Paradise & More (Torres Family Saga) (44 page)

      
Vowing to begin again with his wife, Aaron stopped at the edge of the settlement and surveyed its squalor. Bartolomé had attempted to persuade his brother to move the colony to a more suitable site, and Cristobal had agreed that along the southern coasts of Española he had found more felicitous harbors where they might relocate. This place was a sinkhole, the river too far away, the soil too rocky, the harbor too exposed for it ever to grow into a true port city. Of course, if the Colons did not receive more royal backing, and suitable settlers willing to obey the law and work to build the island, no place would serve.

      
“I shall take Magdalena away from here before she falls victim to a fever or noxious disease nursing these contentious people. We will build our own life.” Smiling, he thought of a russet-haired girl riding her horse breakneck across the marshes outside Seville, sweaty and windblown with her fat plait of hair flying behind her like a horses' tail. Something inside him softened as he imagined a small replica of Magdalena, riding across Española on a fine pony given her by her father.

      
When he approached their home, the place was oddly quiet. Analu came running from inside the house with a frightened look on his face. He fell to his knees at Aaron's feet and the white man's chest squeezed tight with dread. “Where is my lady?”

      
“Gone. I know not where. The second night after you and the governor left, she did not return from the hospital. I went in search of her and the medicine man told me she had departed as usual.”

      
“That was a week ago!” Aaron's face was chalky with fear. He yanked the servant to his feet. “Did you go to the governor's brother, Don Diego?”

      
“Yes, but he refused to see me for three days. Then when I cried out to him on the streets while he was riding one of your great beasts, he told me he knew nothing of the lady.” Analu hesitated, feeling the steel imprint of Aaron's fingers digging into his arm. The lady had been very sad at their parting. “Several ships sailed away while you were gone, one that second day...I searched everywhere, even sending a runner to Guacanagari's people. She has vanished.”

      
A ship sailed away that day.
Surely she had not given up, left him? With chilling clarity all his words of scorn and rejection, his suggestions that she return to the court, everything came rushing back to him. He had left her feeling responsible for Aliyah's spiteful decision to keep Navaro.
Why could she not have told me she tried to regain my son?
Feeling a wave of nausea sweeping over him, Aaron pushed past the distraught servant and entered their home.

      
His eyes quickly scanned the orderly room. Would she have left a note? Surely she would have taken her few possessions. She treasured the books from his father. Nothing seemed to be missing. Like a crazed man, he began to toss clothing on the floor, throwing things from her chests. All her gowns, her cloak, even the books, her jewel cask—everything was here. What could she have used to purchase passage on a ship? What would she have worn? Then his fingertips brushed a rolled parchment buried at the bottom of the second chest, the smaller one she kept her books in to prevent their mildewing in the damp jungle air.

      
As he extracted it, a strange sense of foreboding washed over him, for he recognized the seal on it—the one his father had used for medical documents. Trembling, he unrolled it, instantly recognizing Benjamin Torres' strong, sweeping penmanship. His eyes flew down the page, reading the clinical details describing precisely how his wife had lost her maidenhead. The date registered in his spinning head—scant months before he seduced that oddly vulnerable, eagerly innocent girl who had fled his quarters in tears after her initiation into womanhood. And he, callous fool, had been the one who first touched her! The only one who had ever touched her. And now she was gone.

      
“Magdalena, oh Magdalena, my wife, what have I done to you? Have I driven you to flee?” He sat on the floor, head buried in his hands with the parchment lying beside him, its edges limp in the dampness.

      
“What will you do? Perhaps now that the governor has returned he can speak with his young brother...” Analu's voice cut into Aaron's trance.

      
Quickly standing up, Aaron rolled the parchment carefully and reverently replaced it in Magdalena's chest. “Straighten up this mess. I will go to the governor and see what I can learn,” he said to the Taino. Then he grabbed a pair of his hose, boots for riding, and a loose tunic. Shedding the loincloth he had worn while journeying with the Indians, he dressed rapidly. His armor and sword would be awaiting him at the palace, and his horse would be stabled and cared for with the rest of the Colon's mounts.

      
“When did the soldiers return?” he asked Analu.

      
“Late last night. They had many captives who will be sent across the waters to be sold as slaves...or to die.” There was an odd fatalism in the Taino's voice.

      
Aaron nodded and departed for his interview with Cristobal. Diego Colon had better know something about where Magdalena had gone!

      
When he reached the palace and retrieved his sword, he was informed that everyone was at the waterfront, seeing to the loading of the caravels bound for home, laden with slaves and booty. Sickened by the very scene he had hoped to avoid, yet desperate to find word of Magdalena, he traversed the short distance to the harbor where a great crowd had gathered.

      
The scene was chaos, with mounted soldiers brandishing the flat of their swords against the backs of chained Indians, many of whom were injured and stumbling, terrified to be so close to the horses. They climbed aboard the ship's boats, eager to be away from the cursing, milling throngs of mounted white men.

      
Hojeda rode back and forth, yelling orders to the men loading slaves into the boats.

      
Aaron searched the crowd for the tall figure of Cristobal. Looking bent and exhausted, the governor stood off to one side on a small hill, Bartolomé and Diego Colon at his side. As soon as Aaron climbed to where they stood, Hojeda turned his horse and cleared a path through the crowd until he reached them. Swinging down, he swaggered up to Torres, a gloating smile on his face. “Did you witness the great Caonabo enter the boats? I told you I would sail with him in chains.”

      
“Sail to hell for all I care, Alonso.” He turned to Cristobal. “Magdalena has vanished! My servant said she did not return from the hospital that evening after we departed for the Vega.” He looked at Diego Colon, who seemed to blanch and step back suddenly. “Do you know what has happened to her?” Aaron took a menacing step toward the youngest Colon.

      
Cristobal put his hand firmly on Aaron's chest to stay him while Bartolome's eyes narrowed on Diego as he spoke. “You seem to have had conversation with the lady. What did she tell you?”

      
Diego shook his head as if in disbelief. “We had a dinner the evening you departed. Don Lorenzo and various members of the council and Dona Magdalena attended. The next morning she came to me with an insane tale—accusing Lorenzo Guzman, the Duke of Medina-Sidonia's nephew, of treason. Of course I could give no credence to it,” he added defensively, eyeing Aaron as he moved closer to his brothers.

      
“Where is the great Don Lorenzo now?” Aaron asked tightly, his fingers on his sword hilt.

      
“I—I do not know. He and his companion, Guerra, rode off in search of gold, I presumed,” Diego finished lamely.

      
“What did Magdalena say about treason? Explain it.

Every syllable. The lady lived at court. She was no fool when it came to political intrigues,” Bartolomé said. Now he looked every bit as menacing as Aaron.

      
Diego took a gulp of air and recounted Magdalena's story. By the time he had finished, he was sweating and more than a bit frightened. “Surely you do not think—”

      
“That Lorenzo Guzman took her?” Alonso Hojeda interrupted. “Just so. He was banished by his uncle for some greedy machinations with the Holy Office. If she discovered such, he would surely have wished to silence her before her champions returned.”

      
Aaron's heart turned to ice, not beating as he asked Hojeda, “How came you to know aught of my former brother-in-law?” He stepped between the Castilian and his horse.

      
“We were acquainted at court briefly,” Alonso said smoothly. “Lorenzo is a bitter man. One night when first he arrived here, he lapped enough wine to drown all the maggots in his wretched guts. Then the fawning court jackal told me all.”

      
“Have you any idea where he might flee if he feared discovery?” Aaron asked in a low deadly voice. He itched to place his fingers about that sinewy little throat and snap it!

      
“I mentioned a friend of yours,” Hojeda said tauntingly. “Roldan. I even told Guzman of how the rascal has carved out his own domain in Xaragua. Perhaps he has gone to Roldan and taken your lady with him.”

      
“That is across the island! Days of hard riding. Why would he do something so dangerous—the ships!” Bartolomé answered his own question.

      
“Two caravels, afloat in Roldan's waters off the peninsula,” Aaron said. “Yes, that is what he would hope for if he found no passage from Española in Ysabel.” He turned to the shrinking, pale figure of Diego Colon and said quietly, “I owe Cristobal my life and Magdalena owes Bartolomé hers. For that I will not kill you! But pray, Don Diego, pray very hard that my wife is alive and unharmed when I reach Roldan.”

      
With the threat hanging in the sultry air, Aaron turned and seized a surprised Alonso Hojeda by his leather-armored breastplate, lifting him off the ground. “You, too, are involved in this. I know Lorenzo Guzman would not set out blindly. He needed someone to guide him and doubtless greetings to pass along to Francisco. You are as treacherous as Guzman.” He threw Hojeda to Bartolomé, whose stout, muscled body caught the little man easily.

      
“I will see to it Don Alonso does not sail on this tide—or any other until you return with Magdalena,” Bartolomé said grimly.

      
“Can you be certain your old comrade Roldan will not kill you on sight if you trespass in Xaragua?” Cristobal asked Aaron. “Take some of the soldiers whom you led in battle with you.”

      
“No, I can find my way to the
cacicazgo
more swiftly if I take some Tainos who know Roldan.” Aaron saw the pain and helplessness in Cristobal's face. “We have all made mistakes, my friend. I have wronged my wife and now I must atone—or die trying. You must restore order and give justice to the Taino people.”

* * * *

      
Aliyah looked at her rival with thinly veiled hate. She did nothing to disguise the gloating look on her face. Rising in one lithe, sinuous movement, she eyed Magdalena with contempt. “Still you must cover your skinny body to hide its ugliness.” She caressed her own large breasts with bold and sensuous impudence, looking from Magdalena to Roldan, who was taking in the confrontation with obvious relish.

      
He chuckled at the Taino woman in her voluptuous nakedness. In violation of the custom of married females, she wore no skirt. “Perhaps a man prefers a bit of mystery to enchant his imagination when he looks on a woman's body, Aliyah,” he said as his eyes raked Magdalena's soft curves, artfully draped in the sheer cotton cloth. “Although your assets are considerable,” he added with a swift glance at the golden, naked woman standing across from him, “I find it intriguing to play the old games of court once more.”

      
With that, he walked over to where Magdalena stood and took her hand, raising it for a gallant kiss. “You act as if we were still in Castile,” she said, ignoring the seething Aliyah and looking about the large, lavishly appointed
bohio
. The walls were hung with several tapestries of far superior quality to anything in the governor's palace in Ysabel, yet the room was furnished with only the low wooden stools and oddly shaped chairs carved of whole tree trunks that she had seen in Guacanagari's village. Modern weapons hung on the walls beside traditional Taino spears.

      
Roldan flashed a grin as he escorted her to a seat by a long, low trestle table laden with roasted meats,
cassava
bread, and lush melons and fruits. Goblets of red wine graced the table, which was set with Castilian pewter plates and Taino clay bowls. “As you can see, I have borrowed the best from both worlds. This, Dona Magdalena, is my royal court.”

      
“But the tapestries, the pewter—”

      
His rich laughter interrupted her. “I, er, said I borrowed it—perhaps I should have used a different word. I stole the best from two worlds—the
cacicazgo
from Behechio, along with his lovely bride,” he flourished a hand at Aliyah's pouting face, “and the European furnishings and fine wine from several caravels whose crews I persuaded to pledge allegiance to me instead of to the Colons in Ysabel.”

      
“But that is piracy, sir!” The minute Magdalena blurted out the words, she could have swallowed her tongue. She must make this volatile man her ally, not antagonize him.

      
But far from being angered, Roldan, the curly-headed giant with the roguish grin, seemed delighted with her spirit. “Piracy, humm.” He scratched his head and appeared to consider her words. “Yes, I do believe that would be how the admiral would look upon it.” He chuckled again. “He did so want those supplies, but a Genoese has nothing on a good Castilian when it comes to piracy—on land or sea!”