Spanish Serenade (9 page)

The silence between them stretched. In the next room a man coughed and rose from his blankets with a muttered imprecation. The quiet crackle of the fire could be heard as someone placed more wood on the coals.

Refugio drained the last of his chocolate. “As pleasant as this is, it's time we began to plan in earnest for Cordoba, to think of a ruse to get you inside the gates.”

“A ruse?”

“What did you expect? A grand procession with a gilded carriage, outriders, and the town fathers waiting to greet you?”

“Hardly,” she answered, her tone tart.

“Good. Then you won't be disappointed.” She entered the ancient, walled city in a two-wheeled cart. If she had been traveling alone, she could have ridden through the great carved gates without worry or hindrance beyond giving her name to the guards. But she was not traveling alone; Refugio had agreed to see her to the house of her aunt, and he intended to do exactly that. Pilar had not considered, when she made her proposal to him, how El Leon would be able to keep his bargain. She knew that folk tales had sprung up crediting him with the powers of a ghost to pass where he would without being seen. She had also heard rumors about his many friends and sympathizers in the countryside and smaller towns who helped him come and go, and the bribes that were sometimes passed to allow him to enter and leave Seville at will. What other shifts he might be forced to use had never occurred to her; certainly she had never expected to become a part of one of them.

The cart was old and worn out, so that its tall wheels of solid wood squealed on their axles with nerve-shattering regularity. Its load of firewood, the sticks and stumps and odd-shaped branches of deadwood carefully scavenged from the forest, was almost too much for the ancient donkey plodding between the shafts. Pilar rode on the seat while Refugio walked to one side, with the donkey's lead rein in one hand and a staff that was stouter than it looked in the other.

They had found their dubious transportation at a farm well outside the city. The farmer's wife had also supplied the rebozo of black wool that covered Pilar's head and shoulders, and the piece of charcoal that had been used to make the dark, aging circles under her eyes and the hollows in her cheeks. Where Refugio had found the peculiar conical hat that he wore pulled low over his eyes, and the short, ragged breeches and rough shoes that made him look the part of a peasant, Pilar did not ask. She only stared at him from time to time, wondering in amazement tinged with respect at his attire, and also at the rough thatch he had made of his hair and the look of a dullard in his eyes.

It was early morning of the third day, a market day, before they made their attempt to enter the city. They joined a stream of carts, barrows, and donkeys headed toward the gates, all of them loaded with something to sell, from cured leather to jars of olive oil, fresh cabbage to trussed and squawking geese. Behind them, at some distance, trailed Baltasar, Enrique, and Charro amidst a herd of goats.

Pilar and Refugio, with the other three, had lain for what was left of the second night at the farmer's house, sharing its one room with the man and his wife, their nine children, five dogs, a black hen, and a liberal supply of fleas. After such a night, Pilar thought, they surely looked as slovenly and unlike themselves as anyone could wish. Refugio still wasn't satisfied, however. He insisted she carry the latest addition to the farmer's family in her arms, a fine boy of seven weeks who had protested at the top of his lungs at being removed from his mother's arms. The child had not ceased to scream since they left the farm, and had made three wet spots on Pilar's lap in spite of several changes of the rags that served for diapers. His mother, trailing with her husband behind the herd of goats, had come forward once to nurse the baby. He had quieted only a few minutes, beginning to cry again the instant he was given back to Pilar. He sensed her inexperience with him, she thought, and her fear of what was going to happen.

Ahead of them lay the Guadalquivir River. The water flowed greenish-brown and placid around its islands that were dotted with oleanders, before gliding through the great arches of the old Roman bridge that gave access to the city. The cart trundled past the tower fortress of Calahorra and began to cross the bridge. Before them Pilar could see the stone-pillared, Romanesque
puerta del puente
. There were two guards at the gate. One was talking with an attractive and vivacious young girl with a goose under each arm. The other stood watching their approach with his hands clasped behind his back and a look of dyspeptic gloom on his face.

The cart drew closer, its wheels shrieking as if in alarm. The guard stirred and released his hands to place them on his hips. A frown drew his brows together. Nearer the cart came, and nearer still. The guard took a step forward. Pilar sent Refugio a swift glance. The brigand leader seemed oblivious of their danger, only plodding onward with his gaze straight ahead.

“Stop!”

Refugio gave no sign he heard. Pilar ran her tongue over her lips, at the same time joggling the crying baby in the hope that he would be quieted.

The guard moved in front of them with his hand upheld. “I mean you, oaf! Stop!”

A species of panic ran over Refugio's blank features. He hauled on the lead he held, nearly jerking the donkey off its feet. As the animal halted, Refugio snatched off his hat and stood with bowed head, almost visibly trembling.

“That's better,” the guard said, thrusting his chest out. “You're making a racket fit to wake the nobles in their beds. For the love of God, get some grease for your wheels. And you, woman, put that child to the breast!”

“Yes, your honor, but yes. Instantly, your honor,” Refugio replied in servile tones. He bent himself almost double bowing, at the same time making frantic motions toward Pilar. The actions flapped the lead in his hand and caused the donkey to start forward again. The guard stepped back out of the way, though he stared so hard at Pilar that she flushed and lowered her gaze, fumbling at the front of her dress under the ends of her rebozo. Mercifully, the baby found the action and the way he was being held familiar, and lowered the volume of his cries.

They rolled onward, mingling with the crowd. Pilar sat stiff and straight, expecting at any minute to be called back, or else to hear Baltasar and the others behind them challenged. It did not happen. They were inside the city walls; they had reached Cordoba.

They moved along the street, past the walls of the ancient mosque that had been built by the Moorish ruler of Cordoba over a thousand years ago and turned into a cathedral some four and a half centuries later with the conquest of the Catholic king. Its majestic arches towered above them, solid and enduring and harmonious in their symmetry. Refugio and Pilar scarcely looked up. The baby howled without ceasing. Refugio, plodding along beside the cart, sent her a quick slanting look. His voice shaded with quiet amusement, he said, “I see you're not maternal.”

“Being maternal has nothing to do with it,” she snapped. “The poor little thing knows something isn't right, and he wants his mother.”

“No more than I want her to have him.”

“You don't like children?” she asked pointedly.

“I dote on the little treasures, but not when they are attracting attention.”

“Bringing him was your choice,” she reminded him.

“Yes, well, he adds a certain validity to my image as a lack-wit with a scolding wife, don't you think?”

Pilar scowled at him. “I'm not your wife.”

“Wonderful playacting!” he congratulated her. “The world can see you have a proper regard for your mate.”

“I told you—”

“So you did. And tell me this, why is it you have so little concern for propriety. Why did you refuse to be made the wife of this Carlos?”

“I don't know what you mean,” Pilar said, jiggling the baby vigorously, but with no effect.

“Most women in your place would be yelling for a priest and demanding the security of a man's name, any man's name.”

She gave him a sharp look. “I have enough problems already.”

“The purpose is to solve them, not make them, or at least to pretend that a ring has that power, that marriage is an estate to be longed for by a woman.”

“It can also be a snare,” Pilar said, thinking of her mother.

“Such heresy will see you hounded from the society of those who have made that bargain and have no choice except to celebrate it.”

“You sound no more ready for marriage than I,” she told him.

“It appears a blessed estate for those who love; I remember how it was with my mother and father, you see. It's only that love is rare.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice low. “Anyway, I'm not sure that a ring and a vow could restore me to respectability.”

“Therefore you scorn them?”

A reluctant smile touched her mouth. “I see. You are doubtless thinking of sour grapes and foxes.”

“No, no,” he answered, “only honey and bees.”

“What?” she asked, but he was looking behind them for signs of pursuit, and made no answer.

They wound through the old town, past wrought-iron gates that revealed glimpses of green and secluded patios, under geranium-hung balconies and along streets planted on either side with the pointed and dark green shapes of ever- green cypresses. On a side street in the shadow of the Alcazar, the old palace where Ferdinand and Isabelle had seen Columbus off on his voyage to the Americas and where the Holy Inquisition was housed, they stopped. Across the way lay a narrow house made of stone with a tiled roof, projecting balconies railed with iron, and a heavy, blue-painted door. It was a comfortable house rather than an imposing one. It was also extremely quiet.

Baltasar, with Enrique and Charro behind him, caught up with them. They all stood looking at the house. Pilar gathered up her skirts and prepared to get down from the cart. Refugio put out his hand and touched her arm.

“Wait,” he said.

Pilar hesitated. Refugio had discarded his dullness as if it were a piece of worn out clothing. His manner was alert, poised for instant action. His gaze, under the ridiculous conical hat, moved over the face of the house, searching every window and door, then traveled on to its neighbors'. A stray cat, ambling down the street, saw them and stopped. It hissed, bowing up its back, then fled.

“Stay here,” Refugio said.

He did not wait for a reply, but strode away, crossing the street and angling for an alleyway. He glanced both ways, then glided into the dim passage. Pilar waited only until he was out of sight, then she motioned toward the baby's mother, who had trailed up behind the goats, and handed her the baby. Jumping down from the two-wheeled vehicle, she followed Refugio. The house before her belonged to her aunt, her only real relative. Pilar was prepared to take all necessary precautions, but the endless delays had been maddening. There was no sign of either Don Esteban or the authorities, and she could not wait to see her father's sister a moment longer.

There was a second alleyway leading off the first, one that meandered past the back of her aunt's house. Halfway along its length was a wooden gate set into a wall, a servant's entrance from all appearances. Pilar saw Refugio pause at the gate and push on it, saw it give under his hand to swing silently inward. He stood listening a long moment, then stepped through in a single swift movement before spinning instantly to one side.

He was inside a patio, for through the open gate Pilar could see the branches of shrubs and a stretch of stone tiles.

Somewhere a bird sang, a shrill, discordant sound at this season.

She moved forward, easing through the patio gate. Inside, the garden had a dank, dispirited air. The fountain was still, so that the long reflecting pool that caught the overflow lay as dark and glassy as a steel mirror in the gray light of the overcast day. The patio was deserted.

Pilar stood in the shadows, watching as Refugio crossed to the house and tried a back door. It was locked. He moved away, out of her sight, and there came the tinkle of breaking glass. She waited a moment longer, then followed in the direction he had taken. A long window set with small circles of stained glass stood swinging open. She crossed to it with quick footsteps and climbed over the sill, slipping inside.

She was in some kind of reception room, one of impressive size and stultifying formality. Gilt and red velvet chairs lined the walls beneath dark and formal portraits. The light coming through the colored glass of the windows made blue and green stains on the stone floor. The air was chill and smelled of cold fires, cracked leather, and ancient dust.

There was a stair hall through double doors, with a stairway winding upward into the shadows. Moving toward it, Pilar heard the faint creak of a step and thought that was the way Refugio had gone. She picked up her skirts, climbing after him.

The body was around the first bend of the stairs. It was an elderly servant, or so it appeared from the rough cloth of his night shirt, perhaps her aunt's majordomo. He was icy cold and his eyes were wide and staring, while blood from a stab wound splotched his nightshirt. He had died at night, for in addition to the nightshirt as indicator, the candle he had been holding had gone rolling as he fell, scorching a lower stair tread before burning itself out.

Pilar swayed a little as she hovered over the dead man. The apprehension inside her blossomed into horror mixed with dread, while something cold and hard closed around her heart. What had happened here? Where was her aunt?