Toby closed the door carefully. This dim, poky room was Master's workshop, where he did his hexing, and it held far too many fragile things that a big clumsy oaf like him might knock over — balances, mortars, brass instruments, bright-hued glass bottles, and a bewildering clutter of other mysteries, including a mummified cat. Dozens of books were heaped in disorder on shelves above the benches, but they did not look like the sort of books that would have pictures in them. The baron was stooped over a bench under the window. Rain streamed down the little leaded panes, and he had several candles burning, even in daytime.
"Toby?" he said without looking around.
"Yes, Master."
"Come and see this."
Toby moved gingerly between a chair piled high with books and a globe of the world bigger than a wine cask.
Master was poking a metal rod in a tiny brazier. "See this gem?"
"Looks like glass, Master." It was hard to see at all on the bright-glowing coals.
"It's rock crystal. But what matters is that the hob is inside that glass. That's where I put the hob, Toby. Immured, we call it."
"Thank you for taking the hob out of me, Master. The hob was bad."
"Yes, well we're making it badder." The baron chuckled. Perhaps he had made a joke. "It shows promise of being a truly vicious demon. At the moment I'm teaching it respect. A few hours' roasting should get its attention, wouldn't you say?"
"I don't know, Master."
"No. Well, sit down. Ah! Your new outfit. Turn around and let me see. Yes, very fair. Continue to dress like that, dear boy, and the annoying crackling noise you hear will be the breaking of innumerable hearts."
Toby wasn't sure what that meant either, but he seemed to have pleased Master, and that made him happy, so he smiled anyway.
"Sit down, Toby."
There was nothing to sit on, for all the chairs were piled with books or bundles of scrolls, so he sat down on the floor with his knees up like a grasshopper — green silk hose, very soft buskins. His fancy new outfit had cost a very big amount of money, bigger than he could count. He had never owned clothes like these before — not that he could remember — and he had three more outfits as grand upstairs in a big cupboard. He felt a fool in all of them, with his shoulders barely able to fit through doors and his feathered bonnet brushing the lintels. He knew people laughed at him behind his back and sometimes he caught them smirking at his codpiece. Every man wore a codpiece, but why did his have to be padded and embroidered with gold thread? The baron said this was the new fashion, but it was very embarrassing, and his layered, slashed jerkin was cut to gape in front and make it as conspicuous as possible. He was quite big enough already without padding, there or anywhere else. But this was how Master wanted him to dress, so of course he must.
Master began speaking, but not in a language Toby knew.
While he waited to hear why he had been summoned, he gazed proudly at the ring on his left hand, a bright yellow jewel in a thick gold setting. He breathed on it and rubbed it on his sleeve. He couldn't take it off, but that was good, because that meant he wouldn't ever lose it. (He lost things quite often.) There was a demon in that jewel! It kept him loyal, meaning he would do whatever Master told him to do, although he couldn't imagine why he would ever not do what Master told him to do.
"Tonight, Toby, you will be my guest at dinner again."
"Oh, thank you, Master!" He smiled so he would look pleased, but he wasn't really. It was wrong to be so disloyal and ungrateful, but he felt more than usually stupid at the viceroy's grand dinner parties — servants and musicians, chilled wine, raw oysters and stuffed peacock, twenty separate courses on gold plates, one plate for each guest instead of everyone sharing from a bowl. He didn't know how to talk to the sort of people he met there. Sometimes he got stuck in the wrong language. He didn't even know how to look at the ladies, because their gowns showed the tops of their breasts and he kept wanting to stare down the gap, although Master had told him not to. He didn't really slobber! Or not much. He rubbed his chin to make sure it was dry and he had remembered to shave.
"I hear your dancing lessons are going well."
The praise brought a prickle of tears to his eyes. "I try, Master. I am trying as hard as I can!"
"I know you are, Toby. And you are very nimble for a big man. At least you didn't lose that. There are two ladies who have especially asked to meet you. They want to sit next to you at dinner."
His naked face felt very hot. He bent his head between his knees. "I don't know why. I'm not witty or clever or any of those things. They ask me questions I should be able to answer and I can't." Sometimes he would cry, which was terrible.
Oreste laughed. "It is not your table talk they are interested in! Now listen, Toby, I'm giving you orders. There will be one lady on your right and one on your left. They are both older than you, but well preserved. After dinner, you will choose one of them, whichever one you like best. Invite her — or both of them, if you can't decide — up to your room."
"They wouldn't do that!"
"Oh yes, they will! And you know what happens then, don't you?"
"We take our clothes off and get into bed together?" He squirmed and bit his lip. I don't think I've ever done that with a woman, Master. I'm not sure, but I don't think so."
"Yes, you did once. And don't worry, because she will certainly know what to do, even if you don't. It will be all right, and you will enjoy what happens. Just be gentle."
"Be gentle. Yes, Master."
"But you will pleasure her most manfully."
"If she'll tell me what she wants. I'll ask both, Master." He thought that was what Master wanted him to do.
"Please yourself. I'm sure you'll manage. You don't have the hob to worry about now."
The hob was gone. The hob was roasting in that brazier. The hob didn't matter any more. "No, Master. Thank you for taking the hob out of me, Master."
"Enter!" The baron turned to a knock on the door.
Captain Diaz opened it and stamped his feet without coming inside. As usual, his face bore as much expression as a tree stump. "I have the honor to inform your Excellency that the judgment has been handed down and can be carried out at your Excellency's pleasure."
"Very good. We shall be out shortly. Send Ludwig in."
Diaz stamped again and closed the door.
"Toby?"
"Yes, Master?"
"I want you to do something for me."
"Anything I can, Master!"
"You're a big, strong lad. Can you use an ax?"
"Oh, yes! I use to chop down trees often back home in… when I was a boy, I mean." What was that place called?
"I want you to chop off two men's heads. They will lay their heads on a block of wood and you will cut them off."
"Um… Won't that kill them?"
"That's right. I want them dead, so you'll do that for me. You mustn't talk to them. Just cut off their heads. You'll have a mask over your face."
"Yes, Master. I'll make them dead for you."
That was something he could do. That would be more fun than trying to talk with men who curled their lips at his accent or dancing with ladies who showed that gap between their breasts.
Ludwig came in carrying Master's fur-lined cloak across his outstretched arms. Ludwig was the baron's valet, a blond, sullen, square-faced man. He never spoke to Toby at all. He laid the precious thing over a chair and turned to the baron, who waved a plump hand at Toby in a flash of jewels.
"Toby, Ludwig will help you. You have to strip for this. You need freedom of movement."
Toby jumped up and submitted in silence, letting Ludwig remove his jerkin and doublet, leaving only him his cap and shirt and hose. His hose were very well tailored, snug around his waist, so he wasn't afraid that they would fall off, but his awful codpiece showed even more than before. He took off his shirt as well. "I can keep my hose on, can't I, Master?"
The baron smiled. "Yes. You are a very impressive-looking executioner, Toby! Hit as hard as you can, so you cut off their heads with one stroke."
"Yes, Master! I'm strong!" Toby grinned and bulged the muscle in his arm. "Bang! No head!"
"That's the way! Show that muscle to the ladies tonight — in your chamber, though, not in the dining room. One of these men is named Hamish Campbell, Toby."
Hamish Campbell? Hamish? Campbell? He ought to know that name! His memory was very patchy. He could remember some things clearly, and others not at all. He knew exactly how to load and prime a musket, but one night someone had asked him if he had any brothers or sisters and he was still wondering about that. One day he would ask the baron if he knew the answer.
Ludwig wrapped a cloak around him and laced cork-soled shoes over his buskins, then did the same for the baron. Toby hurried to the door so he could open it for Master.
Captain Diaz and an honor guard were waiting in the corridor. Not knowing where to go, Toby stayed close to Ludwig, and that seemed to be what was expected of him. The innumerable servants and flunkies who infested the palace cleared a path, bowing low as the viceroy and his escort marched down the stairs and across the hallway.
Then they were out in the courtyard with a flunky holding an umbrella over the baron. Ludwig tapped Toby's shoulder to stop him, beckoned him to a corner, and took away his cap, putting a black hood on him instead. Toby adjusted it until he could see through the eye holes. The cloak was lifted from his shoulders, letting cold rain beat down on his skin.
The world had shrunk to a keyhole framed in darkness. He scanned the court awkwardly, wondering where he was supposed to go. Master was already installed on a chair under a canopy, attended by a crowd of dignitaries, but his place must be on the platform, because he could see an ax waiting there. Pleased to have worked that out for himself, he stalked across to it and mounted the steps with care, aware of lots of eyes watching him. Everyone would laugh if the executioner tripped and fell flat on his face.
The block was a massive knee-high chunk of timber. He took up the great curved-blade ax, wishing Master had told him about this job sooner, so he could have tried a few practice strokes. It was a very heavy ax and necks must be easier to cut than trees. He stood it upright on its blade, rested his forearms on the end of the long handle, and smiled at Master to say he was ready. But of course his head was covered, so Master wouldn't see his smile.
Those must be his victims there, standing in a circle of guards with their heads raised defiantly — two boys stripped to their doublets and hose, feet shackled and arms bound behind them. A gowned acolyte stood with them, giving last-minute comfort. From their bedraggled appearance it seemed they had all been standing in the rain for some time. They both looked familiar.
The first one was led forward, clanking up the steps with the soldiers behind him and shuffled forward to stand before the block. Why, it was Don Ramon! Toby smiled at him, pleased to have remembered his name.
The don stared back at him with a disdainful expression, but he didn't speak. He couldn't, because his mouth was held wide open by a wooden gag. That must be very uncomfortable. Poor don! His auburn hair had been hacked off short to expose his neck. The ginger mustache that used to curve up in twisted points hung limply over his mouth.
Why wasn't he putting his head down for Toby to chop? A clerk began reading out a long thing about Don Ramon de Nuñez y Pardo being a Castilian spy. Toby fingered the ax impatiently. The rain was cold on his bare chest.
Poor, mad Don Ramon, with his fancy airs! He didn't look frightened. His face had always been pale and was no paler now, while the startlingly blue eyes were as haughty and contemptuous as ever. When the clerk's drone ended, he shrugged scornfully and sank to his knees. He laid his shoulders on the block, turning his head sideways, away from the headsman. Good!
Quickly Toby took a step backward and raised the ax. Master wanted one stroke, one stroke it would be. He brought his foot forward and his arms down with all the power he could summon. He felt the impact as much through his feet as in his hands. Don Ramon's head hit the planks with a thud and rolled. One stroke it was! Master would be pleased with him.
The explosion of blood took him by surprise, although he should have remembered how pigs bled when their throats were cut. At first it sprayed out against the ax in a red fan, but as the corpse slid back it hosed from the severed neck in high jets — two, three, and a weak fourth before the heart stopped beating. Ax, block, and scaffold were drenched. Nasty! He must remember to wash it off his arms and chest before he undressed with the pretty ladies tonight. He worked the ax blade free of the wood, a soldier picked up the head, and two more dragged away the body. The redness was seeringly bright in the drabness of the day.
The next one must be Hamish Campbell. His face was sort of familiar. Toby smiled at him, but he couldn't smile back because of the gag. He clattered forward in his fetters less proudly than Don Ramon had, but not slowly enough to make the soldiers push him. His eyes were as wide as his gaping mouth.
The clerk began reading about spying again. The Hamish boy just kept staring at Toby and shaking his head wildly. What did that mean? Was he doing something wrong? Was his hood not on straight?
When the clerk fell silent, the prisoner did not seem to notice. A guard laid a hand on his shoulder. He squirmed away. Two men grabbed him and pushed him down to his knees. Still he struggled, making protesting animal noises in his throat — poor, foolish fellow! He might make Toby miss if he didn't stop doing that, or miss partly and have to hit again. But Master had told him not to speak, so he couldn't warn him.
Two more soldiers lifted the victim's feet. With four of them holding him level, his chest resting on the block, he could do nothing except twist his head around and wail. Squirreling like a worm on a hook was still not going to make things easy. Toby began to lift the ax and then put it down again.
The soldiers were unhappy, too, waiting for that whistling blade and the shower of blood. Fortunately Captain Diaz was nearby. "Keep still, you fool!" he roared. "You want him to botch this? You want to be hacked in pieces?"
The prisoner went rigid. Toby raised and swung, and again the scaffold trembled under the impact. The head jumped free. One stroke again! Master would be pleased. This time the body could not fall back, so the hot blood squirted in all directions off the ax blade, soaking even Toby's hood. That really was not nice. Some of the soldiers gagged and coughed, and they had gotten off much lighter than he had.
Duty done, he pulled the ax free and leaned it against the block, where he had found it. He turned his head for a glance at Master who smiled and nodded a welcome approval. Glad to have done a good job, Toby headed for the steps. A quick bath to clean off the blood, then back into his fine clothes and he would be ready for the dinner and the well-preserved ladies. He just hoped he could do as well for them as he had for the two spies, so Master would be pleased with him.
The wind was a restless silence in the night, quieter than the whisper of the sentry's tread on dry grass and rubbly soil. The first glimmerings of daylight were creeping in over the stony hills, not even bright enough yet to mark a horizon or distinguish a white thread from a black thread, which was how the Moors defined morning. Although he was wrapped in both his blanket and his cloak, the sentry shivered as he paced back and forth, forcing himself to stay awake. His legs ached already, and they must walk a weary way before sunset. More than anything in the world he wished he could just lie down and catch a few more hours' sleep, because three half-nights in a row had left him permanently bleary-eyed and yawning. No, more than anything else, he would like to be smelling the peaty scents of home and watching the sun come up on Ben More…
When the scream burst forth almost at his toes, he jumped a foot in the air. It was diabolical, bestial scream, louder than a cannon barrage. Echoes answered from the steepness on the far side of the valley, and a couple of heartbeats later came a wild barking of dogs at the distant casa. Gracia wakened with shrills of alarm. By that time Toby had leaped from his bedding with his sword in his hand and was peering around to see where the noise had come from.
It had come from him.
Hamish said, "What's wrong?"
The big man dropped the sword with a clatter and grabbed him in a bear hug that seemed likely to crush his ribs. "Hamish, Hamish! You're all right! You're alive!" His hand pawed at Hamish's throat.
He fought back. "I was! Let me go, you maniac. What happened?"
Longdirk groaned and released him. "Demons!" he muttered. "Oh, spirits!" He flopped back down on the ground and put his head in his hands.
The dogs were falling silent and did not seem to be coming closer. Gracia was twittering questions.
"Senor Longdirk had a bad dream," Hamish explained. He knelt down. Toby was sobbing, heaving dry, soundless gasps of grief. He? Sooner would Ben More weep. "What's wrong? Another vision?"
"Umph." That sounded like agreement. He nodded and gulped through his tortured breathing.
Hamish put arms around him, but awkwardly, because it was the sort of thing an excitable, demonstrative Spaniard would do — Scotsmen never hugged each other. "You're all right, though? Not injured?"
"Not me, no. Hamish, I cut your head off!"
"You did?" That ought to be funny and wasn't. Nasty shivers ran down his back. "Well, it didn't work. I mean, I'm glad it's you who comes back hurt from these things and not me. Are you sure this one wasn't just a dream?"
"It is very impolite of the senores to talk so I cannot comprehend." Gracia had begun the morning ritual of combing out her long black hair, sitting with her back to the two crazy foreigners.
Toby shuddered and seemed to realize that he was being held like a child. Instead of trying to break free, he wrapped a thick arm around Hamish and squeezed. He was still shaking. "No, it was no dream. Oreste had me. He'd hexed me, enslaved me with gramarye, and he made me chop your head off, and another man's — ax and block and black hood and everything. Oh, Hamish, I did it! I didn't even protest. I was eager to do it, just to please him!"
Gooseflesh! "I'm sure you were. Anyone can be hexed — remember King Fergan… anyone. It wouldn't be your fault. But it could still have been a dream, Toby. You're worried about the baron and you remember the time Valda hexed you. The two got mixed up in a dream. Happens all the time."
"You had an awful lot of blood in you, friend!"
"What was this terrible dream, senor?" Gracia demanded, piqued as a child at being excluded. "I am very good at telling the meaning of dreams."
"The dream told," Toby said in his butchered Castilian, "that I was royal executioner in Barcelona and I cut off Senor Diego's head."
"How tragic! Why?"
"Because he had been flirting with you and I was jealous."
Gracia squealed at this outrage to her honor, barely managing to conceal her delight.
Hamish shivered and broke free. "We may as well be on our way." The skyline had come into view. "You're all right? You weren't tortured again?"
"No. In fact…" He peered at his wrists. "All better. No bruises, see? Not a hair out of place. When I took hold of the ax my arms were bare, and I'm sure there were no marks on my wrists."
"So Oreste cured you? After he'd tortured you and then hexed you."
"Must have done. Must be going to. Hamish, this is insane!" Toby's voice quavered, and that was not like him. None of this was like him. His eyes were round as birds' eggs in the gloom. "It wasn't just a dream!"
"No, it wasn't," Hamish said nervously. "Because where did your beard go? You had it on when you went to bed."
Of course Toby put a hand to his chin then, and of course Senora de Gomez noticed the absence of the beard. She squealed in astonishment and came hurrying over to see, and then she noticed his wrists also — she had joked about their purple and yellow colors at supper. It should have been funny to listen to him trying to convince her that he had shaved in the night and was a very quick healer. It wasn't.
Hamish left the two of them in heated conversation and wandered off to attend to necessary morning functions. As far as Gracia was concerned, he did not exist. To her he was merely the boy, although he was older than she was. He kept telling himself that it didn't matter because he would never let himself become involved with her even if she begged him. She was crazy. She collected wraiths in a bottle and heard voices. Oh, she was pretty enough with her dark Spanish eyes, and when she unbound her thick black hair it hung to her hips like a sable cloak, but she would flutter her lashes at Toby till the stars fell before he responded.
Toby had been attracting women's attention since he topped six feet, when he was about thirteen. It was well known back in Tyndrum that some of them had done everything short of stripping naked and crawling into his bed, and even that would probably not have met with any success. Toby never even noticed. He was oblivious to every hint or signal. If he ever did fall in love, then it would be a lifetime commitment, never a passing fancy, because he could not forgive what the Sassenach soldiers had done to his mother, although that was how he had been conceived. Hamish was quite certain that the big lad was just as much a virgin as he was, alas! The only girl who had ever won his interest had been Jeanne, last spring, in Mezquiriz. Yes, he had shown some reaction to her, and he had wept copiously when she died in the tragedy. Of course his lack of interest just made him more interesting to women. Unfortunately, it also made any other man in his vicinity even less interesting. With a sigh at the unfairness of things, the boy unlaced his codpiece and irrigated the desert.
By the time the sun flamed on the horizon, the three of them were on their way, heading down the narrow little valley, which must lead to the coast. Its sides were stony and rough, and the stream bed was dry as tinder, without a single tree in sight. Mostly there was nothing to see except the next bend, but almost certainly the travelers were being watched from afar.
The hills had been a mistake. There were no roads and few crops. The rebels had not ravaged this wild, barren landscape because there was nothing to loot except goats and sheep, but multitudes of refugees had swarmed through the area and made the inhabitants distinctly inhospitable. Every casa had become a fortress and every outsider a target. Fortunately none of the shots fired at them had been loud enough to rouse the hob, and the dogs had never come within tooth range.
At sunset they had all agreed that they must return to the coast, even Toby, who had hitherto led the way across country with his usual bull stubbornness, storming up and down those bare-bone hills, bent under three times the load Hamish could manage. Gracia with her grand airs carried only her precious bottle and expected her two henchmen to take care of everything else. Now that their food was running low, they had agreed that they must go back to the plain.
By the time Gracia had finished chattering about famous dreams in her family, Hamish had decided that Barcelona was the city of dreams. He secretly dreamed of boarding a ship home to Scotland there, although he knew he could never abandon Toby. Gracia's dreams of delivering a bottleful of wraiths to Montserrat were as crazy as Toby's nightmares of Oreste. But it seemed that they would have to pass very close by Barcelona, if not go right to it.
From the scrunch of his brows, Toby was doing some thinking of his own, and he suddenly said, "Hamish?"
"Hmm?"
"How close would a hexer have to be to hex me like this?"
"Depends on his demons, how strong they are, how well trained, whether they're immured or incarnate. Depends what the hexer's trying to do. Giving you dreams might not take much power, I suppose, but to rip skin off your wrists and then put it back again, or shave off your beard without you knowing it…" His voice withered under Longdirk's glare. "I don't know." Books were always maddeningly vague about such things.
"Maybe it's Oreste doing this to me!"
"I still think it's the hob. Oreste would try to lure you to him, not scare you away." Except that Toby was the most bullheaded man alive. Flash a threat at him and he put down his bull head and charged — in Bordeaux only violent objections from Hamish had stopped him trying to go after Oreste with a crossbow. Could Oreste have guessed that about him, or learned it from his demons?
"It has to be the hob, Toby. I know you don't think it's smart enough, but suppose it's learned to read your dreams, or fears, or thoughts? It could be reflecting them back at you like a mirror…" Mirror… shaving… A fit of nervous laughter took him unaware. Toby's puzzled scowl only made it worse. He howled.
"What is the boy laughing about?" Gracia demanded angrily.
"He suffers from a looseness of the wits."
Hamish coughed himself back to self-control and wiped away tears. "I just thought — if your next attack of augury brings your beard back again, we'll know for certain that it's the hob doing it."
Toby looked startled, then his big mouth twisted into a smile. "Yes, I'd have to agree with you on that."
He walked on for a moment in silence, hitched his load higher on his back, and said, "I promised our companion, whose name I shan't mention, that I would see her to where she wants to go, which is not far away from the city I shan't mention either. Then I'm going to put you on a ship. I don't care what lies you have to tell or what sort of rat-infested leaky basket it is, nor whether it's bound for Scotland or Karakorum, if we can find a master willing to take you on, you go. Far away from this accursed land."
Hamish said, "Um." Nice thought but not possible. Can't desert a friend in need. But Toby would insist he try. No need to equivocate, though. "That's a promise! I'll try." If he was to be allowed to lie to the seamen, he would explain that he wanted to leave Barcelona because his mistress had just died of plague. That would reduce his employability to much less than zero.
He was still savoring a mental image of this mistress in her days of health and lust — naked on a bed, of course, with a rose in her teeth and a flush of desire spreading over her plump, red-tipped breasts — when Toby said:
"If these visions are Oreste's doing, would he find me harder to get at it if I had more company?"
Hamish riffled through all the books he had read and stored away in his mind. "I have no idea. Where are you thinking of finding more company?"
"Right there." Toby pointed.
Their little valley had joined a larger valley, equally desolate, but not deserted. A party of travelers was proceeding down the larger way, heading in the same direction as themselves — a dozen or so, men and women both, some on horseback and some on foot. Two of the riders had already seen the trio and were coming to investigate.
"There are friars!" Gracia moaned. "You will not betray me to the Inquisition, senor?"
"Not all friars are Inquisition, senora. And we wouldn't. Why should we? You are not possessed by a demon. It would be wise if you will not tell them about my wrists healing, either."
Sunlight flashed off a metal helmet. The two horsemen were soldiers, or at least the one in front certainly was — indeed he was a knight, for he carried a lance and rode a huge warhorse. The other was probably his squire, for he was thumping his heels on a pony, trying to keep up.
Then Toby said, "Oh, demons!"
"What?" cried Gracia. "You turn pale, senor! What is wrong?"
He answered in Gaelic, to Hamish.
"I know him. His name is Don Ramon de Nuñez y Pardo. About an hour ago I cut off his head."
The images in the visions remained sharp as crystals, the sounds and scents and pains and tastes no less so; only the words spoken and heard lay blurred in Toby's memory. As Hamish insisted, that was a strong argument that the hob was behind the visions, for a human hexer would have more interest in conversation. But names were different. Ludwig, Captain Diaz, Don Ramon… those he remembered. This, without question, was Don Ramon cantering up on that gigantic horse.
Although the lance was presently being held high, it could mean death if it were couched.
"Cover me!" Toby hurled down his pack and grasped his staff in both hands, fading to the right. Hamish jumped to the left, preparing to make a fight of it. If the rider went for either of them, the other could smash the horse's legs.
Whatever his intentions might have been, Don Ramon reined in about a dozen paces away and stared down at the peasants with a hauteur that would have seemed pretentious on the face of Ozbeg, Khan of the Golden Horde.
He was as lean as Hamish and certainly no older than Toby, probably younger. His face was of an unusual pallor and bore a high-beaked nose over a slender ginger mustache curved up in twisted points like bull horns. Its expression of sublime arrogance was sadly out of keeping with his armor, for his helmet had come from some Castilian foot-soldier, the polished cuirass from one of Nevil's German mercenaries, and the great two-handed broadsword hanging from his saddle belonged in a museum. So did his lance and the shield on his back, for who fought with those any more? His breeches had a patch on one knee, his boots did not match, and even his shabby bay mount was notable only for its size and age. It looked old enough to be a veteran of the Granada conquest.
Toby was not accustomed to looking up to other men. He also felt he had a perfect right to raise his staff when an armed man charged him on horseback, although the likes of Don Ramon would see the move as open rebellion. In the resulting silence, he heard only the steady thump of his own heart, and saw only those haughty, unwinking eyes so much higher than his own. Eventually the obvious contempt made him feel ridiculous, so he lowered his staff and bowed to the hidalgo.
Don Ramon turned his gaze on Hamish, who bowed also. Then the chubby little squire arrived on his panting pony.
"Francisco," declaimed the knight, "inquire what manner of men these be who contest our progress, whether they be persons of quality with whom one may seek honorable passage of arms, or common rabble that need be taught respect for their betters." Even Toby could recognize the lisping accents of Toledo in that arrogant voice.
The squire clambered down stiffly from his pony, which had seen many better years. So had his ragged jerkin and hose, and he himself was well past his best, for his round, pink face was sagged in many wrinkles and when he doffed his pie-shaped leather cap, he released a wild straggle of white hair. He advanced a couple of steps toward Toby and then spoke out in an unexpectedly high-pitched voice: "Sirs, my noble master seeks to learn what manner of men you may be."
Toby drew a deep breath, but Hamish forestalled him:
"Sir Squire, pray inform the gracious hidalgo that we are humble but honest men who have pledged our arms to defend the honor and person of a lady of virtue and quality traveling on pilgrimage, and that although we ourselves are foreigners in this country, we are not and never have been servants of the rebel armies which have so grievously wreaked havoc upon it. Furthermore, pray inform the dauntless and esteemed caballero that even in our distant homeland, far away across the boundless ocean, we have heard tell of his innumerable deeds of valor, superlative breeding, and legendary prestige among knights and thus we are honored beyond measure to find ourselves in the awesome presence of Don Ramon de Nuñez y Pardo."
The squire's eyes bulged and his jaw fell open.
Even Don Ramon raised a coppery eyebrow.
Beautifully done, Master Campbell! Taking his cue from Hamish, Toby bowed very low.
"The wench, Francisco?" Don Ramon murmured. Then louder: "Inquire of what sort is yonder fair damsel, so that, if she be worthy, a gentleman may pay homage to her beauty."
"Sirs—"
"Pray inform his magnificence," said Hamish, "that he is in the presence of the exalted and matchless but most unfortunate Doña Gracia de Gomez." (Who uttered a most un-exalted gulp at hearing herself thus promoted to the nobility.) "The noble lady, racked by innumerable misfortunes, is currently on pilgrimage to the monastery of Montserrat."
Don Ramon raised the other eyebrow also. For a moment he stared dubiously at the bottle hung around the damsel's neck, then he grounded the butt of his lance. Francisco hobbled over to hold it and take the destrier's reins, as if that ancient lump would ever move of its own volition.
Don Ramon dismounted in a bold leap and strode across to Gracia with the litheness of a stag, ignoring Toby and Hamish, although they were still armed and he was not. When he had gone past, they could see the heraldry on his shield, which depicted many quarterings, mostly white butterflies on red and blue, daisies on yellow. He sank to his knees and swept off his infantryman's helmet to uncover rich auburn locks reaching to his shoulders.
"Most noble lady, I am enraptured to behold this wilderness enriched by your unparalleled beauty, a loveliness such as I have encountered before only in the songs of the greater poets, and which must certainly be coupled with great elevation of birth and perfect nobility of soul. Reassure me, I beg you, that these yokels who seemingly attend you are indeed thralls in your service and not wayfaring ruffians who have in any way caused you distress. Tell me that they as much as brought a blush to your cheek by a crude word, and I shall instantly perform justice upon their bodies with my sword."
He would have to get to his sword first, Toby thought, fingering his staff.
Gracia shook her head violently, being apparently beyond speech as she stared down at the handsome young caballero. Her silence did not perturb him in the slightest.
"If you so implore mercy for them, sweet lady, then I can refuse you nothing. But surely the good spirits have blessed me today, because I myself am on my way to Montserrat, accompanied as you may see by a modest train of a hundred or so retainers. I beg you that you will consent to let me escort you, so that you may travel in more safety, greater comfort, and company considerably more appropriate to your noble station and personal beauty."
Toby looked again at the straggle of pilgrims trailing down the valley. Then he looked at Hamish, Hamish at Toby, both of them at the squire, and all three shrugged together. Doña Gracia managed to mumble some words of consent.
"Then, most dear lady, it is my dearest hope that you will agree to sup with us tonight in my pavilion, where my attendants will spread a table proper to your genteel taste, my bards and entertainers will seek to amuse you with music, and you will regale our courtly company with your lovely presence and delicate conversation."
"But, senor… I have nothing to wear!
"A trifle, honored lady! My mistress of the wardrobe will see that you are provided with fitting raiment. You will not refuse me, else surely I must die of a broken heart!"
"No! I mean, yes. I mean I shall be honored beyond words."
"Till tonight then. Ah, how slowly the minutes will drag!" Don Ramon kissed her fingers, flowed upright, and withdrew backward, bowing three times. Having paid his respects to the newly ennobled Doña Gracia, he spun around and paced back to his horse, which had not moved a muscle except to continue its strident breathing. He took his lance from his squire and — despite his heavy cuirass and shield — vaulted into the high saddle as smoothly as any professional acrobat.
Hamish whistled softly and shot a wondering glance at Toby.
"Francisco," the don declaimed, "the superlative Doña Gracia will be joining our train. See that she is properly furnished with attendants and suitable quarters. As for her retainers…" He eyed the retainers with distaste. "Question them straightly and establish whether they are honest men or no better than they appear. If they are mere vagabonds, then slit their ears, administer a sound beating, and let them go. However, if they do have some merit, you may enroll them in our retinue with whatever standings their experience and abilities may justify. Have them clad in our livery, outfitted with proper equipage and weapons, and issued the customary rations. I shall accept their oaths of fealty later."
Hamish whispered, "Steady!" and Toby unclenched his fists on his staff.
Turning his horse and spurring it to a lumbering walk, Don Ramon headed for the rest of his companions, who had continued on down the valley. The others watched him go until he was safely out of earshot.
"Did he by any chance," Toby inquired, "recently fall off that mountain of dog food and land on his head?"
The old squire chuckled and shook his head. "Not at all. Will you accompany me, senora, senores?" He set off on foot, leading his pony. Gracia moved close to Toby as the men took up their packs and followed. She seemed understandably bewildered, so he smiled at her and she brightened.
"You mean he has always been like that?" asked Hamish, wearing the owlish expression he displayed when faced with a knotty problem.
"I am Francisco. You have the advantage of me, senor."
"Sorry. I am Jaume Campbell i Campbell. My large friend is Tobias Longdirk i Campbell… and Senora de Gomez. Everything else was true." Jaume? Diego had translated himself again, this time into Catalan.
"I am honored to make your acquaintances. Let me put it this way, Senor Jaume. If you had a friend with a distressing disfigurement — a cast in one eye, for example would you draw attention to it by commenting?"
"Of course not."
The old man chuckled, high-pitched. "Then you would likewise be reluctant to mention any temporary misfortune he might be revealing — a lapse in the quality of his attire, for example?"
"I suppose so."
"Nor would you expect him to discuss it. So you understand! And surely I need not mention that a nobleman of impeccable ancestry, who can trace his line back to the later Caesars, will naturally be touchy on such matters. It would be extremely dangerous to emphasize any trifling discrepancies between what you may falsely perceive to be Don Ramon's current circumstances and the conditions to which he is entitled by his birthright."
Hamish walked on in silence, staring fixedly ahead, looking as if he had just met a dragon selling souvenirs.
"You are bound for Montserrat, though?" Toby asked.
The old man beamed up at him. "To Barcelona, which is very close. And if certain persons in our company are so deluded as to believe that they hired a strong young man with a sword to defend them on their journey, that may not be how everyone views the same arrangement."
Paid guard… mercenary soldier… wages?
"A nobleman could never stoop to a crass commercial arrangement of that sort!"
"Of course not. I see you are a man of discernment, Senior Tobias."
"The weapons and livery you are to issue to us?"
"They look very splendid on you, senor."
This was madness. Why, therefore, should Baron Oreste want Don Ramon's muddled aristocratic head chopped off? Unfortunately, that might become clear in due course.
The valley was wider now, affording some glimpses of rocky, scrubby hills, and seeming a little less barren than before, but the war had reached it. A casa on the far side had been burned, as had its surrounding crops and vineyard. While Don Ramon had been interviewing his new retainers, his charges had spread out in a dangerously extended line. Even in this bare landscape, Toby could see innumerable stone walls, patches of shrubbery, and rocky knolls that could provide cover for any evil-intentioned persons who wanted to lie in ambush. Whether or not the deluded don recognized the problem, he was heading for the front of the group as fast as he could move his antediluvian knacker.
Francisco was moving no faster, hobbling along beside his pony and stabbing nosy little questions in his squeaky voice.
Hamish gave an abbreviated account of his wanderings with Toby. Gracia recovered her tongue and began asking about the real live don who had invited her to dinner — Toby would be much in favor of this new interest if it would stop her making calf eyes at him. But Francisco was a quick-witted old rascal and proved more expert at prying than she, displaying a dry cynicism in total contrast to his master's grandiose posturing. He soon learned the lady's true status and what she had been in her former home, but even his skill failed to elicit an explanation of the bottle hung around her neck.
After a while the old man apologized for the state of his feet and mounted his pony so they could all go faster. "May I inquire, Senor Jaume, how you knew my master's name? While he will understand that his fame should have reached as far afield as you said, I myself — being cursed with a deplorably skeptical disposition — have some trouble with the notion."
"Oh, he was pointed out to us in Toledo."
"When?"
"Um… about a month ago."
"I am quite positive that he was not there then."
Hamish frowned in exasperation, for his guess had been a reasonable one. "Then it was a man who looked very like him, wouldn't you say, Toby?"
"Astonishingly so, and he looks even more like the man. But who are all these pilgrims? I trust those friars are not servants of the Inquisition, for I confess, being a stranger, I consider the Inquisition an institution of doubtful merit."
This heretical sentiment made the squire roll his eyes in alarm. "Do remember the wise old saying, Senor Tobias: When in Rome, keep your mouth shut. And you must not confuse the Black Friars, who are Dominicans, with the Black Monks, who are Benedictines. We have preachers of many suborders of Galileans in Spain — possibly even too many for our own good," he conceded. "The Mosaic and Arabic philosophies have been suppressed of late, as you probably know. We do have a friar, Brother Bernat, but he is a Franciscan, and the other learned scholar is Father Guillem, a Benedictine monk. I shall introduce all these fine people to you as we go by. Now these first, or perhaps it would more accurate to call them these last, are natives of Catalonia who fled before the invaders and now seek to return."
The four to which he referred were trailing some distance behind the main body of the pilgrims, having trouble moving a well-laden mule. The two men were dragging it along on a rope, and the two women driving it, whacking its rump vigorously with sticks. All of them wore the dark, monotonous dress of peasants and looked bent, weathered, and hopeless, prematurely aged by toil. Francisco introduced Senora de Gomez and her two fine guards, who would henceforth put their strong arms at the disposal of the company. The men regarded the strangers with glowering suspicion.
"Miguel and Rafael," Francisco explained, without distinguishing which was which or mentioning their wives' names.
Toby and Hamish expressed their honor and happiness at the meeting. The women paid no attention at all, one keeping her eyes on the ground, and the other redoubling her efforts to wallop the mule into faster motion. The men grunted and scowled. Then the taller spat. "Foreigners!"
Toby spat also. "Idiot peasants! Your mule will go faster if you take some of its load on your own backs."
Whether they understood the words or not, the men reacted with incomprehensible patois and very comprehensible gestures. The newcomers walked on.
"You will have to excuse them," the squire said. "Their homes have been destroyed, and they lost dear ones. The mule, whose name I am pleased to recount is Thunderbolt, carries all that they possess in the world — most of which they will have eaten before we reach our destination."
"They can have no cause to like or trust foreigners," Toby agreed. Their pleasure would be even less if they knew that he was the reason King Nevil had invaded Aragon at all. Miguel and Rafael each carried a stout staff. He wondered if they could use them, because he was already making mental notes about defense. If he was to assist the don in his task of guarding the pilgrims — as unpaid assistant, obviously — then he would see it was done properly. Taking orders of any sort was never his strong point, and he had endured floggings rather than obey foolish ones. To keep the party together, the slowest members should be put at the front.
Any marauder who tried to drive off Thunderbolt would not have a profitable outing, but the next two pilgrims were of a different sort, a large and well-gowned lady on a gray palfrey, and a more-simply dressed girl on a piebald pony, both of them riding on cumbersome sidesaddles. A roan packhorse trailed behind them on a tether. Here was wealth worth guarding, because people could be murdered in Aragon at the moment for a horse.
"Senora Collel," Francisco declaimed in a Catalan so mixed with Castilian that even Toby could follow it, "may I have the inestimable honor of presenting the charming Senora de Gomez, who travels like ourselves to Barcelona? And her stalwart companions, who will aid the don in guarding us?"
The two women exchanged polite words and penetrating inspections, Senora Collel being obviously intrigued by the bottle. She was a large lady of middle years, with a buxom figure and a coarse, mannish face bearing a visible mustache. Her imperious manner, while it would not match Don Ramon's, left no doubt that she was a person of considerable importance in her own eyes, and she was dressed accordingly, in a red and green gown with lavishly embroidered hooped skirt, puffed sleeves like strings of sausages, and an ornate neckline displaying an elaborate chemise beneath. The roundlet on her head and the long casing enclosing her braid were embellished with pearls and gold thread. Her wisdom in wearing such finery under the present circumstances could be doubted.
Her younger companion was not introduced, but the predatory way she looked Toby up and down gave him gooseflesh. He felt his bare-shaved face color under her calculating smile and averted his gaze quickly. She would doubtless be pleased to have won such a quick response.
Senora Collel's features stiffened when the new guards were named. "Foreigners?"
"But nothing to do with the rebels, senora," Francisco said hastily. "Wandering scholars who have had the misfortune to become caught up in this terrible war like ourselves."
"Scholars?" She ran a frown over Toby from his helmet and oversized pack to his already-battered buskins, and then back again, all the way. "And what do you study, Senor, er, Long… senor?"
"Civilization, senora," he said blandly. "I believe my own poor land of Scotland has much to learn from the more cultured ways of Aragon, and from Catalonia in particular."
"Indeed? Perhaps you are not quite so barbaric as you appear, then. I trust you have brought your own rations, because we have none to spare."
"You expect me to bleed for you without pay, senora?"
She glared. "The don has guaranteed our security. How he provides it is his concern. Senora de Gomez, will you not ride with me for a while? Dismount, Eulalia. A walk will do you good. You will, however, stay close to us." She reined in her horse and the others halted also.
Gracia viewed the saddles with alarm. "Oh, that is most kind of you, but I have no experience on the silla, only the angarillas."
"Then it is time you learned. If this halfwit girl can manage it, I am sure you can. Eulalia, you heard me."
The maid seemed unconcerned at losing her place, but she was waiting for Toby, holding out her hands so he could help her down. When her hopeful smile failed to produce the desired result and Hamish moved forward in his place, she refused his aid and slid easily to the ground on her own, contriving to reveal most of two very shapely legs in the process. Toby promptly lifted Gracia to the seat, which was a sort of chair mounted on a packsaddle. She blushed crimson, while all the others pretended not to notice.
Rafael and Miguel and the rest had almost caught up by then, so the horses were chevied into motion, and the three men set off once more toward the front of the procession, leaving the two senoras chattering like parrots.
"Senora Collel is going home to more than Miguel and Rafael are?" Toby inquired.
"I would presume so, senor." Francisco's manner was guarded, so he might have the same suspicions about the packhorse that Toby did. It seemed to be making heavy work of carrying a very compact, unassuming load.
"A formidable lady!" remarked Hamish, although he had spent the whole time ogling Eulalia.
"Indeed," Francisco agreed. "And a very well informed one. Senora Collel is the person to ask if you want to know anything at all about anyone in our party, Senor Jaume. That will shortly include your own life story, I am sure. Or else that will be the price required for the answers you seek."
"Is gossip a weakness of the fair sex, do you think?" asked Toby.
The squire quirked a puckish smile. "And of the old, senor. Now we come to our learned clerics. Father Guillem is from Montserrat, and is not merely a learned monk but also a holy acolyte of the sanctuary. I am not sure where Brother Bernat came from originally."
"And whose is the child?" Toby asked, for a skinny girl of about seven was bouncing along between the preachers, holding a hand of each and periodically lifting her legs so they had to swing her. As each man was laden with a bulky pack, this was probably not easy for them. "Are not friars and monks expected to be celibate in Spain?"
"Most are celibate, senor. A certain number are even chaste. The girl's name is Pepita. She is Brother Bernat's ward. I suspect her parents died in the war, but… but Senora Collel may be better informed on the matter than I am."
Hearing the three men and one pony advancing on them, the two robed men halted and turned. Little Pepita frowned with a child's frank distrust, moving closer to the taller and older of the two, who wore the gray and must therefore be Brother Bernat, the Franciscan.
The other spoke first, in a voice with the rumble of thunder. "Good spirits bless you, my sons!" Father Guillem was a monolith of a man in his forties, solid and square-cut — square his jaw, square his shoulders, and his sandaled feet seemed set too far apart. Even his black tonsure appeared somehow angled instead of round. In a large and hairy fist he clutched a staff almost as massive as Toby's own, much heavier than was needed for walking, so he could be added to the list of the company's defenders. He frowned as he listened to Francisco's introductions. "And whose men are you?"
The questioned burned, as it always did, and Toby bristled. "We appear to have become Don Ramon's, Father. For the time being."
The cleric disapproved. "Laws in all lands require a freeman to have a lord. No land, no lord, no guild?"
"Only honesty and a strong right arm."
"The strong arm I can see. I trust you will demonstrate the honesty."
"I also try to be civil, unless I am given cause not to be."
"A civil reply in the circumstances," said Brother Bernat mildly.
Grateful for that remark, Toby turned to him. He was tall and spare, a willow. His face was lined and aged, even his eyebrows silvered, and his tonsure had shrunk to a trace of swansdown around a naturally bald pink scalp. He seemed absurdly ancient to be walking the length of Aragon with a pack on his back, but his wizened lips were smiling.
"Thank you, Brother." Toby bowed. He normally disapproved of friars, men who ought to find themselves honest labor instead of wandering around the country telling other people how to behave. Even monks were a cut above friars, if they performed useful functions like caring for the sick or providing hospitality to travelers. However, this old man was the first of the pilgrims he thought he might be able to like.
Then he noticed that Brother Bernat's eyes were surprisingly clear and dark for so old a face, and they were appraising him with more than normal curiosity. "So you are truly your own man, are you?"
He almost seemed to be hinting at something, and Toby felt a shiver of unease. All these pilgrims were infested with curiosity.
"I answer to no one!" he snapped. The friar frowned.
"He's very big!" Pepita said accusingly. She was pretty, elfin, and probably undernourished. She was also a welcome distraction from the friar's disconcerting inspection.
Toby went down on one knee. "I can't help it. You're very small, but you will grow bigger. I don't know how to grow smaller."
She giggled. "I want to ride on your shoulders!"
"Child," Brother Bernat said reprovingly, "remember your manners!"
"I don't see why she shouldn't," Toby said, glad of a chance to demonstrate some civility for a change. He cupped his hands for her. "Mount!"
Instantly she scrambled up to sit on his pack and clasp her skinny legs around his neck. He stood up, making her squeal in delight. Her grip on his helmet tilted it to an uncomfortable angle, but her weight was trivial.
"You should not encourage her, my son," Brother Bernat said, but he was smiling again, sunshine on an ancient mountain.
"She's no burden. Pepita, you are our lookout. Watch for bandits and shout if you see any. I'll send her back in a day or two, Brother."
"You also travel to Montserrat, Tobias of the strong arm?" Father Guillem rumbled. "For what purpose?"
More nosiness! "We agreed to escort a lady there, Father. While I'm there, I shall ask the tutelary to foretell my future."
A frown seemed to be the monk's natural expression. "Spirits are not oracles. Seek out some fairground huckster if you want your fortune told — but waste only money you do not need."
"I have never known such money, Father. Is the tutelary unable to see the future or merely unwilling to reveal it?"
Father Guillem's manner chilled even more. "You raise heavy matters for a social chat, Tobias. A private discussion when we are camped would be a more appropriate setting."
"Why do you ask, Tobias?" Brother Bernat inquired softly. "Does your future seem especially clouded?"
The dark eyes were rummaging through Toby's soul again. He decided he was outmatched — which Hamish would certainly have told him must be the case, had he asked before he started this absurd fencing. He had not intended to cross wits with the two clerics, but how did one down swords in such a contest?
"Every man's future is clouded, surely?"
"No."
"No?"
Brother Bernat smiled with the benevolent tolerance of the very old for the very young. "Come and talk with us this evening. You are an interesting young man, Tobias."
Definitely nettled now, Toby barked, "In what way?"
"Your eyes do not match your eyebrows. No, I do not mock. Your strength lies uneasy upon you. You have the bones of a fighter and the soul of someone else."
Was that only a lucky guess, or was the monk detecting the hob in him? Demons could do that, but he did not think any unaided mortal could. It was Father Guillem who was the acolyte, an acolyte being a sort of adept. But anyone could be a hexer, even a friar.
"I don't think I know how to answer that remark, Brother. I'll take your little girl for a walk."
Toby strode off, cursing himself for a dimwitted boor. He seemed to be putting up every back he met. His ill temper was soon dispelled, for Pepita twisted his helmet, drummed her heels on his chest, and shouted, "Faster, faster!"
"Faster? Who do you think I am, Thunderbolt?"
"You're bigger than Thunderbolt."
And more stupid. He hadn't made many friends so far. There were only two more pilgrims to meet, and they had halted about thirty paces ahead. The don must have told them to wait there, because he was some distance out in front, heading for a rocky knoll.
Toby stopped to let Hamish and Francisco catch up. "You realize that you have to carry me on the way back, don't you?"
That made her laugh. "Which of you? The one inside or the one outside?"
He caught his breath. "Pepita, what do you mean?" She was only fantasizing, surely.
"Nothing," said the piping voice overhead. "Just, when I was looking at you, I could sort of see two of you. I can't from up here. That's very curious, isn't it? I'll ask Brother Bernat. He'll know what it means."
As long as she didn't ask the Inquisition! He wished he could look at her and judge how serious she was, but all he could see of her was little brown feet in shabby sandals. "Do you often see two of people?"
"No," she said airily. "Just you and Brother Bernat."
The sensible thing to do would be to gather Gracia and go. These pilgrims were nothing to him. Traveling in company was more pleasant and normally safer, but it would not be safer for him if Pepita started babbling her fancies to everyone else. The slightest whisper of demonic possession led straight to the Inquisition.
The chubby squire and his pony arrived, accompanied by Hamish, who gave Toby a reproachful look, which he had certainly earned. Even Francisco seemed a little less convivial.
"The last members of our company, senores — or should I say first, since they travel at the front? — are the esteemed Senores Brusi. The father, Salvador Brusi i Urpia, is a man of much importance in Barcelona, a silk merchant." Francisco dropped his voice to a squeak. "Very wealthy! And his son, Josep Brusi i Casas."
"They saved their hides by running away when the rebels came?"
Francisco cleared his throat, although his eyes had started to twinkle again. "I expect they had urgent business in Granada or Seville."
Brusi Senior had found himself a low wall to sit on while he waited; it appeared to be a relic of an ancient sheepfold. He was a shriveled raisin of a man, small and bent, but his eyes were sharp enough and his little prune mouth screwed up in disapproval as he watched the strangers approach. If he was rich, his garments were plain enough not to show it. His horse was a roan mare of quality, though, with smart trappings, and his two packhorses were worth plenty in these troubled times. All three of them needed a good grooming.
The boy holding the mare's reins was about Hamish's age, but sallow and gawky, with the listless air of a humble, bookish clerk, and already showing some of his father's stoop. He wore a knife in a sheath on his belt, but no sword. The Brusis were not fighters.
But they were wealthy, and Senora Collel might be. Why had they not obtained better protection? Had they underestimated the perils of the journey or been misled by the don?
Francisco made the usual introductions.
"More guards?" Salvador Brusi snarled. "At whose expense? I shall hold the don to our agreement, to the last dinero."
"The don is a man of his word, senor," Francisco said smoothly.
"Bah! And what does he know of these two, hm? Rogues! A pair of footpads who will cut our throats in the night and steal our horses!"
"I wouldn't want them," Toby said. "Not in that condition. Why don't you look after them better, old man? They're walking gorse bushes."
Brusi bristled. "Insolence!"
"I give what I get. If we did want to steal them, we could knock your brains out this instant and let Don Ramon ride his hack into the ground trying to catch us." Toby's Catalan was far from fluent, but he had obviously put over the gist of what he had tried to say, for Brusi was scarlet and spluttering. "Tonight my friend Jaume and I will curry your mounts for you — for a suitable fee, of course — and get those ticks out of their coats before they go sick and die on you."
He turned to Francisco, whose eyes were rather wide, but whose pudgy face otherwise bore a studied lack of expression. "Let's go and talk to the don about our order of march. Senor Brusi, you may start moving again when Miguel and Raphael catch up."
"You don't give me orders!" the old man screeched, lurching to his feet.
"I just did."
It was unfortunate that Pepita chose that moment to snigger. As Toby strode forward, he glanced at the younger Josep, and was surprised to see traces of a grin. He winked. Josep twitched in surprise and then winked back.
Don Ramon had completed his survey of the terrain from the knoll, and was now returning. Hamish fell into step at Toby's right, and a moment later Francisco's pony arrived on his left.
The old man coughed meaningfully. "Senor Longdirk, while I have greatly enjoyed your progress, I do hope you realize that here men of humble station are expected to observe a certain tact when addressing the gentry? Of course I have no intention of criticizing how things may be done in your fair homeland of Scotland, but this is Spain."
"In Scotland they would hang me for it. You think they may hold back my wages?"
The squire sighed. "I'm certain you won't ever see a dinero of them." He chuckled. "But, please, senor, I implore you, do not try such tactics on Don Ramon!"
"I have no intention of doing so."
"Shade his honor in any way and one of you will die, senor, I swear it."
"I shall be as prim as a princess."
How long could he hold to that resolve? Did he even want to try? A dozen adults and a child, and only one of them a real fighter — and even that was giving the don the benefit of a very considerable doubt. His fighting might be as muddled as his thinking. However nimble he was at getting on and off his horse, had he ever swung that broadsword in his life? Apart from him, only Miguel, Rafael, and Father Guillem were likely to put up any defense at all, and none of them could have any training or experience. With Hamish and himself aboard, the company would certainly have a better chance of surviving any trouble it might encounter. Under any normal circumstances, there would be no question — the newcomers would ask to join the band and place themselves under the hired guard's orders. When the hired guard was a raving aristocratic maniac, was that such a good idea?
Toby turned for another look at the pilgrims, which required him to walk backward, making Pepita laugh and drum her fists on his helmet. Then he turned the right way round and said in Gaelic, "Hamish? You want to serve the noble lord?"
Hamish jumped, as if his mind had been a long way away. "You're not serious? You can't be serious! You couldn't even take orders from Sergeant Mulliez! You think you can keep your temper with that snooty lunatic?"
"I might. I wonder whether he's as crazy as he pretends to be. Senor Francisco, is the Senora's packhorse carrying gold?"
The squire choked. "Gold, senor? Whatever… Why would you think such a thing?" His horrified expression said that it did, or at least he suspected that it did. He could have seen how the bags were handled when it was loaded and unloaded.
"There doesn't seem much on its back, and yet it walks as if it had a heavy burden. Doesn't matter." Toby must make his decision soon. "The don has to ride at the front of course."
"Of course!" Even Francisco could not imagine any other arrangement, and Don Ramon himself believed he was leading a train of a hundred — knights in livery, beautiful ladies on white horses, banners flying, band playing. It was a beautiful picture, but it wasn't real.
Nevertheless, Miguel and Rafael were the nearest thing he had to fighting men, so he had put them at the rear. The horses wouldn't like the mule, anyway. The only other man who might strike a blow, Father Guillem, he had set in the middle. And himself at the front.
"I suppose Senor Brusi is paying most of the fee, so he insists on being as close to his guard as he can be?"
"Only the king might insist with Don Ramon, senor. It is by his command that the senor travels there."
A command that conveniently forestalled argument. So the order of march made good sense, but might be mere luck. If Toby were to take charge now, what would he do? Move the two peasants to the center and put the new men at the rear? No, probably send one man on ahead to scout for trouble and have the other patrol back and forth along the line, herding the sheep.
Don Ramon had reined in to await the deputation.
"Senor?" Francisco whispered. "He would really like you and your companions to join our troupe, although I admit his way of expressing himself is a little strange. We should all like it. What do I tell him?"
"That we pray to be considered worthy of entering his service."
The squire beamed, but only briefly. "You will be careful, both of you? His honor is all he has left in the world."
"It will be safe with us," Toby said. "I am not at liberty to explain this, senor, but I have a deep respect for Don Ramon. To serve him will be a privilege."
Surprise, suspicion, then recollection… "You knew his name!"
"And I honor it. Pepita, you have to dismount now. This mule needs a rest." Toby reached up to lift the girl down, then discarded his pack and staff. He accompanied Francisco over to the boy on the big horse. The don stared down at them with his customary arrogance.
The squire dismounted and doffed his cap in a low bow. "Senor, Captain Longdirk entreats you to accept him and his troop into your service."
"Of course. Did you expect him to pass up the opportunity of a lifetime?" Don Ramon looked expectantly at the new recruit and bent just enough to offer a hand, palm down.
Toby bowed, unsure what was expected of him and not entirely certain of his own intentions even yet. He looked up at the sea-blue eyes and the utter contempt in them. He was, said those eyes, dirt. But the don had looked at him like that — exactly like that — when he was on the scaffold, facing the headsman's ax. Any man capable of such defiance at the lintel of death was a man indeed.
"Senor, my company and I will be honored to serve you." Until I cut off your head. He kissed the pale fingers. He stepped back, bowing three times, as he had seen the don himself do.
The don showed no sign of emotion at the touching ceremony, other than a sneer which said that of course the stupid foreigner had done it all wrong but his ignorance would be overlooked this time. "Now, Captain Whatever-your-name-is, send some troopers to scout ahead. They are to keep their eyes peeled at all times for possible ambush. I want no heroics — at the slightest hint of trouble they are to run back like rabbits and report to me personally, is that clear? And set some others to patrolling the column, to make the stragglers keep up. Look lively!"
"As the caballero commands." Toby saluted and went back to issue the necessary orders to his company.
Hamish had heard all that, and his expression was rarer than diamonds.
"Look lively now, Sergeant Jaume!" Toby said. "Take a dozen of our best men and escort Senorita Pepita back to Brother Bernat. After that, ride herd on the civilians and make sure they keep moving along."
"Aye, aye, sir!"
"And brush up your Catalan. Your accent's terrible."
Hamish said something in breathy Catalan, too quick to catch. It did not sound respectful, and the grin that followed it certainly wasn't.
Scouting was an easy thing to do badly, a hard one for a lone man to do well. By rights Toby ought to zigzag back and forth across the entire width of the valley, from height of land to height of land, while investigating every bush or rock in between, but there were limits to how much ground even his legs could cover and still keep him a reasonable distance in front of the main band. Fortunately his pack was lighter than it had been.
Unfortunately, it was growing ominously light, and his solitary wandering gave him time to brood over a very grim-looking future. One of the rules of field craft he had picked up in his mongrel career as soldier, peddler, teamster, smuggler, and most often fugitive, was that a man on foot could rarely carry more than ten days' rations. While he was unusually strong and not much encumbered with other gear, he had an appetite to match his size and bore Gracia's share on his back as well as his own. He estimated they had only seven days' supplies left. Hamish's pack was mostly filled with books, of course. They would not reach Barcelona in seven days. When they did, they would not find it built of gingerbread.
When he wasn't worrying about food, he worried about Oreste and himself chopping off Hamish's head.
Around noon he came to a burned-out casa. Nothing remained of the main house except fire-blackened two-story walls with secretive little window openings, and the destroyers had gone to a great deal of trouble to waste the surrounding crops, vines, and olive trees. Only the weeds prospered, already moving in to conceal evidence — a table leg, an anonymous charred bone, half a child's doll — but the ruins were deserted and there was water in the well, so it would be a good place to make the midday halt. He signaled to Don Ramon, receiving a wave from Francisco in acknowledgment. Then he placed his pack on top of a thick, head-high wall. As a picnic site it lacked shade, but it commanded a good view of the countryside.
By the time the pilgrims arrived, he had filled the water trough. Hamish quickly began assisting Senora Collel's party, probably so he could stay close to Eulalia. Old Salvador Brusi made straight for the nearest patch of shade, leaving Josep to tend the horses, although he was obviously unskilled with them. Toby went to help him unload.
Clumsy the youngster might be, but he spoke Castilian and could understand Toby's polyglot jabber. "I apologize for my father's rudeness earlier, senor," he said diffidently.
"I am sorry I barked back at him. How far have you come?"
"With the don? From Toledo. How long will it take us to reach Barcelona?"
"At this rate about a hundred years. The mule slows us. It is overburdened."
"Yes. Often has the don told them so and made them carry half its load themselves, but as soon as his back is turned they put it all on the mule again."
"Your horses could carry more. Will you consent to take some of their goods?"
Josep glanced anxiously in his father's direction. "I shall ask, senor."
"Without trying to charge a fee, of course."
The young man smiled wanly. "That will certainly be the problem."
"It is to your advantage that we make better time."
Having established to his own satisfaction that the Brusi baggage included substantially more than seven days' food and several suspiciously heavy bags that might well contain gold, Toby returned to his pack. Hamish was already there, perched on the wall and unwrapping some of the inevitable beans. Gracia had been invited to dine with Senora Collel, who must either have ample provisions or else did not understand the danger of starvation.
The overall picture was dismal — the three women under an orange tree that had somehow survived the devastation, the two clerics and Pepita near the well, the Rafael-Miguel foursome in another corner, the Brusis also by themselves. He looked around for the don and his squire, but they had ridden off to the nearest hillock.
"A friendly lot," he observed.
"They're frightened," Hamish said, chewing. "Senora Collel is furious because she has to sleep in the open. She brought no tent. She expected comfortable inns, because that was what she enjoyed when she went south. She says it was most inconsiderate of the invaders to burn the inns."
"Fear ought to make them unite. Or the don should. That's what a leader is for."
"He's crazy! Mad as a wet cat."
"So is Gracia. It's the war, I think. I'm not even sure of old Brusi, if he's trying to carry gold without a proper escort. And I'm crazier than any of them." Toby did not really think he was crazy, but he suspected the hob was. "We all should get along famously."
Hamish grinned. "It's lonely being the only sane man in the world. You're right about Brusi. Senora Collel says he got such a good price from the don that he couldn't resist the bargain."
"Oh? And what's her excuse?"
The grin widened. "She heard about Brusi and thought he was shrewd enough to know what he was doing, so she signed up too. None of them had any idea how bad the devastation was." He tugged a weighty book from his pack.
"What's that one about?" Toby asked.
"Hmm? Catalan verse. You did tell me to brush up my Catalan."
"You planning to quote poetry to Eulalia?"
Hamish looked up, wide-eyed with hope. "Would that work?"
"I've heard it can be quite effective. And if you think it will help, you can tell her that Gracia and I are lovers."
Hamish turned faintly pink. "I already did." He began to read with great concentration.
Poor Hamish! Since the evening of the day his voice broke, he had been making advances to pretty girls. Even now that his beard had grown in — a little scanty in spots, but an honest beard — they still seemed to think of him as only a boy. He had no trade or land or family prospects. Possibly he was too intellectual, all head and no heart, and probably too solemn and serious, although he was witty enough with men. It was definitely time to send him home to the glen to wed some bonnie lass and raise another generation of schoolteachers.
And poor Toby! He had the opposite problem. Since Mezquiriz, he dared not even think about women in case he reminded the hob of Jeanne.
Oh, Jeanne!
Hamish yawned. They were both worn threadbare by too many broken nights.
"If you drop off up here," Toby said, "then you will drop off. Take a nap." He would not. The don must not catch them both sleeping on duty.
Hamish peered at him blearily. "Half and half? Wake me in an hour?"
"Promise."
Hamish closed his book and jumped down. He stretched out on the grass and was snoring in seconds.
Toby retrieved the sword from his pack and fashioned a loop of rope as a baldric for it, thinking the sight of it might make the pilgrims more inclined to accept him as a guard. Worried he might go to sleep in the heat, he clambered down and walked around to see to the others. They were all doing what Hamish was. There was no sign of Don Ramon or Francisco.
The landscape baked in silence, nothing moving under the sun, not a bird in the empty blue sky. He went off to the remains of the vineyard to see if the birds and insects had overlooked any grapes. The vines were grown on the ground, not on trellises, and he waded knee-high through rustling brown leaves, pushing branches aside with his sword. He found only a few moldy raisins to eat, but it passed the time.
Help soon arrived in the person of Eulalia, slender and slyly smiling, who had no doubt feigned sleep to evade her mistress and was now elated to have the big young stranger to herself. That he would be equally pleased she would not doubt, nor should she — her shapeless servant garb could not completely deny the lure of the body within. Her robe was of coarse brown fabric, long-sleeved to cover everything except face and hands, decorated crudely with strips of yellow and orange, probably by herself. A darker cloth covered her head, but the casing on her braid hung to her waist, and nothing could disguise the magic of the dark eyes, the sculptured perfection of features, the complexion like aged ivory. Dress her as a princess and she would be one. Small wonder Hamish had lost his wits already.
She had as few words of Castilian as Toby of Catalan. Speech could help little, but shiny red lips and dark eyes said everything.
"Are you finding any, senor?"
"No. A few."
She knelt to search among the leaves. In a moment she said something excited and beckoned him. When he squatted to see, she popped a raisin in his mouth. Her eyes again, the smile, her hand on his thigh…
He stood up and shook his head. "Not me, senorita. Try Jaume."
She glared at him and caught his wrist, trying to pull him down beside her. He walked away, conscious of sweat, the oppressive heat, the pounding of his heart. He despised himself for them and the lingering tingle in his loins. Were all men so easily tempted, or was he a weakling? How did other men keep their self-control in such situations?
Many didn't, he supposed. He was not the only bastard in the world.
He paced around, afraid to settle. Guard duty was more interesting at night, when a single cracking twig might be the only warning. Here, the empty landscape made it too easy. There was no sign of the don — had he left his new deputy in charge, or did he hope to catch him neglecting his duty? What disaster had brought a hidalgo to such penury that he could afford no better arms than discards and no squire except an old man with crippled feet?
Seeing that Eulalia had returned to the senora, he went back to the vineyard and scavenged some more. Later he saw a chicken in the undergrowth and spent time stalking it. It would not have survived so long had it not learned to be wary, and it eluded him. He did not waken Hamish. He had never intended to keep his promise.
When he went to the well for a drink, he found Gracia there in her widow's weeds, still wearing the bottle that proclaimed her delusions. She was not as tall as Eulalia, and her face was less striking, but lovely enough. So fragile! She was delicate, she had suffered, she was not perfectly sane by the world's standards. One look at her and her sheer vulnerability made him want to clasp her in his arms and swear to defend her against anything for ever. She was much more dangerous than Eulalia.
Just one kiss? There need be no seduction, no false promises, just a moment of mutual tenderness in a world unbearably harsh.
No, not one.
"Senor, a favor?"
"If I can, senora."
She clutched the absurd bottle in both hands. "This brings questions."
How surprising! "Yes?"
She raised her chin as she did when she spoke of her mission to the dead. "My voices tell me that it will be safe with you, senor. Will you put it in your pack and carry it for me?"
It couldn't weigh much, one empty bottle. "Of course. I am honored to be trusted with it, because I know how much you value it."
She smiled again and lifted the cord over her head. He took it and hung it around his.
Fortunately he had very good reflexes. He caught the bottle before it hit the ground. Then he straightened up to face dismay that became astonishment that instantly turned to fear. She backed away, staring at him like a cornered fawn. The knots had untied themselves? No, the hob had untied them. Why should the hob object to an empty bottle?
Because it wasn't empty? He felt the hairs on his nape lift.
There was no use trying to think up some prosaic explanation. "It would seem, senora, that the wraiths do not approve of me as a guardian." He thrust the bottle at her quickly, lest it wriggle snakelike out of his hands. "Come with me and put it in Diego's pack. It will be safe with him."
"But…? But why? How did that happen?"
"You saw what I saw." He shrugged. "I have a sort of curse on me, senora. The wraiths may not approve of me, but I am sure that they will not find fault with my friend."
"Curse?"
"Senora, what would happen if I told the Inquisition that you hear voices and gather the ghosts of the dead?"
Her lips curled back from her teeth in terror. "You will not!"
"Of course I will not. And you will not tell them about my curse! We are companions, friends. Now we share each other's secrets." After all, they were both crazy. She collected the dead, he had visions. Lunatics should stick together.
"What is this curse?" she asked uncertainly.
"It is a long story, and painful. It is why I go on pilgrimage."
She thought he meant the tutelary at Montserrat, of course. He was thinking of Oreste's relentless pursuit. He reassured her, pointing out that no evil had come to her in the last few days while she was in his company. He took her over to the place where Hamish was still snoring, and together they wrapped the bottle securely in Hamish's blanket and put it in his pack with the books.
When he saw the don and his squire riding down from their knoll, Toby went around the camp and wakened the pilgrims. Pepita was already alert, combing her hair; she jumped up and followed him, all big bright eyes and serious.
"Senor…" She tried to say "Longdirk" and stumbled over it.
"Call me Toby."
"Senor Toby." She spoke very solemnly. "I asked Brother Bernat why I saw two of you and he said that that was a very bad thing to say about anyone and I must tell you I was sorry and promise you I would never tell anyone else."
He smiled down at her — a long way down, for the top of her head barely reached his ribs. "Then I thank you and accept your promise. Did he tell you why you see two of me, though?"
She pouted. "No. He said I will understand later, and perhaps you could see two of me."
"No, just one. But it's a very pretty one."
She liked that. He wanted to ask more questions, but it seemed unfair to interrogate a child. He would have a talk with her sharp-eyed guardian.
"Are you going to catch the horses, Senor Toby? I can help! I'm very good with horses."
She certainly was. She walked up to each of Senora Collel's three in turn, took hold of its halter, then led it to Toby. He was certain they would not have been so cooperative for him. She demonstrated how the chairs and their footboards were secured to the pack saddles and explained earnestly how important it was that the folding stepladder be the last thing loaded on the packhorse, so that it would be available for the ladies to mount and dismount.
Then the two of them went to help Josep, whose bumbling efforts to catch the Brusi horses had put them to flight. He had gone around behind them and was driving them back toward the casa, but they were still at liberty, staying well ahead of him. Pepita walked out to meet them and they surrendered to her with no arguments.
Josep arrived after them, hot and ashamed. He was not only inexperienced, he was obviously nervous of the big teeth and feet. Pepita's complete lack of fear could not be helping his feelings, although he thanked her graciously enough.
"I am better with ledgers, Captain," he muttered, red-faced.
"Each to his own. Figures terrify me. Let's go and steal some of the mule's load."
"Oh… I have not yet asked my father's permission, Captain."
"Call me Toby. If he doesn't like it, he'll have to take care of the matter himself. I need you to interpret for me. Pepita, you go back to Brother Bernat now."
"Why?"
Because there might be trouble.
"Because you need to put your hair up."
Pepita flounced off angrily. Toby led one of the packhorse over to the Rafael-and-Miguel group, who had just managed to drive Thunderbolt into a corner, where he was being difficult, with hooves flying. Josep explained their intentions in a rapid stream of Catalan, and the peasants grew difficult also. Their surly faces dark with suspicion, they shouted that they did not trust offers of free transportation, they did not trust Senor Brusi or foreigners. They did not trust anyone. The tall one with the big nose was Rafael, the burly one with the long black beard was Miguel. The women were still unnamed.
Handing Josep the horse's bridle while the argument continued to rage, Toby pushed his way in and soothed the mule. Thunderbolt was not quite willing to be friends but reserved judgment on being an enemy, since the stranger had not yet piled any mountains on him. He let Toby lead him over to the waiting heap of goods. The onlookers were impressed. The men stopped carping to watch and the women switched from strident to grumble.
Inspecting the pile, Toby saw that the problem was simpler than he had realized. A bundle of ashwood staves would no doubt prove very useful when these poor folk were struggling to reestablish their living, but carrying such a load through this dangerous countryside was sheer insanity. The same went for three empty wineskins.
"Josep, did they start out with all this clutter, or have they been doing a little selective looting?"
The youngster grinned. "A bit of both. The barrel appeared two days ago."
"Well, will you explain to them that we must make all possible speed, that we are running short of food, that every day on the road increases our danger of being set upon by brigands, and that brigands, if any do attack us, will strip us of everything and either kill us or leave us naked?"
While the translation was in progress, Toby selected a weighty bundle of tools and implements and loaded that on the Brusi horse. He added a bag of meal and a bulky sack that smelled of onions. Rafael tried to stop the food being taken, Toby jostled him aside with a warning glare.
That, he decided, was enough ransom to put into the avaricious grasp of Salvador Brusi, but there was still too much left. He picked up the oaken barrel. Even empty, it was weighty.
"Ask them why they need this."
All four responded with shrill protests that it was valuable.
Toby lifted it overhead, smashed it down on a rock, and then it wasn't.
He halted Rafael's attack by placing a very large fist in front of his nose. Rafael backed off, but Miguel tried to lash at him with a whip. Toby jabbed him in the belly — gently by his standards, but enough to put him down. With shrieks that were probably audible in Barcelona, the women sprang forward, claws out, so he drew his sword. That restored order for a moment; but when he slashed the three wineskins and cut the rope around the bundle of staves, all four of them came for him, and he had to threaten them with it. Even young Brusi looked totally appalled at this method of doing business.
"Josep, tell them that all this junk must stay where it is. The rest they can load, but if their mule won't keep up, I will cut its throat and roast it for supper."
He led off the packhorse, leaving the argument still raging. As he was loading the Brusi chattels, the old man came wandering over to watch, making no effort to help. He had been watching.
"You expect me to transport those goods, senor?"
"I do."
"At what price?"
"None whatsoever."
The merchant frowned. "I do not see that their trouble is my concern."
Toby paused to wipe sweat from his forehead. "It is my concern because I am trying to get you all safely to Barcelona. Speed is vital. It is your concern for the same reason. If I can't make you cooperate, then we are probably not going to arrive before we starve. The country is barren, senor. All this gold you carry won't buy you one dried fig."
Brusi's eyes narrowed at the mention of gold. When spoken by a man with a sword in a lawless land, the remark was close to a threat. Toby gave him a cryptic smile and went back to work, while the old man watched with his wrinkles scrunched down in a glare.
As Josep approached, his father said, "I could use a man like you in my business."
Astonished, Toby took another look at him. "You are gracious, senor. What have I done to merit such praise?"
The withered lips curled in a sneer. "It is not what you have done I value, it is the breadth of your shoulders. You are as strong as two ordinary men. Good porters are hard to find."
"The senor is very kind!" Toby snapped. "You can finish up here."
He stalked away, seething. It wasn't just that people saw him as a chunk of brawn that annoyed him, it was the knowledge that porters' work was all he was good for. Or bullying destitute peasants, and he could not have managed that so easily if he were a normal size.
Heading to waken Hamish and tell him that he was now custodian of the bottle, he was intercepted by the don on his destrier. He saluted. The arrogant eyes surveyed his sweat-soaked condition.
"You show promise, Captain."
That was an improvement! "I only seek to do my duty, senor."
"Of course. We shall move out in five minutes. Have the band start playing." The don wheeled his horse and rode off.
Toby resisted a strong temptation to make an obscene gesture at his retreating back. But he did get them all moving in five minutes, with a rather bleary-eyed Hamish trotting out in front as scout and Toby himself at the rear to make sure the wrecked barrel and other debris were left where they belonged. He was pleased to see that the mule was now in a better mood, which was certainly not true of its owners. As they showed no signs of wanting to chat with him and help him improve his Catalan, he went by them and caught up with the women. The train was moving faster than before, although everyone was now rested, so the improvement might not last.
Gracia was still riding the little piebald, and thus Eulalia was walking, seeming somewhat footsore already. She turned her head so she need not look at the despicable foreigner. Another improvement!
Swaying in her horse-borne throne, Senora Collel appraised him as if she were considering buying him but found the asking price ridiculous. "Come round this side," she said sternly. "Senora de Gomez, you ride on ahead. Go with her, Eulalia. I wish to speak with this man."
Toby moved into position alongside her skirts and well-shod feet. Bent under his pack, he had trouble looking up at her face, but then it was not a face he wanted to spend much time on, all sagging flesh and ingrained paint. Tiny dewdrops of perspiration glistened in her mustache. She carried a red silk fan, which she wielded vigorously every few minutes, causing her palfrey to flicker its ears in alarm.
"You speak French, monsieur?"
Surprised, he said. "A little, madame."
"Your young friend told me of your travels. I, too, have visited Aquitaine."
"You are a lady of culture, madame."
"I am a very nosy one. I want to know why that Gomez woman was carrying that bottle and what she has done with it. She will not discuss it, and neither will the boy."
"Jaume has it in his pack now. Her tale is a sad one, madame."
Senora Collel evidenced satisfaction. "Then you may tell it at length."
Toby racked his brains. Hamish would be better at this than he would — why had he not invented some useful fiction?
"The lady was married very young."
"Obviously. Come to the point."
"Her husband was killed in the war, and her infant sons also."
"That does not explain why she wears a bottle around her neck."
Keep it simple. "Ah, but it does. It was the last gift her husband gave her, on the night they bade farewell. She has sworn never to be parted from it, as a memorial of him."
"That is all?"
"That is all, madame."
"How ridiculous! Foolish child. She will find another man soon enough, or one will find her. She is charming is she not?"
Toby risked an upward glance at the formidable senora. He had known sergeants-at-arms who would have looked prettier in her fancy gown. "Very."
"You did not sleep during the siesta break, Monsieur Longdirk?"
"The don left me on guard, madame."
"The don is a madman. We are safer now we have you. Eulalia slipped away, thinking I would not notice. She returned in a very brief time and in a very petulant mood."
"May it be that the mademoiselle suffers from constipation?"
The reply was a bark of coarse laughter that almost spooked the horse and made Gracia look around in alarm. "I don't think her problem was anything like that in the least. You and Madame Gomez are lovers?"
"No, madame." He accompanied the words with a warning scowl, but scowls bounced off Senora Collel like sleet off a limestone gargoyle.
Her eyes gleamed. "Why not? From the way she looks at you, she is yours for the taking."
That deserved no answer. He peered behind him at the mule and its mulish guardians, then forward, all the way to the don at the front. The company was moving well and staying together. He could trust Hamish to do a good job of scouting.
"Now it is my turn to ask some questions, madame, yes? Tell me about Monsieur Brusi."
She waved her fan dismissively. "Very rich, very powerful in Barcelona, a member of the Council of One Hundred. A dangerous enemy, Tobias."
"I seek no enemies, madame."
"You may have made one already in that man. He sucks life from other people. His wife hanged herself seventeen years ago. If that son of his does not escape from his father's shadow soon, he will never blossom."
Nothing surprising there. Toby had already reached the same opinion of Josep. "Father Guillem?"
The senora glanced down at him warily. "A preacher, an acolyte in the greatest sanctuary in Catalonia, indeed in all Aragon, and probably a senior one. So a pious man and probably a very learned one."
Had the renowned gossip learned no more than that?
"I think I knew that, madame, and I think he does."
She chuckled, an ominous sound. "Very likely."
"And Brother Bernat?"
Surprisingly, this time there was a longer pause, a glance even more guarded. She frowned. She glanced around, although there was no one within earshot and they were still speaking French.
"I have only suspicions, Tobias."
He did not like her use of his given name; here it implied an intimacy he had no wish for. But he did want to hear her suspicions. "Tell me those, Madame Collel, and I shall remember that they are only suspicions."
Her smile of broken, yellow fangs would strike dread into the bravest. "Why is an old man traveling with a tender child, hmm? Tell me that!"
"I cannot. There may be good reasons."
"There may be very evil reasons, also!" she said triumphantly.
"He is a friar, madame, a pious teacher of ethics."
She lowered her voice. "That is what a friar is supposed to be, yes. But is he what he says he is? I think he is an—" she paused dramatically, " — alumbrado!"
"I am not familiar with that term, madame."
She pouted, curling her mustache. "It is a foul heresy. There are ill-disposed people who travel the wild lands, Tobias, seeking out elemental spirits."
"Hexers. They harvest the elementals and turn them into demons. I know of this evil, but—"
"Not only hexers! Worse! You have never heard of the alumbrados?"
He hitched his pack higher on his shoulders, wondering what could possibly be worse than the gramarye he had met in Lady Valda or foreseen in Baron Oreste. "No."
"Alumbradismo is the worst form of gramarye, Tobias! These abominable persons do not worship good spirits and tutelaries, as honest folk do, but the wild elementals themselves!"
"Why should that be worse than hexing? It sounds dangerous, for elementals are unpredictable, but they are not evil in the way demons—"
She dismissed his ignorance with a wave of her fan. "These heretics sacrifice children to the elementals!"
Oh, that was ridiculous! What interest would a wild elemental have in human sacrifice? They just wanted to be left alone.
"I never heard of this terrible thing, madame. For what purpose do they do it?"
She rolled her eyes. "For power, of course! It is said that they make themselves immortal."
This was not even gossip — it was pure malice. He did not believe a word of it. "That is a most serious charge, madame. Have you any evidence?"
Senora Collel resented his doubts and scowled at him. "I told you I only had suspicions! But there is something very strange about that Brother Bernat and his sweet little ward. You speak with him and then come and tell me if you do not sense something very strange about him."
"I confess I already have sensed that he is an unusual man."
"There! What did I tell you!"
Hamish had never mentioned alumbradismo, and if Hamish did not know of it, then it had never been written in any book. Perhaps it was some sort of local superstition.
"I shall keep your warning in mind," Toby said. "Now tell me of the most interesting person in this company."
"The don, you mean?"
"Of course not. Madame Collel."
She laughed raucously. "So you can flatter? Ah, the woman is a terrible harridan! She was born very poor and married a man much older than herself, disgustingly rich. She has outlived three husbands. It is a well-known scandal that her household always includes a well-built young steward, whom she pays well to keep her servants in line and herself content. It is said she usually tires of these staunch youngsters after a year or so, but dismisses them with a generous requital. Have you employment in mind when you reach Barcelona, Tobias?"
He gaped at her brazen smirk. He had no idea how much she was mocking him, or if her monstrous suggestion could be at least partly serious. "Monsieur Brusi has already offered to make me a porter in his warehouse."
"I pay better, but the work might be harder."
It would indeed! "I shall keep this generous offer in mind, madame."
She chuckled. "But I do not roll in the undergrowth like Eulalia. If you wish to try out for the post, you will have to wait until we arrive. What do you think of the don?"
"He puzzles me. Is he as deluded as he pretends?"
"How can he be, unless he lost his wits in battle? He is reputed to be a good fighter." From her that was probably significant praise, but she said no more about Don Ramon. She frowned. "There is something very odd about his squire, also. He bothers me more."
By sunset they were almost out of the hills. Hamish had located an excellent campsite, sheltered by cypress trees and furnished with a small pool trapped behind an earthen dam. The water was slime-covered and bad-smelling, but it would serve to wash off the sweat and dust of the day. When Toby tried to borrow the Brusi bucket, he was reminded of his promise to curry the horses and informed that his fee for that could be the rent of the bucket. The better one came to know Brusi Senior, the nastier the old prune seemed, but the only other bucket belonged to Rafael and Miguel and the price of that one would be the captain's heart on a stick. What a jolly lot they all were!
While Hamish was building a communal fire, therefore, Toby gave Josep a lesson in caring for horses. Eulalia attended to Senora Collel's and obviously knew what she was doing — a farmer's daughter, no doubt. Each little group sat under its own tree, well apart from the others. Pepita wandered around being friends with everyone, but she was a notable exception, because there was still no sign of the adults cooperating. Rafael and Miguel had marched up to the Brusi camp and carted away their possessions without a word of thanks to anyone.
Even the two clerics remained aloof. Toby had talked with them on the march, receiving a severe lecture from Father Guillem on the virtue of peaceable methods and the iniquity of drawing a sword on unarmed peasants. Toby refrained from pointing out that the procession had moved a lot faster since his bullying.
Brother Bernat was courteous, inquisitive, and inscrutable. At times his talk rambled and he seemed almost senile, but his questions were sharp enough. Anything he said about himself was trivial, as when Toby congratulated him on keeping up with youngsters like him.
"I am a friar, Tobias. I have been walking all my life. I would take you on any day and walk your feet off. But you have walked all the way from Scotland? By what route did you come?" Yes, Brother Bernat was much more likeable than the monk, and not as feeble and feathery as he pretended.
When the horses were seen to, Toby collected the bucket and headed for the pool. The sky was darkening already, and the long day had left him bone weary. It was not over yet, of course. He was accosted by the don, on foot but still wearing his cuirass and now bearing his great broadsword as well. He held out two wooden whistles hung on thongs.
"You will post the order of the watch, Captain."
Toby accepted the whistles and made a rapid calculation. Two would be the minimum to guard so many horses, and he was surprised the don had not ordered him to post twenty. How many men could he call on, though?
Then Don Ramon added: "Leave orders for my personal staff to be awakened two hours before dawn, so they can prepare my bath and so on."
"As the hidalgo commands," Toby answered gratefully. He assumed that meant the don and Francisco would take the final watch, so the night could be divided into five, which would be a great deal easier than the last few nights had been. He would not trust Rafael and Miguel together, though, and probably not the two Brusis, either. It would take some thought…
"We must assume, Captain, that the Fiend has learned from his demons that I have taken the field against him. He will undoubtedly hasten here in strength to oppose me. You should anticipate a surprise attack before dawn."
Toby drew a quick breath and said, "This is serious news, senor. I shall pass it on to the officers and take the necessary precautions."
That was easier than trying to explain to the madman that he himself, Toby Longdirk — pauper, smuggler, mercenary, and habitual odd-job man — had been the reason King Nevil had invaded Spain the first time…
He filled the bucket and went off into the dark trees to clean up. He had barely removed his doublet and shirt when he heard a quiet rustle behind him and a high-pitched voice murmured:
"Captain?"
He stayed where he was, on his knees, annoyed at this intrusion. "You need the bucket, Senor Francisco? I shall be only a few moments."
"Oh. No. Or not yet." The old squire cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. "I was wondering… That is, I propose…"
Toby sat back on his heels with an inward sigh. "Whatever it is, I shan't tell the don."
"Ah, you are understanding. I should like to buy some provisions, if you have some to spare. You see — you will recall — Ramon invited Doña Gracia to dine with him this evening. He has ordered me to prepare a banquet in her honor, but this will leave me a little shorter of supplies than… He does not realize…"
Toby's mind jumped back to the siesta break. Those two had ridden off alone. He turned to stare at the old man.
"Have you anything left at all?"
"Oh, yes! I mean… Well, not a great deal…"
"Nothing?"
"Nothing," Francisco admitted sadly.
"When did you last eat?"
"We had a little yesterday."
Great spirits! "You can't go all the way to Montserrat without eating!"
"No, senor. But the don… He is a proud man and—"
"He still has to eat." Toby had expected that his own group would be the first to run out, or possibly the clerics, whose packs seemed skimpy, but not for a few days, and he had been hoping that by then he might have thumped these stubborn individualists into more of a team and taught them the need to share.
"I am offering payment!" Francisco whispered despondently. He held out a hand. "This ring is very pure gold."
Tony took it and peered at it in the fading light. It was a plain wedding band and could be gold for all he could tell. Returning it, he caught hold of Francisco's hand. It was a small hand, very delicate. He looked up at the plump, aged face.
"Francisca?"
She drew in her breath and snatched her fingers from his grasp. For a moment she seemed about to flee, and then her shoulders slumped. She groaned. "You are perceptive, senor! I don't think any of the others have guessed."
Toby laughed gently. "I'm sure you're right, because Senora Collel does not know. Sit down and tell me about it. As one seasoned campaigner with another, you will not object to watching me wash?"
"We can talk later, senor." She sounded close to tears.
"No, sit down! Turn your back if you wish." Toby scooped water in both hands and soaked his face, his odd-seeming, naked face. He was glad to be rid of the beard, because he hated it, but it would return fast enough. He owned no razor. "Tell me the story. I won't repeat it. I promise, but I do want to hear. Think of it as my day's pay."
The old woman settled to the ground stiffly, not turning her back but not facing him either. She sighed. "I am his mother."
Who else could she be? He might have guessed grandmother, but she seemed younger as a woman than she had as a man. The pitch of her voice had lost its strangeness, of course.
"He is of the limpieza de sangre, the pure blood. Look at the veins in his wrists — blue as the sky! His family is very old, very distinguished, but it was never wealthy. In his grandfather's time… You do not care about that. Suffice it, senor, that when his father died, two years ago, and then the bankers called in their notes, he was left with only one tiny holding. Four sheep wide and ten sheep long, he called it, but he was still a hidalgo with land and a roof over his head. When the rebels came, he had not even that."
Toby was starting to wish he had not asked. He slopped water over himself and said nothing. In the camp behind him Pepita trilled with laughter and a horse whinnied.
"He answered King Pedro's call, of course. He fought very bravely! You may doubt a mother speaking of her son, but I tell you much less than the truth. Many persons commented on how he distinguished himself on his first day in battle. At the end his horse was killed under him and his arm was broken. He was taken prisoner. His armor was forfeit, of course, his weapons, everything."
Toby shivered. "He was extremely lucky not to be butchered most horribly."
"I know that, senor. He killed a guard and escaped back to the Castilian lines."
"With a broken arm?"
"Yes. Alone."
That was an incredible feat. If true it deserved an epic, and somehow he did not doubt a word of it — fiction would have been made more believable. "How old is he?"
She evaded the question. "He was a man when he was fourteen. But he could fight no more. By the time the bone had knitted, the war was over."
"And you had nothing."
"We were out in the streets. He did not even have clothes in which to go to court to seek recognition of his services." She sighed. "I doubt he would have gone anyway. He comes of proud stock. His father… No matter. I heard of certain persons who wished to return to Barcelona and wanted to hire a guard. I found others like them. I made the arrangements, senor. Then I went and told him what I had done."
Proud stock could not be a hired guard. Toby did not ask the obvious question, but she told him anyway.
"He was enraged! Furious! He turned the color of the dead and would not speak. I asked him if he would watch his mother starve. Or if he would make a thief out of me, for I had naturally taken some of the fee in advance to buy weapons and armor and horses. He could not answer. He would say nothing. He walked the streets for days. He did not sleep or eat. I almost wished he would strike me for betraying him so. On the morning we were due to leave, I dressed in these clothes and went and told him I was his squire and his retinue was waiting. He smiled for the first time since the war came. He ordered me to have the bugles sounded."
The knot in Toby's throat made speech impossible. He bent forward and emptied the last of the water over his hair, then rubbed it vigorously with his shirt.
"We have kept up the pretense ever since," she said, sounding proud of that. "I have told you the truth, senor."
She knew it was pretense, but how much of it did the boy believe? Was he just honoring his mother's courage or had his mind snapped?
"I do not doubt it, Doña Francisca. You are as brave as your son. We have some provisions to spare. We shall divide them with you, so that when we run out, we all run out together, and who can say what may happen before then? No," he insisted when she held out the ring again. "I will not take it. You may pay me when you collect your fee in Barcelona." He pulled on his wet shirt and his doublet over it.
"Please, senor! Let me pay with this, now."
"Never!" He could even laugh a little at her stubbornness — the son had not taken it all from his father. "Your wedding ring for a bag of beans? Even barbarous Scotsmen are not without honor."
"You do not understand," she said miserably. "They say that in Barcelona now this would be a fair exchange, gold for beans. I was a fool, I knew I was outbidding many seasoned soldiers, so I did not ask nearly enough. I had no idea of prices… I did not even leave enough for food, so we have run out already. Do you think those peasants will honor their pledge? Or old Brusi? That woman? They will laugh at me when I ask for the rest. My son will not recognize the problem. And even if they pay, it will not be enough to take us home again."
That would not be a problem. Toby had a very clear image of a head rolling across bloody planks. Her son was going to die in Barcelona, and he would be the executioner. He choked down a surge of nausea and jumped to his feet. He held out a hand to help her rise.
"Come and collect the food so you may lay out the banquet for your lord and the lady. I will not take one blanca for it, because your tale has been reward enough."
The telling had been a strain for her. He had been cruel to insist on it. Realizing that she was weeping, he went on alone and left her to follow at her own hobbling pace.