Hart, Mallory Dorn Read online

  The Alcalde wrung his hands. "My lord, might I say again how I deplore that this should have happened in our fine city of Ciudad Real. If you will just turn the trash over to my constable we shall deal with him quickly."

  The Count waved his hand. This might liven up the dull evening. "Nonsense, no apology is required, señor. Such thievery happens everywhere. Rondero?"

  The guard hesitated. "My lord, I would not advise bringing him to this room. He is somewhat bloody, a bit, you see..."

  "Quite right, my fastidious giant, we should not like to mar our good host's Moorish carpets. Where have you got him, in the gate house? Then come, Pietro, we will stretch our legs a bit before we dine. Señor Alcalde will permit...?"

  "But naturally, my lord, anything which pleases Your Excellence." Piroso rose, showing his bad teeth in an obsequious smile. "And if you will pardon my absence I will see that my chamberlain has had your rooms prepared for your every comfort."

  He bowed deferentially and then followed them out, the hulking Rondero bringing up the rear.

  ***

  When Francho finally managed to open one puffed eye it was to see the blurred, lively face of Pietro di Lido hanging over him. The face withdrew and the ruddy visage of Rondero took its place.

  "So, you've still got some life in you, rascal. I'll teach you to steal! Stand up, stand up there and show some respect. On your feet, estúpido..." Francho felt himself hauled off the floor and stood up half-conscious before the Count, who was casually seated on the edge of a rude table. In the background the Count's men and some of the Alcalde's city guards were ranged against the damp wall of the low-ceilinged stone chamber, watching with interest.

  Rondero gave the boy a good poke with the hilt of his sword to stop him from swaying. "This miserable ragpicker is the culprit, Your Excellence."

  Other than a torch smoking in a holder by the door, the only light was from a thick candle on the table that sent flickering shadows onto Tendilla's face. Francho, wobbling uncertainly, blinked his swollen eyes at this new tormentor and weakly crossed himself, croaking under his breath, "María Santa..."

  Di Lido understood why the frightened boy called on the Mother of God for protection. In the gloom, lit only from below by the leaping yellow flame, Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza, Count of Tendilla and lord of other rich dependencies, respected, favored, and admired courtier of Their Catholic Majesties, did most certainly bring the Devil himself to mind.

  Tendilla's oval, aristocratic face was defined by sharply honed features: a long and narrow nose swooping between arrogant, shadowed cheekbones; thin lips so finely chiseled they hinted, with close study, of sensuousness rather than cruelty; a pointed chin adorned by a small triangle of dark beard, an affectation in a cleanshaven age.

  But it was his black eyes, eyes which did not gaze but pierced, which made men uncomfortable. Women, conversely, vied to attract their attention, charmed by his elegance and subtlety, intrigued by his seeming imperviousness to feminine wiles.

  Casually Tendilla's long, thin fingers toyed with a small, jeweled dagger which he had drawn from the belt of a velvet doublet so dark it absorbed all the light and threw his patrician face into shadowed, sinister relief.

  Di Lido chuckled to himself; there was no telling this book by the leather of its cover. Although he knew that his patron enjoyed creating an awesome impression, he wished Tendilla could see himself as he appeared now, especially as he must seem to this poor wretched youth, who would pay a dear price for his indiscretion in robbing a grandee.

  The Count could see blood welling from a bad gash in the boy's scalp, and there were ugly bruises and red, seeping welts on his bare arms and presumably on his back where his tunic had been ripped open. The youth slowly wiped his bloody nose with his arm. There was yet a stubborn glint in the one blue eye that could open and a set to the scraped, dirt-streaked jaw that showed no loss of defiance. Tendilla concealed his mild admiration for such tenacity and reminded himself of the sum of money the boy had snatched.

  "Come, lad," he said suavely, "that money could not mean more to you than your life? Tell us where it is and we'll let you go with your life, since you've been this punished. My word on it."

  Francho let his breath puff out. He had expected to hear the growl of Lucifer, but instead heard soft words and a surprisingly lenient bargain. But how could he reveal where the purse was hidden without putting his foster family at the inn in jeopardy? Those people had been good to him; he could not implicate them to pay for his carelessness.

  "I don't know where it is," he mumbled. "I lost it."

  "He's lying, Excellence, this pup is much too clever to lose a sum of money like that," Rondero burst out. "Be glad of your luck, you whelp," he commanded, shoving Francho again, "in that my lord does not believe how well a bit of stretching on the rack loosens tongues, or how a foot crushed bloody in the boot would make you damn well babble in a hurry—"

  "Softly, Rondero," Tendilla chided. "I know he is lying. Speak up there, boy, I can't hear you. Come closer."

  Rondero propelled Francho further forward into the light.

  "I swear to you, I don't know where it is!" Francho croaked out, staring as steadily as he could at the heavy gold medallion on his captor's chest, afraid to meet the black eyes that might see his secret right through his forehead. He knew he was doomed. But he would not give away his friends.

  Suddenly the black-clad leg stopped swinging aimlessly, and he glanced up to see Tendilla's face darkening under a frown. "So be it," Francho thought bleakly. "Unless Carlos works a miracle, I am as good as dead."

  But all Tendilla did was to stare at him strangely and then beckon di Lido to his side. "Pietro." Indicating Francho with a motion of his chin, the Count leaned forward to whisper to his friend, "The face is battered, but study it. Do you recall someone? Of long ago?"

  Di Lido squinted at Francho for a moment. The next moment his jaw dropped. But he quickly recovered, closed his mouth, and shrugged. "Ah, I see what you mean, my lord, a certain resemblance. One has to look closely. If his face were not so... damaged... perhaps. No. No, now I see there is not much there."

  "But the shape of the head and jaw... the eyes. Once the thought entered my head it gripped like an incubus. I cannot escape seeing... the other, like a ghostly overlay. Curious!"

  "But impossible, dear Count. After all..."

  "Yes, I suppose you are right. My imagination plays tricks." But he did not sound convinced.

  Francho's head throbbed unmercifully, his knees were weak, and he swayed in spite of his determination to stand straight and steady before the Count. Blood running from his nose trickled saltily into a corner of his mouth; he raised a trembling hand to wipe it away. Dios mío, the three of those vermin had punched and beaten him all over the room. There seemed to be a great bell ringing in his ears. A picture of Tía Esperanza rose before his bleary vision, great, comfortable, comforting Tía. He would never see her again.

  "Well, boy, do you insist on being mule-headed? You are a fool!"

  Francho shook his head, trying to clear his daze. "No... I don't... know... where..."

  Tendilla lost patience and stood up, resheathing his dagger. The sight of the battered youth did not amuse him at all, his stomach growled its hunger, and he was tired from his journey. He shrugged his elegant shoulders. "This is a farce, he is evidently an imbecile. Rondero, give him over to the Alcalde's constable. Although what good that money will do him ten feet high on the rope is more than I can comprehend. Come, maestro..."

  One of the guards opened the door, letting in a swirl of leaves from the courtyard. Suddenly, in a frantic, final burst of resistance, Francho willed his legs to move and he lunged to dash past the Count, who had already turned his back, although knowing full well that even if he escaped the gate house, the main portal would be closed and locked. But with surprising swiftness a leg in bright hosen flashed out before him and tripped him up, and a hand grabbed him to keep him from falling headlong into Tendilla.


  Francho twisted in despair to find the little Italian grinning into his face, holding on to his upper arm with a grip strong as an iron clamp.

  "Calm yourself, my little lion," di Lido advised in his finest lecture tone as he passed Francho over to Rondero. "For every crime there must be a punishment, there will be expiation for every sin and an unpleasant end for every sinner—"

  "Don Pietro!" Tendilla exclaimed sharply from where he stood to one side of them. "Look here, por piedad!" He pointed to a spot on Francho's back which was now turned toward the brighter flames from the flaring torch at the door. The Count's face had gone quite intense, the nostrils of his thin nose flaring.

  Di Lido peered at the place indicated by Tendilla's long finger, and then his eyebrows flew up as if they would leave his narrow face. "Mater Domini!" he blurted. "This is a cicatrix I have seen before. Indeed. Jesu, Jesu..." He let his breath out in a soft whistle.

  The two of them stared in wonder at the odd, puckered white scar, the small dagger shape on Francho's shoulder blade, which showed up clearly as he sagged in Rondero's grip. The other guards in the room, curious, moved closer.

  "Can this possibly be the little holy grail for whom we quested so long?"

  "There is a good chance," Tendilla muttered, recovering a measure of calm. "How many markings like this could there be in Spain? And look at his face, the unique resemblance we remarked before. Could coincidence be so wild?" He motioned to Rondero to bring the youth back to the table and with his foot shoved up a stool for the captive to sit on. In the close light of the candle all three intently studied Francho's pain-filled features as he swayed on his seat. The Italian wrung his hands in a transport of amazement. Tendilla took his silk kerchief and swabbed away the blood trickling down the side of Francho's face, the better to examine him.

  Francho's eyes were closed. He felt weak and faint, and the pain from his cuts and welts and where he had been brutally kicked in the ribs racked through him in burning waves. The worst was the ringing in his ears that made him so dizzy. Yet something penetrated his befuddled brain so that he levered his good eye open, finally focusing on the saturnine nobleman standing before him. The man's mouth opened to speak.

  "What is your name, boy?"

  "Francisco," he croaked, with a large effort.

  Tendilla started as if he had been stung by a nettle. "What more?" The man seemed to hold his breath.

  "There is no more. I have no family. I live in the streets." Never, never would he betray his friends.

  "Where were you born, do you know? Have you always lived in Ciudad Real? No? Where else?"

  He did not know what to make of all the questions launched at him, but he reached back into his short past and told the truth, just so they would leave him be, let him rest. He was nauseated, dizzy. "Raised at the monastery of San Martín in Tijuna... left there as a baby," he muttered.

  "Do the brothers know who left you?"

  "N-no. They only said I was... abandoned in the fall—1468..."

  "God's mercy on us," di Lido breathed. "Exactly the time, my lord! And the name!"

  Tendilla's mouth was compressed. "Of course. But how would it have occurred to us to search as far afield as Tijuna?"

  Francho wanted to cry out at the sudden, buzzing purple mist that descended to blur out their faces and the stone wall behind them, but his tongue wouldn't move. Their voices over the spinning distance came to him like metallic clanging. The purple was devouring his consciousness. He toppled sideways off the stool, with hands reaching out too late to stop him. He felt his head crack on the stone floor. Darkness swallowed him up.

  Containing his own surprise at the tension gripping the two aristocrats, Rondero stolidly stepped forward at the Count's motion and scooped the boy up, brushing past the gawking men-at-arms to lay the limp body on a pallet in the corner. He nodded his head at Tendilla's orders to see that the boy's wounds were carefully tended and bound up and that he was made comfortable with a blanket against the chill. And above all, watched, so there was no escape, although Rondero doubted the rascal would be going anywhere with what were probably some broken ribs.

  He watched the grandee and his learned companion stare down once more, in grave wonder, at the battered young cutpurse with blood-matted hair, lying limp and pale in his torn tunic.

  "I worry that he is hurt. Ask Piroso to send for his physician, tell him any fable you wish. We will take the lad with us in the morning. Whatever doubts may remain in our minds can be dispelled with careful inquiry."

  Di Lido's sharp-featured face mirrored excitement battling with skepticism. "It shall be as you say, Excelencia. But my thoughts are skittering around in my skull like little mice, trying to encompass this stunning event. As usual God works in his most mysterious ways."

  Tendilla nodded. His stare again raked over Francho's face. "I do not like his color. See to him," he ordered. He turned on his heel and strode out of the gate house and into the night, eyes glazed and unseeing, his long, dark cloak billowing out behind him. Di Lido watched the stiff, retreating back, almost-forgotten, titillating speculations welling up anew in his mind and certainly perking up a dull evening.

  Chapter 5

  Francho was a decent swimmer. 'Fredo had taught them all to swim in a cold and swiftly flowing stream in the countryside outside Ciudad Real. Now he was swimming, swimming, breasting his way up from turgid depths and battling to rise against the sucking current that was clutching again at his limbs and refusing to let him go. But this time, now, he seemed to be much stronger, he would not give up. He doubled his efforts to bring his head above the gray, swirling miasma.

  And then—was it a moment or an hour—he knew he was awake. The weird, nightmare impressions of swaying and creaking, of wavering, unknown faces and strange, muted voices, of the odor of horses, dust, and dry wood, of shriveling heat that baked him and shivering cold that froze him, were gone. About him there was only silence. He felt cool and rested and at peace, as if he were floating in the calm after a bad storm. Light pressed softly on his eyelids.

  Peacefully then he opened his eyes, only to quickly squint them against the bright of daylight. He lay flat on his back. He was staring up at what seemed to be an undulating blue ceiling. Gripped by languor he shifted his gaze to discover that he was partially enclosed by walls of the same dark blue, hanging in heavy folds. He turned his head and the realization seeped slowly into his idling mind that he was ensconced in a great bed—a baronial bed with canopy and curtains.

  His legs prickled. He moved them, wondering that they seemed so stiff and cramped. He stretched them out slowly and wriggled his shoulders around for they were also stiff. Still as if in a dream he slowly pushed away the feather-filled comforter from his chest, looked down, and was suddenly jolted into true wakefulness by sheer amazement.

  No one wore garments to bed except the wealthy, the old, or the sick, but he was clothed in a prim, long nightrobe of white flannel with embroidery-edged sleeves tightened at the wrists by white ribbons. His incredulity deepened as he also realized that he was resting in a goosedown mattress with his head on a feather pillow. He had never in his life slept in a bedstead, much less on goosedown!

  Was he dead? Had San Bismas interceded with the angels to bear him up to heaven? Or had he gone the other way and soon cruel Satan would spring a trap under the bed and drop him into the flames?

  All at once his memories flooded back, filling up his head with misery, and he groaned as he recalled the burly, angry guard carrying him off from Papa el Mono's and the fear and subsequent pain of the beating and whipping to make him talk. The whoreson guards had used wide leather straps to beat him bloody and then had bounced him off the walls like a deflated ball, kicking him when he fell. No wonder he felt so feeble. His heart sank like a stone; what he did not remember was escaping their clutches, and so he must still be a captive.

  Ignoring the weakness of his arms he struggled to a sitting position where he could see past the open bed
curtains into the expanse of his cell. But the large chamber around which his eyes wandered uncomprehendingly made a peculiar prison. Opposite his bed there was a wide fireplace whose pyramid-shaped marble breast was carved with an escutcheon twined with ivy vines. On one wall a vivid tapestry of stylized birds and hounds came alive in shafts of sunlight streaming from two high but unbarred windows. A Savonarola x-chair with a tassled pillow and a similarly cushioned folding stool stood before the hearth, flanking a polished table that bore silver candlesticks, ink pot and reed pen, and a bowl of wildflowers. In one corner a prie-dieu stood expectantly, its velvet knee rest scuffed from years of supporting pious supplicants. In another corner sat a commodious, carved chest. The floor, of decorated tiles, was warmed near the bed by a fringed Eastern carpet of heavy wool.

  Francho shook his head like a dog coming out of water. For all his natural optimism he understood that no one got installed in a luxurious chamber as a reward for distinguished thievery. In his puzzlement he decided he was suffering delirium from the crack on the head he had taken from the guards. But when he gingerly put his hand up to the dull ache on his crown he found the hair had been carefully cut away from the area and the cut was closed and crusted, healing.

  The shrill, startling chirrup of a bird drew his attention to the windows. Slowly he edged his legs over the side of the bed and stood, clinging to the bed curtain to fight off a momentary blackness that buzzed into his eyes. Finally, he tottered across the chamber to verify his conclusion that, for some reason, he was locked in the Alcalde's own mansion to await his punishment. He leaned over the slanted ledge of the open window, looked down and then to each side, and was forced to swallow repeatedly to contain the nausea that rose in his chest as he realized that the fortress which surrounded him no more resembled the Alcalde's house than an eagle resembled a sparrow.

  Solitary, stark, standing on the only rise of ground within leagues, the huge fortress-castle which stretched on either side of his high window commanded the arid plains around it like a grim colossus. Below him the breeze-ruffled dark water of the moat mirrored great, round-towered walls and a green-and-white banner fluttering gaily, incongruously, from the highest tower of the pile, signifying that the lord of the manor was in residence. Any watch patrolling the crenellated bastions had a far, clear view of the rutted road which wound its way from the Castilian uplands and through the nearby town huddling close to the strength and security of its centuries-old guardian, and then went on past boulder-dotted fields, where herdsmen guarded the castle's own great herds of sheep and those consigned to winter over in annual migrations from Galicia and the northern provinces.