover that it was to be carried to fruition by someone else.

But once Port Royal had begun to quake, and its buildings to collapse, Captain Juarez had found himself thinking that Don Ramon must have been born under a lucky star that he had not accompanied the expedition to Jamaica!

Up to now Penny had not been much interested. But now she leaned forward expectantly, for Carolina had not told her many details about the earthquake.

"Tell me about it," she urged. "For I hear it was terrible!"

Captain Juarez accepted some more wine and said indeed it was worse than that.

Hearing anguished howls behind him, he had looked back to see a wall of water rushing in upon the town. He had been caught by it, swept on with it, lifted, battered about and half-drowned for all that he was a superb swimmer (he wanted to make sure Marina heard that last!). Finally he had managed to catch on to something solid and had discovered himself clinging to the broken hull of a ship which had been driven by the wave into the town itself. There were pieces of other ships around him-masts, spars, sails--all floating in the water among the chimneys and rooftops along with people screaming desperately for help, grasping at anything that floated or still rose above the water.

Captain Juarez had been in an earthquake once before. He had had no trouble grasping what had happened. This tidal wave had snapped the cables of the ships anchored in the harbor and flung them full tilt into the town. The mass of broken wreckage all about was doubtless from those ships that had been nearest the wharves when the ocean had risen up.

And Carolina had been through all this! thought Penny with a thrill of excitement.

Quickly she poured the captain another glass of wine.

Captain Juarez took a deep swallow, drew a deeper breath and told her solemnly that he had looked at the name painted upon the broken hull that rose above him-and almost lost his grip.

Sea Wolf, he had read.

Penny, in the act of raising her own wineglass to her mouth, set it down instead and regarded Captain Juarez with a kind of fascination.

Indignation, it seemed, had given Captain Juarez strength. That he should find himself clinging to the remains of the most notorious ship in the Caribbean had seemed to him an enormous indignity. The flagship of that most infamous of buccaneers-Captain Kells! It was too much. Half-drowned and battered as he was, he had ground his teeth and stolen another look upward.

A man was dangling from the rigging, his boot caught in it Captain Juarez had ducked as that rigging promptly came down, plunging the man into the water beside him.

At that moment, along with the roar of the water and the sound of things breaking and people calling out, there were ominous creaking, tearing sounds from within the ship he clung to. Captain Juarez recognized those sounds and they spurred him to immediate action -she was breaking up.

Avoiding that rigging which now floated with its grim burden face up upon it, Juarez let go his hold and swam to a nearby chimney which stuck up above the water. He climbed upon the chimney and found that his foot had become entangled in the fallen rigging. Fearful that it might pull him down with the ship, which was even now giving signs of foundering, he was about to wrest his foot free when his gaze again passed over the man who had been trapped by it.

Of a sudden Captain Juarez stopped trying to get his foot free and stared wild-eyed at the man before him.

He saw a long body, muscular and well-built, clad in dark gray broadcloth coat and trousers. A strong hawklike countenance, floating face up. That face was darkly tanned, the eyes closed, blood trickling from a head wound somewhere in that heavy shoulder-length black hair.

But it was none of those things that had arrested the captain's attention.

Captain Juarez was staring at the boots, which were fast filling with onrushing water and threatening to drag the fellow down: black jackboots with wide bucket tops made of scarlet leather. He peered forward and saw that one of them had a gold insignia of some kind.

It was enough for Captain Juarez, who was first and last a man of action. At great risk to himself, he began frantically pulling the fallen rigging toward him and finally managed to pull the unconscious man from the water.

When he had him free at last and draped face down over the chimney so that any water he had swallowed might more easily drain from his lungs, Captain Juarez seized one jackbooted leg and hauled it up for closer inspection. There it was, glittering at him from the boot's wet surface: the initials DV intertwined in gold upon the soft red leather of the bucket top with its back scooped out to allow for bending of the knee.

Captain Juarez sat stock-still for a moment and stared at his strange catch. Don Diego Vivar arriving in Port Royal on the deck of a buccaneer vessel?

And of a sudden, being a practical man, it came to him what must have happened: Don Diego Vivar had sailed from Spain on the Santo Domingo, but the ship would never make port in Panama-she had been blasted from the seas by the guns of the Sea Wolf. Don Diego himself had been taken prisoner by these accursed buccaneers and was being brought to Port Royal-for ransom, no doubt when the earthquake had struck. He was not shackled,but then how often did these buccaneers shackle their prisoners? In the confusion of the tidal wave that had sent the Sea Wolfs broken hull crashing into the town, Don Diego, clinging to the rigging, would have been washed overboard with the others save that his boot-one of that pair the King of Spain had sent him-had got caught in the rigging and so probably saved his life. . And identified him as well. "His boots?" cried Penny, startled. "You mean you identified him by his boots?"

Her guest, now aglow with wine, nodded triumphantly. "I tried to rouse him. His heartbeat was strong and his breathing made me believe that it was a blow rather than water that had rendered him unconscious.

With those of my men who were still alive, we carried Don Diego and made our way to our pinnace, then sailed back to Havana-and all during the voyage Don Diego slept."

Penny was watching him brightly.

She listened as he recounted how the governor had ordered Don Diego's boots slit open and had read his sealed orders-Don Diego still slept. The governor had ordered surgeons to attend him and leeches to bleed him-Don Diego slept on. Don Ramon del Mundo had come to the governor's palace to stare bitterly at his rival-Don Diego stilI slept.

And when finally Don Diego Vivar had awakened--with a splitting headache-and looked about him at his world, he could remember nothing of his past. Nothing. And had remembered nothing since.

"By his boots . . ." murmured Penny. She looked up. Marina and her elderly duena were just now entering.

Captain Juarez sprang to his feet, sloshing the wine from his glass.

"Dona Marina." He swept her a bow that nearly grazed the courtyard tiles.

Marina looked upon him in vague distaste.

"Captain Juarez," she said in a bored voice. "How nice to see you." And cast a brief smouldering glance at Penny, sitting nearby.

Penny wanted to give the bluff soldier his chance with Marina. She quickly excused herself and went upstairs to her room.

There she walked about, thinking. Then she sat down and thought some more.

By his boots . . . the captain had said.

Her dark sapphire eyes were narrowed.

For Captain Juarez had told her a deal-indeed more than he knew.

THE HOUSE ON THE PLAZA DE ARMAS HAVANA, CUBA

It was late morning and Penny was racing up the stairway, shaking Carolina into full wakefulness. "Get up, sleepy head!" she cried. "Come to the window and view your competition!"

Carolina shook her head to clear the sleep from it, leaped from her bed, and accompanied Penny to the window.

"There she is," Penny said triumphantly. "Dona Jimena Menendez. She paid a call on the governor this morning and is just now leaving."

Carolina looked down to see that in the street below a slender dark woman was being handed into a carriage by no less a personage than Governor Corrubedo himself. She moved gracefully but from here it was hard to tell what she looked like.

Even at this distance her clothes appeared very rich.

"Black silk," said Penny. "Light and sheer-the best. And fine black lace. And jet jewelry frosted with diamonds and perfectly enormous pearls. I hope she looks up-you must see her eyes. They're huge. No wonder Don Diego is so taken with her!"

Carolina flashed her sister an irritated look. "Perhaps she is so taken with him!"

"Perhaps it is mutual," Penny said cheerfully. "Ah, there she's looking up to wave at the governor's daughter-the hateful minx refused to come down but she's obviously standing behind the grillwork of her bedroom window. I doubt Dona Jimena can see her, but she guesses Marina is there so she waves! Oh, it is hilarious how jealous Marina is of Dona Jimena!"

Carolina, staring down into that lovely face so suddenly uplifted, seeing the froth of black lace fall back from that pale slender forearm, thought Marina might have cause for jealousy. Old Juana might have exaggerated when she said that Dona Jimena was the most beautiful woman in the world, but she was certainly a great beauty. Her thick shining hair shimmered blue-black in the bright Havana sun, her pale olive complexion was smooth and creamy, her vivid features even from here had a dramatic flare: black winglike brows, lashes so dark they made an ebony frame for eyes that were a dark flash in her expressive face. Small-boned, elegant, aristocratio-eno wonder poor little Marina hated her!

"She has a voice like honey," supplied Penny, rubbing salt into the wound. "It fairly drips sweetness. And she sinks into chairs with a languorous air-as if she would much rather be in bed. It is easy to see why she has so many lovers!"

As far as Carolina was concerned, Dona Jimena might have all the lovers in Havana-except one. She was not to have Don Diego Vivar! On that one item, at least, she and young Marina agreed!

"The servants say Dona Jimena manages to fit Don Diego into her schedule several times a week," Penny added wickedly, with a slanted look at Carolina.

That will stop as of now! Carolina promised herself. Aloud she said, "I doubt he cares for her much-she is a loose woman, and loose women have a way of attracting unattached men."

"Well, aren't we philosophic?" mocked Penny. "I'm sure she finds him fascinating, for it seems Don Diego is a man of mystery."

"How so?" Carolina asked absently. She was watching the carriage with its elegant occupant disappear down the sunlit street.

Penny went over and plumped herself down on the bed. She was, Carolina noticed, extremely well dressed this morning. Her elegant black lace gown would have delighted any Spanish lady's heart, and her riotous hair was upswept and held in place by a carved tortoiseshell comb.

"I see you've noticed that I look different," Penny remarked.

"Obviously the governor has discovered you," Carolina observed dryly. "Don't tell me he ordered you that new gown!"

"It belonged to his wife," Penny said, smiling. "It seems that Dona Constanza and I are the same size. He has told me that I may make free with her wardrobe the better to decorate his table!" Her throaty laugh rang out.

"So you are sleeping in his bed," sighed Carolina. "Well, not yet. The governor is a gallant soul. He is courting me. Marina is furious!" "You don't mean he intends to marry you?" gasped Carolina.

"Well, he may intend to marry me but I certainly don't intend to marry him," Penny said carelessly. "A wife in Spain may be trampled on at her husband's pleasure-it doesn't suit my style!"

"No, it certainly doesn't!"

"So for the moment I am to be called his 'housekeeper' and have taken charge of the house."

"As I have here," Carolina said ironically.

"Precisely."

"But in what way is Don Diego a man of mystery?" Carolina was determined to drag her sister back to the main topic.

"I can hardly wait to tell you! There is a certain Captain Juarez who dangles after Marina. He speaks English, and yesterday when Marina was out he told me all about Don Diego." She outlined swiftly how Captain Juarez had recognized Don Diego by his boots there upon the deck of the Sea Wolf.

Carolina hung on her words. Now at last she understood what had happened and how Kells-an injured Kells whose memory had been wiped temporarily clean by a blow received during the earthquake-had turned up in Havana wearing the name Don Diego Vivar.

He had been there-hurt-all the time in Port Royal! And while she was ministering to others aboard the Swan, Kells was being carried away by his well-meaning Spanish rescuer who had mistaken him for somebody else.

And all of this put him in deadly danger, for he was living a lie-and he did not know it/

"There is a very strange look on your face, Carol," observed Penny. "One might very well think that you know something I don't!"

Carolina started. She supposed the raw emotions on her face had given her away. In the old days she would have told Penny instantly and counted on Penny to keep her secret. But she did not entirely trust this new, more worldly, more capricious Penny to keep anyone's secrets. And the thought that Kells might be found out here in Havana was terrifying!

"No, I-I was just thinking what a miracle it was that he should have been saved during the earthquake and in an enemy stronghold," she said hastily.

Penny was studying her; there was a shrewd look on her arresting face. "The governor agrees with you," she laughed. "He muttered yesterday that it is all too pat, that it was almost as if Don Diego had been placed there to be rescued!"

Carolina felt a chill steal over her. Kells was in even more danger than she had thought if the governor had begun to suspect him!

"Fate works in mysterious ways," she said cryptically.

"Yes, doesn't it?" was Penny's cool response. "Look how it brought you and me together after all these years! But now to the main question: What do you intend to do about Dona Jimena?"