Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution (40 page)

Sophie took a
deep breath and coughed, her taste buds violated by the stenches of mildew,
excrement, and putrefaction.
 
David
grimaced, fanned his face, and guided her around a dog carcass.
 
But Jacques grinned with familiarity.
 
"Ah, Havana, she smells like
Paris!"

"Look
out!"
 
David yanked the enraptured
Frenchman from the
avenida
to avoid his being trampled by a
volanta
racing over the cobblestones.
 
The
lightweight carriage of a Spanish noble, steered by a liveried Negro on
horseback, clattered north.
 
"They
drive worse here than in New York.
 
Watch where you walk."

Sophie stepped
away from goat turds.
 
"An
excellent idea."

Two more
volantas
zoomed past before a
volanta
for hire rolled to a stop before them.
 
The driver, a Spaniard, tipped his hat.
 
"
Buenas tardes, señores y señora. ¿A
donde van?
"

David nodded.
 
"
Estamos buscando a Don Antonio
Hernandez
."
 
Over her shoulder,
Sophie glimpsed Arriaga striding for the gates and waving off the approach of
several whores.

"
Ah,
sí, señor
."
 
The driver
dismounted and reached for their gear.
 
"
No problema, no problema.
 
Vamos primero a la casa del Marqués de Arcos
."

"
Un
momento
."
 
Jacques elbowed
David aside with a growl for the driver.
 
"¿
Cuánto
?"

David backed
away next to Sophie.
 
"Let Uncle
Jacques haggle a rate for us on the king's pence."
 
Arriaga entered the city.
 
"
Capitão
, would you care to share
the fare for a
volanta
?"
 
In
the background, discussion heated between Jacques and the driver.

Interest raised
Arriaga's eyebrows.
 
"You are
headed for La Iglesia de la Santa Teresa, then?"

"We're
going to the house of the Marqués de Arcos first."

"No, thank
you,
senhor
.
 
That is north.
 
La Iglesia de la Santa Teresa is west, very
near La Iglesia Santo Cristo de Buen Viaje, where I am going to give thanks to
Nossa
Senhora
."

"I presume
this is a tradition for you after a voyage to Havana."
 
At the street, fare rate negotiations
intensified and incorporated plenty of hand gestures.

"
Sim
.
 
La Iglesia de Buen Viaje is favored among
sailors."
 
He inclined his head to
them.
 
"Good luck to you."

David tipped
his hat.
 
"Thank you,
capitão
."

Arriaga looked
both ways and darted across the street before a
volanta
driver could
make a target of him.
 
The rate exchange
had quieted.
 
Victory in his posture,
Jacques beckoned them aboard.
 
The
Spaniard, sullen, loaded their gear, including the parasol, atop the carriage,
then cut west on a side street before trotting the
volanta
north.

Despite the
stink, Jacques poked his head out the window often to look around.
 
Sophie longed to gawk, too, but it wasn't
the action of a black-veiled lady.
 
It
surprised her how much she did experience of Havana from inside the
volanta
,
especially when wood smoke or the scent of a bakery managed to rise above the
reek.
 
Peasants plodded past leading
mules laden with baskets of yucca and papaya.
 
Vendors hawked their wares.
 
Spanish soldiers in white patrolled the streets.
 
Verdant foliage and scarlet flowers
proliferated.
 
All in all, Havana made
Cuba seem a land of clear green and burning crimson.

Nearer their
destination, packs of black-robed ecclesiastics roamed Calle Obispo, and
merchants swarmed Calle O'Reilly, the business hub of the city.
 
The absence of women on the streets, even
whores, reminded Sophie of David's lecture about the place of women in Catholic
countries.
 
The house and offices of the
Marqués de Arcos were located near a plaza dominated by a massive
cathedral.
 
From the
volanta
's
parking place out front, Sophie could see the north city walls and a guard
tower.

Jacques
inquired inside for Don Antonio.
 
Sophie
and David listened to enticing songs of tropical birds.
 
An intermittent breeze chased off flies and
cooled the inside of the
volanta
.
 
Church bells pealed another quarter hour before the Frenchman returned
scowling.
 
He yanked open the carriage
door, ordered the driver to the Church of Saint Teresa, stomped inside, and
slammed the door.
 
The
volanta
jolted into motion, and he flopped onto the seat next to David.
 
"Disorganized, inefficient
Spaniards."

David cocked an
eyebrow.
 
"Don Antonio wasn't
in?"

"
Non
.
 
We just missed him.
 
I spent most of my time inside waiting for
someone to inform me that he had returned to his mansion near Plaza del
Cristo.
 
As it is not far from the
Church of Saint Teresa —"

"— why not
visit the church before calling on him?"

"
Mais
oui
."

"After
all, there must be some reason Esteban Hernandez directed us to his uncle's
home instead of the church."

"Some
reason, indeed."
 
A nasty smile
pinched Jacques's face.
 
"And why
not give those mongrels following us just as high a
volanta
fare as we
are incurring?"

Sophie gasped.
 
"We're being followed?"
 
The nagging in her instincts ratcheted up to
a wail.

David grinned
at Jacques and gestured behind them.
 
"It's the
volanta
with the brown trim, right?"

Jacques
mirrored his grin.
 
"You have sharp
eyes."

"A skill
acquired when one has rivals."

Sophie's glance
skittered between the men.
 
"What
can we do about our pursuit?"

David settled
back in his seat.
 
"They'll reveal
their intent soon enough."

The trip south
took nearly twenty minutes.
 
They
stopped twice for farmers herding cattle and pigs across the narrow, cobbled
Calle San Ignacio.
 
During the time,
Jacques coached Sophie and David on passing for Catholics and explained what
they could expect from the interior of a Catholic church.

Before their
own
volanta
pulled up in front of Iglesia de Santa Teresa on Calle
Brasil, their pursuit turned off.
 
Alert, the trio entered the cool, musty dimness of the nave through a
handsome doorway bearing curvilinear ornamentation.
 
The remnants of incense from the Sexte office tickled Sophie's
nose.
 
Sunlight filtered through stained
glass and splotched cobalt, scarlet, and saffron across the shadowy shapes of a
dozen parishioners praying in dark wooden pews.
 
Along the sides, small, squat candles flickered on saints'
altars.
 
Near the main altar, light from
larger candles softened the motions of acolytes.
 
Murmurs in Spanish and Latin reached her ears, as did the click
of wooden rosary beads.

David sat in a
pew at the back.
 
Jacques led Sophie to
the middle of the nave, where she slid into a pew and settled onto her
knees.
 
The black veil shaded her face
and caressed her cheeks.
 
Jacques slid
into a pew near the altar and knelt.

Eyes adjusted
to the dim interior, she glanced over the parishioners, mostly women in black
veils.
 
In the pew ahead, an idiot with
unkempt gray hair rocked himself.
 
Pity
prodded her.
 
Another man five pews
forward rose from near a veiled woman and stepped to the aisle.

She gaped, and
her heart hammered.
 
It was Will St.
James!

So they
had
seen him aboard the
Annabelle
.
 
He was alive!
 
Love, heartache,
and relief flooded her eyes.
 
She
blinked back the tears.
 
Not yet.

David was
studying sputtering candles to the right.
 
She stared at Jacques, willing him to turn around, but the Frenchman
remained facing forward.
 
In exasperation
and panic, she sat back and scooted across the pew toward the side, freezing
when Will slid into the third pew in front of her, a couple of feet from
another woman.
 
He was approaching every
black-veiled woman in the church for his contact.
 
Sophie fought back a burst of laughter and knelt again.
 
Well, then, let him come to her.

Very soon, he
stood.
 
Now David was contemplating
archangels carved into the beams.
 
She
relaxed, reached in her left pocket, and withdrew her father's wedding band.
 
The pew quivered, accepting his weight, and
the idiot in the pew ahead rocked faster.
 
Will scooted over within two feet of her and murmured, "Saint
Augustine, deliver my immortal soul from sin."

Was that some
kind of code greeting or password?
 
She
muttered, "I'd as soon deliver your infernal hide to the redcoats for
printing those broadsides."

"Sophie!"
 
Will managed to hold his voice to a whisper,
even as he gripped her extended hand.
 
She slid the ring into his palm, not daring to look straight at him for
losing her composure.
 
He fumbled the
ring on and emitted a ragged sigh.
 
"Good gods, my child, what are you doing here?"

"Jacques,
David, Mathias, and I are trying to give the emeralds to you or Dusseau so we
can exit this nightmare."
 
Her
attention caught on the idiot.
 
Had he
moved closer?

"
Hernandez
's
emeralds?"

"
Sí
— er, yes.
 
He's dead."

"And he
gave
you
his stones?
 
He never
permitted us to touch them!"

So Hernandez
had lied when he told them the bribe was split between three couriers.
 
How much of his story had been truth?
 
"To give to Don Alejandro, he
said."

"Dear
gods, not to him, you mustn't —"

"We
won't.
 
We're giving them to you
instead.
 
Where's André Dusseau?"

"Outside.
 
Staying out of sight."

She sucked in a
breath of alarm.
 
The idiot was, by
then, sitting only about three feet to the left of Will.
 
"Uncle Jacques has them.
 
He's up in that front pew.
 
Go quickly."

"We don't
want those emeralds, and good gods, I cannot believe all of you have risked
your lives for this spider's web of double-crossing Spaniards —"

With a shriek,
she shoved away from him just as the "idiot" swung around,
candlelight glinting on polished steel in his hand.
 
The dagger of El Serpiente embedded in the wooden back of the pew
above where Will's heart had been not a second before.

Women
screeched.
 
Acolytes at the altar
gawked.
 
Will backhanded El Serpiente,
knocking him onto the pew and sending his wig askew.
 
Then Will bolted toward an exterior door near the altar.
 
Sophie clambered for the aisle at the
opposite end of the pew.
 
The assassin
leaped the pew and raced for her.

More women
screamed.
 
Men shouted.
 
David lunged up the aisle for her, and
Jacques sprinted back, a snarl of protection on his face.

Daylight
pierced the nave, the front door opened by several Spanish soldiers.
 
El Serpiente vaulted over a couple of pews
and sprinted for the exit taken by Will.
 
Black-veiled women hemmed in the soldiers, each wailing in Spanish about
having her widowly virtue threatened by a horde of pirates with cutlasses.

A priest
emerged from a door behind the altar and hustled down the aisle toward the
soldiers and women, indignation on his face.
 
David and Jacques seized Sophie's arms and marched her past the knot of
panic, out the front door and gates, into their waiting
volanta
.
 
Jacques's voice whipped out at the
driver.
 
"¡
A la casa del Don
Antonio Hernandez — rápidamente
!"
 
The Frenchman banged the door shut.
 
The
volanta
sped out into the street.

Sophie pushed
away Jacques's offer of brandy.
 
"I
mustn't dull my wits.
 
Give me a moment
to calm down."