They had two more clear days before death claimed the first of them. Two days were not long enough to turn the pilgrims into a team, but Toby and the don between them did effect some improvements.
"Captain," the caballero proclaimed as camp was being struck the first morning, "the terrain has changed. The enemy may conceal his forces anywhere. We should need a hundred men to reconnoiter our advance effectively." He was fully armed, holding his horse's reins and ready to mount, but then he had been awake for the last two hours, so his blue eyes and arrogant red mustache were bright and perky respectively.
Toby was still a little blurred by sleep. "This is true, senor." Certainly the plains offered far more opportunity for ambushes. The coastal trails wound through trees and overgrown fields.
"Reserve all pikemen for defense. Close up the ranks. The foe will direct his attacks upon our commissary."
"Um…" He probably meant the packhorses, and that was a reasonable analysis when the most probable foe was a starving rabble of refugees. "Yes, senor."
"Divide the infantry between the van and the rear guard."
"And the cavalry in the center? As the hidalgo commands."
"Excellent. Carry on, Captain. You may have the buglers sound the advance."
The don's commands always made good sense when properly interpreted. Either he had been given a sound military education or he had a natural soldierly instinct — perhaps it came from the limpieza de sangre—but translating his whimsies into real-world instructions required an understanding that the siege train was Thunderbolt because he carried axes and shovels, the artillery was Brusi Senior with his flintlock pistol, and Hamish's predilection for books had made him the corps of surveyors.
Other than the hired guard, there were six potential fighting men in the band: Toby, Father Guillem, Rafael, Miguel, Josep, and Hamish. Toby inflicted quarterstaff lessons on all of them whenever an opportunity presented itself. Young Josep was willing enough, but his weapons of choice would always remain the quill and ledger. Father Guillem — unlike many Galilean clerics — conceded that a man had the right of self-defense; he was surprisingly good — not quick, but powerful and devious. Rafael and Miguel were straightforward sloggers and deadly, because they saw every practice session as an opportunity to kill the big foreigner. When failure discouraged them, he let them inflict a few bruises on him to spur them to greater efforts. Of course Hamish was better than any of them except Toby himself, and they both had swords to use if the game need be played for serious stakes.
He insisted the women carry weapons. Eulalia settled for a sickle, and Gracia a knife, although he could not imagine her ever using it. Senora Collel accepted a stout cudgel and promised to crack the skull of anyone who tried to steal her mount, but she and whoever she allowed to ride the other horse — Gracia or Eulalia by turns — were perched so high that they were horribly vulnerable to snipers or low branches. Salvador Brusi agreed to carry his flintlock pistol in his belt instead of his saddle bag. The hob's reaction to gunfire was usually tumultuous.
The new order mixed up the groups to some extent and promoted a little more friendliness. Senora Collel and Eulalia were seen talking with the wives of Miguel and Rafael, both of whom were named Elinor. Brother Bernat rarely sought out conversation but would respond to anyone who addressed him, and even a ferocious argument on the ethics of trade between Salvador Brusi and Father Guillem could be regarded as an improvement. The don remained aloof, locked away in his own grandiose world.
Other, less conspicuous, relationships had developed also. Hamish became much given to quoting Catalan poetry and noticeably goggle-eyed in the presence of Eulalia, but his eyes goggled so easily that Toby thought nothing of it until the second morning, when he was striding along the line and Senora Collel snapped at him.
"Monsieur Longdirk!" She glared down from the giddy height of her horse-borne throne.
He knew to expect trouble when she spoke French. "Madame?"
"Your companion Jaume is debauching my servant!"
"He is?" Toby shot a glance back at Eulalia, whose turn it was to ride on the other silla. She tossed her head disdainfully at him, but there was certainly a hint of triumph there also. Perhaps she understood more French than her mistress suspected. It was quite similar to Catalan.
"You are not much of a sentry if you did not see them sharing a blanket in the night!" the senora sneered.
"A sentry's job is not to spy on his friends, madame. Besides, I am quite certain my young friend has never progressed beyond holding hands in the past, so who is debauching whom? Can you say the same of her?"
And bully for Hamish! Toby would not grudge him his good fortune.
"He is taking advantage of her. The girl is simple."
"I really find that hard to credit, madame."
"Then what of Madame Gomez?"
Toby's heart skipped a beat. The senora must have seen his reaction, for she curled her hairy lip at him. "You did not know about her either?"
"I am sure that you slander the lady, madame. Besides, her tragic experiences have left her in a highly disturbed emotional state, and if you are implying that I would exploit—"
"Not you. The don."
That snotty aristocratic pervert! How dare he! "I cannot believe that they are more than friends! How can you doubt her virtue or his honor?" But Toby had wondered what the two of them found to talk about — the prospect made his mind reel. Imaginary armies or imaginary ghosts?
"They, too, share a blanket," Senora Collel announced triumphantly. Her pleasure came from seeing Toby's anger, not from outraged morality. "Gentry like him think casual seduction is a game, yes? That they have the right to defile any woman they fancy?"
"Madame Gomez is a grown woman and I am not an abbess. Nor, if I may say so, are you, madame!" Feeling his face burning under her scorn, he lengthened his stride and stalked away.
Poor, foolish Gracia! All she needed was affection to support her in her bereavement, and she was not likely to find it in the fantasy world of Don Ramon. If Toby himself developed ambitions toward her, he could do nothing about them. So why this furious urge to punch a certain arrogant stuck-up nose until it sprayed blue blood all over its ridiculous mustache?
Yes, the company was coming together, if slowly, and on that fourth morning he had some reason for optimism as he strode along the column. He also had serious worries, because the last of his food had vanished the previous evening. Father Guillem admitted that the clerics were down to their last crumbs. The devastation of the Valencian countryside had been rumored in Toledo, but none of the pilgrims had comprehended the scale of it. There were no inhabitants to offer charity, no markets in which to shop, no crops to pillage. At noon Toby would have to propose that the haves start sharing with the have-nots, but he was hard put to see the four peasants doing that, while Salvador Brusi would expect to be recompensed liberally for every lentil they wrung out of him.
The don paraded in front with his squire, followed by Josep and Father Guillem, Pepita and Brother Bernat and Gracia, then old man Brusi and his horses, Senora Collel and Eulalia riding, and the two Elinors and Thunderbolt. Hamish, Rafael, and Miguel brought up the rear. Toby mostly patrolled back and forth, exhorting, encouraging, and keeping watch for stragglers — usually Pepita, who kept running off to search for berries or butterflies. Although he approved in general of the don's disposition of forces, he always tended to loiter near the center of the group, uneasy about that vulnerable midriff.
The sun still scorched as if it were summer. The country was a melange of overgrown pasture, weed-covered fields, burned hamlets, and groves of mutilated trees, a landscape broken up by walls and hedges and imperceptible ridges, a paradise for ambushers. It seemed deserted, but that was illusion. A sharp eye could gather evidence that people had used the road recently, and at sundown thin columns of smoke wrote warnings in the sky. Distant dogs barked in the night. Whoever the inhabitants might be, they were likely to be lawless and desperate. The calm was deceptive.
Around mid-morning, catching up with Brusi, Toby said, "Senor? Have you any idea of where we are? How many days to go?"
"No." The old man was hunched in the saddle like a bundle of sticks. "We still have not crossed the Ebro. It is utterly shameful to destroy olive trees like that. It takes many, many years to grow an olive tree. The destruction of wealth is mindless criminality."
"It is more shameful to destroy people, surely."
"People can run away, olive trees cannot. How will the cities prosper when the countryside has been blighted? The Fiend has destroyed what he has won. I do not see how he hopes to drive the Tartars out of Europe when he is worse than they ever were. He must be crazy."
"His purpose is not to liberate Europe. It is to inflict as much pain and suffering as possible." Toby knew he would not be believed, but the rich man's indifference to the plight of the poor enraged him. "He enjoys tormenting his own people as much as the enemy. I doubt he would accept the Khan's surrender were it offered. He is a demon incarnate — literally. I have that on very good authority."
The prune face wrinkled up in scorn. "Good authority? You? Some drunk in a tavern, I do not doubt. And you are privy to Nevil's secret strategy? I did not realize I was in the company of an international statesman. You are a worthy flunky for the don."
Toby shrugged and scanned the trees that had provoked the discussion. "It is not easy to kill an olive, senor. They will not burn. It is hard to uproot them. Most of these will recover sooner than the people will, for it takes twenty years to make a citizen. And the ash trees have not suffered."
He pointed to the coppice on the other side of the trail, a forest of massive, shoulder-high stumps, each of which bore a crown of high vertical shoots. Coppices provided tool handles and staves for many purposes, and the rebels had been able to inflict no more damage than a normal harvesting would.
Brusi looked where he gestured, and thus both of them were facing the trap when it was sprung. Weedy undergrowth had concealed the shallow stream bed that flanked the track and also concealed the dozen or so men hiding in it. They had planned their ambush well, letting the armed vanguard go past before they leaped up, yelling to panic the horses. They charged, brandishing cudgels and a few swords, screaming as loud as they could.
The horses did panic, naturally. Brusi's roan reared, toppling him back into the confusion of the pack animals he led. By that time Toby had already dropped his bundle and dived under the flailing hooves. He cut his sword free from its rope baldric and thrust the point into an assailant even before he himself was fully upright. He tugged it from the falling body and somehow managed to dodge a whirling club wielded by a skinny youth who reeled off-balance before him, staring eyes and open mouth in a stark white face, both hands struggling to swing the cudgel up for a second blow. Toby stabbed at his neck and connected again—blood! — only vaguely aware of the screaming women and horses behind him, the crash of bodies and animals meeting branches. He parried a slash and riposted. A man with white hair… blood!
The odds were impossible, because he was facing the whole assault singlehanded. His supporters at either end of the line needed time to arrive, and their progress was blocked by the melee of fallen horses and baggage. He lashed out with a foot, parried a sword, thrust his blade into a leg, and reconciled himself to dying at any second.
Then help arrived on Atropos. Ancient the warhorse might be, but he remembered his days of glory and for a few seconds made the ground tremble beneath mighty hooves. With a piercing war cry of, "King Pedro and Castile!" Don Ramon thundered down the line like a fusillade of cannon. His lance impaled a man and nailed him to another before it broke. Atropos bowled over two more and then went by, riderless. His shield still slung on his back, the ever-agile don hit the ground with his feet and a foe with his broadsword, cleaving helmet and head both. Oh, magnificent!
As the enemy faltered before this nemesis, Toby claimed another victim. The don cut yet another in half with a mighty two-handed stroke. Hamish, Rafael, and Miguel arrived from the rear, Josep and Father Guillem from the van, but by then the fight was finished and the survivors were crashing away through the coppice. The road was a litter of baggage and bodies — some dead, some wounded, not all strangers — and one injured horse. Eulalia sat in the weeds screaming hysterically. The rest of the horses had vanished into the olive grove, leaving a trail of sacks and garments. Toby bounded across the track to where Brusi's roan had entangled its reins on a branch and caught it before it broke free. He squirmed onto the saddle and prepared to go after the runaways. His last glimpse of the battlefield was of Hamish lifting Eulalia bodily to her feet and kissing her. Her screams choked off into silence.
Full gallop through an olive grove was an exciting exercise, because he had not yet managed to find the stirrups. Fortunately the rows of trees had been set wide apart so that the ground between them could be planted in grain, but branches still slashed along his back. Lying prone, he clung grimly to his mount's neck, concentrating on not dropping his sword. It was highly probable that the enemy would have posted men to catch the fleeing horses.
In moments he was through the grove and into open pasture, where the missing animals were bucking and milling, turning away from a line of people. He sat up, slid his feet into the stirrups, and put the roan into a charge at the foe. They had not expected this attack, but he saw with dismay that they were women. One of them was already wrestling with a horse, clinging to the reins and being lifted off her feet by its struggles. Howling the don's war cry — for he had none of his own — he headed straight for her, waving his sword, wondering if he could ever bring himself to cut a woman down in cold blood. She saw him coming and lost her grip on the horse. It ran free, she fell headlong, and Toby could ignore her. The others had already taken to their heels.
He rounded up the little herd, being aided by a timely whinny from the don's warhorse, which drew them in the right direction. Doña Francisca appeared on her pony and waved cheerfully. Between them, the two riders drove the stock back to the trail.
The emergency was over. A victory, he supposed. His greatest relief was that the hob had stayed out of it.
He had not been away for long, and the scene on the road had changed very little. The ground was still littered with baggage, and someone had put Senora Collel's packhorse out of its misery, but it was the litter of human corpses that appalled him. Only then did he understand how he had come to be so splattered with blood, his right arm especially, soaked to the elbow. His eyes shied away from counting the bodies and fixed instead on the circle of pilgrims. They were kneeling before Father Guillem as he declaimed words of comfort. Brother Bernat stood in the background with his head bowed.
Toby slid from his saddle and hitched the roan to a tree. His legs were curiously shaky. He stalked over to the group, arriving as the brief ceremony ended and the mourners rose to their feet. He stared in disbelief at the body, was conscious of everybody's eyes turning to look at him and odd murmurs that he could not take time to understand.
"How did that happen?" he said stupidly. He could not recall any of the enemy getting past him.
It was Josep who answered, a chalk-faced Josep with water on his cheeks and eyes like festering wounds. "He was thrown, senor."
Broken neck? Heart failure? The Council of One Hundred was down to ninety-nine. The rich man was a dead man, and all his wealth could not save him from that.
"I… Oh friend, I'm sorry!" Toby transferred his sword to his left hand and had started to offer his right before he realized that it was bright red and still sticky. He pulled it back hastily.
Josep nodded, smiled faintly in acknowledgment, and walked away as if he wanted to be alone.
"Captain!"
Toby jumped and turned to the don. He faced a man almost as blood-soaked as himself, but one who looked inches taller and years younger than usual. The blue eyes blazed with triumph and boyish glee. "A redoubtable passage of arms, Captain! Give me your sword!"
"What?" How many bodies? Eight? Nine? Spirits, but most of them were only boys, younger than himself. Three were silver-haired oldsters. The starving, desperate survivors of some community bereft of its fighting men.
A hand tried to take his sword, and Toby swung it away defensively. "What?"
"Kneel!" proclaimed the don.
"What?"
"Give me your sword and kneel! Here on this glorious field, I shall gird thee with the belt of knighthood, Sir Tobias! Such feats of valor and prowess as we have rarely seen shall not—"
Toby's temper exploded like a peal of thunder. "Don't play your stupid games with me!" he roared. "This wasn't valor and prowess, it was bloody murder! Look at them! They weren't soldiers. Half of them were only kids. Brusi's dead, Josep's father. You promised. You took his—"
He stopped himself just in time, seeing the instant change in the caballero's face, the coiling surge of madness. No, the don had not taken Brusi's money. His mother had, and he refused to know that. In any case, the old man's death had been an accident, so Toby was being unfair. But gleeful boy had become furious man already, reaching for his sword, and that would be a fight Toby could never win.
He bowed curtly. "Your pardon, senor. When we arrive at our destination there will be time enough for honors. Now we must… With respect, senor, the baggage must be collected and redistributed on the horses. The enemy may return. If the caballero will excuse me, I shall make arrangements for the burial and reorganize the train." He turned his back on the don's quivering rage and looked around the pale faces. "Anyone injured?"
"Senora de Gomez," Hamish said. What was wrong with Hamish? He'd seen violent death before, so why did he look like that? "She was badly shaken by her fall, but… but Brother Bernat healed her, Toby." His face was saying more than his words were. "Nobody else. Just bruises and scratches."
"Healed her? Oh. Well, that's good." Something else to think about. Meanwhile they must bury the old man, gather up their litter, and move on, although he doubted there would be any reprisals after such a massacre. The survivors would come and bury their own dead. "Manuel, Rafael — either of you know anything about butchering?"
They both shook their heads, but that meant little, and he could do it himself if necessary. The food problem had been solved for the time being. They could eat horse today and tomorrow and every day until it began to rot.
"We owe our lives to you, Senor Toby," Josep said solemnly. He was walking, leading his two packhorses, because he had given his father's roan to Senora Collel to replace hers. "Without you we should have lost all the livestock, and then none of us could ever reach Barcelona."
"That is nonsense!" Toby had explained this four times already to other people and apparently had to explain it again. "It was the don who saved the day, not me. Without him, I was about to die. Without me, he would still have beaten them. He is the finest fighting man I have ever seen — he put a destrier at full gallop through a riot like a seamstress sliding a needle through cloth."
"You killed more men than he did."
"I had more time."
"He had a horse and a lance."
"Honestly, that made very little difference. He is a fighter, I'm just a big lad. Josep, this I swear — if you matched up the two us with the same arms, he would skin me as nimbly as he skinned the horse!"
The don had attended to the butchery, asserting that the dead animal was the handsomest ten-point stag he had seen in years and explaining all the time to his helpers, the two Elinors, the joys of hunting boar. Fortunately, they would have understood little of his Castilian. Mad or not, he was as skilled with a skinning knife as he was with a broadsword.
Josep smiled disbelievingly. "I do not know on what terms Don Ramon hired you that morning we met, senor, but when I pay him off at my door, I shall give you the same amount I give him, and gladly. My father's death is not to be laid to the fault of either of you."
Toby swallowed a twinge of pride he could not afford and thanked him for this unwarranted generosity. He and Hamish might not starve in the gutters of Barcelona after all, or not immediately.
Josep shot another thin smile at him. "You think the spendthrift boy will soon fritter away the Brusi fortune. You may be right, Tobias, but I am convinced that the most valuable aid a man of business can have — apart from a reputation for honesty, of course — is a team of trustworthy employees. If you will be seeking work in Barcelona, I shall outbid anyone else for your services."
"The senor requires a strong porter?"
The thin boyish face flushed scarlet. "That was not what I meant! Many of our workers have fled or were slain in the fighting and must be replaced. I will make you foreman in our warehouse without a moment's hesitation. Do you wish to discuss wages now?"
"No, senor, but I am even more grateful than I realized."
Brusi's offer was certainly better than his father's had been, and much more appealing than Senora Collel's lascivious hints. The oak tree had fallen. Josep had escaped from his father's shadow and was starting to flourish already.
He was not alone — unexpected death had given the whole band new life, a sense of comradeship. The men had shared in the digging, laying Salvador Brusi to rest by the roadside in an unmarked grave. Toby had put Hamish in charge of reloading the pack animals, and when he called a halt and announced that everything remaining must be left where it was or manhandled, there had not been one word of protest, even from Manuel and Rafael. Now everyone was chattering excitedly to everyone else. Long might it last!
They did not go far that day, for they came upon a deserted casa. The unroofed walls still enclosed a courtyard that would hold both people and horses and could be defended if necessary. Toby proposed that they spend the night there, although the hour was not far past noon. The don frowned and then conceded that some of the auxiliaries might need time to reorganize.
They built a fire and feasted together on horseflesh, tough, stringy, and delicious. Toby could not recall the last time he had eaten roast meat and tried not to recall the last time he had smelled it, in the orange grove. The ensuing luxury of just relaxing for a few hours was almost as welcome as the feast — his suggestion of a break from travel had been a good one for both people and horses. He had pickets to think about, of course, and he must insist on some more lessons in using quarterstaffs… later.
In the lazy heat of late afternoon, he had two curious conversations.
The first was when he was summoned by the don, who was sitting on a sawhorse stripped to his shirt so his squire could shave him.
"Captain," he announced grandly, "I have decided to appoint you campeador of Nuñez y Pardo. Henceforth you will receive a one-twentieth share of the rewards. You may divide this with your own men or not, as you please."
Toby thought he might feel very honored if he knew what a campeador was. He exchanged astonished glances with Doña Francisca, expressed humble thanks, and said, "What rewards, senor?"
Mild surprise. "Plunder from the cities we sack, of course. And ransoms, when we grant quarter to persons of quality."
"The hidalgo is most generous."
"Not at all. You and your minions fought with distinction today." Don Roman shrugged, which almost caused his mother to cut his throat. "The musketry was perhaps not up to my usual standards. See that it improves."
"Yes, senor." Was that madness in the blue eyes or mockery?
"I have also," the don continued, "been considering our future campaigns when the Barcelona operation is completed. You are an Englishman?"
"According to the English I am, senor. In Scotland we disagree on the matter."
"But you do speak English?"
What Toby called English the English called Scots, but the don was not waiting to know that. "Little better than I speak Castilian, senor."
"That bad? But you are not a supporter of King Nevil?" The copper eyebrows rose inquiringly. Behind his shoulder, Doña Francisca was gaping. Whatever her son had in mind had not been shared with her.
"No, senor. I despise him and detest him."
"Ah." That was apparently welcome news. "But Barcelona is his."
"I am only a landless freeman, senor. I cannot depose the master of half of Europe. Affairs of kings are not mine to question." The Earl of Argyll would not concede that he was even a freeman.
"Hmm. Nevil's viceroy rules in Barcelona, the notorious Oreste." The don stared away at the bright courtyard and the blue sky overhead. "My own position is problematic. My estates lie in that part of La Mancha that King Pedro was forced to cede to the rebels. It would seem that my fealty now lies with King Nevil."
Toby exchanged more puzzled glances with Doña Francisca.
"I cannot presume to advise the honored hidalgo."
The young man chuckled as if that were a ludicrous suggestion. He continued to study the skies, perhaps watching the lonely kites that had been passing overhead ever since the massacre. "Of course not. But tell me, Campeador… You are a brave man, even if you are of insignificant birth. Have you ever considered the purpose of life? I realize that you cannot have the sense of honor and duty that your betters have, but you appear to have some sort of perception of… well, manhood."
"You flatter me, senor." You also confuse the blazes out of me.
"And you must have a rudimentary concept of ethical principles."
"I hope I do."
"Have you ever contemplated the possibility of striking a great blow for righteousness?" The mad gaze turned back to Toby. "Of making some demonstration of your, um, manhood, that would make your life remembered, even at the cost of making it short? Of offering yourself as a sacrifice to a noble cause, in other words?"
Could even Don Ramon imagine that he stood a chance against a paramount hexer like Oreste, with his demonic bodyguards? A bloody head rolled across the boards of the scaffold…
Toby took a moment to rein in stampeding thoughts. "If the cause were great enough and the chances of success reasonable, then any man should see it as his duty, senor."
The don sneered and turned his head away, almost losing an ear to the razor. "Reasonable? What sort of quibble is that? Reasonable? Any slight possibility that it not be impossible should suffice. I see I misjudged you, Campeador. You may go."
Toby was very glad to go. The don was not merely mad, he was dangerously mad.
And so, perhaps, were certain others in the party. Hamish had been babbling strange nonsense about Gracia's injuries and recovery. Gracia herself had apparently accepted Don Ramon's view of the world, because she now spoke breathlessly of his vast estates and the high honor in which his friend the king held him — which confirmed that the noble lord's honor was distressingly malleable where women were concerned.
And then there was Brother Bernat.
It was time for a serious talk with Brother Bernat.
Toby found him in a shaded corner behind a shed, sitting on the ground with his back turned, so that only his pink scalp with its downy fringe was visible — that and the gray cowl covering his narrow shoulders. In front of him lay a block of building stone like a low table, with Pepita on the far side of it, facing Toby but too engrossed to notice him. They were both very intent on something. It could only be some sort of child's game, yet their concentration was so intense that he hesitated to interrupt.
Then he saw that the girl rested her hand on the stone with a crumb held in her tiny fingers. The minute brown speck creeping toward it over the gray stone was a mouse. Or perhaps it was a vole or a dormouse or something exclusively Spanish. It looked like a mouse, but it was displaying unmouselike courage, inching forward, nose and tail twitching. Toby, too, held his breath.
The mouse came to a halt and stretched out like dough until its nose could inspect the crumb. Satisfied, it took a few more steps, and gently lifted the crumb from the child's fingertips, then sat up on its haunches to nibble at it. With agonizing slowness, she slid a finger around and stroked its back. Toby stared in disbelief.
The spell broke. Mouse and crumb flashed away and were gone. An immense grin split Pepita's little elfin face from side to side. Her tiny fists clenched with glee and drummed on the stone. It had certainly been a remarkable trick.
"I did it!" she whispered excitedly.
"You did indeed," answered the old friar. "Very well done!"
She looked up and gasped in dismay. Fear! Guilt!
"It is only Captain Tobias," Brother Bernat said without turning. "He can be trusted."
Toby stepped forward and sat down at the end of the big stone. He stared into those strangely clear eyes, dark agates in a face of ancient marble. "And how did you know it was me, Brother?"
"I knew you would be at the corner, and I could see the angle of her head. No one else is so tall."
An unlikely explanation. There was much secret amusement in the old man's smile, but Pepita was staring anxiously at the big stranger.
He said, "I should like to have a word with you if I may."
"Have as many as you wish, my son. Don't mind Pepita. She doesn't gossip either." His voice was as soft as gossamer.
"Some do." Toby cursed himself as soon as he said the words.
A twinge of sorrow flashed over Bernat's face. "Whatever the senora said about me, she does not understand the truth of the situation." He had been put on the defensive, though, and that was disturbing.
But Toby was feeling defensive, also. To hint at gossip was even worse than repeating it.
"I put no stock in her babbling. What brings me is something that Hamish… Jaume, that is… Jaume insists that Senora de Gomez was seriously hurt when she fell from her horse today. This is not surprising, considering how high those seats are. He says she was unconscious, her face was flushed, her eyes were open and the pupils dilated. Her breath was harsh and irregular, her pulse very slow. He says these symptoms exactly match some that he once read about, so he knew she was very likely to die and he could nothing for her. He went to assist Senora Collel and found that she had escaped with a twisted ankle. The next time he looked at Senora de Gomez, you were helping to her feet. She was a little shaken but not badly hurt."
Brother Bernat smiled again. How could anyone so old endure these long marches, these hardships, the alarms of today's battle, all without at least looking tired? But he never looked tired. He never ran around like a puppy either, but he was no fresher in the mornings than he was at night. And he rarely bore any expression other than a tolerant smile. He made Toby feel like an obstreperous, bad-mannered child.
"Sergeant Jaume must have made an error, you mean? This disturbs you. Is he prone to errors?" The smile widened, displaying very white teeth — apparently a complete set, too.
"He is not prone to errors. I am disinclined to believe he made one today."
The friar looked at Pepita, who returned his smile hesitantly. When he spoke, though, he was plainly addressing Toby.
"And you decided it was time for a serious chat with the old man?"
Suppressing a bad-mannered, obstreperous desire to growl, Toby said, "Yes I did, Brother."
Brother Bernat turned to him again, but this time he was not smiling. "I am sorry if my manners annoy you, my son. I have had them so long that they are hard to change, but I know that I tend to counter questions with other questions. I have wandered the world a long time, and it is a dangerous place. One learns discretion or one stops wandering."
"I have no wish to pry!" That was a lie.
"You have a right to pry, because the security of all of us rests on your judgment. I think I can help you with your problem, Tobias."
Toby flinched. "My problem?"
The smile crept back, but there was no mirth in it. An attempt at reassurance, perhaps. Sympathy, possibly. "I have no problem except my manners. But you do. You ask questions, I answer with other questions, and you don't answer at all, which is your right. But it gets us nowhere. I think I can help you, but only if you will tell me the whole story. Everything." There was Toledo steel inside that cobwebby exterior.
"I—"
"You are not ready to do that, so it will have to wait. But don't wait too long, please. The sands will run out quickly once they start to go." He lifted a pale and slender hand to indicate he had not finished. His eyes bore their disturbing stare again, as if he were looking inside Toby's head. "Just answer me one thing, my son. How long has it been?"
"I don't have the faintest idea what… Three years, Brother."
The friar winced as if that news was disastrous. "So you were what, sixteen? Seventeen?"
"Eighteen." They were talking about the hob, although Toby had no idea how that had come into the conversation. It was the last thing he ever discussed.
Brother Bernat shook his head in dismay. "You have done very well to last as long as you have, then. Don't wait much longer, Tobias, please!"
He was crazier than the don, that was all.
"Wait for what? What do you mean about doing well to last?"
The clear dark eyes told him his denials did not convince.
"You are going to go insane very shortly. I think you know that, and know what will follow. It is amazing that you have lasted so long. I am surprised it did not happen today in the turmoil of the fight. You must have nerves like granite, my son."
Toby made half a move to rise and then hesitated. "I don't know what you mean, Brother."
"Fear, Tobias. Or rage. Hatred." The dark eyes widened. "Any sort of strong passion. You must avoid them. Great remorse, also."
Mezquiriz? He could not know about Mezquiriz! He must not know about Mezquiriz!
Toby jumped up and strode away, and if that was not rage he was feeling, it was fear.
The room was dim, with walls and floor of dark stone and a heavy-beamed ceiling high enough to be lost in shadow. Its stifling heat came from a fireplace at one end, which provided almost as much light as the two small, high-set windows at the other. Three men garbed in the simple brown hose and doublets of common workers waited patiently at the cool end. They were all burly and muscular, but nothing else could be known about them, for their heads were concealed in black bags. Once in a while one of them would move so that a glitter of eyes showed behind the eye holes.
A table along one side bore two tall candlesticks and a green crucifix inlaid with colored jewels, too large to be anything but colored glass. Behind the table sat three elderly men in the white supplicars and black robes of Dominicans, the Black Friars, all with their hoods back to display their tonsures, all sweating profusely. The one on the left fumbled endlessly through a pile of papers and parchments. The one on the right kept scribbling in a large book, recording the proceedings with a quill pen that he dipped from time to time in a silver inkwell. Two shaven-head novices stood at the door opposite.
In the exact center of the room hung a rope.
On one side of it stood a soldier holding a musket erect beside him, and he must be the most uncomfortable person present, because he wore a thickly-padded blue doublet, black breeches, and a polished wide-brimmed helmet, and was burdened with sword, ramrod, slow match, powder horn, shot bag, and the other paraphernalia of the professional military. He looked utterly miserable, as if this was one of the worst days of his life, and perhaps more than the heat was responsible for that.
On the other side of the rope stood Toby, stinking of his jail cell. He was trying to hold up his head with a show of courage he did not feel while he glared stubbornly at the friar in the center, the one in charge, the inquisitor.
His name was Father Vespianaso. He was a frail-seeming, elderly man, with a thin white tonsure, thick black eyebrows, and a close-trimmed, piebald beard. His eyes were red-rimmed and droopy, full of such sadness that they must have viewed all the sorrows of the world. A sagging blister of flesh under each of them was the only padding on his face, which otherwise was only a skull wrapped in skin so dry that it seemed ready to crack and flake away completely.
He looked up from the document he had been reading for the last ten minutes.
"Is the accused now ready to disavow his demon and reveal its name so that it may be cast out?"
Toby understood most of the proceedings and knew that particular question by heart, but the Inquisition had its rules, and the presence of an interpreter during the examination of foreigners was one of them. He waited until the soldier translated.
"The inquisitor asks if the accused is now ready to disavow his demon and reveal its name so that it may be cast out." His English was not much easier to understand than the original Castilian. His vivid blue eyes stared fixedly ahead, as if trying to see through the prisoner's chest.
"Tell him I do not have a demon."
The friar had heard that familiar protest many times during the last four days. "Tobias, Tobias!" He shook his head sadly. "If the accused will not confess, he must be put to the Question."
Toby understood that only too well. Examination of a suspect went through clearly defined stages. They had begun three days ago in a cheerful, airy room upstairs. The questioning had grown steadily harsher and more menacing until, at the end of yesterday's session, they had brought him down to this cellar and shown him the whips and branding irons, the pulleys in the ceiling, the funnels for water torture, and the ladder-like grid to which the victim would be tied during their use. Today they had brought him straight to this chamber, where the fire was already lit and the three tormentors waited. That had been at least two hours ago. So far the tormentors had done nothing more than stoke the fire.
What was the question this time? Didn't matter.
"I do not have a demon. If I did, how could I possibly cast it out? Does he think I would voluntarily harbor a demon? Does he think such a demon would tell me its name? I do not have a demon!"
No demon, no name. Of course the hob would count as a demon in the inquisitors' eyes — at times Toby himself found the distinction fuzzy.
There was no way out of this trap. They had explained it to him many times, being patient, aggressive, understanding, and menacing by turns. A demon could only be controlled by its name, so the accused must reveal it. If he refused, he must be forced to comply. If he still would not talk or did not know the demon's name, then the demon must be driven out of him by making it suffer. That, unfortunately, meant making the accused suffer, but suffering was better than possession, wasn't it? Supposedly an incarnate would keep its husk alive, or at least operational, indefinitely. The only way a man could prove that he was not possessed was to die.
Another question.
Same answer: "I do not have a demon!" He must keep to the same answer. How much did they know? How sure were they? Demons could detect the hob in him, so was the inquisitor himself possessed? A demon looking for employment would find nothing more congenial to its tastes than being an officer of the Inquisition. But it didn't matter whether they were guessing or certain or had just chosen him at random. Once they started asking questions, they could never admit they had picked on the wrong man. There was no escape.
The inquisitor held out a paper.
Carrying his musket, the soldier marched three paces to the table to take it, then brought it back and held it up in front of the prisoner. "The inquisitor asks if the accused recognizes this notice."
The accused did, and his sweat turned cold in the heat. The paper was a smudged and tattered poster dated October 1519. The woodcut it bore was a crude drawing of himself as a youth, but a good likeness considering that it had been done from memory. The inscription in both Scots and Gaelic outlined the Parliamentary act of attainder that declared him to be possessed by a demon. It also proclaimed a reward of five thousand marks for anyone who brought in his corpse with a blade through the heart.
How had they gotten ahold of that? They had not produced that poster before, or even mentioned it. He found his voice, although it sounded strange to him.
"It lies."
The inquisitor did not wait for the translation. "But the accused does recognize it?"
The soldier translated the question and Toby's reply: "I have never seen it before. I was told about it. It lies. Whoever wrote it was lying."
Other people had been lying also, members of the pilgrim band, but he had not been told which. They had all been interrogated at the roadblock — questioned separately, most of them several times. Whatever slanders might have been spoken could be only their word against his, but that poster was damning. Who could argue against an act of Parliament? The one person who might have passed that paper to the Inquisition was Baron Oreste, because he had been responsible for it in the first place.
The interpreter returned the paper to the table and came back to thump the butt of his musket on the floor beside the prisoner and deliver the next translation.
"The inquisitor says that the evidence is strong enough to force a confession. This is the accused's last chance to repent. If the accused does not name his demon, he will now be put to the Question."
The soldier still did not meet Toby's eyes. He might be a decent enough fellow when off-duty, perhaps popular with his mates, a good singer, or skilled with women, homesick for England, planning to buy a freehold with his loot, if he ever laid his hands on any, if the war would ever end… any or all of those things. But now he was very much on duty and would do what he was told to do whether he liked it or not. He had no choice; this was not his fault. If he disobeyed an order he would be hanged or whipped to shreds, or his fate might be worse than either of those, because to argue with the Inquisition was itself evidence of possession.
Sweat streamed down Toby's face and ribs although there was a huge icy rock in his belly. "Tell him I do not have a demon. He is making a terrible mistake. He is going to torture an innocent man."
Even as the soldier was translating the prisoner's answer into a Castilian little better than Toby's own, the inquisitor beckoned to the three black-hooded tormentors who had been standing silently under the windows with brawny arms folded, waiting out the interminable preliminaries. The prospect of action at last must seem welcome to them, because they strode forward eagerly, crowding in close around the accused. He struggled to relax, to enjoy these last few moments without pain, but he knew he had passed up one faint chance. He should have run to the far end and grabbed up a branding iron or something and tried to break out. He would not have succeeded, but perhaps a misjudged blow would have broken his neck. Now he was hemmed in, and it was too late.
"The accused will remove all his garments."
Was this it, or just a bluff? Toby glanced at the menacing black hoods closing in, and their sinister dark eye holes. Three to one. They were all smaller men than he, but they might well be faster. Resistance would only bring violence and increase his suffering, although he suspected he did not know what real suffering was yet — the inquisitor was about to teach him.
Unless it was only a bluff. The interrogation had advanced in slow stages, so they would probably just frighten him today and start the real hurting tomorrow. He shrugged and reached for the laces of his doublet.
When he had stripped, one of the novices took away his clothes. The tormentors roped his wrists behind him and clamped fetters on his ankles. The pulley overhead jangled. Calloused hands fumbled at his back, fastening the rope to his bonds.
It did not feel like a bluff. They were going to begin with the strappado. Oh, spirits!
How long would the hob make him endure? It had never cared how much he suffered — it had done nothing on the two occasions he had been whipped and had once let him be beaten to a pulp in a fight so vicious that his opponent had died under his fists. It had not interfered at all, except possibly to keep him alive, and if it did start to intervene now, that would merely prove to the friars that they had been right all along.
"Tobias," the inquisitor sighed. He spoke again through the English soldier. "The accused is a strong man, but a heavy one. This will hurt the accused and may do him permanent damage. The brothers do not wish to make the accused suffer. They have his interests at heart, and they will persevere for however long it takes. The accused must tell them the name of his demon so they may cast it out and he will be a free man again."
The soldier's pink face was streaming sweat as he fumbled through to the end of that speech. He still did not look at the accused's eyes.
Toby bit back a savage desire to tell the venerable cleric to stuff his own head into a certain dark place — they would merely see abuse as confirmation of his possession. He blinked the sweat away and looked at the other two friars, who stared back sympathetically. But neither was going to help him. They mourned his plight. They thought that they knew the only way to save him from it. He was not a person any more, he was only the accused.
He tried to speak calmly, but the words came out as a shriek: "I do not have a demon!"
The inquisitor shook his head wearily and gestured. The tormentors pulled on the rope. The rope lifted Toby's wrists. He bent forward, but the pull continued. His arms rose inexorably, curling him over until his head was level with his waist, and then his shoulders could flex no more. He rose on his toes. The friar said a word, and the men stopped hauling. There Toby was held, gasping with the strain. He would not scream. He would not cry out. He must not admit anything at all. Nothing but denial.
The friar spoke again. "The inquisitor asks—"
He cut off the translation with a yell. "I do not have a demon!"
He waited.
So did they.
They had all day, and tomorrow and next week and forever. His toes were weakening. His toes were about all he could see — his legs, his toes on the flagstones, and little splashes in the dust as sweat dripped from his hair. His toes were failing, setting more and more of his weight on his twisted shoulders. Hot knives of pain dug in, twisting joints in ways they were not supposed to move, prying ligaments awry.
Head down, he could not see the gestures, so it was a surprise when the rope suddenly slackened. Somehow he retained his balance on his bound feet and let his arms down. The relief was so intense that he gasped aloud and felt that he had failed his manhood by doing so. Panting hard, he straightened up to face the inquisitor.
He croaked, "I do not have a demon!"
The friar smiled sadly and nodded to the two novices at the door. They came forward and wiped Toby's face with a white cloth, then held a pewter cup to his lips. He drank eagerly of the tepid water. It was refilled and he emptied it again.
The inquisitor said, "The accused has barely tasted what will happen. He must reveal the name of his demon or his sufferings will be a thousand times worse than what he has just experienced."
Toby stared into those droopy, bleary eyes, so full of sympathy and understanding. He spoke to them with all the sincerity he could muster and a mouth that was dry as salt again already. "Tell the venerable father that I know that. Tell him I am more terrified than I have ever been in my life. Tell him I will do anything he wants, anything at all, but I cannot reveal the name of a demon that does not exist."
The soldier translated. The brother with the quill scribbled busily, periodically dipping his pen in the inkwell with fast little strokes like a chicken pecking dirt. He turned a page, dipped again, wrote more.
The inquisitor nodded unhappily as if the answer had been exactly what he expected. He looked past the prisoner, to the waiting tormentors.
"Take me to a sanctuary!" Toby yelled. "The spirit will tell you that I don't have a demon!"
Maybe it wouldn't, but that was what an innocent man would say. It might not work in his case, but it would delay the torture. An hour's reprieve would be worth anything he could imagine, even ten minutes. He knew it would not work, of course. He had made the suggestion many times in the previous, more gentle interrogations. The Dominicans did not trust the spirits, or spirits would not cooperate with the Dominicans — whatever the reason, the request was always refused.
The inquisitor ignored the suggestion. The rope tightened again, bringing instant protests from Toby's shoulders. His arms rose, and so did the pain. Soon he was up on cramped, bleeding toes again. And higher still. His feet left the floor, leaving all his weight hung on his cruelly twisted arms. The strain bent his spine, crushed his shoulder blades together, wrenched wrists and elbows, but it was in his shoulders that the real agony blazed. He would not cry out. Oh, spirits, spirits! He had made no sound when he was chained to Sergeant Mulliez's whipping post, and he would make none now. He gasped for breath, but he would not cry out. Never!
He spun slowly, seeing the flagstones rotate below his toes. They pulled him higher, every heave and jolt a greater agony. He was going to lose control of his bladder soon. When they had raised him until his face was at head height — so they could watch his expression, perhaps — they tied the rope to a bracket, leaving him there.
How long, spirits, how long would they keep him up here?
Pain, pain, pain! This was much worse than any flogging. It was worse than his prizefight against Randal, much, much worse. How long had that lasted? An hour? Probably less, and yet it had seemed like a lifetime. Then he had at least been able to fight back, draw strength from anger, even cling to a faint hope of surviving and winning. Enduring the floggings had been only a matter of counting, knowing that each lash was one less to come. Here there was no hope at all. This would go on forever, hob versus friars. Their patience was inexhaustible and the hob immortal. The longer he survived, the more obvious his guilt.
He did not see the command given to release the knot. He fell to the stone, striking feet and toppling onto his face, uttering a startled yell. Oh, the relief! The agony was still intense, fire in his bones, but not as bad. Nothing could be that bad.
Really? They had barely started.
The young novices lifted him to his knees. Murmuring solicitously, they wiped the sweat and dirt from his face and dabbed blood from his bitten lip. They gave him water. He was shaking so hard he could barely drink, his teeth chattering on the cup.
"The inquisitor asks if the accused is ready to reveal—"
He had nothing to lose now. "He is a pig-faced, shit-eating son of a thousand fathers! All the rest of you are cowardly, dog-fornicating—"
A wooden bar was dragged between his teeth, ending his speech before he had even warmed up. The tormentors must have been standing behind him with the bit ready, so they had known exactly how he would react at this point in the proceedings, and that was a dismal reminder of how expert they were at their job. They stretched his mouth as wide as it would go and tied the rod in place with a knot behind his head. His arms began to rise again, bringing instant pain. He lurched to his feet, but the relief was momentary. Soon he was back where he had been, twirling around giddily, suffering more of the excruciating agony.
Silence.
Terrible, unendurable silence as the nine pairs of eyes watched him, waited for him to nod, to scream, to do anything. He just hung there, turning. He would not scream!
Silence. Pain.
Pain. Silence. It was very, very hard not to whimper. He drooled, because he could not swallow. How long must this go on?
Forever. It seemed like hours, days, weeks, but it could have been only ten or fifteen minutes.
"The inquisitor says that if the accused is ready to reveal the name of his demon, he should nod his head."
The accused ignored the invitation.
The friars rose to their feet, gathered up their papers, and marched solemnly out from behind the table, past the prisoner, over to the door. The novices followed them out, and the door shut with a heavy thud. Only the prisoner remained with the interpreter and the three tormentors. There was nothing more to do until he had been made to see reason.
One of the tormentors said something and the others laughed. He gave Toby a push, making him spin faster.
"This one is strong. He will give us many days' work."
"But he should be screaming by now," said another, who sounded young. "Let's beat him on his cojones." He pushed, sending Toby swinging.
"That's against the rules," said the third, shoving him back like a child on a swing.
"Father Vespianaso is not here to see."
"No, we save that for later, when he is jaded and can appreciate it."
They kept this up for a while, shoving him, spinning him, thumping him on the back to jar his shoulders. Little of their mockery reached through to Toby, locked away in his furnace of agony, but what he did hear turned some of his terror to anger and so gave him strength. Swine! Contemptible cowards!
"It is ridiculous that he is not screaming."
"This is true. Why should the friars enjoy their tapas in peace when we have to keep working?"
Two of them took hold of the rope and began pulling and letting go, bouncing him up and down. That was the worst yet, every jerk sending waves of agony through his shoulders. He tried to concentrate on counting the jolts: five, six, seven… but he soon lost track. Every breath came out as a groan. Despite everything he could do to keep still, his feet flailed in their fetters, jangling chain, tearing skin.
The bouncing stopped.
"Why does the man not scream?" the young one said. "He insults us."
"You are right," said the leader. "We will not wait for the friars. Foreigner! Tell him again."
The soldier said, "The accused may nod if he is ready to reveal the name of his demon-I-can't-do-nothing-mate."
That helped. It wasn't much, but somehow that tiny hint that someone appreciated his efforts did help a little. Toby shook his head to show the soldier that he understood. He could lie, of course, and he might get away with it once, because they would have to take the gag out for a moment to hear what he wanted to say, but to start lying would be a confession that they had broken him. The hob had no name.
Without untying the rope from the bracket, all three tormentors began hauling together, raising him higher. Round and round he turned, looking down now at the vacant table with its two candles and its crucifix, the three strong men straining to support his weight, their knuckles white on the rope, eyes shining through the eye holes of their hoods as they waited for the right moment.
Wait for it. Wait for it!
He was not going to cry out. He knew what was coming, but he would not cry out.
They were making him wait for it, another last chance to repent. He could nod his head and escape what was coming. He didn't.
Wait for it.
The tormentors let go. He dropped to the end of his tether. He heard things tearing in his shoulders and a universe of pain exploded through him.
He screamed.
No, he had not known what pain was. He screamed and screamed, swinging on dislocated shoulders, turning faster than before, barely able to suck in enough air around the gag to scream again. He soiled himself. Blood dribbled from his mouth. He continued to scream.
Why had he ever been born?
No! No! They were raising him again. How many times? As many times as it took to make him tell what he could not tell. As many times as it took to tear every ligament, break the joints, make his arms completely useless. He had been stupidly proud of his strength and now he would not be able to lift a crust to his lips. Then they would start on his hips, or his toes, or his fingers. Or bring out the hot irons.
They dropped him again.
He heard something break, but he could scream no louder.
The soldier had withdrawn to the window end of the room and was leaning his face against the wall, unwilling or unable to watch any more. The tormentors stood chatting among themselves, as men did when they worked together — discussing women, the price of wine, the bullfight. Whenever the prisoner's screams began to fade, they pulled him up again and dropped him, each time a little farther than before. Agony! More cracking and tearing. How could the pain be even greater when it had already been more than he could stand or have ever imagined?
And again.
And again.
He was stretched out on the stone floor, staring up at the black hoods with their evil eye holes. Unclear how that had happened… perhaps fainted? There was no false gentleness now. Two of the tormentors were leaning on his broken shoulders, pressing him down on his bound arms while the third emptied a jar of water on his face. Some of it went in around the gag, making him choke and writhe. The soldier knelt at his side. The friars were back, peering down sadly at the wreckage.
"The inquisitor says that if the accused is ready to reveal the name of his demon, he should nod his head."
They would have to take the gag out, if only for a moment. He would be able to swallow at least once. They might even leave it out if he behaved, although he should not count on that mercy. But then they would all know that he was broken. After that he would be only warm meat. That tiny defiance was all that was left of Toby Longdirk, of him, of the person who was more than a lump of meat. He shook his head.
"The inquisitor warns the accused that the pain will be increased."
One tormentor held the prisoner immobile by pressing on the ends of the bar in his mouth while the others lashed stone weights to his ankles.
His arms were free. The gag was gone. "Senor, what is the matter?" Wasn't that Eulalia's voice? Grass? Horrified faces against the sky: Josep, Miguel… Hamish shouting, "Demons, Toby, what's wrong?"
"What is going on? Stand aside!" ordered Don Ramon.
Everyone scrambled out of the way, leaving only Hamish kneeling there, holding the leather water bottle to Toby's mouth.
He choked and spluttered and spat out blood. He was flat on his back on the grass and could not even think of rising — to do so would mean moving his arms. His throat was so raw with screaming that he could not speak, but he could laugh, a pathetic little animal whimper of laughter to celebrate his escape from the Inquisition. It might not work this way when the events really happened, sometime in the future, but it was real now. What he had just endured had been only another vision. He was safely back with the pilgrims and could worry about the Dominicans another day. Life was worth living again.
"We do not know what happened, senor!" That was Josep, his voice shrill with worry. "We were rounding up the horses and the captain cried out and fell. We ran over at once. He seems to be injured."
Now there was a massive understatement! Would he ever lift his arms again? Both shoulders burned and throbbed savagely, but the left was worse than the right, not just more painful but distorted, as if the bone was out of its socket. What sort of protector was he now? Two days since Salvador Brusi died, two days of being a hero to them, and now he was a useless cripple. How long would the pain be this bad?
"I was only a few paces from him, senor." That was Gracia. "He just dropped."
"Well, sit him up."
Toby made croaking noises and shook his head violently.
"It may well be that a demon has cursed him!" the don announced, and his audience moaned fearfully. "Bring Father Guillem."
Hamish laid a hand on the patient's forehead. "I believe it may be a sudden fever, senor. Perhaps Brother Bernat could be summoned? He is skilled at healing."
The chorus backed away, for memories of the plague were still strong in Aragon.
"We shall send both," said the don. "Collect the horses. Strike camp. We cannot wait here all day. Load the wounded into the hospital wagons."
The pilgrims ran. In a moment there was only Hamish kneeling there in the field, his face pallid with worry under his deep tan, lank hair dangling over his eyes. "Another vision?"
Toby grunted and nodded.
"It could only have lasted a couple of seconds. I saw you."
"No! Longer." He had spent at least three nights in the stinking cell. The torture had started on the fourth day of questioning — and lasted about a hundred years. Couple of seconds?
"Your beard's thicker!"
Toby started to raise a hand and stopped instantly, grimacing. "Uh?"
Hamish produced a smile that looked as if it had been slept in. "Remember we agreed we'd know it was the hob doing it if your beard came back? Well, you've got a lot more stubble than you had ten minutes ago. Several days? A week? Can't say. Don't know if anyone else will notice. If they do, they just won't believe their eyes, so it won't matter."
Did that mean anything? Was it part of the warning, a hint that he had a few days or at most a week until the torture began? A man could grow a beard and shave it off every month for years. He did not know when the vision had been, nor where. In a town, yes, because he had heard city noises from his cell window, but Barcelona or some other?
Hamish rose. "Here comes Brother Bernat. Do I tell him?"
"Just him," Toby whispered. He closed his eyes for a moment, ignoring voices. It was hard to think through the pain. He could probably walk if he was on his feet and had both arms in slings — it would be getting there that would be the problem.
What he needed to know was how the Inquisition was going to catch him and how to avoid that fate, but all he had were his memories of that hour or so in the torture chamber — plus a few vaguer memories of memories. When he was shown the poster, he had been thinking that someone betrayed him… pilgrims, these pilgrims. There had been other interrogations… in a tent? Recalling those moments of dread and defeat when he had stripped naked before the watching tormentors and inquisitors, he realized that he had been removing the same shabby hose and doublet he wore now. The future he had foreseen was not very far off. Less than a week's beard. This was the same beard, grown longer, not next month's beard or next year's beard.
None of this made sense! His shoulders were going to take months to heal — if they ever would heal properly — and yet there had been nothing wrong with them until the thugs began systematically wrecking him. His vision of the future seemed to have made itself impossible. Madness!
Last night, around the campfire, the pilgrims had agreed that it could not be long now, a day or two at the most, until they reached the Ebro, the greatest river in Spain, and the only one of any size between Valencia and Barcelona. They would have to cross it on the bridge at Tortosa, which was a large town. Large enough to have an office of the Inquisition, perhaps. And where better to apprehend a suspect you have a picture of than on a bridge he must cross?
A shadow fell over his face. He opened his eyes to see the emaciated old friar kneeling beside him. He sensed that Pepita was there, inevitably, but Hamish had been sent away.
"This gramarye has injured you, my son — where?"
"Shoulders," Toby whispered. "Strappado."
Brother Bernat drew in his breath in surprise. "Who did this?"
"The Inquisition, Brother."
"Ah, a great evil! And your speech? Sore throat! Let me tend that first. Relax as much as you can and do not be afraid."
Dry, cool fingers clasped Toby's neck. He felt a tingle, then a strange sensation like ice water soaking through his flesh. The fires died away to a lingering ache. Even his torn mouth stopped hurting. Spirits! This was gramarye as potent as any he had ever met.
"Is that better?"
"Much better, Brother! Thank you. Thank you very much. How do you do that?"
The old man shook his head impatiently. "We have much to talk about. Ah, your wrists! But your arms must be the worst, yes? Can you sit up?"
Toby shuddered. He took a deep breath, released it, and then performed the fastest sit-up of his life, letting his hands trail in the dirt. His shoulders exploded in thunderbolts. He did not cry out, not quite, but that was only because he knew the child was there.
"Ah, fool that I am!" said Brother Bernat, clasping Toby's head between his hands. "Peace, my son!" The agony subsided a little. "Now I have to open your jerkin. Pepita, your fingers are faster than mine. Unlace this for the captain."
At once Pepita was there, kneeling on his other side, looking very solemn. Her hands fluttered like butterflies: jerkin, doublet, shirt — and then she chuckled gleefully. "Look, he has hairs on his chest! And a locket! Can I see?" She reached for the little leather packet Toby wore around his neck.
"No!" The amethyst was the thing he prized most in all the world, Granny Nan's farewell gift to him, but if this child were to try and take it, he could not lift a finger to stop her.
"Pepita, your manners!" Brother Bernat said sharply. "That is the captain's. Leave it." With delicate, careful movements, he stripped off Toby's loose garments until he was bare to the waist. Pepita sat back and stared, but even Toby could see that his shoulders and arms were puffed out like red melons, the left one worse than the right. He had a better view of his hideously discolored elbows, his bruised and bloody wrists. His ankles felt as if they were scraped raw again inside his buskins.
The friar muttered angrily. "This arm is out of place, my son. It may hurt when I put it back. Wait." He laid his hands on the fiery swelling, and his touch produced the same icy relief as before. "Ready?" He pushed.
That gentle pressure should have had no effect at all on a dislocated shoulder, but Toby heard a crunch and a thud as the bone slid back into place. Despite all he could do, a whimper escaped him, then it was over. The coolness returned. Gramarye!
After a few moments the friar switched his attention to the other arm. "Pepita? Put your hand here. See if you can feel what I am doing." He placed his long, slender fingers over her tiny ones.
She frowned at first, then smiled delightedly. "Yes! Yes! Can I try?"
"By all means. Take it slowly, calmly. You work on his elbow."
Toby had always thought that gramarye was pure evil — like the houses in Mezquiriz bursting into pillars of flame. This was pure goodness, the most blessed relief he could imagine. He did not understand, but his gratitude was infinite. He would never doubt Brother Bernat again. And although Pepita was not producing any detectable results in her efforts to copy what the old man was doing, he did not believe now that her trick with the mouse had been a trick.
Sounds in the distance told of the pilgrims mounting and preparing to move off, then he felt the ground shake and knew the tread of Don Ramon's horse.
"What are you doing, Brother?" demanded the arrogant voice. "And what is that child doing? Why is that man indecently exposed?"
Exposed? Had the noble lord never seen the poor toiling in the summer fields?
The gray-robed friar looked up, frowning. "We are invoking the good spirits of this country to heal him, senor. He injured himself when he fell."
Still being considerate of his arms, Toby twisted around to look up at the caballero. "It is as he says, senor." His voice was hoarse, but it was a voice again.
The don raised his eyebrows in surprise at this miraculous recovery. "Indeed? From the look of you, you fell a long way, Captain. Can you catch up to us? I mean, if I leave a wagon to carry you, you will follow soon?"
"We shall catch up," said the friar. "Pray proceed."
Not Hamish. He would refuse to leave without Toby.
"If your honor would be so kind as to inform Sergeant Jaume that this is my wish, senor? The password is, 'Strath Fillan.' "
Don Ramon nodded and tried to repeat that, although his Castilian tongue stumbled over the consonants. Looking uncharacteristically doubtful, he turned his horse and rode off without another word. The three of them were left sitting on the grass.
"Wagon?" Toby muttered. "Is he truly crazy or just deceiving us?"
"Attend to his actions, not what he says, my son." Unlike several other members of the company, Brother Bernat was not a gossip. "Pepita, you are doing very well. Let me finish the elbow, and you try his wrist."
The gentle laying-on of those ancient hands brought relief from pain, the most welcome thing in the world, and yet it also brought its own shadow in the knowledge that the respite could only be temporary. A few days from now Toby would have to meet it again, and then there would be no magical escape. His flesh cringed, his courage wavered. Could he bear to remain with the pilgrims after this warning?
"Can you walk now, my son?"
"I think so, Brother. But my ankles…"
He reached down and the friar intervened, removing his buskins and then hauling his tattered hose up his shins. He clucked when he found the lacerated skin, but again his touch worked its healing magic, and this time the effects were more visible. Eventually he sat back with a sigh, looking weary for the first time in Toby's experience. The parchment face was paler than ever, the dark eyes more deeply sunk.
"That will have to do for now, Tobias. It is not enough. I am sorry."
"It is enough. It is wonderful. I am so grateful that I cannot find words." He was still very sore, but he was not a cripple.
A trace of the familiar smile crept back. "You must find a lot of words."
"I shall tell you everything, Brother, and gladly. And now I do believe that you can help me. I am very sorry I ever doubted you. Can you rid me of the hob?"
"Hob? What is a hob?"
Dismayed, Toby paused halfway into his shirt. "A spirit, an untrained one. Not quite an elemental but one that knows something of people. It was the spirit of the glen where I was born."
"Ah! I understand. We call them imps." The inscrutable dark eyes studied him. "Then your problem is even worse than I suspected. No, I cannot rid you of it. I may be able to help you deal with it, though. I wish to rest here a little while, but you must tell me the whole story. And then we shall rejoin the others."
"I shall tell you gladly, but I do not know that I wish to rejoin the others. I am sure that someone in the party betrayed me."
Brother Bernat sighed. "I expect so, but you must not think badly of them for that, Tobias. The Inquisition is very skilled in its questioning and never betrays those who tell tales. Even an account of what happened to you here this morning would be enough to condemn you, and many people saw you fall. You are not the only person who fears the inquisitors."
"You have endangered yourself by helping me!"
"Don't worry about me. I have survived a long time." The old man smiled his cryptic little smile. "Now tell me everything, or I cannot advise you."
"I shall. Now?" Where to begin? "Let's see. I was an orphan in a very small village in the hills of Scotland. The woman who raised me was what we called the witchwife…"
It was a very long tale. When he came to tell how he had fled Scotland to escape Baron Oreste, the old friar heaved himself up.
"We must start moving. You can talk on the way."
Toby was shaky, but he could walk. There was nothing wrong with his legs, although the tormentors would doubtless have gotten to them soon enough. He tucked his hands inside the front of his jerkin, thinking that would help support the weight of his arms and ease the jarring on his shoulders. He would not want to be carrying his pack, or even his sword. Hamish would have taken care of those for him — capable, dependable Hamish. That was why he had to go on to Barcelona, to see Hamish safely on a ship. He continued with his history.
Even the brief rest had restored Brother Bernat, for he set off at his usual distance-eating pace which so belied his frail appearance. His haggard features were intent, but he displayed no reaction to the improbable story, other than an occasional penetrating half smile. Pepita hurried along at his side, looking worried or shocked or puzzled by turns, but saying nothing.
The pilgrims could not be very far ahead, because once Hamish came trotting into sight and stopped when he saw the stragglers. He waved. The friar waved back, and Hamish disappeared again. Then Brother Bernat slowed down a little, as if unwilling to catch up with the group before the discussion was ended.
Toby concluded with the visions that had begun about two weeks earlier, a total of five of them now — a man in Valencia he had never met, the ghoul in the orange grove, Oreste's dungeon, the executions in Barcelona, and finally the Inquisition. There seemed to be no logic to them, no pattern, no rationality.
"Are these prophecies, Brother, or are they madness? If they are madness, why do they injure me? If they show the future, they contradict each other. Once the Inquisition has demolished me, how can I ever become Baron Oreste's headsman?"
"Perhaps your meeting with the Inquisition will happen later."
"No, I was wearing these clothes, I am sure of it."
The friar nodded. "The visions are not madness, Tobias, although they may drive you mad. They happened but did not happen. They are real and not real. They may be true or false. All they show is that you are in fearful danger. If the Inquisition may be looking out for you at Tortosa, then we shall have to scout the town very carefully before we enter it." He smiled wanly. "You are not alone in having reason to be wary of the inquisitors."
"They are friars too."
The old man thrust out a bony jaw. "Not of my order!"
"I am sorry, I should not—"
"No you shouldn't. To rid the world of demons is commendable, but if those who seek to do so use methods as evil as the demons themselves, then where is the benefit? And if the methods do not work, then the total evil is worse than before. But peace, Tobias! Let me think on what you have said." Brother Bernat fell silent.
As they were walking past the remains of an orchard, the friar began to talk again, gazing at the road ahead and speaking so softly that he seemed to be musing aloud.
"Like you, Tobias, I can see elementals. That is not a birthright but a knack one gains from dealing with them. You were a witchwife's child, and I have studied the spirits all my life. I don't know how old I am — ninety, perhaps more. It is too long to remain ignorant, but that is what I am. Spirits are still mysteries to me, and especially I do not know where they come from. They do not procreate as mortals do, but they must be replenished somehow, else the hexers would have stripped the world clean of them long ago. I like to think they are spontaneous manifestations of nature, outpourings of the power of life and beauty. Anywhere I have ever encountered a sprite was a place of beauty — a grove of willows, a grotto, a bend in a stream. But I don't know if the elemental is attracted to the beauty, or creates it, or is created by it."
He smiled his patient, gentle smile, which Toby now thought was more effective than a castle wall at preserving secrets.
"I have gathered a little lore in my time, though, and I shall share it with you if you promise not to ask any questions until I am done."
"I should gladly promise more than that, Brother."
"That will suffice. Most people know of only three types of spirit, although they are all varieties of the same, of course — the wild elementals, the benevolent tutelaries, and demons. It does seem unfair, doesn't it, that the evil ones are able to move around while the tutelaries remain always in their own domains? Their mobility is bought at a terrible price. Whatever the Inquisition did to you, Tobias, or would have done to you, could be nothing compared to the tortures an adept applies to a spirit to make a demon of it. And the spirit cannot even hope to die, as I am sure you did… would, I mean. Small wonder they are so malevolent!
"Your hob, though, or imp as we call them, is not bound as a demon is. It has free will, and undoubtedly it is responsible for your visions. Those are very unusual and very dangerous. Think of them not as prophecies but as warnings. No hob nor spirit can foretell the future, not in any detail. A great tutelary may recognize a sickness in a man and know that he will die soon. It may have knowledge beyond mortals' ken and be privy to great secrets, but it cannot write a history of the future. The hob knows less of what is going to happen to you than you do, because it lives only for the moment."
The pause seemed to invite comment, so Toby said, "Yes, Brother." Whatever this long introduction was leading up to must obviously be bad news.
"You, for example, are deeply concerned by the problem of finding enough food for us, but that is completely beyond its comprehension. Mostly the hob just watches the world unfolding around you, satisfying its childish curiosity. If it becomes excited, then it may do foolish things, but otherwise it is only an observer, I think. You agree?"
"Yes, Brother."
"It takes no heed for the morrow, until suddenly it realizes you are in serious trouble. Then it will react to save you, because you are valuable to it. It is undoubtedly fond of you in its way, and if it cannot understand what pain is, that is not its fault. Suffering it ignores, but your death matters to it. If it can use its powers to save your life, then it will. But supposing it cannot?"
"When it is blocked by other demons?" Toby had promised not to ask questions, but the friar either did not notice that lapse or did not care.
"Baron Oreste's demons, perchance. And the Inquisition undoubtedly uses demons of its own, although the brothers probably do not think of them as that. Once in a while they must pick on a genuine creature, and if they did not restrain it by some sort of gramarye it would blast them. When they disincarnate an incarnate it would merely take over one of their own number unless they had some means of preventing that."
"By 'disincarnate' you mean—"
"I mean kill its host, Tobias. When the husk dies, or soon after, the demon is freed. Suppose… Let us suppose that a few days from now you meet the Inquisition. They may be looking out for you, or someone in our party denounces you, or they just pick on a foreigner. It doesn't matter which, although that poster you mentioned suggests that they are specifically looking for you. Also, the Inquisition is normally extremely patient, absurdly so. It will keep people in jail for years while it prepares its case. For it to put you to the Question so quickly is very unusual. But you say they will begin to torture you almost right away."
"And I cannot tell them what they want to know."
"Of course. And so, eventually, you will die. Even a strong man can only endure so much. Then, and only then, the hob realizes the problem."
"Then? Not until then?"
"Probably not until you are dead or near death. It realizes its mistake, but it cannot just heal you and blow a hole through your cell walls, because it is blocked by some sort of gramarye. So what does it do?"
Toby blinked in sudden sunshine as they emerged from the shade of the trees. "I don't know, Brother."
"I suspect it does what we want to do when we make a mistake. You know that terrible feeling when you have done something wrong and wish you could undo it? A thoughtless word, an error of judgment, hitting your thumb with a hammer? For us, what's done is done, but that may not be true for the hob. Suppose it jumps back in time — taking you with it, of course — and lets the world unfold again? The next time events may turn out differently."
"Spirits! I did not know that was possible!"
"I find it hard to credit myself, but I heard such a procedure mentioned as a theory once, many, many years ago. I shall discuss it with Father Guillem, if you will let me take him into our confidence. But see how well it fits the facts! Especially it fits the hob. An elemental has no need to violate the order of nature so brutally. A tutelary never would, because to change the past for one person would change it for many and might introduce other evils worse than the first. A demon cannot, because it is bound by conjuration. I have only scant knowledge of such vile hexing, but I do believe that it binds the demon in time as well as in space. The hob, though, is free to do as it likes. I expect it tried this trick once in desperation and it worked, so now it does it more often."
Usually Toby thought of himself as a horse and the hob as the rider. Brother Bernat was saying that this rider gave the horse its head — which might not be true always but could be most of the time — but when the horse wandered into trouble, the rider took it back to… "I find this hard to visualize, Brother."
"So do I, my son, so do I! Imagine that you are dying from the inquisitors' cruelty, say a month or two from now. The hob wakes up to the situation and flips you back to this morning. If it does this properly, then everything that has happened is wiped out. The slate is clean. You proceed more or less as you did before."
"Then I should fall into the same trap again."
The narrow gray shoulders shrugged. "Not necessarily. Life is a series of choices, of chance happenings, of little events producing large results. Small hooks catch big fish. A seed blows in the wind and a tree grows. Things may not work out exactly as they did the first time."
"The ghoul in the orange grove! The first time I tripped over Hamish and…" Toby rephrased a question into a statement. "You think I died, that the creature killed me!"
"It would seem so. The hob would not die unless the sword went through your heart. It mourns its friend Tobias. It finds its house growing cold, if you will forgive a cruel expression. It jumps him back a few days and lets him try again."
"But—"
"But why do you come back damaged so often? Why do you remember anything at all of the lost days?" The friar smiled his little smile. "Those are good questions, my son, so I shall ask them for you. Alas, I don't have good answers, but I suspect that the hob is going crazy. It is an immortal trying to cope with mortality.
"For us what's done is done. For the hob, what's done can be tried again. It certainly seems logical that neither it nor you should retain any memory of what hasn't happened yet and may never happen." He sighed. "This could give a man a headache. Do you understand this, Pepita?"
"No, Brother," said the child solemnly.
"Well, you are not alone."
"Déjà vu!" Toby said. "That feeling that you've been here before!"
Brother Bernat beamed. "You often have that feeling?"
"Quite often. I remember it very strongly in Brittany once and a couple of times in Navarre. And at other places, less marked."
"So! So perhaps the hob has been at this for years and you did not know. But now… Now, perhaps, it is going mad, so its powers are not working properly. Or other demons are interfering with it, somewhere in your future. Either way, you are coming back damaged and remembering some of what happened. Not all of it, I'm sure. You just retain fragments, of course."
Here was the bad news. "You mean I could have been — I mean I will remain — longer in the hands of the Inquisition?"
"And in the baron's clutches, too. I don't think you recall the end of the story in any of those cases."
They walked on for a while in silence. At last Toby put it into words. "And when you said these happenings were dangerous, what you meant was that one day the hob may mess things up completely. Is that possible? Could it tie the two of us into a circle, a never-ending loop in time?"
"I am certainly concerned about that possibility."
And so was Toby Longdirk. There could be no worse fate in the universe than being tortured by the Inquisition throughout all eternity.
"The dangers facing you are uncountable, my son. The Inquisition is the most immediate, of course. I shall be most surprised if your vision turns out to be false and the inquisitors are not watching for you at Tortosa. Assuming you can pass them safely and survive all the other perils of this road as well, then Baron Oreste waits in Barcelona. If he tries to strip the hob from you, he will almost certainly take parts of your mind with it. If he doesn't, then in time the hob will inevitably go completely insane, which means you will. If you were not the man you are, that would have happened long since. Tobias, I do not envy you your future!"
"There they are!" Pepita said, pointing a straw-thin finger. The pilgrims were in sight in the distance, going slowly across a wide pasture.
"So they are," said Brother Bernat, "and we have not yet finished our business." He turned aside from the track and strode over to a thicket where many of the trees still bore bright green leaves. There, as if he had planned it, he went straight to a mossy stump in the leafy gloom and seated himself like a king on a throne. The air was cool and deliciously fragrant. "Oleanders," he explained, waving a slender hand at the foliage.
Pepita promptly discovered a trail of ants and dropped on all fours to study it. Toby sank down crosslegged on the ground before the old man, resting his throbbing arms on his knees. For a moment neither spoke.
The friar glanced at the child, who had now tracked the ants to their nest at the base of a tree and was lying there with her nose almost inside it.
"Tobias," he said softly, "you can tell me the rest now."
"Father, I told you everything!" Pause. "Everything I believed was relevant." But not Mezquiriz! He had not mentioned Mezquiriz. Must he bare even that secret sorrow? He had never told anyone. Even Hamish did not know the awful truth.
"There is more, Tobias, unless I am sadly misinformed about the human race. You are a man of considerable will, but do you tell me you have never once succumbed to the temptations of the flesh? I have watched the effect you have on our companions. You draw women's eyes like flies to honey."
"That is the hob's doing! Yes, I did let it learn about… about what men and women do, Brother. It wants to experience that again, and it lures women to me."
The old man laughed. "Does it? I think you underestimate yourself. But tell me what happened. I shall not condemn you for being human."
Toby bent his head so he need not see that gaunt old face with its knowing smile. He clenched his fists until his bruised wrists throbbed. "Just once, Brother. Only once! I did not know what would happen." He waited to hear the forgiveness he wanted, but nothing came. "It was at Mezquiriz, a tiny place in Navarre, near Roncevalles. It was not a casual thing, Brother. We could not dream of marriage, but we were very much in love, both of us."
"Knowing you, I am sure you were. You would not deceive a girl for momentary pleasure. You did not know, but did you not suspect?"
Toby looked up angrily. "How could I?" The penetrating dark eyes seared him. He looked away quickly.
Yes, he must have suspected, even then, for he had fled from similar situations in the past. His doubts had been more than the normal anxiety of a young man about to embark on his first lovemaking. He remembered the words spoken outside the cottage, when the ice-bound night was a soaring choir of stars and snow glimmered on the peaks. He remembered Jeanne in his arms, her sweet fragrance, the taste of her kisses on his mouth. He remembered his terrified excuses: I am nothing but a hunted fugitive, a deserter. I have no land, no friends with influence, no money.
Her whispered reply: Life is short and love is shorter. If you care for me, do not deprive me of the happiness I ask.
I love you too much to love you.
If I knew you were leaving forever at dawn, I should still want this.
"We were members of a band of smugglers, Brother. Hamish and I needed to escape from Nevil's domains, and that was the only way. We joined them. Jeanne was one of them. I loved her. By all the spirits, I loved her!"
He stared at the dead leaves under the old man's feet. Tears ran into his stubble, but he did not wipe them away. "One night we… we exchanged solemn promises of love. And then… we went to her room."
Even as they lay together on the tiny bed with starlight peeking through cracks in the shutter, even in the frantic, clumsy fumbling with each other's garments — even then he had tried to talk her out of it. She had kissed his words away. And now he could not find words. He sat in silence with the tears flowing.
"She died, my son?"
Yes! Yes! Will you make me say it? He nodded, not looking up. "Not only her, Brother. Houses collapsed or burst into flames. Hamish barely escaped. They thought it was an artillery barrage."
Brother Bernat sighed. "It does not surprise me. Passion such as that would have been far beyond the hob's imagining. So you have avoided women ever since?"
Now Toby did look up, glaring furiously. "What do you think I am?"
The friar smiled as if he accepted the rebuke. "A most unfortunate young man who deserves better of life than the curse he bears. But answer my question. Look me in the eyes and tell me the truth."
"I have never as much as kissed another woman. Not even when they ask me outright!"
"Good!" the friar said. "Then there is hope that I may be able to help you." He looked around to see where Pepita had gone, but she was out of earshot, stalking a squirrel. "And even if you did suspect that there might be trouble that night in Mezquiriz, no one could condemn you for what happened. You carry more remorse than you need. Tobias, I am truly sorry, believe me. I can teach you how to tame the hob, within limits. I can show you how to make it behave itself, so you will not go crazy and it will not thrash around damaging other people as it has done in the past. Do you want this?"
"Very much, Brother. More, I think, than anything in the world."
"There is a price to pay, though. Two prices. One is that you will no longer be able to count on the hob to defend you. Basically, I will show you how to lull it to sleep, and a sleeping watchdog does not bark."
"I would rather die than go crazy. If I do go crazy, then I will run wild like a demon, won't I? Killing, destroying?"
Brother Bernat nodded. "It is probable. The other price is that I cannot give you back what you lost that night in Mezquiriz. I know of no way to make the hob proof against ecstasy. You will remain condemned to a life of celibacy."
Toby rubbed his eyes with a knuckle. He realized that he felt bitter, which was absurd, for none of his troubles were the old friar's fault. "I am twenty-one. How old will I be when that stops worrying me?"
"About a hundred."
"I see." No, the smile was not mockery, it was sympathy. He returned it as well as he could. "Half a life is better than none. I shall be very grateful for whatever assistance you can give me, Brother. It is wonderful news that you can help me at all!" It was also very surprising. Where did such a technique come from? What was it used for? He had promised not to ask questions.
Brother Bernat studied him solemnly for a moment. "It will not be easy. You are old to start learning. Fortunately, you are a very brave young man. Nerves like granite, I said, didn't I? All you have to do is slow down your heartbeat."
Toby stared at him blankly until the old man chuckled.
"Pepita can do it! Shall I call her over to demonstrate?"
"Why should Pepita…?" Now he knew why he was not to ask questions. Brother Bernat himself must know the same trick and for the same reason, whatever that might be. "No, Brother, I believe you."
"The slower the beat, the quieter the hob, like a hibernating hedgehog. It lives in your heart, remember, so when you get excited and the house gets noisy, then the hob is alarmed. You probably have a naturally slow beat, which has helped preserve you from it. The secret is calmness, serenity of mind, and you do not lose your head. Most people would have been howling maniacs this morning after what you had been through, but you recovered almost immediately."
"I am flattered that you thought so," Toby said grimly. Somewhere deep inside he was still screaming. How many days until he was back on the rope? How many nights until he could sleep without dreaming of it?
The friar's fond little smile returned. "You underestimate yourself, Tobias. It is part of your charm, if you will forgive me for insulting a virile young man by telling him he has charm. You do, though. It is emotion in you that speeds your heart and rouses the hob." He waited as if inviting comment.
"Suppose I want to run, or work hard?"
"Exercise does not matter, only emotion. I don't know why."
"Gunfire rouses it, Brother. Or thunder. Or loud music."
"Do they? Those things might annoy an elemental, but your hob should be used to them by now. Are you sure it is not you who is alarmed? If you are frightened that the hob may be frightened, then it may be your fear that rouses it. Fear, anger — those you will have to learn to control even better than you control them now, which is much better than most men do. You understand now why the passions of love must be avoided. I shall teach you the methods and leave you to practice them. You will have to devote every spare minute to it."
"Will this get me past the Inquisition?"
Brother Bernat shook his head. "I think the poster will be their real reason for detaining you. Even if I am wrong, they will detect the hob in you. Pepita did. I confess that I did, also. You may never be skilled enough to hide it completely, and you certainly cannot hope to learn the knack in a couple of days. To become even reasonably proficient will take you months."
"Then I had better begin, just in case I live that long."
"Very well. First, you must learn how to breathe. Can you breathe without moving your shoulders, only your abdomen?"
Apparently he was serious.
"I have been doing so all morning! Like this?"
"It would help if you were to remove your upper garments again," Brother Bernat said apologetically. "I shall perform another healing on you after this, which should remove the rest of your pain. You are still in pain?"
"A little," Toby admitted, easing out of his jerkin.
"More than a little, I suspect." The friar waited until the shirt came off. "Stand. Now show me. Here." He poked a finger at Toby's solar plexus. "Out. In. Out. In. Good. Now, can you do the reverse — breathe in just using the upper part of your chest?"
At the moment that hurt, of course, but it would have been difficult at any time.
"Very good! Now, start a very long breath, very slowly, beginning down here at the base of your lungs and filling them all the way to the top. Good. Hold that. Now let it out from the top down…" He chuckled as he watched Toby's contortions. "Wait a moment. Now do it again. Good! Very good indeed! Let me give you the timing. Too fast and you will make yourself giddy."
In a few moments the old man nodded, looking pleased. "That is the first part. You may sit down again." He stood up. "Sit on this, and I shall work on your shoulders. Make yourself as comfortable as you can." He began to soothe more of the fire from Toby's injuries with his mysterious gramarye.
All gramarye was evil by definition, because it was wrested from demons by torture — so Toby had always believed. But this wondrous healing could never be evil. His definitions would have to be revised.
"The second part," the friar said, "is to clear your mind, and that is best done by thinking of some very peaceful scene you know well. Something from your childhood may be best. What shall it be?"
Toby pondered, calling up memories of the glen. "There is a little lake called Lochan na Bi. I remember watching a swan swimming on it." White plumage, dark peaty water, the hills with rain drifting down them. Reflections.
"Very good, let it be that. Some find it helpful to have a mantra also, a phrase to repeat in your mind. 'Lochan na Bi' itself would do very well, it has a gentle sound. So think of the swan and say, 'Lochan na Bi,' to yourself."
Swan. Lochan na Bi. Swan. Lochan na Bi. Swan. Lochan na Bi.
"That's all?"
Brother Bernat laughed. "That is the beginning. Repeat it about a million times! Yes, that is all. If you can breathe as I showed you, very slowly, see the swan, repeat the mantra — this is called dejamiento, Tobias. Done properly, it produces a very deep serenity. Your heart will stay at a slow, steady beat, and the hob will remain serene also. Eventually you could hope to deceive even the Inquisition."
It seemed too simple, far too simple. "If they tie weights to my feet and haul me up again?"
The friar shrugged. "I have known men who remained serene when the tormentors got to the red-hot pincers. You will not achieve that level of control for many years and perhaps never."
"I shall try, Brother."
Try he did. Tricky! The breathing alone seemed to take all his attention, leaving none for mental pictures. Swan… Lochan na Bi… He was also distracted by the cool touch of the friar's hands. After a few moments, he peered around at the old man and saw in his face the same weariness that it had shown before. Healing was obviously a strain.
"I thank you, Brother. Should we not go and join the others now?"
"As you wish." Brother Bernat sank down on the stump as Toby relinquished it to take up his clothes. "How far is it to Tortosa?"
Pulling on his shirt, Toby said, "How should I know? I've never…" He stared in dismay at the gentle smile. "But I have, haven't I?"
The friar nodded. "Yes, my son, you have been here before. This is at least the fourth time you have walked this road. For all we know, it may be the twelfth time, or the twentieth. It may not be the last."
Setting off along the trail again, they saw Francisca in the distance, coming on her pony, and they waved. She responded but did not turn back, so she must have something to tell them. It was a reminder that privacy was about to be lost, that Toby had better think up an explanation for his peculiar behavior, and that there were still mysteries lurking on the edges.
"May I ask you a question now, Brother?"
"No, because I have more to tell you, so I have not finished." The old man chuckled at his expression. "You see? Even we Franciscans can be devious! But we give fair value. What have you there, child?" He examined Pepita's collection of leaves and began lecturing her on herbs.
Only gramarye could have healed Toby's injuries. The kindly old man was certainly not an incarnate, so he must be an adept and have a bottled demon concealed somewhere about his person. But if Toby could carry the soul of the true king of England around with him in a locket, a friar could transport a demon. Granted that the initial process of capturing and enslaving an elemental was vicious, the resulting demon was still immortal. If it and its conjuration later fell into innocent hands and were applied to benevolent purposes, that was a worthy practice surely. It would have to be a secret one, though, because hexing was not merely illegal but so detested that suspects were frequently torn apart by a mob before the authorities could even arrest them. He could see no connection between what Brother Bernat was doing and Senora Collel's confused mutterings about alumbradismo. Nor could he see where Pepita might fit in — Pepita, whose strange rapport for horses extended even to mice.
The Inquisition disapproved of hexers almost as much as it disapproved of the possessed. Should it learn of Brother Bernat's actions, it would confiscate his demon and impose a severe penance on him, although few of the customary penalties could be applied to a ninety-year old mendicant preacher. Forfeiture of all his worldly goods would be impossible, because he had none. Flogging or a term in the galleys would kill him. But he would certainly lose Pepita, whom he obviously loved dearly, so he had as much cause to fear the Inquisition as Toby did. He was not the only one. Gracia was another, whether or not she was achieving anything with her voices and her bottles, and the don himself might be judged possessed if he babbled about his imaginary army.
Francisca arrived on her wheezing little pony and beamed delightedly at Toby. "Campeador, you are recovered!"
"Thanks to Brother Bernat. I had a bad fall, but his skilled massage has eased my bruises."
The old lady blinked in disbelief. "Indeed? Praise to all good spirits! But I came to urge you to greater speed, for we have seen a mounted band approaching, and Don Ramon is preparing our defenses. Perhaps you could go faster if the child rode with me?"
"I think she can manage as well on her own feet, senor," the friar said, eyeing the sweating pony dubiously.
Toby decided he could swing his sword now, although not as nimbly as usual, but he did not have it with him. "I shall go ahead, then, Senor Francisco, and let you all follow." He set off at a lope, and even that hardly jarred his shoulders.
As soon as he crested the rise he saw the pilgrims assembled amid some broken walls and tall cypresses a bowshot from the trail. It was not the fortress of Toledo, but it was the most defensible position in sight, and confirmation of Brother Bernat's view that one should heed what the don did, not what he said.
The mounted band Francisca had mentioned comprised at least a dozen riders and about ten wagons, coming at a leisurely pace. It might be no more than a trading party with armed guards, or it might be the Inquisition. It did not look much like a gang of highwaymen, but sunlight flashed on helmets and blades, and the lead man carried a pennant. If there was to be a fight, it would be a brief one.
Toby cranked up to a sprint and arrived in the shade of the cypress trees damp and breathless. Hamish offered him his sword and helmet and a look of welcome almost embarrassing in its intensity.
He went to where the don was standing beside his warhorse and saluted, conscious of all the others' wondering stares. "Your campeador reports for duty, senor."
The arrogant blue eyes scanned him from his head to his toes and back again. "Submit a full report in writing, Campeador." He turned away to study the newcomers' approach.
"Well?" Hamish demanded eagerly.
"Very well, thank you." Quickly, Toby outlined the friar's explanation for the visions and the danger of a roadblock at Tortosa. He spoke in Gaelic, which doubtless annoyed Senora Collel excessively.
Hamish pulled a face. "I have never read anything about spirits moving back in time!"
"Not everything can be found in books. The old man healed my injuries — have you ever read of gramarye being used for such a purpose?"
"No," Hamish admitted reluctantly. "Only tutelaries do such things. Or hexers, and he is no hexer."
The wagon train came to a halt. Suspicion worked both ways, and its escort would naturally wonder whether the few men and women they could see in the open were all of the don's party. The man bearing the pennant rode forward across the field with two others at his back, coming slowly.
"Campeador!" said the don. "You will present me." He vaulted with his lance into Atropos' saddle and rode off without a backward glance.
Toby could see no signs of anyone in friars' robes, which was a relief. He said, "Hamish?" and the two of them followed Don Ramon to the parley.
The horsemen dismounted. They were armed with muskets and swords and garbed like soldiers. Their pennant was unfamiliar to him.
No it wasn't! The pennant was vaguely familiar, the men were vaguely familiar, the whole situation screamed at him that he had been here before. He just couldn't remember when. Even — now that he looked at it — the scenery, the valley looming ahead, lay tantalizingly just outside the edges of his memory. Déjà vu!
Had it started, then?
The don reined in a dozen paces from the strangers and glanced at his aide-de-camp. "Campeador, inquire what manner of men these be and by what right they contest our progress."
Toby marched forward and saluted. "Senor, the noble Don Ramon de Nuñez y Pardo, traveling on pilgrimage to Montserrat with his train, bids me question what manner of persons you be."
The lead soldier was a large man, almost as tall as Toby himself, and not much older. He undoubtedly looked much more ferocious, being slung around with arms of all kinds and sporting both a broken nose and a jet-black beard as big as a pillow. Toby was certain he knew him from somewhere, he just couldn't quite place him. How could such a face be forgotten?
The man scowled, considered the question for a long moment, and then unexpectedly grinned. "As honest a party of merchants as ever sold the Sassenachs a herd by day and drove it back across the border by night." He spoke in Scots.
"Demons, we are lost!" Toby replied. "Toby Longdirk of Tyndrum."
"Graham Johnson of Girvan!" Hands were clasped in a grip that rapidly tightened until it would have crushed marble. Grins widened.
"One moment," Toby said when the brutal greeting had been mutually accepted as a draw. He went back to the don. "Merely merchants, senor, with mercenary guards."
Don Ramon shrugged contemptuously. "Question them about the enemy's dispositions and let them pass." He turned Atropos and rode away as if disappointed by the lack of opportunity for honorable bloodshed.
By that time Hamish was in full gabble with Master Johnson, while the latter's two Spanish subordinates looked on in silent disdain. Scottish mercenaries were prized all over Europe, so it was little surprise to find one here. But it was good fortune, because whatever Master Johnson's politics might be, he would have small sympathy for the Inquisition. Thus when Toby had described the condition of the lands south to Valencia and warned about the would-be horse thieves who had attacked the pilgrims, and had similarly been advised about the state of affairs in Tortosa and Catalonia as far as Barcelona itself, he could bring up the delicate subject without having to hedge.
The mercenary spat in disgust. "There's black robes and gray robes and white robes all over the place, and they have no liking for foreigners, but they didna' bother me nor Ian nor Gavin. There's a toll on the bridge at Tortosa. I dinna' recall seeing any friars there. I'd expect that don of yours to ride across wi' his nose in the air and not having to pay a groat, him being a noble and all."
That was good news. Indeed, all his news was good. Catalonia had suffered less than Valencia in the fighting, he said, and was already recovering, although still risky for travelers. There was food to be had in Tortosa, which was a major port, although prices were exorbitant. They ought to reach the town by the next day, and Master Johnson recommended the best inns for food, vermin-free bedding, and plump women respectively — no one establishment qualifying on all counts. And they were already more or less out of danger, he said, because the governor in Tortosa sent out patrols to keep order, and their reach extended almost this far south of the city. Gavin's troop had not seen a soul since the previous afternoon.
He must have told Toby the same news before, though, perhaps more than once. It all sounded vaguely familiar.