Spanish Serenade (5 page)

“I would not what?” he said abruptly. “Betray you? I could make you a pretty speech full of solemn oaths and protests of honor, but why should you believe it? Brigands have been known to lie. Besides, you are right to be on your guard. We are not headed toward Cordoba.”

“What?” Her eyes widened as shock rippled along her nerves. “But my aunt will expect to see me by late this evening, or at least by an hour or two past midnight. I—I would not like to disappoint her, since she went to great effort to send word of my welcome when Father Domingo contacted her on my behalf.”

“I believe Don Esteban knows that you once intended to seek refuge with your aunt?” At her nod, Refugio went on. “He will also know and fear the influence such a respected lady may bring to bear to have an inquiry made into the circumstances of your mother's death and your own disinheritance. There's little that he won't do to prevent you from persuading your aunt to that course. Assuming he regains his senses as expected, he will no doubt ride at once to Cordoba to intercept you. It will be best if you tarry along the way long enough for him to think you may have found other sanctuary.”

“You mean, I should stay with you? Overnight?”

“Or longer. Don't tell me you are concerned for your good name? I thought you abandoned that in Seville.”

“I did not leave behind my common sense!”

“Your common sense tells you that I mean you harm?”

There was a sting in the softness of his tone, one that sounded a warning in Pilar's mind. At the same time, she sensed the close attention Refugio's men were paying to the confrontation. The three maintained attitudes of indifference as, their tasks completed, they lounged against a tree or leaned with a shoulder propped on a horse's flank. Yet they made no unnecessary sound to draw attention to themselves, had nothing to say to each other.

Pilar met Refugio's gaze, her own unwavering though her heartbeat inside her chest was uneven. “The fact is,” she said, “it was you yourself who mentioned the possibility.”

He lifted a brow, his features relaxing a fraction. “So I did. I didn't think it made an impression.”

“You thought wrong.”

“My mistake. I believe I also explained why I refrained. My mood is the same as in Don Esteban's garden, which is to say, disinclined. I'll tell you if it changes.”

His gaze swung to his men, hardening as he saw their suspended interest. “What?” he said, his voice like a soft lash. “Are you so bored you're reduced to eavesdropping? I have a remedy. Mount up!”

The others groaned and muttered as they obeyed, but there was none who was slow in moving. Pilar stood still. She had not agreed to go with El Leon, and was incensed that her consent was taken for granted. But what else could she do? To wander these hills alone, without means of protection or transportation, would be more dangerous than the alternative. Besides, her predicament was something she had brought on her own head.

Refugio de Carranza swung into the saddle of the white Arabian, then walked it to where Pilar stood. He leaned down to offer her his hand. She gazed up at him for long seconds with mutinous eyes, then she put out her hand and lifted her foot to place it on his boot. He clasped her wrist and drew her up before him in one smooth, effortless motion. His arms closed around her once more. As she settled into place they moved off down the track with the others following behind them.

Dark came, closing around them as if they had ridden into a dense black fog. There was neither a moon nor starshine to guide them, due to the overcast heavens. A fitful wind arose, whipping into their faces. After a short while it began to rain. It was hardly more than a mist, but it was steady and had a windblown chill. The droplets swept into their eyes and dripped from their chins. Pilar huddled into her cape, holding it at the neck with her arms inside to keep the wet from seeping to her skin. It made it difficult to balance, and now and then she was jostled back against Refugio. However, she always struggled bolt upright again.

Finally he breathed a soft imprecation and caught her waist, dragging her under his heavy cloak and against his chest. As she stiffened and tried to pull away, he spoke with impatience in her ear. “Be still, before we both get soaked.”

It was only practical to obey. She sank her teeth into her lower lip as muscles, cramped for hours in her unnatural position, relaxed. A tremor, totally involuntary, ran along her thighs.

His arm tightened at her waist. “To mortify the flesh for the sake of an idea is the act of a fanatic. Are you sure you shouldn't be a nun, counting beads while kneeling on beans and thinking of glory? It isn't too late to repent of this momentary madness.”

“Oh, I think it is,” she answered. “Anyway, I don't repent.”

“Then forget pride and lean on me. I promise I'll not take advantage of it.”

“I never thought you would,” she said, turning her head slightly as if to look at him, though she could not see him in the darkness. She could not think how he followed the track ahead of them, unless he could see in the dark or else knew it as a peasant knew his tiny piece of land.

“Didn't you? Possibly it's true you have no vocation.”

“What do you mean?” she demanded.

“Nuns shouldn't lie.”

She was silent a moment, then said, “Are you always so quick to accuse?”

“You think me unjust?”

“There could be other reasons for keeping some distance between us.”

“Such as?”

“A disinclination to burden you.”

“You are all consideration.”

Stung by the dryness of his tone, she went on, “Or it might be the lingering smell of sheep.”

Somewhere nearby, Pilar heard the snort of a muffled laugh.

“I make you my apologies,” Refugio said, “but some things are inescapable.”

The sound of his voice, matter-of-fact, even shaded with humor, was oddly calming. She put her arm along his, which was clamped around her, easing back a degree more against him as she agreed. “So it seems.”

“Precisely. Sleep if you can.”

She gave a faint nod.

She did not sleep, however, did not feel even the slightest drowsiness. She was still painfully alert and on edge when they rode into the yard of a small stone house built into a hillside.

Yellow lamplight spilled out as the door was opened, shafting through the swirling mist of rain, outlining the shape of a young woman. The older man of the group, Baltasar, called out to the woman and she answered, though both kept their voices low. Refugio swung from the saddle, then reached to catch Pilar's waist, lifting her down. She slid into his arms, gripping his shoulders with convulsive fingers until the cramps eased from her legs. She thought of asking where he had taken her, but was too doubtful of a satisfactory answer, and too weary and miserably wet to make the effort.

Refugio turned her toward the doorway. The other woman, young and with anxious eyes, stepped back to let her pass inside. There was a call from outside for Refugio. He released Pilar and moved back into the yard again.

“I'm Isabel,” the young woman said to Pilar in soft, hesitant tones. “You must be worn to the bone. Come to the fire and dry yourself.”

Gratitude for the consideration behind the offer welled up inside Pilar. She moved toward the blaze on the blackened stone hearth that took up the back wall of the one-room house, holding out her hands to the warmth. Over her shoulder she gave her name and murmured her appreciation.

“I have some soup,” Isabel said. She closed the open door and moved with light steps to swing a caldron over the fireplace flames. The soup sloshed over, sizzling on the coals. Isabel seemed not to notice. Giving Pilar a glance from the corners of her eyes, she went on, “It will be hot soon.”

“That sounds wonderful.” Pilar was ravenous, she realized, though she had not known it until that moment. The two women smiled at each other, though with constraint. Isabel was slight of figure and attractive in a piquant, gamine fashion without being actually pretty. Her hair was a soft, dark brown cloud caught back with a worn ribbon just behind her ears, and her eyes, the color of spring grass, were tilted at the corners. With her quick, impulsive movements and tentative manner, she seemed somehow kittenish and vulnerable.

The stone house, perhaps once a shepherd's hut, was older and larger than it appeared from the outside. Though there was only one main room, there were curtained alcoves on either side of the fireplace which seemed to serve as sleeping quarters. The floor of earth was packed to stone hardness by generations of feet. The ceiling was black with the smoke of countless fires, and from the exposed rafters hung strings of dried onions and garlic and also small hams dry-cured, with the pig's hair still upon them. The smells of these things hung in the air, blending with the aroma of ham and bean soup. The furnishings were meager, only a table in the center of the room under a hanging lantern and a pair of crude, handmade bench seats on either side of the fireplace.

Isabel stirred the soup with an iron ladle. The two women did not speak again, though Isabel's gaze, wide and speculative, returned more than once to Pilar.

Behind them the door sprang open again to crash against the wall. Isabel gave a cry and swung around. Pilar turned from the fire to see Refugio striding inside carrying the brass-bound chest holding the endowment to the convent. He set it down on the rough, handmade table and flung back the lid, then tipped the chest so that the contents spilled across the tabletop. With his hands braced on either side, he stared across the room at Pilar.

The chest was three-quarters empty. The coins it contained were not gold at all, but thinnest silver.

“Pledges are cheap,” Refugio said, his eyes glittering as he stared at her above the chest, “and I should have been warned, considering that I knew from where you came, Pilar Sandoval y Serna. Still, if this is the recompense you promised, it may be I prefer to exact my own.”

3

“I
DIDN’T KNOW! I swear I didn't know.”

Pilar moved slowly to face Refugio across the center table. She spoke the truth, yet felt as guilty as if she had deliberately set out to cheat the brigand leader. She should have known, she thought, should have guessed that the generosity of Don Esteban's offer was not in his nature. No doubt he had meant to present the meager endowment to the mother superior of the convent in private, representing himself as acting for Pilar's dead mother to remove all blame from himself. Pilar would naturally have been left in ignorance of his parsimony until it was too late.

“I might believe you if there was moonlight and a dark garden,” Refugio said, “but unfortunately for you, there's neither.”

“Why should I lie? There was never a chance that I would have the gold for my own.”

“But the promise of it was such a powerful incentive, or so you seemed to think.”

The words had a slicing edge of sarcasm under the accusation. His face, enameled blue and yellow by the flickering firelight, was like an image carved in bronze, impenetrable, unrelenting. Rainwater trickled from his hair, tracking slowly down the frown lines between his eyes.

Pilar moistened her lips. The followers of El Leon — Enrique, Charro, and Baltasar, who had entered the hut behind him — avoided her gaze, staring at the floor, at the ceiling, everywhere except at her and their leader. They eased around the two of them there at the table, heading toward the fire, where they held their hands to the flames and pretended great interest in the warming soup. The only person who watched them was Isabel, whose eyes were wide and staring in her pale face. Pilar's voice was strained as she spoke. “It would have been stupid to promise something that I could not supply.”

“Yes, unless you didn't expect to be found out until you were safely with your aunt.”

“I wouldn't stoop to so base a trick!”

“You are of Don Esteban's house. Why should you not?”

“And you are a noble outcast to whom gold is an insult,” she returned with heat. “Why should you care so much?”

“Though your charms are considerable, I did not risk the lives of the men who ride with me for their sake, nor for a few paltry pieces of silver. We require gold for horses, for food and shelter, and for the bribes which can, at carefully chosen times, unlock prison doors.”

“I'm sorry if you were disappointed, but I tell you I had nothing to do with it! There's nothing, not a single thing, that I can do to change what happened.”