The Flesh and the Devil (83 page)

         
Juana's voice was fierce with determination. 'It is hurting
my husband to go as fast as this. Tell Placido -' she hesitated - 'tell him I
will bring the cart to Cadiz at my own pace, and meet him there.'

         
Rafael cast her an alarmed look. 'The brigands,' he bawled.
'We will take our chance. Tell Placido!'

         
He sat still for a moment longer without replying and then
handed her the reins, crossing himself devoutly as he did so. Without his
unaccustomed urging the oxen slowed their pace immediately, and he was able to
clamber down. Juana was still disentangling the reins when the last cart of
all, with Rafael aboard it, swung wide to pass and went rattling after the
rest, while the old oxen settled into their usual mindless ambling with what
looked like an air of relief. Almost insensibly, the noise of the mule-train
and its denizens started to fade away ahead of them.

         
Tristan said with what sounded like insane calm, 'Have you
ever driven an ox-cart?'

         
'No!' Laughter warred with tears in her voice; as the sense
of burning urgency within her faded with the dying uproar ahead, the absurdity
of the situation struck her. 'But I daresay these creatures will drive
themselves. Are you hurt?'

         
Winding the reins together and fastening them to the cart,
she abandoned the plodding oxen to their own devices and twisted round to peer
into the cart. The clenched look had left Tristan's face now that the sway had
diminished, but as he looked back over his shoulder to her leaning above him,
the sudden fleeting vulnerability of the motion touched her. She had never
grown accustomed to looking down upon a giant, she thought.

         
'I do not think so,' he responded, lowering his head to
comtemplate the length of his right leg. 'It would have gone hard with me if we
had travelled for long at such a pace, but provided you do not overturn us now,
all should be well.'

         
She gave an unwilling laugh at the dryness of his tone; her
laugh was rusty, she thought, from disuse. 'I cannot promise that I will not do
that,' she retorted. 'I will draw up while you look at it and make all safe.'

         
'All? You flatter me, for once.'

         
He still spoke lightly, ironically, but she could sense the
undercurrent of bitterness in his voice, of frustration at his own enforced
immobility. It hurt her so much that she could find no words to answer him, and
instead demanded abruptly,

         
‗Why did you never tell me how much this journeying
hurts you?'

         
She saw emerald flash of his eyes, quickly veiled, as he
glanced up at her and then away. 'You cannot expect me to offer you pleasure
unpaid – not a soulless mercenery. If it amuses you, I will sell you my
sufferings, minute by minute, at the old rate.'

         
Juana straightened as though she avoided a blow, and
devoted all her attention to bringing the cart safely to a standstill. When it
was done she sat still for a few moments, drawing deep, controlling breaths,
before she slid to the ground, fighting to contain her emotion before she dared
go to Tristan‘s aid and help him re-bind his leg as though nothing had
happened.

         
CHAPTER 19

         
When she heard the rattling of pebbles on the hillside
nearby, Juana only thought vaguely of how long it took for the vibrations of
the mule-train's passing to shake themselves into silence. It was not for
several seconds that she realized, as she stood with her black head buried in
her arms against the cart-side, that she was being watched. Then gradually some
indefinable unease warned her, and she lifted her head and turned.

         
There were three men. One must have been somewhere in his
thirties, tall and gaunt and dark-skinned, with dusty black hair that grew past
his shoulders and was held off his face by a sweat-band. The full mouth and
broad, upturned nose hinted at Moorish ancestry, but he moved with a swagger
quite alien to the servant Moors that she had seen. He was dressed in a
collection of gaudy rags that reminded her of a gipsy's clothing, and he was
surveying her with a grin that would have seemed friendly, even attractive, but
for the hectic air of excitement about him and the menacing looks of his two
companions.

         
The second man was short, with a well-knit frame, and moved
lightly on the balls of his feet. He was dressed raggedly, like a peasant, and
his sullen expression combined disturbingly with his white-knuckled grip on his
rusty pike and the fanatical eyes, white-rimmed, that glared from beneath a
fringe of tightly-curling brown hair. He was staring fixedly at Juana, and
there was no smile on his face. The third man was coming slowly from behind a
rocky overhang, his feet starting another cascade of pebbles; younger than the
others, beaky-nosed and sallowskinned, with deepset eyes that watched without
expres-! sion. In his hand was a long damascened sword, some of its inlay
broken and missing.

         
'The muleteers have left us some gifts, boys.' The
dark-haired man was still grinning. 'Food, firewood, and even recreation.'
'There is no food.' Juana spoke sharply, and he laughed. 'Two oxen? Enough food
for us, lady, and more than we have had for a fortnight and past. You will not
grudge us such slow-footed animals, will you? After all, you will not be
travelling on just yet.'

         
Juana's mind was racing. She knew that he was threatening
her, but the words had no meaning; she kept thinking that they had not seen
Tristan, wounded in the bottom of the cart, and that if only she could distract
the three men for long enough he might manage to drag himself to some safe
hiding-place. These three, she thought, would have little compunction about
despatching an injured man. She took a step away from the cart and said, 'You
cannot mean to make me walk all the way to Cadiz.'

         
'Is that where you were bound? It is not far, lady; you
will do it in a day's walk. But why should you want to leave us right away?'

         
His teeth glinted, square and white in his brown face, and
she realized that his amiability was deceptive. This was a hunting creature,
lean and wiry, with a starved look about his rangy frame that made him, despite
the charm, more dangerous than the other two.

         
'Now, I know you will not be travelling empty-handed - such
a pretty one will want to buy all manner of things in the city. Show us what
you have to spend in Cadiz.'

         
Juana thought of the money, so painfully amassed, hidden
under the sacks on the floor of the cart. Her heart dropped; then she squared
her shoulders and glanced down at her feet. 'Do I look as if I have money to
squander?' she enquired acidly.

         
But she had hesitated too long. The curly-headed man took a
pace forward, but the dark one gestured him to stillness. He was standing with
arms akimbo, watching Juana with an unstable sort of laughter glinting in his
eyes; 'If you were richlier dressed I might believe that you had spent all your
money, eh, boys? But now -' He shook his head in mock reproof. 'If you are
going there with nought to sell and nought to spend, you are making; a journey
for nothing. Hold her, Blas.'

         
The order was abrupt and delivered without a change in the
cheerful tone, but the curly-haired man had obviously been awaiting it. He
moved forward and grasped Juana's arm with one hand, still gripping his pike
with the other. Behind her she heard a slight movement in the depths of the
cart and prayed inwardly that Tristan would have the wit to keep out of sight.
Blas's fingers were rough and she moved a little, as if in protest, shifting
away from the vehicle. Then, summoning all her courage, she lifted her head and
stared full into the leader's face.

         
'I would not say that I had nought to sell,' she said
steadily.

         
His eyes glinted and he rubbed his bearded jaw with one
bony hand, surveying her from her tumbled black hair to her dirty feet before
glancing from one to the other of his companions. 'That's true, boys, isn't
it?' He cocked his head and scratched his ear, the glittering look
intensifying. 'Perhaps we can be of service to each other, lady. We three will
show you how to conduct yourself in a grand place like Cadiz — after we have
made sure that you are telling the truth, of course. You will not object if we
search you?'

         
Her teeth clenched to stop them from chattering, Juana
shook her head, but as she did so the man Bias tightened his hold. 'She's
shaking.' His voice had a thick regional accent. 'She's lying to us.'

         
'Of course I am shaking! If you were beset by a rabble of
thieves, would you welcome them with open arms and believe they meant nothing
but friendship?'

         
Eyes blazing, she stared round at the three men who had
closed in on her; close, but not fatally close to the cart. 'Perhaps you enjoy
being harried and threatened, but I do not!'

         
The leader shifted from one foot to the other. The smile
had not left his face, but somehow that slight movement was indescribably
ominous. 'A firebrand, no less! What a pity. Just when I thought you might be willing
to welcome us-with open arms.' He glanced at the youngest man, who was gazing
at Juana openmouthed. 'Cut the beasts free, Ferrando, and burn the cart.'

         
'
No!
' Juana jerked so violently in Bias's hold
that she almost succeeded in pulling free, and in the ensuing scuffle his pike
fell to the ground. Ferrando had take a step forward to help and then checked,
and it was only then that Juana noticed that the leader had made no move. The
swagger had drained from his stance, and he was staring past her with a strange
expression that mingled shock and swift calculation in equal parts.

         
'Three of you to tame one woman?'

         
The even, derisive voice came from behind her and made her
gasp, twisting her head frantically to look back over her shoulder. She stood
still then, transfixed, her mind whirling with terror and incredulity at what
she saw.

         
Tristan had risen to his feet and was standing erect
without even touching the sides of the cart. The afternoon sun was behind him,
haloing his hair in a coppery aureole and shadowing his face, but she could see
the disdainful twist of his scarred mouth as he stared down at the three men.
It was so long since she had seen him standing that she was startled anew by the
sheer height and breadth of him; the two shorter men suddenly looked like
children, and the dark man seemed to dwindle into a gaudily-clad scarecrow. It
was with a sense of nightmare that Juana saw the rapier glinting in her
husband's right hand. He could not, she was thinking, he could
not
 
mean to fight. . . .