Return to Paradise (Torres Family Saga) (26 page)

      
“So do me, your Excellency,” Miriam responded.

      
“You must call me Maria. The governorship hangs like a lodestone about my neck until my Diego returns from Spain.”

      
“Dona Maria, might I ask you to call me Rodrigo? Twas the name my foster parents gave me.”

      
The
virreina
studied his expression. He could mask his feelings just as Aaron could. “Of course, Rodrigo, if you too will forgo the formality of ‘my lady’ and call me Maria.”

      
Within moments, Maria had them ensconced in spacious quarters on the second floor of the palace, with instructions to rest before the evening meal. Hot bath water would be sent up and anything else they desired, they had but to request.

      
Once they were alone in the opulent room, Miriam paced nervously over to the balcony and looked out the arched window to the busy port scene spread below them. “The
virreina
is most kind. Do you think she suspects my heritage, too?”

      
“She is astute, but her husband idolized Aaron Torres since they were children. The Second Admiral would not have told anyone the fate of his hero's family. You are safe, Miriam. It would seem everyone on Espanola is in awe of Aaron Torres.”

      
“If your foster brother speaks so well of him, perhaps—”

      
“Bartolome has by his own admission never met the man,” he said harshly. A gentle tapping at the door interrupted them.

      
Two burly African slaves carried in a heavy copper tub and one informed her she had but to ring and they would bring hot water to fill it. When they were dismissed, Rigo turned to her and said, “Why do you not rest? Twill ease the aches from such a long and arduous journey. I would not have you overtaxed.”

      
“I am pregnant, not sick, Rigo. Please stop treating me as if I were an invalid.”

      
He stepped close behind her and placed his hands on the lacings across the front of her gown, now loosened to accommodate her fuller breasts and belly. “You are the doctor. If you feel so hale, then you may perhaps welcome me in that monster bed tonight.”

      
The huge canopied bed was the central furnishing in the large room. She had avoided looking at it when they entered. “You are my husband. Tis your right to lie with me any time you choose,” she replied in a low voice.

      
“I want no martyr doing her duty, Miriam. If you are not unwell, then why have you been so cold these past weeks?”
Why did I ask such a dangerous thing?

      
“I am grown fat and ugly now. Surely you do not wish—”

      
“I have already told you I do not find your body displeasing at all—only your manner.”

      
“As ever you did,” she snapped, breaking free of his hold and turning to face him.

      
“The dislike has been mutual, if memory serves me, from the day we first laid eyes upon each other. But it never stopped the passion that flared between us…until now.” He turned on his heel and quit the room, slamming the heavy door firmly behind him.

      
Leaving Miriam to rest, Rigo set out on Peligro to survey the city. Both man and horse were eager to work off an excess of pent-up energy. He passed the site of the huge cathedral, whose construction had begun two years earlier. The massive stone foundation had been laid but it was obvious that it would be years before such a vast project could be completed. As he rode through the narrow streets, he observed the prosperous permanence of the city, now built mostly of stone. The early wooden structures across the river had been destroyed in a fierce
huracán
, the incredible storm Benjamin had described to him.

      
When he reached the plaza, he stopped at a small stall where an Indian woman sold trinkets. Although of little intrinsic value, they were lovely pieces of jewelry made from shells delicately woven together into necklaces and earrings. One fragile necklace of vibrant salmon color caught his eye and he envisioned it about Miriam's slender throat.

      
Feeling foolish, he gestured to the piece and asked the price, which proved to be a modest sum. After carefully tucking the treasure into Peligro's saddle bag, he rode on, wondering why he had bought a woman used to precious stones a rustic shell necklace.

      
While riding through the busy streets and pausing to make his purchase in the plaza, he imagined someone was following him, yet whenever he looked about, he could see nothing amiss. Remembering the assassin aboard ship, he considered the possibility that another such lurked in Santo Domingo.

      
Over the years he had made enemies. In his profession that was inevitable.
But who would follow me to the Indies?
Rigo ticked off a long list of jilted lovers, cuckolded husbands, even fellow soldiers who had been bypassed when he was favored for promotion. Finally he gave up the pointless task and returned to consider the teeming city.

      
The busy fruit and craft stalls in the plaza as well as the construction sites were filled with African slaves, working under the direction of Spaniards. Only a few Indians were scattered about the city, recognizable by their long straight hair and obsidian eyes, as well as the shapeless peasant's clothing they wore.

      
They were used as slaves just as surely as the Africans, although such was not allowed by the crown unless the particular savages were cannibals, like the fierce Caribes on the southern mainland. Rigo looked at the poor wretches toiling beneath the warm February sun and scoffed at the idea of their ever being warlike man-eaters.

      
Beyond the walls of the city, the lush countryside beckoned to him.
Is it in my blood?
He guided Peligro past the gate and out onto the open river plain, quickly kicking the stallion into a swift trot down the road heading toward a towering stand of silk cotton trees.

      
He watched the cultivated fields grow fewer as the jungle encroached closer, seeming to draw him toward a dark silken web, ready to embrace him. Shaking off the fanciful image, he studied the crops being tended. Sugar cane and rice were important exports in the lands to the west of Santo Domingo, but these fields grew manioc and maize. Benjamin had described the native bread staples to him. The idea of becoming a planter and stockman flitted across his mind. The Torres
hato
was said to be very large and prosperous. He wondered how the Tainos laboring in their fields would react to one of their own blood as the master commanding them.

      
“I get ahead of myself. Most likely I shall end up in Mexico, plying my old trade.” He turned Peligro into the dark rustling mystery of the jungle and felt the horse shy slightly. Patting his neck and murmuring soothing reassurances, he rode farther, observing close up the incredible beauty of the flowers and towering majesty of the trees. “Tis like a cathedral bedecked for a great feast day.”

      
A small clearing materialized and along with it another handful of Indians, hoeing the soft reddish soil. A small stream curled lazily around the exposed roots of a huge gnarled tree. Reining in Peligro, he dismounted and allowed the horse to drink. The Tainos in the nearby field stopped working and began to whisper among themselves, gesturing to the tall horseman. With a cold smile on his face, Rigo strolled leisurely toward them, making what he hoped was a peaceful sign with his upraised palm. “Do you speak Castilian?” he asked.

      
One fellow, obviously bolder than his companions, stepped forward and bowed. His straight inky hair was coarser than Rigo's and fell well below his shoulders. Flinging it back, the youth replied, “Yes. I am called Gaona. How may I serve your lordship?” Both older men nodded as all three took in his splendid clothing and nervously eyed Peligro.

      
“I require nothing but a drink for my horse and myself.” One of the older men immediately seized a calabash and dipped it in the stream to draw water for Rigo. Taking the offering gratefully, he drank and then said, “I am called Rodrigo de Las Casas, although here on Española I imagine my sire's name is more familiar, Torres. I am Navaro Torres—and yes, in answer to your unspoken question, I am half Taino.”

      
The three men exchanged looks of incredulity and began to chatter among themselves in a strange, soft dialect. Then they all three threw themselves to the ground and did obeisance as if he were a Moorish potentate!

Chapter Fourteen

      
“You are the great Guacanagari's nephew, son to his sister Aliyah,” the young spokesman said in an awestruck voice, kneeling before Rigo.

      
Looking at the pitiful gaggle of worshippers, Rigo did not know whether to laugh at the irony of it or storm off in disgust for their craven servility. He had seen enough of such at the Spanish court of Carlos and thought the king a pathetic, horsefaced Hapsburg with a terrible speech impediment. Chuckling mirthlessly, he replied, “My brother told me I was the son of a royal princess, but I did not expect such worship. Stand up. I am not your king nor any man's ruler.”

      
“But you are the son of the Golden Man, Don Aaron, and the Princess Aliyah. The only
cacique
left alive on all of Quisqueya is Guacanagari. You are his heir.”

      
“I am no man's heir,” Rigo replied bitterly, reaching down to jerk the youth to his feet. He whistled to Peligro and handed the calabash back to the boy, eager to be quit of their primitive adulation. Small wonder the Spanish butchered them. They were sheep! But he was damned if he felt called to be their shepherd.

      
He turned toward the big black, who approached obediently. A sudden snarl caused him to whirl just as a huge hound leaped for his throat. The Tainos fell back, shrieking with terror as Rigo dropped to the ground, locked in mortal combat with the mastiff. He had instinctively raised his arm across his throat to ward off the fatal attack. After years with the Imperial Army, Rigo was quite familiar with the way war hounds were trained to down an enemy and rip out his throat. He could feel the gnashing and tearing of the mastiffs powerful teeth, caught in the heavy velvet sleeve of his doublet. It was too late to free his sword. He quickly rolled with the hound, which allowed him time to slip his dirk from its sheath. He slashed into the hound's unprotected underbelly with all the strength he could muster.

      
With a howl of agony the mastiff released his hold on Rigo's doublet and he rolled free. Again the dog lunged at him, trailing entrails and blood in his death wake, eager to take his victim with him to the grave. From a kneeling position, Rigo braced and raised his arm, but this time when the dog clamped, he was able to lift the arm, baring the hound's throat for a quick killing slash. With a gurgle, it slid lifelessly to the blood-soaked earth and lay with its eyes staring unseeingly across the clearing.

      
Rigo flexed his arm, feeling the ache of bruised muscles, but mercifully little other damage. He stood up and looked at the three Indians who were still partially hidden behind the massive tree roots. The sound of horses' hooves approaching tore his attention from the wretched primitives and he quickly drew his sword, cursing because the hound's owner would be upon him before he could mount Peligro to make an even contest.

      
A tall, barrel-chested man dressed in an elegant red velvet doublet reined in his horse, a splendid gray as handsomely outfitted as his owner. The stranger wore a carefully groomed beard, a shade darker than his sandy brown hair. He spared the gutted hound scarcely a glance, then spoke to Rigo. “My apologies for Basco. I hope he has done you no permanent injury. He slipped his chain at the inn while I was quenching my thirst. I have been pursuing him ever since I found him escaped.”

      
“He was a war hound. Why do you have such here on Española?'' Rigo asked, still unwilling to sheath the sword as two retainers of the nobleman rode up behind him, their faces unreadable.

      
The caballero smiled broadly, revealing a magnificent expanse of white teeth. “Forgive my lack of manners. I am Don Esteban Elzoro, a planter from the interior, where such hounds are used to keep slaves at their tasks.” He glanced scornfully at the cowering Indians, then turned his ice-green eyes on Rigo.

      
“The dog attacked me because he was trained to smell out Taino blood, even diluted with Spanish. Yes, Don Esteban, I am a half-caste, the by-blow of Aaron Torres. Perhaps you know my sire?”
Why did it attack me and not the pure-blooded Indians?

      
Elzoro quickly dismounted and walked up to Rigo. “A thousand pardons indeed are in order, for Don Aaron is a neighbor and friend of mine. We use the same factor to sell our goods in the capital. You are his son by Guacanagari's sister, the boy he, er, lost in infancy.”

      
“I was called Navaro, but my foster parents in Seville named me Rodrigo. Rodrigo de Las Cases. Perhaps you also know my foster brother Bartolome, who caused quite a stir at the royal court a few years back defending the Tainos from Spanish rapacity.” Rigo smiled chillingly.

      
Elzoro scowled. “Yes, I know the man. He and his fellow friars will create chaos if they free the primitives from honest toil. Next they will want the blackamoors freed as well, and there will be no one to work the land.”

      
“No one but Spaniards?” Rigo's face was impassive now. If this fellow was his father's friend, so much for Bartolome's theory about Aaron Torres wanting his half-caste son to inherit! “I, too, apologize—for killing the hound. I was a soldier under Pescara and know how costly they are to train. Perhaps I can repay you for the loss?”