Grudging, p.17
Grudging, page 17
Teresa laughed. “Not a thin patch anywhere, cousin.” She cocked her head. “It suits you. Especially with the armor.”
His face felt hot, and he quickly ran an eye over their campsite, searching for signs of their passage. No need to give the Northerners any help locating them. If they were looking. “Bury that, would you please?” he asked, pointing to the wet, glistening cinders. “I’ll get our guest ready.”
Worrying about his beard. This wasn’t time for such vanity. He was as bad as Alvito had been. Had been? Was it so? The thought wiped away the last of his smile.
Forcing himself to joke with Teresa could only lighten his heart so far. Too much remained to drag it back down into the “gruff silence” she disliked. One such stared him in the face right now with disturbingly sky-colored eyes.
“Get ready to walk, witch,” he said.
The sky-colored eyes narrowed in a look that should have included spitting, hissing, and biting—with probably a bit of cursing for good measure.
The witch couldn’t have spent a comfortable night either, forced upright. He’d seen her awake as often as sleeping, her head slumped sideways in an awkward kink. He suspected she’d spent as much of the night crying as he had. He shivered with embarrassment, hoping he hid it better. Remorse might not trouble him for her lack of sleep, but one thing did.
Ramiro put himself between the girl and Teresa so Teresa couldn’t possibly overhear. Best to get it off his conscience . . . it wouldn’t get easier for waiting.
“I’m sorry you lost your mother.”
To be clear, he wasn’t sorry the witch was dead. That was a whole different feeling. But he was unhappy he’d offered no sympathy for someone suffering such a loss. He knew loss too well.
For a moment, surprise registered on her face and in the bizarre eyes, then contempt came back. He applied himself to undoing the rope holding her to the tree. “I don’t care if that makes you feel better. I said it for my own benefit.”
She grunted, then growled something he knew by the tone was meant to tell him off.
He finished unlooping the rope off the tree and gathered it in a loose coil, the other end wrapped around the little witch’s arms. Mosquito bites marred her face, neck, and arms. His own bites itched in sympathy. “Stand up, and Teresa can take you into the bushes.”
A shake of the head was her only response.
Ramiro clutched tight to his patience. “Don’t make me drag you. You don’t want that. I’m trying to give you a little privacy.”
She stubbornly kept her place against the tree.
He rolled his eyes, then bent to jerk her upright. The last thing he wanted was to use more force. As Teresa constantly reminded him, they needed to win the girl over. But if someone had to be the mean one, better it was—
What—
He froze. “You’ve got a spider.” He pointed to the spot of red and black on the little witch’s trouser and had the satisfaction of her eyes rounding. Black and red, and you’ll be dead.
Teresa brushed by him. “Is it that the double-bite Bromisto told us about?”
“Judging by her reaction, I’d say that’s a safe bet,” he said. “There’s another.” The second spot of red and black was about the size of a coin, all hairy legs and bulbous body. It clung to the tree, close to her head. Ramiro dropped to one knee and flicked the first spider from the little witch’s leg.
“Swell up like a dead toad,” he said as if to himself. “I wonder what that looks like. If you don’t plan to walk, we can leave you tied here and find out.” He smirked. “This tree is probably crawling with them.”
Claire widened her eyes and put fear into her face, playing along as if the murderer’s attempt to frighten her was succeeding. Double-bites were lazy and seldom bit unless you squished them. She’d encountered enough to know. They liked to hide under cabbage leaves in the garden. Maybe she could use this.
She tried to see the one by her head and pretended to flinch. Then she rushed forward like panic had seized her, moving on hands and knees, bumping against the murderer as she fled. Quick pats at her clothing looked like checking for more spiders, but allowed her to slip the small knife she’d filched from his boot into her waistband.
She’d have to move fast. The murderer would notice it missing soon.
“Very wise and you’re welcome,” he said. The murderer had strapped sheets of curved metal across his chest, back, and shoulders over his uniform. Looser pieces of shining silver hung from his waist, covering the top of his thighs. Though his sword hung on his horse, another dagger was attached to his waist. The whole ensemble made him look bigger, somehow more impressive. Harder. That combined with his red-rimmed eyes aged him. She wasn’t the only one crying last night.
She wasn’t crying now. Claire hid a smile, already moving. She was welcome to his weapon. Thank you very much. And the murderer had given her the perfect place to use it on her bonds. Dried reeds crackled under her feet and deflected off her shoulders. She sought a thick spot and hunkered down in the middle of them. As expected, Teresa stayed thoughtfully out of sight, though still close.
“Do you need help?” the woman called. “Since your hands are tied, I mean.”
Claire used the knife to slit the straps around her wrists, then pulled at the gag around her head. She drew in great lungful of damp air, unsoiled by stale leather under her nose. The only help she needed was what to sing.
She dropped the gag. Trying to blind their eyes and have them fail to notice her slipping away wouldn’t work. It would go against all their conceived notions—they were on too high an alert. She needed something that worked with their worries and fears—or to remove them altogether.
The idea of using the weapon on Teresa put a small knot in Claire’s stomach. The woman had been kind to her, however misguided her reasons. And trying anything with the murderer would result in her knife’s being taken away and her being returned to prisoner status . . . if not worse. She had no doubt, he had the training, the skill, and the desire to overwhelm any attempt she made to stab him. She hadn’t the courage to attempt it. No—escape was her best choice.
Quick. There was no time.
The city people had been very particular to conceal their campsite from their supposed enemies. Very careful to remove all signs. Claire began to hum without words, almost under her breath. Gradually, she added words and increased her volume, so her Song would reach Teresa. Claire hoped the thickness of the air, loaded with moisture, would act like fog and carry the magic even farther. Perhaps reaching the murderer. She filled her words with emotion and pushed them into her soul so they’d become thick with magic.
“Unfinished chore.
Thing left undone.
Carelessness.
Forgotten task.”
She let that seep on the wind for a breath and set a foot forward, trying to keep the reeds silent. Ever heedful, she crept through the concealment, her Song gaining in volume. Would it work? Could she fool them? Would they even hear her?
“Smoke from a not-dampened fire.
Blanket left unpacked.
Unfinished.
Careless.”
“Cousin,” Teresa called. “I think I didn’t get the fire out. Can you check? Cousin?” The city woman moved away, trailing the rope and heading a few feet closer to their campsite.
Claire kept the Song alive, letting the same magic fill it. She edged out of the reeds and into a clump of bushes. Mother warned the more complex an idea she put into the Song, the harder it was to maintain. Harder to fool. She needed to recross the shallow swamp lake. Home—safety—lay on the other side.
Moving silently, she reached the shore of the lake and looked out. It was completely open, dotted by a few dead trees and ragged stumps. Out there, she’d be in plain sight. He’d catch her.
Running and taking a parallel path to the water would achieve the same outcome.
Again, he’d catch her. It would be the second place he looked.
Her Song faltered.
“Forgetfulness,” she tuned, catching herself.
“Second-guessing.”
If she couldn’t run, she could hide. Her time tied to the tree had let her learn the area. She’d spotted a fallen pine tree, its numerous boughs still green. It had topped against a sycamore, creating a little cavity between them, screened by broken foliage.
Claire turned away from the swamp lake and headed toward Teresa. The woman was still shouting at the murderer. Picking each step with care and holding a steady Song, Claire skirted around Teresa and crept back toward the overnight camp. The moist ground and damp tinder helped make her passage noiseless, and when she could she stepped in puddles or on dead timber to hide her tracks. In no time, she was hunkered between the evergreen and the peeling bark of the sycamore trunk with a fringe of branches to conceal her.
Her low position gave her a partial view of the camp. The murderer walked the area, bent over hands on his knees to better examine the ground. She choked back a shocked giggle. Her first use of the magic on another human had not only worked, it had carried all the way to the camp. He was looking for traces of their passage to conceal. She nestled deeper into hiding, dropping the Song in order to catch her breath. She’d never held the magic for so long.
The murderer stood up straight and gave a little shake. She pictured him frowning for his strange behavior. She held her breath. Now comes the test. Would they guess at her decision to hide?
He passed out of her range of sight, and Claire counted to three until he reappeared near his horse. He leaned against the creature, putting his arms around its neck as if taking comfort. Claire snorted, then glanced around uneasily. Like the murderer needed consolation. The man had a stick up his butt and no mistake.
She racked her brain for what Song to use now. Something to screen her hiding place or something else? She didn’t want to insert anything to do with concealment in their minds. Maybe . . . She hummed a tune of panic, then added words, letting the wet air carry it. Let them think less clearly. That could only help her.
A loud shriek came from the direction of the reeds, then shouting and rustling. Claire hunkered down as the murderer jumped to his feet. Teresa came crashing back into camp. The gag was clutched in her hand, and she held out the loose end of the rope.
“Tricked! She’s gone!”
For the first time in the last few days, Claire felt a rush of joy.
CHAPTER 19
The bronze door had closed behind Father Telo and his companions with a clang of finality, shutting them out of Colina Hermosa. Neither of the scouts posing as priests had flinched. Hardened men, they had known how to control any signs of trepidation. Telo had searched for fear in his own soul and had found too much.
More sturdy than the great wall at his back was his trust in the Almighty. Telo had had faith in the Lord for four decades to lead him along the hallowed path. This day had been no different. If only he had remembered that.
Telo had touched head, heart, liver, and spleen. That was not to say he took the Lord’s intervention for granted. One was not stupid merely because one believed. One still needed to act with common sense and not put the Lord in a position of keeping one out of trouble.
The taller scout, a man with the rough and weathered skin and face of a farmer, all hard planes and sharp angles, had gestured to the dusty road lined with scrub bushes and cacti. “After you, Father.”
Telo had inclined his head and taken the lead. Telo had offered to be their spokesman. The Lord forgive him. Let that offer have come from an honest desire to act as a shield for these men and not vanity for his quick wit and ready mouth. Further, let that ready mouth keep levity off his tongue for one day. He had managed to keep his mouth shut as they progressed and studied the army ahead.
Being outside with the enemy and on the same level had made the concentrated mass seem smaller. A most welcome illusion. The Northerners were sprawled on the generous plain, gathered well beyond the reach of the largest trebuchet. Not that Colina Hermosa had such a machine, the Lord forgive them for shortsightedness.
A group of nearly a dozen black-and-yellow-uniformed men with the strange light-colored hair had caught sight of their approach and advanced to meet them, keeping carefully out of arrow shot and on the bare dirt of the road. The Northerners had learned the danger of cacti thorns both from the plants and from a bow, Telo had noted with amusement.
One of the Northerners with peculiar green eyes had gestured to him and spoke in a guttural language, all hard consonants and all equally unintelligible. The squad of soldiers had surrounded them, hands resting on sword hilts. The same man had spoken in another flood of words, this time pointing to their sandals and robes.
The shorter scout, the one Telo called Taps for his resemblance to the cubby-faced, frequently smiling cellarer at the monastery where he’d first taken orders, had given Telo a prod.
“Hello, my son,” Telo had boomed in his heartiest voice. The Northerners had jumped, and half pulled their weapons. “May the Lord shine upon you and your ability to speak in tongues.”
Farmer-faced scout had rolled his eyes. “What if they understand you?”
Telo had put on a big smile and held out his arms as if in friendship. “Just look at them. They don’t.” Indeed, the Northerners had shown all stages of confusion with frowns and puckered brows.
Their green-eyed spokesman had tried again, showing a God-given persistence. Telo had waved him off and walked toward the army, only to be grabbed by the spokesman. Now weapons had left scabbards, and Northerner faces had borne dark scowls.
As the scouts had sunk into defensive crouches, Telo had freed his arm to point at the army camp. “Lord Ordoño.” Logically, as envoys they had been granted protection. Even the Northerners had honored that right—or they had thus far.
The soldiers had broken into nervous chattering as Telo had pointed back to the wall of Colina Hermosa. “Alcalde.” He had pointed to himself. “Envoy. Talk.”
“Tagh.” the spokesman had mimed with a shrug. “Alcalde,” he said clearly, proving the term was familiar. He had nodded and spat out a short stream of words, after which weapons had returned to holders. “Ordoño.” He had waved toward the army before walking in that direction.
“See, my friends,” Telo had told Farmer-face and Taps. “The Lord provides.”
As they approached the army, though, Telo’s steps faltered. The stony ground had been hacked and scraped of plant life. Everything from the tiniest pincushion cacti to the seven-foot-tall ocotillo with its many pole-like branches had been removed to make way for the camp. Even the giant saguaros had been chopped at their base. Like the gravest sin, life that had taken centuries to mature was gone in moments. Telo struggled to remember he’d been sent with a higher purpose than saving plants.
The green-eyed spokesman gestured at their feet and ankles showing under the robes and said something that drew a chorus of laughter from the other soldiers.
“They have no respect,” Farmer-face muttered.
“Mind your spleen,” Telo said mildly as he hurried to catch up. “The Lord commands we forgive the ignorant and the simpleton. Besides, sticks and stones . . . It is other things for which they’ll answer to Our Lord.”
The scouts had much time to examine the camp as their guides led them deep into the heart of it, taking several different pathways across the scarred ground. To Telo, one square foot of it looked much like another. Squads of men. Very few women. Wagons and tents and crates of supplies. No doubt it made better sense to the two scouts, but his mind ran ahead to dwell on the coming meeting.
Would they accept the Alcalde’s offer or reject it? And how was Colina Hermosa to survive if they accepted? But it was not his job to judge the Alcalde’s decision. No, his objections had already been given.
Instead of taking them toward the rear or center of the army, their guides led them to the left, close enough to see the rim of the old quarry. Telo looked around for a large tent to indicate the housing of the leadership of this beast, but their escort halted before a red-and-gold-wool carpet with no discernible pattern, easily the size of an alehouse—alehouses being the perfect places to bring hearts and minds to the Lord while quenching one’s thirst, hence Telo’s familiarity with their dimensions. The rich carpet stood open to the sky. At the center were a single throne-like chair and a rather battered table.
The wooden chair was carved and embossed with a flaring gold sunburst. Gold objects covered the table, from elaborate miniature statues of deer to expensive tea services. The largest of the statues, at the center of the table, was a depiction of the sun. Pushed to a far corner of the wooden surface were gold-framed icons of Santiago and other saints. Their faces had been scratched out of the paintings, torn free as if only the gold mattered. Telo touched his forehead and heart as he realized they must have been looted from Zapata by the heathen devils. Had they no reverence for art?
At the far side of the carpet was a large screen that concealed whatever hid behind it. A good ten yards separated the carpet from the nearest supply wagons, which formed a sort of fence around it for privacy. More wagons made another barrier along the hundred-foot drop of the quarry rim.
Telo met Taps and Farmer-face’s curious stares with a shrug. The Northerners must have some purpose for the outdoor display, but without a common language or culture, there was no way to discover the reasoning.
Suddenly, soldiers surrounded him, subjecting him to a quick but thorough search. They seemed disappointed when no weapons turned up. Telo was surprised when similar checks on the two scouts turned up nothing either. Maybe he’d misjudged his companions’ preparedness.
