John Masters (22 page)

Rafael Santangel waited, pressed back into the angle where two houses met, outside the lower wall of the Moorish castle. It was a redcoat coming, and alone—he had seen that much as the man passed the glimmer from a lighted window lower down the ramp. It might be an officer, for few soldiers were permitted to wander round the town alone at this hour—though no one had taken much notice of the curfew while the wine lasted in the taverns.

He saw the man in silhouette against a white wall and gently put himself in balance for the thrust. It was an officer—tricomered hat, sword slung, no musket or bayonet. Quite old by the slow pace and the loud breathing. On his way up to the castle pickets probably. He passed, and Rafael stepped out, caught him under the chin with his left arm, and ripped the long knife across under his arm, opening the Englishman's throat to the bone from ear to ear. There was no cry, only a faint bubbling cough. Rafael let the body fall and stopped to wipe his knife blade on the tunic. That would show, he thought, smiling grimly. Blood was a different red.

He put on his shirt and the old jacket, glanced at his trousers to make sure they were free of blood, and slipped quickly down the ramp. He had thought once, earlier, when he began this work of vengeance, that he should shuffle to and from each murder like an old, bent man: But since the Spanish had opened their trenches any civilian caught out at night would be imprisoned and interrogated. The only hope was not to be caught.

He waited in the dark at each crossing of street or alley, then moved quickly to the next. He never stopped in the open, only in doorways. His knife was in his hand, but hidden.

The Fuentes' house was near the center of Villa Vieja. He moved quickly down the last alley, waited for a pair of patrolling sentries to pass below, then crossed the street and opened the door. This was always a bad moment, for if Amelia had not been able to open it again after Senor Fuentes had shut it for the night, or if someone had come along later and rebolted it, he would be left out all night, sure to be discovered in the morning.

But it opened. He locked it carefully and turned to go upstairs. The girl came flitting down and put a hand on his arm. She usually waited in the attic: but now she led him up and at the head of the stairs turned left instead of right There were two tiny attics up there—the left over the room where Senora Fuentes slept, the right over Amelia's room. Ever since the day of the surrender he'd been living in the one on the right. Now he followed Amelia through the low hatch into the other attic, closed it behind him, and waited till she had lit the lamp.

"What's happened?" he muttered. He saw that she had brought his clothes, mattress, basin, and bucket from the other attic.

"The English major put a Jew from Barbary to live with us," she said. "He wanted my room. I just had time to move everything across while he went back to his ship to bring his trunk."

"What's he doing?"

"Buying and selling provisions for the English, he said." Rafael sat down on a wooden chest, and she set out food on another chest. She was a strong-limbed peasant girl from Castellar, wide mouth and eyes, seventeen years old, the Fuentes' servant for four years now; but getting restive to find a man, marry, and return to her village—so Maria Cruz had told him, the last time he saw her alive.

"I got one," he said, drinking some wine. "An old officer. That makes twenty-four. Seventy-six to go." When he had found Maria Cruz's body out there by the shrine, the novice's habit around her neck, and all her young woman's secrets, which were to have been his, bared, bloody, defiled, her eyes open, the livid marks of crazed hands round her throat, he ... he...

He put down the flagon and buried his face in his hands. After a time he felt the girl's hand gently on his forehead. "Do it no more, master," she said. "I saw you from the window in the moonlight. Skulking down like a thief, like a rat, in the shadows. And you to be the Count of Grazalema. Man, it is not right."

"I have sworn," he said. "One hundred lives for hers."

"At first I said 'tis good," she said. "After I saw how the devils treated the womenfolk, aye, and had one up my skirt when I was kneeling, scrubbing, but I kicked him in the balls and ran in ... But, master, 'tis not right. Your face is changing. It is not good for a great lord to want to kill."

"But it's all right for such as you?" he said, smiling, his arm round her hips.

"Aye," she said soberly. "Sometimes the likes of us has to. But not you. A lord can harm too many.... Besides, I think you must leave now."

"Never!" he said.

"That Jew will be coming and going at all hours," she said. "And he has a sharp eye.... Father Romero gave me a message to pass to you."

"What?" Rafael asked. Father Romero was the parish priest and so far still permitted to travel to and fro between Gibraltar and the new town of tents and shacks rising on the hill beyond the isthmus, where the fugitives from Gibraltar were being settled.

"Our general—I can't remember his name—"

"Villadarias."

"Yes—he is going to send many men up the back of the Rock, at night, to take the English by surprise."

"But it's all cliffs and precipices."

"Not quite, master. A few shepherds know a path. Like my uncle."

"Simeon!" Rafael exclaimed. "Yes, he'd know." Simeon Susarte was a small, wizened, forty-year-old mountain man who herded sheep and goats for their rich owners all over the Rock. Rafael remembered seeing him at a boar hunt not long before the British attack.

Amelia Susarte said, "The general, I can't remember his name, wants to send a lot of soldiers up and make a big attack, but first he wants to know what the English are doing on the upper Rock, and he wants to know whether ordinary soldiers will be able to get up the shepherds' path. So Father Romero thought you had better leave this house and live in a cave on the upper Rock somewhere where you can spy on the English. And on the fourth night from tonight my uncle will come up to the Wolf Leap with an officer, to show him that the shepherds' path is all right for soldiers. And you should meet them there two hours after midnight and tell them what you have seen."

Rafael got up and paced up and down the attic, his head hunched under the beams. Amelia shook her head and pointed down. He remembered that he was not over her bedroom now but over Senora Fuentes, who did not sleep well because she was worried about the wound her husband had received in the English attack.

He sat down again. He'd been born in his family's Gibraltar house, and as a boy, during frequent visits, he'd run all over the Rock and later hunted boar and hare and partridge. He knew it well. There were a hundred caves where a man could hide forever if he could get food and water. But he'd have to give up his campaign of vengeance for his betrothed with only twenty-four of the English gone to rot in hell for their crimes.

Amelia said, "I'll bring food and water every night."

"Once a week will be enough," he said. "But..."

" 'Tis for Spain," she said. "And you'll get back Gibraltar for the king and the Church."

"Not I," he said. "Your uncle Simeon. Then the king'll make him a count, and you and I could get married."

She turned away and said after a time, "Don't speak like that, master."

"I'm sorry," he said, remembering that his betrothed was not yet three months in the grave. "It was a bad joke.... I'll do it. I'll leave as soon as I've eaten. Now, you know the Rock, too, don't you?"

"Aye," she said. "I've often looked after the sheep with my uncle when I was a little girl." She was very subdued, her eyes red. He thought, she has run as much risk as he, hiding him, bringing him food, washing his bloody clothes, emptying the bucket that served him for a commode; and she had her normal work as well—cleaning, sewing, and washing.

"You're a good girl," he said. "I don't know how I'll ever be able to thank you for what you've done. But you'll never want as long as you live, I promise."

"Let's talk about the caves, master," she said wearily, "—and where I shall bring the food, or leave messages from Father Romero, perhaps...."

The Jew was about thirty, she thought, a strong, square-built man with a long face, black jaw, and odd pale blue eyes that gave her shivers when she thought about them. She was very much aware of him, for she was kneeling on a pad scrubbing the tiled floor of the dining room, and he was behind her, sprawled in one of the master's good chairs, looking at her legs.

"So the master got wounded the day the English came, did he?" he said. "That was a long time ago. Why hasn't he gone to Spain like all the other gentry?" He spoke Spanish with an odd accent, using some words that she had hardly ever heard.

She answered him. "He had his leg shot off. He nearly died. He'll leave as soon as he can, have no fear."

"H'm." The Jew got up and wandered round, picking up things and putting them down again. "Who do you spend your nights with?"

"Alone," she snapped.

"Why do you look so tired, then? ... But you're a woman, aren't you? You wouldn't go out stabbing soldiers at night, would you? Though you're strong enough. A good strong girl." He passed his hand over her buttock. She knocked the bucket of dirty water over his feet.

He laughed. "And good spirit, too ... Do you know there have been no more murders since the night I arrived, three days ago? ... What happened to Don Rafael Santangel? He was staying here, wasn't he, before the English came?"

She bent and began to mop up the mess. "He left the next day," she said.

"Why was he here?"

"He was betrothed to marry Senor Fuentes' daughter when she finished her studies in the convent next year. And now, if you will leave me to my work..."

"Not yet... Was she hurt when the English came?"

"Raped and strangled," she said coldly. "No more."

"Ah. Are you sure Don Rafael left?" She saw that her bitterness had given him a clue and resolved to keep a closer curb on herself. He was waiting for her when she came back, the bucket refilled. She knelt again. He said, "What's he like?"

"Who?"

"Don Rafael. How old?"

"Twenty-one."

"Good-looking?"

"Yes. Tall, fair-skinned. His eyes are dark. He is heir to a great name and estate."

"Too high for you. But he used to steal a kiss now and then, perhaps." She felt the tears stinging her eyes and with effort kept to the rhythm of her scrubbing.

He said, "Where did you get this?"

She looked around and jumped up. In his hand he held the naked woman carved of ivory that Simeon had found on the Rock years ago and had given, laughing, to her, saying, "One day you'll be like that, little one." It had big breasts and a deep-cut
cono,
and she did not let visitors see it but kept it in a drawer and sometimes found herself praying to it as though it had been a sacred Virgin. But because it was not a Virgin she only prayed to it for pretty clothes and a high comb to put in her hair and such.

The Jew was saying, "This is old, my girl, valuable perhaps. See this stand and the ring on her head. They're gold."

"You stole it from my room," she cried. "You had no right to go in there!"

"I was just interested," he said. "You are a brave girl, loyal, and probably in love. A dangerous mixture." He gave her back the figurine. "I'd like to see
you
like that."

She tossed her head, and as though it had been a signal, the house shook, and a dull thudding rattled the window panes.

"The Spanish have opened fire," the Jew said softly. "They are making their next move. No more than a pawn, I think. They won't risk much for a barren rock like this."

"You talk of us as pieces in a game?" she said angrily. "We are people, not chessmen. This is our home, not a pawn."

"That is how
you
see it," he said, "But you are in minority, are you not? A very small minority." He smiled, suddenly kissed her, but gently, and went out.

From his place between two rocks, in a thorn bush, Rafael watched the English ships sweep into the bay, watched the French squadron try to escape, then the battle. The thunder of the cannon came up surprisingly loud and sonorous, though the billows of smoke sometimes hid all but the topmasts of the ships. When the smoke cleared, the French had vanished—burning, beached, sunk. The English squadron hove to under the guns of the fortress below him.

He moved his position slightly and grimaced with pain. It was not by sea that the English would be thrown off the Rock.

It was a cool day, with occasional drops of rain from the cloud hanging low over the Wolf Leap far above him. He had been in position since before dawn and could not move till dusk, for he was almost in the middle of the upper defenses, close above San Joaquin Battery. He could easily hear the English soldiers' voices as they talked. Sometimes, as they passed along the slope, they seemed to look straight at him; but his face was daubed with mud, his clothes drab and streaked, and they had not seen him.

This was his fourth day. The English had occupied and improved all the defenses along this north face, from the water as far as the beginning of the cliff above the Moorish Castle. They put out pickets along the foot of the slope, but they were far apart, and certainly men could pass undetected between them to seize the main works, where all but a sentry or two would be asleep. The chief defense was the inundation, which left only a narrow track for approach to the Landgate; but the inundation ended below the cliff, so men could pass to the east of it to the back of the Rock. If Simeon Susarte could really guide a large number of soldiers from there to the crest... the English had no defenses at all facing upward except a post of a dozen soldiers close above the Hospital of San Juan de Dios.

The light began to fade, and rain fell more heavily. The redcoats scurried to the shelter of their lean-tos. Smoke of cooking fires rose. The sun gleamed once over the bay and the wreckage of the French ships, then hid, and soon it was dark. Rafael moved carefully, standing, stretching, taking the stiffness out of one limb at a time, then set off along the slope for the Lost Lamb Cave, his home.

It was on the slope, five hundred feet above the town and hidden from it by an outjutting shelf of limestone. Low holly oaks obscured the narrow sand-filled entrance. After a long crawl it widened out into a big chamber.

He went in, lay down on the bed of heather, and fell asleep.

He awoke, knife in hand, at the clink of stone and stared toward the entrance. Though there was no light, he could see her plainly, naked, her hair streaming, running, her mouth open, but he could hear nothing. She vanished. He lay sweating, afraid.

A long time later stones clinked again, and Amelia Susarte's voice whispered, "Master, 'tis I, Amelia." She came in, and he heard her put down a heavy basket. He put out his hand to feel her and touched her breast. Her breathing stopped. He muttered, "You are dressed.... I saw a woman naked. Running. Afraid."

"You had a dream," she said, her voice trembling.

The breast was full and round under his hand, and slowly he slid his hand round to her back. She sighed, and all the stiffness went out of her body. Her lips were warm and wet, her body trembling with love. Until the final ecstasies, when she cried out under him, he could not erase from his mind the fear in that other face, for it had been like hers but not the same. But at last, spent, the apparition and the fear faded, and it was Amelia Susarte, the shepherd's niece, beside him.

"I love thee, master," she said softly. "I always have." He sat up but held her hand. She kissed it and held it to her cheek. "I mean you no harm," he said. "It is not that I think so little of you. It is only..."

"Say nothing," she said. "There is no need.... I have a letter for you from Father Romero to give to Simeon."

He took it. "What time is it? I shall have to go up soon." She took his hand again. "Are you tired? Is it bad and dangerous by day?"

"Sometimes," he said. "Yesterday a partridge nearly gave me away. It was walking under the bushes, feeding on fallen berries, and stepped near on my hand before it saw me and let out such a squawk and burst up through the bushes into flight with so sudden and loud a drumming that I thought I was lost, for two English soldiers were watching, not fifty feet away. But they had no interest. They see nothing except rum barrels.... What of the town? Senor Fuentes?"

"Well. He threatens to leave tomorrow, but I think the senora will keep him another week. The Jew—he is called Asher Conquy—puts his nose in everything. No one can go round a corner but he is there. I am afraid of him, master."

He said, "You don't have to come up again. There's plenty of food and drink here.... I must go."

Outside the cave, in the rain, she turned to him and put up her face. He kissed her, found his desire and affection rising, and stepped back abruptly. What could he bring but shame to a girl such as she?

"Go," he said. "Be careful."

He turned and started up the slope. There were no English up here by day, and there would be none by night. The only paths were narrow winding tracks made by goats and sheep and wild pig. Sometimes he climbed across bare wet sheets of limestone, faintly gleaming, sometimes burrowed up on hands and knees under thorn and scrub. Suddenly, there was nothing ahead. On three sides the void opened before him. He was on the northern pinnacle of the Rock, the Wolf Leap. A few lights glimmered in the town, a few toward Spain. Cloud wraiths drifted past. He sat waiting, fearing that the naked woman would come again in her terror.