The Flesh and the Devil (54 page)

         
His hair glinted pure copper as he turned towards the door,
and on the threshold he paused, looking back searchingly as though probing her
face for signs of her humiliation; she looked away quickly, before he could see
the tears that misted her eyes.

         
‗Unless the town whores give no better value than
you, you need no look for me until morning.‘

         
Juana had not slept that night, she remembered. When
Elisabeta returned with her family, she found her huddled over the embers of
the fire and dispatched her to bed with a torrent of warm scolding that
deceived nobody. She had feared there would be a quarrel, Elisabeta declared,
with Felipe and Juana both so unhappy over the poor Duque‘s death; and now the
elder boys were to be off to their Tio‘s house at once and were not to disturb
Juana by making any noise. In the slow hours before sunrise Juana felt she
would have welcomed their chatter – or any noise that would end the eternity of
lying listening to the bells that marked the passage of the hours and straining
her ears for a quiet footfall that did not come.

         
She had returned from her scanted visit to San Pedro‘s next
morning to find Tristán about to leave the house; Carlos, who had been her
bored but pliant escort, obeyed his Tio Felipe‘s flicked fingers and ran in
ahead of her. She looked up half

         
– fearfully and found Tristán barring her path.

         
Her first thought was that he looked ill, his face grey
with sleeplessness, his eyes narrowed and sunk deep in their hollow sockets.
She had never seen him look so slovenly; his doublet was carelessly fastened, the
cloak slung over his shoulder was crumpled, and his red mane was in ruffled
disorder, one long lock falling across his brow. Then she realized what must
have caused that drained, dissolute look, and stiffened; the curve of his
scrarred mouth told her that he had read the unspoken question in her face
before he sketched a slight, ironic brow.

         
‗Your servant, madam.‘ Despite their painful
narrowness, the green eyes were hard and bright in their dark hollows. ‗I
did not think to see you – I expected you would be at your devotions still,
giving thanks for the peace you had last night. I came for this -‘ The silver
bracelet glittered in his extended hand. ‗This morning finds me almost
bankrupt.‘

         
The taunt brought fierce colour to Juana‘s cheeks and she
would have passed him without a word, but he prevented her by interposing his
shoulder. She said savagely, ‗Then the old adage holds true about beggars
mounted,‘ and was shocked by the frankness of her own words as soon as she
spoke.

         
Tristán smiled strangely. ‗I chose a Portuguese girl
last night,‘ he said deliberately, ‗Spanish ones generally prove
indifferent whores.‘

         
She did not remember moving, only the excruciating pain as
he caught her wrist, and she realized she had tried to claw his eyes out of his
mocking, spiteful face. Then she had torn her arm from his hold with the
strength of desperation and was running down the narrow alley at the side of
Luis‘s house. She ran with the blind speed of s wounded animal, seeking safety
from the thing that had hurt her; it was only gradually that she noticed the
stares of the passer-by, the puzzled looks and the whispered comments. A woman
in the streets alone, she realized too late, could only be the sort of creature
that Felipe –

         
She could not go back, she thought tormentedly; she
could
not. Another day of pretending to be happy for Luis‘s and Elisabeta‘s sake was
more than she could bear, and if it meant her death she would find somewhere
else to go. Her mind moved rapidly, reviewing the little she had learned of
Villenos since the day she arrived. A few streets around Luis‘s house, the
church – but they would look for her in San Pedro‘s if she went there.

         
An idea flickered to the surface of her mind. The cloaked
woman in San Pedro‘s…she had been there again today, smiling kindly but not
speaking, and now, if ever, Juana needed stranger‘s help. With a sense of
casting herself into the sea from a storm – wracked ship, she enquired the way
to the Casa de Herreros. She was too disturbed to notice the look on the face
of the woman who gave her directions, and if she had she would have attributed
it to her own wild – eyes appearance as she fought the uprush of tears. She had
been lucky to reach her destination before they overwhelmed her, she thought
bitterly, but the journey had not taken long.

         
Crossing back to the desk, she snatched up the pen and
scrawled the single sentence,
The debt is cancelled now
, then folded the
paper so hastily that the ink was smudged. She hesitated before addressing it
with final formality to
SeñorFepile Tristán
, then slipped the folded
sheet inside the other, sealed it and wrote on the packet, Luis. She did not
care to have to explain how she came to share her late host‘s surname – in
fact, she had stupidly begun to give her maiden name to Sanchia, and had
managed to alter the word, adding the name of her ten – years –

         
old sister, Margarita.

         
With sudden impatience to know herself irrevocably
committed, she rang the handbell at her side and gave the packet to the boy who
answered it, with instructions for it to be taken to Luis‘s house. She took a
jerky step forward as the door closed, taking breath to call the boy back, then
checked herself, relapsing into stillness. If love were to be measured by the
hurt it caused, she thought, then she must be in love beyond the depths of
hell.

         
‗So your duty is done now, Margarita?‘ The amused
voice from the doorway made her look up, and she saw Dona Jerónima watching
her, the yellowish eyes filled with a mixture of pity and shrewdness. ‗We
must ensure that you lose that sad look before you leave here, my dear. Come,
and I shall show you where you are to sleep while you are here, and then we can
begin to make plans for your entertainment.‘

         
Felipe Tristán‘s shadow swung ahead of him as he turned
into the street where the Armendariz house stood. It was siesta-time, early
afternoon, and the street was empty and his shadow short. His clothes clung to
him as he moved, and as he licked his dry lips the longing stirred briefly for
a drink of water.

         
‗Felipe, is that you?‘

         
Luis‘s furrowed face bobbed round the door, its harassed
look lightening slightly as he saw him. His voice sounded thin and bodiless in
the afternoon heat. He swung the door wide, and from inside Tristán heard the
sound of Elisabeta exclaiming over something. Watching his face rather like an
anxious dog, Luis said, ‗Come in quickly, there is news!‘

         
‗In a moment, Luis, I must speak to Juana.‘ Tristán
ducked as he crossed the shady threshold, his slanting eyes flickering quickly
round the room and then back to Luis‘s face, ‗Where is she?‘

         
―That is what I – we are trying to tell you. She is
not here.‘ Luis cleared his throat and edged closer to Elisabeta. ‗Carlos
said you had met her at the door, and we thought when she did not come in that
you had taken her with you – until halfan-hours ago, when the letter came.
Where have you been? The boys are out scouring the town for you.‘

         
‗I have been to the next town to get the best price I
could for a bracelet, to make up for what I squandered last night in – getting
drunk.‘ Tristán‘s voice was level, but his face had grown tight. ‗You
have not seen her since this morning, then?‘

         
‗We thought she had gone with you,‘ Elisabeta said, ‗Luis
and I were glad to think you had made up your quarrel – ‘

         
―She spoke to you of that?‘

         
Luis put his arm round his wife as if to protect her. ‗No,
not a word – but it was plain enough when you did not come home last night, and
the look on her face this morning - ! You used to be gentler, Felipe.‘

         
‗Perhaps; it is an easier trick to lose than to
regain. Save your reproaches, Elisabeta; I shall sit still for them later.
Luis, you spoke of a letter?‘

         
Silently, Luis held out a folder sheet of paper. Tristán
took it, shock in out with an odd, quick gesture, and stared down at the
smudged single line for only a moment before he crushed the letter into a ball
and hurled it into the fire beneath the cooking-pot.

         
Elisabeta instructed softly, ‗Show him what she wrote
to us, Luis.‘

         
Her husband proffered the second sheet more cautiously.
Tristán‘s face seemed to harden as he stared at the letter, and it was several
moments before the hooding eyelids lifted again.

         
‗It gives no word of where she is, but she cannot go
far – she is too ignorant of common way, and I doubt she found ink and paper by
the roadside to make her farewells. How was this brought?‘ The letter was
thrust back into Luis‘ hands.

         
―A boy brought it, on foot. I did not think to ask
where he came from, and he was gone before I opened the letter and realized
what it was…‘ Luis‘s voice faded apologetically, but his wife broke in.

         
‗But, Luis, Alfonso told me that he knows him! His
brother is that tiresome Pepe who sits on our doorstep half the day and spends
the other half hatching mischief. He, the brother, went to work as a stable-boy
for - ‘ She broke off apprehensively.

         
‗For whom, Elisabeta?‘

         
Tristán‘s prompting question was even and coolly polite,
but she swallowed before she answered. ‗For
laviuda
Herreros.‘

         
―Felipe.‘ Luis put a restraining hand on his friend‘s
arm, then gulped as the red head turned slightly to look down at him. ‗Felipe!‘.

         
―I am going out again.‘ The words were prosaic, but
there was a disturbingly uncanny look in the green eyes. ‗Do not wait for
me.‘