The Flesh and the Devil (37 page)

         
`She is dead.'

         
Briefly and starkly, Juana related the bare facts of
Michaela's suicide, omitting only the grim postscript that she had learned from
the Condesa that morning — that at first, in the dark and confusion, everyone
had taken the broken body in the scarlet gown to be Juana's own. Perhaps
Bartolome, who had not been allowed lights in case he should overturn them and
set light to the castillo, had made the same mistake; Juana had seen the
thought in her eyes, but it had remained unspoken.

         
'It is unthinkable that such a creature should be allowed
his liberty.' Jaime's face was dark with disgust and indignation. 'But you must
leave this, Juana, and try to forget what is past. The future is still before
us. I should not have reminded you of such a tragedy — Come, if you have
finished your food I shall deliver you into the good sisters' care.' He added as
he helped her to her feet, 'I wish I need not leave you.'

         
Juana hardly heard him. She went with him without speaking
to where a little group of nuns waited, patiently telling their beads as they
kept vigil over their guests. She was aware that his brown eyes studied her,
jealous of her abstraction. Once she would have turned to him and forced her
lips to smile, but now she could not.

         
'Your room is ready, madam, and I have furnished it with a
few of the things that were brought with us.' Tristan's crisp voice came from
the doorway, jerking every head round. 'It was something Spartan before.'

         
Juana inclined her head with a lofty coldness that belied
the urgent expression in her eyes, and she saw the green gaze sharpen as he
looked at her. In a carefully toneless voice, she said, 'Senor, I have been
wondering what will happen if - when your master is found. Shall I be summoned
back again?'

         
Tristan shook his head. 'All that is at an end now, madam.'

         
But if he should be discovered - unexpectedly - will they
not require you to take charge of him again?' Juana wondered if he had
understood her; his face was so still, so calm.

         
'No, madam, I am discharged.'

         
'Let it be, Juana, these things do not concern you.'
Jaime's fingers brushed her sleeve, and he moved to interpose himself between
them, his tone compelling.

         
'Nothing else can be required of you; you have done your
father's will -' his voice softened - 'and now, in justice, he must give you
yours.'

         
He spoke to her as if the watching man did not exist, Juana
thought dazedly, realizing that a very little time ago she would have done the
same. Then she had treated servants as mere property, dispensers of comfort to
be threatened or cajoled as the whim took her. But now she had learned about
their humanity with brutal suddenness, and she found herself blushing as she
met Tristan's eyes.

         
Half-impatiently she said, 'I cannot think of anything when
I am so tired! If we are to make an early start tomorrow, Jaime, I shall go
straight to bed. I will bid you goodnight here, and go with the sisters. Follow
us, Senor Tristan.'

         
Without waiting for any response she swept a brief curtsy
to the waiting nuns and followed them, leaving Jaime thunderstruck. He started
forward, glowering at Tristan, but the mercenary's arching brows lifted in such
bland enquiry that the younger man hesitated; then, with a sketched bow more
belittling than an open insult, Tristan turned his back and followed Juana out.

         
'I must speak with you.' The words were so soft that even
the nuns, padding ahead on sandalled feet, could not hear them; Juana's lips
scarcely moved.

         
'Must you? What now?'

         
A chill ran down her spine, for there was a whiplash in the
whispered questions, but somehow she managed not to turn her head. 'The Duque's
body!

         
Did you leave it in the cask?'

         
There was a slight sound, like a caught breath of
exasperation, before he answered. 'What else could I do? By the time it is
found I shall be far away, and Torres is not like to raise a hue and cry over
his death — in Madrid it will be a cause for rejoicing. Are you concerned for
my safety?'

         
'For my own,' she answered between closed lips.

         
'They are yoked together.' Their way led into another,
narrower corridor, and her skirts brushed his thigh. 'You might seek a way to
be clear of me if they were not, and I have not yet claimed all my fee.'

         
'You cannot stay at my father's, there is no place for
you!'

         
'I am not bound to your father. And neither are you.' Juana
felt as though all the blood had drained from her body. In a dry, cracked
whisper, she heard herself say, 'What do you mean?'

         
'I mean that I do not remit a debt for convenience's sake,
and I am not minded to let an ungrown boy deprive me of my due from you. If you
are so hot to be married, you will marry me here, tomorrow, before the house is
awake.' He watched her face whiten, then added, 'Your dowry, augmented as it
is, may be useful.'

         
The brutal words made her stumble, and his hand gripped her
elbow, steadying her. She jerked away from his touch at once.

         
'You cannot. There are papers, fees — the priest here would
not —'

         
'The priest here is glad of thirty
reales
 
for the church. I told him at supper how your
brother came with us here to help us cheat your cruel parents, who despise me
because I am neither rich nor Spanish —' a mischievous grin flashed that
 
altered the still face entirely — 'and as for
the papers, I took those that Eugenio had for your marriage to Bartolome and
altered them. There is no impediment, especially since the priest knows that we
have "changed flesh‖.‘

         
Juana stared at the nuns' unconscious backs, and their
shapes seemed to blur before her eyes. 'I will not marry you,' she said through
gritted teeth, and he shrugged almost invisibly.

         
Às you please, but I shall kill your pretty stripling else.
I owe him for his courtesy.'

         
The tone was level, unperturbed, and she was reminded
suddenly of an animal placidly planning a kill. She had made only a first
acquaintance with murder; to Tristan it was a familiar companion of years.

         
'Have you not had enough of death?' she demanded harshly.

         
‗That is in your hands — consent, and I need not kill
him.'

         
'I. . . .' Juana broke off.

         
The nuns ahead of them had halted and were smiling and
beckoning towards the doorway where they stood, and then they turned and went
through it, murmuring to each other.

         
In the instant the black robes were out of sight, Tristan's
gloved hand caught Juana's chin and jerked it up. `Quickly, yes or no?' The
pale emerald eyes blazed down into hers, so brilliant that she could not read
them. 'Which is it to be?'

         
She caught her breath to defy him, to say that Jaime would
defend her with his life if she bade him to; then she heard her own voice say
'Yes'.

         
Juana scarcely slept all that night, alone in the severe
little room smelling of herbs and honey, and a little before daybreak Tristan
came to fetch her. She was ready, a hooded cloak drawn on over one of her
plainest gowns, with her hair in a knot at the back of her head. She had
dressed to disappoint, to repel, without any idea of how the dull greys and
browns enhanced her vivid beauty. But he looked only at her face, his glance
critical as he scanned her pale cheeks and dark, exhausted eyes, all the fire
drained from her in the cold morning light. He was as immaculate as ever in his
close-fitting badged black, and she found herself wondering for the first time
whether the severity he affected was his choice or his masters'.

         
The whole building was silent as they made their unspeaking
way to the priest's cell, and it added to the sense of unreality. Juana felt as
though she were walking in a dream and a single intrusive sound would break the
spell. In the meantime it was vitally important that she should show no trace
of fear or uncertainty, that she should walk steadily and unhurriedly. If she
once allowed the truth to show in her face, she thought, then reality would
break in on this impossible dream, and she did not know whether she could
endure it. She felt the touch of Tristan's hand at her back, guiding her, and
she arched spontaneously away.

         
'Who is to give me?' she asked as his hand went out to lift
the roughlybeaten latch.

         
'The convent groom, for two reales; it is not fit for you,
but a man need not starve because he lacks a golden dish.' 'Why not my
brother,
 
since he comes here to help us?'

         
'I explained that I did not want to burden his conscience —
the priest commended me for it.' There was an undercurrent in his level voice
that made her look at him sharply. 'I have not been in such grace for nearly
twenty years.'

         
Yet he was not many years past thirty, she thought,
shocked, and he added as if he had read her mind, 'Thirty-four,' in a tone that
was dry and matter-of-fact.

         
She said rapidly, urgently, 'If you are not of the True
Faith then our marriage will not be binding in the eyes of the Church. You
should not —'

         
'Have no fear, I was brought up a good Catholic.' The
slanting eyes mocked, but the strange hardness still lingered in his voice. 'My
parents even died for their faith. Come now.'

         
His long fingers lifted the latch, and then he ushered her
before him into the low-ceilinged cell. The priest waited ready, with the
convent's groom and two elderly women, black-shawled and hawk-faced; witnesses,
he explained, to make all secure before the strictest lawyer. Juana glanced up
at Tristan in quick indignation, but the warning glint in his eyes made her
curb her tongue before the hot words that sprang to her tongue were uttered.

         
'I must have my ring again for this, give it to me now.'
His quiet voice made her stiffen. He was standing very close to her in the
cramped cell, for six people crowded it, and his red head was bent low over
hers to avoid the ceiling; his hand held hers so that she could not move away.

         
She shook her head. 'I have no ring of yours.'

         
In answer he drew the lion signet from her finger and
slipped it on his own. The ring that had hung so loosely on her finger fitted
his precisely, and Juana's lips parted in a soundless exclamation of
understanding as he turned away from her to face the priest. She had spent hours
brooding over that ring, hating it, too proud to ask why its blazon differed
from the Duque's griffin badge; in the end she had concluded that the chained
lion was the crest of some remote branch of the Duque's family, and disdained
to spend more thought on the matter. But it was Felipe Tristan's ring, given
her by stealth — no doubt because it had amused him to badge her as his
possession from the moment she had entered the castillo.