The Woodcarver's Secret (Samantha Sweet Mysteries) (12 page)

He shoved those thoughts aside
and spotted a man who appeared to be somewhat higher in rank.

“Headquarters is over there,” he
replied gruffly to Rodrigo’s inquiry. He waved vaguely toward a couple of large
stone buildings.

One was clearly a warehouse with
large bays and stacks of materiel piled about. The other might house the port
master’s offices—he couldn’t tell for certain. Rodrigo set off in that
direction.

Searching out the most
important-looking person at each crossroad and at each building led him
eventually to a set of offices where uniformed men were bustling about with
documents and maps. He clutched his own roll of maps and proceeded.

Raised voices caught his
attention. Two men with the bearing of royal equerries stood outside a doorway
with their hands clasped behind their backs.

“
Farnesio
,
your concerns are noted but we shall proceed. The costs have been addressed
through papal dispensation to levy taxes, the men have received indulgences and
are free to sail. The matter is closed.”

“But, your majesty, the new
commander … with the loss of Álvaro de
Bazán
?”

“Medina
Sedonia
is most capable.” The monarch’s voice grew ominously quiet. “The matter is
closed.”

A dark-haired man stormed out of
the room. Rodrigo recognized the long face and neatly trimmed beard of the Duke
of Parma. His face was suffused with repressed rage, however, and the king’s
two servants, along with everyone else in the corridor, averted their eyes and
cleared a pathway for him.

“Next!” came the voice of the
king. “And do not bother me with those who wish to make a case in favor of that
woman
. I think not of any Protestant
as a relative of my own.”

He referred, of course, to
Elizabeth, now the queen of England and formerly his own sister-in-law. She had
supported the Dutch Revolt against his country, and only last year had sent Sir
Francis Drake to decimate the fleet at Cadiz. Her open support of the
Protestant cause went against everything the Spanish king believed and
reinforced his own determination—at the urging of Pope
Sixtus
—to
send crusades to assure that the entire earth be populated with believers in
the Catholic faith. The current rearming of the Armada and planned invasion of
English soil was pure retaliation.

Both servants outside the door
quaked at the king’s tone, and three men who had been waiting suddenly seemed
to have other missions elsewhere. One of the servants looked at Rodrigo. “You
have the privilege to enter, sir.” He asked Rodrigo’s name and announced him.

The king was pacing before a
tapestry-covered wall when Rodrigo entered, and he came to a halt near a long
table. Every portrait Rodrigo had ever seen showed the man in full dress
regalia, complete with white hose and shoes, richly embroidered doublet, and
stiffly starched ruff at the neck. Today, the king was more simply clad in a
plain black jerkin over light grey doublet and black hose. His only
ornamentation was a wide livery collar with the coat of arms of his royal
order. His short, sand-colored hair and neatly trimmed beard bore threads of
gray.

Rodrigo approached with lowered
gaze and a respectful bow.

“Hurry up now—what have you
here?” King Phillip demanded, holding out a hand.

Rodrigo raised his eyes only to
the level of the monarch’s chest and offered the rolled maps. “From the
intelligence mission to Ireland, your majesty.”

The king accepted the maps and
placed them on the table beside him, without so much as a glance. “And what is
that?” He pointed at the box cradled in Rodrigo’s left arm.

“Money for the treasury, your
majesty. I confess that I took it on a whim, because I had the opportunity,
from the offices of the commandant of the Galway army contingent.”

The admission brought a fleeting
smile. “Well done.”

The monarch reached for the box
and Rodrigo held it forward. Brows knitted sharply over the arch of his nose,
the king frowned and studied the box before raising the lid. The contents
obviously pleased him. He pulled out the bag Meggie had taken, hefted the
weight of it, and absently shoved the box back toward Rodrigo. Loosening the
bag’s drawstrings, he peered inside.

“Very good work, young man. On
behalf of the kingdom I accept your gift to the war effort.”

The box rested on Rodrigo’s
outstretched hands.

“I’ve no interest in that cheap
object. Take it away.”

Rodrigo felt a pang at the memory
of Meggie’s delight in the carved box. The simple Irish girl had thought the
item beautiful. Obviously, the king already owned much finer things. He tucked
it out of sight under his arm.

“That will be all.” Phillip
dismissed him without a glance and turned to carry the bag of gold to his desk.

Rodrigo backed out of the room
and hastily left the building, only to be assaulted once again by the noise and
bustle of the thousands of sailors milling about the docks. His liaison officer
had promised a short leave of absence if he completed the mission to Ireland and
returned alive, and Rodrigo intended to take advantage of that offer. He still
had the written orders, carefully sewn into the lining of his shirt so that no
matter what happened to him he would not lose the slip of paper.

He thought longingly of Cordoba,
that small city where his family still lived a quiet life. Mamá would be baking
bread on a morning like this and his little sister, Ermelinda, either playing
with her friends or helping in the kitchen. Papá’s work inside the new
cathedral at the Mezquita would be taking shape as the Church converted the
former Spanish center of Islam to a new and beautiful edifice to Christ. A wave
of homesickness gripped him and he looked about for a way to get there. All he
saw in any direction were miles of sailors and ships, huge piles of supplies
standing in readiness to take to the sea.

In the end, he spoke with the
driver of a mule cart who had just unloaded a wagonload of fresh oranges and
was preparing to leave. The man could give Rodrigo a ride as far as Badajoz.
From there he managed rides with an olive merchant, then with two friars from
Monesterio, walking the final twenty miles south through green, hilly country
where he followed goat trails much of the way until he saw the pillars of the
old Roman bridge. His steps quickened as he followed familiar streets. The
summer sun warmed him as he had not been warmed since Ireland and the long sea
voyage—home!

Mamá shrieked with delight when
she saw him from the side yard where she was draping wet clothing over a line.
She dropped a white shawl and ran toward him, taking his face between her hands
as tears ran down her face.

“
Rigo
,
Rigo
!
Mi
hijo
,
Te
echaba
de
menos
.”

“I missed you, too, Mamá.” He
glanced around. “Where is Ermelinda? And Papá?”

A young woman stepped out from
the kitchen, lowering the shawl that covered her hair, revealing a pretty face
with high cheekbones and full lips.

“Ermelinda?” He felt his mouth
gape.

“Ay,
si
,
our Ermelinda has become woman. You were gone many months,
hijo
.
” Mamá gripped his arm as if he might escape before she could get
him into the house.

“And I suppose you will eat all
our food, now that you have traveled so far,” the near-stranger piped up. She
gave a petulant grin that he recognized. This was definitely the little sister
who had teased him about his appetite since they were small.

“Come, come,” Mamá said. “Bring
that heavy bundle inside and I will find you some food. Wash your hands first.”

Some things never changed.

He went to his old bedroom and
dropped the bag that contained only one change of clothing and the wooden box
onto his bed. His favorite bow and quiver of arrows stood in the corner still,
but there were signs that the family had needed the space for other things as
well. His mother’s sewing basket rested near the door, along with a bolt of
cloth which looked newly woven.

In the kitchen he caught
undertones of unease in the conversation between his mother and sister.

“What is it?” he asked, dipping
his hands into the water bucket that had stood near the door for as long as he
could remember.

Mamá’s eyes grew sad.

“It’s Papá,” Ermelinda said.
“There was an accident at the work site in the Mezquita … a large stone …” She
turned away.

“One of the carved lintels,” Mamá
said. “It fell and he was pinned.”

Rodrigo felt his world fall away.
“Papá is dead?”

“Nearly a year ago.
Lo
siento
, we
had no way to get word to you.”

The aroma of the beans and fresh
bread suddenly held no appeal. He pushed his way out the door, through the
small side yard where the clean laundry flapped much too cheerfully on the
line. His head buzzed and his eyes would not focus.

Papá, gone. It was unbelievable.
He stumbled down the narrow street, stubbing his toe on a stone that jutted up,
reaching out to touch the white walls of nearby shops. Papá. Gone.

In the next lane he caught sight
of the spire of the great cathedral above the smaller rooflines. It became his
beacon and he headed that direction instinctively. At the steps leading to the
wide entry doors he stopped cold. How could God let this happen? He should go
inside, light a candle, say prayers for his father’s soul, but he could not
summon the will to walk through those doors. He turned his back on the building
and sank to the steps, sitting with his head in his hands.

Dimly aware of people around him,
including a priest who paused briefly to lay a hand on his shoulder, Rodrigo
stared across the square. A fountain bubbled and women came to fill jugs with
the water; two young boys crossed in front of him and ran down one of the lanes
that branched away from this central part of the city; the bell in the church
tower chimed, several times; the midday sun beat on his back then passed behind
the cathedral. When the priest came outside again and spoke to him, Rodrigo
realized he had been there for hours. He should go home and check on Mamá.

Practicality set in as he slowly
made his way back over the same streets. How had Mamá and Ermelinda supported
themselves all these months? Where did they get food? Who made repairs to the
house for them? It hit him that he was now the man of the family.

The kitchen felt stifling when he
walked in. A long row of bread loaves sat on the table and Ermelinda was
pulling two more from the oven using a wide wooden paddle. At one end, mama sat
with a length of the white cloth he had noticed in his room, stitching two
edges of it together.

“Rodrigo,” she said. “
Siéntate
,
debemos
hablar
.”

He sat, as instructed. Yes, they
should talk.

“We are doing all right,” she
said. “When you stayed away all afternoon, I knew you would be thinking of
Ermelinda and me, but we are all right.”

“We sell our bread,” his sister
said. “I bake enough each day to supply the monastery and that new hostelry on
the road to Alameda. Mamá, she sews for the nuns and sometimes for the rich
woman whose husband owns the big winery.”

“We eat simply and put aside all
the coins we can. My son, do not worry about us. You have your duties to the
king.”

For a moment the image of Phillip
II standing in that command center, planning to invade the British Isles,
popped into his head. Then he realized that Mamá knew nothing of this
conversation, she meant simply that he was still under obligation to his naval
commander, at least until he was released from duty. Tomorrow, he would visit
the local commandant and request his discharge based on family need.

Ermelinda covered the new loaves
with a cloth. “Now, surely you are hungry,” she said with an impish grin. “Your
beans are still here for you.

This time, when he smelled the
food on the plate, he remembered how hungry he’d been earlier. Despite the
heavy stone of grief that pressed on his heart, he wolfed down the meal his
sister set before him. Darkness was setting in when he stepped out to see his
mother taking down the laundry from the line. He noticed one of the hinges on
the door seemed loose; he would repair it in the morning. He was glad the women
had figured out ways to feed themselves but it was still apparent that they
could use a man’s touch.

Back in his room he set his bag
of belongings on the floor, stripped off his travel-dusty clothing and fell
into bed. His body ached with the days of travel but his joy at being home felt
dim in comparison to his grief. He fell asleep to the sound of the church bells
in the distance.

A shaft of sunlight crossed
Rodrigo’s bed, waking him to the realization that he’d slept well beyond his
usual hour.

He sat up and saw that his dirty
clothing was gone and a basin of fresh water waited on the table near the door.
He washed then reached into his bag for something to wear. He brought out the
carved wooden box wrapped in his light summer cloak. He set it on the bed,
wondering why he had bothered to bring the thing along over all these miles. A
vision of Meggie’s face came to him when he looked at the object. Again, a stab
of regret that she had become involved in his mission.

He sat down beside the box,
suddenly feeling the weight of his dual grief sapping his energy. He picked up
the box and opened the lid, half hoping the king had missed a gold coin or two.
Foolish wish—the coins had been in a sack inside the box and the monarch would
certainly have noticed any extra.