Captain from Castile (38 page)

The dance grew wilder from stage to stage. "Bravo, Catana! Well done, de Vargas!"

Then suddenly, as it reached its crescendo, a numbing thought struck her. Mechanically she kept the beat, but her veins ran ice. Her pride turned to ashes.

The ring! It was not she who drew him to her; it was not her love. If she had been Isabel Rodrigo, the effect would have been the same. Pedro de Vargas was not free to choose; she had made him a puppet of the hundred thousand demons attached to the ring. They had

brought him here, infused him with blind desire, robbed him of his will. And that was her act—to unman and cheapen him! What she had done seemed to her all at once a blasphemy.

The dance whirled to an end; she sank back in surrender across his outstretched arm. But even as he kissed her, she prayed, "Blessed Virgin forgive me!" and her lips were numb.

"Are you tired, que rid a mia?''

"No."

A congratulating mob surrounded them with much back-slapping. Suddenly Botello felt something thrust into his hand.

"What's this, muchacha?"

"The ring," she whispered. "Take it back."

"But you can have it until tomorrow."

"I never want to see it again!" she breathed. "I hate it. . . . But don't worry, I'll keep my share of the bargain."

She turned away, leaving him baffled by the riddle—deeper than his science—of the female mind.

At once she knew that the charm was broken. The recent passionate current between her and Pedro had stopped. It did not surprise her that almost at once Luis Avila, one of Cortes's pages, summoned him to a conference of the captains; and he left her wdth his usual warm smile but nothing more. It had been the magic, not she, that had fired him. He did not really care . . .

Forlornly she took Ochoa's hand. "Time for you to go to bed, nirio.''

"I don't want to go to bed."

"Yes, you do. We'll put each other to bed. I'll tell you a story."

Ochoa hesitated. "About brujas —witches?"

"No," she snapped, "not about witches. I'll tell you about the little Jesus."

"Aunty, I'd rather hear about the Witch of Jaen."

"Shut up or I won't tell you anything. . . . Good night, all."

She hid her heartache at the fiasco of the evening, accepted the renewed compliments of the platoon, which was breaking up for the night, and walked off with Ochoa to the improvised lean-to of branches that served as a shelter. Crawling under it, they took off their shoes in token of undressing, and were ready to stretch out on their cloaks.

"Your prayers, little one," she reminded. "We'll say them together. Your aunty has great need to pray Nuestra Sehora for strength and forgiveness. I confess myself to you, chico. I'm a vile woman."

''Vive Dios!" hotly protested Ochoa in the idiom of the camp. "I'd plant my knife in any bastard that said so—"

"Hush! You mustn't talk that way."

"And if I'm not big enough," Ochoa went on, "there's plenty of others who are: Manuel, Captain de Vargas, the whole platoon." He threw his arms around her. "You aren't vile: you're good. Why are you sad, Tia mia, when you danced so elegantly?"

"Be still. We must pray." They kneeled, facing each other, wath bowed heads. She covered his clasped hands with hers.

They were not the only ones praying at that moment. Few in the camp were so abandoned that they did not commit their souls to God before sleeping, as men under the shadow of death. Hard Manuel Perez in his hut close by, Maldonado the Tough, Cervantes the Jester, Bull Garcia, became children again with folded hands.

"Pater noster," Catana and the little boy murmured, "Qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum . . /' And when they came to the end, "Ave, Maria, gratia plena. . . . Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death."

They crossed themselves and remained a moment with bowed heads. She would confess to Father Olmedo as soon as possible. She would scourge herself with knotted cords to pay for the wickedness of that love charm. Meanwhile, she felt a dawning peace.

They crossed themselves again, and she kissed Ochoa.

"I want a story," he insisted. "Please, a fairy tale."

"All right, then, I'll tell you about the Sprig of Rosemary."

He approved. "That's a nice story." But his eyes drooped.

"En otro tiempo/' she began, keeping her voice as monotonous as possible. By the time she got to the handsome cahallero, Ochoa was fast asleep.

With a smile, she drew his cloak around him, for the upland air had a chill in it, and then lay down at his side. The camp had grown quiet, except for random snores from various huts and the more remote tread of a sentinel.

She stared at the vague lightness that marked the opening of the shelter. Yes, she had done well in returning the ring to Botello. But why didn't Pedro care for her? What was wrong, when he had told her that first day that she would belong to him—yes, in front of the General himself? Was she less pleasing than a year ago? Or was he bound by a vow?

The moral scruples of a later age did not cross her mind. If they loved each other, if they could not marry, their union seemed natural to both conscience and society; even the Church looked the other way.

But he might be fulfilling a vow or a penance. Perhaps she could find out—

No! Dios! All at once she realized what the trouble was. Her man's clothes! The fact that she marched in the ranks. Who could love a marimacho? When he had known her in Jaen, she was suitably dressed and feminine. That must be the reason.

Yes, a tomboy, who could take care of herself too well, who could swear and ruffle it with Maldonado himself. Repulsive to a fine gentleman like Pedro de Vargas. How could he help comparing her with Dona Luisa de Carvajal, the fashionable and exquisite? Catana wilted. Tentatively she slipped her hands to her waist, gauging its size. No stays ever made could compress her muscles to Luisa's willowy perfection. If that was it . . .

Her eyes closed.

She found herself beautifully dressed in yellow damask walking on Pedro's arm between two lines of glittering people. The fact that every now and then they paused to do a few steps of the saraband seemed quite natural. She carried her head high, felt the weight of her hair, which had grown long again. She was magnificent, admired. She floated rather than walked. Pedro admired her; she read it in his eyes. Then suddenly the dream broke into fragments—pointing fingers, jeering faces. Looking down, she saw beneath her brocaded bodice that the skirt was gone. She was wearing her frayed black hose and muddy shoes. "Catana!" they hissed. "Marimacho!''

"Catana."

She was awake with a hand on her knife. Someone had touched her. A vague, dark form blacked the entrance of the lean-to.

"Catana."

She would have known that whisper among a thousand, and at once her heart began racing with an excitement that was almost fear.

"Yes, seiior."

"Come. Bring your cloak."

Moving quietly to keep from waking Ochoa, she crept out. To her still confused mind, it seemed part of the dream; but the arms around her felt real, and his lips were warm.

"You were sleeping hard," he whispered. "Forgive me."

She stood quivering, or perhaps his arms trembled a little.

"I've made a hut for us on the edge of the camp, where we'll be alone. I have to be off before dawn, but we have a few hours. Come, I'll show you where it is. Muchacha mia!" he added still more softly.

As they went, his arm was around her waist, drawing her close. She leaned her head sidewards on his shoulder.

"And I used no magic," she thought. "And he cares for me. And he loves me. Dear God! He loves me."

He was saying, "It was hard to wait. The nights have been a fever of wanting you. But not there—I knew you understood—not down there in that crowded fort, in the heat and swelter. I kept thinking of the mountains, of you and me alone—the cool night. By God, it's been worth the waiting, querida mia!"

He stopped to kiss her, bending back her head. And loosening her doublet, he kissed her throat.

"For our first time, it had to be in the mountains. Is it not heaven, the smell of the pines, Catana? Doesn't it recall our own sierra? It's been worth waiting for. But after tonight, always, always—"

And she had been imagining foolish things, when for her sake, for the sake of their first night, he had bridled himself, and had withheld, as if she had been high-born, to be treated with the reverence of a cavalier for a hidalga. She flushed when she thought of the magic ring.

"I wondered," she said, "whether these clothes—Senor, if it would please you that I made myself a dress—"

"Why do you call me senor?" he protested. "Am I not your homhre? Are we not comrades in this venture? Why don't you call me by my name? Senor!"

She faltered, "I've always thought of you that way. Since you used CO come out to the Rosario. It was a brave day for me, I can tell you, when you rode up on Campeador. I can't help thinking of you as lord. But if you want, I'll try to call you"—she hesitated— ''Pedro, senor."

He stopped again to kiss her. "Queridaj whatever you call me will sound sweet."

"I was asking about my dress."

"Your dress?" he repeated, smoothing back the square-cut bang from her forehead. "What dress?"

"Whether you would rather have me in shift and gown than in hose and doublet."

"Why should I?"

"Because I'm so rough—You're not listening."

"Yes, I am." He slipped his arm around her again, and they walked on. "Yes, what was it you said?"

"That I wished for some pretty clothes to please you in—a clean gown—not these slubbered tights. I would not have you too ashamed of me before the captains."

"Ashamed!" His arm tightened. "Show me a cavalier in the army who doesn't envy me. When the gallantest high-mettled wench in the two Castiles takes me for lover, when my blood sings with pride of you, sweeting, to talk about shame? Before anyone! Por Dios, you ought to be whipped! Skirts and shifts on the march? Let me catch you in them! Why not face cream and perfume? You're no doll and I'm no smell-smock. You're dressed to a soldier's taste. I love you as you are." He pointed his earnestness by drawing her closer. "Which doesn't mean that I won't gown you in silks and damask when the time comes, muchacha mia/'

So she had been wrong again. Her mannish costume, frayed and patched, the labor and stains of the camp, made her, it seemed, even more desirable to him. He loved her for her very self. She walked beside him dizzy with happiness, proud of his masterfulness.

It had come at last, the long hoped for, the often despaired of. It had come, like a lightning flash, when she least expected it. She ached with joy and a delicious apprehension.

They followed a ledge of the hill at some distance from the main camp toward a spot where the land fell abruptly in a kind of miniature precipice. Beneath them, far and wide, the tropical lowlands spread out in the diffused moonlight, exhaling on a faint breeze the spice of their endless fruits and flowers. To the south, like a giant phantom, rose the snow-covered mass of Orizaba, and to the north the heights of the Cofre de Perote.

"Here," said Pedro, showing a hut of pine branches which had been lopped from an overhanging tree near the edge of the precipice. They were supported by a head-high ridgepole, and the entrance between them overlooked the pale distance. "Does it please you, amada?"

"Please me!" she echoed. "What a beautiful place, senor! It is like a fairy tale." She tilted her head back, filling her lungs with the sweet air. "What a country! I love it more than Spain."

"Hardly that!" he smiled.

"Yes, really. It seems as if it belonged to us more, to you and me. I can't find the words—"

He led her through the opening of the lean-to. "I made a deep bed, Catana." He pointed to the mattress of pine twigs. "It smells sweeter than lavender. We'll lay our cloaks over it this way."

He pressed her to him, and she could feel, without seeing it, the flame in his eyes.

"Please," she murmured—"if you'll go out a moment, I'll call you—"

In the moon dusk of the shelter, her face, transformed by the me-

ment, looked like a much younger girl's. The protective hardness which eighteen years had given her seemed dissolved. Her lips were half-parted, and the shadows around her eyes were deep and soft.

"You're beautiful, Catana," he said. "I didn't know you were so beautiful."

Raising her hand to his lips, he lingered a moment absorbed in her; then, leaving the hut, he stood to one side where she could barely see him outlined against the sky on the edge of the ravdne.

She undressed and, stretching out upon the cloaks, drew a part of them over her.

"Yes," she called.

Her heart echoed his ans\vering footsteps.

When at last he slept, with her head still in the circle of his bare arm, she lay wrapt in a content so perfect that she feared to disturb it by the least movement. She could not waste any of the wonder of tonight in sleep, the new, ineffable happiness of lying in his arms, the feel of his body against hers, the sense of her life lost in his. A content too deep to be troubled even by desire. In the full tide of youth and passion, they had given them.selves to each other fully, until desire itself had become a serene languor. If he wakened and once more possessed her, she would be content; if not, it was equal happiness to be quiet, feeling the pulse of his arm against her cheek.

Outside, paler than the moonlight, she could see the snow-clad shoulder of the great volcano sloping beyond the doorway of the hut. Now and then a stirring of the night breeze entered like a soft caress.

If it could only last, she thought, if morning didn't have to come! The sense of passing time, which gives happiness its sharpest poignancy, alone haunted her—time who takes back all his gifts. She was enough versed in life to know that nothing lasts, that nothing is ever repeated. Morning would come, then other mornings, drifting her farther away from the pine-branch hut and from these hours.

The moonlight faded into darkness. Stars appeared, but they were late stars that gave a hint of dawn. It seemed to her that time quickened like a down-flowing stream. She must waken him at the first light, as he had to ride ahead of the army, and she stared fearfully toward the east; but the star-lit sky was still unbroken.