Captain from Castile (15 page)

He had put on his holiday clothes for the rendezvous with Luisa, itnd now glanced down at the ruin of them.

"No;' he evaded, "not exactly."

He did not enlarge on it; but she guessed, and jealousy twisted its knife in her, though her face showed nothing. She merely gazed beyond him at the slope of the hay.

"You are an angel," he repeated. "I felt cursed lonely on the road from Jaen. You've made a new man of me, Catana. I'll kiss you for it."

She shrugged her shoulders. "Be sensible, sefior. It's no time for kisses. Who do you think accused you to the Santa Casa? De Silva?"

The suggestion startled him. He had not thought of de Silva. Now he remembered the quarrel at the pavilion, the man's veiled threats, the fact that he was a familiar of the Inquisition. It was possible, but unlikely. No cavalier would stoop to a thing like that. Even the knife of a hired bully would have been cleaner. He fell silent, turning the possibility in his mind.

"Is she beautiful?" Catana asked suddenly.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean the girl you dressed up for tonight."

He stared at first, then frowned. That anyone of Catana's station should refer to Luisa de Carvajal, his princess of honor, as a girl, shocked him.

Catana understood. "Lord Christ!" she flared, but caught herself and looked down, then faltered, "I'm sorry."

He felt ashamed but said formally, "There is a certain great and lovely lady, Catana, whom I am privileged to serve—let it suffice you."

She felt deservedly rebuked. Indeed, if he had spoken or acted differently, he would have lessened himself in her eyes. From the standpoint of the times, he spoke and loved as a hidalgo should. If her rival had been a wench like herself, she would have thought of murder; but the greatness of the lady altered things. She knew that he should worship some highborn hidalga in that world of his which was unknown to her, that she should count herself honored by the scraps of his regard. And because her humility was sincere, they both took it for granted.

"We must make plans," she said. "You must get away from here in the morning. Do you know Hernan Soler?"

"The robber?"

"Yes."

"I've seen him here."

"He has a hiding place I know of two leagues toward Granada. You could stay with him until you decide what to do. At worst he could get you to the sea—Malaga or Valencia."

"Why should he? He doesn't know me at all."

"He knows rae.'' She forced a smile. "He's a friend of mine."

"I have no money. He's not a man to do something for nothing."

"That's my business. Leave it to me. He's an amigo muy intimo."

At that moment she made her decision. There was no use telling Pedro, because he would protest it. All that mattered to her was that he should escape. A girl had the right to dispose of herself, and Hernan Soler would be glad of the bargain.

But jealousy, though he would not have called it such, now took its turn with Pedro.

"A fine friend!" he snapped. ''Muchas gracias! I can look out for myself. I know the sierra."

She shook her head. "You can't live in the mountains with every door closed to you on account of the Holy Office. Hernan's your one chance. He's a good Christian, but his brother died in an auto-da-fe at Seville. He hates the Santa Casa—"

She broke off and stared sharply at the partition behind her.

"Did you hear anything?"

"No," he said.

They could not have seen the eye which had been applied to a knothole in the partition and at that instant withdrew. It belonged to Jose, the mule boy of one of the arrieros stopping at the inn. He had wakened at Catana's entrance, had heard voices, and with the curiosity of his age had climbed to the main hayloft for a possible peep at forbidden mysteries. But the sight of Catana and Pedro de Vargas, sitting opposite each other across a lantern, was of no interest, and he retired disappointed.

Only the usual rustling sounds rose from the stable.

"I suppose it was nothing," she concluded. "No, senor, I'll guide you to Hernan in the morning."

"The risk for you?" he hesitated.

"That's nothing."

It would have been desecration to compare Catana in any way with Luisa de Carvajal. That the one was willing to dare everything for him and the other nothing did not present itself to his mind. Luisa was not expected to dare; her value was ethical, transcendental; she existed to be adored. Between this and Catana's practical courage, there was no connection. But for a moment Pedro de Vargas felt the heat of something that was more even than adoration. It bewildered him.

"Vdlgame Diosf' he muttered. "I love you."

"I love youj" she answered simply.

He leaned toward her. The consent in her eyes, raised to his, the softness of her lips, drew him closer.

"I love you, Catana," he repeated.

Suddenly a clatter of hoofs filled the courtyard, a clanking and ring of steel, hammering on the door of the inn, summons to open.

At once she was on her feet, alert and tense. In an instant the lantern was out, the basket hidden beneath the hay. She crouched listening beside the trap door.

Confusion started below, the snorting and stamping of awakened animals, shouts and oaths. The stable door was flung back as ostlers and mule boys trooped out to gape at the invasion.

"Cover up with the hay," she directed. "I've got to show myself. Nobody's seen you. We'll put them on the wrong scent."

Raising the trap, she slipped under it, lowered it behind her, and a moment later mingled with the throng in front of the inn.

XVf

There were about a dozen mounted men. Rugged but respectful, Sancho Lopez confronted the captain of the troop, who sat glaring down from his saddle. To lend him support, Catana appeared, as if from the inn, and stood beside him.

"No, Seiior Captain, he is not here; he has not been here this evening. . . . Yes, I know Pedro de Vargas—as who doesn't? He has stopped at the Rosario for refreshment. . . . No, I have seen no one pass on the road, Senor Captain."

"But
I
have," Catana's husky voice interrupted. "Vaya, it must havt been an hour ago. The watchdog wakened me. I looked out and noticed a man on the road. It was bright as day. He walked fast uphill. I said to myself, 'It's no time of night for an honest traveler.' "

The news sent a rattle of steel through the troop. Sebastian Reyes demanded, "By God, what're we waiting for? That's he. It'd be pretty close to an hour ago."

"If it was he," returned the captain, "he's in the sierra by now and safe till morning."

"Unless he stopped at Juan the Woodcutter's," drawled Catana indifferently, "up the Guardia. He's hunted through the mountains and knows Juan."

The captain sat tight. He was not the man to leave one covert un-

beaten for the sake of another. Besides, he knew all about the Rosario.

On the point of ordering a search, he happened to drop his skeptical eye on Jose, the mule boy, and found him grinning. Why? Nobody else grinned. 

"You!" he barked. "Come here."

The youth's self-importance vanished. In the dead silence, he faltered forward. The captain drew a coin from his belt purse, tossed it in the air, caught it in his gauntlet. A gold coin.

"You look a sharp lad," he said. "What d'you know?"

"Nothing, Sefior Captain. I—I don't know anything."

"Take a hitch on his arm," directed the other. "Jog his memory. The dog wouldn't be sniggering for nothing."

Two men, who had dismounted, stepped over to Jose. One collared him, the other grasped his wrist.

"For God's sake!" screamed the boy.

Slowly his arm rose behind his back. What did the arm of a ragamuffin matter except to himself? If he knew nothing, he shouldn't have grinned at the wrong time.

The captain sat tight.

"For God's sake! ... Let me go .. . I'll tell."

He was in a hard pinch. If he did not tell, they would break his arm. If he told—

Catana watched him inscrutably over the shoulder of one of the men, She was chewing a straw.

"Going to speak?" asked the captain.

The fear of imminent pain overbalanced the remoter fear; but he lied as much as possible. To betray Pedro de Vargas was one thing— he might get away with it; to betray Catana meant at best the knife of one of her admirers between his ribs before tomorrow's sun.

She stood watching him as he stammered about the cahallero in the spare hayloft. The gentleman had let himself into the stable and climbed the ladder. He didn't know whether it was de Vargas or not. Catana arched her eyebrows with interest and shifted the straw between her teeth. ''Diga, diga! Well, well!" she remarked.

The troopers were streaming across the courtyard. Jose plucked at the captain's boot.

"The money, sir?"

He received a cut from the other's whip that sent him back with his hands to his face. When he lowered them, Catana was standing in front of him. She might have been joking for all that a bystander would have noticed.

"The money, sir?" she mimicked; and, removing the straw, she drew it lightly across Jose's throat. "Better find a priest, Joseito. That's what you need more than money, sir—a priest."

They brought Pedro de Vargas into the inn; but, except that his hands were bound, they treated him with the courtesy due a gentleman. The captain drank his health, and Sebastian Reyes complimented his swordsmanship. When he complained of the tightness of the cords, they loosened them so that he could make shift to drink. Save for their duty, they wished him the best. No reference was made to what awaited him in the Castle of Jaen; good manners forbade it.

But Sancho Lopez and the Rosario fared worse. Now that they had got their prisoner, the men of the Holy Office relaxed. They guzzled Lopez's wine, devoured his victuals, and took over the premises. They might have taken him over as well for sheltering an accused heretic; but when Pedro declared that he had entered the stable without the innkeeper's knowledge, they let it go at that. Lopez could count himself lucky to get off with horseplay—sword pricks in the behind and, when the fun grew madder, a blanket-tossing in the courtyard. Some of his guests had the same treatment.

Pedro's chief concern was for Catana, but he soon realized that he need not worry. She belonged to this element, like the devil to fire or a fish to water. She appealed to one bully against another; left them quarreling; slipped from the arms of a third to the knee of a fourth; turned the laugh on a fifth; flew into white-hot rage that took the breath from the next man; laughed, swaggered, dominated. In the end a guitar was found, a tune struck up, and she danced her audience into groggy adulation. That the Rosario, though battered, survived the evening was largely due to her.

Seated against the wall between the captain and Reyes, with the table a bulwark in front of them, Pedro half-dozed. At last consciousness split into fragments like a dream. He could see the moonlight on the fairy round in the garden; the owl face of the Marquis de Carvajal; Luisa's pale beauty lighted by the candle; the melee at the steps; the road between the olive trees from Jaen; Catana facing him in the hayloft; and now, jumbled with this, the uproar in front of him. A dream, or rather nightmare because of the cords on his arms and the dread of tomorrow.

Catana pirouetted near them, but he might have been a stranger for any recognition in her eyes. Only the professional smile. He understood: she had to pretend that she didn't know him to save her skin; but he felt terribly alone.

The windows had suddenly turned gray. It was already tomorrow.

Head-splitting din greeted the end of the dance. ''Bis! Bis! Viva la Catana!"

''Viva!'' bawled Reyes. "Salud, de Vargas!"

"Salud!" Pedro mumbled. He fingered his cup, then lurched forward on the table.

"By God, he's asleep," said a distant voice.

He knew nothing more until several hours later, when he wakened with his arms numb and his head bursting.

XV(/

It was well into the morning when the troopers shook off last night's carouse and got ready to start for Jaen. Seated, filthy and disheveled, on the rump of a horse, his legs dangling, his arms tied, a rope binding him to the rider in front, Pedro seemed to himself already a prison scarecrow. The sun burned down from a pitiless blue sky, adding sweat and heat to the other discomforts.

"Oiga, mozaf called the trooper in front of Pedro to Catana, "one more cup of water. Lopez's foul wine has left my mouth like a pigsty."

"Perhaps it found it that way, m'lord," she drawled; but, fetching a pitcher, she filled a cup for the man and handed it up to him.

She looked pale from the night, and her black eyes seemed larger because of the hollows under them. Shifting to Pedro, they narrowed a little. The impersonal look was gone. They spoke fiercely, passionately. He knew that she was trying to convey some message.

"May I have a drink, Catana?"

"A sus ordenes." She filled and held the cup high, so that, bending a little, he could drink. "Valor y esperanza, senor!" she added lightly.

Courage and hope! Her eyes narrowed again. It seemed to him that she stressed the last word.

The captain mounted, gave the word of command, and the little squadron clanked out of the courtyard. Looking back, Pedro saw Catana standing arms akimbo, gazing after them. She gave a brief wave of the hand; then, turning abruptly, she entered the inn.

It was a league downhill to Jaen, and because of the heat and dust, the captain rode slowly. Moreover, more people than usual were heading for the town, so much so at times they almost blocked the highway. Peasants in holiday clothes, on foot and on donkeys, trooped forward

as if to some gala event. But they were in a queer humor too, a feverish humor that showed itself in forced hilarity and use of the bottle, with a sprinkling of sober faces in between. They made way docilely for the horsemen and with sidelong glances when they saw" the pennon of the Holy Office, which was borne at the head of the troop.

Absorbed by his own concerns, Pedro wondered vaguely at first what saint's day it was. Then a witticism, flung at him by a yokel on a burro, recalled what had slipped his mind.