The Flesh and the Devil (39 page)

         
He said levelly, 'If I had not meddled, you would have been
wedded by now.'

         
'So I am, and to someone I detest no less!'

         
'You hold to that tune so long that I may begin to believe
you are honest shortly.'

         
'So I shall,' she retorted, 'while I have breath to sing.'

         
The creak of the erratically-turning vanes was loud in the
silence, and Juana noticed, almost without being aware of it, that the coachman
and the outriders had drawn together in the doorway of what might once have
been a wash-house, and were busy preparing a meal from some of the last of the
foodstuffs brought from the castillo. With the sharpness of sudden fear, she
demanded, 'Where is Jaime?'

         
Tristan's heavy eyelids lowered, and what had been in his
eyes was veiled instantly. 'Did you not hear him?' His tone was sardonic. 'He
saw some animal running through the scrub and set off in pursuit of it. His
horse will be half blown for the rest of the day and we shall have to hold back
for him, but he must have his sport, I understand.'

         
'You do not realize —' Juana spoke with an urgency she
could not have explained even to herself — 'it is part of our code. It is the
custom for all the wellborn young men in Navarre to hunt and to course on
horseback, it is part of their training. Nothing is worth the name of sport
that does not end in bloodshed, and that is why our soldiers are the most
courageous in the world.'

         
‗And the most undisciplined. Do they teach you that
at you mother's knee that you gabble it off like a parrot?'

         
The lack of emotion shocked her. He was not even annoyed by
her instinctive defence, she saw; only faintly amused.

         
'You think it folly,' she said with sudden certainty, and
he arched his eyebrows.

         
'Folly at such a time as this, and a waste of effort at any
hand. I would not care to squander strength so.'

         
As he turned away from her with that characteristic
abruptness, Juana realized that what he had said was true. The stillness, the
preternatural lack of emotion, even the patient waiting pose that he adopted
were all guards against any sort of waste. Nothing was squandered; everything
was tautly controlled and served some purpose. Anything that did not — the
court's elaborate ceremonials, her own agonizing over a risk that had had to be
taken and was now irredeemable, Jaime's outburst of recklessness — was sheer
waste, an inefficiency that was to be despised.

         
Inefficiency. . . . A sudden thought stabbed her, and she
called after him. As he turned he was the servant again, grave and obsequious,
and she noticed that the driver had edged closer and was watching them.

         
'Madam?'

         
'Why have we not turned towards the hills? We are swinging
too far to the south.'

         
A glint of mockery flashed in the hooded eyes. 'It is for
the purpose I told you,' he answered briefly, and strode away towards the other
man.

         
Jaime rode back nearly half-an-hour later, exhibiting his
quarry — a skinny hare — on the point of his sword. He was full of the run that
the animal had given him, and glowed in the expectation of applause. Tristan,
however, merely ran a jaundiced eye over the grey's heaving sides and said
nothing, while Juana, struggling with an unexpected pang of distaste, felt
nothing but pity for the glazed eyes and splaying, useless legs of the hunted
creature; her tongue stumbled over her congratulations as she spoke them.

         
Dismounting, Jaime eyed Tristan with dislike and said in a
truculent voice,

         
'The horse will be rested enough to go on in an hour.'

         
'As the senor says.'

         
Juana recognized that faintly contemptuous evenness.
Tristan used it to goad — she had seen it reduce Eugenio de Castaneda to
gobbling impotence, and it had been expertly employed to make her lose her
self-control more than once. Now she saw, without surprise, that a dark flush
was spreading over Jaime's sculptured features.

         
'Go and tend to your duties! See that the Senorita de
Arrelanos is served with something to eat.'

         
'We only awaited your coming, senor.'

         
It should have been soothing, Juana thought, to sit with
Jaime in the shade of the little derelict house and watch the sun inch
gradually from its zenith as they ate and drank. But uneasiness hedged her about;
she felt exposed, vulnerable, as though every word she uttered threatened to
bring her to the brink of destruction. She knew that her silence was damning,
that it would arouse her companion's suspicions if she persisted in it, but
somehow she found herself watching Tristan as he reordered the disposition of
some of the luggage, and could not tear her eyes away.

         
From this distance he was only a lean black shape topped by
a torch of copper; yet all of a sudden she saw what Michaela and Dona Luisa had
seen, and her breathing shortened. Her heart seemed to be pounding high in her
throat, choking her, when she sensed Jaime's gaze upon her and tried to smile.

         
'Perhaps the fellow seeks to lighten the load on the
carriage-horses,' she observed with attempted lightness, 'by stowing all the
heavy luggage on the baggage-wagon. Though if he tries to move my dowry-chest,
I shall reprimand him. I dare not let it out of my sight until my father has it
again.'

         
Jaime's discontented look cleared. 'Well said! And he is
tethering the Arab behind the carriage — the beast will be thoroughly mired. I
shall speak to him.' He started to rise.

         
'No, not yet! I —' Juana broke off, horrified by the fear
in her own voice, and slowly lowered the hand that she had put out.

         
Jaime relaxed back, eyeing her narrowly.

         
`Juana, what happened to you while you were at the
castillo?' The question made her jump. 'You seem changed somehow — you have
lost that sweet meekness of yours, and somehow I feel that you are keeping
something back, as if you no longer trust me. Has someone treated you cruelly?
Is that —'

         
A laugh broke from her that was pure hysteria, and she bit
her lip until it bled. `No, I promise you. I have had every — attention;
nothing was neglected that could persuade me to favour the Duque's suit.' Her
hands were trembling, and she gripped them deliberately together. 'If I had had
any care for honour and riches, I might have been wed to him now.'

         
'But you could not — not if he was the thing you told me!
And then to dishonour you by playing pranks before his whole household — your
father will be incensed when he hears how you were abused.'

         
She closed her eyes, forcing her gaze away from the tall
figure etched against the dun waste. 'It makes no matter. Better to have found
it out before I was wed to him than afterwards, and such evidence serves me
better, does it not? My lack of liking did not alter my father's mind — nor any
other's.'

         
'Juana —'

         
Jaime made a quick, impulsive movement as though to take
her into his arms, but as he did so a shadow fell across their close-pressed
figures. From the doorway Tristan's slanting eyes studied them cynically.

         
'Your pardon, senor —' the crisp voice was without
inflection — 'but I have sent the riders ahead with the baggage-wagon, to
bespeak us lodgings for the night in Turon, which is the next village. The
carriage will wait here until your own horse is fully rested, then you and I
shall serve as convoy to the lady.'

         
Jaime started untidily to his feet. 'You take too much upon
your own charge,' he stammered angrily. 'You have no warrant to give such
orders, you impudent —'

         
'I have the warrant of His Grace de Medina de las Torres to
see you and the lady well bestowed, Senor de Nueva, and I think —' Tristan's
face was unreadable

         
— 'that she is best served so. We shall follow the others
within the hour; Turon is not two hours' ride.'

         
He left them without glancing in Juana's direction. As he
stepped over the threshold into the open she saw him straighten, stretching to
ease his shoulders, and realized how he had been compelled to stoop as he stood
in the doorway; he could never have stood erect within the house. Jaime was
speaking to her, saying something about Turon, and she nodded, pretending that
she had heard. Tristan's interruption had served his turn twofold: pricking
Jaime to another spasm of useless wrath while it reminded her that he had the
right to command her by law. That the terms of master, mistress and servant
were no more than names in a rather tiresome masquerade that he could end at
any moment he chose.

         
CHAPTER 10

         
‗ Halt! I said halt!‘

         
The sound of Jaime‘s voice jerked Juana from an unpleasant
doze, and for a moment her blurred mind did not take in a sense of what he had
said. Then the carriage began to slow, and as the incessant rumbling that
surrounded her shook itself into blessed silence, she forced herself back to
full awareness.

         
A glance out of the window told her that it must be late
afternoon –

         
although the worst of the heat was past now, the sky
showing between the clouds was pure gentian. Why had they stopped at such a
time? A frown creased her brow as she learned forward.

         
From the track beyond the window she could hear furious
voices – at least, she corrected herself, Jaime‘s was furious; Tristán‘s was as
cool and monosyllabic as ever – engaged in dispute, but she could not
distinguish any word. The two men must be ahead of the carriage, she thought
confusedly, and their voices were drifting back.

         
She was struggling to unlatch the carriage door when
hoofbeats came clattering up, and Jaime‘s bent low in the saddle to lean in at
the window, his face flushed with anger.

         
Without waiting for Juana to speak, he said in a tone full
of venom, ‗I have instructed that dog with a serving-man to wait here for
me while I enquire our way. I believe he is leading us awry in purpose, and I
will not suffer him to make a fool of me! There is a track that crosses this
one, and I am bound to find someone along it length who can give me directions.
If he grows insolent while I am gone –‗ he shot a fiery glance back the
way he had come – ‗ he shall answer to me for it, and so I have told
him‘.

         
‗Jaime‘s, do not! It will be dangerous!‘