The Woodcarver's Secret (Samantha Sweet Mysteries) (11 page)

“Not here,” she whispered. “It’s
… smelly. Like a hundred unwashed men slept there.”

She grabbed his hand before he
could protest and pulled him toward the better-lit end of the corridor.

“It’ll be a lot more exciting in
a nicer place,” she said.

The guard seemed at a loss.
Clearly, he should be ordering her to stop, threatening to kick her out, but
libido had taken over and his stupid smile indicated that he would go along
with nearly anything at this point.

“What’s this? The general’s
quarters?” Meggie didn’t read well, but she recognized a familiar name on the
plaque at the door. “Ooh, I feel
meself
gettin
’ all steamy.”

Before the guard could protest
she pulled him into the room and closed the door behind them. Moonlight coming
through two large windows revealed a large desk with a high-backed chair behind
it.

“Sit in the chair,” she ordered,
lifting her skirt. “I love to ride a powerful man.”

Where did that come from?
She closed her mind to the act itself as
the guard unbuttoned his trousers and she faced him. Over his shoulder she could
see that the rest of the large office contained a worktable with maps spread
out on it. In the dim light she couldn’t make out what they were but they
seemed something that would be of interest to the Spaniard.

On a shelf beyond the worktable
she saw more papers. A carved wooden box sat there, probably too small to
contain valuable documents, but Meggie felt attracted to the design. She might
as well get something for herself out of this little adventure.

The guard pumped away, taking far
longer than she would have expected, but at last he heaved a contented sigh and
relaxed against the back of the chair. In an awkward attempt at after-play he
mauled her breasts with his hands and planted wet kisses on them.

Meggie stood up and backed away.
“Button up, now,” she said. “Can’t let you get caught in forbidden places.”

He didn’t catch her meaning until
he noticed that she was looking around the important man’s office. His eyes
widened and he quickly put his clothing back in place.

“There must be a back way out,”
she whispered. “Quick! Show me!”

He peered out into the corridor
before fully opening the door. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her out of the
office and closed the door behind them. They headed away from the guardhouse
and Meggie could see that the long corridor made a left turn shortly ahead.
Immediately after the turn, an alcove revealed another heavy wooden door. The
guard reached into his pocket and brought out a heavy key, which he inserted
into an ornate metal lock. He gave a twist and pulled the door open.

“Here. Stay to the left and that
path leads to another along the quay. Follow that one to the right and you’ll
be back in town with no one the wiser.”

Meggie moved in close, placing
her hands on his chest. “I could come back tomorrow.”

The man beamed. Obviously he had
pleased her. He nodded and moved to kiss her on the mouth.

She teased him with a smile just
before he could land the kiss. “Tomorrow. Now go. Before you get in trouble.”

She pressed against his
shoulders, turning him back toward the corridor. The moment his back was turned
she slipped the corner of her shawl into the lock in the doorframe. He pressed
the door shut and she heard his footsteps move away. Dropping her shawl on the
stone stoop, she hurried away to find Rodrigo.

“
Psst
!”
came a sound from a large shrub at the corner. Meggie slowed, turning to be
sure she hadn’t been followed. At her low words, Rodrigo emerged.

“Come,” she said. “I have the
way.”

They kept to the shadows and she
hurried to the fort’s side entrance where her shawl had disabled the locking
mechanism.

“Quickly!” Any passerby could
notice the garment and alert the soldiers.

Meggie pushed inward on the heavy
door, retrieving the cloth, and Rodrigo ducked inside. With quiet steps and
hand signals, she showed him to the general’s office. While he snatched up the
maps and folded them, she checked the contents of the shelves. A heavy bag
clanked with the satisfying sound of coins and she peered inside to discover
that they were gold. It was probably the payroll for the entire fortress. She
wound the strong cloth tightly around them and shoved the bulky packet into the
wooden box she had spied earlier. Two treasures!

“Is this box not beautiful?” she
asked, holding it up.

Rodrigo had shoved the folded maps
into the inner lining of his cloak and was shuffling through papers that
littered the general’s desk when Meggie heard a sound from the corridor. She
hugged the wooden box to her chest and picked up a knife that the commanding
officer probably used to remove sealing wax from his correspondence. A hand
signal to Rodrigo sent him scurrying to conceal himself beside a large
cupboard.

“ … no rest for me tonight,” a
male voice was saying.

A second man responded with a
formal, “Yes, Sir.” Meggie recognized it as the guard’s voice.

The door opened and a tall man
with wide shoulders entered. He carried a glowing lantern and his gaze took in
the entire room at one glance. He spotted Meggie with the wooden box in her
arms.

“Thief! Put that down!” he
shouted.

Meggie backed away a step but did
not relinquish the box. The general came farther into the room, holding the
lantern high for a good look at her. She thought fast but could come up with no
options. She would surely be put to the gallows. At this point all she could do
would be to help Rodrigo get away. In the corridor, she heard the guard call
out to the general, asking if everything was all right.

“Put that down,” the general said
in a menacing tone. He took another step closer.

Meggie stepped toward the man
who’d murdered her father, raised the short knife and brought it across his
neck. “Run, Rodrigo! Go!”

Blood gushed from the military
man’s neck in horrid spurts. Meggie jumped aside and leaped over his fallen
body.

“Go, go!” she said to Rodrigo,
dropping the knife and reaching for his arm. He stared at her with wide, dark
eyes.

She yanked at his sleeve and
rushed to the corridor. At the far end, the guard she had seduced stared in
their direction, not quite comprehending what he saw. There was not a moment to
lose. Meggie, pulling Rodrigo with her, raced for the side door where they’d
come in, hearing the guard call out to the other one. By the time they reached
the turn, both guards were thundering down the hall toward them.

She fumbled the latch for a moment,
forgetting exactly how it operated. Precious seconds flew by but eventually it
gave way and Rodrigo yanked the heavy door open. He pinched at her sleeve and
guided her to the left, away from the street. Behind them they heard the
fortress door slam, a sound that would surely wake the city. Meggie hugged the
wooden box to her chest with one hand and gathered her skirts with the other,
racing after Rodrigo down toward the quay.

“Run faster!” he called over his
shoulder.

She stumbled and dropped the box.
In one move, he turned and scooped it up, then pulled her to her feet with his
free hand.

“We must hurry. A boat is coming
for me,” he said, his breath coming in rasps now.

Behind them, a soldier’s shout
ordered them to stop. Meggie hesitated a fraction of a second, turning to look.
The shot caught her in the chest, taking her breath, stopping her heart,
throwing her to the cold, muddy ground.

*
* *

Rodrigo stood at the rail as the
sun appeared at the horizon. The Irish coast, only a pale dark line now, vanished
as he stared toward it. The woman, Meggie. She’d given her life for something
she didn’t even understand, for the precious information needed by Phillip II
for the planned invasion of England’s kingdom. He remembered her upturned nose,
the way she’d teased a hot meal from him, her later sacrifice to help him get
into the fortress.

In Rodrigo’s memory the events
stood out clearly: the bleeding general, the sprint from the fortress, reaching
to assist Meggie followed by his own hard-breathing dash down the quay to the
spot where—blessedly—the dinghy bobbed at the coastline. He’d fallen, nearly
unconscious, into the small boat while the Spanish sailor’s powerful shoulders
took them past the range of musket fire as the two guards must have rallied
additional troops to the chase.

“We are safe now,” said a voice
at his side. “Go,
descansa
.
My cabin is yours for the day.”

Rodrigo knew he should rest but
the captain’s offer would have to wait.

“I hope the maps are useful,” he
said. “I had no time to look them over, to choose carefully.”

The stocky sailing man nodded. “I
have seen them—the king will be most pleased. We have only three months to
prepare and it is vital that he know where the British reinforcements are
stationed. We shall bring this intelligence to him with all haste.”

True to his word, all sails on
the
Santa Teresa
were fully raised,
the wind filling them and moving the galleon at a clip through the waves. At
last, Rodrigo allowed himself to go below decks to eat a meal and stretch out
on the bunk assigned to him. Beside him, he wrapped the wooden box in his cloak
and kept the bundle secure beside his body as sleep overtook him.

The nights ashore in Ireland had
taken their toll, for the spy slept through two days and three nights before he
awoke to realize that other crew members were snoring away in the bunks around
him. He stretched, patted his blanket to be certain that the box of gold coins
was safe, and discovered that he was starving. He could make his way quietly to
the galley where there would surely be some scrap of bread or perhaps a joint
of salted meat left from the evening meal before, but he came to understand
that the heavy box would soon become a burden. Was he to carry it to the privy,
to each meal, to have it at his side as he walked the decks? And there was no
place—other than on his person—where it would not be discovered and preyed upon
by the men. His head fell back to the thin mattress and he drifted to sleep
thinking of it.

When he woke again, the other bunks
were empty and the sounds of heavy footfalls overhead indicated that the crew
was already at work. He distributed most of the gold coins throughout the
pockets of his garments, placing them carefully so they would not jingle
against each other, and went to seek out the captain.

“Ah, Señor del Fuentes, you slept
well indeed,” said the man when he saw Rodrigo approaching him.

“I did.” On their port side,
Rodrigo could see the hazy edge of a coastline.

“France,” the captain explained.
“We dock in Portugal in two days. The Armada is already assembling, I am given
to understand. More than one hundred ships.”

He gave a sigh and Rodrigo was
unsure whether it meant this captain and the
Santa Teresa
were to be included among that number.

“Captain, I meant to ask a
favor?” He explained about the wooden box, that he wanted it kept safely
somewhere until he could present it to the king. “It contains twelve gold
pieces, a contribution to the war effort.”

In reality there were more than
sixty gold coins but Rodrigo wanted no one other than himself and King Phillip
to know this. Temptation ran too strongly among sailors; he dare not let the
word get out.

“I shall be happy to secure it in
the strong box in my quarters.”

Rodrigo handed the box over and
watched the other man walk toward his cabin at the stern. It was all he could
do to assure the safety of the items he had taken in Ireland. His stomach
growled, reminding him that he was long overdue for a meal.

The next two days went smoothly,
Rodrigo spending most of the time at leisure as he had no crew duties and knew
no one to speak to, other than the captain. Apparently, the story given to the
crew was that his position was as an emissary who reported to the king. It was
mostly true—a year ago he had been a supply master in Cadiz when the
devastating raid by Sir Francis Drake took place and decimated their fleet and
their stores. He’d taken the loss so personally that he had volunteered to do
whatever it took to help his king defeat the English. Now, he hoped the box of
gold coins would redeem him in the monarch’s estimation.

The port of Lisbon teemed with
life—galleons, galleys, and carracks anchoring out in the harbor, awaiting
their supplies. Smaller ships ferried crates out to the massive ones. On shore,
throngs of men moved in a hive of activity. Shouts overrode other shouts,
commanders organizing their men and readying to sail.

“The fleet is due to leave within
the week,” said the captain when Rodrigo found him in his quarters, leaning
over his table of charts. “I understand that thirty thousand soldiers will join
them, to be picked up in The Netherlands.”

He rolled two maps together into
a tight cylinder and tied a piece of twine around them, then reached into his
safe for Rodrigo’s wooden box.

“Catch the next transport ashore
and deliver these maps. You’ll find the king in his temporary headquarters.”
The shorter man looked up into Rodrigo’s eyes. “God be with you.”

“And with you, sir.” Rodrigo
couldn’t help wondering what the coming months would bring.

He descended the rope netting at
the side of the
Santa Teresa
, took a
spot in the bobbing transport boat and stared toward the city as they drew near
the shoreline. To Rodrigo’s experienced eye, the loading of supplies and
munitions followed a logical pattern; he watched muscular men lift the massive
wooden crates with rope nets and swing them into the holds of the warships. The
chaotic part of the operation was the sheer number of young sailors who
appeared somewhat bewildered at their surroundings. So many. During his months
in the British Isles, gathering intelligence, Rodrigo had noticed the superior
numbers of the English fleet, the readiness of their soldiers. Was this a lost
cause for Spain?