Paradise & More (Torres Family Saga) (48 page)

      
Aaron leaned his shoulder on the door frame of the
cacique
's
bohio
and replied thoughtfully, “He is not the only one who is crafty, Francisco. You play a dangerous game, rebelling against the crown. Even if you like not the Colons, they are the magisterial authority on Española. ”

      
“Perhaps I should allow you to return me to their good graces?” Roldan suggested, knowing what Aaron intended.

      
“Because you saved Magdalena, I will intercede with Cristobal for your pardon,” Aaron replied. “If you in turn mend your ways.” He looked at the burly Castilian meaningfully.

      
“The idea of reformation has played about my mind here of late,” Francisco said. He sat down on the carved
cacique
's chair and ran one large, calloused hand over the smooth wood, pausing at the inlaid gold carving on one arm. He looked up at Aaron. “Let us see what tomorrow brings. Then we will talk more. Do not deal harshly with Magdalena, Torres. She loves you well.”

      
Aaron sighed. “Already I have dealt far too harshly with my wife. She wants only my safety. I will not fault her for asking this boon of you.”

* * * *

      
Aliyah looked behind her at the flickering fires of the compound. The orange flames danced through the slits of the cane walls like slivers spun off the sun. The gathering blackness of the jungle quickly enveloped her. Long ebony hair and dusky skin blended with the whispering palms and low-hanging flame vines of the dense undergrowth. Good. No one had seen her leave and no one followed. She made her way to the rendezvous, her eyes glowing like a cat's in the night.

      
The moon was rising when she reached the clearing. She gave a low trill and waited. Nothing broke the silence but the hum of insects. Then suddenly, without warning, a set of calloused fingers bit into her shoulder, pulling her around.

      
“You are late,” Behechio hissed.

      
Aliyah lowered the thick lashes over her glowing eyes. “I was forced to endure a meal with that pig Roldan before I could slip away unnoticed.”

      
“A meal and what else?” the muscular, dark-skinned man asked, his harsh, angular features contorted with bitterness.

      
“Nothing tonight, but you know he takes me.” She made an obscene gesture, then looked at him defiantly. “I hate him.”

      
Although little taller than she, Behechio was barrel-chested and his powerful girth made him seem to menace the woman's softly rounded curves. “You say you hate white men, yet you have a white child,” he accused her. “You are my wife now. No one should touch you but me.”

      
She placed one hand placatingly on his hard, smooth chest. “No man but you ever shall again, my lord, once this is finished.”

      
“What of the Golden One and his woman? My men tell me they are here. Once you went willingly to him.”

      
Aliyah tossed back her long mane of hair as she raised her head. The handsome planes of her face were twisted with hatred. “Once it was my right. Now I would see you kill him and give me his skinny, red-haired wife as my slave. Will you do this for me, Behechio, husband?” she asked sweetly.

      
“Yes, I will kill him, but I will keep his woman as my slave, I think,” he said with a sneer.

      
“No!” she stamped a bare foot on the mossy carpet of fecund earth.

      
A cruel smile spread across his face. “So, you do not like me to have a white woman, yet you lay with two white men. Even now you may have that usurper's baby growing inside you.” The smile was gone.

      
“You know this was part of our plan. I had to stay with Roldan if we were to succeed. I can rid myself of his seed as easily as I did the other...if it is necessary,” she added carelessly. Then her eyes locked with his and she asked, “How went the battle in the north? Does Caonabo come to join us in driving the whites into the sea?”

      
Behechio's expression altered swiftly from jealousy to fury. “That traitorous dog you call brother has joined the enemy! He rules over more Tainos than all other chieftains, yet he fought with the whites. Caonabo and our friend are all taken. No help comes from the north.”

      
“Then we must wait no longer. I overheard Aaron speak of the battle but could learn little. Once we kill Roldan and all the whites here, we will march north. I will make my brother, the ruler of Marien, see the justice of our cause,” she vowed in a passionate voice.

      
“No more will white men kill us with their diseases and make us dig the accursed yellow metal,” Behechio said, his voice rising. “You are certain Guacanagari will heed you and join us?”

      
“Yes, but I will plead your cause only if you do not touch the white woman. Give her to me when we take the compound,” she implored.

      
“I will think on it,” he replied, his male vanity pleased by her jealousy. It never occurred to him to question whether she was jealous over him or Aaron.

      
“When do we attack? Now that we know no help comes from the north, we must move quickly.”

      
“My warriors are ready. Just before dawn three of the stealthiest will slip in and use their
bejucos
to strangle the guards. Return to the compound and wait. You must keep watch to be certain no one gives an alarm before we are inside.”

      
“I will do better than that,” she boasted. “A leaderless band of men fights ill. I will kill Roldan as he sleeps.”

He smiled and nodded. “Let it be so. I will join you at sunrise.”

* * * *

      
Lorenzo Guzman paced his cell in the damp pre-dawn air. “God's balls and blood of all the martyrs! What am I doing in this hellish nightmare?” he muttered beneath his breath as he swatted at a mosquito intent on extracting what small measure of moisture remained inside his sweat-drenched body. When he next met Alonso Hojeda, he would kill the posturing little peacock! Sending him to this barbarian—a comrade in arms of Torres!

      
He shuddered as he considered the impending fight. It would be to the death. Torres knew he was Valdés' co-conspirator. He had not only abducted the swine's wife, but was responsible for the death of all the House of Torres. “And look what all my striving has gained me!” he hissed bitterly. “A prisoner awaiting a primitive gladiatorial combat to appease the blood lust of a pack of howling barbarians. I am their amusement in this god-forsaken hole!”

      
Peralonso watched his companion pace and mutter, swearing and sweating. From his reclining position on the crude pallet in the corner of their dingy prison, he spoke. “You but waste your strength on useless fear. Direct your anger. You are accounted a good swordsman. So is Torres, but he will attack with blind fury for revenge. Use cool determination against him and you may well take him.”

      
Guzman ceased his pacing. “Well enough for you to say. You will not be facing his blade!”

      
“I share this ghastly colonial prison with you, do I not? What madness to abduct that woman and flee here! I only wish—”

      
Guerra's speech was cut short when a dull thud sounded outside the door. A body had dropped to the ground. “What goes there?” he whispered nervously, climbing to his feet as Lorenzo waited by the side of the room's lone entrance.

      
Hojeda's Taino slave slid into the room with a broad smile on his face. He bowed, a length of supple
bejuco
cord still wound around one brawny fist. “Come,” he said simply, then added in broken Castilian, “I help you escape. Soon all whites be...” He gestured with the cord, making his meaning abundantly clear.

      
Guzman and Guerra followed him past the strangled guard outside their cell.

      
Roldan's instincts had been finely honed over years of fighting Moors on the battlefield and brawling with his compatriots in the streets. He opened his eyes but did not move or alter his breathing as he lay in the
hamaca
. Someone was in the room with him. He swore silently for the unusually close night that had led him to sleep in the cooler but confining hemp sling. His sword and dirk lay across the room by the raised pallet in the corner. He was trapped, trussed up like a hog at butchering time!

      
The room was cast in darkness. The moon had set. Dawn was near. He strained his ears for another sound, but heard none. Then he caught the scent of fruit soap and the vanilla fragrance of the leopard orchid. Aliyah!

      
She approached the
hamaca
, knife raised high, gleaming dully in the darkness.
For all the times you rutted on me, white pig—as fat and dirty as the vile, squealing animals you brought to pollute our land!
She stood beside the
hamaca
ready to bury the knife in his throat. Then she saw the glow of his eyes—wide open, staring up at her in bemused surprise. Cursing, she plunged the blade downward on a swift, sure arc.

      
Roldan's reflexes were amazingly swift for a man of his size. One brawny arm came up to deflect the blade, smashing against her wrist. The knife went flying from her hand. Aliyah dove after it as Roldan rolled from the confining
hamaca
. By the time he had freed himself, she again held her weapon and ran at him, screaming like a deranged thing. He tried to seize her wrist, but the strength of her blind hate fortified her. As they struggled, she turned her body to the left while he twisted downward on her wrist. She held the blade at just such an angle that it slashed across her breast and embedded itself in her belly.

      
Aaron was restless and half awake. Something was amiss. The instant he heard the scream, he leaped from the pallet, awakening Magdalena. She sat up, rubbing her eyes as he slid on his hose and reached for his sword belt.

      
“What has happened?” she asked with apprehension. “Tis not yet dawn. You cannot face Lorenzo now.”

”
      
“I am not concerned with that filth. I heard a scream—a woman's cry. It sounded from Roldan's quarters.”

      
“Surely we are safe in the compound,” she said with a bravado she did not feel.

      
“Probably only a lover's spat,” he said, his teeth a white slash in the darkness as he grinned affectionately at her. “Stay indoors until I return.”

      
With that, he was gone. Magdalena felt an eerie sense, of uneasiness pervade the room. She rose and wrapped her body in a length of cotton cloth, securing it tightly above her breasts. Such would have to serve until they returned to Ysabel. “I am only overwrought because of the duel,” she murmured, trying to shake the tension holding her prisoner.

      
Aaron ran toward the
bohio
of the
cacique
. Already several of Roldan's men, night sentries filled with wine and none too alert, milled about the doorway to the big hall. He quickly shouldered past them and then stopped, frozen in shock. Aliyah lay on the floor, her head cradled in Roldan's lap. Both of them were covered with blood. It ran in a red river from the raw, slashing wound high on her stomach.

      
“I cannot staunch the flow,” Francisco said quietly.

      
“How did this happen?” Aaron asked as he knelt beside the
cacique
.

      
“She tried to kill me. We struggled and her own blade turned on her,” Roldan replied, puzzled and regretful.

      
Hearing Aaron's voice, Aliyah's mind cleared from the haze of pain and her eyes focused on him. One hand reached out and clutched at him with amazing strength, staining his bare arm with her blood. “I gave you a splendid son, yet you wed with a barren rack of bones, all for her precious white skin.”

      
“Aliyah, please, do not—”

      
“No! I am going to the
zemis
of my ancestors. From the spirit world I will return to curse that red-haired bitch, but know this now, white man,” she grated out in a low burbling rasp as red frothed on her lips, “I curse you with these words...you think your son dead... Navaro is alive.” She glared at Aaron and watched with satisfaction as he blanched in the dim dawn light.

      
“I saw his ashes...” Aaron's voice broke. “Where...?”

“I sent him away. You will never find him, such a small babe of mixed blood. There are many such now, like the shells along the beach. Your son is as good as dead to you. Get one on your cold white wife, Aaron...if she can give you one...” She coughed once, then her eyes glazed over, glowing dully. She was dead.

      
Aaron trembled as he stretched out his hand and touched her cheeks, then softly closed her eyes. “I had no idea…the strength of her hate...to send her own son off with strangers.”

      
“Tis a fearful, unnatural woman. How could a mother do such?” Roldan said as he lowered Aliyah's body to the floor.

      
Aaron crossed the room to get a length of cloth with which to cover her. Gazing numbly at the still form, he said in a low voice, “I will find you, Navaro, my son. I will search every village, every band of Tainos on Española until I do!”

      
Roldan clasped his shoulder. Just then a chorus of wild yelling broke the dawn silence. One of the Castilian soldiers ran into the
bohio
crying, “Behechio's Tainos are attacking—hundreds of them!”

      
“Magdalena!” Aaron said as he spun around. “I must see to her safety.”