Captain from Castile (5 page)

Pedro sat looking at Garcia, his imagination leaping like fire in a high wind.

"Listen!" the other rumbled. "I've stood on the water front of the Habana de Cuba and looked north. You could feel the great land over

there like a cloud, the land Ponce de Leon found. Endless. Then I've looked west. Land beyond the horizon in that direction. Hernan de Cordoba coasted it last year. Country of towns and gold. Then south there's Honduras, which the Admiral discovered—and south of that God knows what! Balboa heard of a country on the Southern Sea where gold's cheaper than iron, where the Indian dogs live in palaces and eat their victuals off of gold. And all of that is waiting—kingdoms, empires, mountains of gold—to be taken by the first cavalier that has the guts to venture. Hombre! The smell of a strange land when you're putting in! But young fellows like you stick around Spain! God, it's a queer world! Slaves, women, pearls, jewels . . ."

"Your bread and cheese, sir," interrupted Sancho Lopez, thumping the plate down, "a su servicio."

But for an instant Pedro forgot his appetite.

"Father says that Italy's the true school of honor. He plans to send me over there next year. My mother's Italian. I don't intend to stick in Spain. Father says a man gets more reputation by fighting against the French hommes d'armes and Swiss pikemen than any other way."

For a moment Garcia looked puzzled. Then his eyes lit up like a man's who recalls something which he had forgotten.

"Por Dios!" he grinned. "Doesn't that bring back old days! Spain hasn't changed. You see, senor, I'm just a common man, without crest or ancestors. I was born in a garret and have had to hustle. But I remember that that's the way hidalgos should talk." He smiled fondly. "Well, put it on that score. With all respect to Don Francisco, Italy's old-fashioned. You'd get more honor, I should think, converting heathen Indians to the Faith and winning provinces for the King than in scuffling with the French. But I may be wrong."

With the look of having said his say and not wishing to intrude upon another's business, he now finished in several huge bites, and sat eying Pedro, who began making up for lost time opposite him. When their glances met, they both smiled unconsciously like people who understand each other. Gradually their talk became more personal, but at the same time Pedro was struck by a queer reserve in Garcia. His birthplace in Andalusia, why he had returned from the Indies, his plans and business, remained cloudy.

"Ho, sefiorita!" Garcia called to Catana, who had returned to duty with a bandage over one eye and her dress stitched together. "Another cup of wine for the cahallero, if he will honor me."

Meanwhile, his own wine remained untouched. To Pedro's amazement, he quenched his thirst from a cannikin of water.

"To the New World!" said Pedro, bowing his thanks across the table after the wine had been brought.

"To the New World!" answered Garcia warmly. But again he no more than touched the brim of the cup with his lips.

The boy's curiosity overflowed. "You do not drink, sefior?"

"No," answered the other, "I do not drink save like a donkey. It's a heavy cross. Please do not let it disturb you. I buy wine for the good of the house."

"I see," nodded de Vargas—"a penance."

"Something like that."

Garcia fell into black silence, hacking the edge of the table with his knife. Pedro wondered what sin he was expiating. The man's reserve became a wall. Then suddenly he clapped the knife down in front of him.

"By God, I'll tell you how it is. I'm an ordinary man, when sober; I'm mad, when drunk. And a taste of it gets me started, d'you see? When I'm drunk, I want to kill. That's the story."

For an instant, his bluff face turned ugly; a gleam showed in his eyes. Then he relaxed.

"Born that way. Probably I have a devil, though God knows I've done what I could to get rid of it. Spent a pile of money on priests and candles. But it never worked. So I don't drink."

Pedro felt sympathy and showed it. It was hard on a big, companionable man to be cut off from wine, he thought.

Another silence followed, while Garcia seemed to be noting the effect of his confession. He looked as if he were in two minds about something, glancing up and then down.

Finally he said in a low voice: "I think I can trust you. You have a straight look."

Pedro said nothing, but glanced a question.

"I've been told that hidalgos keep their word, though I've known several who didn't. How about you?"

"I do my best."

"Gad, I believe it," said Garcia finally.

He dropped his hand to his belt and shoved the cross hilt of his poniard over the table. "Hold that and swear that you'll keep what I tell you to yourself."

Their eyes met. It was quiet for a moment in the room, so quiet that Pedro could hear the scamper of a rat across the floor.

"I swear,"

The noise at the other table burst out again.

Garcia cleared his throat. "The fact is, I was born in Jaen. I killed a man there sixteen years ago—killed him, being drunk. Plain murder, not fight. That's the curse of it. My mother's still alive, and I'm back to see her. If I'm taken—" Garcia gave a jerk of the neck, then added, "I may need a friend. Does it happen that you are riding into town?"

"Yes, sir, at once."

"I'll ride with you, by your leave. We can talk better on the road."

It was evidently not Garcia's style to do things quietly. He now roared for the reckoning, paid it with a flourish, and tried to pay Pedro's as well. There was an altercation over this with Sancho Lopez and Catana, who clamored on their side that they did not choose to be dishonored by allowing Pedro de Vargas hereafter to pay for anything at the Rosario. Then, heaving himself up, and with a clumping of his huge riding boots, Garcia betook himself to the door, carrying his saddlebags over one arm. When his mule was brought, he tipped the stableboy with silver, smote Sancho Lopez between the shoulders, wished him good custom, and finally thrust a coin into Catana's hand.

"Buy yourself a new dress, sweetheart," he boomed, "and to hell with Dolores Quintero!"

"But it's gold!" she gasped. "It's a gold ducat. I've—I've only seen one before—once, the time Sancho Lopez showed it to me. It'd buy ten dresses."

"Then buy a trousseau. And if you can't find a husband—which isn't likely—call on Juan Garcia. I like your mettle, girl. We need your kind in the Indies."

They left amid benedictions. Pedro wondered whether this freehanded breeziness was peculiar to Garcia, or whether life in the Islands had something to do with it.

But once in the glare of the empty noonday road, Garcia's exuberance dropped off, and he jogged somberly along with his gaze on the distant walls and turrets of Jaen.

"It's the right hour to pass the gates," he observed. "Siesta time. They won't be thinking of the boy that cleared out from there with the help of Saint Christopher sixteen years ago. The town hasn't changed, from the looks of it. But I hope I've changed. Maybe I can get by if I look sharp and lie low. It's a risky business."

Once again that day, Pedro was floundering morally beyond his depths. He remembered his father's injunction against the Rosario, and admitted that if he hadn't turned in there, he would not have become involved in the present quandary. He must keep his word to Garcia of course; but friendship was different. Like Campeador, who snobbishly

eyed the mule askance and kept as far away as possible, the young hidalgo had reservations about the man from the Indies. And yet there was something simple and winning and heart-warming about Garcia. Pedro couldn't help feeling drawn to him.

"Do you know Sefiora Dorotea Romero?" Garcia asked abruptly after a pause.

"You mean the old"—Pedro caught himself and changed "witch" to "midwife"—"who lives on the Calle Santo Tomas near the Castle?"

"The same, I guess, though she used to live on the Calle Rodolfo— there wouldn't be two of the same name and profession. Yes, she must be old, though I can't think of her that way." After another pause, Garcia added with a certain pride, "She's my mother."

"Holy Virgin!" thought Pedro. But after all he didn't know for sure that Mother Dorotea was a witch. There was always talk about ugly old women who practised the trade of midwife.

"Is she still beautiful and stately?" Garcia asked.

"Well—I haven't seen her for some time."

"She was very beautiful. And a good mother to me—the best anyone could have. By God she had a thin life—poor Madrecita —and what I did was cruel hard on her. But from now on she'll go in velvet like the best of them. She'll end her days on roses, Madrecita will. I'll move her to another town where she can have a house of her own, and a servant and a mule. She'll eat meat every day. Man, I lie awake nights thinking of it. . . . Which reminds me."

Garcia stopped, but then, swallowing his last hesitation, went on. "I haven't done badly in late years. I had a nice little property in Santo Domingo that I sold out for a fair sum—two thousand pesos."

Pedro felt impressed.

"Some of it's here," said Garcia, slapping his saddlebags. "Some of it's in a bill of change on the Medici house in Cadiz—as good as gold. Now, if I'm taken in Jaen before I get Madrecita away, the game's up as far as I'm concerned. But she'll get the money, d'you see? Her name's on the bill as well as mine. Will you look out for her? That's what I wanted to ask. She'll be robbed otherwise, being a woman and ignorant. I'll tell her about you."

He read the demur in Pedro's face.

"I've got no friend here. Lord, man, I'm not asking for myself— though, believe me, I've done penance for that madness sixteen years ago. I'm asking for her. If the son of Francisco de Vargas gave his word to help—"

He broke off with a note in his voice which Pedro could not resist.

"I'll do what I can."

"Your hand on it."

The two gauntlets met.

''Companero! Comrade!" said Garcia. Evidently he could think of no higher tribute.

Some spark passed between the two men, one of those spiritual currents that are forever contradicting the materialism of life. Pedro felt warmer and stronger for it—strong with the strength of the big, bluff adventurer who had suddenly become his friend.

"I can hang now with an easier mind," Garcia added—"if it comes to hanging. But let me show you something."

Reaching into one flap of the saddlebags, he produced a small cloth package, and opened it on the pommel of the saddle. It contained a false reddish beard, which did not look false, Pedro thought, when attached to the contour of Garcia's broad face. A lump of wax, inserted between gum and upper lip, altered his mouth. A streak of what might well be dust of travel changed the character of his nose. Several touches gave a new look to his eyes. While Pedro gaped, the overseas rover shrank step by step into an elderly merchant with round shoulders.

''Ay Maria!" he exclaimed.

"Neat, isn't it?" mumbled Garcia, as yet unused to the lump of wax. "There's a rascal I know in Sanlucar who makes a specialty of such tricks. He tips you off what disguise to use and trains you how to put it on. He's been schoolmaster to the ablest rogues in Spain. I paid him a fat price, but anything that saves your neck is worth money."

It seemed to Pedro that Garcia's chances of survival in Jaen were much increased. Even if the constables remembered Juan Garcia after sixteen years, they would hardly identify him in this disguise with the elderly man of affairs, provided that he didn't forget his role.

"Don't worry about that, my son," declared the latter, when Pedro mentioned it. "If your life's at stake, you don't get absent-minded."

The Moorish battlements of Jaen drew closer, sharp and clear-cut, with the slope of the town behind them. At last the two riders reached the gate and passed through without challenge. At the first cross street, they separated.

"Everyone knows the Casa de Vargas, if you want to reach me," Pedro said.

"And you know the Corona Inn," answered Garcia. "It's a new place since my time. I'll put up there. If all goes well, you won't hear from me until I'm out of Jaen. Meanwhile, think about the West,

companero. If you decide for a venture overseas, let me know; I can advise you." Garcia hesitated. "I may even go with you. Adios!"

He turned the head of his mule. Pedro raised his hand. "Adios! Good luck! Que vaya bien!"

"Holy Saint Peter," he smiled to himself on the way home, "there are my three deeds! I've befriended a pagan heretic, saved the virtue of a barmaid, and given comfort to a murderer. If this was thy will, hold me excused, for I am only a fool."

On his heavenly throne, it may be that the impenetrable saint answered with a smile. For at that moment a soberly dressed serving-man, without badge or livery, approached Pedro in the narrow street outside the de Vargas house, and doffed his cap, while the other reined up.

"Senor Pedro de Vargas?" he said. "A message for Your Worship."

It was a small letter with a dainty seal. Pedro stared at it incredulously. The impossible had happened. He knew without opening it that the note was from Luisa de Carvajal.

VJ

Dona Antonia Hernandez, duenna and cousin to Luisa de Carvajal, was considered too young a chaperon by conservative matrons of Jaen. At the age of thirty, a woman has not yet sufficiently forgotten her own youth. There was a certain amount of gossip about her in the miradors of the town, and perhaps with good reason, for she was lively, pleasure-loving, and resourceful. Though now a fortuneless widow, she had had a taste of court life and knew a great deal about the world. A love affair, even at second hand, especially when it concerned her young charge, Luisa, thrilled and stimulated her.

At the holy-water font, Pedro de Vargas, handsome and vigorous, had made a vivid impression on Doiia Antonia. When they were back in the airy gallery, or mirador, overlooking the Marquis's Italian garden, she understood perfectly why Luisa stood dreaming, with her eyes on the far distance of the campina. And at last, coming up with a smile, she slipped her arm around the girl's waist.

"I like him too. Cousin."