Spanish Serenade (31 page)

Sweat had appeared on Don Esteban's face, gathering at his hairline and caking in the powder that had sifted from his wig onto his skin. He wiped at it as he turned, leaving a white smear across his forehead. He stumbled in the direction of a side door leading out of the room with Refugio stepping softly beside him. Pilar followed close behind them.

They moved into a bedchamber at the rear of the house, the don's own if the size and richness of the furnishings were any indication. The older man pointed toward a massive armoire of French design. Refugio, indicated with a brief jerk of his head that he was to open it. Don Esteban took a key from his waistcoat pocket and put it in the lock. Drawing the tall doors, he bent to delve inside. With a grunt of effort he lifted out a small brass-bound chest with a dangling lock. He staggered as he turned, then flicked a malevolent glance at Pilar.

“Look out!” she cried.

Don Esteban cursed and heaved the chest at Pilar.

Refugio reached to drag her aside, but she was already leaping back out of the way. The chest crashed to the floor at her feet, overturning with a dull rattle. She stumbled, off balance from Refugio's grasp.

In that instant Don Esteban thrust his hand into the armoire and snatched out a sword. The steel of the blade rang as he whipped it from its scabbard.

Refugio sprang in front of Pilar, engaging the sword of the other man with a clang that vibrated through them both and brought echoes from the corners of the room. Their weapons slashed and rang in a flurry of blows as Don Esteban sought to profit from his moment of surprise. There was no advantage to be gained. Refugio's guard was impenetrable. Don Esteban wrenched himself back out of reach. The two men circled, stepping warily.

Refugio studied his opponent's eyes, his own narrowed and intent. Don Esteban's lips were drawn back in a grimace of effort and malice. Pilar, judging her moment, bent down and dragged the gold chest out of the way. Standing well back, her hands clenched into fists before her, she watched with sick hatred for swordplay in her heart.

Don Esteban was no untried young man such as Philip Guevara. He had experience on his side and a thousand tricks learned from the Italian masters who had their salas de armas in Madrid. In addition, he was cunning and unscrupulous. The languid pace and rich food of the Bourbon court had taken its toll, however, making him corpulent and short of wind.

Refugio had the advantage of reach because of his height, and also of the kind of strength gained by hard physical exertion. There was no doubt that his skill was equal to the other man's, if not superior. Regardless, it had been no great length of time since he was dangerously ill from his chest injury. Despite his heroics during the tournament in Havana, Pilar was afraid that a prolonged contest would tax his stamina. Protests, warnings, rose up inside her, but she stifled them. He did not need that kind of tax upon his concentration. All she could do was pray for a swift conclusion.

The two men feinted and parried, testing each other's striking ability, will, and resistance. Their feet scuffled back and forth on the rough boards of the floor. Their breathing g grew deep. The muscles of their arms stood out in ridges under their coat sleeves while their wrists remained as pliant and supple as striking snakes.

Don Esteban tried a wily stratagem. Refugio parried it in seconde, laughing.

“That one has a beard on it,” he said. “Try another, and while you're constructing it, tell me this: What made you move against my brother? He had been in Seville for months. Why turn on him after all that time?”

“He's a Carranza, which is reason enough. Besides, I had been watching him, saving him for the time when I might need a hostage.”

“Holding my brother was supposed to prevent me from championing Pilar's cause?”

“I may have erred.” The don's voice was breathless. “Besides, I suspected I had been duped by Pilar; she went with you so willingly, you see. Vicente was the most likely go-between, according to Pilar's duenna, my sister. For that he had to pay.”

“You did err,” Refugio said, and mounted an attack that drove the other man, panting, desperately parrying, from one end of the room to the other.

The bedchamber was long and narrow, with French doors opening out onto the back gallery. Don Esteban, with his back to the doors, wrenched up short with a defense that made Refugio skip back three quick steps. The two faced each other with sweat beading their faces. Refugio's breathing was fast, while Don Esteban's had a wheezing sound.

In the lull, there came the sound of quick footsteps from the direction of the salon. Vicente came bursting into the room. He was thin and dressed in rags. On the left cheek of his distraught face was the red scar of a brand, a letter G, for guerra, one usually reserved for captives during war.

“Refugio!” he cried. “Stop them! They have beaten  Alfonzo insensible, and now they are tearing the house apart!”

The distraction was brief, but Don Esteban abandoned honor to seize upon it. The handle of the French door was behind them. He shoved it down and whirled through the opening. Refugio caught the door before the other man could slam it shut. They pushed back and forth, then Refugio gave a shove that sent the don stumbling back.

As Refugio snatched at the door, Vicente caught his shoulder. “Let him go! He's an old man, and the killing can't go on forever!”

Refugio stared at his brother with blank surprise on his features, then he jerked his arm free. “I am not the killer, but it will end when Don Esteban is dead.”

“Or when you are,” his young brother answered.

“Don't be so retiring, my sibling. There will still be you to carry the name.”

“Not if I'm a priest,” Vicente said, but the words were spoken to empty air. Refugio leaped through the doorway with the ease of escaping smoke. The thud of his footsteps sounded, then he was gone.

Pilar touched the younger Carranza brother's arm. “Tell the others to stop. The gold they are after is in there, on the floor. You can take charge of it.”

“I? But whose is it? What do they want with it?”

“Never mind,” she said, already moving out the door. “Just keep it close to you, no matter what happens.”

It was fear that drove her, that made her follow the two fighting men. Though the pitiless, ringing blows of the swords and the thought of the razor-sharp points sinking into flesh made her cringe inside, she had to be there. She could not bear not to be there.

She sprinted across the garden behind the house, which was planted with flowers and neat rows of vegetables. She searched the open area with her eyes, seeking among the ranks of houses and shops for some sign of men running or fighting. There was nothing.

Then came the scream. It reverberated from the house just down from where Pilar stood, on her right. She swung in that direction, stumbling a little as she began to run.

The back entrance door stood open, swaying on its hinges. She pushed inside and became aware of the chiming of blades even as she crossed a bedchamber and stepped into a salon much like that in Don Esteban's house. A woman stood in the middle of the floor with her hands clamped to her pale face. Pilar recognized in her plump and well-dressed figure the wife of the colony official whom she had seen earlier in her walk down Chartres. The woman's eyes were wide and glazed with her fear. She was staring at the entrance to the tiny private chapel that was attached to the house.

Inside, Don Esteban had his back to the altar. His sword tip darted in and out as he sought to keep his guard firm. Sweat ran in streams down his face, dripping from the tip of his nose. His cravat was askew, his coat was ripped in two places, and his breathing was a harsh gasping in the hallowed stillness of the chapel.

Refugio's coat was damp between his shoulder blades, and his hair had a wet sheen. His movements were still quick and forceful, but had lost that fine precision they had shown earlier. He was flagging. As Pilar watched, the quick shuffle of his booted feet in advance and retreat seemed to slow. His fierce concentration on his opponent's blade wavered as he, became aware of Pilar.

Don Esteban smiled in triumph and sprang forward. Immediately he was thrown back, forced to defend against Refugio's vicious counterattack with an awkward frenzy of parrying maneuvers. He staggered backward in retreat, coming up against the altar. Rigorously defending, he slid along its edge, dragging the lace cloth with him. The candelabras rocked. The flames of the burning candles trembled on their wicks, and hot wax ran down in small rivers to congeal on the silver bases and puddle on the altar cloth. Don Esteban staggered again, going to one knee before wrenching himself upward again.

“You need not kneel,” Refugio, said, his voice deadly quiet. “There is no priest here to give you succor or unction, nor is there sanctuary.”

“You can't kill me here,” Don Esteban said on a panting breath.

“Why not?” Refugio said simply, and closed in, carrying his sword before him in a dazzling steel-blue whirl.

It had been a trick, a pretense, Refugio's moment of weakness. Annoyance and rich gladness ran together in Pilar's veins as she realized it. Her heart beat with a jarring thud inside her chest and the fear in her veins circulated with the cold ache of poison. She paid no attention to the lady of the house, who continued to scream behind her, nor to the murmur of the crowd beginning to gather on the street outside, attracted by the screaming of the official's wife and the clanging of the swordfight. Pilar could not breathe, could not think, could do nothing except strain to follow the shifting movements of the men before her.

They fought each other there before the altar while the sun's glow through the one high window sifted soft gold light down upon them. The candlelight ran in fiery gleams along their blades and tinted their damp faces with glassy shades of orange and blue and yellow. Their coarse striving in that place was profane, and yet carried also a trace of lofty purpose, as if the issue of life and death had its own ennoblement.

Don Esteban was harried and worn, with cruelty lingering in his eyes. Refugio's features reflected intent, pitiless p patience. It was the patience of the stalking lion. He was El Leon. What reason was there to fear for him?

What reason, except that if he died, Pilar knew, a part of her would die with him? What reason, except love? She loved him.

That truth of it hardly had time to penetrate before Don Esteban clenched his hand on the altar cloth and gave it a hard jerk. The candlesticks toppled. The candles spilled, rolling; falling to the floor. The don swirled the altar cloth like a matador's cape and tossed it at Refugio, trying to entangle his blade. In quick reflex, Refugio knocked it aside. He caught the end to drag it from the other man's grasp, tossing it in his turn. Don Esteban thrust at the soft white folds with a savage swipe that sent the cloth lofting back toward the altar and its flickering, smoldering candles. At the same time, he heaved himself around with his back to the end of the altar, then darted behind the heavy piece, setting the lace curtains that flanked the crucifix to swirling. Refugio dodged to the other end. The don scrambled to the reverse side once more, tearing the lace curtains down from their fastening and flinging them between himself and Refugio. As Refugio sidestepped the dragging mass, the other man dived along the wall, overturning chairs, circling toward the entrance doors, toward Pilar.

Refugio called out to her as he sprang after his opponent, but she had already seen her stepfather's murderous intention. She backed swiftly away, searching for a weapon. The nearest one was a tall candlestand of wrought iron, with unlighted candles on the spikes of its branched arms. She skimmed behind it and picked it up, using it like a pitchfork to ward off her stepfather. Don Esteban growled a curse, but ran past her. He caught the wrist of the official's portly wife, twisting it behind her back, then he pressed his sword point to her well-padded ribs.

“Stop there, Carranza!” he shouted.

Refugio skidded to a wrenching halt. Pilar put down the candlestand and stepped to his side. The four of them stood still. The breathing of the two men was ragged. The air whistled in Don Esteban's throat while his chest heaved. The official's wife bleated with every breath. Behind them came an ominous fluttering sound and the flare of light.

Fire!

The altar cloth had caught from the fallen candles. The flames had ignited the sagging lace curtains and they were flaring high, setting those still attached to the wall alight. There was a soft explosion of fire that leaped to the ceiling. As they stood there, the dry wooden boarding began to smoke while small tongues of flame licked along its edges.

As she turned back to Don Esteban, Pilar saw the sneer of satisfaction on his face. “You did it,” she said. “You did it on purpose.”

“Wasn't it clever of me?” he said, and gave the official's wife a hard push that sent her catapulting into Refugio's arms. Spinning around, he leaped for the door and flung it open.

“El Leon!” he shouted to those gathered outside. “It's the bandit, El Leon, scourge of Spain! He's robbed the house of Treasurer Nuñez and set it on fire!”

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