Paradise & More (Torres Family Saga) (41 page)

      
Guzman, about to take his coveted missive from Castile and depart, looked up warily at the inept acting governor. His brows rose in irritation and impatience.
      
“Yes?”

      
“Dona Magdalena came to me early this morning with an absurd and fanciful tale. A young woman of noble blood, suffering the ill effects of a long sea voyage to this alien land, and then the shock of family disgrace and the death of her father—well, I am certain you will be tolerant of her sad outburst.”

      
By this time, Guzman's face had turned the color of ash and his hand crumpled the wax seal on the letter. “What did she say?” His voice was cold, precise, brittle with terror.

      
Colon, too absorbed in his own discomfiture to notice Guzman's reaction, continued fluttering his hands across the papers on Cristobal's desk. “Well, she thinks you to be the man who aided her father in his activities against your father-in-law, Benjamin Torres, and his family. I know it is ridiculous. She admits she had never seen you until she was at court in Valladolid last spring.

      
“Then why did she accuse me of such a heinous crime?” Lorenzo's voice was strained with fear and fury.

      
“It seems she overheard her father and another man speaking of betraying the Torres family to the Inquisition. 'Twas over two years ago, at her country estate outside Seville,” Diego said apologetically.

      
Lorenzo forced a laugh. “As you most certainly know, the charge is absurd. I have met Don Bernardo and his wife at court, even in Seville many years earlier when I was but a green boy. As to ever visiting their country estate...” He shrugged in perplexity. Then, leaning forward, he affixed Diego with his most chilling stare and said, “I do assume you will attempt everything in your power to keep this horrendous gossip from spreading through Ysabel.”

      
“Of course, Don Lorenzo. I sent her home with stern admonitions to keep quiet about this. As soon as her husband and her champion Bartolome return, I am certain they will take her in hand and calm her fanciful imagination. I myself will look in on her every evening when she returns from the hospital. She is best kept busy nursing feverish colonists and Indians who speak no Castilian, eh?”

      
As he arose, Lorenzo nodded in agreement, then asked casually, “Those caravels in the harbor, are any for Castile in the next days? My old friend Don Peralonso wishes to return to his patron, the duke.”

      
“The
Galiante
should be departing within a week, as soon as she is outfitted, but sometimes there are delays—careening to scrape the hull, reprovisioning, the usual matters—that and finding able-bodied seamen enough to man her. So many fall ill in this pestilential climate.”

      
Lorenzo nodded, attempting to maintain his facade of calm in front of the Genoese fool. “I shall send to learn from the
Galiente's
master when she will be ready.”

      
Guzman forced himself to walk calmly from the stone palace to where his horse was being held by a groom. He mounted and rode to the wretched cane and thatch hovel that passed for his residence in Ysabel. Once inside, he unrolled the letter with trembling hands and read its contents, then crumpled it with a curse and threw it across the rough-planked floor.

      
“I assume that means I must be patient yet a while longer,” Peralonso said from the doorway, one brow arched in disgust. “I heard the latest ship from Cadiz had just come in this morning.”

      
“We are in grave trouble, Peralonso. My uncle sends not one maravedi. We are to remain in exile and make our own fortunes. Hah! 'Tis but his way of assuring that we never return!”

      
“We? You speak as if I had aught to do with your banishment,” Guerra said tightly. “I have only been an adventurer seeking gold in this supposed land of glittering wealth. What an ill-conceived jest the Colons have perpetrated upon crafty old Fernando!”

      
“Forget the king, forget your supposed innocence! If I stand accused of killing his father, Diego Torres will slit your gullet as swiftly as he does mine.”

      
Guerra sat down on a small stool and looked up at the sweating, trembling younger man. “You had best explain.”

      
When Guzman finished the tale of Magdalena's discovery, he looked at the ashen Peralonso Guerra.

      
“Torres is dangerous and high in favor with the governor. When they return, you will be fed to the hounds—if you are fortunate enough not to be returned to the gentle mercies of Torquemada!” Guerra rasped.

      
“And you with me. As my uncle's retainer and my companion, do you think that you may escape my fate? We are in this together, Peralonso.”

      
“We are trapped here. What can we do? The girl—if we kill her before Torres returns...” Guerra's eyes lit up as he looked at Guzman.

      
“Simply doing away with her will serve naught. She has babbled all to that young fool Colon. If she is killed, he will sooner or later blunder into confessing her story to his brothers.”

      
“What are we to do? Flee into the jungles and live as the savages do?”

      
Guzman began to stroke his goatee as he paced, a slow ruthless smile now hardening across his face. “These past weeks here in Ysabel, I have reacquainted myself with a boyhood companion from Seville, Alonso Hojeda.”

      
“He has gone with the Colons to fight savages, which from what I have heard of him, is his most favored sport,” Guerra said in disgust.

      
“No, there you are mistaken. His most favored sport is getting rich. He only remains with the admiral until he learns where the gold, silver, pearls—whatever the Indies may in time give up—are located. Then he will outfit his own ships with backing from Medina-Celi. He was forced into fighting here to maintain his honor, but he has ever been busy learning which way blow the winds of chance. He has put me in contact with another soldier and gold seeker, one Francisco Roldan.”

      
Now Guerra's eyes narrowed in calculation. “The one in the south who rules independent of the Colons?”

      
“The same. Also the one who seized two caravels off the coast of Xaragua. He may be our means of escape from Española—and, perhaps our means of securing our fortunes, too. It is said he lives far better in the south than do the miserable wretches here in Ysabel.”

      
“I have heard rumors about gold aplenty to the south,” Peralonso replied, then added, “but I still believe we should kill Torres' woman lest she slander us one day back at court.”

      
Lorenzo's eyes were cold as the storm-tossed North Atlantic when he said flatly, “No. I will not kill the bitch. At least not yet. Ever since I saw her at court I have fancied her. You will go to a man named Jesus Maria who is in service to Hojeda. He speaks the Taino language and will secure us Indian guides so we may reach Xaragua and Roldan. I will take care of Doña Magdalena.”

* * * *

      
When she bade Dr. Chanca good evening and began her walk home, Magdalena was so weary she could scarce place one foot before the other. After a week working at the hospital, her already battered spirits were cast down even more. Three colonists and a Taino baby had died that day, the men of the flux, but the baby of simple measles. The child's mother and whole family were ill as well. Some of them had left Ysabel, desperately ill, to try and reach Guacanagari's village. If they succeeded, it would mean more death, for those with the disease seemed somehow to carry it with them to others. She shuddered to think of the decimation that could result. The sick Tainos should be stopped, but she knew going to Diego Colon would be useless. With so many of the able-bodied men off in the interior, he would never consent to send anyone to his brother's allies, even with a warning.

      
“Perhaps I can go myself. I think I know the way. If only I can convince Analu to go with me,” she. murmured to herself as she turned toward her house. The faithful servant had gone ahead to tell the serving girl to prepare a meal. Now that she worked each day at the hospital, she was beginning to be accorded genuine respect by the colonists. In truth, so many lay ill, there were few strong enough to molest her.

      
As the twilight deepened, she walked between two deserted huts whose former occupants were with the army in the interior. Suddenly a pair of strong arms seized her and a gloved hand clamped brutally over her mouth.

      
“Now, my little russet-haired bitch, let us see how you can spin tales for me!” Lorenzo Guzman's purring voice was the last thing she heard before she felt a crashing blow to her head and everything went black.

Chapter Twenty

      
“We are to meet Guacanagari and his warriors at the ridge overlooking the interior plains,” Aaron informed Cristobal and Bartolome as he reined in his mount beside them. He had just returned from a conference with Caonu.

      
“Is that not too near the hostile
cacique
s?” Bartolome asked with a worried frown.

      
Aaron shook his head, combing wet gold hair back from his forehead. He was drenched with sweat in the hot leather armor. “Once this conflict is finished, I vow never to don more than a linen shirt again, should I live to be ninety! Caonabo is massing his forces at the southern end of the valley. Guacanagari's spies have brought word of this. It will be another day before any other rebel
cacique
arrives.”

      
“Then if we dispose of Caonabo first, all the better,” Cristobal said, adjusting his seat on his skittering horse. “I am most eager to see this battle done.”

      
Bartolome laughed. “You are eager to set foot on a ship's deck once more and leave behind all land-locked strife for the thrill of discovery.”

      
“Nonetheless, the governor is right,” Aaron agreed. If we defeat Çaonabo quickly, it may well deter, his allies. Even Behechio from Xaragua has considered an alliance with his rebellious fellow
cacique
s against Guacanagari and us.”

      
“Does not that rascal Roldan have a sizeable following of insurrectionists in Xaragua?” Bartolome asked.

      
A worried look crossed Aaron's face as he ducked beneath a low-hanging limb on the narrowing trail. “Roldan has the loyalty of some of the Taino villages on the peninsula. Since those two caravels of men from Castile mutinied and joined forces with him, he can certainly challenge the
cacique
.”

      
“Perhaps they will kill each other and save us further trouble,” Bartolome said sourly.

      
Thinking of Aliyah and Navaro, now on their way to Xaragua where she was to wed Behechio, Aaron was frankly troubled but kept his own council about his former mistress and his son. For now the fighting would be on the broad, fertile valley spreading below them. He prayed that Behechio would not be so foolish as to join the fight against his new brother-in-law, Guacanagari. Once he had done his duty by serving the governor, Aaron would consider what to do about Navaro.

      
“How soon will Guacanagari's men arrive?” Cristobal asked.

      
Aaron scanned the heavily forested mountain that ringed the northern perimeter of the plain. “They are already here. As soon as all our men with their horses and dogs descend to the valley floor, our Taino allies will show themselves—but only at a distance. You know how they fear large animals.”

      
“Cowardly curs, they are no better than dogs themselves,” Hojeda said as he pulled abreast of the Colons and Torres.

      
The governor's glacial blue eyes pierced Alonzo Hojeda in rebuke. “Guacanagari is our friend. Without him and his people we would never have survived the shipwreck. He is brave and steadfast. I will have no slander made against him.”

      
Aaron looked at the arrogant little Castilian with open contempt. “Have you ever been trapped in a
huracan
with naught but a wooden paddle and a dugout? The Tainos traverse thousands of miles across these islands, facing storms so incredible they would send even the Portuguese fleeing for dry land.”

      
Hojeda returned Torres' hostility, saying, “I will not turn my back on those savages who profess to be our allies any more than I will on those who are openly our enemies.”

      
“Just so you use your bolts and your blade against the warriors of Caonabo,” Cristobal said with a decided chill in his voice. “Come, let us lead our men to the ground below. We will await Guacanagari's men there.” With that he raised his arm and Bartolome called out for all the soldiers to follow.

      
Aaron spent the rest of the afternoon moving between the two armed camps of mutually suspicious allies, deciding on strategies for the deployment of Guacanagari's foot soldiers with their spears and darts and on positioning the much more heavily armed Castilians with their cannons, arbalests, and swords. The dogs worried him the most. Even if he could keep the undisciplined soldiers' attention on shooting at Caonabo's men, how could they keep those accursed hounds from turning on their Taino allies? The dogs had been trained to kill Indians, any Indians, in the most brutal and vicious ways. The best use of Guacanagari's men was to send them into the jungle that edged the plain and have them report on Caonabo's moves, then watch for the arrival of his allies from the interior, and possibly even Behechio. Yet if he did so, Guacanagari would feel his warrior's honor had been slighted. Finally Aaron came up with a plan.